Two Swiss Air Force jets have been scrambled to escort an El Al Boeing 747 en route from New York to Tel Aviv after an anonymous tip-off about a bomb on board, according to Haaretz. The flight landed safely at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport.

The two F/A-18 fighter jets escorted the El Al plane through Switzerland's airspace from the French border, the Swiss Air Force said in a statement.

El Al flight LY002 was flying over the Swiss-French border when the fighter jets were scrambled, according to the Jerusalem Post. Once the flight had crossed Swiss airspace, the F-18s returned to their bases and the airplane continued as planned.

Flight tracking website FlightRadar24.com indicated the plane landed in Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport at 12:44pm local time. El Al released a statement saying no explosive device was found on board, the Jewish Press reported later in the day, citing Israel Radio.

The El Al Boeing 747 was checked for explosives after landing safely at Ben Gurion Airport, according to Haaretz, citing Israel's Foreign Ministry. "An examination showed the plane was 'clean'," it said.

The ministry added the anonymous tip about a bomb "inside an airplane kitchenette" was received by the US aviation body, which notified Swiss authorities "while the plane was in [Switzerland's] airspace, and the Swiss scrambled fighter jets to escort the plane."

In India, economic development and modernity have transformed livelihoods into deadlihoods. They are wiping out millennia-old livelihoods that were ways of life with no sharp division between work and leisure, and replacing them with dreary assembly line jobs where we wait desperately for weekends and holidays.

Economic progress, we are told, is about moving from primary sector jobs to manufacturing and services. And so the livelihoods that keep all of us alive - farming, forestry, pastoralism, fisheries, and related crafts - are considered backward.

In India, this marginalizes 700 million-800 million people, two-thirds of its population.

The results? Horrendous ones like thousands of farmers' suicides in the last decade; or the displacement by so-called 'development projects' of 60 million people from their farms, forests, and coasts.

Less visible is the pauperization of many others deprived of the natural resources they depend on, as their lands and waters get taken away for industry, infrastructure and cities. Entire new forms of poverty are being created by development.

When I was young, America still existed. No more. Not even the blather from the 4th of July can hide the obvious fact.

The young do not know that they have lost their country, because they are born into a time when the country is lost. To them that is normalcy.

Besides, the young are too busy texting and describing themselves, often intimately, on social media to be aware of the fate that awaits them, lost as they are in their insouciance.

When I was young, the police were the public's friends. We could count on them to help us, not abuse us. False arrest was rare. Abuse of citizens even rarer. Today both are routine.

Over the years I have written about the transformation of the police from protectors of the public into abusers of the public.

Over these years I have received many letters from former policemen who write that they gave up their profession out of disgust of the corruption and unaccountable brutality, or as a result of fear that they would be forced to participate in the corruption or become a victim of it.

Pope Francis has criticized countries that talk of wanting peace in Syria, yet continue to supply arms to the warring sides.

The Pope did not name any names, but said in a video message to a charity group holding a conference on Syria: "While the people suffer, incredible quantities of money are being spent to supply weapons to fighters. And some of the countries supplying these arms are also among those that talk of peace.

"How can you believe in someone who caresses you with the right hand and strikes you with the left hand?" he added.

According to international estimates, the war in Syria, currently in its fifth year, has claimed more than 400,000 lives, and a further 11 million have been displaced. As a conflict, it has created the biggest international refugee crisis since World War II.

On the 4th of July, countless Facebook users donned their digital pitchforks and torches and praised the arrest and felony charge against 22-year-old Bryton Mellott. His crime? Posting a picture of himself with a burning American flag.

A short time after he posted the photo on Facebook, Mellott was swarmed with online attacks and threats from countless individuals who have no concept of freedom of speech. Shortly after the threats to Mellott began pouring in, the Urbana police department's phone began ringing of the hook with calls for his arrest — so police responded.

Sgt. Andrew Charles, with the Urbana police told the News Gazette they arrested Mellott because of all the threats against him and his place of employment, Wal-Mart.

Independence, liberty, freedom. Ideas worth celebrating, for sure, only intangible constructs of the human mind, therefore, their meanings can change along with the times. And since people are extremely adaptable creatures, we rapidly normalize to ever-evolving societal and cultural conditions and values. What people consider to be 'freedom' today, is nothing similar to what it was even a couple of generations ago.

