At Least 33 Dead and 130 Injured After Gang of Knife-Wielding Men Attack a Train Station in China

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Photo Credit: Reuters At least 33 people are dead and 130 injured after a group of knife-wielding men hacked their way through innocent people at one of China’s busiest railway stations.

Distressing photos circulating online showed bodies, pools of blood and abandoned luggage scattered across the terminal floor at Kunming Railway Station in Yunnan province.

Authorities described the incident at about 9.20pm local time (1.20pm GMT) as an ‘organised, premeditated, violent terrorist attack’ in which at least 10 people stabbed commuters outside the station terminal before moving inside.

The death toll stands at 29 bystanders and four attackers who were shot dead by police.

Nothing is yet known of the motivation behind the attack, but the Chinese government has blamed militants from the remote far western region of Xinjiang, which is home to tensions between the government and Muslim separatists.

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Student Loans Are Ruining Your Life. Now They’re Ruining the Economy, Too

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Photo Credit: Daniel Acker / Bloomberg / Getty ImagesRong did everything right. A 23-year-old dentistry student in New York, Chris excelled at one of the country’s top high schools, breezed through college, and is now studying dentistry at one of the best dental schools in the nation.

But it may be a long time before he sees any rewards. He’s moved back home with his parents in Bayside, Queens—an hour-and-a-half commute each way to class at the New York University’s College of Dentistry—and by the time he graduates in 2016, he’ll face $400,000 in student loans. “If the money weren’t a problem I would live on my own,” says Rong. “My debt is hanging over my mind. I’m taking that all on myself.”

Rong isn’t alone. Across the country, students are taking on increasingly large amounts of debt to pay for heftier education tuitions. Figures released last week by the Federal Reserve of New York show that aggregate student loans nationwide have continued to rise. At the end of 2003, American students and graduates owed just $253 billion in aggregate debt; by the end of 2013, American students’ debt had ballooned to a total of $1.08 trillion, an increase of over 300%. In the past year alone, aggregate student debt grew 10%. By comparison, overall debt grew just 43% in the last decade and 1.6% over the past year.

According to a December study by the Institute for College Access & Success, seven out of 10 students in the class of 2012 graduated with student loans, and the average amount of debt among students who owed was $29,400. There’s no clear end in sight. ”The total amount of student debt is growing basically at a constant rate,” Wilbert van der Klaauw, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York tells TIME. “The inflow is much higher than the outflow, which is likely to continue in the future as reliance on student loans for college is expected to remain high.”

Debt is painful for many students, and an increasing number of graduates are unable to pay back their loans on time. Delinquencies on student loans have risen dramatically over the past decade: 11.5 percent of graduates were at least 90 days late on paying back their loans at the end of 2013, compared with 6.2 percent delinquencies on student loans in 2003. Moreover, the Fed’s figures on delinquencies hide more stark data: nearly half of all students with debt aren’t currently in repayment thanks to deferments and forbearances and the fact that students are not expected to pay while they’re in school, according to van der Klaauw. What that means is that for the graduates who are actually expected to pay their loans now, the delinquency rate is roughly double the 11.5% figure.

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Guess Who’s Been Proven Right Again? Sarah Palin Mocked in 2008 for Suggesting Russia Could Invade Ukraine (+video)

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By Greg Campbell.

Sarah Palin, the vanguard of the right, oft-mocked by the left, has been proven right on innumerable issues and yet the left refuses to give credit where credit is due. Whether Obamacare or IRS intimidation, Palin has been right and the left still refuses to listen.

Now, it appears Mrs. Palin was right once again. Though Palin was mocked in 2008 for her assertion that Russia could invade Ukraine, Russian forces have done exactly that.

We shouldn’t expect any admissions of “I was wrong, you were right” from the left, however; admitting fault is an impossibility for Democrats who rely on steadfastness at all costs in the face of political realities.

In 2008, then-vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin warned Republicans that if Barack Obama were elected, we should expect poor foreign policies that could lead to instability on the world stage- including a possibility that Russia could invade Ukraine.

Calling this argument “strange” and an “extremely far-fetched scenario,” Foreignpolicy.com mocked Palin’s assertion…

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Palin Mocked in 2008 for Warning Putin May Invade Ukraine If Obama is Elected. By Tony Lee.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin warned that if Senator Barack Obama were elected president, his “indecision” and “moral equivalence” may encourage Russia’s Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine.

Palin said then:
After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama’s reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia’s Putin to invade Ukraine next.

For those comments, she was mocked by the high-brow Foreign Policy magazine and its editor Blake Hounshell, who now is one of the editors of Politico magazine.

Read more from this story HERE.

Congress Recalling Former IRS Official Lois Lerner, Who Took the Fifth: ‘If We Have to Hold Her in Contempt, So Be It’

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Photo Credit: APCongress has recalled a former Internal Revenue Service official at the heart of the agency’s targeting scandal even after she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) this week ordered Lois Lerner, the former head of the IRS’ tax-exempt division, to return before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee he chairs to testify on the alleged targeting of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.

Lerner revealed the scandal last year when she admitted that the IRS had singled out dozens of conservative groups for additional review.

The former IRS official is being represented by William Taylor III of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP., who has asked that Congress reconsider its decision to recall Lerner, saying she fears for her life.

Taylor claims Lerner has received “numerous death threats,” according to Politico.

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Self-Identified Obama Supporter Delivers a Must-See Critique of the President

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Photo Credit: YouTubeThere was a remarkable moment during a congressional hearing on Wednesday when constitutional law expert and self-proclaimed Obama supporter, Jonathan Turley, explained the legislative branch of the U.S. government is in danger of becoming irrelevant because of persistant executive overreach. Turley, who is a professor of public interest law at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., believes America has reached a “constitutional tipping point” under President Obama’s watch.

