A San Jose police officer has been charged with sexually assaulting a woman who he had taken to a hotel following a domestic disturbance with her husband.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, officer Geoffrey Graves and four other officers were called to the woman's home on Sept. 22. The woman was a hotel maid, and told officers that she wanted to spend the night at a nearby hotel.

The woman told police that Graves drove her to the hotel, but then returned about 15 minutes later. The officer partially undressed himself and sexually assault the woman, the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office explained at a press conference on Tuesday.

Hampton has more than its fair share of problems, per a recent audit

The small town of Hampton, Fla., has caught the attention of state lawmakers - who want to see it dissolved. That's because it's wildly corrupt, per a 42-page state audit of its books released last month, which CNN reports "reads like a primer on municipal malfeasance." The town of 477 people about 20 miles north of the Gainesville essentially functioned as a glorified speed trap, with 17 officers (roughly one per every 25 residents) known for sitting on lawn chairs or taking cover behind recycling bins along a 1,260-foot stretch of well-traveled highway US 301 armed with radar guns. That's not illegal - though AAA has gone so far as to put up billboards warning about it - but from there, things have allegedly taken a turn for the criminal.

CNN reports that on Friday, state and Bradford County investigators descended on city hall as part of a criminal investigation, taking the door to the police chief's office off its hinges in the process. This after the audit revealed 31 law violations. Hampton didn't pay bills on time, or withhold employee payroll taxes. It allegedly made thousands in dubious expenditures and kept cash from water customers in a bag intermingled with petty cash. Some of its records were "lost in a swamp," auditors were told, per Time. And it's unclear where all the ticket money - $616,960 between 2010 and 2012, until pressure forced the town to pack up its speed trap - went. The Florida Times-Union reports that the town has about three weeks to prove it's making progress on turning things around; otherwise, the legislature will very likely dissolve Hampton, which would then become part of unincorporated Bradford County. The town's acting mayor thinks its possible to save the town; she took over for the former mayor, who is in jail after allegedly dealing oxycodone. (In other Florida news, this may be the dumbest thing ever said during a DUI stop.)

Sixty young people sign open letter to Netanyahu announcing their resistance to the draft in biggest wave of refusal since 2008

"If necessary, I will go to jail."

Those are the words of 17-year-old Dafna Rothstein Landman, one of 60 and counting Israeli youth who signed an open letter sent to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the weekend declaring their refusal of compulsory service in the Israeli military - the biggest wave of conscientious objection the country has seen since 2008.

Under the banner of Shministim - Hebrew for 12th graders - the group of conscientious objectors condemns the dehumanization of Palestinians living under occupation. In the Palestinian territories, "human rights are violated, and acts defined under international law as war-crimes are perpetuated on a daily basis," their letter states. "These include assassinations (extrajudicial killings), the construction of settlements on occupied lands, administrative detentions, torture, collective punishment and the unequal allocation of resources such as electricity and water."

Entitled We Refuse to Serve in the Occupation Army, the letter charges that this dehumanization hurts Israelis as well. "The problem with the army does not begin or end with the damage it inflicts on Palestinian society. It infiltrates everyday life in Israeli society too: it shapes the educational system, our workforce opportunities, while fostering racism, violence and ethnic, national and gender-based discrimination."

"We refuse to forsake our principles as a condition to being accepted in our society," reads the joint letter, penned by people aged 16 to 20 who are eligible for compulsory service in the Army. "We have thought about our refusal deeply and we stand by our decisions."

Dafna, who helped write the letter, told Common Dreams she was only 15 years old when she began questioning her military service - a process she says was catalyzed when she reflected on the imprint of Israeli militarism on her own schooling experience. "I realized to what extent the education system is geared towards the Army and not towards further education, the job market, personal interests, etcetera," she said.

Soon after, she began traveling from her home in Tel Aviv to the West Bank, where she participated in Palestinian demonstrations against Israeli occupation. Here, she witnessed the "violence of the Army" first-hand. "I met people from those Palestinian villages," she said. "That meant that instead of names in a newspaper they became people, with faces and personalities."

She added that she became aware of the way "the Army perpetuates an ideal of male violence," within Israeli society.

Novelist Anne Rice, best known for her books about vampires, has signed onto a petition asking Amazon.com to stop allowing people to post anonymous reviews. In an interview with the Guardian, Rice says the "anti-author gangsters" make her a victim of bullying.

It doesn't take long to find a cruel, anonymous comment on everything from newspaper websites to Yelp and Amazon.

"That's the stupidest book I've ever read," wrote one person while reviewing a novel on Amazon.

Well-known vlogger, ZE Frank, recently taped a YouTube video responding to online critics. In it, he says: "For example, some young gentleman said he wanted to punch me in the face because my voice was so annoying."

A Pew Research study found 25 percent of people admit to posting anonymous comments online. A communications professor at the University of Houston studying the issue found anonymity contributes to less civil discourse. He looked at online comments in newspapers for more than a year and half and found 53 percent of comments were uncivil in papers that allowed anonymity. That percentage dropped to 29 percent when newspapers required names or links to Facebook accounts.

A Fall River man says he was recording a police officer who was out of control, but instead, he was arrested and his cell phone was seized.

