Despite what Israeli leaders may have you believe, Islamic fundamentalism is not the driving force behind the latest violence.

"Say a prayer before leaving your house, dress in your best clothing. Brush your hair well, and smile for the camera. You may end up as another poster on the bleeding walls of the city. No one is safe from their guns."
— A young Palestinian from Silwan, Jerusalem, October 2015.

This quote was written on Facebook a number of weeks ago by a young Palestinian who has been the subject of dozens of arrests and has spent much of his life in jail, due to political persecution as a result of his participation in protests. Pay attention to the wording: the author treats leaving the house as a nearly-suicidal act, viewing death as an inevitable force in the hands of the (Israeli) ruler. For him, the only means of defense is a short prayer before leaving home. This is where the role of religion begins and ends in the collective consciousness of resistance among most young Palestinians.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, sums it up neatly.

The sharper ones among you — that is, those who do not think that the news starts and ends with Channel 2′s cheap propaganda — may have noticed that despite the relative "calm" of the last two weeks in Israel, the West Bank and East Jerusalem have been on fire for over a year. The fact that more than 70 Palestinians were killed in October (among them dozens killed in the Gaza Strip) testifies more than anything to the fact the current resistance to the occupation will not end soon.

In the opening days of the month when National Geographic magazine is scheduled to be turned over to 21st Century Fox, the magazine's employees were told to stand by their phones to wait for calls - one by one - to come to Human Resources to learn the fate of their jobs.

A memo sent to all staff on Monday from CEO Gary Knell told the magazine's employees to return to Washington to Geographic's headquarters if possible to wait for an eMail on Tuesday which would give them more information about their employment status.

"No one knows how many will be axed today," a source inside National Geographic told News Photographer magazine this morning. "The staff is sitting by their phones, waiting to be called down to HR."

In a Tweet mid-day today, National Geographic photo editor Sherry L. Brukbacher confirmed that she is one of the staff members who've been let go.

"Experienced National Geographic Photo Editor looking for employment. Fox merger elim [sic] many today. Will miss my amazing colleagues!" - @SBrukbacher. She also Tweeted that she won't be talking to reporters. "Too much respect for my many wonderful colleagues," she wrote.

National Geographic picture editor Kim Hubbard was one of those impacted by today's layoffs. She told her friends in a posting on Facebook, "Thank you for the calls and messages on what has been a surreal and sad day. Over the past five years I've worked with some amazing photographers, designers, writers, editors, and scientists on stories that I am incredibly proud of. Now I'm looking ahead to the next big thing (if you know what that is, please let me know! I'll be with Nat Geo until Jan 31st."

An eMail sent out this morning from Nancy Lee Ott, one of National Geographic Creative's picture editors, to the magazine's photographers confirmed that she was one of the staff let go. Ott's eMail today told the NGS photographers, "You have been the light of my life these last 28 years." She started in the magazine's photography lab with 35mm film and up until today's layoffs she worked in the magazine's image catalog collection.

Veteran National Geographic photographer Michael "Nick" Nichols also left the magazine today. Nichols told The Guardian, "I was getting ready to retire in January. So for me this is kind of a gift. But it's a sad day for my friends who were not as ready." He started at the Geographic in 1996.

Among those who were the first to be let go on Tuesday morning, according to our source, was also one of the magazine's top picture editors and one of the magazine's page designers who - according to several photographers - was "the best designer" on staff.

As time passes, a bona fide message emerges from within the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster scenario, and that message is that once a nuclear power plant loses it, the unraveling only gets worse and worse until it's at its worst, and still, there's no stopping it. Similar to opening Pandora's box, there's no stopping a ferocious atom-splitting insanity that knows no end.

Four years of experience with Fukushima provides considerable evidence that splitting atoms to boil water is outright unmitigated madness. After all, nuclear power plants are built to boil water; yes, to boil water; it's as simple as that, but yet at the same time it's also extraordinarily complex. Conversely, solar and wind do not boil water and are not complex and never deadly (Germany knows).

Giant flames have lit up the skies of the town of Bracknell about 30 miles (48 kilometers) west of central London, reportedly consuming an industrial estate. Witnesses have reported multiple loud blasts and train services have been disrupted.

More details to follow.

The town of Svatovo is completely destroyed after a large-scale fire at Ukrainian ammunition depots just in time for the cold, people are fleeing their homes, which Ukrainian authorities are not in a hurry to restore, reports LPR press-service.

"Svatovo fire showed the incompetence of authorities, and fear of responsibility for what happened at all levels of management spiral. It has been more than three days since the fire, and the authorities to this time did not give a decent explanation of the causes of the tragedy. Referring to alleged mythical arson committed by "saboteurs", and maybe it was mice with matches? The nonsense of defence minister Poltorak and his entourage, brainwashing the simple layman, without explaining why a deadly warehouse with more than 3.5 tons of ammunition was located inside the city line without proper security and basic fire extinguishing means. Four people were killed, more than 100 are in hospitals.

