Recent employment growth and low inflation helped increase overall incomes in London by 2.9 percent since 2008. However, the high cost of housing in the capital city has pushed the region to the bottom of the league table for living standards in the United Kingdom.

Most Londoners have in fact suffered falling living standards, especially when the slant towards rising incomes for the wealthy is taken into account.

Matthew Whittaker, chief economist at Resolution Foundation remarked, "Londoners have experienced some of the strongest income growth in recent years, with typical household incomes now well above pre-crash levels, but the wider picture on living standards changes completely once housing costs are included. On this measure living standards have actually fallen over the last seven years, and by far more than anywhere else in the UK."

House prices leapt 9.4 percent last year, pushing the average cost of a London home to a record £536,000, while average rents jumped up to an average all-time high of £1,301, far outpacing every other U.K. region.

In many areas of London, landlords are renting out sheds and rooms without windows, smoke detectors, or hot water—and even, as in one case in east London's Newham borough, a converted walk-in freezer.

Record number of evictions nationally, with most in London

The Ministry of Justice reports that tenants living in 42,728 rented households across England and Wales were forcibly removed from their homes last year—a 53 percent increase since 2010 and a record number since statistics began to be reported in 2000.

Most of the evictions took place within 16 London Boroughs—mostly by social landlords. This is a result of stagnating or declining wages and cuts to benefits, at the same time that the cost of living is skyrocketing, especially rent. Councils have a dwindling supply of social housing units available due to the forced selloff of high-value council properties.

A petition calling for the arrest of former President Bill Clinton for alleged election law violations has gained over 60,000 signatures. He made appearances at three polling precincts in Massachusetts on Super Tuesday. State officials said he acted legally.

"This is a call for the immediate arrest of President Bill Clinton for clear, knowing and egregious violation of the campaign laws to swing an election in a significant way," said the petition to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey.

"It could not be any clearer in the Massachusetts General Laws...[prohibiting] campaigning within 150 feet of a polling station...Clinton was not only electioneering within the boundary...photos and video show him greeting and talking up election workers inside," added the petition.

By Wednesday evening, 68,568 people had signed the petition.

Under Massachusetts election law "certain activities are prohibited within the polling location and within 150 feet of the polling place."

Over the years in my own articles, I have used the terms "creeping fascism," "growing police state," and "descent into totalitarianism" among others to describe the domestic situation in which we find ourselves. I have often written that, if Americans do not stand up to the myriad of laws being passed by federal, state, and local governments we will soon wake up to find ourselves in an Orwellian police state nightmare.

Now, however, I cringe whenever I read those words in contemporary articles. This is because such warnings are so far past their time they are utterly useless. In fact, they may do more to hurt any potential for change in American society than they do to promote it.

According to latest research conducted by Russian state-owned agency VTSIOM the share of Russians who express willingness to vote for Putin in the nearest presidential polls is the largest in four years.

"Seventy-four percent of Russian citizens say that they are ready to vote for Vladimir Putin at the nearest presidential elections, due in the beginning of 2018. This is the maximum value in four years and an almost two-fold increase from 40 percent in October 2012," reads the letter issued by VTSIOM on Thursday.

"Fifteen percent of responders said they had no plans to support the incumbent president and 11 percent said they cannot give an answer to this question," the researchers added.

VTSIOM also noted in the letter that the support for Putin's candidacy was very high even among those who thought that the president has not yet fulfilled all promises made at the last elections campaign. At the same time, 37 percent of responders hold that the Russian leader has already fulfilled the major part of these promises. The share of those who think that Putin was true to only a part of his promises was 47 percent.

According to the poll conducted by VTSIOM in December last year 57 percent of Russians wanted to see Putin reelected as president in 2018. A further 11 percent said the incumbent president should be replaced by someone he himself proposes as his successor. Eighteen percent said that they would prefer another person as president who would suggest a different political course, while 14 percent of responders said it was too difficult for them to answer the question at the moment.

In the same poll, 48 percent of Russians said that currently no politician in the country could effectively replace Putin, while 33 percent said that the replacement could be found once the need arises and 6 percent answered that they already know a perfect candidate. Twelve percent of respondents said they found the question too complex to answer.

The daughter of a police shooting victim has brought a federal lawsuit for wrongful death, municipal liability, and failure to train and supervise against police who she claims shot and killed her naked mother for complying with their request to show the officers where she kept her handgun.

