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Mon, 25 Oct 2021
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Legal gun owner arrested for chambering round at Connecticut Chuck E. Cheese

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A Connecticut woman was arrested at the children's restaurant Chuck E. Cheese in Newington on Monday after she was accused of pulling her gun and chambering a round while threatening another mother.

According to Newington police, 30-year-old Tawana Bourne brandished a .380 semi-automatic handgun and chambered a round while arguing with another woman, the New Haven Register reported. Both women were at the restaurant with children.

Restaurant employees quickly called police, who separated the women and confiscated Bourne's handgun. Police said that Bourne had a legal Connecticut permit to carry the weapon.

USA

Family Research Council President links homosexuality to pedophilia as reason for Boy Scout ban

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CNN host Soledad O'Brien on Wednesday told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins that he could be "on the wrong side of history" after he defended the Boy Scouts' ban on LGBT members by suggesting that homosexuals were more likely to be pedophiles.

As the Boy Scouts of American national board was set to decide if local organizations would be allowed to include gay members on Wednesday, O'Brien asked Perkins if there was "a possibility that you're wrong" because "historically there have been core values that in retrospect turned out to be flawed?"

"You're comparing immutable characteristics with characteristics that are not immutable," Perkins explained. "In part, their policy has been to protect boys, to create obviously not a perfect environment, but one that is in line with what the parents want, to ensure their children are safe when they go out in these scouting activities."

Cult

Report: Catholic laundries enslaved women and girls in Ireland as recently as 1996

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© Shutterstock
Taoiseach Enda Kenny fails to formally apologise for involvement over female enslavement causing more outrage

After more than seven decades of exploitation and a 10-year struggle for justice, Ireland on Tuesday admitted its role in the enslavement of thousands of women and girls in the notorious Magdalene Laundry system, but stopped short of issuing a formal apology from the government.

A long-awaited report headed by Senator Martin McAleese said there was "significant state involvement" in how the laundries were run - a reversal of the official state line for years, which insisted the institutions were privately controlled and run by nuns.

But the Irish Premier Enda Kenny's failure to give the women and their supporters a full, formal, public apology in the Dail on Tuesday afternoon has infuriated the victims and their supporters, who said such an approach risked undermining Ireland's attempt to right a historic wrong. Instead Kenny stated his "regret" about the stigma hanging over the women.

Eye 2

Karl Rove: 'God bless President Obama' for killing U.S. citizen al-Awlaki

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Republican strategist Karl Rove ripped the media on Tuesday for attacking Bush administration officials who justified the use of torture. He also praised President Barack Obama for using drone strikes to kill suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens.

The former Bush adviser said on Fox News that officials like Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, Jay Bybee and others were "excoriated" and "hounded" by liberals and the media. Yet the Obama administration has faced little criticism for justifying the use of drone strikes against U.S. citizens.

Snakes in Suits

Tennessee Republican compares homosexuality to 'shooting heroin'

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The author of the so-called "Don't Say Gay Bill" said Tuesday that homosexuality was "very dangerous" and compared it to injecting heroin.

During an tense interview with TMZ, Tennessee state Sen. Stacy Campfield (R) said homosexuality was dangerous because of HIV/AIDS.

"The homosexual community gets AIDS at a 50 times higher rate than the heterosexual community," he claimed. Campfield said AIDS was such large problem in Africa because sodomy was more prevalent in that part of the world. He added that sodomy was a "deadly thing to do."

Dollar Gold

BP hit with new $34 billion Deepwater Horizon claim from southern state governments

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Latest demand comes from local and southern state governments, including Louisiana and Mississippi, hit hard by pollution following 2010 blowout

BP has been hit by a new $34bn (£21.7bn) claim for alleged economic losses and punitive damages resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The latest demand comes from local and southern state governments, including Louisiana and Mississippi, hit hard by the pollution that followed the blowout on the BP-operated Macondo well in April 2010.

BP described the methodology for calculating the claims as "seriously flawed" and the oil company said it was confident it would not have to make additional financial provisions.

BP refused to say what provisions it has already made for the $34bn claims, but admits to having taken a further $4.1bn "charge" in the final three months of 2012, bringing the total amount set aside so far to $42.2bn.

Radar

CIA using Saudi base for drone assassinations in Yemen

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© Photograph: Reuters
Saudi Arabia has not responded to reports that the drone that killed US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in September 2011 was launched from the unnamed base.
The CIA is secretly using an airbase in Saudi Arabia to conduct its controversial drone assassination campaign in neighbouring Yemen, according to reports in the US media.

Neither the Saudi government nor the country's media have responded to the reports revealing that the drones that killed the US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and his son in September 2011 and Said al-Shehri, a senior al-Qaida commander who died from his injuries last month, were launched from the unnamed base.

Iranian state media highlighted the story, which is also likely to be seized upon by jihadi groups. Saudi Arabia has previously publicly denied co-operating with the US to target al-Qaida in Yemen. Evidence of Saudi involvement risks complicating its relationship with the government in Sana'a and with Yemeni tribal leaders who control large parts of the country.

USA

Washington Post was forced into finally revealing drone base secret

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© Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
An unmanned US Predator drone flies over Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
Newspaper ends self-censorship after hearing that rival news outlet was about to publish the location

Newspaper editors are always conscious of the need to balance the public's right to know with the requirements of national security. And, most often, they oblige governments by acceding to requests not to publish sensitive information that might jeopardise operations.

But self-censorship, despite a sensible public interest justification, is increasingly difficult to attain in a competitive digital media world, as the Washington Post can testify.

For more than a year, the paper refrained from disclosing the location of a secret US military base in Saudi Arabia from which CIA drones were launched.

Comment: So basically what we have here is our government working with media to suppress information that would hurt the Obama administration's efforts to continue its murderous drone killing campaigns and appoint Brennan for CIA head. The fact that mass media outlets engage in this kind of subterfuge and censorship speaks volumes about the state of mass media and how completely it is merely just the propaganda arm of the American government.


Eye 1

Somali court hands journalist one-year jail term

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© AFP/Mohamed Abdiwahab
Abdiaziz Abdinuur is sentenced in court.
The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the conviction and prison sentence handed down today against a Somali freelance journalist charged with insulting the government by interviewing a woman who said she was raped by government forces. CPJ calls for the sentence to be overturned and for reporter Abdiaziz Abdinuur to be released immediately pending appeal.

The Bernadir Regional Court in Mogadishu sentenced Abdiaziz to one year in prison on charges of insulting the government and making false accusations, according to local journalists and news reports. Abdiaziz was sent to the central prison in Mogadishu. The woman whom Abdiaziz had interviewed was also sentenced to a year in prison on the same insult charge, while three other defendants, including the alleged victim's husband, were released, news reports said.

Pistol

Tunisian opposition leader shot dead

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© Photograph: Demotix/Corbis
Tunisian opposition leader Chokri Belaid, centre, had been critical of the government and the Ennahda party that dominates it.
Murder of Chokri Belaid, leader of Unified Democratic Nationalist party, triggers 1,000-strong protest outside interior ministry

A Tunisian opposition party leader who had been critical of the Islamist-led government and radical Muslim violence has been shot dead.

Chokri Belaid, leader of the Unified Democratic Nationalist party, was shot outside his home in Tunis on Wednesday morning and died in hospital shortly after.

President Moncef Marzouki cut short a visit to France and cancelled a trip to Egypt scheduled for Thursday after the killing, which triggered a 1,000-strong protest outside the interior ministry.