Photo Credit: libertynews
Principal Peter Badalament says the whole incident was the result of a collision of 9-11 and the absence of student who normally recites the daily pledge, reports The Boston Globe.
Badalament explains the situation saying, “We were unaware that our student Pledge reader had an internship commitment” and therefore, wasn’t in school on 9-11.
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: AP
In the war that Congress authorized against al Qaeda only three days after that attack, the vast majority of the U.S. casualties have occurred in the last four and a half years during the presidency of Barack Obama.
In fact, according to the CNSNews.com database of U.S. casualties in Afghanistan, 73 percent of all U.S. Afghan War casualties have occurred since Jan. 20, 2009 when Obama was inaugurated.
The 91 U.S. casualties in Afghanistan so far in 2013 are more than those that occurred in the first two full calendar years of the war (2002 and 2003) combined, when 30 and 31 U.S. troops were killed there.
On Sept. 14, 2001, Congress approved a resolution authorizing the president “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons.”
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: AP
Boulder, home to the University of Colorado, was among the hardest hit by the devastating waters. Classes were canceled, hundreds of students evacuated and a quarter of the campus buildings damaged by rising water, authorities said.
“This is not an ordinary day. It is not an ordinary disaster,” Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said, describing walls of water as high as 20 feet that tore down mountainsides and canyons already scarred and denuded from wildfires.
“All the preparation in the world … can’t put people up those canyons while these walls of water are coming down,” he said.
President Obama signed an emergency declaration Thursday night, which frees up federal aid and allows the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts.
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: Barcroft Media
Hundreds of rare wild monkeys — some carrying herpes — are on the loose in Florida after a tour guide brought the spunky critters to the state long ago.
Wildlife officials said that three pairs of Rhesus monkeys were transported to a park near Ocala in the 1930s by tour operator Colonel Tooey after a “Tarzan” flick sparked a fascination with the creature.
But the breed has since boomed and more than 1,000 of the monkeys now live in the state, wildlife officials say.
State officials have caught more than 700 of the monkeys in the past decade — most of which tested positive for the herpes-B virus.
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: Fox News
Tea Party-aligned members of Boehner’s caucus are flexing their muscle and pressuring him to allow a vote on an anti-ObamaCare measure as part of ongoing budget talks. They want the vote tied directly to the budget measure, and rejected a compromise plan earlier this week — leaving unclear how Congress might pass a short-term spending bill before funding runs out on Sept. 30.
Boehner, after meeting with bipartisan congressional leaders on Thursday morning, offered no hint of what the next step might be. In the face of heated intra-party squabbling — and even nastier accusations flying between Republican and Democrats — he projected cool.
“There’s all this speculation about these deadlines that are coming up. I’m well aware of the deadlines. So are my colleagues,” he said. “And so we’re working with our colleagues to work our way through these issues. I think there’s a way to get there. … There are a million options that are being discussed by a lot of people.”
But Boehner realizes that the party’s public image going into the 2014 elections could be at stake, with Democrats eager to pin the blame on them if Congress can’t reach a budget deal and there’s a partial shutdown. Lawmakers came within minutes of a shutdown during a budget fight in 2011, and have continued to pass a series of short-term measures — leaving the prospect of a shutdown perpetually over the horizon.
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: AP/SANA
“When we see that the U.S. genuinely stands for stability in our region, stops threatening us with military intervention and stops supplying terrorists with weapons, then we will consider it possible to finalize all necessary procedures and they will become legitimate and acceptable for Syria,” Assad told RIA News.
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: Reuters
Yahoo and Facebook, along with other tech firms, are pushing for the right to be allowed to publish the number of requests they receive from the spy agency. Companies are forbidden by law to disclose how much data they provide.
During an interview at the Techcrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Mayer was asked why tech companies had not simply decided to tell the public more about what the US surveillance industry was up to. “Releasing classified information is treason and you are incarcerated,” she said.
Mayer said she was “proud to be part of an organisation that from the beginning, in 2007, has been sceptical of – and has been scrutinizing – those requests [from the NSA].”
Yahoo has previously unsuccessfully sued the foreign intelligence surveillance (Fisa) court, which provides the legal framework for NSA surveillance. In 2007 it asked to be allowed to publish details of requests it receives from the spy agency. “When you lose and you don’t comply, it’s treason,” said Mayer. “We think it make more sense to work within the system,” she said.
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: Daily Caller
Responding to the hoopla surrounding the health insurance policies on Capitol Hill, the Nevada Democrat flatly stated Thursday, “That’s what the law says, and we’ll be part of that.”
Reid said the Republicans and critics are just using the issue as a “diversion” to “try and embarrass the president.”
“Let’s stop these really juvenile political games,” Reid said. “The one dealing with healthcare for Senators and House members and our staff. We are going to be part of exchanges.”
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images
“We, as a people, have to stand up, because we can not settle for this and come to believe the new normal is that an ambassador can call up and say ‘We’re under attack’ and have elected officials do nothing about it.”
West was in the nation’s capital to speak at the Justice for Benghazi Rally on the one-year anniversary of the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, and the twelfth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.
The former Florida congressman told the crowd President Obama lacked a sense of “moral obligation” about the deaths of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and security personnel who “ran to the sound of the guns, while others on that night ran to bed.”
President Obama’s representatives have repeatedly refused to divulge what he was doing the night of the attacks.
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: AP
De’Marquise Elkins, 18, stood silent and showed no emotion as he was sentenced in a courtroom less than two weeks after a jury found him guilty of murder in the slaying of 13-month-old Antonio Santiago during a robbery attempt.
“His first word was never heard. His first sentence was never said,” Sherry West, the baby’s mother, said through tears on the witness stand as she read a statement made to rhyme like a poem or a nursery rhyme. “He never got to sleep in a toddler bed.”
The baby was in his stroller and out for a walk with his mother when he was shot between the eyes March 21 in the Georgia coastal city of Brunswick. West and a younger teenager charged as an accomplice testified at trial that Elkins killed the baby after his mother refused to give up her purse.
Elkins was spared the death penalty because the killing occurred when he was 17, which the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled is too young to face capital punishment. Under Georgia law, the only possible punishments for Elkins were life with or without a chance of parole.
Read more from this story HERE.