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At least 1 dead as Syria regime changes tactics against protesters

Activist said Assad adviser told him of 'definitive presidential orders' not to shoot
Image
© AFP/Getty Images
An image taken from footage uploaded by Sham SNN, a Syrian opposition web channel, shows Syrian anti-regime protesters marching during a rally in the northeastern Syrian Kurdish town of Amuda on Friday.

Beirut - Syrian security forces opened fire on thousands of protesters Friday, killing at least one person with a gunshot to the head as soldiers tried to blunt demonstrations by occupying mosques and blocking public squares, activists said.

The death in the central city of Homs marks the latest bloodshed in what has become a weekly rhythm during the two-month uprising, with protesters taking to the streets every Friday, only to be met with bullets, tear gas and batons.

Leading human rights activist Mazen Darwish said Friday's victim was shot in the head. A second activist in Homs put the death toll at two.

"At first they opened fire in the air but the people continued their way, and then they shot directly into the crowd," the second activist said, asking that his name not be used for fear of reprisals from the government.

He said security forces dressed in black and pro-regime gunmen known as "shabiha" were doing the shooting.

Pistol

Murder Accused 'Genius Whose Only Flaw Was He Can't Stop'

Former nurse Malcolm Webster got away with murder for 17 years by making the death of his first wife in a fireball car crash look like an accident, a jury has been told.

Webster, 52, denies murdering first wife Claire Morris, 32, on an Aberdeenshire road in 1994.

In his closing speech to the jury at Webster's trial in the High Court in Glasgow yesterday, prosecutor Derek Ogg QC said: "For 17 years it was the perfect murder. He got away with it for 17 years because he made it look like an accident."

He said Webster - also accused of trying to kill second wife, Felicity Drumm, by drugging her and staging a car crash in New Zealand in 1999 - was "a brilliant criminal genius whose only flaw was he can't stop himself".

Bad Guys

Bin Laden's Revenge: 70 Dead after the Explosion of Two Bombs in Pakistan

Pkistan bomb casualty
© n/a
Two bombs caused the explosion on Friday, killing 70 people in northwest Pakistan, in particular the cadets of the police paramilitary unit, the Taliban allies of Al-Qaida claiming as "their first action" in Osama bin Laden's revenge.

This attack takes place 11 days after the "architect" of the September 11 attacks was killed by a U.S. Special Forces commando in northern Pakistan. Pakistani Talibans have vowed to retaliate immediately, intensifying their attacks against the Pakistani government and security forces, which Washington considers accomplice in the raid, and against U.S. interests.

Friday dawn, at Shabqadar, a city of the Charsadda district in north-west of the country, a man on a motorcycle detonated a bomb he had on him when the cadets, dressed in civilian clothes, were preparing to climb into a bus that would take them home for a furlough of ten days, explained to AFP Marwa Nisar Khan, police chief of Charsadda.

Family

Homeless Chicago Man Donates Thousands to Down-On-Her-Luck Banker

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© FOX Chicago News
Chicago - A year ago, everything was going right for a woman we'll call Sandy.

She had a good job at a bank in the suburbs.

She and her 10-year-old son had a safe home.
But then the world came crashing down around the 39-year-old. She lost her job. She lost her house. And she and her son moved into her truck. Police found her and DCFS threatened to take away her son if she didn't find a safe place to stay.

She moved into a hotel with the help of a social worker who paid for a few nights stay with her own money. That's when Sandy's knight in shining armor showed up. And he's kept showing up, every day, paying her hotel bill, so she and her son can stay off the streets.

But Sandy's Good Samaritan isn't a Chicago big shot. He isn't living in a Loop highrise. He doesn't even have a job.

People

Egyptian Activists Gear Up For Third Intifadah

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© Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS
Protest outside Israel’s embassy in Cairo.
Cairo - Following the February ouster of Egypt's longstanding President Hosni Mubarak, calls have been circulating in Egypt and throughout the region for a 'Third Intifadah' to begin May 15. "Unlike the first two Palestinian uprisings, the proposed Third Intifadah is meant to involve the entire Arab world," Egyptian journalist and political analyst Abdelhalim Kandil told IPS.

It began with the appearance of a Facebook.com page in early March calling for a 'Third Intifadah' against the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. The page, reportedly founded by Arab pro- Palestinian groups, set the launch date for May 15 - the day on which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were driven from their homes in 1948 to make way for the nascent state of Israel.

