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Emails released by the State Department on Friday show that Hillary Clintons longtime friend Sidney Blumenthal reached out to her on behalf of a former United Kingdom diplomat who was interested in setting up secret channels between insurgents and governments. Clinton was receptive to the idea which came via Blumenthal from Jonathan Powell, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blairs chief of staff. (Quote) Hillary, Jonathan Powell has launched a new NGO that has already initiated some very interesting work below the radar, (Unquote) Blumenthal wrote in the March 18, 2012 email. (Quote)Sid We are trying to replicate what we did...

College demonstrators might be losing support for the causes they claim to hold dear from their most natural, and effective allies. "Even sympathetic observers end up a tad uncomfortable here: Those of us who support today's protests against police brutality against black people (such as myself) are less enthusiastic about the campus protests modeled directly on those," author and educator John H. McWhorter writes in The Chronicle Review. "The reason for the difference in reaction, however, is something most people are reluctant to admit, and sometimes may feel it isn’t their 'place' to state." "But there comes a point when...

Explanation: What’s that rising over the hill? A galaxy. Never having seen a galaxy themselves, three friends of an industrious astrophotographer experienced an exhilarating night sky firsthand that featured not only the band of our Milky Way galaxy but also Milky Way's neighbor -- the Andromeda galaxy. Capturing the scene required careful pre-shot planning including finding a good site, waiting for good weather, balancing relative angular sizes with a zoom lens, managing ground lighting, and minimizing atmospheric light absorption. The calculated shot therefore placed the friends on a hill about 250 meters away and about 50 meters up. The featured...

Verbal confrontation turned physical when 12-year-old stabbed boy Richland County deputies are investigating an incident where a 12-year-old girl allegedly stabbed a 16-year-old boy during an altercation Thursday night. The Richland County Sheriff’s Department received a report of an aggravated assault around 8:30 p.m. Thursday and responded to the 700 block of Ross Road near Legrand Road, according to Lt. Curtis Wilson with the department. Deputies believe a 12-year-old girl and the 16-year-old boy were initially involved in a verbal confrontation that became physical when the 12-year-old stabbed the other in the upper body. The 16-year-old was transported to Palmetto...

You cannot walk through a tour of most colleges without getting lectured about the need for "diversity" and the prevalence of women's and even queer studies. My youngest son and I took a tour of Columbia University in New York City recently and were told that the contributions of the great Western thinkers to our civilization would be "updated" in various classes with reference to the involvement of feminists and homosexuals. There is even a "Queer House" or "Q House" on campus. A 28-page guide is available on "Resources and Programs at Columbia University related to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender,...

Three and a half decades after avoiding punishment for bombing the Pentagon, Bill Ayers is still "guilty as sin, free as a bird," to use his own phraseology of 35 years ago. "For every human being life is, in part, an experience of suffering and loss and pain," Ayers writes in Teaching with Conscience in an Imperfect World: An Invitation, published by the Teacher's College Press at Columbia University this year. "But our living experience also embraces other inescapable facts: that we are all in this together, and that much (but not all) of what we suffer in life is...

A well-respected law professor is predicting that a top law school will close in the next few years. "In 2 to 4 years, a university administration will shut down a top law school and we may never see it coming," Dorothy A. Brown, a professor of tax law at Emory University School of Law, wrote in a column for Forbes on Thursday. Brown previously predicted the demise of law schools last year, citing a declining legal job market. Now Brown is doubling down on her predictions. Because law school is no longer a safe bet to landing a lucrative legal...

On Friday, Paul Nungesser, the alleged rapist of “Mattress Girl” Emma Sulkowicz, had his discrimination lawsuit against Columbia University dismissed. In 2014, Emma Sulkowicz launched her art-protest piece “Carry That Weight,” in which she carried her mattress with her everywhere (including to commencement), as a condemnation of Columbia's handling of her rape complaint. Though the University cleared him of wrongdoing and allowed him to continue with school, Nungesser's name was eventually made public. Last year, he filed a discrimination suit against the school under Title IX (the statute under which victims of sexual assault often bring their claims). In the...

A 12-foot-tall inflatable Pinocchio prominently featured in a pro-Israel installation at Columbia University has been permanently deflated, according to one of the students in the group that had erected it. The news came Thursday from Columbia’s Student Governing Board (SGB), nearly 48 hours after it held a special meeting to discuss Pinocchio’s fate. “SGB decided not to approve it,” Rudy Rochman, a co-founder of the Columbia chapter of Students Supporting Israel (SSI), told The Algemeiner. “We will put the rest of our display back up, without the Pinocchio.” When The Algemeiner asked Rochman whether SGB had given a reason for...

While everyone’s focus was on the voting in Nevada and South Carolina, the next batch of Hillary Clinton’s bathroom server emails hit the open market with some revelations that would likely be shocking and offensive if they weren’t so typical of all the missives that came before. There was the usual collection of classified ones, natch, but by this point it just seems to be assumed that such a significant portion of her communications never should have left the government firewall that it’s almost becoming a non-story. There were a couple of other subjects, however, which caught the attention of...

