June 16, 2015

Top News Stories –

Chris Evans to be new Top Gear presenter –
TV and radio personality Chris Evans will replace Jeremy Clarkson as the lead presenter of an all-new Top Gear line-up, the BBC has announced. Evans said he was “thrilled” to get the job, describing the motoring show as his “favourite programme of all time”. “I promise I will do everything I possibly can to respect what has gone on before and take the show forward,” he added. Clarkson was dropped in March after punching a producer while on location.
Chris Evans (L) with Joss Stone

Foo Fighters cancel Glastonbury gig –
Rock group Foo Fighters have cancelled their headline slot at this year’s Glastonbury Festival. The announcement comes four days after frontman Dave Grohl fell off stage at a concert in Sweden, fracturing his leg. June dates in Belgium, and at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium and London’s Wembley Stadium have also been cancelled. Grohl apologised to fans, saying it was “just not physically possible” for him to perform at the moment.

Video of the Day –

Chris Pratt Dinosaurs Prank

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	Bolivia	#ThreeWordsSheWantsToHear	Shenmue 3
2	#ARGENTINARMY	#MakeAMovieUnderwhelming	#ThreeWordsSheWantsToHear
3	#ComoOdioAEsosQue	#WeCantDateIf	#RoyalAscot
4	Dave Grohl	Donald Trump	#xfactor
5	Jurassic World	Tupac	Donald Trump
6	#GoodForYou	#MyCampaignIn3Words	Michelle Obama
7	Fede Bal	Cardinals	#MakeAMovieUnderwhelming
8	#AskRachel	Happy Birthday Tupac	#SonyE3
9	#TeQueresReMorirCuando	#HonestyHour	Falcao
10	Barbie Velez	#USAvNGA	#Bloomsday

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

al-Qaeda insurgency in Yemen
- al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula announces that its leader Nasser al-Wuhayshi was killed in a US drone strike last Friday. (BBC)
Syrian Civil War
- Kurdish People’s Protection Units have captured the border town of Tell Abyad from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant forces. (Al-Jazeera)
Libyan Crisis (2011–present)
- Three of the ten Tunisian consular staff kidnapped last week have been released and negotiation is ongoing about the others. (Reuters via Trust)

Arts and culture

The British Broadcasting Corporation announces that Chris Evans will be the new presenter of the very popular Top Gear television series. (BBC)

Business and economy

Airbus announces plans to build 900 satellites on behalf of the OneWeb satellite constellation with the project starting in 2018. (The Guardian)
Rupert Murdoch confirms stepping down as the CEO of the 21st Century Fox to be succeeded by his son James on July 1, 2015. Rupert will continue as its executive chairman with his eldest son, Lachlan, as a future executive co-chairman. (USA Today)

Disasters and accidents

2015 Atlantic hurricane season
- Texas braces for the impact of Tropical Storm Bill bringing heavy rainfall and renewed flooding. (Accuweather)
A train crashes with a truck in central Tunisia killing at least 12 people and injuring 70. (Al-Jazeera)
Six people are killed and eight are injured, some with life-threatening injuries, after a balcony collapses in the San Francisco Bay Area city ofBerkeley, California, near the campus of the University of California, Berkeley; five of the casualties are Irish students. (NBC News), (AP)

Health

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), issues a mandate that all trans fatty acids (trans fats) must be eliminated, within three years (2018) from all foods grown, imported to, or sold within the United States. It is the strictest and most final type of ruling, even more so than a black-box warning or a warning to list ingredients, that can be given from the federal agency, which has ultimate jurisdiction over the safety of all food and drug products, public or private, in the United States. The substances occur in processed meats and other foods, and have been repeatedly implicated in atherosclerotic coronary heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers. (MSN), (Washington Post),(CNN Money), (FDA’s statement)
2015 Middle East respiratory syndrome outbreak in South Korea
- South Korea reports three more deaths from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome bringing the death toll to 19 with 154 people diagnosed with the disease. (Yonhap)

Law and crime

Bangladesh‘s Supreme Court upholds the death sentence against senior Islamist leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid in an appeal hearing.(AFP via France 24)
An Egyptian court commutes the death sentence given to former President Mohamed Morsi for conspiring with foreign groups but upholds a death sentence for a prison break. Muslim Brotherhood leader Khairat el-Shater and two others are given death sentences. (al-Jazeera), (AP via Breaking News)

Politics and elections

United States presidential election, 2016
- Real estate mogul and reality television host Donald Trump announces that he will be a candidate for the Republican Party nomination.(Bloomberg)

Sport

2015 NBA Finals
- In basketball, the Golden State Warriors defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers 105-97 in Game 6 to secure their first title since 1975. Andre Iguodalais named as series MVP. (Fox Sports), (AL.com)

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July 15, 2015

Top News Stories –

Kim Kardashian on the cover of Rolling Stone? It’s the death of rock’n’roll! –
Kim Kardashian has been accused of many things over the years, but this week brought a new addition to the charge sheet: killing rock’n’roll. The accuser? Sinéad O’Connor, who adduced that the presence of Kardashian and her cleavage on the cover of US magazine Rolling Stone was evidence that “music has officially died”. “Bob Dylan,” she added, “must be fucking horrified.” [Guardian]
Rolling Stone magazine cover

Donald Trump declares personal wealth of more than $10 billion –
Donald Trump, the property mogul turned US presidential candidate, has declared his personal wealth to be over 10 billion dollars (£6.4bn) in his official forms submitted to the US government’s election commission. In a typically flamboyant statement extolling his own vast wealth, Mr Trump complained that the Federal Election Commission forms did not have sufficient boxes to accommodate a man of his stature. “This report was not designed for a man of Mr. Trump’s massive wealth,” said a statement issued by Trump campaign headquarters. [Daily Telegraph]
Donald Trump

Video of the Day –

The Death Of Bees Explained – Parasites, Poison and Humans

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#JustinBieberComeBackTo1D	#PrimeDay	#OhNoLouis
2	あなたの精神年齢	Best Buy	Nick Cave
3	#OhNoLouis	#GrowingUpUgly	#GrowingUpScottish
4	#MasterChefBR	Wellington	#woofwoofwednesday
5	Aimar	Major Garrett	Briana
6	#FelizMiercoles	#5ONTHEWALL	#BackTheBBC
7	#HappyBirthdayLuke	#ESPYS	#PMQs
8	プラカード	#JustinBieberComeBackTo1D	#5ONTHEWALL
9	#5ONTHEWALL	#JimmyV	#JustinBieberComeBackTo1D
10	Best Buy	#DailyLifeIn4Words	Theresa May

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Boko Haram
- At least 33 people are killed in Boko Haram attacks in recent days in northeastern Nigeria. (CNN)
Yemeni Crisis (2011–present)
- Loyalists of exiled President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi capture Aden International Airport after four months of being under Houthi control. (Al-Arabiyah)

Disasters and accidents

A preliminary report from the Dutch Safety Board of the investigation of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) disaster points to pro-Russian rebels as being responsible for the shooting down of the passenger flight on 17 July 2014. (CNN)

Business and economy

Greek government-debt crisis, Greek government-debt crisis timeline
- The Hellenic Parliament votes to approve the Greek bailout package despite many senior lawmakers from the ruling Syriza Party refusing to vote for the deal. (AP via New York Times), (BBC)
Puerto Rico government debt crisis
- Standard & Poor’s cut the credit rating of Puerto Rico‘s Government Development Bank to ‘CC’, saying a near-term default is a virtual certainty.(Reuters)
Pabst Brewing Company announces plans to brew again at their historic brewery located in Milwaukee. (JS)
Spanish manufacturer Talgo announces Saudi Arabia’s cancellation of a $201-million contract for six high-speed trains. (Reuters via Arabian Business)

Health

Two South Korean airlines, Korean Air and Asiana Airlines, will resume flights to Japan after suspending flights during the recent MERS outbreak.(TASS)

Law and crime

Oskar Gröning, known as the “Auschwitz book-keeper”, is sentenced to four years imprisonment for being an accessory to the murder of 300,000Jews. (BBC)

Politics and elections

President of Russia Vladimir Putin signs a law that sets the date for an early parliamentary election on 18 September 2016. (Bloomberg)

Science and Technology

The circumnavigation attempt of Earth by the solar-powered Solar Impulse plane, currently in Hawaii, has been suspended for the rest of 2015 in order to perform necessary repairs. (BBC)
NASA publishes the first close up photos of Pluto from the New Horizons spacecraft. They show geologically young mountains made of water ice.(The Guardian), (Wired)

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August 18, 2015

Top News Stories –

Heidi Klum hits back at Donald Trump after he said she was ‘no longer a 10’ –
Heidi Klum has ridiculed Donald Trump after the presidential candidate said she was “sadly no longer a 10” in a sexist remark about her looks. The billionaire Republican, who has made a string of offensive comments since declaring his bid for the White House in June, claimed the German supermodel was no longer as attractive as previously.“Sometimes I do go a little bit far,” he said in an interview with the New York Times, in which he insisted he was not a misogynist. “Heidi Klum. Sadly, she’s no longer a 10.” In response, the German supermodel, who is a mother of four and regularly voted one of the most attractive women in the world, posted an amusing video on Twitter in which she poses for a photoshoot with a “10” on her t-shirt. [Daily Telegraph]
Heidi Klum on Twitter

Museum brings in security for Nicki Minaj waxwork –
Madame Tussauds has brought in extra security to monitor a waxwork of Nicki Minaj. The figure is based on the rapper’s iconic pose in her Anaconda video – where she’s posing in heels on her hands and knees. Since the Las Vegas museum unveiled it earlier this month, fans have been rushing to be photographed with it. Some visitors have been getting a bit too excited and taking “inappropriate” pics. [BBC Newsbeat]
Nicki Minaj

Video of the Day –

Los Angeles

Los Angeles from Ian Wood on Vimeo.

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#MakeLifeBetterIn3Words	#MakeLifeBetterIn3Words	#ThingsJesusNeverSaid
2	#ComoMeGustariaQue	George Zimmerman	#MakeLifeBetterIn3Words
3	#WorthItVMA	#WorthItVMA	#fakeDWPstories
4	#ShesKindaHotVMA	#ShesKindaHotVMA	#ShesKindaHotVMA
5	#WhereAreUNowVMA	#WhereAreUNowVMA	Andre Gray
6	#GoodForYouVMA	Jared Fogle	#traveltuesday
7	#XuxaNaRecord	#RealTeenAwards	#WhereAreUNowVMA
8	#CoolForTheSummerVMA	Ronan	Flight of the Conchords
9	George Zimmerman	#favpichayes	#WorthItVMA
10	Federico García Lorca	Victor Frankenstein	Victor Frankenstein

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

War in Donbass
- Fighting has intensified near the ceasefire line in eastern Ukraine with both the Government of Ukraine and the rebels blaming each other. The separatist-held cities of Donetsk and Horlivka were bombed with hundreds of shells and rockets in the last 72 hours. (New York Times)

Arts and culture

Two women pass the United States Army’s Ranger School becoming the first to do so, and earning Ranger tabs on their uniforms. (AP, via MSN)

Business and economy

The Obama administration, through the United States Environmental Protection Agency announces new regulations on emissions of the greenhouse gas methane.(New York Times) (WSJ) (NPR) (The Atlantic) (EPA)

Disasters and accidents

Trigana Air Service Flight 257
- Indonesian crews locate bodies of all 54 people aboard the wreckage of Trigana Air Service Flight 257 in a remote area of Papua. (New York Times) (CNN via Twitter)

Health

The US Food and Drug Administration approves the use of Flibanserin to help women with Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder. (Washington Post)

Politics and elections

The Prime Minister of Turkey Ahmet Davutoğlu returns his mandate to form a government to the President after failing to form a coalition government. This means that a new election is likely. (BBC) (The News Hub)

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December 8, 2015

Top News Stories –

Arnold Schwarzenegger: ‘Go part-time vegetarian to protect the planet’ –
Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says people should go meat-free one or two days a week to protect the climate. Meat-eating was an environmental problem, with farming creating an estimated 28% of global greenhouse gases, the body-builder and movie star told BBC News. Asking people to go totally vegetarian would be too demanding, he said. It would better to suggest giving up meat once or twice a week, he added. When asked how young men would achieve a body like The Terminator – the cyborg assassin in the film of the same name – without steak, he said many successful body-builders avoided meat. [BBC]
Arnold Schwarzenegger

Saint West: Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West name their baby boy –
Many of her fans had been hoping she would choose “South” but Kim Kardashian West surprised them once again by calling her new baby “Saint”. Saint West, who weighed in at eight pounds one ounce, arrived at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on Saturday. But Mrs West, and rapper husband Kanye, waited for two days before announcing the name on Twitter and her app. The couple’s first child, daughter North West, was born in 2013. [Daily Telegraph]

Kuala Lumpur airport seeks owner of ‘abandoned’ jets –
Officials at Malaysia’s main airport have taken out a newspaper advert seeking the owner of three Boeing 747 jets they say have been left unclaimed. The notice said if the owners “fail to collect the aircraft within 14 days…, we reserve the right to sell or otherwise dispose of the aircraft”. It said fees for landing and parking were also owed. An airport official was quoted as saying they had tried to contact the jets’ last known owners. He added that in the past decade a few other planes, mostly smaller aircraft, have been abandoned, with one that was left in the 1990s eventually being bought and turned into a restaurant in a Kuala Lumpur suburb. [BBC]

Video of the Day –

The Trial of Barnaby Finch from Sorrel Brae on Vimeo.

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#TercaDeSDVNoClubeDaTAG	#VSFashionShow	Eagles of Death Metal
2	#ToHellAndBack	#JohnLennon	Donald Trump
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4	#CartaDoTemer	#HappyBirthdayNickiMinaj	#HappyBirthdayNickiMinaj
5	#PSYAwkward	Don’t Glorify This Tragedy	#CutTheCosts
6	#De2015MeLlevo	#Somos112	#BritainAgainstCancer
7	#くと打ってクリス�…	Bow Wow	#InternetTheBeatles
8	#ALDUBPromiseRing	#TrumpIsDisqualifiedParty	#TravelTuesday
9	#커피를_마셨다로_��…	#HANGOUTFEST	#MadeInChelsea
10	#PabloPresidente20D	#WorstResponders	#LondonSpy

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

2015 San Bernardino attack investigation
- A $28,500 deposit was made to Syed Farook’s bank account two weeks before he and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, carried out the San Bernardino massacre, a source close to the investigation says. Investigators are exploring whether the transaction was a personal loan or something else. (SBS) (Fox News)
- According to the FBI, the couple that perpetrated the attack had long been radicalized, and had been practicing at a target range days before their murder spree. (New York Times)
- FBI agents found an empty GoPro package, shooting targets, and tools inside a car belonging to the mother of San Bernardino mass-shooter Syed Farook. (Daily Mail)
Iraqi Civil War (2014–present)
- Iraqi officials say the country’s forces have managed to retake large parts of the key city of Ramadi from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants. (Press TV)
Military intervention against ISIL
- U.S. television network NBC has calculated that ISIS and its sympathizers killed 525 people in six attacks in six countries outside its alleged caliphate since October 10, 2015. (NBC)
War in Afghanistan (2015–present)
- Several Taliban insurgents storm into Kandahar International Airport and engage Afghan security forces in a firefight. (Al Jazeera)
Yemeni Civil War (2015)
- Saudi-led coalition airstrikes, targeting Houthi rebels battling pro-government fighters, killed and wounded dozens in the port city of Mocha, according to Yemeni security officials. Around 35 fighters on both sides were killed in the battle over a key military base near the city of Taiz. (AP via Miami Herald)
Syrian Civil War
- Russian military intervention
  - For the first time, Russia strikes Islamic State targets in northern Syria with 3M-54 Klub (Kalibr) cruise missiles launched from a Kilo-class submarine in the Mediterranean, according to the Russian Minister of Defence, Sergey Shoygu. (RT)
- Rebels in Homs and the Syrian government agree to a local ceasefire that is to include the withdrawal of opposition fighters from the al-Waer neighborhood, the only area of the heavily damaged city still under rebel control. The evacuation is expected to start Wednesday. Residents are hoping to return in the next few days. (Daily Mail) (CBS News via Hawaii News Now)
Egyptian Sinai insurgency
- Four Egyptian security personnel are killed and another four are injured by a roadside bomb near the border town Rafah in the Sinai Peninsula. Islamist militants are suspected to have remotely detonated the device as an armored vehicle drove by the town’s center, near the border with the Gaza Strip and Israel, security sources told Ahram Online. (UPI) (Ahram Online) (Anadolu Agency)

Business and economy

UK-based Anglo American plc (AAUKF) announces plans to slash 85k jobs and shed 60% of assets over the next several years; it will also halt dividend payments for the rest of 2015-16 and cut capital expenditures. The company cited depressed commodity prices for its actions. (CNNMoney)
U.S. airplane manufacturer Boeing unveils the first Boeing 737 MAX airplane at its factory in Renton, Washington. (The Seattle Times) (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

Disasters and accidents

2015–16 UK and Ireland windstorm season
- Storm Desmond
  - The United Kingdom’s Met Office issues two new severe weather warnings for wind and rain covering across much of Scotland and Northern England beginning 6 a.m. Wednesday. (The Daily Telegraph)

Health and medicine

The United States Food and Drug Administration approves marketing of a cooling cap system to reduce hair loss in female breast cancer patients during chemotherapy. The DigniCap scalp cooling system, a product first available in Sweden in the 1990s, produces near-freezing temperatures that make it harder for cancer-fighting drugs to reach and harm hair follicles. (AP via U.S. News and World Report) (FDA) (DigniCap)

