US schools are teaching 8-year-olds how to masturbate, and parents are outraged. The controversy surrounds the textbook titled "It's Perfectly Normal," which contains graphic illustrations of naked people of all ages. Some drawings depict children and adults masturbating and having intercourse. Do-it-yourself instructions are included.

US Common Core standards now require sexuality education from kindergarten through grade 12. To qualify for federal grants from the US Department of Education, public schools must adopt Common Core standards. According to the independent Heartland Institute, the Affordable Care Act has budgeted $75 million for sexuality education. Much of that has been granted to Planned Parenthood. With these funds, Planned Parenthood has hired sexuality teachers for public schools.

This academic year, Common Core has endorsed "It's Perfectly Normal" for fourth-grade public schools. Parents and teachers in Tennessee have opposed it. Reporter Victoria Jackson discussed the Tennessee controversy on clashdaily.com.

"I have lived with the guilt for 11 years. At last I no longer feel it was my fault."

These are the words of the first victim of probably Britain's most prolific serial rapist, the London black cab driver John Worboys, who went on to attack over a hundred women in five years between 2003 - 2008.

This mother has spoken publicly for the first time having brought an unprecedented case against the Metropolitan Police. She has carried on her shoulders the weight of feeling responsible for all the other victims. "The police should have done their job properly. They really convinced me it didn't happen. I don't want anybody else to go through what I've gone through."

However irrational that may sound, she's been haunted by that feeling for more than a decade. Her account would prove to be first of many similar stories in the future. But at the time it was the only one and police didn't believe it.

Anyone following the byzantine trials of Amanda Knox, the American exchange student accused with her onetime boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito of murdering her roommate in Perugia, will have noticed that criminal justice in Italy doesn't work the way it does in other countries. First they were guilty, then they weren't, now they are again. In the United States, this is commonly referred to as double jeopardy and is barred under the Constitution. In Italy, it's pretty much business as usual.

When the pair was first arrested, more than six years ago, they were left to rot in jail and for months - in Sollecito's case in solitary confinement - before charges were brought. They didn't qualify for bail because bail does not exist in Italy. The prosecution regularly leaked information to the media but did not formally share its investigative findings with the defendants or their lawyers until the summer of 2008, by which time the public was broadly convinced they were no ordinary college students, but rather, depraved sex addicts who had forced the victim, 21-year-old Meredith Kercher, into a satanic orgy before brutally stabbing her to death.

To this day, it remains doubtful whether evidence ever existed to substantiate such a scenario.

This is not good news.

Jim Crawford started New Morning Farm in Maryland many decades ago. He was young and idealistic. He had little or no money and had to start small. He believed in sustainable agriculture and wanted to produce fresh and healthy produce to sell in farmers' markets to the urban public. He succeeded and became increasingly well known both for his ideals and his produce.

This may be why the FDA picked him out for a site visit. An inspector appeared without warning and told him that his operation would have to change, according to the Los Angeles Times: "This is my badge. These are the fines. This is what is hanging over your head, and we want you to know that." It didn't matter that no health problem had ever been associated with Crawford's impeccably run operation.

Much of California is enduring extreme drought conditions that have left farmers hoping for any rain to water their crops. Prospectors say there's an upside to the harsh conditions, though, with the depleted conditions exposing previously invisible gold.

Gold was first discovered in California during the latter half of the 1840s, with hundreds of thousands of Americans making their way west from the congested east coast hoping to strike it rich. The gold-seekers - also known as 49ers, prospectors, and by a variety of other names - found so much of the metal that the total, while not known for sure, almost certainly is equivalent to tens of billions of dollars in today's currency.

Within a few short years the Gold Rush had become so saturated with prospectors that only a small fraction found enough wealth to justify their trip, never mind the fortune they sought. But now, 150 years later, the California drought that has left much of the state desperate for precipitation has inspired a number of people to try their luck again.

CBS' affiliate in Los Angeles reported that, as water in small creeks and streams throughout Southern California evaporates, more avenues for prospectors are becoming exposed. Gold is currently trading at $1,300 per troy ounce, which is enough of an incentive for families to spend their weekends sifting through the dirt.

"A lot of the time you would just see a husband. Now you're seeing the whole family," said Kevin Hoagland, a member of the Gold Prospectors Association of America. Many of the gold pieces he's found range in value from $5 to $200 apiece.

"While you may not make a fortune, it's a great way to spend time with the family," he said. "We can go back over some of the areas where old miners looked in the past and find gold that they missed."

Las Vegas - After attempts to find the driver of a car that ran down an elderly man at a service station have been unsuccessful, Las Vegas police have released a security camera video of the incident.

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department released the video on Thursday and are seeking the public's help in finding the driver who ran over an elderly man at the gas station. The driver is wanted on a charge of attempted murder.

