President Obama will be traveling to Aurora, Colo., to attend Sunday’s memorial service for the 12 victims of the movie-theater shooting. Obama will then depart for a three-day, five-state campaign tour. “Such violence, such evil is senseless. It’s beyond reason. But while we will never know fully what causes somebody to take the life of another, we do know what makes life worth living,” the president said Friday. “The people we lost in Aurora loved, and they were loved.”

The identities of the 12 dead after a shooting rampage in a Colorado theater have been released along with personal details. Among those killed are a 6-year-old girl, whose mother remains in critical condition, a U.S. Navy sailor, and a young man who was killed as he dove on top of his girlfriend to save her. In a horrible coincidence, one of the victims, Jessica Ghawi had just recently narrowly avoided a shopping-mall food-court shooting. On her blog she wrote that the experience had shown her "how blessed I am for each second I am given.”

The shooting inside a crowded Colorado movie theater has evidence of calculation and deliberation, Aurora Police Chief Daniel Oates told reporters. Alleged shooter James Holmes had ordered more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition along with tactical gear online over the past two months. Holmes’ apartment was rigged with various explosives and booby traps. “We have the evidence of a deliberative process to commit this assault, and we have the evidence of a deliberative process in his mind to attack whoever opened the door of his apartment,” Oates said. The suspect’s family released a statement requesting privacy for the family. “Our hearts go out to those who were involved in this tragedy and to the families and friends of those involved,” the statement said. “We are still trying to process this information.”

In the wake of the Aurora, Colorado shooting, studios said they will forgo releasing box-office numbers for the weekend. Sony, Fox, Disney, and Universal announced Saturday that they had made the decision in solidarity with Warner Bros., distributor for The Dark Knight Rises. Warner Bros. also cancelled cast appearances in Mexico and Japan, and pulled trailers for upcoming film Gangster Squad, which includes a depiction of gangsters firing guns in a movie theater.”Everybody is very saddened by the event. We were obviously looking for a very happy occasion for us,” a studio representative told the Associated Press. “It’s a difficult way to begin. We’re just more concerned now with the well-being of those that were injured, of course.”

Three days after a Tanzanian ferryboat capsized in the Indian Ocean, government officials have called off the search for survivors. Sixty-nine passengers were confirmed dead, while another 77 remained missing. The MV Skagit ferry was traveling from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar and had 291 passengers on board, even though it was only cleared to carry 250. Rough seas and heavy winds hampered rescue efforts, but 145 people survived the ordeal.

Formerly an outpost of peace amid the Syrian uprising, Aleppo was the site of heavy clashes on Saturday. Government forces invaded the rebel-run city Saturday morning and started firing, according to residents. "The sound of bombardment has been nonstop since last night," one local mother told Reuters. "For the first time we feel Aleppo has turned into a battle zone." Rebels have been emboldened President Bashar al-Assad's brother-in-law. The whereabouts of Assad himself are unknown, and he did not attend the funerals. As the fight for Syria's future centers on one of its most important cities, hundreds of families have fled, say activists.

According to filings, Rupert Murdoch stepped down from the boards of Newscorp Investments, Times Newspapers Holdings, NI Group, and a few of U.S. News Corps.’ boards over the past week. The resignations have prompted rumors that the media mogul is getting ready to abdicate from his empire, rumors his companies are eager to squelch. News Corp., which is planning to split into two separate entities, splitting off the newspaper division, downplayed the recent events, saying they are “nothing more than a corporate housecleaning exercise prior to the company split.”

In 2008, as concerns emerged among regulators that LIBOR—an international interest rate used to set prices on trillions in assets—was being rigged, many were unconcerned. According to a Friday document dump, the Bank of England repeatedly turned down calls for stronger oversight on bankers' role in fixing the rate. On Friday the British Bankers Association issued a blunt statement, heaping blame on the Bank of England and asserting that the nation's chief financial authority had turned down its requests for help monitoring the financial wrongdoing. The scandal exploded into the capital markets earlier this month, when the British bank Barclays admitted to the scam and agreed to pay $450 million in penalties.

King Juan Carlos suffered a broken hip and bruised conscience after embarking on an elephant-hunting safari in Botswana this April. Spain’s branch of the World Wildlife Fund has decided to relieve King Carlos of his title as its honorary president (which he has held for 44 years) after learning of the incident. The WWF said that “although such hunting is legal and regulated” it had “received many expressions of distress from its members and society in general.” The king’s secret expedition became a public scandal when he took an emergency flight back on a private jet after breaking his hip during the trip. He later apologized, saying, “I am very sorry. I made a mistake. It won’t happen again.”

Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler may be fleeing, but American Idol will still have star power if it succeeds in snagging Mariah Carey as a host. The singer is reportedly in the final stages of signing on to be the newest judge of the long-running talent show. Her proposed salary is rumored to be more than $17 million for one season. When the whispers started, her famous husband wasn't so sure. "I don't know if they can afford Mariah Carey," Nick Cannon told TMZ. "That's a lot of money."

In a report released Friday, the Labor Department revealed that unemployment has risen in six of the election’s 10 key battleground states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire and Virginia. Other swing states stayed steady, with only Ohio seeing unemployment fall. That news could spell trouble for President Obama, whose lead has shrunk in states like Nevada and Pennsylvania in recent weeks. 

The apartment of James Holmes, suspected of killing 12 and wounding scores more in Friday morning’s movie theater massacre, was rigged with complicated explosive traps, police said. Saturday morning, officers planned to send in a robot to detonate them. Chris Henderson, Aurora, Colo.’s deputy fire chief, told Reuters that Holmes's living room was filled with tripwires connected to plastic bottles filled with an "unknown liquid." Other authorities said that speakers in the apartment were set up to blast loud music, so as to lure police in. "If he was shot and killed, it is without a doubt that these ... booby traps were there to murder and inflict casualties upon first responders," a source said. Meanwhile, new details on Holmes's background have painted him as a smart but socially awkward student with an interest in movies and the media who graduated college with a degree in neuroscience. Holmes allegedly dressed up as Batman franchise character the Joker before entering the Aurora theater with an AR-15 assault rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun, and a Glock .40, and opened fire.

The president of the European Central Bank–a key player in the continental crisis–said Saturday that the eurozone is not in danger of splintering, even while analysts predict a coming crack-up. President Mario Draghi pointed to the recently approved financial and budgetary union, and said that Europe's markets should be able to weather the recent debt storm. Asked by French newspaper Le Monde if the common currency could fail, Draghi said "No, absolutely not." The pessimists, he claimed, "don't recognize the political capital that our leaders have invested in this union and Europeans' support. The euro is irreversible."

Courtney Anthony Robinson was taken into custody late-Friday by Los Angeles police, who are investigating him for grisly attacks on three homeless people, all of whom were stabbed in the back and left with rambling "death warrants." The first attack took place on July 3, after citizens reported seeing an elderly man with a long "hunting type" knife sticking out of his back. The man managed to crawl a distance of over 100 yards to find help. This Tuesday, another man was stabbed on a Santa Monica bus bench, and on Thursday, a 54-year-old woman was stabbed with a black kitchen knife.

Police prepared Saturday morning to release the names of the 12 victims of Friday’s shooting. Meanwhile, families of those killed and injured in the tragic melee remembered their loved ones. Among them was the friends and family of Matt Quinn, who died shielding his girlfriend, Samantha Yowler, in the movie theater as havoc engulfed them. Yowler was wounded, but survived. Anita Busch told reporters of her family’s frantic search for news of her cousin, Micayla Medek, who was also among those killed. “We had been desperately trying to find her,” Busch said. Another victim, Alex Sullivan, was an employee at the theater. The married man was enjoying a movie on his night off when his life was taken from him.

Bomb technicians may be less than an hour from entering the apartment of James Holmes, alleged Colorado killer, in order to remotely detonate or defuse the improvised explosive devices believed to be inside. Investigators told CBS that Holmes had filled his apartment with 30 rubber shells filled with a smokeless powder, one of which is being examined by FBI explosives experts. Several tripwires appear to be tied to containers of liquid spread around the apartment. There are about 100 personnel on the scene, from FBI technicians to firefighters to chemists. Authorities have cleared the immediate area.

Suspected Colorado gunman James Holmes was incredibly well-armed. In the past 60 days, reports ABC, he had purchased four guns at local shops and over 6,000 rounds of ammunition online. According to Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates, "All the ammunition he possessed, he possessed legally, all the weapons he possessed, he possessed legally, all the clips he possessed, he possessed legally." The weapons used in the theater shooting Friday were powerful enough to penetrate the walls, hitting at least one other person in an adjacent theater. Holmes was arrested shortly after the violence, while shooting at his car from behind the theater. Authorities haven't identified all of the 12 victims, while 30 remain hospitalized. Counting the injured, the Friday morning attack is the largest mass shooting in American history. "The gunmen never had to reload. Shots just kept going, kept going, kept going," a witness told ABC News.