International relations

The United States agrees with Singapore on a first deployment of the U.S. P8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft in Singapore this month, in a fresh response to China over its pursuit of territorial claims in the South China Sea. (UPI) (Reuters)
The prime ministers of Britain and France joined condemnation around the globe of U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s call for a “total and complete ban” on Muslims entering the United States. (The Washington Post)
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power says the United States is investigating reports that Iran launched a medium-range ballistic missile in November, and if confirmed, will bring the issue to the U.N. Security Council and seek appropriate action. (Reuters)
Cross Border Xpress, a privately owned and operated airport terminal located in the Otay Mesa suburb of San Diego, California, United States, will open tomorrow with a connecting walkway to Tijuana International Airport in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. This facility, the final step of a project first proposed in the early 1990s, will be just the second cross-border airport in the world. U.S. Customs will operate a checkpoint on the bridge for those entering the country. (AP via USA Today) (AP Q&A via San Francisco Chronicle) (Los Angeles Times)

Law and crime

South African athlete Oscar Pistorius is granted bail while he appeals his murder conviction. (The Telegraph)

Politics and law

The U.S. Supreme Court rules that a lawsuit challenging Maryland’s congressional redistricting plan following the 2010 Census on grounds of unconstitutional gerrymandering may proceed. The suit, which alleges that congressional district boundaries were changed to make it easier for Democrats to win in seven of the state’s eight districts, had been rejected by both district and circuit courts due to lack of standing. (The Washington Post)
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump early Tuesday rejected criticism of his call to “shut the door” on Muslims entering the U.S. during a heated round of interviews in which he said he was not worried about being compared to Hitler. (The Hill)

Science and technology

New research by a team of British archaeologists, published in the current issue of the journal Antiquity, revives an older theory of Herbert Henry Thomas that Stonehenge may have stood in Wales hundreds of years before it was dismantled and transported to Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire in South West England. (Discovery) (National Geographic) (The Antiquaries Journal)

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December 9, 2015

Top News Stories –

Angela Merkel named as Time magazine’s person of the year –
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has been named by Time magazine as its person of the year – the first woman to receive the accolade in almost 30 years. Mrs Merkel, 61, was chosen for her leadership at a time of immense difficulty in Europe, and becomes the first woman to be named as person of the year since 1986. Last year’s winners were the Ebola fighters. “Not once or twice but three times there has been reason to wonder this year whether Europe could continue to exist – not culturally or geographically but as a historic experiment in ambitious statecraft,” said Nancy Gibbs, editor of the magazine. [Daily Telegraph] See List of the Day
Angela Merkel Time Magazine Cover

Knightsbridge to fine boy-racers up to £1,000 if they rev their supercar engines –
For years they have infuriated residents in London’s Knightsbridge with their incessant racing around the neighbourhood in noisy supercars. But boy-racers found guilty of wrecking the peace will now be fined £1000 after locals won a battle to make the uncouth behaviour a criminal offence. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which plays host to Harrods department store, has introduced a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) which hopes to restore peace to the neighbourhood. [Daily Telegraph]

Denmark: Nature agency offers free ponds to landowners –
Denmark’s nature agency is offering to pay for people to have ponds installed on their land in an effort to protect endangered wildlife. The government’s AgriFish Agency is offering to foot the bill for creating water features up to 1,000 sq m (10,764 sq ft) in size, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation reports. But such is the level of interest in the new scheme, officials say they probably won’t be able to meet demand. So far there have been more than 100 inquiries by interested landowners, the report says. [BBC]

Video of the Day –

YouTube Rewind: Now Watch Me 2015 | #YouTubeRewind [Over 13 million views in 24 hours]

List of the Day –

The Shortlist for Times Person of the Year 2015
Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi
Donald Trump
Black Lives Matter
Hassan Rouhani
Travis Kalanick
Caitlyn Jenner

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	Australia (USA unavailable)	UK
1	#CFKVerguenzaMundial	#badenclay	#PurposeWorldTour	13:10
2	#ConfessoQueEm2015	#ideasboom	#masterchefprofessionals	11:25
3	#QuartaComOClubeSDV	New Matilda	#HipHopStarWars	10:50
4	#زد_رصيدك26	Grammy	#VSFashionShow	10:35
5	#ParaEl2016Yo	Stan Grant	#newsnight	10:00
6	#PurposeWorldTour	Saint West	De Gea	09:00
7	#felizmiercoles	#Run1stWin	#ScreamQueensFinale	08:55
8	#رقص_سالم_الدو�…	#HourOfCode	Block Donald J Trump	08:55
9	#اسقاط_القروض_�…	#homeandaway	#potterythrowdown	08:50
10	#ALDUBIkawAtAko	#SmallzysMerrySOSmas	#thatssolastcentury

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Israeli–Palestinian conflict (2015)
- An Israeli couple are injured in a drive-by shooting attack near Avnei Hefetz. (The Times of Israel)
- Israeli soldiers shoot dead a Palestinian teenager during an arrest raid on a refugee camp in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. (The Jerusalem Post) (Al Jazeera)
War in Afghanistan (2015–present)
- A Taliban attack on Kandahar International Airport results in at least 37 civilian and Afghan National Security Forces personnel dead and 35 injured. (Reuters)
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
- Amnesty International reports that years of foreign military intervention, poor oversight on weapons sales, and lack of control over the international flow of weaponry have enabled ISIL to accumulate its vast armaments stockpile. Amnesty International calls for weapons embargoes and the ratification of the global Arms Trade Treaty by nations that have not already done so and, at the same time, are sources of weapons in the ISIL stockpile. (Agence France-Presse via AlJazeera America) (Agence France-Presse via Defense News)
Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War
- Russian President Vladimir Putin says he hopes nuclear warheads will not be needed to deal with terrorists, after Russia launched cruise missiles at Islamic State positions in Syria from one of its Kilo-class submarines in the Mediterranean. (Independent)
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
- Azeri tanks on the front line shell military positions in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh Republic for the first time since a Russian-brokered ceasefire ended fighting in 1994. At least one Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army soldier is killed. (AFP via Yahoo)
Iraqi Civil War (2014–present)
- Turkey calls on all its citizens to leave all areas of Iraq except Iraqi Kurdistan, due to “increased security risks”. (AFP via Daily Mail)

Arts and culture

Angela Merkel is named as Time‘s Person of the Year. (CNN International)

Disasters and accidents

2015 South Indian floods
- Heavy rains continue to lash Thanjavur and Thanjavur district, inundating urban areas and hundreds of acres of farmland. Many residential areas in Thanjavur have been marooned by rising water. (The Hindu)
Floods in the United States: 2001–present
- Governor of Washington Jay Inslee declares a state of emergency after severe flooding and high winds across the western part of the state close several major highways, damage homes and property, and impact electricity service. (Governor of Washington) (KIRO-TV)

International relations

The United States expands sanctions against North Korea over its alleged weapons breaches. (BBC)
Cuba–United States relations
- Government officials from Cuba and the U.S. met in Havana, beginning settlement discussions surrounding $1.9 billion worth of U.S. assets seized by Fidel Castro’s regime in the early 1960s. By law, the United States embargo against Cuba cannot cease until settlements are made. (Washington Post)

Law and crime

The Australian Federal Police raid the Sydney home of Craig Steven Wright – whom media today claimed was suspected to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin – in relation to possible tax offences. (ABC News Australia)
Chinese state television reports Guo Youming, former deputy governor of Hubei province, is found guilty of taking bribes totaling more than 23.8 million yuan ($3.70 million). Guo is the latest to be convicted as a result of President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign that started when Xi took office three years ago. (Reuters)

Politics and elections

A group of mayors and officials from American cities such as Philadelphia, and New York City say that if they had their way Donald Trump would be banned from their cities for his comments on Muslims. (NBC)
The Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell distance the party from presidential candidate Donald Trump’s recent comments calling for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. While not entering into a political fray – in view of U.S. partnerships with Muslim nations and Muslim personnel serving in the United States Armed Forces – The Pentagon press secretary calls anti-Muslim rhetoric a national security threat. (CNN) (Politico)
British police officers have today sensationally backed U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s controversial claim that parts of the country are no-go areas such as London and Birmingham because of growing Islamist extremism. (Express)
Congress is set to vote on Thursday on whether to prevent barring of potential immigration applicants based solely on religion. (Free Beacon)

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December 10, 2015

Top News Stories –

Donald Trump: petition to ban presidential candidate from the UK becomes most popular ever –
An online petition calling for Donald Trump to be blocked from entry to the UK has broken the parliamentary website record and is approaching half a million signatures. It currently has more than 470,000 names, beating the previous high of 446,482. The Petitions Committee is expected to discuss the petition at its meeting on 5 January. [BBC]
Donald Trump

Famous Moscow cemeteries to install free wi-fi –
Three of Moscow’s most-visited cemeteries are about to enter the digital age, with the installation of full wi-fi connectivity. Visitors will be able to browse the internet for free at the Novodevichy, Troyekurovskoye and Vagankovo cemeteries starting from the first half of 2016, according to the Moscow city website. The head of the city’s funerary services office, Artem Yekimov, says the aim is to help visitors find out more about famous people buried there and their graves – and make visiting the cemeteries more “comfortable”. Telecommunications company YS System says it offered to install the wi-fi networks after hearing about plans to create rest areas – dubbed “zones of psychological comfort” – at the cemeteries. [BBC]

Hajj stampede killed three times Saudi Arabia’s official number, says report –
The September Hajj stampede killed at least 2,411 pilgrims, a new count shows, three times the number of deaths acknowledged by Saudi Arabia. The figures establish the crush on September 24 as the deadliest in the history of the annual pilgrimage. Saudi’s official death toll of 769 people has not changed since September 26, and officials have yet to address the discrepancy. The kingdom rebuffed criticism from its regional rival Iran and efforts by other countries to join a probe into the deaths. Saudi’s King Salman ordered an investigation into the tragedy almost immediately, yet few details have been made public since and hundreds of pilgrims remain missing. [Daily Telegraph]

Bollywood superstar Salman Khan cleared over hit-and-run crash –
An Indian court on Thursday cleared Bollywood superstar Salman Khan of killing a homeless man in a hit-and-run crash 13 years ago, acquitting him of all charges after he appealed his conviction. The Bombay High Court said a lower court had erred in finding Khan guilty of culpable homicide at the end of his trial in May, when he was subsequently sentenced to five years in prison. [Daily Telegraph]
Salman Khan

Video of the Day –

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	Australia (USA unavailable)	UK
1	#HumanRightsDay	#VSFashionShow	#BBCMusicAwards
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3	#FelizJueves	#homeandaway	#TheApprentice
4	#QuintaDetremura150Ksdv	#TroyeOnFallon	#AUSvWI
5	#ALDUB21stWeeksary	#PurposeWorldTour	#VarsityMatch
6	#SiempreTengoMuchasGanasDe	#AACTAs	#Q102JingleBall
7	#NoNatalQueroGanhar	#SmallzysMerryBIEBERmas	#masterchefprofessionals
8	Derechos Humanos	Bitcoin	#RealisticResolutions
9	#ConLaMoralChavistaEnAlto	#sydneystorm	#newsnight
10	#FrasesQueArden	#1989TourMelbourne	#RadioCityLive

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Military intervention against ISIL
- While testifying about the United States military’s current strategy, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Paul J. Selva warns the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) against falling into a ground fight trap with ISIL and U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter cautions that increased U.S. ground presence will “Americanize” the conflict. The Daily Beast reports that both Pentagon officials “did little to assuage lawmakers’ concerns that the strategy isn’t working.’’ At the same time, former U.S. defense officials tell SASC the current approach is inadequate. (The Daily Beast) (The Hill) (Defense News)
Yemeni Civil War (2015)
- Pro-Hadi government forces backed by Arab coalition air and naval forces, seize control of the Hanish Islands off the coast of Yemen, near the strategic Bab-el-Mandeb strait from troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. The islands have been subject to heavy shelling by coalition forces for weeks according to local fishermen. (Reuters)
Swiss officials say police, based on a CIA tip, are hunting for at least four Islamic State-associated suspects believed to be plotting an attack in Geneva. (AP)

Arts and culture

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announces the 73rd Golden Globe Awards nominees for the best films and television productions of 2015. The winners will be announced on January 10, 2016. (Los Angeles Times)
The Pew Research Center announces a new study that shows the American middle class, long seen as the economic backbone of the country, is shrinking and no longer constitutes a majority (49.89%). Also, the “nation’s aggregate household income has substantially shifted from middle-income to upper-income households.” (Headlines & Global News) (Christian Science Monitor) (Pew Research Center)

Business and economics

Volkswagen emissions scandal
- Volkswagen executives admit the diesel emissions cheating was the result of a collection of failures within the company, rather than just the actions of rogue engineers. In 2005, VW began working on software after they were unable to find a technical solution to U.S. nitrogen oxide emissions standards. (The Guardian) (New York Times via SFGate.com) (The Guardian press conference text)

International relations

North Korea and weapons of mass destruction
- Kim Jong-un, the supreme leader of North Korea, announces that the country is now in possession of a hydrogen bomb, according to North Korean state media. Experts from South Korea however are skeptical about this claim. (RT) (BBC)
Syrian Civil War
- Syrian opposition politicians and rebels, attending a two-day meeting hosted by Saudi Arabia in Riyadh, agree on a framework that would guide proposed talks to end Syria’s nearly five-year conflict: a civil, democratic Syria with a transitional government that would respect human rights and the territorial integrity of the country; and, safeguard state institutions while restructuring security forces. Ahrar ash-Sham, a Saudi-backed ultraconservative group, withdrew from the talks at the end of the meeting.(BBC) (AP)
- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says that the new International Syrian Support Group are working toward a December 18 meeting in New York. (Reuters)

Law and crime

In the United States, Suffolk County police ask the FBI for more help in their investigation of a possible serial killer who preyed on prostitutes and left their bodies strewn along a Long Island beach in New York. Ten bodies were found along an isolated stretch of the South Shore’s Gilgo Beach between December 2010 and April 2011. (Reuters) (New York Daily News)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

December 11, 2015

Top News Stories –

Tokyo police are using drones with nets to catch other drones –
Tokyo’s police force has introduced an elite fleet of interceptor drones designed to chase and catch suspicious-looking drones in nets flying over sensitive locations amid concerns for the prime minister’s safety. Riot police will control the camera-equipped interceptor drones to chase after private drones they feel may be spying on buildings, including the Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s office, and ensnare them in large nets before returning to the ground. Those controlling the force drone will first warn the suspicious drone’s operator to cease the flight, before pursuing them. A four-propellor drone carrying trace amounts of radioactive caesium was intercepted on the top of the prime minister’s office in April, raising terror concerns in the capital. Police said radioactivity levels were only a maximum of 1 microsievert of gamma rays per hour, a level that is not harmful to humans. [Daily Telegraph]

Google Chrome extension replaces all mentions of Donald Trump with Voldemort –
When JK Rowling said Donald Trump was worse than Lord Voldemort, after the former’s proposal that all Muslims should be banned from entering the US, the Harry Potter author inspired one person to take the idea that little bit further. A Google Chrome user has released an extension for the web browser that turns all mentions of Trump into various aliases for Harry Potter’s nemesis. A series of Trump-related Chrome extensions have filled the web. The Trumpweb inserts quotes from the man himself in between “Donald” and “Trump”, and another removes any mentions of him from Facebook. You can also change any mentions of Trump to “your drunk uncle”. [Daily Telegraph] A petition started on December 6 to ban Trump from entering Britain has now reached over half a million signatures.
Donald Trump

Video of the Day –

TIMEDRIFT II from Martin Heck | Timestorm Films on Vimeo.

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#SextaCampuseirosClubSdv	#FlashbackFriday	Ian Bell
2	#ParaEl2016MeEncantariaQue	#ICantStopSmilingBecause	Arnold Peralta
3	#زد_رصيدك28	#CouldBeOniTunes	#FridayFeeling
4	#من_عيوب_تويتر	#WomenInMusic	#DanielHoltzclaw
5	#ALDUBMaiDenMoment	#WelcomeToCanada	#RuinAChristmasMovie
6	#PraNamorarComigoÉPreciso	#XMenApocalypse	#SNERVOUS
7	#BirŞeySöyleyeceğim	#ewaGlobal	#pantoday
8	#WatchBoomChaOnAnahiVEVO	#RuinAChristmasMovie	#InternationalMountainDay
9	#MiFraseDeBorracho	#YouAreInDenialIf	#bbcqt
10	#XMenApocalypse	#NewMusicFriday	#DiamondBall

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

War in Afghanistan (2015–present)
- The Taliban claims responsibility for a car bomb attack near the Spanish embassy in Kabul. At least one Spanish security officer is killed. (Reuters)
Israeli–Palestinian conflict (2015),
- Three Palestinians are killed by Israeli forces, two in Hebron, one of whom reportedly tried to ram his car into soldiers and the other during a violent demonstration in the West Bank city. A third Palestinian died in clashes with Israeli troops at the border fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel. (Today) (AP via Stars & Stripes)
2015 Burundian unrest
- Burundi’s army repels attacks on military barracks in the capital, Bujumbura, in the worst violence since this spring’s unrest that developed after President Pierre Nkurunziza decided to seek a third term in office. According to an army spokesman, at least 12 gunmen are killed and 20 captured. Reports that at least five soldiers have been killed are denied by the army, which says the soldiers were wounded. Two southern sites, a police station and an army camp, were also attacked, with no report on casualties. Kenya Airways and RwandAir cancels its flights to Bujumbura. (Al Jazeera) (Bloomberg)
Syrian Civil War, Syrian Kurdish–Islamist conflict (2013–present)
- A triple truck-bomb attack on the Kurdish YPG militia-controlled town of Tell Tamer in Syria‘s northeast Al-Hasakah Governorate leaves as many as 50 people dead and 80 others wounded. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claims responsibility for the attacks, saying in an online statement that three of its fighters driving three separate vehicles had detonated the suicide bombs targeting “bases” belonging to Kurdish fighters. (Reuters via NBC News)
Libyan Civil War (2014–present)
- The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant‘s branch in Libya (Libya Province) seizes control of the western Libyan town of Sabratha, after storming it in retaliation after two of their men were arrested in a house nearby; however they then set up checkpoints around the town, with little opposition from the local militias that were supposed to be in control of the area. There are now fears that the militant group could destroy the town’s Roman amphitheatre, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (The Telegraph)
Swiss police in Geneva, following yesterday’s CIA tip, arrest two Syrian nationals. Apparently, traces of explosives were found in their car. President Simonetta Sommaruga says, “There is currently no indication that there was a concrete attack planned.”(Sky News)

