With three high school football players dying from in-game injuries so far this season, declining interest in the sport and a spate of other injuries, schools are beginning to take a hard look at cutting their football programs.

Star quarterback Evan Murray, a senior at Warren Hills Regional High School in New Jersey, died last Friday night. He took a big hit in the backfield during a game, collapsing on the field and dying soon after, Lehigh Valley Live reported. The county medical examiner determined that Murray had ruptured his abnormally large spleen.

Murray was the third high school player to die this month from the direct result of football injuries, according to the New York Times. Tyrell Cameron, a sophomore at Franklin Parish High School in Louisiana, died on September 5 after being hit during a punt return. Ben Hamm, a 16-year-old linebacker at Wesleyan Christian School in Oklahoma, died on September 19, eight days after he sustained a head injury during a game.

Last year, five football players died over the course of the season, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research.

A debate sparked by the free-range parenting movement has drawn attention to the threats and intrusions poor, minority families have long endured.

On July 29, 2013, a Latina mother in Illinois named Natasha Felix sent her three sons, ages 11, 9, and 5, out to play with a visiting cousin, a young girl, in a fenced park right next to her apartment building. The oldest boy was charged with keeping an eye on his siblings, while Felix watched them all from the window. While they were outside, a local preschool teacher showed up at the park with her class. She saw the 9-year-old climb a tree. Felix's youngest son fought with his cousin over a scooter and, at one point, ran with it into the street. Based on this, the teacher called the child-abuse hotline, and Felix received a visit from the Department of Children and Family Services.

According to legal filings in the case, the investigator, Nancy Rodriguez, found that Felix's kids "were clothed appropriately, appeared clean [and] well groomed," and that Felix "appeared to be a good mother." Felix's oldest son seemed like a "mature young boy" who "certainly could be allowed to go outside by himself to the park next door."

Convicted Norwegian far-right mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik has threatened to go on hunger strike "until death" over his "deteriorating" living conditions, in what many would consider something of a resort in terms of prison life.

Breivik was sentenced to 21 years in prison for unleashing in a series of attacks against Norwegian civilians on July 22 2011, mostly teenagers. Initially he killed eight people by setting off a van bomb in the government quarter in Oslo, and then shot dead 69 participants of a Workers' Youth League (AUF) summer camp on the island of Utoya.

During his sentencing Breivik claimed that he did not recognize the legitimacy of the court, refusing to accept its decision. He is currently confined at a maximum security Skien prison, south of Oslo, conditions of which he continues to detest.

In an open letter, the mass murderer complained, that since beginning of September, he had been kept in a single cell, isolated from the rest of the inmates. In addition he was only allowed to leave for one hour each day. Breivik also wrote that he was being given less time with prison staff, with communication often taking place only through a small gap in the door.

"Unless the 02/09/15 escalation [sic] is reversed, I will eventually continue the hunger strike until death. I can not stand any more," he wrote to Norwegian and Swedish media.

The convict, who is studying political science at University of Oslo says that his living conditions undermine his attempt to pursue his courses.

"The decision about the drastic deterioration of prison conditions forced me to drop out of my studies, which in turn means that I will lose my place at the University. The studies, which were made possible for only thirteen full days before the Minister of Justice put an end to them, were the only thing I had," Breivik wrote.

Italy has told the European Commission that it will ban growing crops with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) under a rule that allows European Union countries to opt out of GMO cultivation, a government statement said on Thursday.

Italy's Agriculture, Environment and Health ministers wrote to the commission to "request to exclude cultivation of all the GMOs authorised at an EU level from all of Italian territory," the statement said.

Venom specialists said on Wednesday disease and disability caused by snake bites is far higher than official global health estimates suggest and antivenom stocks are running dangerously low.

In a joint statement after a five-day conference in Britain, the international experts said snake bites kill more people than all other so-called Neglected Tropical Diseases combined, yet get little attention or funding from the World Health Organisation (WHO) or from governments.

Citing new evidence from a study in India and Bangladesh, the experts said around 46,000 people died annually of snake bites in India, plus another 6,000 in Bangladesh. The WHO estimates the annual death toll in India from snake bites is 10,000.

Eastern Child Development Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was closed this week while the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department investigated a video (shown below) that showed an employee putting a pacifier into a baby's mouth, covering her face with a blanket and roughly rocking her on Sept. 18.

The employee, identified as Ariadnys Armas, was arrested on Sept. 29 and charged with felony child abuse, KOB reports.

Director of the center, Hannah Tapia, told KOB that Armas was fired as soon as the cell phone video emerged.

"She was let go immediately," Tapia said. "I asked her 'why?' She said she just had one bad day. We told her that wasn't acceptable behavior, she could've really hurt that baby."

The mother of the 6-month-old baby in the video, Ashley Tapia, also works at the daycare center.

"I was shaking," she said. "I was so angry and hurt because I had never had any concerns about my daughter's teacher. She was always well trusted and well liked."

The infant is doing well, but the center remains closed, pending an investigation, NY Daily News reports. Some 289 children attend the center.

"Based on the disturbing videos we have seen, we are not comfortable with children being at the facility until we have completed a more in-depth investigation into possible systemic issues," said CYFD spokesman Henry Varela in a statement. "We are working with families to identify alternate placement options so no child is without care while we complete this investigation."

Police in Oregon are on the scene at Umpqua Community College where a gunman opened fire this morning, killing at least 10 people and wounding 20 others.

Scanner reports indicated the suspect is 'down', but the gunman's condition remains unknown at this time.

According to law enforcement officials, at least one of the injured victims was a woman who was shot in the chest.

Fifteen people have been confirmed dead and at least 20 others have been injured, according to Oregon State Police.


A tweet said at 10:45 a.m. that there was an active shooter at Umpqua Community College in Douglas County, Oregon.

At least 10 people have been killed and around 20 others have been injured, Oregon State Police spokesman Bill Fugate initially told CNN. The number of dead was later reported to be 15.

A school official told a reporter shots were fired at Snyder Hall. The official said the school was locked down.

Umpqua Community Collegehas 3,300 full-time students and 16,000 part-time students. It is located about 6 miles from the town of Roseburg, Oregon.

The majority of those surveyed said undocumented immigrants are beneficial and should be allowed to remain in the U.S.
A poll revealed that about 75 percent of people in the U.S. west coast state of California said undocumented immigrants should be allowed to stay in the country to live and work because they have proven to be beneficial to nation, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

The survey was carried out by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), who said that those respondents in favor of undocumented immigrants being allowed to remain in the country included Republicans, who usually advocate against any benefits for immigrants who lack documents.

The poll's findings come as some candidates fighting for the Republican presidential nomination take strong anti-undocumented immigration policy stances. Republican presidential hopeful frontrunner Donald Trump, for example, has said he would deport the estimated 11 million people living in the United States without papers

For the first time in its modern history, the New York Police Department is establishing explicit guidelines — backed by a sweeping new tracking system — for using and documenting force.

Every police officer will have to detail virtually every instance when force is used not only in an arrest but also in other encounters with the public, including the sort of brief, violent detention and release that occurs routinely on the street and, in the case of the retired tennis star James Blake, is captured on video.

Officers, who have long been required to intervene when they see other officers using excessive force, will now face formal discipline, up to and including dismissal, not only if they fail to step in or report excessive force, but also if they also fail to seek medical assistance for someone who requests it.

The new rules for the New York Police Department are to be announced on Thursday by Commissioner William J. Bratton after more than a year of consideration by top police officials. They coincide with a rollout of 900 new Taser stun guns to patrol officers, until now carried only by some supervisors and by officers from the elite Emergency Service Unit.