According to Las Vegas police [PDF], the incident occurred around 11:38 a.m. on Feb. 6. The elderly victim had pulled into the gas station lot when a grey Honda Accord pulled in front of him, forcing him to swerve around the Honda.

After the victim finished at the pumps, he began walking to the store. The Accord started at him at a high rate of speed and stopped just short of the victim. The car then proceeded to hit and then run over the man. He can be seen on the video writhing in pain on the ground while the Accord keeps on going and leaves the station. Others at the gas station then come over to assist him.

Living off the grid is illegal in Cape Coral, Florida, according to a court ruling Thursday.

Special Magistrate Harold S. Eskin ruled that the city's codes allow Robin Speronis to live without utility power but she is still required to hook her home to the city's water system. Her alternative source of power must be approved by the city, Eskin said.

As previously reported in Off The Grid News, Speronis has been fighting the city of Cape Coral since November when a code enforcement officer tried to evict her from her home for living without utilities. The city contends that Speronis violated the International Property Maintenance Code by relying on rain water instead of the city water system and solar panels instead of the electric grid.

"It was a mental fistfight," Speronis' attorney Todd Allen said of Eskin's review of his clients' case. "There's an inherent conflict in the code."

Part of the conflict: She must hook up to the water system, although officials acknowledge she does not have to use it.

Speronis told Off The Grid News in February she hopes to win her case and set a precedent for others in her situation. After court Thursday, Speronis told Off The Grid News that she actually won on two of three counts, although she acknowledged her legal battle is far from over.

"But what happens in the courtroom is much less important than touching people's hearts and minds," she said. "I think that we are continuing to be successful in doing just that and I am so pleased - there is hope! [Friday] morning, as I took my two hour walk, there was a young man, unknown to me, who drove by me, tooted his horn and said, 'Robin, congratulations on your victory yesterday, keep up the fight and God bless you.' That is beautiful."

(Editor's note: Hear our earlier interview with Robin Speronis here.)

Two violent anti-Semitic incidents that took place in Kiev, Ukraine, over the course of a week have alarmed the Ukrainian Jewish community. Some experts speculate that the events could be related to the political conflict that has engulfed the country since November 2013.

On Jan. 11, several men attacked Hillel Wertheimer, an Orthodox Jewish and Israeli teacher of Hebrew and Jewish tradition, after he left a synagogue at the end of Shabbat. On Jan. 18, a yeshiva student, Dov-Ber Glickman, was severely attacked by men with their fists and legs on his way home from a Shabbat meal.

According to the general Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC) General Council, the combat boots of Glickman's attackers may have been outfitted with blades. Glickman dragged himself to a nearby synagogue's ritual bath, where he was discovered and taken to a hospital. Glickman told IDF Radio on Sunday that "people are now afraid to leave their homes."

"We live in a small rural town. Moved here in 1961. I don't remember what year the State Troopers moved a headquarters into our town. Our young people were plagued with tickets for even the smallest offense. Troopers had to get their limits for the month. People make jokes about that but it has been true. Every kid I knew was getting ticketed for something. But now it is so much worse. I raised my kids to respect police. If they did something wrong and got caught they deserved it and should take their punishment.

But now I have no respect for the police. I feel threatened and fearful of them. They are aggressive and intimidating. They lie and are abusive and we do not know how to fight them. I am not a minority here but people are afraid if they speak out they will be targeted. We are just a small town. I just don't care anymore if they do target me. I am afraid they are going to kill someone." - Letter from a 60-year-old grandmother

The following incidents are cautionary tales for anyone who still thinks that they can defy police officers, even if it's simply to disagree about a speeding ticket, challenge a search warrant or defend oneself against an unreasonable or unjust charge, without deadly repercussions. The message they send is that "we the people" have very little protection from the standing army that is law enforcement.

For example, Seattle police repeatedly tasered seven-months pregnant Malaika Brooks for refusing to sign a speeding ticket. While Brooks bears permanent burn scars on her body from the encounter, police were cleared of any wrongdoing on the grounds that they didn't know that tasering a pregnant woman was wrong.

Eight Los Angeles police officers fired 103 bullets at two women in a newspaper delivery truck they mistook for a getaway car during a heated manhunt. The older woman was shot twice in the back and the other was wounded by broken glass. The women were offered a $4.2 million settlement for their injuries, while the officers were reprimanded for acting inappropriately, "retrained" and put back on the streets.

During the course of a routine investigation, a group of Los Angeles police officers beat, punched, and tasered Kelly Thomas, schizophrenic, homeless and suspected of vandalizing cars, until he was brain dead. The two officers charged for their role in the beating were acquitted and will face no time in prison. A third officer who was supposed to be charged will also walk free.