The conflict in southeastern Ukraine has taken 6,417 lives, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights announced on June 1.

At least 15,962 people were wounded in the conflict zone between April 2014 and May 30 2015.

The UN noted that the actual figures could be higher than officially recorded.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported in mid-April that 6,116 people had been killed and 15,474 wounded in the conflict zone.

The following compilation is a continuation of these earlier headline lists of aircraft accidents from late March and April.

Where some headline reports have more informative explanations and extra information, extracts are shown and highlighted, particularly those incidents involving smoke detection or mechanical failure. There are links to all the reports.

As you will soon see, there has been no let up in these kinds of incidents, in fact, they appear to be increasing quite dramatically of late, with 155 occurring over the 31 days of May, an average of 5 per day. It's very likely some reports have been missed.

Not included in the above total, but listed anyway, are a number of scarey videos showing some near misses and dodgy landings.

God forbid, but looking at all these incidents one could be forgiven for perhaps getting a foreboding sense that it's only a matter of time before another major tragedy involving a large commercial airliner occurs.

Anyway, strap yourself in for a bumpy ride.

May 1

Hawaiian Airlines flight makes emergency landing:

Hawaiian Airlines passengers had to exit a plane using emergency slides after an odor of fumes forced the flight turnaround soon after takeoff.

The airline says Hawaiian flight No. 24 left Kahului airport at 11:18 a.m. Friday, bound for Oakland, California. The flight crew declared an emergency and the plane returned to Kahului at 11:50 a.m.

Plane shuts down engine in mid-flight emergency

Plane forced to land in Salinas field, California

Pilot hurt after small plane crashes in Ravenna Township, Michigan

Plane crashes at Duxford Imperial War Museum

Vehicle Incident in USA on Friday, 01 May, 2015 at 03:22 (03:22 AM) UTC:

This morning, Johnson County Sheriff's Office responded to an aircraft that was forced to make an emergency landing just west of the Gardner Municipal Airport. A 1994 Long EZ aircraft took off from New Century Airport and shortly after take-off, the pilot began experiencing engine trouble. The pilot turned for an emergency landing at Gardner Municipal Airport but was unable to make the airport and landed in the southwest field at 175th St. and Four Corners at approximately 09:50 am. There are no injuries reported. The incident is being investigated by the Johnson County Sheriff's Office, in cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administration.

Air Force says some crew members treated after fire on jet:

The Air Force says some air crew members were treated for smoke inhalation after their jet made an emergency stop on the runway before it could take off from a base near Omaha.

Offutt Air Force Base spokesman Delanie Stafford said Friday that the RC-135V/W Rivet Joint aircraft was stopped around 6:30 p.m. Thursday before it could leave on a local training flight. He says none of the 27 on board suffered serious injuries.

Stafford says base firefighters put out the blaze inside the fuselage of the four-engine jet, which is configured for intelligence and reconnaissance missions. The fire cause and the extent of the repairs needed are being investigated.

May 2

Plane makes emergency landing at Aberdeen airport

Virgin flight to Florida forced to turn around and make emergency landing in Manchester after crew smell burning on the flight deck

Official: Two critical after plane crash in Orange County, Texas


Small plane crashes east of Moriarty, New Mexico
Pilot escapes injury in hair-raising landing in Michigan

May 3

Elk County Plane Crash, Pennsylvania

Missing Aircraft Found Crashed Near Village

Pilot killed in Penn Yan plane crash, New York

Flight from Alaska to Seattle makes emergency landing at Vancouver airport:

A U.S. passenger flight has made an emergency landing at Vancouver International Airport.

Alaska Airlines Flight 76 was en route from Juneau, Alaska to Seattle, Washington, when problems arose with one of the plane's two electrical systems.

The Boeing 737-400 touched down in Vancouver shortly before 5 p.m. local time on Sunday.

Pilot Safe After Emergency Landing in Fort Worth, Texas

A two-year-old boy with breathing difficulties has been taken away from his parents partly because a health visitor found that they smoked too much.

The child will be placed for adoption after a judge ruled that the risk to his health was "far too high" at a family court hearing in Hull.

Judge Louise Pemberton said she was "afraid" that he had been harmed and that his parents' had fallen well below "good enough".

