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Gangster, arson-murderer hanged Crime Aug. 29, 2014 - 03:00PM JST ( 16 ) AFP TOKYO — Japan executed a mobster and a killer arsonist on Friday, bringing to 11 the total number of death sentences carried out since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took power in 2012. The executions came days before Abe is expected to reshuffle his cabinet amid speculation that he will appoint a new justice minister, whose approval is needed for any sentence to be carried out. “I ordered the executions after careful consideration,” Justice Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki told reporters

Amidst all the hell breaking loose in Ferguson, here is one more old scab to pick at – immigrant-black tensions in small towns and inner cities. It is a troubling image. The hazy security camera screen captures from the convenience store reinforced those fears. The store clerk was slightly built. Michael Brown, the customer holding him by the collar was a much larger man. Though the storeowner, Andy Patel, later told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch no shoplifting or robbery had occurred in his store, the screen-grab encapsulated a story of suspicion, tension, and conflict. Soon thereafter Michael Brown was gunned...

Three of the 40 members of the California State Senate have been arrested this year, more than double the statewide arrest rate and higher than the rate in any of California's 25 largest cities. State Senator Ron Calderon was arrested in February for allegedly taking bribes. State Senator Leland Yee was arrested in March for allegedly trafficking in firearms and taking bribes. State Senator Ben Hueso was arrested Friday on suspicion of drunk driving charges. A fourth senator, Roderick Wright, was convicted of perjury and voter fraud charges in January but was arrested prior to this year. [SNIP]

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's sister has been arrested for allegedly threatening to bomb a New York City woman. Police say Ailina Tsarnaeva, 24, made the threat via telephone Monday and turned herself in earlier today. She is charged with aggravated harassment targeting a woman from Harlem. Police say the North Bergen, New Jersey, resident is due in court September 30.

Lois Lerner’s Blackberry was intentionally destroyed after Congress had begun its probe into IRS targeting of conservative groups, a senior IRS lawyer acknowledged in a sworn declaration. Thomas Kane, Deputy Assistant Chief Counsel for the IRS, wrote in the declaration, part of a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch against the IRS, that the Blackberry was "removed or wiped clean of any sensitive or proprietary information and removed as scrap for disposal in June 2012." That date - June 2012 - is significant because by that time, ex-IRS official Lerner had already been summoned before congressional staffers who interviewed her about...

<p>These truths will reshape how you think about the Michael Brown shooting.</p> <p>I admit that in a cropped photo it’s hard to distinguish the Gaza Strip from Ferguson, Mo. But the violence that occurred in the St. Louis suburb this month following the shooting of a black teenager by a white police officer isn’t the authoritarian injustice that it has been portrayed to be. It may be hard to hear, but we live quite safely in the United States thanks in large part to our law enforcement system. We experience civil unrest and cruel conflict vicariously, not personally. And our exposure to deadly violence largely comes from the news and entertainment world.</p>

MATT FLEGENHEIMER and J. DAVID GOODMANAUGAugust 26, 2014 A union of New York City police sergeants warned the Democratic National Committee on Tuesday against holding its 2016 convention in Brooklyn, issuing an open letter that doubled as a broadside against a mayoral administration with which some officers have grown increasingly frustrated. In the letter, addressed to the group Mayor Bill de Blasio wooed during its visit to New York two weeks ago, the president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, Edward D. Mullins, said the city was going “backward to the bad old days of high crime, danger-infested public spaces and...

On Monday, Aug. 11, a 20-year-old unarmed white man named Dillon Taylor was shot and killed in Salt Lake City, Utah, by a black police officer in questionable circumstances. Taylor, a first-time father with a criminal record, had at the time of the shooting an outstanding arrest warrant for probation violations on robbery and obstruction of justice charges. Police had been called to a convenience store after someone reported seeing a gun. Taylor’s friends said he was turning his life around, that he had never carried a gun, that he was listening to music on headphones and was shot outside...

After Monday’s bombshell about the federal government’s system-wide email back-up system broke, there was yet another bombshell. The IRS “recycled” — destroyed — Lois Lerner’s hard drive in June 2011, just 10 days after Rep. Dave Camp had sent a letter to the IRS inquiring about the targeting of conservative groups that Lerner knew about and may have orchestrated. The IRS destroyed Lerner’s Blackberry device, too. Even though there is no suggestion that it ever “crashed,” as the agency claims about her hard drive. Even worse, the IRS destroyed Lerner’s Blackberry after it knew of the crash, and while the...

