Authorities have confirmed that the two people fatally shot in Ellis County during a violent home invasion Wednesday were two teenagers wanted in Oklahoma.
The Pottawatomie County, Okla., Sheriff’s Office confirmed late Wednesday night that Kenneth Chaffin, 17, and Dillon King, 18, were killed south of Maypearl.
Ellis County investigators earlier said that the duo appeared to have died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds while exchanging gunfire with the homeowner.
The Ellis County Sheriff’s Office said a homeowner in the 2100 block of Bee Creek Road exchanged gunfire with the two men. Investigators said his wife called him as he was pulling up to his home and said she saw two armed men trying to enter their house through the back door.
The homeowner ran inside, got his gun and then exchanged gunfire with the men.
Ellis County Sheriff Lt. James Saulter said the homeowner shot one man, but that it appears both died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds.
The homeowner sustained a superficial wound and was treated and released by paramedics on the scene.
The Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office said Chaffin allegedly stole nine handguns, six rifles and two shotguns, as well as more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition.
Saulter said deputies found a red pickup truck 200 meters from the home that was stolen in Oklahoma. A Pottawatomie County undersheriff told NBC affiliate KFOR-TV that Chaffin stole the pickup.
Deputies also found several weapons on Chaffin and King and in the pickup.
The medical examiner will determine their causes of death.
Saulter said the homeowner would not face charges in the incident.
A group of college students said they are lucky to be alive and they’re thanking the quick-thinking of one of their own. Police said a fellow student shot and killed one of two masked me who burst into an apartment.
Channel 2 Action News reporter Tom Jones met with one of the students to talk about the incident.
“Apparently, his intent was to rape and murder us all,” said student Charles Bailey.
Bailey said he thought it was the end of his life and the lives of the 10 people inside his apartment for a birthday party after two masked men with guns burst in through a patio door.
“They just came in and separated the men from the women and said, ‘Give me your wallets and cell phones,’” said George Williams of the College Park Police Department.
Bailey said the gunmen started counting bullets. “The other guy asked how many (bullets) he had. He said he had enough,” said Bailey.
That’s when one student grabbed a gun out of a backpack and shot at the invader who was watching the men. The gunman ran out of the apartment.
The student then ran to the room where the second gunman, identified by police as 23-year-old Calvin Lavant, was holding the women.
“Apparently the guy was getting ready to rape his girlfriend. So he told the girls to get down and he started shooting. The guy jumped out of the window,” said Bailey.
A 12-year-old Oklahoma girl took extreme measures to protect herself when an unfamiliar man broke into her home last Wednesday. The girl, who was home alone during a day off from school, shot and wounded the home intruder, local NBC affiliate KTEN News reports.
Kendra St. Clair, was home by herself when a man rang the doorbell to her Bryan County, Okla., home. She didn’t answer, so the trespasser walked to the back of the house and kicked open a door. St. Clair called her mother, who advised her to grab the family’s gun and hide, according to an interview she gave to local broadcaster KFOR-TV. Authorities said that the girl found the gun and took shelter in a bathroom closet.
“I was sitting there in the closet, really scared, holding the gun, not knowing what was going to happen,” St. Clair told KFOR-TV.
I want to hear from these gun grabbing zealots on this. You want to ban guns, you want them locked up, so it takes the person, in this case a child, minutes to get the gun unlocked?
Add to this increasing health insurance premiums, and you REALLY get an idea of how disastrous this bill will be when it takes full effect. Which reminds me of something I need to say. Fuck You Chief Justice Useful Idiot John Roberts
ROSE BOWL – 01/01/13 (5pm ET)
Stanford vs. Wisconsin
Stanford Cardinal – W
ORANGE BOWL – 01/01/13 (8:30pm ET)
Florida State vs. Northern Illinois
Florida State Seminoles – W
SUGAR BOWL – 01/02/13 (8:30pm ET)
Florida vs. Louisville
Florida Gators – L
FIESTA BOWL – 01/03/13 (8:30pm ET)
Kansas State vs. Oregon
Oregon Ducks – W Note: the Fiesta Bowl is one of many useless bowl game concepts that should never have been realized, but because the teams playing in it this year are among the top five teams in the country, I decided to include it in my list of bowl games that actually matter.
