Protesters have gathered in front of the central government in Veneto, Italy to demand an immediate referendum on the region's independence from Rome. The reason is mainly economic, according to the rally's organizer.

Demonstrators are presenting the local government with a resolution which demands an immediate referendum for the region to become its own country.

The new territory would include Venice, the surrounding region of Veneto, and parts of Lombardy, Trentino and Friuli-Venezia Giulia.

The rally, which was organized by the separatist Indipendenza Veneta party, drew large numbers of energetic protesters.

"The situation here is almost explosive, so today we have thousands of people who have gathered in front of the regional government and we're going to present to them a resolution signed by thousands of participants to have a referendum for independence," Chairman of the separatist Indipendenza Veneta Party, Lodovico Pizzati, told RT.

The territory would be known as the "Repubblica Veneta," and would consist of around five million people. It's a move that an overwhelming 70 per cent of local residents support, according to a poll conducted by local newspaper Il Gazzettino.

"The main reason is economic. We are in a situation worse than a colony because the tax rate in Italy is the highest the world and our services are extremely poor. We have 20 billion euros missing from our regional resources each year and that's unbearable," Pizzati said.

Troubles continue to mount for American Airlines, which was forced to cancel 44 flights Friday as it scrambles to fix seats in its Boeing 757s that could pop loose during flight.

The nation's third biggest airline announced that 44 flights are canceled on Friday. Fifty flights were canceled Thursday.

Airline officials said late Thursday that they had come up with a fix for the seats, and they began pulling 48 Boeing 757s out of service to make repairs. All the planes should be back in service by Saturday.

Officials said a combination of wear, poor design and even soda spilled into the tracks can cause seats to become loose during flight.

The loose seats are one of many problems facing the troubled airline.

Phoenix, Arizona - Friendly fire likely was to blame in a shooting near the Arizona-Mexico line that killed one federal agent and wounded another, the FBI said, noting the investigation was still ongoing in the case that reignited the political debate over border security.

"There are strong preliminary indications that the death of United States Border Patrol Agent Nicholas J. Ivie and the injury to a second agent was the result of an accidental shooting incident involving only the agents," FBI Special Agent in Charge James L. Turgal Jr. said in a statement Friday.

Turgal said the FBI is using "all necessary investigative, forensic and analytical resources" as it investigates the Tuesday shooting about five miles north of the border near Bisbee.

Ivie, 30, was killed after he and two other agents responded to an alarm triggered by a sensor aimed at detecting smugglers and others entering the U.S. illegally. Another agent was wounded, and released from a hospital after surgery; the third agent was uninjured.

Federal investigators used ballistic testing to determine that the shootings likely resulted from friendly fire, according to the Cochise County Sheriff's Office, which is assisting the FBI in the probe.

A spokesman for the Ivie family said how the agent died changes little.

In a tragic and bizarre incident a University of Alabama student who was naked has been fatally shot after charging a campus police officer early on Saturday morning.

University officials said that the confrontation occurred after the officer went outside the police station to investigate a banging noise that was coming from his office window.

Confronted with 18-year-old Gilbert Thomas Collar who was acting erratically and wearing no clothes, the officer shot the student once in the chest after he repeatedly charged.

Authorities said that the officer attempted to retreat several times in an attempt to defuse the situation but that the officer was left with no choice but to shoot when Collar made one final charge.

Collar, who had only recently enrolled at the University of South Alabama was shot at 1.30 a.m. on Saturday moening outside the USA Police Department on Stadium Drive .

Keith Ayers, a university spokesman, spoke to the media to announced the student's identity, but would not speculate as yet whether the student was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Beijing, China - A labour watch group says thousands of workers at a Chinese factory that makes Apple's iPhones have gone on strike over increased quality control demands and having to work during an extended national holiday.

New York-based China Labor Watch says several iPhone 5 production lines at Foxconn's Zhengzhou factory are paralyzed after 3,000-4,000 workers went on strike after finding the new demands difficult to meet. They're also angry they were being forced to work during the Golden Week holiday.

Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group manufactures iPhones in China. The iPhone 5 debuted in September.

China Labor Watch says workers beat quality control inspectors, who also carried out a work stoppage after management ignored their complaints.

Last month, a brawl involving 2,000 workers broke out at Foxconn's factory in China's Taiyuan city.

Source: The Associated Press and The Canadian Press

A terminally ill bank manager with brain cancer has made her last wishes clear - she wants to die.

Grace Sung Eun Lee even managed to vocalise her wishes, telling her parents and the doctors tending to her: 'I want to die.'

But because the 28-year-old's parents are deeply religious and belong to a Korean Christian church in Queens, they believe that allowing her daughter to choose death over life is a sin.

The rift in beliefs has led to an agonising legal battle for the family.

Speaking with the New York Daily News, Ms Lee's mother, Jin-ah Lee, said: 'Despite all this confusion, (my daughter) wants to go to heaven. I keep telling her she can get better.'

