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Deputies shot and killed a white supremacist suspected of shooting a black man to death early Wednesday in South Tacoma...The initial fatal shooting is believed to have stemmed from a fight over a drug deal...

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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!

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday Russia’s economy would rebound after the ruble’s collapse against the dollar but warned that it could take two years for the country to emerge from crisis. Under pressure to show he has a plan to pull Russia out of crisis at his end-of-year news conference, Putin supported the actions of the central bank and government in a crisis he blamed on external factors but said further measures would be required. ......................................................... Putin had been silent as the currency collapsed this week before recovering some ground. A prominent opponent, former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, said...

Families are lining up to make their son the next Michael Brown. Waiting to tell their story of how racist cops killed their child For No Reason Whatsoever. The latest example comes from Philadelphia, where, early Monday morning, police shot Brandon Tate-Brown. The details are familiar enough: the 26-year old Tate-Brown was driving at 3 a.m. without headlights when two officers stopped him. If this stop was anything like most others, then Tate-Brown convinced himself he was being pulled over for one reason only: driving while black. Soon after he got out of the car, a struggle began. That’s how...

Falling Ruble Causes Businessman to Commit Suicide in Moscow Hotel 10:22 17.12.2014(updated 10:40 17.12.2014) Yesterday’s Russian stock exchange panic caused a co-founder of a financial company to kill himself in one of Moscow’s top hotels - Hotel National. MOSCOW, December 17 (Sputnik) — A businessman, who owned a stake in an investment enterprise, committed suicide in Hotel National Moscow yesterday night, having shot himself in the head. Police are investigating the incident. The late Ivan Shervashidze left a suicide note and his last will. According to some reports, he owned a business selling musical instruments and equipment and co-owned a...

Listening to all the stories about Jeb Bush and his angst over the conservative base of the Republican Party, the question occurred: Why doesn’t Jeb ease his conscience and his donors' wallets and just switch parties? Go now, become a Democrat—and then form an alliance with the wife of the man the Bushes affectionately call their “brother from another mother.” That being the woman George W. Bush has dubbed as being “like my sister-in-law”—Hillary Clinton.After all, the Bush/Clinton alliance has already been on display, as I unknowingly noted in this column when Governor Bush presented former-Secretary Clinton with the Constitution...

BERLIN -- A closely watched survey shows that business confidence in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, has risen for the second month in a row as managers' outlook for the next six months brightens. The Ifo institute said Thursday its monthly confidence index rose to 105.5 points from 104.7 in November. The increase was in line with economists' expectations.

The world's oldest water, which is locked deep within the Earth's crust, is present at a far greater volume than was thought, scientists report. The liquid, some of which is billions of years old, is found many kilometres beneath the ground. Researchers estimate there is about 11m cubic kilometres (2.5m cu miles) of it - more water than all the world's rivers, swamps and lakes put together. The study was presented at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. It has also been published in the journal Nature. The team found that the water was reacting with the rock to release...

MIAMI (WSVN) -- Local Cuban exiles in Little Havana Wednesday voiced their thoughts on President Barack Obama's announcement to re-establish relations with Cuba. The commander in chief's abrupt use of U.S. executive authority came after the release of American Alan Gross, who had been held in Cuba for five years, in exchange for three Cubans jailed in Florida. Wednesday afternoon, dozens gathered in front of Versailles restaurant off Southwest Eighth Street as soon as rumors of loosening restrictions surfaced. Cuban coffee was served with a side of political discourse as City of Miami Police officers were present to ensure decorum...

My cell phone has been going off for hours with messages and angry conversations with fellow Cuban-Americans and conservatives in the U.S. I hear this question over and over: what did the U.S. get out of this deal? The answer is nothing, unless you are one of those who believes that the Castro regime is about to reform the economy, allow an independent media, and hold multi-party elections. I have a unique perspective on this issue. I can address it as a Cuban-American and as a U.S. citizen. In other words, I want the best for those on the island...

