Four Californian prisons have been accused of carrying out illegal sterilisations on nearly forty female inmates, a new report has revealed.

The report released by the Californian State Auditor on Thursday, found that between 2005 and 2011, 39 female prisoners had been surgically sterilised without the correct consent procedures taking place.

Folsom Women's Facility, Central California Women's Facility, Valley State Prison for Women and the California Institution for Women were all identified by auditors as the prisons where these illegal procedures had been carried out .

Of the 144 inmates that underwent the "tubal litigations" over the six-year period, nearly a third had occurred without legal consent.

Californian state law states that sterilisation procedures can only take place between 30 and 180 days from the time a woman agrees to the procedure, "to provide the patient with enough time to reflect on her choice and to make sure she desires sterilization."

Nevertheless, in 18 cases auditors had found serious violations of this waiting period.

In another 27 cases, it was found that there had been instances of malpractice by prison doctors.

Some cases saw medical procedures taking place without the correct documentation being signed by prison doctors, while other cases saw doctors falsify documents by saying the proper waiting period had been adhered to when it had clearly not.

In the mid-1990s, Gus, a polar bear in the Central Park Zoo, alarmed visitors by compulsively swimming figure eights in his pool, sometimes for 12 hours a day. He stalked children from his underwater window, prompting zoo staff to put up barriers to keep the frightened children away from his predatory gaze.* Gus's neuroticism earned him the nickname "the bipolar bear," a dose of Prozac, and $25,000 worth of behavioral therapy.

Gus is one of the many mentally unstable animals featured in Laurel Braitman's new book, Animal Madness: How Anxious Dogs, Compulsive Parrots, and Elephants in Recovery Help Us Understand Ourselves. The book features a dog that jumps out of a fourth floor apartment, a shin-biting miniature donkey, gorillas that sob, and compulsively masturbating walruses.* Much of the animal madness Braitman describes is caused by humans forcing animals to live in unnatural habitats, and the suffering that ensues is on display most starkly in zoos.

"Zoos as institutions are deeply problematic," Braitman told me. Gus, for example, was forced to live in an enclosure that is 0.00009 percent of the size his range would have been in his natural habitat. "It's impossible to replicate even a slim fraction of the kind of life polar bears have in the wild," Braitman writes.

Many animals cope with unstimulating or small environments through stereotypic behavior, which, in zoological parlance, is a repetitive behavior that serves no obvious purpose, such as pacing, bar biting, and Gus' figure-eight swimming. Trichotillomania (repetitive hair plucking) and regurgitation and reingestation (the practice of repetitively vomiting and eating the vomit) are also common in captivity. According to Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson, authors of Animals Make Us Human, these behaviors, "almost never occur in the wild." In captivity, these behaviors are so common that they have a name: "zoochosis," or psychosis caused by confinement.

The disruption of family or pack units for the sake of breeding is another stressor in zoos, especially in species that form close-knit groups, such as gorillas and elephants. Zoo breeding programs, which are overseen by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' Animal Exchange Database, move animals around the country when they identify a genetically suitable mate. Tom, a gorilla featured in Animal Madness, was moved hundreds of miles away because he was a good genetic match for another zoo's gorilla. At the new zoo, he was abused by the other gorillas and lost a third of his body weight. Eventually, he was sent back home, only to be sent to another zoo again once he was nursed back to health.

When his zookeepers visited him at his new zoo, he ran toward them sobbing and crying, following them until visitors complained that the zookeepers were "hogging the gorilla." While a strong argument can be made for the practice of moving animals for breeding purposes in the case of endangered species, animals are also moved because a zoo has too many of one species. The Milwaukee Zoo writes on its website that exchanging animals with other zoos "helps to keep their collection fresh and exciting."

A set of rules aimed at promoting "British values" in schools could ban conservative Muslims from becoming governors, a religious rights group says. The new regulations follow allegations of a "Trojan Horse" plot to Islamisize schools in the UK.

The Department of Education has introduced a new set of rules governing free schools and academies in Britain. The regulations dictate that school governors and trustees should demonstrate "fundamental British values" and give the state powers to close the schools if they do not toe the line.

"The Academy Trust must ensure that principles are promoted which support fundamental British values," say the rules. These include respect for democracy and the democratic process, support for gender equality and tolerance of different faiths and religions.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MBC) argues the new rules are discriminatory and allocate too much power to the Department of Education to define "British values."

A man living in a Danvers hotel is accused of putting hot sauce in the mouth of his girlfriend's 3-year-old son and then taping it shut.

Christopher Delcid, 21, pleaded not guilty Wednesday at his arraignment to charges of assault and battery on a child and child abandonment, according to the Salem News.

He was ordered held on $250,000 bail.

The boy's mother, Katherine Rodriguez, is due in Salem District Court Thursday to face charges in the case.

