An Alabama woman was in stable condition on Wednesday after being shot at Faulkner University, a private Christian school in Montgomery.
The Montgomery Adviserreported on Wednesday that 37-year-old Reginald Brown had been charged with attempted murder and illegally possessing a firearm after he allegedly shot a school maintenance worker at around noon on Tuesday. WFSA identified Brown as the victim's husband.
"Our investigation indicates that this is domestic related," Montgomery Police Department spokesperson Denise Barnes told WNCF-TV.
Saul Calderon-Zavala said he witnessed the shooting.
"Heard a shot, glanced over, I saw a tall man with a red shirt. Immediately popped," Calderon-Zavala recalled. "That's the one thing I remember. Red shirt, black pants, there was a woman on the floor, more gunshots. She tried running away and she was just shot more. And he got into his car and drove off."
Police later caught up with Brown on Atlanta Highway, near the entrance to the university.
Following the shooting, the university activated emergency procedures by sending a text alert to students and faculty: "(Active Shooter on Campus) Emergency! Armed person on campus. Go to nearest room and lock door. If off campus, do not enter campus. Follow instructions from auth."
Campus officials said that they would investigate after some students and employees complained that they were not notified of the emergency.
In a statement, the university asked "everyone to be in prayer for the victim."
"That's where I think a small faith based institution like Faulkner comes into play," vice president of student affairs John Noel Thompson explained to WNCF-TV. "Probably one of the first things we will do in addition to counseling that is already happening as we speak, we have daily chapel. So tomorrow's chapel program, I can assure you there will be some time to talk through this."
Brown was being held at the Montgomery County Detention Facility on $500,000 bond.
Watch this video from WSFA, broadcast Aug. 27, 2013.
The San Diego, CA congressional candidate whom a colleague accused of openly masturbating in a City Council men's room in 2009 is vehemently denying the story, calling it "disgusting, humiliating and nothing more than a character assassination attempt.”
Carl DeMaio told San Diego's NBC Channel 7 that the story is a canard made up by Democratic operatives who want to savage his political career.
DeMaio even presented Channel 7 reporters with a transcript of a polygraph test he reportedly took on August 26, in which the administrator of the test claimed that the former mayoral candidate and city councilor "was not attempting deception when he answered ‘no' to the above relevant questions.”
The test was administered by Paul Redden, a local expert in the field who has worked with law enforcement and court officials on multiple occasions.
The accusations against DeMaio surfaced last Thursday when the VoiceofOC.org blog published an account by Democratic state Senator and former San Diego City Council member Ben Hueso of walking in on DeMaio in the men's room and finding him openly masturbating at a urinal.
Hueso told the Voice of OC that he had been tipped off to DeMaio's behavior by then-Councilman Tony Young in 2009. Young issued a statement to NBC San Diego on Wednesday which read: "During my tenure with the city I never witnessed Mr. DeMaio do anything inappropriate as a member of the City Council."
“In politics, you see people make accusations all the time. And you know, I’ve had people criticize me before and I usually let it roll off my back,” DeMaio said to Channel 7. “But this one crosses the line. It’s so gross. It’s so false, that I have to speak out. I have to present the truth.”
CNBC host Larry Kudlow this week dismissed a letter from the Interior Department warning about dangers to wildlife if the Keystone XL pipeline was completed, and instead speculated that it would be a good place for animals to "snuggle" for warmth.
In an April 29 letter posted to the Interior Department's website, Office of Environmental Policy and Compliance Director Willie Taylor had noted that that the pipeline would have a long-term, negative impact on wildlife
During a "Path to Prosperity" segment on his Monday CNBC show, Kudlow expressed his frustration to Rayola Dougher of the American Petroleum Institute that endangered species could be delaying the pipeline.
"It's unbelievable!" she agreed. "We have been transporting and using Canadian oil sands crude for 40 years now. So, I can't imagine there's any more excuses out there."
"The other thing out there is this Interior Department memo," Kudlow pointed out. "They're worried about glowworms or endangered species or harming wildlife or whatever. I always thought the animals liked to snuggle under the pipeline because it gave them warmth."
