Gunmen Murder 12 in Shooting at Paris Satirical Newspaper

Masked gunmen wielding Kalashnikovs and a rocket launcher killed at least 12 people and injured 10 more at the Paris offices of satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday before escaping. French president François Hollande called the shooting "unquestionably a terrorist attack."

Two of the dead are policemen; the French cartoonists Cabu, Tignous, Wolinski, and Charb (the magazine's publisher) are all reported dead. A policeman at the scene of the shooting told reporters "it's carnage."

Max Read, Gawker

Egyptian police man killed by bomb he's trying to defuse

The right pic was taken a few seconds after a brave Egyptian police officer was killed while trying to defuse a bomb left outside a petrol station on a busy road in Cairo, Egypt yesterday. The officer, dressed in protective gear (left) was filmed on mobile phone as he approached the bomb and filmed also as the bomb exploded in his hands a few minutes later (right).

Passersby rushed to his side after the explosion but he was already gone. A terror group named Ajnad Misr (Soldiers of Egypt) later claimed on Twitter that they were responsible for the attack and had been targeting police officers at a nearby station. These photos were shared on Twitter.

New Year Stampede In Shanghai, China Kills 36 People

Angry family members clash with security personnel in a hospital where some of the victims of a stampede by new year’s revellers were sent in Shanghai on January 1, 2015. Photograph: STR/AFP/Getty Images

Jonathan Kaiman | Guardian
A New Year’s Eve celebration in Shanghai ended in disaster when a stampede left at least 36 people dead and nearly 50 others injured, marking one of the biggest disasters to befall a major Chinese city in recent years.

The stampede began at about 11.35pm in Shanghai’s Chen Yi Square, a wide promenade popular with tourists between a row of historic art deco buildings and the Huangpu riverfront, according to China’s state newswire Xinhua.

Witnesses told Agence France-Presse that the mayhem centered on a stairway leading up to a viewing platform overlooking the river. Some people were trying to climb to the platform as others tried to get down, causing panic and mass confusion.

Graphic Photos Of Cyclist Flung Off Bike In A Christmas Eve Ride

These are the horrific facial injuries suffered by a cyclist who was flung off her bike in a shocking hit and run. Fitness instructor, Tracy Taylor landed on her face after she was thrown through the air as a car ploughed into her while she was out on a Christmas Eve bike ride with a friend.

Tracy, 36, is lucky to be alive after escaping with a broken collar bone and cuts and bruises to her face. See the very graphic photos after the cut.

Chinese woman killed while protesting the expansion of a copper mine

Police are seen standing guard during a protest against the Chinese Copper Mine Wanbao Co.

A villager protesting the expansion of a Chinese copper mine in Myanmar was shot and killed on Monday, witnesses said, in the latest bout of violence to mar the project, New York Times reports.

Villagers reached by telephone said the slain woman, Daw Khin Win, 56, was shot by security forces as the police and Chinese employees of the mine were erecting a fence in one of the villages where land had been seized for the expansion of the operation. More than a dozen people were wounded in clashes with security forces, witnesses said.

Hot Boy Crooner Bobby Shmurda Handcuffed To His Gang Members As They Leave Court

The Hot Boy rapper who is credited with creating the viral sensation, Shmoney Dance is facing up to 25 years in prison and after he and members of his GS9 gang were arrested last week in shooting, drug and gang sting in Brooklyn New York.

The police have announced a 69-count indictment that netted 15 members of the GS9 gang. The top count in the indictment is second-degree conspiracy, which carries up to 25 years in prison. Bobby and his gang changed as they appeared in court on Thursday. 

Slovenia headmaster caught giving oral sex to maths teacher has committed suicide

The married headmaster who was allegedly caught by the school’s students giving oral sex to a female maths teacher killed himself.

41-year-old father of two, Drago Kamenik, was found dead over the weekend. The police confirmed it was a suicide, but gave no further details.

Education officials have responded to the case by announcing a hunt to find those responsible by putting the entire school in Slovenia under investigation to find out who filmed it and spread it.

The 45-year old female maths teacher, Manja Mertelj, is said to be on sick leave and has not said anything yet. The suicide case has raised questions in Slovenia on whether the media should have published the images and how ethical it was to have done so.

Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes dies two days after being struck by ball

Australian Cricketer Philip Hughes has died two days after a ball hit him in the neck during a match between his team and South wales at the Sydney Cricket Ground on 25 November 2014.

Though he was wearing a helmet at the time of the freak accident, Philip collapsed and was rushed to St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney where he underwent surgery and was placed into an induced coma. He died this morning from his injuries. He was 25 years old. May his soul rest in peace, amen.

Doctors said his injury was a rare vertebral artery dissection which led to subarachnoid haemorrhage, which is bleeding in the brain. See pics taken immediately after he fell after the cut...

