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December 26, 2011 | | CRIME Seven people were found dead in their apartment in Grapevine, Texas on Christmas day—an apparent murder-suicide that took place right after they apparently opened presents. Police found the bodies—four women and three men—after they received a voiceless 911 call Sunday morning; while details are still thin, police say they believe one man killed the rest before shooting himself. The victims are as young as 18 and as old as their sixties. Grapevine, a Dallas suburb, was recently named the “Christmas Capital of Texas” by the state senate. OCCUPY The Occupy protests have made us aware of a sinister process by which wealth has systematically been funneled into fewer and fewer hands. In Newsweek, Michael Thomas says public anger will finally force the big banks to pay up in 2012. FRONTRUNNER Newt who? A poll from the Boston Globe and University of New Hampshire shows that Newt Gingrich may be slipping—and Mitt Romney has claimed a formidable lead in New Hampshire. Among likely Republican voters, Romney has a strong support of 39 percent. In second place are Gingrich and Ron Paul, with 17 percent each. With voters who identify as Republicans, Romney’s even more dominant, taking 46 percent of votes. Gingrich and Paul have 19 and 13 percent, respectively. Among independents, Paul is strong with 36 percent of the vote, while Romney has 25 percent. The numbers, combined with Gingrich’s announcement that missing the Virginia ballot was akin to Pearl Harbor, show signs that Romney may be cementing a position as the GOP frontrunner. North Korea Something the State Department is surely trying to figure out: does Kim Jong-un have absolute power or not? Despite a Reuters report last week to that Kim would share power with his uncle and the military, The New York Times says Kim has been taking on new titles at a rate that suggests “whoever was rallying the key agencies of power behind the young leader was ensuring that the son would not share power, at least in the public eye.” The latest title for Kim, announced on Monday, was to make him the head of the Workers’ Party by putting him in charge of its Central Committee. However, Reuters continues to report the “growing sway” of Kim’s uncle, Jang Song-thaek, who appeared in on television in a general’s uniform Sunday. Terrorism Something to both celebrate and fear: A Guardian report on Sunday says al Qaeda’s senior leadership in Pakistan is so weakened that it can be destroyed with a “last push” in 2012, but also that these same terrorists are making their way toward Libya. British officials say “only a handful of key players” remain alive after the United States’ targeted drone offensive. However, sources close to North African Islamist groups also tell The Guardian that at least two relatively senior al Qaeda figures have entered Libya recently with others arrested as they headed in that direction. The “vast majority” of Al Qaeda members, says The Guardian, are originally from North Africa. | | 
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