Investigators from the U.S. Department of Justice are probing the death of a mentally ill inmate who died of thirst earlier this year after 35 days in solitary confinement.

An autopsy showed Michael Anthony Kerr died from dehydration March 12 and was receiving no treatment for his schizophrenia, reported WNCN-TV.

The 54-year-old Kerr, who was serving 31 years for larceny and assault after he was convicted as a habitual felon in 2011, had been cited twice in the weeks before he died for flooding his cell, according to records.

Prison staffers are permitted to turn of water to an inmate's sink or toilet for the "misuse of plumbing facilities," according to a written policy of the North Carolina Department of Public Safety.

David Guice, the state commissioner of Adult Correction and Juvenile Justice, told the Associated Press that water to Kerr's cell "had not been turned off in the days immediately preceding his death."

But prison officials have so far refused to specify exactly when the water was cut off.

They also refused to say whether Kerr was chained in restraints or if he was too weak to walk in the days prior to his death.

The inmate was found unresponsive in the back of a prison van after he was driven three hours from Alexander Correctional Institution in Taylorsville to a mental hospital at Central Prison in Raleigh.

Prison officials have said since Kerr's death six months ago that they would investigate the events that led to his death, but no report has been issued and officials have not said when one would be.

Two men - one in California, the other in Maryland - are facing multiple federal charges of sexually assaulting and exchanging graphic photos of a six-week-old premature infant brought home by one of the men as the child's foster parent.

According to Courthouse News Service, Stephen H. Schaffner, 34, of Greensboro, Md, conspired with Michael Lutts, 50, of San Diego "to abuse a six-week-old foster child and transmit recorded images and videos of the abuse to Schaffner."

Lutts, a pediatric nurse at a San Diego County Kaiser Permanente hospital and the foster parent of the child, allegedly exchanged graphic and sexually explicit messages with Schaffner, a former clinical professional counselor in Greensboro, within hours after bring the child home.

According to the U.S. Attorney's office in Baltimore, "Over the next several hours, Schaffner allegedly exchanged numerous graphic and sexually explicit messages with Lutts about Lutts engaging in sexually explicit conduct with the infant. Lutts sent Schaffner videos with the infant, including images of an adult performing oral sex on the infant. Schaffner is alleged to have directed Lutts to sexually abuse the infant in order to produce sexually explicit images and videos and send them to Schaffner."

Court house documents state that, in one of the videos, Lutts videotaped himself touching the infant's genitals while masturbating. Images show the hospital tag still attached to the infant's leg. A video recorded a week later showed Lutts naked in his living room with the baby near him while he performed lewd acts upon himself.

FBI agents, who arrested Lutts as part of a child pornography ring, stated the newborn can be heard crying through many of the videos.

An economic system that rewards psychopathic personality traits has changed our ethics and our personalities

We tend to perceive our identities as stable and largely separate from outside forces. But over decades of research and therapeutic practice, I have become convinced that economic change is having a profound effect not only on our values but also on our personalities. Thirty years of neoliberalism, free-market forces and privatisation have taken their toll, as relentless pressure to achieve has become normative. If you're reading this sceptically, I put this simple statement to you: meritocratic neoliberalism favours certain personality traits and penalises others.

There are certain ideal characteristics needed to make a career today. The first is articulateness, the aim being to win over as many people as possible. Contact can be superficial, but since this applies to most human interaction nowadays, this won't really be noticed.

It's important to be able to talk up your own capacities as much as you can - you know a lot of people, you've got plenty of experience under your belt and you recently completed a major project. Later, people will find out that this was mostly hot air, but the fact that they were initially fooled is down to another personality trait: you can lie convincingly and feel little guilt. That's why you never take responsibility for your own behaviour.

On top of all this, you are flexible and impulsive, always on the lookout for new stimuli and challenges. In practice, this leads to risky behaviour, but never mind, it won't be you who has to pick up the pieces. The source of inspiration for this list? The psychopathy checklist by Robert Hare, the best-known specialist on psychopathy today.

This description is, of course, a caricature taken to extremes. Nevertheless, the financial crisis illustrated at a macro-social level (for example, in the conflicts between eurozone countries) what a neoliberal meritocracy does to people.Solidarity becomes an expensive luxury and makes way for temporary alliances, the main preoccupation always being to extract more profit from the situation than your competition. Social ties with colleagues weaken, as does emotional commitment to the enterprise or organisation.


Bullying used to be confined to schools; now it is a common feature of the workplace. This is a typical symptom of the impotent venting their frustration on the weak - in psychology it's known as displaced aggression. There is a buried sense of fear, ranging from performance anxiety to a broader social fear of the threatening other.

For the moment, our top public health officials are quite adamant that there absolutely will not be a major Ebola outbreak in the United States. But what if they are wrong? Or what would happen if terrorists released a form of weaponized Ebola or weaponized smallpox in one of our major cities? What would such an event do to our economy? I think that we can get some clues by looking at the economic collapses that are taking place in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone right now. When an extremely deadly virus like Ebola starts spreading like wildfire, the fear that it creates can be even worse for a society than the disease. All of a sudden people don't want to go to work, people don't want to go to school and people definitely don't want to go shopping. There are very few things that can shut down the economy of a nation faster. Considering the fact that our big banks are being more reckless than ever, we better hope that we don't see a "black swan event" such as a major Ebola outbreak come along and upset the apple cart. Because if that does happen, our Ponzi scheme of an economy could implode really quick.

Right now there is just one confirmed case of Ebola in Texas. If they isolated him before he infected anyone else, we might be okay for the moment. But already we are being told that there may be "a possible second Ebola patient" in Dallas...

