May 9, 2016

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Michel Platini: Uefa president to resign after ban appeal fails –
Uefa president Michel Platini will resign from European football’s governing body after failing to have a six-year ban from football overturned. A Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) panel reduced the ban to four years on Monday. Following the judgement, the 60-year-old said he would be stepping down. Platini and former Fifa counterpart Sepp Blatter, were last year found guilty of ethics breaches over a 2m Swiss Franc (£1.3m) “disloyal payment”. The pair, who deny wrongdoing, had their original bans reduced from eight to six years by the Fifa appeals committee. Platini had taken his case to Cas seeking to get the ban overturned, but a three-man panel said it “was not convinced by the legitimacy of the payment”. [BBC]
Michel_PlatiniMichel Platini

Japan vagina artist cleared over kayak model but fined for data distribution –
A Japanese court has found an artist not guilty for displaying a kayak based on the shape of her vagina. The judge ruled that Megumi Igarashi‘s brightly-coloured kayak sculpture did not immediately suggest female anatomy. However, she was fined 400,000 yen ($3,700) after a judge ruled that she broke the law by sharing data from 3D scans of her genitalia, which could be used to recreate the shape of a vagina. Japan’s strict obscenity laws prohibit public displays of genitalia. [BBC]

Video of the Day –

TRIAL by The Brothers Lynch from The Brothers Lynch on Vimeo.

How the “Through the mirror shot” was done

ANATOMY OF A MIRROR SHOT – TRIAL short film from The Brothers Lynch on Vimeo.

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May 10, 2016

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West Ham bid farewell to the Boleyn Ground –
West Ham United fans packed Upton Park for the final time for their Premier League game with Manchester United which they won 3-1. [Daily Telegraph]

Video of the Day –

Farewell Boleyn 2015/16

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Business and economics
Disasters
  • At least 50 are killed in flooding and landslides triggered by heavy rains in Ethiopia. (FOX News)
  • 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire
    • Alberta authorities update information about the fire. About 2,400 homes and buildings were destroyed, but firefighters saved 25,000 others in the city, including the hospital, municipal buildings, and every functioning school. They expect most of the 88,000 evacuees will return to their homes within two weeks. The fire, which has merged with another blaze, is about 884 square miles (2,090 square kilometers) in size. The majority of Canada’s oil sands industry, and a third of the country’s total oil output, is offline, though Shell Canada has restarted its Albian Sands mining operations. (AP)
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  • NASA confirms that 1,284 objects discovered by its Kepler spacecraft are in fact exoplanets. (The Verge)
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May 11, 2016

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Queen filmed calling Chinese officials ‘very rude’ –
The Queen has been filmed saying Chinese officials were “very rude” during last year’s state visit by President Xi Jinping. She was discussing their treatment of Britain’s ambassador to China with a senior police officer at a Buckingham Palace garden party on Tuesday. It came after David Cameron was overheard saying Afghanistan and Nigeria were “fantastically corrupt“. The Queen’s remarks were filmed as she was introduced to Metropolitan Police Commander Lucy D’Orsi, who the monarch is told had overseen security during President Xi’s visit to the UK in October. [BBC]
Queen_Elizabeth_II_March_2015 The Queen

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Nightlife from Wriggles & Robins on Vimeo.

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May 12, 2016

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High heels row: Firm accused of sexism changes policy –
A firm that sent home a temp without pay for refusing to wear high heels has changed its policy. London receptionist Nicola Thorp, 27, says she was told to wear shoes with a “2in to 4in heel” when she arrived at finance company PwC in December. When she refused and was sent home she set up a petition calling for the law on dress code to be changed. Outsourcing firm Portico said “with immediate effect all our female colleagues can wear plain flat shoes”. The company initially said Ms Thorp, from Hackney, had signed its “appearance guidelines” but said it would review them. [BBC]

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Nightmare in the Morning from Yonatan Tal on Vimeo.

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Law and crime
  • A criminal investigation is launched by the New Hampshire attorney general against law enforcement officials after news footage showed Massachusetts/New Hampshire police appear to beat a man who was surrendering at the end of a bi-state car chase. (Washington Post via MSN)
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May 13, 2016

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Fifa appoints Fatma Samba Diouf Samoura as its first woman secretary general –
Fifa appointed its first female and non-European secretary general on Friday night after ­announcing that United ­Nations humanitarian co-ordinator Fatma Samba Diouf Samoura would replace the disgraced Jérôme Valcke. New president Gianni Infantino confirmed that the Senegalese, a 21-year veteran of UN programmes, would become the most powerful official in world football during Fifa’s annual congress in Mexico City. Infantino had previously promised to consider both a woman and an African for the role – and he delivered on both counts. [Daily Telegraph]
Fatma_Samoura_in_2008Fatma Samoura (R) in 2008 with George Clooney (L) and Marie-Sophie Reck (C)

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EYES WIDE OPEN from Vitùc on Vimeo.

