Good Morning Australia!! - The US opens a new front against the so-called Islamic State, just as the terrorist group threatens Russia - A major US veterans' group pushes back against Trump's disrespect of a Gold star family - And you maybe shocked at the number of cooties and germs living in the waters that will host Olympic Sports beginning this week  - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

The US has carried out its first air strikes in Libya with the cooperation with the new unity government.  US forces struck at positions in Sirte, a city pretty much controlled by Islamic State.  US Military officials say the purposed was to deny IS " a safe haven in Libya from which it could attack the United States and our allies".  Libyan PM Fayez Sarraj told a television audience that the strikes caused "heavy losses".

Russia suffered its worst single-incident loss in its involvement in the Syrian Civil War:  Rebels managed to down a Russia Mi-8 transport helicopter flying over Idlib province, killing all five people on board.  It's not clear which rebel group is responsible, although the former Al Nusra Front - now known as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham - is the dominant power in the area.  The Kremlin claims the chopper was not military, and was on a humanitarian mission. 

Islamic State is directly threatening Russia, and calling on Jihadists to attack Russia and Russian interests.  In a lengthy video posted to social media, masked jihadists taunt, "Listen Putin, we will come to Russia and will kill you at your homes."  Russia has had problems with Islamic extremists in Chechnya and Dagestan going back to the 1990s after the fall of the Iron Curtain.  This comes as Russia and the United States are in talks to fortify military cooperation to fight IS and al Qaeda in Syria.

US Republican party presidential candidate and orange clown Donald Trump kept his fat mouth shut about his Twitter feud with the Gold Star parents of a Muslim US Army captain who died a hero protecting his troops from a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2004.  But the influential group Veteran of Foreign Wars (VFW) condemned Trump's treatment of Khizr Khan and his wife Ghazala:  "Election year or not, the VFW will not tolerate anyone berating a Gold Star family member for exercising his or her right of speech or expression," said VFW leader Brian Duffy in a statement. 

National Republican Party figures also lambasted Trump for his disrespect an attempt to slander the parents of Captain Humayun Khan; none had the guts to withdraw their endorsement of his candidacy.  Only 2004 presidential candidate John McCain - a former POW in the Vietnam war - said that "while our Party has bestowed upon him the nomination, it is not accompanied by unfettered license to defame those who are the best among us", which seemed to leave him a loophole to rescind his endorsement at a later date.  Meanwhile, opinion polls seem to show Trump's Democratic party rival Hillary Clinton getting a sizeable "convention bump", putting her ahead in the race for the White House.

The US is warning pregnant women not to travel to the Wynwood area of Miami, Florida, where the Zika virus has been detected.  Women who've already been there since 15 June are urged to get tested.  The mosquito-borne Zika virus is blamed for thousands of cases of the birth defect microcephaly - abnormally small skulls and brains - in newborns in Brazil so far this year.

Good luck to the Olympic athletes who have to compete in and around the filthiest, most disgusting water.  Brazil vowed to clean up its waterways for rowing and yachting events, but didn't - as a result, some tests measured up to 1.7 million times the level of disease causing viruses in venue water than what would be considered hazardous on a Southern California beach. 

Prosecutors in Thailand waited until the international pressure had waned to file charges against a 40-year old woman who responded with one word to a social media post critical of the monarchy:  She said, "Ja," meaning "yes" or "I see".  Authorities hauled Patnaree Chankji to a military court in Bangkok after the attorney general decided to press charges - despite police saying earlier that they would not pursue the case.  She was released on bail.  The police dropped the lese majeste case against Ms. Chankji earlier this year when the US and several rights organizations condemned the charges, saying it stirs up a "climate of intimidation".

After two years of failing to make a profit, Uber is selling its Chinese business to its local rival Didi, which already controlled up to 87 percent of the ride-sharing (unlicensed taxi) market.  Getting rid of that money pit removes an obstacle to Uber's own plans to offer an IPO.