Here are 4 celebrated, historic liberties that people have long enjoyed, yet are undergoing a dramatic metamorphosis in an evolving world.

1. ) The Freedom to Travel

The idea that human beings should be free to roam the earth without permission or threat is now dated. Prior to the 1930's you needn't a driver's license to operate a motor vehicle or carriage in America. Traveling without a passport used to be commonplace as well.

A derailed train has spilled approximately 1,000 gallons of sodium hydroxide in San Antonio, Texas, according to reports. The train was carrying 60,000 gallons of the poisonous, highly-corrosive chemical. A nearby area was temporarily evacuated.

Five train cars overturned on Sunday afternoon, according to the San Antonio Express-News, near the intersection of Loop 410 and Interstate 35. As many as 6,000 people were evacuated from Traders Village, a large flea market and carnival area just south of Lackland Air Force Base.

The United States flag is the most violent symbol in the world. It makes me feel sick, and ashamed.

"It's almost impossible to find space to heal when the [divorced spouse] US flag is stuck on the side of every business, bumper, and flagpole in sight." - Three Tour Afghanistan Veteran Jacob George

I was probably seven years old before it really sunk in that everybody in my town was not really celebrating my birthday on July 4. It was an exciting day with parades, picnics, fireworks and, in my case, special birthday parties and gifts. I lived much of my young life with the extra boost of having been born on the day that our earliest political framers supposedly signed the Declaration of Independence, an historical act of defiance against monarchial colonial rule from distant England. I remember proudly carrying the U.S. American flag in one of the July 4th parades in my small, agricultural town in upstate New York. And for years I felt goosebumps looking at Old Glory waving in the breeze during the playing of the national anthem or as it passed by in a parade. How lucky I was to have been born in the greatest country in the history of the world, and blessed by God to boot. Such a blessing, such a deal!

It wasn't until many years later, while reading an issue of the armed forces newspaper Stars and Stripes in Vietnam that I began thinking and feeling differently about the flag and what it represents. There was a story about an arrest and jailing for flag burning somewhere in the United States. I had recently experienced the horror of seeing numerous bodies of young women and children that were burned alive in a small Delta village devastated by napalm. Since the pilots had "successfully" hit their targets, they were feeling good and had received glowing reports that would bode well in their military record for promotions. I wondered why it was okay to burn innocent human beings 9,000 miles from my home town, but not okay to burn a piece of cloth that was symbolic of the U.S. policies intentionally burning villagers to death with napalm. Something was terribly wrong with the Cold War rhetoric of fighting communism that made me question what our nation stood for. There was a grand lie, an American myth that was being fraudulently preserved under the cloak of our flag.

A picture of a tired-looking Jeremy Corbyn standing on a London bus has resurfaced, sparking a passionate online debate about the Labour leader's future.

The photograph was taken in August last year, long before the Labour leader faced a motion of no confidence and two thirds of his party launched a coup against him.

It was uploaded to Facebook again on Saturday evening by Amar Alam and has since gone viral for a second time.

"This is Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, not in a Rolls Royce or another fancy car, but rather on a public bus home after a long day of campaigning," Alam wrote.

"He has the lowest expenses of any Parliamentarian and lives by the very principles he talks about, unlike most politicians, including the 172 MPs that stabbed him in the back," he added.

Police: 3 attacks may be linked

Authorities in San Diego say there may be an assailant burning and attacking homeless people in their sleep. Two men are dead and one is lying in a hospital bed with life-threatening injuries after a string of deadly attacks during a 25 hour period in San Diego County, authorities said.

On Sunday morning, police received several 911 calls from witnesses saying they saw a man on fire, running down the train tracks alongside Interstate 5, according to CNN affiliate KSWB. The charred body of a male was later found so badly burned that authorities couldn't tell whether he had suffered any trauma prior to being set ablaze, San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokesman Lee Swanson said. At about the same time, witnesses reported seeing another man in his late 40s to early 50s darting across the freeway away from the train tracks carrying a gas can, said Lt. Manny Del Toro with the San Diego Police.

Two similarly brutal attacks took place early Monday morning, police say.

Authorities found two victims in different locations with severe trauma injuries to the torso, according to a San Diego Police Department statement. One of the two died before authorities arrived on scene.