SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- After suspending Independent journalist Guy Adams' Twitter account, under dubious reasoning and at the behest of NBC, Twitter Inc. announced Tuesday the restoration of Adam's account. The decision came after public outcry and a well-reasoned explanation from Adams about accusations that he released the private email address of NBC's Olympics president Gary Zenkel. On Monday, Adams acted as a mouthpiece for millions of frustrated viewers when he posted, "The man responsible for NBC pretending the Olympics haven't started yet is Gary Zenkel. Tell him what u think! Email: Gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com." Adam's critical tweet came in response to Gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com's decision to delay broadcasting the opening ceremonies of the games by six hours. NBC Sports spokesman Christopher.mccloskey@nbcuni.com (whose phone number and email are published on NBC's site) was contacted by Twitter after Adams posted disparaging tweets about the network, prompting NBC to file a complaint with the social media site to protect their executive. Although Twitter issued an apology and reinstated Adam's privileges, Gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com has filed a series of additional complaints with other companies -- including NBC, Google and "whoever owns the Internet" -- that allow the filthy rabble of hoi polloi to contact him.

TEHRAN, Iran (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) --An Iranian court has found four individuals guilty for their parts in a banking scandal that caused serious complications for the government and led to the ouster of several executives. Officials have sentenced those responsible to death. Directors at an Iranian investment company used forged documents to embezzle $2.6 billion in secured loans to purchase state-owned enterprises in the fraudulent scheme. The incident was discovered in 2011, and over 39 people were identified as being involved. "According to the sentence that was issued, four of the accused in this case were sentenced to death," a judiciary spokesman told state media. News of the executions, however localized, managed to draw the attention of politicians in the United States, sparking a polarizing debate between Democrats and Republicans after a surprising number of struggling, middle class taxpayers said the bold move had given them "newfound respect" for Iran.

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- On July 18, Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy confirmed in no uncertain terms what many had already suspected: that the company's conservative Christian principles support an undeniable anti-LGBT philosophy. Chick-fil-A has a documented history of donating to anti-gay groups, but last week Cathy himself broke with the marketing line Chick-fil-A commonly puts forth -- expressing respect for people of all faiths, colors, creeds and orientations -- writing in a blog post: "I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.' And I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about." On Friday, however, following the unfortunate death of the company's chief spokesman, Don Perry, Cathy attempted to defend his views. And in an ironic show of support, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg championed Chick-fil-A's right to free speech, calling Cathy's opinions "none of the government's business. Unless they start selling super-sized sodas in my city; then heads will roll."

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Actress Kristen Stewart released a public apology Wednesday to longtime boyfriend and "Twilight" costar Robert Pattinson after photogs captured proof of her fling with up-and-coming British director Rupert Sanders, who worked with Stewart on the recent "Snow White and the Huntsman" film. The images showed Stewart kissing and hugging Sanders on the set of the movie. "I'm deeply sorry for the hurt and embarrassment I've caused to those close to me and everyone this has affected. This momentary indiscretion has jeopardized the most important thing in my life, the person I love and respect the most, Rob. I love him, I love him, I'm so sorry," Stewart, 22, said in a statement. Sanders, nearly 20 years her senior, issued a similar apology to his wife, model Liberty Ross, and their two young children. Even though the pair decided to spend the three-month shoot having sex with each other instead of their legitimate partners, both have expressed regret over the indiscretion and steadfast love for the humiliated cuckolds whose lives they ruined. But Hollywood insiders claim the illicit assignation was actually a selfless sacrifice to help heal a grieving nation.

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- As news of the Colorado theater shooting broke last Friday, viewers switched from MSNBC to its competitors Fox News and CNN for live coverage of the attacks carried out by 24-year-old James Holmes. According to Nielsen ratings reports for July 20 -- during the time of the rampage at an Aurora, Colo., Cinemark that left 12 dead and nearly 60 others injured -- MSNBC's primetime audience dipped far below the network's averages. Conversely, CNN's viewership rose by 125 percent while Fox News' audience increased by 11 percent. MSNBC has been struggling over the last year to prevent significant ratings declines in its news broadcasts. For viewers to be turning off the network during a major event is "disheartening," media analyst Brad Adgate told Reuters. Executives at NBC described the massive loss of audience life as a "one of the most terrible and inconceivable horrors of our time."