COTTON BOWL – 01/04/13 (8pm ET)
Oklahoma vs. Texas A&M
Texas A&M Aggies – W
BCS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP – 01/07/13 (8:30pm ET)
Alabama vs. Notre Dame
Notre Dame Fighting Irish
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Related:
Ed’s list of college football bowl games that almost matter.
ALAMO BOWL – 12/29/12 (6:45pm ET)
Texas vs. Oregon State
SUN BOWL – 12/31/12 (2pm ET)
Georgia Tech vs. USC
CHICK-FIL-A BOWL – 12/31/12 (7:30pm ET)
LSU vs. Clemson
GATOR BOWL – 01/01/13 (12pm ET)
Mississippi State vs. Northwestern
CAPITAL ONE BOWL – 01/01/13 (1pm ET)
Georgia vs. Nebraska
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Related:
Ed’s top ten list of the dumbest-named college football bowl games… in no particular order.
Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl
San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl
Maaco Bowl
Little Caesars Pizza Bowl
Belk Bowl
Meineke Car Care Bowl Of Texas
New Era Pinstripe Bowl
Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl
Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl
GoDaddy.com Bowl
.
First, before we get to all the bowls, and my picks, I think the suckage from the BCS reached historic proportions this year. Northern Illinois will play in the Orange Bowl, despite a # 15 ranking, and will get plowed by Florida State. Look, I salute the Huskies for winning the MAC great! But seriously, the BCS passed on Georgia, LSU, Texas A&M, South Carolina, Oklahoma, AND Clemson to choose Northern Illinois? Of course that was not the only issue with the BCS, all those teams that were passed over were also passed over so #21 Louisville could go play my Gators in the Sugar Bowl? #21 playing #3? Yes, I know, Louisville won the Big East, well actually they finished in a four-way tie, so they get an automatic bid. Come on! Winning the Big East is like winning an ass kicking contest against a one-legged man. Of course, the BCS rule that only two teams from the same conference can play in BCS bowls is idiotic. And boy, did the SEC get screwed by that rule. We have six of the top ten teams, but only two my Gtaors, and Alabama, who will beat Notre Dame like a rented mule, get BCS bowls? Oh, by the way, Wisconsin, who is not even ranked “won” the Big Ten so they get the Rose Bowl? Again SCREW YOU Georgia, LSU, Texas A&M, South Carolina, Oklahoma, AND Clemson!
Excuse me for a second but we now have 10 slots for the five BCS bowls, we have a ranking system. Why not use that ranking system to put the top ten teams in those games? Yes, OF COURSE! That would make too much sense, what was I thinking? I cannot wait for 2014, when we go to a four team playoff. I wonder how the powers that be will make a mockery of that?
Now, on to the bowls, which start December 15 in the GILDAN NEW MEXICO BOWL where Arizona and Nevada will hook up! Go with Zona there. Also that day We get the bowl with the most idiotic name the FAMOUS IDAHO POTATO BOWL( and you thought the old Poulan Weed-Eater Bowl was bad) with Toledo and Utah State. Go Utah State Aggies on this one.
On to December 20, when we get the SAN DIEGO COUNTY CREDIT UNION POINSETTIA BOWL (maybe I said the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl was the worst named bowl too soon?) where BYU and and San Diego Stare hook up. Go Aztces here!
The next night we get the BEEF ‘O’ BRADY’S BOWL, in St. Petersburg Florida. With Central Florida and Ball State playing. Go UCF here! As a side note, Beef O’Bradys is now a national chain, but once it was one location, on Kings Avenue in Brandon Florida, and they had the BEST wings evah! I remember because I may, or may not have gotten sloshed there.
On to Dec 22 when we get East Carolina vs. Louisiana-Lafayette in the R+L CARRIERS NEW ORLEANS BOWL go with La Lafhere and Washington vs. No. 19 Boise State in the MAACO BOWL Boise is the good choice there
Then, Christmas Eve we get treated to the SHERATON HAWAII BOWL featuring Fresno State vs. Southern Methodist. Go Fresno here
Then, on the 26th, in case you are craving REALLY awful pizza, tune in to Western Kentucky vs. Central Michigan squaring off in the LITTLE CAEASARS BOWL! Go with Central Michigan and LOTS of Maalox here!
