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A 16-year-old boy was one of two people shot dead and a 9-year-old boy riding in a car with his mother was among seven others wounded in separate shootings Wednesday on the city's South and Far South Sides. About 6:30 p.m., two boys, ages 16 and 15, were shot on the 5100 block of South Washtenaw Avenue in the Gage Park neighborhood, police Officer Amina Greer said.

President Barack Obama and members of his administration are holding a day-long mental health conference Monday at the White House--and they have asked Hollywood to help lend some star power. Actors Bradley Cooper and Glenn Close are among those invited to participate in the meeting, which features a panel on negative attitudes toward mental illness moderated by Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius, a panel on mental health outreach moderated by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and opening remarks from the president and closing remarks from Vice President Joe Biden, Cooper and Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki. Close in 2009 co-founded...

Three killed Sunday after three were killed Saturday. One of the wounded includes an 11-year-old girl who will never walk again.Violence surged like the mercury Sunday, with three more fatalities from gun violence — and eight others wounded in shootings — bringing the total number of bullet-riddled in the city to 25 in less than 48 hours. LINK

The ACLU got this much right: Urban Beach Week is a black thing. Most reporters call it “Urban Beach Week.” But others – especially those in attendance at the annual Memorial Day celebration of violence, lawlessness, drugs and everything hip hop – know it as Black Beach Week. The website BlackBeachWeek.com said 450,000 black people will be in Miami Beach this weekend for a “takeover.” Residents of Miami Beach hate it. Especially after the debacle of 2011. Some local reaction: Antonino Lopez told CBS news in Miami the gathering ruins his town: “It shows our city as nothing short of...

As I begin this post, please understand something. I am not an expert on the different sects of Muslims that live in Muslim countries. I have no inside knowledge or great revelation as to why they so easily resort to violence to address their grievances against each other. Having said that, no expert knowledge is needed to see what is right in front of our faces. Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims do not get along and their preferred method of resolution is to kill each other. That's what we are seeing in Baghdad. According to the reports I have read, almost...

BOERNE, Texas (AP) — A South Texas police officer has been put on administrative leave after being charged with shooting an arrow into a neighbor’s cat. Police in Boerne say Officer Lance Deleon was not on duty when the cat named Bobby was wounded. Police Chief Jim Kohler says the cat was shot using a crossbow. [snip]

No one saw the sign that said, “No White People Allowed After Dark.” Maybe because it was dark. Or maybe it did not exist. So when a white family pulled into a Baton Rouge gas station in a black neighborhood 10 p.m. Sunday night after a Mother’s Day celebration, they had no idea they were in danger. But they were. Donald Dickerson, a black man, told them so, right before the assault began that would leave the father with a broken face, the mother unconscious, and the daughter badly bruised. All because they were the wrong color in the wrong...

Joe Biden endorses a tax on blood and goreTaking legal advice from Joe Biden is dangerous, like taking his tips on home defense. The vice president who urges the ladies to deal with intruders by firing a shotgun at the dark now says there’s no “legal problem” with imposing a violence tax on movies and video games. Mr. Biden endorsed the idea, proposed by the Rev. Franklin Graham at a White House meeting to plot strategy for enacting the president’s gun legislation. A sin tax would be imposed on video games such as “Call of Duty” and movies such “Django...

The New Orleans Police Department released a surveillance video of one of the suspects in the Mother's Day shooting that left 19 wounded, according to the NOPD. Gunfire erupted in the Seventh Ward neighborhood Sunday afternoon, police said.

Supply-siders, led by Arthur Laffer, have made the case that taxes affect behavior — a proposition rejected by the Obama Administration until now. In a closed-door meeting at the White House, Vice-President Biden endorsed a new tax on violence, a move that would force film producers, writers and software developers to reconsider the material they are creating. In essence, Mr. Biden is conceding that a higher tax would impede development and encourage creators to move their energies toward other endeavors. According to participants in the meeting, the vice president endorsed evangelical preacher Franklin Graham’s proposal to tax movies, books and...