"I don't know if they're worried about glowworms now," Dougher replied. "We did find out that animals did like the Alaskan crude oil pipeline quite a bit. So, who knows? It really is one excuse after another."
Watch this video from CNBC's The Kudlow Report, broadcast Aug. 26, 2013.
While New Jersey senatorial candidate Cory Booker admitted to the Washington Post that he has started dating again, his Republican opponent suggested on Tuesday that Booker was engaging in political courtship.
"Maybe that helps him get the gay vote, by acting ambiguous," Steve Lonegan told Newsmax host Steve Malzberg. "That I can't address. Although I don't like going out in the middle of the night, or any time of day, for manicures and pedicures. It was described as his peculiar fetish. I have a more peculiar fetish: I like a good Scotch and a cigar, that's my fetish. But we'll just compare the two."
While Booker, currently the mayor of Newark, told the Post he preferred to keep his lovelife private, saying he did not want to put a "young lady" in the spotlight without cause, he admitted that he liked calling out homophobia, even if it comes from supporters.
"I love seeing on Twitter when someone says I'm gay," Booker said to the Post. "I say, 'So what does it matter if I am? So be it. I hope you are not voting for me because you are making the presumption that I'm straight.'"
Lonegan admitted to Malzberg that he did not read the widely-cited interview, yet felt it was "weird."
"As a guy, I personally like being a guy," Lonegan told Malzberg, before recounting rumors about Booker going out for late-night manicures and pedicures.
"In Newark? What's open in Newark?" Malzberg asked.
"We were looking," Lonegan answered. "But we couldn't find a 24-hour manicure place in Newark."
Even though his state was battered by tornadoes and extreme weather this year, Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn (R) is more convinced than ever that global warming is a hoax, and that this Earth is actually due for a "mini-ice age."
In a speech to the Tulsa Regional Chamber of Commerce on Monday, Coburn said that the United States was not growing as fast as it could because "we're not taking advantage of the wonderful natural resources that we have in our country, that we're limiting our capability through over-regulation and interference in the private sector."
Although the Chamber told Raw Story that they were only making Coburn's opening remarks available on YouTube, Tulsa Worldpublished a few of the senator's thoughts about climate change from the question and answer portion of the event.
"I am a global warming denier," Coburn said. "I don't deny that."
The paper noted that Coburn also argued that the climate had always been changing.
"As a physician and a man of science, Coburn said he thinks the evidence points that the Earth is moving into a 'mini-ice age,'" Tulsa World's Wayne Greene reported.
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) on Monday said that it was a "scary thought" that elites could be culling the population with vaccines to preserve the Earth's resources.
The Texas Republican spent part of his five-week break from Congress this week by interviewing conservative activist Alan Keyes while filling in as a guest host for Tony Perkins on Family Research Council's Washington Watch.
Gohmert pointed out that some liberals believed that the Earth was already over populated.
"A lot of people who fancy themselves elites, right, because they've made a lot of money, their names are all over the media and so forth, they've really signed on to an agenda that requires the depopulation of the globe," Keyes explained. "And in the name of fighting global climatological change, called global warming -- that's proven to be something that's wrong -- they are saying that we've got to cut back the population of the world."
"Bill Gates gave a famous talk back in 2009, which he was talking about actually abusing vaccinations, which are supposed to keep people healthy and alive, and saying how this could lead to a 15 percent reduction in the population of the globe as a way to achieve this result," he continued.
Keyes warned that elites had a plan to reduce the number of people in the world to 700 million "by culling the population."
"They're preaching that doctrine because they actually believe we're a blight on the face of the planet, we human beings," Keyes said. "And we should, therefore, be put on a path toward our own semi-extinction. I often try to get people to see that if you think about it, if we actually get back to the levels they’re talking about, it would just be these elitists and the people needed to service them. That’s all that will be left in the world."
"That's a scary thought," Gohmert agreed.
