Police in California have suppressed a demonstration in Berkeley University held to protest against rising study fees ahead of March 4 rallies for a similar purpose.

Police in riot gear clashed with the protesters who had reportedly stormed and occupied a building in the Berkeley campus, US media reported Friday.

At least two students have been arrested for ‘inciting violence’ and purported misdemeanor.

The Thursday night protest that went well into early Friday turned violent after police tried to subdue a group of students who gathered on the campus for upcoming protests across several states over increasing education costs in America.

Police say that around 100 protesting students damaged construction equipment and public property during the night-time unrest.

They say two of their officers have also been injured in the clashes.

The exact number of hurt students, however, remains unclear.

Local authorities have already summoned 45 students over allegations of occupying faculty buildings and ‘vandalism’ during November 2009 protests against study fee hikes.

Recently, students and activists have staged demonstrations against tuition hikes that have led to unprecedented debt burdens on students in public colleges.

They say preparations are being made to mark what they call the "National Day of Action for Public Education."

The new bloc will bring together some 32 nations in order to resolve regional issues and present a common position on global challenges.

The decision was made during the periodical Rio Group Summit at the resort town of Cancun, Mexico.

The new group will be an alternative to the Organization of American States (OAS), the main forum for regional affairs in the past 50 years.

The OAS has been criticized for pursuing US interests and its members have repeatedly failed to get along when it comes to economical policies and trade.

The White House has regarded the group cautiously saying it does not have any problems with it as long as it does not replace the Washington-based OAS.

Discussions about the group, which yet has to be named, are to be continued at summits in Venezuela and Chile in 2011 and 2012.

FF/MMA

Tennessee has challenged federal regulation of some guns.

Virginia lawmakers passed a bill allowing people to carry concealed weapons, like this .45 Colt semiautomatic, in bars.

When President Obama took office, gun rights advocates sounded the alarm, warning that he intended to strip them of their arms and ammunition.

And yet the opposite is happening. Mr. Obama has been largely silent on the issue while states are engaged in a new and largely successful push for expanded gun rights, even passing measures that have been rejected in the past.

A recent poll suggests that only 14 percent of Americans have complete faith in the United States government and the way it functions.

Results of a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll published Sunday further indicated that 85 percent of those surveyed believe that "the system of government is broken."

The polling center interviewed 1,023 adult Americans, including 954 registered voters, over phone between February 12 and February 15.

Compared with a similar survey in 2006, the percentage of Americans who think the government is broken has increased by eight points.

"That increase is highest among higher-income Americans and people who live in rural areas," said Keating Holland, CNN polling director.

The poll’s sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

A Brooklyn rabbi, accused seven years ago of stealing government grants, was busted Thursday for blackmailing a Connecticut hedge fund to give $4 million to two schools he works with, prosecutors said.

Rabbi Milton Balkany, 63, was charged with extortion, blackmail and making false statements as part of an elaborate scheme to shake down the hedge fund, prosecutors charged.

They say Balkany told the hedge fund the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI were trying to get a jailbird he knew to give up information about illegal insider trades made by the financial firm.

There were no insider trades.

Balkany made up the story to trick fund managers into giving millions to the Bais Yaakov School in Borough Park, where he is the dean, and another school, Torah Vodaath, prosecutors said.
Balkany said prosecutors are telling tales.

"Seven or eight years ago I was accused of wrong-doing and the government had to back off then. This is much more ridiculous," Balkany said as he dodged photographers while leaving Manhattan Federal Court Thursday night.

"When you are in public service that’s the price you pay. An innocent man is constantly dragged through the mud," he said before speeding off in a black SUV after being released on $250,000 bond.

Balkany, known as the "Brooklyn Bundler" for his skill at campaign fund-raising – mostly Republican – said he was just trying to help a young man in prison.

"This is from helping an individual in jail. He got a very lengthy term and I was trying to reduce it. I was in touch with the U.S. Attorney’s office the whole time," he said.

Prosecutors say it was all a scheme.

We all know this guy didn’t commit suicide!