Violence struck in Pakistan on Saturday, as a bomb exploded in a military compound and rebels raided a coast-guard post with rocket-propelled grenades. The compound bombing, which killed 9 and wounded 20, may have been a mistake, officials told reporters. "We are not sure if a suicide bomber hit the compound or if some militants were assembling a bomb and it accidentally went off," a local government official said. It is not clear if the coast-guard attack was coordinated with the bombing. In southwest Pakistan, men in pickup trucks and motorcycles drove into the outpost firing grenades and assault rifles, killing six. Though the culprits are unknown, much of recent violence has come from ethnic Baluch separatists and local militants allied with al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Parks and Recreation, NBC's faux political comedy set in small-town America, will air a special Beltway episode next week, featuring three notable U.S. senators: John McCain, Olympia Snowe, and Barbara Boxer. The trio will appear in a cocktail party scene with Amy Poehler and Adam Scott. The former Republican presidential nominee is no stranger to the entertainment world: he famously appeared on Saturday Night Live in the midst of his ailing presidential bid.

Internet security experts won a key battle against spam email on Saturday when they were finally able to disable a huge "botnet"–a network of hacked public computers. That network was called "Grum," and it had been used to distribute half of the world's unwanted emails. Its servers, based in the Netherlands and Panama, were first attacked on Wednesday. After Grum's unknown managers restarted the servers using machines in Russia and Ukraine, authorities again attacked, shutting them down for good. It's unclear if the victory will keep more spam out of your inbox, as new botnets aren't difficult to start.

What may be a growing military sexual assault scandal just claimed one of its first convictions. On Friday, Staff Sgt. Luis Walker was convicted of 28 charges, from rape to aggravated sexual contact. From October 2010 to January 2011, Walker assaulted or harassed at least 10 female recruits at Lackland Air Force Base, where 11 other instructors are currently being investigated. Walker will face a dishonorable discharge and a life sentence. According to prosecutors, Walker forced five female recruits into having sex with him by threatening their careers.

A new edition of the authorititative Contemporary Chinese Dictionary does not include a common term for "gay”—the word "tongzhi," which also means "comrade." The word is nowhere to be found in the extensive reference manual. According to the BBC, one of the tome's compilers said it was intentionally removed so as not to draw attention to the colloquial meaning. "You can use the word whichever way you like, but we won't put it into a standard dictionary because we don't want to promote these things," he said on Chinese television. "We don't want to draw attention to these things." Literally, "tongzhi" means "same will," and has been in Chinese parlance for decades, and was especially potent during the Maoist era. Rights campaigners have already criticized the dictionary's decision.

Although the effort to clear out Colorado shooting suspect James Holmes’ explosive-rigged apartment is not yet over, bomb-disposal experts just scored a key victory: disarming a tripwire linked to a major explosive device. The booby trap was set up to kill anyone who came in through the door, Sgt. Cassidee Carlson told the Associated Press. According to witnesses, two explosions rang out while authorities were inside, but no one was hurt. “This is some serious stuff our team is dealing with,” Carlson said. “There is no timeline, there is no end time. We don’t need to rush anything.”

Last month, the president spent twice as much as his opponent on the trail—but the Republican challenger far outraised him. In June, Obama and the DNC spent $70.8 million, much of it on anti-Bain ads, while Romney and the RNC spent $38.8 million, more than double their previous month’s expenditures. But the Republicans have improved their fundraising numbers among small-scale donors, which now make up a third of their cash flow. And the big money keeps rolling in, including a $10 million donation from Sheldon Adelson to the pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future.

According to TMZ, police are investigating a profile created on AdultFriendFinder.com, a popular sex site, to determine whether it may belong to accused Colorado shooter James Holmes. "Will you visit me in prison?" was a message posted on the top of the page. The profile is listed under the name James Holmes and the screen name "classic jimbo," and includes pictures of a man with bright red hair. The profile owner describes himself as "a nice guy. Well, as nice enough of a guy who does these sort of shenanigans." The profile’s owner pegged himself as a heterosexual man seeking a sexual relationship with "women, couples (man and woman)," and "groups or couples (2 women)." Police told TMZ that they are investigating the site.