2014 Shaping Up to Be The Year of the Bible at the Box Office (+video)

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Odeya-Rush-mary_2774972bStudio executives who have spent the past few years releasing superhero and zombie films have, it seems, had an epiphany. Now their new best friends are evangelical pastors whose endorsements they actively seek, even inviting them on to sets during production. Pastors in turn play clips from films of which they approve to 10,000-strong congregations on 40ft wide movie screens…

Phil Cooke, a film-maker and media consultant to Christian organisations, said Hollywood’s epiphany had financial, not spiritual, origins. “What’s happened is they’ve understood it’s very good business to take Christians seriously, and this is a real serious market,” he said…

For their part, studio executives have taken something of a leap of faith that films in which religious figures save the world will bring big box office receipts [in 2014.]

That faith is based in no small part on the success of The Bible, a television mini-series shown on the History channel earlier this year, which averaged 11.4 million viewers and became America’s most watched cable show of 2013.

“It made the Bible cool to talk about again,” said Mr Cooke. “The separation of church and state in America is so strong that people had become afraid to talk about God, at work or at school. Suddenly, these Bible stories were water cooler conversation again.”

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Marine Vet Slams Paul Ryan’s ‘Outrageous Attitude’ Toward Military Pension Cuts (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Two days after President Barack Obama signed a budget compromise that slashed pension benefits for military veterans, retired Marine Jessie Jane Duff blasted Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) for his “outrageous attitude” toward the sacrifices those in the armed forces have made.

Appearing on Fox & Friends on Saturday, Jessie Jane Duff, who is at the E7 level, said Ryan, who brokered the deal with Sen. Patty Murray (D-WI), does not realize that many active duty military personnel go back to civilian life “broke” and “without a job” and have difficulty getting on equal footing with their “civilian counterparts.” She noted that many veterans have had to leave the armed forces early due to injuries or are suffering from things like PTSD.

The deal Obama signed includes a provision that would “pare down annual cost of living increases in benefits for military retirees under age 62, saving the government an estimated $6.3 billion over a decade.” What that means is a sergeant first class at the E7 level like Duff who retires at age 42 would lose $72,000 in benefits over a lifetime, according to a Fox News analysis.

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People Wait in Line to Register Guns Before New Laws Go into Effect (+video)

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Photo Credit: WFSB

Photo Credit: WFSB

There are only five more days until the new gun laws go into effect for our state, that means a dash to register assault weapons or high capacity magazines.

A long line of people stood outside of the Public Safety Building in Middletown all day Thursday to register firearms.

Specifically, anything the state considers an assault weapon or a high capacity magazine must be registered before Jan. 1, 2014.

“If they were trying to make them illegal, I’d have a real issue, but if they want to just know where they are, that’s fine with me,” said Charles Gillette, who was registering magazines.

“I understand why they’re doing it, but I don’t think it’s constitutional,” said Scott Boccio, who was registering guns.

WFSB 3 Connecticut

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Man Arrested For Having Concealed Compartment in Vehicle (+video)

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

A man was arrested in Ohio for having a hidden compartment in a vehicle and could face up to 18 months in prison, even though there was nothing in the compartment.

Just days before Thanksgiving, 30- year old Norman Gurley was pulled over for speeding, but Ohio State Troopers noticed wires running to the back of the car he was driving.

“During the search, they noticed some components inside the vehicle that did not appear to be factory,” Lt. Michael Combs told WKYC-TV.

“We actually figured it out and followed the wiring and we were able to get it open,” said Combs.

There were no illegal drugs or weapons in the compartment, but Gurley became the first person arrested under the state’s “hidden compartment” law.

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Hundreds of Teens Trash Mall in Wild Flash Mob During Day After Christmas Sales

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

Hundreds of teenagers stormed and trashed a Brooklyn mall in a wild flash mob that forced the shopping center to close its doors during day-after Christmas sales, sources said on Friday.

More than 400 crazed teens grabbed and smashed jars of candy, stole cheap items such as baby balloons and beat up security guards at Kings Plaza Shopping Center in Mill Basin between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., merchants said.

A violent game of “Knockout” also broke out on the upper level of the mall — and one teen may have been carrying a gun, sources said.

The teens used social media to plan the mass looting, vowing to put the mall “on tilt” – or to raid it, according to posts on Facebook and Twitter.

Clerks, who scrambled to close up their shops, said they were terrified.

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ATF Agent Sends Shockwave Across Internet with Explosive Allegations about ‘Fast and Furious’ and Brian Terry’s Death (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

John Dodson, the federal agent who blew the lid off the Justice Department’s “Fast and Furious” gun-walking scandal, claims the FBI had ties to the men who killed U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in 2010 near Nogales, Ariz. In fact, Dodson says the Mexican bandits who gunned down Terry were working for FBI operatives and had been sent to the border to do a “drug rip-off” using intelligence gathered by the DEA.

