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Report: Bestselling author Tom Clancy died in a hospital in Baltimore on Tuesday, his publisher confirms to @nytimes - @juliebosman— Breaking News (@BreakingNews) October 2, 2013

**Note to the moderators: this is a summary post for a number of stories on this same topic. All cited links below include full original titles. No single story/link was sufficient; trying to also prevent multiple posts. Summary: An Alabama Legislative Conference Committee transformed an 8-page education reform bill into a 27-page "bombshell" bill that has now passed both Houses and awaits the Governor's signature. This new bill includes the following provisions: 1. Parents of children in "chronically failing" schools will be allowed to either (a) move into a different (non-failing) public school; or (b) take 80% of the school's...

[No quote due to Reuters source. Title is accurate representation of article. Please see link.]

There is a Mexican restaurant that outfits its workers in racist, anti-immigrant T-shirts. Thank God this restaurant is in South Carolina, not Alabama. We don't need another hit to our already battered reputation. Taco Cid, located in West Columbia, S.C., is now selling the T-shirts that depict "How to catch an illegal immigrant" and a drawing of the old-style box traps using a couple of tacos as bait. The restaurant's owner, Leanne Snelgrove, in a television interview, is so unaware and disconnected that she argues there is nothing racist or hateful about the T-shirt. A company statement posted on its...

DEVELOPING: Jon Hammar, the U.S. Marine imprisoned in Mexico on a gun charge, will be released today, his mother told Fox News Radio. Olivia Hammar said the judge hearing Hammar's case issued a ruling in his favor and that her son is to be released at a time on Friday yet to be announced. No more details were available. Hammar, 27, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been stuck in a notorious, drug cartel-controlled prison just 15 miles south of the U.S. border since Aug. 13, after he crossed into Mexico and declared an antique shotgun to Mexican customs...

CONCORD, N.C. -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. has a concussion and will sit out the next two Sprint Cup races at Charlotte and Kansas. The injury ends NASCAR's most popular driver's championship chances this season.

This speaks for itself... $35.00: mis-using the US Flag so much more than Sarah Palin was accused of. Available on the official BO fund-raiser website store. Credit to Meterologist Joe Bastardi for a tweet that brought this to my attention. If this is a duplicate (I searched, but there is no title), then we can have the mods remove this.

<p>For the first time in 140 years, Alabama elected a Republican legislature in 2010 with promises to cure the ills created by generations of Democrat rule. Budgets would be fixed, ethics would be addressed, immigration issues would be resolved, and business would begin to move forward again.</p>

<p>A national drug shortage is threatening to disrupt cancer therapy for 24-year-old Tammie Miura and at least 100 Hawaii patients who use the medicine as a main source of treatment.</p> <p>Hospital officials nationwide are fearful that the drug, methotrexate — a crucial medicine in the treatment of childhood cancers — will be exhausted within the next two weeks after a major supplier stopped producing it in November. Hawaii has not yet seen a shortage because local hospitals typically stock up on the drug, though medical providers and patients are worried that could soon change.</p>

Komen for the Cure just released the following statement from Nancy Brinker and the Susan G. Komen Board of Directors: We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women's lives. The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not. Our original desire was...

The pressure on the Susan G. Komen For The Cure Foundation to reverse its decision to cut funding to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings for poor people — a decision which has caused an uproar among women’s groups and on social media — is about to get significantly more intense. Nearly two dozen Senators are set to enter the fray. I’m told that 22 Dem Senators have signed on to a toughly worded letter urging Komen to reverse its decision, which Komen has justified by citing a new rule prohibiting it from funding any group under investigation by the...

"...security researcher Brendan O’Connor is trying a different approach to spy hardware: building a sensor-equipped surveillance-capable computer that’s so cheap it can be sacrificed after one use, with off-the-shelf parts that anyone can buy and assemble for less than fifty dollars. At the Shmoocon security conference Friday in Washington D.C., O’Connor plans to present the F-BOMB, or Falling or Ballistically-launched Object that Makes Backdoors. Built from just the hardware in a commercially-available PogoPlug mini-computer, a few tiny antennae, eight gigabytes of flash memory and some 3D-printed plastic casing, the F-BOMB serves as 3.5 by 4 by 1 inch spy computer....

