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The toddler’s father, Jesse Sellers, 23, reportedly told police he was playing with the gun when it accidentally went off, MyFoxAtlanta.com reported. Sellers has been charged with second-degree cruelty to children and felony murder.
Police say six people, including three children, were in the home at the time of the shooting.
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In a blog post late Thursday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said he would soon release data on the total number of secret court orders to communications providers and the number of people targeted in those orders.
The government plans to continue releasing the statistics in annual reports, Clapper said.
He explained that he decided to release the reports to comply with President Obama’s directive to declassify as much information as possible about the surveillance programs while protecting national security.
The data will include totals for national security letters and orders under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
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The findings emerged from an experiment conducted following revelations by US security contractor Edward Snowden about government snooping on internet accounts.
Cyber-security company High-Tech Bridge set out to test the confidentiality of 50 of the biggest internet companies by using their systems to send a unique web address in private messages.
Experts at its Geneva HQ then waited to see which companies clicked on the website.
During the ten-day operation, six of the 50 companies tested were found to have opened the link.
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At a Planned Parenthood convention at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C., on July 17, 2007, a teenage girl who said she worked as a sex-education “peer educator” in the D.C. public schools asked then-U.S. Sen. Obama what he would do to encourage the teaching of “medically accurate, age-appropriate, and responsible sex education.”
Obama first noted that he had worked with Planned Parenthood to push a sex education bill when he served in the Illinois state legislature.
Then he said: “I remember Alan Keyes—I ran against Alan Keyes—but I remember him using this in his campaign against me, saying, ‘Barack Obama supports teaching sex education to kindergartners.
“And you know,” said Obama, “I didn’t know what to tell him. But it is the right thing to do, to provide age-appropriate sex education, science-based sex education in the schools.”
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The preacher leads the new believers into the water, draped in white robes as a choir sings, “Shall We Gather at the River.”
It’s the way it’s been done for generations – baptizing in creeks, lakes, and rivers “in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
But now the long-cherished tradition of “taking the plunge” has been drawn into a controversy with the federal government.
The National Park Service began enforcing a policy recently that required churches to obtain special use permits in order to baptize in public waters. As part of the same permit process, the NPS also mandated that churches give the Park Service 48 hours advance notice of pending baptisms.
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The 3-0 decision would keep the visitor records confidential for up to 12 years after President Barack Obama leaves office.
The appeals court ruling dealt a defeat to a private group that asked the Secret Service for all White House visitor logs from Obama’s first seven months in office.
“Congress made clear that it did not want documents like the appointment calendars of the president and his close advisers to be subject to disclosure” under the Freedom of Information Act, wrote Merrick Garland, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Judicial Watch, a conservative-oriented watchdog group that sued in an effort to get the records, said it is considering an appeal.
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President Barack Obama, meanwhile, said on Friday he has not made a final decision on a military strike against Syria. He sought to play down both the scope and duration of the anticipated punitive missile and bombing campaign.
“As you’ve seen, today we’ve released our unclassified assessment detailing with high confidence that the Syrian regime carried out a chemical weapons attack that killed well over a thousand people, including hundreds of children,” Obama said.
The president said the use of the deadly weapons had violated international “norms” and that action was needed to prevent the further use of the arms.
A future military operation would not involve troops on the ground as part of a long-term campaign, Obama said. “But we are looking at the possibility of a limited, narrow act that would help make sure that not only Syria but others around the world understands that the international community cares about maintaining this chemical weapons ban and norm,” he said.
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A question regarding the measure at the first town hall held Wednesday night at Campbell Elementary School drew the most lively response from the crowd. Despite the strong sentiment expressed against the law, Senator Begich emphatically promised those in attendance, “If you’re thinking it’s going to get repealed. Whoever tells you that ain’t giving you the truth. It’s not going to get repealed.”
Begich went on to state he would work to repair or replace unpopular portions of the ACA such as the tax on “Cadillac” plans and that he had already voted to repeal a tax on manufacturers of medical devices.
The Senator will have his work cut out for him taking this approach however because the Affordable Care Act itself is very unpopular. A recent CBS News poll found 54 percent of Americans disapprove of the law, while only 36 percent approve.
Begich sought to identify with those in attendance saying, “Just as you do, I [will] join the exchange come October 1st. I have to join it just like everyone else.” What he failed to mention is that members of Congress and their staffs have generous healthcare premium support plans already in place covering much of the cost, thereby exempting themselves from the rate shock most Americans will feel.
The overall estimated cost of Affordable Care Act to American taxpayers over the first 10 years has ballooned from the $0.9 trillion promised by President Obama in 2009 to a CBO projected cost of $2.6 trillion earlier this year.
The high cost is not the only thing causing grave misgivings about Obamacare among the American people. At a second town hall event at the Anchorage Senior Center, a grandmother expressed a concern many have regarding the ACA’s employer mandate, which dictates that businesses with fifty or more employees must fulfill all the law’s requirements. She believes Obamacare will make it harder for her grandchildren and others to find full-time employment.
The evidence appears to be on her side. A CNBC poll of small business owners earlier this summer found 41 percent have frozen hiring because of the law and 38 percent indicated they have pulled back on plans to expand. Begich admitted at the town hall that the ACA incentivizes underemployment by moving people from full to part-time.
At both town hall events, Begich took great pains to point out he is doing everything he can to fix what ails Obamacare. He ballyhooed legislation he introduced last month to delay the employer mandate for two years rather than the one year promised by the President. In other words, the Senator wants to pass legislation to save Alaskans (temporarily) from the ill-effects of the law he voted whole-heartedly to pass. Of course, this magnanimous gesture by the first-term senator would conveniently push the job-killing effects of the ACA until after next year’s re-election cycle.
Senator Begich knows he is vulnerable in 2014. His seat is among those judged to be in-play. A recent survey by the liberal leaning Public Policy Polling showed his job approval at a paltry 42 percent, down from 49 percent in February. This precipitous drop comes in spite of a statewide paid media push over the last several months and before the first salvo of the 2014 campaign has even been fired.
A vital measure of congressional leadership must be foresight: the ability to see a train wreck before it happens. By this standard, Senator Begich misses the mark. Rather than accepting the Senator’s small gestures of Affordable Care Act relief, Alaskans would do well to relieve themselves entirely of his services come next November.
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HSLDA, the world’s premiere advocate for homeschoolers, said the family of Dirk and Petra Wunderlich has battled for several years Germany’s World War II-era requirement that all children submit to the indoctrination programs in the nation’s public schools.
The shocking raid was made solely because the parents were providing their children’s education, HSLDA said. The organization noted the paperwork that authorized police officers and social workers to use force on the children contained no claims of mistreatment.
“The children were taken to unknown locations,” HSLDA said. “Officials ominously promised the parents that they would not be seeing their children anytime soon.”
The raid, which took place Thursday at 8 a.m. as the children were beginning their day’s classes, has been described by observers as “brutal and vicious.”
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Ginsburg will officiate Saturday at the marriage of Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser and John Roberts, a government economist.
“Michael Kaiser is a friend and someone I much admire,” Ginsburg said in a written statement Friday. “That is why I am officiating at his wedding.”
The private ceremony will take place at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a national memorial to President John F. Kennedy. The 80-year-old Ginsburg, an opera lover, is a frequent guest at the center.
Same-sex marriage is legal in the District of Columbia and 13 states.
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