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Pistol

27 dead in Connecticut school shooting: reports

Newton Shooting
© ABC News StreamPolice sweep through the scene of a deadly school shooting in Newton, Conn. The police are treating the incident as an ongoing school shooting.
A horrific shooting at a Connecticut elementary school Friday has left as many as 27 people dead, including 18 children, the Associated Press reports.

CBS News says 26 people have died. Other news outlets put the death toll at 20. If those numbers are confirmed, it would mark one of the worst mass school shootings in U.S. history, behind the Virginia Tech university massacre in 2007, which left 32 dead.

Police in the town of Newtown, Conn, a quiet town about an hour's drive north of New York City, were alerted to the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School around 9:40 a.m. ET. They contacted Connecticut State Police and surrounding police departments. A SWAT team was among the throngs of police to respond and enter the building.

Cut

Justin Bieber kidnap plot gang wanted $2,500 per testicle; killer planned to 'castrate and strangle star'

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© Splash News/News Group NewspapersTarget ... gang aimed to castrate star Justin Bieber with garden shears, inset.
A kidnap gang plotted to strangle and Castrate teen heart-throb Justin Bieber, court papers claim.

Obsessed killer Dana Martin allegedly put a $2,500 bounty on each of Justin Bieber's testicles as he outlined a plot to kidnap, castrate and strangle the teen pin-up.

Jailed Martin - who sports a Bieber tattoo on his leg - is accused of arranging for two other men to abduct and murder the singer, his bodyguard and two more unrelated victims.

According to court papers, he recruited Mark Staake to execute his plan after becoming convinced Bieber had snubbed his efforts to contact him. Staake's nephew Tanner Ruane was later drafted in on the plot.

Having declared the bounty - worth £1,550 - on the 18-year-old's private parts, Martin then ordered his accomplices to strangle the Baby singer with a paisley tie, it is claimed.

The gang were allegedly poised to strike as Bieber played sold-out concerts at New York's Madison Square Garden on November 28 and 29.

But the star was spared after Martin told jail wardens about the plot.

UFO

UFO Hacker Gary McKinnon will not face UK charges

Gary McKinnon
© PABritish computer hacker Gary McKinnon fought extradition to the US for years
Computer hacker Gary McKinnon, whose extradition to the US was blocked, will not face charges in the UK, bringing to an end a 10-year legal battle.

Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer QC said the chances of a successful conviction were "not high".

Janis Sharp, Mr McKinnon's mother, said the news was "amazing" and she was grateful the case was "all over now".

Mr McKinnon, 46, admits accessing US government computers but says he was looking for evidence of UFOs.

Pistol

Another Mass Shooting: 27 Dead, Including 14 Children in U.S. Elementary School Shooting in Newtown, Connecticut

Newtown shooting
© CBS 2Authorities respond to a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. on Dec. 14, 2012.
Gunman Opens Fire Inside Sandy Hook Elementary School Early Friday

Twenty-seven people are dead including 14 children after a gunman opened fire at an elementary school in Newtown, CBS News reports.

Officials say the gunman was also killed and apparently had two guns. It happened around 9:40 a.m. Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

At least three people were injured, two children and an adult. All three were taken to Danbury Hospital.

Attention

Another idiot - and he's a judge: 'If she didn't want sex, her body should have just shut down': Judge criticized for shocking comments as he takes TEN years off attacker's sentence

A California judge has been publicly criticised today for controversial comments he made saying a rape victim didn't put up a fight during her assault and that if someone doesn't want sexual intercourse, the body 'will not permit that to happen.'

Echoing the widely condemned comments on 'legitimate rape' of outgoing U.S. representative Todd Akin, Superior Court Judge Derek Johnson said 'If someone doesn't want to have sexual intercourse, the body shuts down.'

Furthermore, the states Commission on Judicial Performance attacked the the judge for taking ten years off the recommended sentence for the rapist in the case, imposing a six-year sentence instead.


Bell

Wheelchair-bound girl, 12, with brittle bone disorder left in tears after TSA detains her for an hour 'after detecting traces of explosives on her hands'

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© FoxTears: Shelbi Walser, who suffers from a brittle bone condition, is filmed crying after TSA agents at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport detained her for an hour after detecting explosive residue on her hands, her mother said
A 12-year-old girl who uses a wheelchair was left in tears after TSA agents detained her for nearly an hour at a Texas airport after saying they found traces of bomb residue on her hands, her mother claimed today. Shelbi Walser was travelling to Florida with her mother, Tammy Daniels, for treatment for her brittle bone disorder when she was stopped at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in Texas.

