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The bullet that struck an Atlanta-area police officer — hit after responding to a burglary call at the wrong house — likely came from a fellow officer's gun, investigators said Tuesday. The homeowner, Christopher McKinley, 36, was also shot by one of three responding DeKalb County officers who entered his house on accident Monday night, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. He was treated and released from a hospital, the GBI said. A dog in the home was shot at by two of the officers and killed, authorities said. The GBI said in a statement Tuesday that the "injured...

Cardigan Council bosses have been struggling to find £22,500 needed to repair the four pay-and-display machines in the Welsh town's main carpark - much to the delight of shopkeepers who have reported a rush of shoppers enjoying hours of free parking. The vandalism has accidentally exposed the fact that parking meters, far from generating revenue for a town, appear to cripple trade and kill town centres. Locals and visitors to the picturesque town with a Norman castle have been thronging the town which had previously seen a dearth of shoppers due to having to pay for a limited amount of...

COLUMBIA, SC — An S.C. trooper who stopped a man for a seat belt violation outside Columbia and then shot him – apparently without provocation – was arrested Wednesday and charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature. Sean Groubert, 31, a lance corporal who was fired from the Highway Patrol after the shooting incident, now faces 20 years in prison if convicted of wrongfully shooting the driver, Levar Jones. Groubert was booked Wednesday evening at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center. He was fired from the patrol last Friday. Wednesday night, in a hearing at the...

Poland Plans Gas Hub to Kill Reliance on Russian Energy ReutersSep. 18 2014 14:41 Last edited 14:41 Poland is taking steps towards creating a gas trading and transit hub in Central and Eastern Europe aimed at accomplishing what much of the region has failed to do: shake off almost complete reliance on Russian gas imports. Poland will open a liquefied natural gas terminal in 2015 and build new pipelines — including a planned north-south corridor stretching to Croatia — to help ease the grip of Russia's Gazprom over former Soviet bloc nations. Central Europe's biggest economy, which also intends to upgrade gas links to Lithuania to allow the re-export of gas to the Baltics, has said it plans to build 2,000 kilometers of pipelines criss-crossing the country...

Several facts, however, are clear: Baghdadi leads the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. He is a shrewd strategist, a prolific fundraiser and a ruthless killer. The United States has a $10 million bounty on his head. He has thrown off the yoke of al-Qaeda command and just took his biggest prize yet in Mosul, an oil hub that sits at the vital intersection of Iraq, Turkey and Syria. And in just one year of grisly killing, he has in all likelihood surpassed even al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in international clout and prestige among Islamist militants.

The fall of the Iraqi city of Mosul to the al-Qaeda offshoot ISIS has shown the power of its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi - a former US detainee below is an excerptAbu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a nom de guerre, as is his other name, Abu Duaa, which translates roughly as “Father of the Summons”. Some describe him as a farmer who was arrested by US forces during a mass sweep in 2005, who then became radicalised at Camp Bucca, where many al-Qaeda commanders were held. Others, though, believe he was a radical even during the largely secular era of Saddam...

A pro-Palestinian NYU group targeted Jewish classmates with threatening “eviction” notices that were slid under dorm-room doors in the dead of night, students said Thursday. “If you do not vacate the premise by midnight on 25 April, 2014 we reserve the right to destroy all remaining belongings. We cannot be held responsible for property or persons remaining inside the premises,” read the notices, which were delivered by members of the Students for Justice in Palestine. "The activist student group targeted Palladium Hall on East 14th Street because it is widely believed to house the most Jewish residents — and even...

Ukrainian Catholics fear 'new oppression' after Russian takeover Jonathan Luxmoore Catholic News Service  |  Mar. 12, 2014 Oxford, England A Ukrainian Catholic priest in Crimea said church members are alarmed and frightened by the Russian military occupation and fear their communities might be outlawed again if Russian rule becomes permanent. Fr. Mykhailo Milchakovskyi, a pastor in Kerch, Ukraine, described the atmosphere as tense because many residents of the town located in the eastern part of Crimea were unsure of their future. "No one knows what will happen. Many people are trying to sell their homes and move to other parts...

Here in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, the most important thing coming out of a congress of pro-Yanukovych politicians is the sentiment that they don't want Ukraine to split but to remain united. Kharkiv's regional governor, Mikhaylo Dobkin, told the meeting of MPs from predominantly Russian-speaking areas of eastern Ukraine and Crimea : "We're not preparing to break up the country. We want to preserve it."

Pro-Russian Separatism Rises In Crimea As Ukraine's Crisis Unfolds SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine -- From the dingy basement of a decaying apartment block on the outskirts of Simferopol, Crimean parliament deputy Sergei Shuvainikov is leading the fight to defend the ethnic Russians of this strategic Black Sea peninsula. In an office festooned with banners showing a map of Crimea overlaid with a World War II medal featuring the communist hammer and sickle and the slogan "In union with Russia," the voluble Shuvainikov spills out a litany of alleged assaults on the Russian language and Russian culture in Ukraine. "This is the result...