Touching! Girl Takes Her Life After Lover Commits Suicide

A young lady, Becky Tait, 20, has been reported to have killed herself in UK by stepping in front of a train. Becky’s friends and family were attending her burial at St Michael's Church, Stone, after Becky took her own life because she couldn't live without her partner who committed suicide in a similar way two months ago. Becky was said to be inconsolable, after Phil James, 19, passed away and decided to end it too. 

Michael Brown Saga | Autopsy Reveals Ferguson Officer Shot Him At Close Range

An image of Michael Brown is displayed near his casket in St Louis on Aug. 25, 2014.(Photo: Pool photo by Robert Cohen)

 John Bacon, USA TODAY
Michael Brown, the unarmed black teen who was killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., in August, was shot in the hand at close range and had marijuana in his system, an autopsy report by the St. Louis County Medical Examiner's Office concludes.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch published the report on its website. Suzanne McCune, administrator for the county medical examiner, acknowledged the accuracy of the report, but said the office did not release it to the newspaper.

The county report in some ways differs from the autopsy conducted at the request of Brown's family, which concluded the shots were fired from at least a foot away and as far as 30 feet away. Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Brown's family, said Wednesday that he and the Brown family don't trust the autopsy report.

The county report says a preliminary investigation indicates Brown became "belligerent" with officer Darren Wilson after Wilson asked him to stop walking in the street. The report says Wilson attempted to get out of his patrol car and that Brown, 18, pushed the door shut "and began to struggle with Officer Wilson."

Anaconda Girl Nicki Minaj Breaks Up With Boyfriend Of 14 Years

Nicki Minaj has been in a relationship with Safaree Samuels aka SB for over 10 years.

Safaree was also Nicki’s hype man/backup singer/personal assistant but according to TMZ, the couple has called their relationship off.

TMZ reports that the reason for their breakup is the fact that Safaree had become quite jealous of Nicki’s fame and had started to get hostile – a reaction that Nicki Minaj would not tolerate.

The confirmation of their breakup comes after Safaree apparently covered up his tattoos of Nicki Minaj with new designs.

Safaree had 3 tattoos of Nicki that he proudly showed off– her face on the right side of his chest, her name on the left side of his chest and her upper body on his right arm.

Oil Magnate Christophe de Margerie dies in plane crash

Christophe de Margerie, the Chairman and CEO of giant oil company, Total, died in plane crash last night October 20th in Russia. He was 63.

According to a statement released by airport authorities early this morning, de Margerie's private plane collided with a snowplow on the runway of Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow as it was accelerating for takeoff just a few minutes before midnight. They also said in the statement that the driver of the snowplow was intoxicated. The business jet's three crew members also died.

The chief executive who was based in Paris, France had gone t to Russia to attend a meeting of corporate executives with Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev and was returning to Paris when the accident occurred. He is survived by a wife and children. May his soul rest in peace...amen.

Total released a statement on their website this morning, confirming his death. See below

Endangered Specie | Death of white rhino in Kenya leaves only six animals

Sudan, one of the six remaining northern white rhinos, at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy near Nairobi. Photograph: Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images

Nadia Khomami | The Observer
An endangered northern white rhino has died in Kenya, a wildlife conservancy has said, meaning only six of the animals are left alive in the world.

Suni, a 34-year-old northern white, and the first of his species to be born in captivity, was found dead on Friday by rangers at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy near Nairobi. While there are thousands of southern white rhinos in the plains of sub-Saharan Africa, decades of rampant poaching has meant the northern white rhino is close to extinction.

Suni was one of the last two breeding males in the world as no northern white rhinos are believed to have survived in the wild. Though the conservancy said Suni was not poached, the cause of his death is currently unclear.

Suni was born at the Dvur Kralove Zoo in Czech Republic in 1980. He was one of the four northern white rhinos brought from that zoo to the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in 2009 to take part in a breeding programme.

Ebola Update: Prayer Vigil held for Dallas Ebola victim

Hundreds attended the Dallas church service to mourn and pray for the health of those in contact with him.

A sheriff's deputy who entered the apartment where Duncan was staying has been hospitalised after falling ill.

The virus has killed 3,865 people, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, in the worst outbreak yet.

A top US medical official on Thursday said it was unlike anything since the emergence of HIV/Aids.

Tom Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told a high-level World Bank forum that a fast global response could ensure that it did not become "the next Aids".

No More Plea As Paula Patton finally filed for divorce from Robin Thicke

Robin Thicke's increasingly desperate attempts to win back his wife, Paula Patton, have come to naught: Patton filed for divorce today, according to TMZ and US Weekly.

Patton's rep, Jeff Raymond, confirmed the news.

She filed the papers in Los Angeles, and asked for joint custody of their son, Julian, 4.

TMZ says the papers cited "irreconcilable differences" as the reason, but the divorce so far is conflict-free.

Thicke and Patton announced their separation in February, after eight years of marriage.