Business and economy

Chinese tycoon Guo Guangchang, founder and chairman of Fosun, is reported missing amid the Chinese anti-corruption campaign. (The Guardian)
Two of the U.S.’s oldest and largest companies, DuPont and Dow Chemical Company, will merge in an all-stock deal valued at $130 billion. The deal, which includes future plans for DowDuPont to split into three independent, public companies, is expected to face intense scrutiny from federal antitrust regulators, who will examine the impact on prices and the availability of vital seeds and herbicides.(Reuters) (The Washington Post)
China’s Alibaba Group Holding Limited acquires Hong Kong’s largest English-language newspaper, the South China Morning Post, in a deal reported to be worth about $100 million. (UPI)

Disasters and accidents

2015 South Indian floods
- Major UK-based reinsurance broker Aon Benfield estimates India has suffered over US$3 billion (over Rs. 200 billion) worth of losses as a result of the flooding, and rates them as the costliest floods and the eighth-costliest natural disaster of 2015.(Business Standard)

International relations

2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference
- French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announces the world climate talks (COP 21) will be extended to at least Saturday. (AP)
Syrian Civil War
- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says he will not negotiate with armed groups, a day after the Syrian opposition’s multi-group, two-day meeting in Riyadh agreed on a framework for future negotiations to end the conflict. Assad’s statement also appears to put a damper on peace talks Russia and the United States are working to set up. (Reuters) (Syria Online)
War in Donbass
- The United States and Russia exchanged charges concerning U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Šimonović’s presentation at the U.N. Security Council meeting on Ukraine. While violence between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian rebels has lessened since September’s agreement, Šimonović warned of the massive civilian toll if major hostilities re-erupt. OCHA’s John Ging said locals face unacceptable physical hardships and indignities, and that the suspension of humanitarian programs and expulsion of humanitarian workers in non-government controlled areas must end. (Reuters) (UN)

Law and crime

Hannibal Gaddafi, son of Libya’s late leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was kidnapped by militants, is released in Baalbek, Lebanon. Gaddafi’s abductors said they were seeking information on the fate of Shiite cleric Imam Moussa al-Sadr, who disappeared during a trip to Tripoli in 1978. (AP via ABC News) (Epoch Times) (AP via NBC News-update)

Politics and elections

Libyan Civil War (2014–present)
- Martin Kobler, United Nations envoy to Libya, announces the country’s two rival parliaments agreement to set a target date of Dec. 16 to sign a U.N.-sponsored agreement on forming a national unity government. (AP via ABC News) (Reuters)

Science and technology

Washington State University researchers report in the Journal of the American Chemical Society that they have invented a new catalyst that promises to enable production of bio-based chemicals and plastics. In the future, products could be made from bio-based ethanol rather than superheated crude oil. Other uses for this new catalyst are being explored. (UPI) (Phys.org)

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December 28, 2015

Top News Stories –

Man dies after blowing up condom machine, says German police –
A man died on Christmas Day in Germany after he was hit in the head by a flying piece of metal from a condom machine that he and two accomplices blew up in an apparent robbery attempt, police said on Monday. The 29-year-old man was taken to hospital in the western town of Schoeppingen, near the Dutch border, by the two other men who fled the scene of the explosion in a car, leaving behind condoms and money scattered around the gutted vending machine. The two men told hospital officials that their friend had fallen down the stairs, injuring his head. Suspicious of their story, the officials called the police. During questioning, police said, one of them admitted that the three had blown up the condom machine. Police said the three men apparently got into a car after triggering the explosion, but the 29-year-old did not close his door and was hit by debris when the machine exploded. [Daily Telegraph]

Lemmy, Motorhead frontman, dies aged 70 after cancer diagnosis –
Motorhead frontman Lemmy has died aged 70, two days after learning he had cancer, the British band has announced. Lemmy formed the rock group in 1975 and recorded 22 albums, including Ace of Spades, as he became one of music’s most recognisable voices and faces. The band said on its Facebook page: “Our mighty, noble friend Lemmy has passed away after a short battle with an extremely aggressive cancer.” Lemmy was born Ian Fraser Kilmister in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, in 1945. He lived in Anglesey, Wales, as a child and acquired the nickname Lemmy while at school, although he claimed to have had no idea where it came from. [BBC]
Lemmy in 2005

Game of Thrones tops list of 2015’s most pirated shows –
For the fourth year running, fantasy series Game of Thrones has topped a list of the most pirated TV shows. According to Torrentfreak, the season five finale was illegally downloaded 14.4m times. More than half of those came in the week after its US premiere. The Walking Dead and The Big Bang Theory rounded up the top three, with 6.6m and 4.4m downloads respectively. Earlier this year, Game of Thrones broke a record when more than 258,000 users shared the show simultaneously. The HBO drama was mainly downloaded on BitTorrent. [BBC] Last year Game of Thrones was only downloaded 8.1 million times.
Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones)

Video of the Day –

FINAL from Carmel Joy on Vimeo.

List of the Day –

Google Trends 2015 –
Top Searches – People

1 Lamar Odom

4 Adele

6 Ruby Rose

8 Sia

10 Jeremy Clarkson

Source: Google

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#SegundaComOClubeSDV	#HappyBirthdayNash	#AndThenThereWereNone
2	#زد_رصيدك45	#DiaDeLosInocentes	#ontopictalkshow
3	#DiaDeLosInocentes	#mondaymotivation	#MissYouNash
4	#PSYMadamIsBack	Meadowlark Lemon	#OLIC2
5	#FelizLunes	#MusicMonday	Ellsworth Kelly
6	#من_اسباب_سعادتي	#OhNoHarrysHair	#mondaymotivation
7	#OhNoHarrysHair	#SOOMPIAWARDS2015	#HarryPriceGhostHunter
8	#DinahIsOurQueen	#MilitaryBowl	#ProductPlacementFilms
9	#ALDUBBestOf2015	#UAALLAMERICA	#dragonsden
10	#НасосДляИнст�…	#DoctorStrange	#Homeland

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Syrian Civil War
- At least 32 people are killed and 90 injured following a car bomb and suicide-bomb attack in the al-Zahra district of the Syrian city of Homs. (Reuters)
- Under a United Nations agreement, vehicles are set to ferry scores of insurgents from rebel-held Al-Zabadani to Turkey. Families from two besieged Shi’ite towns in the mainly rebel-held Idlib province are also headed to the border and will eventually fly on to Beirut. (Reuters) (Raidió Teilifís Éireann)
War in Afghanistan (2015–present)
- A car bomb near Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, that was targeting a NATO convoy passing through the area, kills one civilian and injures 33 others. The Taliban claim responsibility. (AFP via Yahoo News) (Reuters via NBC News)

Business and economics

Whole Foods agrees to pay $500,000 to resolve a New York City Department of Consumer Affairs investigation that the supermarket chain charged too much for some prepackaged foods at its New York City stores. (NBC News) (CNN)

Disasters and accidents

Queensland, Australia, authorities say the estimated amount of sulphuric acid leaked from Sunday’s 26-carriage Aurizon freight train derailment near Julia Creek to 31,500 liters. The train was carrying 819,000 liters, not 200,000 liters as originally thought.Flinders Highway remains closed in both directions. (Sky News) (ABC Australia)
2015 Shenzhen landslide
- A Chinese official who sanctioned a dump of construction debris that led to a deadly landslide in the southern city of Shenzhen that killed at least 7 people and has left over 70 missing, kills himself by jumping from a building in the city’s Nanshan district, according to the South China Morning Post. (TIME)

International relations

Japan–South Korea relations
- Japan and South Korea agree to ‘irreversibly’ resolve a long-running dispute over Korean women the Japanese military used as sex slaves during World War II. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe will issue a formal apology to the so-called “comfort women.” Tokyo will set up an aid fund of about 1 billion yen ($8.3 million). (USA Today) (Reuters)
European migrant crisis
- Germany recruits 8,500 teachers to provide special German language lessons for 196,000 Syrian child refugees. (The Independent) (CNN)
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
- Eleven tons of enriched uranium are on a ship heading from Iran to Russia, per the July 14th international agreement. Iran delivers 200 tons of Russian yellowcake in return. The International Atomic Energy Agency will decide when Tehran has complied with its obligations which would make dismantling of economic sanctions possible. (AP) (BBC) (Mehr)

Law and crime

A police officer storms the police headquarters in the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico, and shoots dead three fellow officers, including a commanding officer. Authorities say Guarionex Candelario, 50, was arrested for the killings shortly afterwards and taken to hospital for minor injuries. (NY Daily News)
A U.S. grand jury decides not to bring charges against a Cleveland policeman over the killing of 12 year old Tamir Rice. (BBC)
Guatemalan Gustavo Alejos Cambara, once private secretary to former President Álvaro Colom, turns himself in to authorities on charges related to government medicine procurement corruption. (AP)

Politics and elections

Polish constitutional crisis, 2015
- The leader of Poland‘s Democracy Defence Committee, Mateusz Kijowski, says the government has “broken the country” after Polish President, Andrzej Duda, enacted a measure curbing the powers of the country’s highest legislative court, theConstitutional Tribunal, despite protests and warnings from the European Union. Kijowski further called for foreign intervention in the country from “Europe and the United States” to topple the Law and Justice (PiS) government, saying “they must help us, otherwise Poland will leave the community of democracies”. After news broke that Duda had signed into law the constitutional tribunal bill, he made a speech on television defending his move. Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza quoted U.S. sources saying Barack Obama had objections and had let it be known he would delay meeting Duda. The newspaper also suggested Poland’s hosting of the next NATO summit, planned for July 2016, was in the balance. (The Guardian)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

January 3, 2016

Top News Stories –

Paul McKenna: I chose my wife by Excel spreadsheet –
Paul McKenna, the hypnotist and self-help guru, has disclosed that he decided who to marry by using an Excel spreadsheet. The 52-year-old revealed the software – normally used by accountants and office administrators – helped him to choose his wife-to-be, his long-time personal assistant Kate Davey. McKenna, who is worth around £40m, said a friend had pointed out that although he had dated a “lot of beautiful women”, he “didn’t actually like them”. He was encouraged to “make an Excel spreadsheet” to find out who he loved – and it turned out to be Kate, who has worked with him for 20 years. The pair revealed their feelings to each other three years ago and are now engaged to be married. [Daily Telegraph]
Paul McKenna

Video of the Day –

Infinity Room – [TIEE] from Refik Anadol on Vimeo.

List of the Day –

100 Things we didn’t know last year – by the BBC (67-100)

67. MI5 erroneously suspected novelist Doris Lessing of running a brothel.

Find out more (Independent)

68. US Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders released a spoken-word folk album in 1987.

Find out more (Dangerous Minds)

69. It is possible to have orgasms in your left foot.

Find out more (New York magazine)

70. The formula for the perfect poohstick is PP = A x I x Cd.

Find out more

71. Silk can be made from the solidified saliva of a clam.

Find out more

72. Gorillas have individual tastes in music.

Find out more (Discover Magazine Blogs)

73. The simpler and more repetitive a song’s lyrics, the more likely it is to reach number one in the Billboard Hot 100, debut in the top 40 and climb the chart more rapidly.

Find out more (Psychology Today)

74. The producer who was Gordon the Gopher’s puppeteer ended up as the BBC’s head of editorial standards.

Find out more

75. Bill Cosby was the first choice to play Sam Malone in Cheers, ahead of Ted Danson.

Find out more (Hollywood Reporter)

76. In their spare time, US fighter pilots play a mash-up of pool and rugby called crud.

Find out more (New York Times)

77. Scots have 421 words for snow.

Find out more

78. Lies are more convincing when the person telling them needs to urinate.

Find out more (Daily Telegraph)

79. Spotify’s shuffle is not truly random but sprinkles different genres evenly across a playlist and alternates songs by the same artist.

Find out more

80. The English composer Benjamin Britten wrote a national anthem for Malaysia, only for it to be rejected in favour of a cabaret tune.

Find out more

81. Elephants almost never get cancer.

Find out more (Nature News)

82. Actor Brian Blessed says that he delivered a baby in a park, bit through the umbilical cord and then licked the infant’s face clean.

Find out more

83. People who like their coffee black are more likely to be psychopaths.

Find out more (Huffington Post)

84. American toddlers shoot one person a week on average.

Find out more (Washington Post)

85. Biff Tannen’s older self, as portrayed in Back to the Future Part II, was based on Donald Trump.

Find out more (Daily Beast)

86. The US used to relocate beavers by parachuting them out of planes.

Find out more (Mashable)

87. Dancing to Gangnam Style could raise people’s pain thresholds.

Find out more (Wired)

88. Pregnancies conceived in December have the best chance of success.

Find out more (Netmums)

89. Men with beards have a greater tendency to hold sexist attitudes than their clean-shaven counterparts.

Find out more (Mental Floss)

90. Footballers have worse teeth than the general population.

Find out more

91. It’s possible to hallucinate a foreign accent.

Find out more (Brain Decoder)

92. Victoria’s Secret Bombshell perfume is almost as good at repelling mosquitoes as commercial insect sprays containing Deet.

Find out more (Daily Beast)

93. Germaine Greer wrote a 30,000-word love letter to Martin Amis in 1976.

Find out more (the Guardian)

94. You’re So Vain definitely is about Warren Beatty (and two other men).

Find out more

95. A 17th Century scientist planned to paint the bubonic plague on to hats to create a biological weapon.

Find out more (New Scientist)

96. The Churchill household spent around £1,160 each year on wine, £104,400 in today’s money.

Find out more (the Economist)

97. A cow’s flatulence could fill a 55-gallon (250-litre) bag with methane in one day.

Find out more (Grist)

98. It would cost £11,602.25 to send a letter to Mars from the UK.

Find out more (Daily Mirror)

99. Text messages that end with a full stop are seen to be less sincere than those that don’t.

Find out more (Wired UK)

100. Employees who say they love following the rules are the ones who are most likely to be fired for breaking them.

Find out more (New York Magazine)

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#زد_رصيدك51	#OregonUnderAttack	Gary Anderson
2	#OregonUnderAttack	#MafiaGoogleSearches	#TheVampsBTS
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4	#FelizDomingo	#alamobowl	#UFC195
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8	#SPSHello2016	#globedelivery	#MakeASongFrench
9	#UFC195	#PHIvsNYG	The Dark Knight
10	#ConfesionesNocturnas	#YallQaeda	#ANWTC3

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Iraqi Civil War (2014–present)
- The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claims responsibility for a suicide bomb attack on a Iraqi Army base (Camp Speicher, now known as Tikrit Air Academy), near the town of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, that killed at least 15 and injured 22. (Reuters)
Terrorism in India
- 2016 Pathankot attack
  - Gunfire and loud explosions are heard at an Indian Air Force base in Pathankot, Punjab, as anti-terrorist operations continue. A further two militants, for a total of six, are reported to have been killed; seven military and paramilitary personnel are reported to have been killed, with up to 20 other security personnel wounded. (DNA)

Disasters and accidents

2015–16 South Pacific cyclone season
- Fiji warns residents to prepare for the impact of severe tropical cyclone Ula. (AFP via France 24)
In the United States, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo orders communities statewide to place homeless people in shelters when temperatures reach freezing. (The Washington Post)

Environment

The United Kingdom designates Ascension Island and its surrounding waters in the Atlantic Ocean as a Marine protected area. The reserve will be almost as big as the UK with just over half of the protected area completely closed to fishing. (BBC)

International relations

North Korea and weapons of mass destruction
- North Korea may be preparing for an imminent thermonuclear weapon test at its Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, located in the country’s North Hamgyong Province where previous tests took place in 2006, 2009 and 2013, according to a South Koreanmilitary report. (Yonhap News Agency)
Saudi Arabia breaks off diplomatic relations with Iran after Sheikh Nimr’s execution. (BBC)

Law and crime

Mexican Drug War
- Two suspects are killed in a clash with police, and three others are arrested in connection with yesterday’s assassination of Temixco, Morelos’s newly inaugurated mayor Gisela Mota Ocampo. Governor Graco Ramírez, who attributed Mota’s killing toorganized crime, calls for three days of mourning. (AP via ABC news)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

February 20, 2016

Top News Stories –

Brendon McCullum: New Zealand captain breaks fastest Test century record –
New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum scored the fastest ever Test century in a majestic display against Australia on the first day of the second Test. The 34-year-old needed just 54 balls to reach his 12th century in his 101st and final Test before retiring. It beat the mark of 56 balls set by West Indies great Sir Viv Richards against England in 1986, and equalled by Pakistan’s Misbah-ul-Haq in 2014. “I was trying to hit every ball for four or six,” said McCullum. “Viv was my idol growing up, he was an incredible cricketer. I’m almost a little bit of embarrassed to go past him, to be honest.” He went on to score 145 off of 79 balls. [BBC] See List of the Day

Video of the Day –

Every Best Visual Effects Winner. Ever. from Burger Fiction on Vimeo.

