First Gentleman of South Carolina, husband of Nikki Haley, to ship out to Afghanistan 

Michael Haley, the governor's husband and a National Guard first lieutenant, will spend the rest of the year training before going to Afghanistan in January for a year-long nation-building deployment.

CHRIS KEANE/GETTY IMAGES

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley reacts along with her husband Michael, left, and daughter Rena, center, as they watch the runoff election results in 2010.

The First Family of South Carolina is also a military family.

Michael Haley, the husband of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, is shipping out to Afghanistan in January for a year-long National Guard deployment.

The first lieutenant in the South Carolina National Guard will be part of an agribusiness team of up to 200 Guard members in the country, spokesman Pete Brooks told The State newspaper. He said Lt. Haley will serve as a liaison between Guard members and 

Afghan officials.

"This deployment is the reason I joined the National Guard,” Michael Haley told the newspaper in a statement. “It is important to 

me to be able to give back."

He said his only reservation was leaving his wife and their two daughters.

“The only thing that gives me pause is the year-long deployment away from family,” he said. “But, in the end, I can’t help but to think giving one year along with my fellow soldiers, as many have done before me, to secure a life of freedom for my family is well worth all that comes with it."

Police investigate shooting deaths of mother, 2 children inside affluent St. Louis home

The deaths of a mom and her two children, all shot as her husband allegedly sat reading in their two-story home in an affluent St. Louis suburb, are being treated as a murder-suicide though a probe continues.

Mitch Murch, of Glendale, Mo., called police Monday morning after gunshots rang out in his family's red-brick home shortly before 11 a.m. Monday, Fox affiliate KTVI-TV reported. When police arrived, they found Catherine Murch, 42, dead and the couple's son and daughter, ages 11 and nine, also shot. Murch was performing CPR on the boy, police said.

"There is a current active investigation of the incident to try to determine what exactly happened and the sequence of events."

- Glendale Police Sgt. Bob Catlett

He told police he "thought it was coming from outside, so he ran to his front door and saw his wife lying in the kitchen, his son was lying in a side room and his daughter was in the second story of the home," Glendale Police Sgt. Bob Catlett told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Police recovered a weapon from the home but did not find a suicide note, according to the station. 

Catlett said investigators believe the woman killed the children before turning the gun on herself, although Murch was taken into custody and questioned before being released.

Snoop Dogg Changes His Name to Snoop Lion

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Snoop Lion. 

Yes, the artist formerly known asSnoop Dogg has renamed himself after he says he underwent a spiritual and artistic rebirth in Jamaica. 

While recording his album Reincarnated in the Caribbean country, he developed a traditional reggae style. The result is a three-part project: a reggae album, documentary and coffee-table photo book, all under the name of Snoop Lion. 

"I have always said I was Bob Marley reincarnated," Snoop, 40, told reporters at a news conference, according to The New York Times. "I have always been a Rastafari." (Marley's son, Rohan, gave his blessing at the news conference, which was held at Miss Lily's, a Caribbean eatery in New York.) 

NYC to Limit Baby Formula in Hospitals

Mayor Bloomberg pushing NYC hospitals to hide baby formula so more new moms will breast-feed