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Black hawks used In military training exercise in Miami

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© Source: CBS4A blackhawk helicopter conducts a training exercise over downtown Miami on Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013.
Some members of the U.S. military were busy in Miami Thursday night as they conducted exercises in Downtown Miami.

CBS4 captured video of Black Hawk helicopters flying over the city as part of a joint military training exercise.

Powertool

Army drill scares residents on Houston's south side

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The sight of Army helicopters and the sound of gunfire created a lot of concern Monday afternoon in one Houston neighborhood.

We received a lot of phones calls, Tweets and Facebook posts from worried neighbors, wondering what was going on.

SkyEye 13 HD was over the south side where at first look, it appeared there was a massive SWAT scene happening.

With military helicopters flying above her southeast Houston neighborhood, Frances Jerrals didn't know what to think.

Light Sabers

Yemen seizes ship carrying weapons

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© APYemen has recently witnessed several cases of illegal arms shipments through its porous shores on the Red and Arabian seas
Yemeni authorities have seized a ship in the nation's territorial waters carrying explosives and weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles, the state news agency reported Tuesday. The U.S. said the ship came from Iran.

The report said Yemen's coast guard intercepted the ship last week in an operation coordinated with the U.S. Navy. It did not say why news of the interception was not announced earlier.

The report said the vessel's eight crew members were Yemenis.

Sheriff

Texas lawmaker has a plan for dealing with 'King Obama's' gun laws

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A Texas lawmaker says he plans to file the Firearms Protection Act, which would make any federal laws that may be passed by Congress or imposed by Presidential order which would ban or restrict ownership of semi-automatic firearms or limit the size of gun magazines illegal in the state, 1200 WOAI news reports.

Republican Rep. Steve Toth says his measure also calls for felony criminal charges to be filed against any federal official who tries to enforce the rule in the state.

"If a federal official comes into the state of Texas to enforce the federal executive order, that person is subject to criminal prosecution," Toth told 1200 WOAI's Joe Pags Tuesday. He says his bill would make attempting to enforce a federal gun ban in Texas punishable by a $50,000 fine and up to five years in prison.

Pistol

Utah sheriffs warn Obama of deadly war over guns

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In the most strident warning over gun control to President Obama yet, the Utah Sheriffs' Association is pledging to go to war over any administration plan to take guns away, even if it means losing their lives.

Calling the Second Amendment a sacred right of citizens to protect themselves from "tyrannical subjugation," the association state elected sheriffs said in a new letter, "we are prepared to trade our lives for the preservation of its traditional interpretation."

Theirs is the first meaningful proof that some in law enforcement and the military are preparing to fight federal forces if the president wins his goal of sweeping gun control.

Eye 2

At least 65 bodies found 'executed' in Syria river

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© AFP, Jm LopezA Syrian man stands next to the bodies of executed men on the side of a canal in Aleppo on January 29, 2013
The bodies of at least 65 young men, all executed with a single gunshot to the head or neck, were found on Tuesday in a river in Aleppo city, adding to the grim list of massacres committed during Syria's 22-month conflict.

The gruesome discovery came as international envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi was scheduled to brief the United Nations Security Council in New York.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 65 bodies were found in the Quweiq River, which separates the Bustan al-Qasr district from Ansari in the southwest of the city, but that the toll could rise significantly.

A Free Syrian Army officer at the scene, Captain Abu Sada, said at least 68 bodies had been recovered and that many more were still being dragged from the water, in a rebel-held area.

A senior government security source said many of the victims were from Bustan al-Qasr and had been reported kidnapped earlier.

Eye 1

DARPA's big eye: 1.8-gigapixel camera for air surveillance unveiled

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© Image by BAE Systems
DARPA has revealed the ARGUS-IS its mega digital camera - with a 1.8-gigapixel resolution. The camera is expected to take clear images of objects as small as 15 centimeters from an altitude of six kilometers.

DARPA has revealed the ARGUS-IS its mega digital camera - with a 1.8-gigapixel resolution. The camera is expected to take clear images of objects as small as 15 centimeters from an altitude of six kilometers.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is an agency of the US Department of Defense, has finally revealed details of their next-generation eye in the sky - the ARGUS-IS. The super high-resolution photo system is expected to be attached to drones and used for precision guided air surveillance.

The so called "Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance - Imaging System" (ARGUS-IS) is described as one of the highest-resolution surveillance systems in the world.

Megaphone

Ron Paul calls US involvement in Mali 'undeclared war'

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© Reuters / Joe Skipper
Ron Paul said US assistance to the French intervention in Mali is a sign that the Obama administration is creeping into another war - especially since questions about the extent of US involvement remain largely unanswered.

The recently retired congressman outlined his fears in his weekly column, "Texas Straight Talk". Paul said that while the US has only announced its transport and intelligence assistance to the French initiative, "this is clearly developing into another war".

"President Obama last week began his second term by promising that 'a decade of war is now ending,'" Paul wrote. "As he spoke, the US military was rapidly working its way into another war, this time in the impoverished African country of Mali."

Paul believes that unanswered questions about possible US involvement on African soil further indicates that Obama has been more active in the conflict than he admits, and that Congress has been kept out of the loop.

Eye 1

Caught attacking rape victims, Rep. Cathrynn Brown claims she only meant to punish those who help rape victims

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© Flickr/Nigsby
I reported two days ago on a New Mexico state legislator named Cathrynn Brown who introduced a bill banning abortion for rape victims that required jail time for rape victims who dare refuse to continue a pregnancy forced upon them. She got a lot of attention for this, and so she's now doing what Republicans do when caught being too openly hostile towards victims of gender-based violence, and backtracking. Now she claims she didn't mean for women seeking to end rape-induced pregnancies to see jail time for "destroying evidence" (yeah right), and she's rewriting the bill to clarify that you'll only do time if you help a rape victim end a pregnancy. Which means that providers will be threatened with jail.

But just to be clear: She's specifically trying to ban abortion for rape victims. She wants New Mexico to be a state where any man can decide at any point in time to forcibly impregnate a woman, and that woman is barred legally from doing anything about it.

Bizarro Earth

San Francisco archbishop: Marriage equality 'is like legalizing male breastfeeding'

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A Catholic bishop who was instrumental in creating California's Proposition 8 says that same sex marriage is a natural impossibility and granting marriage rights for LGBT couples "is like legalizing male breastfeeding."

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone recently told the Catholic Herald that the "truth is clear" that it "discriminates against no one" to insist that children have a mother and a father.

"Every child has a father and a mother, and either you support the only institution that connects a child with their father and mother or you don't," he insisted. "Adoption, by a mother and father, mirrors the natural union of a mother and father and provides a balanced, happy alternative for when a child may not be reared by their biological parents."

Cordileone warned Catholics not to use the Bible as a defense when arguing against marriage rights because "you will play into their hands and they will say you use religion to control people."