Watch this video from the Family Research Council, broadcast Aug. 26, 2013.
A California congressman told a group of DREAM Act-eligible students that he understands what it's like to be an immigrant because he was born in Arkansas. The Washington Post's Plum Line blog reported that Rep. Gary Miller (R-CA) was confronted by a group of young immigrant activists at a political event in Rancho Cucamonga, CA.
“You know, I’ve talked to a lot of young people like [you],” Miller told the activists. “I mean, I understand the difficulty. Just like I was born in Arkansas. I came here when I was a year old.”
The DREAM Act applies to children of undocumented immigrants who have been raised in the U.S. but who live in legal limbo, unable to apply for citizenship and constantly facing the specter of deportation to a country where they have never -- or only briefly -- lived.
Frank Sharry of pro-immigration rights group America's Voice, told the Post's Alex Seitz-Wald that Rep. Miller's statement was "stunning in its ignorance" as well as being "revealing in how out of touch some Republicans are with the experience of undocumented immigrants."
"And this is a guy who represents a district in California, the state that has the largest number of undocumented immigrants in the country," Sharry continued. "So for him to say, I get your experience, I came from Arkansas to California, as if that is equivalent to a young kid coming from Mexico or El Salvador and growing up in the American school system and having opportunities denied to you because of your family’s immigration status, I mean, oh my God."
“I’m going from finding it really hilarious to really disturbing," he said.
Watch video of the exchange, embedded below via the House Majority PAC:
MSNBC host Karen Finney on Tuesday abruptly ended an interview with conservative radio personality Hugh Hewitt after he repeatedly tried to get her to defend former Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy's 1950s-era communist witch hunt.
On her MSNBC show over the weekend, Finney had said that Cruz' rhetoric about using "grassroots common sense" was "reminiscent" of McCarthy.
Hewitt invited Finney on his radio show on Tuesday and immediately demanded to know if "communists infiltrated the United States government?"
"If we go back to the McCarthy hearings, it's pretty clear that he, A, created a culture of paranoia and fear that people later recognized was -- you know, people sort of bought into it, and then recognized that it was absolutely misplaced," Finney explained. "I mean, that's the point."
"But, Karen, did any communists infiltrate our government?" Hewitt pressed.
"That's like Michele Bachmann accusing my friend, Huma Abedin, being Muslim brotherhood because, you know, someone she may have known, may have known somebody," Finney pointed out.
"No, it's not," Hewitt insisted. "This is just a historical question. Was Alger Hiss a communist?"
Hiss was a former government attorney who was accused of espionage and being a secret communist. He was eventually served three and a half years after being convicted of perjury in 1950. His conviction was credited with help launching McCarthy's career.
"The point I was trying to make with this, Joe McCarthy was on a mission to root out communism in the government, and he did it in such a way that created a hysteria that was very unhealthy for this country," Finney noted.
"I just want to know, do you think Alger Hiss a communist?" Hewitt asked again. "Either he was or he wasn't. Do you think he was a communist spy?"
"I don't think that has anything to do with the point that I was making," Finney replied.
Hewitt continued the line of questioning for several more minutes: "Karen, this is astonishing. You can't bring yourself to say that Alger Hiss was a communist spy... I know it's not your point. I'm just amazed."
At that point, Finny hung up the phone.
"That is amazing!" Hewitt exclaimed. "The people who have hung up on me in my life now include Karen Finny and Helen Thomas and Ed Henry."
Writing on his blog, the conservative host accused Finney of being "just another in an endless series of talking heads who don’t know enough to engage in basic arguments about the propositions they put forward on air with complete certainty."
"It is apparent that Finney just isn’t very bright," he opined. "Finney, well, just another brick-in-the-wall of MSNBC and its parent’s reputation."
A Houston pastor has been charged with sexual assault after a 14-year-old foster daughter accused him of initiating sexual contact with her at least six times.
Court documents obtained by KHOU indicated that the 14-year-old girl was doing chores at her home on April 7 of this year when 47-year-old Pastor Darryl Houston allegedly began to kiss her on the neck. The girl said that they started to "make out" and then "had sex," despite her being too young to legally consent.
