Thousands are marching on the National Mall in Washington, DC to protest covert NSA surveillance operations on the anniversary of the Patriot Act. The organizers are planning to present Congress with a petition which has acquired over 570,000 signatures.

Stop Watching Us is a collective of 100 public advocacy groups, among them the American Civil Liberties Union, Freedom Works, as well as individuals like Chinese artist/activist Ai Weiwei and Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who worked with Edward Snowden to expose many of the NSA's surveillance procedures. The began at 11:30 am local time on October 26 - the 12th anniversary of the US Patriot Act.

Two Chinese students who sold diet pills containing human flesh in the Jeju Province, have been arrested by Chinese police.

The Digital Journal has run several features on the risks associated with diet pills, but none so worrying and bizarre as this. The two students were studying in South Korea when they bought 3,000 diet pills and 500 detox pills off a Chinese website, according to Korea Times.

The two began selling the pills to other students. The two spent 20,000 won for each bottle of 30 pills, then sold each bottle for 60,000 won, a three-fold increase in profits.

When Jeju Maritime Police found and confiscated the pills at China's National Forensic Service, it was found that the pills contained human flesh. The Daily Mail notes that the pills also contained some nasty chemicals: sibutramine and phenolphthalein. Sibutramine is an oral anorexiant. It has been associated with increased cardiovascular events and strokes and has been withdrawn from the market in most countries and regions. Phenolphthalein is used in a test to identify substances that are thought to be, or to contain, blood. It is not suitable for human consumption.

Only the surnames of the two students have been revealed: a woman called Mo, aged 26, and man called Ahn, aged 21. As yet the story of how the pills came to contain human flesh is remains unknown. An even uglier side to this is the possibility that the flesh has been taken from babies.

Paris - A senior police officer, in charge of a road traffic division in the Paris area, has allegedly told his traffic officers to issue at least three tickets for driving offenses every day, or lose out on days off over the Christmas period.

According to a leaked document (in French), dated October 7th and published by AFP this week, the senior officer has allegedly told his officers to "be less lenient" with motorists.

He further ordered them to not "hesitate to give out more penalties." Europe 1 radio (in French) said on Friday that allegedly the police chief fixed an exact target of at least three PVE's (electronically processed fines) per officer, per day.

The officer is then alleged to have stated that the decision on the allocation of year-end holidays would be made depending on the "activities" of the unit, as well as any resulting drop in the number of accidents in the area.

A Richland Hills, TX woman was arrested, forced to strip down for a search, and jailed because she failed to pay a traffic ticket on time.

In August, Sarah Boaz was cited for running a stop sign, only to lose the ticket shortly afterwards. Two months later, the Richland Hills City Marshal was waiting for her at home with handcuffs.

Boaz acknowledged that it was wrong for her to wait so long to pay the ticket, but expressed frustration over what happened next: She was cuffed by the marshal, taken to jail, and told to remove her clothing for a search by a female police officer.

According to the local CBS 11 News station, Boaz recalled the officer saying, "'I'm going to need you to undress. I'm going to need you to stand against the wall. Please don't step in front of this white box, or I'll take that'... aggressive toward me."

As the article points out, a statement by the Richland Hills Police Department to CBS 11 News explained that stripping down individuals brought to jail was standard procedure, and that it does not consider the practice a strip search.

"She was given a dress out," the statement read. "Before they go into the cell they are taken by a detention officer of the same sex to a private room with no cameras. They have to remove all clothing and they are given a jumpsuit. The officer searches their clothes, at no time does the officer touch them."

Well, the Fort Lauderdale Police Department isn't using an oracle yet, but it is getting one step closer to Minority Report-style crime predicting. The department has become the latest agency to use big data analytics and data mining to prevent crime by staying one step ahead of criminals.

According to IBM, the company has entered into a partnership with the Fort Lauderdale PD to integrate new data and analytics tools into everyday crime fighting. The new projects will use pattern recognition and anomaly detection tech on existing records like 911 calls, crime records, and building permit activity.

"We're entering a new era of police work where advances in technology are providing us with an additional tool to use in our crime prevention efforts," said Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Frank Adderley in a release. "Integrating advanced data analysis into our operational strategies will help us maximize resources and stay one step ahead of the criminals." The data generated by the new software package is designed to help, among other things, generate new patrol routes and redeploy officers to areas that have more crime activity.

IBM also emphasized that using data cuts costs for police departments and helps them provide the same level of service during a time when they may have fewer resources. The company is one of the leading providers of specialized software for law enforcement.

Prairieburg - Linn County Sheriff's deputies are investigating after someone poisoned six pets in town.

Pet owners say eight to ten meatballs laced with the poison strychnine were placed inside kennels and left outside some homes on East Main Street.

