A 21-year-old college student was shot and killed early Friday on Long Island after an armed man broke into the home she shared with her twin sister, held her hostage and then engaged in a gun battle with the police, the authorities said. The man who forced his way into the home was also killed

It was not immediately clear who fired the fatal shots, the police said.

The violence played out in the middle of the night on an ordinarily quiet residential street, only blocks from Hofstra University, where the victim went to school. Students who were preparing for their last day of exams awoke to the news that one of their own had been killed, and the normally festive atmosphere that comes with the end of the academic year turned terribly sad.

As many as 50 or 60 people were injured Saturday in southwest Virginia when a car plowed into the annual Appalachian Trail Days parade in the town of Damascus, sending hundreds of people scattering amid shouts and screams.

Nine of the injured were taken to hospitals after the incident at the annual trail festival, but none of the injuries appeared to be life-threatening, authorities said.

"Reports to us indicate that no one was injured beyond stable" said Pokey Harris, director of emergency management in Washington County, Va. where Damascus is located, about 300 miles southwest of the District.

Train service in the busy New York-to-New Haven corridor may be restricted for days as officials investigate Friday's rush-hour collision of two trains in Connecticut -- an incident that sent dozens to hospitals -- officials said Saturday.

Officials from the federal National Transportation Safety Board arrived at the site Saturday morning to begin their investigation of the Metro-North train crash in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The wreckage won't be removed until investigators finish examining it on site -- possibly Sunday, NTSB member Earl Weener said -- and then two tracks will have to be repaired before they can be reopened.

France's president has signed into law a controversial bill making the country the ninth in Europe, and 14th globally, to legalise gay marriage.

On Friday, the Constitutional Council rejected a challenge by the right-wing opposition, clearing the way for Francois Hollande to sign the bill.

He said: "I have taken [the decision]; now it is time to respect the law of the Republic."

The first gay wedding could be held 10 days after the bill's signing.

But Parliamentary Relations Minister Alain Vidalies told French TV he expected the first ceremonies to take place "before 1 July".

This piece first appeared at TomDispatch. Read Tom Engelhardt's introduction.

Billionaires with an axe to grind, now is your time. Not since the days before a bumbling crew of would-be break-in artists set into motion the fabled Watergate scandal, leading to the first far-reaching restrictions on money in American politics, have you been so free to meddle. There is no limit to the amount of money you can give to elect your friends and allies to political office, to defeat those with whom you disagree, to shape or stunt or kill policy, and above all to influence the tone and content of political discussion in this country.

Today, politics is a rich man's game. Look no further than the 2012 elections and that season's biggest donor, 79-year-old casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. He and his wife, Miriam, shocked the political class by first giving $16.5 million in an effort to make Newt Gingrich the Republican presidential nominee. Once Gingrich exited the race, the Adelsons invested more than $30 million in electing Mitt Romney. They donated millions more to support GOP candidates running for the House and Senate, to block a pro-union measure in Michigan, and to bankroll the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other conservative stalwarts (which waged their own campaigns mostly to helpRepublican candidates for Congress). All told, the Adelsons donated $94 million during the 2012 cycle - nearly four times the previous record set by liberal financier George Soros. And that's only the money we know about. When you add in so-called dark money, one estimate puts their total giving at closer to $150 million.

It was not one of Adelson's better bets. Romney went down in flames; the Republicans failed to retake the Senate and conceded seats in the House; and the majority of candidates backed by Adelson-funded groups lost, too. But Adelson, who oozes chutzpah as only a gambling tycoon worth $26.5 billion could, is undeterred. Politics, he told the Wall Street Journal in his first post-election interview, is like poker: "I don't cry when I lose. There's always a new hand coming up." He said he could double his 2012 giving in future elections. "I'll spend that much and more," he said. "Let's cut any ambiguity."

Turns out that the underground smuggling tunnels connecting the Gaza Strip to Egypt have been used to transport more than weapons lately.