"I am afraid that all of these matters lead me to an unavoidable and difficult conclusion that the risks to (the little boy) in being placed with his parents are far too high," she said in a written judgement.

"Adoption really is the only option now available to (the little boy), in my view, nothing else will do...I want him to know that in my judgment his parents loved him very much and tried very hard but they were simply not able to meet his needs."According to new research, parents who smoke are plunging nearly half a million children into poverty

A health visitor had voiced concerns about the child's "smoky house", which she said was the worst she had seen in her 10-year career.

Julie Allen told the court that she found it difficult to breathe in the home and that the boy had been prescribed an inhaler the month before her visit because of breathing problems.

At least 385 people ranging in age from 16 to 83 have died at the hands of police across the US this year, The Washington Post revealed. One in six victims were unarmed, mostly black or Hispanic, and officers were charged in less than 1% of cases.

Using a variety of sources, including police reports, local news and one-to-one interviews the publication discovered that the daily officer-involved killing rate across the US since the beginning of 2015 stands at 2.6. This number stands contrary to the FBI statistics over the past decade that recorded 400 fatal police shootings a year, or an average of 1.1 deaths a day.

"These shootings are grossly underreported," Jim Bueermann, president of the Washington-based Police Foundation, told the paper. "We are never going to reduce the number of police shootings if we don't begin to accurately track this information."

In more than 80 percent of the cases the victims were armed at the time of the incident many of which started as minor incidents before escalating into violence. Gun assaults on police topped the list with 221 cases, followed by knives and blades with 68 cases.

However, roughly one in six victims were unarmed and could hardly pose any threat to officers. In 13 cases civilians were killed by cops after mistaking toy weapons for the real thing.

The publication discovered that two thirds of the unarmed people killed by police were either African American or Hispanic. The overall count for both armed and unarmed victims split in half between Caucasians and different minority groups.

As if to prove there are new depths to be plumbed in the world of reality television (because who knew?), CBS just debuted The Briefcase, a show which takes poverty porn, class anxiety, emotional manipulation and exploitation and packages them all neatly into a pretty despicable hour of primetime television. Kicking off each episode with the question, "What would you do with $101,000?" the show then deep-dives into a competition that asks two unwitting, financially strapped families to choose between two no-win options: being financially solvent yet appearing heartless and greedy, or drowning in debt yet having audiences recognize them as selfless and giving.

It's hard to imagine a network executive didn't get the idea for this show from the "Button, Button" episode of the Twilight Zone. The Briefcase focuses on two "middle-class" families—a questionable but highly American take on the phrase, since both are debt saddled, with one primary breadwinner, and essentially living on the edge of financial ruin. Both are told they'll be participating in a documentary about money. Instead, a producer from the show unexpectedly comes to their house with a suitcase full of cold, hard cash: $101,000 to be exact. That could be a life-changing - and in the case of families so near the financial cliff, nearly life-saving - sum of money. But this being reality TV, instead of just giving them the cash, there's a major catch.

How do you sell fast food to a nation? Apparently by creating a massive lie. In 1971, the man behind Japan's McDonald's franchise proclaimed that by eating McDonald's, Japanese citizens could 'grow taller, turn their skin white, and their hair blonde' by eating McDonald's burgers and fries for the rest of their lives.

It sounds absolutely insane — because it is. And, unfortunately, this is not satire.

It all started back in 1967 with a man named Den Fujita, who at the time was a businessman who sold imported bags and shoes to the Japanese public. But Fujita was growing tired of the importing business, and saw an opportunity to make some serious cash after finding out about the success of the McDonald's franchise in the United States.

In 1971, Fujita launched his McDonald's franchise in Japan, with a very unique marketing statement.

Defying a court order to take a mentally ill inmate to a state hospital for observation, a Kentucky police chief bought a one-way ticket to Florida for the man, sending him on a 28-hour bus ride, only to have the state extradite him back by saying he escaped.

According to investigation by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, Carrollton Police Chief Michael Willhoite spent $18 of his own money to rid himself of 31-year-old Adam Horine, instead of following a judge's order to send him to Eastern State Hospital in Lexington for a thorough psychiatric assessment.

