TV News LIES

Saudi Arabia has executed at least 19 people since August 4, 2014. Local news reports indicate that eight of those executed were convicted of nonviolent offenses, seven for drug smuggling and one for sorcery.

Family members of another man, Hajras bin Saleh al-Qurey, told Human Rights Watch on August 17 that they fear his execution is imminent. The Public Court of Najran, in southern Saudi Arabia, sentenced al-Qurey to death by beheading on January 16, 2013 for allegedly smuggling drugs and attacking a police officer during his arrest.

An Israeli air strike in Gaza killed the wife and infant son of Hamas's military leader, Mohammed Deif, the group said, calling it an attempt to assassinate him after a ceasefire collapsed.

Palestinians launched more than 130 rockets, mainly at southern Israel, with some intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system, the military said. No casualties were reported on the Israeli side.

Will the recent rioting in Ferguson, Missouri, be a tipping point in the struggle against racial injustice, or will it be a minor footnote in some future grad student’s thesis on Civil Unrest in the Early Twenty-First Century?

The answer can be found in May of 1970.

You probably have heard of the Kent State shootings: on May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on student protesters at Kent State University. During those 13 seconds of gunfire, four students were killed and nine were wounded, one of whom was permanently paralyzed. The shock and outcry resulted in a nationwide strike of 4 million students that closed more than 450 campuses. Five days after the shooting, 100,000 protestors gathered in Washington, D.C. And the nation’s youth was energetically mobilized to end the Vietnam War, racism, sexism, and mindless faith in the political establishment.

This article is not a piece of commentary about beliefs or ideologies. Airing concerns openly can be constructive, civil debate can be productive, and incumbency shouldn’t equate to job security.

This article is about the hijacking of a movement that started in 2009 by the modern equivalent of the “Old West Snake Oil Salesman.” Slick, fast-talking, and capable of whipping a crowd into a frenzy, they travel from town to town peddling their promises of “change.’

Poachers killed an estimated 100,000 elephants across Africa between 2010 and 2012, a huge spike in the continent's death rate of the world's largest mammals because of an increased demand for ivory in China and other Asian nations, a new study published Monday found.

Warnings about massive elephant slaughters have been ringing for years, but Monday's study is the first to scientifically quantify the number of deaths across the continent by measuring deaths in one closely monitored park in Kenya and using other published data to extrapolate fatality tolls across the continent.

Yes:  Lauren Bacall.

A landmark, watershed moment of loss, finality.

End of an era much adored.

End of a storybook, starry-eyed romantic pair.

End of a warm, playful, and sly sort of style, grace, wit, charm.

End of a role model and path-maker for women, for people.

Too many ends.

Too many irrevocable lines drawn in the sand.

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Down at the Gaza city harbor, a little after dawn, merchants wait with horses and carts and scales to weigh the morning's catch of fish.

But when they come in, the fish are small and few. One man scoops his catch up by the handful, tiny fish slipping through his fingers. Even the cats look hungry.

One of the merchants, Mohammad Belah, tells me that a few years ago, it wasn't like this.
"A fisherman used to bring 100 or 200 boxes in the past, but now if he's lucky he brings 10 or 20 boxes," he says.

A House investigation into the Benghazi embassy attack concluded that the Obama administration was not guilty of any deliberate, negligent wrongdoing, according to Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.). Thompson told SFGate that the report, from a GOP-led panel, "confirms that no one was deliberately misled, no military assets were withheld and no stand-down order" was given to troops in the area.

The House Intelligence Committee voted last week to declassify the report, pending approval from security agencies.