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip can now be supplied with Kentucky Fried Chicken delivered via the tunnels, as CNN reported.

The American fast food is brought into the Palestinian territory by Al-Yamama, a delivery service that advertises on Facebook. The "finger lickin' good" chicken doesn't come easily to Palestinians in the Strip, however.

A 20-piece bucket can cost about $30, which is about three times the amount it sells for in Egypt. The delivery also takes about three hours to travel 35 miles from the KFC branch in al-Arish, Egypt, to Gaza, sometimes being stopped by Hamas policemen who check the deliveries for other prohibited items.

"Sometimes Hamas checks meals, sometimes the taxi picking up Sinai orders is late," a spokesman for the delivery company told The Mirror.

Palestinians don't seem to be thrown off by the higher prices and lengthy time it takes the food to be delivered, however.

Yeah, your trad demon-eating snake tattoo is really edgy and all, but if you're looking to take your body art to the next level, why not ditch the black ink and use hypertrophic scar tissue instead? Apparently, slicing your skin into bloody tattoos is totally a thing now, and you can go get your very own "I Love Mom" heart made out of your own mutilated skin in (where else?) Williamsburg.

Called "scarification," the practice has deep roots in ancient tribal arts, but it feels creepier now that it's headed West. Having said that, it's certainly an art form: just check out the scar work done by Brooklyn resident Brian Decker, who runs Pure Body Arts in Williamsburg. He's been cutting elaborate symbols, designs and seahorses into people's skin for the past thirteen years, and told DNAinfo the practice has become more popular over the years. "People started to implement the ideas of tattoo reference to the design, which made them more extravagant, more detailed," he said. "You were able to build much more beautiful designs, which I'm sure caught more people's eyes."

Then again, some people just think scar tattoos do a nice job highlighting their Alice in Chains Hot Topic tees: "Someone who is freshly 18 probably relishes the idea of someone being repulsed by that," Chris Beierschmitt, who works at Pure Body Arts, told DNAinfo of the practice. But is a scar tattoo really any more frightening in theory than shooting possibly cancerous black ink into your skin? Even if that ink is shaped like Rex Ryan's wife? Plus, scar tattoos are great for sending scary messages to time-traveling law breakers.

This summer, millions of people will head to the nation's amusement parks. Many might assume that the bigger and faster rides account for the most amusement ride-related injuries to children, but that's not always the case.

My colleagues and I at the Center for Injury Research and Policy, Nationwide Children's Hospital, did the first study that looks in detail at children who are injured on amusement rides, which includes rides at amusement parks (fixed-site rides), rides at fairs and festivals (mobile rides) and rides found at local malls, stores, restaurants or arcades (mall rides).

From 1990 to 2010, 92,885 children under age 18 were treated in U.S. emergency departments for amusement ride-related injuries for an average of 4,423 injuries each year. More than 70 percent of the injuries happened during the warm summer months of May through September - averaging more than 20 injuries a day during those months. [Killer Thrills: How Safe Are Amusement Parks?]

We found that most children were injured in the head and neck region, followed by the arms, face and legs. Soft-tissue injuries like bruises were the most common type of injury, followed by strains and sprains, cuts and broken bones.

Russian authorities have launched a criminal case into the suspected beating of children by teenage caretakers in a Far Eastern orphanage on Friday, a day after a video sparked internet outrage.

The video, made in the orphanage in the town of Pionersky in the Far Eastern Amur Region, shows a teenage girl who lashes boys aged between seven and nine with a belt. Seven boys are lined up against a wall as she calls the children forward one by one, beats them and shoves them away.

Police opened a criminal case on charges of torture, which entail a maximum punishment of seven years in prison. Three girls, aged between 15 and 17 are seen as likely suspects. Two of them were taken to a detention facility for minors. The third teenager, who is under 16 years - the age of criminal responsibility on these charges - was hospitalized for reasons not related to the incident.