Protesters march against Monsanto across US, dozens of countries in collective anti-GMO rally

Marches and rallies against seed giant Monsanto were held across the U.S. and in dozens of other countries Saturday.

"March Against Monsanto" protesters say they want to call attention to the dangers posed by genetically modified food and the food giants that produce it. Marches were planned for more than 250 cities around the globe, according to organizers.

Genetically modified plants are grown from seeds that are engineered to resist insecticides and herbicides, add nutritional benefits or otherwise improve crop yields and increase the global food supply. Most corn, soybean and cotton crops grown in the United States today have been genetically modified. But some say genetically modified organisms can lead to serious health conditions and harm the environment.

In the U.S., hundreds of people held marches in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. In Washington, D.C., protesters wearing yellow-and-black shirts lay on the sidewalk in a bee die-in outside Monsanto's headquarters. Abroad, protests took place in London, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Vienna, Durban, South Africa, and Melbourne, Australia, among other places. In Cairo, a female protester held up a sign reading "I am not a science experiment."

Monsanto Co., based in St. Louis, said Saturday that it respects people's rights to express their opinion on the topic, but maintains that its seeds improve agriculture by helping farmers produce more from their land while conserving resources such as water and energy.

Some sixth grade students at Hillsdale Elementary School in North Highlands, California, may face felony charges for child porn for passing around a naked photo of a female classmate (video below).

The Twin Rivers School District said that the nude photo had been sent to cell phones of some students who forwarded it to more cell phones and posted to a Facebook group.

Hillsdale Elementary School principal Renee Scott-Femenella called the Twin Rivers Police Department over the incident, reports CBS Sacramento.

Seven people were injured early Saturday morning in southeastern Missouri after two freight trains collided, taking out a nearby overpass. A Union Pacific train t-boned a Burlington Northern train at an intersection, Scott County Sheriff Rick Walter told KFVS-TV. The collision, which occurred around 2:30 a.m., caused one of the trains to derail and hit a pillar under the overpass, collapsing it. There were no cars on the overpass when it collapsed, but Trooper Clark Parrott with Missouri Highway Patrol said two vehicles crashed after coming upon the bridge after it had fallen. Five people from those cars were taken to the hospital with arm and ankle fractures.

A train conductor and locomotive engineer on the Union Pacific train were also injured. Six of the victims were treated and released. A seventh remains hospitalized in good condition. One of the drivers, Christopher Cantrell, 22, said he didn't see the bridge had collapsed until it was too late. At least a dozen Union Pacific train cars and an unknown number of Burlington Northern cars derailed in the accident.

The Union Pacific train was hauling auto parts from Salem, Ill., to Arlington, Texas, according to Union Pacific spokesperson Calli Hite. The Burlington Northern train was hauling scrap metal, according to a spokesperson. The crash, which occurred near Chaffee, Mo., also ignited a fire that crews were able to extinguish quickly. The National Transportation Safety Board has been dispatched a team to investigate the incident. The collision comes just two days after a span of an Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River in Washington collapsed - caused when an oversized truck hit an overhead girder - and just over a week after a commuter train derailed in Bridgeport, Conn., suspending rail service along the heavily traveled New York-Boston corridor. - USA Today

US breeds a Chinese-style inmate labor scheme on its own soil. Both state and some of the biggest private companies are now enjoying the fruits of a cheap and readily available work force, with tens of millions of dollars spent by private prisons to keep their jails full.

Bank lobbyists have a direct influence on financial legislation drafted in Congress, and are in some cases even writing the measures themselves. Citigroup this month drafted a regulation bill that has already passed through a House committee.

To soften financial regulations, bank lobbyists frequently 'assist' lawmakers in writing draft legislation that serves to benefit them at the expense of American taxpayers, according to a New York Times investigation.

