Top News Stories –

Edinburgh Fringe: Mobile phone joke voted funniest –
A pun by comedian Darren Walsh has scooped the prize for funniest joke of the Edinburgh Fringe. The 39-year-old, whose show Punderbolt is on at the Pleasance, took first place in the vote by TV channel Dave. The winning joke was: “I just deleted all the German names off my phone. It’s Hans free. Walsh, from Peterborough, who won the first UK Pun Championship last year, said he was delighted. “What a punderful feeling,” he said. [BBC] See List of the Day

British IndyCar Driver Justin Wilson Dies of Injuries From Pocono Crash –
Justin Wilson, a British racecar driver who was struck by debris from another car during the closing laps of the penultimate race in the IndyCar Series season, died Monday, racing officials said. He was 37. Wilson was struck in the head on Sunday at Pocono Raceway by a piece of debris that broke off from the car of Sage Karam, who was leading the race before he crashed. Wilson had tried to avoid the subsequent pileup, but his car hit the debris and veered into an interior wall. He was airlifted to a hospital in Allentown, Pa., where he was in a coma in critical condition before he died. [NY Times]
Justin Wilson in 2008

China’s ‘Black Monday’ sends markets reeling across the globe –
China has been a major contributor to economic growth and low global inflation for more than two decades. But tonight, investors around the globe are catching their breath after one of the worst day’s trading in many years. They’re now pondering whether today marks the start of a new and alarming phase of the crisis which began some eight years ago. And while today’s losses are sizeable, they’re not among the worst losses in market history. For all the talk of Black Monday in China,and gloomy photos to match, this was more of a correction in Western markets. [The Guardian]

Windows 95 turns 20 –
Windows 10 might be the current OS of choice for many, but 20 years ago today (August 24) the world of home computing underwent a seismic shift as Windows 95 rolled off the production lines and into people’s lives. The basis for many consumers’ first computing experience, Windows 95 revolutionised the computing space not only on the surface, but beneath it too. From an all new graphical user interface to a switch to 32-bit foundations, it’s hard to overstate the impact this Start menu introducing software has had on the world. If you can even remember the days of floppy disks then you’ll know how much of a nightmare the Windows 95 update must have been to install, compared to today when waiting 17 seconds for a film to buffer on Netflix seems outrageous. For those without a CD-ROM drive, each of the 3.5-inch cartridges held a measly 1.44MB of data. Later updates, for those refusing to accept CDs had taken off, jumped to 26 floppy disks. [Digital Spy] See Top Twitter Trends

Video of the Day –

Guy annoys girlfriend with puns at Ikea – We moved in together recently so had to make the unavoidable trip to IKEA; I figured out how to get through there as quickly as possible.
Yeah, yeah I know, vertical video and all that. I filmed it in Snapchat, you’ll survive.

List of the Day –

The top 10 funniest jokes of the Edinburgh Fringe

1. “I just deleted all the German names off my phone. It’s Hans free” – Darren Walsh
2. “Kim Kardashian is saddled with a huge arse … but enough about Kanye West” – Stewart Francis
3. “Surely every car is a people carrier?” – Adam Hess
4. “What’s the difference between a ‘hippo’ and a ‘Zippo’? One is really heavy, the other is a little lighter” – Masai Graham
5. “If I could take just one thing to a desert island I probably wouldn’t go” – Dave Green
6. “Jesus fed 5,000 people with two fishes and a loaf of bread. That’s not a miracle. That’s tapas” – Mark Nelson
7. “Red sky at night. Shepherd’s delight. Blue sky at night. Day” – Tom Parry
8. “The first time I met my wife, I knew she was a keeper. She was wearing massive gloves” – Alun Cochrane
9. “Clowns divorce. Custardy battle” – Simon Munnery
10. “They’re always telling me to live my dreams. But I don’t want to be naked in an exam I haven’t revised for…” – Grace The Child

Top Twitter Trends –

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Turkey–PKK conflict
  • Two Turkish Army soldiers are killed and three are injured as their car hits an IED near the town of Şemdinli in Hakkari Province. (Reuters via LBC)
  • PKK insurgents blow up a natural gas pipeline in Turkey’s south-eastern Kars Province near the Armenian border (Daily Sabah)
• 2015 Thalys attack
  • The President of France, François Hollande, presents the Légion d’honneur to four people – three Americans, Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler; and Briton Chris Norman – for foiling a suspected terrorist act last Friday. (BBC)
• A bomb explodes on a bus carrying Egyptian police killing one and injuring 29 in the Nile delta. (AFP via NDTV)
• Clashes at a government protest in Kailali kill 8 in Nepal, including seven police officers. (BBC)
• Yemeni Civil War (2015)
  • Rockets fired by Houthi militiamen reportedly kill 14 people as fighting intensifies in the city of Taiz. (Reuters)
• ISIL
  • Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, the Turkish Foreign Minister, says that Turkey and the United States will launch a “comprehensive” campaign to flush out ISIL from a zone in northern Syria near the border. In effect this means creating a “security zone” by sending foreign soldiers into former territory of Syria. (Reuters)

Business and Economy

• 2015 Chinese stock market crash
  • Stock markets around the world fall as a result of fears about China‘s economy with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling by 1000 points at the opening of trading on Wall Street. The Dow Jones Index closes down 588 points. (The New York Times), (The Guardian)
  • The South African rand hits an all-time low against the US dollar as a result of worries regarding China’s economy. (BBC)
• American utility Southern Company buys natural gas company AGL Resources for $12 billion. (New York Times)

Disasters

• 2015 Washington state wildfires
  • The Okanogan Complex fire grows to 256,500 acres (103,800 ha), surpassing the previous year’s Carlton Complex fire as the largest in Washington state history. (KOMO-TV) (NBC)
• Floods kill 8 in Turkey’s Artvin Province. (BBC)
• Sightseeing seaplane crash on Quebec‘s North Shore kills all six people aboard. (Toronto Sun)

International relations

• North and South Korea agree to reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula after marathon talks. (CNN)

Law and crime

• South Africa convicts Czech fugitive Radovan Krejčíř of kidnapping, attempted murder and drug dealing charges. (Independent Online)
• Former Vice President of Guatemala Roxana Baldetti appears in court to face corruption charges as finance minister Dorval Carias resigns. (BBC), (Reuters)

Politics

• Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau Baciro Dja sacks the chiefs of Guinea-Bissau National Radio and Television, Muniro Conte and Paula Mielo, over political “bias”. (Yahoo News)
• The President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan calls new elections after a deadline to form a new government after an inconclusive election in June. (AP via Hawaii Now)

Science and technology

• Jakobshavn Glacier sheds a massive 12.4 sq. km. section of ice. (BBC)

Sports

• 2015 World Championships in Athletics
  • Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce narrowly defeats Dafne Schippers in the Women’s 100 metres finals in Beijing. (BBC Sport)
  • Kenya moves into first place on the leaderboard with gold medals earned today by Vivian Cheruiyot (in 10,000 metres) and Ezekiel Kemboi (in 3000 metres steeplechase). (The Star) (The Star)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource