Six people were killed on Wednesday in a crash of a Mi-8 helicopter in the Russian Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk, a source in local emergencies services told Sputnik.

"At 11:30 a.m. [1:30 GMT] the crisis management center of the Russian Emergencies Ministry at the Khabarovsk Territory... received information that the Mi-8 helicopter made a hard landing... According to preliminary information six people were aboard. The constructions have not been affected by the incident," the regional department of the Russian Emergencies Ministry said in a statement.

Dublin City Council passed a motion Monday night endorsing the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) on Israel.

And on Tuesday, Israel claimed to have barred Dublin's mayor from entering territory it controls, but a short time later the mayor appeared to be tweeting from Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

"Since its violent establishment in 1948 through the ethnic cleansing of more than half of the indigenous people of Palestine, the state of Israel has denied Palestinians their fundamental rights and has refused to comply with international law," the motion states.

Based on the old Cold War anti-Russian Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe, it is also called 'The Prague Guantanamo" for being the most secretive and autocratic TV channel in the world, where being a snitch is highly encouraged and people get fired for having their own opinion. Meanwhile, programming is so daft and boring that no one wants to watch it.

There is an opinion that this is yet another US government's money laundering scheme, making some in the US establishment very rich, at the US taxpayers' expense.

Meanwhile Ukraine is proposing to transfer the headquarters from Prague to Kiev. The US should go for it! It'll be a lot cheaper and they'll have oodles of Russian-speaking ukro-nazis to recruit. Also, someone has to continue feeding the greedy Ukraine junta oligarchs and fascists to keep them on a leash - why not US taxpayers. And finally, when Ukraine is freed from this brown plague, the new, free Novorossia will thank the US for all that nice broadcasting infrastructure they'll leave behind. So, go for it!

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The northern wall at the office of the Licton Springs Village on North Seattle's gritty Aurora Avenue features a poster containing a stark notice: "BOTULISM WARNING."

"A suspected WOUND BOTULISM case has been reported in King County. Health officials believe the case may be related injecting [sic] black tar heroin," it reads. "Injecting heroin that contains the bacteria that causes botulism can cause serious infection and even death."

Of course, one might think that the flyer could simply warn that black tar heroin contains...black tar heroin. Heroin is an unusually dangerous drug-wickedly addictive and far more lethal to its abusers than cocaine or alcohol. But Licton Springs Village, a microcommunity of 30 tiny houses and a couple of large dormitory tents-one that is officially sanctioned by the City of Seattle-takes a permissive view of drug abuse. It's a "low-barrier" community, meaning that people can use drugs freely here. Most homeless shelters and encampments demand residents live drug and alcohol free. But here, clean needles are distributed to the residents to prevent the spread of disease, and Narcan is available to resuscitate people who overdose.

Open since April 2017, on a formerly vacant lot squeezed between fast-food joints and low-budget motels, Licton Springs Village is home to nearly 70 homeless people who were "sleeping rough" until they moved in. The residents include several married couples who live together in simple, tiny homes-basically, wooden boxes 12 feet by 8 feet-donated by local groups. Children aren't allowed because of the open drug use. The village is operated by local nonprofit SHARE/WHEEL, and the on-the-ground support staff are all formerly homeless themselves. Conditions are makeshift: There's a shower, but the toilets are all of the port-a-potty variety; there are no individual kitchens, but residents are eligible to eat once each day in the communal dining area.

Licton Springs Village, unique in many ways, exists to address a common and once again growing problem: American homelessness. The problem is particularly acute on the West Coast. Here in Seattle, the homeless population skyrocketed by 44 percent between 2015 and the end of 2017, mirroring the experience of other Pacific coast cities, notably those in the Bay Area, which is also experiencing a homelessness crisis of mammoth proportions. King County, home of Seattle, now boasts the third-largest homeless population in the country.

Police have admitted that they shot and killed an elderly woman in an attempt to kill her mentally ill son during a standoff last month, an apparent mix-up they blamed on the fact that both mother and son were wearing red shirts.

Amelia Huron-Macias, 84, was killed when she was hit with a barrage of bullets fired into her home by SWAT team members during an hours-long standoff in which officers claimed they were targeting her son, Fernando Macias.

The Bexar County Mental Health Unit was initially called to execute a mental health warrant for Macias on March 6. Sheriff Javier Salazar told the San Antonio Express-News that relatives reported that they were concerned about Macias' mental state.

"The relatives were worried," Salazar said. "He was not in a condition to care for himself, much less to care for the elderly lady and her needs."

At least 23 children and two teachers were killed when a school bus plunged 328 feet into a gorge in Himachal Pradesh's Malkwal, on the Punjab border, on Monday afternoon. Kangra district officials fear the death toll may rise as 11 other children have been injured in the worst school bus accident in the region in recent years. The condition of at least three of the injured children, hospitalised at Pathankot in Punjab, are said to be serious. All the kids are between 5 and 14 years.

The bus belonging to the Wazir Ram Singh Pathania private school had left the campus at around 3 pm. It had barely covered 6 km when the driver is believed to have lost control of the bus, resulting in the fatal plunge. A local woman who had taken a lift on the bus a few minutes earlier was among the dead.

Officials said it would be difficult to ascertain the cause of the accident until they speak to the survivors and get more details. They have, however, registered a case against the driver Madan Lal, an ex-army man, who, too, was killed in the accident. He has been booked for rash driving and causing death by negligence under the Indian Penal Code.

While it obviously takes money to raise children, existing child support laws create fatherless kids.

Calls to restructure child support aren't new as editorials have appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Denver Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Boston Globe, The Charleston Post And Courier and in a report by National Public Radio.

Examining how child support creates fatherlessness begins at the national level by, as the saying goes, following the money.

A disturbing video was brought to the attention of the Free Thought Project this week showing more than a dozen heavily armed Portland cops corner, and then execute a man inside a homeless shelter Saturday night.

The Portland police chief is calling on citizens to reserve judgement after the video began going viral online. Chief Danielle Outlaw said in a statement that she was aware of a video taken of the incident and posted on the Internet, and asked the public to "please be reminded that deadly force investigations are extremely complex and take time."

According to police, officers were responding to a report of a crash Saturday night and learned that one of the vehicles in the crash was stolen in a carjacking the night before.

Police claim the man they killed, John Andrew Elifritz, a 48-year-old shipyard worker, was believed to be the driver of the car who had fled inside the nearby Cityteam Ministries Portland Shelter in southeast Portland. Police claim they were given reports that the man may be armed, however, police spokesman Sgt. Chris Burley, told reporters on Sunday that they have "yet to determine if he had a weapon at the time of the shooting."

"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it," Evelyn Beatrice Hall once wrote. Hall's pithy, concise quote is considered by many to be the ultimate defense of free speech. It was a truism; something we all, liberal and conservative alike, agreed upon in America. But on American college campuses in recent years, it appears as if an unseen editor has added the clause "unless what you say offends me" to Hall's quote.

A recent Gallup/Knight Foundation survey gives some interesting insights into how today's college students view our First Amendment-protected rights.

Boston Marathon officials have announced that men claiming to be transgender women, will be allowed to compete in the women's category for this year's race, reports say.

Organizers of the famed race, which started in 1967 for men only, told the media that they will now allow people to register in whatever category they "specify themselves to be," according to ABC News.

"We take people at their word. We register people as they specify themselves to be," said Tom Grilk, chief of the Boston Athletic Association. "Members of the LGBT community have had a lot to deal with over the years, and we'd rather not add to that burden."