John Kerry French Faux Pas: I Just Want to ‘Share a Hug’ With You (+video)

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By Our Foreign Staff and AFP. When top US diplomat John Kerry rushed towards the French president, arms open, to warmly embrace him on Friday, what followed was a cringeworthy culture clash that has befuddled many a visitor to France.

The French are just not that into hugging.

Kerry had given fair warning to his French counterparts that some American-style affection was on the cards.

“My visit to France is basically to share a big hug for Paris and express the affection of the American people for France and for our friends there who have been through a terrible time,” he said on the eve of his trip.

The phrase alone sparked confusion in the media who struggled to pin down a translation for the word hug. (Read more about John Kerry’s “share a hug” moment HERE)

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Singer Helps John Kerry Show Solidarity With France After Delayed U.S. Response to Terror Attacks

By Rachelle Blinder. “You’ve got a friend,” France.

James Taylor crooned the message in Paris Friday to help Secretary of State John Kerry apologize for the U.S.’ late show of solidarity following last weeks’ terror attacks.

The American music legend and Kerry pal opened with the melody of the French national anthem, La Marseillaise, before launching into the English hit, “You’ve Got a Friend” to a crowd of survivors, victims’ families and first responders.

At the end of the 3-minute performance at Paris city hall, he reassured in French, “Your friend is here.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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Deflationary Worldwide Vortex: 2015 Projected to be Lowest Inflation Year Since Great Depression

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Photo Credit: Bloomberg Business WeekBy Peter Coy. Deflation is like a black hole, sucking seemingly everything into itself. Switzerland succumbed to the vortex on Jan. 15 when the central bank gave up trying to keep its currency from rising—a defeat that will punish the Swiss economy by making the nation’s goods more expensive on world markets.

Could the U.S. be next? The U.S. dollar is up about 11 percent since last summer by the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index, a rise that makes American-made goods less competitive. And there is a whiff of deflation in the air this morning with the news that the U.S. Consumer Price Index fell 0.4 percent in December from the previous month, the biggest decline since the economy was in free fall six years ago. “Deflationary pressures continue to build,” Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West, wrote in a report today, Jan. 16, that cited a drop in import prices and came out before the news about the Consumer Price Index.

The bottom line is that the U.S. is probably safe. The economy is strong enough that it’s likely to withstand the deflationary drag emanating from Europe. The U.S. should expand a little more than 3.1 percent in 2015, better than the estimated 2.4 percent this past year, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. (Read more about the deflationary worldwide vortex HERE)

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Why U.S. Inflation is not Here to Stay

By Mehreen Khan. The world economy is in the grip of a deflationary crisis. Or at least that’s what most headlines seem to scream.

In fact, it’s probably more accurate to say there are two types of deflation going on in the developed world right now – the good type and the bad type.

It’s hard to discern which dynamics are at play where, but plummeting oil prices are undoubtedly part of the benign deflation that has helped push down price indices over the past months.

There are other types of beneficial deflation too. This includes when enhanced productivity leads to a better supply of goods and services and results in prices falling.

But if 2015 is likely to be the first year since the Great Depression that every major world economy will see inflation fall below 2pc, what does this mean for our longer-term prospects? (Read more from this story HERE)

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Hero Cat Saves Baby From Freezing to Death

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Masha, a long-haired tabby cat, saved the life of a baby abandoned in the streets of Russia — after she climbed into the box he was discarded in and kept him warm, health officials said.

“The baby had only been outside for a few hours and thanks to Masha … he was not damaged by the experience,” a hospital spokesman told Central European News.

The whiskered hero even meowed to get the attention of a passerby.

“She is very placid and friendly, so when I heard her meowing, I thought that perhaps she had injured herself,” said Obninsk city resident Irina Lavrova. “Normally she would have come and said hello to me. You can imagine my shock when I saw her lying in a box next to a baby.”

Masha is a communal cat who is looked after by local residents. When she found the baby — who appeared to be in great shape — she immediately took to him as if he were her own, according to CEN. (Read more from “Cat Saves Baby from Freezing to Death” HERE)

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Betrayal! RINOs Secretly Crafting Broad Amnesty Bill, McConnell Says Forget Reversing Obama’s Amnesty; GOP Suicide Countdown Begins

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By Jonathan Strong. The GOP’s most outspoken proponent of comprehensive immigration reform let loose in an interview with reporters here, detailing quiet efforts to draft far-reaching legislation, saying House leadership is “committed” to bringing the hot-button topics on the floor and criticizing President Obama for carrying out too many deportations.

