More than 500 people were injured in northern Taiwan on Saturday, after fire broke out in a recreational park. The flames are suspected to have stemmed from an unknown flammable colored powder, which created an explosion after being sprayed onto a crowd.

People were attending a themed 'color party' at Formosa Water Park in New Taipei City, when they got caught up in the inferno, news agencies reported citing local media.

People were being sprayed with clouds of colored powder, when one of the substances exploded, officials said. Nearly a thousand people were near the stage when the fire broke out.


"At the beginning I thought it was part of the special effects of the party but then I realized there was something wrong and people started screaming and running," a male witness told local news channel CTI, as cited by AFP.

Footage from local media showed the park being ablaze, with people running to escape.

"Our initial understanding is this explosion and fire... was caused by the powder spray. It could have been due to the heat of the lights on the stage," AFP reported a spokesman for the New Taipei City fire department as saying.

California is in the midst of one of the worst droughts in the state's history, prompting Governor Jerry Brown to declare a water "state of emergency."

Ordinary Californians are bearing the brunt of this disaster. While the governor has imposed restrictions to reduce residential water consumption, businesses in the fields of agriculture and hydraulic fracturing have been largely exempt. Brown's unwillingness to take on these gargantuan corporate water-wasters lends a sharp political element to an otherwise natural disaster.

There's another region in the world, however, where access to water isn't just decided on the whims of politicians dealing with natural disasters. In fact, the very existence of water crises is official state policy for one country: Israel.

Dying of Thirst

Despite its location in a region thought to be perennially dry, the Holy Land actually has ample natural freshwater resources — namely in the form of underwater aquifers and the Jordan River. Palestinians in the West Bank and Israeli settlers live in roughly equal proximity to these resources, which theoretically would allow for equal consumption.

Israeli water policy, however, has made this prospect virtually impossible. In fact, there's a shocking disparity.

A Ramsey county sheriff's deputy is on paid vacation this week after he was captured on video in a downright evil beating of his K-9 partner.

Ramsey County Deputy, Brett Arthur Berry is charged with assaulting a public safety dog and animal cruelty for severely beating his dog at a K-9 training seminar over the weekend.

The surveillance footage from the Black Bear Casino in Carlton captured this sadistic officer as he beat, strangled, and hurled his K-9 partner to the ground.

According to Eyewitness News 5,

Black Bear security told deputies they had been called into the Cobalt Lounge to ask a man to leave. Security followed him with video and saw him return to his hotel room and exit five minutes later with his canine partner. Berry and other K-9 handlers were at the casino and hotel for training.

The sheriff's office says Berry walked with his dog to the casino parking lot, where he was seen scolding the dog and becoming upset. Video shows him picking up his dog by the collar and throwing it to the ground. The dog ran from him back to the casino and through the first set of doors but got trapped by a vestibule.

Berry then caught up to the dog and hit it repeatedly, the sheriff's office said.

Officer(s) Involved: Cpl. Eric Casebolt and one other officer, whose name is currently unknown.
Department Involved: McKinney (TX) Police Department
Location: 2200 Taylor Burk Dr., McKinney, TX. 75071,
Phone Number: (972) 547-2700

The out of control behavior of former McKinney Texas Police Officer Eric Casebolt during a pool party incident are still fresh in everyone's minds, especially that impressive somersault. This story comes to us from the "submit" tab here at CopBlock.org from a reader that wishes to remain anonymous for personal safety. This reader wanted to make the public aware of an incident that took place back in September of 2011 which highlights another instance of this guy unnecessarily escalating a simple 911 call for an injured person into an outright violation of rights and violence:

I'd like to provide you an overview of the "hell" my friend, Priscilla Diane Long (not to mention her husband of 35 yrs. and children) have been living through the past 4 yrs. as a result of Mr. Casebolt's threats and reckless escalation of a possible medical issue that McKinney police should have never been involved in to begin with. Today, she sits in the Collin County Detention Center waiting a court hearing on July 29th to hopefully have her charge of Assault Against a Peace Officer found not guilty.

Diane (goes by her middle name) is a 60 yr. old wife, mother, and grandmother who prior to the incident on 9/28/11 had no criminal history (likewise for her husband). She was a former Frisco city council candidate in 2000, active in numerous public service causes including membership in the First United Methodist Church of McKinney. I have several on-line testimonials which provide strong examples of her character.

