US whistleblower Edward Snowden was among five winners of the Swedish human rights award, announced in Stockholm on Wednesday.

The decision to the honor former National Security Agency contractor might have cost the 2014 Right Livelihood Awards' jury the ability to announce the winners from Swedish Foreign Office pressroom, a usual place for such statements since 1995, Foundation director Ole von Uexkull told AP.

Snowden, who has lived in Russia for over a year, shares his award with Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian newspaper, which was first to break the NSA leaks.

"The 2014 Right Livelihood Honorary Award goes to Edward Snowden for his courage and skill in revealing the unprecedented extent of state surveillance violating basic democratic processes and constitutional rights," the Stockholm-based foundation said in a statement.

The annual prize is awarded "to honour and support those offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today", and by them the foundation understands "courageous and effective work for human rights, freedom of the press, civil liberties and combatting climate change".

Although the whistleblower would not receive the customary 500,000 kronor ($70,000) prize money, the foundation said it would "fund legal support for him".
In a statement, Rusbridger said he was "delighted" to share the award with Snowden because he thinks "he was a whistleblower who took considerable risks with his own personal freedom in order to tell society about things that people needed to know."

Pakistani human rights lawyer Asma Jahanger, Sri Lankan rights activist Basil Fernando and US environmentalist Bill McKibbben were the other three prize winners. They will receive their awards at a formal ceremony in the Swedish parliament on December 1.

We loved America. I remember, we did. When we were teens, growing up in the early 90s; most of my friends the same age did not even question their attitude toward Western civilization. It was great, how could it be otherwise?

Unlike our grandfathers and even fathers, we did not think of the USSR falling apart - the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the XX century" - as a disaster. For us it was the beginning of a long journey. Finally, we would break out beyond the Soviet shell into the big world - limitless and cool. Finally, we would quench our sensory deprivation. We are born, maybe not in the right place, but certainly at the right time - or so we thought. It's hard to believe now, but even the Orthodox Church coming out from under communist supervision was for us the same thing as the triumph of Western liberal values. The celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Russia and the first concert of the Scorpions in Moscow with their "Winds of Change" - was, for us, all part of the same thing.

The war in Iraq and even the breakup of Yugoslavia mostly escaped our attention, somehow. And it was not just that we were young and carefree. I, for one, was already trained in the Komsomolskaya Pravda, in the International Department. I was monitoring the English Reuters feed that was full of Izetbegovic, Karadzic and Mladic, but somehow did not take all these events seriously. It was somewhere far away, and not in our area. And, of course, the war in the Balkans did not fit within any kind of anti-Western storyline for me. Croats killed Serbs, Bosnians killed Serbs, the Serbs killed both of those - why blame America?

In 1990 we voted for "Yabloko" democrats, went to the White House barricades on the side of democratic forces, watched the newborn CHANNEL and listened to the echo of Moscow radio. Our first journalistic articles always mentioned the "civilized world" and we firmly believed that it was really civilized. By the mid-1990s, the first Euro-skeptics started to appear in our ranks, but they were more in the category of devil's advocates. I myself shared a dorm room with Pete the communist and Arseniy the monarchist. My friends from other rooms would see me off each evening with words of regret: "Bye, go back to your madhouse."

The first serious blow to our pro-Western orientation in life was Kosovo. It was a shock; our rose-colored glasses were shattered into pieces. The bombing of Belgrade was, for my generation, what the 9/11 attacks were for Americans. Worldviews turned 180 degrees together with the plane of the then Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, who was over the Atlantic Ocean on the way from Ireland to the United States when he learned of the beginning of the American aggression - and gave the command to return to Russia.

The mayor of the small Sardinian town of Elmas has promised to pay residents who agree to take intensive English lessons, board a cheap flight and leave to look for jobs elsewhere in Europe.

The program, called "Adesso Parto" (Now I'm leaving), is aimed at helping unemployed people aged between 18 and 50 who have lived in the town for at least three years. Higher education is not a necessary condition for the applicants, but their annual income must not exceed €15,000.

The council in Elmas, a town of around 9,000 people, has already allocated €12,000 ($15,500) - which means 10 people would be able to try their luck in European cities, but as it is expected, there will be many more applications.

"This is above all an idea born of common sense and experience. Over the past year and a half - especially in the past few months - I have been receiving young people almost every day who are despairing about their search for work," mayor Valter Piscedda told The Guardian.

Taxpayers had to cough up $1,159,823 in just one month to fly President Obama to New York and Denver to raise money for Democrats and attend an LGBT event, according to documents obtained by a taxpayer watchdog group.


Judicial Watch told Secrets that the Air Force just provided expense reports detailing the flight costs of Air Force One to the cities in July.

The Vatican said on Tuesday that it had placed under house arrest and opened criminal proceedings against one of its former ambassadors, Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, who has been accused of sexually abusing boys he met on the street while serving in the Dominican Republic.