List of the Day –

Fastest Test Centuries [from Wikipedia]

**Fastest Test centuries**
No. of balls	Player	Opponent	Venue	Season
54	Brendon McCullum†	Australia	Hagley Oval, Christchurch	2015–16
56	Viv Richards	England	Antigua Recreation Ground, St. John’s	1985–86
56	Misbah-ul-Haq	Australia	Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi	2014
57	Adam Gilchrist	England	WACA Ground, Perth	2006–07
67	Jack Gregory	South Africa	Old Wanderers, Johannesburg	1921–22
Last updated: 20 February 2016^[

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#HappyBirthdayRihanna	#HappyBirthdayRihanna	#HappyBirthdayRihanna
2	#المباراه_تعاد…	#LoveYourPetDay	Umberto Eco
3	#تدرون_اني	#NVDemsCaucus	#GlasgowGP
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7	JaDineLove AranetaConcert	#FirstTechJob	#WorldClubSeries
8	#FelizSabado	#SLFLOsaka	#6YearsOfBaby
9	#MiedoEs	#Caturday	#NeD16
10	#DicenQueNoSonNacosY	#IfIWereTheLast	#WelshLab16

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Libyan Civil War (2014–present)
- Two Serbian embassy staff abducted in Libya in November 2015 are believed to have been among dozens killed in yesterday’s U.S. airstrike on a ISIL camp in Sabratha, according to Serbia’s Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić. (Reuters)
- At least 14 people are killed and 32 wounded in battles in the eastern city of Benghazi, most in the Boatni neighborhood, between the Libyan National Army and Islamist militants. (Reuters)
Yemeni Civil War (2015–present)
- Al-Qaeda militants take control of the southern Yemeni town of Ahwar in the Abyan Governorate. (Reuters)
War in Afghanistan (2015–present)
- A United States Air Force operated MQ-9 Reaper drone crashes at the Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan. (RT)

Arts and culture

Italian refugee documentary Fire at Sea, directed by Gianfranco Rosi, wins the 66th Berlin International Film Festival’s Golden Bear award for best film. (Variety)

Disasters and accidents

2015–16 South Pacific cyclone season
- Cyclone Winston
  - Hundreds of evacuation centres are activated in Fiji as Cyclone Winston makes landfall in Fiji‘s outer islands and heads towards islands with higher population. (ABC News Australia)
  - A curfew of 6pm is introduced with power out in many areas of Fiji. (ABC)
  - A “state of natural disaster” is declared for the next 30 days with Cyclone Winston classified as the strongest storm on record in the Southern Hemisphere. (Slate)

International relations

Syrian Civil War peace process
- The main Syrian opposition group says a temporary truce is possible if the Syrian government’s allies, including Russia, “halt all fighting” in the war-torn country. A pause in Russian bombardments appears unlikely. (Reuters) (Voice of America)

Law and crime

Jat protesters shut down 70% of Delhi‘s water supply meaning the Indian city could run out of water by the end of the weekend. At least nine people are killed in fighting. (The Times of India), (BBX)
Calais migrant crisis
- French authorities give up to 1000 migrants, mostly Syrians and Iraqis, until 8pm local time on 23 February to leave the Calais jungle camp. Those who refuse to leave will be forcibly removed by police.(Sky News)
2016 Kalamazoo shootings
- Seven people are killed and another injured in multiple shooting incidents in Kalamazoo County in the American state of Michigan. A 45-year-old man was later arrested in the city of Kalamazoo (RT),(Press Association via Irish Independent)
A planned refugee shelter is set on fire in Bautzen, eastern Germany. (Deutsche Welle)

Politics and elections

United States presidential election, 2016.
- Voters in the American state of Nevada take part in Democratic Party caucuses, with Hillary Clinton winning against Bernie Sanders. (Fox News) (NBC News)
- Voters in the American state of South Carolina go to the polls for the South Carolina primary for the Republican Party with Donald Trump winning and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio in a close race for second.(2016 Election Central), (CNN), (AP via Boston Globe)
- Former Governor of Florida Jeb Bush suspends his campaign following a disappointing finish in the South Carolina primary. (NBC News)
China’s State Council announces that Liu Shiyu, who had been chairman of the Agricultural Bank of China Limited, will replace Xiao Gang as head of the China’s Securities Regulatory Commission.(Reuters) (China Daily)
Ugandan general election, 2016
- The President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni is declared the winner of the Presidential election with 60% of the vote. European Union observers state that the election was held in an “intimidating atmosphere”. (NPR)

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February 23, 2016

Top News Stories –

London’s Crossrail to be called the Elizabeth Line –
Crossrail, the new railway which will run beneath London, is to be named the Elizabeth Line in honour of the Queen, Boris Johnson has announced. London’s mayor revealed the line’s name and purple logo as he visited Bond Street station with the monarch. Trains on the railway will travel under the centre of the city, linking parts of Berkshire and Buckinghamshire to Essex when it opens in December 2018. Mr Johnson said it was “wonderful” the line had “such a significant name”. “The Elizabeth Line will provide a lasting tribute to our longest-serving monarch”, the mayor said. [BBC]
Elizabeth Line Roundel

Thai princess leaves $40,000 custom toilet ‘unused’ –
A toilet that cost an estimated $40,000 (£28,300) to custom-build for a Thai princess visiting Cambodia was left unused, officials say. Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn reportedly just took photos of the toilet’s building during her visit to Yeak Lom Lake, in north-east Cambodia. The toilet has now been removed and the hut will serve as a tourist office.
The story made headlines in Cambodia, where fewer than 40% of people in rural areas have access to toilets. The toilet, housed in a specially constructed air-conditioned hut, was set up for Ms Sirindhorn two-hour visit to the north-eastern lake on Monday, reportedly at her request. [BBC]
HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn

Video of the Day –

Bass Pro Edition | Dude Perfect

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
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9	#ALDUBDestiny	Dante Fowler	#FreshMeat
10	#SóVemClubeSDV	#startupgrind	#universitychallenge

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Syrian Civil War
- Battle of Aleppo (2012–present)
  - ISIL militants cut off the Syrian Army‘s main supply route to the city of Aleppo and capture the village of Khanasir, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. (Reuters)

Disasters and accidents

2015–16 South Pacific cyclone season
- Cyclone Winston
  - The death toll from Cyclone Winston in Fiji rises to 29. (BBC)
Water supply is restored to the Indian city of Delhi as repairs are made to the vital Munak canal after the Jat reservation agitation is resolved. (BBC)
2015–16 Australian bushfire season
- Emergency warnings are issued after bushfires threaten the Victorian towns of Mount Bolton and Addington northwest of Ballarat as well as the town of Somerville, Victoria, on the Mornington Peninsula.(ABC News Australia)
Dalfsen train crash
- A train derails near the Dutch town of Dalfsen with reports of at least one death and several injured. (BBC), (AAP via News Limited)
At least one person has been killed and three people remain missing following the partial collapse of a decommissioned turbine hall at Didcot A Power Station in Oxfordshire, England. (BBC)
Tornadoes of 2016
- At least two people are dead and 30 injured after a suspected tornado hits a trailer park near the village of Convent, Louisiana. At least one other person has died in the Deep South of the United States.(WWL TV), (Fox News)
A 4.8 magnitude earthquake strikes near Wasco, California, about 25 miles northwest of Bakersfield. There are no reports of damage or injuries. (Los Angeles Times)

Health

Zika virus outbreak (2015–present)
- The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating 14 cases where the Zika virus may have been sexually transmitted. (NBC News)

International relations

Foreign relations of Lebanon
- The United Arab Emirates (UAE) bans its citizens from traveling to Lebanon, just hours after Saudi Arabia issued a warning to its citizens to leave Lebanon in retaliation for Lebanon choosing to side withIran in the Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict and Hezbollah‘s influence on the Lebanese government. (Middle East Eye)
South China Sea disputes
- China reportedly deploys several J-11 and Xian JH-7 fighter jets to the disputed Woody Island in the South China Sea. (Fox News)

Law and crime

The President of the United States Barack Obama announces plans to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. Obama made similar statements during his first presidential campaign in 2007 and had previously stated that the camp would be closed by 2010. (CNN)

Politics and elections

United States presidential election, 2016
- Republican Party voters, in precinct gatherings, hold the Nevada caucuses with Donald Trump projected as the winner. There are widespread reports of chaos and allegations of potential fraud. (ABC 7),(Washington Examiner), Oregon Live)

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March 5, 2016

Top News Stories –

Sport Relief: Shearer beats Savage in 57-hour five-a-side epic –
Alan Shearer’s team have beaten Robbie Savage’s squad by 18 goals in a 57-hour five-a-side game for Sport Relief. Shearer, who captained the Match of the Day team, beat Savage, who led the BBC 5 live team with 547 goals to 529. More than 1,100 people played in the snow and rain outside BBC MediaCityUK in Salford since 09:15 on Thursday, raising £370,592 for Sport Relief. All-time Premier League top goal-scorer Shearer was presented his winning trophy by Gary Lineker. After scoring in extra time of the last game, Shearer said the challenge had tired him out. “My back, my thighs, my knees – they’re all in bits but it was all worth it.” The 57-hour duration of the match was chosen because it is the equivalent of a Premier League club’s entire season. The Premier League is matching all of the public’s donations up to a maximum of £500,000. The money will go towards helping disadvantaged people in the UK and overseas. [BBC]
Alan Shearer

Email inventor Ray Tomlinson dies at 74 –
Internet pioneer Ray Tomlinson, who is credited with the invention of email, has died at the age of 74. The US computer programmer came up with the idea of electronic messages that could be sent from one network to another in 1971. His invention included the ground-breaking use of the @ symbol in email addresses, which is now standard. Tomlinson died of an apparent heart attack on Saturday, according to reports. He sent what is now regarded as the first email while working in Boston as an engineer for research company Bolt, Beranek and Newman. [BBC]
Ray Tomlinson in 2004

Video of the Day –

SAGE “August In Paris” from LABELGUM on Vimeo.

Top Twitter Trends –

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4	#Felices20MarioBau	#A3AñosDeTuSiembraComandante	#Shetland
5	#انا_من_جيل	#MakeAMovieFeelTheBern	#gogglebox
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7	KATHNIEL SA CDO	#5daysTilDangerouswoman	#sgpconf
8	#ALDUBMaineEvent	#Ver01	#UFC196
9	#PrettyLittleWeekend	#WTM16	#OJSimpson
10	#SöylemedenEdemiycem	#OJSimpsonASong	#AMVCA2016

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Taliban insurgency
- The Afghan Taliban releases a statement rejecting peace talks with the government of Afghanistan until foreign forces stop attacking their positions and withdraw from the country. Direct peace talks between the government and the Taliban were expected to take place in Islamabad, Pakistan next week. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
Yemeni Civil War (2015–present)
- Second battle of Aden
  - Gunmen shoot dead the police chief of Aden‘s Tawahi district and one of his aides. (Reuters)

Business and economy

China announces plans to build a railway linking the Tibetan capital Lhasa with Chengdu. (Channel News Asia)

Disasters and accidents

More than 60 people are hospitalized after an engine explodes on a crowded Bangkok, Thailand, commuter boat. Police suspect a liquefied natural gas leak caused the blast. The boat operator has been ordered to use diesel fuel only on its 25-boat fleet. (AP) (International Business Times)

International relations

North Korea–Philippines relations
- The Philippines impounds a North Korean cargo ship in line with new UN sanctions on North Korea in response to Pyongyang‘s recent nuclear test and missile launch. Presidential spokesman, Manolo Quezon, said the 6,830-tonne cargo ship would not be allowed to leave the Port of Subic, Luzon, where it has been docked for three days, and that its crew would be deported. (The Straits Times)

Law and crime

Media freedom in Turkey
- Turkish police fire tear gas at protesters outside the Istanbul headquarters of the Zaman newspaper which has been taken over by the Turkish government. (BBC)
Gunmen dressed in police uniforms kill at least ten people in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa. (Reuters)

Politics and elections

Republican Party presidential primaries, 2016, Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2016
- Voters in the states of Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Maine, and Kentucky, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico participate in a party caucus or vote in a primary election. (Presidential Primary Schedule)
- Ted Cruz wins the Republican Party caucus in Kansas and Maine. (CBS News), (The Guardian)
- Donald Trump wins the Louisiana primary and Kentucky caucus. (ABC News), (New York Times)
- Bernie Sanders wins the Democratic Party contests in Kansas and Nebraska while Hillary Clinton wins in Louisiana. (CNN), (Washington Post), (NOLA), (CNN)
Slovak parliamentary election, 2016
- Voters in Slovakia choose representatives for all 150 National Council seats. While anti-migrant Prime Minister Robert Fico’s Smer party is expected to lose its parliamentary majority, it should be in position to lead a coalition government. (Reuters via Firstpost) (New Europe), (Bloomberg)
Samoan general election, 2016
- Results from yesterday’s election indicate that the ruling Human Rights Protection Party will retain power in a landslide. (ABC News Australia)
Anti-corruption campaign in China:
- The former party chief of Liaoning and Jilin provinces, Wang Min, is placed under investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. (SCMP)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

March 11, 2016

Top News Stories –

Progressive rock legend Emerson dies –
Keith Emerson, the co-founder and keyboardist of progressive rock group Emerson, Lake and Palmer, has died aged 71, according to his former band mates. “We regret to announce that Keith Emerson died last night at his home in Santa Monica, Los Angeles,” read a statement on the band’s Facebook page. Yorkshire-born Emerson was one of the top keyboardists of the prog rock era. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, Santa Monica police confirmed to the BBC. His death was being investigated as a suicide, police added. [BBC]
Keith Emerson performs on his Hammond and Moog synthesizer during the Emerson & Lake Tour 2010.

Apple customer goes to the top for iPhone battery answer –
The head of Apple’s operating system iOS confirmed that open but unused apps do not affect iPhone battery life after a customer emailed boss Tim Cook. The customer from Ohio, known as Caleb, asked Mr Cook whether closing down “multitasking apps” improved battery life and whether it was something the chief executive did himself. Senior vice-president Craig Federighi replied “no and no”. However, other smartphone batteries can benefit from app closure. While many Apple users do shut down apps in the belief it extends the iPhone battery this is not advice explicitly given by the firm itself. It only recommends disabling apps from carrying out background refreshes in a list of tips about saving power. [BBC]

Rafael Benitez: Newcastle United appoint Spaniard as Steve McClaren’s successor –
Rafael Benitez has been named as Newcastle’s new manager, following the sacking of Steve McClaren. The former Liverpool, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Inter Milan and Valencia boss takes over with the Magpies a point from safety with 10 games left. The Spaniard, 55, has signed a three-year contract, which is understood to contain a break clause should Newcastle be relegated at the end of the season. “C’mon Toon Army. The club and I need your total involvement,” he said. [BBC]
Rafael Benitez

Video of the Day –

Drawcard from Antonio Oreña-Barlin on Vimeo.

List of the Day –

Clubs Managed by Rafael Benitez [Wikipedia]

Teams managed
1993–1995	Real Madrid B
1995–1996	Valladolid
1996	Osasuna
1997–1999	Extremadura
2000–2001	Tenerife
2001–2004	Valencia
2004–2010	Liverpool
2010	Internazionale
2012–2013	Chelsea (interim)
2013–2015	Napoli
2015–2016	Real Madrid
2016–	Newcastle United

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9	#GloboGolpista	#LIKEIWOULDTONUMBER1	Archbishop of Canterbury
10	#東日本大震災	#TLConf2016	LGBT FANS DESERVE BETTER

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Insurgency in the Maghreb (2002–present)
- The Algerian Army kills three suspected Islamist militants near the eastern city of El Oued and seizes a large quantity of weapons, including six anti-aircraft missiles. (Reuters)
Yemeni Civil War (2015–present)
- More than 50 people have died in fighting in the Yemeni city of Taiz. (Al-Arabiya)

Business and economics

American veterans’ nonprofit charity The Wounded Warrior Project board of directors removes chief executive officer Steven Nardizzi and chief operation officer Al Giordano after an independent investigation confirms earlier news reports about lavish spending on employee perks, high overhead, and other perceived malfeasance. (The New York Times)
Bangladesh Bank money laundering case
- Bangladeshi bank officials say unknown hackers installed malware in the bank’s computer systems in last month’s attempt to steal nearly $1 billion from the central bank’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. (Reuters via Business Insider)
General Motors acquires Cruise Automation, a three-year old software company that’s been testing self-driving cars on the streets of San Francisco. (AP via Business Insider)

Disasters and accidents

Japan’s emperor and prime minister attend a memorial service marking the fifth anniversary of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in which 15,894 people died and caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Many people remain displaced and recovery efforts are ongoing. (The New York Times)
At least 15 people are killed by flooding and mudslides in and around São Paulo, Brazil, following heavy rain. (Reuters via Channel News Asia)

International relations

North Korea and weapons of mass destruction
- Kim Jong-un, the supreme leader of North Korea, orders the country to conduct more tests of nuclear weapons to improve its capacity. (Reuters via Daily Mail)
South Sudanese Civil War
- A new United Nations report on South Sudan describes one of the most horrendous human rights situations in the world, in particular by Government forces, including use of rape as a widespread weapon of war and recommends the U.N. Security Council consider imposing a comprehensive arms embargo on South Sudan and referring the matter to the International Criminal Court. (Newsweek (AP viaThe Washington Post)
The Arab League declares the Lebanon-based Shiite group Hezbollah a terrorist organization. (Reuters)
Syrian peace process
- The High Negotiations Committee, Syria’s main opposition group, will attend Monday’s U.N.-brokered peace talks in Geneva, Switzerland, a day shy of the fifth anniversary of the start of the conflict, and two-plus weeks into the ceasefire agreement. Although fighting continues, a significant drop in violence has been seen during the truce. The first round of Geneva talks collapsed on Feb. 3 during agovernment offensive against rebels in Aleppo. .(CBS News) (Reuters) (Deutsche Welle)
- UN envoy Staffan de Mistura says new elections should be held 18 months from the start of talks, i.e., in September 2017. (AFP via Firstpost)

Politics and elections

United States presidential election, 2016, Donald Trump presidential campaign endorsements, 2016
- Retired American neurosurgeon and former presidential candidate Ben Carson formally endorses Donald Trump at the Mar-a-Lago landmark estate in Palm Beach, Florida. (Fox News)
- Donald Trump postpones a rally at the University of Illinois at Chicago due to security issues amid fights between protestors and supporters. Five people are arrested, and two officers injured, according toChicago police. (AFP vis ABC News Australia) (CNN) (NBC News)
  - Rival Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz, John Kasich, and Marco Rubio state Mr. Trump bears some responsibility for the disturbance. (Los Angeles Times)
  - Thirty-two people are arrested, all but one charged with general peace disturbance, at an earlier Trump event at the Peabody Opera House in St. Louis, Missouri. (Chicago Tribune)
  - A Donald Trump supporter is charged with assault after social media videos show him sucker punching a protester at Wednesday’s campaign rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina. [(The Washington Post) (The Christian Science Monitor)
- Marco Rubio OK’s supporters voting for John Kasich in Ohio since the state’s former governor, “… is the only one who can beat Donald Trump in Ohio.” (The Washington Post) (Politico)

