SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Iran banned the use of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter around 2009, due to their use by activists to foster support for government opposition and to spread news of the protests that took place during the contentious re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. On Monday, however, Facebook boasted its newest -- and most unlikely -- member: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The infamous cleric's "Khamenei.ir" page includes photos, excerpts from speeches and other anti-Semitic and anti-Western pronouncements. The content is largely directed at denigrating the United States, its allies and Jewish nations, which experts had anticipated. But security agencies throughout North America and Europe found more to worry about with Khamenei liking the Great Satan's leading social network. "If a 73-year-old religious zealot who shuns progress can develop a solid grasp of the Internet and applications like Instagram, we're relatively sure Iran can manufacture a pretty devastating nuclear weapon," said a representative from the State Department. "My 60-year-old mother can't even understand a smartphone. 'Phones are for calling people, not taking pictures and playing video games,' she says. It's frightening that an Islamic cleric gets technology more than a Boston homemaker."

EDITORIAL: I have spent the last two days, for the legitimate press, covering the massacre that took place at an elementary school in Connecticut. As a parent, an American, a global citizen, a humanist, it has been exhausting. But, not surprisingly, more exhausting is how this has inevitably turned into a soapbox for conflicting ideologies. Yes, the letters and requests have flooded my inbox. "End gun violence," they urge through visceral and impassioned appeals. But it's interesting, don't you think, how specific they are? End gun violence. Not "end violence." Then there come the bizarre and misspelled screeds from the extremities of the evangelical God Squad (and I'm not singling out Christians). They seek to persuade me that the Prince of Peace wants Middle Americans to carry guns everywhere to thwart gun-related violence. These are the same folks who boast to me of their desires to shoot up Family Planning centers and gays and non-Caucasians and insolent women and various other infidels in the name of Christ the Lamb or Allah or Yahweh or Jehovah. This is the same lot that shuns certain scientific truths and technological innovations because no mention of them exists in all the disparate scriptures. But God, in whatever its incarnation to them, wants these enlightened humans equipped with firearms. Which I also cannot find in the pages of their Holy Books.

EDITORIAL: The toll in the Connecticut shooting stands at 28 dead, including 20 children and the gunman, Connecticut State Police said Friday. This year alone there had already been six mass shootings and a record number of casualties, with 110 people injured and killed prior to today's incident. In fact, a very dear friend of this publication lost his cousin, Amanda Ghossein, in the Northridge shootings that took place at the beginning of December. Amanda had a one-year-old daughter and was about to celebrate her 25th birthday. She had dreams of becoming a fashion designer. The Baby Luna Donation Fund has been created to assist Amanda's daughter at Wells Fargo Bank's main office at 27702 Crown Valley Parkway in Ladera Ranch, 92694.

For the victims and their families, who have been forced to endure unimaginable tragedy, we are silent today in the spirit of remembrance. Our thoughts to everyone affected.

Photo courtesy AP

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Emerging from the long shadow cast by countless accusations of sexual misconduct in recent months, John Travolta made positive news this week for using Scientology techniques to heal a man who was injured in a traffic accident. Travolta told the Church of Scientology's Celebrity Magazine that he performed a procedure called an "assist" to help the man find relief from the chronic pain he had been suffering since breaking his ankle in a car crash. The Scientology handbook defines an "assist" as the process of helping "the individual to heal himself or be healed by another agency by removing his reasons for precipitating and prolonging his condition and lessening his predisposition to further injure himself or remain in an intolerable condition." Spiritual leaders from various faiths -- long opponents of Scientology, which they label a cult -- responded to Travolta's story as "a bunch of voodoo and hogwash." But eyewitnesses at the encounter, many of whom discount Scientology as a serious religion, said the assist did produce noticeable results, with the injured party telling Travolta, "I feel better," before pulling his pants back on, scurrying away in tears and demanding to speak with security.

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- To Bennington Vale locals, homemaker Emmeline Kuchenkoch needs no introduction. Chances are, if you've dined at Piers Addleson's Pea House and ordered a cake, the heady Linzer Torte or the bemusing marzipan characters inspired by the Passion of Christ, then you've sampled Kuchenkoch's wares. The Addleson family has been reselling her delicacies for over 40 years in their restaurant. But scandal rocked San Narciso County Tuesday when rivals at the struggling Hearth Attack bakery discovered damaging information that pressured Emmeline Kuchenkoch to confess, "My Christmas fruitcake is not actually world famous."