Shocking video has emerged of the moment a man pulled a shark out of the sea to pose for selfies with the distressed animal.

Shot in Florida, USA, the footage shows the unidentified man return from the water with the shark and posing with it on the beach as it struggles to breathe. The footage comes just days after a crowd of tourists in Argentina sparked global outrage when they 'killed' a baby dolphin by plucking it from the sea for selfies.

It is believed the blacktip shark was out of the water for at least a minute while the man posed for photographs with it. The animal writhes around on the sand, clearly terrified and unable to breathe. The man eventually throws the animal back out to sea - but he doesn't take it out far enough and it washes back up.

A Facebook post by WPTV journalist Ashleigh Walters said the shark was eventually taken further out, but it remains unclear whether it survived.

When the next major earthquake hits Afghanistan, could it leave the leadership of the Afghan military buried under five stories' worth of rubble? John F. Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, does not rule it out. In an audit set for release Thursday, Sopko said the new $155 million Afghan military headquarters, funded by U.S. taxpayers, may not withstand the Big One.

"Although the building generally met contract requirements and appears well built, we found some construction deficiencies that may have safety implications . . . in the event of an earthquake," the inspector general wrote to U.S. military leaders. Sopko was referring to engineering standards that call for the foundations of large buildings to be segmented, allowing movement to be diverted in multiple directions. That would lessen the chance of large structures shaking to the point of collapse. In this case, the new jewel of the Afghan military — a structure often referred to as the Afghan Pentagon — does not even meet the standards of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the report says.

The document is the latest question to be raised about how the United States spent more than $68 billion in funding for Afghan security forces since 2001, including $6 billion for bases and buildings. When the new Defense Ministry headquarters was proposed in 2009, it was slated to cost about $49 million. But the project encountered numerous delays and cost overruns, in part because the Afghan military kept adding new features to the project. By 2014, the project had become so expensive that the U.S. military had effectively run out of money to complete it, prompting a stop-work order.

But Congress replenished the funds, and the building was completed this past summer. The 516,000-square-foot structure features a 1,000-seat auditorium, state-of-the-art command-and-control centers, a dining hall, a library and conference rooms. Sopko said the lack of adequate structural support represents a glaring oversight, considering Afghanistan's history of significant earthquakes.

As any resident of Kabul can attest, there can be multiple jolts in a single week. In the past four months, the maze of fault lines in northeastern Afghanistan produced two earthquakes with a magnitude of 6 or greater, including a 7.5-magnitude temblor in October. In 2002, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake flattened dozens of buildings in Kabul.

Edgar Camacho-Alvarado, 23, was shot and killed by police this weekend while police were searching for a murder suspect in his neighborhood. The young man was not actually guilty of any crime, nor did he pose a threat to officers, and he never even attempted to interfere with their investigation. He was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time, working to fix the engine in his truck in the driveway in front of his home.

The police are refusing to release any further information about the shooting, but Edgar's family wants answers.

"This morning, we got a call about APD and U.S. Marshals being at my aunt's house. We have no idea why they shot him. He passed away instantly. They were looking for someone else and they killed him," Perla Alvarado, Edgar's cousin told KRQE News 13.

Bolivian President Evo Morales remains hopeful for a "Yes" result in the referendum that could extend his presidency another term, even though the "No" side is leading by 8.4 percent with more than 80 percent of the votes counted.

Morales said he is waiting to hear the results of Sunday's vote from rural areas, which is thought to be a stronghold for the country's first indigenous president.

"They don't like us much in the city, but the first results give me hope," he said.

His third term is set to end in 2020, but if the referendum finishes in his favor, he would be able to run for re-election, and potentially take his presidency to 2025.

Once upon a time, the goal of higher education was to prepare kids for life, but in past decades they've gotten further and further from that path. Now, in an era of crybabies and safe spaces, one university teaches survival skills and is completely bucking the status quo.

After the mammoth methane gas leak that spewed uncontrollably from a damaged well in California's Aliso Canyon was finally capped last week, residents of nearby Porter Ranch began trepidatiously returning to their homes. Lingering doubts over whether Southern California Gas Company will continue using the underground storage field have left many wondering if concerns for their safety are being considered at all — particularly considering the company has, so far, only been charged with misdemeanor violations.

All told, the Aliso Canyon leak thrust an estimated 96,000 metric tons of potent methane — not to mention benzene, nitrogen oxides, and other noxious substances — into the atmosphere over a period of months. So vast was the impact of the leak, it has been likened in impactful scope to BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

California, however, isn't the only state dealing with mammoth methane leakage.

Did you know that there are some U.S. states that have already officially fallen into recession? Economic activity all over the planet is in the process of slowing down, and there are some areas of the country that are really starting to feel the pain. In particular, any state that is heavily dependent on the energy industry is hurting right now. During the years immediately following the last recession, the energy industry was the primary engine for the growth of good paying jobs in America, but now that process is completely reversing. All over the U.S. energy companies are going under, and thousands upon thousands of good jobs are being lost.

On Sunday evening, Bloomberg published an article entitled "The U.S. States Where Recession Is Already a Reality". The following is an excerpt from that article...

As economists size up the chances of the first nationwide slump since 2009, pockets of the country are already contracting. Four states — Alaska, North Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming — are in a recession, and three others are at risk of prolonged declines, according to indexes of state economic performance tracked by Moody's Analytics.

Another conservative lawyer is suggesting that Antonin Scalia should be allowed to decide U.S. Supreme Court cases from beyond the grave.

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation and a former Bush administration official, argued that Scalia's votes on some pending cases should be counted even after his Feb 13 death, reported Right Wing Watch.

The conservative legal activist said the late justice had already heard oral arguments in some cases before the court, including Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, which could hobble public sector unions.

A girl scout in the US city of Portland, Oregon showed some "business savvy" this week by selling her group's iconic cookies outside a legal cannabis dispensary.

The girl was accompanied by her aunt who may have tipped her off to a condition known as"the munchies".

Normally, her actions could have earned her a "pioneer" or "hospitality" badge, but the organization didn't seem to support her.

"The Girl Scouts organization said they don't condone this, but it's not against the rules,"said the girl's aunt to KATU.


A spokesperson from the Girl Scouts of Oregon and Southwest Washington said in a statement they recommend that a minor does not sell cookies outside a premises they cannot enter without being accompanied by an adult.

Still, we do have to admire her for thinking outside the (cookie) box.

The Japanese were kept in the dark from the start of the Fukushima disaster about high radiation levels and their dangers to health, writes Linda Pentz Gunter. In order to proclaim the Fukushima area 'safe', the Government increased exposure limits to twenty times the international norm. Soon, many Fukushima refugees will be forced to return home to endure damaging levels of radiation.

Dr. Tetsunari Iida is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies (ISEP) in Japan.

As such, one might have expected a recent presentation he gave in the UK within the hallowed halls of the House of Commons, to have focused on Japan's capacity to replace the electricity once generated by its now mainly shuttered nuclear power plants, with renewable energy.