"In too much of policing today, officer safety has become the highest priority. It trumps the rights and safety of suspects. It trumps the rights and safety of bystanders. It's so important, in fact, that an officer's subjective fear of a minor wound from a dog bite is enough to justify using potentially lethal force, in this case at the expense of a 4-year-old girl. And this isn't the first time.

In January, an Iowa cop shot and killed a woman by mistake while trying to kill her dog. Other cops have shot other kids, other bystanders, their partners, their supervisors and even themselves while firing their guns at a dog. That mind-set is then, of course, all the more problematic when it comes to using force against people."—Journalist Radley Balko

Almost two years after the firestorm that took place in Ferguson, Missouri, when a white police officer shot an unarmed black teenager and militarized police descended in a brutal show of force to quell local protests, not much has really changed for the better.

Unarmed Americans are still getting shot by police with alarming regularity.

SWAT teams are still bursting through doors, terrorizing families and leaving lives and property shattered. In one incident, a Kansas SWAT team erroneously raided the home of two former CIA analysts after police observed family members shopping at a gardening store and found loose-leaf tea (mistaken for marijuana) in the family's trash can.

And the military industrial complex is still making a killing (literally and figuratively) at taxpayer expense from the transformation of small-town police forces—"kitted out with Marine-issue camouflage and military-grade body armor, toting short-barreled assault rifles, and rolling around in armored vehicles"—into extensions of the military.

What has changed is the extent to which Americans—easily distracted by all of the political mumbo jumbo being bantered around—seem to have stopped paying attention or being outraged about revelations of government corruption, wrongdoing and outright abuse.

Part of this ignorance can be attributed to the failure of the mainstream media to report on what's really taking place in the American police state. As The Huffington Post reports, "The media has turned its sights to the heated presidential election, burning through the oxygen that had given life to stories about police brutality and reform."

Another part of this apathy can be chalked up to a widespread desensitization to police violence, thanks to the growing availability and accessibility of surveillance and camera footage. As Salon points out, "the increased visibility of trauma and death at the hands of cops" has resulted in "the deadening of our collective senses."

And yet another part of this indifference seemingly stems from the fact that we just don't value human life as much as we should. How many Americans seem unconcerned about the carnage inflicted on civilians worldwide as a result of the nation's bloody, endless wars abroad? As The Washington Post makes clear, the end result of ignoring these civilian casualties and burying memories of war's destruction is more wars, more blowback, and more innocent blood on our hands.

If there's one area where Americans do seem to still get outraged, it's in relation to their pets, who occupy a sizeable place in their hearts, homes and wallets.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev says that even though relations with Ankara are improving, no decision has been made to allow Turkish food imports to resume. Medvedev was responding to a group of Russian retailers who were hopeful products from Turkey would return to supermarkets within weeks. Opening a dialogue with Ankara does not mean "Russia has to immediately rush in with open arms," said the Prime Minister on Tuesday, adding that the issue is to be discussed with Turkish partners.

Russian retailers said they hope to quickly resume supplies and are preparing to renew agreements suspended when Russia introduced sanctions against Turkey last year. The sanctions were a response to the downing of a Russian jet in Syria last November resulting in the death of the pilot.

As summer sun sends temperatures soaring across much of the country, a federal judge has ordered the Lone Star State to stop giving poisonous drinking water to some of its most vulnerable prisoners.

On June 21, U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison gave prison officials 15 days to replace the arsenic-laden water supply at the Wallace Pack Unit, a minimum security facility northwest of Houston that houses mostly elderly and chronically ill inmates. In his decision, Ellison said the tainted water "violates contemporary standards of decency."

"The Texas Department of Criminal Justice plans to appeal the ruling, according to a spokesman," The Houston Chronicle reported.

Today marks the five-year anniversary of Kelly Thomas' horrific and fatal beating by six Fullerton police officers. None of the officers that beat Thomas to death were ever convicted.

Video recordings of the assault captured the anguished screams of the helpless, unarmed, 160-pound man as he was slugged, kicked, tasered, and clubbed as the attackers bellowed, "Stop resisting!"

For those unfamiliar with the case, Kelly was an unarmed, schizophrenic, transient man, savagely beaten to death by officers Jay Cicinelli, Manuel Ramos, Joe Wolfe, Kenton Hampton, James Blatney, and Sergeant Kevin Craig.

The fateful incident began when Fullerton police were dispatched to Slidebar Rock-N-Roll Kitchen, under a false report that Thomas was breaking into cars. In reality, Thomas was only picking up cigarette butts that were littered on the ground.

Authorities in San Diego are searching for a man suspected of killing and burning homeless men in their sleep.

The burned body of one homeless man was found on Sunday in San Diego's Mission Bay neighborhood. The body was so badly charred that authorities could not determine whether he had suffered any trauma before being consumed by flames.

Witnesses say they saw a man running with a can of gasoline within two blocks of the crime.

Two more attacks occurred in different locations early Monday morning, according to the San Diego Police Department. One died after sustaining wounds to his upper torso in Robb Athletic Field, near a tennis court.