Next comes December 27, and three bowls to feast on. In the MILITARY BOWL – PRESENTED BY NORTHROP GRUMMAN we get San Jose State vs. Bowling Green. Go San Jose here
In the BELK BOWL, yes, they really are going with that name. Cincinati and Duke clash. If you just watch one bowl game this year, please do not let this be the one. Bearcats win
In the legendary BRIDGEPOINT EDUCATION HOLIDAY BOWL UCLA and Baylor match up in what ought to be a great one. Go with UCLA in a shootout
On to December 28th and Ohio and Louisiana-Monroe in the AdvoCare V100 INDEPENDENCE BOWL. What is advocare? How should I know. why should you care. Go with Monroe here
Then check out the RUSSELL ATHLETIC BOWL featuring Rutgers and Virginia Tech, which Rutgers will win.
Next, Minnesota and Texas Tech meet in the MEINEKE CAR CARE BOWL OF TEXAS. I think you can get a free tune up at halftime or something. Tech should take this one.
On the 29th, in the ARMED FORCES BOWL, Rice and Air Force meet. Let’s see Air Force or Rice? In the Armed Forces Bowl? Go with the team with jets and missiles
Then, in what could be a high scoring affair Syracuse and West Virginia meet up in the NEW ERA PINSTRIPE BOWL. Dumb name, good game, Mountaineers roll.
Next, if hunger strikes you watch the KRAFT FIGHT HUNGER BOWL, theywere going to call it the Kraft Hopes You Starve Bowl, but that got nixed. Anyway Navy and Arizona State clash. Go with the Sun Devils.
In what ought to be a fine game at the VALERO ALAMO BOWL it is #23 Texas vs. No. 13 Oregon State. Tough call but I say Beavers rule.
Wrapping up that Saturdays slate is the BUFFALO WILD WINGS BOWL with TCU vs. Michigan State. Go with TCU, and the Asian Zing sauce with this one
Enough for now, I will post the rest of these bowl games tomorrow.
Gov. Mary Fallin signed into law Tuesday a measure that allows Oklahomans to openly carry handguns.
The measure, Senate Bill 1733, allows those who are licensed to carry a firearm under the Oklahoma Self Defense Act a choice: to openly carry a weapon or conceal it.
It also allows a property owner to openly carry a handgun on his or her land. No concealed carry permit would be required.
To receive a license under the Oklahoma Self Defense Act, applicants must take a firearms safety and training course and submit to a background check by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. Those convicted of felonies and certain misdemeanors may not receive a handgun license.
The measure takes effect Nov. 1.
Oh, the gun grabbers will whine about this, they hate the right for citizens to be armed, and the right to self-defense which is so closely tied to it!
Every single menu in New York City could soon be getting a major overhaul if Mayor Michael Bloomberg has his way.
The man behind calorie counts is set to announce a new public health initiative to battle obesity, taking aim at super-sized sugary drinks.
In other words, it may soon be time to say goodbye to those Big Gulps, those Slurpees or even Venti at Starbucks, CBS 2’s Derricke Dennis reported.
“That’s okay,” one person said.
No it’s not, according to Mayor Bloomberg, who is set to propose a ban on sugary drinks over 16 ounces everywhere, all across the city.
“I disagree with it, because it’s the right to choose. If you want to drink a Slurpee, you should be allowed to drink a Slurpee,” said Jamie Sawyer, a tourist from Oklahoma.
Can we just trade New York, Bloomberg and the sheeple who keep electing him to Canada for some maple syrup? Good grief!
OKMULGEE COUNTY, Oklahoma – A portable meth lab exploded in a Mounds man’s pants early Friday morning as he struggled with an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol says meth was leaking down Davis Williams’ leg as he tried to run away from a trooper just after midnight.
…
“After a brief struggle it was determined there was an active meth lab in his pants that burst during the struggle and got all over his body,” said OHP trooper Shiloh Hall.
