The governor of Missouri will reportedly relieve St. Louis County law enforcement from policing the ongoing demonstrations in the town of Ferguson, paving the way for possible state or federal intervention. Rep Wm. Lacy Clay (D-Missouri told Bloomberg News on Thursday morning that Gov. Jay Nixon, also a Democrat, had confirmed to him that county police will be pulled from their duties in Ferguson [...]

Despite desperate calls from witnesses, Odessa fire brigades came to the scene of the notorious Trade Unions House blaze only 38 minutes after it was reported, leaked transcripts of emergency calls show. The fire claimed the lives of 48 people in May. The leaked transcripts involve calls which local emergency services reportedly received on the evening of May 2. [...]

In less than a year, Ukraine has been plunged into a vortex of violence that doesn't appear to have any end in sight. The vicious circle that started with Molotov cocktails thrown at riot police has now gone to ballistic missiles launched at cities. RT traces the bloody path that led a once peaceful country into civil war. [...]

Police officers in New Jersey swear to uphold the United States Constitution as part of their oath of office. But one cop has decided that, because "in his eyes" President Barack Obama doesn't follow the document, he doesn't have to either. Special Police Officer Richard Recine, a part-time employee of the Borough of Helmetta Police Department, was caught on video saying, "Obama has decimated t [...]

President Yanukovych is long gone, but war-weariness and a sense of politics as usual are fostering whispers of a 'new Maidan.' Nearly six months after the decisive battles between protesters and police on Kiev's Independence Square, the charred barricades of burned tyres and twisted metal still stand in memorial to the more than 100 people who died in the February clashes. [...]

Experts say attacks go beyond Israel-Palestinian conflict as hate crimes strike fear into Jewish communities. In the space of just one week last month, according to Crif, the umbrella group for France's Jewish organisations, eight synagogues were attacked. One, in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles, was firebombed by a 400-strong mob. A kosher supermarket and pharmacy were smashed and looted; the cr [...]

A doctor in Belgium has refused medical help to a 90-year-old Jewish woman with a fractured rib, saying that she needs to be sent to Gaza to "get rid of" the sharp pain she is suffering. “I’m not coming,” the physician said and hung up after receiving the call at 11pm Wednesday. [...]

Chechen president says ban, which extends to EU leaders Barroso, Van Rompuy and Ashton, is response to US and EU 'state terrorism.' Although Russia has not responded to US sanctions over the Ukraine crisis by putting a travel ban on President Barack Obama, there is one part of the country he is now barred from entering: Chechnya. [...]

Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower, talks exclusively to Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, and reporter Ewen MacAskill in Moscow. The 31-year-old former intelligence analyst discusses whether he is a Russian spy, his likely fate if he returns to the US and the relevance of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four in the age of Google. [...]

A Navy nurse is making waves for refusing to force-feed inmates participating in hunger strikes at the prison complex in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The unidentified nurse – described by one inmate as a 40-year-old Latino – is believed to be the first conscientious objector to Guantanamo’s controversial tube feeding policy. [...]

Ukraine is the land where time has stood still and the consequences of what has been sown are now being reaped as anarchy is unleashed upon its rotting corpse. Just over a year ago, in rather more peaceful times, I was on a train from Kharkov to Simferopol, sharing a cabin with two Russian gents from the Far Eastern outpost of Nakhodka and, breaking the monotony of long distance rail commutation, [...]

The governor of the central Ukrainian city of Khmelnytskyi is attacked by an angry crowd of local residents, Footage of the attack shows Leonid Prus hit repeatedly over the head by a woman and lifted up by the unhappy crowd. Prus later attempts to escape out of a window but is again confronted by the crowd outside [...]

Former NSA agents-turned-whistleblowers are testifying before a German parliamentary committee as the Bundestag investigates America's wiretapping methods with one of them branding the NSA approach "totalitarian." It is hoped that evidence from the two US citizens, William Binney and Thomas Drake, will shed light on the methods of surveillance used by the American National Security Agency (NSA) [...]

When an anti-austerity march starting from the steps of the BBC fails to make the news, something is rotten in the UK. Speaking with RT, Russell Brand believes that's to be expected, as people would surely rise up if they saw just how exploited they are. [...]

In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert are joined in the first half by Russell Brand to talk about the austerity headlines. They chat about the UK government’s expanding debt and growing deficit, despite the alleged austerity and GDP expanding thanks to heroin addiction and prostitution. [...]

The coal miners of the Donetsk region have stayed away from work and marched in downtown Donetsk against Kiev'€™s military campaign against Ukrainian citizens, which has already killed over 250 civilians, according to the UN. A rally on Donetsk’s central Lenin Square initially attracted about 1,000 people. [...]

Ukrainian police have detained two men with a package presumably containing a homemade explosive device near Russia'€™s consulate in the city of Odessa. The explosive has been sent for inspection, the local Ministry of Interior reports. [...]

In an incident that may be a first in diplomatic history, Kiev'€™s top diplomat publicly "€˜effed"€™ the head of another state. Foreign Minister Andrey Deshchitsa chanted "€œPutin'€™s a f**ker"€ with a cheering crowd that earlier vandalized the Russian embassy. [...]

Self-defense forces in the town of Gorlovka, eastern Ukraine, say they have downed another plane - a Sukhoi-24 bomber jet. The pilot is alive and currently being taken for questioning, witnesses told RIA Novosti reports. [...]