Gun crime plunges, though most Americans think it has risen
Some 11,101 gun-related homicides were reported in the United States in 2011, a figure that is down 39 percent from the 1993 peak, the Justice Department reported. Nonfatal firearm crimes declined by 69 percent to 467,300 in the same period.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for two gay marriage cases, DOMA and Prop 8, on Tuesday and Wednesday.
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Photo: REUTERS/Allison Joyce
U.S. court of appeals agrees to remove judge who had been overseeing case against accused mobster James “Whitey” Bulgerove judge who had been overseeing case against accused mobster James “Whitey” Bulger
You may better know Bulger from the movie “The Departed” which was loosely based on Whitey, with Jack Nicholson playing the part of Bulger.
Stocks rose to five-year highs on Friday, with the Dow closing above 14,000 for the first time since October 2007, after jobs and manufacturing data showed the economy’s recovery remains on track.
Based on the latest available data, the Dow Jones industrial average DJIA was up 149.21 points, or 1.08 percent, at 14,009.79. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index SPX was up 15.05 points, or 1.00 percent, at 1,513.16. The Nasdaq Composite Index IXIC was up 36.97 points, or 1.18 percent, at 3,179.10.
READ ON: Dow ends above 14,000 for the first time since October 2007
Niger has given permission for U.S. surveillance drones to be stationed on its territory to improve intelligence on al Qaeda-linked Islamist fighters in northern Mali and the wider Sahara, a senior government source said.
The U.S. ambassador to Niger, Bisa Williams, made the request at a meeting on Monday with President Mahamadou Issoufou, who immediately accepted it, the source said.
“Niger has given the green light to accepting American surveillance drones on its soil to improve the collection of intelligence on Islamist movements,” said the source, who asked not to be identified.
The drones could be stationed in Niger’s northern desert region of Agadez, which borders Mali, Algeria and Libya, the source said.
A spokesperson for the United States’ African Command (AFRICOM) declined to comment.
On March 9, 2010 – the day U.S. authorities announced terrorism charges against a blonde, white American woman who called herself Jihad Jane – senior government officials repeatedly described the arrest as a seminal event in the war on terror. The case was so serious, authorities said, that they charged the woman, Colleen LaRose, with crimes that could keep her in prison for the rest of her life.
Now, as she awaits sentencing, a months-long Reuters review of confidential documents and interviews with sources in Europe and the United States — including the first and only interview with Jihad Jane herself — reveals a far less menacing and, in some ways, more preposterous undertaking than what the U.S. government asserted.
SPECIAL REPORT - Jane’s Jihad: the new face of terrorism
The man suspected of killing three women and wounding four others in a shooting rampage at a Milwaukee-area spa where his estranged wife worked had recently posted pleas for help “to get out of Wisconsin” on his Facebook page.
Radcliffe Haughton, 45, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the Azana Salon & Spa in suburban Brookfield, hours after the Sunday morning shooting.
Haughton had been placed under a restraining order and directed to surrender his firearms to authorities this month in connection with a domestic abuse case involving his wife, who worked at the spa. Police have not said whether she was among the victims.
On October 8, the same date he was ordered to stay away from his wife after police said he slashed the tires on her car, Haughton posted to his Facebook page: “Need to get out of Wisconsin, HELP …”
READ ON: Suspected spa gunman pleaded for help to leave Wisconsin
A self-professed leader of the computer hacker group Anonymous was arrested by authorities in Dallas, officials said on Thursday.
“He was arrested and brought in for booking about 11 p.m. last night,” said Dallas County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Carmen Castro.
She didn’t know why Barrett Brown, 31, was arrested, saying there was no offense listed on the booking sheet. Brown was turned over to the FBI, she said.
A spokesman for the FBI declined to comment.
A Twitter account for the California law firm Leiderman Devine said it would be defending Brown at a hearing in Dallas federal court later on Thursday and that he had been detained on charges of “threatening a federal agent.”
READ ON: A leader of hacker group Anonymous arrested in Texas
Reuters graphic: A look at food stamp usage in the United States