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  • A massive fire breaks out at a tire dump in Seseña, near Madrid in Spain. The illegal dump contains 100,000 tons of used vehicle tires. The smoke from the fire is visible for at least 30km. (ABC News)
  • At least one person is dead as a shopping mall being built in the Nigerian city of Abeokuta collapses. Unconfirmed reports indicate that ten people may have died. (BBC)
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May 14, 2016

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Barcelona pip rivals Real Madrid to the La Liga title on last day –
Barcelona pipped bitter rivals Real Madrid to the La Liga title thanks to a Luis Suarez hat-trick at Granada. Barca’s fifth victory in a row ensured they won the league by one point from Real, who beat Deportivo La Coruna 2-0. Suarez tapped in, powered home a header and slotted Neymar’s pass to give him La Liga’s golden boot with 40 goals. [BBC]
Luis_SuarezLuis_Suarez

Eurovision Song Contest: Ukraine’s Jamala wins competition –
Ukraine’s Jamala has won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, held in Stockholm, Sweden.
The country scored 534 points with its song 1944, about the deportation of Crimean Tatars under Josef Stalin. Australia finished second with 511 points, while Russia – which was the favourite going into the competition – was third with 491 points. Jamala is the first ever Crimean Tatar to perform at the contest and caused controversy ahead of the show over her political song. The song references the year when Stalin deported almost all of the ethnic group from its native region of Crimea in what was then Soviet Russia (later to become part of Ukraine). [BBC]
Jamala

Video of the Day –

Recap of all the Eurovision Song Contest finalists

List of the Day –

Spanish BBVA La Liga Table 2015-16

Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts
1 Barcelona 38 29 4 5 112 29 +83 91
2 Real Madrid 38 28 6 4 110 34 +76 90
3 Atlético Madrid 38 28 4 6 63 18 +45 88
4 Villarreal 37 18 10 9 44 33 +11 64
5 Athletic Bilbao 38 18 8 12 58 45 +13 62
6 Celta Vigo 38 17 9 12 50 58 −8 60
7 Sevilla 38 14 10 14 51 50 +1 52
8 Real Sociedad 38 13 9 16 45 48 −3 48
9 Málaga 37 11 12 14 34 34 0 45
10 Las Palmas 37 12 8 17 44 49 −5 44
11 Valencia 38 11 11 16 46 48 −2 44
12 Eibar 37 11 10 16 47 57 −10 43
13 Deportivo La Coruña 38 8 18 12 45 62 −17 42
14 Real Betis 37 10 12 15 31 50 −19 42
15 Espanyol 37 11 7 19 36 72 −36 40
16 Granada 38 10 9 19 46 68 −22 39
17 Getafe 37 9 9 19 36 65 −29 36
18 Sporting Gijón 37 9 9 19 38 62 −24 36
19 Rayo Vallecano 37 8 11 18 49 72 −23 35
20 Levante 37 8 8 21 36 67 −31 32

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May 15, 2016

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Max Verstappen becomes youngest F1 winner in history at Spanish Grand Prix –
The delivery of the prodigy Max Verstappen, who became the youngest winner of a Formula One race when he triumphed in Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix, brought an iridescence to a sport that for too long has laboured in the single colour of the silver Mercedes. When Verstappen made his F1 debut for Toro Rosso as a 17-year-old last year he was so young that the concerned people at the FIA changed the rules; now you have to be 18. Verstappen was actually only 16 in 2014, when it was first announced that he would be driving in F1. Many sagacious voices said he was too young but there can be no doubts now. He crossed the winning line aged 18 years and 228 days, beating Sebastian Vettel’s previous record by two and a half years – Vettel was 21 and 73 days when he won in Italy in 2008. [Guardian]
Max_VerstappenMax Verstappen

Magnetic Hyperloop pod unveiled at MIT –
A people-carrying pod designed to levitate and travel at extremely high speeds has been unveiled in Boston. A 30-strong team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is one of several groups and companies working on making the Hyperloop concept a reality. The idea, first envisioned by Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, is to create a transport system that propels pods through airtight tubes. The MIT team said its pod design paved the way for “a mode of transportation that could change how we think about travel”. Critics of Hyperloop say it is unlikely to succeed because of prohibitive costs. A white paper by Mr Musk published in 2013 proposed a Hyperloop tube connection from San Francisco to Los Angeles. At speeds of around 700mph (1,127km/h), Mr Musk predicted the journey time would be around 30 minutes. [BBC] See Video of the Day

Video of the Day –

MIT Hyperloop Intro

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