12/10/2012
An Egyptian army soldier patrols outside the Egyptian presidential palace on Monday, December 10, in Cairo. The Egyptian political crisis erupted last month when President Mohamed Morsy issued an edict allowing himself to run the country unchecked until the drafting of a new constitution. 
Members of the Egyptian opposition gather for a protest outside the presidential palace on Sunday, December 9, in Cairo. The palace has been the scene of violent clashes pitting thousands of protesters -- for and against Morsy. 
Guy Fawkes masks are displayed by a street vendor in front of the Egyptian presidential palace in Cairo on December 9. The masks depict Fawkes, a rebel executed in England's Gunpowder Plot seeking to blow up the House of Lords in the early 1600s. 
Egyptian army engineers and soldiers build a third line of concrete blocks outside of the Egyptian presidential palace in Cairo in preparation for more protests on December 9. 
An Egyptian protester sweeps the street near army tanks deployed outside the presidential palace in Cairo on December 8, after continued protests overnight. 
A sticker depicting Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy reads "leave" on the ground near the presidential palace on December 8. 
Egyptian soldiers take position on a road leading to the presidential palace on December 8. 
A protester tries to climb over a barbed-wire fence as Egyptian soldiers stand guard during a demonstration near the presidential palace in Cairo on Friday, December 7. 
Supporters of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy and members of the Muslim Brotherhood shout during the funerals of fellow Morsy supporters at Al-Azhar mosque in Cairo on December 7. 
Protesters angry over Morsy's decisions giving himself unchecked powers surround the Muslim Brotherhood's headquarters in Cairo after starting a fire inside the compound on Thursday, December 6. 
Riot police form a line as anti-Morsy protesters surge around the Muslim Brotherhood's headquarters in Cairo on December 6. 
An anti-Morsy protester shouts during a march to the presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, on December 6. 
Protesters are blocked from approaching the the presidential palace by the Egyptian army on December 6 in Cairo. 
Egyptian soldiers stand outside the presidential palace in Cairo after setting up barbed wire barricades on December 6. 
Supporters of Morsy clash with anti-Morsy protesters outside the Egyptian presidential palace on Wednesday, December 5, in Cairo. 
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsy supporters destroy tents of anti-Morsy protesters outside the presidential palace on December 5. 
Morsy supporters carry an injured man to safety during clashes with anti-Morsy demonstrators on a road leading to the Egyptian presidential palace on December 5. 
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood and supporters of Morsy clash with anti-Morsy demonstrators on a road leading to the Egyptian presidential palace on December 5. 
Egyptian riot police stand behind barbwire as thousands of Egyptian demonstrators march to the presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, on Tuesday, December 4. 
Tens of thousands of demonstrators encircled the presidential palace in Cairo after riot police failed to keep them at bay with tear gas on December 4. 
An Egyptian woman waves a national flag as demonstrators march to the presidential palace in Cairo on December 4. 
A Morsy supporter waves a flag outside the Supreme Constitutional Court as hundreds of supporters of the president protest on Sunday, December 2, in Cairo, forcing judges to postpone a hearing on a constitutional panel at the heart of a deepening political crisis. 
Supporters of Morsy pray outside the Supreme Constitutional Court on December 2. 
A man kisses a portrait of Morsy during a gathering of thousands of Islamists in front of Cairo University on Saturday, December 1. 
Thousands pray during a rally in support of Morsy in front of Cairo University on December 1. 
An Egyptian man delivers a speech as protesters gather in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday, November 30. 
A man shouts as protesters gather in Tahrir Square on November 30. 
A man holds a copy of the Quran and a cross in Tahrir Square on November 30. 
Protesters run from Egyptian riot police during clashes near Cairo's Tahrir Square on Wednesday, November 28. 
A protester carries a rock during clashes with police on Wednesday. 
Egyptians carry a giant national flag as tens of thousands take part in a mass rally in Cairo on Tuesday, November 27, against a decree by President Mohamed Morsy granting himself broad powers. 
An Egyptian protester holds up a Quran and a figure of Christ on the cross during Tuesday's demonstration. 
Protesters continue to rally in Tahrir Square on Tuesday. 
An Egyptian protester attempts to throw back a tear gas canister on Tuesday during clashes with riot police in Omar Makram Street, off Tahrir Square. 
