History never repeats itself, but from time to time, consciously or not, some influential men attempt to force us into the monstrosity of their imaginary time machines to try to reverse decades, and in the case of feudalism, almost a millenium of social progress. The mid-20th century brought the years of collective psychosis of Adolf Hitler's "thousand year Reich," and more recently what can be viewed as the United States of America's imperialist manifesto or so-called Project for the New American Century, concocted in 1997 but still in effect today under the current administration, with the self-proclaimed objective to "promote American global leadership" resolutely and by military force, if necessary.

Montesquieu and his colleagues of the mid-18th century, such as Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau of the Age of Enlightenment, denounced feudalism as being a system exclusively dominated by aristocrats who possess all financial, political and social power. During that time, which incubated the French Revolution and built its ideological foundations, feudalism became synonymous with the French monarchy. To the Enlightenment writers, feudalism symbolized everything that was wrong with a system based on birth privilege, inequality and brutal exploitation. In August 1789, shortly after the takeover of La Bastille on July 14, one of the first action of the Assemblee Constituante was to proclaim the official abolition of the "feudal regime."

Ironically, feudalism is making a comeback in the latest evolution and under the impulse of predatory global capitalism. After all, Karl Marx, in the mid-19th century, considered feudalism to be a precursor of capitalism. Typically a feudal system can be defined as a society with inherited social rank. In the Middle Ages, wealth came exclusively from agriculture: the aristocracy strictly assumed ownership of the land while the serfs provided the labor.

Seattle police officers filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday challenging new policies that restrict use of force, saying the rules endanger lives of both officers and civilians.

More than 120 officers have joined the lawsuit, which seeks a complete dismantling of a new use of force policy hammered out between the Seattle Police Department and the U.S. Department of Justice to stem an alleged pattern of excessive force.

The Seattle Police Department has been under federal monitoring since 2012, following an investigation into a series of incidents in which officers appeared to engage in excessive force, particularly against minorities.

A passenger plane has narrowly missed colliding with a drone, as authorities note a rise in ­incidents involving unmanned aircraft.

A Dash-8 chartered aircraft was preparing to land at Perth Airport when the crew spotted a bright strobe light in its path at about 3700ft. The pilot swerved and missed the object by about 20m, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau says in a report.

The March 19 incident was followed by another three days later when a Westpac rescue chopper carrying five crew took off from Newcastle's John Hunter Hospital. A white light was spotted coming from a drone hovering 1000ft above Hunter stadium, where a football match was under way.

The unmanned craft began to move directly toward the helicopter, with the pilot forced to take evasive action.

• Singer Watkins was jailed for 35 years for 13 child sex offences last year
• He tried to have sex with a baby and encouraged a groupie to abuse child
• Other members of the band now speak out about his 'unbelievable' crimes
• They tell of resentment at 'coward and weak character' after band split
• Bandmates didn't believe the crimes when Watkins was first arrested
• But after hearing the details of his trial, they vow never to speak to him

Former bandmates of paedophile Ian Watkins say they have severed all ties with the shamed singer after he was jailed for child sex abuse.

Two members of the band have spoken for the first time since Watkins, 36, was jailed for 35 years for a string of sex offences - including the attempted rape of a baby.

Guitarists Lee Gaze and Mike Lewis told of their sense of betrayal after first believing the band's former frontman was innocent following his initial arrest.

Guitar player Lee Gaze, 39, said he had initially feared for his one-time friend when he was held in prison and maintained his innocence.

When mass shootings take place in the United States, corporate news media can almost uniformly be counted on to act as stenographers to power. They dutifully report exactly what they're told by authorities with wholehearted trust and close to no due diligence. This appears to have been the case yet again in the May 23 Isla Vista California mass murder.

The public has been propagandized with a familiar storyline that law enforcement authorities have peppered with lurid details - including a disturbing "manifesto" and YouTube soliloquy from a well-to-do yet alienated man who had trouble forging relationships, so he went on a wild shooting spree then committed suicide.

Like numerous other tragic events that cry out for heightened measures against gun ownership, such as the Tucson shooting, the Sikh Temple bloodletting, the Aurora movie theatre massacre, and the Newtown school shooting, initial eyewitness accounts of what took place differ markedly from what news media presented in subsequent reports - those laid out in law enforcement press conferences just hours after the event.

Otto von Bismarck famously remarked, "Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied."

Officials are mopping up a spill that sent an undetermined amount of oil into the Green River - and potentially into the Colorado River, environmental groups said.