Defending himself while appearing before Judge Elizabeth Chandler for threatening a cab driver and "cussing in public," the itinerant Horine begged the court for help, claiming he was mentally ill and saying "things I shouldn't say."

Chandler ordered sheriff's deputies to take Horine to the hospital, but he was first transported back to county jail where a social worker evaluated him, reporting that Horine was hearing voices, felt suicidal, couldn't sleep, and wanted to hurt "certain people."

Despite the judge's order and the evaluation, Chief Wilhoite instructed officer Ron Dickow to drive Horine 50 miles in a police cruiser to Louisville where Dickow bought Horine a one-way bus ticket to Florida with money given to him by the chief.

On Friday, two brothers called police for help as they were trying to move their truck after it had stalled on a road that was quickly flooding. Soon after Oklahoma State Troopers arrive, one of the brothers is shot dead by the very people they called for help and the other brother finds himself arrested after he just watched his own brother being shot to death.

The local Tulsa World reports,

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol has identified a Tulsa man who died late Friday after being shot by an OHP trooper who claimed he was attacked during a call southeast of Liberty.

OHP Capt. Paul Timmons confirmed Saturday evening that Nehemiah Fischer was killed in an alleged scuffle with troopers. His brother, Brandon Fischer, was booked into the Okmulgee County jail on accusations of assaulting an officer and public intoxication.

Timmons said the shooting occurred in the area of Hectorville and Bixby roads and that authorities received a stranded vehicle report from Bixby Road around 9:20 p.m. Friday. Troopers arrived to see Nehemiah and Brandon Fischer, who appeared to be pushing a vehicle that had stalled due to flooding, Timmons said.

"The water was already fairly deep, and it was starting to rise pretty quickly and it was running pretty rapidly across the road," he said. "They were concerned these guys would be swept away."

A trooper on scene told the brothers to get to higher ground, and a physical confrontation reportedly occurred soon after, Timmons said.

"For whatever reason, and this is where it gets a little cloudy, (the men) approached the troopers," he said. "Shots were fired."

It wasn't clear Saturday whether one or both troopers at the scene fired at the men, but Nehemiah Fischer was struck and died at the scene. Timmons said Brandon Fischer was uninjured and was taken to the Okmulgee County jail on one complaint of assaulting an officer and another complaint of public intoxication.

Authorities weren't yet sure whether either man had a weapon and did not describe what type of altercation may have occurred between them and the troopers. Both troopers are expected to be placed on leave while OHP investigates the incident, Timmons said, adding that investigators will attempt to talk to the man who survived.

Neither trooper was injured, Timmons said.

Nehemiah Fischer was an assistant pastor at Faith Bible Church and was loved by his family and his community.

It's a little hard to believe that the Oklahoma State Troopers were concerned for the safety of the two individuals like the police captain made it seem, especially since they end up shooting the man to death in front of his own brother and then arresting him after responding to a call for help. Is this protecting and serving? Time and time again, people have learned the hard way that calling the police often ends up in people getting killed rather than helped, which is why I say, if you care about yourself and your loved ones, DON'T CALL THE POLICE.

The former Deputy Children's Commissioner for England has warned that child sex abuse in the UK is so widespread that there is 'not enough land' to build all the prisons needed to incarcerate offenders.

Sue Berelowitz, who has been under fire after she received a six-figure payoff and was then promptly rehired as a £1,000 a-day consultant, made the claim while speaking at the Hay Literary Festival yesterday.

Mrs Berelowitz, who is currently chairing the government's inquiry into child sex abuse said the public will be 'shocked by the sheer scale of the problem' when she releases her report in November.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in the Norwegian capital Oslo, to protest against the country's foster care system. They are angry at children being 'kidnapped' from their families, which the protesters say is a breach of family rights.

Driving rain in Oslo didn't put the several hundred protesters off from making their viewpoint heard, as they assembled by the city's Central Station, before marching towards the parliament building.

Banners were held aloft, with messages including: "Children are not business," and, "Bring back our children." They are angry at the Norwegian foster care system 'Barnevernet,' (Child Protection Service), which has seen families in the country lose their children for alleged abuses, such as accidentally dislodging a child's loose tooth.