Top News Stories –
Chelsea Manning begins tweeting from prison –
Former army intelligence analyst, serving a 35-year sentence for leaking US secrets, says she will be dictating tweets by telephone. Chelsea Manning, the US soldier serving a 35-year prison sentence for passing a trove of secret documents to WikiLeaks, started posting on Twitter on Friday, with help from supporters. Within minutes of her first tweets, Ms Manning had recruited more than 5,000 followers under the handle @xychelsea. In her initial tweets, Ms Manning acknowledged she had no Internet access behind bars and that she was dictating comments to a communications company by telephone. [Daily Telegraph]
Gadget which turns all traffic lights green trialled in UK –
The pioneering technology is being tested ahead of trials of driverless vehicles. A device which switches all red traffic lights to green has been launched in Newcastle to prevent cars from ever needing to stop. The pioneering technology is being tested ahead of trials of driverless vehicles, which would be linked to traffic lights so that fully-automated convoys could pass quickly through urban areas. The new gadget, which attaches to the windscreen like a Sat Nav, detects traffic lights from around 100 metres away and requests priority so that they switch to green as soon as the car arrives. It also tells drivers of the speed they should be driving to make sure they always hit a green light in the event of traffic. [Daily Telegraph]
Paris aims to become ‘world bike capital’ –
Paris’s mayor has announced plans to double the number of cycle lanes. Paris is to double the number of cycling lanes by 2020 as part of its Socialist mayor’s push to turn the city into “the world’s bike capital”. The 150 million-euro project will increase the number of safe bike lanes from the current 700 kilometres (435 miles) to 1,400 kilometres within five years. Paris town hall hopes the new lanes will help triple the number of journeys made on a bike from five per cent to 15 per cent in that time.
Video of the Day –
"The Heist" Short Film from Thomas Hefferon on Vimeo.
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Other News Stories –
- Accidents and disasters
- Five people die in a helicopter crash in a São Paulo residential area, including the son of Governor Geraldo Alckmin. (Xinhua)
- Germanwings Flight 9525:
- Data from the flight data recorder reveals that the plane was deliberately accelerated before crashing into the French Alps. (Reuters)(BBC)(Guardian)
- Armed conflicts and attacks
- Sinai insurgency
- About 15 Egyptian soldiers and 2 civilians are killed by a combination of guns and car bombs. (BBC)(NY Times)
- Yemeni Crisis (2011–present)
- Saudi Arabia donates a plethora of weapons and medical supplies to the conflict by dropping them over Tawahi. (Reuters)(Globe&Mail)
- International relations
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disagrees with the Iranian nuclear program agreement that the P5+1 Nations offered to Iran, saying it threatens Israel. (Reuters)(YNet news)(Fox)\
- Law and crime
- Plaintiffs withdraw a lawsuit against Google that had asserted that it was illegally tying its licensing of the Android operating system to the favorable treatment of Google apps. (Reuters)
- Miscellaneous news
- An American sailor who was lost for 66 days in the Atlantic Ocean is found by a German tanker. He survived on a diet of solely raw fish and rainwater. (BBC) (CTV news) (Yahoo news)
- Pandemics
- Burkina Faso culls 115,000 chickens over a bird flu scare. (Reuters) (Xinhua)
- Politics and elections
- Former Prime Minister of the Netherlands Piet de Jong celebrates his 100th birthday. (NOS)
- Former Vice President of Zimbabwe Joice Mujuru is expelled from the ruling party for allegedly planning a coup against President Robert Mugabe.(BBC)(Herald)(NewZimbabwe)
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