Pope grants Christmas pardon to ex-butler who stole, leaked documents to expose Vatican 'evil'

Each year, the US spends enough on holiday decorations to end homelessness, so it?s difficult to discourage anyone in our culture to consume less, let alone stop shopping altogether. But sportswear company Patagonia is doing just that, and it?s not a cute marketing scheme. These people are serious about saving the environment and they?re insisting that you lend a hand.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-grants-christmas-pardon-ex-butler-stole-leaked-121929753.html

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Texas reindeer ranch is busier than elves during holiday season ...

MAX FAULKNER/FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM/MCTComet the reindeer checks out children touring the Double R Reindeer Ranch in Midlothian, Texas.

Max Faulkner ? MCT

By DOMINGO RAMIREZ JR. ? Fort Worth Star-Telegram

MIDLOTHIAN, Texas -- Dancer paced in her stall as did Dasher.

Across the barn, Blitzen grunted.

Comet and Cupid were remarkably calm, considering this is the busy season for reindeer.

Such was the spirit one recent morning at the Double R Reindeer Ranch just outside of Midlothian, Santa's Texas reindeer division, operated by Rick and Roberta Smith.

"We're busy six days a week right now," said Rick Smith, wearing an elf outfit that he designed. "We won't get a break till January."

It's been that way for the last four years, since the Smiths started the reindeer ranch, a project that was encouraged by Don Shelton, a longtime Fort Worth-based Santa.

Lt. Col. Roberta Smith was getting ready to retire from the Air Force and Rick Smith was headed that way from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

"We wanted to raise something unique," Roberta Smith said. "I knew Dr. Shelton and once he heard about what we wanted to do, he suggested the reindeer. We didn't think of it much at first, but he kept after us." And that's how the Double R Reindeer Ranch was born.

The Smiths started with young reindeer -- Comet and Cupid. They weighed about 125 pounds and eventually will top out at 450 to 500 pounds when fully grown. The couple already had horses and miniature donkeys on their 15-acre spread, so four-legged creatures were nothing new.

The couple got special feed for Santa's helpers, registered them with the Reindeer Owners and Breeders Association and, of course, bought evaporation coolers for the sizzling Texas heat.

"Since we got them so young, they have been able to adapt to the heat," Rick Smith said. "But we still try to keep them in cool conditions."

The Double R now has six reindeer, and even though the last two months of the year are the busiest, the ranch is active most of the year.

Santas from across the country visit the Double R during the year to take photographs with the reindeer to update their portfolios.

The reindeer also are available for hourly events, seasonal leases, commercials, and television and movie work. Generally, fees are $350 an hour, a minimum of two hours, for local events within 50 miles of the ranch.

And the Double R reindeer go to all kinds of events.

Earlier this month, the reindeer appeared in the "Ho-Ho-Holiday" show with the Waco Symphony Orchestra.

"We went there last year and they've asked us back," Rick Smith said. "Right now, Prancer is at Santa's Wonderland near College Station."

Reindeer are also at the ranch to greet curious visitors.

One recent morning, pre-school kids from the Creative Children's Center in Corsicana were taking a tour.

"This is our first time here," said pre-kindergarten teacher Theresa Cates. "A friend saw this on Facebook and told us about it. It's been a perfect visit. The kids are having a blast."

Along with the reindeer, the ranch has a sleigh, a bright red trailer to haul the reindeer and Santa even has an office in the barn, complete with a Christmas tree and holiday decorations.

And yes, visitors do ask about Rudolph, who, the Smiths explained, was absent because he was out on a training flight.

Source: http://www.sunherald.com/2012/12/20/4370202/texas-reindeer-ranch-is-busier.html

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2013 Smart Guide: Searching for human origins in Asia

Read more: "2013 Smart Guide: 10 ideas that will shape the year"

Move over Africa. It is where humanity began, where we took our first steps and grew big brains. But those interested in the latest cool stuff on the origins of our species should look to Asia instead.

Why so? It looks as if some early chapters in the human story, and significant chunks of its later ones too, took place under Asian skies.

For starters, 37-million-year-old fossils from Burma are the best evidence yet that our branch of the primate tree originated in Asia rather than Africa.

A great deal later, after the emergence of early humans from Africa, some of our distant cousins set up shop in Asia, only to die out later. In 2012 anthropologists described for the first time human fossils unlike any others - ancient hominins dubbed the Red Deer Cave People who lived in what is now China as recently as 15,000 years ago, then vanished without further trace.

