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Full Headline: Judge REDUCES prison sentence of man who raped 3-year-old while covering her mouth because 'he didn't intend to harm her' A California judge has reduced a child rapist's mandatory 25-year sentence down to only 10 - saying anything longer would be 'cruel and unusual punishment'. Superior Court Judge M. Marc Kelly told an Orange County jury that 20-year-old Kevin Jonas Rojano-Nieto 'did not intend to harm' the three-year-old girl he raped at his family home in June. The judge said that he was sure that although Rojano-Nieto sodomized the girl and covered her mouth so she couldn't scream...

A French television network has been hacked by people claiming allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS) group, the channel's director said Thursday. The hackers briefly cut transmission of 11 channels belonging to TV5 Monde and took over its websites and social media accounts. The channel's director, Yves Bigot, said the attack was continuing Thursday morning. He told RTL radio that the network has restored its signal but can only broadcast recorded programs. He said he was shaken when he saw 11 channels with a black screen "and when we discovered the sense of the message appearing on our social media...

The University of Michigan said late Wednesday that it will show the film "American Sniper" as originally scheduled after a protest by students and staff caused the screening to be scrapped. University Vice President for Student Life E. Royster Harper called the decision to cancel the Friday night showing a "mistake" in a statement. "The initial decision to cancel the movie was not consistent with the high value the University of Michigan places on freedom of expression and our respect for the right of students to make their own choices in such matters," Harper said. "The movie will be shown...

PARIS — An influential European scientific body said on Wednesday that a group of pesticides believed to contribute to mass deaths of honeybees is probably more damaging to ecosystems than previously thought and questioned whether the substances had a place in sustainable agriculture. The finding could have repercussions on both sides of the Atlantic for the companies that produce the chemicals, which are known as neonicotinoids because of their chemical similarity to nicotine. Global sales of the chemicals reach into the billions of dollars. The European Commission in 2013 banned the use of three neonicotinoids — clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam...

The Westboro Baptist Church says it will picket the memorial service of the late Rev. Robert H. Schuller on April 20. The group often protests American soldiers' funerals, and has staged nearly 55,000 protests. In a press release posted to its website, the group says Schuller, a televangelist and author, "should have been hated." "He called himself a Bible preacher; he should have been hated of the world, not loved; and he should have preached about hell," the release reads. The 88-year-old Schuller died Thursday, having been diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2013. He was the host of the "Hour...

A power outage inconvenienced residents in Washington, D.C., and southern Maryland Tuesday.According to The Washington Post, much of the area briefly lost power due to a piece of metal coming apart at a power plant. This outage affected public and private buildings alike, including The White House, the Department of Energy, and the Department of State. Advertisement-content continues below As The Post reports, “a dozen people were trapped in stalled elevators passengers were left searching for exits in darkened underground Metro stations, and a building full of Department Energy employees and the main campus of the University of Maryland closed...

Some of the largest animals to ever walk on Earth were the long-necked, long-tailed dinosaurs known as the sauropods—and the most famous of these giants is probably Brontosaurus, the "thunder lizard." Deeply rooted as this titan is in the popular imagination, however, for more than a century scientists thought it never existed. The first of the Brontosaurus genus was named in 1879 by famed paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh. The specimen still stands on display in the Great Hall of Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History. In 1903, however, paleontologist Elmer Riggs found that Brontosaurus was apparently the same as the...

AT&T settles with FCC over customer data that was stolen from data centers overseas and used to unlock stolen mobile phones. AT&T has reached a $25 million settlement with the Federal Communications Commission over stolen customer data from three international call centers. The data breaches took place at contracted call centers in Mexico, Colombia and the Philippines, and involved the unauthorized disclosure of almost 280,000 U.S. customers' names, full or partial Social Security numbers and unauthorized access to protected account-related data. The FCC said the information obtained from these breaches was used to unlock codes for stolen phones. Workers at...

SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich. (AP) - Crews are working to clear a path through ice on eastern Lake Superior that's left freighters unable to move, including one that had a hole punched in its hull.......The cargo shipping season started last month on the upper Great Lakes.

James Best, best known as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on The Dukes of Hazzard, has died, at age 88. Best was a wonderfully versatile actor within a self-imposed narrow range—a Southerner who could be wily or stupid, sometimes both and a bit more. He was a gifted musician and acting teacher as well as an actor. Born Jewel Franklin Guy in Powderly, Kentucky, Best came by his show business career naturally–his mother was the sister of Ike Everly, the father of the Everly Brothers. Most people know him as Roscoe P. Coltrane, a bumbler who was the butt of jokes...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama vowed on Tuesday to act quickly once he receives a State Department recommendation on whether to remove Cuba from the U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring countries, a remaining obstacle to the restoration of relations between Washington and Havana. With just days to go before a hemispheric summit in Panama where Obama will come face-to-face with Cuban President Raul Castro, he offered no clear sign of how he was leaning or the timeframe for his decision. He ordered the review immediately after announcing a diplomatic breakthrough with Havana on Dec. 17.