A TSA agent swabbed Shelbi's hands and she tested positive for explosives. But the wheelchair, which is likely to have transferred any substance to her hands as she pushed it, was never tested, her mother said.

A video of the December 8 incident shows Shelbi sobbing as officials detain her in front of hundreds of travellers at security, but refuse to allow her mother to get close enough to comfort her.

Daniels told Fox that they even called a bomb specialist to the scene, while other passengers reportedly spoke out in support of Shelbi and offered her tissues and candy.

Pistol

Principal and at least two children shot at Connecticut elementary school after gunman opens fire

A princiapal and at least two children are believed to have been shot after a gunman opened fire at an elementary school in Connecticut. Police were called to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown after reports of shots being fired at 9.41am by a gunman who was said to be in the main office of the school. There are said to be a number of people with injuries. At least three are being treated at a local hospital.

State police sources said one shooter is dead. Earlier reports of a second shooter are still unconfirmed but police are said to be going from room-to-room at the school. Two handguns have been recovered at the scene. Teachers and students were said to be in morning meetings when the shots were fired. The children were locked inside their classrooms until police came and evacuated them to a nearby fire station.

One child was seen being carried from the school by a police officer, apparently seriously wounded. A person in one room had 'numerous gunshot wounds', police told the The Hartford Courant.
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© TwitterTraumatized students were seen being led out of the school crying and holding hands

Attention

Speed camera madness - man gets ticket for going 0 MPH

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The City of Baltimore recently issued a ticket to Daniel Doty for speeding 38 miles per hour in a 25-mph zone - but photos and video captured by the speed camera system showed that his car was stopped at a red light at the time.

Doty told The Baltimore Sun that photos included with the ticket issued on April 24 made it "shockingly obvious" that his four-door Mazda wagon stopped at a red light with the break lights on. A three-second video clip provided as evidence also showed that Doty's car was motionless as he waited for the light to turn green.

"It was like someone was so obviously asleep at the switch," Doty explained. "I thought that was not supposed to happen."

Phoenix

Four people set on fire during assault in North Denver; 1 victim in critical condition


Denver police say four people were set afire during an assault in North Denver Thursday night.

The incident happened in the 4300 block of Lipan Street shortly before 7:30 p.m.

Police spokesman Raquel Lopez said two black males knocked on an apartment door and when a woman answered, she was sprayed with some type of liquid from a lawn and garden sprayer. She was then set afire when the men threw a match or lighter on her. She said the initial report of a small propane torch was incorrect. .

Three others inside - 2 men and a second woman -- the apartment were also sprayed and set afire, but suffered only minor burns, she said.

Lopez said the woman who answered the door was the most seriously burned and she was transported by ambulance to a local hospital.

Police do not have a motive for the attacks but they called the incident "highly unusual and extremely scary."

Police were trying to get better descriptions of the suspects.

Padlock

Army sergeant sentenced to life in Colorado slaying

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© The Associated Press/The Colorado Springs Gazette/Mark ReisSgt. Vincinte Jackson is shielded from cameras as he's led into court Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012 for closing arguments in his court-martial at Fort Carson, Colo. Jackson is charged with premeditated murder in the death of Spc. Spc. Brandy Fonteneaux
Fort Carson, Colorado - A weeping Army sergeant on Thursday apologized to the family of a female soldier he admitted killing, after a military panel convicted him of unpremeditated murder and sentenced him to life in prison.

Sgt. Vincinte Jackson said he doesn't know why he killed Spc. Brandy Fonteneaux, 28, of Houston. She was found dead Jan. 8 in her barracks room, stabbed 74 times. A military panel sentenced Jackson to life in prison with the possibility of parole, though prosecutors couldn't immediately say how many years he would serve before becoming eligible.

"I will be forever haunted by what happened," Jackson said. " ... It's only fair that I continue to have nightmares about what I've done."

His testimony came at the end of an emotional sentencing hearing that included statements from the families of Jackson and Fonteneaux.

The same panel of eight soldiers who convicted Jackson decided his sentence. The potential sentence for unpremeditated murder ranged from no punishment to life in prison without parole.

The panel -- the equivalent of a jury in a civilian trial -- convicted Jackson earlier Thursday after 2 1/2 hours of deliberations. It acquitted Jackson of premeditated murder, which carries a sentence of up to life in prison without parole.

Prosecutors asked for life without parole, while Jackson's defense attorneys asked for 28 years.