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Shortly after midnight on Friday, July 20, a gunman wearing black SWAT gear and a gas mask entered an Aurora, Colo., theater during the premiere of "The Dark Knight Rises," ignited a gas canister, and opened fire on unsuspecting moviegoers. James Holmes, the 24-year-old assailant, killed 12 people and seriously wounded at least 60 more. This was the deadliest shooting incident in Colorado since the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, government officials pointed out. And as is customary in the aftermath of America's mass shootings, they also hinted at a national discussion about guns and gun safety, even though such discussions rarely take place. On Monday, however, conservative Republicans who staunchly support the NRA and Second Amendment remedies admitted that more needs to be done to educate citizens on existing gun laws. Leading the charge was Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) who publicly pondered, "With all those people in the theater, was there nobody that was carrying a gun that could have stopped this guy more quickly?"

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has often found herself on the receiving end of criticism by fellow Republicans for her controversial comments and factual errors. On Thursday, however, she received some of the harshest and most public rebukes of her career. House Speaker John Boehner joined Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and others in denouncing Bachmann's questioning of the security credentials of Hillary Clinton's Muslim aide. Boehner said "accusations like this being thrown around are pretty dangerous." McCain labeled the attack "sinister." And even Bachmann's former campaign strategist, Edward Rollins, chimed in, writing on the Fox News website that "this is downright vicious and reaches the late Senator Joe McCarthy level." Bachmann defended her actions, which were supported by four other Republican members of the House, by explaining to Glenn Beck that she merely asked the federal government to "look into [Abedin's] family associations before she got a high level security clearance." Later Thursday evening, to prove that her concerns were universal and not the product of discrimination or bias, Bachmann levied the same complaint against openly Catholic lawmakers.

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Delta Air Lines announced Sunday that sewing needles had been discovered in turkey sandwiches on four flights. The compromised sandwiches were reported on two planes to Atlanta, one to Seattle and another to Minneapolis. A passenger traveling to Minneapolis was injured after biting into a needle but declined medical attention, a spokesperson for the airlines said. Delta launched a cooperative investigation with local and federal authorities, and took immediate action with its in-flight catering company based in Amsterdam. On Tuesday, FBI representatives said members of a struggling al Qaeda cell in the Netherlands begrudgingly admitted to the plot.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Much has been made by the Obama campaign about discrepancies in Mitt Romney's tenure with Bain Capital. A lot of that confusion has been generated by Romney himself. The 2012 Republican presidential contender ostensibly wants the public to know two opposing things: one, that he was the "controlling person" in several Bain investments between 1999 and 2002; and two, that he was not actually the "controlling person" overseeing those investments. It's quite a pickle. A senior campaign advisor for President Obama summed up Romney's position as being either a felon for misrepresenting his position at Bain to the SEC, or a liar for misrepresenting his position at Bain to voters. Seizing on this momentum, Obama gleefully attacked his opponent for a plan that could send over 800,000 American jobs overseas. But Romney, who has since been on the defensive, cried foul with new attempts to illustrate "Obama's distortions and lies." Romney called the president's interpretation of his plan misleading and misinformed: "This proves the president knows nothing about business. We're not going to send nearly a million jobs overseas; the point of outsourcing is to eliminate jobs."

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- As San Bernardino became the third California city to declare bankruptcy this year -- causing analysts to question the fiscal stability of the state as a whole -- federal economists warned of greater, more widespread troubles looming in the not-so-distant future. As if to underscore the point, Texas officials declared a statewide crisis Wednesday that will require a radical overhaul of the existing penal system. A spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice told reporters: "We have exhausted our supply of pancuronium bromide needed to perform lethal injections. All we have left is pentobarbital. When that runs out, Lord only knows what we're going to do."

