Former Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Holtzclaw was just found guilty of rape and sexual battery on Thursday. Now, his sentence has been handed down, and he is coming to the harsh realization that being a police officer didn't save him from the 263 year sentence that a jury just handed down to him.

Prosecutors said that Officer Holtzclaw preyed on women who were known to police for having had run-ins with the department in the past. He then told them that if they were to report him, he would have them arrested on charges related to their past.

But Holtzclaw, 29, wasn't feeling so aggressive on Thursday, when he broke down in tears upon hearing the reading of the verdict.

He was convicted of raping 13 women, but was cleared of about half of the total 36 counts against him. He has not had his sentencing set for January, which could likely see him serving the massive sentence as what would amount to life in prison.

Protesters who gathered outside the court earlier this week, demanded that the all-white jury convict the officer based on the physical evidence and the word of the 13 black women, who testified about how they were sexually assaulted.

While the prosecution has easily characterized Holtzclaw as a predator who sought victims living in poverty and with criminal histories that he could hold over their heads, the defense for the rapist cop has said that all of these women have independently invented these rape allegations against the shamed officer.

Holtzclaw, additionally is accused of targeting African American women specifically.

He had a pattern of looking for victims with criminal records or a history of drug use or sex work. This targeting continued for seven months while he worked the 4pm to 2am patrol, according to the Raw Story.

For all but one of his alleged victims, police investigators claim, Holtzclaw used his position on the force to run background checks for outstanding warrants or other means by which to coerce sex.

Prosecutors are now trying Holtzclaw for 36 counts including rape, sexual battery, forcible oral sodomy and stalking, to which Holtzclaw has pleaded not guilty.

Holtzclaw's new defense has aggressively called into question his accusers for nothing more than their marijuana use, or drinking. In one case, their "checkered past" was simply having a suspended drivers licenses.

One women's abuse advocate said that, "officers count on no one believing the victim if she reports."

Andrew Rios's seizures began when he was 5 months old and only got worse. At 18 months, when an epilepsy medication resulted in violent behavior, he was prescribed the antipsychotic Risperdal, a drug typically used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in adults, and rarely used for children as young as 5 years.

When Andrew screamed in his sleep and seemed to interact with people and objects that were not there, his frightened mother researched Risperdal and discovered that the drug was not approved, and had never even been studied, in children anywhere near as young as Andrew.

"It was just 'Take this, no big deal,' like they were Tic Tacs," said Genesis Rios, a mother of five in Rancho Dominguez, Calif. "He was just a baby."

A senior Iranian cleric has warned that Turkey's illegal deployment of troops to northern Iraq would be detrimental to Ankara and the entire region. "There is no logic behind this issue (troop deployment)," Hojjatoleslam Kazem Seddiqi said in an address to worshipers at weekly Friday Prayers in the Iranian capital, Tehran.

He added that the Muslim people of Turkey would not be happy with their government's wrong approach toward neighboring states and Muslim nations, calling on Turkish officials to focus on their own country's security and economy and to respect Islamic values as well. Iran condemns Turkey's deployment of troops to Iraq and recommends Turkish officials to stop carrying out measures which would lead to their country's isolation, he said.

Turkey deployed last Friday hundreds of troops and heavy weaponry to areas around the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which is now occupied by the Daesh Takfiri group. Iraq has strongly condemned the deployment, branding it as a blatant violation of its sovereignty. Iraqi officials have threatened to take action against Turkey at the United Nations Security Council.

In light of the ongoing demonization of Islam across much of Western society, many have asked the question; where are all the "moderate" Muslims to repudiate extremist Islamic fundamentalism? Well here they are.

While almost certain not to be reported in the corporate main stream media, nearly 70,000 Islamic clerics issued a religious fatwa condemning terrorism, from their annual meeting in Ajmer, India during the Urs festival. The festival is a yearly gathering of Muslim clerics held to commemorate the death of Moinuddin Chishti, a Sufi Islamic cleric and scholar.

Additionally, the religious leaders asked the media to stop referring to the terrorist groups as Muslim, with the idea being that true believers of Islam do not support extremist perversions of the religion.

Since the Paris attacks, the Western media and political landscape has been rife with bigotry, hate and xenophobia, with Donald Trump leading the charge by calling for a halt to all Muslim immigration into the United States, basing admittance on a religious litmus test.

The percentage of people in the United States who are concerned about terrorism has risen to the level it was in the weeks following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a new poll.

Nearly 80 percent of Americans say a terrorist attack is "very or somewhat likely in the next few months," according to the New York Times/ CBS News poll released Thursday. It was 78 percent in late September 2001. Following the attacks by in Paris and in San Bernardino, California, 19 percent of registered voters view the threat of terrorism as the top issue facing the country. Forty-four percent of the public says an attack is "very" likely to happen in the next few months, the most in New York Times or CBS News polls since October 2001, just after the 9/11 attacks.

