Thousands of people marched in silence in New York to protest against street checks by police that rights activists say disproportionately target blacks and Hispanics.

The demonstration, called by civil rights organizations, began in Harlem and moved south through Manhattan to the residence of Mayor Michael Bloomberg in Manhattan's posh Upper East Side.

Among the groups that took part in the march were the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Action Network led by the Reverend Al Sharpton and a union that represents health care workers.

"End Stop and Frisks, Silent March Against Racial Profiling," said a flyer handed out by protest organizers.

More than four million New Yorkers, most of them blacks and Latinos, have been stopped and questioned by police in the street since 2004, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

A 10-hour standoff between an off-duty New Jersey police officer who barricaded himself inside his estranged wife's house while sporadically shooting at police has ended.

Richard Klementovich, 42, an officer with Clifton police department, was taken into custody late Sunday from the Doylestown, Pennsylvania, property with 2,000 rounds of ammunition and multiple weapons, including rifles and sniper guns.

Neighbours were told to stay in their homes, preferably hiding in their basements with doors locked and shades drawn. Some were told to evacuate.

Police from various departments including Clifton, and SWAT teams worked to negotiate with the gunman. According to ABC News, officers were told that if they get a clear shot at him they should take it.

Des Moines, Iowa - A group of Roman Catholic nuns is set to leave Des Moines on a two-week bus tour of nine states to protest Republican federal budget proposals that the group believes hurt the poor and vulnerable.

The Nuns on the Bus tour departs Monday and is scheduled to finish in Washington, D.C., on July 2.

The nuns will visit Catholic-sponsored social service agencies and the offices of Republican members of Congress including Steve King's office in Ames, House Speaker John Boehner's office in Chester, Ohio, and Rep. Eric Cantor's office in Richmond, Va.

Organizer Sister Simone Campbell says the tour is not a response to the Vatican's recent criticism of nuns as being too outspoken on social issues. Network, a Catholic social justice lobby founded by sisters, is sponsoring the tour.

Source: The Associated Press

A group of protesters learned a quick lesson on Sunday: Don't interrupt Ann Romney.

While the wife of candidate Mitt Romney introduced her husband and her sons, all on hand to help their dad celebrate Father's Day on the trail in Ohio, a group of about 25 protesters could be heard chanting "We are the 99 percent."

But Ann Romney wasn't having it, and certainly wasn't going to let the group steal her husband's spotlight.

Rodney King, the figure at the centre of the Los Angeles riots 20 years ago, has been found dead aged 47, according to police reports.

His fiancee found his body at the bottom of a swimming pool, but there was no sign of foul play.

King was a victim of police brutality in 1991, but the officers involved were acquitted the following year.

The verdict triggered clashes between black youths and police which left more than 50 dead and thousands injured.

Female customers who shopped at a Sears store in North Hollywood, Calif., over the past three years may have been videotaped in the dressing rooms and restrooms, according to an attorney representing 25 women suing the retail chain.

The group is suing Sears and a former maintenance worker who allegedly videotaped them from 2009 to April 2012.

Michael Alder, the attorney for the plaintiffs, said an unknown number of female customers were also likely videotaped in the store during that period.

"There's a lot of people who were patrons and don't have any idea that they've been videotaped," Alder said.

Alejandro Gamiz, 27, a maintenance worker who worked at Sears for seven years, who is accused of placing hidden cameras behind the walls of the store. He was arrested on April 12 for burglary and surreptitious filming of unsuspecting women by North Hollywood Area Sexual Assault detectives. Gamiz posted $20,000 bail and was released from custody.

The Los Angeles District Attorney's office is still reviewing the case and has not yet filed charges against Gamiz. Gamiz did not return a request for comment.

A Household Cavalry soldier and his wife were among those at the centre of a paedophile ring that held sex parties at a country farmhouse, a court heard.
Simon Davies and his wife Fiona Parsons-Davies admitted child abuse charges along with the owner of the remote chalet, sheep farmer Nicholas Cordery, 62.

Two other men, Peter Malpas and Anthony Flack, also pleaded guilty to sex offences against children at Reading Crown Court.

The court heard the five had been part of a group that abused girls as young as eight at the building where police found sex toys alongside teddy bears.

Toronto Police say a man in his thirties is dead after the stage at Downsview Park collapsed late Saturday afternoon, hours ahead of a scheduled concert by rock band Radiohead.

Toronto Police Const. Tony Vella told reporters that "a number of people" were on the stage preparing for the concert when the top portion collapsed. While a number of workers fled to safety, four others were caught in the wreckage.

Toronto Fire platoon chief Tony Bellavance said firefighters had to extricate one person, who suffered crushing injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police also said a 45-year-old man was taken to Sunnybrook hospital with a non-life-threatening head injury after the incident, which happened around 4 p.m. ET.

Two other males were injured, but were treated at the scene by paramedics.

Toronto Fire Services and contractors secured what was left of the large stage, so a full investigation could safely begin.

A San Bernardino County jury Wednesday rejected a controversial "Zoloft" defense presented by a former Westminster police detective accused of kidnapping and raping a waitress in 2010, finding the defendant guilty of all eight charges.

Anthony Nicholas Orban's attorney acknowledged from the outset that his client attacked the woman, but argued that the former detective was rendered mentally "unconscious" by a powerful dose of the prescription antidepressant and was not responsible for his actions.

A jury of eight women and four men deliberated less than a day before dismissing that defense and finding Orban guilty of kidnapping, two counts of rape, two counts of forced oral copulation, two counts of sexual penetration with a foreign object and one count of making a criminal threat.

The victim sat in the front row of the packed Rancho Cucamonga courtroom, reacting with a subtle smile as Superior Court Judge Shahla S. Sabet read the guilty verdicts. The victim's unflinching, graphic account of the sexual assault was the most compelling testimony given during the month-long trial.

Orban showed little emotion as the verdicts were read. His wife wept gently in the back of the courtroom.

In an odd twist to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian saga, a former Israeli soldier has embarked on a new fight: He wants to renounce his Israeli citizenship and move to a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank.

Andre Pshenichnikov, a 23-year-old Jewish immigrant from Tajikistan, was recently detained by Israeli police for residing illegally in the Deheishe Refugee Camp near Bethlehem. There he told police that he wants to break all ties with Israel, give up his Israeli citizenship and obtain a Palestinian one instead.

Pshenichnikov is currently traveling in Europe for two months. When he returns, he hopes to move to the West Bank.

It's incredibly rare for Israelis to seek to live under Palestinian rule. There are only a few known cases of Jewish Israelis who have done so, mostly ones who have married Palestinians, as well as a journalist for the Israeli daily Haaretz who moved to Ramallah and reports from there. None are known to have renounced Israeli citizenship - though some Israelis living abroad have. Nor are any known to have sought Palestinian residency instead. People are not allowed to be dual citizens.

Reached at his Israeli home, Pshenichnikov's mother Svetlana said she was troubled by her son's plans.

"I'm his mother and I am trying to support him like a mother should," she said. "But I don't support his war."

The family immigrated to Israel when Pshenichnikov was 13. Israel grants automatic citizenship to anyone who is Jewish. He later completed his three years of mandatory military service, enlisting as a computer programmer in the army's signals corps, and even served an additional year and a half as a career soldier.