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December 12, 2013 | | TRAGEDY Saturday is the one-year anniversary of the Newtown mass shooting, in which 27 people, including 20 children, were murdered. In the past year alone, a Daily Beast investigation by Brandy Zadrozny reveals that 24 school shootings have taken place. The shootings, which have gone largely unreported, killed at least 17 people but failed to inspire further efforts to rein in gun violence. Which begs the question: Has anything really changed? warning signs As Syria's Islamist groups strengthen, the highest-ranking Western-backed rebel commander, Gen. Salim Idris of the Free Syrian Army, apparently fled to Turkey on Wednesday. His escape comes after the Islamic Front, a recent merger of the largest Islamist groups excluding those with al Qaeda links, seized warehouses of military gear, offices, and a border crossing over the weekend. The move prompted the U.S. and Britain to immediately freeze nonlethal military aid to Syria. American officials are trying to coax him back to Syria and are holding direct talks with the Islamic Front before the Jan. 22 peace talks in Geneva.
CARNAL INJUSTICE To the consternation of human rights activists worldwide, India's Supreme Court upheld a 153-year-old Victorian British law criminalizing homosexuality. India's finance minister declared it takes India "back to 1860," and the U.N. says it violates international law, and is a "significant step backwards for India." The move was a shocking legal misadventure, says The Daily Beast's Tunku Varadarajan, and a bizarre, shameful ruling against freedom—and judicial sense. YIPPEE Finally. New foreclosure filings, including default notices, auctions, and bank repossessions, numbered 113,454 in November, a 15 percent drop from October. The numbers, which come from RealtyTrac, an online marketer of foreclosed properties, reflect the biggest monthly decline since November 2010, and are at the lowest since December 2006. In the past year alone, filings are down 37 percent. UNFAIR Talk about playing favorites. A report by the inspector general of NASA says top executives from Google saved millions of dollars when they flew their private jets using discounted fuel bought from the federal government, which they were not at liberty to buy. For six years, the executives were only allowed to buy the fuel at a discount for government business, but instead were being allowed to use it for private flights. The inspector general says the situation was due to a government "misunderstanding," and not misconduct on the part of Google. | | 
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