What do you want to be when you grow up? I remember a careers advisor asking me just that question shortly before my sixteenth birthday. Like most of my peers I had very little idea as to what I wanted to do with my life when the seemingly endless horizon of school came to an end. Drink beer, smoke cigarettes and chase girls was about the sum of it.

Looking back, though, the question was a strange one. We insist on asking children what they want to do with their lives when most of the time it's set in stone when they pull on their first school uniform. If they are born poor they will almost certainly stay poor; if their parents have money then it's likely that they will too. The more unequal a society is the truer this statement becomes.

Yes we insist on telling children that they can be 'whatever they want to be', knowing full well that crushing disappointment lies further in their future. Every nation relies to some extent on fairy tales. In Britain we cling to the idea that you can be or do anything in life so long as you put your mind to it. In the process we hand our politicians the one thing they can use to justify the obscene privileges at the top and the revolting squalor at the bottom: the indomitable myth of meritocracy.

Is this a happy Tuesday? Well... probably not, so let's talk about other stuff.

Early in 2012, with gold soaring, and a key restriction lifted off my retirement account as I switched jobs, and with a severe case of fiat angst, we decided to reject the system and convert our fiat into precious metals (FARTS) (I love acronyms). So we withdrew it, paid fiat tax, paid a fiat penalty (about 20% total) and took the remaining fiat to the LCS. I had figured gold was headed higher shortly and would creep even higher in the days beyond. Wait, that shows my ignorance; gold doesn't creep anywhere, it is fiat that changes in value. Well, you know what happened in April as gold approached 1700. A month later, I was 47% poorer, if I count wealth in fiat.

I was not happy, yet I did not despair, but I was feeling something. And "poorer?" Really? Was I poorer? No, I was more stable than ever and the angst was gone. Hmmm...

Over 2,000 care-home kids were secretly vaccinated against diphtheria in the 1930s in medical trials undertaken by international drugs giant Burroughs Wellcome, Irish media reveal. Among the testing sites was a recently discovered mass grave.

The medical records cited by the Irish Daily Mail show that some 2,051 children and babies across several Irish care homes may have been subjected to the practice.

Michael Dwyer, of Cork University's School of History, found the data after foraging through tens of thousands of archive files and old medical journals. What he did not find is whether any consent was gained for these alleged illegal drug trials or any records of the effects on the infants involved.

Dwyer discovered that the tests were carried out shortly before the drugs were made readily available in the UK. The homes involved included Bessborough, County Cork, and Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, County Tipperary.

Eurofighter jet crashes killing its pilot at attemt of landing at air base in southwestern Spain on Monday, defence ministry said.

The sole pilot of the plane, 30-year-old air force captain Fernando Lluna Carrascosa, was killed in the accident, which happened at around 2 pm (12:00 GMT), the defence ministry said in a statement. Carrascosa, who was married with a young daughter, had over 600 hours experience flying Eurofighter jets, the statement added.

The cause of the accident is still unknown, the ministry said. The Moron air base, located about 35 miles (55 kilometres) southeast of Seville, is shared by Spain and the US Air Force, but only Spain operates the Eurofighter jet. The Eurofighter, a multi-purpose twin-engine fighter jet introduced in 2003, is built by a consortium made up of British defence group BAE, European aerospace group Airbus and Italian defence contractor Finmeccanica.

It is designed as a highly agile multi-role aircraft, capable of ground attack as well as its primary air defence role. The Eurofighter consortium, Europe's largest defence programme, is in fierce competition with other fighter-jet makers such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Dassault Aviation.

Last month the head of Airbus' defence division, Bernhard Gerwert, said the consortium would stop making the Eurofighter jet in 2018 if it did not win new export contracts for the fighter jet. Talks were under way to sell Eurofighter jets outside of Europe, to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Malaysia, he said.

It's high fever time in Sao Paulo. The Dutch are chilling in Ipanema, right in front of the beach. The Italians are in their own Riviera 100 kilometers from Rio.

The Germans are in a sprawling beach bunker along the coast were Brazil was "discovered" in 1500. The English team is visiting a favela this Monday. The whole country is slowly being draped in green and yellow. One hell of a party is about to begin.

And yet, all across the planet, the nagging question remains; will Brazilians set this World Cup - literally - on fire? Is this show worth over $11 billion? Well, that's actually a non-issue, picked up by those who don't know how football - it's not "soccer", it's "football", as the English invented it - is embedded in the Brazilian psyche.

Emerging from a bulletproof SUV into a trendy Japanese restaurant where she is greeted like Madonna, my good friend Barbara Gancia - arguably Brazil's top social critic - went for the jugular: "There will be protests until Neymar strikes the first goal. Everybody, no exceptions, will root for the national team. And then, even if Brazil wins the Cup, the protests will pick up again."

A man who was shot by a Baltimore Police officer on Friday morning in West Baltimore was at the time fighting with a man who had just robbed him at gunpoint, police said Monday.

Both have been criminally charged for their roles in the incident.

