January 25, 2010

Top Stories –
Brangelina rumour –
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are set to separate according to reports. The unmarried couple are said to have been in talks with lawyers to agree a £205 million split deal.
Angelina_Jolie_Brad_PittAngelina Jolie and Brad Pitt

Pirate’s plunder blunder –
Single-mum Jammie Thomas-Rasset found guilty of sharing 24 songs over the internet has had her fine slashed from $2m (£1.23m) to $54,000 (£33,420) following an appeal. The American was accused of pirating almost 2,000 tracks but the record companies sought damages for only 24 of them.

X-files factor –
Lord Rees, the president of the Royal Society and Astronomer Royal, says the chance of discovering life on other worlds is greater than ever. He says “Were we to find life, even the simplest life, elsewhere that would clearly be one of the great discoveries of the 21st Century.”

 

Top Video –
Mr and Mrs Smith Trailer

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October 26, 2015

Top News Stories –

Dog named Trigger shoots owner in the foot in Indiana –
A dog named Trigger shot his 25-year-old owner in the foot in a bizarre accident that had Indiana officials on Monday reminding hunters to take safety lessons. Allie Carter of Avilla was wounded during a waterfowl hunt on Saturday morning at the Tri-County Fish and Wildlife Area in northern Indiana, according to Indiana Department of Natural Resources. She laid her 12-gauge shotgun on the ground while repositioning herself and her 11-year-old chocolate Labrador stepped on the gun, depressing the trigger, said Indiana Conservation Officer Jonathon Boyd. The safety of the shotgun was not on, so it went off and Carter was shot in the left foot, Boyd said. Carter, who had never completed a hunter education course, was hospitalized. She suffered non-life-threatening injuries from the bird shot pellets and was treated and released, Boyd said. [Reuters]

Saudi prince held after seizure of two tons of amphetamines at Beirut airport –
A Saudi prince has been detained at Beirut airport in Lebanon after two tons of an amphetamine drug popular with Syrian rebels was found on a private jet. Prince Abdel Mohsen Bin Walid Bin Abdulaziz and four other men were held after what was described as the biggest ever drugs bust at the city’s main Rafik Hariri International Airport, according to local media and security sources. They were allegedly “attempting to smuggle about two tons of Captagon pills and some cocaine”, a security source was quoted as saying. Captagon is a brand name for the widely used amphetamine phenethylline. Although this type of amphetamine has been prescribed in the past to treat childhood and other behavioural disorders, it is now used overwhelmingly as a stimulant in the Middle East. [Daily Telegraph]

11-year-old girl sets up business selling secure passwords for $2 –
Weak passwords are still the plague of the cybersecurity industry, with the most popular passwords of 2014 including “123456”, “password” and “qwerty”, making it easy for hackers to break into accounts and steal data. Now an 11-year-old girl from New York is offering a solution. Sixth-grader Mira Modi has started her own business making cryptographically secure passwords and selling them for $2 a pop. She generates the passwords using a system called Diceware to create strings of words that are easy to remember but difficult to crack. The system involves rolling a die to generate random numbers, which are matched to a list of short words from the Diceware dictionary. Those words are then combined into a non-sensical string, such as: alger klm curry blond puck horse. These six-word passphrases contain a lot of “entropy”, or randomness, which means that it would take a powerful computer a very long time to correctly guess them. They are also easier to memorise than strings of individual characters. [Daily Telegraph]

Video of the Day –

OFFF Porto Main Titles from bif on Vimeo.

Top Twitter Trends –

Worldwide USA UK
1 #LouisYouMakeUsFeelLikeHome The Concealed-Carry Fantasy #mondaymotivation
2 #FelizLunes #LouisYouMakeUsFeelLikeHome #HIAC
3 La OMS Monster 2 Lisa Jardine
4 #HIAC #mondaymotivation #LouisYouMakeUsFeelLikeHome
5 #TheWalkingDead #MySignificantOtherIn4Words #earthquake
6 #ALDUBNewBeginnings #AssaultAtSpringValleyHigh Glenn
7 #تسجيل_السعيدي… #TrumpTODAY #bacon
8 #QueLindoEsoDe World Health Organization Artist Of The Year
9 Macri #earthquake Lesnar
10 Jimmy Morales #IHonkedAtYouBecause #taxcredits

