Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) appears to be living quite the life - at least judging by his Instagram. Despite the congressman locking down his account earlier this year and switching it to private, he has still continued to post photos from his adventures around the world.

Here is Rep. Schock's incredible past year, as told by his Instagram account.

The federal government is planning a major revision of the Racial Discrimination Act, removing the provisions that make it an offence to "offend, insult and humiliate", while introducing an offence of "vilification" on the grounds of race, and widening the exemptions for public debate.

The draft amendments immediately gave rise to a fierce debate. The shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said they were liable "to give a green light to some forms of racism". The amendments will be open for public comment for a month.

The prime minister, Tony Abbott, told parliament the government deplored racism. "We want to maintain the red light for bigotry but remove the amber light for free speech," Abbott said. "All of us deplore racism. We deplore bigotry. We want all of us to be our best selves."

The Latest and Biggest Battle Between East and West Converges in the Ukraine

There have been many wars - terrible wars - fought on Planet Earth over the past 100 years. However, the greatest war of them all could literally be around the corner, unless it is stopped by the people of this planet. The epic confrontation in the Ukraine presents the most dangerous and unprecedented conflict between the world's superpowers since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Truly, this clash between East and West represents an economic, political and religious battleground that will dwarf every other war save WWI and WWII. If the conflict in the Ukraine is not resolved peacefully, it has the potential of evolving into a full blown World War III scenario.

That may sound like hyperbole until you read what is truly at stake for both sides of this War of the Titans. There is a very serious settling of scores going on with this intensifying skirmish that has multiple roots in history. On the one side, the real perpetrators want to get even as they so often do. On the other side, there is the inexorable force of destiny which compels them to assume a courageous stance toward a seemingly intractable situation.

The Ukraine conflict is fundamentally a war between East and West, between radically different cultures, different races, different religious orientations, and between very different people. Because of the profound lack of understanding on the part of the West, as well as the desperate agenda which they are fully committed to, it appears that this war will play out in some fashion no matter what. That doesn't mean the world will once again be drenched in a hail of bullets and bombs. The post-modern battlefield often migrates into the economic sectors and financial realms, as this one has with the imposition of the Anglo-American sanction regime.

The United States pretends to be a home of freedom and democracy. In fact, the US is rapidly degenerating into a police state and a worse dystopia than George Orwell imagined in his book, 1984.

John W. Whitehead describes below the prison that is being constructed for all of us. This prison is the work of many of our fellow citizens including scientists and entrepreneurs who have gained fame and fortune creating a prison for mankind. What were they thinking as they threw their energy and their lives into constructing a police state dystopia?

While Crimea has already had a referendum, the situation in other Ukrainian regions is still unstable. People want their voices to be heard and are demanding a vote. RT managed to get footage from people living in various cities in southeastern Ukraine. Many of the videos and interviews you will see in this film have never been shown on television.

Numerous US agents are helping the coup-appointed government in Ukraine to "fight organized crime" in the south east of the country, the German newspaper Bild revealed.

According to the daily, the CIA and FBI are advising the government in Kiev on how to deal with the 'fight against organized crime' and stop the violence in the country's restive eastern regions.

The group also helps to investigate alleged financial crimes and is trying to trace the money, which was reportedly taken abroad during Viktor Yanokovich's presidency, the newspaper said.

The head of the CIA, John Brennan, visited Kiev in mid-April and met with the acting Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and first Vice-President Vitaly Yarema to discuss a safer way to transfer US information to Ukraine.

I was there, in the burning trade union house building. I almost suffocated... the fire brigade was taking an inexcusably long to arrive, about 20 minutes had passed, I guess it was not a coincidence. The absolute absence of the police was no coincidence either. I was helped to escape from the building by people without uniform - apparently they were ordinary civilians. The fire brigade still hadn't arrived.