Police said Friday that officers were handling a domestic violence call around 7 a.m. when they heard gunshots nearby and rushed to the scene to find two men struggling in the street, at the intersection of North Fremont Avenue and West Fayette Street.

One of them was holding two guns, and cash littered the ground. The man holding the guns refused to drop the weapon, and was shot by an officer, police said.

According to charging documents provided by police, Alexander Brown, 24, had been robbed at gunpoint by Xavian Chriscoe, 36, and an unknown accomplice, who told him to hand over cash his belongings "or you gonna catch all six of these," referring to bullets.

Brown handed over his property - $90 cash, an ID, and a bank card - and the two men fled, police said. Brown then pulled a .38 caliber revolver from his pants leg and fired four shots at Chriscoe and the other man as he gave chase.

Brown wrestled away Chriscoe's .32 caliber revolver and the two began to struggle over the weapons. Officers heard shots - police say Chriscoe had a graze wound to the side of his head - and saw Brown standing over Chriscoe, holding a gun to his head.

Police say Officer Valentine Nagovich, 41, an 11-year veteran, fired multiple shots, striking Brown in the left forearm.

Brown was taken into custody, but told the officers that Chriscoe had robbed him. Both were detained, and officers found Brown's driver's license in Chriscoe's possession. Police said video of the incident captured from a camera showed what appeared to be Chriscoe and the second, unknown person robbing Brown.

Brown, of the 4500 block of Shamrock Ave., is charged with first-degree assault and multiple handgun charges for firing at Chriscoe after being robbed. Chriscoe, meanwhile, of the 1700 block of Bloomingdale Ave., was armed robbery, assault, and handgun charges.

Both men are being held without bond, and attorneys were not listed in court records.

Beginning August 1st of this year, JP Morgan & Chase Co. will charge their customers for depositing cash into their accounts.

According to an internal document sent to account holders, in less than a month from now "the fee for all types of Cash Deposit Processing (CDP) will be $0.25 per $100 [deposited]. The CDP fee will only apply after you exceed your account's cash deposit limit."

One reason for Chase to charge their customers a fee on cash deposits may reside in the fact that the major banks are "charging customers who deposit lots of cash."

Wherein Chase is charging customers for every $100 in cash deposited, other banks are charging on every cash deposit of $10,000; or $0.20 on every $100 deposited.

Kris Dawsey, economist for Goldman Sachs, warned about banks charging customers fees for simply depositing cash into their account in 2013.

When asked about a meeting of the Federal Reserve (Fed) Board and the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), wherein it was revealed that the 0.25% annual interest rate on money that the banks keep in the Fed would be reduced, Dawsey said: "One risk is that the move could prompt charges ... on bank deposits."

Last November, Kristin Lemkau, spokesperson for JP Morgan & Chase Co said: "We have no intention of charging for retail customer deposits."

However this promise has not been kept.

Russia sees no need for retaliatory sanctions against the West but such a move is possible if a third wave of measures to isolate Moscow is introduced, the speaker of Russia's upper house has said, according to RIA Novosti.

"We do not think it is necessary to adopt retaliatory sanctions, although they have been prepared, considered and weighed. If our partners threatening us with a third round of sanctions do not stop, time may come when we will have to respond," Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko said in the Pravo Znat (Right to Know) program on TVC news channel on Saturday.

"But I do not want such a scenario to take place," she added.

Isolating Russia is impossible as it has been integrated into the world economy and is a member of the UN Security Council.

Today European countries are not interested in severing ties with Russia, she stated.

In recent years, the news has been flooded with more and more stories of sex infiltrating our schools. The stories range from those about questionable sex education curriculum to teachers having inappropriate relationships with students.

Last week was no different. Here's a small sampling of shocking occurrences from around the United States.

At Woodland Park Middle School in San Marcos, CA, 8th graders were forced to participate in a classroom activity that has parents furious.

The story was reported to 10News by the parents of a 14-year-old student who said that as part of a sex education lesson, students were told to stand under signs labeled "smiled at, hugged, kissed, above the waist, below the waist, and all the way."

The gay rights movement has advanced with head-spinning speed in recent years.

"Hate crimes" now include attacks on individuals because of their sexual orientation. Government and employment benefits now are extended to same-sex couples. The US military has scrapped its "don't ask, don't tell" ban on openly-gay service members.

A string of federal judges - most recently in Wisconsin this week - have ruled state bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia now have what advocates call "freedom to marry." Gay judges, lawmakers, and other public figures are serving openly.

"US public opinion about gays has changed drastically in recent decades on the issues of marriage equality and LGBT acceptance as a whole, possibly related to the fact that three in four Americans say they have a friend, relative, or coworker who has told them that he or she is gay," Gallup reported recently.

Public support for same-sex marriage has reached an all-time high of 55 percent - more significantly, nearly 80 percent among young adults. Approval of gay or lesbian relations jumped 19 percent between 2001 and 2013 (from 40 percent to 59 percent, again according to Gallup).

Still, Americans are about evenly divided on whether homosexuality is something a portion of the population is born with or, instead, it is a characteristic resulting from upbringing and environment - present before birth or acquired.