American journalists accredited in Russia declined the invitation of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs to visit the Russian-Ukrainian border and meet the Ukrainian servicemen that passed to the territory of Russia. Deputy Head of the ministry's Department of Information and Press Maria Zakharova wrote this on her Facebook page on Wednesday.

"This story happened the day before yesterday... In the morning, news agencies reported that over 400 Ukrainian servicemen addressed Russian border guards asking for asylum. Understanding the importance for journalists, especially the foreign ones, of the opportunity to communicate with the representatives of Ukrainian armed forces, to find out straight from the source about the real combat situation, about the motivation of Ukrainian soldiers, the real causes of their act, we decided on the same day to invite a group of foreign correspondents to the Rostov region. Luckily, a plane of Russia's Defense Ministry was heading there and was able to take 30 to 40 journalists. We started to call everyone immediately. About forty people gathered within an hour," Zakharova wrote.

As WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange marks his 777th day in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, the Metropolitan Police has spent over $11.8 million on guarding the embassy.

Assange has been detained without charge for 1,337 days - and 777 of those days have been spent in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, according to the latest WikiLeaks statement.

Meanwhile, the price tag for guarding Assange hit over seven million British pounds (US$11.8 million) early on Wednesday, according to govwaste.co.uk counter.

Officers have been staking out the embassy around the clock since June 2012, with the cost to the London taxpayers surpassing $15,000 per day.

At any time of the day or night, there are three officers stationed outside the embassy, ready to arrest Assange if he tries to leave.

The bill is likely to keep climbing; Ecuadorian authorities have said Assange is welcome to stay in the embassy for as long as required.

The UK has refused to provide Assange safe passage to Ecuador ever since the Australian sought refuge inside the embassy.

Water ban put in place as a tailing pond gives way and tens of millions of gallons of waste course through area rivers and lakes

A middle-of-the-night breach of the tailings pond for an open-pit copper and gold mine in British Columbia sent a massive volume of toxic waste into several nearby waterways on Monday, leading authorities to issue a water-use ban.

Slurry from Mount Polley Mine near Likely, B.C. breached the earthen dam around 3:45 am on Monday, with hundreds of millions of gallons - equivalent to 2,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to Canada's Global News - gushing into Quesnel Lake, Cariboo Creek, Hazeltine Creek and Polley Lake. An estimated 300 homes, plus visitors and campers, are affected by the ban on drinking and bathing in the area's water.

Chief Anne Louie of the Williams Lake Indian band told the National Post the breach was a "massive environmental disaster."

With salmon runs currently making their way to their spawning grounds, "Our people are at the river side wondering if their vital food source is safe to eat," said Garry John, aboriginal activist and member of the board of directors of the Council of Canadians, in a press release.

" What a bunch of a-holes.

Andres Carrasco filed a lawsuit in 2012 against Adriana's Insurance Service, Inc. alleging he was physically assaulted by one of the company's employees.

After agreeing to a settlement with Andres Carrasco in June, Adriana's Insurance decided to deliver the funds in the form of a check -- and buckets and buckets of quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies.

The guy is a senior citizen and recently had a hernia operation and is unable to lift the buckets. Apparently eight Adriana's Insurance Service employees arrived at Carrasco's lawyers office and just started dropping off buckets of loose change that amounted to around $21,000.

"I am disappointed by the way Adriana's treats their customers and the elderly," Carrasco said in the statement. "We might be poor, but we are people too."

Unsurprisingly, when contacted by the press, Adriana's Insurance Service was unavailable for comment.

Not really sure that they could say anything to defend such a cruel and childish action anyway.

Users have called on Google to remove the game, which has been available to download since 29 July

Google is facing criticism for continuing to allow Android mobile users to download a game called "Bomb Gaza", in which players are required to "drop bombs and avoid killing citizens".

The app, which was uploaded on 29 July, has been installed up to 1,000 times and received at least one report as "inappropriate". As of Monday evening, the game was no longer available on Google Play.

According to the game's description and a series of screenshots, users gain points by controlling aircraft marked with Israeli flags as they drop bombs on cartoon Hamas militants.

It comes as more than 1,800 Palestinians have been killed in the ongoing Gaza conflict. Israel has confirmed that 64 of its soldiers have died in combat, while three civilians have been killed by cross-border shelling from Gaza.

Responding to the game in its review section online, Iqra Iqbal wrote that it was an "abomination", adding: "This is a violation of human rights. My beloved brothers and sisters are dying in Gaza and some stupid ignoramus decides to make a game like this.

Others said it was a "messed up game" and "disgusting", while Saadat Ali said: "Request all to scroll to the bottom and flag this app as inappropriate to Google."
People also took to Twitter to voice their criticism of the game, and user Elliott Clarkson wrote: "Google Play's approval process? Non-existent. So games like Bomb Gaza get through."

It is not the only game available on Google Play that involves bombing Gaza, including "Iron Dome", "Gaza Assault: Code Red" that tells users to "secure the region" by taking control of "an Israeli UAV equipped with powerful weapons in an attempt to secure the region".

