British CNN host Piers Morgan has reacted defiantly against a US petition calling for him to be deported from the US for his views that America should change its gun control laws.

In one message, Morgan urged his detractors to "bring it on" and sign the petition, as he tracked its progress on Twitter.

Morgan infuriated the US gun lobby with his outspoken view that gun laws in the US should be changed to avoid further mass shootings in the wake of the December 14 shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Primary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

In less than a day, the petition earned more than 56,000 signatures, surpassing the 25,000 required for a formal response from the White House.

Former Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul has rejected calls from the National Rifle Association to put armed patrolmen in every school across America.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), who will retire from Congress following the completion of his current term, released a statement on his website Monday morning condoning the NRA's response to the horrific school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut earlier this month.

Only one week after 20-year-old Adam Lanza opened fire in Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed more than two people, NRA Vice President Wayne LaPierre called on Friday for the government to pay for armed officers in schools across the country. In response, Rep. Paul said, "Government security is just another kind of violence."

LaPierre's comments were met widely with criticism from anti-gun advocates who insist that more firearms, specifically in schools, will not be able to curb another massacre. Three days later, Rep. Paul responded by saying that while he believes personally that more guns could mean less crime if, increasing security in schools to such an alarming degree does not sit well with him personally.

A hacker group, connected with Anonymous, announced Sunday that it has extensive information on people said to have been involved in the gang rape of a 15-year-old Ohio girl. Local parents and authorities are accused of protecting the rapists.

The brutal assault was the subject of a New York Times profile, which described how local superstar high school football players Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond are charged with the rape and kidnap of the girl in Steubenville, Ohio. But most accounts claim that the two were not the only ones involved.

"The town of Steubenville has been good at keeping this quiet and their star football team protected," reads the statement from the Anonymous-affiliated group, which refers to itself as KnightSec.

As part of "Operation Roll Red Roll," KnightSec claims to have obtained extensive information on "everyone involved including names, social security numbers, addresses, relatives, and phone numbers." The group says that adults in the football-crazed town are protecting the group of boys involved, which other students at the Big Red High School say refers to itself as the "rape crew."

Former President George H.W. Bush won't be home for Christmas, remaining in the hospital because of a fever.

Plans to send the 88-year-old to his Houston home for the holidays were put on hold after he developed the fever. Bush was hospitalized Nov. 23 with bronchitis. No date has been set for his discharge.

"We were hoping to get him out but he's just got a few setbacks that they think they've got a handle on," said his spokesman, Jim McGrath. "Doctors express confidence that they have the situation under control and are cautiously optimistic going forward."

Bush had a lingering cough and remained in the hospital to improve his strength. Then came some "low-energy days" and the fever, McGrath said.

"It's been one thing after another," McGrath said. "He's just had a couple of steps backward."

Bush is the nation's 41st president and father of the 43rd president, George W. Bush.

She was Adam Lanza's first victim. Yet while the other 26 dead in Sandy Hook are rightly mourned, Nancy is being disgracefully smeared

Addressing the bereaved community of Sandy Hook last week, President Obama read the names of Adam Lanza's victims - all 26. On the one-week anniversary of America's second-most lethal school shooting, bells tolled across the nation - 26 times. But even omitting his suicide, the impenetrable killer's victims numbered 27.

American education has not so deteriorated that even the president can't count. The discreetly deleted fatality was Adam's first and no doubt primary target: his mother, shot in her bed, four times in the head. Yet grief on Nancy Lanza's account has been stinting. With funerals of children and teachers standing-room-only, Nancy's service last Thursday drew a sparse two dozen relatives.

A TSA agent convicted of stealing more than $800,000 worth of goods from travelers said this type of theft is "commonplace" among airport security. Almost 400 TSA officers have been fired for stealing from passengers since 2003.

­Pythias Brown, a former Transportation Security Administration officer at Newark Liberty International Airport, spent four years stealing everything he could from luggage and security checkpoints, including clothing, laptops, cameras, Nintendo Wiis, video games and cash.

Speaking publicly for the first time after being released after three years in prison, Brown told ABC News that he used the X-ray scanners to locate the most valuable items to snatch.

"I could tell whether it was cameras or laptops or portable cameras or whatever kind of electronic was in the bag," he said.

Brown often worked alone, screening luggage behind the ticket counters. He was frequently told the overhead surveillance cameras, installed to prevent theft, were not working.