Maggies Notebook has the story, and frankly, what can I say? This is the most indefensible ruling I could ever imagine. For any judge, or court to rule that Sharia Law, or ANY law other than federal, or in this case Oklahoma law, should be considered in any court case is simply terrifying to me
An Oklahoma judge, the infamous Vicki Miles-LaGrange, and the 10th Federal Court of Appeals in Denver are preventing the banning of Sharia Law in the State of Oklahoma (State Question 755). The Council on American Islamic Relation’s (CAIR) Muneer Awad believes the ban violates his First Amendment Rights. State Attorney General Scott Pruitt believes states have the right to establish their own court systems and which laws are followed, and the Courts believe the Oklahoma amendment singles out Islam only, ignoring that International Law is also cited. The case now returns to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma to determine its constitutionality.
Ah, again, how does this violate freedom of religion? We judge court cases the law, not by any religion. Just imagine how the very same people who brought this suit would be acting if the Bible were being used.
Another round of killer tornadoes tore through the Midwest on Tuesday, leaving at least five people dead in Oklahoma and two both in Kansas and Arkansas.
Several twisters shot through Oklahoma City and its suburbs during rush hour, killing five and leaving 60 injured, including three kids in critical condition.
The new line of high-powered storms struck just two days after a massive tornado barreled through Joplin, Mo., killing at least 122 people and injuring 750, officials said.
Four people died in El Reno, west of Oklahoma City, where winds were clocked up to 151 mph. A 26-year-old woman died when a tornado smashed into her mobile home in Chickasha, southwest of Oklahoma City, said police.
In Kansas, a twister hurled a huge tree onto a car in the town of St. John, killing two people.
Storm systems spawning tornadoes and baseball-sized hail also moved north and east across north Texas last night, filling the sky with debris but causing noinjuries.
In Arlington, Tex., tornado sirens began screaming in Rangers Ballpark during the fourth inning of the Rangers-White Sox game.
.
.
As the sky turned pitch black, the game was called and fans were evacuated through service tunnels. Thunderstorms, but no tornados, passed over the stadium.
But tornadoes were reported moving north and east across north Texas during the night. They caused damage but no injuries in parts of Dallas and Tarrant counties.
And officials warned that more severe weather was expected.
“Unfortunately, this event will likely continue for some time,” Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said. “I am asking all Oklahomans to stay aware of the weather and to take proper precautions to keep themselves out of harm’s way.”
Meanwhile, rescue crews toiled throughout the day in Joplin in a desperate search for survivors amid the splintered homes, fallen trees and crushed cars. It was the deadliest tornado there in 60 years.
President Obama, who is planning to visit Joplin on Sunday, said in London yesterday, “The American people are by your side. We’re going to stay there until every home is repaired, until every neighborhood is rebuilt, until every business is back on its feet.”
Efforts focused on the remains of a Home Depot store and a Walmart, withsearch-and-rescue dogs hunting for survivors.
Rescuers in Joplin were given some reason for hope as they pulled 17 survivors from the rubble.
But the blue-collar town of 50,000 was far from out of the woods. Fire from gas leaks continued to burn, and weather forecasters said similar conditions could emerge to set off other large tornado outbreaks in the Midwest.
The National Weather Service said last Sunday’s crippling twister appeared to be a rare “multivortex” tornado, with two or more small and intense centers of rotation orbiting the larger funnel.
It ranked as an EF5 – the highest on a scale used by weather experts – with winds greater than 200 mph. At its peak, the massive funnel cloud was three-quarters of amile wide.
Until now, the single deadliest twister killed 116 in Flint, Mich., in 1953.
Yesterday, I was traveling to Washington DC, where I’ll speak at the Heritage Foundation about the impact and future of the Tea Party movement this morning. While waiting for my flight, a woman conducted a rather loud cell-phone conversation with a friend (where’s Amy Alkon when you need her?) in which she discussed her frustrations with having to deal with “fascist morons” from the Tea Party.
We hear a lot from the Left about supposedly violent and fascist grassroots activists for, er, limited government, and perhaps no more so than on MSNBC, which has made hyperventilation an art form.
