In a ward at Shifa, Gaza's largest hospital, child therapist Rabeea Hamouda is trying to elicit a response from two small brothers, Omar and Mohammed, aged three and 18 months, hoping for some words or perhaps a smile.

For seven straight minutes the children, peppered with burns and shrapnel wounds sustained in Israeli shelling that hit their home in north Gaza, stare at him blankly, emotionless.

Eventually, as Hamouda gently teases them, pretending to mix up their names and holding out a present while another counselor sings quietly, a smile creeps across Mohammed's face and the older one, Omar, cries out his name.

The rulers of ancient Egypt lived in glorious opulence, decorating themselves with gold and perfumes and taking their treasures with them to the grave.

But how could such a hierarchical, despotic system arise from egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies? The reasons were part technological and part geographical: In a world where agriculture was on the rise and the desert was all-encompassing, the cost of getting out from under the thumb of the pharaoh would have been too high.

"There was basically nowhere else to go," said study author Simon Powers, a postdoctoral researcher in ecology and evolution at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. "That cost of leaving could basically lock individuals into despotism."

From egalitarianism to hierarchy

Ancient Egypt is just one example of a society that transitioned from equality to hierarchy. During the Neolithic Period, often referred to as the Stone Age - which began about 10,000 years ago - agriculture began to replace hunting and gathering as the principal means for obtaining food. At the same time, societies in which everyone had been more or less equal began to schism into classes, with clear leaders emerging. In many cases, these leaders held absolute power.

Many researchers have theorized that agriculture allowed people to hoard food and resources, and that with this power, they could induce others to follow them. But no one had ever convincingly explained how the transition from no leaders to leaders could have occurred, Powers told Live Science. If everyone in hunter-gatherer societies was more or less equal in strength or resources to start, why would they allow an individual to dominate in the first place?

To find out, Powers created a computer model filled with individuals who had their own preferences for egalitarianism or hierarchy. In the model, as in life, the more resources an individual possessed, the more offspring they could have. In the simulations, populations would sometimes gain a voluntary leader - though the next generation down the line could choose to break off from that leader, at a cost of some resources. (Leaders' children did not defect, given that they stood to inherit their parents' wealth.)

The simulations revealed that voluntary leadership arises when leaders give enough benefits to their followers at the outset, Powers said. If leaders give their people an advantage in producing food, the people will follow them, he added.

A Russian convoy to deliver humanitarian aid has reached the Ukrainian border. Some western journalists were given the opportunity to monitor its progress, as well as being allowed to see what they were carrying.

The Ukrainian government had been adamant that this was little more than a 'Trojan Horse' being used to transport Russian military hardware to anti-government troops in the east of the country. Trucks 'inspection' showed they were carrying quite a different load.

The convoy is long - with 270 trucks in all. They are trying to bring much needed supplies to the city of Lugansk, which has been without electricity, gas and water for weeks, following constant shelling from Ukrainian government forces.

Thousands of people in New York rallied in solidarity with residents of Ferguson on Thursday, showing support to people across the US who have been victims of police brutality. The NYPD threatened mass arrests if people did not stop blocking traffic.

The New York City Police Department has arrested at least four people during a peaceful rally intended to pay tribute to Michael Brown and others who have suffered from police brutality.

Thousands of protesters left their original rally location at New York's Union Square and descended upon Times Square, ignoring police orders to stay on the sidewalk. As a result, police began cordoning protesters at 42nd Street and 9th Avenue. Demonstrators flooded social media, complaining that officers had kettled them and refused to let them go. No police in riot gear were at the scene, however, nor was any tear gas used as in Ferguson, Missouri, on Wednesday.

Thousands of people in Tel Aviv rallied to show support for the IDF's military campaign in Gaza, urging the government forces to stop Hamas rocket attacks on Israel once and for all.

An estimated 10,000 Israelis gathered in Rabin Square for first major demonstration since Operation Protective Edge began on July 8, officially to protect Israeli civilians from the barrage of rockets launched from the militant organization on the Gaza strip.

​Law enforcement agencies in Washington state are asking social media users to give their tweeting fingers a rest when it comes to posting the real-time activities of police officers on the job.

Nine police departments across the state signed up last month to take part in a Tweet Smart campaign, and the officials involved hope it'll be enough to keep eyewitnesses from accidentally ruining law enforcement operations by broadcasting policy activity over Twitter.

"Please don't tweet about the movements of responding police officers, or post pictures," Washington State Patrol Chief John R. Batiste said in a statement last month. "Sooner or later we'll have an emergency where the suspect is watching social media. That could allow an offender to escape, or possibly even cost an officer their life."

"If it's safe to do so, go ahead and take pictures of our deputies in action," added Kitsap County Sheriff Steve Boyer. "We're very proud of the work they do. We'd simply ask that you wait to post those pictures until the emergency is over."

According to the July 29-dated statement, police officers have already witnessed events in which tweets from witnesses, good intentioned or otherwise, have complicated law enforcement operations. In particular, the statement reads, the search for a gunman in Canada and the police response to an Oregon school shooting spawned social media reactions that left Washington state searching for a solution.

Across the country in Alexandria, Virginia, the Center for Social Media's Nancy Korb told the Associated Press that the concerns coming out of the Pacific Northwest are far from unwarranted.

"All members of the public may not understand the implications of tweeting out a picture of SWAT team activity," she told the AP. "It's a real safety issue, not only for officers but anyone in the vicinity."

