At least five terrorists involved in the Paris and Brussels terrorist attacks were receiving welfare benefits from the state, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing local authorities.

Belgian financial investigators looking into the terrorist attacks found that Salah Abdeslam, charged with taking part in the Paris assaults, had collected €19,000 ($21,000) in welfare payments, which were stopped just a few weeks before the attacks were carried out in the French capital in November, WSJ reports.

However, Abdeslam should not have been receiving payments as he partly owned a bar, which he was managing at the time. Belgian officials say this made him ineligible for welfare.

In total, the authorities say that five terrorists who took part in the Paris and Brussels attacks were able to claim a total of over €50,000 ($56,000).

The hunt is on for a man accused of dousing a mother of seven in gasoline before setting her on fire in South Los Angeles.

Tabitha Morton remains in critical condition at a hospital with extensive burns following the attack, which unfolded June 12th in an alley in the 500 block of E. Vernon Avenue.

"This occurred in broad daylight in front of witnesses and she was critically injured while he simply walked away," said Capt. Daniel Curry of the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Investigators say Morton got into a fight with the suspect before he went to a nearby convenience story to buy the gasoline.

"You never know what somebody is capable of. Look what he's done," she said.

The suicide rate among American veterans has increased dramatically over the last 35 years, with the largest government analysis ever conducted on veteran suicide saying it rose more than 30 percent since 2001 - a bigger spike than in the wider US population.

The study released by the US Veterans Affairs Department (VA) examined over 55 million veterans' records from 1979 to 2014 from every state across the US and four territories. It found that since 2001, adult civilian suicides rose 23 percent, while veteran suicides increased 32 percent.

According to the report, an average of 20 veterans a day died from suicide in 2014 (about 7,300 in the year), compared to a previous estimate of 22 a day provided by a study of a smaller sample of 3 million records.

Activists from Black Lives Matter's newly launched UK chapter blocked a major road to London Heathrow, Britain's busiest airport, on Friday morning. Police have made ten arrests.

London Metropolitan Police say four people were arrested and taken to police stations where they remain in custody.

A further six people have been arrested but remain at the scene. Police are in the process of extracting the protestors who are chained together.

Police claim there have been no injuries.

The protest appears to have come to an end at the airport, with Heathrow tweeting that the M4 is now open.

Sometimes a pen is just a pen, and just because a nineteen year old Norwegian of Somali origin, in an apparent psychotic episode, killed one and injured five, doesn't mean one should assume that this was a 'terrorist' attack.

Certainly this past year in Europe has been filled with more terrorist attacks in this short time span, than it has experienced in any number of decades.

It reminds us of the period in the 1970's, where US-NATO intelligence backed terrorist cells, under the GLADIO program, carried out a long series of terrorist attacks in Europe. The idea here was to create the social and political culture to increase the powers of the police, and to create the conditions for a police state. And this is precisely related to the very prescient point about future events that Ms. Osman is able to describe:

Russians have called for the resignation of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev over his remarks about an under-paid university professor.

Until Friday, more than 170,000 Russians had signed an online petition on Change.org regarding the matter.

Medvedev was asked by a university lecturer at a conference on youth education on August 2 why teachers' salaries were as little as 15,000 rubles (about USD 230) per month.

"If you want to earn money, there are a bunch of great places where you can do that quicker and better," Medvedev replied. He also told the unsatisfied teachers to take on a second job and venture into "business."

His comments were widely seen by his compatriots as inappropriate, out of touch with reality, and uncaring about the plight of the educated working class.

"The cabinet should be led by a person who is competent, educated and cares about the country," Alexander Li, who launched the anti-Medvedev petition, wrote on social media. "We are seeing the opposite right now."

The lower house of parliament is obliged to take into consideration any petition that gets 100,000 signatures.

Bresha Meadows is facing aggravated murder charges for allegedly shooting her father with his gun. However, her mother claims that the 14-year-old's actions saved the rest of the family from further domestic abuse.

Brandi Meadows gave a tearful interview to local Fox affiliate WGHP about her daughter's arrest for the murder of her husband. However, none of her tears were for the husband, Jonathan Meadows, who she claims would drunkenly threaten them with the gun that Bresha allegedly used to kill him.

"She is my hero; I wasn't strong enough to get out and she helped me," Meadows told the local station.

Authorities in Arizona are now offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the "Serial Street Shooter" who has been on the loose since April, after a shooting in July was linked to the same suspect -- or suspects.

The "Serial Street Shooter" is believed to be responsible for killing seven people, and injuring two more.


On the evening of July 11, a vehicle occupied by a 21-year-old man and a 4-year-old boy was fired on. Neither were injured. This incident brings the total number of shootings believed to have been committed by the elusive shooter to nine.

Sergeant Jonathan Howard of the Phoenix Police Department explained to the local CBS affiliate that there have been recurring patterns in the shootings.

"It's occurring within a residential area in front of a home," Howard said. "A vehicle, related in the sense that people are either near or in a vehicle, as well as in or next to the street."

The department is asking residents to remain "vigilant" and to alert police of any strange people or vehicles in their neighborhoods. The suspect is said to be switching cars, between a white Cadillac or Lincoln type vehicle and a black late 90s or early 2000s 5 Series BMW.

"At this point, we believe there is one person responsible for these shootings, but again, we're going to keep an open mind," Howard said. "It takes time to go through the evidence,"

"Again, we don't have the suspect. So in all of these, we don't have a motive, there's no apparent relationship, so it does take time for the investigators to process the evidence and to factually confirm, yes, this is related to the others."

Anyone with information about the shooter is urged to call the Phoenix Police Department.

The international Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne has ruled that some of the International Olympic Committee (IOC)'s criteria for Russian athletes to participate at the Rio games are "unenforceable" as they do not respect the right of natural justice.

Two Russian rowers, Anastasia Karabelshikova and Ivan Podshivalov have won their appeal against an IOC ban from the Rio Olympics on the grounds that they had already served suspensions over past doping accusations. The case has been sent back to the International Rowing Federation (FISA) to render their decision "without delay."

"The IOC Decision deprives the Russian athletes of the presumption of innocence and rather establishes a presumption of guilt, but one that is rebuttable by the athletes on an individual basis," the court ruling said, referring to paragraph three of the IOC Executive Board decision of July 24, 2016.

The controversial paragraph said that the Russian Olympic Committee "is not allowed to enter any athlete for the Olympic Games Rio 2016 who has ever been sanctioned for doping, even if he or she has served the sanction."

This wording, CAS ruled, "contains a simple, unqualified and absolute criterion" which is difficult to reconcile with the "stated aim to provide the athletes with an opportunity to rebut the presumption of guilt and to recognise the right to natural justice."

The US Department of Justice has arrested a Chinese national for trying to smuggle airplane parts intended for China into Iran, by illegally diverting them from Canada.

Yaohong Gong appeared in federal court on Wednesday in Buffalo, New York and was ordered detained.

"She's a Chinese national," Assistant US Attorney Joel A. Violanti told the court, according to the Buffalo News. "And we know of no ties to the community."

Violanti said Gong, a resident of Florida, was arrested with her 9-year-old son while trying to cross the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge, an international bridge between the US and Canada. Authorities believed the woman was trying to head for Toronto where she has family.

The criminal complaint against Gong alleges she falsely told companies in Florida that the parts were headed for Hong Kong or China, when the parts were actually being directed to Iran. The complaint also claims the parts were intended for military aircraft such as the F-14 Tomcat, F-4 Phantom Fighter and C-130 Transport.