That’s what makes this clip from Dylan Ratigan’s MSNBC show even more interesting. Ratigan gives six minutes of air time to Ted Rall, the cartoonist last seen shark-jumping by insulting the late Pat Tillman for dying in service to the country. Now Rall has a new idea for improving the country, and Ratigan seems very interested the the proposal:
Ironically, it was only about a month ago that Sharon Angle was excoriated by several MSNBC talking heads for making a reference to “2nd amendment remedies.” Is Chris Matthews going to call out Ted Rall and/or Dylan Ratigan for letting him promote this? Rachel Maddow wanted to know if Angle’s language was finally too extreme. Well is it still extreme when it’s coming from the far left over your own TV channel, Rachel? If so, maybe you should poke your head down the hall and say something.
Lest anyone thinks that Rall is prescribing a “spiritual” revolt of some kind, John at VS provides an excerpt of the book:
We are here because the U.S. is going to end soon. There’s going to be an intense, violent, probably haphazard struggle for control. It’s going to come down to us versus them. The question is: What are you going to do about it?…
Christian fundamentalists, the millennial end-of-theworlders obsessed with the Left Behind series about the End Times, neo-Nazi racists, rural black-helicopter Michigan Militia types cut from the same inbred cloth as Timothy McVeigh, allied with “mainstream” gun nuts and right-wing Republicans, have been planning, preparing, and praying for the destruction of the “Godless,” “secular” United States for decades. In the past, they formed groups like the John Birch Society and the Aryan Nations. Now the hard Right has a postmodern, decentralized non-organization organization called the Tea Party.
Right-wing organizational names change, but they amount to the same thing: the reactionary sociopolitical force-the sole force-poised to fill the vacuum when collapse occurs. The scenario outlined by Margaret Atwood’s prescient novel The Handmaid’s Tale-rednecks in the trenches, hard military men running things, minorities and liberals taken away and massacred, setting the stage for an even more extreme form of laissez-faire corporate capitalism than we’re suffering under today-is a fair guess of how a post-U.S. scenario will play out unless we prepare to turn it in another direction…
A war is coming. At stake: our lives, the planet, freedom, living. The government, the corporations, and the extreme right are prepared to coalesce into an Axis of Evil. Are you going to fight back? Will you do whatever it takes, including taking up arms?
I don’t find any of this at all remarkable from the execrable Rall, a cartoonist of limited talent who has compensated for it by turning into a crank. What I do find remarkable is this softball interview from Ratigan and MSNBC of a man proposing an armed revolution in the United States after months of hyperbole from MSNBC about the supposed inherent violence and fascism of the Tea Party movement. In fact, Ratigan seems rather intrigued by the potential of such a proposal, while carefully dancing just short of an endorsement. Apparently, that Election Night meltdown wasn’t an isolated case at MSNBC after all.
A mysterious missile launch off the southern California coast was caught by CBS affiliate KCBS’s cameras Monday night, and officials are staying tight-lipped over the nature of the projectile.
CBS station KFMB put in calls to the Navy and Air Force Monday night about the striking launch off the coast of Los Angeles, which was easily visible from the coast, but the military has said nothing about the launch.
As the White House continues a long-term plan to double the number of full-body scanners in airports by 2014, an American Airlines captain has urged fellow pilots to boycott the voluntary screening.
Captain Dave Bates, president of the Allied Pilots Association, has sent a letter to other pilots urging them to refuse a full-body scan on the grounds of radiation over-exposure and an invasion of privacy.
A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order barring the state from adopting a constitutional amendment voters passed last week that forbids state courts from enforcing Islamic law.
The executive director of the local branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Muneer Awad, filed suit over the measure, claiming that it violates religious freedom guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
A Service Employees International Union affiliate used contract negotiations to punish two employees who supported a rival union, according to a National Labor Relations Board complaint.
The NLRB is the independent federal agency empowered to protect employees’ rights to join a union and to prevent and remedy unfair labor practices committed by private sector employers or unions.
You don’t need to understand exchange rates and trade wars to grasp the economic change that has come to Saginaw, Mich. Remarkably, the largest private employer there will soon be Beijing.
In the weeks ahead, a 104-year-old unit of General Motors will be sold to new owners from China. The unit made steering equipment for decades under the name Saginaw Steering Gear.
A government audit says the advocacy group ACORN should reimburse the government $3.2 million for failing to adequately show that lead removal work was performed at a reasonable cost.
