A police officer just 15 miles away from the ongoing protests in Ferguson, Mo. allegedly said he thinks the protesters should have been "put down like rabid dogs."

Officer Matthew Pappert is a police officer with the Glendale Police Department. He has been an officer since 2008. Pappert received the 2009 City of Glendale Community Service Award and the 2013 Kirkwood American Legion Post and Kirkwood Optimist Club Public Safety Award.

Four firefighters were shocked by a nearby power line on Thursday in the process of helping students at Campbellsville University participate in the 'Ice Bucket Challenge,' a social media-fueled fundraiser for ALS research.

Two of the Kentucky firefighters on the ladder of a fire truck used to dump water on the students had to be airlifted to the University of Louisville Hospital to be treated for severe burns. The first, Capt. Tony Grider, is in critical condition, according to WHAS11, while the other, Simon Quinn, has been "upgraded from serious to fair condition."

"[It] appears energy arced over and ladder didn't actually hit lines. If you get within certain radius that can happen," officials said Thursday.

Two other firefighters were also shocked by electricity that traveled down the ladder.

"From talking with power company technicians, if you get within a distance of three or four feet, the energy that surrounds the high-voltage wire will actually arc over onto another object, in this case being the personnel occupying the bucket," Campbellsville Police Chief Tim Hazlette told WAVE.

The Ice Bucket Challenge has swept across the United States in recent weeks. Participants dump ice water on themselves, promising to also donate money to research of amyothrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a nerve cell disease in the brain and spinal cord. Participants then challenge others to do the same. Much of the "challenging" has been done via social media outlets like Facebook.

A pageant mother from Florida fed her teenage daughter tapeworms to help her slim down for a competition, a nurse has revealed.

Maricar Cabral-Osori told how she admitted the girl to the ER with severe stomach cramps and initially suspected she was pregnant - something an ultrasound ruled out.

However, the cause of the pain became clear when the nurse later found the teenager screaming over a toilet bowl full of tapeworms, she recalled on a recent episode of Untold Stories of the ER.

The sudden contraction of the German economy in the second quarter could be caused by Russian sanctions and the erosion of confidence from the crisis in Ukraine, the German Finance Ministry said on Friday.

A 0.2 percent shrink in Europe's strongest economy between April and June came after modest growth of 0.7 percent in the first quarter. The first quarter was mostly driven by an unusually warm winter, which stimulated construction activity.

"The decline in gross domestic product (GDP) goes beyond the expected counter-effect to the very strong weather-related performance in the previous quarter," Bloomberg quotes the finance ministry monthly report.

The ministry considers the main hindrances to the economy are "the effect of sanctions, and negative effects on confidence due to the Ukraine crisis," which have likely resulted in the decline of industrial activity in the second quarter.

Among other reasons listed is "weaker economic development in the eurozone" and "other geopolitical tensions." Moreover, the investment in construction and foreign trade had weighed on growth in the second quarter.

Despite negative figures, the general economic trend remains positive the ministry assured.

Germany is sticking to its forecast to grow by 1.8 percent this year even after its disappointing second quarter, Rainer Sontowski, German State Secretary for Economics, said on Wednesday.

"If the Ukraine crisis does not escalate further and no further serious stages of sanctions is imposed, it is to be expected that the current economic slowdown is only temporary," the ministry statement said.

As the first 30 trucks in the humanitarian convoy headed for war-torn eastern Ukraine, the residents of Lugansk - struggling daily without regular food supplies, water, electricity and under constant shelling - are looking forward to the aid relief.

On Friday, the Russian convoy crossed the Ukrainian border and started moving in the direction of Lugansk, after Moscow had ordered it to proceed, without waiting for further instructions or permission from Kiev.

Due to the electricity black-out and the lack of water, many local enterprises have to a halt in Lugansk. RT traveled to what used to be the area's biggest bread-baking facilities and spoke with one of the employees, Vasily, who said that he doesn't know how the locals get by.

"I don't know why they are doing this, I stopped being afraid and just live my everyday life," he told RT.

There are make-shift markets in the region, with most of the traders coming from neighboring villages, where the situation is a bit less catastrophic.

Lugansk residents come to the market to buy goods - or for exchange, as no payments have been made in the city over the past few weeks, and the prices are through the roof.

