The families of German citizens killed in the Malaysian plane crash in eastern Ukraine are planning to sue the Ukrainian authorities in the European Court of Human Rights, accusing them of manslaughter by negligence.

Ukraine should have closed its airspace if it couldn't provide for the safety of flights over its territory, Elmar Giemulla, a professor of aviation law representing the three families of German victims, told Bild am Sonntag, a German Sunday newspaper.

"Each state is responsible for the security of its air space," Giemulla said. "If it is not able to do so temporarily, it must close its air space. As that did not happen, Ukraine is liable for the damage."

According to Giemulla, by leaving the airspace open, Kiev authorities "destroyed" the lives of hundreds of innocent people. Thus, Ukraine committed human rights violations, he concluded.

Scotland may not have followed in Sir William Wallace's footsteps to free itself from its English bonds, but that hasn't stopped nearly a quarter of Americans from a little bravehearted hope of their states seceding from the US.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll sought to see if Thursday's Scottish independence referendum ‒ which failed ‒ inspired Americans to dream of secession from the United States. According to the results, 23.9 percent of those surveyed either strongly supported or tended to support the idea of their state breaking away from the union.

Both Democrats and Republicans supported the idea of severing ties with the federal government, though the Grand Old Party (along with residents from the West and Southwest) was more in favor of secession than Dems and Northeasterners.

Texas Nationalist Movement president Daniel Miller told RT that Texans are unhappy with how Washington politicos ignore the issues most important to their state.

"One of the big issues in here Texas right now... is obviously the border and immigration," Miller said. "Over the last eight years, issues related to the border and immigration have consistently polled as the number one concern for Texans, yet the federal government continues to do absolutely nothing substantial about addressing the border crisis or the immigration issues."

A January 2013 Public Policy Polling survey found that about 20 percent of Texas voters said they would support secession because of President Barack Obama's re-election, and 67 percent were opposed.

Described by Cornel West as "the most acute observer and insightful analyst of the 'Obama Phenomena,'" Paul Street is the author of seven books, numerous project studies, and hundreds of articles published around the world. His publications include the prophetic, "lucid and penetrating" (Noam Chomsky) volume Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics (2008), described by John Pilger in 2009 as "perhaps the only book that tells the truth about the 44th president of the United States." Street's Crashing the Tea Party (2010, co-authored with Truthout contributor Anthony DiMaggio) is "essential reading for anyone concerned about the changing nature of American politics" and helped solidify Street's status as one of "America's most important social and political critics" (Henry Giroux).

No longer content to limit his focus to one side of the dominant and narrow US political spectrum - either Obama Democrats or Teapublicans - Street has turned his attention to the plutocratic American system as a whole. Below we post the introduction to Street's latest and most important and sweeping book yet: They Rule: The 1% v. Democracy (Paradigm Publishers, September 2014). Inspired in part by the Occupy movement or "moment" of 2011, Street's new volume harkens back to John Carpenter's campy but classic film They Live (1987). Carpenter portrayed the United States as subject to invasion and control by alien invaders who wore corporate suits, distributed wealth and power upward, subverted democracy, managed minds and warmed the earth's climate - all in the name of free enterprise and economic growth. They Rule moves from Reagan era science fiction to the nitty-gritty details of how the US ruling class rules and why it matters in our current 21st century New Gilded Age. According to Gar Alperovitz,They Rule is "aserious, useful, and well-written and well-researched guide to the challenges we face and the genuine options we have as American corporate capitalism and its politics continue to decay."

As a direct result of sanctions on Russia, there is an overabundance of fruits and vegetables in France, Spain, Poland, and elsewhere in Europe. Basic law of supply and demand dictates prices of crops would fall. And they did.

While most foolishly want to stick it to Russia, few actually are willing to pay the price if it affects them.

All Sierra Leone's six-million population have been confined to their homes. The three-day shutdown is a desperate bid to fight the outbreak, as US health officials warn the disease could spread to over half a million people.

"Today the life of every one is at stake, but we will get over this difficulty if all do what we have been asked to do," President Ernest Bai Koroma said in a national address on Thursday, a day before the shutdown was due to come into force.

People were in a hurry ahead of the edict to buy food. Shopkeepers were distraught at the prospect of losing three days' worth of income, given that much of the country's population, including the capital Freetown, live on as little as $2 a day or less. Each day is a struggle.

The University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee's chapter of the fraternity Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) is under investigation after four people were dosed with a so-called "date rape" drug.