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Violent confrontations between Nigerian Christians and Muslims have escalated to their highest levels since the Bosnian war of 1992-1995, according to an international task force. But the core causes of the deadly clashes, which have claimed hundreds of lives this year alone, reach far beyond mere differences in faith. The report cites corruption, financial mismanagement, lack of policing crimes, lack of assistance for victims, and ongoing land disputes as the primary catalysts driving human rights violations and armed conflicts in the region. And though the report identified dozens of steps that could be taken by the world community to resolve the issues -- all of them costly and time consuming -- a delegation of Congressional Republicans told State Department officials that an email they received from Nigeria's rightful heir to the throne could pave a more direct and effective path to peace.

Photo funded by state of Texas

AUSTIN, Texas (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- In a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius released Monday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry formally rejected two key provisions in President Obama's healthcare overhaul measure. The proposals in question, struck down by a recent Supreme Court ruling, involved the expansion of Medicaid coverage and the establishment of online healthcare exchanges. As part of the court's decision, the federal government cannot withhold a state's Medicaid allocation if it fails to expand the program for the poor. And if a state chooses not to create an online healthcare exchange, the federal government can develop one for it. Perry joins a chorus of outraged Republican governors who refuse to support these measures. "I will not be party to socializing healthcare and bankrupting my state," Perry asserted. In the first two years alone, based on state figures, nearly two million people would be added to Texas’ Medicaid rolls. By Perry's calculations, that expansion could cost $27 billion over 10 years. "When you consider how much money taxpayers are already dumping into benefits packages for state officials and government workers, Texas simply can't afford to include two million more people."

Obama victim Ann Harris, AP

AKRON, Ohio (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Back in the summer of 2011, some Democratic strategists leaked details to the press that top aides for the Obama campaign were redoubling their efforts to orchestrate a massive character strike against Mitt Romney, aptly predicting last August that Romney would emerge as the Republican nominee for the 2012 presidential race. Chillingly, one of the released documents included the phrase "kill Romney." Now Mitt's wife, Ann, worries more than ever that Barack Obama's dark turn of phrase may be something more dire, more perilous, more literal. In a CBS interview with her husband on Wednesday, Ann Romney accused the Obama reelection committee of employing tactics to "kill" Mitt Romney. "I feel like all he's doing is saying, 'Let's kill this guy,'" she fretted before a national television audience, sitting beside her husband. "And I feel like that's not really a very good campaign policy." And with the news Friday that an Akron, Ohio, cafe owner died just hours after she welcomed President Obama to her restaurant and hugged him, conservatives fear that the Romney family may be in mortal jeopardy.

McALLEN, Texas (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- When Walmart left its already massive location in the Texas border town of McAllen for a larger facility in a more prestigious, less bordery part of the community, the city found itself home to a sprawling but empty warehouse the size of two football fields. Located near the southernmost tip of Texas on the border of Mexico, McAllen is prone to violence, decline, and vandalism, which stems from the drug cartels that operate across the river. City officials worried about how to prevent the vast and conspicuous piece of property from falling into disrepair or becoming a haven for gangs. "It's easy to fall into drugs, drinking, and violence when you live on the border. It's not really easy to find a place to hang out when you're 14 that's not the mall, the movies, or Mexico," wrote one of McAllen's native daughters, who now teaches at a distinguished university in Pennsylvania -- the one without child-molesting football coaches. Pressed for ideas on how to use the abandoned building for the betterment of the community, McAllen officials found their serendipitous answer neatly stacked and boxed inside the store itself.

"We're not calling it July 4 anymore. England has a fourth day in July too. This day should be ours. Let's take it back!" -- F. Chester Greene

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- F. Chester Greene, area businessman and write-in Republican candidate for the 2012 presidential race, has joined forces with Mayor Manny DiPresso to organize what local officials have deemed the first "truly American commemoration of Independence Day since the signing of the Declaration." During the American Revolution, the Thirteen Colonies threw off the yoke of England after the Second Continental Congress voted to legally secede from Great Britain on July 2, 1776. Two days later, when Congress approved the separation, all upper middle-class, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant male Americans were finally emancipated from decades of oppression. But since that time, Greene laments, America has lost her way. Sipping afternoon tea in his Bennington Vale office, and looking dapper in Burberry and Ben Sherman, Greene held nothing back in criticizing Americans for embracing old foes and abandoning the principles that helped found the world's greatest nation.