Suicide Bomb Picture x Pulitzer Prize Winner [PHOTOGRAPHY]

AFP photographer Massoud Hossaini has been awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for his heartbreaking image of a girl crying in fear after a suicide bomber's attack on a crowded shrine in Kabul. The bombing, carried out as part of a coordinated attack during Ashura ceremonies commemorated the martyrdom of Imam Hussein.

The blast killed at least 54 people, including Taraneh's (the little girl in green screaming featured in the photograph) brother, aunts and uncles. The irksome shot was taken at the Abul Fazel Shrine in Kabul, Afghanistan, on 6 December 2011 and has secured Hossaini $10,000 in the breaking news photography category by Pulitzer.

A small price to pay for such a big price to pay.

via BBC

Obama Accepts The Nobel Peace Prize [POLITICS]

An honour of enormous proportions, and one which the President accepted with a comforting sense of humility. Faced with much criticism, and inability to understand why the President of a country in the midst of 2 wars could receive such an accolade, Mr. Obama/Mr. Pragmatic addressed the much ado with some of the more memorable lines from his speech:

"I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies."

"So part of our challenge is reconciling these two seemingly irreconcilable truths - that war is sometimes necessary, and war is at some level an expression of human feelings. Concretely, we must direct our effort to the task that President Kennedy called for long ago. "Let us focus," he said, "on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions."

"So let us reach for the world that ought to be - that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls. Somewhere today, in the here and now, a soldier sees he's outgunned but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere today, in this world, a young protestor awaits the brutality of her government, but has he courage to march on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty still takes the time to teach her child, who believes that a cruel world still has a place for his dreams."

The prize includes a gold medal, diploma, and $1.4 million dollars...but can really put a price on peace?

Read the full text of the speech here.

Bermuda Triangle plane mystery 'solved' [URBAN LEGEND]

Two of the so-called Bermuda Triangle's most mysterious disappearances in the late 1940s may have been solved.

Scores of ships and planes are said to have vanished without trace over the decades in a vast triangular area of ocean with imaginary apexes in Bermuda, Florida and Puerto Rico.

But a new examination for a BBC series provides plausible explanations for the disappearance of two British commercial planes in the area, with the loss of 51 passengers and crew.

One plane probably suffered from catastrophic technical failure as a result of poor design, while the other is likely to have run out of fuel.

Sixty years ago, commercial flights from London to Bermuda were new and perilous. It would require a refuelling stop on the Azores before the 2,000-mile flight to Bermuda, which at that time was the longest non-stop commercial overseas flight in the world.

The planes would have been operating at the limit of their range. Today planes arriving at the tiny Atlantic island deep need sufficient reserve fuel to divert to the US East Coast 700 miles away, in case of emergency.

And the planes of the post-war era were far less reliable than today's airliners.

Read the rest of the story.

Baby-faced boy Alfie Patten is father at 13 [WOW]

They just grow up so fast! Seriously...this kid's name is really Alfie!

Baby-faced Alfie, who is 13 but looks more like eight, became a father four days ago when his girlfriend Chantelle Steadman gave birth to 7lb 3oz Maisie Roxanne.

He told how he and Chantelle, 15, decided against an abortion after discovering she was pregnant.

Read the rest of the story here.

"Best Job In The World"

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The chance to be the caretaker of a tiny tropical island in Australia has sparked so much interest around the world that a rush of applications crashed the website advertising the post.

The job, which offers a salary of $105,000 to spend six months on the Great Barrier Reef island of Hamilton, has been inundated with hundreds of thousands of prospective candidates.

An official from the state of Queensland, which is offering the position, said the job was created as an antidote to the global economic slump and was being advertised in 18 countries including the United States and China.

Read the whole story here.

Bhutto's Daughter Pays Tribute With Rap [VIDEO]

The daughter of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan that was brutally assassinated in December of 2007 has gone hip hop in memory of here late mother. The 18 year old Bakhtawar Bhutto has released this song/video where she gets her Diddy on. Keep your head up!

Israeli strike near UN school kills at least 30

Unless you've been living under a rock you are aware of the the war happening in the middle east between the Hamas and Israel. It's really a terrible thing that seems as though it were an inevitability. I was going do a post on the media bias toward Israel, but skipped it. This morning I awoke to CNN (fell asleep with the TV on) and Christiane Amanpour was explaining that there was an air strike on 2 schools that were to be safe havens for residents. At that time they reported 3-5 deaths, now it's ballooned to 30! I can say that Hamas should stop firing rockets in the the south of Israel, and Israeli soilders should abandon the ground operation they have going. Political negotiations should resume, as it is common knowledge that this will not be solved militarily! (i.e. Lebanon)

GAZA CITY, Gaza — An Israeli bombardment struck outside a U.N. school where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge on Tuesday, the U.N. and Palestinian medics said, killing at least 30 people _ many of them children whose parents wailed in grief at a hospital filled with dead and wounded.

An Israeli official said its soldiers came under fire from militants hiding in the school and that the building stored Palestinian munitions.

Despite international criticism over civilian deaths and calls for a cease-fire, Israeli soldiers edged closer to two major Gaza towns. A total of 58 Palestinians were killed Tuesday _ with just two confirmed as militants, health officials in Gaza said.

The explosions marked the second time in hours a U.N. school came under attack. It was the deadliest assault since Israel sent ground forces into Gaza last weekend as part of a larger offensive against the ruling Hamas militant group that has killed nearly 600 Palestinians.

Read the rest of the story here.