Top News Stories –

Alphabet – owner of Google – takes top spot from Apple –
Alphabet- Google’s parent company- has surpassed Apple as the world’s most valuable company after its latest earnings report. The company made a profit of $4.9bn (£3.4bn) for the fourth quarter, an increase from $4.7bn a year ago. The announcement sent its share price up as much as 9% in after-hours trading.
That means that Alphabet is now worth around $568bn, compared with Apple, which has a value of $535bn. [BBC] Alphabet was launched in August 2015
Structure of Alphabet companies

Zika-linked condition: Rio Olympics ‘to go ahead’ despite virus –
There is no chance that the Rio Olympics will be cancelled because of a Zika virus outbreak, Brazil has said. The authorities said there was no risk to athletes and spectators – except pregnant women – at the August event. Earlier, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned a disease linked to Zika posed a global public health emergency requiring a united response. The infection has been linked to cases of microcephaly, in which babies are born with underdeveloped brains. Experts are worried that the mosquito-borne virus in Latin America is spreading far and fast, with devastating consequences. Meanwhile, WHO Director General Margaret Chan called Zika an “extraordinary event” that needed a co-ordinated response. The WHO alert puts Zika in the same category of concern as Ebola. It means research and aid will be fast-tracked to tackle the infection. [BBC]

Video of the Day –

Flight Over Dwarf Planet Ceres
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

• PKK Rebellion (2015–present)
  • Two Turkish Army soldiers are killed in a Kurdistan Workers’ Party ambush in the southeast Diyarbakır Province. (Anadolu Post)
• War in Afghanistan (2015–present)
  • A Taliban suicide bomb attack outside a police office in central Kabul kills at least 9 people. (AFP via Times of India) (Sky News) (AFP via Straits Times)

Disasters and accidents

• February 2016 United States blizzard
  • A snow storm in the United States is affecting multiple regions in Colorado, California and elsewhere, with more than 70,000 people in southern California losing power. (AccuWeather)

Health

• Zika virus outbreak in the Americas (2015–present)
  • The World Health Organization declares the spread of the Zika virus a global public health emergency requiring an urgent, united response. (BBC)
• The United Kingdom Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority gives licensing rights to the Francis Crick Institute to genetically modify human embryos to study the early stages of embryo development though still needs the approval of a local research ethic board. (BBC) (Nature)

Law and crime

• Chinese authorities arrest 21 people involved in the Ezubao online finance scheme accused of allegedly defrauding 900,000 people of 50bn yuan ($7.6bn; £5.3bn) in a Ponzi scheme. (BBC)
• Two men are sentenced to death for the murder of Tibetan religious leader Akong Rinpoche, his nephew and his driver in 2013. (Reuters)

Politics and elections

• The Assembly of the Union for Myanmar meets with Aung San Suu Kyi‘s National League for Democracy having the majority for the first time. (Time)
• United States presidential election in Iowa, 2016
  • Voters in Iowa go to Democratic and Republican Party caucuses in the first formal stage of the U.S. elections. (Yahoo! politics)
  • Republican candidate Mike Huckabee suspends his campaign. (ABC Go) (CNN)
  • Democratic candidate Martin O’Malley suspends his campaign following a very poor performance in the caucuses. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are in a virtual tie with a majority of precincts reporting. (The Washington Post) (CNN)
  • Ted Cruz wins the Republican caucus with 28% of the vote followed by Donald Trump with 24%, Marco Rubio with 23%, and Ben Carson at 9%.(CNN)

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