US: American Fighters in Syria a Security Risk

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Photo Credit: AP/Wake County Sheriff’s Office via The News & Observer Federal officials say Americans are joining the bloody civil war in Syria, raising the chances they could become radicalized by al-Qaida-linked militant groups and return to the U.S. as battle-hardened security risks.

The State Department says it has no estimates of how many Americans have taken up weapons to fight military units loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad in the conflict that has killed more than 100,000 people over 2 ½ years. Other estimates — from an arm of the British defense consultant IHS Jane’s and from experts at a nonprofit think tank in London — put the number of Americans at a couple dozen. The IHS group says al-Qaida-linked fighters number about 15,000, with total anti-Assad force at 100,000 or more.

This year, at least three Americans have been charged with planning to fight beside Jabhat al-Nusrah — a radical Islamic organization that the U.S. considers a foreign terrorist group — against Assad. The most recent case involves a Pakistan-born North Carolina man arrested on his way to Lebanon.

At a Senate homeland security committee hearing this month, Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., said: “We know that American citizens as well as Canadian and European nationals have taken up arms in Syria, in Yemen and in Somalia. The threat that these individuals could return home to carry out attacks is real and troubling.”

The hearing came about two weeks after the FBI and other officers arrested Basit Sheikh, 29, at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport on charges he was on his way to join Jabhat al-Nusrah. Sheikh, a legal resident of the United States, had lived quietly, without a criminal record, in a Raleigh suburb for five years before his Nov. 2 arrest. A similar arrest came in April in Chicago. And in September, authorities in Virginia released an Army veteran accused of fighting alongside the group after a secret plea deal.

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Americans Trust In Each Other Has Dropped Significantly

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Photo Credit: AP/Shannon DeCelleYou can take our word for it. Americans don’t trust each other anymore.

We’re not talking about the loss of faith in big institutions such as the government, the church or Wall Street, which fluctuates with events. For four decades, a gut-level ingredient of democracy – trust in the other fellow – has been quietly draining away.

These days, only one-third of Americans say most people can be trusted. Half felt that way in 1972, when the General Social Survey first asked the question.

Forty years later, a record high of nearly two-thirds say “you can’t be too careful” in dealing with people.

An AP-GfK poll conducted last month found that Americans are suspicious of each other in everyday encounters. Less than one-third expressed a lot of trust in clerks who swipe their credit cards, drivers on the road, or people they meet when traveling.

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US Army Gets Caught Allegedly Pirating $180 Million In Software

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Photo Credit: U.S. Army/Sgt. Michael J. MacLeodThe U.S. Army is opting to settle a copyright infringement case for $50 million after a software developer demanded $225 million in damages over the alleged installation of software without licenses, Brian Fung of The Washington Post reports.

Back in 2004, the Army hired Apptricity to create a software application that could keep track of where its soldiers deployed. The company delivered a handful of server and device licenses for $4.5 million that year, and the service purchased more about five years later.

According to Apptricity’s complaint however, the Army installed the software on nearly 100 servers and more than 9,000 devices.

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Common Core Requirement: Teach Students About Gettysburg Address Without Mentioning the Civil War (+video)

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Photo Credit: Fox News Is it possible to teach students the meaning behind President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address without mentioning the Civil War?

According to the government’s new Common Core education standards, the Gettysburg Address must be taught without mentioning the Civil War and explaining why President Lincoln was in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

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Cannibal Cop Allegations Rock Germany

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Photo Credit: MARTIN OESER/AFP/GettyOver a decade after a similar case shocked the world, a German daily reported that a German police officer may have seduced and murdered a man he met on a cannibalism fetish website. The suspect has been arrested.

Police on Wednesday found body parts on a property in the Ore Mountains, in the eastern German state of Saxony, that, according to German tabloid Bild, came from a murder carried out as part of a cannibal fetish act. The body parts are believed to belong to a 59-year-old man from Hanover, while the main suspect, who, according to Bild, owns the property on which the remains were found, is a 55-year-old police officer.

