Everything is known of the everyday indignities of living under the Israeli occupation: the checkpoints, the separation wall, the embargo, the settlers, the IDF raids...

Much has been written about individual acts of violence and inconvenience. The fundamental immobility of the Palestinians is not often underlined. Palestinians in Gaza are cut off from this in the West Bank, who are themselves not allowed into Israel proper. The seminars I attend rely upon Skype to link intellectuals, whose academic freedom is violated systematically by Israel. Gaza is in a spectacular form of isolation. But the West Bank is also caged in.

The list of indignities when listed again and again attain the status of making the occupation eternal. The Palestinian comes across as victim. The Israeli as powerful and the victor. This is the myth of the IDF and Mossad:: that they are invincible and legendary. Each retelling affirms the Israeli project. The Palestinian movement is tossed into purgatory.

Nothing is further from the truth.

Rescuers pulled five bodies from the wreckage of a small plane that crashed into an orchard in central California after vanishing from radar, local and federal authorities said Sunday.

The Federal Aviation Administration was looking for what caused the crash that killed five people, Kern County sheriff's Sgt. Mark King said. He expected the names of the victims to be released Monday.

Air traffic controllers lost contact with the single-engine Piper PA32 around 4 p.m. Saturday as it headed from Reid-Hillview Airport in San Jose to Henderson Executive Airport in a Las Vegas suburb, FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said.

The plane sent a mayday call. Searchers spotted the wreckage southwest of Bakersfield about three hours after receiving an alert from the FAA about a missing plane that was last detected an estimated 10 miles south of the city, the Kern County sheriff's office said

A T-50 Golden Eagle fighter jet, similar to those recently delivered to the Philippine Air Force (PAF), crashed in Indonesia killing two pilots, local media reported.

Video circulating on social media showed a fighter plane performing manoeuvres in the skies above Yogyakarta before spiralling toward the ground at speed and disappearing from view.

Seconds later a thick, dark plume of smoke rose beyond the horizon, as people in the video can be heard screaming.

Indonesian air force spokesman Dwi Badarmanto confirmed a T-50 Golden Eagle fighter plane had crashed during a demonstration.

"Two pilots died," he told news website Detik.

At least one person has been killed and 11 injured when a powerful gas blast rocked a residential building in the southern Russian city of Volgograd, the Emergencies Ministry said, adding that at least four people may be trapped in the rubble.

Those injured have been taken to hospitals in Volgograd following the incident, the Health Ministry said.

The blast occurred at around 11:50 MSK (0850 GMT) Sunday on the seventh floor of an apartment block on Cosmonauts Street, Russia's Emergency Ministry said. At least 38 apartments were destroyed in the blast.

Parliament wasted 45,000 meals last year as tens of thousands of children go hungry across London, an MP has said.

New figures that reveal the staggering amount of food waste in the British parliament have prompted calls for MPs to donate their unused meals to those in need.

Shadow Commons Leader Chris Bryant called on the government to give uneaten meals to local food banks in the capital.


"Last year 1.2 million sausages were sent to landfill in Rhondda Cynon Taf alone, which is why it is great that the local council is now signing everybody up to proper food recycling," the Welsh Labour MP said.

"But new figures show that this House last year wasted 45,000 meals that were just tipped in the bin.

Police in Lakeview, Texas are routinely conducting traffic stops without probable cause that a violation has occurred - and have packaged these unlawful detentions in a way that has earned media approval.

The pretext offered by the department is its "Doing it Right Safe Driving Campaign," through which officers who lurk in the shadows like rapists stop drivers who appear to be following all of the rules are stopped and then given Starbucks gift certificates - but only if a scan of the driver's license and registration reveals no outstanding warrants or violations. The confused and anxious motorists are not told the purpose of the traffic stop until the officer returns with the surprise gift - which is actually a species of Trojan Horse that permits the officer to sneak a peek at the driver's record without a legally valid reason.

"Recently, we've seen a lot of negative things about the police," explained Lakeview Police Chief David Hotchkiss to the Baxter Bulletin newspaper. "I just wanted to do something that let the community see us doing something good and let us look for drivers doing good things."

The idea earned the approval of Lakeview mayor Dennis Behling and the City Council, and attracted the interest of local citizens who donated the money to buy gift certificates ranging in price from $15 to $25 dollars apiece.