The implication is that more long-lost cousins remain to be found in South-East Asia's neglected fossil record. We know a little about the enigmatic Denisovans, for example. Their DNA was first discovered in 50,000-year-old fossil fragments from a Siberian cave in 2010, and traces of that DNA live on in modern Indonesians. Not only does this show that the Denisovans interbred with our species, it also suggests they occupied a territory so large it took in South-East Asia as well as Siberia.

Yet the only evidence we have of their existence are a finger bone and a tooth. Too long have the vast plains and forests of Asia remained untouched by the trowels and brushes of palaeoanthropologists. Teams of them are champing at the bit to explore Asia's rocks. Denisovans - and, hopefully, other ancestors, too - will not remain faceless for long.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Gunman kills woman at Pa. church, 2 men elsewhere

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. (AP) ? A man fatally shot a woman decorating for a children's Christmas party at a tiny church hall and killed two men elsewhere in a rural township on Friday before he was shot dead in a gunfight with state troopers.

Three troopers in patrol cars were injured in a pursuit that began after the gunman, driving a pick-up truck, fired at them, police said. One trooper injured a wrist and then was hit in the chest but was saved by a bulletproof vest.

The gunman was killed during a final exchange of gunfire after ramming his truck head-on into another police cruiser, authorities said.

The shootings began in Frankstown Township, in central Pennsylvania, at about 9 a.m., and investigators were processing five crime scenes within about a 1.5-mile radius, authorities said at a news briefing Friday afternoon. Troopers were responding to a 911 call of a shooting in the township when they heard calls reporting at least one other shooting elsewhere, state police said.

"It's going to take us some time to put this all together ... and know exactly what occurred," said Lt. Col. George Bivens, deputy state police commissioner.

Authorities did not release the names of the victims or the shooter, though they did say the man lived in Blair County.

State police said they were still trying to piece together a timeline and motive. The gunman and the victims weren't related, though the victims may have been, at least distantly, Blair County District Attorney Rich Consiglio said.

Besides the woman, Bivens said, one man was shot at a residence, and the other man was shot at a crash site where the gunman "used his truck and also struck that vehicle much in the same manner that he did to our state police officer."

But family members of the victims said they were told the woman at the church was the first victim shot, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported. The gunman then shot two men in the driveway of a home after a confrontation at a stop sign, one of the men's cousins, Marie Brenneman, told the newspaper.

"This person went to their driveway with a pistol, pointed at them and started shooting," Brenneman said.

She said both men were the shooter's neighbors in the tiny village of Geeseytown, about 70 miles west of Harrisburg, the state capital.

"They were uneasy around him," she said.

The woman at Juniata Valley Gospel Church had cooked food the day before for the funeral of the church's longtime pastor, said the Rev. James McCaulley, his brother. The church was still reeling from the Rev. David McCaulley's death when the woman returned to decorate its hall ? named after the pastor of 58 years ? and bullets ripped through a window, he said.

The gunman then entered and shot one of two women before he left, the reverend said.

Police identified the five crime scenes as the church; a home and ground around the home; a crash site where another victim was killed; the point in the road where the gunman opened fire on the troopers; and where the final encounter occurred after the truck collided with the police cruiser.

Bivens said investigators don't know if the victims were picked at random.

Besides the trooper wounded twice, a second trooper was injured by glass fragments in his eye and bullet fragments that hit him in the forehead, Bivens said. The third trooper suffered minor injuries from the head-on crash, he said.

"I think we have three very fortunate state police members tonight," Bivens said. "We are very thankful for the fact that they survived this attack. Someone was watching over them."

McCaulley, who is the pastor of another church about 50 miles away from the site of Friday's carnage, said his older brother began leading the Frankstown church in 1954.

"He preached his last sermon at the church in October before he fell ill," McCaulley said.

The church, which lists about 150 members in an online want ad posted this month for an associate pastor, is close-knit, and the woman killed Friday was among its more active members, McCaulley said. She had made food for him to take home Thursday since his wife had died this year, he said.

"The only thing I can say good at this time is that (the gunman) didn't do this 24 hours earlier when there was a big crowd in the church hall," McCaulley said. "We're devastated."

Friday's shootings were the second involving a rural Pennsylvania church this month.

An elementary school teacher is jailed on charges he fatally shot his ex-wife, a church organist, during a service in Coudersport on Dec. 2. The pastor and church members subdued him until police arrived.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gunman-kills-woman-pa-church-2-men-elsewhere-223709136.html

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Marilyn Monroe subway grate photo on view in NYC

NEW YORK (AP) ? A famous image of Marilyn Monroe with her skirt billowing atop a New York City subway grate is on display in a picture-perfect spot: outside the Times Square subway station.