“We’re the party of deportation? Look at this president’s numbers!” Rep. Jeff Denham said.

The California Republican says he is part of a working group laying the ground work to bring forward comprehensive immigration reform, and that top-ranking Republicans are supportive of addressing the full gamut of immigration topics in legislation in 2015.

“I think leadership’s commitment is not only to bring up immigration reform, but to bring it up in multiple different bills. The question is the timing of that and the sequence of those bills,” Denham said.

“We’ve gotta be able to discuss the DREAMers, the 11.5 million that are here today, as well as a Guest Worker program, in the overall discussion of border security,” Denham said, later adding, “We’ve had a working group for quite some time on the various pieces of immigration on doing everything from a comprehensive bill to a step-by-step approach, but finding out who in our conference is actually open to debate and discussion.” (Read more about the Establishment’s efforts to commit “GOP suicide” HERE)

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McConnell Tells House GOP to Forget Reversing Obama’s Amnesty

By Alexander Bolton and Scott Wong. Senate GOP leaders are using their joint retreat with the House to warn conservatives that they’re not going to be able to reverse President Obama’s executive orders on immigration.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told House lawmakers that he needs at least six Democrats to pass legislation approved by the House that funds the Homeland Security Department and repeals Obama’s actions that protect millions of illegal immigrants from deportation.

He told House Republicans not to expect miracles, since it would take 60 Senate votes to send the House bill to Obama’s desk, and McConnell only has 54 Republican votes. (Read more from this story HERE)

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21st Century Inquisition: School Board Requires Homeschoolers to be Interrogated on Religious Beliefs

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A school board in Virginia is considering the repeal of a policy that would have forced 14-year-old minors to stand before the school board to be interrogated about their religious beliefs.

The Goochland County policy is aimed at homeschool families that fall under Virginia’s decades-old religious exemption statute, which acknowledges parents’ rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children.

The longstanding state statue allows parents to homeschool their children without reporting to the state if they have an objection to attending school outside the home that is based on “bona fide religious training or belief.”

The Goochland school board decided that not only do parents have to submit the basis for their religious beliefs for choosing to homeschool their children, but that it could require children, minors, between the ages of 14 and 18 to appear before the school board and undergo an inquisition about their own independent basis for their religious beliefs.

As the local CBS affiliate reports:

A policy approved by the Goochland County School Board in 2013 has several parents who home school their children upset.

The policy requires children ages 14 and up who want to be home schooled to provide a statement about their religious beliefs to the school system.

As part of that, the board reserves the right to bring the child and his or her parent in for a hearing.

(Read more about the school board that requires homeschoolers to answer questions about their religion HERE)

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Papa John’s Supports Female Employee Who Shot Armed Robber in the Face

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Papa John’s Pizza is standing by a pizza delivery woman who opened fire Sunday on an armed robber in an act of self defense.

The pizza franchise told FoxNews.com Thursday the employee, who hasn’t been named, will not be fired from the company.

The employee was making a delivery in Decatur, Ga., Sunday night when a man approached her vehicle, forcing her onto the ground at gunpoint, according to the DeKalb County Police Department. The woman, who had a gun in her pocket, was able to fire at the man while on the ground — striking the alleged assailant, identified as 24-year-old Donquaz Stevenson, in the face.

Stevenson was later found in a neighbor’s yard and arrested, according to police, who said the pizza delivery might have been a setup. Local media outlets reported that a second suspect carjacked the delivery woman’s silver 2000 Honda Accord and remains on the run.

Stevenson was charged with armed robbery and was being treated for a gunshot wound at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. (Read more about the employee who shot armed robber HERE)

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White House Knew CIA Snooped on Senate, Illegally Hacked Computer

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Photo Credit: CNNCentral Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan consulted the White House before directing agency personnel to sift through a walled-off computer drive being used by the Senate Intelligence Committee to construct its investigation of the agency’s torture program, according to a recently released report by the CIA’s Office of the Inspector General.