Six months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, just 25 percent of Americans said Islam is more likely to encourage violence than other religions. That number has climbed to 42 percent, according to a new poll released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. The survey, conducted after the Boston bombings, found that opinions have not changed much as a result of those attacks. In March, 40 percent of Americans said Islam is more violent, 42 percent disagreed.

When a black mob attacked two reporters in Norfolk, Va., last year, the editor of the Virginian-Pilot newspaper said it was just a “street altercation” and he had no proof of racial motivation. But even the most diehard denier of the epidemic of black mob violence around the country will find this case difficult to explain away: Three white men in Georgia were allegedly robbed and assaulted and almost killed in April by a group of black people, all because of the color of their skin. At least that is what the victims told the local sheriff. Most examples of...

That's Enough: Two Schools On The Hiring BLACKLIST I'm done. I may never create another business and hire another person due to the insanity of our government and its policy of destroying my incentives to do so (despite having several buildable ideas that I could turn into businesses right now) but I have a very long memory, and it's near-photographic. This much I promise -- there are two school districts that have, as of this morning, had their diplomas turned into toilet paper. The same applies to any employee of said schools and the entire school board -- if you...

Police arrested more than a dozen people and used flash-bang grenades and pepper spray after apparent anarchists and May Day marchers converged in downtown Seattle, throwing pipes, fireworks and rocks, lighting flares and sparking confrontations with officers. Protesters met at Seattle Central Community College at the busy intersection of Broadway and Pine Street and then spilled into the street, blocking traffic.

Domestic violence is not one-sided, Professor Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire told Arutz Sheva on Monday. Straus participated at the two-day conference entitled "Violence, Conflicts and Unity in Family Context: A Reappraisal of Therapeutic and Judicial Doctrines." The conference is being held at the Ariel University. Video “The bottom line is that in domestic violence, about the same percentage of women assault their partners as men,” he said. “Women are more often injured, but that doesn’t change the fact that women attack as often as men.” Prof. Straus admitted that he’s been censored in the past for...

America should tax movies and games that glorify guns as one way to fight gun violence, says the Rev. Franklin Graham. “How much violence as a nation are we willing to accept?” Graham asked Wednesday in York. “We tax cigarettes, we can tax violence.” Graham was at Bethelwoods Camp and Conference Center in York for Samaritan’s Purse disaster relief training. The six-day session is to help relief workers improve their response skills. The training is as realistic as possible, Graham said, with people screaming and hollering. “We bring as much distraction as you can get. You literally have guts in...

Often, we pray for goodness in the world but usually do so off the cuff, quickly, and in an all too generic way. We pray for the end of conflict. We pray for reconciliation. We pray for peace. But when it comes to terrorism, we need also to pray that evil, occult tendencies, and arrogance be purged from religions that spawn vehemence and destruction. The Church militant must rise when his faith is under attack, and the Church militant not only prays for a shield but also actively seeks (in prayer) to "deliver us from the evil one."

When a group of black men were planning a home-invasion robbery in Fayetteville, N.C., on Friday, they stuck to an M.O. that had succeeded all over the country, but made one fatal error: They chose the wrong home. The residents of the targeted house were home at the time and armed. After what local authorities report as a “gun battle,” two of alleged robbers died. Most home invasion robberies follow the same script: Find a residence in a nice neighborhood where people do not live too close together. Statistics show potential victims are likely white or Asian, though professional athletes...

First lady Michelle Obama brought her message against youth violence to Chicago today, appearing at a luncheon with the mayor and civic leaders and then visiting Harper High School, whose students have often been casualties of gunfire. Attending the luncheon were the parents of slain 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, whose funeral Obama attended in February. "This is personal," said Obama, as she told the story of growing up in Chicago's South Shore community. "Hadiya's family did everything right, but she still didn't have a chance."