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) closed the case of Army scientist Bruce Ivins, concluding that he was solely responsible for the five deaths that resulted.

The case on the investigation of the US Army medical researcher was formally closed on Friday, ending the long hunt for the suspected killer after years of false leads, no arrests and public criticism over falsely accusing prominent scientists in the case.

Though Ivins denied any involvement for the deaths and insisted on being innocent, he killed himself in 2008 once he learned that the prosecutors were prepared to charge him for the attacks.

In 2001, letters laced with anthrax were sent to law makers and news organizations. Postal facilities, US Capitol buildings and private offices were shut down for inspection and cleaning by workers in hazardous materials ”space suits” all over the nation.

US observers have expressed strong suspicions about FBI claims of Ivins’ suicide, arguing that the claim was a pretext to prevent the US Army scientist from exposing the involvement of the former Bush Administration in the anthrax mailings in an effort to raise false alarms about the dangers of the so-called "Islamist terrorism."

FBI documents allegedly portray that at the time, the troubled researcher’s life was breaking down and heading towards failure as he struggled with mental health issues.

Ivins died of an overdose of Tylenol, leaving the case open for the FBI, postal inspectors and federal prosecutors.

The federal investigation was not without its missteps and false turns. Officials spent the first years with suspicions that the anthrax mailings were the work of al- Qaeda.

"This has been a closed-minded, closed process from the beginning," said Ivins’ lawyer, Paul Kemp. "The evidence the FBI produced would not, I think, stand up in court."

Anthrax case is closed by the FBI | detnews.com | The Detroit News

Case closed: FBI says scientist was anthrax killer – Yahoo! News

FBI formally closes anthrax case that hit Princeton, Hamilton – The Trentonian News: Serving Trenton and surrounding communities. (trentonian.com)

[B][SIZE="4"]
Five Muslim Soldiers Questioned at Fort Jackson in South Carolina

CBN News has learned exclusively that five Muslim soldiers at Fort Jackson in South Carolina were questioned just before Christmas. It is unclear whether the men are still in custody. The five were part of the Arabic Translation program at the base.

Patrick Jones, the Deputy Public Affairs Officer for Fort Jackson, confirmed for CBN News Thursday afternoon that an investigation was ongoing.

Prior to this posting, CBN News learned that these details were also confirmed by a government official with knowledge of the investigation.

The men are suspected of trying to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson.

A source with intimate knowledge of the investigation, which is ongoing, told CBN News investigators suspect the "Fort Jackson Five" may have been in contact with the group of five Washington, D.C., area Muslims that traveled to Pakistan to wage jihad against U.S. troops in December. That group was arrested by Pakistani authorities, also just before Christmas.

A 12-year-old girl from New York has been handcuffed and arrested by the police for doodling on the classroom desk, an incident that has shaken the US education system to its core.

Alexa Gonzales, a seventh grader at the Junior High School in Forest Hills, had written the words "I love my friends Abby and Faith. Lex was here 2/1/10 " on the classroom desk with a green marker when the school principle decided to have her arrested by the New York Police.

Consequently, Alexa’s hands was cuffed behind her back while she was escorted from school to the police precinct across the street in front of her teachers and her classmates.

"They put the handcuffs on me, and I couldn’t believe it," Alexa told CNN. "I didn’t want them to see me being handcuffed, thinking I’m a bad person."

Alexa missed three days of school because of the psychological ordeal she faced. Her mother said she spent those days throwing up, and she found it difficult to catch up on homework when she eventually returned to school.

The case has cast a dark shadow over the use of so-called zero tolerance policies adopted in schools in the US.

Zero tolerance policies in US schools have been the subject of heated debate in the past few months with some critics saying that schools and police have a tendency to overreact in punishing students involved in nonviolent offenses such as drawing on desks, writing on other school property or talking back to teachers.

"We are arresting them at younger and younger ages [in cases] that used to be covered with a trip to the principal’s office, not sending children to jail," said Emma Jordan-Simpson, executive director of the Children’s Defense Fund, a national children’s advocacy group.

