More than a million Brazilians poured into the streets of at least 80 cities Thursday in this week's largest anti-government demonstrations yet, protests that saw violent clashes break out in several cities as people demanding improved public services and an end to corruption faced tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets.

At least one protester was killed in Sao Paulo state after a car rammed into a crowd of demonstrators, the driver apparently angered about being unable to drive along a street.

In Rio de Janeiro, where an estimated 300,000 demonstrators swarmed into the seaside city's central area, running clashes played out between riot police and clusters of mostly young men, their T-shirts wrapped around their faces. But several peaceful protesters were up in the crackdown, too, as police fired tear gas canisters into their midst and at times indiscriminately used pepper spray.

Thundering booms echoed off stately colonial buildings as rubber bullets and the gas were fired at fleeing crowds.

At least 40 people were injured in Rio, including protesters like Michele Menezes, a wisp of a woman whose youthful face and braces belie her 26 years. Bleeding and with her hair singed from the explosion of a tear gas canister, she said that she and others took refuge from the violence in an open bar, only to have a police officer toss the canister inside.

It exploded on top of Menezes, tore through her jeans and dug out two quarter-sized holes on the back of her thighs while also perforating a rash of small holes in her upper arm.

"I was leaving a peaceful protest and it's not the thugs that attack me but the police themselves," said Menezes, removing her wire-rim glasses to wipe her bloodshot eyes.

She later took refuge in a hotel along with about two dozen youths, families and others said they had been repeatedly hit with pepper spray by motorcycle police as they too took refuge inside a bar.

Despite the crackdown, protesters said they would not back down.

"I saw some pretty scary things, but they're not going to shake me. There's another march on the 22nd and I'm going to be there," said 19-year-old university student Fernanda Szuster.

Asked whether her parents knew that she was taking part in the protests, Szuster said that "they know and they're proud. They also protested when they were young. So they think it's great."

She added, though, that she wouldn't tell her father the details of the police violence she was a victim of. "If he knew, he would never let me leave the house again."

In Brasilia, police struggled to keep hundreds of protesters from invading the Foreign Ministry, outside of which protesters lit a small fire. Other government buildings were attacked around the capital's central esplanade. There, too, police resorted to tear gas and rubber bullets in attempts to scatter the crowds.

Clashes were also reported in the Amazon jungle city of Belem, in Porto Alegre in the south, in the university town Campinas north of Sao Paulo and in the northeastern Brazilian city of Salvador.

"This was meant to be a peaceful demonstration and it is," said artist Wanderlei Costa, 33, in Brasilia. "It's a shame some people cause trouble when there is a much bigger message behind this movement. Brazil needs to change, not only on the government level, but also on the grass roots level. We have to learn to demonstrate without violence."

By Fairuz Taqi-Eddin, CARE's Regional Director of Partnerships in the Middle East, based in Jordan.

The Syrian crisis is different from all other humanitarian crises that I have known. In my 11 years as a fundraiser with CARE, I have been involved in humanitarian emergency responses of large magnitude, including the Tsunami, the Pakistan floods, the Haiti earthquake, and the Horn of Africa food crisis.

I have seen people suffering and their lives shattered but as a Syrian-American woman, this crisis is personal to me; it has made me much more aware of my Syrian roots. Both my paternal grandparents were born in Damascus and the majority of our extended family is still living in Syria. This crisis is affecting family members both in Syria and in Jordan directly. My relatives who are still back in Syria and those who have escaped the conflict and fled to Jordan have made this crisis real by bringing to my life the extent of pain and upheaval that they have been feeling. Several of my relatives lost their lives. Homes and businesses of relatives were destroyed. These are some examples of how one family −- my family -- is being affected.

In Jordan, through my work with CARE, I have visited the Zaatari refugee camp and met with countless Syrian refugee families living in Amman. I have seen the impact this crisis has been having on the Syrian women, men, mothers and children. As a mother, I can easily relate to a refugee mom who constantly worries how she will keep a roof over her family's head, how /when her children would go to school or how many meals she could secure for her kids. The list goes on.

There are good people and organizations on the ground like CARE doing their best to respond to this crisis. But it has just not been enough, and there is so much more that needs to be done, especially with no end in sight to this tragedy.

