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Pentagon spokesperson Maj. James Brindle confirmed the planned deployment to CBS News early Friday morning.

The plan was first reported by Defense One on Thursday.

Last month, President Obama signed into law a massive defense policy bill that endorsed his plan to fight militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), including air strikes and training Iraqis and moderate Syrian rebels.

The euro plunged as much as 30 percent below the 1.20 cap to a record low of 0.8500 francs per euro at one point before bouncing off its session low. The dollar plummeted to 0.736 francs, its lowest since 2011, before also paring losses.

Broader concerns about the euro sent it to its weakest in 11 years against the dollar.

University of Calgary scientists say they think their research is the first to show that bisphenol-S, an ingredient in many products bearing “BPA-free” labels, causes abnormal growth surges of neurons in an animal embryo.

The same surges were also found with BPA, though not at the same levels as with BPS, prompting the scientists to suggest that all structurally similar compounds now in use or considered for use by plastic manufacturers are unsafe.

“A lot of the alternative chemicals have not been adequately tested because they don’t have to be,” said lead author Deborah Kurrasch. “A compound is considered safe (by the Food and Drug Administration) until proven otherwise.”

The disruption of prenatal cellular activity in zebra fish, which share 80 percent of their genes with humans and are considered a good model for studying human brain development, seemed to result in hyperactivity, according to the Canadian study, which was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Finding the mechanism linking low doses of BPA (or BPS) to adverse brain development and hyperactivity is almost like finding a smoking gun,” Hamid Habibi, one of the authors of the study, said in a news release.

BPA is an industrial chemical found in many polycarbonate plastics as well as epoxy resins, which are used to coat the inside of food cans. Over the past few years, dozens of studies have linked BPA, which mimics estrogen, with prostate cancer, infertility, asthma, heart disease and a number of neurodevelopmental disorders.

In the new study, the scientists expressed surprise that the early abnormal growth of brain cells they observed in the fish embryo specifically affected male hormones, potentially indicating why more boys than girls are diagnosed with certain neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism.

“We know there’s a fourfold increase in autism between boys and girls,” Kurrasch said. “There are lots of possible explanations for that, but it is interesting to speculate since we do know small changes in hormone levels prenatally can have consequences on brain development.”

The American Chemical Council questioned the relevance of the zebra fish study.

“The authors claim the results are directly relevant to humans, in particular to women during the second trimester of pregnancy,” said Steven G. Hentges of the council’s Polycarbonate/BPA Global Group. “In contrast, humans are exposed to only trace levels of BPA through the diet, and it is well known that humans efficiently convert BPA to a substance with no known biological activity and quickly eliminate it from the body. Although the authors attribute great significance to their results, it would not be scientifically appropriate to draw any conclusions about human health based on this limited experiment.”

BPA, however, is ubiquitous in the environment, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which found that 90 percent of Americans have traces of the synthetic compound in their system at any given time, even though it does not linger in the body. BPS, too, is found in the coating of everything from store receipts to recycled paper.

Kurrasch said her lab’s research suggests that pregnant women in particular should limit their exposure to plastics and sales receipts.

One of the most significant findings is that low doses can be more harmful than larger ones.

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The document confirms that Palantir is employed by multiple US Government agencies. One of the company’s first contracts was with the Joint IED Defeat Organization in 2006. From 2007-2009 Palantir’s work in Washington expanded from eight pilots to more than 50 programs.

Oil rigs fell by 61 to 1,421, Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI) said on its website today, extending the five-week decline to 154. The 2014 peak was 1,609. It was the largest drop since February 1991, which also followed a tumble in prices before the start of the Persian Gulf War.

The price of U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate oil has plunged by more than half since June, imperiling a shale boom that has brought the nation closer to energy independence than it has been in almost three decades. U.S. drillers laid down the most rigs last quarter since 2009 as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and the rest of the world’s suppliers maintained production.

“Unless oil prices recover, absolutely, this is the end of the drilling boom,” James Williams, president of energy consulting company WTRG Economics in London, Arkansas, said by telephone today. “The total rig count should hit 1,000 by March or April, and oil production growth should be flat or declining by mid-year.”

Long lines, some stretching for blocks, formed outside grocery stores in the South American country’s capital as residents search for scarce basic items such as detergent and chicken.

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A dearth of foreign currency exacerbated by collapsing oil prices has led to shortages of imports from toilet paper to car batteries, and helped push annual inflation to 64 percent in November. The lines will persist as long as price controls remain in place, Luis Vicente Leon, director of Caracas-based polling firm Datanalisis, said today in a telephone interview.

Government officials met with representatives from supermarket chains today to guarantee supplies, state news agency AVN reported. Interior Minister Carmen Melendez said yesterday that security forces would be sent to food stores and distribution centers to protect shoppers.

Representatives of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait stressed a dozen times in the past six weeks that the group won’t curb output to halt the biggest drop in crude since 2008. Qatar’s estimate for the global oversupply is among the biggest of any producing country. These countries actually want — and are achieving — further price declines as part of an attempt to hasten cutbacks by U.S. shale drillers, according to Barclays Plc and Commerzbank AG.

Crude fell 48 percent last year and has declined 35 percent since OPEC affirmed its output target on Nov. 27. That decision, while squeezing revenues for OPEC members in 2015, aims at preserving their market share for years to come.

“The faster you bring the price down, the quicker you will have a response from U.S. production — that is the expectation and the hope,” said Jamie Webster, an analyst at consultants IHS Inc. in Washington. “I cannot recall a time when several members were actively pushing the price down in both word and deed.”

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OPEC won’t reverse course even if oil prices fall as low as $20 a barrel or non-OPEC countries offer to help with production cuts, Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi said in an interview with the Middle East Economic Survey on Dec. 21. The kingdom may even bolster output if non-OPEC nations do so, he said. The global oversupply is 2 million barrels a day, or 6.7 percent of OPEC output, Qatar estimates.