President Barack Obama said Wednesday that the United States will not be intimidated by Islamic State militants

President Barack Obama said Wednesday that the United States will not be intimidated by Islamic State militants after the beheading of a second American journalist and will build a coalition to "degrade and destroy" the group.

Obama still did not give a timeline for deciding on a strategy to go after the extremist group's operations in Syria. "It'll take time to roll them back," the president said at a news conference during a visit to Europe.

Obama's comments came after he said the United States had verified the authenticity of a video released Tuesday showing the beheading of freelance reporter Steven Sotloff, two weeks after journalist James Foley was similarly killed.

Obama vowed the U.S. would not forget the "terrible crime against these two fine young men."

"Our reach is long and justice will be served," Obama said.

In the Sotloffvideo, a masked militant warns Obama that as long as U.S. airstrikes against the militant group continue, "our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people."

Obama responded that he will continue to fight the militant threat and the "barbaric and ultimately empty vision" it represents.

"Our objective is to make sure that Isis is not an ongoing threat to the region," he said, using an acronym for the militant group. "And we can accomplish that. It's going to take some time and it's going to take some effort."

Sotloff, a 31-year-old Miami-area native who freelanced for Time and Foreign Policy magazines, vanished a year ago in Syria and was not seen again until he appeared in the video that showed Foley's beheading. Dressed in an orange jumpsuit against an arid Syrian landscape, Sotloff was threatened in that video with death unless the U.S. stopped airstrikes on the Islamic State.

In the video distributed Tuesday and titled "A Second Message to America," Sotloff appears in a similar jumpsuit before he is apparently beheaded by a fighter with the Islamic State, the extremist group that has conquered wide swaths of territory across Syria Iraq and declared itself a caliphate.

British Foreign Secretary Phillip Harmmon told the BBC Wednesday that the masked, British-accented jihadist appears to be the same person shown in the Foley footage.

In the video, the organization threatens to kill another hostage, this one identified as a British citizen.

Last week, Sotloff's mother, Shirley Sotloff, pleaded with his captors for mercy, saying in a video that her son was "an innocent journalist" and "an honorable man" who "has always tried to help the weak."

Obama said the prayers of the American people are with the family of the "devoted and courageous journalist" who deeply loved the Islamic world and whose "life stood in stark contrast to those who murdered him so brutally."

"Whatever these murderers think they will achieve by murdering innocents like Steven, they have already failed," Obama said. "We will not be intimidated. Their horrific acts only unite us."

State Department  Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Tuesday that it is believed that "a few" Americans are still being held by the Islamic State. Psaki would not give any specifics, but one is a 26-year-old woman who was kidnapped while doing humanitarian aid work in Syria, according to a family representative who asked that the hostage not be identified out of fear for her safety.

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While My Guitar Gently Weeps - Beatles (cover) Matthew Clayton/David Modler

Los Angeles Mayor To RAISE LA Minimum Wage to $13.50

Friend --

I just left Martin Luther King, Jr. Park where an Angeleno named
Joseph Galloway spoke passionately about his struggles to make ends
meet despite working full-time as a delivery driver -- a job he took after
being forced to leave college to support his family after the death of his
father. Stories like his are the reasons why today I'm proposing to raise
the minimum wage in LA.

Will you join us? Click here to add your name to our coalition to #RaiseTheWageLA.

My plan would raise the minimum wage in LA to a level where working
people could lift themselves out of poverty. This will help us all. 1 million
Angelenos live in poverty -- this holds our entire economy back. Minimum
wage earners pump their salaries back into our economy.
I'm so proud that our coalition includes business leaders like Eli Broad and
labor leaders like Maria Elena Durazo -- and even President Obamaave us a shout 
out this weekend. But we need the people of LA to speak out.

Make no mistake, we have a tough fight ahead of us. I need you.
Add your name to our list of supporters.

PS: Click here to add your name to the list of supporters.

Office of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt finally tie the knot

The couple, together for nearly a decade and engaged since 2012, said "I do" in France this past Saturday

After nearly a decade together, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have finally tied the knot. The couple had been engaged since 2012.

The marriage announcement came succinctly in a 140-character tweet from the AP: "Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were married Saturday in France, says a spokesman for the couple." The wedding was reportedly a

private,nondenominational civil ceremony that took place at a small chapel in Correns, France's Chateau Miraval, the AP reports. Hollywood's most famous couple has been together since 2005 and are the parents of six children, each of whom took part in the wedding.