“This is, I think, the most important… moment of audio… in the last I don’t even know how many years. This is the American crisis… This is beyond the constitutional crisis. This is a constitutional tipping point,” Glenn said on radio this morning. “This happened yesterday in the House Judiciary Committee… Jonathan Turley is a liberal… He’s a guy who’s on the left, is a support of the President, says in his testimony, ‘Look, I agree with what [the President is] trying to do. Just not how he is doing it.’ And I want you to listen because what he’s saying is: If we don’t wake up right now, we will be very sorry.”

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FCC Quietly Kills Controversial Newsroom Study

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Photo Credit: victoriapeckhamThe Federal Communications Commission on Friday quietly canned its controversial study of American newsrooms, a week after putting the project on hold.

“The FCC will not move forward with the Critical Information Needs study,” an FCC spokesperson said in a statement. “The Commission will reassess the best way to fulfill its obligation to Congress to identify barriers to entry into the communications marketplace faced by entrepreneurs and other small businesses.”

The brief statement was put out late Friday afternoon. But it indicated the study in its current form was being killed off for good, amid threats by Republican lawmakers to eliminate it.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, a vocal critic of the plan, said Friday he was “pleased” by the decision.

“In our country, the government does not tell the people what information they need. Instead, news outlets and the American public decide that for themselves,” he said.

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Texas Gov. Rick Perry: The Tone From This President Is Troubling (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTubeTRANSCRIPT-provided by YouTube

I don’t mind telling you I was a bit troubled today by the tone of the president.

When you have governors – and we all compete against each other. We are the laboratories of innovation and for the President the United States to look Democrat and Republican governors in the eye and to say “I do not trust you to make decisions in your state about issues of education, about transportation infrastructure…”

That is really troubling, particularly when you’re seeing states be what has really performed over the course of the last 4 to 5 years he has been the President of the United States.

This discussion on energy policy. The president on one hand wants to take credit for more energy being discovered in the United States but, it’s his policies… it’s the EPA that is being pushed to close the door on extended energy policy in this country that could secure America for decades going forward.

That’s being put in jeopardy by this administration so you’re hearing very at cross-purpose messages from this president.

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Obama Could Pull Russia Trip Amid Ukraine Tumult

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Charles DharapakBy Julie Pace and Matthew Lee.

U.S. officials said Friday that President Barack Obama may scrap plans to attend an international summit in Russia this summer and could also halt discussions on deepening trade ties with Moscow, raising specific possible consequences if Russia should intervene in Ukraine. Obama himself bluntly warned of unspecified “costs” for Russia.

“Any violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would be deeply destabilizing,” Obama declared. Such action by Russia would represent a “profound interference” in matters that must be decided by the Ukrainian people, he said.

While the president spoke only of “reports” of military movements inside Ukraine, the officials said the U.S does believe that Russia is intervening.

Separately, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said he would not address specific U.S. options, “but this could be a very dangerous situation if this continues in a provocative way.” Asked about options in a CBS News interview, he said that “we’re trying to deal with a diplomatic focus, that’s the appropriate, responsible approach.”

As Obama prepared to speak late Friday, a spokesman for the Ukrainian border service said eight Russian transport planes had landed with unknown cargo in Crimea. Serhiy Astakhov told The Associated Press that the Il-76 planes arrived unexpectedly and were given permission to land, one after the other, at Gvardeiskoye air base. The State Department urged U.S. citizens to defer non-essential travel plans in the country because of “the potential for instability.”

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Photo Credit: CNS News Russia Seeks Access to Bases in Eight Countries for Its Ships and Bombers

By Patrick Goodenough.

At a time of escalated tensions with the West over Ukraine, Russia says it is negotiating with eight governments around the world for access to military facilities, to enable it to extend its long-range naval and strategic bomber capabilities.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday the military was engaged in talks with Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Algeria, Cyprus, the Seychelles, Vietnam and Singapore.

“We need bases for refueling near the equator, and in other places,” ITAR-Tass quoted him as saying.

Russia is not looking to establish bases in those locations, but to reach agreement to use facilities there when required.

The countries are all strategically located – in three leftist-ruled countries close to the U.S.; towards either end of the Mediterranean; in the Indian Ocean south of the Gulf of Aden; and near some of the world’s most important shipping lanes in the Malacca Strait and South China Sea.

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Levin: Obama Has No ‘Constitutional Authority To Do Half of What He’s Doing’ (+video)

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At a meeting of Tea Party conservatives in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, conservative talk radio host Mark Levin said President Barack Obama “doesn’t have the constitutional authority to do half of what he’s doing,” and added that the “Republican leadership” has not taken any steps to stop Obama’s unconstitutional actions.

CNSNews.com asked Levin, “Do you believe Obama has the constitutional authority to address climate change or minimum wage without congressional approval?”

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Michelle Obama: America’s Moms Are ‘Confused and Bewildered,’ ‘Defeated’ by Grocery Shopping (+video)

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Photo Credit; AP Photo/Carolyn KasterApparently it’s not the price of the groceries, but the nutrition labels on food packages that make grocery shopping such a difficult and trying experience for the moms of America.

In pitching new, improved nutrition labels at the White House on Thursday, first lady Michelle Obama tried to identify with women who do the grocery shopping for their families. Her message was aimed at mothers who want to buy healthy food and depend on labels to help them do that:

“So there you stood, alone in some aisle in a store, the clock ticking away at the precious little time remaining to complete your weekly grocery shopping, and all you could do was scratch your head, confused and bewildered, and wonder, is there too much sugar in this product? Is 50 percent of the daily allowance of riboflavin a good thing or a bad thing? And how on Earth could this teeny little package contain five whole servings?

Read more this story HERE.