Kayla Mueller's Family May Not Agree

White House Says Climate Change Is A Bigger Threat To National Security Than Terrorism

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest confirmed Tuesday that President Obama does believe that climate change is a greater threat to the country's national security than terrorism.

In an interview with Vox released Monday, Obama said he "absolutely" believes that the media "sometimes overstates the level of alarm people should have about terrorism" as opposed to "climate change."

Asked to confirm Tuesday if this means Obama believes "the threat of climate change is greater than the threat of terrorism," Earnest responded, "The point the president is making is that there are many more people on an annual basis who have to confront the impact, the direct impact on their lives, of climate change, or on the spread of a disease, than on terrorism."

 American ISIS Hostage Kayla Mueller Is Dead, Family Says

Kayla Mueller

American ISIS hostage Kayla Mueller is dead, the aid worker's family and the White House said Tuesday. The announcement came four days after ISIS claimed the 26-year-old Arizona native had been killed by a coalition airstrike in Syria.

"We are heartbroken to share that we've received confirmation that Kayla Jean Mueller, has lost her life," Mueller's parents, Carl and Marsha, and brother Eric, said in a statement. "Kayla was a compassionate and devoted humanitarian. She dedicated the whole of her young life to helping those in need of freedom, justice, and peace."

"We are so proud of the person Kayla was and the work that she did while she was here with us. She lived with purpose, and we will work every day to honor her legacy."

The statement from Mueller's family — which was accompanied by a copy of a letter the aid worker sent to her loved ones from captivity — did not elaborate on how it had learned of her death or the circumstances behind it.

U.S. officials would not confirm Mueller's cause of death or say when she died, telling NBC News only that the family had received a message from the aid worker's captors with information that American authorities were able to authenticate.

U.S. believes hostage was given to ISIS fighter as bride

The U.S. intelligence community believes that American hostage Kayla Muellerwas given as a bride to a fighter with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, during her captivity, CBS News has learned.

The White House confirmed the Arizona woman's death Tuesday.

She is the fourth American to die in the hands of the extremist group.

But Obama is right, Global Warming, Global Climate Change, Climate Instability, Climate Stability, has never happened before, as witness the fact that over three feet of  of snow fell in Boston recently. I'm sure that's never happened before. I'm sure Bostonians would prefer that ISIS kidnap, rape and kill their daughters instead.

UPDATE: WH Knew Location of ISIS Hostages, Delayed Rescue Attempt

. . .Herridge also reported the locations where the hostages were held in Syria - largely together in the same places - between November 2013 and May 2014.

"One was Aleppo, another was an industrial area known as Shaykh Najjar and the third was in the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa," Herridge said.

"By the spring of 2014, the ISIS captors, we're told, felt so confident in their situation that there was very little visible security around the hostages. And by May, eight Western hostages were held together in one location," Herridge said.

She added that Mueller was kept separate from the men, but she was able to communicate with other Western hostages, including James Foley, that she was not being mistreated or abused by her ISIS captors.

According to Herridge, there was very specific intelligence about the location of a group of Western hostages in May 2014, so specific that intelligence officials even knew in which building they were being held.

So Obama let her die.