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Native Americans Hail Rare Bison as Sign from Spirits

White Baby Bison
© CantonRep.com
Is this the fourth?
Here's one bison that won't end up as a burger. An extremely rare white calf was born last month, not on a range where they're known to roam, but on Peter Fay's farm in Goshen, Connecticut. Some Native Americans are hailing the birth as a powerful message from the spirits and are traveling to the farm for naming ceremonies at the end of July.

The calf, which looked "like a ghost" when it was born, shocked Fay, as did the ensuing excitement. Huge crowds are now expected to visit his farm, and the field is being guarded around the clock to protect the pale wonder.

The Lakota Sioux believe that Whope, the goddess of peace, once appeared in the form of a white buffalo calf, and the belief is that the goddess will return once four such calves are born, bringing in 'a new age', which some reckon could be the end of the world.

"We currently have the only three white buffalo in the world, at least to my knowledge," said Thomas Dodson at the National Buffalo Museum in Jamestown, N.D. Is this the fourth one in the story above?

According to the Hopi culture, the time of prophecy is upon us, the time of the ending of the Fourth World and the beginning of moving into the Fifth Sun or Fifth World. All cultures around our beautiful planet have an ancient knowing of this time and of the great shifts ahead.

Newspaper

Court orders credit card company to un-block WikiLeaks payments

Image
© Unknown
Whistleblower website WikiLeaks achieved its first major legal victory in a pushback against the U.S.-led financial blockade that's crippled the publication and sapped more than 95 percent of its resources since 2010.

In a ruling by the Reykjavík District Court in Iceland, credit card processing company Valitor, partner of both Visa and MasterCard, is required to un-block future payments to WikiLeaks within the next two weeks or face $6,000 in fines every additional day it delays.

The case was brought by WikiLeaks payment partner Datacell, which was cut off by Valitor after WikiLeaks began publishing hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables in 2010. The court ultimately decided that Valitor had violated contract law by cutting off Datacell, which it justified by claiming that its clients are not allowed to accept payments on behalf of others.

"This is a significant victory against Washington's attempt to silence WikiLeaks," site founder Julian Assange said in prepared text. "We will not be silenced. Economic censorship is censorship. It is wrong. When it's done outside of the rule of law its doubly wrong. One by one those involved in the attempted censorship of WikiLeaks will find themselves on the wrong side of history."

Footprints

Aaron Schaffhausen Calls Ex-Wife and Says "You Can Come Home Now Because I Killed the Kids"

Image
© Unknown
Aaron Schaffhausen has been charged with murdering his three daughters (Amara, 11, Sophie, 8, and Cecilia, 5) after reportedly stabbing all three to death. He faces three counts of intentional homicide.

Jessica Schaffhausen and Aaron Schaffhausen divorced in January. Aaron lived in Minot, North Dakota, while Jessica and the three children lived in River Falls, Wisconsin.

According to reports, Aaron drove to River Falls on Tuesday for a surprise visit. After his kids took him upstairs to see their toys, the recently fired dad allegedly killed them and then called Jessica, saying "You can [come] home now because I killed the kids."

Poilce say that Jessica got a text from Aaron on Tuesday, asking for an unplanned visit. She agreed, even though Aaron had allegedly made threats on her life in the past.

Bad Guys

15-Year-Old Girl Forced to Wear Electric Shock Collar For Punishment

Samuel and Diana Franklin were arrested this week on charges of child cruelty and false imprisonment after their adopted 15-year-old daughter told police that she was forced to live in a chicken coop and wear a remote-controlled shock collar (video below).

The unnamed 15-year-old, who was home schooled, was punished by spending up to six days at a time in the chicken coop behind the couple's house in Butler, Georgia, over the past two years.

Police also said that the girl was also forced to do manual labor and spend time in a 4-foot-wide outhouse.

A shock collar was found at the home when the parents were taken into custody on Tuesday. The girl said that a device was used to activate the collar and punish her with jolts of electricity.

Georgia Bureau of Investigation Agent Wayne Smith told KLTV: "I've never seen anything like this personally. If the allegations prove to be true, it's a very severe case."

Gear

Sightings App Lets Users Insert Images Of Jesus, Virgin Mary And Bigfoot Into Food Photos

Sightings App
© Betabrand
We'd never thought we'd write these words, but now there's an app that injects images of Jesus, Mary, or Bigfoot into any photo. Seriously.

The app, Sightings by Betabrand, is made by the same people behind pants line Cordarounds, which features items like slacks that lower the average wearer's crotch heat index. (Their words, not ours.)

In an e-mail to The Huffington Post, founder Chris Lindland explained why anyone would ever need the Sightings app.

"There's no better way to declare tastiness than to inject a divine apparition into your casserole or cup of coffee," he wrote.

Check out the app at work in the gallery here.

USA

Americans' Confidence in the Church at All-Time Low

Praying
© Kevin Carden, Shutterstock
On average, older individuals have a stronger belief in God than younger age groups.
Americans' confidence in organized religion is at its lowest in more than three decades, with just 44 percent having a lot of faith in the church, a new Gallup poll released this week suggests.

The results follow a long-term decline in Americans' confidence in religion since the 1970s, when Americans ranked "the church or organized religion" higher than any other institution in the survey, beating out the military and the U.S. Supreme Court. In the 1980s confidence in organized religion fell below 60 percent for the first time. Gallup officials say the dip may have resulted from scandals involving televangelist preachers Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart.

