McCain: GOP Doomed if it Doesn’t Pass Amnesty Bill (+video)
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Cirque du Soleil Artist Killed in Fall During Las Vegas Performance (+video)
Photo Credit: LEILA NAVIDI
No formal cause of death has been determined pending further examination of Guyard-Guillot’s body. She was born in Paris and had spent more than 22 years as an acrobatic performer. She was a graduate of Annie Fratellini Art & Circus Academy, named for the famed French circus clown and actress. The official website for Cirqeufit acrobatics school in Las Vegas, where Guyard-Guillot served as a coach, said she was an acrobatic and aerialist specialist. She was hired by “Ka” as the production opened at MGM Grand in 2004.
Also this afternoon, MGM Resorts International, Cirque’s artistic and business partner in Las Vegas, issued a statement about the tragedy: “Our company is deeply saddened by the loss of one of the talented KA artists Saturday night. The thoughts and prayers of our employees are with the performer’s family, the cast of KA, and the entire Cirque family during this difficult time.”
It is the first reported death from an accident onstage in Cirque’s 30-year history.
According to reports from audience members, the incident occurred Saturday night during the latter stages of the production at MGM Grand. Guyard-Guillot was one of the artists suspended by a wire from the show’s vertical stage in the show-closing Final Battle scene. As she ascended to the top of the stage, she slipped free of her safety wire and dropped to the open, unseen pit below the performers.
Read more from this story HERE.
At Least 19 Firefighters Dead Fighting Arizona Wildfires (+video)
Photo Credit: Cece N Mando Aguirre
The firefighters reportedly got near the front lines of the fire and somehow the fire changed direction and they became caught up in it.
We’re told they tried to get under their protective covers, but didn’t make it.
The wildfire was likely caused by a lightning strike Saturday night.
The Yarnell Hill Fire, about 35 miles southwest of Prescott, has burned about 2,000 acres and forced the evacuation of 50 homes. Read more from this story HERE.
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19 firefighters dead in Yarnell Hill Fire
By Jackee Coe and Laurie Merrill. Arizona forestry officials confirmed Sunday night that 19 firefighters have died in the Yarnell Hill Fire that has ripped through half of the town, sent residents to Prescott for safety and given the state its worst wildfire firefighter tragedy.
“It’s a dark day,” said Mike Reichling, Arizona State Forestry Division spokesman.
Reichling said the 19 firefighters were found in an area that also had 19 fire shelters deployed. Some of the firefighters were inside a shelter, which is typically used as a last resort to withstand the fire as it blows over. Some of the crew members were found outside the shelters.
Officials said 18 of the dead were members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots team. It’s unknown which fire crew the 19th firefighter belonged to. The firefighters are part of a team that is typically sent in first to help cut off the fire, Reichling said.
“They were up there doing what they normally do,” he said. Read more from this story HERE.
U.S. Rep. Jim Bridenstine: “Are We Moving Toward Tyranny or Liberty?” (+video)
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The president decided to raise energy prices on all Americans, which adversely affects the poor the most and he didn’t ask Congress. The president decided to unilaterally reduce our strategic nuclear deterrent when more countries than ever have nuclear weapons, no treaty that would require consent of the Senate. The president has decided which health insurance plans the people are allowed to have. The president didn’t ask congress or the people for that matter. The list goes on.
In America, we are either moving more towards liberty or more towards tyranny. Well I think, we should ask ourselves what tyranny would look like in the United States of America. An executive branch that picks and chooses which laws it wants to enforce. A judicial branch that would allow to do so on grounds of the executive branch did not defend the laws in the court. The legislative branch would have very limited power because they turned it all over the president and the people would feel like they had no representation.
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Greenwald: NSA Can Store One Billion Phone Calls Per Day, Intent is to “Destroy All Privacy” (+video)
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The National Security Agency can store one billion phone calls each day.
Speaking to a raucous audience via Skype on Friday, Greenwald said the NSA’s “brand-new technology” gives it the power to “redirect into its own repositories one billion cell phone calls every single day.”
