RALEIGH — U.S. Rep. Renee Ellmer’s husband reported an AR-15 rifle stolen from the family’s home in Dunn last week, according to a police report.

The weapon had been left leaning against a gun locker in an unsecured garage on Kingsway Drive, the report said.

The rifle, a gun case and a GPS, with a cumulative value of $1,100, were stolen, according to Chief J.D. Pope. Police think the theft happened on the night of Oct. 15.

“According to the report, they had been out target shooting and brought the gun back and leaned it against the gun safe,” Pope said. “ … The garage door was left unsecured, according to the report.”

Surveys are also notoriously difficult to carry out in FATA. A 2009 poll in three of the tribal agencies found 52% of respondents believed drone strikes were accurate and 60% said they weakened militant groups. Other surveys have found much lower percentages in favour. But interviews by The Economist with twenty residents of the tribal areas confirmed that many see individual drone strikes as preferable to the artillery barrages of the Pakistani military. They also insisted that the drones do not kill many civilians—a view starkly at odds with mainstream Pakistani opinion. “No one dares tell the real picture,” says an elder from North Waziristan. “Drone attacks are killing the militants who are killing innocent people.”

Though there is ample evidence that the Pakistani government has given its secret blessing to the CIA programme, it still allows anti-drone sentiment to blossom. Domestic anger over drones can be a useful negotiating chip on other issues, says one former American official. The government also fears reprisals from militants.

Supporters of the drones in Pakistan’s media are even more reluctant to speak frankly. Many commentators admit to approving of drones in the absence of government moves to clear terrorist sanctuaries. But they dare not say so in print.

In 2010 a group of politicians and NGOs published a “Peshawar Declaration” in support of drones. Life soon became difficult for the signatories. “If anyone speaks out they will be eliminated,” says Said Alam Mehsud, one of the organisers, who was forced to leave Pakistan for a time.

The Smithsonian Institution is facing a $65 million budget cut this year under automatic funding reductions approved by Congress, and officials say that could lead to furloughs or museum closings if the cuts persist for the year ahead.

Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough says the museum complex has trimmed its budget for the past year to absorb federal funding cuts but now may have to turn to more drastic measures. He says furloughs and temporary museum closings are up for discussion.

A proposal to change the way credit scores are calculated—to include non-loan payments such as rent, utility and cable bills—is gaining momentum as a way to help more Americans establish and improve their credit worthiness. But dig deeper, credit experts say, and one finds that such reforms may end up hurting consumers more than helping them.

Consumers’ credit scores are currently determined by the information on their credit reports, which is supplied mostly by lenders. The scores favor consumers who handle credit responsibly and penalize those who fall behind on payments or stay away from credit altogether. The push to include borrowers’ payment histories on non-loan accounts like monthly rent bills is now before Congress as part of the “Credit Access and Inclusion Act,” which was introduced in the summer.

Advocates say consumers who make these payments on time will be rewarded with a higher credit score, which will in turn give them access to affordable credit. If enacted, the bill wouldn't require providers to report this information—it would just state that such reporting is permitted. In an emailed statement, Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who co-sponsored this bill, said: “Our current credit reporting system leaves more than 50 million people without a credit score…Including more data in credit reports will make it easier to get and improve a credit score.”

“You know, you’d think they would,” said Cohen. “If a child puts its finger on a burner, they’re not likely to go to that burner again, but I’m not sure if some of these people don’t like the heat. They seemed to enjoy shutting down the government, they reveled in it. They got a lot of energy out of it.”


“A lot of those members are rabid,” he said of the House Republican conference. “They’re sophomoric in terms of Congress. They’ve never worked in politics before,” but “they think they’re some kind of guerrillas there to strike a blow for freedom. I think they’ll try to pull this off again.”

As U.S. Representatives, Cohen said, “We take an oath to support the country against all enemies foreign and domestic, and these are the domestic enemies.”

For the past 34 years,[when?] the school has displayed symbols of the Confederate States of America. A Confederate flag was displayed in the school gymnasium as recently as January 2007,[4] and the school mascot is a Confederate soldier who, as of late 2006, appeared on a sign at the entrance to the school.[5] A nearby courtyard has blue brick forming the Cross of St. Andrew, and a mural in the lobby shows a rebel soldier carrying the flag on horseback. Other images of rebel soldiers and Confederate flags cover the same walls.[6] The images have stoked controversy, since many consider them to be racist symbols, both in Floyd County, in Kentucky, and elsewhere, although there is also support in the county for retaining the symbols.[7]

In December 2006, the David School, a private school in the same sports league as Allen Central, decided not to play a basketball game at the school because the it considered the Confederate symbols a form of taunting, which is forbidden by the athletic league.[8]

The Justice Resource Center in Louisville, Kentucky, a civil rights group, criticized the school's prominent displays of the Confederate flag at the school and at public events, and the head of the organization, the Rev. Louis Coleman, said "the rebel flag to African-Americans represents something very bad - it represents slavery."[9] Coleman suggested that black members of nearby school sports teams should have the option of not participating in events where Confederate symbols are displayed, and told the Associated Press that the flag creates "a very tense and negative atmosphere" for black student athletes.[8]

Allen Central's former principal, Sis Hall, and many students at the school have defended the Confederate emblems, calling them symbols of strength, independence and pride. The school's use of the emblems "has nothing to do with racism", Hall told an Associated Press reporter. "It's a part of us."[8]

ARRISON, Ark. (AP) — Harrison leaders who want to put the city’s racist past behind it are decrying a recently erected billboard that reads, “Anti-Racist is a Code Word for Anti-White.”

The billboard went up Tuesday along a major route through the northern Arkansas city. A radio station with an advertisement on an adjacent panel asked that its sign be removed so no one would think that it was connected to the white supremacist sentiment.

“I think this is awful,” Harrison Mayor Jeff Crockett told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper of Little Rock. “It does not represent the people of Harrison’s attitude or the way they feel about any races. I think we’re welcoming to all. It’s trying to represent a false image of the way Harrison is.”