Hunter Alford is the happy kid next door with a big grin who idolizes country music star Blake Shelton. His parents call him a "wild, fun loving, zombie-killing boy who loves the military and police."

He is normal in every way, except this 7-year-old already plays guitar and keyboards and has his heart set on learning to fiddle.

Something else sets Hunter apart. He was born with a rare form of cancer and lost his health insurance just after Obamacare went into effect.

Americans were told the health-care law was designed to help children just like Hunter, born with a deadly pre-existing condition and little means to pay for expensive treatments.

The Affordable Care Act was not supposed to take away the insurance these most-vulnerable children already had and leave them utterly defenseless against a life-threatening disease.

Answers are hard to come by, but it looks like that's what the president's signature achievement has done in the small town of Gainesville, Texas.

At least four people were killed on Sunday and 63 injured, 11 of them critically, when a passenger train heading into New York City derailed in the Bronx.

Two carriages were flipped onto their sides in the early morning incident, which occurred at 7.20am about 100 yards north of Spuyten Duyvil station on the Hudson line of the Metro-North Railroad.

The New York Fire Department, which coordinated a rescue effort involving hundreds of firefighters, police and railway workers, said 63 people were hurt when the seven-carriage, southbound 5.54am service from Poughkeepsie to Manhattan's Grand Central Station left the rails on a sharp bend.

Three of the dead were killed as they were thrown from the train, according to FDNY chief of department Edward Kilduff. Numerous passengers were taken away on stretchers to local hospitals, officials said at a press conference three hours after the derailment.

Kilduff said he believed all the passengers and train crew were accounted for after a rescue operation that included divers searching for survivors in the adjacent Harlem River, and that he thought the casualty count was unlikely to rise further.

"Three of the four fatalities were thrown as the train came off the track and was twisting and turning somewhat," he said. "The train is pretty beat up. There was substantial damage inside and a lot of personal possessions thrown around.

"We believe we've searched the entire area and we don't have any other victims we're aware of." Kilduff added that he did not yet know exactly how many people had been aboard the train.

Eyewitnesses said they saw dozens of scratched and bloodied passengers leaving the wreckage, several holding ice packs to their heads. Frank Tatulli, a passenger in the front carriage, which came to rest just inches from the edge of the Harlem River, told a local TV station that he felt the train was travelling "a lot faster" than it usually would coming into the station.

At least four people were killed after a Metro-North Railroad train derailed Sunday morning in the Bronx along the Hudson River, officials said.

A total of 67 people were injured - 11 critically - a New York Fire Department spokesman, Jim Long, said.

The derailment occurred when several cars of a train headed south from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., left the tracks about 7:20 a.m. near the Spuyten Duyvil station under the Henry Hudson Bridge on the Hudson Line, according to a Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman, Aaron Donovan.

Thousands of cyclists lay across a South London street on Friday evening to protest against dangerous traffic conditions in the capital. The 15-minute vigil, which remembered the six cyclists killed in November, took place outside Transport for London's Blackfriars office. TFL says it is working to develop better cycle safety

A woman reportedly used some sort of a stun gun on a fellow shopper during a vicious Black Friday brawl at the Franklin Mills Mall in Philadelphia.

The incident, which was caught on video, occurred at around 2:30 a.m. Friday. Two women can be seen exchanging punches and wrestling on floor. Suddenly, one of the women pulls out what appears to be a stun gun to shock her foe.

Some bystanders can be heard pleading with the women to stop while others stand around and watch. The cause of the fight was not immediately clear.

Watch the shocking video via the Daily Mail:


While mall security confirmed to NBC Philadelphia that a fight did break out at the mall, they denied that a "Taser" was used. They reportedly did not confirm or deny that a stun gun was used.

As TheBlaze reported earlier today, Black Friday violence has been seen across the United States.

Number of winter deaths in Wales increases by half

Health boards in Wales have warned of 'unprecedented demand' on services this winter as figures show big rise in excess deaths last winter

The number of excess winter deaths in Wales increased by 50% last year, according to new figures.

Statistics released this morning show that there were 1,900 excess winter deaths in 2012-2013, up from 1,260 in 2011-2012.

This is an 18.8% increase that the number of deaths outside the winter months.

Of these, 1,100 were in aged 85 and above, while 400 were aged between 75-85 and 200 were aged between 65-74.

Last year saw one of the coldest winters in recent times, with the impact of the cold temperatures taking its toll on many services.

