” All but two of the 26 students and staffers killed in the Sandy Hook school massacre died from “multiple gunshot wounds,” according to death certificates obtained by The Post today.
One student was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head, while another succumbed to a single gunshot wound to the neck, the records state.”
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” Police raided addresses across Turkey on Tuesday and detained dozens of people after nearly three weeks of anti-government protests, local media reported.
State media TRT said 25 people had been detained in the capital Ankara, 13 in Eskisehir to the west and “many” in Turkey’s biggest city Istanbul.
A police source confirmed the operation and said: “For now, only provocateurs will be taken for questioning.” “
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” Broad majorities continue to oppose the U.S. and its allies sending arms and military supplies to anti-government groups in Syria. Last Thursday’s announcement that the U.S. would aid the rebels has not increased public support for action, and majorities of all partisan groups are opposed.
Overall, 70% oppose the U.S. and its allies sending arms and military supplies to anti-government groups in Syria; just 20% favor this. Opinion is little changed from December of last year (24% favor) and support is down slightly from March, 2012 (29% favor).”
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” The killings of 20 first-grade students and six adult staff members at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012, obviously constitutes a terrible, newsworthy event. But the news coverage did more than report the details of what happened at Newtown. It also sought to classify this incident as an instance of a larger problem. The initial news reports described what had happened as “the second deadliest school shooting,” “another mass shooting,” and a “mass killing” (all in stories in the next day’s New York Times) and as “the second deadliest shooting event in U.S. history” (The Washington Post). The Post’s website ranked the 12 “Deadliest U.S. shootings” (the earliest case on their list occurred in 1949), while the Mother Jones website added Newtown to its page “A Guide to Mass Shootings in America” (which included only cases from 1982 to 2012).”
The categorization of “mass shootings” , “mass murders” , “workplace violence” or whatever other clever nomenclature that happens to be in vogue are decided upon by the media that reports on the stories and we would do well to remember that the present day media , the so-called mainstream anyway , are anything but dispassionate observers and reporters of fact .
” According to The New Republic, there were 70 mass shootings between 1982 and 2012, leaving 543 people dead. The magazine does not say whether this death toll includes the shooters, who often—but not always—also die. But let us assume that only the shooters’ victims were counted. (Amy Sullivan, the New Republic article’s author, says she believes that is the case.) That works out to about 2.3 incidents and 18 victims’ deaths per year. Last year was an unusually bad year, with 68 people killed in seven mass shootings—a terrible toll, to be sure. But in the context of some 2.5 million deaths from all causes last year, mass shootings, while dramatic, are simply not a major cause of death. And because these events are quite rare, and their number fluctuates from year to year, it is difficult to determine a clear trend. The horrors of 2012 made it easy from some commentators to claim that mass shootings were on the rise, but should there be fewer cases in 2013, it is unlikely that people will note that the problem is growing smaller.”
As with most any news items today , how events are portrayed in the media is really more an issue of what particular ax the reporting organization has to grind than it is a fair illustration of the facts .
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Daughter, 18, Cuts Off Her Father’s Head After He Raped Her In Their Papua New Guinea Village Home
” A teenage girl chopped her father’s head clean off with a bush knife after he raped her in their home in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.
Now residents of the village have formed a protective ring around the 18-year-old, refusing to hand her over to the police because they agreed her ‘evil’ father deserved to die.
A local church leader, Pastor Lucas Kumi from the village of Rang in the Western Highlands, said the entire community would refuse to allow the girl to be subjected to any official investigation.”
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14-Year-Old At The Center Of “NRA T-Shirt Controversy” Now Facing Possibility Of 1 Year In Jail
” Suspended and arrested after refusing to change his NRA shirt. Today, 14-year-old Jared Marcum appeared before a judge and was officially charged with obstructing an officer.A $500 fine and up to a year in jail, that’s the penalty that Jared could face, now that a judge has allowed the prosecution to move forward with it’s obstructing an officer charge against him.“Me, I’m more of a fighter and so is Jared and eventually we’re going to get through this,” Jared’s father Allen Lardieri said. ”I don’t think it should have ever gotten this far.”The Logan County Police Department initially claimed that the at-the-time 8th grade Logan Middle School student was arrested for disturbing the education process, obstructing an officer and Lardieri says that officers even went as far as threatening to charge Jared with making terroristic threats.”
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” The crisis in Syria may appear to be no more or less than a civil war in a country many people would struggle to place on a map.
But it’s much more than that: it is rapidly becoming a sectarian struggle for power that is bleeding across the Middle East, with the potential to engulf the entire region in a deadly power struggle between two bitterly opposed Muslim ideologies, Sunni and Shia.
Already, the war inside Syria has resulted in 93,000 dead and 1.6 million refugees, with millions more displaced internally. And those figures are escalating rapidly amid reports of appalling atrocities on both sides.”
” Sadly, it is an all too familiar story in a religious conflict that dates back to the 7th century.
After the death of the Prophet Mohammed in 632AD, there were four candidates vying to succeed him.
One group, which would become the Shia (or Shi’ite) sect, favoured the claims of the Prophet’s grandson Ali, but he was passed over three times before eventually taking on the mantle, only to then be assassinated.
An irrevocable split between the Shia — which is run by a clerical hierarchy — and the group that became the Sunnis came after a battle in 680, when Ali’s grandson was killed.
Today, in Syria and across the Middle East, the divide is a gulf in which theology plays an important role.”
“The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in
extending our commercial relations to have as little political
connection as possible… Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of
any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of
European ambition, rivalships, interest, humor, or caprice?… It is our
true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of
the foreign world.”
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Four Young Children Scream In Horror As Humane Society Officer Shoots Dead Their Five Kittens After Promising That The Cats ‘Would Go To Kitty Heaven‘
” An Ohio Humane Society officer has sparked an outrage among animal lovers and activists after shooting dead a feral cat’s litter in front of a horrified homeowner and within earshot of her small children.
Part-time Humane Society Officer Barry Accorti, a veteran of the North Ridgeville Police Department, responded to a home on Vista Lake Way Monday afternoon after a woman reported that there were feral cats living in a woodpile and causing problems.
According to the mother of four, Accorti informed her that animal shelters were full, and that the cats ‘would be going to kitty heaven.’ “
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REPUBLICAN REP. NOTICES IRS AGENTS TRAINING WITH AR-15S DURING DHS TOUR: ‘I’M LOOKING INTO THE ISSUE NOW’
” This little item could give the IRS’ whole “targeting” conservatives scandal a brand-new twist.
Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) tweeted that he observed IRS agents training with AR-15s when he toured the Department of Homeland Security”
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Leaked Footage Of Famous Hollywood Producer Claiming Obama Silenced Clinton By Threatening Chelsea
” Hollywood is a place where fantasies are born and where they often go to die. It’s very easy to get caught up in stories. Still, Hollywood producer Bettina Viviano seems very clear in her own mind that thuggery put Barack Obama in the White House in 2008.”
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California Couple Discover Perfectly Preserved 1961 Fallout Shelter 15 Feet Below Their Backyard
” When a California couple closed a deal to buy a home in Woodland Hills earlier this month, they knew that their new home came with a unique feature – a 1960s nuclear fallout shelter.
But what Chris and Colleen Otcasek initially believed to be nothing more than a hole in their backyard turned out to be a perfectly preserved underground refuge fully stocked with vintage supplies.
Descending down a rusted staircase into the subterranean space, the property’s new owners were amazed to discover what amounted to a time capsule of a bygone era where many Americans believed that a nuclear strike from the USSR was imminent.”
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Goodbye To The War On Drugs?
” Nothing spectacular will come out of the meeting, but that doesn’t really matter: at long last Latin America and the United States are officially discussing what presidents and governments could only whisper about until recently. Washington, theoretically opposed to anything that resembles decriminalization, has softened its position in practice.
The OAS report, which combines a detailed analysis of drug production and of what the illegal trade represents with an account of the state’s response, doesn’t call for anything explicit. It only implies that a change in the approach to drugs could bring about at least partially the results that have eluded the hemisphere thus far.
What the billions of dollars poured into the drug war have achieved is more violence, corruption and institutional weakness, and therefore less democracy under the rule of law. As always happens when the law is divorced from reality, an empire has emerged outside of the legal framework built on powerful incentives and with so much power that it can never be defeated despite the victories the authorities believe they obtain from time to time.”
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Taliban Behead Boy, 10, And His Friend, 16, ‘For Spying’ After Catching Them Scavenging For Food For Their Families
” The Taliban was accused of beheading two boys for spying in southern Afghanistan yesterday. (M) Afghan officials said the boys, aged 10 and 16, were kidnapped by Taliban fighters while scavenging for food in rubbish bins near the police headquarters in Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second largest city and a key base for Western forces.
News first emerged of the 10-year-old’s death and later yesterday the Kandahar provincial government office confirmed that a second boy had also been beheaded. Both bodies were recovered in Kandahar’s Zhari district.
Kandahar governor Dr Toryalay Wessa instructed Afghan security forces and police to hunt down and catch the militants responsible for the killing ‘with whatever casualties it takes and at whatever price.’ In 2012 the Taliban were accused of beheading a 12-year-old boy and a seven-year-old girl in south and east Afghanistan – the group denied responsibility in both those cases.”
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” On a tropical island in Papua New Guinea where most people live in huts, a mob armed with guns, machetes and axes stormed a wooden house by night. They seized Helen Rumbali and three female relatives, set the building on fire and took the women away to be tortured. Their alleged crime: Witchcraft.
After being repeatedly slashed with knives, Rumbali’s older sister and two teenage nieces were released following negotiations with police. Rumbali, a 40-something former schoolteacher, was beheaded.
Her assailants claimed they had clear proof that Rumbali had used sorcery to kill another villager who recently died of sickness: The victim’s grave bore the marks of black magic, and a swarm of fire flies apparently led witch hunters to Rumbali’s home.”
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