Democrat Sen. Manchin Breaks Ranks to Back Individual-Mandate Delay

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia broke ranks with fellow Democrats and said he’d support a stopgap spending plan that delays the individual-mandate in President Barack Obama’s health-care law.

“There’s no way I could not vote for it,” Manchin said at a Bloomberg Government breakfast today. “It’s very reasonable and sensible.”

The individual mandate is the linchpin of the law that requires most Americans to purchase health care through government-run insurance exchanges. Republicans, led by a group of newcomers in the House, are pushing to dismantle the health- care law and are using a ticking clock on a possible Oct. 1 government shutdown as leverage.

The Democratic-led Senate will vote in coming days on the stopgap spending plan and before sending it back to the House will remove language that defunds Obamacare. Obama and House Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, have said they won’t support using the budget to change the health law.

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Texas Town Experiences Ending of ‘Charlotte’s Web’ in Real Life as Spiders Take to the Skies (+video)

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Photo Credit: Kevin Hamm via Facebook

Photo Credit: Kevin Hamm via Facebook

At the end of E.B. White’s classic children’s book “Charlotte’s Web,” the spider with the title name dies and her offspring send their silk threads into the sky, taking off from the barn and leaving the pig Wilber with only three of Charlotte’s children as companions.

This arachnid experience, known as “ballooning,” is exactly what a Texas town witnessed this week, seeing the white strands floating through the air and landing on buildings and cars.

“I thought it was weird; I’d never seen it before,” Myrna Olivas told KTVT-TV. “It just landed on my head and it left again.”

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Russia Bans the Quran?

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Photo Credit: Free Patriot

Photo Credit: Free Patriot

In an unusual court ruling, the “October” district court in the Russian port city of Novorossiysk, on the Black Sea, [held] that the “Meaning of Qur’an” in the “Russian Language” is “recognized as extremist”. After the ruling the Russian court made a bold move to ban the Qur’an from Russia and not allowing it to be translated or distributed in Russian. It also recognized possession and distribution of the Qur’an as extremist.

The court cited expert testimony from Forensic Centre at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (MVD) for the region who stated that the book contained:

…statements in which a person or group of persons (in particular, non-Muslims ) is portrayed negatively on grounds related to a particular religion; …. statements which address talking about the advantages of a single person or group of persons to other people on the grounds of religion (particularly the Muslims over non-Muslims ); … statements containing the positive assessment of hostile action of one group of people against another group of people on the basis of religion, specifically, Muslims towards non-Muslims; …statements of an inciting character, which can be understood as calling for hostile and violent actions by one group of people against another group of people on the basis of religion, in particular the Muslims towards non-Muslims.

The [court] cited a 2002 translation into Russian from Elmir Kuliev, who is the Director of Department of Geoculture at the Institute of Strategic Studies of the Caucasus. He was considered the leading contemporary on Russian Muslim Philosophy, and his translation is used and cited in several resources including Quransearch.org for the definitive Russian translation of the Qur’an.

The lawsuit leading to the ban was brought by the transport prosecutor’s office in Novorossiysk under general procedure article 45 of the Russian civil procedure code (which allows a prosecutor to act in the interest of unspecified citizens even where no complaint has been filed). The transport prosecutor is believed to have challenged the refusal of a different prosecutor’s office to institute criminal proceedings on the grounds of an offense under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (incitement of National, Racial, or Religious Enmity), after the book was delivered by mail order to a local address.

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Air Force’s New F-16 Drone Makes Debut in Air

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The U.S. Air Force and Boeing have sent their first unmanned F-16 jet plane into the air — a drone craft test that promises to change the shape of battlefield missions in years to come.

“Now we have a mission-capable, highly sustainable, full-scaled aerial target to take us into the future,” said Lt. Col. Ryan Inman, in Sky News.

The unmanned plane was test-flown by two pilots at a ground control station at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, The New York Post reported.

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Guide Dog Dies After Incredible Act of Loyalty, Self-Sacrifice (+video)

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Photo Credit: WXIA video screenshot

Photo Credit: WXIA video screenshot

A guide dog’s life is one of service. And a boxer trained as a seeing-eye dog, belonging to an Atlanta man, committed the ultimate act of service, laying down his life for his family.

The dog named Simon helped lead legally blind Dave Furukawa for four years, but died after a car accident Monday where he helped helping protect his owner’s son, Will, according to WXIA-TV.

