Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the steelworker-turned-president of a booming Brazil, broke into tears when Rio de Janeiro was named to host the 2016 Olympics.

Today, with Brazil immersed in twin political and economic crises, few seem to be thinking about the opening ceremony in Maracana Stadium in 134 days.

Current President Dilma Rousseff is fighting for her political life amid a deep recession, impeachment proceedings, mass protests and a corruption scandal in which the once high-flying Lula, her predecessor and mentor, faces charges.

The plot of the country's political thriller is moving so fast the Brazilian media have barely had time to cover preparations for South America's first Olympics, beyond an outbreak of the Zika virus, blamed for causing brain damage in unborn babies.

It is hard to even predict who will be president of Brazil when the Olympic flame is lit in the legendary Maracana on August 5.

Anytime there's a new development in robotics or artificial intelligence, popular culture almost instantly regurgitates the Skynet Terminator narrative. To wit, when Anti-Media reported on a new robot getting pushed around by its handlers, even we couldn't resist alluding to the coming robot apocalypse. The machine uprising is so ingrained in our psyche that we may actually manufacture the very nightmare we fear.

The newest chapter in the uncanny valley of relationships between humans and robots involves a chatterbot, an AI speech program, whose substrate of choice (or Microsoft's choice) is social media. Its name is Tay, a Twitter bot owned and developed by Microsoft. The purpose of Tay is to foster "conversational understanding." Unfortunately, this understanding quickly turned into trolling, and within 24 hours Tay went full Nazi, spewing racist, anti-semitic and misogynistic tweets.

Following Portugal's model, Hawai'i could become the first state in the U.S. to decriminalize all drugs — including cocaine and even heroin.

"[D]espite a longstanding policy that enforces illicit drug prohibition and imposes some of the world's harshest penalties for drug possession and sales, illicit drug use in the United States has been increasing," states a resolution that passed, amended by the Hawai'i House Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

Now that it's been approved, the study's findings will be due later this year,"no later than 20 days prior" to the convening of the legislature's 2017 session.

Burner phones, beloved by criminals and TV writers everywhere, could be a thing of the past if a new bill by California lawmakers passes.

The proposed law would require prepaid phone customers to register their personal details before purchasing a burner phone or SIM card.

The Closing of Prepaid Mobile Device Security Gap bill, introduced by Jonestown massacre survivor State Rep Jackie Speier, could make it harder for those hoping to communicate anonymously.

Retailers would be required to verify those details at purchase and keep a record of the details gathered.

A local city council in the U.K. is facing severe backlash as a result of a vile campaign demonizing homelessness. Nottinghamshire City Council's #givesmart campaign was launched in March, with the aim of urging the public not to give money to people begging on the streets. Concerned that money given to those begging is used to feed addictions, the council claims to have launched the campaign to encourage the public to give their cash to homeless charities, instead.

Nottingham's council implemented the campaign by displaying a number of large posters throughout the city that contain bigoted and hateful slogans. Claiming "beggars are not what they seem," they portray a young man in a hat and photographs of cans of 'strong' lager. They contain slogans stating, "Begging: Watch Your Money Go To A Fraud," or "Begging: Watch your money go up in smoke," and even "Begging funds the misuse of drugs."

Excited by activity outside the apartment, Spike rushed out, wagging his tail eagerly to greet whoever stood on the other side of the door — and was promptly executed by an NYPD officer wielding his gun.

Graphic video of the February 13th slaughter of Yvonne Rosado's beloved pit bull has now been released — and it is nothing short of outrageous.

"He was a big Snuffleupagus — a gentle giant," Rosado described Spike to the New York Daily News. "He was a member of the family ... He would wag his tail, letting everyone know he was friendly."

Immediately before the inexplicable shooting, Rosado had been dancing with her dog — a weekly ritual in which Spike stood on his hind legs so she could hold his paws.

Parents are raising issues with homework for middle schoolers in Hamilton City Schools that many think paints police in a bad light and skews the debate about police brutality.

The assignment, titled "Vocabulary - Police Brutality Day 4," was handed out to students at Wilson Middle School and included several new words for students to learn: brutality, merely prosecuted, excessive and minority, NBC 4reports.

According to the assignment, "The numbers don't lie; minority people (more so black than Hispanic) experience more violent arrests from police officers than do white people. "The unfortunate thing is that most police officers aren't prosecuted in cases of brutality against them; these cases rarely make it to court and the officers are acquitted of any crime," it reads.

The assignment also offered the author's, presumably the teacher's, commentary on their distorted perception of police brutality. "I don't understand how some people can use such excessive force against another person; that person has to have a lot of anger built up," the assignment read. "I have always tried to be aware of racism; every day, I merely try to be a good person and do the best I can to be fair and open minded."

Concerned parents discussed the assignment on Facebook, flagging the attention of local news outlets and district superintendent Tony Orr, who told KFOR the teacher was attempting to engage students in "critical thinking" about current events.

Orr then rambled on with a politically correct statement about assignment development and other issues that have little relevance to parents' concerns about how police brutality was portrayed by the teacher.

"We have a teacher who is given a topic, and we will continue to work will all our teachers to make sure that that yes, we want a higher level thinking - we want our kids to read and write critically, but in doing that we also need to develop our lesson plans accordingly," he said.

The taxi driver who drove the Brussels suicide bombers to the airport is now in hiding and fears for his life, friends say.

Brahim El Bakraoui and two other men ordered a taxi to take them from their hide out in the Schaerbeek district to Zaventem airport on Tuesday morning, before they committed one of the worst terrorist atrocities in Belgium's history.


As soon as the driver heard about the attacks, he drove straight to a police station in central Brussels to tell the authorities every detail he could remember about the three men, including their hideout, a 5th floor apartment in Rue Max Roos.


But now the driver fears reprisals from Isis and their sympathisers for handing over such crucial information to the police.

Sometimes terrorists move on all fours. That's what Chase Bank apparently decided when it wouldn't clear a payment for a disabled man's dog walker. It was the dog's name that led to the payment being bounced and the Treasury Department being involved.

The nine-year-old service pitbull mongrel acts as a companion and friend to Bruce Francis of San Francisco, who has a rare form of MS and gets around by wheelchair.

According to Fox, Francis was doing his routine payment to his dog walker earlier in March, by using his online account with Chase Bank. He had filled in his dog's name into the memo line of the form. But the dog walker told Francis he hadn't got the check.

We all know kids have been spending less and less time outdoors. But children's outdoor time has become so limited these days, even prisoners are shocked.

A new survey funded by laundry detergent brand Persil found 1 in 3 children in the U.K. spend less time outside than inmates in maximum security prisons.

The poll questioned more than 12,000 parents of children between the ages of 5 and 12 years old in 10 different countries. And in the U.K., researchers found almost a third of children play outside for 30 minutes or less on an average day, and 1 in 5 don't venture outdoors at all.

Now, the United Nations' standard minimum guidelines for prisoners require "at least one hour of suitable exercise in open air daily."