Auditors also say some grant money was spent inappropriately, including for political campaigns and fundraising. Congress cut off ACORN’s funding after allegations of voter registration fraud and embezzlement.
A cruise ship stranded offshore with 4,500 passengers and crew must be towed slowly into a Mexican port and will not arrive until at least Wednesday night, the Coast Guard said Tuesday.
The Carnival Splendor was 200 miles south of San Diego when an engine room fire cut its power early Monday, according to Carnival Cruise Lines. The 3,299 passengers and 1,167 crew members were not hurt.
Noah Smith, a 31-year-old South Carolina man was jailed Monday after he was allegedly found naked in a stranger’s home with a mouse tail protruding out of his anus.
Oh yes, it’s as bad as it sounds. According to the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office, a deputy responding to a burglary report discovered Smith laying face down naked inside the doorway of the victims home.
A woman buying fruit and vegetables was overcharged – because the shop assistant’s breasts were resting on the scales.
Jim Hopley, chief executive of Channel Islands Co-operative, said the assistant’s seat had been too low at the Jersey supermarket, reports the BBC. Mr Hopley said this had caused the shopper to be accidentally charged an extra £5, which had now been refunded.
An Ohio man was excused from jury service after mentioning he was a childhood friend of cannibalistic serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. John Backderf was among prospective jurors being screened last week by a judge in Cleveland.
When asked if he’d known anyone convicted of a crime, Backderf responded: “I had a close friend in high school who killed 17 people.”
One of Russia’s most notorious prisons will soon install sunbeds to improve the health of its inmates, its head said on Tuesday.
Styled as a brick fortress, the 19th century Butyrka prison in central Moscow has held a slew of notable figures behind its bars, from persecuted Soviet-era writers Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Isaak Babel to Adolf Hitler’s nephew Heinrich.
Federal authorities in San Diego have made one of the largest marijuana seizures in the United States, confiscating more than 20 tons of pot that was smuggled into the country through an underground tunnel connecting warehouses on either side of California’s border with Mexico, officials said Wednesday.
Mexican authorities seized more than four tons of pot from the warehouse on their side of the border.
The marijuana is worth more than $20 million if sold on the streets of San Diego, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton. The bricks of pot were packaged for sale.
“This is obviously the work of a cartel,” said Mr. Morton, who held a news conference outside the warehouse in an industrial park near the Otay Mesa truck crossing, across from Tijuana.
Officials said the lightening-speed, 12-hour operation started Tuesday night when U.S. authorities watching a warehouse under surveillance followed a tractor-trailer as it left the building.
ICE agents called in the California Highway Patrol, whose officers stopped the rig near Temecula, Calif., about 60 miles way. Authorities say they found 10 tons of marijuana inside the tractor-trailer. The driver, a U.S. citizen, and his Mexican wife were arrested and will be arraigned in San Diego on Thursday.
Authorities quickly obtained a federal search warrant to enter the warehouse, where they discovered 10 to 15 more tons of marijuana, Mr. Morton said.
They also found the opening to the tunnel, which ran the length of six football fields under the border and ended at a warehouse in Mexico, Mr. Morton said. The tunnel had lighting, ventilation and a rail system to send loads of illegal drugs into California.
The clandestine passageway was too low to stand up in and was believed to be in operation for only a brief time, Mr. Morton said.
Officials said the seizure was the largest ever in California and was believed to be the second-largest in the United States. The largest amount of marijuana seized by Drug Enforcement Administration agents was in 2008 in Oregon, where 33 tons were found, DEA Special Agent Ralph W. Partridge said.
Wednesday’s announcement comes only weeks after Mexican officials made their largest marijuana seizure ever, confiscating a massive 134 tons believed to belong to the powerful Sinaloa cartel.
Mr. Morton said officials haven’t determined which cartel was running the drug tunnel.
Officials have found 125 underground tunnels along the border built by Mexican drug cartels to elude detection since the early 1990s, ICE officials said. Of those, 75 have been found in the past four years. Many were discovered before they were completed. The majority were found along the California and Arizona borders with Mexico.
Mr. Morton credited the increase in tunnel discoveries to “good old-fashioned law enforcement” efforts, with agents keeping a close eye on the thousands of warehouses storing goods moved back and forth across the border.
