Officials say the tornadoes were unexpected. While they did expect serious storms, weather forecasters said it was "too cool" for tornadic activity. Not so, as it turned out:

A massive emergency response is under way in the Granbury area, where at least six people were killed and dozens injured by up to three tornadoes as a relentless storm system raked across North Texas on Wednesday evening.

At an overnight press conference, Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds did not have details on the six who died. He did say that two of them were not near homes.

Deeds said the death toll could rise as 14 people remain unaccounted for and nearby rural areas just outside the Rancho Brazos subdivision had not been searched thoroughly as crews did what they could in the dark.

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Officials estimate that close to 100 people were killed near Bangladesh’s capital of Dhaka Wednesday morning when an eight-story garment factory collapsed. Hundreds gathered at the site of the accident, where officials fear more remain trapped under the rubble. Health Minister A.F.M. Ruhal Haque reported that more than 600 people had been rescued, and hoped that more will be added to that number. Bangladesh has received harsh criticism for its factory conditions after two other deadly fires at garment factories in the past year -- one of which left 112 dead.

Reuters:

Five garment factories - employing mostly women - were housed in the building, including Ether Tex Ltd., whose chairman said he was unaware of any warnings not to open the workshops.

"There was some crack at the second floor, but my factory was on the fifth floor," Muhammad Anisur Rahman told Reuters. "The owner of the building told our floor manager that it is not a problem and so you can open the factory."

He initially said that his firm had been sub-contracted to supply Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world's largest retailer, and Europe's C&A. In a subsequent interview he said he had been referring to an order in the past, not current work.

Wal-Mart did not immediately respond to requests for comment. C&A said that, based on its best information, it had no contractual relationship with any of the production units in the building that collapsed.

Buildings are reportedly sometimes erected without permission and many do not comply with construction regulations.

Scenes of destruction in Baghdad after a series of coordinated car bombs and roadside blasts 10 years to the day since the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Officials say more than 30 people were killed and 80 wounded as small restaurants, bus stops and groups of labourers were targeted. The attacks all happened within a one-hour period.

Updates from Al-Jazeera report that the death toll from Tuesday's blasts is now 56 with 88 people wounded, the extent of their injuries unknown at this time. Ten car bombs, including two detonated by suicide bombers, one roadside bomb and two gun attacks struck in and around the Iraqi capital during morning rush hour.

The attacks cames as the cabinet announced on Tuesday that it would postpone provincial elections in two provinces that were scheduled for April by up to six months over security concerns.

Polls in Anbar province in west Iraq and Nineveh in the north have been delayed, Ali Mussawi, the Iraqi premier's spokesman said.

Mussawi said that candidates have been threatened and killed, while there were also requests for a delay from the two provinces.

Several provincial elections candidates have also been killed in attacks in recent weeks.

It appeared that elections in the 12 other provinces where they were set to be held on April 20 would go ahead as scheduled.

Violence in Iraq has decreased from its peak in 2006 and 2007, attacks still remain common, killing 220 people in February alone.

At least 112 employees of a Bangledesh garment factory perished in a blaze late Saturday after becoming trapped inside the building with no fire exits. The factory produced clothing for Wal-Mart, and other U.S. retailers. Were your Black Friday deals worth it?

There was no escape. A fire claimed 112 workers in a garment factory near the capital of Bangladesh late Saturday. A fire official said their last moments were spent in panic as they searched in vain for fire exits leading outside. “I want the factory owner to be hanged,” said one grieving mother who lost her daughter-in-law in the fire and whose son is still missing. “For him, many have died.” Firefighters have recovered 100 bodies from the gutted seven-story factory. Many of Bangladesh’s 4,000 garment shops lack proper fire protections.

The Telegraph:

"The factory had three staircases, and all of them were down through the ground floor," Mahbub said. "So the workers could not come out when the fire engulfed the building."

"Had there been at least one emergency exit through outside the factory, the casualties would have been much lower," he said.

Many of the victims were burned beyond recognition. The recovered bodies were kept in rows on the premise of a nearby school.

Army soldiers and paramilitary border guards were deployed to help police keep the situation under control as thousands of onlookers and anxious relatives of the factory workers gathered at the scene, Mahbub said. He would not say how many people were still missing.

Bangladesh's garment factories make clothes for brands including Wal-Mart, JC Penney, H&M, Marks & Spencer, Carrefour and Tesco.

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An investigation is underway after a parade-goer found that confetti that fell on him and friends during Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade contained strips that had detectives' social security numbers, banking information and unveiled undercover police officers' identities.

WPIX:

Ethan Finkelstein, who was home from college on Thanksgiving break, was watching the parade at 65th Street and Central Park West, when he and a friend noticed a strip of confetti stuck onto her coat.

"It landed on her shoulder," Finkelstein told PIX11 News, "and it says 'SSN' and it's written like a social security number, and we're like, 'That's really bizarre.'

It made the Tufts University freshman concerned, so he and his friends picked up more of the confetti that had fallen around them.

