PHOTO GALLERY — Death Toll in Gaza Climbs, Israel Calls up More Troops

More than three weeks have passed since Israel launched its current offensive against Gaza, after a series of cross-border kidnappings and killings. In that time, Reuters reports that more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed, nearly 7,000 wounded, the majority of them civilians. In Israel, 56 soldiers and 3 civilians have also lost their lives, another 400 wounded. The New York Times reports that Israel has struck 3,577 targets, while 2,753 rockets have been launched from Gaza into Israel. Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing international alarm over a rising civilian death toll in Gaza, said he would not accept any ceasefire that stopped Israel completing the destruction of militants’ infiltration tunnels. Today, Israel called up another 16,000 reservists, allowing it to potentially widen its Gaza operation. Gathered here are images of the conflict from the past 9 days. Warning: Many of these photographs are graphic in nature. 40 photos.

Smoke and fire from the explosion of an Israeli strike rise over Gaza City on July 29, 2014. Israel escalated its military campaign against Hamas earlier this week, striking symbols of the group’s control in Gaza and firing tank shells that shut down the strip’s only power plant in the heaviest bombardment in the fighting so far.

A mare and her foal walk through the rubble of destroyed buildings in the northern district of Beit Hanun in the Gaza Strip, during a humanitarian truce on
July 26, 2014. The bodies of at least 35 Palestinians were recovered from rubble across Gaza during the truce.

Palestinians gather around the rubble of a building where at least 20 members of the Al Najar extended family were killed by an Israeli strike in Khan
Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on July 26, 2014.

Israeli army officers talk with journalists at the entrance of a tunnel said to be used by Palestinian militants for cross-border attacks before an army
organized tour at the Gaza border on July 25, 2014.

Widespread destruction in the Shejaia neighborhood, which witnesses said was heavily hit by Israeli shelling and air strikes on July 26, 2014

Death Toll in Gaza Climbs, Israel Calls up More Troops

				Death Toll in Gaza Climbs, Israel Calls up More TroopsMore than three weeks have passed since Israel launched its current offensive against Gaza, after a series of cross-border kidnappings and killings
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Little Girl Is Devastated When She Finds Out Her Cute Little Brother Will Grow Up

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Over 3.5 million views in just 2 days.

Federal review stalled after finding forensic errors by FBI lab unit spanned two decades

Santae A. Tribble, photographed in public defender Sandra Levick’s office in Washington last month. Tribble spent 28 years
in prison based largely on analysis of hairs found at the scene of a taxi driver’s murder in 1978. More advanced DNA testing
showed that none of the hairs used as evidence shared Tribble’s genetic profile. A judge has vacated his conviction and
dismissed the underlying charges.

A Washington Post investigation reveals that Justice Department officials have known for years that flaws in forensic techniques and weak laboratory standards may have led to the convictions of innocent people across the country, raising the question: How many more are out there?

Nearly every criminal case reviewed by the FBI and the Justice Department as part of a massive investigation started in 2012 of problems at the FBI lab has included flawed forensic testimony from the agency, government officials said.

The findings troubled the bureau, and it stopped the review of convictions last August. Case reviews resumed this month at the order of the Justice Department, the officials said. The FBI had reviewed only about 160 cases before it stopped, officials said.

…The inquiry includes 2,600 convictions and 45 death-row cases from the 1980s and 1990s in which the FBI’s hair and fiber unit reported a match to a crime-scene sample before DNA testing of hair became common.

The investigation resumed after the Justice Department’s inspector general excoriated the department and the FBI for unacceptable delays and inadequate investigation in a separate inquiry from the mid-1990s. The inspector general found in that probe that three defendants were executed and a fourth died on death row in the five years it took officials to reexamine 60 death-row convictions that were potentially tainted by agent misconduct, mostly involving the same FBI hair and fiber analysis unit now under scrutiny.

Homeless man trains for San Francisco marathon

Drug addiction and prison time left Ronnie Goodman without a home, sleeping on the streets of San Francisco. Now, sober for more than a decade, Goodman is training for the city’s marathon, setting out to conquer the same streets on which he sleeps. NBC’s Hallie Jackson reports.
http://www.today.com/video/today/55734478#55734478

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Homeless artist’s victory – Living the dream of finishing S.F. Half Marathon

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Once-troubled-artist-already-feels-like-a-winner-5650220.php#photo-6650168

BuzzFeed’s plagiarizer: Brazen, lazy, ignorant or entitled. Perhaps all four.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/07/27/the-ravages-of-buzzfeeds-benny-johnson/

BLONDESTAR +Three blonde stories

– An oldie, but goodie, from 2008

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PHOTO OF THE DAY — The Eid al-Fitr festival

Pakistani Muslim devotees offer Eid prayers on the first day of the Eid al-Fitr festival at Badshahi Masjid in Lahore. Millions of Muslims across the
world have been celebrating the start of the Eid al-Fitr holiday this week, which marks the end of the month-long fast of Ramadan. July 29, 2014

MUCH LARGER IMAGE – http://www.trbimg.com/img-1406644532/turbine/mc-exposure-photo-blog-the-eid-alfitr-festival-002/1280

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PHOTOS — Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series

2014 – Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series Portugal

http://galleries.mcall.com/gallery/mc-exposure-photo-blog-pictures-of-the-red-bull-cliff-diving-world-series-20140725

27 meters = 88.5 feet28 meters = 91.8 feet
29 meters = 95.1 feet

Rep. Curt Clawson’s (R-Fla.) cringe-worthy case of mistaken identity

Curt Clawson’s cringe-worthy case of mistaken identity

				Curt Clawson’s cringe-worthy case of mistaken identityHe thought the two folks with the foreign-sounding names and dark skin were from the government of India.
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THOUGHT FOR TODAY — What did yours do today?