There's danger on the edge of town
Ride the king's highway, baby
Weird scenes inside the gold mine
Ride the highway west, baby
The Doors, The End

The killer awoke before dawn. He put his American desert boots on. He took a knife from the ancient gallery. And he walked on down the hall - bathed in desert sunlight.

The killer spoke with a British accent (London's East End?) Father (Saud), I want to kill you. Mother (Langley?) I want to...

yeeeaaahh, c'mon!

Then the sartorially composed Man in Black beheaded American photojournalist James Foley.

This is not the end, beautiful friend. It's just a new beginning in the never-ending Global War on Terror. Now starring Papa Saud's brand new bag - The Caliph and his goons. This is the way Shock and Awe morphs into "Assad must go" morphs into Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, morphs into The Caliph's Black Britannia goon responding to "humanitarian" bombing. I'm my own baby now. Watch me work. Bring it on.

Choice scenery. Good sound and vision production values. Careful editing. No unnecessary gore. No blood splattering. No Allahu Akbar shrieks. "A Message to America", indeed - but most of all a message to the Ummah. As in we're the Men in Black badasses. We run The Caliphate. We're no mere death cult; we're winners. And we take no prisoners.

And why did Islamic State, formerly ISIS, become winners? Because the "West" regimented, schooled, trained, logistically helped and weaponized most of IS's Takfiri goons with a mission at hand: to destroy Syria. The "West" lauded them as "Syrian rebels". Freedom fighters.

Washington even promoted Jabhat al-Nusra (the official al-Qaeda franchise in Syria, and a "terrorist organization", according to the State Department) as "good" jihadis, as well as the preferred Saudi combo, the Islamic Front.

No wonder after photojournalist James Foley was kidnapped in November 2012 the Washington-sanctioned version was that he was being kept by "Assad must go" forces in a prison near Damascus.

France President Francois Hollande says his country has recently supplied weapons to the foreign-sponsored Takfiri militants operating against the Syrian government.

The French leader said on Thursday that Paris delivered weapons to the Takfiri terrorists in Syria "a few months ago," stressing, "We should not stop" supporting the anti-Damascus militants.

Hollande also called on the United States and European Union countries to join the campaign and said Paris cannot "go it alone."

In an interview with France's Le Monde daily published on Wednesday, the French president said the international community shoulders a "heavy responsibility" with regards to the turmoil in Syria, which has also spilled over into neighboring Iraq.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart will meet next week for the first time in two months, officials in both countries said, intensifying a diplomatic push that could force Kiev to choose between continuing its military campaign against pro-Russia separatists or making concessions to Moscow to stop the bloodshed.

Calls for a cease-fire from both Russia and Europe are growing louder amid a deepening humanitarian crisis in eastern Ukraine.

But Ukrainian politicians and voters are skeptical of agreeing to a truce now, since doing so could give the rebels the chance to consolidate control over some territory and give Russia long-term influence over their country.

Officials in Kiev said the meeting in Minsk, Belarus, on Aug. 26 could lead toward a peace plan to end the four-month insurgency in eastern Ukraine. In the latest sign of Western support, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would visit Kiev on Saturday, the day before Ukrainian Independence Day.

The Minsk gathering, which will also involve senior European Union officials, will be the first time Mr. Putin has met Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko since a brief encounter in June before the latter took office.

Not content with a regular prosecution or a vigorous investigation, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said he hopes that Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson will receive a "vigorous prosecution" in the shooting death of Michael Brown on Aug. 9.

"A vigorous prosecution must now be pursued," Nixon said in a five minute video address posted to his website Tuesday.

"The democratically elected St. Louis county prosecutor and the attorney general of the United States each have a job to do," said Nixon, a Democrat.

"Their obligation to achieve justice in the shooting death of Michael Brown must be carried out thoroughly, promptly, and correctly," said Nixon of investigators.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder plans to visit Ferguson on Wednesday to meet with federal law enforcement officials and community leaders. Forty FBI investigators traveled to Ferguson over the weekend to interview witnesses.

