Update From Meeting: After an emergency meeting with the board of directors of the Grand River Dam Authority, the board has made a decision regarding the future of Grand Lake.

The board has decided to continue posting signs and advising the public to stay out of the water.

While they recommend the public to not come into contact with the waters of Grand Lake, they are not prohibiting it.

They say the major focus of concern is on pets and young children. Friday's blue-green algae (BGA) levels are higher than ever recorded before in Oklahoma. The GRDA says if algae blooms die all at once, the amount of toxins released into the water would become even more dangerous.

Why has the United States government supported counterinsurgency in Colombia, Guatemala, El Salvador, and many other places around the world, at such a loss of human life to the populations of those nations? Why did it invade tiny Grenada and then Panama? Why did it support mercenary wars against progressive governments in Nicaragua, Mozambique, Angola, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Indonesia, East Timor, Western Sahara, South Yemen, and elsewhere?

Is it because our leaders want to save democracy? Are they concerned about the well-being of these defenseless peoples? Is our national security threatened? I shall try to show that the arguments given to justify U.S. policies are false ones.

But this does not mean the policies themselves are senseless. American intervention may seem "wrongheaded" but, in fact, it is fairly consistent and horribly successful.

The history of the United States has been one of territorial and economic expansionism, with the benefits going mostly to the U.S. business class in the form of growing investments and markets, access to rich natural resources and cheap labor, and the accumulation of enormous profits.

The American people have had to pay the costs of empire, supporting a huge military establishment with their taxes, while suffering the loss of jobs, the neglect of domestic services, and the loss of tens of thousands of American lives in overseas military ventures.

The greatest costs, of course, have been borne by the peoples of the Third World who have endured poverty, pillage, disease, dispossession, exploitation, illiteracy, and the widespread destruction of their lands, cultures, and lives.

As a relative latecomer to the practice of colonialism, the United States could not match the older European powers in the acquisition of overseas territories. But the United States was the earliest and most consummate practitioner of neoimperialism or neocolonialism, the process of dominating the politico-economic life of a nation without benefit of direct possession.

Almost half a century before the British thought to give a colonized land its nominal independence, as in India-while continuing to exploit its labor and resources, and dominate its markets and trade-the United States had perfected this practice in Cuba and elsewhere.

In places like the Philippines, Haiti, and Nicaragua, and when dealing with Native American nations, U.S. imperialism proved itself as brutal as the French in Indochina, the Belgians in the Congo, the Spaniards in South America, the Portuguese in Angola, the Italians in Libya, the Germans in Southwest Africa, and the British almost everywhere else. Not long ago, U.S. military forces delivered a destruction upon Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia that surpassed anything perpetuated by the older colonizers. And today, the U.S. counterinsurgency apparatus and surrogate security forces in Latin America and elsewhere sustain a system of political assassination, torture, and repression unequaled in technological sophistication and ruthlessness.

All this is common knowledge to progressive critics of U.S policy, but most Americans would be astonished to hear of it. They have been taught that, unlike other nations, their country has escaped the sins of empire and has been a champion of peace and justice among nations. This enormous gap between what the United States does in the world and what Americans think their nation is doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology.

It should be noted, though, that despite the endless propaganda barrage emanating from official sources and the corporate-owned major media, large sectors of the public have throughout U.S. history displayed an anti-interventionist sentiment, an unwillingness to commit U.S. troops to overseas actions-a sentiment facilely labeled "isolationism" by the interventionists.

As weapons and propaganda become even more sophisticated, the nature of war is developing into an 'electronic battlefield' in which journalists play a key role, and civilians are the victims. But who is the real enemy? Follow the money trail behind 9/11 and you will know. The enemy is inside the gates...

This movie has just been banned in the US -- Get a copy while you can!

The War You Don't See is directed by John Pilger (award winning journalist, investigative reporter and documentary film pioneer) and Alan Lowery, and features many candid interviews.

The War You Don't See is a powerful and timely investigation into the media's role in war, tracing the history of 'embedded' and independent reporting from the carnage of World War One to the destruction of Hiroshima, and from the invasion of Vietnam to the current war in Afghanistan and disaster in Iraq.

Los Angeles: American pop star Lady Gaga is accused of misrepresenting charitable donations from wristbands sold to benefit tsunami and earthquake victims in Japan earlier this year.

The complaint, filed in a Michigan court on Friday by 1800lawfirm, says the star as well as her record label, Universal Music Group, and the Bravado International Group, lacked transparency surrounding the amount of money that was raised from sales of the wristbands and whether those funds were 100 per cent allocated to earthquake and tsunami victims.

