The word "narcissist" means egotistical, self-focused, and vain. That's today's modern society. Selfies, social media and video challenges - society is becoming inundated with and defined by the me, myself and I culture. And it can move from harmless egotistical banter on Facebook to acting out violently in a local shopping mall for real or perceived online slights. In other socially and emotionally damaging ways -- beyond the "selfies" shared to vapid, mostly air-headed consumers -- are the extremes that explain the age of the "me first" culture.

In America today men are obsessed with "six pack" abs, movie star faces, and tanned bodies that would make the Greek god Dionysus green with envy. Girls, as young as sixteen years old, are getting breast implants, butt jobs, sculptured nose enhancements and every kind of self-obsessed cosmetic surgery money can buy. Many are dissatisfied with themselves, the way the look, or some body part and bolt straight into the plastic surgeon's waiting arms for cosmetic solace. For this industry its big, big lucrative business.

We're routinely privy to the narcissistic tantrums of adolescents and mature men and women suffering from the Peter Pan Syndrome -- they never grow up. The facts are compelling: Five times as many Americans undergo plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures as ten years ago, and ordinary people hire fake paparazzi to follow them around to make them look famous. High school students physically attack classmates and post YouTube videos of the beatings to get attention. And for the past several years, Americans have been buying McMansions and expensive cars on credit they can't afford.

Ah, history or Greek mythology is certainly our guide on this one. The story goes that there was once a young man named Narcissus who was so vain that he fell in love with his own reflection in the water and died. In some versions of the mythological tale from Ancient Greece, Narcissus was transformed into a flower that today carries the name narcissus, or daffodil.

Today's narcissists come in many different shapes, sizes and forms. We see middle aged, pot-bellied men, guts spilling over size 50+ trousers, acting like adolescent young men trying to seduce young women, some the ages of their teenage daughters. Likewise, we see overweight women sporting rolls of protruding belly fat wearing clothes fit for Niki Minaj and company. In both cases these narcissistic denizens of society appear oblivious to the bemused head shaking from members of the public as they view their grotesque physical characteristics. Or maybe they've made enemies with Mr. Mirror.

Children growing up in poor households are likely to lag in their brain development and thereby perform poorly in schools, even if they move in better neighborhoods, a new longitudinal study on child development has revealed.

Examining hundreds of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans from a group of children growing in poor households, researchers from the University of Wisconsin - Madison discovered that the regional gray matter volume in case study brains was up to 4 percent below the developmental norm for their ages.

The threshold for "poor" was defined in the study published in JAMA Pediatrics as living in households 1.5 times below the federal poverty level. An even larger gap of eight to 10 percentage points was observed for children living below the federal poverty level.

The analysis of grey matter which serves to process information in the brain, was then correlated with their subject's school testing results. Analyzing their data, scientists discovered that "poor kids" scored four to eight points, or up to one-half of a standard deviation lower on general intelligence tests.

A prankster has carried out a social experiment in New York to find out who would be granted more charity - a homeless single father or a drug user - and received a truly surprising result.

In a hidden cam video, prankster Coby Persin dressed up as a homeless guy and pretended to be begging. He first displayed a sign, reading: "Homeless need money for drugs, weed and alcohol," and managed to raise a decent sum of money across just an hour.

The homeless addict was mainly assisted by young men, who encouraged him by saying "stay high, man, stay high" or "make sure you get a big bottle."

However, things changed when the prankster put up a different sign, reading: "Homeless single father need money for charity" and was joined by a small girl, sitting on the pavement next to him.

He was left without any donations for almost the whole hour as people walked by, completely ignoring the "troubled pair".

Investigations into the rape of 17-year-old Jalna resident reveal that the victim was allegedly raped at a location between two police teams deployed at least three kilometres apart from each other on a highway on July 9 between 8.30 and 9.30 pm.

The 17-year-old girl was allegedly raped twice by two men, the second time after police set her up as "bait" and asked her to meet the accused, in Jalna, about 400 kilometres from Mumbai. Police has identified the accused as Nitin Savle (19) and Sanjay Havare (21) who have been remanded to police custody until July 18.

According to investigating officers, after the victim received a call from Havare at 8 pm on July 9, she was asked to come to Ambad Chowk where she would get her mobile back from the accused, which was stolen from her on July 6, when she was first allegedly raped by the duo.

"Assistant Police Inspector Vinod Ejjapawar of the local crime branch immediately deployed two teams of police officers in civil clothes at Ambad Chowk and at Mantha Chowk near the house of the victim. We already had a list of eight suspects based on the description given by the victim, where we were looking for accused with a clean shave and short hair," said an investigating officer. Police said that the victim left her residence around 8.15 pm on her scooter and was en route to Ambad Chowk.

Officers have attributed the second alleged rape of the 17-year-old victim to "miscommunication".

With debris of Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 still covering the crash site in eastern Ukraine, the investigation of the July 17, 2014 tragedy is surrounded by secrecy. RT talked to international experts and the victims' families, still waiting for answers.