Nixon has not directly justified his call for a strong prosecution. He has not indicated that he has any information on the shooting that has not been made public.

Saudi Arabia has executed two sets of brothers for hashish-smuggling, bringing the number of those suffering capital punishment to 17 in a fortnight. The crackdown has provoked protest from human rights organizations.

"The recent increase in executions in Saudi Arabia is a deeply disturbing deterioration. The authorities must act immediately to halt this cruel practice," said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme.

"The death penalty is always wrong, and it is against international law to use it in cases involving non-lethal crimes and where evidence used to convict the person is based on 'confessions' extracted as a result of torture."

The four men, two sets of brothers - Hadi bin Saleh Abdullah al-Mutlaq and Awad bin Saleh Abdullah al-Mutlaq, and Mufrih bin Jaber Zayd al-Yami and Ali bin Jaber Zayd al-Yami - were first detained back in 2007.

America's second largest lender has reached a $16.65 billion settlement with US federal authorities for selling toxic mortgages misleading investors, the Justice Department said Thursday.

"This historic resolution - the largest such settlement on record - goes far beyond 'the cost of doing business,'" Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement posted on the US Justice Department website on Thursday.

The bank will pay out $9.65 billion in cash and $7 billion for consumer relief - such as modified home loans and refinanced mortgages.

"Under the terms of this settlement, the bank has agreed to pay $7 billion in relief to struggling homeowners, borrowers, and communities affected by the bank's conduct. This is appropriate given the size and scope of the wrongdoing at issue," the statement says.

The bank has agreed to pay a $5 billion 'civil penalty' to settle claims under the Financial Institutions Reform and Recovery Enforcement Act (FIRREA), a federal law introduced after the loan crisis in the 1980s.

Who is Vladimir Putin and why is he demonized by Western governments and media? At the same time, he is wildly popular among Russians and admired around the world. What explains this contradiction? CrossTalking with Alexander Mercouris, Don DeBar and Edward Lozansky.

A Republican aide claims the federal agency can't overturn state restrictions.
If Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler wants to stop states from blocking city-run broadband, he'll likely have to override Republican opposition to do it.

In a speech Wednesday, a top Republican FCC aide argued that the agency lacks the authority to overturn state laws on the issue. More than 20 states, at the behest of cable and telecom industry lobbyists, have restricted the ability of cities to build their own broadband networks.

Matthew Berry, the chief of staff to Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, argued that cities and towns are just "appendages" of state governments. States are free to restrict local policy-making as they see fit, Berry argued.

He acknowledged that the federal government can preempt state laws, but only through a "clear statement" from Congress. Without that congressional authorization, the FCC can't take action, Berry said.

The Republican aide implied that Wheeler is only contemplating action on the issue as a way to tamp down liberal outrage over his proposal for weaker net-neutrality regulations.

Serbia is focusing on the fight against attempts to re-export banned food products to Russia, a representative of Serbia's Chamber of Commerce (CCI) told RIA Novosti.

Serbia is one of the few European countries not affected by an embargo on the import of food products which Russia introduced in response to Western sanctions. The list of banned items includes beef, pork, vegetables, fruits, poultry, cheese, nuts, dairy among others.

However, there is information that dozens of manufacturers from EU countries, including Poland, are trying to circumvent the ban by putting their products on the Russian market under the guise of being Serbian.

Brazilian farmers are asking Monsanto and other producers of pest-resistant corn seeds to reimburse them for money spent on additional pesticides when the bugs killed the crops instead of dying themselves.

The so-called BT corn seeds are genetically modified to produce an insecticide that will kill the corn leafworm (also known as the southern grassworm). After the insect eats the corn, the toxin inside paralyzes the insect's digestive system, forming a hole in the gut wall. This forces the bug to stop eating within a few hours, and subsequently starve to death, according to a Colorado State University fact sheet. The GMO seeds are produced by four major manufacturers: Dow Agrosciences, DuPont, Monsanto and Sygenta AG.

In Brazil, however, the farmers say that the seeds did not deliver as promised.