According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, police raided the fraternity house on Tuesday. In the wake of a raucous Friday night party at the house, three women and one man were hospitalized with symptoms of extreme intoxication and disorientation.

One student has been arrested in connection with the alleged druggings, which were administered on the basis of color-coded hand stamps. All of the women who were drugged had red X's on the backs of their hands, which were given to them by the party's doorman.

The one male student who was taken to the hospital had drunk from a drink given to one of the women with a red X.

Police were called three times on Friday night to Sandburg Residence Hall between midnight and 1:33 a.m.. Each time, they found female students unable to stand or walk, all of whom had red Xs on their hands from the same TKE party.

The Journal-Sentinel reported that the police incident reports from Friday night said that emergency personnel were attempting to come to the aid of a second woman at Sandburg who could not walk or speak clearly when they spied a male student vomiting into a garbage can and struggling to stand.

The student told officers that he had also been drinking at the TKE party and had consumed part of a female friend's drink.

A Montana man serving a prison term for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old is now facing charges that he contacted the victim via Skype while he was out on bail and urged her to kill herself while he watched.

Michael John Morlan, 21, is currently serving seven years in Montana State Prison after being convicted on two felony counts of sexual intercourse with a minor, according to the Billings Gazette.

Last week Morlan was charged with three felonies: aiding or soliciting suicide, intimidation,and tampering with witnesses and informants after his victim, now 16, came forward and said he had contacted her on the on-line video-chat service Skype on Sept. 1, 2013, and urged her to kill herself while he watched.

According to court documents, Morlan told the girl he wanted to watch her kill herself to make sure she did it right. The victim said that when she started crying, Morlan told her to stop wasting his time and get it over with.

In a statement given to police, the victim alleges Morlan pressured her to cut her wrists and take all the anti-depressants she had on hand. According to the victim, as she cut her wrists, Morlan encouraged her to cut deeper.

The victim states that she panicked after taking the pills, disconnected from Skype, and went to her parents for help.

Attempting to serve a search warrant by entering a house through a window got Killeen, Texas, Police Detective Charles Dinwiddie shot in the face and killed last May. It was yet another SWAT raid organized for a purpose other than the reason they were invented. The police had a search warrant looking for narcotics at the home of Marvin Louis Guy, 49. They decided to serve this warrant at 5:30 in the morning and without knocking on his door. He opened fire on them, killing Dinwiddie and injuring three others.

Though they found a glass pipe, a grinder, and a pistol, they did not find any drugs. Former Reason Editor Radley Balko took note of the deadly raid in May at The Washington Post. A police informant apparently told them there were bags of cocaine inside the house, which sounds a lot like another familiar drug raid in Virginia that got an officer killed.

The Virginia case ended with Ryan Frederick in prison for 10 years despite his insistence he thought he was defending himself against in home intruders. He may end up lucky compared to Guy. Prosecutors in Texas are going to seek the death penalty against him. KWTX offers a dreadfully written summary that says next to nothing about the circumstances of the raid but gives Dinwiddie's whole life story. Guy faces three additional charges of attempted capital murder for shooting the other officers. The story mentions the no-knock raid but fails to explain why it happened or the failure to find any drugs.

The Truthdig columnist speaks to a crowd in Wisconsin over the weekend about the prevailing power structure and "the abject surrender of our political class ... to cash-rich lobbying groups."

A nurse who works at a private hospital in Mersin, a city and province on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, has told Turkish authorities and Parliament that she is sick and tired of treating members of the terrorist organization the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which now calls itself the "Islamic State."

The nurse, who was identified only by her initials, E.G., in a news story published by the Taraf daily on Wednesday, said of ISIL militants: "We treat them, and they go on to decapitate people. I am sick of treating wounded ISIL militants." E.G. has also written a letter to Parliament and the National Police Department, saying she and her colleagues are extremely disturbed by the fact that they have to treat people "who chop off heads."

Taraf reported that other health workers in Mersin and other provinces close to the Syrian border are uneasy about having to help wounded ISIL militants, who are responsible for extreme violence and bloodshed in northern Iraq and Syria.

In the letter she wrote to Parliament and the Police Department, E.G. said she has been employed at a private hospital in Mersin for a long time. She said her hospital has treated many wounded Syrians so far, who have introduced themselves as "opposition members."

However, she noted that she had found out that most of the Syrians recently admitted to the hospital were ISIL members. "I was extremely distressed about this. I am very sorry about this situation. I am disturbed by the fact that these people are being treated in our hospitals while our people are being held by them," she wrote, according to Taraf's report.