Now the video he recorded is gone. Police say he erased it, even though they were the ones holding the phone.

George Thompson says last January he was just sitting on his front porch, watching a Fall River police officer working a paid detail. Thompson says the officer was on his phone and was swearing very loud.

That's when Thompson pulled out his phone. Thompson says Officer Tom Barboza then rushed him and arrested him, charging him with unlawful wiretapping.

But in Massachusetts it's perfectly legal to record video and audio of a public official, including police, as long as they are performing their duties and the recording isn't hidden. Barboza's own police report shows that Thompson acknowledged he was recording the officer.

Sunrise Children's Services is working to recover from a massive budget shortfall after Kentucky churches withheld $7 million because the children's home had proposed ending its policy of discrimination against LGBT employees.

Bill Smithwick, the then-director of Sunrise Children's Services, proposed last year that the home allow employees who were openly gay and lesbian over fears that government funding would dry up.

After churches in Kentucky began withholding their donations, Smithwick was forced to resign, and the children's home did not change its policy.

But the damage was done, and Sunrise Children's Services was already facing a $7 million budget shortfall, according to WDRB.

The Kentucky Baptist Convention, which approves of the anti-LGBT policy, is now back in the Sunrise's corner. The convention has launched a fundraising drive telling churches that it's once again safe to donate.

"Now that our churches have confidence in the leadership of Sunrise and the direction of Sunrise, we'll give them the opportunity to re-invest in this ministry to children," Kentucky Baptist Convention Executive Director Paul Chitwood told WDRB.

However, the policy of discrimination puts Sunrise at risk of losing government funding, which provides 85 percent of its $27 million budget.

Cameraman tells of moment Australian naturalist's chest was repeatedly pierced by barb, and his last words - 'I'm dying'

The only person to witness the moment Steve Irwin was pierced in the chest by a stingray barb said the injuries were so severe that the Australian TV naturalist could not possibly have been saved.

Justin Lyons, a regular underwater cameraman for Irwin and a close friend, said the jagged barb punctured Irwin's chest dozens of times, causing a massive injury to his heart. "He obviously didn't know it had punctured his heart but he knew it had punctured his lung," Lyons told Australia's Network Ten television.

"He was having trouble breathing. Even if we'd been able to get him into an emergency ward at that moment we probably wouldn't have been able to save him, because the damage to his heart was massive. As we're motoring back I'm screaming at one of the other crew in the boat to put their hand over the wound and we're saying to him things like, 'Think of your kids, Steve, hang on, hang on, hang on.' He just sort of calmly looked up at me and said, 'I'm dying.' And that was the last thing he said."

Pathologist says bullet to girlfriend's head was probably fatal, with ammunition designed to mushroom on contact

It was cold, clinical, scientific testimony that finally robbed Oscar Pistorius of his composure.

A pathologist's report from the witness stand of the austere courtroom, detailing the devastating impact of three hollow tipped bullets on the body of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, was punctuated by the gutteral sounds of the sporting celebrity gagging and vomiting repeatedly into a bucket.

While Pistorius has mostly retained his self-possession as a succession of neighbours and an ex-girlfriend gave evidence against him, it was the dry, technical language of professor Gert Saayman that hit him hardest. He was bent double in the dock, hands on his ears as if trying to block out the words, his body in visceral pain and violently sick.

The scene unfolded on the sixth day of the "blockbuster trial" in Pretoria where the testimony was deemed so graphic that judge Thokozile Masipa banned live coverage of it on radio, television, Twitter and blogs.

Researchers identify significant link between deprivation and not reading books

New research shows a stark and "worrying" cultural divide in the UK when it comes to reading, with half the country picking up a book at least once a week for pleasure, and 45% preferring television.

The England-wide survey of the reading habits of 1,500 adults conducted by DJS Research for Booktrust [PDF] says that on average, the higher the socio-economic group that someone is in, the more often they read: 27% of DEs never read books themselves, compared with 13% of ABs, while 62% of ABs read daily or weekly, compared with 42% of DEs. Reading charity Booktrust, which commissioned the research, believes its findings should serve as a warning that "Britain's divided reading culture is a barrier to social mobility".

The study indicates "links between deprivation and not reading books", said Booktrust, with those who never read living in more deprived areas, with a higher proportion of children living in poverty, and those who read less "more likely to be male, under 30, and have lower levels of qualifications, happiness, and satisfaction within their lives".

One respondent, a male who fell into the survey's 30-44 years age bracket, told researchers: "The fact is, it's 2013 not 1813. We have electricity now so we can buy DVDs and watch television rather than read books. Books are for an older generation, younger people on the whole do not read books."

A mother was arrested this week, on charges that she assaulted her 3-year-old daughter after the child destroyed her cellphone by cooking it in the microwave oven.

Police sources told CBS 2 that Krystle Reyes, 28, was arrested at her apartment on West 49th Street in Hell's Kitchen at 5 p.m. Thursday, after neighbors called 911 to report a commotion.

When officers arrived, they found the girl in the bathtub with a cut below her right eye, as well as bruises on her back, right arm, left ear and neck, sources said.

Reyes told police she grabbed the girl by the arm, placed her in the tub and smacked her, sources said.