Hope Over Fear in Glasgow's George ("Freedom") Square was an event and a half. Buzzing over the whole square, and rippling over the city, was an energy with which we have all become quite familiar. It is an overpowering sensation of victory and hopefulness - trapped somewhere between expectation and celebration. The British media has gone out of its way - all the way to Hong Kong in fact - to either ignore it or present it as some sort of last sing-song from a defeated Tartan Army before it gets on the coach for home. Hope Over Fear was anything but a fond farewell to our well-fought Yes campaign. It was everything that the last days of the campaign had been but with the added twist of something else. A new flavour has entered the mix of the independence movement and this was palpable in the Square yesterday. Our friends at the Daily Record and the BBC are repeating the same old line that we should accept the result and settle down, that the majority of Scotland has spoken. It is obvious that these Westminster tools haven't spoken to any of the people who descended on the Square. Something has changed.

We have crossed a threshold into an entirely new playing field of the campaign. Police Scotland are interviewing "witnesses" like Ruth Davidson and others of Westminster's fifth column within Scotland regarding their questionable procedures during the referendum count. Ever fewer people in Scotland are accepting the story that we were not cheated. Of course we were cheated. If the vote itself wasn't rigged, the campaign was completely rigged. A single Sunday edition lent its weight to the independence movement while the entire British government got behind the Better Together Call Centre to make sure every grandmother in Scotland received a threatening phone call. Even the chief of Better Together joked with his new chums at the Labour Party conference in Manchester that No could never have prevailed without 'Operation Fear.' Democracy is only democratic when the people are presented with all the facts and left in peace to come to their own decision.

Many thousands of Americans who lost their homes in the housing bust, but have since begun to rebuild their finances, are suddenly facing a new foreclosure nightmare: debt collectors are chasing them down for the money they still owe by freezing their bank accounts, garnishing their wages and seizing their assets.

By now, banks have usually sold the houses. But the proceeds of those sales were often not enough to cover the amount of the loan, plus penalties, legal bills and fees. The two big government-controlled housing finance companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as other mortgage players, are increasingly pressing borrowers to pay whatever they still owe on mortgages they defaulted on years ago.

Using a legal tool known as a "deficiency judgment," lenders can ensure that borrowers are haunted by these zombie-like debts for years, and sometimes decades, to come. Before the housing bubble, banks often refrained from seeking deficiency judgments, which were seen as costly and an invitation for bad publicity. Some of the biggest banks still feel that way.

Younger black generation rails at ineffectiveness of peaceful tactics as day of mass civil disobedience begins across city

Frustration and anger among young black Americans at an older generation's apparent failure to adequately respond to the killing of Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson upended a key event at a weekend of mass protest on Sunday.

The showdown exposed a generational divide over how best to confront police racism, brutality and use of excessive force as organisers of the "weekend of resistance", which has drawn activists from across the US, plan to stage mass civil disobedience across St Louis on Monday.

While older civil rights leaders hark back to the more peaceful methods of half a century ago, some younger people question their effectiveness today and are pressing for more confrontational tactics.

Officials said that a nurse in northeast Italy might have killed as many as 38 patients because she found them - or their relatives - annoying.

Daniela Poggiali, who lives in the town of Lugo, was taken into custody over the weekend.

The 42-year-old nurse was booked for the alleged slaying of 78-year-old patient Rosa Calderoni, who died from an injection of potassium.

Calderoni had been admitted to the hospital with a routine illness before she died unexpectedly.

As reported by the Central European News, tests showed that Calderoni died with a high amount of potassium - which can provoke cardiac arrest - in her bloodstream.

Calderoni's death triggered an investigation, which reportedly revealed that 38 others had died mysteriously while Poggiali was on duty.

• Incident occurred at E.R. Dickson Elementary School in Mobile, Alabama
• Girl's mother said they tried to assess whether her child was depressed
• Minors cannot sign contracts in Alabama

An Alabama mom is furious that her five-year-old daughter was forced to sign a contract saying she will not hurt herself or anyone at school after she pointed a crayon at a classmate.

The incident occurred at E.R. Dickson Elementary School in Mobile.

The mom, only identified as Rebecca, said the school asked her toddler, Elizabeth, whether she was depressed, which the little girl did not understand.

'They told me she drew something that resembled a gun,' Rebecca told WPMI-TV.

'According to them she pointed a crayon at another student and said, ''pew pew''.'

Oklahoma woman said she was "absolutely offended" by her neighbor's Halloween display, which included a tombstone with President Barack Obama's name on it.

"He is the president of the United States, and it actually is about respect," said Jamila Phillips, who recently moved to the neighborhood in Edmond. "It's a total respect thing because this person is still alive."

Her neighbor, Dwayne Dockens, told KOCO-TV he's displayed the tombstone with Obama's name for the last three years without complaint.

"We made them a few years ago back when it was a big deal, questions up about his birth certificate," Dockens said. "And we made all these ourselves, so just thought it was kind of humorous and, you know, went ahead and put him in there, as well."

The wooden tombstone reads "Obama ? - " and is placed among others reading "Imma goner" and "I told you I was sick."

A Colorado family said that it was stunned over the weekend when an officer broke down their door, and fatally shot one of the residents in the back without an explanation.

Sara Lindenmuth told KRDO that a Rocky Ford police officer forced down the door to their home sometime after her brother-in-law, 27-year-old Jack Jacquez, came home around 2 a.m. on Sunday morning.

She recalled that the two men started shouting at each other.

"He was standing next to his mom, his back turned toward the officer and then he shot him twice in the back and then pepper sprayed him," Lindenmuth said. "Then they hand cuffed his fiancé, for reasons I don't know why. And the mom went to call the cops and the cop took her phone and threw it against the wall."

American politicians are fond of telling their audiences that the United States is the greatest country in the world. Is there any evidence for this claim?

Well, yes. When it comes to violence and preparations for violence, the United States is, indeed, No. 1. In 2013, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the U.S. government accounted for 37 percent of world military expenditures, putting it far ahead of all other nations. (The two closest competitors, China and Russia, accounted for 11 percent and 5 percent respectively.) From 2004 to 2013, the United States was also the No. 1 weapons exporter in the world. Moreover, given the U.S. government's almost continuous series of wars and acts of military intervention since 1941, it seems likely that it surpasses all rivals when it comes to international violence.

This record is paralleled on the domestic front, where the United States has more guns and gun-related deaths than any other country. A study released in late 2013 reported that the United States had 88 guns for every 100 people, and 40 gun-related deaths for every 400,000 people―the most of any of the 27 economically developed countries surveyed. By contrast, in Britain there were 6 guns per 100 people and 1 gun-related death per 400,000 people.

Financial letter writer Marc Faber made on Friday what likely will be his last appearance on Business News Network in Canada -- not because of failing health or retirement but because he declared that the monetary metals markets are manipulated.

As soon as Faber made his declaration on BNN's "Business Day" program, moderator Frances Horodelski cut him off, asserting that time had run out.

Reports of creepy clowns carrying knives and other weapons have been scaring people in the California city of Bakersfield for the past week, police said on Sunday.

In the latest incident, a person telephoned the Bakersfield Police Department on Saturday night, reporting a clown armed with a firearm, said watch commander Lieutenant Jason Matson.

"We've been having sightings all over the city," Matson said. "They range from anywhere from a guy carrying a gun to a guy carrying a knife running up to houses."

The Bakersfield Californian newspaper reported earlier in the week that at least some of the reports were hoaxes. Matson said he did not know whether the incidents were pranks.