CALGARY - This knuckle sandwich wasn't on the menu. Rocker Marilyn Manson reportedly received a Grand Slam of a different kind while visiting a southern Alberta Denny's over the weekend when he was punched in the face by another patron. And contrary to media reports, the punch was unprovoked, said Johnny Scott, one of a handful of fans who were in Lethbridge, Alta., restaurant, located 210 km south of Calgary. Manson arrived around 2:30 a.m. with a small group of people, including security and a driver, Scott said. The punch happened after a girl called her boyfriend over to take...

Iran Holocaust cartoon contest receives hundreds of submissions • Over 300 artists from Iran and countries such as France, China sent in entries for controversial competition Hundreds of people from Iran and around the globe submitted entries for the Islamic Republic's Second International Holocaust Cartoon Contest, a competition official announced Monday. "839 artworks have also been sent to the secretariat, 686 of them have been sent to the cartoon section and 153 more are related to caricature section," Secretary Masud Shojaei-Tabatabaii told the semi-official Fars News Agency, marking the second time since 2006 that the country has held the controversial...

WASHINGTON - Power outages left many wondering who turned out the lights in D.C. on Tuesday-- including OprahWinfrey. The power went off at D.C.'s Warner Theatre, right in the middle of Ms. Winfrey's speech honoring Maya Angelou. Winfrey was part of the dedication ceremony of a new U.S. Postal Service Forever Stamp that honors Angelou. "I am honored to be here to stand her as her daughter, sister-friend at the unveiling of the Maya Forever-- FOREVER-- stamp," Winfrey said, and then the lights went out.

President Obama appeared set to go after his political opponents on Tuesday during an Easter Prayer Breakfast, but he stopped himself before veering further off script. “On Easter, I do reflect on the fact that, as a Christian, I am supposed to love,” the president said during the breakfast at the White House. “And I have to say that, sometimes when I listen to other less-than-loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned.” Obama paused, then remarked “that’s a topic for another day,” sparking laughter from the audience gathered in the East Room.

Officials within the UN are pushing the notion that the human population should be reduced in order to effectively combat climate change. The long standing notion has been continually pushed by Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). In 2013, Figueres had a conversation with Climate One founder Greg Dalton regarding “fertility rates in population,” as a contributor to climate change. The comments are made at 4.20 into the following video: Climate One Interview

Jenny Wallenda, 87, the matriarch of the famous family of high-flying circus performers, died late Saturday at her home in Sarasota, Florida, according to family members. Wallenda's nephew, Rick Wallenda, said his aunt died following a lengthy illness. "She had a great life in entertainment, a very rewarding and rich life," he said. Wallenda was the oldest daughter of high wire walker Karl Wallenda and grandmother of daredevil performer Nik Wallenda.

Following the media blitz Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began in the United States this week against the framework nuclear agreement between Iran and the world powers, the White House on Monday responded with a counter-campaign with messages aimed at calming the Israeli public. Ben Rhodes, the U.S. deputy national security adviser for strategic communication told all three Israeli television stations in interviews broadcast synchronously that if Iran were to breach the agreement, President Barack Obama would consider all of the options for response – including military action. "If Iran violates all options are on the table," Rhodes said. "The president,...

CAMBRIDGE (CBS) — A group of Harvard University graduate students are looking to unionize, according to one report. The Harvard Crimson reports that some graduate students are in the early stages of forming a union, and advocates say it’ll put students in a better position to negotiate with the university. Organizers of the budding movement told The Crimson that they’d be focused on health care, housing problems and issues important to teaching fellows.

Scientists Confirm Institute of Medicine Recommendation for Vitamin D Intake Was Miscalculated and Is Far Too Low Released: 17-Mar-2015 10:05 AM EDTSource Newsroom: Creighton University more news from this source Contact InformationAvailable for logged-in reporters onlyCitationsNutrients 2014Newswise — SAN DIEGO, CA (March 16, 2015) - Researchers at UC San Diego and Creighton University have challenged the intake of vitamin D recommended by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Institute of Medicine (IOM), stating that their Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for vitamin D underestimates the need by a factor of ten.In a letter1 published last week in the journal Nutrients...