Baltimore police officer shot and wounded a man after he reached into his pocket to show the chapstick he was carrying.

John Rau was with his brother Monday night when he was stopped by police Major Byron Conaway, although the police department has not said why, reported WJZ-TV.

"All the guy said was, 'What's your name, sir?' and I was like, 'For what?' and then he jumped out of the car with his gun and told me to put my hands up," Rau said. "(The officer asked), 'What you got in your hand?' I had a cigarette in one hand, and I just put my hand in my pocket, because I was just putting chapstick on, and I said 10 times, 'It's chapstick, only chapstick, officer."

Witnesses said the officer, who is black, shot the 40-year-old Rau, who is white, in the thigh when he reached into his pocket.

"You see the man walking across the street, the truck pulled right in front of him, pulled past him," said a witness who did not want to be identified. "He jumped out the car, said, 'Get on the ground.' The man kept continuing walking. The police ran around the car with a gun in his hand and shot him. Nothing else was said, just 'Get on the ground.'"

A 25-year-old woman is suing the NYPD, after two of its officers charged with investigating her rape case got her drunk in a hotel room and sexually assaulted her.

The complaint made on Tuesday relates to an incident in January 2013, when the Seattle nursing student was assaulted by a "social acquaintance" at an apartment. She reported the assault by phone in June, and was told the Special Victims Unit would handle the case.

According to the New York Daily News, Lieutenant Adam Lamboy and Detective Lucazs Skorzewski arrived to take the woman's statement on July 5. They later encouraged her to join them for lunch and drinks at a waterfront bar in Seattle.

The victim recalls being suspicious of drinking during the day, something to which Lamboy replied, jokingly - "We'll protect you." But lunch turned into a 10-hour pub crawl.

In the course of the day, the woman remembers Skorzewkski telling her "you're my favorite victim!" apparently in a bid to appear charming. This behavior didn't stop, as the alcohol continued to flow. At one bar the group was even turned away, continuing on to the next.

Somehow, the officers had convinced the victim to crash at their hotel, which resulted in Skorzewski offering up his bed, while he took the couch.

But at 10am, Skorzewski quietly crawled under the sheets with her and for about 20-30 minutes kissed and groped her, trying to go further. This resulted in the victim running off to the shower, where she burst into tears, according to court documents.

A law banning smoking in vehicles carrying children has come into force in England and Wales. Drivers and passengers who break the law could face a penalty fine of £50 - but police say they will take a non-confrontational approach initially.

Whenever an under-18 is in the car, smokers will still be liable even if the windows are down or sunroof open. But the law will not apply to people who are driving in a convertible which has the roof down. Nor does it apply to e-cigarettes.

The Scottish Parliament is expected to consider bringing in its own law banning smoking in cars carrying children next year.

Meanwhile, officials in Northern Ireland said they would look at how the ban is working elsewhere before deciding whether or not to follow suit. More than 430,000 children are exposed to second-hand smoke in cars each week, according to the British Lung Foundation.

Three more women came forward on Wednesday to accuse veteran comedian Bill Cosby of sexually assaulting them decades ago, charges that come a week before Cosby is scheduled to give a sworn deposition in a separate sexual assault lawsuit.

Sharon Van Ert, Pamela Abeyta and Lisa Christie appeared at a Los Angeles news conference and alleged that Cosby assaulted them. They were teary-eyed as they gave their accounts.

The news conference with celebrity attorney Gloria Allred came a week ahead of a deposition that Cosby, 78, has been ordered to give in a lawsuit brought by another Allred client, a woman accusing the comedian of sexually abusing her at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles when she was 15 years old.

Another explosion has rocked Liucheng County in southern China, damaging a six-story building on Thursday - less than a day after a series of more than a dozen blasts killed seven people and injured more than 50.

The Thursday blast targeted a civilian building near the highway administration bureau in Liucheng, according to Xinhua. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties.

Local police are expected to hold a press conference later on Thursday regarding the latest explosion and the series of 17 blasts which hit the city on Wednesday afternoon.