Lobbyists working for Citigroup Inc., a multinational financial services corporation, wrote 80 percent of a regulation bill that was approved by the House Financial Services Committee this month. Citigroup wrote 70 lines of 85-line bill, which exempts "broad swathes of trades" from new regulation, the Times reported based on e-mails it obtained.

Two paragraphs of the bill were copied "nearly word for word" from what Citigroup drafted. The only difference between the versions were two words, which lawmakers changed to make plural.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which was signed into law in 2010, inflicted heavy financial regulatory reform following the most recent recession. The bill was pushed into law by Democrats, but now, both Democrats in the House and Senate are siding with bank lobbyists to roll back parts of the regulation overhaul.

Whenever one of our cities gets a star turn as host of some super-sparkly event, such as a national political gathering or the Super Bowl, its first move is to tidy up - by having the police sweep homeless people into jail, out of town, or under some rug.

But Houston's tidy-uppers aren't waiting for a world-class event to rationalize going after homeless down-and-outers. They've preemptively outlawed the "crime" of dumpster diving in the Texan city.

"I was just basically looking for something to eat," he told the Houston Chronicle. But, unbeknownst to both this indigent tourist and the great majority of Houston's generally generous citizens, an ordinance dating way back to 1942 says that "molesting garbage containers" is illegal. In March, James Kelly, a 44-year-old Navy veteran, was passing through Houston on his way to connect with family in California. Homeless, destitute, and hungry, he chose to check out the dining delicacies in a trash bin near City Hall. Spotted by police, Kelly was promptly charged with "disturbing the contents of a garbage can in the [central] business district." Seriously.

The son of a former aide to President George W. Bush has been charged with murdering a man with a hatchet at his home.

Claude Alexander Allen III, 20, was arrested on Friday by police after they found the body of Michael Phillip Harvey, 25, in the woods near the Allen family home in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Records show that the home is owned by Allen's father, Claude A. Allen, a former Bush domestic policy adviser who pleaded guilty to theft in 2006.

A man called 911 around midnight and told police that he killed an intruder after he tried to break in. But authorities determined it wasn't a break-in and that the younger Allen knew Harvey.

Harvey's body was found around 75 yards behind the house but police told the Washington Post that they believe an altercation occurred and the attack started in a two-car garage.

Montgomery County Police Capt. Jim Daly told the Post it was not clear if the argument moved to the woods or if the man's body was dragged there after he died.

When police arrived at the large white-brick home, Allen was waiting for them but that his parents were not home at the time of the attack.

Police in Stockholm called in reinforcements on Friday after youths set cars and a school ablaze in a fifth night of rioting, the worst to hit Sweden for years.

Pupils at a primary school in Kista - an IT hub that is home to the likes of telecoms equipment maker Ericsson and the Swedish office of Microsoft - arrived to find the inside of the small red wooden building had been completely burnt out.

While Thursday was slightly calmer than the four nights before, about 30 cars were torched and eight people, mostly in their early 20s, were detained, police said.

In a country with a reputation for openness, tolerance and a model welfare state, the rioting has exposed a fault-line between a well-off majority and a minority - often young people with immigrant backgrounds - who are poorly educated, cannot find work and feel pushed to the edge of society.

A British Airways jet made an emergency landing at London's Heathrow Airport Friday after developing a technical problem after takeoff. TV footage showed smoke streaming from one of the engines.

Airport officials briefly closed both runways at Europe's busiest airport, causing delays. They later resumed operation, but passengers were advised to check their flight status.

British Airways said it was canceling short-haul flights in and out of Heathrow until 4 p.m. (11 a.m. EDT) so that it could "stabilize our schedule."

The Skagit River Bridge on the I-5 in Washington State has collapsed, sending vehicles into the water below, according to police.

Washington State Patrol District 7 spokesman Trooper Mark Francis tweeted around 7:20 p.m. on Thursday that people and cars have been spotted in the water.

The Skagit River Bridge is located between Burlington and Mt. Vernon, about 100 kilometres north of Seattle and 128 kilometres south of Vancouver.