Turkey Bans Orthodox Christian Liturgy, As It Builds 9,000 Mosques,

A total of 8,985 mosques were built between 2005 and 2015 by the Turkish government over the last decade in Turkey, according to statistics released by Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet).

The Central Anatolian province of Konya contained the highest number of mosques, Dogan News Agency reported on Sept. 16. Ankara, the southern province of Antalya, the Black Sea provinces of Ordu and Trabzon, and the southeastern province of Diyarbakır were among the other provinces with over 2,000 mosques.

9-month-old Dead After Horrific Sexual Assault

 

A nine-month-old West Virginia girl died after sustaining horrific injuries during a sexual assault at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend, authorities confirmed Wednesday.

Benjamin Taylor, 32, was charged with murder on Thursday morning, according to Jackson County Sheriff Tony Boggs. Taylor was initially charged with first-degree sexual assault and was being held on $2 million bail.

The child’s mother found the nine-month-old covered in blood in the basement of the apartment complex where the couple lived on Monday morning.

Parents Found Dead

Two McKeesport, Pennsylvania, residents were found dead in their home Monday evening after their 7-year-old daughter told a school employee that she was unable to wake them that morning, according to the Allegheny County Police Department.

The girl told a school bus monitor that she did not want to go home because her parents "had not moved" for more than two days and had been "changing colors," according to Lt. Andrew Schurman of the Allegheny County Police Department.

Weird Orange Crocodiles Found Gorging On Bats In Gabon’s Caves

Caves are scary places – especially ones filled with crocodiles. “I was crawling through the cave and suddenly there were two red eyes,” says explorer Olivier Testa. “It was frightening!”

In 2010, he was part of an expedition into Gabon’s Abanda cave system following a tip-off about a population of dwarf crocodiles living there.

While crocs sometimes retreat underground during droughts, this is the first population documented taking up long-term residence in caves.

$22 Million Cash"Saved" In Buckets.

The Miami Lakes man who had $22.6 million cash stuffed in buckets inside a secret room says the money is all legit — earned from sales of equipment to legal marijuana growers in other states.

Lawyers for Luis Hernandez-Gonzalez offered their defense in court as a Miami-Dade judge on Tuesday lowered his bond to $2 million. He remains jailed.

“The prosecution of our client amounts to what we think is a war on marijuana and a war on legitimately earned cash,” defense lawyer Philip Reizenstein said after Tuesday’s hearing.

Lessons From 30 Years Of Counseling Priests Who Fall In Love.

For Catholic priests, love plays a major professional role. They talk endlessly about the love of God, love for God, God's love of man, love of neighbor, even love of self, albeit this last one at times disparagingly. The one that lights them up the most, however, is their love of the priesthood, something every priest I know feels deeply.

But the actual mechanics of love between two humans - the many powerful and often conflicted feeling that arise - create problems that are very challenging and deeply personal.

5 Ways To Test Out That Tiny Home

While the tiny home craze is not going away anytime soon, jumping on the wagon too fast could prove wobbly.

One of the best ways to experiment with the tiny life (typically 500 square feet or less) is to try before you buy.

It looks so perfect, doesn’t it? Photo: Courtesy of Dan Powell

If you can connect with an existing tiny home community, you might be able to check out different setups and styles while interviewing real people about how they get by.

Bear Trapped By Salmons.

A run of pink salmon in a British Columbia river was so thick a young grizzly bear had a difficult and frustrating time trying to catch one as hundreds of fish surrounded it.

How it finally succeeded is a sight that is fairly new to the folks of Knight Inlet Lodge.

Knight Inlet Lodge, the first grizzly bear viewing lodge on the coast of B.C., is a floating lodge in the wilderness of Glendale Cove in Knight Inlet, home to one of the largest concentrations of grizzly bears in the province.

No Hiding Place For Fugitive Mob Boss

ROME (AP) — One of Italy's most-wanted fugitive mob bosses was arrested after five years on the lam Wednesday when police found him hiding in a home bunker built between the bathroom and his son's bedroom.

Antonio Pelle, 54, crawled out of his hiding place on his stomach to the top of an armoire that had shielded the bunker at his home in southern Reggio Calabria. Video of his surrender showed at least two dozen police surrounding the wardrobe waiting for him to emerge.

Hurricane Matthew: 16 Killed In Caribbean, Nearly 2 Million Evacuation In US.