Activists in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Monday, November 26, carry the coffin of Gaber Salah, an activist who died overnight after he was critically injured in clashes in Cairo. Salah, a member of the April 6 movement known by his nickname "Jika," was injured last week during confrontations between police and protesters on Cairo's Mohammed Mahmud street. 
Thousands of activists attend the funeral of Gaber Salah on Monday. 
Protesters clash with Egyptian police at Simon Bolivar Square on Sunday, November 25, in Cairo. Egypt's powerful Muslim Brotherhood called nationwide demonstrations in support of Islamist President Mohamed Morsy in his showdown with the judges over the path to a new constitution. 
Egyptian protesters hurl stones at police at Tahrir Square on Sunday. 
Protesters gather at sit-in tents in Tahrir Square on Sunday. 
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy waves to supporters in front of the presidential palace in Cairo on Friday, November 23. Thousands of ecstatic supporters gathered outside the presidential palace to defend their leader against accusations from rival protesters that he has become a dictator. 
Morsy supporters gather outside the presidential palace in Cairo on Friday. Morsy insisted that Egypt was on the path to "freedom and democracy," as protesters held rival rallies over sweeping powers he assumed that further polarized the country's political forces. 
Protesters demonstrating against Morsy run from tear gas fired by Egyptian riot police during clashes in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday. 
Egyptian protesters throw rocks toward riot police on Friday 
Egyptian supporters and opponents of Morsy clash in the coastal city of Alexandria on Friday. 
A man throws a rock during clashes in Alexandria on Friday. 
Thousands of demonstrators march through the streets of Cairo to protest against Morsy on Friday. 
Clashes rocked the coastal city of Alexandria on Friday. 
Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii hospitalized: 'For the most part, I'm OK'
| By NBC News staff  Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images Senator Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, pictured here in 2009, was hospitalized on Thursday. "For the most part, I am OK," he said. Daniel Inouye, 88, the most senior senator in the U.S. Senate, has been hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where he said he is working with his doctors to regulate his oxygen intake. "For the most part, I'm OK," Inouye, a Democrat from Hawaii, said in a statement Monday. "Much to my frustration, I have to remain in the hospital for my own safety and to allow the necessary observation. I will be back on the Hill as soon as my doctors allow it." Around the Capitol, Inouye has been seen with a portable oxygen supply. He was hospitalized Thursday, one day before Pearl Harbor Day. On Friday, he honored the day as he does every year, this time through a press release remembering his time as a young Japanese-American teenager in Hawaii. He wrote:
Inouye serves as President Pro Tempore of the Senate and therefore is third in line for succession to the presidency. He has served in the Senate for 49 years, since 1963. He is currently the longest-serving member of the Senate; late Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia served for 51 years. Inouye was hospitalized on Nov. 15 after falling and cutting the back of his head. A statement released by his office spoke to the senator's apparent dislike of being hospitalized: "The U.S. Army Captain and World War II combat veteran wanted to put a bandage on and come to work but his family insisted he get it checked out." NBC's Kelly O'Donnell and Isolde Raftery contributed reporting. More content from NBCNews.com:
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Execution set for cop guilty in murders
(CNN) -- A former Florida police officer convicted of multiple murders in the 1980s is scheduled to be executed Tuesday, and his attorneys are still working to save his life. Manuel Pardo, 56, was convicted of nine counts of first-degree murder in 1988 and was sentenced to death. Pardo's attorneys argued in federal court Monday that Florida's recent change in the drug combination it uses for lethal injections would violate their client's civil rights. Attorney William McKinley Hennis III told U.S. Judge Timothy Corrigan that if the drugs were to be improperly mixed, the anesthetic effects would be compromised. "Manny Pardo would be the first inmate to be executed using that new lethal injection protocol," Hennis said. Corrigan denied the complaint, and Hennis said he would appeal the ruling. In another legal filing, the Supreme Court of Florida denied Pardo's argument that he should have never been tried in 1988 because he was incompetent to stand trial. David Waksman, who prosecuted the case, dismissed the claim, saying, "He was just a cold-blooded killer who used to be a cop." Pardo's life started on the other side of the law, according to court documents filed by his attorneys. At age 17, he enlisted in the Navy and served honorably served from 1974 to 1978. In 1981, Pardo re-enlisted in the Marines and remained a reservist while he worked for the Florida Highway Patrol and the Sweetwater, Florida, Police Department. In 1985 Pardo was fired from the police department and left the reserves when, according to court documents, "he falsely testified in court about police corruption in the Bahamas." Hennis said the stress of losing his job, compounded with a serious undiagnosed disease, turned him into "someone he was not," a killer. During his trial, Pardo took the stand and admitted to the murders. "He came up with this vigilante story," recalls Waksman. "He said, 'I'm ridding the community of this vermin and technically it is not murder because they're not human beings.'" The only chance Pardo has to win on the competency issue is if the United States Supreme Court decides to hear his appeal. The execution is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday at Florida State Prison in Starke, Florida. Read more: Life sentence closes oldest cold case Read more: MS-13 gang member gets 76 years Read more: Bus driver acquitted after 2011 New York crash  |