The spokesperson for the head prosecutor, Lorenz Haase, confirmed to German news agency DPA that “the men knew each other.” According to Bild, the two men met on a website for cannibal fetishists. The suspect then allegedly invited the man to his property in Reichenau, a small town in the mountains.

According to Bild, the victim had been cut into many small pieces some time in early November and many parts of the victim have yet to be found, leading to suspicions part of his body may have been eaten.

The suspect, who, according to the newspaper, works as a handwriting analyst in the forensic science institute of the Dresden office of the State Criminal Police Office, was arrested shortly after the remains were discovered. Bild reported the man had split up with his wife several years earlier and had since been living with another man.

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Despite Changes to One-Child Policy, Chinese Parents Say Having Two Kids is Too Expensive

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Photo Credit: Stringer Shanghai / ReutersDespite China announcing changes to its strict one-child policy, many young parents say they will not choose to have a second child due to the high cost of living in modern-day China.

“Giving birth to a second child is not difficult, but we do not have the energy anymore,” said Wang Tao, a 35-year-old native of Beijing, who is married and has a 5-year-old daughter.

“We lack a safe social net to support a family with two children,” Wang added. “China doesn’t provide a pension or free education,” he said while ticking off a list of things that make having a larger family a financial burden.

After more than 30 years of the strict policy aimed at controlling population growth, the new policy will allow couples to have two children if one of them is an only child.

But Wang is not alone in his views, according to a survey conducted by the Communist Party controlled “People’s Daily” newspaper.

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Father of Six Gives Up Life Trying to Save Two People from Drowning (+video)

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The good Samaritan who died on Saturday trying to rescue two people who were swept off a beach breakwall by a large wave was identified as a fisherman and father of six.

Francisco Camacho, 35, jumped into the water off San Pedro about 6:30 a.m. to help a 49-year-old man and a 14-year-old boy who were swept off of the Cabrillo Beach breakwall, said Camacho’s sister in law, Brenda Castro.

“He did a good deed and lost his life doing it,” she said through tears. “He was giving, always wanted to help.”

Camacho was among several others on the breakwall who tried to rescue the people in the water. Castro said he came to the breakwall to fish every morning, knew the dangers and knew how to swim.

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Evolutionary Idiocy: Scientist Claim Humans Emerged after Chimps Mated with Pigs

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Photo Credit: ShutterstockOne of the world’s leading authorities on genetics says the human race was born into existence after a chimpanzee mated with a pig.

Dr. Eugene McCarthy’s stunning claims were made in an online article, although it was not clear when the startling findings was initially published.

According to the University of Georgia scientist, while human beings share a number of characteristics with chimpanzees, there are others that don’t correspond with the primates.

“What is this other animal that has all these traits? The answer is Sus scrofa – the ordinary pig,”…

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Report: ‘Fast and Furious’ Star Paul Walker Died in Crash

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Photo Credit: William Volcov/Brazil Photo Press/LatinContent/GettyPaul Walker, an actor perhaps best known for his roles in the “Fast and Furious” films died today in a car crash, his rep told ABC News. He was 40 years old.

“Sadly I must confirm that Paul did pass away this afternoon,” Ame Van Iden said in an email.

Though the rep gave no more details, a message on his Facebook page said that it happened during a charity event for Walker’s organization Reach Out Worldwide.

The entertainment web site TMZ reported that Walker was in a Porsche when the driver lost control and crashed the vehicle into a tree.

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China Scrambles Two Fighter Jets; Pentagon Continues Defiance of PRC’s Claimed Air Defense Zone

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Photo Credit: Master Sgt. Kevin GruenwaldThe Pentagon said Friday it will continue to operate in an air zone over the East China Sea that China recently declared as under its control.

“We have flights routinely transiting international airspace throughout the Pacific, including the area China is including in their [air defense identification zone],” said Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren.

“These flights are consistent with long standing and well known U.S. freedom of navigation policies that are applied in many areas of operation around the world. I can confirm that the U.S. has and will continue to operate in the area as normal.”

The statement comes after China sent two fighter jets to tail U.S. and Japanese warplanes that were flying in the airspace in defiance of China’s Nov. 23 announcement that all planes flying through the area would have to submit flight plans and other information to Beijing authorities.

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