Santa Clara, California - The discovery of life beyond Earth would shake up our view of humanity's place in the universe, but it probably wouldn't seriously threaten organized religion, experts say.

Religious faith remains strong in much of the world despite scientific advances showing that Earth is not the center of the universe, and that our planet's organisms were not created in their present form but rather evolved over billions of years. So it's likely that religion would also weather any storms caused by the detection of E.T., researchers say.

"I think there are reasons that we might initially think there are going to be some problems," said Doug Vakoch, director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, Calif. "My own hunch is they're probably not going to be as severe as we might initially think."

Vakoch spoke Sunday (June 24) at the SETICon 2 conference, in a panel discussion called "Would Discovering ET Destroy Earth's Religions?"

Three years ago, Mirko and Regina Ceska of Crawfordville, FLA told former Gov. Charlie Crist their two adopted 12-year-olds had been prescribed 11 pills a day, including the powerful antipsychotic Seroquel, reported the Tampa Bay Times. "These girls were overdosed and would fall asleep right in front of us several times a day," Mirko Ceska told Crist at an "Explore Adoption Day'' event. "It seems to be a prerequisite for foster children to be on medication," said Ceska, calling the pills "chemical restraint."

The couple's remarks came on the heels of the suicide of Gabriel Myers, a 7-year-old in Florida foster care who was prescribed psychiatric drugs, including Symbyax, not approved for children because of links to suicidal thinking. More than 15 percent of 20,000 foster care children in Florida are medicated, says the Times and doctors and case managers treating medicated 6- and 7-year-olds "routinely failed to complete legally required treatment plans, share information or properly document the prescribing of powerful psychiatric drugs."

Now, less than a year after passage of the Child and Family Services Improvement and Innovation Act which sought to improve protocols for psychotropic medications in children, three government agencies--the Administration for Children and Families, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration--are convening a meeting with hundreds of state officials to address medication guidelines on August 27 and 28.

"This is an urgent issue, and child-centered organizations and individuals need to let state and federal administrators, Congress and state legislators know that it needs immediate action," says Edward Opton, a psychologist and lawyer involved in child welfare issues. "The medical literature shows no studies of the long-term effects of antipsychotic drugs on children, including drugs for so-called conduct disorder, the condition for which they are most frequently prescribed to children. There are no data on drugged vs. undrugged children with respect to completion of school, employment, early pregnancy, imprisonment, or subjective quality of life as evaluated by the children or by anyone else."

Another online scandal has been gathering pace recently. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, deleted an article by a Russian researcher, who wrote about the USA's losses in the Great Depression of 1932-1933. Indignant bloggers began to actively distribute the article on the Russian part of a popular blog service known as Livejournal. The above-mentioned article triggered a heated debate.

The researcher touched upon quite a hot topic in the article - the estimation of the number of victims of the Great Depression in the USA. The material presented in the article apparently made Wikipedia's moderators delete the piece from the database of the online encyclopedia.

The researcher, Boris Borisov, in his article titled "The American Famine" estimated the victims of the financial crisis in the US at over seven million people. The researcher also directly compared the US events of 1932-1933 with Holodomor, or Famine, in the USSR during 1932-1933.

In the article, Borisov used the official data of the US Census Bureau. Having revised the number of the US population, birth and date rates, immigration and emigration, the researcher came to conclusion that the United States lost over seven million people during the famine of 1932-1933.

A form of genetically modified grass is being cited as the likely culprit in the sudden death of a herd of cattle in Central Texas, according to CBS News.

Preliminary tests revealed that the grass, an altered form of Bermuda grass known as Tifton 85, had mysteriously begun producing cyanide gas. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are conducting further tests to determine if some sort of mutation caused the grass to suddenly begin giving off the deadly gas.

The cattle died roughly three weeks ago while grazing on a ranch in Elgin, Texas, about 20 miles east of Austin. According to the ranch's owner, Jerry Abel, the cattle began howling shortly after being let out to graze one day. Fifteen of his eighteen cattle died, all of them in a matter of hours.

I have to say that this event, which is being labeled a "training exercise", makes very little sense to me. U.S. Army troops all the way from Maryland running open exercises in armored personnel carriers on the busy streets of St. Louis?

I know Maryland is a small state, but is there really not enough room at Ft. Detrick to accommodate a tank column and some troops? Are there not entire fake neighborhood and town complexes built with taxpayer dollars on military bases across the country meant to facilitate a realistic urban environment for troops to train in? And why travel hundreds of miles to Missouri? At the very least, this is a massive waste of funds.