"He was a good man, a good brother. He promised to take me one day on board of his plane... He wanted to take me to Europe, but instead I brought his body home from Amsterdam on a plane," the younger sister of flight MH17 captain, Wan Lailatul Mustarah Bt. Wan Hussin told RT Documentary (RTD).

RTD's team visited Captain's Wan Amran's family in Malaysia. They couldn't talk to the pilot's wife, as she was sick, suffering from mental problems resulting from the trauma she experienced after her husband was killed in the crash.

"At first the youngest son couldn't accept this all, he was always saying that his father would come back," the captain's older sister, Wan Aini Bt. Wan Hussin, told RTD.

Israeli security forces have performed "abusive arrests" of Palestinian children, chocking, beating and threatening kids as young as 11, a global watchdog said in a report.

"Israeli security forces have used unnecessary force to arrest or detain Palestinian children as young as 11," a report published by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Monday.

According to the group Israeli security forces "have choked children, thrown stun grenades at them, beaten them in custody, threatened and interrogated them without the presence of parents or lawyers, and failed to let their parents know their whereabouts."

HRW said it interviewed several Palestinian boys and a girl aged from 11 to 15 who were arrested by Israeli security forces in the period from March to December 2014.


The children told HRW that "Israeli authorities did not inform parents of their child's arrest and interrogated the children without permitting them to speak to a parent or lawyer prior to the interrogation."

An 11-yer-old Rashid said he was attacked by a stun grenade and was put "in a chokehold" when Israeli arrested him for throwing stones in November. The boy added that officers "put a black bag over his head, threatened him with beatings, and kicked him in the shin while taking him for interrogation."

"When he got home [after being arrested] he had nightmares," Rashid's father said. "He woke up screaming for four or five nights in a row." Rashid told Human Rights Watch that he dreamed of being arrested, "over and over again," and was scared of going to school.

A shopping mall has caught fire in the Tomsk Region of West Siberia. Witnesses say they heard a loud bang before the incident.

The fire broke out in the town of Seversk, which is located 15 km from the city of Tomsk and has a population of over 100,000 people.

"The fire has been localized and firefighters are working to contain the blaze," an official from the emergency services told Lifenews TV, adding that at least 10 fire brigades are working at the scene.

The Texas state trooper who stopped Sandra Bland was apparently planning to let her off with a written warning until he became angry when she refused to put out the cigarette she was smoking in her car.

The 28-year-old Bland, a civil rights activist who was on her way to begin a job at the historically black Prairie View A&M, died July 13 in a Waller County jail cell after she was arrested during a traffic stop for an improper lane change.

An attorney for her family viewed dashboard camera footage of the traffic stop, and he said the state trooper returned to Bland's car with what appeared to be a written warning, reported NBC News.

Bland, who seemed irritated that she had been pulled over, questioned why she should put out the cigarette, and the trooper became angry and ordered her out of the car, the attorney said. The trooper attempted to open Bland's car door, and she grabbed a cell phone to record the encounter.

Yet another doctor was just found murdered inside his home; here on the East Coast, of Florida. This makes six doctors to be found dead in the last month; just from this region of the country, alone. Four out of the six were found dead here in Florida. We lost the wonderful, holistic Dr. Teresa Sievers, MD, who was found murdered in her Florida home just weeks ago. We've also lost the beloved Dr. Jeff Bradstreet, MD, who was found in a river with a gunshot to his chest. He'd recently moved to Georgia from Florida. We've also lost Dr. Riley, who was found in Georgia at her home; just a few hours from the Florida border. She was found with a gunshot wound to her head.

Dr. Schwartz was found dead on, Sunday, July 19th, 2015 - four weeks to the day, after the death of the first physician: (Dr. Bradstreet MD) who I broke the story on a month ago. His family is still seeking answers as to what happened to him, and they're some of the kindest people I know. The latest MD, Dr. Schwartz, in the picture above, lived just north of the fit, healthy, holistic Dr. Hedendal; who was the second doctor to be found dead this past Father's Day, in Boca Raton. This was the same day that Dr. Holt died at the age of 33. Both were fathers; and again, both men died here in Florida, on June 21st, 2015.

Drivers of vehicles abandoned during a brush fire near San Bernardino, California that engulfed a section of Interstate 15 on Friday are now protesting exorbitant towing fees as high as $2,600. Authorities are investigating the claims.

Motorists were required to leave behind amid the North Fire that encapsulated the I-15 freeway in Cajon Pass. Now, owners are complaining that towing companies have charged $1,000 or more to move cars, according to The San Bernardino County Sun.

"They are charging $220 an hour to all those people that abandoned their cars at ... Cajon Pass yesterday," Michelle Sepulveda wrote on her Facebook page, accordion got The Sun. "The family my brother saved yesterday is having to pay well over $2,600 to get her car out and every hour she waits, the more it goes up."

The California Highway Patrol is investigating the allegations.

"We called in several tow companies we had on rotation," said Steve Carpia, spokesman of the Inland California Highway Patrol. "When we learned of the complaints we began to investigate, eventually resolving this issue."