All they have left is violence. A political scientist one concluded that elites maintain power using propaganda, economic disincentives and violence. In America, propaganda has become ineffective and economic disincentives have been stretched to the point of whipping dead workhorses. If those primary tools of controlling to populace fade further, the elites will use violence because they are unwilling to lose control. First, let’s establish who are the elites. Columnist and television titilator John Stossel indicates the elites live around Washington D.C. as indicated by a large cluster of top 1% wealthiest counties surrounding the asylum. Since power (government) controls...

The powerful editorial board of the Chicago Sun-Times has thought long and hard about the epidemic of black mob lawlessness in the Windy City. And one editorial board member has come up with a new way to stop the hyper-violence and killing: Take away their Facebook accounts. Mary Mitchell’s call for a Facebook crackdown breaks other new ground as well: She acknowledges the mobs are black. So she got that much right. Even if it is the official policy of the rest of the paper to ignore – or even deny – the racial component of mob violence. This, of...

A family's criticism of inflight entertainment allegedly prompted a United flight to be diverted over "security concerns." In a story published in The Atlantic, one family recounts traveling from Denver to Baltimore with two young sons, ages 4 and 8. During the flight, the PG-13-rated detective film "Alex Cross" was shown on drop-down monitors across the plane. The family worried about their young children seeing inappropriate content in the film. "Alarmed by the opening scenes, we asked two flight attendants if they could turn off the monitor; both claimed it was not possible," the family said, according to The Atlantic....

This is not an April Fools Joke! This is serious! Pass laws requiring that purchasers of violent video games be at least 18 years old, be required to pass a background check and have each violent video game registered with authorities. And anyone who purchases more than 3 violent video games in a 30 day period be subject to a personal interview by authorities.

Almost exactly a year after Chicago's surging homicide rate caught the nation's attention, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy rolled out statistics Monday that showed a dramatic drop in the number of killings. At the same time, they tried to allay safety concerns in the wake of a weekend fight involving more than a dozen young people on the Magnificent Mile.

A 27-year-old woman said she was returning home with her mother Saturday night on the Red Line after a dim sum dinner when a group of girls got on the train at the Monroe station and appeared to want to pick a fight. "This girl started blowing smoke in my face, and she flicked her cigarette ashes at me,'' said the woman, who asked not to be identified. "I said: 'You need to put that out,' and the next thing I know there's all these girls that jumped on top of us.''

"Redford’s next film, due out in American theaters early next month, is a homage to Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground."

<p>The bassist for the Irish rock band Dropkick Murphyshas been caught on camera appearing to beat up a fan he spotted giving the Nazi salute onstage at a recent concert in New York.</p>

The Philadelphia Human Relations Commission has launched an investigation at the request of the mayor after a well-known magazine published an essay that explored perspectives of white citizens on the issue of race relations. Mayor Michael Nutter called on the commission to consider rebuking both Philadelphia Magazine and writer Bob Huber noting that “the First Amendment, like other constitutional rights, is not an unfettered right.” Nutter’s fury was directed at a cover story titled, “Being White in Philly.” The story included conversations with mostly anonymous white residents who detailed race relations in the City of Brotherly Love. “In a city...

The NRA’s initial proposal of armed school guards was met with an irrational chorus of protests. More guns aren’t the answer, was the cry. And the leading crier was the White House’s expert skeet shooter. In a country where law enforcement is heavily armed and gunmen are stopped by gunmen in uniforms, a strange Swedenization had set in. The problem was not the man, it was the gun. Get rid of the guns and you stop the killing. Schools across the country are banning not the gun, but the idea of the gun. It is a conceptual prohibition that is...

Five people were arrested Monday in Ramat Migron after clashes between Jewish youths and Arabs, the Honenu legal rights organization said. Police arrested the youths – three males and two females – after they attempted to protest what they said was an attempt by local Arabs to illicitly encroach on land belonging to the community. The youths said that Arabs from a neighboring village began plowing land that was clearly marked as belonging to Ramat Migron; in addition, they said, it had been made clear to local Arabs what the borders of the community were. However, the Arabs entered the...