Science and technology

A report by a team of Japanese scientists, published in the American Association for the Advancement of Science journal Science, has identified bacteria — isolated from outside a bottle recycling facility — that can break down and metabolize plastic. The microbe appears to have evolved a pair of enzymes it uses to break down polyethylene terephthalate or PET, the most common thermoplastic polymer resin in consumer products. (LiveScience via CBS News) (The Washington Post) (Science)
Astronaut Scott Kelly announces his retirement from NASA effective April 1. Kelly holds the record for the American who has spent the most time in space. (NASA)
A report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine states climate science progress makes it possible to accurately detect global warming’s fingerprints on certain extreme weatherevents. There is “high confidence” in studies looking for climate change connections between extreme hot and cold temperatures, while efforts trying to attribute droughts and extreme rainfall has medium confidence. (AP via Business Insider) (USA Today via WLTX) (National Academies)

Sport

Newcastle United F.C. (NUFC) appoint Rafael Benítez as manager on a three-year deal after sacking Steve McClaren. (The Telegraph)

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March 12, 2016

Top News Stories –

Snapchat is assembling a super team to build smart glasses –
Today, you use your smartphone’s cameras to take snaps and creates stories on Snapchat. But in the future, you could be Snapchatting with a pair of Google Glass-like smart glasses on your face. According to CNET, Snapchat has aggressively assembled a team of wearable experts to work on some kind of smart eyewear device. Now, imagine being able to put on a pair of smart glasses and then see these effects overlaid on top of your friends’ faces using augmented reality. It would be insane. Of course, this is just one far-flung idea. For all we know, Snapchat could be building something entirely different. [Mashable UK]

Woman sues after toilet ‘exploded’ while she was sitting on it –
A woman is suing for damages after being “blown off” her toilet when workmen used high-power hoses to clean out sewer lines in her neighbourhood. Angela Wright of Baltimore, Maryland, says the incident, which took place in October 2014, left her suffering physical injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder from the incident. Both Ms Wright and her bathroom were “covered in filth and excretion,” following what she described as an “explosion”. In an interview with Fox 45 she said: “I was literally covered in faeces. Are you kidding me? Who wants that?” [Daily Telegraph]

Video of the Day –

Urban Snowmobiling in Saint Paul | Levi LaVallee

Top Twitter Trends –

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9	#PurposeTourVancouver	#LadyProjectSummit	#FakeCelebrityMiddleNames
10	#MinhaCidadeTem	Charlie Puth	#IWillSmileTodayBecause

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Iraqi Civil War (2014–present)
- Use of chemical weapons in the Iraqi Civil War
  - The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant fire mortars containing an unidentified chemical agent killing one and injuring 600 in Taza Khurmatu, Iraq. (FOX News) (NASDAQ)
Naxalite–Maoist insurgency
- Two Indian Border Security Force soldiers are killed and four injured in a conflict in the state of Chhattisgarh. (PTI via Hindustan Times)
Israeli–Palestinian conflict
- A 10-year-old Palestinian boy and his 6-year-old sister in Gaza are killed by fragments from a missile fired by an Israeli aircraft targeting four Hamas training camps after four missiles landed in open areas in southern Israel late yesterday. (LA Times) (Reuters)
Turkey–PKK conflict (2015–present)
- Turkish Air Force airstrikes reportedly kill at least 67 PKK militants in northern Iraq. (World Bulletin) (VOA News)
Syrian Civil War
- Jaysh al-Nasr rebels say they have shot down a fighter jet over the Hama Governorate in western Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the shoot down, saying a rebel group had brought down the jet by firing two heat-seeking missiles. A pro-government source acknowledged that a MiG-21 warplane went down over Kafr Nabudah, but said it was due to “technical difficulties”, denying it had been shot down. (Reuters via Yahoo! News) (The Guardian)
Yemeni Civil War (2015–present)
- Aden unrest
  - Airstrikes on the Al-Qaeda-held Al-Mansoura district in the port city of Aden, kill at least 17 militants and injure 20 civilians, according to local medics and a Yemeni security official. (Reuters)

Business and economics

Reuters reports, on the basis of unnamed sources “familiar with the matter,” that Energy Transfer Equity, a private equity concern, is in talks to sell Sunoco, a deal which would be valued at more than $2 billion. (Reuters)

Disasters and accidents

An avalanche kills six skiers in the Italian Alps. (Reuters)
A magnitude 6.3 earthquake strikes off Atka Island, southwest Alaska. There are no reports of a tsunami. (BNO News)
A tugboat crash on the Hudson River north of New York City results in one death and two people missing. (AP)

Politics and elections

Republican Party presidential primaries, 2016, Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2016
- Voters in Guam, Washington, D.C. and Wyoming head to the polls to vote in Republican Party caucuses, while Democratic Party members vote in the Northern Mariana Islands caucus. (CNN)
- Ted Cruz wins the most delegates in Wyoming, while Marco Rubio wins in Washington D.C. (New York Post), (The Guardian)
- Hillary Clinton wins the Northern Mariana Islands caucus. (NBC News, New York Times via Breaking News)
Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2016
- A protestor attempts to storm the stage as Donald Trump was talking at a rally in Dayton, Ohio, causing Secret Service agents to jump on the stage and form a wall around the presidential candidate amid the chaos. The suspect was identified as Thomas Dimassimo, 32, and was charged with disorderly conduct and inducing panic, according to Chief Mike Etter of the Dayton Police Department. Dimassimo is a Black Lives Matter activist. (NBC News).
Polish Constitutional Court crisis, 2015.
- Thousands of people take to the streets of Warsaw and other cities in Poland in protest against the government after it refused to publish the Constitutional Court’s ruling that the government cannot change how the court works. (BBC)
The Brazilian Democratic Movement Party sets a deadline of 30 days to determine the status of its alliance with Dilma Rousseff’s administration, including the option to leave the coalition. (Bloomberg)

Science and technology

AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol
- Google artificial intelligence company DeepMind‘s AlphaGo program takes an unbeatable three to zero lead in a five-game Go match against grand master Lee Sedol. (Wired)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

March 15, 2016

Top News Stories –

Mother Teresa to be made a saint in September –
Pope Francis has announced that Mother Teresa will be elevated to sainthood on 4 September, months after he approved a second miracle for the late nun and Nobel prize winner who was known as the “Saint of the Gutters”. The canonisation of Mother Teresa, who was hailed for her work with impoverished and dying people living in the slums of Kolkata, India, has been highly anticipated by supporters, and will be a highlight of the church’s jubilee year of mercy. More than 300,000 pilgrims went to Rome in 2003 for Teresa’s beatification – the first step towards sainthood. The Vatican said in a short statement on Friday that the Argentinian pontiff had approved the second miracle – the final hurdle to make her a saint – in which a Brazilian man was said to have been cured of multiple brain tumours in 2008 following the nun’s intercession. [Guardian]
Mother Teresa in 1986

California homeless man receives $100,000 for spotting fugitives –
A homeless man from San Francisco is to be given a reward of $100,000 (£71,000) for helping police recapture two prison inmates who had escaped. Matthew Hay-Chapman had seen photographs of the two fugitives on the news and spotted them in a stolen van. They had broken out of Orange County Jail six days earlier, sparking a state-wide manhunt. The full $150,000 (£106,000) reward was split between four people, with Mr Hay Chapman getting the largest share. Mr Hay-Chapman spotted the fugitives in the stolen van next to a market in San Francisco and alerted officers in the area. [BBC]

Video of the Day –

After Hours from Todd Martin on Vimeo.

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#FelizMartes	#PrimaryDay	Anita Brookner
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8	#PrimaryDay	3 Chicago	Sausage Party
9	#SiempreQueAndoFeliz	Mother Teresa	#BestFirstDateQuestions
10	#TerörsüzGünler	#FelizMartes	Mother Teresa

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

American-led intervention in Syria
- A senior Iraqi intelligence official, who is also a Syrian activist leader, says Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant commander Omar al-Shishani (Omar the Chechen, real name Tarkhan Tayumurazovich Batirashvili) died of wounds suffered in a March 4 U.S. airstrike near the Syrian town of Al-Shaddadah. The U.S. State Department offered up to $5 million for information on his whereabouts. Amaq news agency, which supports ISIL, says Shishani is neither dead nor hurt. (New York Times) (Chicago Tribune) (Reuters via Swiss Broadcasting Corporation)
2016 Brussels police raid
- Belgian security forces hunt gunmen linked to the November 2015 Paris attacks following a raid on a house in Brussels which left four officers wounded and one suspect dead after an exchange of gunfire. Roads have been blocked off in the Belgian capital’s southern suburb of Forest as one or more gunmen remain at large. (The Independent) (Irish Times)
Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen
- Airstrikes reportedly kill at least 41 people and wound 75 others in Yemen‘s northern Hajjah Governorate. (Reuters)

Arts and culture

Pope Francis announces that Mother Teresa will be canonized on September 4. (The Guardian)

Business and economy

Brookfield Asset Management Inc and Qube Holdings join forces to make a A$ 9.1 billion bid for Australian freight logistics company Asciano Limited. (Bloomberg)
Linn Energy, an oil-and-gas producer with about $10 billion in debt, says a bankruptcy filing may be unavoidable. The company was founded in 2003 and had its initial public offering in 2006. (Reuters)

Disasters and accidents

2016 Ecuadorian Air Force Arava crash
- An Ecuadorian Air Force IAI Arava 201 crashes near Shell Mera in a mountainous part of eastern Ecuador during military exercises, killing all of the 22 soldiers on board. (BNO News) (Aviation Safety Network)
The entire Washington D.C. Metro system will shut down for 29 hours beginning at midnight Wednesday for an emergency investigation after an electric cable caught fire on Monday. (The Washington Post)(NBC4 Washington)
A fire severely damages the 16th century Wythenshawe Hall, near Manchester, England. (BBC)
A deadly fire breaks out at a rehabilitation center for addicts in Sterlitamak, Bashkortostan, a Republic of Russia, killing 12 people. An investigation was immediately launched. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

Health and medicine

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issues final recommendations urging doctors to try something besides an opioid when first treating pain, and if an opioid drug, such as hydrocodone oroxycodone, is the best choice, start with the lowest possible dose. (The Washington Post) (NBC News)

International relations

Burundian unrest (2015–present)
- The European Union suspends direct financial aid to Burundi after concluding that the Burundian authorities had not done enough to find a political solution to the ongoing conflict occurring in the country.(The Guardian)
Argentina–China relations
- Argentina‘s coastguard says it has sunk a Chinese fishing trawler that was operating illegally within its territorial waters. The coastguard says it rescued four of the trawler’s crew while others who abandoned ship were picked up by another Chinese vessel shadowing the pursuit. (Reuters via Yahoo! News)
The parliament of the Netherlands passes a resolution calling on the government to stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia, citing ongoing “violations of humanitarian law” in Yemen. (Middle East Eye)

Law and crime

Shooting of Michael Brown, Ferguson unrest
- The Ferguson, Missouri, city council, after last month voting to change the terms of the agreement, reverses course and unanimously (6-0) agrees to accept a U.S. Justice Department overhaul of its troubled police force and municipal courts. This avoided a likely expensive legal battle with the federal government which had filed suit against the city following last month’s vote. (CNN)

Politics and elections

United States presidential election, 2016
- Voters in the U.S. states of Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, North Carolina and the commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands head to the polls for Republican and Democratic Party primaries that the media has dubbed “Super Tuesday 2”. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
- Donald Trump wins primaries in Illinois, North Carolina, Missouri and Florida while John Kasich wins in Ohio. (NY Daily News) (Decision Desk HQ), (CNN), (USA Today), (NBC News)
- Donald Trump wins the Northern Mariana Islands caucus. (Politico)
- Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic primaries in Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri and North Carolina. (Fox News), (Washington Post), (NBC News), (NBC News Live Blog)
- Marco Rubio suspends his presidential campaign following a disappointing defeat in his home state of Florida. (The New York Times)
- North Carolina’s controversial voter ID law is in effect for the first time. Voters without these new ID credentials, including voters with a “reasonable impediment” to obtaining an ID, can cast a provisional ballot. Citizens (2,567) faced this problem during early voting, including U.S. Senator Richard Burr who, because his driver’s license was stolen, was without ID. In addition, votes for congressional candidates for House seats don’t count because the state’s congressional district map was redrawn after the ballots were printed. The actual congressional primary is scheduled for June 7. (WRAL)(The Nation via Moyers & Company) (NPR) (Charlotte Observer) (The New York Times)
Nigerien general election, 2016
- The government will release opposition candidate Hama Amadou from prison due to health issues. Amadou is facing off against incumbent President of Niger Mahamadou Issoufou in the second round of voting on Sunday. (Reuters)
The Myanmar Assembly of the Union, or parliament, selects Htin Kyaw as the new President. Kyaw, a confidant of Aung San Suu Kyi, will be the first civilian president in decades. Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, is constitutionally barred from the office. (Indian Express), (ABC News Australia)
The Obama administration announces it is cancelling plans to permit drilling for oil and gas off the southeastern U.S. Atlantic coast. A new plan involves 10 potential lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and three off the coast of Alaska. (USA Today) (The Island Free Press)

Science and technology

Andrew Wiles wins the 2016 Abel Prize for his solution to Fermat’s last theorem. (Nature)
Scientists, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences scientific journal, report that so-called fairy circles are caused by the plants themselves, which have self-organized. Michael Cramer and Nichole Barger suggested this in 2013. (The Washington Post) (PNAS) (The Atlantic)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

March 16, 2016

Top News Stories –

Chinese city brings in penalty points for dog owners –
A city in eastern China is tackling negligent dog owners with a new driving licence-style system. The pilot scheme, which started this month, gives pooches in the city of Shaoxing a licence pre-loaded with 12 points which are then gradually docked for breaking the rules, Qianjiang Evening News reports. Taking a dog into a public place such as a school or restaurant will cost an owner three points, while “failing to take effective measures” to stop a badly behaving dog results in six points being docked. A microchip under the dog’s skin will hold data on the penalties incurred. The biggest penalties are reserved for owners who use their pets to cause deliberate wounding, and those who abandon or abuse their animals – they’ll lose all 12 points and be banned from reapplying for an ownership licence. “Like drink-driving and other bad behaviour, dog owners will be blacklisted, and won’t be able to raise dogs again,” says city official Zhang Zhuoming. The paper says Shaoxing has experienced problems with both stray and domestic dogs, with more than 7,000 dog biting incidents registered last year. [BBC]

Pigeons track air pollution in London with tiny backpacks –
A small flock of pigeons have been given tiny backpacks to monitor air pollution in London. The project was dreamt up by Plume Labs, a company focused on the environmental problem, and the marketing agency DigitasLBi. The rucksacks are fitted to the birds using small fabric vests, and the sensors inside are able to measure nitrogen dioxide and ozone levels. Only 10 birds are in flight at any one time, so the amount of data being collected is pretty small. However, it’s still a creative way of analysing the air that millions breathe in every day in the capital. [Endgadget]

Video of the Day –

X-Men: Apocalypse | Official Trailer [HD] | 20th Century FOX

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#FelizMiercoles	#Since66	#Budget2016
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9	#DanGanasDe	#MyElectionFear	#WednesdayWisdom
10	#BirdenŞöyleDedim	#smileforjoe	Trump and Clinton

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

War in North-West Pakistan
- 2016 Peshawar bus bombing
  - A bomb detonates in a bus carrying government employees in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing 15 and injuring at least 54. (AP via CBS)
Boko Haram insurgency
- 2016 Maiduguri suicide bombings
  - Two female suicide bombers detonate their explosives at a mosque during morning prayer on the outskirts of Maiduguri, Nigeria, killing 22 and injuring 18. (AP via New York Times) (Newsweek)

Disasters and accidents

The Washington Metro, a commuter rail system which transports nearly 1 million passengers across the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area per day, shuts down to allow for an emergency inspection of 600 electrical cables, following two fires occurring over the past 14 months. Officials say the system is scheduled to resume service by the following morning, though individual Metro lines or stations could remain closed indefinitely if problems are identified. (The Washington Post) (The Washington Times) (CBS News)

Health and medicine

Zika virus outbreak
- Cuban officials announce they have detected the first case of the Zika virus transmitted inside the country: a 21-year-old Havana woman who had not traveled abroad. Cuba has reported a handful of travel-associated Zika cases, all believed imported from Venezuela. (Medical Xpress) (Outbreak News Today)

International relations

North Korea–United States relations
- North Korea sentences American Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old from Cincinnati, Ohio, studying at the University of Virginia, to 15 years hard labor for removing a political poster from a hotel. (The Guardian) (The Washington Post)
- President Barack Obama orders new sanctions against North Korea in response to ‘illicit’ nuclear, missile tests. (AP)
Syrian Civil War, Syrian peace process
- The delegation of the government of Syria rules out starting any direct talks with the opposition delegation as U.N. sponsored peace talks enter a third day in Geneva. (BBC)
- Kurdish officials say they plan to declare a federal region in northern Syria after being excluded from peace talks in Geneva aimed at ending the 5-year-old conflict. The move will combine three Kurdish-led autonomous areas into a federal system in what is set to alarm neighboring Turkey. (USA Today)
Turkey–United Kingdom relations
- Turkey deports British academic Chris Stephenson, a computer science lecturer at Bilgi University in Istanbul, who is charged with making terrorism propaganda. The UK Foreign Office said it was providing assistance; there has been no comment from Turkish officials. (AP)