Then, in 2001 confidence increased to 60 percent, only to be hammered back down, possibly as a result of charges of child molestation by Catholic priests, Gallup suggests.

When separated out by religious affiliation, the new Gallup poll showed that 56 percent of Protestants have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the church or organized religion, compared with 46 percent of Catholics. There weren't enough respondents from other religions to separate them out in Gallup's analysis.

Heart - Black

'Most humans disgust me': Chilling claims of survivalist accused of sexually assaulting girl, 5, alongside his wife

Image
© Police photo
Complaint: Authorities say that David Armstrong also penetrated the girl, in addition to forcing the child to perform oral sex
A married Illinois couple has been arrested for allegedly sexually abusing a five-year old girl. Police say David Brian Armstrong, 33, and Danielle Armstrong, 22, had sex with the victim as well as forced the child to perform oral sex on David Armstrong in their Alton home.

The two were arrested after the victim told her grandmother what happened to her, who in turn notified police. News of the crime has shaken up the Saint Louis, Missouri suburb. Lieutenant Scott Golike told the MailOnline that nothing like this incident has ever happened on his watch. 'It's a horrible crime,' Lieutenant Golike said.

David and Danielle Armstrong were arrested on Wednesday after a tip came through the Illinois state sexual abuse hotline, police told the MailOnline. 'The victim reported it to another family member who reported it to police,' an official from the Madison County State's Attorney's Office said to the MailOnline.

The complaint alleges that the abuse of the girl took place over the course of a week between July 1 and July 8 of this month.Both Armstrongs were charged with predatory criminal sexual assault of a child. Danielle Armstrong was charged with 'committing an act of sexual penetration' and placing her mouth on the child's genitals. Authorities say that David Armstrong also penetrated the girl, in addition to forcing the child to perform oral sex.

Dollar

Gold to Hit $2,000 by Year-End on More Fed Easing: Merrill

Image
© AP
Merrill Lynch has added its voice to the chorus of gold bulls who have been predicting that bullion will hit $2000 an ounce.

Francisco Blanch, Head of Global Commodity & Multi-Asset Strategy Research at the investment bank, says he expects the Federal Reserve to initiate an asset-purchasing program of as much as $500 billion in the second half of the year, which will drive spot gold much higher by the end of the year.

"We think that $2,000 an ounce is sort of the right number," Blanch said on CNBC Asia's "Squawk Box" on Thursday. "We believe that ultimately the Fed will be forced to do quantitative easing. If it happens in September, as our economists expect, we will get a rally sooner in gold. If it happens after the election (in November), we will get the rally a little bit later; probably we will touch $2000 an ounce sometime next year."

Spot gold was trading almost unchanged at $1,569.71 an ounce by 6.14pm GMT on Wednesday and inched up to about $1,572.80 in early Asian trade on Thursday. The metal has fallen nearly 20 percent since touching an all-time high of $1,918 in September last year, as a combination of Europe's debt crisis and concerns over global economic growth triggered a selloff in risk assets like commodities.

Phoenix

100 people dead after Nigerian tanker fire

Image
© AFP/STR
Hundreds of people crowded around as bodies are lifted into ambulances and police trucks.
More than 100 people who went to scoop up oil from an overturned tanker in Nigeria have been burned to death after the vehicle caught fire, according to officials.

About 50 people suffered severe burns.

"Early this morning a tanker loaded with petrol fell in Okogbe and people trooped to the scene obviously to scoop the spilled fuel and suddenly there was fire resulting in casualties," Rivers State police spokesman Ben Ugwuegbulam confirmed.

Hundreds of people crowded around as soldiers and emergency workers lifted bodies into ambulances and police trucks.

The fuel tanker was a pile of smouldering ash, twisted metal and melting tyres.

Fuel leaks and oil tanker accidents in Nigeria often draw huge crowds scrambling to scoop fuel, resulting in many deaths due to accidental fires.

Bizarro Earth

California Cities 'May Cease to Exist'?

Shuttered and padlocked businesses, Stockton, California
© Reuters/Kevin Bartram
Shuttered and padlocked businesses line Main Street in Stockton, California June 27, 2012
In a phenomenon that seems to be worsening with each and every hour, a widespread fiscal crisis in California is quickly propelling the state into bankruptcy, city by city.

Within a matter of only one month, three cities in California have officially sought bankruptcy protection, with a request out of San Bernardino on Tuesday being just the latest episode in recent surge of unfortunate fiscal news on the West Coast. Coming off of similar measures by way of officials in Stockton and Mammoth Lake, California is experiencing a departure into the deep end across the entire state that no authority seems ready to handle.

"There are likely to be more in the future, but it's hard to know, since a lot of struggling cities may manage to work things out,'' Michael Coleman, a fiscal policy advisor for the California League of Cities, tells the Los Angeles Times. "Some cities may not go into a bankruptcy, but they may dissolve. They may cease to exist.''

Stockton's seeking of bankruptcy protection this week marks the largest city in the state to do as such in the history of California. Going back to a Chapter 9 filing in 2008 out of the Bay Area city of Vallejo, however, it is a trend that hasn't gone unnoticed.