Morton said such a rapid bust, which came after a monthlong investigation, was possible because of cooperation between U.S. and Mexican authorities. He said that cooperation is better than ever, making it tougher for Mexican drug traffickers to move their loads and forcing their smuggling businesses to move underground.
World oil prices hit fresh six-month peaks on Thursday as the dollar slumped on the back of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s new huge stimulus package aimed at boosting the American economy.
Brent North Sea crude for delivery in December delivery rallied as high as 87.59 dollars, reaching a level last seen on May 4. It later stood at 87.46, up 1.08 dollars from Wednesday’s close.
Accompanying their election coverage on their website, CBS published a photoshopped picture of a half black/half white Obama with Republicans and Democrats on either side of him. How could anyone think that changing the President’s skin tone like this would be a good idea?
Obama’s white side is on the side of the GOP’s John Boehner and Eric Cantor. His black half is on the side of Harry Reid and Charles Schumer.
Voters in Arizona on Tuesday approved Proposition 107 banning the consideration of race, ethnicity or gender by units of state government, including public colleges and universities.
With 2,075 of 2,239 precincts reporting as of early Wednesday morning, the measure had just under 60 percent support. Arizona joins California, Michigan, Nebraska and Washington State in imposing such bans.
While GOP gains in the House and Senate are grabbing the headlines, the most significant results on Tuesday came in state legislatures where Republicans wiped the floor with Democrats.
Republicans picked up 680 seats in state legislatures, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures – the most in the modern era. To put that number in perspective: In the 1994 the GOP picked up 472 seats.
Demonstrators chanted “Down with America” outside the former U.S. Embassy and pelted the British diplomatic compound with eggs and tomatoes Thursday in separate rallies held under tight security.
The protests outside the former American Embassy were well-scripted events to mark the anniversary of the 1979 storming of the site, which began a 444-day hostage crisis and severed Washington’s ties with Iran.
The Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is filing a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a ballot measure that bars judges from considering Islamic law in any ruling.
On Tuesday, with about a dozen other states watching, Oklahoma became the first state to put before voters the proposition that Islamic courts, Islamic law and Shariah-based court decisions should be banned.
Allen and Violet Large figured they were lucky enough already. So when the Canadian couple hit it big in the lottery this year, they decided to give it away – all of it.
Since their July win, the elderly couple has donated nearly every cent of their $11.2 million winnings to charity. Call it the Larges’ largess. “What you’ve never had, you never miss,” Violet Large said.
Voters delivered an epic victory to Republicans and a stinging defeat to Democrats in midterm elections Tuesday, handing the GOP an avalanche of pickups in the House the likes of which has not been seen in more than half a century.
Republicans were on their way to gaining around 60 seats in the House, and had made huge advances in the Senate as well. GOP candidates also won big in governors races and state legislatures across the country.
The consolations for Democrats were few: they retained control of the Senate, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid held on to his Nevada Senate seat, and Democrats won a few House races that were thought to be in danger.
The House currently has 255 Democrats and 178 Republicans. The new reality will be a Republican majority of between 236 and 240, and a Democratic minority below 200.
The GOP House gains were the biggest swing for either party since 1948, when Democrats gained 75 seats on the back of President Truman’s campaign against a “do-nothing” GOP Congress.
The last time such a large swing occurred in a midterm election was in 1938, when Democrats lost 72 seats to Republicans in the middle of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt s second term, as voters lost confidence in the New Deal.
In the Senate Tuesday, Republicans picked up seats in Arkansas, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois and Pennsylvania. They were on pace to win in North Dakota as well, and the Colorado race was too close to call, with Republican Ken Buck holding a lead of a few hundred votes.
The total pickup for the GOP in the Senate was set to be between 6 and 8 seats, depending on the outcomes in Colorado, Washington and Alaska. The latter two may not be decided for days.
Republicans also won a key gubernatorial race in Ohio and looked likely to win in Florida, both contests that President Obama and Democrats badly wanted to win. And 17 separate state chambers flipped from Democrat to Republican, in the latest count.
Republicans, however, said they were not celebrating.
“We’ve got real work to do, and frankly this is not a time for celebration, not when one out of 10 of our fellow citizens is out of work,” said John Boehner, the Ohio Republican who is set to become the next Speaker of the House.