"There are phone numbers, addresses, more social security numbers, license plate numbers and then we find all these incident reports from police."

One confetti strip indicates that it's from an arrest record, and other strips offer more detail. "This is really shocking," Finkelstein said. "It says, 'At 4:30 A.M. a pipe bomb was thrown at a house in the Kings Grant' area."

A closer look shows that the documents are from the Nassau County Police Department. The papers were shredded, but clearly not well enough.

They even contain information about Mitt Romney's motorcade, apparently from the final presidential debate, which took place at Hofstra University in Nassau County last month.

The mysterious "confetti" also contained strips that identified Nassau County detectives by name, even some of their undercover detectives, social security numbers, dates of birth and other highly sensitive personal information were also printed on the strips.

Macy's, the parade sponsor, Macy's, told PIX11 News that it uses only "commercially manufactured, multicolor confetti, not shredded paper."

The confetti strips are apparently shredded confidential documents from the Nassau Police Department, and could have come from any one of a multitude of windows along the parade route. Nassau police are investigating, and no doubt taking the mystery that could lead to the theft of their own identities very seriously.

Sadly, there were also two fatalities during the parade: A clown suffered a fatal collapse in front of spectators as he made balloon animals at Sixth Avenue and West 39th Street, and a civilian New York Police Department worker suffered an apparent heart attack while hooking up a vehicle to be towed off the parade route at West 57th Street and Sixth Avenue.

An estimated 40 people were killed Friday morning when a bomb detonated at a mosque in Faryab province during a prayer gathering marking the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha. Over half of those killed are reportedly police, officials said. The Taliban is suspected to have carried out the attack. The bomber’s target appeared to be regional police chief Gen. Abdul Khaliq Aqsai, as the explosives were detonated as soon as he got in his vehicle. Aqsai survived the attack. The incident happened just before President Hamid Karzai repeated his call for the Taliban to join the government.

Video via The Guardian.

A huge car bomb explosion in Beirut on Friday killed a top Lebanese security official whose investigations implicated Syria and Hezbollah in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri seven years ago.

The rush-hour bomb in the center of the Lebanese capital killed eight people and wounded about 80 others, heightening fears that Syria's war is spilling over into Lebanon.

Among the dead was Wissam al-Hassan, the head of a Lebanese intelligence agency who had also uncovered a recent bomb plot that led to the arrest of a pro-Syrian Lebanese politician, a Lebanese official said.

Al-Hassan was a close aide to Hariri, a Sunni Muslim who was killed in a 2005 bomb attack in downtown Beirut. Al-Hassan's investigation into Hariri's death uncovered evidence that implicated Syria and Hezbollah in the killing.

It was also not clear if the explosion targeted any political figure in Lebanon's divided community but it occurred at a time of heightened tension between Lebanese factions on opposite sides of the Syria conflict.

Ambulances rushed to the scene in the Ashafriyeh district, a mostly Christian area, as smoke rose from the area.

The explosion ripped through the street where the office of the anti-Damascus Christian Phalange Party is located near Sassine Square.

Phalange leader Sami al-Gemayel, a staunch opponent of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and a member of parliament, condemned the attack.

"Let the state protect the citizens. We will not accept any procrastination in this matter, we cannot continue like that. We have been warning for a year. Enough," said Gemayel, whose brother was assassinated in November 2006.

Several cars were set on fire by the explosion and the front of a multi-story building was badly damaged. Residents ran about in panic looking for relatives while others helped carry the wounded to ambulances, Reuters reported.

[Via, Via]

These are the stories of the New York Police Department's notorious and illegal Stop and Frisk program, which saw 685,724 illegal searches in 2011 alone. The NYPD is only allowed to stop and search someone if they have reasonable suspicion that they've committed a crime, making stops on the basis of skin color illegal. 87% of New York City's black and latino population has been stopped and frisked at some point, and as The New York Times reports in its Op-Doc, "The Scars of Stop and Frisk", the vast majority of those stopped are never ticketed or arrested - 88%, in fact. In a twisted kind of apartheid, young men and women of color in New York City are being stopped on the basis of their skin color and sometimes detained for hours without reason. Pioneered by the special crimes unit - the same one that killed Amadou Diallo, an innocent man suspected of a rape, in a hail of bullets in 1999 - stop and frisk is truly "the new Jim Crow," as an activist in Nina Berman's short doc on the subject dubs it.

"I'm in fear for my life from the law" RDACBX raps on "Stop! Stop and Frisk!" featuring Rebel Diaz, Vithym and Luss, the video for which features snapshots of recent victims of NYPD overreach and is "dedicated to the mothers of victims of Police Terrorism." It was produced after the February 2 killing of an unarmed 18-year-old, Rahmarley Graham, in the Bronx, which occurred a week after officers administered a Rodney King-style beating on another unarmed youth, 19-year-old Jatiek Reed. As victims of fatal police brutality have piled up - Patrick Dorismond, Sean Bell, Anthony Baez, Malcolm Ferguson, Anthony Rosario - a social movement has formed to reclaim the streets for the people.

[Via]