Washington— A white police officer in North Charleston, S.C., was charged with murder on Tuesday after a video surfaced showing him shooting and killing an apparently unarmed black man in the back while he ran away.

The officer, Michael T. Slager, 33, had said he feared for his life because the man took his stun gun in a scuffle after a traffic stop on Saturday. A video, however, shows the officer firing eight times as the man — Walter L. Scott, 50 — fled.

The North Charleston mayor announced the state charges at a news conference Tuesday evening.

The shooting comes on the heels of high-profile incidents of police officers using lethal force in New York, Cleveland, Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere around the country. The deaths have sparked a national debate over whether the police are too quick to use force, particularly in cases involving black men.

A White House task force has recommended a host of changes to the nation's police policies, and President Obama dispatched Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., to cities around the country to try to improve police relations with minority neighborhoods.

If you have not heard of the Quiverfull movement, I'll sum it up by saying that Quiverfull is an all-encompassing vision of a big, happy, godly family which affects every aspect of a so-called True Believer's life. Probably the most recognizable Quiverfull family in America is reality TV's Duggar family of 19 Kids and Counting fame.

You'll find Quiverfull families in nearly all types of churches in every community. Quiverfull is simply the "pro-life" idea that truly godly families will "trust the Lord" with their family planning. Children are viewed as unmitigated blessings ("As arrows in the hand of the mighty man, so are the children of ones youth, happy is the man who hath his quiver full of them:" Psalm 123), so couples are willing to have as many children as the Lord chooses. All methods of conception control are considered a lack of trust in God to provide for the "children of the righteous."

At the heart of Quiverfull is patriarchy: the ideal of biblical headship and submission. This is the belief that by God's perfect design, the father is the head of the home. The father serves as protector, provider and shepherd for his wife and children. He is primarily responsible for the wife's and children's physical, emotional and spiritual well-being and with such responsibility comes the (divinely granted) commensurate authority over the members of his household. According to this view, God works through the father and he serves as an intermediary for his wife and children. Honor, obedience and submission are highly valued qualities because they are necessary to maintain order and work together to accomplish the Lord's vision for a godly family.

This emphasis on patriarchy guarantees that, to the degree in which a Christian family puts Quiverfull ideals into practice, the family is living a dysfunctional relationship dynamic which necessarily involves mental, emotional and spiritual abuse.

This was my life for over 16 years. Shunning birth control resulted in seven children, who we homeschooled and sheltered from "godless society." But these days, I think Christian fundamentalism is just as bizarre as you do. After deconverting, I started a blog, No Longer Quivering, as a way to process my Quiverfull life and try to understand how I'd come to embrace such a fanatical lifestyle. Over time, NLQ has grown into a movement of women escaping and healing from spiritual abuse. I've met many people whose lives and families have been devastated by this ideology, and the stories they tell are heartbreaking.

Man accused of using chainsaw to threaten family must obey restraining order

Manuel Delisle, the man accused in a bizarre Quebec road rage incident involving a chainsaw, has pleaded not guilty to armed assault.

Alexandre Hermenier and Karine Cyr say they were driving Sunday in St-Jérôme, Que., just outside of Montreal, when another driver cut them off.

Hermenier decided to follow the man and later tried to block him from leaving the scene while Cyr called police.

Cyr recorded the confrontation with her cellphone and later posted it on her Facebook page. It shows a man approaching the vehicle, swearing and revving a chainsaw.

Delisle was arrested on Monday morning and charged Tuesday at the Court of Quebec in St-Jérôme with armed assault.

He pleaded not guilty and was given a conditional release.

About 420 gallons of oil spilled into the Mississippi River near Convent after a multi-ship collision around 4 p.m. Monday (April 6), according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

Coast Guard officials said the Privocean, a 751-foot bulk carrier, broke free from its mooring, drifted downriver and struck the Texas, a 98-foot towing vessel. The Texas was moored at the time.

The Privocean continued to drift down river and struck the Bravo, an 816-foot tank ship, as it was unloading crude oil. That caused an oil spill, both on deck and in the river, Coast Guard officials said.

About 420 gallons of oil spilled into the river, and about 126 gallons spilled on the Bravo's deck, the Coast Guard said. The oil spill on deck was contained and is being cleaned, officials said.

The ship is taking on water, but is anchored by two tugboats.

All attempts to reform mass incarceration through the traditional mechanisms of electoral politics, the courts and state and federal legislatures are useless. Corporations, which have turned mass incarceration into a huge revenue stream and which have unchecked political and economic power, have no intention of diminishing their profits. And in a system where money has replaced the vote, where corporate lobbyists write legislation and the laws, where chronic unemployment and underemployment, along with inadequate public transportation, sever people in marginal communities from jobs, and where the courts are a wholly owned subsidiary of the corporate state, this demands a sustained, nationwide revolt.

