Officers with the San Francisco Police Department in Northern California shot a man believed to have a knife this morning, but preliminary reports suggest that the victim was in handcuffs while the authorities opened fire.

Police officers with the SFPD allegedly opened fire on a man armed with a knife at around 10:30 a.m. local time on Wednesday after responding to reports that someone had been stabbed near the city's Pier 17.

The Bay City News Service reported minutes later that there was an "officer-involved" shooting but did provide any other details. The San Francisco Chronicle reported at 11:30 a.m. local time that the man was shot by police after he refused to drop a knife that they believe was used in a stabbing earlier that morning. Fire Department Capt. Jeanne Seyler confirms to the paper that the victim was being transported for life threatening wounds, but did not provide any more details.

A video uploaded to YouTube less than 30 minutes after that report includes a testimony from an eyewitness who alleges that the police shot the suspect after placing him in handcuffs.

A Jacksonville, Florida party went a bit too wild this week after hundreds of teenagers relocated their shindig to a local Walmart store and went on a rampage, all the while videotaping their outrageous escapades.

Police investigating the Saturday night stampeding of the north Florida store say that around 300 youths were involved in the melee, which miraculously didn't directly spawn any serious injuries. Moments before storming the store, however, one 20-year-old party-goer reported being shot in the leg while leaving the original get-together.

The entire incident began at what a neighbor tells the Florida Times-Union was a "massive crowd party" in a subdivision in Jacksonville that attracted noise complaints from neighbors. When the police responded to the scene, attendees regrouped around two miles down the road to Walmart.

A music royalty collection agency in the Netherlands got trapped by the very copyright rules it was intended to protect. The company has been fined for stealing music from its client, using it without his permission and failing to pay royalties.

­Music royalty collection agency Buma/Stemra now owes at least 164,974 euro to the Dutch musician Melchior Rietveldt, a sum calculated by the recording artist himself.

Back in 2006, Buma/Stemra approached Melchior Rietveldt with a request to create a composition that would be used in an anti-piracy advertisement. At that time the group claimed it would be shown exclusively at a local film festival.

But to the composer's amusement, one year later he purchased a Harry Potter DVD only to find that his piece was being used in the anti-piracy ad without his permission.

In fact, it had been used on dozens of DVDs both in the Netherlands and overseas.

New Zealand Judge David Harvey has stepped down from the Kim Dotcom trial after making remarks that could cast doubt on his impartiality. Harvey was to oversee the extradition case against the internet entrepreneur, who is wanted by the US.

­Last week, Judge Harvey, who is also an internet law expert, was a featured speaker at a conference discussing the TPP treaty - a multilateral treaty between the US and ten other countries, whose copyright provisions have been described as stricter than ACTA, the copyright law recently rejected by Europe.

Harvey noted that under the terms of the treaty, those who change regions on region-restricted DVDs would be classed as criminals.

"We have met the enemy, and he is US," summed up Harvey.

The expression is a pun on the earlier phrase "We have met the enemy, and he is us" adopted by environmentalists from a 1970 cartoon.

But few were in the mood for wordplay.

Authorities in central Florida say two men were trying to rob an Internet cafe when a 71-year-old patron began shooting his own gun, wounding the suspects.

Surveillance video shows two masked men entering the Palms Internet Cafe around 10 p.m. Friday. The Ocala Star-Banner reports one pointed a gun at customers while the other swung a baseball bat.

The video shows patron Samuel Williams pulling a handgun and shooting. He continues firing while the suspects fall over each other as they run out the door.

San Bernardino leaders' decision means the city could avoid months of state-mandated mediation as it seeks bankruptcy protection.

US, California - The San Bernardino City Council on Wednesday declared a fiscal emergency, an acknowledgment that the city is nearly broke and a legal maneuver that will allow leaders to file for bankruptcy protection without going through months of state-mandated mediation.

The action comes a week after the council voted 4 to 2 to seek Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, prompted by warnings from interim City Manager Andrea Travis-Miller that the city faced a $45.8-million budget shortfall and might not have enough money to make the August payroll.

