Over 13,000 anti-Nazi protesters have formed a human chain in the center of Dresden, Germany to block the neo-Nazi march, which assembles annually to mark the anniversary of the allied bombing of the city in 1945, and spread extremist ideology.

Around three thousand officers are policing the parallel processions. No clashes were reported between the two groups.

Wednesday's demonstration for the ultra-right marks the 68th anniversary of the bombing against the civilian population. The neo-Nazis condemn the allied actions in the final months of World War II and claim the bombings to be war crimes.

Activists that oppose them, say that the neo-nazi march insults the memory of some 25,000 victims that died from the bombs. A number of high-profile politicians including parliamentary deputy president Wolfgang Thierse and Saxony's state premier Stalislaw Tillich took part in the human chain.

Speaking at the city's Heide cemetery in front of some 200 guests, Dresden Mayor Helma Orosz spoke out against the neo-Nazi message.

American students unveil an interactive Kurt Vonnegut exhibit and commemorate Dresden's firebombing. Revered for his satire and criticism of war, Vonnegut remains largely unknown in Germany - but that's changing.

In his carry-on luggage, Kyle Royse packed a lucky dollar bill from his grandfather and a pristine paperback copy of "Slaughterhouse-Five." It was the first Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. novel the recent college graduate had ever read.

"Once you start reading his works, it's hard not to fall in love with them," Royse said. "Hopefully we will cause a few more people to fall in love with his works."

For six months, Royse and a team of 11 fellow students combed through handwritten letters, marked-up manuscripts, personal photos, and audio recordings of the American novelist with German heritage.

A man on Tuesday jumped to his death from the top of Chater House in Central, where Wall Street bank JP Morgan has its Asia headquarters, witnesses told the South China Morning Post.

The man, said to be in his early 30s, went to the roof of Chater House, a landmark 30-floor building in the heart of Hong Kong's central business district - also near the city's stock exchange - and jumped.

Medics rush to the scene of the accident in Central. The incident happened between 2pm to 3pm, a witness said.

Several policemen were seen on the roof but apparently failed to convince the man not to jump, one of the witnesses said.

According to several JP Morgan employees, the man was a forex trader with the company.

After nearly a century in business, the Bay Area's last major slaughterhouse facility has once again closed its doors, for the second time in less than a month.

Following a massive recall of 8.7 million pounds of beef and the launch of an investigation into potential criminal charges, Rancho Feeding Corporation in Petaluma has ceased its operations while they retrieve the meat. The financial burden of reimbursing clients could mean the plant may not reopen, multiple ranchers said, posing a threat to the region's beef and dairy producers.

Last month, the United States Department of Agriculture announced a recall of all cattle slaughtered at the plant on a single day in January; on Saturday, a second recall was initiated for a year's worth of beef, totaling approximately 8,742,700 pounds. U.S.D.A. inspectors maintain Rancho processed "diseased and unsound" animals that received only a partial inspection or were not examined at all, rendering the meat "adulterated" and "unfit for human food."

Four police officers in Hawthorne, California used a taser on a man who was attempting to tell them that he was deaf via sign language.

The Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness is filing a lawsuit on behalf of Jonathan Meister, who was charged with assault as a result of the incident. According to the lawsuit, Meister was retrieving boxes he had left at a friend's house when police, alerted by a neighbor to a possible burglary, arrived.

Officers Jeffrey Salmon, Jeffrey Tysl, Erica Bristow, and Mark Hultgren allegedly ordered Meister to stop loading the boxes into his car, but Meister could not hear the order. One of the officers then grabbed Meister by the hand, who responded by attempting to use American Sign Language to communicate with the officer.

The officers interpreted his sudden movements as resistance, so they "struck Meister with fists and feet, and forcibly took him to the ground." Once he was on the ground, one of the officers allegedly shot him twice with a taser. Another officer then delivered a "drive stun" to Meister's abdomen.

They continued to beat Meister until he was unconscious, then escorted him to the hospital, where he was charged with assaulting the officers. The charge was later dropped.

A Valentine's Day outing turned tragic for one Oklahoma family who claims five police officers beat their father to death during a confrontation outside a local movie theater.

The death is currently under investigation, and three police officers have been placed on administrative leave as the probe unfolds.

The incident occurred February 14 in Moore, Oklahoma, when an argument erupted between Nair Rodriguez and her daughter Lunahi. Nair slapped her daughter during the dispute and ended up leaving the theater. When Luis Rodriguez chased after his wife in a bid to stop her, law enforcement officials intervened and asked for his identification.

According to NewsOK, police claim that Luis Rodriguez attempted to fight with police and that led to a physical altercation. Nair and Lunahi, however, told local media outlet News9 that allegation is false, and that Luis simply tried to bypass officers to keep his wife from driving off in anger.

As the confrontation escalated, five police officers allegedly beat Luis Rodriguez beyond recognition, a situation captured on a video by Nair's cell phone.

"They jumped on him like he was some kind of killer or drug dealer and beat him up," Lunahi Rodriguez said to NewsOK. "He never fought the officers, they beat him on the head and that's how he lost his breath."

"When they flipped him over you could see all the blood on his face, it was, he was disfigured, you couldn't recognize him," she added to News9.

Originally published on Feb 13, 2014. Original text is below:

In the early morning hours of June 27, 2013, a team of Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies pulled up to the home of Eugene Mallory, an 80-year-old retired engineer living in the rural outskirts of Los Angeles county with his wife Tonya Pate and stepson Adrian Lamos.

