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The Obama administration has concluded that Syrian President Bashar Assad's government used chemical weapons against the rebels seeking to overthrow him and, in a major policy shift, President Obama has decided to supply military support to the rebels, the White House announced Thursday. "The president has made a decision about providing more support to the opposition that will involve providing direct support to the [Supreme Military Council]. That includes military support," Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communication Ben Rhodes told reporters. Focus on political resolution in Syria, says Sen. Reed President Obama has repeatedly said that the use of...

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s “Mayors Against Illegal Guns” organization was revealed last fall to include a long list of mayors who, because of their convictions, were no longer eligible to own weapons themselves. Now another embarrassment has surfaced for the organization. According to a report from the Second Amendment Foundation, Mayor James Schiliro, of Marcus Hook, Pa., now is facing a long list of charges for allegedly trying to force an underage boy to perform sex acts – and then firing one of three handguns he grabbed at a wall when the boy refused. “Mayor Schiliro is one more...

Paedophile MP Cyril Smith was in league with another appalling child sex abuser who set up satanic rituals and raped children as young as TWO, the Sunday People has discovered. Victim Michael Roberts, 40, today bravely puts aside his right to ­anonymity to tell for the first time how he was only six when he was sexually abused by 29-stone politician Smith. And shockingly he has revealed his devil-worshipping stepdad Michael Horgan organised the horrendous ordeal. Horgan made a deal with the man who went on to be knighted after years as a ­respected Member of Parliament...

First Paul Ryan, now Conservative hero John Bolton? Something’s happening in Pennsylvania … You’re Invited to a Town Hall Event with Ambassador John Bolton, Former US Ambassador to the United Nations When: Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012 Doors Open 7:00 PM | Event Begins 8:00 PM Where: Rashid Auditorium, 4th Floor, Hillman Center for Future-Generation Technologies, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue in Pittsburgh, PA 15213 To register for the event, click here. For questions, contact us at: TeamPA@mittromney.com | (717) 746-8098 For Important Campaign Updates: Text (PA) to GOMITT (466488)

Woody Island is a speck of land in the middle of the South China Sea, not quite a square mile in size. Over the past 80 years it has been occupied by French Indochina, Imperial Japan, the Republic of China, the People’s Republic of China, South Vietnam, and, after a brief war in 1974, the People’s Republic again. Now known as Yongxing to the Chinese (or Phu Lam to the Vietnamese, who still lay claim to it), the island has an airstrip, a harbor, and a few hundred Chinese residents, none native-born, many of whom make their living as fishermen....

CRYSTAL, Minn. - A 44-year-old Minneapolis man faces multiple charges after he tried to contact members of the Crystal Little League via Facebook, according to the Crystal Police Department. "I was on my son's facebook and noticed a message from this person," said Marcie, a mother of a little leauge ballplayer in Crystal. "He had sent my son a message asking to go to a movie at the Mall of America." It was Marcie that helped tip off police. On Monday, Marcie, along with the league's safety officer reached out to police after noticeing the same man had contacted...

Police say they arrested 66-year-old Larry Brinkin, the high-profile gay activist, on possession of child pornography on Friday night.

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I’ll bet you’ve never personally performed open heart surgery. You haven’t? Really? In that case, I don’t want your stinkin’ opinion on how the government should best distort the health insurance markets with artificial incentives. You probably also haven’t dropped acid in the last ten years. Given that painful deficiency on your CV, I don’t want to hear any of your sanctimonious blithering about The War on Drugs. I assume, furthermore, that you’ve never been behind enemy lines, staggering home through the bad guys’ wire with your small intestine in one your canteen cups.* If such is the case; then...

ROME (Reuters) - At least 40 civilians have been killed in air strikes by Western forces on Tripoli, the top Vatican official in the Libyan capital told a Catholic news agency on Thursday, quoting witnesses. "The so-called humanitarian raids have killed dozens of civilian victims in some neighborhoods of Tripoli," said Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli, the Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli. "I have collected several witness accounts from reliable people. In particular, in the Buslim neighborhood, due to the bombardments, a civilian building collapsed, causing the death of 40 people," he told Fides, the news agency of the Vatican missionary arm. Libyan...

