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On the eve of the emergency EU summit on migration in Brussels, Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, said the country was "at war" with migrant traffickers, who are responsible for the deaths of as many as 1,000 migrants in the past week alone. David Cameron and other EU leaders will consider a commitment to "undertake systematic efforts to identify, capture and destroy vessels before they are used by traffickers," the draft statement showed. A diplomatic source told a news agency that the EU's 28 member states were widely mobilised to approve the statement's wording, reflecting a growing willingness to...

Former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley probably can't win the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. But he can make things very uncomfortable for Hillary Clinton. Of late, he seems very committed to doing just that. The latest gambit by O'Malley came Wednesday when he sent an e-mail to supporters pledging his opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. "To me, opposing bad trade deals like TPP is just common sense," O'Malley wrote. "American workers whose jobs could be on the line right now are owed more than lip service. They deserve to know where leaders stand."

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Road crews spent hours cutting a delivery truck out of a tree Wednesday afternoon. The truck came down next to the northbound lanes of Interstate 95 near the Old St. Augustine Road exit near Baptist Medical Center South.

Word For The Day, Thursday, April 23, 2015-- pannier ; In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of "Word for the Day". pannier [pan-yer, -ee-er]hear it pronounced noun 1. a basket, especially a large one, for carrying goods, provisions, etc. 2. a basket for carrying on a person's back, or one of a pair to be slung across the back of a beast of burden. 3. a similar type of bag, usually one of a pair, fastened over a bicycle's rear wheel. 4. (on a dress,...

MELBOURNE - An Islamic college in Australia is under investigation after claims that its principal has banned girls from taking part in running competitions because they might "lose their virginity".

The federal government and many states have offered car buyers incentives to venture into the electric car market. But now some states are going in a different direction -- they’re charging owners more. Idaho recently approved one of the country’s highest fees for electric cars. Here’s the problem: states traditionally fund highways with a gas tax. But you only pay that if you buy gas. Last week, Idaho lawmakers voted to charge electric vehicle owners an extra $140 annual registration fee. … which was news to Cleve Buttars. "Wow. Well, um ..." Buttars lives in Twin Falls and drives a...

EXCERPT “What we’re doing is a drill-down investigation of Jeb’s finances similar to what we did with the Clintons in terms of looking at financial dealings, cronyism, who he’s been involved with,” Schweizer told Bloomberg Politics. “We’ve found some interesting things.” (snip) Schweizer told Bloomberg that his team of researchers has been poring over financial details from the former Florida governor for about four months.

On April 23, Loyola University Chicago, a Catholic, Jesuit university (and my soon-to-be-alma mater), will host transgender advocate and “Orange is the New Black” star Laverne Cox.The event at Loyola is part of a nationwide speaking tour Cox has been engaged in since at least January, when she visited Missouri State. She has also visited George Washington University, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Toronto (Canada), Arizona State University (ASU), Illinois State University, and will speak at Wichita State later in April. Notably, Loyola is the only Catholic school at which Cox plans to appear.Cox’s speeches at other universities...

Normally when we’re reporting news from China, it typically involves them ripping off something someone else did. Today, though, there’s actually something interesting to talk about— a supercar. A completely unique not copied supercar from China. Go figure.

Editor's Note: Debra J. Saunders is off. The following column is by Jackie Gingrich Cushman.It's official, the 2016 presidential race is underway. At first glance, the matchup might look similar to the one we saw in each of the last few cycles: the inevitable Democratic nominee against dozens of Republican candidates. But it's not. The Republican National Committee announced in January new rules regarding sanctioned debates. This, combined with a fuller field of "top-tier" Republican candidates, will result in a much different Republican primary process than we saw four years ago. The events started on May 5, 2011, in Greenville,...

Few Americans could fathom the notion that the United States is so indebted to China that one of Beijing’s spies could get away with espionage – especially with an White House in love with espionage prosecutions. But that might be the only reasonable explanation for the Obama administration’s decision to pass on prosecuting a State Department contractor who was allegedly paid thousands of dollars to someone believed to be a Chinese agent seeking information on Americans. According to Fox News, a November 2014 FBI affidavit that was filed in U.S. district court in Maryland indicates that the FBI launched a...