In response to the total implosion of Rolling Stone's preposterous story about a fraternity gang-rape at the University of Virginia, the media have reverted to their Soviet-style reporting. They're not even saying: We're choosing not to talk about UVA because it's a side show. It's more like: UVA? That's a school? Not only did the UVA gang rape turn out to be a hoax, but then President Obama's own Department of Justice completed a six-year study on college rape, and it turns out that instead of 1-in-5 college coeds being raped, the figure is 0.03-in-5. Less than 1 percent of...

President Obama on Wednesday said he did not believe Americans needed to be concerned by threats issued to movie theaters, even as Sony Pictures made the decision to pull its controversial comedy “The Interview” amid threats of terrorism. “For now, my recommendation would be: Go to the movies,” Obama said Wednesday in an interview with ABC News. The president said his administration was taking very seriously the cyber attack against the movie studio, which unleashed a trove of internal emails and documents, and pledged a thorough federal investigation into the breach. On Wednesday, multiple media outlets citing U.S. intelligence officials...

Some 400 Russian sailors training on a Mistral-class warship France controversially built for their navy will be returning home for an unspecified amount of time, the ship’s French builder has said.

WASHINGTON — At a dinner in one of Fidel Castro’s palaces in 1999, Castro and several of Major League Baseball’s senior executives discussed one of the few bonds between Cuba and the United States: baseball. The executives, including baseball’s commissioner, Bud Selig, were there for an exhibition game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Cuban national team, as part of an effort by President Bill Clinton to thaw relations. As the dinner stretched into the early hours of the morning, Castro regaled Selig with tales from the history of Cuban baseball and fantasized about what would happen if the United...

Cubans in Miami’s Little Havana reacted with anger and dismay to President Barack Obama’s dramatic bid Wednesday to end a half-century Cold War with the communist-ruled island. “It is a betrayal. The talks are only going to benefit Cuba,” said Carlos Munoz Fontanil in Calle Ocho, the heart of an exile community that has long pined for the fall of the Castro regime in Havana. […] An equally outraged Felix Tirse, who arrived from Cuba 53 years ago, said Obama’s announcement showed “a lack of respect.” “He is more communist than others,” he said. …

Just days before he shot to death a 17-year-old German exchange student, Markus Kaarma told hair stylists he had been waiting up to shoot some kids who were burglarizing homes. He told them they would see it on the news. Kaarma hoped to bait an intruder by leaving his garage door partially open and placing a purse inside, prosecutors said. And when he did, a motion detector alerted him early April 27. Kaarma took a shotgun outside and almost immediately fired four blasts into the garage. Diren Dede, unarmed, was hit twice. He died after the final shot hit him...

TOKYO (Reuters) – McDonald’s Holdings Co (Japan) Ltd has embarked on the emergency measure of only offering small-sized french fries to customers as a protracted labor dispute at U.S. West Coast ports has contributed to long delays in imports. The fast-food chain said it was importing more than 1,000 tonnes of frozen fries by air, which began arriving last Monday and had begun routing another 1,600 tonnes through ports on the U.S. East Coast which should begin arriving in late January. Those steps alone, however, are not sufficient to prevent a shortage. “Unfortunately without this sales restriction step, we would...

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) today released the following statement on President Obama’s plans to ease U.S. restrictions on Cuba and normalize diplomatic relations: “We agree with President Obama that he is writing new chapters in American foreign policy. Unfortunately, today’s chapter, like the others before it, is one of America and the values we stand for in retreat and decline. It is about the appeasement of autocratic dictators, thugs, and adversaries, diminishing America’s influence in the world. Is it any wonder that under President Obama’s watch our enemies are emboldened and our...

WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today released the following statement regarding the President’s announcement to change U.S. policy with Cuba and lift economic embargos. “We rejoice that Alan Gross’ wrongful imprisonment by the brutal Castro regime has finally come to an end, and that he will be able to spend the holidays with his loved ones. But make no mistake, although we are glad Alan is now free, the agreement the Obama Administration has entered into with the Castro regime has done nothing to resolve the underlying problem. Indeed, it has made it worse. “Fidel and Raul...