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November 12, 2015

Top News Stories –

Tycoon buys $48m blue diamond at auction for daughter –
A 12.03-carat blue diamond has been auctioned in Geneva for a record $48.4m (£31.7m) to a Hong Kong tycoon. Joseph Lau confirmed he bought the ring-mounted, cushion-shaped stone for his seven-year-old daughter, renaming it “Blue Moon of Josephine” after her. Auction house Sotheby’s said the sale had set “a new world auction record for any diamond of any colour”. It is not the first time Lau, a property billionaire, has bought precious stones for his daughter. The businessman – who was convicted of bribery and money laundering in 2014 – is also confirmed as the buyer of a 16.08-carat pink diamond, which Christie’s sold for $28.5m on Tuesday. It has been renamed “Sweet Josephine”, a spokeswoman for Mr Lau told BBC News. [BBC]

FBI accused of paying US university for dark net attack –
Anonymity network Tor, notorious for illegal activity, has claimed that researchers at US Carnegie Mellon university were paid by the FBI to launch an attack on them. Tor claimed that the FBI was “outsourcing police work” and paid the university “at least $1m (£675,000)”. Tor is a so-called dark net – a hidden part of the internet that cannot be reached via traditional search engines. It gained notoriety in late 2014 when a big operation carried out by the FBI took down dozens of Tor sites, including the Silk Road 2, which was one of the world’s largest online drug-selling sites. It was this attack that the Tor Project is claiming was undertaken by researchers at Carnegie Mellon, which is based in Pittsburgh. [BBC]

British Museum opens to whole world after 262 years as it invites Street View indoors –
It was founded in 1753 on the founding principles of the Enlightenment: showing off its extensive collections, free, to the whole world. It has taken a not-inconsiderable 262 years, but the British Museum has finally realised that aim after becoming the first major UK institution to open up its entire galleries and collection to Google Street View. From today, fans of the British Museum will be able to avoid the crowds to snoop through more than 4,500 objects online, peering inside glass cabinets to inspect their finest artefacts. It will be the largest indoor Street View project in the world, allowing virtual entrance into the entire London institution as well as specially-curated digital collections. [Daily Telegraph]

Video of the Day –

HyperZooming through Hallstatt from geoff tompkinson on Vimeo.

Top Twitter Trends –

Worldwide USA UK
1 #1DayUntilMITAM #1DayUntilMITAM #1DayUntilMITAM
2 #1DayTillPURPOSE #1DayTillPURPOSE Pauline Cafferkey
3 Fernando del Paso #ItsNotAHolidayUntil George Clooney
4 #MiMejorAmigaSiempre #NerdBroadway Sandi Thom
5 #لو_ترجع_للدرا�… #MillionStudentMarch #1DayTillPURPOSE
6 Arcadi Espada #MadeInTheAM Peep Show
7 #NoPuedoDejarDe #InBlumWeTrust #ModiInUK
8 #ThankYouForTheLove Amber Rose Marton Fulop
9 #EnSuPropiaTrampa Uncle Drew #mshuddle
10 #FelizJueves #AHSHotel #Odyssey

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November 13, 2015

Top News Stories –

Paris attacks –
Paris has suffered a night of deadly attacks, described by President Francois Hollande as “unprecedented”. Shootings, bomb blasts and a hostage siege have left at least 127 people dead and some 180 wounded. At least 80 are in critical condition. Six places were targeted, almost simultaneously. France has declared a state of emergency, imposed border controls and deployed 1,500 extra troops. [BBC]
Chronology –

  • 21:20 – First explosion near Stade de France
  • 21:25 – Shooting at Le Carillon bar and Le Petit Cambodge restaurant, rue Bichat
  • 21:29 – More shooting in same area, avenue de la Republique
  • 21:30 – Second explosion near Stade de France
  • 21:38 – Shooting at La Belle Equipe bar, rue de Charonne
  • 21:43 – Explosion at boulevard Voltaire, near Bataclan concert hall
  • 21:49 – Shooting at Bataclan, then explosions
  • 21:53 – Third explosion at Stade de France
  • 22:00 – Shooting at boulevard Beaumarchais, near Bataclan

In January the offices of Charlie Hebdo were attacked by gunmen in Paris and in August train passengers overcame a gunmen on a train in France.
Bataclan,_ParisBataclan Theatre, Paris

Jihadi John ‘dead’: MI5 on alert amid fears of Isil revenge attack –
MI5 is on high alert amid fears that Isil fanatics are already plotting revenge attacks for the reported killing of Jihadi John in a drone strike in Raqqa, Syria. The communications of known sympathisers are being monitored closely as surveillance is stepped up to prevent a terrorist outrage in revenge for the operation which is now widely acknowledged to have resulted in the death of Mohammed Emwazi– who as Jihadi John – earned global notoriety. [Daily Telegraph] See Top Twitter Trends