After Houston allegedly had sexual contact with the underage victim on six occasions, the girl told a therapist at Children’s Assessment Center about the assaults, and that Houston had said that they would eventually be together.
Houston denied the the allegations when questioned by prosecutors, and he accused the girl of being "promiscuous." The pastor was later charged with three counts of sexual assault of a child under 17 after a polygraph test determined that he was being "deceptive."
And prosecutors think that Houston may be lying about more than just his sexual assaults of the girl. They have reason to believe that Houston's real name may be Christopher Miller, who is a convicted sex offender in Michigan.
For his part, Houston told a judge that he had never been to Michigan and was in the military when Christopher Miller committed those sex offenses. However, the judge decided against setting a bond.
Texas Child Protection Services told KHOU that the state did not conduct background checks on foster parents. One neighbor speculated that "about five or six kids" had been in Houston's care.
Circle of Care, the agency responsible for placing the children, said in a statement that it had "followed procedures and met all minimum standard guidelines."
Watch this video from KHOU, broadcast Aug. 26, 2013.
Watch this video from KTRK, broadcast Aug. 26, 2013.
A Fox News medical expert on Tuesday argued that President Barack Obama's administration was wrong to force gender equality for health insurance rates because men "only have the prostate," while women "have the breasts, they have the ovaries."
"Look, it's not bias, I'm not saying this as a man," Fox News Medical A-Team contributor Dr. David Samadi told the hosts of Fox & Friends. "They go through a lot of preventive screenings, they give birth, they have the whole mammogram, the Pap smear. Guys, we don't like to go to doctors, right? Seventy percent of health care decisions are made by women. In my own practice, I see it's the women who bring the guys, who say, go get screened."
"Yeah, but shouldn't that earn us a discount?" Fox News host Gretchen Carlson interrupted. "Basic fact that we are responsible for getting our men to come to the doctor? And what about the fact that women, because they do all this preventative care, maybe their health issues end up costing less than men's, who don't go to the doctor until it's a crisis and a big deal."
"Yes, that's a good point, except that, you know, women live longer," Samadi asserted. "Women live until age 81 and men live only until 76. So, we're using the health care system much less."
"In this case, it's not equal," co-host Brian Kilmeade agreed. "You have a better time on Earth than we do, you're here a lot more. You have six years of heaven, where you just have no men around."
Carlson pointed out that women were blamed for maternity costs, "but men and women have babies together."
"I agree with you that it's a shared responsibility," Samadi said. "But just the way the system are -- in my field, we only have the prostate. Women have the breasts, they have the ovaries, they have the uterus. They get checked in every part."
"1-800-GOD, can we change the organs of a woman so that she doesn't cost so much?" Carlson joked.
In a column for Time last week, Hadley Heath also made the case that women should pay more for health care.
"Women’s greater attentiveness to their own health likely also contributes to their longevity," she wrote. "After all, women may reap the benefits of this behavior by living longer lives; they should also take on the costs."
Watch this video from Fox News' Fox & Friends, broadcast Aug. 27, 2013.
Richard Haass, the president on the Council on Foreign Relations, said Monday he was almost certain the United States was going to attack Syria.
"Secretary Kerry went far out on a limb, both in the content and, as you say, the tone," he told CNN. "So, sure, I would frankly be surprised and then some if the United States now did not probably together with a few other countries take some military action."
Secretary of State John Kerry has accused Bashar al-Assad’s regime of carrying out "a moral obscenity" for allegedly using chemical weapons against civilians. Kerry said such actions were "inexcusable" and that Syria would be held accountable.
"You're probably looking at sea launch cruise missile, probably some airborne cruise missiles, but something along those lines I think would be the most natural sort of response for the United States to launch at this point," Haass said.
Washington warned Syria on Monday it would face action over the "moral obscenity" of a chemical weapons attack, as UN inspectors braved sniper fire to gather evidence about the incident.
