Thousands of anti-government protesters have gathered in Ukraine's capital Kiev in a fresh show of force against the government's decision to shelve a deal with the European Union.

On Wednesday, the protesters convened on Kiev's Independence Square to continue more than a month of demonstrations opposing President Viktor Yanukovych's refusal to sign an association pact with the EU.

The protesters, wrapped in Ukrainian and EU flags, demanded that President Yanukovych and his government step down.

They also called for early parliamentary and presidential elections.

Ukraine has been rocked with anti-government protests after Yanukovych refrained from signing the association agreement with the EU at the third Eastern Partnership Summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, in November 2013.

European Union leaders blame Russia for Ukraine's refusal to sign the deal.

This is surreal. According to report, Federal agents abused their power by illegally detaining and strip-searching a woman before taking her to the hospital where she underwent extensive body cavity searches and probes. Wow.

From CBS:

Federal agents wrongfully strip-searched a New Mexico woman at the El Paso border crossing, then took her to a hospital where she was forced to undergo illegal body cavity probes in an attempt to find drugs, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in El Paso said the unnamed 54-year-old U.S. citizen was "brutally" searched by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in December 2012 after being selected for additional random screening at the Cordova Bridge in El Paso when a drug sniffing dog jumped on her. The woman was returning from a visit to a recently deported family friend in Cuidad Juarez, Mexico, the lawsuit said.

Agents quickly stripped searched her and did cavity searches but found no evidence of drugs, court documents said. But the woman was transported in handcuffs to the University Medical Center of El Paso, the lawsuit said, where doctors subjected her to an observed bowel movement, a CT scan and other exams without a warrant.

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I understand that being a law enforcement officer must be tough. They are human, they lose their temper, they get tired, they forget things, they simply make mistakes. But honestly, regardless of the reasoning, is there any excuse for doing this? Have these officers ever heard of the Constitution?

The liberty of the individual who has not been convicted of a crime should be the most important thing to any officer.

Two New York legislators say they will introduce a bill to strip state aid from universities that take part in a recent movement to boycott Israeli academic centers.

State Sen. Jeff Klein, a Bronx Democrat, and Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Brooklyn Democrat who is also a former member of the Jewish Defense League that was classified as a "terrorist group" by the FBI in 2001, say they want to cut off state aid to universities affiliated with the American Studies Association's movement to boycott Israeli institutions.

Earlier this month, members of the ASA overwhelmingly voted to ban Israeli universities from collaborations with their campuses.

The organization said the reason behind its decision was that the Israeli insitutions were "a party" to policies "that violate human rights" as Israel's "violation of international law and UN resolutions" continues and the "impact of the Israeli occupation on Palestinian scholars and students" is well-documented.

Suspected Israeli extremistshave set cars on fire in the West Bank overnight, after Tel Aviv released 26 Palestinian prisoners.

Israeli official Luba Samri said on Tuesday that the latest instance of vandalism and violence against Palestinians was an apparent "price tag" attack. Hate crimes carried out against Palestinians by Israeli extremists are referred to as price tag incidents.

At least three Palestinian cars were torched in the town of Jalzoun, north of Ramallah.

The Israeli settlers also spray-painted "blood will flow in Judea and Samaria," and "this is war" on the wall of a nearby Palestinian house.

Millions of older Americans say they will never be able to retire. They simply don't have the savings. According to CNN, "Roughly three-quarters of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck, with little to no emergency savings...50% have less than a three-month cushion and 27% had no savings at all...." ("76% of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck", CNN Money)

"No savings at all"?

That's right. So retirement is out of the question. A sizable chunk of the adult population is going to punch a clock until they keel-over in the office parking lot and get hauled off in the company dumpster. And those are the lucky ones, the so called baby boomers. By the time we get to the millennials it'll be even worse because the economy will have been ravaged by 25 or 30 years of austerity leaving the proles to scrape by on hardtack and gruel. Pensions are already being looted, Social Security is under fire, and any small stipend that supports the poor, the unemployed, or the infirm is going to be terminated. That's why everyone is so down-in-the-mouth, because their expectations of the future are so bleak. Check this out from Business Insider:

"For millennials, the situation is even more grim. Compared to their parents at their age, the under-30 set is worth only half as much. And while this is a sobering reminder of the scale of the Great Recession's impact on younger generations, it's not the whole story. These households were actually falling behind even before the stock market and housing crash, researchers found.

Young people not only saw their wages stagnate or drop but also suffered a rise in fixed costs. They leave college with an average $27,000 debt load and have a harder time finding jobs that pay well, while facing more expensive health care and housing costs.