Latest Path of Hurricane Matthew

Hurricane Matthew, the strongest Caribbean storm in almost a decade, tore across the Bahamas on Thursday, with the coastal U.S. lying in its path as forecasters made a dire warning about some locations possibly being "uninhabitable for weeks."

Nearly two million people were under evacuation orders in Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, where residents braced for a possible impact from the storm, stocking up on supplies and boarding up homes. The National Weather Service has advised that "loss of life" and "immense human suffering" is possible from wind for those who do not take precaution for the storm.

Tenure Extensin: DRC Opposition Takes Hard Line Against Kabila

Opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi says protests organized by the Rassemblement on September 19 in which more than 50 people died have been a warning to Kabila.

KINSHASA — 

The Democratic Republic of Congo's main opposition coalition, Le Rassemblement, on Tuesday announced the conclusion of a two-week conclave. Among agenda items was their response to President Joseph Kabila's intention to stay in power beyond the end of his second term and a clarification of the platform’s position on talks it has so far boycotted.

Several hundred Congolese delegates of the Rassemblement, a platform comprising most of the DRC’s opposition parties, began arriving for the ceremony held in the capital, Kinshasa, Tuesday morning. They were there to hear how leaders plan to respond to the delay of elections, which were supposed to happen in November, and President Joseph Kabila’s intention to stay in office beyond the end of his second term on December 19.

Bloop! Georgia Teacher Fired For Calling First Lady Michelle Obama A “Gorilla”

One of these days, folks are gonna realize that the world — including social media — are always watching. A fact that a Georgia teacher wished she would have been aware before she popped off on Facebook about First Lady Michelle Obama.

According to CBS News, officials with a Georgia school district have fired employee Jane Wood Allen after she described FLOTUS as a gorilla on Facebook. On Monday, Forsyth County Schools issued a statement saying, “Effective Monday, Oct. 3, Jane Wood Allen has been relieved from duty and is no longer an employee of Forsyth County Schools.”

“Racism and discrimination are not tolerated in our school district. We are committed to ongoing staff training on the acceptance of all individuals,” they continued.

Release Sambo: ECOWAS Court Rules

FILE - Nigeria's former national security adviser, Sambo Dasuki (C), arrives for a hearing at the Federal High Court in Abuja, Nigeria, Dec. 14, 2015.

LAGOS — 

Nigeria's former national security adviser, held since December 2015 on fraud charges, should be released, a judge at the court of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) ruled Tuesday, saying his detention was unlawful and arbitrary.

Sambo Dasuki has been accused of fraud involving $68 million of defense spending, part of a wider $2.1 billion in arms deals under investigation. He has pleaded not guilty.

WhatsApp Doodles On Photos And Videos

 The feature is rolling out to all Android devices and will soon hit iOS users.

The new doodle feature lets you get creative with images and videos you share (WhatsApp Blog)

Facebook's mobile messaging app WhatsApp has started rolling out an update that brings Snapchat-like doodling features. Users can now doodle on photos and videos they share with friends and family over the messaging platform.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Sales Resume

Samsung makes three major software changes to ensure safety of new device.

Samsung relaunches Galaxy Note 7

Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 is available for purchase again, the company has announced. The sales commenced on 1 October in South Korea, and other regions across the globe will see the re-launch of the device in the coming weeks.

The resumption of sales comes after a successful replacement programme, which saw strong consumer response with many exchanging the older Note 7 with a new brand new one or other Galaxy handsets.

FTSE Moves: Pound Sinks, Market Hits all-Time High Of 7010

London's main benchmark neared its all-time high as the pound plunged to a 31-year low against the dollar

Investors pile in to buy cheap stocks as pound slumps on fears of a 'hard' Brexit.

Top flight shares soared close to an all-time high in afternoon trading as the pound plunged to a 31-year low against the dollar.

Sterling has been hammered after Prime Minister Theresa May pledged to kick-start the Brexit process by the end of March next year, sparking fears the government will strike a deal that leaves Britain out of the single market.

Google Auto Project Is About The Perfect Driver, Not A Car

Google's autonomous car project removes control from the driver entirely

Despite building and operating a fleet of self-driving vehicles, Google says its end goal is not to make autonomous cars, but to create autonomous drivers to pilot them.

Google and parent company Alphabet have been working on autonomous car technology since 2009 and in the following seven years millions of miles have been covered with computers at the wheel.