According to Chief Hotchkiss, the "Doing it Right" initiative offers "an opportunity to interact with people for a positive reason. For the community, it allowed them to interact with us when there was nothing wrong and we were giving them a gift. That allowed us to start relationships on a positive note and that's great." The Chief expressed satisfaction over "looking for someone doing something right."

If this were the case, of course, police who stopped drivers for the supposed purpose of commending them for their careful and responsible conduct would not be reviewing their records in search of something "wrong."

While the world was hammering out a historic agreement to curb carbon emissions - urged along by California, no less - the state was dealing with an embarrassing belch of its own. Methane, a greenhouse gas 70 times more potent than carbon dioxide, has been leaking out of a natural gas storage site in southern California for nearly two months, and a fix won't arrive until spring.

The site is leaking up to 145,000 pounds per hour, according to the California Air Resources Board. In just the first month, that's added up to 80,000 tons, or about a quarter of the state's ordinary methane emissions over the same period. The Federal Aviation Administration recently banned low-flying planes from flying over the site, since engines plus combustible gas equals kaboom.

In the early morning of December 15th, Denver police forced dozens of homeless community members of Resurrection Village into blizzard conditions
In the early morning of December 15th, Denver police forced dozens of homeless community members of Resurrection Village into blizzard conditions. Since their tiny homes action on Oct. 24th, Resurrection Village members have been sleeping near various unused empty lots owned by the Denver Housing Authority and had set up tents the night before to provide temporary shelter from the impending snowstorm.
Unicorn Riot was at the scene of the newly fashioned tent city and documented Denver Police threatening everyone with arrest if they did not dismantle their camp.

Police arrived around 6 am in the midst of hard snowfall and brutal winds while everyone was warm, dry and sleeping.DPD then ordered the community to dismantle their tents and disperse. We were able to live stream the encounter:

The smell came from the canyons and drifted over their neighborhoods in late October, but most residents who live in the gated communities of Porter Ranch thought the northerly gusts of wind common to their area would sweep the stench of rotten eggs away.

Instead, the odor persisted.

It became a phantom that haunted them during their twilight jogs and on their morning walks on dusty horse trails. It was there in their dens where they watched TV and in bedrooms where their children slept. It was even there on the playgrounds of nearby elementary schools.

"It was smelling really bad," said Susan Gorman-Chang, who along with her husband, George, has lived in Porter Ranch for more than 20 years. Now, the couple has chosen to leave the area. "Our neighbor called the fire department. It was that bad."

The Southern California Gas Co. knew what was happening a day before the fire department was called. They knew methane was leaking from a 40-year-old well in Aliso Canyon above the Santa Susana Mountains, that it was spewing tons of gas into the air. Several days later, they informed residents through letters that the agency would plug the leak as fast as possible.

Eight weeks after that call was made, the leak continues. It has caused massive disruption in the northwestern San Fernando Valley community of Porter Ranch, an affluent community of nearly 31,000 residents about 28 miles from downtown Los Angeles. More than 1,800 families have been relocated by the gas company and more than 1,000 remain on a waiting list. Some say they can't remember a displacement of residents this large since the Northridge earthquake in 1994, when 20,000 people were left homeless. Two local elementary schools have been impacted, with nearly 2,000 schoolchildren and staff slated to be moved to other schools in January.

Enough methane gas is being released to fill the Empire State building each day, state officials have said, and the concern has even reached the Federal Aviation Administration, which issued temporary flight restrictions over the area for small aircraft and helicopters.

The gas company has apologized but has said the leak may take four months to plug and to create a relief well.

"It's like the BP spill on land," said environmental activist Erin Brockovich, who was made famous by successfully battling Pacific Gas and Electric Co. over groundwater contamination in the community of Hinkley in the Inland Empire in 1996. "I've really never seen anything like this. I think the magnitude is enormous. Its like a volcano, and the gas is like the lava that can't be shut off."

A disturbing video emerged Friday showing two Los Angeles sheriff's deputies killing a man after they had chased him for riding a bicycle while wearing headphones.

The incident took place more than a year ago with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department initially telling the media that they shot and killed 23-year-old Noel Aguilar, a "known gang member," after he pulled out a gun and shot a deputy.

But now a video shows the two deputies struggling to arrest Aguilar when one deputy pulls out his gun and shoots the second deputy before placing his gun back into its holster, then placing the blame on Aguilar.