Athletics doping: Russia provisionally suspended by IAAF –
Russia’s athletics federation has been provisionally suspended from international competition – including the Olympic Games – for its alleged involvement in widespread doping. The IAAF took action after the publication of an independent World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) report that alleged “state-sponsored doping”. Its council members voted 22-1 in favour of Russia being banned. “This is a wake-up call for all of us,” said IAAF president Lord Coe. [BBC] Lord Coe became IAAF president in August 2015.
Lord_CoeLord Coe

Video of the Day –

Otto the skateboarding bulldog – Guinness World Records

Top Twitter Trends –

Worldwide USA UK
1 Jihadi John Friday the 13th Jihadi John
2 #purpose Jihadi John #MadeInTheAM
3 #FR1DAY13BR #WorldKindnessDay #purpose
4 #MadeInTheAM París #childreninneed
5 Friday the 13th #YesSheCan Friday the 13th
6 #Viernes13 #InternetThePast #WorldKindnessDay
7 Sexta-feira 13 #PrayForJapan #ModiAtWembley
8 #1DonSmallzy #RuinMyLifeIn3Words #friday13th
9 Hayırlı Cumalar Jeezy Herts
10 #رفع_سعر_الدخا�… A.M. #bbcqt

Other News Stories –

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Law and crime
  • Police in the Dominican Republic raid a mansion owned by 30-year-old Francisco Flores de Freites, one of the two nephews of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro facing charges for allegedly trying to traffic 800 kg of cocaine into the U.S., and found more than 280 pounds of cocaine and 22 pounds of heroin hidden inside the nephew’s posh Casa de Campo property and a 135-foot yacht named “The Kingdom” docked behind it. (Fox News)
Politics and elections
Science and technology
  • WT1190F, an artificial satellite orbiting the Earth since before June 2009, impacts the Earth south of Sri Lanka. (CBC)
Sport

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November 15, 2015

Top News Stories –

Ronda Rousey knocked out in UFC 193 title fight by Holly Holm in Australia –
Holly Holm pulled off a stunning upset over Ronda Rousey in the mixed martial arts championship, UFC 193. She knocked the women’s bantamweight champion out in the second round with a powerful kick to the head in Melbourne, Australia. Ronda Rousey, 28, was undefeated in her first 12 mixed martial arts fights with 11 wins in the first round. Holly Holm ended that run in front of a record Ultimate Fighting Championship crowd of around 75,000 fans. The UFC brought its showcase UFC 193 to Australia, with the Ronda Rousey-Holly Holm fight overshadowing the men as the main event. The stadium in Melbourne was transformed from a 56,000-seat Australian rules football venue to an auditorium holding close to 75,000 seats for the event. A full house would easily beat the 55,724 fans who attended UFC 129 at Toronto’s Rogers Centre in 2011. [BBC Newsbeat] Rousey starred in “Expendables 3” with Sylvester Stallone. See Top Twitter Trends
Ronda_RouseyRonda Rousey

Hundreds of Mormons resign in Utah same-sex policy protest –
Hundreds of Latter-day Saints mailed or handed in letters quitting the Mormon church on Saturday to protest a new policy barring children of married same-sex couples from being baptized until they are adults. Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) approved the policy last week. It added same-sex marriage to acts considered to be a renunciation of the Mormon faith and thus subject to church discipline, including excommunication. The church has more than 15 million adherents and 85,000 missionaries around the world. [Reuters]

Video of the Day –

Darwin Deez- The Mess She Made from Oscar Hudson on Vimeo.

Top Twitter Trends –

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1 5 Seconds Of Summer 5 Seconds of Summer #UFC193
2 #UFC193 Nick Bockwinkel #sadnessinhiseyes
3 #DemDebate #Ask1D Ronda Rousey
4 #Ask1D Giants #Ask1D
5 #زد_رصيدك2 Peyton Manning #MTVStars
6 #WELOVELUKEBECAUSE #WELOVELUKEBECAUSE #DemDebate
7 #DomingoDetremuraSdv Dana White #AskZoella
8 Ali Koç Lions 5 Seconds of Summer
9 Baylor #UFC193 #BrazilGP
10 #السعوديه_دوله… #HTTR #PurposeTheMovement

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