The deputies crashed through the front gate and began executing a search warrant for methamphetamine on the property. Detective Patrick Hobbs, a self-described narcotics expert who claimed he "smelled the strong odor of chemicals" downwind from the house after being tipped off to illegal activity from an anonymous informant, spearheaded the investigation.

The deputies announced their presence, and Pate emerged from the trailer where she'd been sleeping to escape the sweltering summer heat of the California desert. Lamos and a couple of friends emerged from another trailer, and a handyman tinkering with a car on the property also gave himself up without resistance. But Mallory, who preferred to sleep in the house, was nowhere to be seen.

Deputies approached the house, and what happened next is where things get murky. The deputies said they announced their presence upon entering and were met in the hallway by the 80-year-old man, wielding a gun and stumbling towards them. The deputies later changed the story when the massive bloodstains on Mallory's mattress indicated to investigators that he'd most likely been in bed at the time of the shooting. Investigators also found that an audio recording of the incident revealed a discrepancy in the deputies' original narrative: Before listening to the audio recording, [Sgt. John] Bones believed that he told Mallory to "Drop the gun" prior to the shooting. The recording revealed, however, that his commands to "Drop the gun" occurred immediately after the shooting.

When it was all over, Eugene Mallory died of six gunshot wounds from Sgt. John Bones' MP-5 9mm submachine gun. When a coroner arrived, he found the loaded .22 caliber pistol the two deputies claimed Mallory had pointed at them on the bedside table.

Mallory had not fired of a single shot. The raid turned up no evidence of methamphetamine on the property.

To find out more about this case, including details about what the police did find, watch the above video, featuring Mallory's widow Tonya Pate. Pate has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, an agency plagued by prison abuse scandals, questionable hiring practices, and allegations of racial profiling and harassment in recent years.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department declined multiple requests to comment on this story.

The mind has a way of making traumatic experiences seem like distant dreams to those who survive them. As it goes, the more traumatic the experience, the quicker the paramedics in one's mind rush to dress wounds, resuscitate and stabilize the victim; the victim being you.

Since returning from Palestine 36 hours ago, I find myself confronted with feelings of detachment and minimization of what I encountered. My subconscious has decided the horrors I witnessed in the 'Holy Land' were nothing serious-horrors which include a 26-foot-tall concrete wall enclosing the Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank, and the sniper towers seemingly on every other corner of this open-air prison.

This was my first trip to Palestine-most westerners call it Israel, but I'll address that topic shortly. I had never been to the country, but I read enough to know the basics: Palestinians and Israelis were fighting over land. The Israeli government was formed in 1948 as part of a vision set forth by a secular European colonial political movement called Zionism, founded by Hungarian Theodor Herzl in 1896. Herzl, an atheist, sought to free the Jews from European oppression and anti-Semitism, with the ultimate goal being the creation of a Jewish state. He first proposed East Africa's Uganda as the location of the Jewish state. This proposal also found the approval of the British government which controlled Palestine since the First World War. Herzl, however, later identified Palestine as the country of choice. I knew this.

The history of Palestinians was something I was familiar with as well, only because in high school, my friend's parents were Moroccan Jews with staunch right-wing Zionist views. They'd go on about how Palestinians were worth shit and how they were sucking off the land they stole, and how they were not from Palestine, but Jordan. Truth be told, my friend's parents' passion about their 'homeland' made me sick. As a black person living in the United States, I could not relate to their love for their proclaimed homeland because I never had one. My ancestors were captured from various regions of Africa and forced onto ships bound for the Americas. Therefore, when questioned about the geographic origins of my ancestors, my answers were as vague as Africa is big.

Military surgeons are being sent to Denmark for the controversial training on live animals - even though the practice is illegal in the UK.
Pigs are being shot so British Army medics can learn to treat battle wounds.

Military surgeons are sent to Denmark for the controversial training on live animals - even though the practice is illegal in the UK.

Animal rights group PETA has slammed the "cruel" practice.

A live pig dangles from a wooden frame as a soldier shoots it to inflict horrific injuries.

Military medics then operate on the animal's traumatic gunshot wounds while it is still breathing.

The shocking photos taken in Denmark have put the country at the centre of another animal cruelty row after the controversial killing of a giraffe at Copenhagen Zoo.

The Israeli army is both respected and feared as a fighting force. But now the country's military is facing a backlash at home and abroad for its treatment of children in the West Bank, occupied territory.

Coming up, a joint investigation by Four Corners and The Australian newspaper reveals evidence that shows the army is targeting Palestinian boys for arrest and detention. Reporter John Lyons travels to the West Bank to hear the story of children who claim they have been taken into custody, ruthlessly questioned and then allegedly forced to sign confessions before being taken to court for sentencing.

He meets Australian lawyer Gerard Horton, who's trying to help the boys who are arrested, and talks to senior Israeli officials to examine what's driving the army's strategy.

The program focuses on the stories of three boys. In two cases the army came for the children in the middle of the night, before taking them to unknown locations where they are questioned. A mother of one of the boys described the scene

"Every soldier stood at the door of a room. I was telling him 'What do you want with him?' He said 'Shut up woman.' And then they started hitting him and pulling him out of bed."

"They started kicking me with their boots in my stomach, slaps on my face. They pulled me up by my t-shirt and took me out of bed." - Arrested boy