Hey everyone - great news! We are all women now! Today, Obama signed into law the Violence against Women Act of 2013. Our leaders opened up the scope of the law thus: (13) CIVIL RIGHTS.— (A) NONDISCRIMINATION.—No person in the United States shall, on the basis of actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity (as defined in paragraph 249(c)(4) of title 18, United States Code), sexual orientation, or disability, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity funded in whole or in part with...

'The Bible' miniseries produced by the History Channel is a disappointment for any family hoping for a new way to share the Bible's stories with their children. 'The Bible' miniseries, not altogether surprising given the History Channel's relentless ratings focus, sensationalizes the Bible's stories. Angel ninjas? Really? The Bible, in addition to being the basis for various religious beliefs, is a fascinating historical conglomeration of stories that can teach us about the customs, times, travails, and conditions of the ancient Middle East that create a social context for modern day news, like the plague of locusts currently hitting Egypt. However...

On Thursday, the House voted to approve the latest incarnation of the Violence Against Women Act. So, it’s a done deal, and it’s not good. Before the vote, national talk radio host Mark Levin, on Wednesday evening, called for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to step down from the position. Cantor is yet another of the “Republicans” who is fighting against the conservatives in Washington. Levin called for Cantor’s ouster from House leadership after Cantor threatened conservatives who had opposed the new version of the Violence Against Women Act, which now awaits the signature of Barack Obama (or whatever his...

Horrific video surfaces of Ford City Mall Riot tied to Mindless Behavior Video surfaced today of a violent riot that broke out following an appearance Saturday at Ford City mall in Chicago by urban boy band Mindless Behavior. According to the Chicago Sun Times initial report damage in the mall was limited to a destroyed planted box. Over fifty squad cars descended on the mall to defuse the situation, leading to twenty arrests. This new video shows the extent of the chaos outside of the mall. Unidentified African American teenagers can be seen flashing gang signs and discussing their dubious...

Let the private sector do the study. Let a bunch of different private-sector researchers do the study so that they can be reviewed by one another, their notes compared, their ideas bounced around. Biden is also either a liar or has been grounded from reading newspapers or news sites, because he also claimed that the NRA doesn’t want such studies to be conducted. Biden might want to tell NRA president Wayne LaPierre that his opinion is not actually his opinion, because Biden’s claim of LaPierre’s beliefs certainly seems to contradict LaPierre’s actual beliefs. Here’s LaPierre himself: “And here’s another dirty...

Public policy is a lot like math: No matter what the problem, the wrong answers are far more numerous than the right ones. This is particularly true on the subject of mass shootings and other firearms violence, which have stimulated a new fervor for barking up the wrong tree. Many liberals think the answer to mass shootings and street crime lies in stricter gun regulation: banning "assault weapons," limiting the capacity of magazines or, in their unrestrained moments, adopting ultra-stringent laws like those in Britain or Australia. But most of these ideas are irrelevant or impossible. Even if the Second...

PLANO (CBS 11 NEWS) – Plano Police and volunteers hit the streets today to alert residents to a string of violent attacks that are targeting Hispanic men. There have been five since October…two of them as late as last week. Neighborhood businesses are participating, posting flyers to raise awareness of the potential danger…while police take a more direct approach. Detective Daniel Caballero and Sergeant Lindy Privett went to Plano markets and bazaars carrying a warning in Spanish….that Hispanic men walking alone have been targeted and violently robbed. Police say there have been five attacks in recent months. A group of...

To reduce the homicides and shootings plaguing Chicago streets, elected officials should consider calling on the state and federal governments for help, even the National Guard if necessary, said a retired Army lieutenant general who spearheaded the military response after Hurricane Katrina. "Just like we do with any disaster. When the tornado comes, or the floods come, the federal government comes in to help," Russel L. Honore said Thursday at a news conference in Chicago. "Let's not let this be about pride. 'We are big ol' Chicago, we are too proud, we can handle this.' Maybe you can't handle it....

Liberals are such hypocrites about violence. When one of their own, Chris Dorner, recently went on a killing spree, many of the left thought he was a rock star. Professor Marc Lamont Hill even went so far as to say he was a kind of superhero.