On the afternoon of 9/28/11 at a home they were temporarily renting in McKinney (they had just sold their Lake Texoma property), Diane was laying down in the living room, not feeling well, when the rental property mgr. knocked on the door unannounced and wanted to speak to her. When Diane asked her to please come back later and went to shut the door, the prop. mgr. stuck her foot in the door which caused Diane to slip on a blanket she had wrapped around her, fall backwards and hit her head on the foyer floor.

What happened next is a surreal nightmare:
Although her husband was home, the prop. mgr. took it upon herself to call 911. However, instead of an ambulance, two McKinney cops arrived, one was Eric Casebolt. After helping his wife upstairs to lay down, the doorbell rang and Mr. Long was told they were here for a welfare check and needed to see for themselves if his wife was OK. He was shocked and told them she was lying down and if she needed medical care that he, her husband, would take her to the hospital or call 911.

Casebolt insisted angrily that "either she needs to come down here or we need to go upstairs." After he pleaded that neither she nor he had ever done anything wrong in our lives and didn't want any trouble, he threatened Mr. Long saying "maybe you & I need to go take a walk." At that point he was scared, relented, and they proceeded to walk up the stairs as his wife was yelling at them to not come up the stairs. Walking into their bedroom, they noticed a gun, called SWAT (including heavy tank like vehicles), at least 30-40 cop cars, locked down a North McKinney High School event, shot Mrs. Long from 10 ft. away with a bean bag gun, jumped on her, made her strip naked, and arrested her for two counts of assault against a peace officer. It's amazing she wasn't killed. Her two sons were outside the barricaded scene with Mr. Long and had to endure the horror of wondering if they'd see their mother alive again. Mr. Long was told by a different cop "it's always the people who don't pay taxes we have the most problems with." Prior to renting that home in 2010, Mr. & Mrs. Long had owned primary residences and investment properties since Sept. 1983.

I'm writing this to you because a property mgr., who should have never called 911, and a reckless, threatening officer, who should have never got involved let alone over escalate the situation, have destroyed these people's lives the past four yrs.

Police in Massachusetts mistakenly attempted to barge into the wrong home Thursday afternoon. During their blunder, police offended the homeowner, 88-year Phyllis Stankiewicz.

Police were responding to a report of a disturbance involving someone with a baseball bat at the address of 57 Wilson Street, Stankiewicz's home. However, the actual disturbance was called in at 57 Memorial Drive, a block away from Wilson.

According to the police report, when Stankiewicz opened the door she was holding a knife in an apparent attempt to defend her home from the would-be intruders.

Police said that Stankiewicz was holding the knife at "waste level" and that she appeared "angry and confused." She was yelling, "There's no crime here! Get out of my house!" according to a police report.

Police say they grabbed the knife away from the woman and tried to push her away, and that is when she slapped one of them. Her actions then prompted the police to arrest the woman, who naturally resisted being kidnapped. As she resisted, the elderly woman was then thrown to the ground and hauled off to jail.

"Officers must place the protection of human life above all other considerations."

Or so says the official policy of the Detroit Police Department. Yet, on Wednesday, Detroit police continued a high-speed chase into a busy neighborhood, resulting in two small children being killed and others injured.

Brother and sister Michaelangelo and Makiah Jackson, ages 6 and 3 respectively, were playing in front of their home when a police car appeared, chasing what appeared to be a red Challenger. According to eyewitnesses, the police car bumped the Challenger, and the car "flew up in the air." Witnesses heard tire squeals, as if the car was attempting to stop, but by then it was going too fast and had lost control and hit the two small children, killing them instantly.

A friend of the family described the horrible scene:

"[The police] were right on their rear, the police car bumped their tail a little bit, and the car flew up in the air," the friend said. "There was no need for the police to be that close. I yelled 'WATCH OUT' but it was too late. When the car hit them, both of them just looked at me. They screamed. It just keeps re-playing in my head. ... I ran down there, I yelled out their names, but they were gone. Makiah's eyes were wide open, they died on impact."

"I'm the last one they talked to. They looked at me, they were here, I saw their faces. L'il Mama (Makiah) thought I was going to take them to the park, so she came with me to the sidewalk. I told her I promise I'll take you to the park tomorrow."

