In a story most in the media missed, protestors gathered under the dome at the Mississippi state capitol earlier this year to oppose a bill that would allow the state Department of Human Services (DHS) to privatize everything from child protective services to nutrition programs for the elderly.

The bill, HB 1009, which later passed, started out as a way to allow the Mississippi DHS to hire private contractors to collect child support payments -- something which Mississippi had flirted with in the past, with less than impressive results.

From 1995-2000, a wealthy but little known firm called Maximus, Inc. had been hired to collect overdue child support payments in Mississippi and, according to a joint legislative committee report, on average, had higher costs but collected less in payments than the state did during the same five-year period. During the February 2013 debate on the new bill in the state Senate, the Associated Press quoted Senator Hob Bryan as saying "I remember the disaster that Maximus was."

But memories of that failed experiment did not stop Republican lawmakers from expanding HB 1009 to include a broad provision to allow the Mississippi DHS to privatize any of its functions by contracting out to private companies.

"Outsourcing aid for people can't work. It's designed to make a profit," Mississippi state representative Jim Evans told CMD. Evans had joined other legislators to stop what they saw as the potential corporate takeover of a public agency providing essential services to vulnerable citizens.

Despite the now lengthy list of failed -- and often disastrous -- attempts at privatizing social services in states across the country, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant signed the bill into law this spring.

A man has told how he woke up covered in blood after being attacked by a stray cat as he slept in bed

Paul Goodrum, from Leicester, said he thought he had a runny nose until he saw the cat in front of him.

The stray had clawed his face near his eye and bitten his nose.

Mr Goodrum, 26, said: "I thought I just had a runny nose but when I felt my face it was blood.

"I pushed the animal away and put on the light to see a very large white-grey cat. I chased it out of my bedroom and examined the damage on my face.

"The cat had scratched my eyelid and my cheek and forehead. There were also bite marks on either side of my nose. It was very frightening."

The largest of the wildfires wreaking havoc across New South Wales was started by the Australian military, investigators have found.

One man has died and more than 200 homes destroyed in the country's most populous state since Thursday as a result of more than 100 different fires.

Investigators were called after reports that the biggest of them, near the city of Lithgow to the west of Sydney, started at around the same time as the army was performing training exercises.

Today, the Rural Fire Service issued a statement which said the blaze "was started as a result of live ordnance exercises" at an army range.

Though it has not caused any deaths or injuries, as the single biggest fire it has burned through 47,000 hectares (180 square miles) of land and destroyed a number of homes. It was only downgraded from the highest emergency category this morning.

The Australian Defence Department said it would not comment further on the fire service investigators' findings, but it had previously confirmed it was engaged in exercises at the time and has been carrying out its own inquiries.

The U.S. Navy is being rocked by a bribery scandal that federal investigators say has reached high into the officer corps and exposed a massive overbilling scheme run by an Asian defense contractor that provided prostitutes and other kickbacks.

Among those arrested on corruption charges are a senior agent for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and a Navy commander who escaped Cambodia's "killing fields" as a child only to make a triumphant return to the country decades later as the skipper of a U.S. destroyer. The investigation has also ensnared a Navy captain who was relieved of his ship's command this month in Japan.

The chief executive of the Singapore-based defense contractor, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, and another company official were arrested last month at a San Diego harborside hotel after federal investigators lured them to the United States by arranging a sham meeting with Navy officials, according to court records and people involved in the case.

The unfolding investigation is shaping up as the biggest fraud case in years for the Navy. Federal prosecutors allege that Glenn Defense Marine, which has serviced and supplied Navy ships and submarines at ports around the Pacific for a quarter-century, routinely overbilled for everything from tugboats to fuel to sewage disposal.

Investigators are still assessing the scope of the alleged fraud, but federal court records filed in San Diego cite a handful of episodes that alone exceeded $10 million. Since 2011, Glenn Defense Marine has been awarded Navy contracts worth more than $200 million. The company also services ships from several navies in Asia.

The U.S. military has never been immune from contracting scandals, but it is extremely rare for senior uniformed commanders to face corruption charges.

New Canaan -- Police in New Canaan are trying to solve a gruesome mystery. Someone there has been beheading animals and pets and leaving the heads on people's property.

It's happened at least a couple of times over the last few days.

"Normally we are putting up signs for neighbors who are missing animals, not torturing them," said Lillian Worthley.

Police say two animals have been decapitated. A third killed and left in the backseat of a neighbor's car.

It happened last week in three different neighborhoods in New Canaan.

The cat was the neighborhood pet that went missing.

"We are not 100%, we believe that is the same cat. The cat goes missing and the head turns up a day later in the vicinity of where the cat went missing," said Sgt. Carol Ogrinc, New Canaan Police.

Lakewood - Lakewood police are investigating the discovery of possible human bones and items which, they say, may have been used in "occult" religious ceremonies.

The bones were found in a tool shed outside a vacant home on Kline Street.

They were discovered by a cleaning crew hired by the realtor, to help prepare the property for possible sale or rent. That cleaning crew called police.

A student at a Nevada middle school opened fire with a semi-automatic handgun on campus just before the starting bell Monday, wounding two 12-year-old boys and killing a math teacher who was trying to protect children from their classmate.

The unidentified shooter killed himself with the gun after a rampage that occurred in front of 20 to 30 horrified students who had just returned to school from a weeklong fall break. Authorities did not provide a motive for the shooting, and it's unknown where the student got the gun.

Teacher Michael Landsberry was being hailed for his actions during the shooting outside Sparks Middle School.

"In my estimation, he is a hero. ... We do know he was trying to intervene," Reno Deputy Police Chief Tom Robinson said.

A teenage bully was forced to apologise to his victim after 100 Facebook users staged a rally outside his school.

Halsey Parkerson, who had been taunted and verbally abused by the unnamed bully, has his aunt to thank after she arranged the meet-up at South Salem High School in Oregon.

She had gone to meet Halsey for lunch last Thursday when she witnessed another student telling him that he 'didn't have any friends and no one cares'.

After taking to Facebook to rally support from her local car club, the word quickly spread, with impressive results.

Around 100 people, in around 50 cars, turned up outside the school on Friday, with one person even making the journey from Vancouver in Canada - over 350 miles away.

Speaking at daily Mass last Thursday, Pope Francis warned Christians against turning their faith into a rigid ideology.

"The faith passes, so to speak, through a distiller and becomes ideology," he said, according to Radio Vatican. "And ideology does not beckon [people]. In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid.

"And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought... For this reason Jesus said to them: 'You have taken away the key of knowledge.' The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these close the door with many requirements."

The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research on March 27 announced a population estimate for Japan in 2040. As expected, what emerges out of this is a nation with an unprecedented rapidly aging and declining population. The implications of the estimate must be taken very seriously and preparations made to ameliorate the impact of this situation.

The estimate shows population trends in 2040 for each municipality. It is imperative that both the central and local governments design a sustainable social security system in time as well as to consider ways to secure a sufficient number of workers to prevent a decline in industrial capability. Local governments also need to work out measures aimed at maintaining and stabilizing people's lives in local communities by foreseeing what will happen to their industries, social services, transportation and so on.

The estimate shows that Japan's population in 2040 will stand at 107.276 million, a decline of about 20 million from 2010′s 128.057 million. A January 2012 estimate by the same institute had shown that in 2060, Japan's population will number 86.737 million, about 30 percent less from the 2010 level.