On the 7th of June the UN launched a $4.4 billion humanitarian appeal -- the largest aid request in the organization's history -- in order to be able to assist the growing number of people suffering the effects of the crisis in Syria. The UN estimates that 6.8 million people need urgent help inside of Syria whilst more than 1.6 million Syrians -- the latter is twice the population of San Francisco where I used to live and work -- need urgent help in the neighbouring countries where they have been taking refuge and continue arriving. I feel the responsibility and the commitment to do my part and fundraise for this crisis of unprecedented scale.

Unlike with other crises, the political aspect of this emergency has overshadowed the humanitarian aspect, and raising funds and having the focus on the continuous and increasing humanitarian needs of both people within Syria and Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries have been challenging. Also, due to the multitude of forces with different allegiances in Syria, raising funds is complex. In my role, I am constantly working on finding ways to help people affected by this huge crisis and assure donors that their funding reaches those who have been most affected, and is allocated to respond to the humanitarian needs created by the conflict.

The 20th June, this week, marks World Refugee Day, a day established by the UN to recognize and honor the strength and determination of women, men and children who are forced to flee their homes to escape persecution, conflict, natural disasters and violence. An increasing number of the world's refugees today are from Syria, with the number of Syrian refugees continuing sadly to grow fast and steadily.

On this important day, I urge that we don't forget the plight of the Syrian people who have already suffered so much, and help those most in need: over 1.6 million Syrian refugees as well as nearly seven million Syrians who are not refugees but are in urgent need of help inside Syria. This crisis is a clear case where aid will bring solace to uprooted refugee families forced to live in increasingly difficult conditions, and will alleviate the suffering of countless families.

CARE is working to help refugees meet their most urgent needs and protect their dignity. While our efforts to help Syrian refugees and host communities began in Jordan -- where we have reached more than 110,000 refugees -- we are also on the ground in Egypt and Lebanon, working with a range of partners to help refugees and host communities. To find out more or to donate, please visit: http://care-international.org

Bio: In her role, Fairuz manages and develops partnerships and donor relations for CARE in the Middle East region. Fairuz joined CARE in 2002. Prior to her move to the Middle East in spring 2008, Fairuz was a major gift fundraiser for CARE in San Francisco and Silicon Valley and worked with key corporations and Foundation such as CISCO, GOOGLE, GAP Foundation and Visa. She has ten years of experience in fundraising, media and communication work. Fairuz is passionate and committed towards women empowerment work and promoting cultural understanding. A volunteer for several philanthropic organizations, Fairuz was instrumental in the setting up of Spark, a San Francisco based organization that engages young professionals around women issues around the globe.

A heat wave hitting Alaska may not rival the blazing heat of Phoenix or Las Vegas, but to residents of the 49th state, the days of hot weather feel like a stifling oven — or a tropical paradise.

With temperatures topping 80 degrees in Anchorage, and higher in other parts of the state, people have been sweltering in a place where few homes have air conditioning.

They're sunbathing and swimming at local lakes, hosing down their dogs and cleaning out supplies of fans in at least one local hardware store. Mid-June normally brings high temperatures in the 60s in Anchorage, and just a month ago, it was still snowing.

The weather feels like anywhere but Alaska to 18-year-old Jordan Rollison, who was sunbathing with three friends and several hundred others lolling at the beach of Anchorage's Goose Lake.

"I love it, I love it," Rollison said. "I've never seen a summer like this, ever."

State health officials even took the unusual step of posting a Facebook message reminding people to slather on the sunscreen.

Some people aren't so thrilled, complaining that it's just too hot.

"It's almost unbearable to me," said Lorraine Roehl, who has lived in Anchorage for two years after moving here from the community of Sand Point in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. "I don't like being hot. I'm used to cool ocean breeze."

On Tuesday, the official afternoon high in Anchorage was 81 degrees, breaking the city's record of 80 set in 1926 for that date.

Other smaller communities throughout a wide swath of the state are seeing even higher temperatures.

All-time highs were recorded elsewhere, including 96 degrees on Monday 80 miles to the north in the small community of Talkeetna, purported to be the inspiration for the town in the TV series, "Northern Exposure" and the last stop for climbers heading to Mount McKinley, North America's tallest mountain. One unofficial reading taken at a lodge near Talkeetna even measured 98 degrees, which would tie the highest undisputed temperature recorded in Alaska.

