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The death of a 12-year-old Cleveland boy fatally shot by police in November has been formally ruled a homicide, according to a county autopsy report released on Friday that found he was struck once in the abdomen. Tamir Rice, who was black, was shot on Nov. 22 by a white police officer responding to a call of a suspect waving a handgun around in a Cleveland park. The weapon turned out to be a replica that typically fires plastic pellets. The sixth-grader died the next day. The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's autopsy report said Rice sustained a single wound to...

TOMBSTONE – The Tombstone High School Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps Color Guard will be making a national television debut Sunday, Dec. 21, when they present the colors during the Arizona Cardinals football game against the Seattle Seahawks. Retired Chief Warrant Officer 4 Tom Gross, the school’s JROTC senior army instructor learned Monday the color guard had been asked to present the colors. “This is by far the biggest event we have done, as it will be on the national broadcast,” said Gross. The five cadets Gross plans to send are Cadet Sgt. 1st Class Sam Powers, Cadet Sgt. 1st...

B.C.'s Minister of Advanced Education has revoked his consent for the proposed law school at Trinity Western University. . . .The school, which would be built at the university's Langley campus, had become a lightning rod for controversy because of a line in the university’s covenant that requires all students, administrators and faculty to abstain from "sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman."A legal challenged launched against Mr. Virk and TWU by two Canadian law firms said the minister had "created a two-tiered system of legal education" when he granted consent. After some deliberation, the law...

Over the past four years, there’s been a lot of talk about “reinventing” Michigan. Gov. Rick Snyder and this Legislature have made significant strides toward that goal by improving the state’s tax structure, modernizing education policies and beginning to revamp the state’s regulatory regime. On that last item there is more to be done. House Bill 5951 would embrace innovative ride-sharing technologies used by companies such as Uber and Lyft. HB 5951, introduced by Rep. Tim Kelly, R-Saginaw Twp., would create a state-based regulatory framework for these so-called transportation network companies. The version of the bill passed out of a...

Latest News Headlines: (CBS) – A video posted on Facebook is generating hundreds of responses, and it shows at least two young men on a CTA Blue Line train, slapping an older man and taunting him. WBBM’s Steve Miller has spoken with one of those young men about why he did it. The video goes on for more than two minutes. It shows at least two young men, both African American, slapping an older man on top of his head. And then they appear to tease him. It’s been shared dozens of times on Facebook, but originally was posted by...

New York Citi Bike riders are at risk according to a new audit exposing spotty maintenance checks, poor cleanliness and defective docking stations. Comptroller Scott Stringer released his report Thursday looking at if New York City Bike Share, which manages the scheme, is in compliance with its Department of Transport contract. According to maintenance data, only 28per cent of the 6,000 two-wheelers in Manhattan and Brooklyn were inspected in November 2013, 34per cent in December 2013 and 38per cent in January 2014.

(CNN) -- Anthony Weiner thinks Rand Paul is playing it smart. The former Democratic congressman from New York, who resigned in 2011 amid a sexting scandal, offered up some 2016 insight Friday, saying the Kentucky Republican senator is wise to make privacy concerns a big part of his potential presidential platform. "Paul's strategy could put him in a great place in a Republican primary," Weiner wrote in a column for Business Insider. ~snip~ "(Paul's) looking to build a White House bid with his own new age coalition of privacy-concerned, party-non aligned, previously-non voting, SOPA hating, pot tolerant youth," he wrote....

The New York borough of Queens has been given top spot in a list of the best places to visit in the US next year. The sprawling suburb, traditionally off the tourist map, has beaten a host of America's most famous destinations in an annual 'Best in the US' ranking compiled by Lonely Planet. The list praised Queens' microbreweries, beaches, global food offerings and ‘world-class’ art scene.

On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, that state laws establishing separate public schools for Black and white students were unconstitutional, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The 9-0 decision was hailed as a major victory for the civil rights of African-Americans, paving the way for the integration of the nation’s schools. But in retrospect, while there was reason to celebrate the court decision, there were also many things the Black community lost after the Brown decision.

Diane Feinstein's recently released report on controversial CIA interrogation practices indicts, not only the Bush administration, but also all previous administrations going back to the controversial leader of the Franks, Charles Martel, and his victory over the moderate Muslim community at Tours in 732 AD, which can only be described as a gross law enforcement misconduct and hate crime. Citing inside information from medieval Latin and Arabic sources, the report prepared by Feinstein's staffers details a shocking degree of intolerance and Islamophobia on the part of Charles Martel's administration and the army of Franks, who countered the peaceful expansion of...