The poll also found that 70 percent of Americans now call the ISIL terrorist group a major threat to US security and believe the fight against the group is going badly. The US public has little faith in President Barack Obama's handling of terrorism and the threat from ISIL, with 55 percent of Americans disapproving of his handling of terrorism.

MPs of the Verkhovna Rada in Kiev launched a brawl during a speech by Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk. The PM later said there were "a lot of morons," so he would not comment on the incident.

The fight began between MPs from the president's Petro Poroshenko Bloc (PPB) and Yatsenyuk's People's Front (PF).

It allegedly all started when Oleg Barna (PPB) went up to the tribune while Yatsenyuk was giving a speech, presented him a bouquet of roses and then tried to carry him off the stage.

A huge blaze has erupted in a five-storied building on the grounds of a machinery plant in northwest Moscow, producing flames rising into sky.

The fire engulfed the area of some 15,000 square meters, the Russian Emergencies Ministry said, adding that the fire was fully extinguished shortly after 1:00 a.m. on Friday morning.

Sounds of explosions could be heard in one of the buildings engulfed in flames, Russia24 TV channel reports. An explosion of a gasoline tank on the ground floor of one of the buildings could be the cause of the blaze, Russian media report.

Most young Americans are in favor of sending ground troops to battle Deash, also known as ISIL/The Islamic State, but few are willing to be the ones who fight, according to a poll by Harvard University.

The new Harvard Institute of Politics survey of people aged 18 to 29 found that some 60% of respondents either "strongly" or "somewhat" supported sending ground troops to combat Daesh militants.

Interestingly, that same question was asked before and after the November 13 terror attacks in Paris. Before the attacks in Paris, 47% of the people surveyed supported the use of ground troops. After the attacks, that jumped up 13% points, to 60% of adults under 30 years old.

The next question in the survey asked: "If the United States needed additional troops to combat the Islamic State, how likely would you be to serve?" To that question, 85% of respondents said they would "probably" or "definitely" not join the military.

In other words, at least 45% of adults under the age of 30 would like to send troops to fight Daesh but would not personally be willing to go.

The poll of 2,011 people aged 18 to 29 was conducted prior to the attack by a married couple who were inspired by Daesh and killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California.

An Oklahoma mother and her boyfriend have been arrested for the rape and murder of her four-year-old daughter.

According to the Washington County Sheriff's Office, Courtney Hansche, 26, and Michael Nordbye, 27, were arrested and booked into the Washington County Jail on the night of December 8. Both the mother and the boyfriend have been charged with first degree murder, first degree rape, and child abuse.

Hansche's four-year-old daughter Jaydenn was taken to St. John hospital in Owasso, Oklahoma, on November 15. The child was unresponsive when the couple brought her to the hospital and was later pronounced dead, KJRH reports.

An investigation was conducted by the Washington County Sheriff's Office with help from the state Department of Human Services and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, which ultimately resulted in Hansche and Nordbye being arrested in connection with the rape and murder of the child.

Sources: KJRH, Tulsa World, Daily Mail

As officer-involved shootings continue to dominate the headlines, a new report found that those with mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed in encounters with law enforcement than other civilians.

Conducted by the Treatment Advocacy Center, a non-profit committed to removing barriers to timely and effective treatment for severe mental illness (SMI), the report estimated that 7.9 million Americans suffer from SMI that impairs their thinking. Worryingly, half of the population (about 4 million people) do not receive treatment for their condition, a result of various institutional and policy failures.

This untreated population is increasingly likely to find itself involved in deadly encounters with police. Those with untreated illness comprise 25 percent of all fatal police encounters, TAC found. "At this rate, the risk of being killed during a police incident is 16 times greater for individuals with untreated mental illness than for other civilians approached or stopped by officers," the report stated.

Additionally, those with untreated SMI make up 20 percent of all people in jail and prison, while accounting for about 10-20 percent of all law enforcement response calls in general.

"It should horrify but not surprise us that people with untreated mental illness are overrepresented in deadly encounters with law enforcement," said John Snook, TAC executive director and a co-author of the study, in a statement. "Individuals with untreated mental illness are vastly overrepresented in every corner of the criminal justice system. Until we reform the public policies that have abandoned them there, these tragic outcomes will continue."

The report acknowledged that hard statistics are difficult to come by since the government does not provide reliable data on officer-involved shootings. Instead, TAC used its own database as well as analysis by The Washington Post and the Guardian to generate its findings.