A just-released biography of King Carl Gustaf – The Unwilling Monarach – claims that he "frequently visited Mafia-run nightclubs to partake in wild orgies when he was a younger man" as reported by Gavin Reilly for The Journal. Good thing no U.S. politicians ever subjected themselves to black mail by attending Mafia-linked sex clubs, right? Although, in 1975 the NYDA and NYPD initiated an investigation dubbed Operation Together which, among other things, was looking into mob control over gay bars, several murders of gay club owners, drug trafficking at gay bars, and underage boy sex rings, and just as law...

The Catholic Church was criticised in court as a paedophile former priest was jailed for a campaign of sexually abuse against young boys that spanned four decades. James Robinson, 73, who fled to the US in 1985, was found guilty of 21 sexual offences at Birmingham Crown Court yesterday after being extradited from America. The jury heard he carried out a string of abuses against six victims, including two altar boys, between 1959 and 1983. Robinson, who worked in the Black Country, Staffordshire, Birmingham and Coventry after being ordained as a priest in 1971, denied all the charges but was...

Six men who alleged they were sexually abused by an Oregon Boy Scouts leader in the 1980s have settled their lawsuits against the group's national organization for undisclosed amounts, the plaintiffs' attorney said Wednesday. The settlements include the case of one man, Kerry Lewis, who was awarded nearly $20 million in damages from Boys Scouts of America in a trial that ended in April. It was believed to be the largest such award against the national organization. A jury found the Texas-based group negligent for allowing a former assistant scoutmaster, Timur Dykes, to associate with Scouts after he admitted to...

UPPER PROVIDENCE — First-grade teacher and day camp director David Devine will be released on bail once electronic home monitoring is set up at his mother’s Chester Heights home. Devine, 34, who is suspended from his teaching position with the West Chester Area School District, on Tuesday waived his preliminary hearing on 500 counts of possession of child pornography and one count of criminal use of a communication facility. District Judge Nicholas Lippincott reduced Devine’s bail to 10 percent of $50,000, with conditions. Although a resident of Media, Devine must stay with his mother in Chester Heights because Devine’s home...

On July 15, 2010, Democrat Charles Rangle introduced a piece of legislation into Congress that would basically reinstate the draft (compulsory military service). H.R. 5741 will give the President of the United States the power to require all American citizens between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform either military service or civilian service in the interests of "national defense and homeland security." It would also give him the power to require citizens to join the military during wartime to meet the manpower needs of the military. In February 2009, President Barack Obama asked Congress to send him a...

A 54-year-old Vancouver man has been arrested for allegedly assaulting a 15-year-old North Vancouver youth after using a new mobile GPS technology designed to help gay men hook up. Brent Tynan, 54, of Vancouver, faces charges of sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching and sexual assault, RCMP Cpl. Marlene Morton said in a press release. Police said the 15-year-old youth said he met the suspect through an application called Grindr, a social networking tool that connects users to gay and bisexual men who are nearby, Morton said. The application works on mobile devices that have a built-in GPS function to...

President Obama is resisting pressure from the Nato commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, for a rapid troop increase and shift away from judging success in the war by the numbers of Taliban killed, following the leak of a confidential 66-page report from McChrystal to the Pentagon. The report says "success demands a comprehensive counter-insurgency campaign" that shifts the emphasis to protecting and winning support from ordinary Afghans so as not to be seen as an occupying army. But the general warns that Nato forces must be prepared for an escalating rate of casualties as they take greater risks to...

DAYTONA BEACH -- The men's restroom on the second floor of the Volusia Mall Sears is no place for children, police said Wednesday with the release of surveillance photos of a man believed to have made sexual advances toward a 13-year-old boy. "Our biggest fear is children going into these bathrooms, especially with these predators circling around," Police Chief Mike Chitwood said. "It was just a matter of time before something like this was going to happen." The boy, visiting from Illinois with his godparents, was propositioned two weeks ago in the restroom, Chitwood said. The man was in a...

U.S. President Barack Obama says he is determined to halt piracy in the shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia. Mr. Obama spoke one day after the dramatic rescue of an American cargo ship captain who had been held hostage by the pirates since last week. President Barack Obama (left), with Vice President Joe Biden, says the U.S. will seek to halt the increasing threat of piracy off the Horn of Africa, 13 Apr 2009 President Barack Obama (left), with Vice President Joe Biden, says the U.S. will seek to halt the increasing threat of piracy off the Horn of...