A flea infestation forced a courthouse in western New York state to shut its doors for the second straight day on Tuesday, officials said.

The Orleans County Courthouse in Albion, about 34 miles northwest of Rochester, is airing out after being flea bombed in recent days, said county spokesman Chuck Nesbitt.

"There needs to be a period of ventilation prior to re-occupation," Nisbett said.

It was unclear how the courthouse became overrun by fleas, Nisbett said. The problem was first reported late last week, according to local media.

Flea poison fumes would likely clear by Wednesday morning, making it safe to use the building again, Nesbitt said, noting that the final decision on when to reopen lay with court officials.

A statement on the New York courts website said that Orleans County Court matters scheduled during the closure would be diverted to a nearby Village of Albion office building. Court officials did not return calls on Tuesday.

A Sanford, Florida police officer was fired after he taunted a jailed inmate with McDonald's french fries and later threatened the inmate with his service Taser while the inmate washed his patrol car, The Orlando Sentinel reported.

Nine-year-veteran Mickey Hinkley was placed on administrative leave when his superiors discovered the incidents on June 4, 2014, but was only fired yesterday after an investigation determined that he had violated departmental policy.

According to police documents obtained by The Sentinel, Hinkley forced inmate Victor Gonzaga Rivera to wash his patrol car. When Hinkley complained that Rivera had not put enough "tire shine" on his wheels, he also activated his service Taser, which caused an afraid Rivera to take off running.

Rivera was not hurt, and Hinkley told investigators that he was merely "testing" his Taser when he turned it on. The investigation also revealed that earlier that same day, Hinkley had taunted Rivera with a bag from McDonald's that he claimed contained french fries.

A Louisiana priest received a standing ovation from his church over the weekend following new details about sexual abuse of a 9-year-old boy in the 1970s.

A report released by Minnesota Public Radio last month included a never-before-published affidavit, which had been sealed by a federal judge in 1995. The document indicated that Father Gilbert Dutel "had been accused of coercing young adult men into having sex."

"Well, he would just put his arms around me and he was I guess trying to be consoling, kind of gentle and then he just started playing with me and he unzipped my pants," the victim recalled, according to the affidavit. "He performed oral sex on me."

The victim said that he had around eight sexual encounters with Dutel in total. Two other priests were also mentioned in the affidavit, but this was the first time that Dutel's name had been made public. According to Minnesota Public Radio, Bishop Harry Flynn later told lawyers that Dutel had been "cured," and that the diocese needed to keep him due to a shortage of priests.

My heart is broken as I witness the suffering of the Palestinian people and the seeming indifference of Israelis. All my life I've been a champion of Israel, proud of its many accomplishments in science and technology that have benefited the world, insistent on the continuing need for the Jewish people to have a state that offers protections from anti-Semitism that has reared its head continuously throughout Christian and Islamic societies, willing to send my only child to serve in the Israeli Army (the paratroopers unit-tzanchanim), and enjoying the pleasures of long swaths of time in which I could study in Jerusalem and celebrate Shabbat in a city that weekly closed down the hustle and bustle of the capitalist marketplace for a full 25 hours. And though as editor of Tikkun I printed articles challenging the official story of how Israel came to be, showing its role in forcibly ejecting tens of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 and allowing Jewish terrorist groups under the leadership of (future Israeli Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir) to create justified fears that led hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians to flee for their lives, I always told myself that the dominant humanity of the Jewish people and the compassionate strain within Torah would reassert itself once Israel felt secure.

That belief began to wane in the past eight years when Israel, faced with a Palestinian Authority that promoted nonviolence and sought reconciliation and peace, ignored the Saudi Arabian-led peace initiative that would have granted Israel the recognition that it had long sought, an end to hostilities, and a recognized place in the Middle East, refused to stop its expansion of settlements in the West Bank and imposed an economically crushing blockade on Gaza. Even Hamas, whose hateful charter called for Israel's destruction, had decided to accept the reality of Israel's existence, and while unable to embrace its "right" to exist, nevertheless agreed to reconcile with the Palestinian Authority and in that context live within the terms that the PA would negotiate with Israel.

The New York Police Department said on Tuesday it was investigating a report that two emergency medical technicians jumped in to stop four police officers who were punching a handcuffed patient.

The NYPD's Internal Affairs unit was looking into the report that the officers repeatedly struck a shackled and handcuffed patient on a stretcher before the New York Fire Department EMTs intervened to end the beating, an NYPD spokesman said.

He declined to confirm details of the July 20 incident at the 67th Precinct station house in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn, which was first reported by the New York Daily News. Fire Department officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Citing an FDNY report, the Daily News said the police officers and the EMTs had been called to the station house to help transport the patient, who was combative and banging his head against the wall, to a nearby hospital.

The emotionally disturbed patient spit on the officers and swore at them, and they responded by hitting him in the face, pulling him off the stretcher to the ground and then hurling him back onto the stretcher, the Daily News said.