"Organizing boycotts, work stoppages inside prisons and the refusal by prisoners and their families to pay into the accounts of phone companies and commissary companies is the only weapon we have left," said Amos Caley, who runs the Interfaith Prison Coalition, a group formed by prisoners, the formerly incarcerated, their families and religious leaders. "Mass incarceration is the most important civil rights issue of our day. And it is time for communities of faith to stand with poor people, mostly of color, who are unfairly exploited and abused. We must halt human rights violations against the poor that grow more pronounced each year," Caley said here. He and other prison reform leaders spoke Saturday at the Elmwood Presbyterian Church.

"We have to shut down the system," said Gale Muhammad, another speaker and the founder and CEO of Women Who Never Give Up. "All the companies that use prison labor have to be boycotted. And we can't stop there. We have to boycott the vending machines in the prisons and the phone companies. We have to stop spending our money. Until we hit them in the pocket they won't listen."

Today the man who first predicted Greek bank deposits would be stolen just issued a second frightening prediction to King World News. This interview takes a second trip down the rabbit hole of Western government lies, deception, theft and eventual collapse.

James Turk: "The 4-day Easter holiday in Western Europe has come and gone without an ECB imposed bail-in on Greek bank depositors, Eric. Greece managed to pay its end of March obligations, but the country is still in a state of suspension. As we discussed in last week's interview, the real test is yet to come.

Two Greek government Treasury bills totaling €2.4 billion mature on April 14 and April 17. But before then, Greece needs to repay €450 million to the IMF on April 9....

"It is noteworthy that the following day, April 10, Greece begins its 4-day Easter holiday, which the Greek Orthodox Church celebrates one week later than the rest of Europe. This 4-day national holiday is wedged in between these critical payment dates, so it becomes the likely period to expect the bail-in of Greek depositors.

A black teenager killed by police outside of Chicago over the weekend was shot twice in the back after attempting to steal an illegal handgun, officials and local media said on Monday.

The Zion Police Department said in a statement that 17-year-old Justus Howell met with another teenager to buy the gun before trying to wrestle it away. The seller, 18-year-old Tramond Peet whose account was the basis of the police statement, said one round was fired during the struggle.

Police said officers responded to the area and chased Howell, who still had the gun, before shooting and killing him. Police said a weapon was recovered from the scene.

The Chicago Tribune newspaper reported the Lake County Coroner's Office said that Howell was killed by two gunshot wounds to the back - one piercing his heart, spleen and liver, and the other striking his right shoulder.

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) has spent thousands of dollars on steak dinners, hallucinogenic mushrooms and jet skis, according to a report by the local news website DNAinfo.com on Monday.

"The department purchases gift certificates from various restaurants and gives them to officers as part of a citywide employee appreciation program that rewards civil servants for good work," NYPD spokesperson Stephen Davis told DNAinfo.com.

The report noted that the NYPD spent $3,400 at Gallaghers Steakhouse in May 2014. In addition, the Department spent $600 on meals at Brooklyn's famed Peter Lugar Steakhouse in 2012, and $300 last year at Mark Joseph Steakhouse.

Lights went out at the State Department, White House, Capitol and many other places in Washington, DC, in a puzzling series of power outages. Terrorism is not suspected, officials say.

Power went out at the State Department during the question-and-answer session on Iran nuclear talks.

Power goes out at @statedept during @mariehark briefing during q and a on #Iran nuclear deal transparency issues...

— Matt Lee (@APDiploWriter) April 7, 2015

After the initial confusion, the briefing continued.

The State Department press briefing continues in darkness. Power outage pic.twitter.com/Ph9Zytt7Hp

— Gayane Chichakyan (@Gayane_RT) April 7, 2015

Acting State Department spokeswoman, Marie Harf, continued the session under what appeared to be light from a smartphone.

Pepco's current outage map for downtown DC pic.twitter.com/8o4PRyUayo

— erin mccann (@mccanner) April 7, 2015

California judge cut a child rapist's potential life sentence last week, saying the man had not meant to harm the toddler girl.

Kevin Rojano was convicted Dec. 3 of sodomizing a child younger than 10 and lascivious acts with a minor, and he was initially sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

But Orange County Superior Court Judge M. Marc Kelly trimmed 15 years off Rojano's sentence, saying it would be cruel and unusual punishment to impose the maximum prison term because the 20-year-old lacked "callous disregard for (the victim's) well-being," reported the Orange County Register.

Prosecutors said Rojano was playing video games June 4 in the garage of his Santa Ana home when a 3-year-old relative wandered in, and investigators said the man became sexually aroused by the child and assaulted her.