After the earthquake and tsunami disasters in March 2011 that devastated Japan, Lady Gaga created the rubber wristbands and the singer's website advertised that all proceeds from sales of the wristband would benefit victims.

Marie Joseph's body overlooked for 2 days while Massachusetts-run pool was open.

The pro-labor coalition We Are Ohio delivered nearly 1.3 million signatures Wednesday to repeal SB 5, a new law restricting the collective-bargaining rights of public employees, placing it on the November 8 ballot.

People's World reported that the 1,298,301 signatures were delivered to the Secretary of State's office by a semi-truck packed with 1502 boxes of petitions and accompanied by a large "People's Parade."

We Are Ohio collected more signatures than any other petition drive in Ohio history thanks to the work of more than 10,000 volunteers.

The signatures must now be validated by each county board of elections office.

"Today we celebrate the unprecedented achievement of the more than one million Ohioans who want to repeal SB 5," Melissa Fazekas, spokeswoman for We Are Ohio, said in a statement. "This historic number of signatures sends a strong, clear message to the extreme politicians who played political tricks to pass SB 5 and to the rest of the country."

Caracas - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez revealed that he is fighting cancer after having a tumor removed in Cuba, raising uncertainty about his political future even as he assured his country he expects to fully recover.

Chavez was noticeably thinner and paler as he appeared on television Tuesday night, reading from a prepared speech with a serious and at times sad expression. He said he is resolved to "be victorious in this new battle that life has placed before us."

Chavez said he has undergone two operations in Cuba, including one that removed a tumor in which there were "cancerous cells." The 56-year-old president said the surgery was performed after an initial operation nearly three weeks ago for the removal of a pelvic abscess.

Chavez said the tumor was in the pelvic region but didn't say exactly where or what type of cancer was involved. He said he is continuing to receive treatment in Cuba but did not give details.

He said it was a mistake not have taken better care of his health through medical checkups.

Emails detailing how the UK government played down Fukushima show just how cosy it is with the nuclear industry

It was an open secret that Britain's decision to back nuclear power in 2006 was pushed through government by a cosy group of industrialists and others close to Tony Blair, and that a full debate about the full costs, safety and potential impact on future generations was suppressed.

But the release of 80 emails showing that in the days after the Fukushima accident not one but two government departments were working with nuclear companies to spin one of the biggest industrial catastrophes of the last 50 years, even as people were dying and a vast area was being made uninhabitable, is shocking.

What the emails shows is a weak government, captured by a powerful industry colluding to at least misinform and very probably lie to the public and the media. When the emails were sent, no one, least of all the industry and its friends in and out of government, had any idea how serious the situation at Fukushima was or might become.

More than 200 psychiatric patients died in ''unexpected, unnatural or violent'' circumstances last year, a report by Victoria's chief psychiatrist reveals.

Six patients died by committing suicide in hospital but most of the 237 deaths occurred in the community.

Chief psychiatrist Ruth Vine could not provide a breakdown of the number of deaths that occurred inside hospitals but said it was ''very small, and when it does occur it is followed by a very thorough review''.

Dr Vine said deaths in the community could include those due to car accidents or house fires, but it was the role of the coroner to determine their cause.

The Age reported in February that a coroner was investigating the deaths of two psychiatric patients thought to have suffocated while being restrained in separate incidents at Frankston and Dandenong hospitals in 2007.

When two police officers turned up on his doorstep at 11.20pm, Clive Lindoe feared the worst.

But the father of three was shocked and angry to learn the reason for the late-night visit - an allegation that his youngest son had thrown an apple at another boy.

They even threatened to arrest Charlie, 13, when his father initially refused to let them see him until the morning.

The schoolboy was then woken up and taken to the 'bullying and brutish' officers, who made him sign what is believed to have been a neighbourhood resolution agreement, used to resolve minor disputes - even though he denied hurling the apple in the first place.

Mr Lindoe, 50, has since made an official complaint to Essex Police, accusing the force of leaving his son traumatised by the heavy-handed treatment. 'We had been enjoying a lovely evening together as a family,' said Mr Lindoe, who lives with his wife Lyn, 48, and their children Charlie, James, 14, and Robyn, 16, in Great Horkesley, near Colchester.

'The boys had gone to bed and then suddenly there was a banging at the door - really hard knocks.

'When the police told me they were investigating reports of an apple being thrown I could not believe it was about such a petty issue.