Dr. Kermit Gosnell was found guilty of murder on Monday, for killing three babies during supposed late-term abortion procedures he performed at a clinic which serves low-income women in Philadelphia. He was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, and 21 counts of performing an abortion after 24 weeks of pregnancy. Gosnell faces the death penalty for his crimes, and sentencing is expected next week. (Update: Clarified wording based on newer version of the story. — Scott @ SFB; Photo via MicahFries.com) source
Lawyers acting for George Zimmerman, who shot dead the unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin on a Florida housing estate, have abandoned their attempt to have his murder charge thrown out on the grounds of self-defence.
Neighbourhood watch leader Zimmerman, 29, had been expected to claim immunity from prosecution at a hearing in April under the state’s stand-your-ground law, which allows for the use of deadly force when a person feels their life is in danger.
But in a surprise move, his lawyer, Mark O’Mara, told a judge that the defence would take its chances at Zimmerman’s trial in June for second-degree murder. He said he still intended to pursue the argument that his client was acting in self-defence in February 2012 under a violent onslaught from 17-year-old Martin.
To be clear, Zimmerman is maintaining his innocence, saying that the death of Trayvon Martin was an act of self-defense; however, he will now face a jury trial instead of potentially being granted immunity by Judge Debra Nelson. George Zimmerman’s trial is scheduled to begin on June 10, 2013.
Openly-gay mayoral candidate slain in Mississippi: Many local residents believed Marco McMillian, 35, to be the first viable openly-gay candidate for public office in the history of Mississippi. As of now, the murder, discovered on Tuesday and reported by police on Wednesday, is not being investigated as a hate crime; however, police do already have one suspect in custody. Though they have not been formally charged, the unidentified suspect was found in McMillian’s wrecked car on Tuesday, with the Clarksdale mayoral candidate nowhere to be seen. (photo by Troy Catchings/The Clarksdale Press Register)
Murder suspect on the run from the law for over a year turns himself in, told the police station is closed … Murder suspect on the run from the law for over a year turns himself in, told the police station is closed … No matter how many times we read, type, or say this one out loud, we’re pretty sure nothing is ever going to make this make sense to us. Even if “things are a bit messy” right now, are you really telling us there wasn’t anybody that could have escorted Mr. Hadri to another station? source
Syrian leaders should be brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC) to face justice for murder and torture, UN investigators urged on Monday as the EU renewed its blanket arms embargo on both sides in Syria’s bloody conflict.
Britain, however, secured the agreement of its partners to make it easier to supply “non-lethal” equipment and training to maintain security in rebel-held areas, which was not previously possible. But it had not sought agreement to send weapons, Whitehall officials insisted, rejecting claims from Brussels that it had.
Unfortunately, efforts to bring justice to the Syrian leadership loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are unlikely to go anywhere, because they requires the full support of the UN Security Council’s five permanent members. Considering Russia and China’s previous reluctance to support Western intervention in Syria, it’s unlikely that either will suddenly be supportive of charging the Assad regime with war crimes.
Ten-year-old Nathaniel Pendleton Jr. recalled the way his big sister Hadiya would often greet him with a few gentle slaps on his cheeks whenever she came home from school.
“She said it was with love,” he said.Nathaniel etched “I miss you” and “I love you” on his arm Wednesday, a day after losing his only sibling when a gunman opened fire on a group of students just blocks from King College Prep on the South Side.
While it’s hard to say any single death is more important than another (particularly in a place where young people are dying so frequently), we suspect that Hadiya Pendleton’s time in Washington D.C. last week will make her death an intense topic of discussion as the gun control debate continues around the nation. Our hearts go out to the Pendletons, and all of Hadiya’s other family and friends, during what we can only imagine to be one of the most difficult times of their lives.
Surely this New York Post cover isn’t as unapologetically appalling as the NYC subway snuff film that graced the cover eight days ago, and this won’t get the same instinctual rebuke that cover did. But what’s up at the Post? When did they become Faces of Death? Go back to sex sells — this is ugly.
The New York Post: You hear about the deaths we were unable to stop, twelve hours after they happen. Seriously, WTF guys?
The bodies of two murdered women were found beneath a scrawled message demanding freedom for jailed members of Pussy Riot, Russian officials said Thursday. An investigator cautioned that the killer was possibly trying to mislead police by drawing attention to supporters of the punk provocateurs.
The Investigative Committee said in a statement that the women, aged 76 and 38, were killed late last week in their apartment in the central city of Kazan with the words “Free Pussy Riot” written on the wall, “presumably” with blood. The substance has not yet been confirmed, it said.
This is simply bizarre. There’s an image of the scrawling at the link, but we felt uncomfortable with throwing it up here. It’s just sad that a case that’s clearly so strongly tied with the ideas of freedom of speech has now, through one crude action, been tied to a brutal murder.
» Backstory: Shibin was arrested last year after he, and three other Somali pirates, seized a German merchant ship and an American-owned yacht. All four U.S. citizens onboard the yacht were killed, and crew members from the German ship were tortured in an effort to increase the demanded ransom. While Shibin did not kill the Americans himself, and did not face murder/manslaughter charges, he was found guilty of 15 charges including piracy and kidnapping.
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Tumblr this morning. [h/t anne]
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» What happened: Police believe Cortez was shot and killed after his father, Mauro Cortez, was mistaken to be a member of a rival gang. The mix-up is attributed to a purple T-shirt he wore which read, “I own a Honda. Be nice to me.” As for the donation, Timothy Leiweke, the president of AEG (the firm that owns the Kings) noted: “During such an exciting time such as this we can’t lose sight of the importance and responsibility we all share in keeping our community safe.”
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If you go to Yemen where I was, and you see the unexploded cluster bombs, and you have the list and photographic evidence, as I do, of women and children that represented the vast majority of deaths in the first strike that Obama authorized on Yemen, those people were murdered by President Obama, on his orders, because there was believed to be someone from Al Qaeda in that area.Jeremy Scahill, national security reporter for The Nation • Leveling a dire condemnation against President Obama, on the topic of U.S. drone strikes. Scahill was speaking on MSNBC’s “Up With Chris Hayes” (clearly a show accustomed to recent controversy), and as one could expect his remarks have drawn wide criticism. This is an issue Scahill is very close to — he’s reported from Yemen before, and claims one strike he investigated killed some 35 people, 14 of them children. Redstate.com founder Joshua Treviño pushed back, suggesting he was saying something ‘no reasonable person’ would. We think there’s a very worthy conversation to be had about the moral ramifications of this new sort of warfare, we just hope it doesn’t become too intense at expense of the dialogue. source (via • follow)
captain-bubblebeard asks: Do you guys feel that the amount of gruesome stories that have appeared this week is a trend that news outlets are latching on to - or is stuff actually getting go-buy-a-shotgun-and-build-a-bomb-shelter weird?
» SFB says: Some have suggested “zombie apocalypse,” but my personal guess is this — the story out of Miami was so weird and disturbing that it created a bit of an “audience” for the other ones. There are other stories from this week we hadn’t even covered in that post that easily could’ve gone there. If you ask me, it’s pretty likely that stories like this happen more often than you’d guess, but don’t “surface” in the mainstream. To put it simply, I’m hoping next week comes very soon. — Ernie @ SFB
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