San Bernardino becomes the third California city to declare insolvency in the past month, joining the Central Valley city of Stockton and Mammoth Lakes, in the eastern Sierra Nevada. Compton in L.A. County also appears to be on the brink of financial collapse, according to city officials.

"The proposed action has torn the city apart, turned friends into enemies,'' said San Bernardino Councilwoman Wendy J. McCammack. "The action that's taken tonight will affect everyone ... but the city will survive.''

Along with declaring a fiscal emergency, the council voted to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, both approved by a 5-2 margin. The council next week will begin the difficult process of crafting a survival budget, until its attorneys can file with the federal Bankruptcy Court.

Capital One, one of the nation's biggest banks, will reimburse $150 million to more than two million customers for selling them credit card products they could not use or did not want, as the nation's new consumer watchdog leveled its first enforcement action against the financial industry.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Wednesday hit Capital One with findings that a vendor working for the bank had pressured and deceived card holders into buying products presented as a way to protect them from identity theft and hardships like unemployment or disability.

The regulatory actions, totaling $210 million including fines to authorities, take aim at one of the financial industry's growing profit centers and increasingly controversial practices. Several other banks, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and HSBC, were sued in June by the Hawaii attorney general, accused of improperly selling similar so-called add-on products, which consumer advocates typically regard as costly and ineffective.

Portland, Oregon - An Oregon man who stripped nude at Portland's airport security to protest what he saw as invasive measures was found not guilty of indecent exposure.

Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge David Rees ruled Wednesday that John Brennan's act was one of protest and therefore, protected speech.

Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Joel Petersen argued that Brennan's strip-down was an act of indecent exposure.

"I was aware of the irony of removing my clothes to protect my privacy," Brennan said from the witness stand on Wednesday.

On April 17, Brennan arrived at the airport intending to take a business trip to San Jose, Calif. He works with groups in Silicon Valley and flies out of Portland International Airport about once a month.

When he reached the gate, he declined to go through the airport's body scanners, instead choosing the alternative metal detector and body pat-down. After the pat-down, Transportation Security Administration officer Steven Van Gordon detected nitrates on the gloves he used to check Brennan.

"For me, time slowed down," Brennan said. "I thought about nitrates and I thought about the Oklahoma City bombing."

Brennan said before his trial that after months of angst every time he went through security, the nitrate detection was the final straw for him, a wordless accusation that he was a terrorist.

So he took off all his clothes.

Dudes, I'm done with this. I'm leaving the United States today, and won't be back for a while. I recently visited my childhood hometown and noticed a whole bunch of brand new surveillance cameras at nearly every intersection and street corner; this is just a town, mind you, not some city of national or international significance.

After doing some research, it turns out the cameras are "high-definition" 24/7 surveillance cameras, manufactured and operated by Sprint Nextel Corp, and paid for through federal Department of Homeland Security grants to the town's local police department.

In fact, the number of these cameras in my hometown has reportedly tripled over the past couple years. There are as many as six of them at each intersection, they aren't red light traffic cameras (topic for another article altogether, though). Here's a photo I took of the cameras.

Do you really think these are there to make your 10 minute drive to the Applebee's safe from terrorists? Do you?

On another note, I was recently at a ball game: they now ask you to rise twice to sing the national anthem and pledge your allegiance. As a child, I only remember this occurring once, normally at the start of the game.

It was recently revealed that the NSA, according to a former high-ranking official there, is building "dossiers" on MILLIONS of American citizens and may be routinely spying on countless Americans on U.S. soil, in clear violation of our laws and principles as a nation.

UPDATE: The prospect of government forcing priests to report what was said in confession is the sign of a "police state mentality", says a priest and law professor.


Australia - Hundreds of years of Catholic tradition in the confessional could be overturned by Victoria's inquiry into child sex abuse.

Priests would be ordered to reveal crimes told to them in private confessions under one proposal before the inquiry.

But priests say they will resist being forced to reveal secrets of the confessional.

Priest and law professor Father Frank Brennan said the move would be a restriction on religious freedom.

"If a parliamentary inquiry were to recommend a law by parliament saying that priests were forced to disclose anything revealed to them in the sacrament of confession I think that would be a serious interference with the right of religious freedom," Father Brennan said today.
Australia