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SYDNEY (AP) — Five people escaped from a Sydney cafe where a gunman took an unknown number of hostages during Monday morning rush hour. Two people inside the cafe earlier held up a flag with an Islamic declaration of faith that has often been used by extremists, raising fears that a terrorist incident was playing out in the heart of Australia's biggest city. The first three people ran out of the Lindt Chocolat Cafe in downtown Sydney six hours into the hostage crisis, and two women sprinted from a fire exit into the arms of waiting police shortly afterward. Both...

Formerly the "Fans of Quinn and Rose Discussion" thread, our group been meeting here since 2008. We still hold out hope that our favorite talk show hosts will come back on the air but, whether they do or not, our friendly group will still meet to start the day. So if you are preparing to go to work, are getting home from work - or happily retired - stop in and say mornin' and share the latest news, discuss the weather, share a recipe, or whatever!

St. Joseph's Christmas Mass Spectacular features Pastor Pat (Bobby Moynihan), organist Linda Tayhoe (Kate McKinnon) and all 44 verses of "O Come All Ye Faithful."

he unidentified gunman has forced hostages to call him "The Brother" and demanded a flag of the Islamic State terror group in return for the release of a hostage. He has also demanded to speak directly with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

In Tacna, Arizona, I saw this fellow openly carrying what appears to be a stainless Colt Mustang in .380.  I asked, and he said that he had served in the Marine Corps, as indicated by the tattoo.  He was driving the four-wheeler, which can be licensed for dual use, on and off road, in Arizona, a capability not available in many Eastern states.  Notice the folding, lockback pocket knife clipped in his front right pocket for ease of access, one handed opening, and safe use while the blade is locked. It is a snapshot of freedom that has been...

To hell with the independents. That’s not usually the animating principle of a presidential campaign, but for Ted Cruz’s, it just might be. His strategists aren’t planning to make a big play for so-called independent voters in the general election if Cruz wins the Republican nomination. According to several of the senator’s top advisers, Cruz sees a path to victory that relies instead on increasing conservative turnout; attracting votes from groups — including Jews, Hispanics, and Millennials — that have tended to favor Democrats; and, in the words of one Cruz strategist, “not getting killed with independents.” Twenty-three months from...

State Sen.-elect Lois Kolkhorst, laying out her priorities since winning a promotion to the upper chamber, said Wednesday she anticipates a “big revamp or repeal” of the Texas law allowing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants — a move that has the blessing of Gov.-elect Greg Abbott. (SNIP) While Patrick has vowed to repeal the DREAM Act, Abbott’s position has been less straightforward. During his second gubernatorial debate with Democratic opponent Wendy Davis, he said he would not veto a repeal of the law if it came to his desk. His campaign has previously expressed a need to reform the measure...

Copies of a highly critical book land in the private, inaccessible mailboxes of all Members of European Parliament The last time Lithuania’s leader, Dalia Grybauskaite, talked to Vladimir Putin personally was in 2010, when he was still Prime Minister of the Russian government. But Ms Grybauskaite, the president of this small Baltic country of 3 million people, has been talking about him all the time since. And now, she is in trouble. It all started with an interview she gave to the Washington Post (Sept. 24) in which Ms Grybauskaite said that Russia is allowed by “Europe and the world...

Stockholm (AFP) - Sales by Russian arms manufacturers continue to expand thanks to Moscow's investments despite a downturn in global defence spending, a Stockholm-based think-tank said Monday. "The remarkable increases in Russian companies' arms sales in both 2012 and 2013 are in large part due to uninterrupted investments in military procurement by the Russian government during the 2000s," said Siemon Wezeman, senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Sales by Russian-based arms firms grew by 20 percent in 2013, according to SIPRI. However, figures for the 100 biggest arms-dealing nations excluding China declined for the third year...

"Long depicted as the rootin'-tootin' capital of American gun culture, Texas is one of the few states with an outright ban on the open carry of handguns. That could change in 2015, with the Republican-dominated Legislature and Gov.-elect Greg Abbott expected to push for expanded gun rights. 'If open carry is good enough for Massachusetts, it's good enough for the state of Texas' Abbott said the day after his election last month."