"We will always love each other and be best friends, however, we have mutually decided to separate at this time," the singer and the actress said in a statement.

Since then, Thicke has been rather public about his hopes to win Patton back, dedicating songs to her in concerts, naming an album after her, and sending her texts openly pining for her.

It didn't work.

So what happened? Their relationship started to go downhill last year just at the point of Thicke's greatest success with Blurred Lines, the provocative video for the summer hit, and in the wake of his controversial performance with Miley Cyrus at the MTV Video Music Awards in August 2013.

Calgary Man Shoots Himself While Hunting

A 50-year-old Calgary man has learned an important lesson about gun safety after he shot himself in the arm Monday night.

Police told the Calgary Sun the incident happened around 7 p.m. in the 11,000 block of 146 Avenue S.E.

The man was out in his truck, hunting coyotes on his acreage, when the long gun he had lying across his lap discharged, shooting him in the elbow, reports CBC News.

Police told 660 News the incident appears to be accidental and that the man was not doing anything illegal.

The man was taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

RIP Son | Renowned Quebec Skier Killed In Avalanche

Jean-Philippe Auclair, 36, of Quebec was killed in a avalanche in Chile. | Ici Radio canada

Chilean searchers on Tuesday found the bodies of two professional skiers, including a Canadian, who had been missing since an avalanche swept them away while they were hiking in the country's south.

The Associated Press reported from Santiago that the remains of Canadian Jean Philippe Auclair and Sweden's Carl Andreas Fransson were spotted by a helicopter around noon in bordering Argentina during a joint rescue operation by Chilean police and the armed forces.

Armada Skis, a company in California, confirmed to The Canadian Press that one of the missing hikers was the firm's co-founder, Quebec freeskier JP Auclair, but offered no further comment pending permission from his family.

Auclair's biography on the Armada web site describes him as a prize-winning skier and filmmaker who found a way to combine his two passions. It also said he had obtained Level One certification in avalanche operations through the Canadian Avalanche Association in 2009.

31 people believed dead after Mount Ontake volcano eruption in Japan

Finally reaching the ash-covered summit of a still-erupting volcano in central Japan, rescue workers made a grim discovery Sunday: 31 apparently dead people, some reportedly buried in knee-deep ash.

Four victims were brought down and confirmed dead, one day after Mount Ontake’s big initial eruption, said Takehiko Furukoshi, a Nagano prefecture crisis-management official. The 27 others were listed as having heart and lung failure, the customary way for Japanese authorities to describe a body until police doctors can examine it.

Officials provided no details on how they may have died.

It was the first fatal eruption in modern times at 3,067-meter (10,062-foot) Mount Ontake, a popular climbing destination about 210 kilometres (130 miles) west of Tokyo on the main Japanese island of Honshu. A similar eruption occurred in 1979, but no one died.

Rescue helicopters hovered over ash-covered mountain lodges and vast landscapes that looked a ghostly grey, like the surface of the moon, devoid of nearly all colour but the bright orange of rescue workers’ jumpsuits.

Japanese media reported that some of the bodies were found in a lodge near the summit and that others were buried in ash up to 50 centimetres (20 inches) deep. Police said only two of the four confirmed dead had been identified. Both were men, ages 23 and 45.

Jason Derulo Reportedly Broke Up With Jordin Spark Because He Felt Pressured To Marry

 

 

In an interview with Ryan Seacrest today, Jason Derulo said he and longtime girlfriend Jordin Sparks broke up because he felt so much pressure to settle down...

"What happened...in a nutshell, there was a lot of tension in the relationship for a lot of different reasons... There was a lot of pressures of marriage. There was a lot of arguing and stuff like that that just weighed on our relationship over time. When you stop having more good times than bad bad times, it’s time to call it quits. It becomes something that is unhealthy. I'm not one to throw my business out on the street, but I thought it was important because things are getting a little out of hand.

To be fair, it was not just from her either. It was kind of from everybody. That’s not the sole reason, but it definitely played a part. I'll be lying if I said that we parted in good terms. But it's not a bad situation. There’s no bad blood. We didn’t end off on a weird way or a negative way.'  Jason said...

Canadian Businessman Sentenced to 15 years in Cuba For Fraud

 A Canadian company says its president has been sentenced in Cuba to 15 years in prison on corruption-related charges that Cuban officials call part of a widespread campaign against graft.

The Ontario-based automotive company Tokmakjian Group says its lawyers were notified Friday that Cy Tokmakjian was convicted and sentenced on a variety of charges.

Company vice-president Lee Hacker tells The Associated Press that firm managers Claudio Vetere and Marco Puche got shorter sentences.

Cuban officials have provided few details about the case.

But dozens of Cuban executives and government officials and a series of foreigners have been swept up in what is described as an attack on a culture of payoffs by foreigners.

The arrests sent a chill through international business people investing in Cuba

AP