Girls as young as 12 are getting cosmetic surgery such as butt lifts and nose jobs under the watchful eye of their mothers in a desperate and extreme bid to become beauty queens in Venezuela. In a country obsessed with winning international contests like Miss World and Miss Universe fame-hungry teens are going to shocking lengths to conform to the beauty pageant ideal. They include extreme measures to lose weight, with girls as young as 16 undergoing drastic surgery to cut out part of their intestines so food passes through their body without being digested.

In 2014, Hollywood has embraced telling religious stories on film. No longer, it seems, are religious viewers denied the opportunity to see biblical stories onscreen. In February of this year, Roma Downey and Mark Burnett brought Jesus’ story to the big screen in Son of God. In March, director Darren Aronofsky presented Noah , which— in spite of its narrative flaws— worked as an epic tale. This weekend, Ridley Scott— the newest high-profile director to embrace this trend— offers up a version of Moses’ story in the new drama Exodus: Gods and Kings. Regardless of your religious beliefs, this biblical...

Will the United Nations wield its unproven claim that greenhouse gas emissions cause climate change to require each of its 193 member nations to measure and report GHG emissions — a prerequisite for a global carbon tax? Does it really matter whether next year’s meeting in Paris produces a treaty, or a “soft law” document, or both? Todd Stern, head of the American delegation at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting in Lima, Peru, said the U.S. is “perfectly happy to have an assessment process.” He said this would produce “clear and understandable” Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs)...

Gov. Scott Walker is meeting with Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson Tuesday as he pursues a potential presidential run. Adelson has been a key financial backer for Walker in his last two runs for governor and, if persuaded, could be a source of even greater funds for a White House bid. In the last presidential contest, Adelson, the president of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., and his wife put $30 million into groups backing failed GOP candidate Mitt Romney in the general election and, before that, $20 million into a super PAC that propped up Newt Gingrich's unsuccessful Republican...

The Mail says Young was particularly paranoid about enquiries on his wealth. He had stated that the hunt for the money was driving him crazy, and he had even demanded to be confined for treatment under the Mental Health Act. Although Young's friends have claimed that he would have never committed suicide, Scotland Yard is under pressure to open an inquiry after The Telegraph revealed that four of his friends and business associates have also died in mysterious circumstances in the last four years. The group included the exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who was found hanging in his Surrey house...

“What’s done cannot be undone.” Lady Macbeth Never in living memory has there been such a heartbreaking cultural calamity as that inflicted earlier this week by Greenpeace on the 2,000-year-old Nazca Lines in Peru. The only exception, perhaps, would be the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001. It is poetic therefore, in a morbid sort of way, that both acts of cultural sacrilege were committed by terrorist organizations. The Taliban, of course, are conventional terrorists whose heinous acts of violence have claimed countless lives across the globe. But Greenpeace, by its actions in Nazca, is just...

Bowing her head in shame, a senior Korean Air executive whose 'nut rage' delayed a flight made a grovelling apology for exploding with rage after her snack was served in a bag. Screaming Cho Hyun-ah, a senior vice-president at the airline, angrily demanded the removal of a crew member from a flight for failing to serve nuts in a bowl. She then forced the Incheon-bound flight to taxi back to the terminal at New York's JFK Airport to kick the junior flight attendant off the plane.

With the release of Democrat Senator Diane Feinstein’s report on the CIA’s Enhanced Interrogation program, a forty million dollar joke has been perpetrated on the American people, curtesy of the California senator. As U.S. military bases and diplomatic facilities around the world are placed on high alert for possible attacks by Muslims further inflamed by the declassified details of the report, the costs of Senator Feinstein’s ‘knock knock joke’ will continue to spiral upwards as we’re forced to ramp up additional security precautions to address the threat. Millions more will be spent, and unfortunately lives will probably be lost so...

Ebony Wilkerson to plead not guilty by reason of insanity to three counts of child abuse

The compassion shown by Officer William Stacy to desperate Alabama mother Helen Johnson captured the nation's attention at a time of strained relations between the police and black Americans. Instead of arresting her for stealing five eggs to feed her starving family on Saturday, Stacy bought the carton and the touching hug they shared afterwards caught on video by a stunned passer-by went viral. But it got even better on Wednesday when Officer Stacy and some colleagues arrived at 47-year-old Johnson's home with two truckloads of food to keep her and her children and grandchildren fed through Christmas.