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

South Carolina House Overrides Gov. Haley's Vetoes Restoring Money to Arts and Commission, and More!

SC House overrides Haley's education, arts vetoes

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Vetoes overridden Tuesday by the South Carolina House would restore money for teacher pay raises, re-open the Arts Commission, support rape crisis centers and designate more money to Commerce to close economic development deals.

The House turned back 51 of Gov. Nikki Haley's 81 vetoes. The 30 vetoes representatives upheld reduce the Legislature's $6.8 billion combined budget and reserve spending plans by less than $4 million.

The Senate returns Wednesday to decide which of those 51 vetoes are completely overturned. An override requires a two-thirds majority of both chambers.

Haley's choice of wording about her veto of $454,000 to support 15 rape crisis centers continued to outrage lawmakers, who voted 111-0 to overturn it. The first-term governor posted responses to that and other vetoes on her Facebook page throughout the House's seven hours of voting.

The Arts Commission is about jobs

Over the past week, legislators and community leaders have joined artists across the state in opposing Gov. Nikki Haley’s veto rejecting funding for the South Carolina Arts Commission. They have argued that supporting the arts is critical to improving education, enhancing our quality of life and bringing us together as a unified community.

Yet, while I agree with all these points and join those urging our state Legislature to override Gov. Nikki Haley’s veto, my concern is more immediate than the degradation of our shared culture. Simply put, I believe that a state with 9.1 percent unemployment cannot afford to put 108,000 “creative economy” jobs at risk.

You see, Haley made it clear that she does not believe the Arts Commission is relevant or important. She thinks it’s a charity and she couldn’t be more wrong.



South Africans sing happy birthday to Mandela





SOWETO, South Africa — South Africa's schoolchildren sang happy birthday to Nelson Mandela as he turned 94 on Wednesday, a day when he asks the world to honour his legacy by performing community service.

The nation's 12 million schoolchildren began their day with a special birthday song, ringing with the line: "We love you father".

"As we celebrate his birthday, we remember that he fought for us in the struggle. The struggle was to fight apartheid," said 12-year-old Kgaugelo Masunhloane at Batsogile primary school in Soweto.

Inactivity 'killing as many as smoking'

Report co-author Dr I-Min Lee: "Being inactive increases your risk of developing chronic diseases"

A lack of exercise is now causing as many deaths as smoking across the world, a study suggests.

The report, published in the Lancet to coincide with the build-up to the Olympics, estimates that about a third of adults are not doing enough physical activity, causing 5.3m deaths a year.

That equates to about one in 10 deaths from diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and breast and colon cancer.

Researchers said the problem was now so bad it should be treated as a pandemic.

And they said tackling it required a new way of thinking, suggesting the public needed to be warned about the dangers of inactivity rather than just reminded of the benefits of it.