The other man was found with a stab wound near the city's Midway neighborhood, but he survived. He was taken to a local hospital, where he remains in a critical condition.

Police have released low-resolution images of the suspected killer from convenience store footage and urged the public to help them identify him. Witnesses described him as being between 40 and 50 years old, wearing a brown jacket or sweatshirt and a baseball cap, police said. He was carrying a backpack.

The shocking and graphic video of Baton Rouge police officers killing African-American Alton Sterling has sparked outrage across the country and protests in the streets of Louisiana's capital.

Sterling was shot dead while pinned to the ground by police. Officers say they were called to a convenience store after an anonymous caller claimed a man selling CDs had threatened him with a gun.

During the night of July 4th-5th in the city of Toretsk (formerly Dzerzhinsk) in the Donetsk region of Ukraine currently controlled by the UAF, a group of people barricaded the highway in an attempt to block the re-deployment of UAF military vehicles. Some sources report that the number of protesters was no more than 100 people, while others claim that their number was several times higher.

This event was reported by all Russian, Ukrainian, and many international media outlets, so I will not retell the generally known details. Instead, I will discuss the causes and possible consequences of this rebellion. The sources of my conclusions are media reports, information collected from Ukrainian social networks, and information obtained from my friends in the cities of Ukrainian-controlled Donbass.

The first and main conclusion to be drawn is that the population of Donbass hates the Ukrainian government and Ukrainian occupational troops. On May 11th, 2014, a referendum was held in the cities of Donbass in which the majority of residents voted for seceding from Ukraine and forming the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics. The results of this referendum were violated by the Ukrainian authorities. In addition, many of these cities were subjected to shelling by Ukrainian "liberation" troops while the inhabitants of these cities, including the people of Toretsk, await the arrival of the liberation army of the DPR. This is a reality...

The second conclusion is that active members of the Russian uprising in Donbass are either in the DPR or LPR or have been arrested by the SBU (the Ukrainian analogue of the Gestapo). The least passionate supporters of the Russian World, or simply apolitical people are the ones who have stayed behind in Ukrainian Donbass. Thus, any rebellion in Donbass will be spontaneous. Its reason will not be political goals, but some kind of social impulse. This is what happened last spring in Konstantinovka when a spontaneous rebellion erupted against Ukrainian troops who shot dead a young mother and her child in a stroller. It is likely that the events in Toretsk have been caused by a similar event.

A homeless man was reunited with $187,000 after leaving a backpack full of cash in a taxicab over the weekend. The driver of that taxi is now being hailed as a good Samaritan by the police.

On Friday afternoon, Raymond "Buzzy" MacCausland, a driver for the Independent Taxi Operators Association in Boston, Massachusetts, discovered a backpack left in the rear seat of his cab after dropping off a customer.

Trying to establish the possible identity of his former customer, MacCausland searched through the bag for any form of ID. Instead, he discovered approximately $187,000 in cash inside, in bundles of $50 and $100 dollar bills.

During the fall of 2012, something odd began happening at two high schools in northeastern Massachusetts. At least two dozen students began to exhibit mysterious hiccuping sounds. By early 2013, the symptoms had died down at North Shore Technical School in Middleton, but at its sister school - Essex Aggie in nearby Danvers - 18 girls were suffering from the bizarre ailment. A survey of students' symptoms as collected by parents, includes such descriptions as: "Starts as a regular hiccup and then turns into a high pitched yelp," "Loud, piercing hiccups," and "Sounds like an exaggerated hiccup." The State Health Department conducted extensive tests of the school grounds and found air and water samples within normal limits, as were tests for toxic substances that could cause neurological problems, such as mercury.

So what caused this baffling outbreak? A study of nine of the students' medical records, considered and eliminated every possible cause but one: mass hysteria. Its more common scientific names are mass psychogenic illness or conversion disorder. The condition involves the converting of psychological distress into physical symptoms. A survey of mass hysteria outbreaks throughout history reveals that they most commonly occur in schools and involve adolescent girls. While no trigger was ever identified in Massachusetts, it was almost certainly some type of stress.

As the fighting against Daesh continues, the terror group has increased its nefarious activities. Recently, a number of attacks have rocked Muslim states, from Turkey to Saudi Arabia. Why do violent Islamic extremists attack fellow members of the faith?

"[Daesh] announced before the month of Ramadan that they are going to make this Ramadan especially violent, in order to make the group heard and in response to ongoing battles, in particular to what is happening in Fallujah, but also the battles that are ongoing in Syria itself and Libya," Dr. Theodore Karasik, analyst on regional geo-political affairs and Senior Advisor to Gulf State Analytics, a geo-strategic consultancy based in Dubai, UAE, told Radio Sputnik. "They try to send the message to the observer that ideology in the group is robust and alive."

Speaking about attacks in other Muslim states, including Turkey, Iraq and Bangladesh, Karasik identifies what he calls the "splatter effect." As Daesh is forced out of Syria, Libya and Iraq, the group seeks new territories in which to operate and to conduct attacks.