Police officers in New Jersey swear to uphold the United States Constitution as part of their oath of office. But one cop has decided that, because ‒ in his eyes ‒ President Barack Obama doesn't follow the document, he doesn't have to either.

Special Police Officer Richard Recine, a part-time employee of the Borough of Helmetta Police Department, was caught on video saying, "Obama has decimated the friggin' Constitution, so I don't give a damn. Because if he doesn't follow the Constitution we don't have to."

The statement was made in response to resident Steve Wronko, who was at the municipal building to serve an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request after being kicked out of the Helmetta Regional Animal Shelter earlier in the week, and to complain about recent health code violations there and nepotism stemming from Mayor Nancy Martin.

In 2011, Martin made her son, Brandon Metz, the head of the Helmetta Regional Animal Shelter. She also appointed him to Animal Cruelty Investigator, Borough Laborer, Water Meter Reader, and Certified Recycling Coordinator, according to the town website. A Facebook page called Reform Helmetta Regional Animal Shelter claims that there are recurring inhumane practices and state health code violations

Voice recordings taken from the cockpit of Air Algérie flight AH5017, which crashed in Mali killing 116 people last month, are "unusable", French investigators attempting to determine the cause of the crash said Thursday.

"The tape was a little bit damaged," Rémi Jouty, the head of France's BEA air safety agency, told journalists.

"The BEA laboratory was able to restore the tape. Unfortunately the recordings are so far unusable."

Flight AH5017, a McDonnell Douglas 83 jet that had taken off on July 24 from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso bound for Algiers, crashed in the Mali desert after asking to turn back as bad weather struck.

France bore the brunt of the tragedy, with nearly half of the victims. Other passengers came from Burkina Faso, Lebanon, Algeria, Spain, Canada, Germany and Luxembourg.

French food trader Jean Selverro will lose €200 thousand a month because of Russia's import bans on food from the European Union, announced this week. Normally, 90 percent of his apples and pears are exported to Russia.

"I'm shocked," he told FRANCE 24. "I think it's a nightmare I need to wake up from. It's just not possible. I have to tell my employees, some who have been with me for nine years. Tomorrow or the day after, it's over."

A truck loaded with 22 tonnes of Selverro's fruit now has to be emptied.

President Xavier Beulin of a French farm union said the Russian import ban could seriously affect France's fruit and vegetable industry. "Russia is a significant market for us and one that grows by about 10 percent each year. It's not trivial," he told a European television network.

But it is not just fruit and vegetables. At the Rungis food market outside of Paris, cheese exporter Sabah Quartau was working the phones trying to determine the fate of her company's next shipment. She has been told that trucks transporting food are likely to be stopped at the border.

Shares in some of Russian food producers have added almost 40 percent by midday on Friday. The surge comes a day after Moscow imposed a one-year ban on imports of food products from the West.

Shares in one of Russia's biggest agricultural holdings Razgulay shot up 39.87 percent by Friday afternoon, according to Moscow Stock Exchange data.

Stocks in the Russian Sea fish and Seafood producer surged 34.85 percent, GlavTorgProduct stocks also rose 35 percent.

Meat manufacturer Cherkizovo saw an 8.25 percent rise, the Ostankino meat processing plant had an 18.5 percent boost.

This increase has far outpaced the overall dynamics of Russia's key indices, the RTS and MICEX, which were up 0.92 percent and 0.38 percent respectively.

On Thursday Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree banning all imports of beef, pork, poultry meat, fish, cheese, milk, vegetables and fruit from Australia, Canada, the EU, the US and Norway.

At the time of writing this, almost 1900 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army's assault on Gaza. Around 80% of those killed are civilians, with almost 400 children and over 200 women. Over 80 families have been completely wiped out; killed in single strikes. The operation, entitled "Protective Edge", has been more destructive, in its claim of human life and urban infrastructure, than Israel's 2008/09 assault, Castlead. There is very little to suggest that Israel, in all its misunderstood morality and goodwill, plans to stop its cleansing of Gaza any time soon.

Lifeless, bloodied Palestinian bodies, severed Palestinian limbs and wailing Palestinian mothers have become near staple daily viewings. I don't volunteer to see these images but their ubiquity makes them unavoidable. And as common as these images have become in all the online spaces I occupy and frequent, the characterization of "both sides" has become far more widespread. Wherever I click, I see calls for "both sides" to stop fighting and agree (and stick to) a ceasefire; condemnations of "both sides" in causing so much suffering; distribution of blame to "both sides" and the lamenting of suffering on "both sides."

But there are no "both sides."

See, the problem with this talk of "both sides" is that is assumes a semblance of equality - equality in the position of power and thus ability. Yes, there are two sides in this conflict: there are the Palestinians and the Israelis. Well, there are more than two sides if we take history and geopolitics into consideration, but who wants more nuance on a Sunday. But that characterization of "both sides" ends there; it ends with drawing out who the involved people are.

