Top News Stories –

Apple ‘sets shipping date for electric car’ –
Apple has designated building an electric car as a “committed project” and has set a target shipping date for 2019, according to reports. The project has been codenamed Titan and its leaders have been given permission to triple the 600-person team, the Wall Street Journal claimed. For Apple, a “ship date” doesn’t necessarily mean the date that customers receive a new product; it can also mean the date that engineers sign off on the product’s main features. Reports in August revealed that Apple was developing a car and studying self-driving technology, but it was unclear if the iPhone maker was designing a vehicle that could drive itself. [Daily Telegraph]

Foo Fighters ‘kicked off’ performing at Emmys after disagreement with Fox –
Dave Grohl says Foo Fighters were “kicked off” performing at the Emmy’s after a disagreement with Fox. The singer said that the band had been approached to play at the ceremony. But he says their spot was pulled after they refused to play half of Sonic Highways and half of Learning To Fly. “The band and the Academy were extremely happy and excited to have Foo Fighters play as the first ever rock band on the Emmys,” the Foos said in a statement to Rolling Stone magazine. “Fox then refused to allow the band to play a full song from the Emmy-winning Sonic Highways. [BBC Newsbeat]
Dave Grohl

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Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Syrian Civil War, Russia’s role in the Syrian Civil War
  • U.S. officials say Russia has begun flying drones on surveillance missions over Syria in what would be Russia’s first military air operations in the country since the recent military build-up at a Syrian airbase in Latakia. (Reuters)
• War in Somalia (2009–present)
  • A car bomb in Somalia kills at least six people at the gates of the presidential palace in Mogadishu. (BBC)
• Iraq War (2014–present)
  • An Islamic State car bomb kills at least 12 people in Baghdad. (Reuters)
• Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen
  • A Saudi-led military coalition bombardment in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, kills at least 50 people. (Reuters)
• Moro conflict
  • Gunmen abduct a Norwegian resort manager, two Canadians, and a Filipino from a resort in the southern Philippines. (AP)

Arts and culture

• Pope Francis, on the second day of his journey in Cuba, leaves Havana for Holguin. He says a Mass at Revolution Plaza, blesses Holguin from the Loma de la Cruz area, arrives in Santiago de Cuba, flies to Santiago de Cuba, meets with the Cuban Bishops at Saint Basil the Great Seminary, and says a prayer with them at the Minor Basilica of the Basílica Santuario Nacional de Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre (Shrine of Our Lady of del Cobre). (CNN)

Business and economy

• French regulator Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL) rejects Google, Inc.’s appeal of their order that the company remove ‘Right to be forgotten (RTBF)‘ search results worldwide. Failure to comply could subject Google to sanctions, from €300,000 (US$465,060) to 5 percent of global operating costs. The Guardian, (PC World)
• Apple Inc announces that it will speed up work on an electric car to be ready by 2019. (Wall Street Journal), (VentureBeat)
• Many Skype users are unable to access the service. The Microsoft-owned company acknowledges the problem. (Reuters), (Skype)

Disasters and accidents

• The toll of homes destroyed by Northern California wildfires reaches 1,600. (AP)

International relations

• European migrant crisis
  • Hungary‘s parliament passes a law allowing the Hungarian military to help handle the migrant crisis at its borders with Serbia and Croatia, including the right to use non-lethal force such as rubber bullets, pyrotechnical devices, tear gas grenades or net guns. (Reuters)
  • The United States White House announces the U.S. will give $419 million more in humanitarian aid to assist Syrian refugees and the countries that are hosting them. (The Washington Post)

Law and crime

• In Auckland, New Zealand, an extradition hearing for Kim Dotcom, former owner of a file sharing website, for alleged copyright infringement, racketeering, and money laundering begins, seeking to bring him to the U.S. (BBC)
• At least eight people are killed and 45 wounded in shootings over the weekend across Chicago. (Fox Chicago)
• A Denver, Colorado federal jury convicts Harold Henthorn of murder in the death of his wife Toni Henthorn, who fell off a cliff as they hiked in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park to celebrate their wedding anniversary. His previous wife had died in suspicious circumstances also. (AP)
• Peanut Corporation of America owner Stewart Parnell is sentenced to 28 years for Salmonella typhimurium-tainted peanut butter, the most severe punishment ever handed out to a producer in a foodborne illness case. In late 2008 and early 2009, nine people died and at least 714 people in 46 states, half of them children, fell ill. Parnell and his brother were convicted in September 2014 of 71 criminal counts. His brother Michael Parnell is sentenced to 20 years, and the plant’s former quality control manager Mary Wilkerson is sentenced to five years. (LA Times), (USA Today)

Politics and elections

• Political parties in Northern Ireland hold talks to save a power-sharing agreement following claims that Irish nationalist militants were involved in the murder of a former operative. (Reuters)
• United States presidential election, 2016
  • Governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker quits his campaign for the Republican Party nomination. (The New York Times)
• 2015 Burkinabe coup d’état
  • The coup leader General Gilbert Diendéré says that he is ready to hand over power to transitional authorities as the army marches on the capital Ouagadougou. (BBC)

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