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People from the Florida Panhandle down to the Tampa area braced Thursday for Hurricane Hermine, as it lashes the area with strong winds and potentially dangerous storm surge. The National Hurricane Center said the storm's winds ratched up from 75 mph in the afteoon to 80 mph by evening as the former tropical storm gained new fury. Hermine was set to make landfall late Thursday or early Friday, forecasters said. A hurricane waing was in effect for Florida's Big Bend from the Suwaee River to Mexico Beach. And on the East Coast, a tropical storm waing was issued for an area that extended from Marineland, Florida, northward to the South Santee River in South Carolina. [embedded content...

The coffin of Giulia, 9 years old, is carried outside the gymnasium at the end of the state funeral service in Ascoli Piceno, Italy,. (AP) ASCOLI PIECENO, Italy – In the chaos of Italy's devastating earthquake, an older sister's embrace allowed a four-year-old girl to survive. The heartbreaking story of Giulia Rinaldo, 9, and her 4-year-old sister Giorgia was recounted Saturday by the bishop who celebrated a funeral Mass for 35 of the 290 people killed by the quake that ravaged central Italy before dawn Wednesday. Bishop Giovai D'Ercole recalled that around 6 or 6:30 p.m. Wednesday — 15 hours after the quake — he retued to a church in his diocese in the town of Pescara Del Tronto to reco...

Magda Goebbels, left, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels in 1938. Even 71 years after she last typed a letter for one of the most infamous monsters of the Adolf Hitler regime, a former secretary for Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels refers to the murder of six million people as “the matter of the Jews” and says telling her life story has nothing to do with “clearing my conscience.” Brunhilde Pomsel, 105, spoke to The Guardian shortly after a film about her time as a Nazi aide, "A German Life," was released at the Munich Film Festival. Pomsel was one of Goebbels’ six secretaries, hired by the ministry of propaganda in 1942 when she was 31 years old. She described Goebbels – who rallied Ge...

FILE - In this Oct. 1, 2015 file photo in Austin, Texas, protestors gather on the West Mall of the University of Texas campus to oppose a new state law that expands the rights of concealed handgun license holders to carry their weapons on public college campuses and as of Aug. 1, 2016, they can carry in campus buildings. (Ralph Barrera/Austin American-Statesman via AP, File) College professors in Texas could face disciplinary measures if they prohibit handguns to be brought into their classrooms, state Attoey General Ken Paxton said Monday. Paxton filed a motion this week to dismiss a federal lawsuit brought last month by three professors at the University of Texas at Austin seeking to b...

FILE - In this Oct. 1, 2015 file photo in Austin, Texas, protestors gather on the West Mall of the University of Texas campus to oppose a new state law that expands the rights of concealed handgun license holders to carry their weapons on public college campuses and as of Aug. 1, 20...

Two professors at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul were kidnapped early Sunday, officials said. An Afghan security official said five gunmen wearing military uniforms captured an American and an Australian. The incident happened close to the university, according to Kabul police chief Abdel Rahman Rahimi. Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement that its embassy in Kabul was seeking to "verify reports of the kidnapping." Three other foreigners who were kidnapped in Kabul in the past year have been released. An Australian woman, Kerry Jane Wilson, was abducted in the easte city of Jalalabad in April. Her whereabouts are unknown. No group has...

Concealed handgun license holders in Texas can carry their weapons into public university buildings, classrooms and dorms starting Monday, a day that also marks 50 years after the mass shooting at the University of Texas' landmark clock tower. The campus-carry law pushed by Gov. Greg Abbott and the Republican legislative majority makes Texas one of a handful of states guaranteeing the right to carry concealed handguns on campus. Texas has allowed concealed handguns in public for 20 years. Gun rights advocates consider it an important protection, given the constitutional right to bear arms, as well as a key self-defense measure in cases of campus violence, such as the 1966 UT shootings ...

Concealed handgun license holders in Texas can carry their weapons into public university buildings, classrooms and dorms starting Monday, a day that also marks 50 years after the mass shooting at the University of Texas' landmark clock tower. The campus-carry law pushed by Gov. Greg Abbott and the Republican legislative majority makes Texas one of a handful of states guaranteeing the right to carry concealed handguns on campus. Texas has allowed concealed handguns in public for 20 years. Gun rights advocates consider it an important protection, given the constitutional right to bear arms, as well as a key self-defense measure in cases of campus violence, such as the 1966 UT shootings ...

Photo of Richard Hoagland after arrest. (Pasco County Sheriff's Office) A Florida man who authorities said lived a secret double life for more than two decades was charged Thursday with identity theft. Richard Hoagland, 63, was accused Thursday of living in the Tampa Bay area with a wife and a son after stealing the identity of a man who drowned in 1991, Fox 13 Tampa Bay reports. The drowning victim’s nephew was shocked to find a marriage certificate on Ancestry.com indicating his uncle had married after he died, the station reported. He eventually went to authorities. Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said Hoagland had been living as Terry Symansky after abandoning a wife and family in I...

