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Police have arrested members of a gang of Eastern European immigrants who used violence, intimidation and the promotion of Islam to control marijuana trafficking operations in the Neuchâtel mountains, cantonal justice authorities said on Thursday. Three members were detained for questioning following the arrest of another ringleader in March, who remains in jail, the public prosecutor’s office said, while issuing an appeal to the public for more information to help permanently disband the group. The gang, which calls itself the Jamahat, forced other young people to become Muslims as part of its operations, said officials. The group peddled pot to...

California students who fail algebra and repeat the course are pretty much doomed to fail again, a vicious cycle that wastes limited resources and precious learning time, according to a report released Friday. Just over a third of students in the 24 school districts studied had to repeat Algebra I either in ninth or 10th grade, yet even after a second year of study, relatively few were proficient in the subject. Of those who took the class in eighth grade and repeated it as freshmen, just 1 in 5 scored at a proficient level on standardized tests. And of those...

Swedish retailer Ikea said Friday it was reviewing sweeping curbs imposed on what it can sell at its planned new stores in India. One will reportedly prevent it offering its famed meatballs.India's foreign investment panel has rejected 15 of Ikea's 30 product lines, a report said on Friday, underscoring the regulatory hurdles faced by foreign stores who are eyeing the Indian market with renewed interest. "We are now internally reviewing the details (of the investment board's decision)," an Ikea spokeswoman told AFP, adding that she could not confirm the curbs as reported by The Economic Times on Friday. Among the...

Indian priest's altruism starts chain of kidney donation Under the newly-set up kidney federation, a family member of a patient who receives a kidney ought to offer an organ in return An Indian who donated his kidney to help a dying patient and started the Kidney Federation in the country is calling upon non-resident Indians to join a movement to sign up as volunteers for posthumous organ donation. About 100,000 people die every year in India due to non-availability of organs, whereas the number of available donors in the country today stands at just 1 per cent of what is...

1,000-Year-Old Muslim Joke Book Found An 11th-century book by a revered Baghdad Muslim scholar turns out to be a tongue-in-cheek guide for party crashers, according to the researcher who translated the book into English. The tome was originally authored by al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, a well known scholar of the Prophet Mohammed's teachings. According to Emily Selove of the University of Manchester, who did the translation, he wrote the book to remind readers "that every serious minded person needs to take a break." She continued, "This book, which contains flirtation, profanity, and even a little drunkenness, is a lot of fun and...

A clerk working in a Virginia AutoZone store thwarted an armed robber who is believed to have committed more than 30 hold-ups in retail establishments throughout the state. Bringing the thief to justice, however, has cost that clerk, Devin McClean, his job. Though the store manager credits McClean with saving his life, the clerk ran afoul of AutoZone's “zero tolerance” policy on guns in its stores. AutoZone spokesman Curt Chretin explained that “It's a matter of corporate policy that the company feels very strongly about. Zero tolerance is simple and efficient. Rather than having corporate time and energy tied up...

Get your garlic, crosses and stakes ready: a bloodsucking vampire is on the loose. Or so say villagers in the tiny western Serbian hamlet of Zarozje, nestled between lush green mountain slopes and spooky thick forests. They say that rumors that a legendary vampire ghost has awakened are spreading fear — and a potential tourist opportunity — through the remote village. A local council warned villagers to put garlic in their pockets and place wooden crosses in their rooms to ward off vampires, although it appeared designed more to attract visitors to the impoverished region bordering Bosnia. Many of the...

FLORENCE — The spending and tax proposal delivered to Capitol Hill by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was “laughable,” U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell told Pure Politics on Friday. McConnell was being literal. According to the Weekly Standard, McConnell burst into laughter after Geithner outlined a plan with $1.6 trillion in tax increases over the next decade. After speaking to Republicans at a Northern Kentucky dinner Friday night, McConnell said “nothing is going to happen until the president gets serious.” He said there hasn’t been any behind-the-scenes movement toward a deal that would avoid the fiscal cliff of automatic spending cuts and...

The idea behind a grand bargain to get the federal budget deficit under control is a simple one. Republicans agree to tax increases and Democrats agree to spending cuts. In a previous post I warned that this could be a trap for Republicans, just like similar budget deals have been in the past.There are two problems. First, the tax increases will hit immediately, while the spending cuts will be mainly in the future. That means future Congress's will have an opportunity to renege on the agreement before any serious spending reduction takes place. Second, all the serious spending increases in...

