The cruel futility of terrorism

October 23, 2014 - Daily News Briefing

Terror attacks get attention. They don't change minds.

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A gunman with a scarf over his face shot to death a Canadian soldier standing guard at the nation's war memorial Wednesday, then stormed Parliament in a hail of gunfire before he was killed by the usually ceremonial sergeant-at-arms, authorities and witnesses said. The attack immediately raised the specter of terrorism, with Canada already on heightened alert because of a deadly hit-and-run earlier in the week against two Canadian soldiers by a man who police say was fired up with radical Muslim fervor.

Four former Blackwater security guards were convicted Wednesday in the 2007 shootings of more than 30 Iraqis in Baghdad, an incident that inflamed anti-American sentiment around the globe and was denounced by critics as an illustration of a war gone horribly wrong. The men claimed self-defense, but federal prosecutors argued that they had shown "a grave indifference" to the carnage their actions would cause. All four were ordered immediately to jail. A lawyer for one of them quickly said he expected to appeal.

More than 3,100 students – nearly half of them athletes – enrolled in classes they didn't have to show up for and received artificially inflated grades in what an investigator called a "shadow curriculum" that lasted nearly two decades at the University of North Carolina. The report released Wednesday by former high-ranking US Justice Department official Kenneth Wainstein found more far-reaching academic fraud than previous investigations by the school and the NCAA.

An Ohio man detained for nearly half a year in North Korea has landed back home. A plane carrying Jeffrey Fowle landed Wednesday morning at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, where he had an emotional reunion with his family. Moments after Fowle stepped off a plane at the base just after 6:30 a.m., he was met and hugged by his three children, wife and other relatives.

US consumer prices rose marginally in September as energy costs fell broadly, painting a weak inflation picture that should give the Federal Reserve ample room to keep interest rates low for a while. The Labor Department said on Wednesday its Consumer Price Index edged up 0.1 percent last month after declining 0.2 percent in August. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast consumer prices being flat in September. The CPI increased 1.7 percent in the 12 months through September after a similar rise in August. The CPI-W index, which is used to make adjustments for Social Security payments rose 1.7 percent in the third quarter from the year earlier.

The US government is telling 3 million more car owners to get their air bags repaired immediately, but its message has generated some confusion about which cars are actually affected. The government's auto safety agency is now warning 7.8 million car owners that inflator mechanisms in the air bags can rupture, causing metal fragments to fly out when the bags are deployed. The original warning Monday covered 4.7 million vehicles. Safety advocates say at least four people have died from the problem, which they claim could affect more than 20 million cars nationwide. The inflators are made by Japanese parts supplier Takata Corp.

Target Corp. is offering for the first time free holiday shipping on all items, including even $6 lipsticks, as the discounter throws itself in the ring to compete better with the likes of Amazon. The Minneapolis-based chain said its free shipping offer starts Wednesday and will last through Dec. 20. The move is unusually early for a retailer – coming weeks before the official holiday season kickoff over the Thanksgiving weekend – and could squeeze Target's profit margins.

“The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” – Mary Baker Eddy

The Daily News Briefing is published Monday through Friday by The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

“The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” – Mary Baker Eddy

The Daily News Briefing is published Monday through Friday by The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

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