Fifty-four-year-old Deanne Choate was shot dead by Gardner police after they responded to a 911 call that she had been drinking and was suicidal. Police arrived, arrested Choate's boyfriend, then entered Choate's bedroom where she was asleep, naked.

The officers demanded to know where she kept her gun for eight minutes.

Dramatic footage from Istanbul shows the moment two female attackers launched an attack on a riot bus entering a police compound. One can be seen shooting at the vehicle with a machine gun while the second threw a grenade, before both fled the scene.

Two activists in clown costumes have disrupted a meeting of the German anti-migrant party Alternative for Germany (AfD) by throwing a cake into the face of Beatrix von Storch, one of the party's leaders and a European Parliament member. The men approached von Storch while she was presiding over a closed-door AfD party meeting held in Kassel on February 28. They sang "Happy Birthday" as one of them threw a cake into von Storch's face and the other filmed the incident.

Von Storch's fellow party members seized the attackers and called police. The Peng Collective, a culture activism group from Berlin, claimed responsibility for the 'sweet attack' and said the 'clowns' were "beaten, kicked, arrested and handed over to the police."


The activists said they were protesting in response to von Storch suggesting police should be allowed to shoot migrant women and children entering Germany illegally. A statement posted on the group's website entitled "Tortenbefehl" (Pie order) after the attack says: "Who[ever] wants to prevent the crossing of a moral border, must, if necessary, make use of a cream pie," in apparent reference to von Storch's recent comments.

There were untapped potentials for Russia and Viet Nam to further co-operate in the shipbuilding industry, Maxim N Kochetkov, Director for the Shipbuilding Industry and Marine Department under the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, said.

In an interview with Vietnam News Agency correspondents in Moscow, he said the two countries have co-ordinated in this field for years.

The Klylov State Research Centre and the Shipbuilding and Ship Repair Technology Centre of Russia are considering the possibility of implementing Viet Nam's proposals to help the country's shipbuilding technology meet international standards.

The two centres are also considering working together in building a deep-sea fleet in Viet Nam, and collecting necessary information about Russia's fishing vessel building projects in order to satisfy Viet Nam's proposals, he said.

He stressed the need to define the kind of ship that would have an advantage in Viet Nam, as well as learning about the country's infrastructure facilities to serve the building of these ships.

Russia is willing to consider financial plans to carry out joint projects with the Southeast Asian country, he stated, adding that Russia's universities are also willing to help Viet Nam train students on shipbuilding, while the Shipbuilding and Ship Repair Technology Centre is ready to consider the provision of hi-tech equipment for the country

Three former and current San Francisco sheriff's deputies charged with forcing jail inmates to fight each other surrendered to authorities and will be arraigned next week, according to the San Francisco District Attorney's Office.

District Attorney George Gascon on Tuesday announced felony and misdemeanor charges against the three deputies in connection with the alleged jailhouse "fight club" incidents, which occurred in March last year.

Former Deputy Scott Neu, who allegedly forced inmates Ricardo Palakiko-Garcia and Stanley Harris to fight each other in the county jail at 850 Bryant St. by threatening to mace or tase them or revoke privileges, has been charged with eight felonies and nine misdemeanors.

Current Deputy Eugene Jones, who allegedly participated in forcing the inmates to fight on one occasion, has been charged with two felonies and two misdemeanors. Deputy Clifford Chiba, who was allegedly present during a
match and failed to report it, faces three misdemeanor counts.

We are being discovered because we are the only campaign that will defy the establishment by bailing out young people in the way we bailed out the bankers and bailed out Wall Street, Jill Stein, US presidential hopeful for the Green Party, told RT.

RT: Could you please describe your experience running for president as a third-party candidate?

Jill Stein: Well, it is a very exciting and dynamic time. In many ways what the country needs right now is not only a revolutionary campaign, but a revolutionary political party.

There has been an incredible outpouring of support for his [Bernie Sanders] campaign, likewise for the [Donald] Trump campaign. It is interesting that in both political parties the candidates that are doing well are outsider candidates. People in both parties are repudiating their party leadership, and if you look at polls of the American electorate, the biggest chunk of Americans now have rejected both the Democratic and Republican parties. But what our political system does is suppress political opposition, I am sorry to say. So the media tends not to cover us.

There is a rebellion going on in full swing and we are being discovered especially by young people, because we are the only campaign that will truly defy the establishment by bailing out young people in the way that we bailed out the bankers and we bailed out Wall Street. We're calling out for a bailout of an entire generation of young people - 43 million young people. And it turns out... if they hear about our campaign and come out to vote that is enough to win the race.