A black teenager killed by police outside of Chicago over the weekend was shot twice in the back after attempting to steal an illegal handgun, officials and local media said on Monday.

The Zion Police Department said in a statement that 17-year-old Justus Howell met with another teenager to buy the gun before trying to wrestle it away. The seller, 18-year-old Tramond Peet whose account was the basis of the police statement, said one round was fired during the struggle.

Police said officers responded to the area and chased Howell, who still had the gun, before shooting and killing him. Police said a weapon was recovered from the scene.

The Chicago Tribune newspaper reported the Lake County Coroner's Office said that Howell was killed by two gunshot wounds to the back - one piercing his heart, spleen and liver, and the other striking his right shoulder.

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) has spent thousands of dollars on steak dinners, hallucinogenic mushrooms and jet skis, according to a report by the local news website DNAinfo.com on Monday.

"The department purchases gift certificates from various restaurants and gives them to officers as part of a citywide employee appreciation program that rewards civil servants for good work," NYPD spokesperson Stephen Davis told DNAinfo.com.

The report noted that the NYPD spent $3,400 at Gallaghers Steakhouse in May 2014. In addition, the Department spent $600 on meals at Brooklyn's famed Peter Lugar Steakhouse in 2012, and $300 last year at Mark Joseph Steakhouse.

Lights went out at the State Department, White House, Capitol and many other places in Washington, DC, in a puzzling series of power outages. Terrorism is not suspected, officials say.

Power went out at the State Department during the question-and-answer session on Iran nuclear talks.

Power goes out at @statedept during @mariehark briefing during q and a on #Iran nuclear deal transparency issues...

— Matt Lee (@APDiploWriter) April 7, 2015

After the initial confusion, the briefing continued.

The State Department press briefing continues in darkness. Power outage pic.twitter.com/Ph9Zytt7Hp

— Gayane Chichakyan (@Gayane_RT) April 7, 2015

Acting State Department spokeswoman, Marie Harf, continued the session under what appeared to be light from a smartphone.

Pepco's current outage map for downtown DC pic.twitter.com/8o4PRyUayo

— erin mccann (@mccanner) April 7, 2015

California judge cut a child rapist's potential life sentence last week, saying the man had not meant to harm the toddler girl.

Kevin Rojano was convicted Dec. 3 of sodomizing a child younger than 10 and lascivious acts with a minor, and he was initially sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

But Orange County Superior Court Judge M. Marc Kelly trimmed 15 years off Rojano's sentence, saying it would be cruel and unusual punishment to impose the maximum prison term because the 20-year-old lacked "callous disregard for (the victim's) well-being," reported the Orange County Register.

Prosecutors said Rojano was playing video games June 4 in the garage of his Santa Ana home when a 3-year-old relative wandered in, and investigators said the man became sexually aroused by the child and assaulted her.

The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. . . . You have owners. — George Carlin, The American Dream

According to a new study from Princeton University, American democracy no longer exists. Using data from over 1,800 policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page concluded that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of - or even against - the will of the majority of voters. America's political system has transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where power is wielded by wealthy elites.

"Making the world safe for democracy" was President Woodrow Wilson's rationale for World War I, and it has been used to justify American military intervention ever since. Can we justify sending troops into other countries to spread a political system we cannot maintain at home?

The Magna Carta, considered the first Bill of Rights in the Western world, established the rights of nobles as against the king. But the doctrine that "all men are created equal" - that all people have "certain inalienable rights," including "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" - is an American original. And those rights, supposedly insured by the Bill of Rights, have the right to vote at their core. We have the right to vote but the voters' collective will no longer prevails.

In Greece, the left-wing populist Syriza Party came out of nowhere to take the presidential election by storm; and in Spain, the populist Podemos Party appears poised to do the same. But for over a century, no third-party candidate has had any chance of winning a US presidential election. We have a two-party winner-take-all system, in which our choice is between two candidates, both of whom necessarily cater to big money. It takes big money just to put on the mass media campaigns required to win an election involving 240 million people of voting age.

In state and local elections, third party candidates have sometimes won. In a modest-sized city, candidates can actually influence the vote by going door to door, passing out flyers and bumper stickers, giving local presentations, and getting on local radio and TV. But in a national election, those efforts are easily trumped by the mass media. And local governments too are beholden to big money.

Five consecutive years of budget cuts have left the Internal Revenue Service with 18,000 fewer employees, many of whom feel besieged this filing season by angry taxpayers waiting in long queues for help that is often inadequate, the National Treasury Employees Union said on Monday.

IRS employees at taxpayer assistance centers tell union officials they "get yelled at, have papers thrown at [them], and are spoken down to [because] the demand is too high for the resources available," National President Colleen Kelley told reporters in a conference call.

According to Kelley, a front line worker in Pittsburgh said fewer than 40 percent of calls are answered. "That's a horrible percentage, and it certainly does not instill confidence in the federal government," the employee told union officials.