The supersized version of Sam Shaw's well-known picture is part of an exhibit. The exhibit also features eight of Shaw's other Monroe pictures, on view inside the 42nd Street-Bryant Park station on the B, D, F, M and 7 lines.

The show opened Thursday. It'll be up for a year.

Shaw shot the subway grate photo for the 1955 film "The Seven Year Itch." He took the other pictures in 1957.

The exhibit is part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Arts for Transit program. Manager Lester Burg says matching a mass transit setting with a popular figure from mass culture seemed a good fit.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/marilyn-monroe-subway-grate-photo-view-nyc-040019273.html

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Are You Prepared? (talking-points-memo)

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Obama hails Inouye as 'extraordinary'

President Barack Obama wipes his eye as he is seated with Vice President Joe Biden, former President Bill Clinton, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid at the funeral service for the late Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, at the Washington National Cathedral, Friday, Dec. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama wipes his eye as he is seated with Vice President Joe Biden, former President Bill Clinton, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid at the funeral service for the late Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, at the Washington National Cathedral, Friday, Dec. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, former President Bill Clinton, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada stand as the casket is brought in at the funeral service for the late Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, at the Washington National Cathedral, Friday, Dec. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., stands with Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., as they attend with President Barack Obama, not pictured, the funeral service for the late Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, at the Washington National Cathedral, Friday, Dec. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama speaks at the funeral service for the late Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, at the Washington National Cathedral, Friday, Dec. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, the second-longest-serving senator in history, lies in state in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012. Inouye was a Medal of Honor recipient who represented his state in the U.S. House and then the Senate, where he served for five decades. He died Monday evening at age 88 of respiratory complications. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? With reverential words and warm memories, President Barack Obama on Friday led the admirers paying tribute to the late Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, a war hero and senator for 50 years who was hailed for his leadership and modesty. Obama said Inouye was the one who "hinted to me what might be possible in my own life."

"For him freedom and dignity were not abstractions," Obama said at the National Cathedral service. "They were values that he had bled for, ideas he sacrificed for."

Inouye died Monday of respiratory complications. He was 88. Inouye worked until mere minutes before his death, shaking hands with his friends and caressing the hands of his family in those final moments, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told the service. Reid said the senator thanked his security detail and the doctors and nurses, and wrote notes detailing his last wishes.

The tributes from the nation's political leaders were deeply personal. Vice President Joe Biden said he remembered thinking of Inouye: "I wish I could be more like that man. He's a better man than I am."

Former President Bill Clinton described Inouye as "one of the most remarkable Americans I have ever known."

Inouye was the first Japanese-American elected to both houses of Congress and the second-longest serving senator in U.S. history. He was awarded a Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military honor, for bravery during World War II, including a heroic effort that cost him his right arm.

"They blew his arm off in World War II, but they never, never laid a finger on his heart or his mind," Clinton said.

Inouye's 50 years in the Senate included playing key roles in congressional investigations of the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals.

Obama told a story of taking a summer trip across America as an 11-year boy and spending the nights watching the Watergate hearings on TV with his mother. The president said that, as the son of white mother and a black father, he found it captivating to watch the Japanese-American with one arm and a baritone voice.

"To see this man, this senator, this powerful, accomplished person who was not out of central casting ... and the way he commanded the respect of an entire nation, I think it hinted to me what might be possible in my own life," Obama said.

Hawaiian music played during the service, reflecting Inouye's love for his home state. Inouye was Hawaii's first congressman. His casket was carried into the cathedral by eight military pallbearers. Obama appeared to wipe tears from his eyes as he sat in the front row next to Biden and Clinton.

One speaker after another described Inouye as a political giant with refreshing humility. Obama said that Inouye ultimately decided he had done OK in representing his state and his nation.

"Danny, you were more than OK," Obama said. "You were extraordinary."

As a legislator, Inouye made his mark on the Senate Appropriations Committee, steering federal money back home to help build the kinds of roads, schools and housing that Americans on the mainland took for granted.

On Thursday, colleagues and aides lined the Capitol rotunda five deep to say farewell.

The rare ceremony demonstrated the respect and good will he generated over the years. Only 31 have lain in the Capitol rotunda; the last was former President Gerald R. Ford nearly six years ago.

Inouye's body will be returned to Hawaii on Saturday.

__

AP White House Correspondent Ben Feller contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-12-21-Inouye-Memorial-Service/id-e78a42330fac487ca54285369b1397fb

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