The rich are richer than ever: Forbes list of 400 wealthiest Americans reveals Jeff Bezos made $16BILLION in a single year - and Mark Zuckerberg broke into the top ten for the first time

• America's top 400 billionaires have combined wealth of $2.34trillion, up $50billion from a year ago
• Bill Gates has retained his No 1 spot for 22nd straight year with a net worth of $76billion
• Amazon's Jeff Bezos, 51, has emerged as biggest overall gainer, coming in at No 4 with $47billion
• Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, 31, this year landed in seventh spot with $40billion after cracking the top ten list last year
• Cost of admission to the 2015 list was the highest ever at $1.7billion, up from $1.55billion a year ago

Researchers at Stanford's Graduate School of Business have found that white people respond to evidence that they are privileged by their race by insisting that they face greater hardships in life.

In a study published in the November issue of Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, L. Taylor Phillips and Brian S. Lowery point out that progress on racial equality is limited by the fact that many whites deny the existence of inequities.

"Despite this reality, policy makers and power brokers continue to debate whether racial privilege even exists and whether to address such inequity," the researchers noted. "One reason for this inaction might be an unwillingness among Whites to acknowledge racial privilege — acknowledgment that may be difficult given that Whites are motivated to believe that meritocratic systems and personal virtues determine life outcomes."

"However, claiming personal life hardships may help Whites manage the threatening possibility that they benefit from privilege."

The researchers argued that understanding the reaction to evidence of racial inequality was important because whites who did not feel that they personally benefited from their ethnicity would be less willing to support policies that were designed to reduce racial inequality.

Subjects in the study were separated into two groups. The group that was shown evidence of white privilege "claimed more hardships than those not exposed to evidence of privilege," the study found.

A second experiment suggested "that people claim more life hardships in response to evidence of in-group privilege because such information is threatening to their sense of self." Researchers observed that whites who read self-affirming statements before completing the survey claimed less hardships, and they found that self-affirmations could actually reverse the denial of white privilege.

For 38 years, a few black-and-white photographs of a nurse cradling a baby provided comfort to a woman who suffered terrible burns and endured years of playground taunts and painful surgeries thereafter. For all that time, until Tuesday, she dreamed of meeting her again.

The photos show Amanda Scarpinati at just 3 months old, her head thickly wrapped in gauze, resting calmly in the nurse's arms. Shot for the Albany Medical Center's 1977 annual report, the images have a beatific, "Madonna and Child" quality.

As a baby, she had rolled off a couch onto a boiling steam vaporizer. Melted mentholated ointment scalded her skin. The burns would require many reconstructive surgeries over the years. The photos helped.

"Growing up as a child, disfigured by the burns, I was bullied and picked on, tormented," she said. "I'd look at those pictures and talk to her, even though I didn't know who she was. I took comfort looking at this woman who seemed so sincere, caring for me."

Scarpinati now lives Athens, 25 miles south of Albany, and works as a human resources manager. All her life, she wanted to thank the nurse who showed her such loving care, but she didn't even know her name. She tried to find out 20 years ago, without success. The pictures were taken by photographer Carl Howard, but his subjects weren't identified. At a friend's urging, she tried again this month, posting the photos on Facebook and pleading for help.

As EU-US trade talks flounder, France doesn't rule out 'an outright termination of negotiations'

While public opposition to the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)—the massive proposed "trade" deal between the European Union and the United States—has grown steadily since negotiations started two years ago, new signs suggest that official government backing is also faltering across Europe.

In an interview with French regional newspaper Sud Ouest published Monday, Junior Trade Minister Matthias Fekl said TTIP negotiations were favoring American interests and "either weren't advancing or were progressing in the wrong direction."

"If nothing changes, it will show that there isn't the will to achieve mutually beneficial negotiations," he said, before adding: "France is considering all options including an outright termination of negotiations."

Meanwhile, a group of more than 55 UK members of parliament (MPs) has signed onto a motion expressing major concerns about the mammoth trade pact, which civil society groups have dubbed a corporate giveaway. Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP, put forward the Commons motion, and it has now been signed by every member of the Scottish National Party group at Westminster, as well as the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell.

Politico's Paul Ames wrote of the "cooling ardor on both sides of the Atlantic" earlier this month, saying that since talks began in July 2013, the trade deal "has lost some of its shine."

"Concern over the impact of TTIP has united disparate groups," he wrote, "from French farmers to German constitutional lawyers and politicians on the left and right."

The principal of a South Dakota high school was wounded by a gunshot Wednesday morning. Authorities say that a student is suspected to be the perpetrator, and is in custody. All other students have been reported as safe.

The shooting took place at Harrisburg High School in the town of Harrisburg, about 10 miles south of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Principal Kevin Lein only suffered a flesh wound, according to Superintendent James Holbeck.