Law and crime

The travel ban for former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is lifted by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Musharraf is currently facing treason charges in Pakistan. (Reuters)
PKK rebellion (2015–present)
- Authorities in Turkey arrest three academics on charges of “terrorist propaganda” after they called for an end to security operations in the country’s Kurdish-majority southeast. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
Attacks on humanitarian workers
- The U.S. military disciplines more than a dozen personnel for mistakes that led to the bombing of a Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) hospital that killed 42 people in Afghanistan last October. No criminal charges are pending. The partially redacted investigation report is expected to be made public shortly. (AP)

Politics and elections

Republican Party presidential debates and forums, 2016
- Donald Trump announces he will skip the Fox News GOP presidential debate between the three remaining candidates on March 21, saying he thinks “we had enough of debates.” (Newsmax)
- Ohio Governor John Kasich says he will also skip the debate if Donald Trump follows through on his vow not to attend. (The Hill)
- Fox News cancels the Republican debate scheduled for Monday in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Utah Republican Party has received more than 50,000 ticket requests. Utah Lieutenant Governor Spencer Cox is upset Trump, “…is snubbing the state of Utah.” According to Deseret News, Trump is in fourth place in Utah polls. (The Salt Lake Tribune) (Deseret News)
2016 Republican Party presidential primaries:
- Senior GOP rules committee member Curly Haugland says that “We (RCN committee members) choose the nominee, not the voters”. (Washington Post)
United States presidential election, 2016
- In the Missouri Primary, media outlets have held off calling yesterday’s races due to the extremely close results. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton lead in their party’s vote, but by just two-tenths of 1 percent ahead of Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders, respectively. Missouri law states a recount may be requested if the margin is less than half a percentage point. Either Cruz or Sanders or both can request a recount. These results are unofficial, until they’re certified by the Missouri Secretary of State, which reportedly could take up to four weeks. Trump leads by about 1,700 votes and Clinton’s edge is about 1,500. The state also needs to count the remaining absentee and provisional ballots; the deadline for overseas ballots is noon Friday. (The Hill) (CNN)
Barack Obama Supreme Court candidates
- President Barack Obama nominates Merrick Garland to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court of the United States. (BBC) (CNN)
Brazil‘s ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva takes Cabinet post as chief of staff to Brazil’s current president, Dilma Rousseff, thereby gaining legal shield. Only the Brazilian Supreme Court can try presidential Cabinet members for crimes. (New York Times) (UPI)
- Protests erupt outside the presidential palace in Brasília, and on São Paulo’s main Avenue Paulista. on news of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s appointment as President Rousseff’s chief of staff. Federal Judge Sérgio Moro says taped conversations between the two show Lula and Rousseff, apparently, trying to influence the investigation. (Reuters)

Science and technology

Scientists release a small flock of pigeons, dubbed “The Pigeon Air Patrol”, carrying tiny backpacks to monitor London‘s air quality during a period of moderate to high pollution. The backpacks contain sensors used to measure nitrogen dioxide and ozone levels. (Engadget) (The Guardian)

Sport

The PGA of America announces it is discontinuing the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, a special postseason event among the year’s winners of the four major championships of regular men’s golf. This year, it was set to be held at Trump National Golf Club in Los Angeles, California. The 2015 event was cancelled after the PGA decided to move the exhibition contest from the same Trump Club, and they couldn’t find a replacement course golf course with suitable dates. (AP) (PGA) (ESPN)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

March 17, 2016

Top News Stories –

There’s a 10,000% increase in searches for an unusual type of porn this week –
This week sees a whopping 10,000 per cent increase in searches for one particular type of porn. And it’s, erm, unusual. But whatever, each to their own. You may already be aware that this Thursday, March 17, is St. Patrick’s Day. While many revellers (Irish or not) mark the day with a pint of the black stuff, a huge portion of people are staying at home for some time alone with Leprechaun porn. Pornhub have revealed searches for Leprechaun erotica increased by a staggering 10,000 per cent on St. Patrick’s Day last year. And that’s not all folks. The number of people searching for the word Irish on the adult film site increased by 600 per cent, while searches for St Patrick’s Day-theme porn increased by 6,000 per cent. Online traffic on Pornhub from Ireland on St Patrick’s Day is on average 5 per cent higher than usual. [The Metro]

Ben Nevis gains a metre thanks to GPS height measurement –
Ben Nevis, Britain’s tallest mountain, is a little bit bigger than we thought. The Ordnance Survey (OS), has re-measured the Scottish peak and its official height is now put at 1,345m – a metre taller than before. The actual difference from the last official measurement in 1949 is much less – but enough for the height to be rounded up rather than down.
The change comes from the precision that can now be achieved with modern technologies such as GPS. OS, Britain’s official mapping agency, has already begun issuing maps with the new height. The official measuring point atop Ben Nevis is one of those squat concrete pillars familiar to hill-walkers all over the country. It sits on a cairn, and it was when this pile of stones was restored recently that OS experts took the opportunity to check the mountain’s exact height. It is more than 60 years since this was last done, and back then, it took a team three weeks to complete the job after hauling heavy gear up Ben Nevis and nearby peaks. [BBC]
Ben Nevis

Video of the Day –

Anything VINE Can Do, YOUTUBE Does Better (ft. Thomas Sanders)

Top Twitter Trends –

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1	#HelpBrasilClubeSDV	#BeAlrightTonight	Cliff Michelmore
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4	#BEFOUR	#PitMad	#BEFOUR
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9	#QuedaDoPlanalto	St. Patty’s Day	#whitepaper
10	#SiTuvieraMuchaPlata	Yale	#OneHealth2016

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Iraqi Civil War, Syrian Civil War
- The United States Secretary of State John Kerry says ISIL has committed genocide against Christians, Yazidis and Shias in areas it controls in Syria and Iraq. (BBC)
- The Islamic State reports commander Hassan Aboud has died of wounds sustained about two weeks ago in a battle near Aleppo, Syria. He was injured when a vehicle he was in struck a roadside bombnear Khanaser. (The New York Times)
Papua conflict
- Three construction workers are shot dead in Jayapura, Papua, by a supposed armed group, according to Indonesian police. (Radio New Zealand)

Arts and culture

Radar scans at the tomb of Tutankhamun, Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, reveal two chambers adjoining the tomb, raising prospect of finding the resting place of Queen Nefertiti. (The Guardian)
The Vatican is replacing Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S., with French-born Archbishop Christophe Pierre, currently the Apostolic Nuncio to Mexico. Viganò, who is 75, the statuatory retirement age, arranged the 2015 meeting between (not pre-briefed) Pope Francis and controversial Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, who refused to follow her state’s law on same-sex marriage.(New York Daily News via ChristianNews.net)

Business and economics

Tribune Publishing, an American company whose Southern California media holdings include the Los Angeles Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune, wins an auction for bankrupt newspapers, Orange County Register, published in Santa Ana, and The Press-Enterprise, headquartered in Riverside, for $56 million, subject to judicial approval. A federal bankruptcy court hearing is scheduled for Monday. TheU.S. Justice Department has warned that a Tribune purchase could violate antitrust laws. (AP via U.S. News & World Report) (Los Angeles Times)

Disasters and accidents

At least 16 Palestinian pilgrims are killed when the bus they were traveling to Saudi Arabia on overturns in southern Jordan. (Voice of America)

International relations

The People’s Republic of China expresses its opposition to unilateral sanctions against North Korea in the wake of the imposition of new sanctions by the United States on the country in response to its recent nuclear and rocket tests. (Reuters)
Syrian Civil War
- Kurdish parties in northern Syria declare the establishment of a federal system in areas they control. The move was criticized by the government of Syria. (BBC)
Territorial disputes in the South China Sea
- Admiral John Richardson says the United States has seen Chinese activity around Scarborough Shoal, which China seized from the Philippines nearly four years ago, in the northern part of the Spratly archipelago of the South China Sea. An international court ruling on a case brought by the Philippines against China over its South China Sea claims is expected within a month. (Reuters)

Law and Crime

Judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia announce that they will soon deliver their verdict against radical Serb leader Vojislav Šešelj, suspected of crimes against humanitycommitted during the Breakup of Yugoslavia, despite him being sent back to Serbia for medical reasons. Šešelj has vowed not to return to court. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

Politics and elections

2015–16 protests in Brazil
- Clashes erupt outside the presidential palace in Brazil‘s capital Brasília between anti-Workers’ Party protesters and supporters of ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, where he was due to be sworn in asPresident of Brazil Dilma Rousseff‘s chief of staff. Hundreds of anti-government protesters calling for Rousseff’s impeachment and Lula’s arrest also blocked the central Paulista Avenue in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and economic hub. (Reuters)
A Brazilian federal judge blocks the appointment of ex-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as chief of staff, arguing that the appointment would derail a federal judicial investigation against him. The government said it would appeal against the decision. (BBC)
Republican Party presidential candidates, 2016
- The hacker group Anonymous follows through on its threat and releases candidate Donald Trump’s personal information (unverified) including his Social Security number, his phone numbers, his agent and his legal representatives. (AOL) (USA Today) (Daily Mirror)
United States presidential election, 2016, Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2016
- Bernie Sanders concedes the Missouri primary to Hillary Clinton, who led by 1,531 votes, 0.002 percent of those counted. Sanders says he will not ask for a recount, an option he had because the result is under the state’s requirement, 0.005 percent — one-half of one percent. The Republican contest is too close to call as Donald Trump leads Ted Cruz by a similar 0.002 percent. (AP via MSN.com)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

March 18, 2016

Top News Stories –

Hulk Hogan awarded $115m in Gawker sex tape case –
A Florida jury has awarded Hulk Hogan $115m (£79m) after the gossip news website Gawker published a sex tape of the retired professional wrestler. Mr Hogan’s legal team argued the New York-based website violated his privacy and the video was not newsworthy. The case, which pitted freedom of the press against a celebrity’s right to privacy, has been closely watched. The video was posted in 2012 after Mr Hogan was secretly recorded having sex with his friend’s wife. Mr Hogan, whose given name is Terry Bollea, said the release of the sex tape hurt his career. He was one of the most popular professional wrestlers of the 1980s and 1990s and later starred in his own reality television show with his family. [BBC]
Hulk Hogan

Sport Relief raises ‘a record’ £55m –
More than £55m has been raised so far for charity on Sport Relief’s live TV show, ahead of a weekend of fundraising. David Walliams, Alesha Dixon, Gary Lineker and Greg James were among those who hosted the BBC show, broadcast from London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Highlights included a Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em sketch featuring tennis siblings Andy and Jamie Murray. The total of £55,444,906 breaks the previous on-the-night record of £51m. [BBC] See List of the Day

Iain Duncan Smith quits over planned disability benefit changes –
Iain Duncan Smith has dramatically resigned from the [UK] Government in protest at George Osborne’s proposed cuts to benefits for the disabled. The former Conservative leader said that plans to cut the benefits paid to the disabled by more than £1 billion were a “compromise too far” and said that welfare for pensioners should be cut instead. He added that they are “not defensible” when announced alongside a budget that benefits higher earning taxpayers. Mr Duncan Smith [a former Conservative Leader] also accused the Chancellor of forcing through cuts to welfare for “political” rather than national economic reasons. [Daily Telegraph]
Iain Duncan Smith

Australia Senate passes reforms after farcical all-nighter –
Monty Python references, a colonoscopy analogy and a pyjama-clad senator featured during an all-night sitting of Australia’s upper house. The Senate has finally passed changes to how its members are elected after 28 hours of debate. The changes will disadvantage so-called micro parties that have gained increasing power in the Senate. The ruling conservative Coalition formed an unlikely partnership with the Greens party to pass the reforms. But the opposition Labor Party and micro party senators, who opposed the laws, dragged out the debate with filibuster tactics and amendments. During the all-night debate, Labor senators consistently spoke off-topic to delay votes to the legislation giving voters greater control over where their preferences were allocated. The laws eventually passed by a margin of 36-24. [BBC]

Video of the Day –

Proof of evolution that you can find on your body

List of the Day –

Total charity donations “on the night” by BBC Sport Relief

2004	£11,078,359
2006	c. £18,000,000
2008	£19,640,321
2010	£31,633,091
2012	£50,447,197
2014	£51,242,186
2016	£55,444,906

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#SextaTopNoClubeSdv	#FlashbackFriday	#FridayFeeling
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9	Salah Abdeslam	#SpringBreakIn4Words	#TechNorthTalent
10	#LaMujerPerfecta	#GetWellSoonDylan	#SkyF1

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Insurgency in the Maghreb (2002–present)
- Boko Haram and al-Qaeda kill four security force personnel in two separate attacks in Niger. (BBC)

International relations

North Korea and weapons of mass destruction
- The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff and a U.S. defense official report that North Korea fired two ballistic missiles from the South Pyongan Province. One flew 800 kilometers (497 miles) into the Sea of Japan. The other disappeared at an altitude of about 17 kilometers (10.5 miles). (Sky News) (CNN)
European migrant crisis
- European Union leaders offer Turkey a detailed package of cash and incentives to agree that all migrants attempting to cross the Aegean Sea by raft or boat would be sent back to Turkey which, in effect, becomes the region’s migrant holding center. A number of stumbling blocks remain, such as raising the amount of aid from 3 billion euros to at least 6 billion euros; reducing the “72 arduous conditions” the Turks must meet to implement visa-free travel for Turkish citizens; Europe agrees to accelerate talks with Ankara on its EU bid; etc. Human Rights Watch protests the proposed fast-track collective expulsions that fail to take individual circumstances into account and breach peoples’ right to seek asylum. (The Washington Post) (Journal of Turkish Weekly)
- European Union and Turkish officials agree on how to handle the flood of refugees. The deal, to return irregular migrants to Turkey, includes acceleration of the country’s long-stalled bid for membership in the union; billions of euros in extra aid, 3 billion euros now, another 3 billion by 2018; and, visa-free travel for Turks once the country satisfies the EU criteria. Europe will be taking in thousands of Syrianrefugees directly from Turkey. Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) strongly condemns the deal as “ugly and illegal.” The agreement is set to go into effect Sunday, March 20, 2016.(CNN) (Middle East Eye) (Reuters)

Health and medicine

Swiss research, published in the medical journal The Lancet, found that paracetamol — sold as Tylenol and as a generic, acetaminophen, in the United States — was not effective at reducing pain or improving movement in patients with osteoarthritis of the knee or hip. The analysis examined 74 randomly-selected trials published between 1980 and 2015 with 58,556 patients who had osteoarthritis. The study did find the prescription drug diclofenac, sold in the U.S. as Cataflam or Voltaren, is the most effective NSAID available. McNeil Consumer Healthcare, the makers of Tylenol, disagree with the study’s conclusions.(CBS News) (The Lancet)
2016 United States Elizabethkingia outbreak
- A rare bacterial infection from bacterium Elizabethkingia anophelis may have contributed to the deaths of 17 people since November 2015. (Patch) (Star Tribune)

Law and crime

Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch far-right political party Party for Freedom, goes on trial again for making anti-Islam remarks. He is being accused of inciting hatred against the Moroccan-Dutch minority.(The Guardian)
2016 Brussels police raids
- Salah Abdeslam, the alleged suspect and primary perpetrator of the November 2015 Paris attacks is shot and arrested by Belgian authorities in a Brussels raid. (The Guardian)
Censorship in China
- Jia Jia, a columnist for China’s Tencent media company is reported missing after not being heard from since Tuesday, when he was on his way to Hong Kong. He was last heard from when he tried to warn a friend about publishing an anonymous letter calling for President Xi Jinping’s resignation. (BBC)
Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2016
- The FBI‘s Joint Terrorism Task Force, United States Secret Service and New York City Police Department are investigating a letter containing a suspicious white powder and a threatening note which was sent to the home of Eric Trump, son of Donald Trump, in New York City. The handwritten note within the letter said: “If your father does not drop out of the race, the next envelope won’t be a fake.” It was signed “X”. (ABC News)
Bollea v. Gawker
- A Florida jury awards Hulk Hogan $115m after the gossip news website Gawker published a sex tape of the retired professional wrestler. Mr Hogan’s legal team argued that the New York City-based website violated his privacy and that the video wasn’t newsworthy. (BBC)

Politics and elections

Former President Pervez Musharraf travels to Dubai for medical treatment of his back and leg, before moving on to either the U.S. or U.K. for additional treatment, spokesperson Aasia Ishaque said. Musharraf, 72, will return to Pakistan to face all pending legal cases. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government implemented the Supreme Court ruling, and lifted the 2013 ban that barred Musharraf from international trips. (Bloomberg)
Iain Duncan Smith resigns his position as the United Kingdom‘s Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in opposition to cuts in disability benefit proposed by George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. (BBC)
2015–16 protests in Brazil, Operation Car Wash
- Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes rules Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva should be stripped of a ministerial role in President Dilma Rousseff’s Cabinet so he can be investigated in connection with the state oil company Petrobras’s alleged kickback scheme. Earlier today, injunctions suspending Lula’s appointment as chief of staff were overturned at Attorney General José Eduardo Cardozo’s request for a Supreme Court ruling on the motions. (The Globe and Mail) {Toronto Star)
- Brazil’s lower house of Congress, which yesterday overwhelmingly approved (433-1) a 65-member investigatory, presidential impeachment committee, was in session today — unusual since lawmakers are generally away from the capital on Fridays. The charge alleges President Rousseff broke budget rules to boost public spending in the run-up to her re-election in 2014. The president has 10 lower house sessions to present her defense. Friday’s session means that clock has started and she now has nine sessions. (Reuters) (Reuters via Swiss Broadcasting Corporation)
- Supporters of the governing Workers’ Party took to the streets, in a sense answering the massive anti-government gatherings since Sunday, in all of Brazil’s 26 states. Organizations from both sides of the protests have called for people opposed to the Workers’ Party to stay home Friday to avoid a repeat of Thursday’s clashes. (The Washington Post) (Fox News Latino)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