Missouri House Bill 402 is a major step forward reducing gun violence, domestic violence, and other forms of serious violence. For decades, federal and state policy attempting to impact these growing problems failed because the policies were pointed in the wrong direction. Substance abuse in the family is the leading factor and primary driver of many kinds of gun-related crimes, domestic violence, and other offenses. Substance abuse is tightly bound to domestic violence. Three-quarters of serious domestic violence is associated with substance abuse at the time of violence (Fig 3). This statistic does not include substance abusers who were...

**SNIP** Langevin, who is serving in his seventh term, has invited one of his constituents, Jim Tyrell, to attend the address. Tyrell’s sister, Debbie, was murdered in 2004 during a robbery at a convenience store she owned in Providence, R.I. Langevin is the first quadriplegic to serve in the House. As a 16-year-old, he was injured while working with the Warwick Police Department in a Boy Scout Explorer program when an officer handling a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol thought the chamber was empty, and pulled the trigger. A bullet bounced off a metal locker, striking Langevin in the neck and severing...

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed."- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, 1787 These are eloquent words spoken by as educated of a man as there was at the time. Noah Webster is an American icon, an editor of the Federalist Papers, an eminent author, and an opponent of slavery. He also lived in a different era where different...

While Betanews isn't usually a place for political discourse, I'm going against the grain on this one. It's because I strongly believe the real answer to solving our serious gun crime problem in America rests in something most readers on this site tend to embrace: technology. More specifically, what we refer to as Big Data. I fully believe we have a data problem, not a gun problem. While the debate at large focuses on reaching the same end goal, the fingers point at the wrong solution.

A man accused of brandishing knives outside Buckingham Palace has been charged after being Tasered by police. Police used the stun gun on Talhat Rehman, 54, when he was seen ranting when challenged outside the palace gates on Sunday morning. Mr Rehman, of Lindsay Drive, Harrow, will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court later charged with possessing a bladed weapon in public and affray. The Queen and Prince Philip were at Sandringham at the time. Two knives and a pair of trainers were left inside a police cordon set up around the area. The incident happened at about 11:50 GMT during...

I was banned from Facebook for posting a screenshot of a comment on Facebook where another user hoped someone would shoot and kill my kids with a gun. The person who said it was not banned, but because I shared the lady's name - I was. Facebook is ridiculous.

The White House strongly condemned the wave of violence... President Barack Obama called on Egypt's leaders to declare that violence is totally unacceptable. White House spokesman Jay Carney said Washington welcomed the call of President Mohammed Morsi to hold a national dialogue.

President Barack Obama said if he had a son, he would have to think "long and hard" before he let him play football and suggested he--along with other football fans--watches football against his conscience. "I'm a big football fan, but I have to tell you if I had a son, I'd have to think long and hard before I let him play football," Obama said. In an interview with the left-of-center New Republic, Obama said football will "probably change gradually to try to reduce some of the violence" and that may allow fans to not have to "examine our consciences...

Three men are dead and at least another four wounded from gun violence in the city Friday night and early Saturday morning. The most recent shooting happened about 4 a.m. in the 500 block of West Pershing Road, police said.

At a time when President Obama has announced severe gun control proposals, it might come as a surprise to note that Mahatma Gandhi, one of the greatest champions of non-violence and someone whom the president counts among his personal inspirations, actively campaigned for the right to bear arms during the Indian freedom struggle. Today it is often argued that a large part of the purpose behind the Second Amendment—protection against the prospect of government tyranny—is unjustified or irrelevant. But this argument is strikingly similar to the one advanced by the British colonialists who presented themselves as the redeemers of their...

This infographic is floating around Facebook.And according to PolitiFact (and the FBI) it’s true. Our rulingThe post uses data selectively, ignoring the significant role of handguns in gun violence. But the statistics it mentions are solid. FBI data backs up the Facebook post’s claim that in 2011, more people were murdered with knives, “hands or feet� or “clubs and hammers� than with any type of rifle. We rate the statement True. You can read the whole assessment here.