Photo of Richard Hoagland after arrest. (Pasco County Sheriff's Office) A Florida man who authorities said lived a secret double life for more than two decades was charged Thursday with identity theft. Richard Hoagland, 63, was accused Thursday of living in the Tampa Bay area with a wife and a son after stealing the identity of a man who drowned in 1991, Fox 13 Tampa Bay reports. The drowning victim’s nephew was shocked to find a marriage certificate on Ancestry.com indicating his uncle had married after he died, the station reported. He eventually went to authorities. Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said Hoagland had been living as Terry Symansky after abandoning a wife and family in I...

Zoe Callaway enjoys going to the rifle range to blow off steam, help fellow University of Delaware students lea gun safety and hone her sharp-shooting skills, but lately she and some classmates feel they are being targeted over their enthusiasm for firearms. Callaway, who grew up around guns and is president of the school’s Students for the Second Amendment club, first sensed the campus-wide opposition to her hobby when the group applied for an extracurricular grant for ammunition. They were denied, then appealed and eventually received a $500 stipend. The victory was short-lived, however, as outraged students successfully pressed school officials to explicitly prohibit ammo funding go...

The founder of the hugely popular CrossFit Games recently aounced that he would be giving away the pistols to athletes that win the competition referring to it as "Glock for the podium.” The CrossFit Games are trading gold medals for Glock metal. The founder of the hugely popular competition, for which Reebok is the title sponsor, recently aounced he would give away the pistols to the wiers, referring to the plan as "glock for the podium.” "The top male athlete, the top female athlete, and every member of the wiing team will receive a GLOCK pistol," Dave Castro, Director of the CrossFit Games and a former Navy SEAL, wrote in a posting on theFacebook pagefor the CrossFit Games, along with...

The founder of the hugely popular CrossFit Games recently aounced that he would be giving away the pistols to athletes that win the competition referring to it as "Glock for the podium.” The CrossFit Games are trading gold medals for Glock metal. The founder of the hugely popular competition, for which Reebok is the title sponsor, recently aounced he would give away the pistols to the wiers, referring to the plan as "glock for the podium.” "The top male athlete, the top female athlete, and every member of the wiing team will receive a GLOCK pistol," Dave Castro, Director of the CrossFit Games and a former Navy Seal, wrote in a posting on theFacebook pagefor the CrossFit Games, along with...

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Jerika Bolen, 14, decided to enter hospice rather than undergo more surgery. (GoFundMe) A 14-year-old girl is living out her summer dreams after choosing hospice over surgery and telling her mother that she is ready to die. Jerika Bolen, who has Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 2— which is often fatal for patients in adolescence— is in constant chronic pain, the Post-Crescent reported. “When I decided, I felt extremely happy and sad at the same time,” Bolen, of Appleton, Wisc., told Post-Crescent. “There were a lot of tears, but then I realized I’m going to be in a better place, and I’m not going to be in this terrible pain. I’ve been working on it and thinking about it for way longer than a...

DALLAS – A Texas woman who was wounded while shielding her sons during the attack on a Dallas protest march thanked officers Sunday and said she would go to another demonstration to show her boys that she’s not a quitter. Shetamia Taylor, who attended the march with her four sons, thanked Dallas police for protecting her in the chaos that erupted Thursday night. "I want to say thank you to the officers," she said during an emotional press conference at Baylor University Medical Center. "They were really heroes for us. They saved my life, my son's life and I want to say thank you to them first and foremost." She says officers shielded her as bullets whizzed through the air around them. ...

DALLAS – A Texas woman who was wounded while shielding her sons during the attack on a Dallas protest march thanked officers Sunday and said she would go to another demonstration to show her boys that she’s not a quitter. Shetamia Taylor, who attended the march with her four sons, thanked Dallas police for protecting her in the chaos that erupted Thursday night. "I want to say thank you to the officers," she said during an emotional press conference at Baylor University Medical Center. "They were really heroes for us. They saved my life, my son's life and I want to say thank you to them first and foremost." She says officers shielded her as bullets whizzed through the air around them. ...

If you are prone to microaggressions you might want to stop reading and evacuate to your safe space -- because what I'm about to write is politically incorrect. All lives matter. Every single life -- matters. Back home in the Deep South, we used to sing a song in Sunday school – “Red and yellow black and white - they are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world." Click here to join Todd’s American Dispatch: a must-read for conservatives! We are all God's children no matter what color our skin might be. I thought about that song as Dallas Police Chief David Brown delivered the stuing news about the sniper who went on a killing spree Thursday night. "The suspec...

Five years to the day after a jury found Casey Anthony not guilty of murdering her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, sourcestold People magazineon Tuesday the mom was having trouble holding down a job. "She sort of lives like an old person, on a fixed income without much going on in her life. She's bored, and she complains about boredom all the time," one source told the magazine. Her legal team reportedly gave her some financial support. Anthony'scase gaered national media attention after photos showed her partying in the days after her daughter's disappearance. Prosecutors said she murdered the toddler and hid her body in the woods ouside Orlando for a utility worker to find in December 2...