“But what we’re really talking about here is a globalized system that prevents any form of electronic communication from taking place without its being stored and monitored by the National Security Agency,” Greenwald said. “It doesn’t mean that they’re listening to every call; it means they’re storing every call and have the capability to listen to them at any time, and it does mean that they’re collecting millions upon millions upon millions of our phone and email records.”
Read more from this story HERE.
Nation’s First Monument to Atheism on Government Property Erected: “It’s Only the Beginning” (+video)
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The New Jersey-based group American Atheists unveiled the 1,500-bound granite bench Saturday as a counter to the religious monument in what’s called a free speech zone.
Read more from this story HERE.
After Obama Says He Won’t Talk to World’s Leaders about Snowden, He Has Biden Contact Ecuador’s President (+video)
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The move comes after President Obama on Thursday said he had not phoned world leaders on the matter because he “shouldn’t have to” — and because he doesn’t want to start “wheeling and dealing” with other nations to extradite a “hacker.”
But as the stalemate dragged on, Biden on Friday phoned Ecuador’s Rafael Correa. It marked the highest-level conversation between the U.S. and Ecuador that has been publicly disclosed since Snowden began seeking asylum from that country.
Read more from this story HERE.
Veteran Congresswoman Hammers IRS Contractor’s Questionable Veteran’s Disability Claim (+video)
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Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran and double amputee eviscerated Braulio Castillo, the CEO of Strong Castle, Inc., who used an injury he sustained at a military prep school to qualify for a veterans disability, 27 years after the fact.
“I’m sorry that twisting your ankle in [prep] school has now come back to hurt you in such a painful way — if not also opportune for you to gain the status for your business as you were trying to compete for contracts,” Duckworth said.
According to a report on the matter House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa released Tuesday, Braulio Castillo was able to get a designation under the VA’s Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business program for his business — as a result of the injury he sustained at U.S. Military Academy Preparatory School, which he attended for one year.
Castillo went on to play football as a quarterback at San Diego City College and later played at the University of San Diego.
Read more from this story HERE.
Homosexuals Flock to California City Halls for Marriages; Last Minute Appeal Filed to Stop Ceremonies (+video)
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But lawyers for the sponsors of California’s same-sex marriage ban have filed an emergency motion asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule the federal appeals court.
Attorneys with the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom said they submitted the petition on Saturday to Justice Anthony Kennedy, who handles motions dealing with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Senior Counsel Austin Nimocks says a three-judge 9th Circuit panel acted prematurely and unfairly when it lifted the hold on same-sex marriages it had put in place while a challenge to the ban made its way through the courts.
Nimocks says the Supreme Court’s consideration of the case is not done yet because his clients still have 22 days to ask the justices to reconsider their decision holding that Proposition 8′s backers did not have legal authority to defend the ban.
Read more from this story HERE.
Doctors Perform Thousands of Unnecessary Surgeries (+video)
Photo Credit: Kevin Moloney
The scope and toll of the problem are enormous, yet it remains largely hidden. Public attention has been limited to a few sensational cases, typically involving doctors who put cardiac stents in patients who didn’t need them.
In fact, unnecessary surgeries might account for 10% to 20% of all operations in some specialties, including a wide range of cardiac procedures — not only stents, but also angioplasty and pacemaker implants — as well as many spinal surgeries. Knee replacements, hysterectomies, and cesarean sections are among the other surgical procedures performed more often than needed, according to a review of in-depth studies and data generated by both government and academic sources.
Since 2005, more than 1,000 doctors have made payments to settle or close malpractice claims in surgical cases that involved allegations of unnecessary or inappropriate procedures, according to a USA TODAY analysis of the U.S. government’s National Practitioner Data Bank public use file, which tracks the suits. About half the doctors’ payments involved allegations of serious permanent injury or death, and many of the cases involved multiple plaintiffs, suggesting many hundreds, if not thousands, of victims.
Read more from this story HERE.