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Producers of the new thriller "Beyond The Reach" needed a villain. Specifically, they needed a bad guy to costar with Michael Douglas, who plays the murderous multimillionaire out to kill an innocent hunting guide played by Jeremy Irvine. Requirements for the role included beauty, speed, agility and toughness, and the ability to withstand long shooting days in New Mexico desert near Four Corners. The casting call led them to a most unusual candidate. Douglas' evil partner in crime is played by a Mercedes 6x6.

In a Middle Eastern twist on the unproven conspiracy theory that Barack Obama is a Muslim, Arab media commentators have claimed that the American president is supportive of Iran because his father was a Shiite, media watchdog MEMRI reported on Wednesday. During an interview on Hiwar TV, broadcasting from London, Syrian writer Muhyiddin Lazikani said, “Barack Hussein Obama is the son of a Shiite Kenyan father,” adding that the “childhood memories of the man who rules the White House are Shiite memories,” influencing his pro-Iranian foreign policy stance. He noted that, “this is why he is so anxious for Iran...

Confiscated by the Bolsheviks, first used as a warehouse and more recently a concert hall, the cathedral will be restored to the Orthodox diocese. In 2010 it was reopened for worship.Moscow (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Smolny Cathedral in St. Petersburg, one of the symbols of the city of the Tsars and now owned by the state, will be returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. This was announced April 14 by Nikolai Burov, director of the museum of the four cathedrals which also includes that of Smolny. "The decision has been made: the Smolny Cathedral will be restored to the diocese,"...

Italian police say they have arrested 15 Muslim migrants after they allegedly threw 12 Christians overboard following a row on a boat heading to Italy. The Christian migrants, said to be from Ghana and Nigeria, are all feared dead. In a separate incident, more than 40 people drowned after another migrant boat sank between Libya and Italy. Almost 10,000 migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean have been rescued in recent days. Italy has called for more help from the EU to handle the crisis. More than 500 people from Africa and the Middle East have died making the perilous crossing...

An independent review says a proposed regional firearms facility for Charlottesville, Albemarle and University of Virginia law enforcement will not hurt the environment. The environmental assessment report from ECS Mid-Atlantic, LLC says that the facility would have no major impact on the surrounding area.

Caylen Wojcik was a U.S. Marine Corps scout sniper for eight years as a trainer and warrior. He served as the chief sniper in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom II, conducting 100 sniper missions until he was seriously wounded during Operation Phantom Fury. He returned to training duties during his recovery and now works in the private sector for Magpul Industries as its director of training of Precision Rifle Operations. He is a man who knows what it’s like to be behind a sniper rifle in battle. Read the sniper interview here.

On July 17, country singers Tim McGraw and Billy Currington will headline a fundraiser for gun control group Sandy Hook Promise in Connecticut. Sandy Hook Promise was founded after Adam Lanza stole various firearms then carried out a heinous attack on Sandy Hook Elementary. NBC Connecticut quoted McGraw as saying: Out of this tragedy a group was formed that made a promise to honor the lives lost and turn it into a moment of transformation. Sandy Hook Promise teaches that we can do something to protect our children from gun violence. I want to be a part of that promise...

When Bruce E. Ivins, an Army microbiologist, took a fatal overdose of Tylenol in 2008, the government declared that he had been responsible for the anthrax letter attacks of 2001, which killed five people and set off a nationwide panic, and closed the case. Now, a former senior F.B.I. agent who ran the anthrax investigation for four years says that the bureau gathered “a staggering amount of exculpatory evidence” regarding Dr. Ivins that remains secret. The former agent, Richard L. Lambert, who spent 24 years at the F.B.I., says he believes it is possible that Dr. Ivins was the anthrax...

Krystal Ball doesn't seem to be sold on Hillary Clinton's "listening tour" campaign shtick. In a segment discussing the former secretary of state's carefully-staged campaign swings in Iowa, The Cycle co-host and former Virginia congressional candidate confessed Hillary's campaign rollout isn't doing much for her, and, she suspects, that's probably true of how it's being received by most voters. Ball made the remarks in a discussion with Brian Beutler of The New Republic. Here's the relevant transcript: MSNBC The Cycle April 15, 2015 3:08 p.m. Eastern KRYSTAL BALL, co-host: But, Brian, I wanted to get your take. Is this listening...