It is the first time the Vatican will hold a criminal trial on charges of child sexual abuse, and it comes as Pope Francis has been trying to set a new tone of rigorous attention in the long-running abuse scandal.

The case has received widespread attention in the Dominican Republic and in Mr. Wesolowski's native Poland, and officials in both nations have sought to have him tried in their courts.

The DC police have announced a million-dollar pilot program that will see 165 officers wear body cameras for six months, with a prospect of the practice embracing the whole of the department in two to three years.

Starting October 1, officers who volunteered to participate will start wearing cameras either attached to the front of their shirts or mounted on sunglasses frames, as displayed at a news conference on Wednesday.

There are five different models, ranging in price from $400 to $700, and the participants of the program will try them in order to single out the most efficient one.

"This will make our officers safer," said Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Chief Cathy Lanier, as cited by AP. "It will make our department more transparent. It will reduce the amount of time that supervisors have to spend investigating allegations."

Two Massachusetts teens have been arrested and a third is being sought in the brutal rape of a teenage girl that was recorded and posted on Snapchat.

The 16-year-old girl said she has no memory of what happened Sept. 3 when she was allegedly drugged and sexually assaulted by three teens behind a Saugus elementary school, reported WHDH-TV. "What they did was disgusting, it was sick, (and) I almost lost my daughter," her mother said. "She was barely breathing she was found with nothing on."

Police said the assault was videotaped and shared on Snapchat, a social networking service that shows images or videos for a short time before they disappear. "She had fingerprints - at least two hands held down by her throat, her breasts were bruised, her whole body was ripped, (and) shredded, (with) broken toes," her mother said. A friend recognized the victim in the Snapchat video and notified the police, authorities said. The video evidence led police to the girl, who was found unconscious in some bushes and had to be carried from the scene.

"Keep your hands out of your pocket or I'll pop a bullet in ya!" "I will hurt you!"

Psychopathy or sociopathy is traditionally defined as a personality disorder characterized by enduring antisocial behavior, diminished empathy and remorse, and disinhibited or bold behavior.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation reports that psychopathic behavior is consistent with traits common to some serial killers, including sensation seeking, a lack of remorse or guilt, impulsivity, the need for control, and predatory behavior.

In this raw footage below, officer David Marcinik of the Palm Bay Florida Police Department, comes up on two teenagers parked in a gravel drive.

Over the course of the next 20 minutes Marcinik exhibits several of the traits of a psychopath. He clearly has a lack of remorse for his actions, zero empathy, he's impulsive, and displays a sickening predatory behavior.

Native tribes from both the United States and Canada came together to sign their first treaty in 150 years: a pact that promises to bring the famed bison back to its original home in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions.

The new 'Buffalo Treaty' was signed this week by 11 tribes hailing from the state of Montana and Canada's Alberta province, according to the Associated Press.

Ultimately, the Native American tribes and their indigenous Canadian counterparts - known as the First Nations in Canada - hope to restore the ability of bison to roam freely between the US/Canada border and re-establish the animal's important position at the center of the tribes' cultures.

"Hunting practices, ceremonies, songs - those things revolved around the buffalo. Sacred societies used the buffalo as a totem. All of these things are going to be revised, revitalized, renewed with the presence of buffalo," Leroy Little Bear, a professor emeritus of Native American studies at the University of Lethbridge and Alberta Blood Tribe member, said to the AP.

Although there's no timetable regarding this plan, the signing of the treaty was welcomed as a positive development between the indigenous groups and a hopeful sign for the future.

Recently released dashboard camera video appears to contradict police claims about the beating of an uncooperative suspect earlier this year in a Tennessee traffic stop.

Police said they stopped a suspected drunk driver April 13 in Red Bank. That driver, who was identified in a police report only as Mr. Roque, was arrested without incident after failing a field sobriety test, reported WDEF-TV. Officers said in their report that a passenger, identified as Candido Medina-Resendiz, attempted several times to get out of the vehicle after police ordered him to stay inside. But he eventually exited the car, and reserve officers Tim Brown and Scott Miller attempted to take him into custody.

The report shows Medina-Resendiz resisted by pushing and pulling away, and police said the suspect struck his face on the pavement when Miller took him to the ground. Another officer used a stun gun on Medina-Resendiz - who is an illegal immigrant - in an attempt to subdue him, the report shows. Medina-Resendiz continued to struggle with the officer as he attempted to place him in handcuffs, and Officer Mark Kaylor said he struck the man in the face after he attempted to bite him.

Police eventually got handcuffs onto Medina-Resendiz and carried the still-struggling suspect to a patrol car and used the stun gun again. But dashboard camera video released last month contradicts what officers wrote in their report. Medina-Resindez is pulled from the car and thrown to the ground, where the back of his head strikes the pavement. Kaylor asked the suspect if he spoke English, and Medina-Resendiz said he spoke very little. But none of the officers requested a Spanish-speaking officer, and all three continued to bark orders at Medina-Resendiz in English.