Broad zero tolerance policies have reportedly caused serious problems, namely, the denial of education, rise in dropout rates, increased rate of suspensions and expulsions, and racially biased impact.

New York attorney Joe Rosenthal, who is representing Alexa, has decided to sue officials at the school and the police, claiming they have violated Alexa’s constitutional rights.

Meanwhile, the New York City Department of Education officials refused to comment on the event.

"Our mission is to make sure that public schools are a safe and supportive environment for all students," said Margie Feinberg, an education department spokeswoman.

The announcement came hours after disclosure Thursday of a lawsuit filed by parents of the Lower Merion School District student that claimed the laptops handed out by the district were used to snoop on teenagers at home.

Some students, angry at news of the alleged spying, have taped over the laptop cameras and microphones.

Grade 10 student Tom Halperin described students as “pretty disgusted” and pointed out his class recently read 1984, the George Orwell classic that coined the term “Big Brother.”

“This is just bogus,” Halperin, 15, told The Associated Press as he left Harriton High School with his taped-up computer. “I just think it’s really despicable that they have the ability to just watch me all the time.”

The webcams would not be used again unless there were “express written notification to all students and family,” superintendent Dr. Christopher McGinley said in a statement.

The cameras, which the lawsuit said were remotely activated without students’ or parents’ knowledge, came with the Apple computers the school district gave all of its 1,800 students.

If a laptop vanished, the webcam was switched on remotely by the school district’s security and technology staff. “This feature has only been used for the limited purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop,” said McGinley.

Students only found out the webcams could be turned on remotely when a principal told a student they had a picture of him doing something wrong in his home, the lawsuit said.

“The school district has the ability to intercept images from that webcam of anyone or anything appearing in front of the camera at the time of activation,” the lawsuit claims.

“The school district has the ability to remotely activate the embedded webcam at any time.

“Many of the images captured may consist of minors and their parents or friends in compromising or embarrassing positions, including various stages of undress.”

It was only when an assistant principal at Harriton High School told Grade 10 student Blake Robbins she had a picture that proved he “was engaged in improper behaviour in his home” that anyone realized the school could peep into students’ home lives without them knowing, the lawsuit says.

Assistant principal Lindy Matsko “cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam embedded in” Robbins’ school-issued laptop, the lawsuit says.

Blake’s parents, Michael and Holly Robbins, filed the lawsuit Feb. 11 on behalf of all 1,800 students at Lower Merion’s schools. The lawsuit alleges the webcams violate the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of privacy, Pennsylvania common law, the U.S. Civil Rights Act, and a variety of other laws.

In his welcome to students, posted on the district website, McGinley speaks glowingly of the program to give every student their own laptop and create “an authentic, mobile, 21st century learning environment.”

The program “ensures that all students have 24/7 access to school-based resources.”

The Robbins lawsuit contends the district also had 24/7 access to the students “by the unauthorized, inappropriate and indiscriminate remote activation of a webcam.”

"The leader of JONAH, Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality, Arthur Abba Goldberg, is now also serving as President of his Jersey City temple. He was sent to federal prison 20 years ago for a conspiracy to defraud the United States of America.

Additionally, Goldberg is presently the Executive Secretary of NARTH- the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. The group hopes to heal “unwanted homosexuality” through “therapeutic care.” One more group he supervises is PATH- Positive Alternatives to Homosexuality- a coalition of religious, ministerial, and ex-gay groups promoting “non-gay alternatives to homosexual lifestyles.”

Investigation: Convicted Felon, Con Man Runs Jewish ‘Ex-Gay’ Orgs – Towleroad, More than gay news. More gay men

National Anti Gay Leader Is a Convicted Felon, Con Man | SouthFloridaGayNews.com

What Can Make a Leader of Ex-Gays Worse: Does Being a Convicted Fraudster Count? / Queerty

NARTH Official Confirms Arthur ‘Abba’ Goldberg Identity | Ex-Gay Watch

BeyondChron: San Francisco’s Alternative Online Daily News » Another Ex-Gay Movement Leader Bites the Dust?

JONAH Co-Founder Arthur Goldberg Convicted Felon | Ex-Gay Watch