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A Long Island mother of three arrested for taking pictures of an Air National Guard base in the Hamptons ​– ​while ​armed to the teeth with a licensed assault rifle in her car — has been awarded ​$1.12 million​ by a federal jury over her false prosecution by Suffolk County authorities.

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DONETSK, Ukraine -- The website of the pro-Kyiv authorities in the eastern city of Donetsk features the photographs of dozens of local residents that have disappeared and are believed to be in the custody of the pro-Russian separatists that control parts of southeastern Ukraine around both Donetsk and Luhansk. There are many ways to end up in a separatist jail -- being caught outside after curfew, failure to produce acceptable documents, or simply arousing the suspicion of one of the many masked men patrolling the streets with automatic weapons. And, increasingly, one can end up there as a result of...

enate Majority Leader Harry Reid is keeping senators in Washington for a rare Saturday session—and risking a government shutdown—after he went to extraordinary lengths to block Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) from forcing a vote to block President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty.

Doctors in France will have the right to put terminally-ill patients into a deep sleep until they die, under plans unveiled on Friday that reignited a national debate on euthanasia. Apart from Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland, few countries in the world explicitly permit euthanasia or assisted suicide. In France, a 2005 law permits "passive euthanasia", where a person causes death by withholding or withdrawing treatment that is necessary to maintain life. The proposals by two MPs – one from the ruling Socialists, the other from the opposition UMP – go a step further, as they allow doctors to couple...

He may save your life one day.

More than half of the nation’s school cafeteria workers expect to lose money selling low-salt, low-fat meals pushed by first lady Michelle Obama, a “serious” problem that threatens the programs, according to a survey of food providers.The School Nutrition Association, which is planning to demand changes to the meal requirements to make the food more attractive to students, found that 50.35 percent of cafeteria officials surveyed expect that serving the food will “exceed revenue” next year.“Of the 92 percent of respondents reporting that rising costs pose a ‘serious’ or ‘moderate’ challenge to their programs, 70 percent indicated ‘serious,’” said the...

The suspect is accused of confronting a cashier at a Unocal service station located in the 12000 block of Seal Beach Boulevard shortly before noon Friday.

NOTRE DAME - After hundreds of protests broke out across the country over the case of Eric Garner, the Notre Dame women's basketball team joined in the effort. At Saturday's game against Michigan the team wore shirts that read "I Can't Breathe". The phrase comes from the last thing Garner said before he died. According to our partners at the South Bend Tribune: A Notre Dame spokesperson said the decision to wear the shirts was driven by the players, but that the coaches and administration supported the move.

Muslim Albanians in Kosovo are capturing Christians, dissecting them alive, tearing out their organs, killing the victims, and then selling the organs to Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the two major nations of the Antichrist. We learned this from a local Serbian Christian and veteran Special Forces officer in Serbia’s military, named Lazar. We interviewed him and this is the information he conveyed to us. He said “They also kill people and sell their organs in Turkey and Saudi Arabia.” He then said, They abduct people in Kosovo, Serbian people — in some cases Albanian people — and they take their...

Scalia Challenges Liberals On CIA Torture Debate: ‘You Think It’s An Easy Question?’ By Douglas Ernst December 12, 2014 Supreme CourtJustice Antonin Scalia has waded into the CIA torture debate after Democrats on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on the interrogation techniques used after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Justice Scalia, speaking Wednesday with a Swiss broadcaster on the issue, accused American and European liberals of being unduly self-righteous on the matter given the kind of real-world scenarios that could unfold, The

Their power ebbing, Senate Democrats launched a last-minute drive Saturday to confirm roughly 20 of President Barack Obama’s nominees, and several Republicans blamed tea partyer Ted Cruz for creating an opening for the outgoing majority party to exploit. The weekend session unfolded as measures that could prevent government operating funds from running out at midnight remained in limbo. Even so, there was little apparent concern about a shutdown that Democratic and Republican leaders said they wanted to avoid. Republicans tried to slow the nomination proceedings, but several voiced unhappiness with Cruz, R-Texas. One likened his actions to his role in...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is joining the debate over the Senate's torture report by saying it's hard to rule out the use of extreme measures to extract information if millions of lives were threatened. Scalia told a Swiss broadcast network that American and European liberals who say such tactics may never be used are being self-righteous. The 78-year-old justice said he doesn't "think it's so clear at all," especially if interrogators were trying to find a ticking nuclear bomb. Scalia has made similar comments in the past, but he renewed his remarks on Wednesday in an...

Belgium’s King Philippe, right, and Queen Mathilde throw nuts to the public, during the 70th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, in Bastogne, Belgium, on Saturday. The tradition dates from when the Germans asked for the US surrender in Bastogne, to which General Anthony McAuliffe answered: ‘Nuts!’ Photograph: Yves Logghe/AP Braving snowy weather, Americans and Belgians gathered in the Ardennes on Saturday to mark the 70th anniversary of one of the biggest and bloodiest US battles of the second world war, the Battle of the Bulge. Jean-Claude Klepper, 62, of Virton, Belgium, said “we must never forget what...

"Verdict is in: Pope Francis is a global rockstar," one Twitter post declared. A recent Pew research report recently found that the pontiff had a positive image in much of the world. In his native Argentina, he enjoys a 91 percent favorability rating. This comes a year after his image has graced some very unexpected magazine covers -- Rolling Stone and The Advocate come to mind. But despite all that coverage from the lay press, many people still don't know what to make of Pope Francis. During a recent synod meeting in Rome that centered on the family -- a...

Universal African People's Organization leader Zaki Baruti (left) and African People's Socialist Party leader Omali Yeshitela.Activists connected to the Leadership Coalition for Justice (formerly called the Justice for Mike Brown Leadership Coalition) and the African People’s Socialist Party announced Friday that they are convening a symbolic grand jury in January to decide for themselves whether former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson should be charged with a crime for killing Michael Brown. The group organizing the symbolic grand jury is called the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, a group that seeks to liberate and empower people of African descent around the...

The federal government is financing the creation of robots that can assist the elderly and make sure they are eating healthily.A nearly $800,000 project from the National Science Foundation (NSF) is pairing the University of Pennsylvania with a robot company to create the machines, which will be able to deliver glasses of water to senior citizens.The government said that the project is necessary due to a demographic crisis in America where soon there will not be enough young people to take care of their elders.“This Partnership For Innovation project develops and tests the use of service robots to monitor and...

De Blasio never got permits for new Gracie Mansion fence A new fence around the mayoral residence adds about 4 feet to the barrier already there. Cops tell de Blasio: Stay away from our funerals Mayor de Blasio failed to secure the proper permits to build his “privacy fence” around Gracie Mansion — and the Parks Department is now scrambling to file the paperwork after the fact, City Hall officials admitted Friday. On Thursday, The Post exclusively reported that the mayor ordered the construction of a roughly 10-foot-tall fence inside an existing 6-foot brick wall to keep the public’s prying...

TCM Remembers 2014

This post was produced in partnership with Beacon Reader as part of a crowd-funded reporting project, “After Ebola Comes Hunger.” Read more about our support for this project, and pledge your support here.Two months ago, it felt like America had a serious identity conflation problem. Amid the Ebola hysteria, people confused Ebola-afflicted Africans with any other African. A Nigerian girl was barred from school out of fear of Ebola contagion; a stadium crowd taunted a juvenile soccer player from Africa by braying “Ebola, Ebola!” at him. Meanwhile, the country faced its own dark scourge—and here, the conflation of identity was...