Health officials are closely monitoring a possible second Ebola patient who had close contact with the first person to be diagnosed in the U.S., the director of Dallas County's health department said Wednesday.

All who have been in close contact with the man officially diagnosed are being monitored as a precaution, Zachary Thompson, director of Dallas County Health and Human Services, said in a morning interview with WFAA-TV, Dallas-Fort Worth.

"Let me be real frank to the Dallas County residents: The fact that we have one confirmed case, there may be another case that is a close associate with this particular patient," he said. "So this is real. There should be a concern, but it's contained to the specific family members and close friends at this moment."

Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia have together re-exported 1.7 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to Ukraine, Gazprom, Russia's biggest gas exporter said Friday, questioning the legality of the practice.

"There is every reason to believe that Russian gas is being delivered to Ukraine that isn't intended for them, but for other European customers. This is generally done under the 'virtual reverse gas flow' scheme, but we have seen gas movements across the Ukrainian border," as TASS quotes Deputy Chairman of Gazprom Aleksandr Medvedev.

The data was compiled at the request of Vladimir Gutenev, first deputy head of the industry committee of Russia's lower house of parliament.

A total of 3.8 billion cubic meters was imported from Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary between 2012-2014, and 1.7 billion cubic meters so far this year.

The amount indicates that Naftogaz, Ukraine's state oil and gas company, is not following the conditions of its contract with Gazprom, Aleksandr Medvedev said.

Sweden's new centre-left government is to recognise the state of Palestine, in a move that will make it the first major European country to take the step, the prime minister, Stefan Löfven, has said. The UN general assembly approved the de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine in 2012, but the European Union and most EU countries have yet to give it official recognition.

"The conflict between Israel and Palestine can only be solved with a two-state solution, negotiated in accordance with international law," Löfven said during his inaugural address in parliament on Friday. "A two-state solution requires mutual recognition and a will to peaceful coexistence. Sweden will therefore recognise the state of Palestine."

For the Palestinians, Sweden's move will be a welcome boost for its ambitions. With its reputation as an honest broker in international affairs and with an influential voice in EU foreign policy, the decision may well make other countries sit up and pay attention at a time when the Palestinians are threatening unilateral moves towards statehood.

If there is a major Ebola pandemic in America, all of the liberties and the freedoms that you currently enjoy would be gone. If government officials believe that you have the virus, federal law allows them to round you up and detain you "for such time and in such manner as may be reasonably necessary." In addition, the CDC already has the authority to quarantine healthy Americans if they reasonably believe that they may become sick. During an outbreak, the government can force you to remain isolated in your own home, or the government may forcibly take you to a treatment facility, a tent city, a sports stadium, an old military base or a camp. You would not have any choice in the matter. And you would be forced to endure any medical procedure mandated by the government. That includes shots, vaccines and the drawing of blood. During such a scenario, you can scream about your "rights" all that you want, but it won't do any good.

The latest documentary from the director Oliver Stone, Untold History of the United States, will soon be shown on Russia's Channel One. In this candid interview, the maverick US film-maker talks about the significance of the work for a Russian audience and delivers his characteristically controversial views on some of the most pressing political issues of the day, including East-West relations and the Ukraine crisis. A book of the film will also be published.

On his new documentary and book

Peter Kuznik and I have just finished a 12-hour long documentary series, Untold History of the United States. The book came out of the film, not the other way around, which is more usual. I have been accused so many times by my critics of distorting the truth, that we decided to substantiate what we're saying in the film with the book.

We've sold Untold History in many countries. I am happy that after much effort, we managed to release the book and the television series in Russia. Russians have a completely different point of view on the First and the Second World Wars. Americans don't understand a lot of the history of these wars, and we deal with that in the book.

We wrote the book and did the TV series for young people, my daughter and sons, so that they can learn this history. I care very much about teaching history to younger people. The book addresses such controversial issues as the First and the Second World War, the Cold War and U.S.-USSR relations.

The crisis in Ukraine is at the end of this long history. I am very interested in the history of these relations between the two countries, and it is a very large and complex issue.

The anti-militarization group New Profile announced this week that two Israeli youths who refuse to serve in the army are once again being sent back to military prison.

Udi Segal, 18, has been handed down a fourth prison term and Uriel Ferera, 19, has been sent to jail for the eighth time; both were issued ten-day sentences on 29 September.

Segal and Ferera are among fifty youths who signed an open letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this year stating their refusal to serve in Israel's army because of its violations of Palestinians' rights.

Israeli youths are drafted into the military once they turn 18.

A police officer in Elgin, Illinois with a history of disciplinary issues related to social media was fired after a Facebook post disparaging dead Missouri teenager Michael Brown, the Elgin Courier-News reported.

According to police records, Jason Lentz was fired in connection with an Aug. 15 post linking to a Fox News video of Brown allegedly stealing cigarillos from a Ferguson, Missouri store. Lentz reportedly wrote, "Hmmm ... Innocent victim my ass. Did society a favor," a reference to Officer Darren Wilson, who shot and killed Brown on Aug. 9. Lentz also failed to follow a request from his superior that he remove the post, instead shortening his comment to "Hmmm ..."

Lentz also criticized Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson, who was asked to take over security in Ferguson after clashes between local police and demonstrators, writing that Johnson "appears to be the enemy within" in a post showing Johnson flashing a salute for the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity alongside a protester.

Deputy Police Chief Bill Wolf said in response to an open records request that Lentz, a 17-year veteran, had broken a department rule against "conduct that would undermine the credibility of the city or employees," which included their personal social media sites.