Do you recall the furor surrounding Prudhomme’s Lost Cajun Kitchen, a Pennsylvania-based restaurant, this past summer? The establishment has been offering a 10 percent discount for individuals who bring in a church bulletin on Sundays. Citing this action as discriminatory, John Wolff, a local atheist, filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (PHRC). Now, the restaurant will be forced to offer discounts to any individual who brings in a pamphlet involving religious faith — including atheism. To continue offering its discount, Prudhomme’s Lost Cajun Kitchen must now honor literature that comes from any religious institution, The Christian Post...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The former rector of the nation’s largest Episcopal church has become a Roman Catholic.The Rev. Larry Gipson was dean of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham from 1982-94 and rector at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston, where his parishioners included former President George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara, from 1994-2008.Last month, Gipson was accepted as a Catholic into the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, a structure set up by Pope Benedict XVI to accept former Anglicans into the Catholic Church. “The nature of authority in the Catholic Church is what...

PORTLAND, Oregon — Police in Portland say a maximum $1,000 reward has been offered for information leading to an arrest in the case of Italian marble religious statues damaged at a Catholic shrine and botanical garden.Sgt. Pete Simpson says three statues were damaged this week, with the heads removed.Police recovered one of the statue heads Friday after a passer-by called to say it was perched on a post at the west end of the 62-acre site popularly known as The Grotto. That head belonged to a statue of the Virgin Mary.Still missing are heads belonging to statues of St. Joseph...

The principal of at a high school in Mesa, Arizona violated policy when he required two boys who were fighting to hold hands in front of other students, according to a report on azcentral.com. Tim Richard, principal at Westwood High School, has not been reprimanded but has met with Mesa Public School officials, who advised him not to speak to the media about the incident, according to the article posted on Friday. …

NORMAN — Deisy Escalera considers Oklahoma her home. She graduated from high school here, goes to college here and pays taxes here. But in some respects, Escalera isn't American — at least, not on paper. “I consider myself an American,” she said. “I was not born here, but I consider myself an American.” Escalera, 23, came to the United States illegally from Mexico with her mother when she was 6 years old. Today, she's one of 25 undocumented students at the University of Oklahoma. Several of those undocumented students and their supporters gathered on OU's South Oval Tuesday evening to...

Bryan Denton for The New York Times Rebels in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, in August. The opposition to the Syrian government is developing a political structureWASHINGTON — The United States is moving toward recognizing the Syrian opposition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people as soon as it fully develops its political structure, American officials said Thursday. A decision to recognize the group could be announced at a so-called Friends of Syria meeting that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to attend in Morocco on Dec. 12. It is the most immediate decision facing the Obama administration...

Whip out your web site links and get ready for Phase #3 or is it #4 as it comes ashore, the hills are soggy.. the sandbags are ready.. Twenty days out from the Mayan calendar scenario.. got life jackets?

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who is Catholic, indicated on Friday that she supports forcing St. Mary’s Medical Center, the oldest continuously operating hospital in her San Francisco-based congressional district, to provide health plans to its workers that cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs free of charge even though the Catholic faith says this Catholic hospital may not do so because these things are intrinsically immoral. “We are committed to furthering the healing ministry of Jesus,” says the hospital's mission statement. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius—who, like Pelosi, is Catholic—issued the sterilization-contraception-abortifacient mandate as a regulation under...

A growing number of Republicans in the House of Representatives—including a handful of Tea Party-backed conservatives—are signaling greater flexibility than their leaders to reach a “fiscal cliff” deal with President Barack Obama. They are not buckling on demands to slash spending or agreeing with Obama’s exact proposals to avert across-the-board tax hikes and spending cuts set to start on January 1. But unlike House Speaker John Boehner, they suggest they would be open to higher tax rates on wealthy Americans as part of a broader deal to slash deficits.Obama is hoping to appeal to more potential renegades to get a...

Casper College Incident -snip- Investigation has revealed that Chris Krumm stabbed Heidi Arnold to death at the residence on Hawthorne prior to driving to Casper College where he carried a compound bow and two knives, covered by a blanket, into the Wold Physical Science building. Once inside, he stepped into Professor Krumm’s classroom and shot his father in the head with an arrow, knocking him to the ground. Despite being mortally wounded, James Krumm got up and fought with his attacker enabling the students in the room to escape unharmed; an incredible act of courage and heroism to say the...

Second Seal: World War 3 Wednesday, May 16th, 2012 @ 03:10 am   My dearest beloved daughter I must inform you that a Third World War is about to unfold in the world My tears flow this morning as you can see.*The Second Seal is about to unfold as foretold to John the Evangelist in the Book of Revelation.It will start in Europe.Your banking system will be the cause and Germany, once again, will be involved in this tragedy as it was on the last two occasions.When it commences much will be over saving the economy and catastrophe will affect...