April 7, 2016

Top News Stories –

Modern men lack Y chromosome genes from Neanderthals, researchers say –
Although it’s widely known that modern humans carry traces of Neanderthal DNA, a new international study led by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine suggests that Neanderthal Y-chromosome genes disappeared from the human genome long ago. The Y chromosome is one of two human sex chromosomes. Unlike the X chromosome, the Y chromosome is passed exclusively from father to son. This is the first study to examine a Neanderthal Y chromosome, Fernando Mendez, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford said. Previous studies sequenced DNA from the fossils of Neanderthal women or from mitochondrial DNA, which is passed to children of either sex from their mother. “We’ve never observed the Neanderthal Y chromosome DNA in any human sample ever tested,” Bustamante said. “That doesn’t prove it’s totally extinct, but it likely is.” [phys.org]

NASA ‘cuts space station video’ immediately after bizarre UFO hovers above Earth –
A space enthusiast has come across what could be an astonishing visit from aliens. An unnamed alien hunter recorded the UFO while watching the live feed from the International Space Station earlier this week. However, the mysterious video of the giant UFO took a strange turn after the ISS video feed suddenly went dead for nearly an hour just as the bizarre flying object came into view. The “clearly defined UFO” appeared emerging above the horizon of Earth before it “disappeared completely from sight”. The enthusiast said the speed of the object “had to be in the tens of thousands of miles per hour.” He described the bizarre sighting on Tuesday as “unquestionably real and present” and raised suspicisions after “NASA cut the live feed for nearly an hour” just as the UFO vanished. [Daily Express] See Video of the Day

Video of the Day –

‘Millennium Falcon-type UFO’ spotted in NASA’s live International Space Station feed

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#WorldHealthDay	#NationalBeerDay	unavailable
2	#DiaMundialdelaSalud	#WorldHealthDay	unavailable
3	#FelizJueves	#RogueOne	unavailable
4	#QuintaSDVcomChalanco	Bomani Jones	unavailable
5	#RogueOne	#HillarySoQualified	unavailable
6	#البنت_القصيره	#IdolFinale	unavailable
7	#BeijarNosNaoBeija	Bill Clinton	unavailable
8	#نفسك_تاخد_سيل�…	#WEDay	unavailable
9	#ALDUB38thWeeksary	#FrozenFour	unavailable
10	#HillarySoQualified	#DadBrand	unavailable

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Syrian Civil War
- According to Syrian state television, ISIL militants kidnapped over 300 staff members from a cement factory outside of the city of Al-Dumayr earlier this week and no contact with them has been made since. (Al Jazeera)
Military intervention against ISIL
- Turkish Armed Forces shell ISIL positions hours after projectiles hit Turkey‘s Kilis Province. (Hurriyet)

Arts and culture

American Idol (season 15)
- Trent Harmon is declared as the last winner of the American singing competition series, American Idol, which concluded after 15 seasons. (E! Online)

Business and economy

Australian mining and materials company Arrium goes into voluntary administration with 7,000 jobs under threat in Australia, including 1,000 at the Whyalla Steelworks in South Australia. (ABC News)
Bloomberg News reports Verizon Communications plans a bid for Yahoo Inc.’s Web business, including Yahoo Japan Corp., next week. Google, Time Inc., and private equity funds Bain and TPG are considering bidding for Yahoo’s core business. AT&T Inc., Comcast, and Microsoft Corp. reportedly aren’t interested. (Reuters) (Bloomberg News)

Disasters and accidents

Another earthquake measuring at 6.7 strikes off the northwest of Vanuatu, the third earthquake in the same region this week. However, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center says the earthquake poses no tsunami threat. (Radio New Zealand)

Law and crime

Attacks on secularists in Bangladesh
- Attackers in Bangladesh wielding machetes kill Nazimuddin Samad, a liberal blogger. (Reuters)
- Students from Jagannath University in Dhaka, where Nazimuddin Samad studied, protest the killing and tell reporters that police inaction over previous killings contributed to the death of Samad. (BBC)
Panama Papers
- The government of Panama announces that it is creating an “international panel” to help improve transparency in its offshore financial industry. The move follows the leak of millions of documents from law firm Mossack Fonseca, showing it helped some clients evade tax and avoid sanctions. (BBC)
Colombia‘s Constitutional Court votes in favor of same-sex marriage, in a 6-3 decision. (ABC News) (The Advocate)
Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union sue Indiana stating the U.S. state’s new abortion law is unconstitutional because it bans the procedure if sought because of genetic abnormalities. (CBS News with AP) (Reuters)

Politics and elections

The National Assembly of Vietnam approves Nguyễn Xuân Phúc as the country’s new prime minister, succeeding Nguyễn Tấn Dũng. (Reuters) (Shanghai Daily)
Hashim Thaçi is sworn in as the new President of Kosovo. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
South Sudanese Civil War
- Former Vice President and opposition leader Riek Machar says he will return to the capital Juba on April 18 to form a transitional government with President Salva Kiir Mayardit in the hopes of bringing peace to South Sudan after their acrimonious split ignited more than two years of war. (Al Jazeera)
Aung San Suu Kyi, now the State Counsellor of Myanmar, says she will press for the release of political prisoners and student activists in the country, hinting that a mass amnesty may be imminent, a week after her government took power. (The Guardian)
United States presidential election, 2016, Donald Trump endorsements
- Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani endorses Donald Trump for U.S. President, predicting Trump will get more than 50% of the statewide vote. (CBS News)
Panama Papers
- United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron admits he benefited from a Panama-based offshore trust, Blairmore Holdings Inc., set up by his late father. Cameron says he divested himself of his shares, for £31,500 (US$44,300), before becoming prime minister in 2010. (The Guardian) (AP via The Washington Post)
- Jürgen Mossack, co-founder of the Mossack Fonseca law firm, resigns from an honorary, unpaid post on the National Council of Foreign Relations, which advises Panama’s government on foreign policy. (The New York Times)

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April 19, 2016

Top News Stories –

Liking mornings linked to being stupid –
People who are upbeat in the morning have extremely low intelligence, it has been confirmed. Researchers at the Institute for Studies found that self-styled ‘morning people’ have IQ levels below that of most people and even some animals. Professor Henry Brubaker said: “People who jump eagerly out of bed to begin their ‘morning rituals’ have the simplistic upbeat mentality that comes from a general lack of awareness. Labradors are also like that. “Their only evolutionary purpose is to clatter around in the kitchen making smoothies, annoying the more intelligent humans so much that they are forced to crawl grudgingly out of bed and start doing the things that are truly necessary to society. “‘Morning people’ love poor quality cheerful art like ‘beach grooves’ compilation CDs and films about street dancers succeeding against the odds. They’re nice. They just aren’t very bright.” [Daily Mash]

Video of the Day –

Giant Pictionary Team Battle | Dude Perfect

Top Twitter Trends –

Worldwide	USA
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#PrimaryDay	#PrimaryDay
#WhenIWas	#WhenIWas
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#ForaInternetLimitada	#ForaInternetLimitada
#이글을_본사람_모��…	#이글을_본사람_모��…
#RecuerdoQue	#RecuerdoQue

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

War in Afghanistan
- April 2016 Kabul attack
  - A large explosion is reported in the Afghan capital Kabul a week after the Taliban declared the start of their annual spring offensive. The target was an Afghan government security compound with at least 28 people reported killed and more than 200 others injured. (Times of India), (AP via Fox News)
  - The United Nations Security Council condemns today’s attack in Kabul by the Taliban. (AP via The Washington Post)
War in North-West Pakistan
- A suicide bomber explodes his vest next to a government building in Mardan, Pakistan, killing one person and critically wounding three more. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
Iraqi Civil War
- Iraqi officials, following arrested IS militants’ directions, uncover two mass graves with bodies of about 40 people in Ramadi. (AP via Fox News)
Syrian Civil War
- Airstrikes that were likely carried out by Syrian government forces kill around 40 people in a crowded market in rebel territory in Syria‘s Idlib Governorate. (Reuters)

Disasters and accidents

2016 Ecuador earthquake
- The death toll from Saturday’s earthquake has risen to at least 480 with 1,700 missing. Another 2,500 have been injured. President Rafael Correa states it is the worst disaster in Ecuador in seven decades, and the reconstruction will have a “huge economic impact” on the country. (BBC) (CBS News)

International relations

Sweden–United States relations
- Swedish deputy prime minister Åsa Romson is criticized after referring to the September 11 attacks in New York as mere “accidents”. Romson made the comments on public television while discussing the resignation of housing minister Mehmet Kaplan who had compared Israel’s treatment of Arabs to the Nazis’ treatment of Jews during the Holocaust. (Daily Mail) (The Local)
Cross-Strait relations
- Under pressure from the Chinese delegation, Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Kris Peeters ejects the Taiwanese delegation from a symposium of the OECD Steel Committee; it was the first such incident since Taiwan joined the OECD Steel Committee in 2005. (Focus Taiwan) (AP via Daily Mail) (AFP via The Daily Star)
The European Union offers to help the fledgling new UN-backed Libyan unity government with assistance in its security sector, managing migration, border management and police capacity building. This comes after Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj appealed to foreign governments for help in fighting ISIL and aid to rebuild the country. (The Guardian)
India–United Kingdom relations
- In response to an ongoing Supreme Court case regarding the ownership of the Koh-i-Noor diamond, the government of India said it should not try to reclaim it from the United Kingdom. The government argues that the diamond was given to the British as a gift and was not stolen. However, the Supreme Court says it will continue with the case. (BBC)

Law and crime

Authorities in China sentence Huang Yu, a computer technician from Sichuan who worked for a government department which handled state secrets, to death for leaking more than 150,000 classified documents to an unidentified foreign power. The documents in question covered secrets ranging from the ruling Communist Party to military and financial issues. (The Guardian)
Lutz Bachmann, the leader of the German far-right and anti-Islam Pegida movement, goes on trial in Dresden on charges of hate speech. (BBC)
Transgender rights in the United States
- An American federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, rules a transgender high school student who was banned from the boy’s bathroom can proceed with the lawsuit against the school board.(Richmond Times-Dispatch)
- Yesterday, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a statement that North Carolina House Bill 2, a so-called bathroom bill, “…jeopardizes not only the dignity, but also the actual physical safety, of transgender people.” (The Washington Post)
Kidnapping and murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir
- A Jerusalem district court rejects an insanity plea and convicts Yosef Chaim Ben-David as the ringleader of the terrorist kidnapping and murder of the 16-year-old Palestinian. In November, the court convicted Ben-David’s two accomplices, both minors, of murder. (Haaretz) (Al Bawaba)
While South Korea prepares for the 2018 Winter Olympics, the Associated Press reports the country has covered up widespread human rights violations, including rapes and murders, when it swept so-called vagrants off the streets in the years prior to the 1988 Games in Seoul. Thousands of victims have received no compensation, nor public recognition nor an apology. The AP says two early attempts to investigate were suppressed by senior officials and the current government refuses to revisit the case and is blocking a push by an opposition lawmaker. (AP)
Flint water crisis
- According to government officials, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette tomorrow will announce criminal charges against two state regulators and a Flint employee in connection with the city’s lead-tainted water crisis. (AP via Fox News)

Politics and elections

United States presidential election, 2016
- Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2016, Republican Party presidential primaries, 2016
  - Voters in the U.S. state of New York go to the polls for a primary election with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump expected to win the respective contests for their parties in that state. (Reuters via The Star)
  - Donald Trump wins by a large margin in the Republican Party primary. (AP via OregonLive)
  - Hillary Clinton gains a decisive win (57.6 percent to 42.4 percent) over Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Party primary. (New York Times) (Five Thirty Eight) (The Washington Post)
Philippine presidential election, 2016
- Rodrigo Duterte apologizes for making remarks about rape. (Rappler)
The government of the Australian external territory of Norfolk Island announces it is going to take its governance issue to the United Nations. Former and final Chief Minister of the island Lisle Snell said he seeks to have Norfolk Island added on the UN’s list of Non-Self-Governing Territories and be given the rights that are accorded under the terms and conditions of being on the list. In 2015, the Australian government terminated Norfolk Island’s self-governing status in response to serious financial issues but without the islanders’ or government’s consent. (Radio New Zealand)
Princess Sofia of Sweden and Prince Carl Philip announce birth of first son. (Daily Mail)

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May 3, 2016

Top News Stories –

Sesame Street sends cease and desist letter to STD awareness group after it suggests Bert and Ernie have HIV –
Sesame Street sent a cease and desist letter to a company that used its characters Bert and Ernie in their campaign ad that promoted at-home HIV and STD testing. Lately, a company which has created a ‘simple, cutting-edge, and affordable STD testing’ method, posted a photo of the two characters to their Facebook page.’Help us take STD Testing out of the Stone Age,’ the company, wrote on Facebook, in a post accompanied by a picture Bert and Ernie, according to the New York Post.Elizabeth W Fishman, Vice President of Strategic Communications for the show, told the The Post that the Mately ad is an ‘unauthorized, unlicensed use of our characters’. Fishman added that Mately will be contacted and sent ‘a cease and desist letter instructing them to take this down’. Bert and Ernie are shown in the Facebook post looking at a set of papers. ‘See Ernie, you’ve got nothing to worry about, everything is positive!’ the caption reads. [Daily Mail]

Video of the Day –

GoPro Awards: On a Rocket Launch to Space

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Syrian Civil War
- A rocket attack hits a hospital in the Syrian city of Aleppo, killing three civilians. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack was part of a bigger shelling that killed 19 more people. (Al Jazeera)
Iraqi Civil War, American-led intervention in Iraq
- According to the United States Department of Defense, ISIL fighters killed a Navy SEAL near Erbil. The sailor was assisting Kurdish Peshmerga forces in repelling an attack on the area. The SEAL was later identified as Arizona native Charles Keating IV, the son of Charles Keating III, and the grandson of the convicted noted late financier Charles Keating Jr., who was embroiled in the 1980s savings and loan scandal. (The Guardian)

Arts and culture

The Rhode Island Marine Architecture Project claims to have found the wreckage of HMS Endeavour used by Royal Navy Lieutenant James Cook on his voyage to Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti between 1768 and 1771. The ship was scuttled in 1778 in Newport Harbor ahead of the Battle of Rhode Island in the American War of Independence. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
Imprisoned Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismayilova is announced as the winner of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize for 2016 for “her outstanding contribution to press freedom in difficult circumstances.” (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

Business and economy

Philippine presidential election, 2016
- The Philippine financial market continues to suffer amid speculation that Rodrigo Duterte may win the upcoming election. (Bloomberg)

Disasters and accidents

May 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire
- A mandatory evacuation order for more than 29,000 people remains in place for the Canadian town of Fort McMurray, Alberta, which is threatened by an out of control wildfire. (The Globe and Mail)
- By 7 pm local time, the entire town of population 80,000 is placed under a mandatory evacuation. The neighbourhood of Beacon Hill, home to about 2,200 people, is 80% destroyed by fire. (Weather Underground)
An airplane crashes on Long Island, New York, killing three people onboard. (The New York Times)

Law and crime

The sect Iglesia ni Cristo is suing supporters of Rodrigo Duterte for spreading a fake endorsement by the denomination. (Philippine Daily Inquirer)
Russia–Spain relations
- A Spanish judge issues an arrest warrant for various individuals with links to organized crime from Russia. The list also includes former and current officials of the Russian government with close links toRussian President Vladimir Putin. Prominent officials include former Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov and former Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov. The charges range from money laundering toassassination. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
Papua conflict
- According to reports, the Indonesian police arrest close to 1,700 people in Papua and West Papua who were involved in attempted protests yesterday. (Radio New Zealand)
Bento Rodrigues dam disaster
- The Government of Brazil sues iron miner Samarco and parent companies Vale and BHP Billiton for 155 billion Brazilian reals ($43.5 billion US) for the collapse of a tailings dam that resulted in 19 deaths and caused major pollution to the Doce River. (The Guardian)
El Salvador arrests former congressman Raúl Mijango for allegedly attempting to smuggle banned items into prison and allegedly associating with gang members. (Reuters via Trust)

Politics and elections

European migrant crisis
- The government of Hungary announces it will hold a referendum regarding future European Union quotas for resettling refugees. The vote is expected to be held either in September or October of this year where a turnout of over 50 percent will render it to be valid. (Al Jazeera)
Papua conflict
- A meeting is held in London on the issue of West Papuan independence. Independence leader Benny Wenda joined various humanitarians, parliamentarians and lawyers in urging the United Nations to secure a vote on the future status of the region, which is occupied by Indonesia. (The Guardian)
United States presidential election, 2016, United States presidential election in Indiana, 2016
- Voters in the U.S. state of Indiana head to the polls to vote in Democratic and Republican presidential primaries. (NPR)
- Donald Trump wins the Indiana Republican Primary. (New York Post) (Atlanta Journal Constitution)
- Ted Cruz announces that he is withdrawing from the race for the Republican nomination, leaving Donald Trump as the presumptive nominee. (CNN)
- Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders wins the Indiana Democratic primary. (NBC News)

Sport

2018 Winter Olympics, 2018 Winter Paralympics
- Cho Yang-ho resigns as President of the PyeongChang Organizing Committee for the 2018 Olympic & Paralympic Winter Games due to growing financial problems with the Hanjin Group he is chairman of.(AP)
Association football
- The Football Federation of Kosovo becomes the 55th member of UEFA following a secret ballot at the 40th Ordinary UEFA Congress in Budapest.(AP via The Republic)

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May 17, 2016

Top News Stories –

British Premier League finishes late with Leicester City as 5000-1 Champions –
The final match of the Barclays Premier League saw Manchester United beat Bournemouth 3-1 in a rescheduled match after a suspect package was found at Old Trafford two days earlier. Leicester City were the surprise of the season. Following their narrow escape from relegation in the previous season many pundits had predicted that they would be relegated and bookmakers gave 5,000–1 odds on them winning the title which they achieved with two matches to spare. After the dismissal of manager Nigel Pearson, they began the new season with Italian Claudio Ranieri in charge. The Golden Boot (for the most goals scored by a player) went to Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane. Norwich City, Newcastle United and Aston Villa were relegated. [Wikipedia] See List of the Day
Harry Kane