Staff at a Van Nuys, Calif., taxpayer assistance center said taxpayers are frustrated from standing in line and are "sore from sitting, hungry because there's no food, thirsty because our water fountain is disgusting, and usually end up with parking tickets," Kelley said.

Another IRS customer service representative heard callers crying on the phone after being placed in a queue or subjected to a "courtesy disconnect" and told to call back later, she said, noting a 26 percent cut in phone center staff over the past five years. Phone equipment is "antiquated" and taxpayers with questions that in the past would have been handled by a subject-matter specialist are being referred to the IRS website, she said.

Farid Esack, an Islamic studies professor at the University of Johannesburg, has faced strong objections from the Zionist lobby in France over plans to give a series of lectures about the parallels between Israeli and South African apartheid. The pressure meant that he was banned from speaking at events in Paris and Toulouse.

A veteran anti-racism campaigner, Esack has also championed the rights of women and of people lving with AIDS. He was appointed a gender equality commissioner by the late Nelson Mandela. He is currently chairperson of BDS South Africa, a group supporting the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

I spoke to Esack about his speaking tour in France.

Adri Nieuwhof: You went on a speaking tour in France and were banned from speaking on some occasions. Can you tell us what happened?

Farid Esack: There was a huge amount of pressure on all seven universities where I was supposed to speak. Only Paris-Sorbonne University banned me from speaking. The university argued that they were doing so on technical grounds because the forms to fill in the application to give me a venue were wrongly filled in. The students tried to negotiate with the university for one week to correct this error, but the university refused this.

It is no secret that nowadays many alternative media activists face appalling state-sponsored censorship in many nominally free and democratic Western countries. Now it seems that such censorship has penetrated much deeper than we have come to expect. Art itself, the truest form of free expression, is being silenced.

Valentina Lisitsa is a brilliant musician, a famous virtuoso pianist, also known for publicly expressing her opinion on the Ukrainian conflict through her Twitter account. She is a good friend of the Slavyangrad Team and has kindly translated a number of articles for our publication. Her views are always insightful and she has never made them a secret. We are lucky to have Valentina's first-hand account about dealings with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra ("TSO"), which has decided to cancel her concert because of her political opinions. The TSO's decision to silence Valentina's music because she has exercised her inviolable right to express her beliefs is a message to all artists that the next time it could be them.

Valentina is Ukrainian. She was born on March 25, 1970, in Kiev. Her family comes from Odessa—her mother is a Russian citizen, and her father was Ukrainian. Valentina graduated from the Lysenko music school and the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine (the Kiev Conservatory). She married Alexey Kuznetsov from Taganrog. In 1991, they represented Ukraine in the Murray Dranoff Two Piano Competition in Miami, Florida, and won the first prize. In 1992 they moved to the USA to study and subsequently decided to remain there. In 2001 they became American citizens. Since last year, Valentina has been living in Paris.

Valentina is one of the most frequently viewed pianists on YouTube, with over 177,000 subscribers, and she performs all over the world. Now Valentina's concert in Toronto, which was scheduled for April 8 and 9 at the Roy Thomson Hall, has been cancelled for an outrageous reason—her political views. In an email sent to Valentina's agent, the TSO stated: "the Toronto Symphony Orchestra received some messages from ticket buyers and others expressing concern over pianist Valentina Lisitsa's public political statements."

When buying bodily fluids over the internet, there's a chance you may not be getting exactly what you bargained for.

A new study published in the journal Pediatrics has found that 10 percent of breast milk samples bought online contained some cow's milk.

"We were concerned that, because money is exchanged in these transactions, there might be an incentive to boost milk volumes in order to make more money," said study author Sarah A. Keim, principal investigator in the Center for Biobehavioral Health at Nationwide Children's Hospital.

"Cow's milk and infant formula resemble human milk and could potentially be added to boost volumes without the recipient knowing."

"Mothers who consider purchasing breast milk over the internet should beware — when you obtain milk from an unfamiliar source, you cannot know for sure that what you are getting is safe for your baby," Keim added.

Rick Yoes turned himself into the county jail last night in compliance with a warrant issued for his arrest after receiving a fine of $1,700 for having an overgrown lawn in September of last year.

Unable to pay the fine Rick took every vacation day he accrued, made arrangements for a replacement, and surrendered himself to jail.

Rick is the South east campus electrician for Tarrant County College, he is a hard and dedicated worker often times offering to help outside of the description of his job or volunteering for extra curricular activities. In 2012 he dressed up in 1776 style regalia and read a copy of the U.S. Constitution to the student body.

Because of his dedication he is loved by faculty, and students. His collection of beautiful seashells is also on display at the campus.

The incident happened last year in Grand Prairie, Texas, while Rick, and his daughter Angel were working from before sun up, until after dark. During this time the lawn was neglected, and it grew over the 6 inch regulatory code.

The city sent them a reminder to cut the lawn, and within 2 weeks Angel had cut the lawn to regulation height. She said that they have been keeping the lawn "buzzed" ever since.