A Missouri chapter of the Ku Klux Klan has raised more than $150,000 for the white police officer who shot and killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

A GoFundMe page set up to support Darren Wilson has raised that amount since it was created on August 17.

The Wilson page's mission statement says: "We stand behind Officer Darren Wilson and his family during this trying time in their lives. All proceeds will be sent directly to Darren Wilson and his family for any financial needs they may have including legal fees."

"All money will go to the cop who did his job against the Negro criminal," said New Empire Knights of the KKK.

Rising levels of food poverty have led to malnutrition becoming more common in the UK, experts say. The public health problem is responsible for a range of ailments surfacing across the country, including rickets.

Britain's Faculty of Public Health has linked the growing trend to people's inability to afford quality food. According to the latest figures, there has been a 19-percent increase in the number of UK citizens hospitalized for malnutrition over the past twelve months.

UK ministers say the government has billions available to tackle issues concerning public health. The coalition recently confirmed that a portion of this funding will be channeled towards local authorities to address public health concerns such as malnutrition.

But against a backdrop of alleged funding to address state-wide manifestations of food poverty, a national crisis is looming.

In a democratic republic, the "innocent until proven guilty" concept is supposed to be sacrosanct. Jurors, police officers, judges and prosecuting attorneys - at least in theory - are required to err on the side of caution, and if a guilty person occasionally goes free, so be it. But with the war on drugs, the concept of innocent until proven guilty has fallen by the wayside on countless occasions. The war on drugs is not only fought aggressively, it is fought carelessly and haphazardly, and a long list of innocent victims have been killed or maimed in the process.

Attorney General Eric Holder recently addressed the war on drugs during a speech for the American Bar Association's annual meeting, calling for the United States to seriously reevaluate its harsh policy of mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent, low-level drug offenses. Holder acknowledged that "too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long and for no truly good law enforcement reason," and he pointed out that according to one report, black males convicted in drug cases typically receive sentences that are 20% longer than the sentences imposed on white males for similar offenses. It was refreshing to hear an attorney general make those statements; also encouraging is a recent Rasmussen poll finding that 82% of Americans see the war on drugs as a failure.

Many people from across the political spectrum - from the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, the National Urban League and the Rev. Jesse Jackson to right-wing libertarians like Ron Paul, Walter Williams and 2012 Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson - have pointed out that the war on drugs has become much deadlier than the drugs themselves. Innocent civilians have more to fear from botched drug raids and careless police work than they do from drug dealers.

Below are 10 innocent victims who became collateral damage and lost their lives in the war on drugs (there are many, many more).

Russia's Liberal Democratic Party will press for depriving President Barak Obama of the Nobel Peace Prize on the grounds that the US leader is disgracing the award by organizing wars instead of fighting for peace.
The statement, posted on the party's website, quotes its leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky as saying that the fact that the Peace Prize was given to Obama in 2009 caused bewilderment from the very beginning - the award went to the man who had occupied his post for less than a year and had not claimed any real achievements.

"Usually the Nobel Peace Prize is handed to people who fought for peace for 20, 30, 40 or 50 years, who did prison time. This man has not moved a finger. And in recent years he has organized wars. Ukraine is in flames, the Mideast is troubled, and there are problems in Afghanistan. Throughout his term in power - not a single peacekeeping operation; we see only death, aggression and refugees. The Peace Prize should be recalled immediately to avoid disgracing of the award!" Zhirinovsky stated.

A French pensioner has had to prove he is alive after being denied a refund by a state health insurance firm on the grounds that he was in fact dead. The 68-year-old then had to endure a bureaucratic nightmare to show he was still living.

"I received a letter on July 8 from the Social Security of Independent Professions telling me that the refund was not possible on the grounds of my death on January 4th 2010," Jean-Marie Sevrain told AFP.

The Frenchman had been hoping to be reimbursed to the tune of 23 euros after visiting a doctor to pick up some prescription drugs, to help him fight diabetes. Sevrain said that he had been doing this "every three months for many years."

"When I got the letter, I thought I was dreaming, then my wife and I started laughing," he said. "What is bizarre is that I am supposed to be dead but the letter indicated I had the possibility to appeal," the 68 year-old said.