A little-known police tactic allows cops to covertly enter private residences, perform searches, seize property, and then leave quietly without notifying the homeowner. These searches, affectionately known as "sneak and peek" warrants, have been performed at a rapidly rising rate since 9/11.

Covert Tactics

Sneak and Peek warrants in actuality a more extreme version of the over-used "no-knock" raids that we cover so often. After seeking out a judge's authorization, police are allowed to secretly break into private property without first announcing themselves or presenting the subject of the search with a signed warrant. Using this variety of warrant, officers intentionally wait until the subject is not present. The operations are performed covertly, and with the intention of masking the fact that any police activity took place.

The entire premise encourages government agents to adopt the tactics of criminals in order to gain access to property: breaking and entering, sneaking around, stealing, and risking a surprise confrontation with an unsuspecting civilian.

The ever-expanding Republican presidential field, which threatens to splinter over social issues as dark horses grab hot-button topics for attention, is being urged to stick to the economy where the real pot of voter gold sits.

"Concern over the economy is the highest I've ever seen," top GOP pollster Ed Goeas told the moderate Republican Ripon Society. He said 72 percent are worried about an economic downturn.

"Republicans need to get into the game on better turf and that means talking in specifics about how we will bring the economy back and help create the jobs that go with real recovery," added pollster David Winston.

The exit polls from the 2012 and 2008 primaries and caucuses back them up, and show that the candidate who was considered by voters to be best on the economy usually won that state's contest.

According to Winston, the economy was the top voter concern in 45 of 46 primaries and caucuses. The only exception was the 2008 Iowa caucus when illegal immigration trumped the economy, 33 percent to 26 percent.

Typically, during both elections, issues like immigration and abortion were minor blips. And social issues don't dominate southern contests. In 2012, for example, the states of Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Maryland and Wisconsin had the highest concerns about abortion, well above that among the voters of South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.

A Cobb County special education teacher accused of putting a second-grader with autism in a trash can, comparing his behavior to Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street, says she was trying to calm the child, not hurt him.

Mary Katherine Pursley, a teacher at Mt. Bethel Elementary, said at a tribunal hearing Monday at the Cobb school district office that the child was screaming and upset at an after-school program and she was attempting to get him to stop by holding him over a trash can to "shake out the grouchy.""My intention was not to put him all the way in the can," Pursley told a panel of former educators at the hearing, who will decide if she's dismissed from her job with the school district. "I was sort of shaking him over the trash can."

Attorneys for the school system argued Pursley "engaged in inappropriate physical contact" with the student and she should be dismissed from her position at Mt. Bethel. Pursley has been with the school district for 21 years and has been on administrative leave with pay following the April 30 incident.

Pursley, 45, who was arrested and charged with cruelty to children in the first degree, is accused of talking with the "victim about Oscar the Grouch and his 'trashy behavior' " during the after-school program, Pursley's arrest warrant states. "The accused told the victim, 'If he had trashy behavior like Oscar, he'd go to the trash can'."Pursley then allegedly picked up the child by his legs, held him upside down and put him head-first into a trash can, according to police.The boy was crying, screaming and yelling "stop" while Pursley held him, the arrest warrant states. She then set him down on the floor. The incident was witnessed by two paraprofessionals and the school's after-school director. Other students in the classroom also witnessed Pursley's actions, according to police.

• Brother-in-law heard screams and rushed to aid of two-year-old Bharati
• He found Pramila Mondal slicing at the terrified child's scalp
• Word spread around the village and baying mob gathered outside home
• She was tied and beaten but saved as police intervened in India

An alcoholic mother was beaten by a mob in India after she was caught slicing off and eating her two-year-old daughter's scalp. Toddler Bharati Mondal was rescued by her uncle Dablu after he heard her screams in Gopalpur, West Bengal.

He was horrified to find sister-in-law Pramila, 40, cutting the toddler's head and eating her flesh. He snatched away the terrified tot and rushed her to a local hospital where she was treated for her injuries at a critical care unit. 'It was around noon and I was resting at home when I heard loud cries of Bharati,' said Dablu Mondal, 41. 'I ran to check on her but there the scene I saw was beyond shocking. 'Bharati was bleeding profusely as Pramila was eating the flesh of her head. I immediately snatched away Bharati from Pramila and rushed her to Malda Medical College and Hospital where she is admitted to ICU.'