Boehner said “our new majority will be prepared to do things differently,” saying they will cut spending instead of increasing it, which will be a much easier promise to make than it will be to fulfill.
And Boehner sought immediately to prevent Obama and the White House from sticking the new House Republican majority with full responsibility for the ship of state.
“We must remember it’s the president who sets the agenda,” Boehner said. The American people have sent an unmistakable message to him tonight, and that message is, ‘Change course.’”
Obama called Boehner around midnight “to congratulate him,” according to Boehner’s office.
“They had a brief but pleasant conversation. Leader Boehner said he’s always been straightforward and honest with the president in the past, and said that’s the way he’ll continue to be with the president in the future. They discussed working together to focus on the top priorities of the American people, which Boehner has identified as creating jobs and cutting spending,” Boehner’s office said.
Republicans captured Democratic governorships in at least 10 states on Tuesday, including some prime presidential battlegrounds, and hoped for even more statehouse gains.
Changing hands in the GOP onslaught: governorships now held by Democrats in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Tennessee, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Wyoming.
Republican legislators have captured at least 16 chambers of state governments, electoral victories which will prove crucial to the redistricting efforts next year that will draw the maps for Congressional races over the next decade.
In New Hampshire, North Carolina, Alabama and Wisconsin, Republicans captured both the state House and Senate.
Oklahoma is to become the first state in the U.S. to ban Islamic sharia law. That’s the result of a voter initiative that passed by a heavy majority in the midterm election on Tuesday night.
State Question 755 amends the Oklahoma constitution to forbid courts in Oklahoma from considering sharia law or international law in reaching their decisions. More than 70% of voters approved the measure.
Voters in Maine’s largest city have rejected a ballot measure that would have allowed legal residents who are not U.S. citizens the right to vote in municipal elections.
Supporters said it was only fair that immigrants who are not yet citizens be allowed to vote because they pay taxes, send their children to public schools and even serve in the military.
The dollar is in danger of losing 20% of its value over the next few years if the Federal Reserve continues unconventional monetary easing, Bill Gross, the manager of the world’s largest mutual fund, said on Monday.
“I think a 20% decline in the dollar is possible,” Gross said, adding the pace of the decline was also an important consideration for investors.
Terrorists unleashed a wave of deadly attacks in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 113 people in Shiite neighborhoods in an apparent bid to provoke a new sectarian war in the country.
Seventeen car bombs and other blasts shook the city at sunset in one of the bloodiest days this year. The coordinated attacks came just 48 hours after 58 people were killed after armed men seized a Baghdad church.
French media are describing as a “miracle” the unscathed survival of an 18-month-old girl who fell from a sixth-floor apartment.
The girl was left unattended by her parents when she somehow fell, then bounced off the awning of a cafe below. She had a further stroke of luck when a passing doctor saw her fall and caught her before she hit the ground, witnesses were quoted as saying.
A crater some 65 feet (20 meters) deep has opened up in a residential area of an eastern German town – swallowing a car and a garage door but causing no injuries.
Emergency services were called to the scene in Schmalkalden at about 3 a.m. (0200 GMT) on Monday by a resident who reported hearing unusual noises. Six houses and 25 people were evacuated.
A Swedish man was acquitted of drink driving after a court said it couldn’t rule out the possibility he was sleepwalking. The 51-year-old man, who was not identified, had a blood alcohol level nearly 10 times the country’s legal limit.
The man said he awoke late one evening in the driver’s seat of his car, which had catapulted into a ditch in Karlskrona.
Police say a bank robber forgot to set up a getaway ride, so he offered $1,000 to people on the street for a lift after the heist.
Capitola police said a man in his 40s or 50s entered a bank at 11:40 a.m. on Saturday and ordered $20 and $100 bills from the teller. Police said the man then jumped onto the counter, pushed the teller and grabbed money from the till.
A 42-year-old Vancouver woman visiting her terminally ill son at a Pittsburgh hospital was jailed after she allegedly disconnected his intravenous line feeding him sedatives and injected herself with with the drug.
Karen Remsing was visiting her son at UPMC Children’s Hospital when she disconnected his sedative line and began filling hypodermic needles out of the tube.
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