Furukawa told the local news station he was walking his son to school when a car ran through a stop sign. The 80-pound dog pushed the child out of the way, but was hit by the vehicle himself. Furukawa was hit as well…

Furukawa told WXIA the dog did get up and followed the boy who was rushed home, but “once he was sure Will was okay, he laid down.”

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Affordable Care Act Could Fund Over 100,000 Abortions

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

Although the Hyde Amendment restricts the use of federal funds for abortion, with the exceptions of pregnancies caused by rape and incest, the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of the Susan B. Anthony List, released a paper on Thursday that showed how Multi-State Plans created through the Affordable Care Act could result in taxpayers subsidizing up to 111,500 abortions each year.

Multi-State Plans (MSPs) are the Affordable Care Act’s version of the “public option” health insurance plan.

“Multi-state” is another word for “national” and the degree of regulation of plan content, control of medical-loss ratios, and other factors ensure that these plans will operate more like regulated utilities than truly private insurance.

MSPs will be gradually introduced through a four-year period. By 2015, 35 states are expected to have MSPs in place, and all 50 states will have MSPs by 2017. The plans are intended to create “competition” in state markets, but will have the advantage that their administrative costs will be taxpayer funded, unlike a private insurance company.

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Obama Invokes Daughters As He Talks Up ‘Contraceptive Care’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Repeating his new talking point about the Affordable care act, President Obama mentioned his own daughters on Thursday as he made the point that the new health care law offers free preventive care, including contraception.

“Let’s say — let’s say you’re a young woman — I’m interested in this because I’ve got two daughters, right? Let’s say you just turned 26. Let’s say you can’t stay on your parents’ plan anymore. If you buy health care through the marketplace, your plan has to cover free checkups, flu shots, contraceptive care — so you might end up getting more health care each month than you’re paying for the premiums,” Obama said.

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‘If Gays Don’t Like It, they Can Choose Another Pasta’: Barilla Pasta Faces Global Boycott after Chairman Says Brand Would Never Feature a Homosexual Family in Its Ads

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Photo Credit: Daily Mail

Photo Credit: Daily Mail

Campaigners have called for a boycott of Barilla, the world’s biggest pasta maker, after the company said they would never feature gay people in their advertisements.

Company chairman Guido Barilla provoked outrage when he said that his idea of the ‘traditional families’ where the woman played a central part was ‘sacred’.

If gay people didn’t like it they could eat another brand of pasta, he said.

He said: ‘I would never do a commercial with a homosexual family, not for lack of respect, but because I don’t think we are like them.

‘Ours is a traditional family where the woman has a fundamental role.‘

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Interpol Issues International Arrest Warrant for Samantha Lewthwaite, the “White Widow’

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Photo Credit: REX

Photo Credit: REX

Interpol has issued an international arrest warrant for Samantha Lewthwaite, the British woman dubbed the “white widow” who has been linked to the Kenyan shopping centre attack, in connection with suspected terrorist offences in 2011.

The international police agency said its red notice had been issued at the request of Kenya and circulated to police authorities in 190 countries around the world, activating “a global tripwire” for the Briton.

The warrant does not relate to the terrorist attack at the weekend on the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi, despite intense speculation linking Lewthwaite, the widow of one of the July 7 London bombers, to the atrocity, for which the al-Qaida-linked Somali group al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility.

Instead, said Interpol, the 29-year-old is being sought on charges of possession of explosives and conspiracy to commit a felony dating back to December 2011.

That month Kenyan police raided a property in Mombasa that had been linked to Lewthwaite, arresting another Briton, Jermaine Grant from east London. Grant is currently on trial for the offences in a secure Mombasa court.

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Rapist Teacher Whose Victim, 14, Killed Herself is Released from Prison After Just 30 Days

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Prison officials have today released former high school teacher Stacey Rambold, 54, the man sentenced to just 30-days behind bars even after admitting raping a 14-year-old girl.

His lenient punishment for the 2007 rape of Cherice Moralez, who killed herself three-years later, was handed down to him by District Judge Todd Baugh and the comments made by Baugh about Moralez sparked national outrage.

Rambold, who was 48 when he committed the crimes in 2007, left the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge at around 9.30am local time.

State prosecutors are appealing the sentence, saying Rambold should have received a minimum of two years. But barring new offenses, the former teacher has served his time and will stay out of prison pending the appeal.

Rambold was picked up at the prison by a family member and was expected to return to Billings, prison spokeswoman Linda Moodry said. He has been registered as a level 1 sex offender – meaning he’s considered a low risk to re-offend- and will remain on probation through 2028 unless the original sentence is overruled.

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