A Syrian opposition group says the ISIL Takfiri militants have shot down a US-led coalition warplane over northern Syria.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday that ISIL militants also "took a [non-Syrian] Arab pilot prisoner after shooting his plane down with an anti-aircraft missile near Raqqa city."

The ISIL also released photographs purportedly showing a captured Jordanian pilot on its websites.

Jordanian officials have not made any comment on the incident.


Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain are among a number of countries that have joined the so-called US-led alliance carrying out airstrikes against ISIL in Syria and Iraq. This comes as most of these countries have been supporting Al-Qaeda-linked militant groups fighting the Syrian government.

If confirmed, this would be the first coalition warplane shot down since the airstrikes started in September.

The preordained failure of biased local prosecutors to obtain indictments against Darren Wilson and Daniel Pantaleo should not surprise us. But the outrage that followed has brought widespread attention to the nationwide problem of systemic and racist police violence and highlighted the movement that has come together to battle against it.

The Ferguson grand jury's decision not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for the killing of African-American teenager Michael Brown, followed by an equally unfair result in New York City in the Eric Garner case, were equally heartless. But it is important to place these cases in context with the history of police violence investigations and prosecutions in high profile cases - and the systemic and racist police brutality that continues to plague the nation. In doing so, there are lessons for the movement for justice in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases as well as for those who are engaged in the broader struggle against law enforcement violence.

What follows, then, is a brief history of similar high profile cases where public outrage compelled the justice system to confront acts of racially motivated police violence - with, to say the least, less than satisfactory results.

Chicago

Over the past 45 years, Chicago has been a prime example of official indifference and cover-up when it comes to prosecuting the police for wanton brutality and torture.

On December 4, 1969, Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were slain in a police raid that implicated the Cook County State's Attorney and the FBI's Cointelpro program. A public outcry led to a Federal Civil Rights investigation. Despite finding that the raiding police fired more than 90 shots to one by the Panthers, the Grand Jury in 1970 did not indict, but rather issued a report that equally blamed the police perpetrators and the Panther victims.

A man in Canada has been placed under arrest for allegedly beating a 6-year-old girl, and then leaving her naked to die in the snow.

According to Global News, emergency services responded on Saturday at 4 p.m. to the Paul Band First Nation, a group of Aboriginal peoples in Alberta.

A spokesperson for the Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service (STARS) said that first responders found a 6-year-old girl suffering from "traumatic injuries related to blunt trauma." She was taken to a hospital in Edmonton, where she was described in critical condition on Sunday.

Family members told Global News that the girl returned home from skating with friends, and then left the home with a relative. Family and friends assumed at the time that the girl had gone back to the skating rink.

But the 6 year old was later found lying in the snow, naked and unconscious. The family said that she was left for dead in the woods.

"The way he beat her, put her in a coma, and raped her. That shouldn't happen to little children," one family member explained to Global News. "This person that did that has got to be some kind of an animal, to not even think that he's harming another human being."

The girl was beaten so badly that she could not be recognized, a family member recalled.

"It's so heartbreaking," another relative lamented. "I can't imagine... I mean, she's just a little girl. And he's a full grown man."

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrested a man, and an investigation was ongoing. The RCMP said that it was not releasing the suspect's name to protect the identity of the victim.

A Dallas police officer has been charged with allegedly forcing a woman to perform multiple sex acts while he was on duty.

According to the Dallas Morning News, police arrested Officer David Kattner on Sunday at around 1:20 a.m.

An arrest warrant obtained by the paper said that Kattner had sexually assaulted the woman three times. The woman said that Kattner had shown her warrants for her arrest, and told her that he knew where her daughter lived.

The warrant stated that Kattner was wearing his Dallas Police Department uniform, and driving a marked patrol car when the assault occurred. It also stated that the officer kept his hand on his service weapon while he forced the victim to perform the sex act on him.

The woman felt that she had to comply because Kattner had threatened her safety and the safety of her daughter, the warrant said.

Officials with the Dallas Police Department said that Kattner was accused of making prostitutes perform sex acts. It was not immediately clear, however, that the victim was a prostitute.


Kattner was placed on administrative leave and booked into the Dallas County Jail. His bond was set at $50,000.

A boy, 13, is being credited with saving his 4-year-old sister from being kidnapped, authorities say.

Lancaster sheriff's deputies say the boy took swift action when a man entered their fenced yard in Lancaster on Saturday and grabbed hold of his sister. The man made it about 10 feet before dropping the girl, deputies said, thanks to her brother.

"He definitely acted on his own instincts," said Deputy Miguel Ruiz, calling the boy's actions courageous and heroic.

The suspect was identified as Earl Williams, 61, of Los Angeles. Williams, who had been seen pacing around the children's home in the 300 block of West Kildare Street, entered their yard about 11:55 a.m., authorities said. He asked the girl's name, then reached down and grabbed her, said Lt. Slade Carrizosa of the Los Angeles County sheriff's station in Lancaster.

Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable British pensioners receive home state care that is so cursory and inadequate they are forced to choose between eating and being assisted to the bathroom, a Freedom of Information (FoI) request reveals.

An overwhelming 75 percent of local authorities in England offer pensioners visits that last a mere 15 minutes, the FoI request indicates. The number of councils booking care workers for these "flying care" visits has shot up 5 percent in the past year.

Britain's health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said the sobering statistics revealed a situation that was simply "unacceptable." Alluding to dangers associated with cost cutting in an era of outsourcing, Hunt said there are "too many examples of councils buying rushed care visits."

Councils warn crippling funding cuts are to blame for the situation, and have jeopardized their capacity to maintain basic services. They say they need an extra £400 million if they are to provide adequate services to those who rely on them.

Outsourced and unaccountable

In a climate of rampant privatization, UK public services are increasingly outsourced. In the case of state care, 90 percent of such services for elderly and disabled Britons are now offered by private companies or charities.

Some 110 councils across Britain are currently paying for care workers to conduct these 15-minute visits.

Severely criticized, the whistle-stop visits generally occur daily or every two days. Critics warn the rushed timespan is simply too short to allow pensioners and the disabled the time needed for adequate care.

Frustrated care workers say they don't have sufficient time to dress, feed and wash their clients and make sure they have taken any medication they depend on.

Two police officers sitting in their patrol car in Brooklyn were shot at point-blank range and killed on Saturday afternoon by a man who, officials said, had traveled to the city from Baltimore vowing to kill officers. The suspect then committed suicide with the same gun, the authorities said.

The officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, were in the car near Myrtle and Tompkins Avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant in the shadow of a tall housing project when the gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, walked up to the passenger-side window and assumed a firing stance, Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said. Mr. Brinsley shot several rounds into the heads and upper bodies of the officers, who never drew their weapons, the authorities said.

Mr. Brinsley, 28, then fled down the street and onto the platform of a nearby subway station, where he killed himself as officers closed in. The police recovered a silver semiautomatic handgun, Mr. Bratton said.

Mr. Brinsley, who had a long rap sheet of crimes that included robbery and carrying a concealed gun, is believed to have shot his former girlfriend near Baltimore before traveling to Brooklyn, the authorities said. He made statements on social media suggesting that he planned to kill police officers and was angered about the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases.


Authorities in Baltimore sent a warning that Mr. Brinsley had made these threats, but it was received in New York at essentially the same time as the killings, officials said.

The shootings, the chase, the suicide of Mr. Brinsley and the desperate but failed bid to save the lives of the officers - their uniforms soaked in blood - turned a busy commercial intersection on the Saturday before Christmas into a scene of pandemonium.

Demonstrators gather outside Ukrainian parliament to protest government measures to arrest the country's financial crisis.

A crowd of thousands gathered on Tuesday outside the parliament building in Kiev to show their opposition to cost-cutting measures proposed by the government of Ukraine.

"First of all, they want to pass a budget, with which the majority of people gathered here today are dissatisfied, and they want to extend the powers of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine," Vitaly Yahno, the coordinator of the protest told the Ukrainian UNN news website. "And our task - is to ensure that the laws are passed, which we submitted."

"The 'Financial Maidan' is demanding the passing of legislation which has already been registered, but they [the authorities] don't want to put them on the agenda," Yahno explained.

The protest site on Tuesday stretched from the immediate boundary of the parliament building to the nearby Mariinski Park, and also blocked traffic on the road between the park and parliament building. According to a correspondent from RIA Novosti, on Tuesday afternoon around two and a half thousand protestors were assembled in largely peaceful protest, while the perimeter of the parliament building was guarded by several hundred security officers, including those of the National Guard.

The FBI division of the US city of Memphis warned on Monday that Islamic State may explode the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge in the United States through an active member operating in Tennessee.

The Islamic State (IS) extremist group may explode the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge in the United States through an active member operating in Tennessee, the FBI division of the US city of Memphis warned on Monday, citing an anonymous informant.

"According to an anonymous complainant, as of December 2014, ISIS [the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, IS] instructed an ISIS [IS] member, a presumed USPER [US person] in Memphis, with a direct order to blow up the Memphis-Arkansas bridge on an unknown date, activating ISIS terror cells in the United States," the FBI warning said.

A provocative public service announcement released by a San Francisco-based production company encourages children to put themselves at risk and commit a slew of crimes by stealing their parents' guns from home and turning them in at school.

In the anti-gun ad, published Dec. 13 by Sleeper 13 Productions, a boy who appears to be in his early teens is shown walking up the stairs of his home and wandering into his mother's bedroom.

The boy is shown opening the drawer to his mother's dresser, where a handgun is hidden.

The boy takes the gun from the dresser and leaves the room. The ad then flashes to his school. Sitting in a classroom, the boy ventures up to his teacher's desk after the rest of his classmates have left.

The tension building in the scene breaks, and the boy produces the gun from his backpack, slamming it on his startled teacher's desk.