The Inspector General’s report, which was completed in July but only released by the agency on Wednesday, reveals that Brennan spoke with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough before CIA employees were ordered to “use whatever means necessary” to determine how certain sensitive internal documents had wound up in Senate investigators’ hands. The conversation with McDonough came after Brennan first issued the directive, but before he reiterated it to a CIA attorney leading the probe.

Brennan’s consultation with McDonough also came before the CIA revealed the search to then-Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), whose staff was the target of the snooping.

The new information suggesting the White House was aware of — and did not stop — the CIA’s computer snooping is unlikely to improve the existing distrust between Senate committee members and the executive branch. Feinstein has said that the CIA’s computer search likely violated the constitutional separation of powers, an allegation the White House has declined to directly address.

The Oval Office’s prior knowledge of the controversial computer review will no doubt worsen the tensions that have erupted over the matter between the executive branch, its chief intelligence agency and the lawmakers tasked with their oversight. (Read more on how CIA snooped HERE)

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WATCH: ISIS Soldier Killed Days After Child Executioner Video

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By Flora Drury. The ISIS commander who appeared alongside a child executioner in a chilling video just days ago it believed to have been killed in Syria.

Abu Sa’ad al-Dāghistāni has died in Kobane, ISIS fighters on Twitter are claiming.

Al-Dāghistāni – who is described variously as a fighter and an ISIS intelligence commander – featured in what’s believed to be ISIS’ last video, which claimed to show a young boy executing two Russian spies in the Islamic State. (Read more about the ISIS soldier being killed after the video of the child executioner HERE)

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Did the Execution Even Occur? Watch the Video Below

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ISIS Leader Orders All Failed Fighters Executed

By Nadiah Sarsour. Some 56 members of ISIS learned their so-called “caliph” doesn’t tolerate losing in battle, according to reports which said Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had them executed after they survived a rout by Kurdish fighters.

Saed Mimousini, media spokesperson for the Kurdish Democratic Party, told Alsumaria news agency that Al-Baghdadi’s harsh decision came following their defeat at the hands of Peshmerga fighters in Kobar, south of the Kurdish capital Erbil.

“ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi executed 56 of his men after their defeat at the hands of the Peshmerga forces in the Cowir area south of Erbilm,” he said.

“Executions took place in the Al-Namrood, east Mosul,” he added, claiming that the “battles between ISIS and the Peshmerga south of Erbil killed 300 members of the Islamic State and injured nearly 102 others.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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Ferguson Violence Upswing: 7 Homicides in One Day in St. Louis

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The night manager of a Drury Inn in St. Louis was shot to death during an early Thursday robbery attempt, one of the city’s seven homicides during a 24-hour span. Police quickly made three arrests in cases in which the victims reportedly knew their assailants.

Police Chief Sam Dotson and Mayor Francis Slay condemned the violence at a Thursday afternoon news conference. They did not identify the suspects in custody, who will be formally charged Friday.

Scott Knopfel, 50, was shot in the head at the Drury hotel near Interstate 44 just before 3 a.m. after he struggled with his assailant while opening a cash drawer. Surveillance video shows the suspect, whom the manager mistook for a patron, entering the hotel and leaving less than 30 seconds later. He can be seen pulling out a handgun and vaulting a counter, then leaving the hotel in the same manner.

Seven homicides within 24 hours is an unusually high number for St. Louis, which has a population of about 320,000 people and recorded 159 homicides in 2014. Dotson and Slay linked the overnight violence to crime increases in the area documented since the fatal Ferguson police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown more than five months ago in north St. Louis County.

“To see this much violence going on in our city within such a short period of time, it is absolutely outrageous,” Slay said. “It’s out of hand. It disgusts me.” (Read more about the Ferguson violence upswing HERE)

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Listen to Muslim Call to Prayer at Duke University (+video)

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Every Friday at 1 p.m. for three minutes, the Muslim call to prayer (played in the video below) will be blasted throughout campus on Duke University’s PA system. [Editor’s note: please see the update to this story HERE]

Duke, founded as an explicitly Christian college, is doing this under the guise of “religious pluralism.” But this is the same university that actually tried to cancel a pro-life event at their women’s center not so long ago.

After the Muslim call to prayer, how about having evangelical students get on the PA and quote John 3:16? Probably won’t happen. . .

Listen to the Muslim call to prayer to be broadcast throughout Duke University and this great exchange between Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress and Fox News.