That record was set in 1969, according to Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the online forecasting service Weather Underground.

The expansion of the Bad Teacher universe knows no bounds. On top of the announcement that CBS had added a Bad Teacher spinoff series to their fall roster, Columbia Pictures announced Thursday that they’d begun development on a sequel to the 2011 Cameron Diaz film.

Bad Teacher may have been a critical dark horse (it boasts a 44% Rotten Tomatoes score), but the raunchy comedy, which also starred Jason Segel and Justin Timberlake, was a runaway summer box office success, bringing in $216.2 million worldwide on an estimated $20 million budget.

According to the announcement, the project is being developed for Diaz, but she has not officially signed on for the sequel yet. The busy actress is currently at work on The Other Woman with Leslie Mann and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and has a number of projects lined up, including Agent: Century 21 with Benicio Del Toro and Jake Kasdan’s Sex Tape.

Kasdan (Orange County) will return to direct the sequel off of a script from Justin Malen, a screenwriter best known at this point for making the 2011 Black List for his screenplay Bastards. The first film was co-written by Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, who both wrote for The Office.

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“We love Justin’s take on the material,” said Columbia Pictures President of Production Hannah Minghella in the press release. “It hits all the notes that made the first film such a breakthrough hit and also takes the characters in a new direction that is fresh and fun.”

Up to 115,000 partiers are expected each night this weekend for a dusk-to-dawn sensory salad of electronic dance music, lights, partying and mingling at a sprawling speedway complex outside Las Vegas.

Electric Daisy Carnival officials said Wednesday that all 345,000 available tickets had been sold for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday night event at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The festival founder, Insomniac Events CEO Pasquale Rotella, likes to call the fans and the revelry the headline attraction at his nocturnal gatherings, which drew criticism in Los Angeles before moving to Las Vegas in 2011.

"That's one of the biggest spectacles of the entire event, 115,000 like-minded people all dressed up and having a good time," said Simon Rust Lamb, Insomniac chief operating officer and general counsel. "We want to create moments and memories that are full of joy and that help people create and connect with the people around them."

Hundreds of artists and theatrical performers like fire-twirlers and stilt-walkers are slated to roam the nearly 2-square-mile festival grounds, along with "art cars" blasting music from rolling mock-ups like a pirate ship or a boom box.

Fireworks are planned. Twenty art displays and three graffiti walls are being erected, along with a brightly-lit amusement park featuring several Ferris wheels. Performers include the collaborative fire art group Flaming Lotus Girls and a Rotella creation, Night Owl Experience.

Don't call it a concert. It's a carnival. And don't call it a rave, Lamb said, because that connotes an illegal underground warehouse party.

"The common thread is electronic music," he said. "There's nothing illegal, underground or warehouse about what we do."

The nonstop lineup on seven stages features more than 200 music producers and deejays, including Afrojack, Tiesto, Above & Beyond, Calvin Harris, Madeon, Armin van Buuren, Bloody Beetroots and former Swedish House Mafia member Steve Angelo.

Pat Christenson, whose role as Las Vegas Events president is to attract events to the city and tourists to the hotels, called Las Vegas uniquely able to handle the festival because it has years of experience hosting large events and a remote venue with parking for hundreds of thousands of fans.

"The footprint is big. The music is loud. But it's miles from downtown," Christenson said, "and the way the grandstand is, it's hard to hear the sound outside the speedway."

Insomniac Events has tried to expand the event – and the number of people booking hotel stays – by promoting pool parties, nightclub events and EDMbiz, a $500-per-ticket two-day conference on the business of dance music and culture. It began Wednesday.

This might be the strangest way of keeping aggressive men at bay, but we have to give it major points for being clever.

"Super sexy, summertime anti-pervert full-leg-of-hair stockings, essential for all young girls going out," @HappyZhangJiang describes the item on China's popular microblogging service, Sina Weibo.

They remind us somewhat of the less playful, more functional "anti-rape" lingerie developed recently by three engineering students in India. That garment is wired to deliver an electric shock to sexual attackers and can send an alert message, with GPS coordinates, to the attacked woman's friends and family.

The idea behind the hair stockings, we're guessing, is that lewd gropers wouldn't come anywhere near you. Tongue-in-cheek, but inventive nonetheless.