The Russian Defense Ministry on Sunday again blamed Israel for the downing of a Russian plane by Syrian government forces and said Israel appeared “ungrateful” for Moscow’s efforts to rein in Iran-backed fighters in Syria.

A police officer with the Bentonville Police Department is in hot water this week after he was seen by dozens of witnesses and surveillance cameras hitting a restaurant goer in the face with his gun and threatening to kill him. Officer Mike Calnan has since been charged with aggravated assault and terroristic threatening — both felonies — for the attack on Jimmy Engleman at a local restaurant.

A minute-by-minute account of the Il-20 downing shows Israel's culpability and either its military bosses' lack of appreciation of relations with Moscow, or their control of commanding officers, the Russian defense ministry said.

Outspoken conservative actor James Woods was suspended from posting to Twitter over a two-month-old satirical meme which very clearly parodies a Democratic advertisement campaign. While the actor's tweets are still visible, he is unable to post new content.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) found something unexpected in 2 pallets comprised of 45 boxes of bananas that were donated at the Ports of America in Freeport: Nearly $18 million worth of cocaine. 

Before his links to the world were cut by his Ecuadorian hosts, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gave an interview on how technological advances are changing humankind. He said global surveillance will soon be totally unavoidable.

Presidential candidates in 2020 won’t be able to rely on ‘embedded’ Facebook staff, the Menlo Park company declared. Hillary Clinton’s campaign declined this help in 2016, letting her rival Donald Trump leverage it to victory. Facebook will still offer technical support to candidate headquarters, as well as basic training on how to use the platform, but will not have any staffers “embedded” in campaigns as it did in 2016, Bloomberg reported.

Just hours after Beijing called off trade talks with the US in the biggest escalation of the trade feud between the two nations, the war of words between China and the US ratcheted up on Saturday, when Beijing lashed out again at Washington, saying that China’s decision to buy fighter jets and missile systems from Russia is "a normal act of cooperation between sovereign countries" and the United States has "no right to interfere", defense ministry spokesman Wu Qian said on Saturday.

More than seven years after NATO launched a regime change war in Libya on the side of anti-Gaddafi rebels, the West is again being asked to intervene as the country further descends into civil war. Except this time it's the internationally recognized government since installed in Tripoli that is at war with itself, and the death toll from inter-factional fighting since August has now reached over 100 and is growing as street battles in Tripoli suburbs rage, causing leaders to urge the United Nations to act.

The federal government is squandering over $1 million for a program to push “social justice” indoctrination on high-school math teachers and students, according to media reports based on government documents. The goal of the scheme is for science and math teachers to be “steeped in the context of social justice” and to “promote social justice teaching,” grant documents show. Some two-dozen teachers in the Philadelphia area are expected to participate in the program at first.

Scientists in Japan have used human blood to successfully create immature human egg cells in a lab for the first time, according to new research published Thursday inScience. The work is a major breakthrough in stem cell research and may lead the way to babies that can be created in a lab using the body tissues or blood of their relatives.

The FDA has announced that some flea and tick medications can cause adverse reactions in dogs and cats, issuing warnings to pet owners and vets. Meanwhile, the CDC has announced that people are getting sick from pets and the antibiotics are failing to work. Animals that received drugs in the isoxazoline class, including products sold under the names Bravecto, Nexgard, and Simparica, have experienced adverse events such as muscle tremors, ataxia and seizures, the FDA said.

GOOGLE BOSSES HAVE forced employees to delete a confidential memo circulating inside the company that revealed explosive details about a plan to launch a censored search engine in China, The Intercept has learned. The memo, authored by a Google engineer who was asked to work on the project, disclosed that the search system, codenamed Dragonfly, would require users to log in to perform searches, track their location — and share the resulting history with a Chinese partner who would have “unilateral access” to the data.

At least 25 people are dead and 53 wounded after an army parade in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz came under attack by militants on Saturday, according to state media. Nearly half of the dead are members of the Revolutionary Guards, according to state news agencies, making this one of the worst attacks ever on the elite force.

A school district in Clark County, Indiana, will soon be randomly drug testing students who want to participate in extracurricular activities like sports, band, and driving to school. “Henryville High School and Borden High School will randomly select ten students each quarter and test them for ten drugs that teenagers are most likely to use,” local ABC 13 reported.

A woman who runs a North Carolina nonprofit called Crazy’s Claws n Paw saved over two dozen pets during Hurricane Florence, but now she is facing charges because she didn’t have a permit. Hedges was in the process of building a shelter when Florence hit the coast, so she offered the space to pet owners in the area.

Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Russia has revealed his hope that the US will not impose sanctions on his country for its plans to buy the S-400 missile defence system from Moscow, AlKhaleejonline.com reported on Friday.

Earlier this month, Jackson County Deputy Zachary Webster was fired after an investigation revealed that he planted drugs on multiple suspects. Now, prosecutors are dropping a least two dozen different cases that he was involved with after his own body camera showed him framing innocent people.

A heavily-armed convicted felon under FBI investigation for a hate crime was killed during a massive gunfight with police on Thursday night (video below). Alexander Carballido, 40, was just released from prison in July, after serving nearly a decade behind bars for aggravated assault on a police officer, carjacking, and fleeing and eluding police, the Miami Herald reported. Cell phone footage captured the moment that Alexander Carballido opened fire on police in Florida.