2016 Nobel Prize In Physics, Goes To 3 Britons (But Residing/Working In The US)

The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to scientists who discovered secrets of exotic matter. David J Thouless, F Duncan M Haldane and J Michael Kosterlitz were awarded the prize for their theoretical discoveries relating to "topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter".

A statement from Nobel said: "This year's Laureates opened the door on an unknown world where matter can assume strange states. They have used advanced mathematical methods to study unusual phases, or states, of matter, such as superconductors, superfluids or thin magnetic films.

White House Wedding: Here Come the Bridesmaids

First Daughters Malia and Sasha Obama will have starring roles in a wedding where their parents played matchmaker.

Michelle Obama's former assistant, Kristen Jarvis, is getting hitched to President Obama's former secret service agent, Shaun West -- and our White House sources tell us Malia and Sasha will be standing by Kristen's side as bridesmaids.

We're told the couple dropped $300k on a D'Concierge wedding planner ... which means the whole thing is first class and elegant. Entertainment will feature R&B stars Ledisi, Eric Benet and Kenny Lattimore ... as well as DJ B-Hen.

Michelle will be there along with her daughters, but we're told POTUS is not expected to attend.

18-year-old Malia is now 6'1" ... so our money's on her to grab the bouquet.

http://www.tmz.com/2016/10/03/malia-sasha-obama-wedding-bridesmaids

Granddaughter Weds Grandpa

Just three months into their marriage, a Florida couple got the surprise of their lives after discovering that the bride was the groom's biological granddaughter.

According to the Florida Sun Post, the couple - who have requested to remain anonymous - came to the startling discovery while looking through the 68-year-old's photo albums, which included pictures of his first wife and their children. His 24-year-old wife instantly recognized one of the children as her estranged father, who she says kicked her out of the house when she was a teenager after she'd accidentally gotten pregnant.

Obama’s Sanctions Finally Hit North Korea Where It Hurts—in China

The Obama administration may have found a way to contain North Korea.

Just about everyone says sanctions don’t work. That’s exceedingly misleading. Sanctions have not worked simply because they have not been enforced. Now, Washington looks like it’s getting serious.

At the end of last month, two U.S. agencies hammered China’s so-called “accidental sanctions breaker,” and Beijing took notice.

Ancient City Gate And Shrine From Hebrew Bible Uncovered

The gate structure, seen to the left, exposed at Tel Lachish National Park.  (Guy Fitoussi, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authorit

An ancient city gate and shrine that King Hezekiah ordered to be destroyed during the eighth century B.C., according to the Hebrew Bible, are seeing the light of day following an excavation in Israel, archaeologists reported.

The so-called gate-shrine is likely evidence of actions taken by King Hezekiah, the 12th king of Judea, to abolish idols, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). Hezekiah's father, Ahaz, was known as a godless man, and as soon as Hezekiah ascended the throne, he ordered the destruction of all of the false idols (objects, other deities or animals that people worshiped) in the kingdom, according to Chabad.org, a website on Judaism.

World’s Safest Car ‘Libyan Rocket’, Designed in Libya, Africa by Muammar Gadhafi

This is ‘Libyan Rocket’-
A car designed by Muammar Gaddafi and manufactured in Libya- within our Africa.
He was killed while the plant was about to be built for its mass production. It was the world’s safest car with collapsible bumper and ability to travel miles with flat tires. It has a device that can cut fuel supply during accident to avoid fire.
Rest in peace Muammar Gadhafi.
We hope ignorant Libyans have started enjoying his absence.

Reducing Nigeria's Housing Deficit With Housing As A Social Infrastructure

INTRODUCTION

During the last Housing Summit, held in Abuja on Monday, 27^th June 2016, the Hon. Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, SAN, in his Keynote Address, unveiled the Fed Govt. Plan of Actions for the Housing Sector. The Hon. Minister disclosed a Budget of about N36billion, an amount he admitted was inadequate. He hinted that the implementation process is being reviewed, and that he’s working with his Finance counterpart on “access to capital for housing construction and supply, and also the financing of acquisition”. Specifically, he noted that the Ministry is reviewing “some of our old methods for implementing the National Housing Policy” adding, “while we may retain the initiatives with modifications, we must develop something new and different that is useful for reducing our housing deficit.” 

Nothing could be more factual. We can’t continue attempting to solve the same old problem, the same old way.