LOS ANGELES — They pushed strollers, tugged toddlers and streamed into the convention center in the heart of this city on Sunday, thousands of immigrants here illegally and anxious to find out if they could gain protection from deportation under executive actions by President Obama. The crowd, waiting in a long snaking line to check in, was drawn by an information session organized by advocacy groups offering people initial assessments to see if they meet the requirements to apply to stay in the country and work. The day became a kind of coming-out party for about 5,000 unauthorized immigrants, the...

CINCINNATI, OH (FOX19) - Orlando Lowery was in court this weekend for allegedly painting his .380 caliber semi-automatic handgun to look like a toy. Lowery, 23, was arrested in the 9500 block of Wayne Avenue where officials found him armed with the gun. Officials believe Lowery purposefully painted the gun red to mislead law enforcement into thinking it was a toy gun, according to Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Neil. Nine grams of crack cocaine were also found on Lowery, according to police.

A Long Island federal jury rewarded Nancy Genovese, 58, a mother of three, $1.12 million in compensatory damages after being arrested in 2009 for attempting to photograph a helicopter at a Air National Guard base in the Hamptons. Genovese intended to use the photo on a “Support the Troops” website; she was arrested for trespass and insulted as a "Teabagger." From The New York Post: Southhampton cops searched her and found a legally owned rifle that she was transporting from a nearby rifle range. She contends a deputy sheriff arrived on the scene later and said to her, “I bet...

My editor called and said, “Do a column on this Lena Dunham flap!” And I said... Actually, back up. What I did NOT say was, “Who the hell is Lena Dumbwhat?” I’m a 67-year-old guy. I live in rural New Hampshire. I don’t subscribe to US Weekly, assuming that still exists. I watch football, basketball, and hockey on TV and sometimes “The Bass Pros” on Outdoor Channel. The only Lena I know of is Lena Horne, a wonderful performer, who is not involved in any flaps, and who is also dead. But I’m a writer. That is, I was a...

A federal appeals court will reconsider a decision to order YouTube to take down an anti-Muslim film clip that sparked violence in the Middle East and death threats to the actors from those who considered it blasphemous to the Prophet Muhammad. An 11-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena will hear arguments Monday by Google, which owns YouTube, disputing the court’s decision to remove “Innocence of Muslims” from the popular video sharing service. A divided three-judge panel ruled in February that actress Cindy Lee Garcia had a copyright claim to the 2012 video because she...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Long depicted as the rootin'-tootin' capital of American gun culture, Texas is one of the few states with an outright ban on the open carry of handguns. That could change in 2015, with the Republican-dominated Legislature and Gov.-elect Greg Abbott expected to push for expanded gun rights. "If open carry is good enough for Massachusetts, it's good enough for the state of Texas," Abbott said...

My nephew is seeing the Army National Guard recruiter tomorrow. He has some questions and I'm going with him.

Other than the Koch brothers, there is arguably no one outgoing-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid disdains more than the Tea Party. And no one represents the Tea Party in the Senate more than Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Yet, after hours of tedious wrangling, Reid on Friday agreed to allow a vote on a measure from Cruz questioning the constitutionality of President Obama’s executive order on Deferred Action, which does, in effect, grant de facto amnesty to upwards of 5 million illegal aliens. Cruz told Breitbart News that a Senate vote on Obama’s executive action was important for two reasons: “First,...

The second Project 22350 frigate, the Admiral Kasatonov, was set afloat at the Northern Wharf in Russia's northern capital of St. Petersburg in the presence of Russia’s Navy Chief Commander Admiral Viktor Chirkov. “We set afloat a second Project 22350 warship designed for remote sea areas to ensure Russian national interests in any part of oceans in the world. This warship has embodied all thoughts and ideas of our designers and requirements of our fleet,” Chirkov said. He recalled that Admiral Gorshkov, the first warship of the project, is already at sea trials. “I hope that the Northern Fleet will...

In an article for the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, a well-known Canadian bioethicist – Udo Schuklenk – argues that aborting a child after birth is moral. Naturally, Schuklenk draws his own arbitrary lines as to when after-birth abortion is moral. He says that when a baby’s life contains “overwhelming pain and suffering,” it would be a moral choice. Schuklenk thinks that even future overwhelming pain and suffering should be considered, not just what a baby might currently be dealing with. And in a horrifying pro-choice statement, Schuklenk writes: The parents should be able to freely decide on what...