Scrolling around...September 12, 2013

Lois Lerner's Own Words: Emails undercut the official IRS story on political targeting
...In a February 2011 email, Ms. Lerner advised her staff—including then Exempt Organizations Technical Manager Michael Seto and then Rulings and Agreements director Holly Paz—that a Tea Party matter is "very dangerous," and is something "Counsel and [Lerner adviser] Judy Kindell need to be in on." Ms. Lerner adds, "Cincy should probably NOT have these cases."...

Official: Reports of sex assault in Navy increase
The number of sexual assaults reported to the Navy has grown by about 50 percent in the past year, which Navy officials said Wednesday is a sign that a growing number of sailors feel more comfortable reporting an assault and believe something will be done about it when they do...

Eagle slaughter: Wind farms kill 67 eagles in 5 years
... but the figure could be much higher, according to a new scientific study by government biologists...

CNN Poll: Support for Obamacare dropping
Just 39 percent of people in the latest survey said they have a favorable view of all or part of the healthcare law, down from 51 percent in January.

Stem cells: Living adult tissue transformed back into embryo state

The living tissue inside an animal has been regressed back into an embryonic state for the first time, Spanish researchers say.

They believe it could lead to new ways of repairing the body, for example after a heart attack.

However, the study published in the journal Nature, showed the technique led to tumours forming in mice...

Maaloula: rebels break into the village homes, kill three young Christians
The bodies of Christians killed lie abandoned by the side of roads; houses and churches have been destroyed and plundered," this is Maaloula today, a village about 60 kilometres north of Damascus that was recently invaded by Islamist insurgents.

The town, the cradle of the Syrian Christian tradition and a unique place in the world where Aramaic is still spoken, is now a ghost town.

Sources, anonymous for security reasons, told AsiaNews that "the Islamist insurgents are breaking into village homes. Yesterday they killed three people and took six young Greek-Catholics Christians prisoners. Bodies have been left in the streets as a warning to the population. Many families are locked in their homes and cannot even escape. Nobody knows their conditions."...

Christian Widows in India Beaten for Refusing to ‘Reconvert’ to Hinduism ...Sovi, who became a Christian four years ago, refused to renounce Christ. The Hindu extremists began beating her and her two children, threatening to rape her teenage daughter. The children managed to escape and hid in the surrounding jungle, but the men continued to slap, kick and punch Sovi as they insisted she leave Christ.

One of the men struck her on the neck with a club, and she collapsed in pain. Later she also took refuge in the jungle, where she hid for the rest of the night – with a fractured left hand, swelling on her neck and multiple contusions...

Pa. Judge Orders End To Same-sex Marriage Licenses
...A Pennsylvania judge on Thursday ordered a suburban Philadelphia clerk to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pellegrini said Montgomery County Register of Wills D. Bruce Hanes did not have the power to decide on his own whether Pennsylvania's same-sex marriage ban violates the state constitution.

 

It was not immediately clear what the decision would mean to those who have already received a license.

 

The state Health Department under Republican Gov. Tom Corbett sued Hanes after he began issuing licenses to same-sex couples in July, despite a 1996 state law that defines marriage as between a man and a woman. The department argued that Hanes' actions could create chaos...

Europe: Treating Homeschoolers Like Terrorists
...A German SWAT team stormed a house in Darmstadt on the morning of August 29. Had the German police discovered a group of dangerous jihadists? No, they were storming the house because the family living in the house were homeschooling their four children. The children, between 7 and 14 years old, were forcibly removed from their parents, Dirk and Petra Wunderlich, and taken into state custody at an unknown location.

Homeschooling has been illegal in Germany since Adolf Hitler banned it in 1938 -- one of the few Nazi laws still on the books. Hitler introduced the ban to force all children to attend state-approved schools where they were to be indoctrinated with the Nazi ideology.

The Wunderlich children were seized on the order of a court, because their parents, who are Christians, want to raise them according to their own values. The court transferred formal legal custody of the Wunderlich children to the state, despite there being no allegations of abuse or neglect against the parents...