According to a police report, the boy was found alone in an Extended Stay America hotel room in Danvers Tuesday afternoon after police received a call from a concerned relative.

A federal appeals court ruled that a Los Angeles ordinance preventing homeless people from living in cars is unconstitutionally vague and struck down the ban.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the law that banned people living in their cars or recreational vehicles on a public street or in a public parking lot (even overnight) is unconstitutionally vague and encourages arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement. The decision overturned the District Court of Appeals ruling in favor of the city.

The ban was enacted in 1983, but faced renewed enforcement in 2010, after Los Angeles officials held a September town hall to address complaints of homeless people living in vehicles on streets in the Venice area of the city. City officials repeatedly said at the meeting that the "concern was not homelessness generally, but the illegal dumping of trash and human waste on city streets that was endangering public health," the ruling said in the factual background.

The Los Angeles Police Department then created the Venice Homelessness Task Force, made of 21 officers to cite and arrest people living in cars, as well as distribute information about local shelters and social services. During their training, task force members were told that "an individual need not be sleeping or have slept in the vehicle to violate" the city ban, and that the LAPD officers should look for"possessions normally found in a home, such as food, bedding, clothing, medicine, and basic necessities." They were to offer a warning for the first violation, a citation for the second and make an arrest on the third.

Calling the practices of Italian 'Ndrangheta crime group the "adoration of evil," Pope Francis said the Mafiosi "are excommunicated" from God and the Catholic Church, in his address to tens of thousands of people in Calabria, southern Italy.

"Those who in their lives follow this path of evil, as Mafiosi do, are not in communion with God. They are excommunicated," Pope Francis said as cited by Reuters.

"This evil must be fought against, it must be pushed aside. We must say no to it," Francis said, promising that the Vatican would apply all efforts to combat such activity.

Francis condemned 'Ndrangheta as the "adoration of evil and contempt of the common good."

"Repent! There is no time to avoid ending up in hell, which is what awaits you if you do not change course," the Pope stated after holding a vigil as he visited Castrovillari prison in Calabria, a region infested by organized crime, Il Sole 24 Ore reports.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies blasted alerts all over the country earlier this week advising Americans to be on the lookout for 'Doomsday Prepper' Martin Winters, who police say was stockpiling over fifty "high powered" rifles, deadly booby traps and food in preparation for an "end times" event. Neighbors interviewed by mainstream news were terrified about the allegations, leaving some with the impression that Winters was "crazy" because he allegedly claimed that he would kill federal agents if necessary.

While SWAT officials indicated the likelihood that they would have to engage Winters in a firefight was high, friends and family suggested otherwise, saying that Winters may have had views different from most people but insisting that he is a "good guy" who wouldn't hurt others unless it was necessary to do so in self defense.

As mortar shells spilled into Russian territory Friday, hundreds of Eastern Ukrainians at Russia's refugee camp near border had to be taken to centers further away. Currently the two shelled checkpoints are only working for refugees.

Two Russian checkpoints on the border with Ukraine in Rostov region - Novoshakhtinsk and Donetsk - were closed on Saturday following mortar shelling and shooting the day before.

The checkpoints are being inspected for undetonated explosives while Russian prosecutors are trying to find out the circumstances of the incidents.

"Donetsk and Novoshakhtinsk are admitting nobody into Russia except Ukrainian refugees," spokesman of the Border Service in the Rostov Region, Vasily Malayev, said.

Russia set up a refugee camp in Novoshakhtinsk near the border with Ukraine to house the increasing number of Eastern Ukrainians fleeing from Kiev's shelling their homes.

Several people have been detained at an anti-monarchy protest near Madrid's heavily guarded central square following the coronation of Felipe VI as Spain's new king.

Despite the ban on republican protests by the Madrid authorities, up to 3,000 anti-monarchy activists flooded the area in central Madrid, EuropaPress reports. Waving the red, yellow and purple flags of Spain's second republic, protesters demanded the abolition of the monarchy.

The march which included members of more than 20 NGOs started from the Casa del Mar and concluded in front of the local government building, where writer and journalist Manuel Rivas read out a manifesto which rejected the "monarchical taxation." Liberty is a "treasure of humanity," said Rivas. "We say yes to the right to decide."

Pope Francis is urging Christians to work together to abolish every form of torture, condemning the practice as a grave sin.

Francis told the public in St. Peter's Square Sunday he wanted to reiterate his "firm condemnation of every kind of torture." He sought united efforts to work for torture's end and to support victims and their families.

Francis said it was a "mortal sin, a very grave sin, to torture people" and noted that Thursday marks the United Nation's day for torture victims.

Torture was a powerful tool of the military regime ruling his native Argentina from 1976 till 1983. The local church hierarchy then openly sided with the junta.

Francis has been credited with saving lives of political dissidents while a Jesuit priest in Argentina.