"Both sides" don't have the right to self-defense.

"Both sides" do not receive billions in military aid.

"Both sides" do not enact apartheid laws to ensure ethnic hegemony.

"Both sides" do not exist at the systemically violent prerogative of the other.

"Both sides" do not ethnically cleanse.

"Both sides" haven't lost almost two thousand lives in less than a month.

"Both sides" do not have the deliberate and mass targeting of civilians engrained into their military doctrine.

"Both sides" are not states.

"Both sides" do not have their their homes, their hospitals, their schools, their places of worship and their shelters destroyed.

"Both sides" are not under land and naval siege.

"Both sides" haven't had their electricity and access to water severed.

"Both sides" do not have their daily calorie intake counted.

"Both sides" aren't occupied.

"Both sides" aren't compassionate headlines.

And the lives on "both sides" are not equal in the weight and worth.

So don't talk about the responsibility of "both sides" to make peace; don't talk about how the blame of the suffering is on "both sides."

The slave and the master weren't "both sides"; the tyrant and his subjects were never "both sides". The native and the settler were never "both sides" - so why do we treat the Palestinians and Israelis as "both sides"?

Until and unless there is some pretense of actual 'balance' in the positions of the Israelis and Palestinians - there are no "both sides". It is an uncomfortable confrontation, but it is a confrontation with the right side of justice and history.

There are many takeaways from the Gaza war, including the diversion of cement and other supplies to the Hamas tunnel and rocket effort, and the use of civilian populations as a military shield.

The civilian casualties, though almost certainly overstated to include Hamas fighters in civilian clothes, are tragic. The death of so many children is heartbreaking.

But there is another important phenomenon on which we should reflect now, even before the conflict is over: The widespread global eruption of openly anti-Semitic rhetoric and violence in the name of anti-Zionism.

Anti-Semitism has reared its head almost everywhere there are pro-Palestinian street protests.

A heavily Jewish section of Paris was looted and attacked as crowds shouted "Gas the Jews," in what correctly has been called a pogrom. Multiple synagogues and Jewish centers in Paris and elsewhere in France were firebombed, and neo-Nazi salutes were center stage.

British aid agencies have launched an emergency appeal to help the thousands of Palestinians caught up in "a humanitarian emergency affecting virtually every man, woman and child in Gaza."

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) said "even before the conflict began the people of Gaza were close to breaking point." They called on the public to make charitable donations to aid those blighted by the conflict.

The appeal is being launched after hundreds of thousands of people fled their homes with many needing not only shelter but food, water, household items and often medical care. There are now 65,000 people in Gaza who have seen their homes severely damaged or destroyed.

A small insurance company in California has a thing or two to learn about customer service. Adriana's Insurance Service settled a lawsuit over an employee assaulting an elderly man... and delivered his compensation in buckets full of coins.

Andres Carrasco filed a lawsuit against the company in 2012, claiming he was physically assaulted by an Adriana's Insurance Service employee. The business agreed to settle in June. When it came time for Adriana's to pay up the $21,000 they owed him, however, they didn't just cut a check. Employees ‒ eight of them ‒ arrived at Carrasco's lawyer's office in a van, and proceeded to deliver five-gallon bucket after five-gallon bucket filled with change before leaving.

"There's over 16 buckets of quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies. It's going to take us at least, conservatively, one week to count that whole amount of money," attorney Antonio Gallo told KCBS.

Carrasco, who is 73, just had a hernia operation, and is unable to lift any of the buckets, Gallo said to KNBC. "It's too heavy," the recipient said to KCBS.

Students will be randomly tested for drugs this school year, according to a new plan.

On Wednesday, the Miami-Dade County School Board announced plans to test high school students at random for performance enhancing drugs or steroids.

The school board said the pilot program starts this year.

Miami-Dade Public Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said the goal is to stop the use of steroids for athletes and ultimately try to find the dealers preying on kids.

"There is always an adult culprit behind these issues," said Carvalho.

A Christian radio host who enthusiastically looks for signs the world will end welcomed the Ebola virus as a cleansing force.

"This Ebola epidemic could become a global pandemic and that's another name for plague," said broadcaster Rick Wiles on his Trunews program.

"It may be the great attitude adjustment that I believe is coming," Wiles continued. "Ebola could solve America's problems with atheism, homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, pornography, and abortion."

Wiles was enthusiastic Tuesday about the arrival of Ebola, but Right Wing Watch reported that he warned the previous day that President Barack Obama may intentionally spread the deadly virus through a mandatory and mysterious vaccine.

That would somehow then allow Obama to declare martial law and force Americans into FEMA camps, the religious right broadcaster theorized.

"If Ebola becomes a global plague, you better make sure the blood of Jesus is upon you, you better make sure you have been marked by the angels so that you are protected by God," Wiles warned. "If not, you may be a candidate to meet the Grim Reaper."