"It was so easy," he said. "I walked right out of the checkpoint with a Nintendo Wii in my hand. Nobody said a word."

With more electronics than any one individual could need, Brown began to sell the stolen items on eBay. At the time of his arrest, he was selling 80 cameras, video games and computers online. Brown said the theft was comparable to an addiction.

I woke up just past midnight with a bolt. My six-month-old son was crying. He has a cold - the second of his short life - and his blocked nose frightens him. I was about to get up when he started snoring again. I, on the other hand, was wide awake.

A single thought entered my head: Chief Theresa Spence is hungry. Actually it wasn't a thought. It was a feeling. The feeling of hunger. Lying in my dark room, I pictured the chief of the Attawapiskat First Nation lying on a pile of blankets in her teepee across from Parliament Hill, entering day 14 of her hunger strike.

I had of course been following Chief Spence's protest and her demand to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper to discuss the plight of her people and his demolition of treaty rights through omnibus legislation. I had worried about her. Supported her. Helped circulate the petitions. But now, before the distancing filters of light and reason had a chance to intervene, I felt her. The determination behind her hunger. The radicality of choosing this time of year, a time of so much stuffing - mouths, birds, stockings - to say: I am hungry. My people are hungry. So many people are hungry and homeless. Your new laws will only lead to more of this misery. Can we talk about it like human beings?

According to a report by the New York Times, Amazon has started to crack down on thousands of fake book reviews that have popped up on the site in recent years.

Some writers on the online retailer rely on fake reviews to help sell copies of their books, but Amazon is laying down the hammer in an attempt to stop this.

The New York Times reports Amazon will not say how many reviews it has erased so far, and it has also declined to offer any public explanation.

Several writers have sounded off to express their frustrations with the move, some saying the reviews cause zero harm.

"Over the last few days, quite a few reviews have disappeared from books on Amazon," blogger Ed Robertson wrote in October. "I was alerted to this by someone who had reviewed Breakers and was upset to see their review had been pulled. This is a fellow KB author, but I don't know them. I'm not sure we've ever spoken directly before."

Florida - Many Americans think that their culture is on a downward spiral; Morris Berman thinks that Americans can't think.

Our economy is weak, our education system is failing, and we've substituted the internet for real social interraction and real thought. We live in an ocean of information and have lost the capacity to pull knowledge from it, the critical capacity to test information for truth.

Morris Berman is a prominent cultural and scientific historian, and also a well-known social critic. He's written extensively about everything from the values of Western civilization to our country's financial woes. His work challenges us to look at facts from a far more comprehensive perspective.

In this first part of our discussion, Dr. Berman shares his views about contemporary American thought - or lack thereof - as well as the relationship between personal responsibility and individualism.

Two brave volunteer firefighters were shot dead today and two injured when a lone gunman started a blaze as a trap to lure the men and opened fire on Christmas Eve.In addition a single police officer from the West Webster police force in New York was hit by shrapnel during the shooting which comes just ten days after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre rocked the nation.

The firefighters were called out to the fire on the shores of Lake Ontario at around 5.35 a.m. and the unidentified shooter immediately opened fire and initial reports claimed he was using an assault rifle - before a police SWAT team arrived and soon after the gunman died from a gunshot would. It is unclear if the wound was self-inflicted.

The unidentified man opened fire as soon as the firefighters arrived, killing police lieutenant Mike Chiapperini and Tomasz Kaczowka, a 911 dispatcher, who had both volunteered with the West Webster fire department. In addition, two full time fire men, Joseph Hofsetter and Theodore Scardino were shot and injured by the gunman and are currently in nearby Strong hospital along with John Ritter, an off duty police officer who was hit by shrapnel from the volley of bullets.

All three men are in a guarded condition according to West Webster fire Chief Gerald Pickering, who confirmed that there was only one gunman and that it appears the fire was started as a trap.'It does appear it was a trap set for first responders,' said a visibly emotional Pickering at a press conference this morning. 'These people wake up in the middle of the night to fight fires , they don't expect to get shot.'

After the firefighters were shot police SWAT teams were called to the scene and they engaged managed to recover the dead and injured firefighters who had been shot.They then engaged in a pursuit of the unidentified suspect which ended in the shooter losing his life near to the home which he had set ablaze.