Few, if any, of the correct questions were asked in the grand jury hearing to decide whether policeman Darren Wilson would be indicted for killing Michael Brown.

The most important unexamined question is whether police are trained to use force immediately as a first resort before they assess a situation or determine if they are at the correct address. Are the police trained that the lives of police officers are so much more valuable than the lives of possible suspects, or a houseful of people into whose residence a heavily armed SWAT team enters, that police officers must not accept the risk of judicious behavior when encountering citizens? If this is the case as all evidence indicates that it is, then the police when they gratuitously murder members of the public are merely doing what they have been trained to do. As police are trained to use violence as a first resort, the police cannot be held accountable when they do.

Hundreds of people have gathered near the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood with St. Andrew's Cross flags, music and speeches in a celebration of Scottish nationhood, amid continued demands for independence as St. Andrew's Day celebrations got underway.

Poetry recitals, speeches and songs were on the agenda, as people wrapped themselves in flags and "Yes"-related paraphernalia. Even the blue Estelada could be seen among the crowds to show a degree of solidarity between various independence movements in Europe.

On Monday St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch announced the grand jury had found "that no probable cause exists" to charge Officer Darren Wilson with any crime in the death of Michael Brown. The jury deliberated for three months and heard dozens of hours of testimony, including from Wilson himself. But did they hear the full story? McCulloch himself had faced public scrutiny throughout the grand jury investigation, with calls for him to resign over allegations of a pro-police bias and questions raised about an unusual grand jury process that resembled a trial. We speak to Vince Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who is just back from Ferguson. "I don't think we can take away anything from this decision not to indict other than that it is now officially open season on black folks when it comes to police violence," Warren says.

AMY GOODMAN: We are in Clayton, Missouri, right next to Ferguson, Missouri, where we spent all last night. Today we're standing in front of - well, the Clayton Courthouse where the grand jury has deliberated close to two dozen times over the last few months, before they came out with their decision yesterday, announced by the prosecutor Bob McCulloch. Our guest right now, in New York, we're joined by Vince Warren, the Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights who will help us decide - will help us understand the decision that the grand jury made. And with me here in subfreezing weather, here in Clayton is Osagyefo Sekou, he is the Pastor from the First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain Massachusetts, dispatched to Ferguson by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. He went to high school in St. Louis and has family in Ferguson. We're going to go first to Vince Warren. Can you explain the grand jury decision?

Americans are going to spend more than 600 billion dollars this Christmas season, and on Friday we got to see our fellow citizens fight each other like rabid animals over foreign-made flat screen televisions and Barbie dolls. As disgusting as this behavior is to many of us, there may soon come a time when we will all fondly remember these days. Most Americans are completely unaware of what is currently happening in the financial world, but right now there are deeply troubling signs that we could be on the verge of another major global financial collapse. If the next great economic downturn does strike in 2015, that could mean that we may have just witnessed the last great Black Friday celebration of American materialism. As you read this, stock prices are approximately double the value that they should be, margin debt is hovering near all-time record highs, and the "too big to fail" banks are being far more reckless than they were just prior to the last major stock market implosion. So many of the exact same patterns that we witnessed back in 2007 and 2008 are repeating right now, and as you will see below, this includes a horrifying crash in the price of oil. Anyone with half a brain should be able to see the slow-motion financial train wreck that is unfolding right before our eyes.

Very few people understand what Putin is doing at the moment. And almost no one understands what he will do in the future.

No matter how strange it may seem, but right now, Putin is selling Russian oil and gas only for physical gold.

Putin is not shouting about it all over the world. And of course, he still accepts US dollars as an intermediate means of payment. But he immediately exchanges all these dollars obtained from the sale of oil and gas for physical gold!

Authorities in Fruitvale, Colorado arrested a 27-year-old man for allegedly putting them in fear for their lives by pointing a banana at them, KCNC-TV reported.

Nathan Channing faces two felony counts of menacing Mesa County sheriff's deputies after pointing the banana at Deputy Nathan Bunch as he drove by. Bunch then reportedly ducked in his car and called for backup.

After another deputy, Donald Love, arrived, he and Bunch approached Channing with their guns drawn before the suspect yelled, "It's a banana."

"Based on training and experience, I have seen handguns in many shapes and colors and perceived this to be a handgun," Bunch told the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.

Channing reportedly told the deputies he was practicing for a video he planned to post online to "lighten the holiday spirit."

Channing faces up to three years in jail and a $100,000 fine in connection with the charges.

"A lot of time it's how someone behaves and treats an object, depends on whether or not that object is actually dangerous or is a weapon," sheriff's department spokesperson Ben Carnes said. "In this case, it turned out to be a banana, but it could have been a disguised firearm."

A pregnant St. Louis woman is now blind in one eye after St. Louis County Police shot a bean-bag round at a vehicle she was riding in as the car drove away from a gas station near Ferguson, Missouri early Tuesday.

The incident occurred amid high tension following a grand jury's decision not to indict white police officer Darren Wilson for the fatal August 9 shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson.

Dornella Conners told KMOV that she was riding in a car driven by her boyfriend, De'Angelas Lee. They had stopped at a gas station in the 10000 block of Halls Ferry Rd., just a couple of miles from Ferguson. She said they were driving away from the station when police arrived.

"They pulled up while we were coming towards the street, De'Anglas was trying to get away, they blocked us from the side, front and back," Conners said.

A recently published FBI report accidentally proves that while the police claim cops face growing threats from rowdy populations - like in Ferguson - the opposite is true. The report presents law enforcement deaths in 2013.

The report found that across the entire country, only 76 LEOs were killed in "line-of-duty" incidents. 27 died as a result of "felonious" acts and 49 officers died in accidents - namely, automobile (ironically, of the 23 killed in car accidents, 14 were not wearing seat belts - a violation for which cops routinely ticket drivers). More officers die from accidents than actual murders on the job. The report also outright admits that intentional murders of cops were down from 2004 and 2009.

There have been marches, vocal demonstrations, petitions, and laws banning GMOs, but the US is still lagging in the 'democratic' freedoms it has promised its people. Russia, on the other hand, has completely banned GMOs, placing a moratorium on their imports for 10 years. The nation rejects GMOs due to numerous dangers, while the US continues to allow Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, Syngenta, and their bullying kind to contrive a cold war on the American people.

The VP of Russia's National Association for Genetic Safety, Irina Ermakova, has said:

"It is necessary to ban GMOs, to impose moratorium (on) it for 10 years. While GMOs will be prohibited, we can plan experiments, tests, or maybe even new methods of research could be developed. It has been proven that not only in Russia, but also in many other countries in the world, GMOs are dangerous. Methods of obtaining the GMOs are not perfect, therefore, at this stage, all GMOs are dangerous. Consumption and use of GMOs obtained in such way can lead to tumors, cancers and obesity among animals. Bio-technologies certainly should be developed, but GMOs should be stopped. We should stop it from spreading. "

Conversely, the 'amber waves of grain' are toxic. They are loaded with more GMO chemicals than ever before, and our government supports this act of tyranny.

Police have been called to supermarkets across the UK amid crowd surges as people hunt for "Black Friday" offers.

Greater Manchester Police appealed for calm after attending seven Tesco shops, at which three men were arrested and a woman was hit by a falling television.

The force said the issues were "totally predictable" and it was "disappointed" by shop security. Tesco said only a "small number" of stores were affected.

Police were called in places including Dundee, Glasgow, Cardiff and London.

Originating in the US, Black Friday is becoming a major UK shopping day.