A man escaped from a Swedish prison simply to visit the dentist, and was slapped an extended sentence when he returned to the jail.

"My whole face was swollen. I just couldn't stand it any more," the 51-year-old told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper (DN).

The man was a prisoner at the minimum security Östragård facility in the municipality of Väners­borg, in south-western Sweden.

The prisoner, who was serving a one-month sentence, had asked for medical care for the pain in his tooth but to no avail, so he decided to take matters into his own hands.

After leaving the grounds, he tracked down the nearest dentist, had his inflamed tooth removed, then reported himself to police who then drove him back to Östragård.

Upon arrival, guards gave him a warning and extended his sentence by a day, reported DN.

Canada is blessed with 3 million lakes, more than any country on Earth -- and it may soon start manufacturing new ones. They're just not the kind that will attract anglers or tourists.

The oil sands industry is in the throes of a major expansion, powered by C$20 billion ($19 billion) a year in investments. Companies including Syncrude Canada Ltd., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp. affiliate Imperial Oil Ltd. are running out of room to store the contaminated water that is a byproduct of the process used to turn bitumen -- a highly viscous form of petroleum -- into diesel and other fuels.

By 2022 they will be producing so much of the stuff that a month's output of wastewater could turn an area the size of New York's Central Park into a toxic reservoir 11 feet (3.4 meters) deep, according to the Pembina Institute, a nonprofit in Calgary that promotes sustainable energy.

To tackle the problem, energy companies have drawn up plans that would transform northern Alberta into the largest man-made lake district on Earth. Several firms have obtained permission from provincial authorities to flood abandoned tar sand mines with a mix of tailings and fresh water.

Syncrude began work this summer on Base Mine Lake, which when complete will measure 2,000 acres. It says the reservoir will eventually replicate a natural habitat, complete with fish and waterfowl. As many as 30 so-called end-pit lakes are planned, according to Alberta's Cumulative Environment Management Association, a private-public partnership.

Conservative evangelicals have politicized psychology and made the church hostile to the mentally ill.

On a Veteran's Day broadcast, two of America's most influential televangelists claimed that good Christians can't get PTSD.

Kenneth Copeland, who is famous for pitching a fit when a senator tried to investigate his nonprofits and for inspiring a measles outbreak, said, "Any of you suffering from PTSD right now, you listen to me. You get rid of that right now. You don't take drugs to get rid of it, it doesn't take psychology; that promise right there [in the Bible] will get rid of it."

Copeland's guest, conservative revisionist historian David Barton, agreed, adding, "We used to, in the pulpit, understand the difference between a just war and an unjust war. And there's a biblical difference, and when you do it God's way, not only are you guiltless for having done that, you're esteemed."

Barton believes that anybody who behaves "biblically" during war can't get PTSD. Unfortunately, there is a logical flip side to this statement: someone who has PTSD must have not been biblical in his actions, and thus he is ultimately responsible for his own PTSD.

Understandably, a lot of people are upset by Barton and Copeland's assertion. Even the staunchly conservative Gospel Coalition (TGC) and America's largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), made no bones about their distaste for Copeland and Barton, the former calling them "profoundly stupid," the latter "callow and doltish."

That's an aggressive attack, especially given that a significant number of Christians, including leaders at SBC and TGC, share Barton and Copeland's belief that mental illness can be cured by faith. A September survey by LifeWay showed that fully 35 percent of Christians and 48 percent of self-identified evangelicals believe prayer alone can heal serious mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, major depression and bipolar disorder.

The idea that major illnesses can be cured by prayer feeds the idea that mental illness is the fault of the ill. A 2008 survey conducted by Baylor psychology professor Matthew Stanford showed that 36 percent of mentally ill church attendees (and former church attendees) were told their mental illness was a product of their own sin, while 34 percent were told their illness was caused by a demon. Forty-one percent were told they did not really have a mental illness, and 28 percent were instructed to stop taking psychiatric medication.

A woman crammed her house with 140 snakes including pythons and boas and kept them squashed in old sweet tubs and plastic bins, a court has heard.

Pauline Wallace, 64, had the vast number of reptiles housed in an upstairs bedroom, living room and garage.

RSPCA inspectors found 20 lying dead in a fridge freezer next to a dead cat because she couldn't bear to bury them.

It is not believed all were part of the criminal case against her.

The rest of her collection was kept in old sweet tubs, plastic bins and vivariums that were stacked from floor to ceiling.

Wallace had denied a raft of animal cruelty charges but today changed her plea before she was due to stand trial.