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal accident investigators recommended states ban the use of cell phones and other electronic devices by all drivers except in emergencies. The National Transportation Safety Board's recommendation followed a finding by the board that the initial collision in a deadly highway pileup in Missouri last year was caused by the inattention of a 19 year-old-pickup driver who sent or received 11 texts in the 11 minutes immediately before the accident. The pickup driver and a 15-year-old student on one of the school buses were killed. Thirty-eight other people were injured. The NTSB's recommendation makes an exception for...

WASHINGTON, DC (R) - In the latest move to control the emission of the greenhouse gas Carbon Dioxide, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it will soon hold hearings on a sweeping set of proposed regulations to phase out the use of CO2 in the soft drink industry. EPA spokeswoman Adora Andy told an ad hoc press gathering Tuesday morning that EPA research has found dangerous levels of CO2 use in common soft drinks, and that the agency will be moving swiftly to meet this challenge. "Of all non-industrial applications, soft drinks by far pose the greatest risk to our...

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- NASCAR on Wednesday announced that it has added a wild-card element to setting the Chase for the Sprint Cup field and it has simplified its points system for 2011, making it easier for fans, competitors and the industry to understand. While the 12-driver Chase field remains intact, the final two spots will be determined by the number of victories during the first 26 races. The top 10 in points following Race No. 26 -- the "cutoff" race -- continue to earn Chase berths. Positions 11 and 12 are "wild-card" qualifiers and will go to non-top-10-ranked drivers...

A Proposal for the 28th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America On the Authority of the Congress and the Presidency Whereas, The foundation and history of this nation is such that all citizens must be treated equally under the law, and The representatives of the people are themselves members of the several states and thus shall not be considered as a separate class of citizenry, and Those elected to federal offices are to conduct the business of the people whom they represent, and The authority of the President of the United States must be balanced with...

DHAKA (Xinhua) - Bangladesh today sought compensation from the developed world for being victim of the adverse impact of climate change. "We're not polluter but we are victim of climate change. We want compensation from the developed nations that are polluting the atmosphere through emission of greenhouse gas," said Bangladesh's State Minister for Foreign Affairs Hasan Mahmud. He said this when meeting with visiting Danish Minister for Climate and Energy Connie Hedegaard who is touring different developing countries vulnerable to the climate change ahead of the UN conference on the climate change to be held in Copenhagen in December this...

NEW YORK -- In a four-day series of daylight raids that ended Sunday, Drug Enforcement Administration agents shut down 26 underground steroid labs and made more than 50 arrests across the country, capping what agents are calling the largest performance-enhancing drug crackdown in U.S. history. The DEA also has identified 37 Chinese factories that purportedly supplied the raw materials for the labs, a DEA spokesman told ESPN. The raids capped an 18-month probe that has netted 124 arrests in 27 states and closed 56 labs. The agency also seized $6.5 million and 532 pounds of raw steroid powder -- 308...

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Staying within 400 points of the lead no longer will be a factor to get in the Chase for the Nextel Cup. A source close to NASCAR said the governing body is finalizing a plan that will allow the top 12 in points in the 10-race playoff with no provision for how many points a driver is from the lead. The top 10 and anybody within 400 points after 26 races qualified for the playoff during the first three years of the Chase. But because the 400-point margin hasn't been a factor -- seven or fewer...

An open letter to the honorable President of the United States, George W. Bush. Mr. President, I'm sorry but I don't like what I'm seeing. You have abandoned your role as the leader of the Free World, and are now cow-towing to those who operate to the winds of political expediency. You, I, and the lampposts all know that, for instance, that investigations by the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission are going to come up with nothing. Been there, done that. You have been acting lately as if someone in your inner circle - Karl Rove? - has...