Dodson, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said he doesn’t think the FBI was part of the rip-off crew, but the agency was “directing the rip crew.” The explosive claims were made in an interview with The Arizona Republic this week and are already creating some waves across the Internet.

The allegations are also found in Dodson’s recently released book, “The Unarmed Truth,” which chronicles his role as a whistleblower during Operation Fast and Furious. The Obama administration unsuccessfully tried to block the publication of his book.

Terry belonged to an elite Border Patrol tactical team sent to a remote area known as Peck Canyon, roughly a dozen miles northwest of Nogales, where violence had escalated because criminal gangs were stealing narcotics from drug runners known as mules. He was slain in a shootout with several bandits. Two assault-type rifles found at the scene were subsequently traced to Fast and Furious.

The operation, based in Phoenix, was launched in 2009 to identify and prosecute drug lords, but instead allowed guns to be “walked” into the hands of Mexican criminals. ATF agents encouraged licensed firearms dealers in Arizona to sell more than 2,000 weapons to known “straw buyers” who were working for cartels. Instead of arresting suspects immediately, surveillance agents took notes and let them disappear with the guns.

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Is This Obama’s Monica Lewinsky? (+video)

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Lyndon Johnson had Vietnam. Richard Nixon had Watergate. Ronald Reagan had Iran-Contra. George H.W. Bush had taxes increases.

And, as first reported by The Drudge Report, Bill Clinton had an intimate relationship with a White House intern.

Now President Obama has a major credibility issue that is sure to forever taint his legacy.

Obama’s credibility will be difficult to regain after the failure of his core Obamacare promise, and the disastrous roll-out of the health-care law rescued the Republicans from a public relations nightmare following the government shutdown, according to one of the nation’s leading political scientists.

Larry Sabato is a professor of political science at the University of Virginia and directs the school’s Center for Politics. He told WND President Obama lost a lot of ground with the American people by promising them if they liked their health plans and doctors that they could keep them.

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Video: Xavier Hawkins, “Southeast Santa,” Shot with Pellet Gun at Toy Giveaway

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Photo Credit: wwarby

Photo Credit: wwarby

A man in a Santa Claus suit who has been identified as Xavier Hawkins was shot in the back with a pellet gun Tuesday morning during a toy giveaway in a part of Southeast Washington plagued by crime.

The video is disturbing. The man dressed as Santa has led the annual Barry Farm gift giveaway for the last seven years, and according to an ABC7 photographer who was interviewing the victim at the time of the shooting, the he was struck in his upper back then transported to a nearby hospital with the pellet still lodged in his shoulder.

Later on Tuesday, we saw Xavier Hawkins again after he was released from the hospital. He showed us the tear in his Santa suit as well as the scene of the depraved crime:

“Oh, here’s the hole. That’s where I got shot — right there.”

In the video, you can hear Hawkins’ booming voice faltering after being hit. It was an act of violence appalling on more levels than we can fathom.

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Woman’s Touching Letters/Wishes Reach Husband and Children 2 Years After Her Death In Time for Christmas(+video)

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Photo Credit: zaimoku_woodpile

Photo Credit: zaimoku_woodpile

A mother of four has surprised her children, husband and his new fiancée with heartbreaking Christmas letters two years after her death from ovarian cancer.

Brenda Schmitz was 46 when she passed away in September 2011. As a parting gift, she entrusted a letter to a friend, who remains anonymous, to deliver when the time was right. The letter was addressed to a local Des Moines, Iowa, radio station and contained two other letters; one for her husband David and another for the new love of his life.

A month before she lost her battle to the disease, Schmitz wrote the letter to KSTZ Star 102.5, which runs a Christmas wishes program each year. Listeners send in their Christmas wish letters, and the station elicits the help of sponsors to grant a select few.

Brenda’s wishes were finally revealed two years later when the station brought her husband, David, into the studio and read the note to him on air last week.

“When you are in receipt of this letter, I will have already lost my battle to ovarian cancer,” the letter from Brenda began. “I told [my friend] once my loving husband David had moved on in his life and had met someone to share his life with again, to mail this letter to all of you at the station.”

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Christmas Eve Spacewalk for Repair Job A Success (+video)

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Photo Credit: CNN

Photo Credit: CNN

While many people spent Christmas Eve doing last-minute shopping, two American astronauts had a more challenging matter to attend to Tuesday.

In orbit more than 200 miles above Earth, flight engineers Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins embarked on a spacewalk Tuesday morning to repair part of the International Space Station’s cooling system.

The spacewalk ended at 2:23 p.m. ET Tuesday and lasted 7 hours and 30 minutes, NASA said.

More than four hours into the job, the two astronauts had successfully bolted a replacement ammonia pump module into its location and were working to connect lines to allow the ammonia to flow, NASA said in a tweet.

There was a slight kink in the work when one of the fluid lines tangled. The astronauts untangled it, but when they did, the line released some ammonia flakes that landed on their space suits.

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