Ukraine's western region of Lviv has reportedly declared independence from the central government.Hours after protesters seized the prosecutor's office in central Lviv and forced a surrender by interior ministry police, the executive committee of the region council - also called the People's Rada – claimed control over the region. Reuters A portrait of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich burns near the destroyed building of the security service in Lviv "The regime has begun active military action against people. Dozens of people have been killed in Kiev and hundreds have been wounded. Fulfilling the will of society, the executive committee of the...

Associated PressJanuary 14, 2014 Updated 9 hours ago APATZINGAN, Mexico — Federal forces and heavily armed vigilantes are warily watching each other in a violence-wracked farming area of western Mexico after one deadly clash and a failure by leaders from both sides to work out a deal on disarming.

Saudi Arabia has secretly offered Russia a sweeping deal to control the global oil market and safeguard Russia's gas contracts, if the Kremlin backs away from the Assad regime in Syria. The revelations come amid high tension in the Middle East, with US, British, and French warships poised for missile strikes against Syria, and Iran threatening to retaliate. The strategic jitters pushed Brent crude prices to a five-month high of $US112 a barrel.

<p>MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Miami Beach police say an 18-year-old died after being shocked with a stun gun as he resisted arrest for spraying graffiti.</p> <p>Chief Ray Martinez told the Miami Herald that officers spotted Israel Hernandez-Llach painting graffiti on an abandoned fast-food restaurant early Tuesday. Martinez said the teen ran, but was eventually cornered.</p>

The decision by North Carolina policymakers not to expand Medicaid has ignited a firestorm of controversy. Advocates for expansion appear to believe the decision should have been a slam dunk. The N.C. Justice Center assures us that “Medicaid saves lives,” a claim reiterated by Jonathan Oberlander, a health policy expert at UNC-Chapel Hill. Yet Avik Roy, a Manhattan Institute senior fellow, claims that “Medicaid is America’s worst health-care program.” These dueling experts have decades of health policy experience among them. So who’s right? Advocates for expansion point to a New England Journal of Medicine study that found significantly lower death...

Write-In Candidates A "write-in candidate" is a person: whose name is not printed on the ballot (see 115.453(4,5,6) RSMo); andwho has filed a declaration of intent to be a write-in candidate for election to office with the proper election authority prior to 5:00 p.m. on the second Friday immediately preceding the election day. It is not necessary to file a declaration of intent if there are no candidates on the ballot for that office. (see 115.453 (4) RSMo) Frequently asked questions on write-in candidatesCan a write-in candidate be on a primary election ballot? No. (Section 115.453 (5) RSMo) If a...

Akin said he has no plans to withdraw.“I don’t know that I’m the only person in public office who’s suffered from foot-in-mouth disease here, and this was a very, very serious error. On the other hand, there are so many good people in Missouri who nominated me, and they understood my heart,” Akin said.... Akin said no Republicans have called him and asked him to withdraw from the race.“No one has called me and said, ‘Todd, I think you should drop out,’” Akin said. “No one has said that. But I gather people are saying that in the media, but they didn’t specifically call...

Paul Ryan Will Not Be Mitt Romney’s Running Mate By BRUCE BARTLETT, The Fiscal Times August 10, 2012 This week, conservatives launched a concerted effort to get Mitt Romney to choose Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as the Republican Party’s vice presidential nominee. I do not believe this will happen. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal’s lead editorial strongly endorsed Ryan. Simultaneously, the right-wing Weekly Standard did so as well, emphasizing precisely the same points. Their argument basically boils down to the need for Romney to emphasize “big issues” in his campaign. First among these is slashing entitlement programs, especially Medicare. Ryan...

science,colin_lecher,cfl_bulbs,environment,health,light,lightbulbs,radiation,research,science,sustainability,technology,uv_rays science 63791 Compact Fluorescent Bulbs Could Cause Ultraviolet Damage to Skin By Colin Lecher Posted 07.19.2012 at 3:42 pm18 Comments CFL Bulb Wikimedia Commons We know CFL bulbs are world-changingly efficient, producing the same level of light as their incandescent parents while using a quarter of the energy. But they're still a relatively new device, and few long-term studies have been carried out on them. One of the most recent, a new report from a team at Stony Brook, suggests CFLs might cause damage to skin by releasing UV rays. Researchers rounded up CFL bulbs from two counties...

Roberts first concluded that the individual mandate was not a tax when it came to jurisdictional issues under the Anti-Injunction Act (thereby allowing the court to decide the case). But, like the Decepticon villains in a "Transformer" movie, the mandate could convert into a tax for constitutional authority purposes. This flew in the face of the Affordable Care Act's history and language. President Obama himself once insisted the law didn't impose a tax.