The only reason there were people in that people in that building was because the "ultras" and other "Ukrainian patriots" were attacking the people from all sides with sticks, stones, chains and Molotov cocktails. There was no other place to go to escape their brutality. The people ran into the building and were trapped. The people I saw in the building were very poorly armed: sticks, bats, plank fragments, that was it. No guns or anything like that. There were many women and old people there also, they had come to downtown Odessa to offer medical help, as a doctor, I was one of them. (I emphasize: there were no military professionals, mercenaries or foreigners!).

Very soon Molotov cocktails were thrown into the window of the building, the corridor caught fire. There was a fire extinguisher, but it was completely useless against the rapidly spreading flames. Eleven of us hid in one of the rooms, everything was pitch black because of the acrid, dense smoke. Everyone dropped to the floor where some breathable air remained. Next to me there were people, groaning and praying, others trying to reach their relatives on the phone and pleading with them to call the fire brigade. At least there was an open window in our room, through which some fresh air came. The situation in the corridor was infinitely worse. We were shouting, screaming for help. None came. Later my relatives told me that either nobody from the fire brigade picked up the phone or the line was continuously busy..

After about twenty minutes a rope was thrown to us, we tied it up to a radiator and the people slowly started to climb down. Ordinary people had climbed up on to the cornices of the building and were helping us to climb down because there was a serious risk of falling. I couldn't see if anybody came down behind me, all I remember was that we heard a mobile phone ringing inside the building behind us, but its owner wasn't answering.

When I reached the ground I was given some water, the same "Maidan supporters" that had started this murderous fire began to harass me, but I managed to escape before more of these "Europe and "Democracy lovers" arrived and started to beat the people who had just narrowly missed being burned alive.

... For the first time in my life I wanted to leave Odessa and Ukraine for good

A Satanist statue cast in bronze is just months away from completion, and activists hope that it will find a home on the lawn of the Oklahoma State Capitol. Ultimately, the statue - which features the seven-foot tall, horned figure of Baphomet fawned upon by two exultant children - is intended to stand directly next to a highly controversial monument of the ten commandments that was donated by a state legislator in 2012 and subsequently placed on the grounds of the Capitol.

The pagan Baphomet figure, complete with a goat head, angel wings, and a beard, comes from a recently-formed New York group identifying as The Satanic Temple, which raised over $28,000 on Indiegogo earlier this year to commission a sculptor and create the piece. Satanic Temple spokesperson Lucian Greaves tells ABC News that the statue is a symbol to "celebrate our progress as a pluralistic nation founded on secular law."

Ukraine has launched a military assault on the flashpoint town of Slavyansk, raising the stakes in the showdown with Russia, which has promised "catastrophic consequences" if Kiev stepped up operations.

Insurgents shot down two army helicopters, killing two servicemen, including a pilot, as the army tightened its noose around the rebel-held town of 160,000 people.

The predawn offensive drew a sharp response from Moscow, where a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin said it dealt a "final blow" to a deal clinched last month in Geneva meant to ease the crisis.

A spokeswoman for insurgents in Slavyansk, the epicentre of tensions in eastern Ukraine, said the army had staged a "full-scale attack" on the town.

An AFP reporter on the scene saw a column of eight armoured vehicles breaching a rebel-held checkpoint just south of Slavyansk and heard explosions and sporadic small arms fire as helicopters circled overhead.

Deadly street fighting, helicopters shot down and civilians being used as human shields.

That was the picture that emerged Friday in southern Ukraine as violence escalated amid reports that dozens of people were killed in a fire and still more were shot dead or wounded in street fighting, raising the question of whether the country can stave off a possible civil war.

The violence -- pitting pro-Russian separatists against Ukrainian forces and those who support the government in Kiev -- prompted an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, with Russia demanding an end to what it called Ukrainian aggression and Western powers accusing Moscow of funding the violence.

Russia and the West have squared off diplomatically over the fate of Ukraine, after Moscow annexed Crimea in March following the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. He was pushed from office after months of protests by people upset that he had turned away from Europe in favor of Russia.