A closer inspection of America's relentless Russophobic propaganda campaign reveals that it isn't just the news media spreading hatred of Russia and Russians, but Hollywood as well.

America's unrelenting propaganda assault on Russia began by demonizing Russian President Vladimir Putin. He is routinely blamed for every evil that occurs under the sun, and according to the establishment media, there is nothing too evil that the Bond super-villain Putin cannot accomplish.

After initially approving 400 troops for President Donald Trump's border deployment plan, California Governor Jerry Brown has reportedly placed conditions on their use for immigration enforcement, angering federal officials.

Trump announced the deployment of the National Guard along the border in early April as part of a crackdown on illegal border crossings from Mexico. Until Congress approves funding for the construction of the border wall, the US president said, the military will help police the frontier.

The governors of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, all Republicans, have cooperated with the plan. Brown initially approved sending some 400 troops to the border, earning praise from Trump.

Nearly eight hours of rioting at a maximum-security South Carolina prison left at least seven inmates dead and 17 others injured, authorities said.

State officials defended their response to the prison brawl - one of the deadliest in America's recent history - amid allegations that officers did little to curb the violence early on and did not render aid as quickly as they could have.

Fighting began at one of the housing units at Lee Correctional Institution, as detention officers were conducting a nightly check-in, state corrections director Bryan Stirling said at a news conference today.

Two more fights erupted at two other housing units at Lee Correctional as well, he said.

The fighting triggered a standard response in which guards at each of the dorms left the housing units and called for backup, Stirling said. "They're outnumbered, so they're trained to back out of that dorm and call for support," Stirling said. "And that's what we believe they did last night because support arrived immediately."

Farms producing fur for the UK market have been exposed for caging animals in sickening conditions.

An undercover investigation in western Finland found dangerously overweight silver foxes barely able to move.

Other animals were found with weeping eye conditions and thick rolls of fur over their eyes.

And a farm in Ireland kept mink in such distressing conditions wildlife experts said they were bound to suffer "physiological stress and resort to self-mutilation and cannibalism".

It comes as the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee meets tomorrow to investigate the conditions of the global fur industry.

It has been announced that Art Bell has died in his home in the United States at the age of 72. Bell was one of the radio pioneers of the late 20th century and became the first major radio personality to explore topics that others simply would not touch.

His radio show Coast to Coast AM debuted in its classic format on US radio in 1988. The show began at a time when US talk radio was becoming increasingly deregulated in terms of political content controls, but while many used this opportunity to talk more politics, Bell did something different. Bell realised that there was an untapped reserve of intelligent, amusing and at times bewildering group experts and ordinary callers with an interest in the paranormal, government conspiracies, extraterrestrials, ghosts, space travel, apocalypticism, clairvoyance and political cover-ups of all of the above. What's more is that Bell's show was accessible even to sceptics or those with no particular interest in the topics he and his guests would discuss.

It was Bell's ability to take the 'unusual' and broadcast it to a cross-sectional audience that was one of the main areas of his genius. He was able to attract a combination of true believers who ate up every theory presented by his guests (including the contradictory ones), those who disbelieved everything (including guests who were traditional scientists) and most importantly those who were both educated and entertained by a combination of the enlightening, the absurd and the curious. Art Bell's show encouraged people to question everything and few could walk away from his broadcasts without questioning at least something they once thought they had figured out.

The Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill and Pope Francis have issued a joint statement in connection with the worsening situation in Syria.

The world community was informed about this by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the department for external church relations of the Moscow Patriarchate.

He read out the text of the statement, in which both priests expressed their deep concern that the ongoing hostilities in the Middle East threatened to escalate into a global conflict. Spiritual leaders warn that the world has approached a dangerous line - the failure of international relations of different countries and the curtailment of cooperation.

Finally some real American journalism.

One America's Pearson Sharp visited the war-torn town of Douma outside the capital of Damascus, looking for evidence of a chemical attack.

What did he discover?

All the residents interviewed by OAN in Douma denied all the claims of any sort of chemical attack happening, and say it was staged to help jihadist rebels escape from an advancing Assad army.

Maxim Borodin had earlier called to say he feared a police raid at his home. A local rights activist told The Independent: 'We have a chain of events that has led to a very suspicious death'

A prominent regional journalist investigating crime, politics and the war in Syria has died following a fall from a window of his fourth-floor apartment in Yekaterinburg, Russia's fourth-largest city.

Maxim Borodin, 32, was found by neighbours on the ground outside his apartment on Friday. He died in hospital two days later, without ever regaining consciousness.

Mr Borodin was well-known for delving into Yekaterinburg's criminal underworld. He was among those who broke the story of unreported deaths in the Kremlin's shadow armies fighting in Syria. He also published investigations into Russia's religious right, and the violent protests around Matilda, a supposedly blasphemous film depicting a love affair between Tsar Nicholas II and a young ballerina.

Rabbi Ophir Wallas of the Bnei David Military Mechina was caught on video teaching young would-be soldiers that Israelis are, from the halachaic point of view, permitted to wipe out Palestinians, and that only fear of massive retaliation prevents that.

Rabbi Wallas' words can be heard here. They are taken from a longer lecture he has given his students, which - for those who have too much time on their hands - can be seen here. Here is my translation, with essential footnotes:

"In conquering the Land [of Israel] according to Nachmanides and Rashi [*], who say that the wars of today are also mitzvah wars for conquering the Land, I am beholden to nothing. This isn't the law of the persecutor [**], right? What law are we dealing with? The laws of a mitzvah war, a war of occupying the Land. Even if I don't conquer Gaza right now, [conquering it] is part of my ability to settle the Land of Israel, so it is also a part of the mitzvah of conquering the Land. And therefore it follows, there's no other way; like, we'd have to kill them all. Because this is the difference between the Law of the Persecutor and mitzvah wars. [...] A mitzvah war of conquering the Land, which is not limited to saving the people of Israel from their enemies, according to some of the Rishonim [***] I could, on the face of it and by the essential law, destroy, kill and cause to perish [****] all of them. I will not do so, because if I were to do so, and reject international treaties, then the State of Israel shall perish, unless we shall witness a miracle of miracles - and one must not trust in a miracle. And that's the only reason I won't do it."

Sputnik News reported a very interesting find that brings up new questions for the West, and, more specifically, the Trump Administration, regarding a chemical weapons storehouse find in Douma, Syria, today.

From this report:

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian troops found a warehouse of substances necessary for the production of chemical weapons in Syrian Douma, media reported Tuesday, citing chemical defense specialist Alexander Rodionov.

"The discovered substances, such as thiodiglycol and diethanolamine, are necessary for the production of sulfur and nitrogen mustard gas. In addition, a cylinder with chlorine, similar to that used by militants for setting up the wide-spread fake story, was found in the warehouse. It can be concluded that this laboratory was used by illegal armed groups for the production of poisonous substances," Rodionov said, as quoted by the Zvezda TV channel.

On Saturday, the United States, the United Kingdom and France launched 103 missiles on multiple targets in Syria in response to the alleged chemical attack in Eastern Ghouta's Douma that reportedly took place on April 7. The Syrian government has denied the accusations of chemical weapons use and said that the Jaysh al-Islam terror group staged the attack to justify potential foreign intervention in Syria.