A Columbus, Ohio man whom the Department of Justice says trained with ISIS in Syria and was planning a terror attack here has been arrested in the U.S., according to reports.

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“Everything’s stolen out of this home right by us. Mold all over the wall in the kitchen. There’s absolutely nothing in the house,” said neighbor Bill Carpenter. “But no one’s doing anything.” It’s not the only home that’s had problems. Around the corner at 10323 Dunbar NW, there’s a vacant home that once had a collection of beehives in the backyard. It’s been in the foreclosure process for a few years, but is not yet bank-owned, according to court records. Around the corner from that home is 10335 Durham Street NW, a home that’s been tied up in the foreclosure...

The New York City Council has approved a monument recognising the contributions of slaves to the city's founding and economy. The marker will be placed in the Wall Street area, about a block from where the city's first slave market stood. When the council approved the market in 1711, almost 1,000 of the city's 6,400 people were black, according to Columbia University. The monument is expected to be unveiled on 19 June, officials told local media. The new marker will join 38 other markers - mostly commemorating success in the financial and construction industries - in lower Manhattan, WNYC reported....

1. Orson Welles was born on May 6, 1915. 2. As a filmmaker, his three greatest pictures, in order, are Touch of Evil (1958), Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). 3. Ah, yes, but Citizen Kane tops many lists as the greatest film of all time (with Welles filling the top slot on many directing lists). The fictional story of a megalomaniac newspaper magnate (loosely based on William Randolph Hearst) and innocence lost is indeed a masterpiece . . . albeit a dated one. Newspaper magnates? Not in this century, bub. 4. John Houseman wrote in his 1972...

Presidential candidates who can authentically can talk about their relationship to the American Immigrant Experience can sometimes experience a boost in public opinion, which is why Hillary Clinton recently spoke about how her grandparents — all of them — always talked to her about emigrating to America. A recent report indicates, however, that most of them weren’t exactly immigrants. According to Andrew Kaczynski, three of Clinton’s grandparents were not immigrants: Census data and draft cards from the 1920′s and 1930′s revealed that her paternal grandmother was born in Pennsylvania, and both of her maternal grandparents were born in Illinois. (That’s...

April 16, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- A gay advocacy group has released a report showing that the number of Hollywood films featuring homosexual behavior has risen to an all-time high, with nearly 16 percent of films released in 2014 featuring at least one homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual character.  But the activists said they still aren’t satisfied, citing a lack of leading roles for homosexuals, insufficient racial diversity among gay characters, and occasionally less-than-positive portrayals of the homosexual lifestyle by some filmmakers.To produce its 2015 “Studio Responsibility Index,” homosexual advocacy group GLAAD analyzed the film releases of seven major film studios and...

Editor's note: This column was co-authored by Kristin Carey.This Thursday is Emancipation Day. It’s the 153rd anniversary of the day President Abraham Lincoln signed the Compensated Emancipation Act, which freed the thousands of slaves who lived in Washington, D.C. That day in the midst of the Civil War marked the beginning of a great and dramatic change in our nation, which began with the capital—the heart of our nation—and slowly worked its way throughout the rest of the country. After President Lincoln signed the Act into law, an author of an editorial in a New York newspaper, The Anglo-African, joyfully...

BEIJING — China is building a concrete runway on an island in the South China Sea’s contested waters that will be capable of handling military aircraft when finished, satellite images released Thursday show. The first section of the runway appears like a piece of gray ribbon on an image taken last month of Fiery Cross Reef, part of the Spratly Islands, an archipelago claimed by at least three other countries. Adjacent to the runway, work is underway on an apron for taxiing and parking planes. The runway, which is expected to be about 10,000 feet long — enough to accommodate...

An Iranian cleric is teaching his followers that thinking about another woman while having sex with your wife will make your children gay. Ayatollah Hossein Dehnavi, a celebrity preacher in Iran, made the speech to a packed auditorium of men and women in his home country. It is the latest controversial teaching put forward by Dehnavi, who also warned that if women did not wear the hijab - the veil covering the hair and chest - properly, they could inadvertently cause some men to become homosexual. Dehavni is a celebrated cleric in Iran, whose speeches on family life and marital...

Posing a question that is "near and dear" to her, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz asked U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power on Wednesday, "What else can we do to train more women and put more women in peacekeeping roles at the U.N.?"