"[Veterinarians] said it was a former rat poison that's fast acting. It can hit in ten minutes to two hours," said dog owner, Bryce Plower.

Plower's dog, Gucci, was killed by the tainted meat early Thursday morning. His other dog, Beckett, was also showing symptoms and being monitored.

"It causes their muscles to stop working. Then it causes their diaphragm to go into a nervous shock. It causes them to breathe heavy and make their heart race," said Plower.

A man in the US flies into a rage and drives his car into his own front room after allegedly discovering his wife had been unfaithful


The footage shows three people standing on the grass in front of the house while the white car spins in the front garden.

The car then makes a beeline towards the house, crashing through the side of it and becoming trapped.

The video was posted on YouTube by Annahill3001 who claims a furious husband did it in response to finding out about his wife's affair.

He wrote: "caught this on the way home from work. Word is the man caught his wife cheating on him and he decided to take things into his own hands bulldozing his own home! CRAZY! THIS GUY IS A MORON!"

The video has provoked a flurry of comments from YouTube users sympathetic to the man's plight.

The video has already been watched over a million times.

DarthKaine666 wrote "well she destroyed his world, so he was helping her finish it ..." while 1320crusier commented "she was gonna get the house in the divorce anyway".

• New figures have been released under Freedom of Information laws

• They show that 323 under-18s were fired on in 2011

• It was also revealed that in 2010, 74 children were threatened by having the Taser's sights trained on them without firing the weapon

Tasers are being used by police against children as young as 11 almost every day, figures have revealed.

Armed officers discharged, targeted or threatened to use the 50,000-volt weapons against youngsters more than 320 times a year - an 11-fold increase from the first year they were cleared for use against under-18s in 2007.

It emerged earlier this year that a girl aged just 12 had been shot by police with a Taser device in St Helens. Other children aged 11 have been threatened by officers with the weapons, forced have admitted.

He's practically a one man band, but Rami Abdurrahman's influence extends far beyond his modest home in this small English city.

The bald, bespectacled 42-year-old operates the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights from his house in the cathedral city of Coventry - and a review of recent media coverage suggests its running tally of killings and clashes is the most frequently cited individual source of information on Syria's civil war for the world's leading news organizations.

"He's just everywhere," said Joshua Landis, the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. "He's the go-to guy for figures. ... I can't think of anybody who comes close."

Abdurrahman, who says he makes his living from a local clothing shop, says the Observatory relies on four unnamed activists in Syria and a wider network of monitors across the country to document and verify clashes and killings. But as the Observatory has increasingly found itself at the center of Western reporting on Syria's civil, some say his figures - and his sources - need more scrutiny.

Opponents say Abdurrahman is in cahoots with the opposition forces bankrolled by Gulf Arab states, skewing casualty figures to keep the spotlight off rebel atrocities. Others contend that Abdurrahman is in league with the Syrian regime. They accuse him of overplaying incidents of sectarian violence to blacken the reputation of those trying to topple President Bashar Assad.

Abdurrahman sees the competing allegations as evidence that's he's being fair; "You know you're doing a good job when all the sides start to attack you," he said in a recent interview.

Still, one prominent critic says it boggles the mind that a man living in Coventry is somehow able to count and categorize the dead in Syria hour by hour, every day of the week.

"Something is going on which is quite fishy," said As'ad AbuKhalil, a professor of Middle Eastern politics at California State University Stanislaus.

Gurbaj Multani walked into his Montreal school when he was 11 years old and found 300 adults shouting at him.

There was a time in his teens when virtually the whole province was united against him. But through it all, he still liked Quebec. Only now, at age 23, is Mr. Multani contemplating leaving it.

The soft-spoken Sikh, an accounting student at Concordia University, has his name on a 2006 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that broke new ground for religious freedom throughout the country. The entire court supported his right to wear a kirpan - a ceremonial dagger - to school, as long as it was sewn into his clothing.

Mr. Multani may be a harbinger for Quebec's religious minorities, if the proposed Charter of Values that would ban the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in the public-sector workforce becomes law. He thought he had won his fight for good, thought he would live on happily in the province, his right to wear his religious symbols guaranteed. But Mr. Multani also wears a turban, which would run afoul of the charter's provisions if he were to work in the public sector. In effect, the powerful emotions he helped touch off in Quebec have rebounded on him, and may drive him out.

"It's a friendly province," he says, and he doesn't wish to leave. "But when the government doesn't give you a choice, what can I do? Why would I have to choose between my religion and a job?" He fears the private sector would copy the constraints.

The kirpan he wears was once the ultimate symbol of overt religious garb in the province. As a boy, he was kept from school for five months over his wearing of it. Then he won the right at Quebec Superior Court. That's when he returned to his public school and got shouted at - some told him "Go home, Paki," he says.

"That was a little bit discouraging. They don't even know who I am."