We suspect this will be less shocking to those of you already familiar with the violent crackdowns taking place in Bahrain, but most will likely find it discomforting nonetheless. Government officials from both the United States and Bahrain have insisted that the ordinance being sold by the Department of Defense couldn’t/wouldn’t be used against the Persian Gulf nation’s civilian population; however, some reports suggest that attacks with American weaponry have already occurred. source
A 16-year-old student was shot and wounded at the school, sheriff’s officials said, and was in critical but stable condition. Authorities said the suspect, also a student, used a rifle and tried to shoot a second student but missed.
A third student was taken to an area hospital with possible hearing damage after the shotgun was fired close to her ear, authorities said. A fourth suffered minor injuries when she stumbled over a table.
It sounds like everybody is going to be alright (physically) after this morning’s shooting, though we’ll definitely be keeping our eyes and thoughts on the student who remains in critical care. Law enforcement officials still have not released a possible cause for today’s shooting at this time.
Gunfire erupted on Thursday at a California high school in inland Kern County in a shooting in which two people were injured, county officials said, and media reports indicated the assailant had been arrested.
A Kern County sheriff’s dispatcher confirmed the shooting at Taft Union High School but gave no other details, and the county fire chief said two people had been wounded, including one who was airlifted to a nearby hospital. The other refused treatment.
We’re glad to hear that nobody was killed in today’s shooting, and our thoughts remain with the two injured in today’s attack. One of the two people who were shot (believed to be a student) was airlifted to a Bakersfield hospital, though law enforcement officials have not released any additional information on either victim’s condition.
More on Barney Frank’s Senate push: Frank toyed with the idea the other day on television, but it looks like he’s putting in all of his chips. We can’t say we’re terribly surprised to see Barney Frank trying to jump back into politics so soon. Considering his three-decade run in the House, we’d be willing to bet more than a few Massachusetts residents would love to see Gov. Patrick select the former U.S. Representative as Sen. John Kerry’s replacement. That is, of course, assuming President Obama’s current nominee for Secretary of State is ever confirmed by Congress. source
EDIT: More context here.
Every one of these is reviewed, and rest assured, the public reports about civilian casualties are not just a little bit wrong, they are wildly wrong.Republican Rep. Mike Rogers • During a discussion of the House Intelligence Committee’s review process, for U.S. drone strikes in foreign countries, with Ohio’s Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich on the House floor Monday. The current chairman of the House Intelligence Committee also said he believes ”that people use those reports for their own political purposes outside of the country to try to put pressure on the United States.” source
President Vladimir V. Putin said Thursday that he would sign into law a ban on adoptions of Russian children by American citizens, retaliating against an American law that punishes Russians accused of violating human rights and dealing a potentially grave setback to bilateral relations.
Mr. Putin announced his decision at a meeting with senior government officials on Friday, including cabinet members and legislative leaders. The adoption ban, included in a broader law aimed at retaliating against the United States, was approved unanimously by the Federation Council, the upper chamber of Parliament on Wednesday.
Seriously, though, the U.S. is not happy about this, finding it awful that Russia is putting orphaned children in the middle of a political battle. But the truth of the matter is, there are dozens of families out there which just had their hopes dashed over a transparently political move. Lame.
President Obama will “actively support” efforts by Democrats to reinstate a federal ban on assault weapons next year, the White House announced on Tuesday.
Press secretary Jay Carney said the president would back Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) when she introduces legislation at the opening of the next Congress to ban certain assault weapons in the United States.
Carney said the president would also support other gun-control efforts, including legislation to close the “gun show loophole” on background checks and prevent the sale of high-capacity ammunition clips.
Thoughts?
We wholeheartedly endorse the Strike Debt/Rolling Jubilee initiative, and any others like it that we might not be aware of. Regardless of your thoughts on the Occupy movement, taxes, entitlement programs, etc, it seems likely that we can all agree that this is an amazing way to help people in need. source
The term “minority,” at least as used to describe racial and ethnic groups in the United States, may need to be retired or rethought soon: by the end of this decade, according to Census Bureau projections released Wednesday, no single racial or ethnic group will constitute a majority of children under 18. And in about three decades, no single group will constitute a majority of the country as a whole.U.S. Will Have No Ethnic Majority, Census Finds - NYTimes.com (via firthofforth)
I’m moving back to New York in a few days. Unlike past...
OMG. I got so...
In this week’s Newsweek, a little...
Tumblr this morning. [h/t anne]
#@#$%!.tumblr.com
Here’s a hidden feature that shipped in...
The Obama administration has formally designated a rebel group fighting in Syria as a terrorist organization in hopes of marginalizing the Al Qaeda affiliate and reducing its chances of playing a major role in the country should the government fall.
Administration officials blacklisted Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front, describing it as a wing of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans during the height of the Iraq war. The Nusra Front is one of dozens of rebel groups that have emerged in the Syrian conflict.
It remains to be seen what effect, if any, blacklisting Jabhat al-Nusra — also known as the Nusra Front — will have on the rebel militia, which has earned the trust and support of many Syrians battling the Assad regime. However, it does prevent the United States from supporting the group, or any others that work with the Nusra Front in the future, and U.S. officials hope it will dissuade others in the region from supporting the group as well.
BREAKING: US economy adds 146,000 jobs in November
The U.S. economy added a solid 146,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent, the lowest since December 2008. The government said Superstorm Sandy had only a minimal effect on the figures.
AP reports:Hiring remained steady during the storm and in the face of looming tax increases. But the government said employers added 49,000 fewer jobs in October and September than initially estimated. And the unemployment rate fell from 7.9 percent in October mostly because more people stopped looking for work and weren’t counted as unemployed.
Photo: A man walks past destroyed homes on the Rockaway Peninsula in the Queens borough of New York on Nov. 27, 2012. (Seth Wenig/AP Photo)
The good news: Things are improving. The better news: A tough month after Sandy didn’t crimp the improvement.
Both sides in the strike that has crippled the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have agreed to federal mediation, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Tuesday at a news conference.
Villaraigosa said the agreement was an encouraging sign and could help bring an end to the strike, now in its eighth day. He said the parties negotiated throughout the night and there had been some recent movement.
“I’m hopeful that the mediator will be here today,” Villaraigosa told reporters. “We’ve got to get a deal and get a deal as soon as possible.”
Approximately 20,000 workers in the region have been affected by the strike, which is now on its seventh day, and the work stoppage has shuttered 10 of the 14 available cargo container terminals at ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach. Union members claim that the 14 employers being picketed have been slowly but steadily outsourcing jobs to states and countries with lower-paid, non-union workers. The terminal owners deny the claims, saying they’ve guaranteed the union members full job security in addition to wage and pension boosts. source
We are not going to be able to come up with comprehensive tax reform package that gets it all done just in the next two weeks. We are not going to be able to come up with necessarily a comprehensive entitlement reform package that gets it all done in the next two weeks. When you look at what Ronald Reagan did back in 1986 working with Bill Bradley and others, that was a year-and-a-half process … Let’s essentially put a down payment on taxes. Let’s let taxes on upper-income folks go up.President Obama • Demanding an end to top-end Bush tax cuts during his first post-election interview with Bloomberg News’ Julianna Goldman. While he may have signaled some willingness to compromise, the President told Goldman that Republicans needed to give more, and that the most recent “fiscal cliff” proposal from Speaker Boehner was “still out of balance.” source
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