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. - Police filled a downtown Grand Junction neighborhood Monday afternoon after an officer-involved shooting occurred. "A ton of sirens came flying down our streets, about multiple police were down each street," eyewitness Ben Arellano said. Arellano witnessed the whole incident from his house saying he heard allegedly 12 gunshots near 17th and Grand Avenue. "Almost all of Grand Junction police, I felt like, was here at this house, guns drawn. Sadly, someone was on the ground," Arellano said. According to the Grand Junction Police Department, authorities were called to remove a person outside a home. They contacted...

Sheriff Joe Arpaio sent out this bitter attack on Barack Obama this morning. Arpaio accuses Barack Obama of leading an attack on the United States. The popular sheriff says President Obama is “rewarding criminals.” Our country is under attack. And Barack Obama is the aggressor. That’s right. Our own President has overseen the release of thousands of illegal immigrants…hundreds of whom are convicted criminals – even felons, which are flooding into America. Every day you read the newspaper or turn on the news, there is something tragic happening, something Obama says is beyond our control. But I must tell you:...

One organization is working to not only honor the achievements and legacy of the late Michael Brown, but to also help his younger siblings achieve what he didn't have the chance to. Brown, the unarmed black teen who was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, earlier this month, was a recent high school graduate. He was scheduled to start classes at Vatterott College on Aug. 11, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, but was killed two days prior. The Wisconsin Hope Lab -- a program that researches ways to minimize barriers for students of all backgrounds...

As hundreds of Ferguson, Mo., residents attend the funeral of teenager Michael Brown on Monday, the New York Times has come under fire for claiming that Brown, who was shot and killed by a white police officer on Aug. 9, was "no angel." Here's the offending passage: Michael Brown, 18, due to be buried on Monday, was no angel, with public records and interviews with friends and family revealing both problems and promise in his young life. Shortly before his encounter with Officer Wilson, the police say he was caught on a security camera stealing a box of cigars, pushing...

<p>An “active shooter incident” has been reported at the Army base in Fort Lee, Virginia, according to multiple reports.</p>

And yet we keep hearing about Black-on-Black crime because it fits the false media narrative.The truth? As the largest racial group, Whites commit the majority of crimes in America. In particular, Whites are responsible for the vast majority of violent crimes. With respect to aggravated assault, Whites led Blacks 2-1 in arrests; in forcible-rape cases, Whites led all racial and ethnic groups by more than 2-1. And in larceny theft, Whites led Blacks, again, more than 2-1. http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2012/04/whiteonwhite_crime_it_goes_against_the_false_media_narrative.2.html Given this mathematical truth, would anyone encourage African Americans to begin shooting suspicious White males in their neighborhoods for fear that they’ll...

Three men found guilty of murdering innocent mother as she celebrated 24th birthday Sabrina Moss, a nursery schoolteacher, was sheltering from the rain when she gunned down in the street By Alice Philipson 6:49PM BST 18 Aug 2014 Three men have been found guilty of murdering an innocent nursery school as she sheltered from the rain during a night out celebrating her 24th birthday. Sabrina Moss, who had a four-year-old son, was shot in the heart as she became caught up in a bloody drugs turf while standing with a group of about 15 others outside a fast-food restaurant in...

After a man in his 60s was beaten by a group of teenagers in Pat­erson on Wednesday night, a city councilman said it looked like an example of a supposedly trending national game called “knockout.” Fears that the game, blamed for at least one death in New Jersey, had taken root locally were fanned earlier in the week when a lone assailant randomly punched three people in separate incidents in Hackensack. On Thursday, authorities said neither case appeared to fit the criteria to be called the knockout game, which they said typically involves a group of people approaching a victim...

TAVARES — A former Leesburg police officer acquitted Friday of sexually assaulting a woman in his custody had a terse message for the 24-year-old and her family after the verdict: "Move on." People in the courtroom broke into tears when the jury of four women and two men found Henri Bart Larue, 27, not guilty of armed sexual battery by a law-enforcement officer — a crime that could have landed him in prison for life.

When does a moment become a movement? Events such as the killing of unarmed, 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., can provide the moral shock that political movements need to build their ranks and bring attention to a community’s afflictions. They can be like the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 or the beating death of Matthew Shepard in 1998 — transformative episodes that remake perceptions and force a society to abandon abhorrent practices. Or they can be like the 1991 beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers: a horrific moment that failed to create a sustained...

He was a gentle soul. The last video of 18 year-old Michael Brown shows the Normandy High School graduate robbing a local convenience store. On Friday reporter Charles Johnson sued the St. Louis County Court for Michael Brown’s juvenile arrest record. Via Got News: Got News filed a lawsuit against St. Louis County court today to obtain the juvenile arrest records of Michael Brown after the court denied his request. Brown was killed in a controversial altercation with Officer Darren Wilson. Got News editor-in-chief Charles C. Johnson was told by two different law enforcement sources from St. Louis that Brown...