Thursday Scoop: Kern County Killer

Multiple Dead After Shooting in Bakersfield

The crime scene. (image: Flickr)

A gunman reportedly shot and killed five people last night in Bakersfield, California, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Among the victims was the shooter’s wife, whom he shot prior to killing himself.

The Kern County Sheriff’s Department was not aware of what sparked the shooting, despite assertions that these types of shootings are “not random.” According to police records, the man arrived at a trucking company with his wife and confronted the owner, shooting him. He immediately shot his wife, and then walked into a home on the street and shot a man and a woman. He then carjacked a young woman who was driving her child, and they managed to escape the crazed gunman before he shot himself.

The gunman’s identity has not yet been released. There were approximately 30 witnesses to the shooting.

Pope Calls Unprecedented Meeting of Top Church Officials Over Sex Abuse Scandals

Pope Francis has called a meeting of top officials to discuss the ongoing sexual abuse scandals of the Catholic Church. CNN reports, “The Pope will meet the presidents of the Catholic bishops conferences from around the world in the Vatican from February 21-24, the Vatican said Wednesday.”

This announcement comes amid growing criticisms of the Pope over how he has handled the long history of child abuse in the church.

Libertarian Socialists Organize Online Within the Libertarian Party

The Libertarian Party is considered the largest third party in the contemporary United States. This pro-capitalist, pro-freedom, liberty-oriented political party is a relatively big tent party that is mostly fiscally conservative or laissez-faire on economic issues and socially liberal on sociocultural issues as well as civil rights and liberties. There are many caucuses within the Libertarian Party–but one caucus seems to stand out as a complete opposite.

The Libertarian-Socialist caucus is considered the only left-wing to far-left grouping within the political party. While the caucus, like a traditional libertarian group, advocates for freedom and liberty from the state, they also are in favor of some major form of freedom and liberty from the current capitalist system.

The purpose of the caucus, according to caucus representative Mike Shipley, is to construct a foundation that already exists within the political party in for left-libertarian opinions and thoughts to be expressed as well as having influence over electoral strategies and public policy.The caucus’ platform provides a combination of both traditional libertarian voluntarism and anti-capitalist socialism.

Read what Shipley told CMN in Duane Murphy’s report here. 

Today in a Tweet: SavagexFENTY Slays

Rihanna sent a very diverse lineup of models to the runway at NYFW to represent her lingerie brand, SavagexFENTY. It’s pretty cool.

Last But Not Least: How I Got All of My Dorm Decor With One Click

Regardless of how long you’ve been in college, isn’t there something exciting about dorm room shopping? Between planning your decor, finding some cute storage bins for your bed and picking out a new comforter, it’s the signal of a new school year.

But sometimes, it can be a little stressful gathering all of your things for college, especially if you’re new to college. You might not know exactly what you need and you don’t want to overpack, so it can be a total process going dorm room shopping.

But what if you didn’t have to worry about what to bring? Lindsay Wigo tells us in her report here. 

Thursday’s Morning Scoop was made possible by Lindsay Wigo, Duane Murphy, Natalia Kolenko, and the CMN Staff. Notice we no longer have a header? That’s because we like to shake things up. It’s shake’n’bake, baby–Talladega Nights, the Ballad of Patrick and Carla.