On the other hand, such an action on the part of the Department of Defense makes perfect sense if the goal is to acclimate citizens to the idea of seeing tanks and armed military acting in a policing capacity. Just check out the two random idiots the local news affiliate picked to interview in St. Louis on the subject. Both state that they think the exercise is a "great idea", because having the military on the streets would help to "reduce crime".

Islamist Mohamed Morsy was declared Egypt's first freely elected president on Sunday, sparking joy among his Muslim Brotherhood supporters on the streets who vowed to continue a struggle to take power from the generals who retain ultimate control.

Morsy defeated former general Ahmed Shafik in a run-off last weekend by a convincing 3.5 percentage points, or nearly 900,000 votes, taking 51.7 percent of the total, officials said, ending a week of disputes over the count which left nerves frayed.

He succeeds Hosni Mubarak, who was overthrown 16 months ago after a popular uprising. The military council which has ruled the biggest Arab nation since then has this month curbed the powers of the presidency, meaning the head of state will have to work closely with the army on a planned democratic constitution.

Brotherhood officials, speaking as supporters turned Cairo's Tahrir Square into a roaring sea of flags and chants of "Allahu akbar!" (God is greatest), said they would press on with protest vigils to demand that the ruling military council cancel this month's dissolution of the Islamist-led parliament and a decree which gave the generals powers that will restrict the president.

The latest in a string of "zombie" like attacks happened in a Manatee County home Wednesday night after a man under the influence went into a fit of rage and bit a piece of someone's arm off during a visit with his children.

Much like the Miami face-eating attack, 26-year-old Charles Baker got naked, ate human flesh and wouldn't go down without a fight, according to a Manatee County Sheriff's Office report.

Authorities say Baker went to his girlfriend's home on 25th St in Palmetto to visit his kids at 10:15 p.m. They say he was high on an unknown substance when he knocked on the door, then barged in, began yelling and taking off his clothes.

He was screaming and wouldn't calm down, then began throwing furniture around the home. Jeffery Blake, who lives in the home, attempted to restrain Baker, but the suspect bit him, taking a chunk of his flesh from his bicep. Blake, 48, was able to get Baker to the ground and kept him there until two deputies arrived.

When law enforcement came inside, Blake released Baker. Baker got up, but would not respond to deputies orders. The suspect instead faced the deputies, tensing his body, clenching his fists and screaming.

At least four people were injured when the roof of a shopping mall in Ontario, Canada, collapsed Saturday afternoon, officials said.

The roof was used for parking at the two-story Algo Centre Mall in Elliot Lake, about 335 miles northwest of Toronto. CBC News quoted a witness as saying cars had plunged through the roof.

"You can see the roof with the cars hanging inside," Joe Drazil, identified as a Zellers employee at the mall, told the CBC.

Mayor Rick Hamilton told CBC that four people were taken to the hospital. A fire official reached by Reuters said emergency workers were still searching for possible victims.

Mall manager Rhonda Bear told CBC News that repairs had been done to the roof over the last year, but not "any huge structural repairs" to the part that collapsed. She also told CBC that the mall owners, Toronto-based Eastwood Mall Inc., ordered a structural study a month ago that she said turned up nothing.

But the CBC said the Elliot Lake Standard newspaper has reported that the mall had had roof leaks for years.

This article includes reporting by Reuters.

Hemet, California - Authorities say an employee at a fast-food drive-thru window in Southern California stabbed a customer after a dispute over his order.

A Riverside County sheriff's statement Friday said the man complained about his order to 28-year-old Gabriel Villalba, who worked at Del Taco in Hemet, shortly before 2 a.m. Thursday.

The statement says the confrontation escalated until Villalba stabbed the customer in the abdomen with a knife.

The customer, whose name was not released, was driven to the hospital by friends. His injury is serious but not considered fatal.

Villalba was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and is being held on $25,000 bail.

Deputies did not know if he had hired an attorney and there were no local phone listings in Villalba's name.

Deerfield, New York - The murder-suicide that took place Friday in Deerfield may have been a premeditated, planned shooting by 27-year-old Thomas M. Anderson as a result of the break-up with his girlfriend and mother of his daughter, 23-year-old Kylie Turczyn, according to New York State Police.


State Police also say the couple's four-year-old daughter was in the home at the time of the murder and witnessed the events. Authorities say they interviewed the girl and were impressed at her composure after witnessing the shooting, describing her as "brave."

New York State Police Captain Mark Lincoln said the four-year-old's interview was key into establishing a timeline of events. Police said that the girl spent some time Friday at the Child Advocacy Center but were not sure where she was staying Friday night.

Authorities say that Anderson and Turczyn were formerly involved romantically and broke up around November of 2011, to the best of their knowledge.