The page attracted some 230,000 members within two weeks, prompting Israeli officials to lodge a complaint with the popular California-based social-networking website. On Mar. 29, Facebook.com removed the page - which had at that point surpassed the 500,000-member mark - claiming that its contents were found to "promote violence".

Dollar

US: Sidwell Friends Sued for $10 Million by Cuckolded Dad

Lawsuit claims "severe emotional distress" caused by alleged affair between a staff psychologist and the married mother of a student he was treating.

The father of a 5-year-old Sidwell Friends School student has filed a $10 million suit against the school for allegedly allowing its staff psychologist to carry on an affair with his wife.

In court filings, Arthur Newmyer claims he and his daughter suffered "severe emotional distress" when then-school psychologist James Huntington carried on a lengthy affair with his wife, Tara Newmyer. Huntington was treating Newmyer's daughter at the time, and the suit alleges that the girl was routinely present when he and Tara Newmyer would meet to spend time together.

Bomb

China Bank Bomb Injures 40

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© Lu Jianfeng, Xinhua/Associated Press
A person injured is carried toward an ambulance in Tianzhu County, northwest China's Gansu province, on Friday after an unidentified person threw a gasoline bomb inside a bank, state media said.
A bank cashier fired for stealing money threw a gasoline bomb inside the bank Friday in northwestern China, injuring dozens of people, some of whom jumped from a fifth-story window to escape, the local government said.

Employees of the Tianzhu County Rural Credit Cooperative Union were meeting about 8 a.m. local time when the employee threw the gasoline bomb, the propaganda office of the county's Communist Party said in a statement.

It said more than 40 people were hurt, 19 seriously. It said some of the injured jumped from the meeting room window onto a three-story building.

The statement identified the cashier as Yang Xianwen and said he was fired last month for "embezzling bank money." It said Yang fled the scene was being hunted by police.

Wolf

US: TSA Defends Frisking of Baby at Kansas City Airport

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© Twitter
An unidentified baby is searched by male and female TSA agents at Kansas City International Airport.
Federal officials insisted Wednesday that screeners at Kansas City International Airport were just doing their jobs when they frisked a baby, an incident that gained worldwide attention after a pastor posted a cellphone picture of the pat-down on Twitter.

The baby's stroller set off an alert of possible traces of explosives Saturday, so the screeners were justified in taking a closer look at the boy cradled in his mother's arms, said Nick Kimball, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration.

The Rev. Jacob Jester, an Independence evangelist who snapped the photo Saturday after he cleared security for a flight to Albuquerque, N.M., said it didn't sit right with him to see the baby being patted down. He said he thought the boy was about 8 months old.

After taking the picture, he posted it on the social networking site Twitter, commenting that the search was "extreme." His wife and another pastor also posted it, and soon it was a cyberspace hit with more than 300,000 viewers. It eventually made it onto such websites as The Drudge Report and London Daily Mail, sparking complaints from many readers that the TSA's actions crossed the line.

Beaker

US: Dallas Man Set Free After DNA Evidence Cleared Him of Sexual Assault


A Dallas County judge rewarded Johnny Pinchback, 55, his freedom on Thursday. He was wrongly convicted and sent to prison 26 years ago for rape.

The courtroom burst into cheers, applause and a standing ovation when a judge said "Mr. Pinchback, you are free to go".

Family, friends and others who have been exonerated filled the courtroom for the moment when Pinchback could walk into freedom after being convicted in 1987 for aggravated sexual assault.

Back then, the teenage victims ages 14 and 16, wrongly identified Pinchback out of a lineup. They said he was the man who tied them up and raped them at gunpoint in an Oak Cliff field.

Pinchback thanked his family, The Innocence Project of Texas and God for this day of freedom.

Che Guevara

Israel: Nakba Day Commemorations Begin

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© unknown
Palestinians shout slogans as they take part in a rally to mark .Nakba' in the occupied West Bank city of Beit Lahm (Bethlehem) May 12, 2011.
Thousands of Palestinians have marched in West Bank towns ahead of the "Nakba Day" which marks the 63rd anniversary of evicting Palestinians from their homes by Israelis.

Marchers in Beit Lahm (Bethlehem) held Palestinian flags and a giant key symbolic of their optimism to return home.

Meanwhile, in Gaza City, hundreds of children took part in a march while holding placards with the names of the villages and towns forcefully taken over by Israeli occuppiers in 1948.

Palestinians refer to May 15, 1948 as the "Nakba Day" or catastrophe. In that year, Israeli forces displaced some 700,000 Palestinians, forcing them to flee to different neighboring countries.