We all heard about the EPA's disastrous early August spill where the agency sent some 3 million gallons of highly toxic mine waste water down the Animas River in Colorado.

But little does the public know, the EPA caused a serious spill in Georgia only months before contaminating the Animas.

From WatchDog.org:

Still reeling from a disaster it created at a Colorado gold mine, the EPA has so far avoided criticism for a similar toxic waste spill in Georgia.

In Greensboro, EPA-funded contractors grading a toxic 19th-century cotton mill site struck a water main, sending the deadly sediment into a nearby creek. Though that accident took place five months ago, the hazard continues as heavy storms — one hit the area Tuesday — wash more soil into the creek.

A newly presented report by West Australian corruption watchdog accuses the country's police officers of beating a woman and marching her naked through the halls of a watch house in front of other officers in April 2013.

The Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) report, presented to the Parliament on Thursday, says that five police officers were involved in the harsh treatment of a woman called Joanne Martin on April 7, 2013.

The report includes a video record of the incident showing the woman identified as Joanne Martin, 33 at the time of the incident, screaming while being escorted through the reception area with only a blanket to cover her. The document claims that, during her detention, the woman was subjected to physical attacks that resulted in particular in a serious finger fracture.

It's clear that we need to redesign our education model. An example that we can all relate to is simply asking ourselves what information do we need to live an honourable, healthy and happy life, and of that, what is provided through the school system? The answer is almost none of it.

It is up to the parents, mentors, peers and other societal influences to fill these gaps, but we all know this doesn't regularly occur. If the guides and teachers in a child's life don't have the knowledge and skills to properly inform and take care of themselves, then how can they be expected to share it with others? They literally can't, which is why we need an effective safety net to provide all the information that our children need to develop into awakened, functional and wholesome adults.

Humans have evolved to become unprecedented "super predators" - a term that describes hunters that continuously prey on other predators.

Other meat-eating animals do this too, but only our species aggressively hunts large carnivores and has such a devastating impact on the world's ecosystems, reports new research published in the journal Science.

"No other predator has such a large menu, such global impact on prey and ecosystems, and behaves in such a deviant manner," lead author Chris Darimont, a professor of geography at the University of Victoria, told Discovery News.

Darimont and colleagues Caroline Fox and Heather Bryan conducted the research after senior author Thomas Reimchen noted disturbing patterns during four decades of fieldwork on Haida Gwaii, which is an archipelago on the North Coast of British Columbia.

Reinchen found that 22 predatory fish and diving birds collectively killed no more than 5 percent of the region's adult fish. Human-run salmon fisheries, on the other hand, killed more than 50 percent of the area's adult salmon.

Baltimore police officer has been charged with attempted murder in the shooting of an unarmed burglary suspect last December, State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby and interim Police Commissioner Kevin Davis announced Wednesday.

The officer, 13-year veteran Wesley Cagle, is accused of shooting Michael Johansen, 46, in the 3000 block of E. Monument St. after he had been shot by two other officers. Cagle was charged with attempted first-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault and second-degree assault.

District Court Judge Halee F. Weinstein on Thursday cited the "heinous and callous nature" of the allegations in setting Cagle's bail at $1 million. Cagle's defense attorney Chaz Ball argued that Cagle is not a threat to the community or a risk to not appear in court, and instead asked for bail to be set at $150,000.

Mosby said the first two officers were justified in shooting Johansen because he refused to heed commands and made a move toward his waistband.

But Cagle "on his own initiative" came out of an alley, Mosby said,stood over Johansen, called him a "piece of [expletive]" and shot him in the groin.

"Johansen was no longer considered a potential threat, as witnesses did not see Johansen make any aggressive or threatening movements," Mosby said.

Both Cagle and Johansen are white.

Hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from World Bank's private lending arm used to expand industrial farms amid mounting concern about local effects

Hundreds of millions of dollars in development finance from the World Bank's investment arm have helped to fund the controversial expansion of a billionaire's agribusiness empire in Ukraine, amid growing concern that land and farming in the country are increasingly falling into the hands of a few wealthy individuals.

Controlled by one of Ukraine's wealthiest men, Yuriy Kosiuk, the agribusiness company Myronivsky Hliboproduct (MHP) dominates the country's domestic poultry market and exports chicken and luxuries such as foie gras across Europe. Since 2010, it has received at least $200m (£128m) in long-term loans from the bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC).