The Pitt-Jolie wedding has been a tabloid favorite since they first announced their engagement: The pair was rumored to have secretly married as far back as Christmas 2012. As the AP reports, Jolie and Pitt obtained a marriage license from a local California judge, who then also conducted the ceremony in France. Only a small number of family and friends were in attendance.

When asked about her wedding earlier this year, Jolie told E!, "We don't have a date, and we're not hiding anything, but we really don't know. We talk to the kids about it once in a while.… And one of them suggested paintball. And we thought, ‘Well, different.' So who knows? I think the important thing is that whatever we do it's that the kids do have a great time, and we all — you know, take seriously the love, and the connection between all of us. But also just get silly and do something memorable."

In what could be viewed as perfect timing, Pitt and Jolie were set to begin filming By the Sea together, their first big screen partnering since they first hooked up on 2005's Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Jolie wrote and will direct By the Sea, which the Daily Mail reports is an "intimate character-driven drama" that features "crazy sex scenes." Jolie and Pitt will play a married couple in the film as well.

Cold cash just keeps washing in from ALS challenge

In the couple of hours it took an official from the ALS Association to return a reporter's call for comment, the group's ubiquitous "ice bucket challenge" had brought in a few million more dollars.

Approaching $100 million, the viral fundraising campaign for the ailment better known as Lou Gehrig's Disease has put the ALS group into the top ranks for medical charity donations. Since the end of July, the money has been sloshing in at a rate of about $9 million a week. Last year, from July 29 to Aug. 26, the group raised just $2.6 million.

It's caught everyone off-guard, none more so than the ALS Association folks. But they know this is likely a one-off phenomenon, and the group now faces the task of spending all that money wisely. Research, care and advocacy are the group's three main missions — but officials say they don't know yet exactly how they'll use the astonishing windfall.

"I think even if I or any PR person at either a non-profit or a for-profit company had all of the PR dollars in the world to invest, no one would have come up with this idea," says Carrie Munk, the association's spokeswoman. "We realize there are responsibilities that come with being good stewards of these dollars."

Part of what's surprising is that ALS — or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — is one of those "orphan" diseases. It is a neurodegenerative disease that causes paralysis and death, and the association estimates that about 5,600 new cases are diagnosed in the U.S. each year.

This campaign hasn't exactly put the charity in the same neighborhood as giants like the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association or Susan G. Komen for the Cure — which raised $889 million, $529 million and $310 million last year, respectively. But it's moving into the same ZIP code now.

"People who have been in this space for a long period of time feel like it's a dream come true," says Munk.

In case you've been under the proverbial rock, here are the basic rules: Someone issues a challenge — that you allow yourself to be doused with a bucket of ice and water, like winning coaches along the sidelines. Then, the challengee has 24 hours to make a $100 donation to the ALS Association or submit to the water torture.

In the last month, everyone from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to former President George W. Bush has been doused. The Internet and airwaves are awash in videos of people taking the challenge — even if they fully intend to write the check.

Jonah Berger, author of the book "Contagious: Why Things Catch On," says it's like a modern-day chain letter — except, in this case, everyone will know if you break the chain.

"It has a lot of the key ingredients that often make people want to share things," says Berger, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. "It gives people lots of social currency to be part of it. It makes you look good. It makes you look smart and in the know; you know what's going on. And it's always hard to back down from a challenge."

And now others are co-opting the bucket challenge for their own causes.

Actor Matt Damon, for instance, dumped toilet water over his head to call attention to his passion — safe drinking water. Actor Orlando Jones of the television series "Sleepy Hollow" showered himself with bullets in the wake of black teenager Michael Brown's shooting death by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.

"I'm challenging myself to listen without prejudice, to love without limits and to reverse the hate," he said. "So that's my challenge — to me. And, hopefully, you'll accept this challenge, too."

But the success for ALS is the kind of thing you can't really replicate — even if you did it first.

In late June, about a month before the ice bucket challenge exploded, University of Arizona woman's basketball coach Niya Butts took the "cold water challenge." After being doused with a 10-gallon plastic cooler, Butts gave her Pac-12 coaching rivals 48 hours to do the same or donate $250 to the Kay Yow Cancer Fund — named for the North Carolina State University coach who succumbed to the disease in 2009. That challenge — #Chillin4Charity — has raised only about $75,000 so far.

"We didn't raise millions," Butts told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "But we raised awareness of millions."

The campaign has had more than 80,000 tweets, 100,000 retweets more than 215 million Twitter reaches, said Susan Donohoe, the Yow fund's executive director.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy says the ALS Association has, in this short period of time, raised more than many of the charities included on its Philanthropy 400 list.

