[“Judith Beheading Holofernes” by Carravagio]
ASSOCIATED PRESS: ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — The crime drips with brutal irony: a woman decapitated, allegedly by her estranged husband, in the offices of the television network the couple founded with the hope of countering Muslim stereotypes. Muzzammil “Mo” Hassan is accused of beheading his wife last week, days after she filed for divorce. Authorities have not discussed the role religion or culture might have played, but the slaying gave rise to speculation that it was the sort of “honor killing” more common in countries half a world away, including the couple’s native Pakistan. Funeral services for Aasiya Hassan, 37, were Tuesday. Her 44-year-old husband is scheduled to appear for a felony hearing Wednesday. The Hassans lived in Orchard Park — a well-off Buffalo suburb that hadn’t seen a homicide since 1986 — and started Bridges TV there in 2004 with the message of developing understanding between North America and the Middle East and South Asia. The network, available across the U.S. and Canada, was believed to be the first English-language cable station aimed at the rapidly growing Muslim demographic. MORE
RELATED: The United Nations estimates that 5,000 honour killings occur annually. They take place in Bangladesh, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Sweden, Turkey, the UK and Uganda. In countries not reporting to the UN, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and the Palestinian territories, the situation seems even worse. Honour killing is rooted in age-old patriarchal cultural traditions. It has a long history in developing countries of the Muslim Middle East and Hindi South Asia, but also in Catholic countries, including Italy and in Latin American, and even in the UK and Canada. These killings are a rebellion against modernity. They are attempts to stop or contain social development, to hold onto older traditional values especially concerning social relations and sexuality. MORE
RELATED: In a crime that outraged Germany, the 24-year-old, identified as Ahmad-Sobair O., killed his sister Morsal on May 15, 2008, a day after she approached welfare officials in Hamburg for protection from her brother. He said he had objected to the pretty schoolgirl’s lifestyle, her clothing, and her attempts to distance herself from her family. The case gained nationwide attention, amid a controversy over whether Muslim immigrants were importing the archaic central Asian custom of honor killing to Germany. MORE
RELATED: Eight people in an impoverished Indian family were shot and beheaded in a suspected “honor killing” after a family member married a wealthy girl, police said. Police in Bhagalpur in the northern Indian state of Bihar found the eight bodies floating in the Ganges River and charged 15 people, mostly from the girl’s family, with the killings. The killings took place after Ratan Mandal, 21, eloped with Kanchan Kumari, 18, last month, police said. “The girl’s family invited the boy’s family for a meeting on the pretext of settling the dispute (over the marriage) but killed all eight and beheaded them,” said senior police officer Raghunath Prasad Singh said. The whereabouts of the newly married couple is unknown, The Times of London reported. MORE
ABOUT FACE: Facebook Reverts Back To Old Rules
WALL STREET JOURNAL: Yielding to pressure from its users and privacy advocates, Facebook Inc. Tuesday night backed away from controversial changes to its terms of use that some had decried as giving the social network too much leeway with users’ personal information. Just a day after standing by the revisions, the company said it would scrap the new policy and return to its previous terms of service in a notice to its 175 million users on its Web site.
“Over the past couple of days, we have received a lot of questions and comments about these updated terms and 
what they mean for people and their information,” read the statement, which Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg expanded upon in a blog post. “Because of the feedback we received, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.”
He added that the company would work on a “substantial revision” of the terms and give Facebook users a role in crafting it by voicing their opinions through a group on its Web site, “Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.” The retreat comes after users and privacy professionals raised concerns about changes the company made to its terms of service a few weeks ago but that drew fresh attention from some blogs over the weekend. In particular, Facebook’s new policy said that its right to use and modify a users’ content did not automatically expire if the user removed the information from the site. MORE
PREVIOUSLY: Whatever You Put On Facebook Stays On Facebook
RELATED: Jesus fucking Christ, like you were going to write Finnegan’s Wake on someone’s wall or some shit? If all those tear-stained letters to Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux couldn’t get you published, I doubt Mark Zuckerberg’s (pictured, left) going to suddenly make a cool mil off your self-indulgent status updates. MORE
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JODIE RIVERA: The Octo-Mom Song
SAMPLE LYRIC: “She had complications: Childhood aspirations. That’s her explanation. Pops ’em out like a toaster! Needs a passafire holster! And a pimped out stretch stroller! She’s a food stamp high roller!”