"If these generations cannot accumulate wealth, they will be less able to support themselves when unexpected emergencies arise or when they eventually retire," the study authors said. "This financial uncertainty could reverberate throughout the economy, since entrepreneurial activity, saving, and investment tend to build on a base of confidence and growing wealth."("AMERICA IN DECLINE: Young People Are Much Worse Off Than Their Parents Were At That Age", Business Insider)

When thugs...I mean, police officers...attempted to serve a warrant on a prostitute named Josie Bobbitt, Holly Hill, Florida, resident Richard Stohler refused to allow them entry, stating that the woman they were looking for didn't live there, and that he had no idea who she was.

The brave policemen, however, were determined to serve the warrant and went into Stohler's backyard, where his two dogs were responsibly fenced in. Like any self-respecting dog, they barked at the intruders. Being dogs, of course, they did not differentiate between intruders in a uniform and every day, garden variety intruders.

The father of Ibragim Todashev, former friend of alleged Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, has released an open letter to President Barack Obama calling for justice after his son's murder. Todashev was killed by FBI agents in May.

Abdulbaki Todashev's letter includes photos of his son's bullet-ridden body and his bloodstained Orlando, Florida apartment. Ibragim was shot to death by an FBI agent accompanied by two Massachusetts State Troopers, according to Boston magazine.

Also included is a photo of Ibragim's knee following a surgery he had in March, which the senior Todashev says is proof that his son posed no harm to the FBI agent who killed him.

In the letter, Abdulbaki Todashev says the FBI deliberately tortured and killed his son and proceeded to intimidate and deport his son's acquaintances in the ensuing months.

Todashev calls on Obama to keep the FBI from interfering with the current independent investigation into his son's death.

Todashev's letter states:

An Indian teenager was gang-raped in two separate attacks and then died after being set on fire, sparking protests in the eastern city of Kolkata, police said on Thursday.

The 16-year-old was assaulted first on October 26 and then again the day after by a group of more than six men near her family's home in Madhyagram town, about 25 kilometres (15 miles) north of Kolkata.

The second rape occurred as she was returning home after reporting the first attack at a police station.

She was then set on fire on December 23 and died in a state-run hospital late on New Year's Eve, police said.

"She gave us a dying declaration in front of the health officials that she was set on fire by two persons close to the accused when she was alone at home on December 23," local policeman Nimbala Santosh Uttamrao told AFP.

Police made their first arrests on Wednesday, two months after the initial crime, local police chief Rajiv Kumar told AFP.

"The accused tried to kill my daughter by setting her on fire to hush up their crimes," the victim's father, a migrant taxi driver from India's poorest state Bihar, told AFP.

Days may be dark right now - after all, as the memes proclaim, axial tilt is the reason for the season. But things are looking bright for those who would like to see humanity more grounded in science and reason. If you are a nonbeliever in the mood for a party, here are 10 reasons to celebrate.

1. Coming out atheist is up and coming.

In May 2013, after a deadly tornado destroyed her home, young mother Rebecca Vitsmun gave an unexpected answer when CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked whether she thanked the Lord for her decision to flee. Vitsmun tells the story in a sometimes-tearful interview with Seth Andrews, host of the Thinking Atheist. "I had this moment in which I realized you either lie or tell the truth, and I'm not a liar." In that moment, Vitsmun outed herself not only to a national media audience but also to her Christian parents and friends.

Vitsmun's situation was extraordinary, but candor about nonbelief is becoming more and more commonplace. From Hollywood celebs like Cameron Diaz and Angelina Jolie to high school students, skeptics are opening up about their beliefs and values - or simply declining to lie when asked. (A quick-read book, Mom, Dad, I'm an Atheist, offers tips for those who are contemplating when, where and how best to come out.)

2. The cutting edge of freethought is less cutting and edgy.

In generations past, coming out as an atheist required a devil-may-care attitude. The social and even financial costs were so high that most admitted atheists were also unflinching social activists, people who had a high degree of zeal and high tolerance for conflict. Most were also white males who were comparatively safe taking on the religious establishment. Until recently, then, atheism was virtually synonymous with anti-theism, and even today people complain that pioneers of the New Atheist movement like Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, and the late great Hitchens are unnecessarily antagonistic.

Consumers were hit with increased costs of living by as much as 11 percent in 2013 on the back of rising house rent, utility bills and prices of various essential food items.

"House rent is rising, keeping pace with the spiralling costs of fuel, electricity, water and commodities," the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) said in a statement yesterday.

The consumer rights campaigner prepared a report taking into account the costs of 114 food items, 26 essential commodities and 10 utility services, the findings of which was released yesterday.

It estimated the cost of living based on weights of commodities and services in the consumer basket and found that it soared 11 percent in 2013 from the previous year. The prices of food and services rose 12 percent and house rent 10.9 percent in the course of the year.

"Home owners disregard the existing rules for hiking house rents and do as they wish. As a result, many families were forced to shift to suburbs from the main town," CAB said, while urging the government to revise the house rent law of 1991 for public's best interests.

The cost of electricity and fuel also increased in 2013, by 7.3 and 5.65 percent respectively, and water also became dearer.