Much of this funding has gone to support the building of Europe's largest industrial chicken farm in the middle of Ukraine's rural heartland. Almost 300km south of Kiev, the Vinnytsia poultry farm is part of an audacious effort to transform the country once known as "Europe's breadbasket" into its "meatbasket".

The IFC, which like all World Bank institutions has an explicit mandate to end global poverty, says its investments in MHP have created jobs and supported food security in Ukraine and beyond. Central to the IFC's mission is a policy to "do no harm" and achieve positive development outcomes by investing in the private sector.

But villagers living near the Vinnytsia project, which is already partially constructed and in operation, said no one is listening to their concerns about its impact on their area. They also said that people are being pressured into giving their land over to the project by signing long-term land leases.

The project is a massive complex, with slaughterhouses, hen houses, fields to grow crops to feed the chickens, and incubators for eggs. It is still expanding, and this expansion requires leasing extra land from nearby villages in order to construct more "rearing zones" for chickens and additional grain facilities. The second phase of construction is expected to be completed in 2017-18.

Andre Chanclu, head of the France - Donbass Committee, provides the perspective of the French fundraisers on the Ukraine crisis.

Andre Chanclu, who runs the France - Donbass Committee dedicated to helping the victims of the conflict in the region, shared with Sputnik the view from France of the Ukraine crisis, and his motivation for wanting to aid the residents of eastern Ukraine.

"From the beginning, there is a hypocrisy when they talk about the participation of Russia in the conflict in Donbass. For Russia, this is all very difficult - Ukraine is historically a kindred country," said Chanclu.

Movie theater chain Regal Entertainment Group has begun to check bags in response to shootings at theaters around the country, a procedure it acknowledged on its website was "not without flaws" and would inconvenience guests but provide better security.

It's unclear when the policy began, but several local TV stations reported online that customers noticed the change in Texas, Virginia, Florida and Ohio beginning earlier this month.

Regal spokesman Richard Grover did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday. The Knoxville, Tennessee, company operates some 570 theaters around the country.

On its website, the company says "security issues have become a daily part of our lives in America" and says that bags and backpacks are subject to inspection before entering.

If Donald Trump's unlikely rise to the top of the polls tells us anything, it's that Americans (or at least GOP primary voters) are sick of business as usual in Washington.

The endemic corruption, crony capitalism, rampant regulatory capture, and licentious logrolling that many voters have come to associate with the American political process has created a deep-seated desire for change and if there are two names which most certainly do not portend a break from business as usual inside the Beltway they are "Bush" and "Clinton." Indeed, the prospect that America will once again be faced with a choice that really isn't a choice by being compelled to choose between two candidates from Washington's political aristocracy has only served to boost Trump's appeal.

All of the above certainly seems to suggest that America is fully prepared to accept and embrace the candidacy of those who promise anything but the political status quo, which, we imagine helps to explain why the dark horse candidate "Deez Nuts" is now polling at 9% in North Carolina.

Though paper money here typically bears the visage of Queen Elizabeth, the Brixton district of the city last month released a new 5-pound note designed by Jeremy Deller, an artist who won the prestigious Turner Prize in 2004. It features a fuzzy, psychedelic image of an androgynous face surrounded by rainbow clouds and coruscating, swirling etchings.
"I wanted something old-fashioned looking," Mr. Deller said. "Something almost pre-currency."

One hundred and twenty miles west of Brixton, in the city of Bristol, a pound note issued after a design competition that was open to locals displays a colorful lemur striding atop a vibrant cityscape. The back has magenta-hued, hand-cut stencil illustrations of accomplished denizens, including the author J. K. Rowling and Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States.

As Bitcoin, PayPal and other electronic forms of payment grow in popularity in the global economy, cash in a growing number of places — not only Bristol and Brixton, but also Amsterdam; Ithaca, N.Y.; and elsewhere — is becoming quite literally an artisanal object.

These are small-batch currencies designed by locals and lovingly handled by millennials, who came of age during the rise of the Internet, the meltdown of the stock market and Edward Snowden's National Security Agency revelations, and would be forgiven for becoming more wary of credit and debit cards. Many are already opting for standard paper money over plastic (when not resorting to freeganism or bartering, that is).

Once a marker of a business with suspicious tax practices, the phrase "cash only" has come to signify hipster entrepreneurialism at places like Stumptown Coffee at the Ace Hotel in Midtown Manhattan or the Emerson Bar in Brooklyn. The term even arrived as a motto on a 3.1 Phillip Lim tank top sold by the boutique Blue & Cream (and now that it's been marked down 50 percent to $97.50, you won't need a suitcase of bills to pay for it).