What you are about to see is more evidence that the growth of poverty in the United States is wildly out of control. It turns out that there is a tremendous amount of suffering in "the wealthiest nation on the planet", and it is getting worse with each passing year.

During this election season, politicians of all stripes are running around telling all of us how great we are, but is that really true? As you will see below, poverty is reaching unprecedented levels in this country, and the middle class is steadily dying. There aren't enough good jobs to go around, dependence on the government has never been greater, and it is our children that are being hit the hardest.

If we have this many people living on the edge of despair now, while times are "good", what are things going to look like when our economy really starts falling apart? The following are 21 facts about the explosive growth of poverty in America that will blow your mind...

Six passengers, who were removed from a Spirit Airlines, Inc. flight by crew members at Los Angeles International Airport, claim they were discriminated against for being black. The incident occurred late Monday and the passengers accused a white flight attendant of discrimination.

The episode happened over a seat, which the passengers said was double-booked, CBS Los Angeles reported. Following this, police took the three couples out of the plane. According to witnesses, the flight attendant alleged a member in the group of being a threat and the six passengers were banned from flight 868 bound to Dallas, Texas, the local news network reported.

"I'm really humiliated just for the simple fact that you hear about this type of stuff happening in America, discrimination issues and stuff like that, but to actually experience it first-hand," Alexandria Wright, one of the banned passengers reportedly said. "It was more than just us having the conversation. Why is that six black people got kicked off the plane?" Wright asked.

The flight took off from the airport without the passengers, who reportedly said they were not rebooked. However, after reaching Dallas, other witnesses on the flight said the passengers were removed because they were being disruptive.

The low-budget airline operates more than 300 daily flights to 56 destinations in the U.S., Caribbean and Latin America.

First we heard about the epidemic of sexual crimes being committed by US soldiers against women in our armed forces several years ago with over 26,000 cases reported in 2011 alone. Even such pristine, honorable institutions as our US service academies traditionally producing America's top leaders are blatantly guilty. The Air Force Academy where supposedly this nation's "cream of the crop" are educated apparently harbors more rapists than any other college in America. And that fact speaks volumes since last year's headlines across the country uncovered the appalling statistics of a rape epidemic occurring on the campuses of America's finest colleges and universities. Up to one in three women can expect to be raped at some point in her life. And now a just released AP finding reports that a thousand police officers lost their badges as "protectors" of our community for various incidents involving sexual misconduct.

If we can't trust men at our leadership bastions like the prestigious US service academies or our military men in uniform sworn to defend and protect our nation, or our best and brightest attending America's finest institutions of higher learning, and now also those wearing blue uniform whose designated purpose is to "protect and serve" our communities whose salaries are paid for by our hard-earned tax dollars, then who can we trust? Definitely not either our government officials in the halls of Washington nor our men of cloth like Catholic priests as both our highest political and spiritual authority figures have even longer histories of sex crimes, both notoriously off the charts for their high profile sex scandals in recent decades.

The cop was arrested on Tuesday after it was revealed he shot himself late last month before fabricating a story that a suspect had fired the bullet. Former England, Arkansas Police Officer David Houser, 50, acknowledged on Monday that he made the whole thing up when he claimed he'd taken a bullet in the line of duty, and confessed that the bullet was actually fired by him, from his own weapon.

"It's every chief's worst nightmare to get a call that your officer has been shot or involved in a shooting," England Police Department Chief Nathan Cook told Arkansas Online. "To investigate and find out it's self-inflicted just puts a whole different spin on it."

On October 24, Houser claimed he was shot by a Hispanic male during a traffic stop, though the round did not penetrate his bulletproof vest. He wrote in his report that he "exchanged gunfire with a suspect who fled from him driving a sport utility vehicle." The person he described was never found, as they do not exist.

A "tattered network" of laws has allowed law enforcement officers accused of sexual abuse to hop from job to job, according to an AP investigation. Some of the officers were accused of additional misdeeds - including rape - after moving to new positions.

AP found about 1,000 law enforcement officers who had lost their badges due to sex crimes in six years. Those crimes included rape, as well as sexual misconduct ranging from propositioning citizens to having intercourse while on duty. Data on police officers, jail guards, deputies, and other state law enforcement officials was analyzed during the investigation.

However, the number of police offenders found does not represent all cases, because it only includes those whose licenses to work in law enforcement had been revoked - a punishment which not all states mete out. In states which do revoke badges, the process can often take years.

Agencies responsible for enforcing police standards can revoke the badges of problem officers in 44 states. However, some states - including California and New York, which have several of the country's largest law enforcement agencies - have no statewide system to decertify officers for misconduct. AP also found that some states which do have such systems failed to identify officers removed for sexual misconduct, even in cases that had been made public in the media or court records.