December 28, 2014

Top News Stories –

Another tragedy in the skies? –
AirAsia Flight QZ8501 from Indonesia to Singapore has gone missing with 162 people on board. It was later found to have crashed into the sea in bad weather.

And at sea –
An Italian ferry catches fire on route to Italy with 478 people on board and is being evacuated amid choppy seas and high winds. At least ten people lost their lives.

Bad idea debate –
Three rival hacking groups call a ceasefire after admitting their Christmas attack on Xbox and Playstation gamers ‘took it too far’. Lizard Squad, rival hackers from the Anonymous group, Finest Squad group, and internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom discussed the attack in a YouTube video.

Video of the Day –

Playgrounds Titles 2014 from bif on Vimeo.

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December 29, 2014

Top News Stories –

NYPD arrest go-slow –
Police in the New York Police Department (NYPD) have dramatically reduced the amount of arrests and other actions since the shooting of two of their officers on December 20th 2015. Citations for traffic violations have fallen by 94 percent, from 10,069 to 587; summonses for low-level offenses like public drinking and urination are down by 94 percent — from 4,831 to 300; parking violations drop 92 percent, from 14,699 to 1,241 and drug arrests by cops dropped by 84 percent, from 382 to 63.

I “emoji” you –
The most popular word of 2014 is not actually a word at all but a symbol meaning love – the ’emoji’ heart symbol was the most widely used character in blogs, Twitter and Facebook and in 250,000 global news outlets in the last 12 months, according to a list compiled by the Global Language Monitor in Austin, Texas.
emoji heart

3 wheels on my airliner –
A Virgin Atlantic passenger plane landed safely at London’s Gatwick Airport after discovering a problem with part of its main landing gear. Virgin flight VS43 was travelling from Gatwick to Las Vegas when it had to return and land on slightly less than the full number of wheels.

No such thing as bad publicity –
The Interview, the film about the spoof assassination of the North Korea Leader becomes Sony’s biggest download film ever. It’s been downloaded more than two million times since its release on 27 December, making back a third of its $44m (£28m) budget.

Video of the Day –

The Interview Trailer

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January 9, 2015

Top News Stories –

Paris gunmen killed after 2 sieges –
The 2 gunmen who carried out the Charlie Hebdo massacre on January 7th 2015 have been killed by French police after a brief siege at a warehouse in Dammartin-en-Goele, 35km (22 miles) north of Paris. Brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi were shot dead as they came out of a warehouse building firing at police. Two officers were injured. Simultaneously, Amedy Coulibaly, the man who killed a policewoman on 7th January, was shot dead at a kosher supermarket in Paris after he had killed 4 hostages – 15 hostages were rescued. Coulibaly knew one of the brothers and their respective partners had spoken on the phone more than 500 times. A total of 17 people plus the 3 gunmen have died in the 3 days.

Brand and Rascal to be studied –
The exam board Oxford, Cambridge and Royal Society of Arts (OCR) plan to include evidence given by Russell Brand to a Commons select committee inquiring into drugs and an interview between Dizzee Rascal and Newsnight’s Jeremy Paxman as part of the English A-level syllabus as from this September. The plans have been approved by exams regulator Ofqual amongst 37 new specifications for GCSEs and A-levels put forward by the exam board.
13-06-09 RaR Dizzee Rascal 10Dizzee Rascal

AirAsia tail section recovered –
The tail section of AirAsia flight QZ8501 that crashed while flying from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore has been recovered from the seabed using inflatable devices. Although the flight recorders are positioned in the tail it appears that the “black boxes” have been separated from it and the search continues.
The Indonesian navy has retrieved from the seabed the tail of the AirAsia plane that crashed two weeks ago.

Lucky he was a Dolphin –
Former Miami Dolphins running back Rob Konrad swam nine miles to shore after falling off his boat while fishing and his boat, which was on auto pilot, drifted away from him off the South Florida coast. Konrad, who played 82 games for the Dolphins between 1999-2004, was treated for hypothermia after it took 12 hours to swim to shore.

Saturn centre pinpointed –
Scientists have located the centre of the planet Saturn to within just 2 miles using ten antennae, known as the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), spread over an area from Hawaii to the Virgin Islands. The antenna assembly uses signals sent by the Cassini probe to monitor the position of the gas giant. Previously estimates of the positions of Saturn and its satellites used data received by tracking Cassini’s radio signal during its communications with Earth but the new calculations are about 20 times more accurate.
Saturn PIA06077

Video of the Day –

Horsepower –

Horsepower | Brett Rheeder from Mind Spark Cinema on Vimeo.

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January 20, 2015

Top News Stories –

Flight QZ8501 crash possibly caused by climbing too fast –
Initial investigations believe the reason for the AirAsia QZ8501 airline crash on December 28th 2014 was because it climbed too quickly to avoid bad weather. Data collected from the “black boxes” show that the plane climbed at over 4,000 feet per minute which might have cause it to stall.

Powerful waves –
The 64-meter wide Parkes radio telescope in New South Wales, Australia has picked up a “short, sharp flash” of radio waves from a mysterious source up to 5.5 billion light years from Earth which places the source outside the galaxy. Astronomers have yet to come up with an explanation for the radio waves.

Flagging civil rights –
The Chinese version of WhatsApp called WeChat accidently sent US flag icons over the screen if the key words “civil rights” were entered. The company behind the app, Tencent, blamed the effect on a technical glitch.

Rapper AK Canserbero murder/suicide –
Venezuelan singer songwriter Tirone González known as rapper AK Canserbero has been found dead after jumping from the 10th floor of a building in Maracay he was 26. It appears he had stabbed to death Carlos Monar, the bass player of another band before committing suicide.

Video of the Day –

A FISTFUL OF WOLVES – MERCEDES-BENZ FASHION WEEK BERLIN from Danny Sangra on Vimeo.

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