"Right now, we're really focused on reaching out to and acknowledging and thanking the over 2 million donors that have come to the ALS Association," said Munk, the association spokeswoman. "And also working to put a process in place to make the best decisions to spend these dollars."

The American Institute of Philanthropy's CharityWatch gave the group a B+ rating for spending about 73 percent of their cash budget on programs. Analyst Stephanie Kalivas has no reason to believe that rating will need to be downgraded.

"We will definitely be keeping an eye out for them," she says. "Hopefully, they won't be wasteful with it."

Dr. Richard Bedlack, who runs the ALS clinic at the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences in Durham, North Carolina, knows how he would allocate the money. While the temptation might be to plow it all into the search for a cure, he says the biggest strides have been made in patient care and quality of life, and that would be his No. 1 priority.

"The chances of one of these research studies really finding meaningful disease-modifying therapy is very small," he says. "We're shooting in the dark. So, of course we've got to keep trying. But the bottom line is we've got to understand this disease better before we're going to be able to fix it in most people."

Casting Call for couples in the Tri-State Area

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Miley Cyrus' Homeless VMAs Date Has Record, Warrant Out for Arrest

The once-homeless man who was Miley Cyrus' date at the MTV VMAs on Sunday has a police record and an open warrant out for his arrest.

Jesse Helt, 22, gave a speech and accepted the award for Best Video on behalf of Cyrus on Sunday night at the MTV VMAs.

Helt spoke about youth homelessness in America and had Cyrus, 21, in tears.

However, Helt has a warrant out for his arrest in his native Oregon.

Court records obtained by ABC News showed he was arrested for "criminal mischief" and "attempted burglary" in 2010. The burglary charge was changed to "criminal trespass" later that year. The records showed that Helt admitted he tried to enter an apartment by breaking a window amid a "marijuana" dispute.

He pleaded guilty/no contest to the charges and received probation. An arrest warrant was issued in 2011 when Helt violated probation by failing to report to scheduled probation meetings and failing to complete urine tests, among other charges.

Jon Troike, a judicial services specialist, told ABC News that Helt would be arrested if the police found him, and they might find him right in Oregon.

Helt's mother, Linda Helt, said yesterday that he would be flying home later that night.

Helt grew up in Salem, Oregon, also according to his mother.

Tuesday afternoon, Cryus tweeted, saying "People who are homeless have lived very hard lives. Jesse included. I hope that this can be the start of a national conversation about youth homelessness and how to end it."

She continued, "Does looking down upon the homeless help people excuse their inaction?"

Cyrus and Helt connected through My Friend’s Place -- a Los Angeles center for homeless youth, helping them to get food and shelter.

Report: No proof veterans died because of delays

The Veterans Affairs Department says investigators have found no proof that delays in care caused any deaths at a VA hospital in Phoenix, deflating an explosive allegation that helped expose a troubled health care system in which veterans waited months for appointments while employees falsified records to cover up the delays.

Revelations that as many as 40 veterans died while awaiting care at the Phoenix VA hospital rocked the agency last spring, bringing to light scheduling problems and allegations of misconduct at other hospitals as well. The scandal led to the resignation of former VA Secretary Eric Shinseki. In July, Congress approved spending an additional $16 billion to help shore up the system.

The VA's Office of Inspector General has been investigating the delays for months and shared a draft report of its findings with VA officials.

In a written memorandum about the report, VA Secretary Robert A. McDonald said, "It is important to note that while OIG's case reviews in the report document substantial delays in care, and quality-of-care concerns, OIG was unable to conclusively assert that the absence of timely quality care caused the death of these veterans."

The inspector general's final report has not yet been issued. The inspector general runs an independent office within the VA.

Deputy VA Secretary Sloan Gibson confirmed the findings in an interview with TheAssociated Press. Gibson, however, stressed that veterans were still waiting too long for care, an issue the agency was working to fix.

"They looked to see if there was any causal relationship associated with the delay in care and the death of these veterans and they were unable to find one. But from my perspective, that don't make it OK," Gibson said. "Veterans were waiting too long for care and there were things being done, there were scheduling improprieties happening at Phoenix and frankly at other locations as well. Those are unacceptable."

In April, Dr. Samuel Foote, who had worked for the Phoenix VA for more than 20 years before retiring in December, brought the allegations to Congress.