Her daughter is currently at Long Island North Shore Hospital, hooked up to breathing tubes that are keeping her alive. She is paralysed from the neck down due to the tumour on her brain stem.

Bees at a cluster of apiaries in northeastern France have been producing honey in mysterious shades of blue and green, alarming their keepers who now believe residue from containers of M&M's candy processed at a nearby biogas plant is the cause.

Since August, beekeepers around the town of Ribeauville in the region of Alsace have seen bees returning to their hives carrying unidentified colourful substances that have turned their honey unnatural shades.

Mystified, the beekeepers embarked on an investigation and discovered that a biogas plant 4 kilometres away has been processing waste from a Mars plant producing M&M's, bite-sized candies in bright red, blue, green, yellow and brown shells.

U.S. Rep. Paul Broun's view that the theories of evolution and the big bang are "lies straight from the pit of Hell" is getting more exposure than he might have expected, thanks to a video above that was made at a church-sponsored banquet in Georgia and distributed by a progressive political watchdog group.

The Georgia Republican is already well-known as an outspoken conservative Christian, due in part to his unsuccessful campaign to have 2010 declared "the Year of the Bible." But the latest comments have taken on an extra dab of controversy because Broun, a medical doctor, calls himself a scientist in the video and chairs the House Science Committee's panel on investigations and oversight.

America, you have become a nation of enablers and apologists for tyranny and mass murder. You condemn the Nazi and gulag guards of times past even as you celebrate your own mercenaries and torturers, even as you explain away, if not outright cheer, the unspeakable crimes committed by your sons and daughters. You don't care who you kill, as long as your soldiers are paid, and your munitions, bomb and tank factories are humming.

Safely ensconced in academic luna parks, your leading intellectuals lean slightly right or left, but never enough to rock this blazing gunboat, lest they sour the cocktail parties or, god forbid, have their tenure revoked. Mouths stuffed with antipasti, they're expert at sidestepping Israel's prolific crimes, 9/11, Bin Laden's faux death or the parasitic Federal Reserve, and as another joke election nears, they're all gung ho about candidates who back illegal wars and banking frauds, since each is supposedly the lesser of two evils.

For the past five presidential elections, winning candidates have won 52.9%, 50.7%, 47.9%, 49.2% and 43% of the popular votes respectively, so there hasn't been an overwhelming mandate for any of them, but with the runner ups from the other major party often close behind, and in 2000, actually ahead in the popular vote count, the two-party system has gotten a stranglehold on our public life and pocketbooks. As for our senators, only two are not Democrat or Republican. An American election, then, is basically a rigged referendum for this thoroughly corrupt and murderous system, and simply by voting, you will give it the green light to go on killing and looting. Every four years, we're railroaded into sanctioning endless war and bottomless corruption. If disappointed, we're then steered by our brainwashing and dumbing down media to a near clone of our current rapist.

The Good Old Party spooks the upper and middle classes by threatening, If you don't vote for us, the Dems will take your hard-earned cash and give it to the freeloaders, crackheads and other miscellaneous losers, while the Democrats, in turn, scare the lower rungs by snarling, If you don't vote for us, the Republicans will let your retired, diapered ass rot under a bridge, on a piece of cardboard, but lordy, lordy, lordy, it is already happening, but let us not sweat the details.

For the first time in Walmart's 50-year history, workers at multiple stores have gone on strike, even though their jobs are not protected by a labor union.

More than 70 Los Angeles Walmart workers from nine stores walked off the job Thursday, workers and labor organizers told The Huffington Post.

About 250 workers and supporters protested outside the Pico Rivera Walmart store, carrying signs that read, "On Strike for the Freedom to Speak Out" and "Walmart Strike Against Retaliation." The workers said their complaints about working conditions and low pay have been met with threats, suspensions and terminations.

The strikers said they plan to return to work Friday. Some of the workers will speak at LA City Hall Friday to relay Walmart's response to the strike. The strike was coordinated by OUR Walmart, a labor group backed by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) that defends Walmart workers' rights.

Walmart spokesman Dan Fogleman told HuffPost that the protest was insignificant and claimed that less than five workers walked off the job. "This rally is just the latest publicity stunt by the UFCW to seek media attention in order to further their political agenda and financial objectives," he said. "Our stores in the community are staffed up and open for business as usual today. This event is not a factor," he added.

Walmart workers have recently filed more than 20 charges of unfair labor practices across the country with the National Labor Relation Board, according to Dan Schlademan, director of Making Change at Walmart, the campaign behind OUR Walmart. The charges, mostly filed in recent weeks, allege that workers have either been fired or had their hours reduced after activity with OUR Walmart. Workers also allege that they have been told not to talk to OUR Walmart organizers and that doing so could shut down stores, leaving employees without a job, Schlademan told HuffPost.