Imagine what would happen if we passed a law that required every elected representative in the U.S. to take a phone call from a minimum of 10 constituents a day (and I mean individual constituents, not lobbyists and interest groups). Under this law, representatives would also be evaluated by Likert scale surveys on how well they meet the needs of their constituent callers. Anytime survey scores slip below a certain numerical threshold of acceptability, the elected official is fired from office, regardless of the results of democratic election or the prescriptions of the state or federal constitutions. By such standards...

In the first half of April 2015 in Anthracite carried out stripping and disarmament Cossack gangs commandant breakaway LC. According to the results of stripping many Cossacks disarmed, some went into submission LC, many handed over their weapons and refused to sign "contracts". Local warlords and armed gangs Frol Cooper-Bendix, who showed self-will and disobedience LC, disappeared from the city, about their fate go to various rumors. Locals believe that sweep led by representatives of the Russian FSB. But there is no direct evidence for this, but one interesting clue that we have received from our insiders. April 15 near...

Poor Marie Harf! Shortly after attaining immortality by having her name become a verb, she suffered the ultimate indignity: her boss left, and a white male has been hired to fill the vacancy instead of promoting her. Jamie Crawford and Elise Labott of CNN report: Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon's chief spokesman, will shift over to the State Department, according to a senior administration official. In replacing Jen Psaki, who recently returned to the White House to serve as communications director, Kirby would be the first spokesman to have represented both the Defense and State departments. Kirby, who is...

In a voice choked with emotion, Rustyann Brown told lawmakers Wednesday how the Department of Veterans Affairs routinely turned its back on veterans and their families, even in death. Mrs. Brown, a former employee in the VA’s Oakland office, was assigned one day in 2012 to a special team given the job of reviewing more than 13,000 veterans’ claims dating back to the mid-1990s that had never been addressed. As they sorted through the mounds of papers, she said, they often discovered that the veterans had long since died without receiving the requested benefits. In those cases, Mrs. Brown testified,...

The most curious facet of the debate over gay marriage is its violation of our usual requirement that social change occur at a pace that can only be detected with time-lapse photography. On Wednesday, Attorney General Sam Olens indicated that, should the U.S. Supreme Court rule the way many suspect it will this summer, Georgia’s formal, legal antipathy to same-sex unions will vanish as quickly as the flick of a light switch. *** “There’s a distinction between me defending the law and the order from the Supreme Court. When the Supreme Court rules on an issue, we’re going to follow...

The headline in Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir Putin's latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when the newspaper served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: "Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World." The article, in January 2013, detailed how the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, had taken over a Canadian company with uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West. The deal made Rosatom one of the world's largest uranium producers and brought Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain. But the untold story behind that story is one that...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Character Studies From The Bible Saul New International Version (NIV) 14 Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil[a] spirit from the Lord tormented him. 15 Saul’s attendants said to him, “See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. 16 Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better.” 17 So Saul said to his attendants, “Find someone who plays well and bring him to me.” 18 One...

Russia is currently building up forces near the Ukrainian border, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt wrote on Twitter on Thursday. "Russia has continued to ship heavy weapons into eastern Ukraine since the 'Minsk 2' ceasefire took effect on February 15," Pyatt tweeted. "These forces will give Russia its largest presence on the border since Oct. 2014. It has redeployed elements near Belgorod, opposite Kharkiv." According to Pyatt, the Russian military deployed additional air defense systems in eastern Ukraine and set up several of them closer to the front line. "This is the highest amount of Russian air defense equipment...

VIDEO at LINK Fresh Fighting Follows Failed Cease-Fire In Southeast Ukraine A fragile cease-fire monitored by the OSCE in the southeastern Ukrainian village of Shyrokyne collapsed after just three days of quiet. Correspondent Zinaida Burskaya of RFE/RL’s Current Time TV was with volunteer fighters of the Ukrainian Azov Battalion as renewed fighting broke out on April 18.