On May 21 between 100,000 and 125,000 gallons of oil leaked from a 45-year-old well 50 miles north of Moab, Utah, near the Green River, the Colorado River's main tributary. The well was capped, but two days later the area was flooded in a rainstorm and the oil overflowed its containment ponds, four environmental groups said in a statement on May 29.

As many as 3,000 to 4,000 gallons per hour of a mixture of oil and treated water may have leaked after a valve failed on an older rig owned by the S.W. Energy Corp., the Moab Sun News reported.

The Bureau of Land Management said it had contained the leak by May 22, assisted by S.W. Energy, the Utah Department of Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the newspaper said. Subsequent rains on Friday May 23 "overwhelmed the prevention measures, causing oil and some surface contaminants to move downstream in the wash and enter the Green River," the Moab Sun News said. The exact amount of oil and surface contaminants leaching into the Green River was not known, Beth Ransel, Moab field manager for the Bureau of Land Management, told the newspaper.

The environmental groups said that even that wasn't an accurate assessment, because any oil would have washed downstream quickly and thus would have already moved on from the place where BLM agents tested the water for oil content. With spring runoff speeding up the river and augmenting the water volume, the environmental groups said, testing should have been done farther downstream, especially since federal and state officials didn't arrive until 12 to 18 hours later.

"No known sampling of downstream water supplies has been performed, raising criticism from residents across the region," said the Utah Rivers Council, the Sierra Club, the Waterkeeper Alliance and the Living Rivers Colorado River Keeper in a joint statement.

Mount Rainer National Park, Wash. - A group of six climbers missing on Mount Rainier are all believed to be dead after plunging more than 3,000 feet down a steep rockfall at the peak's upper elevations.

A helicopter search was launched for the missing climbers Saturday morning after they failed to return on time from a scheduled five-day ascent of the mountain.

Officials said searchers found climbing gear and detected pings from the climbers' emergency beacons at the 9,500-foot level of the mountain. Their last known location before that was at 12,800 feet on Liberty Ridge.

"All indications point toward a fall of 3,300 feet from near the party's last known location," said Mount Rainier National Park spokeswoman Patti Wold. "There is no viable chance of survival from such a fall."

The area where they fell is at the base of a steep rockfall, and it's possible that their bodies will never be recovered due to the dangerous, unstable terrain in the area, Wold said.

Kilauea - A father was arrested when he gave his son the "old school" punishment of walking one-mile home from school to think about what he had done.

Robert De Mond, 36, said that when he picked up his 8-year-old son from school, he refused to tell say what had earned him a punishment from teachers. The Star Adviser reported what happened next:

"I asked him, 'Why were you in time-out at A-Plus?'" De Mond said. "He told me, 'I don't know.' I asked him again and he said, 'I don't know.'"

He told his son: "I don't know is not an answer. You need to take responsibility for your actions. There has to be a reason that you were placed in time-out."

A mile from their house, he dropped his son off and asked him to "please walk home. When you walk home, you will have an answer better than 'I don't know.' And when you do come home you'll have an answer," he said.

De Mond said the stretch of the two-lane roadway - Kuhio Highway - is in a safe, rural area with acre-size agricultural lots, and a wide shoulder, 10 to 25 feet wide, where it's not uncommon to see people walking or riding their bikes.

In many people's lives, walking to get places isn't a punishment, it is a daily reality; the norm; how one gets places. However in Police State USA, a parent who allows their son to walk somewhere is arrested.

Residents of the German city of Aachen staged a protest against the policy of the Kiev government and the Verkhovna Rada appointed Prime Minister of Ukraine, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who arrived there to participate in the awards ceremony of the Charlemagne Prize. The protesters called the new government of Ukraine fascist, and Yatsenyuk - a terrorist.

The Verkhovna Rada appointed Prime Minister of Ukraine, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, was booed at in Germany, where he arrived to participate in the Charlemagne Prize award ceremony to President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy, Deutschlandfunk.de reports.

In Aachen, local residents gathered near the building, which hosts the award ceremony. They were holding posters and chanted slogans calling to put an end to the American influence in Ukraine.

Heber City - A group of female students at a Utah high school are upset and demanding an answer as to why the school chose to alter their yearbook photos without telling them and also why this rule wasn't applied to everyone.

In a bid to make the photos "show less skin," authorities at Wasatch High School in Heber City doctored a selection of the girl's photos, adding sleeves and raising necklines. However, they didn't apply this policy to all the girl's photos and this has made the students even more angry.

In the video some of the doctored photos can be seen where sleeves have been added, or a tank top painted in under the open neck of a shirt. According to students, their outfits did follow the public school's dress code and they say they have worn them on campus many times.