| | February 28, 2012 | | TROUBLED The tragedy at Ohio’s Chardon High School grew on Tuesday morning as a student was reported to be brain dead. Meanwhile, a review of local court records by the Cleveland Plain Dealer shows that the family of T.J. Lane, the teenager who was identified by fellow students as the shooter, had a history of violence. Lane’s father was reportedly arrested multiple times for violence against women, including against Lane’s mother. Between 1995 and 1997, Lane’s mother and father faced charges for committing acts of domestic violence against each other, and Lane’s father was charged with assaulting a police officer. Plus, more breaking updates. DANGER The United Nations Human Rights Council is meeting Tuesday to issue its fourth condemnation of Syria and the regime of Bashar al-Assad. In a resolution drafted by three Arab countries, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, the body rebukes Syria for “the use of heavy artillery and tanks to attack residential areas ... that have led to the death of thousands of innocent civilians.” Some of the worst aggression on the part of Assad’s forces has been in and around the city of Homs, where combatants and civilians alike have endured weeks of shelling. Last Wednesday, an artillery strike on a house in Homs claimed the lives of Western journalists Marie Colvin and Rémi Ochlik. Paul Conroy, a photographer who was wounded in the strike, was sneaked out of the city by resistance forces and has been evacuated to Lebanon. AT THE PUMP Speaking in Michigan Monday, Rick Santorum said high gas costs took too much money out of the pockets of homeowners, prohibiting them from paying their mortgages and thus sparking the financial collapse. It’s a pet theory that’s not found much favor among economists, who point to subprime mortgages as the reason the housing bubble burst. Even Santorum backpedaled when pressed by reporters, saying, “I said that was a factor. I’m sorry. I’ll make sure I’m much more specific when I talk.” And though Santorum seems to be the first to hypothesize that gas prices were at the root of the financial crisis, he’s sticking to his guns: “They were spiking in 2008; that’s a fact.” AID Stocks rose on European markets Tuesday after German Chancellor Angela Merkel secured her country’s approval for a second bailout of Greece. Merkel has warned that Greece must stay in the euro zone and that removing the country would do “incalculable” damage. The latest bailout for Greece totals €130 billion, approximately $175 billion. Analysts say that there is room for European markets to continue to rise, pointing in particular to the German economy’s expected growth over the coming year. CLOUDY DAY Police in the United Kingdom have said that The Sun, a British tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., had a “culture ... of illegal payments.” A deputy assistant commissioner for London Metropolitan police said Monday that journalists at the tabloid were in the habit of paying public officials for tips. Investigations into the paper and its practices are ongoing, even as Murdoch continues to tout a new weekend edition of the paper, The Sun on Sunday. The London investigators said that one official allegedly received the equivalent of $127,000 over several years. | |
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