A Thurston County deputy prosecutor says what was found at an Olympia man's home is the worst case of animal abuse she's ever seen.

David Williford was charged Monday afternoon with 12 counts of animal cruelty for holding dozens of rabbits, guinea pigs, rats and dogs in "horrific" conditions.


Deputy Prosecutor Christen Anton Peters described it in court like a scene from a horror movie, complete with blood spatters, filth and carcasses strewn about Williford's basement and backyard.

Authorities rescued dozens more animals still alive but described as desperate for food and water.

Williford's defense attorney says it was simply an unsanitary slaughterhouse for meat that Williford intended to eat, and has eaten routinely. He allegedly got the animals using Craigslist.

Williford is charged with six counts of first degree animal abuse and six of second degree animal abuse.

At least 30 people were reportedly injured early Tuesday when a commuter train derailed in the Southern California city of Oxnard.

According to the Los Angeles Times, a spokesperson for Metrolink — the LA area's passenger rail system — said that the pre-dawn crash occurred just before 6 a.m. local time on Tuesday morning when a commuter train collided with a tractor trailer.

Metrolink spokesman Scott Johnson told the Times that three train cars detailed due to the collision and at least 30 people were injured. Three hours after the crash, Fox News reported that the number of injured victims had reached 51, including four people in critical condition.

A federal jury has ruled that the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority supported terror attacks which killed dozens of people in Israel a decade ago, and must now pay $218.5 million in damages.

The damages were announced after two days of deliberation by the jury, which decided the defendants helped facilitate deadly shootings and bombings attributed to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Hamas in Israel in the early 2000s - attacks that killed 33 people and wounded more than 400 others. The plaintiffs were 10 American families affected by six specific attacks, including the 2002 bombing of a Hebrew University cafeteria and a 2004 suicide bombing on a public bus in Jerusalem.

"The message is clear," Kent Yalowitz, the Arnold & Porter LLP partner who represented the plaintiffs, told The Wall Street Journal. "If you kill or injure Americans, the long arm of the American law will come after you."

Alaska has just become the third state in the U.S. to make smoking, growing and owning recreational amounts of marijuana completely legal. Alaska follows Colorado and Washington state in moving forward on drug policies and decriminalization, leaving behind the failed prohibition and so-called "war on drugs" that has proven to be an abject failure.

The measure just barely passed in November in the Republican-leaning state. The move follows Colorado and Washington in lock step, revealing that tide in public perception is really changing with regards to legalizing the marijuana plant. Oregon is soon to follow, having passed legislation to legalize, which has nevertheless not yet gone into effect.

Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, but as we reported last weekend, that could soon change too.

Under Alaska's new laws on marijuana, anyone who is 21 or older can now own and keep an ounce of marijuana on hand, and grow up to six plants, three of which are permitted to be flowering.

A disturbing video has emerged showing an elderly man being tasered by Florida police.


The video shows officers yelling at people to get out of their minivan. As the elderly man exists the passenger seat, the officer grabs his hand and twists it. Another officer came and told the first officer to "let him go." After he did, the second officer tased the old man.

The man who filmed the video claims he was with his family on the way to Key West for the weekend.

South Carolina inmates will continue to be given solitary confinement for accessing Facebook and other social networking sites, but the number of days they serve there will be reduced, South Carolina Department of Corrections Deputy Communications Director Stephanie Givens told Sputnik.

"Prisoners will now receive 60 days of solitary confinement for accessing social networking sites through contraband," Givens said on Monday.

Givens confirmed reports of harsher solitary confinement punishments, but said the lengthier sentences were because of "stacking of charges," where the accessing of social networking sites is compounded with other charges.

Being an antiwar activist in Israel is dangerous. Israelis who protested against the 2014 Gaza offensive were threatened, harassed and attacked. Some even lost their jobs. Yoav Eliassi, also known as "The Shadow," is a right-wing rapper and driving force behind a movement to stamp out dissent in Israeli society.

A shocking video uploaded to YouTube on Sunday shows an elderly gentleman with his hands up, posing no risk or threat to the officers, get tased in front of horrified witnesses.

The video, taken by a witness who was with his family on their way to Key West, shows officers yelling at people to get out of their vehicle. The elderly man exits the passenger side and an officer grabs and twists his arm. Another officer comes around to the other side of the vehicle yelling "let him go." As the officer lets go, the man puts his hand back in the air, and the second officer tases him for no reason.

The man drops to the ground as the witnesses gasp in horror and question whether or not he is alive, noting that his body is limp.It is a sad shame that the mistrust of police is so high, rightly, that we cannot even feel safe to film their wrong doing.

Florida officers have a deadly history of taser deployment. In December, we conducted an investigation into the death of Charles Elmers. Video from the officer's taser captured officer Gary Lee Lovette bragging about stomping a man into the sand as he tasered his head.

We often ask "why didn't that cop use a taser instead of his gun?" However, it is important to remember that while a person is less likely to die from a taser shock than a gun shot, they are still an often fatal weapon, and should be treated as such. This man was posing no threat to the officers and this use of potentially lethal force is horrific and unjustifiable.

An Oakland artist is ingeniously battling homelessness in Oakland, California: he builds small houses out of materials he can find in the streets, with each edifice costing around forty bucks.

The tiny homes are made of pallets, bed boards, washing machine doors, and other bizarre objects that catch Greg Kloehn's attention. Mr Kloehn first noticed that homeless people built shelters from whatever they find in the street, and he wanted to make a house like this.

He jokes that he constructs "illegal homes out of illegal garbage." The cost of one house is "$30 to $40," Kloehn told RT.

"The real cost is just in the wheels: I buy large casters for the bottom, so that they are mobile, and then nails, and screws, and paintbrushes. But everything else I get for free," he said.

The houses are just comfortable enough to lie down in a warmer place than a cardboard box, and the homeless in Oakland are "so happy," Kloehn told the Independent. "One cried and got on his knees to thank me. They think I should make them bigger and suggest improvements. They like to decorate them themselves."

An elderly man was recently visiting Alabama from India when he found himself beaten by police who left him paralyzed.

Madison, Alabama police brutalized the 57-year-old Indian citizen who had committed no crime, he was only going for a walk on the sidewalk outside of his son's home. Now, one officer is being charged for leaving Sureshbhai Patel temporarily paralyzed and hospitalized with fused vertebrae, as a result of the severe beating he received from the police.

"He was just walking on the sidewalk as he does all the time," Chirag Patel, the son of Sureshbhai said. "They put him to the ground." No crime had been committed. Madison Police on Monday issued a statement saying the department had suspended the officer and were investigating the use of force in this case. The police statement wished the man a "speedy recovery."

Chirag Patel is an engineer who had just flown his father to America from the small Indian town of Pij. Sureshbhai Patel was trying to help his wife care for Chirag's 17-month-old son, so that Chirag could finish graduate courses for his masters degree in electrical engineering at the University of Alabama. "This is a good neighborhood. I didn't expect anything to happen," Chirag said.

Madison police blamed the elderly man in a statement Monday, saying that they received a call that a man was "looking in garages." "The caller, who lives in the neighborhood did not recognize the subject and thought him to be suspicious," the police statement on the incident stated.

Hank Sherrod, the attorney for the Patel family, said "this is broad daylight, walking down the street. There is nothing suspicious about Mr. Patel other than he has brown skin." Sureshbhai Patel speaks no English. The Madison police acknowledge a "communication barrier." Sherrod explains, however, that Sureshbhai told the police officers "no English" and told them his son's address. But that didn't stop the officers from beating the man to the point of paralysis.