Audrey Silk, founder of smokers' rights group NYC Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment (C.L.A.S.H.), protests by lighting cigarette inside City Hall.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon left painful memories in the minds of thousands of Palestinians. He became known as "the butcher" in many circles, in light of his indifference toward the killing and displacement of Palestinians, especially in the Palestinian camps.

An atmosphere of joy and gloating prevailed in the Gaza Strip as news arrived of Sharon's death on Jan. 11 - after having spent eight years in a coma in an Israeli hospital. He is considered one of the most murderous Israeli figures against the Palestinians.

Activists belonging to various Palestinian parties distributed candy in some neighborhoods of Gaza City, carrying pictures of Sharon with a red circle around him and a line through his face. They celebrated the announcement of his death, regarding it as a "holy day" worth celebrating.

Fullerton - In 2011, a group of police officers brutally beat an unarmed homeless man to death with clubs, fists, and repeated electric shocks. The story got national attention when the video of the attack showed the mentally ill man wailed for his father as police bludgeoned him mercilessly.

The violent story has reached its a heartbreaking conclusion when a jury announced that the police officers who had been charged with his death would all walk away as free men. The frustrating story shows that even in the rare instances when police officers face criminal charges for their brutality, their position of power makes it incredibly easy for them to get away with murder.

Easy Prey

The incident took place approximately two and a half years ago on a hot summer night in Fullerton. On July 5th, 2011, at approximately 8:30 p.m., police were investigating a report of parked cars that had been burglarized. Their efforts brought them near a bus station in Fullerton where they approached a shirtless, "homeless-looking man." That man was a local transient named Kelly Thomas, 37, who suffered from schizophrenia. He sifted through garbage cans, slept on benches, and lived on the streets.

Many officers of the department were familiar with Thomas, as he had a history of drug problems and and had dealt with police before. But he was not prone to violence, a department spokesperson later stated.

Police officers spent several minutes questioning Thomas. They asked him if he had drank alcohol that day, and about the contents of his bag. Thomas refused a search of his bag and swatted an officer's hand away when someone tried to take it from him. Police threatened to arrest Thomas for burglary.

At one point Thomas was seated on the ground, posing no threat, but police did not take the opportunity to him. Instead, Officer Manuel Ramos turned away from the Thomas and went to go put gloves on his hands.

That headline is not a misprint. The number of working age Americans that do not have a job has increased by nearly 10 million since Barack Obama first entered the White House. In January 2009, the number of "officially unemployed" workers plus the number of Americans "not in the labor force" was sitting at a grand total of 92.6 million. Today, that number has risen to 102.2 million. That means that the number of working age Americans that are not working has grown by close to 10 million since Barack Obama first took office. So why does the "official unemployment rate" keep going down? Well, it is because the federal government has been pretending that millions upon millions of unemployed workers have "left the labor force" over the past few years and do not want to work anymore. The government says that another 347,000 workers "left the labor force" in December. That is nearly five times larger than the 74,000 jobs that were "created" by the U.S. economy last month. And it is important to note that more than half of those jobs were temporary jobs, and it takes well over 100,000 new jobs just to keep up with population growth each month. So the unemployment rate should not have gone down. If anything, it should have gone up.

At the beginning of 2013, one long-struggling charter school closed. Over the summer, five more did. And in the fall, 11 more Columbus charters closed their doors, most of them brand new.

That's 17 charter schools in Columbus closed in one year, which records show is unprecedented.

"It shows the power of a couple of players with standards that are not up to par really affecting an overall market," said Chad Aldis, a vice president at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which sponsors 10 charter schools in Ohio, some in Columbus.

Nine of the 17 schools that closed in 2013 lasted only a few months this past fall. When they closed, more than 250 students had to find new schools. The state spent more than $1.6 million in taxpayer money to keep the nine schools open only from August through October or November.

Update: An explosion which shook a Shell oil refinery in western Germany on Thursday created "masses of carcinogenic soot," environmentalists said on Friday. The cause remains unknown.

© DPA
Smoke could be seen rising from kilometres away.

Shell came under fire from environmentalists Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND) which accused the oil giant of underplaying the danger of the fumes. To say that the fumes posed no threat to residents was an "outrageous playing down" of the dangers, Paul Kröfges of BUND's North Rhine-Westphalia chapter wrote in a statement.

On the contrary, he said the explosion had created "masses of carcinogenic soot" along with other carcinogenic gasses, "which are being distributed together with the soot in the air over southern Cologne."

The cause of the explosion was still unclear on Friday morning, the Welt newspaper reported. All that is known is that a tank containing toluene, a solvent, caught fire at the Rheinland refinery in the Godorf district of the city of Cologne at around 3pm local time on Thursday, according to a Shell statement.

An Iranian man has broken the world record for the number of years spent without bathing. He spent the last 60 years without a bath. The Iranian News Agency (IRNA) recently published pictures of the 80 year old man.

In its report, the agency noted that the man, Amoo Hadji, lives in the village of Dezhgah in the Dehram district of Fars province in Iran.

The man eats dead animals, and his most prized possession is his pipe, which is 3 inches in diameter, in which he smokes animal dung. Amoo Hadji lives in a stone shack built for him by his neighbours and he rests in a hole in the ground resembling a grave.

The news agency also noted that when he feels cold, he wears a helmet and lights up several cigarettes at a time.

Doctors in Tromsø set fire to a patient who was undergoing a heart operation, causing her to wake up with third degree burns.

After spraying the patient with surgical alcohol to disinfect an open would, they then began to use an electrical scalpel, which unfortunately ignited the fluid.

"We are talking about a rare but very unfortunate incident," said Dr Rolf Busund, clinical manager at the University Hospital of Northern Norway, where the operation took place. "This event is a clear reminder that although our procedures are very good, such things still happen."

He said that ignition was a known risk when using electrical scalpels in conjunction with disinfectants.

"During my 25 to 26 years at the hospital, I've never heard of a similar incident. However, the literature says that the use of disinfectants with diathermy can cause ignition. Last year there were some 100 instances of this in the United States."

Wesley Chapel - A retired police officer is in custody after he allegedly shot a fellow theatre patron dead because he would not stop texting.

The incident happened yesterday around 1:20 p.m in a movie theatre in Wesley Chapel, Florida, just outside of Tampa.

The theatre was showing Lone Survivor starring Mark Wahlberg. The movie was just about to begin and Chad Oulson, 43, was texting his three-year-old daughter. Oulson was at the theatre with his wife Nicole. Curtis Reeves, 71, was seated behind the Oulsons and apparently Oulson was making some sort of noise when he was texting. Reeves asked him to stop but he refused.

According to a witness, Reeves then became agitated and left his seat, presumably to find the manager. After he returned, the argument with Oulson continued.

Reeves then allegedly pulled out a gun and shot the 43-year-old once in the chest. When Oulson's wife saw the gun, she put her hand on her husband's chest in an attempt to protect him. She was hit with the same bullet that killed her husband and suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

A car bomb has exploded in the north-eastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, and there are fears of many casualties. Witnesses spoke of bodies on the ground and AFP news agency quoted police as saying 17 people had died.

Blood-spattered people were seen fleeing the scene near a market. Vehicles collided trying to leave. No organisation has said it was behind the attack, but the Islamist militant group Boko Haram is active in the region.

Boko Haram, which translates as "Western education is sin", has been conducting a four-year campaign of violence to push for Islamic rule in northern Nigeria.

The military was unable to give the BBC a firm casualty figure for the explosion in Maiduguri, which is the capital of Borno state, but said a suspect had been arrested.