Let's dispel the notion that Marco Rubio did not know who he was talking to. When Rubio walked into the lobby of the Columbia Hampton Inn this morning -- conveniently the same one where the Daily Pennsylvanian staffers are posting up in South Carolina and were eating breakfast around 10:30 a.m. -- he was presumably not expecting to run into Rafael Cruz, father of presidential candidate Ted Cruz, and Cruz campaign staffer Christian Collins. However, once he saw them he decided to have some fun with them."Got a good book there," Rubio said to Collins, a young Cruz staffer in...

One of the two Virginia Tech students facing charges in connection with the alleged abduction and fatal stabbing of a 13-year-old girl had her bond request denied today as investigators said she admitted to planning the alleged murder. Natalie Keepers, 19, broke down on the stand today in court as prosecutors detailed what she told investigators. "I was excited to be part of something secretive and special," Keepers told FBI investigators, according to commonwealth prosecutor Mary Pettitt. Keepers told police she bought a shovel with David Eisenhauer, the other Virginia Tech student who has been arrested in the case, before...

Natalie Marie Keepers was denied bond on Thursday as prosecutors presented evidence that she plotted to kill and hide the body of 13-year-old Nicole Lovell. Virginia Tech students Keepers, 19, and David Eisenhauer, 18, worked together to draw up a sophisticated plan to kill Nicole Lovell, prosecutors said.They bought a shovel, picked out a location together in a calculated move, Montgomery County Commonwealth's Attorney Mary Pettitt said during the hearing. The plan was for Eisenhauer, charged with Lovell's abduction and murder, to lure Lovell out of the home on the guise of the date. They would take her to the...

EXCLUSIVE DETAILS NICOLE LOVELL MURDER February 3, 2016 Positiv Press REPOST to all news agency Facebook pages Law enforcement sources NOT authorized to speak with journalists, have elected to share select portions of the kidnapping and murder investigation of 13 year old Nicole Lovell of Blacksburg. Other sources with very intimate knowledge of the ongoing investigation, have also shared with Positiv Press in some cases, a virtual 'play by play' of how Lovell came to know 18 year old Virginia Tech freshman David Eisenhauer of Columbia, Md. Law enforcement, including the local Commonwealth Attorney, have declined to speak about how...

<p>BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- A 13-year-old girl who vanished from her bedroom was stabbed to death by a Virginia Tech student, and another freshman already charged with hiding the body was more deeply involved, authorities said Tuesday. A neighbor said the seventh-grader told friends she would sneak out to meet her "boyfriend" David, an 18-year-old she met online through the Kik messaging app.</p>

A 13-year-old girl allegedly abducted and killed by two Virginia Tech students was stabbed to death, according to preliminary results, Montgomery County Commonwealth’s Attorney Mary Pettitt said at a news conference today. A formal report of the cause of death has not yet been completed, Pettitt said. CW Attorney: Natalie Keepers will be charged with accessory before the fact, in addition to current charges in death of 13 y/o Nicole Lovell, 13, of Blacksburg, Virginia -- the city where Virginia Tech is located -- went missing Jan. 27, the Blacksburg Police Department said. Her body was found on Saturday in...

The Virginia Tech student charged with killing teen Nicole Madison Lovell knew the girl and an investigation shows that he used that relationship to abduct her before disposing of her body with the assistance of another Tech student, police said Sunday. Blacksburg police announced the second Tech student’s arrest, one day after Tech freshman David Edmond Eisenhauer, 18, of Columbia, Maryland, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder and abduction. Lovell’s remains were discovered Saturday in Surry County, North Carolina. The second Tech student, Natalie Marie Keepers, 19, of Laurel, Maryland, was arrested Sunday morning and faces a felony charge...

Here is a quick timeline of what occurred around the time of the video: Video recording started at 08:41:35 a.m. (EST) February 1, 2003... Video ends at 08:48:14 a.m. Shuttle is moving at mach 24.66 (18,771 mph) at an altitude of 230,348 ft. The first indication that something is wrong occurs at 08:48:39 a.m ( 25 seconds after video ends ) when one of the Strain (correlates to force) gauge sensors on the left wing Fails (this is close to where a piece of foam had hit the space shuttle during launch) Followed by the first sign of unusual Heating...

Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion (GRAPHIC)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – As families of the lost Challenger astronauts gather with NASA to mark the space shuttle accident's 30th anniversary, there's a new voice to address the crowd. June Scobee Rodgers -- widow of Challenger commander Dick Scobee and longtime spokeswoman for the group -- is passing the torch to daughter Kathie Scobee Fulgham. [....] The event will honor the Columbia Seven as well, along with the three Apollo 1 astronauts killed during a launch pad test on Jan. 27, 1967. NASA also plans observances at Arlington National cemetery, Johnson Space Center in Houston and elsewhere.