The importance of protecting animals from cruelty inflicted by people, who seem to disregard the fact that animals are sentient beings similar to humans, has been validated by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), which has now added animal cruelty to its list of Class A felonies. As of the beginning of 2016, the FBI started logging cases of animal abuse in their Incident-Based Reporting System where it keeps records of other felonies, such as homicide and arson.

A big motivating factor behind the effort to track animal abusers is the link between animal cruelty and every type of violent and non-violent crime.

"Regardless of whether people care about how animals are treated, people — like legislators and judges — care about humans, and they can't deny the data." ~ Natasha Dolezal, director of the animal law program in the Center for Animal Law Studies at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon

In September, on a rainy Saturday night, Georgia state trooper Anthony Scott was flexing his above the law privilege and driving at dangerously high speeds for no reason.

Scott was not on his way to a call, nor did he have any official reason for driving fast, when he slammed into a Nissan Sentra carrying four kids. Kylie Hope Lindsey, 17, and Isabella Alise Chinchilla, 16, who were in the back seat of the Nissan, were killed.

Dillon Lewis Wall, 18, who was driving, and front-seat passenger Benjamin Alan Finken, 17, were critically injured and taken to Grady Memorial Hospital.

Five months later, and Dillon is still recovering from a brain injury, paralysis, hearing loss and multiple broken teeth from the crash. However, according to Dillon, it's his heart that hurts the most as this young man was crazy about Kylie.

'We need someone who will work to substantially lower drug prices, implement rules to safely import brand-name drugs from Canada and hold companies accountable who defraud our government.'

Senator Bernie Sanders put a hold on President Barack Obama's nominee to take over the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday, joining with two other senators who have also objected to Dr. Robert M. Califf's nomination, citing his ties to corporate drug manufacturers.

One of the most infuriating aspects of the Flint water crisis is that residents are not only still being charged for their poisoned water, but they're being charged higher rates than almost anywhere in the country.

Residents continue to pay $864 a year for water that is making them sick, more than double what most Americans pay for water service. Flint's water service charges total 7 percent of the average household income, compared to the United Nations recommendation of 3 percent.

"They've been using that money improperly for years to fund the general operations of the city," said Valdemar L. Washington, who's been fighting the excessive increases in court since 2012. "The city's sewer fund had a balance of $36 million in 2006 but was running a $23-million deficit by 2012."

Meanwhile, less than two hundred miles away, multi-billion dollar corporation Nestle has been pumping millions of gallons out of Lake Michigan for free. In fact, they receive 13 million dollars in tax breaks to do so.

Despite making over 15 billion dollars in profits in 2014, Michigan government officials don't charge Nestle per gallon of water, instead taking only a small permitting fee, as Democracy Now explained:


So not only do low income Flint residents technically pay more for Michigan water than Nestle, but now they're also forced to buy bottled water from Nestle to stay alive. Flint residents are in the deplorable position of being forced to buy Michigan water from two different parties.

The Nestle bottling plant itself is a hated institution in Mecosta County. As if getting water for free wasn't enough, the corporation greedily pumped at a rate of 400 gallons a minute, destroying the local environment. Grassroots organization Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation (MCWC) sued Nestle, who bitterly fought the local group for years.

"We wanted to protect our water, and the water was ours, not theirs," said Peggy Case, President of MCWC. "This lasted for—like I said before, this lasted for eight years. And in that time, with lawyer fees and, you know, all the fees that come with going to court, we spent over $1 million."

And how did a local activist organization scrounge up the money to fight a corporate giant?

"We scrambled for every penny we could get," Case said. "We did 50/50 raffles among us, or anybody else we could get into it. We did yard sales. We wrote grants. We had bake sales."

In a stunning victory, MCWC succeeded in forcing Nestle to reduce their withdrawals from 400 to 200 gallons a minute. But Nestle continues to receive free water and preferential treatment.

And Flint residents continue to be overcharged for water that is not only killing them, but bankrupting them as well.

A poignant song and video inspired by the tragic drowning of Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi has been released by an Australian musician who "felt overwhelmed by a profound protective instinct for him and people like him".

Photographs of the three-year-old's lifeless body washed up on a Turkish beach last year became a heartbreaking symbol of the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe. The toddler's family sought to escape the violence in Syria and make a home in Canada.

Residents in a Sunnyvale neighborhood say a secretive Apple facility is changing the face of their neighborhood, for the worse.

"At three in the morning, they have deliveries. It's very dark, very secretive. We don't know what's going on, but almost every night there is noise that wakes the dogs up," Joann Porter said.

Neighbors on Bartlett Avenue near the facility said security guards tail them when they walk their dogs. "You have security guards following you in their cars," Porter said.

When it was revealed in January that satirical news outlet, The Onion, had been purchased by Univision Communications (which is co-owned by one of Hillary Clinton's biggest fans, top campaign donor, and pro-Israel fanatic, Haim Saban), it was if the world suddenly held its breath to see if the move would be the outlet's downfall.

Now, it appears we have our answer. On Tuesday, an apparent attempt at satirical understatement in actuality proved to be nothing less than a blatant propagandistic fluff piece touting Clinton's ostensibly stellar career.

It didn't work.

"Female Presidential Candidate Who Was United States Senator, Secretary Of State Told To Be More Inspiring," read The Onion's not-at-all-opaque headline. And the nauseating attempt at tongue-in-cheek praise didn't stop there.

It is quite incredible that the unelected bureaucrats of the EU Commission are even entertaining such an idea as the deeply unpopular TTIP trade deal amid huge citizen protest whilst already facing multiple episodes of social, political and economic unrest and crisis as the demise of the European project gathers pace.

The EU is experiencing extensive political threats and upheaval from left and right of centre political groups angry at EU imposed austerity. Greece is being raped by its so-called partners and it is just one of several other EU states en-route to ruin.

The declining global economic picture provides all the more reason for the corporations to look for new avenues of revenue. But which businesses are pushing most for the proposed EU-US trade deal TTIP? And who is really influencing EU negotiators? And just how are the rights of European citizens represented in the biggest trade deal in history?

Just in Brussels alone, there are now over 30,000 corporate lobbyists, shadowy agitators as The Guardian puts it, who are responsible for influencing three quarters of legislation in the EU. But even they are left in the shade when it comes to the power being afforded to corporations in the TTIP negotiations.

Responding to reports of an intoxicated man asleep in the middle of the road, a Meriden, Connecticut police officer said, flatly, "I think we oughta just f***ing pop him."

If by now you still have any lingering doubts about the widening disconnect between police and civilians — or the culture of violence and contempt rampant in police culture — this footage could tip your opinion. Though the incident was captured on video by dash camera and audio by body cam, it was only released on Thursday following a Freedom of Information Act request by the Record-Journal.

Officer John Slepski arrived on the scene on September 19, 2015, and approached the sleeping man — whom he immediately referred to as a "f***ing a**hole." Officer John Slezak, already standing over the clearly intoxicated individual, seems as if he's attempting to mitigate the potential that Slepski might go overboard in the interaction.

In what may look like the biggest instance of littering ever, NASA astronauts dumped a ton-and-a-half capsule of trash out of the International Space Station. The capsule is expected to leave no trace of its existence by burning up in the Earth's atmosphere.


The Cygnus cargo vessel was first launched from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in December to take supplies such as food, clothing and scientific equipment to the station.

On Friday, two months since arriving at the station, the unmanned craft was filled with garbage and launched back into space while the station was in orbit over Bolivia.