Foote accused Arizona VA leaders of collecting bonuses for reducing patient wait times. But, he said, the purported successes resulted from data manipulation rather than improved service for veterans. He said up to 40 patients died while awaiting care.

In May, the inspector general's office found that 1,700 veterans were waiting for primary care appointments at the Phoenix VA but did not show up on the wait list. "Until that happens, the reported wait times for these veterans has not started," said a report issued in May.

Gibson said the VA reached out to all 1,700 veterans in Phoenix and scheduled care for them. However, he acknowledged there are still 1,800 veterans in Phoenix who requested appointments but will have to wait at least 90 days for care.

The VA has said it was firing three executives of the Phoenix VA hospital. The agency has also said it planned to fire two supervisors and discipline four other employees in Colorado and Wyoming accused of falsifying health care data.

Gibson said he expected the list of disciplined employees to grow. He took over as acting VA secretary when Shinseki resigned and returned to his job as deputy secretary after McDonald was confirmed.

"The fundamental point here is, we are taking bold and decisive action to fix these problems because it's unacceptable," Gibson said. "We owe veterans, we owe the American people, an apology. We've delivered that apology. We'll keep delivering that apology for our failure to meet their expectations for timely and effective health care."

To help reduce backlogs, the VA is sending more veterans to private doctors for care.

Congress approved $10 billion in emergency spending over three years to pay private doctors and other health professionals to care for veterans who can't get timely appointments at VA medical facilities, or who live more than 40 miles from one.

The new law includes $5 billion for hiring more VA doctors, nurses and other medical staff and $1.3 billion to open 27 new VA clinics across the country.

Man stricken with ALS suspected of killing 2 women

When Andrew Steele retired as a sheriff's deputy, his career cut short by the advance of ALS, he had no bigger cheerleader than his wife. Ashlee Steele spearheaded a drive to raise $75,000 for his medical care, and her Facebook feed is filled with the shrieks and laughter of the cold-water challenges the couple's family and friends were eager to accept.

Now, Andrew Steele is a suspect in the killings of his wife and her sister, Kacee Tollefsbol, at the Steeles' home in suburban Fitchburg, Wisconsin on Friday. Steele himself is being treated for an apparent suicide attempt that, police say, they never saw coming.

"Nobody closely aligned with Andy and his family expected something like this to occur," Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney told The Associated Press on Monday. "We believe his diagnosis had an impact on the family but they were moving forward."

Mahoney said Steele, 39, had been a deputy since November 1998. He had worked for the past several years in the county jail but resigned in June after he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease. ALS attacks nerve cells and can lead to complete paralysis and death. The average life expectancy is two to five years after diagnosis.

Police said Ashlee Steele, 39, and Tollefsbol, 38, of Lake Elmo, Minnesota, were shot.

It was unclear when prosecutors might charge Andrew Steele. Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne didn't immediately return a phone message Monday, and Fitchburg Police Lt. Todd Stetzer said he had no information to release on the case.

Before Friday, Mahoney said deputies had been talking with Steele about joining the family's "Tough as Steele" effort to raise money for his medical care and other family expenses. The Steeles have two children while Tollefsbol was the mother of four.

"We're trying to understand what could possibly have gone wrong and resulted in the death of two young women and the fact that there's now six children without a mother," Mahoney said.

Steele's family started the "Tough as Steele — Taking Down ALS" campaign via the website GiveForward.com. The site said the loss of his income had been crushing to the family. As of Saturday, supporters had raised nearly $23,000 toward their $75,000 goal, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. The campaign appeared to have been removed from the site over the weekend.

Ashlee Steele's Facebook page contains several videos of law enforcement colleagues and other friends taking the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in Steele's honor. They include Madison Police Chief Mike Koval offering prayers and firefighters from three departments cheering as a ladder truck hoses them down.

"I never would have expected the type of reaching out people have done," Andrew Steele told WMTV earlier this month. "People that have donated, people that I don't even know very well, I haven't seen or talked to in years. It's hard to describe that."

Ashlee Steele had taught 3-year-olds in the preschool at Christ Memorial Lutheran Church in Fitchburg, staff coordinator Elsa Gumm said.

"She was very organized, just full of joy in general," Gumm said. "She was so great at being hands-on with the kids. She just made kids and parents alike feel at ease."

Gumm said she had never met Andrew Steele and couldn't offer any insights into why he would have hurt his wife.

"That's the big question in our minds as well," she said. "What we keep turning to is we may not get answers to those questions, so we just cling to our hope in Jesus Christ."