More graves found at Florida boys reform school
 University of South Florida Anthropologists from the University of South Florida marked previously undiscovered graves at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla., during field work in May 2012. By M. Alex Johnson, NBC News Scientists have found 19 previously unknown grave shafts on the grounds of a notorious Florida reform school, suggesting that many more boys died there amid brutal conditions than had previously been known, the researchers said Monday. The Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, which was also known as the Florida State Reform School, closed in June 2011 after state investigators and the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division confirmed widespread abuse over many decades. The state attributed its decision to close the school to budgetary reasons. Yet long before then, the institution had been the target of investigations and lawsuits alleging not only physical and mental abuse but also forced labor, rape and even murder of the young charges sent to its care since it opened in 1900. The prominent writer Roger Dean Kiser, author of "The White House Boys — An American Tragedy," about the horrors he experienced while incarcerated there in the 1950s as a child, has called the school a "concentration camp for little boys." He wrote that "a devil was hiding behind every tree, every building and even behind every blade of manicured grass." They're called the White House Boys because much of the abuse occurred in an 11-room building on the school grounds known as the White House, where former students say they were beaten with leather straps. A group of the former students sued the state in 2010, but the case was dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired. Previous investigations and records had reported that 31 boys were buried on school grounds, and that most of them died in a fire and an influenza outbreak at the school in the early 1900s. But researchers at the University of South Florida, in Tampa, say they now estimate there are at least 50 grave shafts in the area of the school's cemetery and the surrounding woods. Some graves may have been the final resting place for more than one boy, the researchers said in an interim report released Monday. Records recovered and examined by the researchers indicate that at least 96 boys and two adults died at the school from 1914 to 1973. Most of boys who were committed to the school and died there were African-American. Read the full report (.pdf — contents may be distressing for some readers) But that may be only the tip of the iceberg: The researchers didn't have access to student records after 1960, when such documents became subject to privacy laws. Moreover, researchers couldn't test the entire area because of overgrowth and vegetative conditions, they said. And more chillingly, there may be other, secret graveyards somewhere on the grounds, given the number of still-unaccounted-for cases and the practice of segregating cemeteries during the first half of the last century, Erin Kimmerle, an assistant professor of anthropology at the university, said on a conference call with reporters. It's highly unlikely that white boys were buried with black boys during those decades, but as yet, the researchers haven't found a previously hidden whites-only cemetery. "I didn't realize going in how much of a story of civil rights it was," Kimmerle said. The research team used ground-penetrating radar and other methods to map the school's cemetery and chemically analyzed the soil to identify the number of graves. Watch US News videos on NBCNews.com "We anticipated finding about 25 to 30 grave shafts," said Christian Wells, an assistant professor of anthropology who led the anthropological work at the site, "but in fact we found a minimum of 50" — all of them on the north side of the campus, called Boot Hill, where African-American boys were segregated. A full picture of the sheer scale of the abuses remains difficult to paint, because there are significant gaps and discrepancies in the records, "and the cause and manner of death for the majority of cases are unknown," the report said. "Many questions persist about who is buried at the school and the circumstances surrounding their deaths," the report said. But Kimmerle said the team had determined that at least 20 boys died within the first three months of having been remanded to the school's custody — probably because they were unable to cope with the crowding and the conditions — and that burial locations were unspecified for nearly three times more African-American boys than for white boys. More content from NBCNews.com:
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