Speaking amid reports that Washington and its allies are preparing to launch a punitive cruise missile strike on Syrian targets, US Secretary of State John Kerry accused Bashar al-Assad's regime of engaging in a cover-up.
"Let me be clear. The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity," Kerry declared in a televised statement.
"By any standard it is inexcusable, and despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured, it is undeniable."
Kerry said Washington would provide more evidence of who was behind the attack, and that US President Barack Obama was determined that the guilty would face consequences.
"We have additional information about this attack, and that information is being compiled and reviewed together with our partners, and we will provide that information in the days ahead," he warned.
"Make no mistake. President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world's most heinous weapons against the world's most vulnerable people. Nothing today is more serious."
Kerry was speaking as United Nations inspectors met survivors of last week's attack, which the independent medical agency Doctors Without Borders has said left at least 355 people dead from "neurotoxic symptoms."
The UN convoy came under sniper fire as it tried to approach the Damascus suburb where the attack was reported, but the team nevertheless managed to visit victims receiving treatment in two nearby hospitals.
"It was a very productive day," UN spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters, adding that the team, led by Swedish expert Ake Sellstrom, is "already gathering valuable evidence."
UN leader Ban Ki-moon said that despite the "very dangerous circumstances" the investigators "visited two hospitals, they interviewed witnesses, survivors and doctors. They also collected some samples."
The UN team was in a buffer zone between government and opposition-held areas when it came under attack.
Ban said the United Nations had made a "strong complaint" to the Syrian government and opposition forces. The rebels and Assad's government traded blame for the sniper assault just as they did the chemical attack.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia -- a staunch Assad ally that provides the regime with diplomatic cover by blocking UN Security Council action -- remained unimpressed by the mounting evidence of an atrocity.
Putin on Monday told British Prime Minister David Cameron there was no proof Damascus had used chemical weapons, according to Cameron's office, which has said it has "little doubt" that there had been an attack.
Cameron cut short his holiday on Monday to return to London to plan a response. Britain, along with France, has been in the forefront of demands for tougher action against Assad's regime.
The Syrian opposition says more than 1,300 people died when toxic gases were unleashed on Eastern Ghouta and Moadamiyet al-Sham.
In Moadamiyet al-Sham, the UN team took samples and interviewed medical staff before returning to their hotel in Damascus.
Syria approved the UN inspection on Sunday but US officials said it was too little, too late, arguing that persistent shelling had "corrupted" the site.
The inspection came as the West appeared to be moving closer to launching a military response, after officials confirmed the US Navy has four warships armed with cruise missiles on standby in the eastern Mediterranean.
With China and Moscow expected to boycott any resolution backing a military strike, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the West could act even without full UN Security Council backing.
The alleged poison gas attack is only the latest atrocity in a conflict that has claimed more than 100,000 lives since March 2011.
Assad, in an interview with a Russian newspaper published Monday, denied accusations his government was behind the attack, calling the charges an "insult to common sense."
"The United States faces failure just like in all the previous wars they waged," he added.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meanwhile warned of the "extremely dangerous consequences of a possible new military intervention" and said intervening without a UN Security Council resolution would be illegal.
Experts believe the most likely US action would see sea-launched cruise missiles target Syrian military installations and artillery batteries deemed complicit in the chemical weapons attack.
Trinity Community Church in Minneapolis made history on Sunday by ordaining the first-ever openly gay minister at a Presbyterian church in Minnesota.
"This is just an enormous step for the Presbyterian Church and such a statement that the church is a place for everyone," newly-ordained minister Daniel Vigilante told KARE on Sunday. "It's inclusive. It's for young and old and gay and straight. Men and women can be a part of it and be in full leadership."
Vigilante first tried to get ordained 13 years ago, but his he was rejected due to his sexual orientation. He re-entered the ordination process last year after the church decided to accept openly gay and lesbian ministers.
According to Towleroad, about a dozen LGBT ministers have been ordained by the Presbyterian church in the last year.
Watch this video from KARE, broadcast Aug. 25, 2016.