"It's not that they don't want the public to share information," Korb added. "It's the timing of it."

Henk Zanoli, who helped save a Jewish child from deportation to concentration camps, said holding on to the medal would be an 'insult to the family

A 91-year-old Dutch man who was declared a Righteous Among the Nations for saving a Jew during the German occupation on Wednesday returned his medal and certificate because six of his relatives were killed by an Israeli bombing in the Gaza Strip last month.

In 2011, the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum declared Henk Zanoli and his late mother, Johana Zanoli-Smit, Righteous Among the Nations for having saved a Jewish child, Elhanan Pinto, during the Nazi occupation of Holland. Pinto, born in 1932, was hidden by the Zanoli family from the spring of 1943 until the Allies liberated Holland in 1945. His parents perished in Nazi death camps.

In hiding a Jewish child, the Zanoli family took a double risk, because it was already under Nazi scrutiny for having opposed the German occupation. Zanoli's father was sent to the Dachau concentration camp in 1941 due to his opposition to the occupation, and he subsequently died at the Mauthausen concentration camp in February 1945. Henk Zanoli's brother-in-law was executed because of his involvement in the Dutch resistance, and one of his brothers had a Jewish fiancée, who was also killed by the Nazis.

Zanoli's great-niece, Angelique Eijpe, is a Dutch diplomat who currently serves as deputy head of her country's diplomatic mission in Oman. Her husband, economist Isma'il Ziadah, was born in the al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. The couple has three children. Ziadah's parents were born in Fallujah, on whose lands the town of Kiryat Gat now sits. His father died in 1987.

On Sunday, July 20, an Israeli fighter jet dropped a bomb on the Ziadah family's home in al-Bureij. The bomb killed the family matriarch, Muftiyah, 70; three of her sons, Jamil, Omar and Youssef; Jamil's wife, Bayan; and their 12-year-old son, Shaaban. The bombing thus orphaned Jamal and Bayan's other five children, four daughters and a son, while bereaving Omar's two sons and Youssef's three sons and a daughter of their fathers. The bombing also killed Mohammed Maqadmeh, who happened to be visiting the family that day.

Gov. Mary Fallin (R-OK) issued a statement Monday ahead of a Satanic "black mass" scheduled to take place at the state Capitol in Oklahoma City in September.

In a statement published at OK.gov, Fallin said, "This 'Black Mass' is a disgusting mockery of the Catholic faith, and it should be equally repellent to Catholics and non-Catholics alike."

"It may be protected by the First Amendment," she went on, "but that doesn't mean we can't condemn it in the strongest terms possible for the moral outrage which it is. It is shocking and disgusting that a group of New York City 'satanists' would travel all the way to Oklahoma to peddle their filth here. I pray they realize how hurtful their actions are and cancel this event."

When Oklahoma officials passed special laws allowing for the display of faith-based monuments and statuary at the state Capitol, they inadvertently paved the way for The Satanic Temple, a religious group based in the New York City, to establish an official presence on the Capitol's grounds.

The Satanists unveiled a plan for a 7-foot, goat-headed statue of the pagan deity Baphomet, who was appropriated as the symbol of the Satanic Church in the early 20th century. Because the state ruled that faith-based symbology and monuments are welcome on public property, the state government was forced to make room for the Satanic monument.

A rally has been organized for Sunday in front of the Los Angeles police headquarters to protest the shooting of an unarmed African-American man, whose family said that he was lying face down in the street when an officer pulled the trigger.

A statement released by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) on Tuesday said that the incident occurred while an officer was conducting an "investigative stop" on Monday evening at around 8:12 p.m. The statement said that a "struggle ensued," and the officer opened fire.

The gunshot victim was transported to a nearby hospital, where he later died. Lt. Ellis Imaizumi had initially said on Monday that the officer sustained minor injuries, but the official statement indicated that no officers were hurt during the shooting.

Family of the deceased identified him to KTLA as 24-year-old Ezell Ford. The man's mother, Tritobia Ford, has described her son as "mentally challenged."

"My heart is so heavy," Tritobia Ford told the station. "My son was a good kid. He didn't deserve to die the way he did."

A man who identified himself as a cousin said that he was laying down on the pavement, and the officer shot him in the back three times. "They laid him out and for whatever reason, they shot him in the back, knowing mentally, he has complications," the man explained. "Every officer in this area, from the Newton Division, knows that - that this child has mental problems."

Police in the embattled town of Ferguson, Missouri shot down another man in the early hours of Wednesday morning, roughly a mile from the site of the town's protests against the slaying of unarmed black teen Michael Brown on Saturday.

MSNBC reported that around 1:00 a.m., St. Louis County Police responded to a report of gunshots and of five or six African-American men toting shotguns and wearing ski masks.

Officers told MSNBC that when they arrived on the scene, a group of men there scattered and ran. One of them reportedly pointed a handgun at police, which they said gave them no option other than to shoot. The suspect was injured and taken to an area hospital in police custody.

Police also said that an area woman was injured in a drive-by shooting earlier in the night, but that neither shooting appeared to be related to the protests that took place in Ferguson on Tuesday.

On Saturday, a Ferguson police officer shot and killed unarmed black teen Michael Brown. Witness and police accounts of the killing differ sharply. Police claim that Brown attacked a police officer, who fired on him in self-defense.