Hackers’ website breached by hacker –
The email addresses and private messages of more than 470,000 members of a hacking website have been leaked online following a huge data breach. The Nulled website was a popular marketplace for stolen account details and hacking tips. The leaked data contained more than 5,000 purchase records relating to the exchange of stolen information. The site has been taken offline, stating it is undergoing “routine maintenance”. [BBC]

Fireball captured on US traffic police officer’s dashcam –
A bright fireball shot across the sky early Tuesday around 0500 GMT (0100 EDT), lighting up several north-eastern US states and parts of Canada. The bright flash was apparently left by a meteor burning up as it passed through Earth’s atmosphere. The incident was caught on camera, including the dashcam of an officer from the Plattsburgh Police Department, which you can see here. [BBC] See Video of the Day

Video of the Day –

List of the Day –

Barclays Premier League 2015-16 [Wikipedia]

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Leicester City (C)	38	23	12	3	68	36	+32	81
2	Arsenal	38	20	11	7	65	36	+29	71
3	Tottenham Hotspur	38	19	13	6	69	35	+34	70
4	Manchester City	38	19	9	10	71	41	+30	66
5	Manchester United	38	19	9	10	49	35	+14	66
6	Southampton	38	18	9	11	59	41	+18	63
7	West Ham United	38	16	14	8	65	51	+14	62
8	Liverpool	38	16	12	10	63	50	+13	60
9	Stoke City	38	14	9	15	41	55	−14	51
10	Chelsea	38	12	14	12	59	53	+6	50
11	Everton	38	11	14	13	59	55	+4	47
12	Swansea City	38	12	11	15	42	52	−10	47
13	Watford	38	12	9	17	40	50	−10	45
14	West Bromwich Albion	38	10	13	15	34	48	−14	43
15	Crystal Palace	38	11	9	18	39	51	−12	42
16	AFC Bournemouth	38	11	9	18	45	67	−22	42
17	Sunderland	38	9	12	17	48	62	−14	39
18	Newcastle United (R)	38	9	10	19	44	65	−21	37
19	Norwich City (R)	38	9	7	22	39	67	−28	34
20	Aston Villa (R)	38	3	8	27	27	76	−49	17

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Iraqi civil war (2014–present)
- At least 69 people are killed and 230 injured in a series of bomb attacks targeting Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad, Iraq. Islamic State of Iraq and Syria claims responsibility for some of the attacks. (NY Times) (Reuters) (Press TV)

Disasters and accidents

Heavy rainfall leads to threats of flooding in Sri Lanka and southern India. (AccuWeather)
2016 Fort McMurray wildfire
- A flare up of wildfires around Fort McMurray has caused the evacuation of 8,000 workers. (Reuters/AFP via ABC News Australia)

International relations

North Korea and weapons of mass destruction
- Amid growing concern about North Korea‘s ballistic missile capability, South Korea, Japan and the U.S. are to hold their first ever joint anti-missile exercise next month, according to South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense. The three countries will practice “detecting and tracing a hypothetical North Korean missile,” said a ministry official. (CNN)
Nepal–United Kingdom relations
- British national Martin Travers is detained in Nepal for allegedly taking part in protests against the Nepalese government. (AP via The Telegraph)

Politics and elections

United States presidential election, 2016
- Voters in the American state of Oregon have their mail-in ballots counted for a Democratic Party and Republican Party primary. Donald Trump is the projected winner on the Republican winner while Bernie Sanders is projected to win the Democratic Party race. (ABC News America), (NBC News), (AP via Chicago Tribune)
- Voters in the American state of Kentucky go to the polls for a Democratic Party primary with Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders winning an equal number of delegates and Clinton winning the popular vote narrowly.. (AFP via Yahoo! 7) (Courier-Journal), (CNN)
The U.S. Senate passes a legislation that would allow victims of the Sept. 11 attacks to file lawsuits seeking damages from Saudi Arabia despite Saudi threats to pull billions of dollars from the U.S. economy.(LA Times) (Reuters) (NY Times)

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June 2, 2016

Top News Stories –

Dagger in Tutankhamun’s tomb was made with iron from a meteorite –
A dagger entombed with King Tutankhamun was made with iron from a meteorite, a new analysis on the metal composition shows. In 1925, archaeologist Howard Carter found two daggers, one iron and one with a blade of gold, within the wrapping of the teenage king, who was mummified more than 3,300 years ago. The iron blade, which had a gold handle, rock crystal pommel and lily and jackal-decorated sheath, has puzzled researchers in the decades since Carter’s discovery: ironwork was rare in ancient Egypt, and the dagger’s metal had not rusted. Italian and Egyptian researchers analysed the metal with an x-ray fluorescence spectrometer to determine its chemical composition, and found its high nickel content, along with its levels of cobalt, “strongly suggests an extraterrestrial origin”. They compared the composition with known meteorites within 2,000km around the Red Sea coast of Egypt, and found similar levels in one meteorite. That meteorite, named Kharga, was found 150 miles (240km) west of Alexandria, at the seaport city of Mersa Matruh, which in the age of Alexander the Great – the fourth century BC – was known as Amunia. [Evening Standard]

Video of the Day –

How Is Your Phone Changing You? ASAP Science

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

War in Somalia (2009–present)
- In a raid by Somali forces near Kismayo, at least 16 Al-Shabaab militants are killed, including the mastermind of the Garissa University College attack. (BBC) (Daily Caller)

Disasters and accidents

2016 European floods
- At least eleven people are killed in heavy flooding across Europe. (BBC) (Bloomberg)
- The Louvre will close briefly to move the artwork most at risk from flooding. (The New York Times)
A Romanian medical helicopter crashes near Cahul, Moldova, killing four people. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
2016 Oklahoma floods
- At least five United States Army soldiers are killed and four are missing after their Light Medium Tactical Vehicle overturns near Fort Hood in Texas. (KXAN)

International relations

Armenian Genocide recognition
- The German Bundestag passes a resolution classifying the Ottoman Empire’s killing of Armenians in 1915 as genocide, provoking a furious reaction in Turkey. (BBC)

Law and crime

An autopsy finds that American musician Prince died of an overdose of fentanyl, an opioid painkiller 50 times more powerful than heroin. (AP) (The New York Times)
2016 UCLA shooting
- A second victim of the UCLA shooter is found in Minnesota; the shooter is identified as a former Ph.D. candidate in mechanical engineering that claimed his first victim had “cleverly stolen his code.” (The New York Times)
Four Syrians who are suspected of traveling to Europe on behalf of the Islamic State to attack Düsseldorf are arrested. (The New York Times)
2016 Mathura clash
- 24 people are killed and 368 arrested in the Indian city of Mathura as police attempt to clear members of a radical religious group from land they are occupying. (The Times of India)
Violence breaks out in a rally supporting Donald Trump in San Jose, California. An officer and several demonstrators were assaulted, and a few people were arrested. (CNN)

Politics and elections

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan endorses Donald Trump for President of the United States. (CNN), (Washington Post)
The Supreme Court of the United States accepts a petition by five people from American Samoa arguing that people born in this U.S. territory are entitled to U.S citizenship under the United States Constitution. The State Department currently opposes this idea. (Radio New Zealand)

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July 14, 2016

Top News Stories –

Terror fiend tricked police to get death truck onto busy Nice promenade, kill 84 –
Cars and trucks were barred from the Promenade des Anglais during Thursday’s Bastille Day festivities, but the terrorist who plowed a 19-ton truck into a mile-long crowd of revelers – killing at least 84 – reportedly got past police by telling them he had ice cream to hand out. Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old divorced loner, petty criminal and Tunisian national began his route of carnage by slowly moving onto the packed, seaside walkway around 10:40 p.m. local time. Then, say witnesses, he gunned the engine and weaved through the horrified crowd for nearly a mile, leaving a wake of dead and broken bodies. Police killed him in a shootout minutes later. Bouhlel, who shot at revelers after driving through the crowd and was then killed by police, was reportedly known to police prior to the attack although his rap sheet included just one arrest, for a road rage incident in March French Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas said. [Fox News]

Video of the Day –

How to Make a Tennis Ball from Benedict Redgrove on Vimeo.

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

War in Somalia
- A suspected militant of Al-Shabaab shoots and kills four Kenyan police officers at a police station in Kapenguria, Kenya, where he was being held. The militant was later killed following a shootout with police. (Reuters)
2016 Nice attack
- A truck plows into a mass of revelers during the Bastille Day fireworks on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, with a death toll as high as 80 and 100 people injured. (Le Parisien) (Fox News)

Arts and culture

68th Primetime Emmy Awards
- The nominees are announced in Los Angeles. Game of Thrones, Veep and The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story lead in nominations. (Los Angeles Times) (The Washington Post)

International relations

The French government calls on former European Commission chief José Manuel Barroso not to take a job with investment bank Goldman Sachs, after some EU politicians demanded Barroso be sanctioned for accepting the new position that raises questions about the EU’s conflict of interest rules. (BBC)

Law and crime

United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg apologizes for remarks she made earlier in the week to a number of news outlets criticizing presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. (CNN)

Politics and elections

Formation of the May ministry
- Elizabeth Truss is named Secretary of State for Justice and first ever female Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom as former chancellor Michael Gove is ousted from the cabinet. (The Lawyer)

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August 18, 2016

August 19, 2016

Top News Stories –

Zika in Florida: Pregnant women warned to avoid Miami Beach –
Pregnant women have been warned to avoid the international tourist destination Miami Beach, amid cases of the Zika virus. Authorities had previously thought the virus was limited to Wynwood, a small area west of Miami Beach. Health officials now say five people in Miami Beach have been infected. Florida health officials have been aggressively spraying pesticides there. Zika, often spread by mosquitoes, can cause life-threatening birth defects. [BBC]

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Syrian civil war
- Russian warships in the Mediterranean Sea fire cruise missiles at sites near Aleppo. The Russian Defense Ministry claims the strikes targeted the Islamist militant group Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. (Pravda)(Reuters)

Arts and culture

The American town of Shishmaref, Alaska, votes to relocate the village from its current location on a barrier island, that has been disappearing through erosion and rising sea levels, to a site on the mainland.(The New York Times) (ABC News)

Law and crime

A Defense Department audit reveals that the United States Army had manipulated its finances, making $6.5 trillion of improper accounting adjustments in order to balance the books in 2015. (Reuters)(The Hill)(CNN)

Politics and elections

United States presidential election, 2016
- Paul Manafort resigns as chairman of Donald Trump‘s presidential campaign. (The Guardian)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

November 8, 2016

Top News Stories –

Toblerone triangle change upsets fans –
A decision to space out the distinctive triangular chocolate chunks in two Toblerone bars sold in the UK has upset fans who say that they do mind the gap. The product’s makers, US-based Mondelez International, said it had changed the design to reduce the weight of what were 400g and 170g bars. Some consumers have described the move as “the wrong decision” and said the bigger spaces looked “stupid”. Mondelez said the move was down to a rise in the cost of ingredients. In a statement on the Toblerone Facebook page, the company said it had to make a decision between changing the look of the bars or raising the price. [BBC]
The old shaped Toblerone

Video of the Day –

The Flying Frenchies Surf and BASE Jump From a Zipline

List of the Day –

How many peaks in a bar of Toblerone?
According to Schott’s Food & Drink Miscellany the sizes and number of peaks for Toblerones are as follows:

Size	Tiny	Mini	35 g	50 g	75 g	100 g	200 g	400 g	750 g	4.5 kg
Peaks	3	3	8	11	11	12	15	15	17	12

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Yemeni Civil War (2015–present)
- Six Al Qaeda insurgents are killed by the Arab coalition in Yemen. (Reuters)
Gunmen kill at least 30 people in an attack on a gold mine in a remote area of Zamfara State, northwestern Nigeria. (Reuters)

Business and economy

India abolishes larger banknotes in a bold and unexpected move to curb circulation of counterfeit notes and to fight black money. (BBC)(NDTV)

Politics and elections

United States elections, 2016
- Voters in the United States go to the polls for a range of federal, state and local elections, including the highly publicized presidential election between major party nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. (ABC)
- Results from several of New Hampshire‘s small midnight voting towns are released, showing marginal victories for Clinton in Dixville Notch and Hart’s Location, while Trump won significantly more votes in Millsfield. (News.com.au) (IB Times)
- The Republican Party is forecast to retain control of the United States House of Representatives. (ABC News)
- Donald Trump is forecast to win the United States presidential election as a result of victories of battleground states. (The Telegraph)
- The New York Times forecasts that it is highly likely that the Republican Party will retain control of the United States Senate. (The New York Times)
2016 South Korean political scandal
- South Korean prosecutors raid the offices of Samsung Electronics as part of a ongoing probe into President Park Geun-hye‘s controversial association with Choi Soon-sil. Yonhap News Agency reports prosecutors are investigating whether Samsung improperly provided financial assistance to Choi’s daughter, Chung Yoo-ra. (BBC) (Reuters)
European migrant crisis
- The National Assembly rejects Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán‘s bill to block the settlement of refugees in Hungary. The far-right Jobbik party abstained from the vote, arguing the immigration ban should apply to all foreigners, and not just refugees. (BBC)

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November 9, 2016

Top News Stories –

US election 2016 result: Trump beats Clinton to take White House –
Donald Trump will become the 45th US president after a stunning victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton. The Republican nominee’s victory came down to a handful of key swing states, despite months of polling that favoured Mrs Clinton. The battlegrounds of Florida, Ohio and North Carolina cleared the way for his Brexit-style upset. Global markets plummeted, with the US dollar diving and gold prices surging. Mr Trump’s shock victory in Wisconsin put him over the 270 out of 538 electoral college votes needed to win the White House, after a gruelling and rancorous campaign. The US president-elect took to the stage with his family at his victory rally in a New York hotel ballroom and said: “I just received a call from Secretary Clinton. She congratulated us on our victory.” [BBC]
President elect Donald Trump

Video of the Day –

Donald Trumps acceptance speech

List of the Day –

Popular vote results in US election

Trump

58,212,712 votes

47.8%

Clinton

57,755,468 votes

47.4%

Others

5,837,383 votes

4.8%

After 94.0% of voting districts

Senate

100 seats, 34 up for election

Republicans

51 seats

Democrats

45 seats

Independents

2 seats

House of Representatives

435 seats, all up for election

Republicans

236 seats

Democrats

192 seats

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Operation Inherent Resolve
- The United States military states that it has inadvertently killed 64 civilians in air strikes on targets in Syria and Iraq over the past year. (AP via Fox News)

Disasters and accidents

2016 Croydon tram derailment
- At least seven people have been killed and 51 hospitalised after a Tramlink light rail vehicle derailed and overturned close to Sandilands tram stop in the London Borough of Croydon early on Wednesday. It is believed to be the first tram accident involving fatalities on the tram in the United Kingdom since 1959. (BBC News)

International relations

The immigration website of Canada crashes due to overflow, coinciding with the election in the United States. (CNN)

Law and crime

The Supreme Court of the United States hears arguments on a case regarding whether the citizenship claim of a child is different if there is an unmarried father versus an unmarried mother who is a U.S. citizen. (Scotus blog)

Politics and elections

United States presidential election and general elections, 2016
- Although he narrowly lost the popular vote, Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for the 2016 presidential election, becomes the president-elect of the United States after defeating Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. It is the fifth time in United States history where the winning candidate lost the popular vote, the last such defeat occurring in 2000.
- The Republican Party retains control of the House and Senate. (The New York Times)
- Notable propositions are passed in several states including legal recreational marijuana in California, Massachusetts, and Nevada; medical marijuana in Arkansas, Florida and North Dakota; tougher firearms restrictions in California and Washington state; physician assisted suicide in Colorado, and the reimposition of capital punishment in Nebraska. (BBC), (The Chicago Tribune)
- Tens of thousands of Hillary Clinton supporters protest in Chicago; Los Angeles; Oakland, California; Philadelphia; Portland, Oregon, New York City; Seattle and other major cities, reflecting a deep political divide in the United States. (CNN), (ABC)
- Residents including business leaders of the state of California, which voted with majority support for Hillary Clinton, propose launching a secession movement from the United States after Donald Trump is elected president. (Time), (BBC)

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November 10, 2016

Top News Stories –

Cuba announces military exercises following Trump’s win –
The Cuban government has announced it will hold five days of nationwide military exercises to prepare for “a range of enemy action”. Cuba did not link the exercises to the victory of Republican candidate Donald Trump in the US presidential election. But analysts say such exercises have in the past been held at times of tension or to send a signal to the US. During his campaign, Mr Trump said he would reverse the recent thaw in relations between Cuba and the US. Cuba’s Ministry of Defence announced the move in the government-run newspaper Granma. [BBC]

Stolen statue of beloved Istanbul cat returned –
A statue honouring one of Istanbul’s most famous felines which went missing earlier this week has been returned after a social media outcry. The bronze sculpture is of Tombili, a tubby cat who became the subject of countless internet memes when a photo of him reclining on the pavement went viral. The statue immortalising his famous pose vanished on Monday night, only a month after being unveiled. Perhaps the guilt was too much for whoever took it, as on Thursday the statue reappeared. Sculptor Seval Sahin shared a photo of herself with it, thanking everyone on social media and the press and TV coverage which she says helped bring about the happy ending. [BBC]
The Tombili cat sculpture

Video of the Day –

GoPro: Epic Lines: Speedflying with Jamie Lee — Line 1

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

War in Afghanistan (2015–present)
- German consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif attack
  - At least two people have been killed and 90 injured in an attack on the German consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif. The Taliban has claimed responsibility. (The New York Times)

Arts and culture

Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen dies at the age of 82. (Rolling Stone)

Business and economy

Siemens AG announces that it plans to spin off its US$15 billion health care division, making it its own independent company. (Bloomberg)

Politics and elections

Anti-Trump protests continue across the United States and abroad. (USA Today) (Los Angeles Daily News)
Presidential transition of Donald Trump
- President-elect of the United States Donald Trump meets with President Barack Obama for the first time at the White House. (BBC)

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November 12, 2016

November 11, 2016

Top News Stories –

New Balance trainer wearers bin and burn their shoes over Trump –
New Balance wearers are binning and burning their trainers after the company’s vice president appeared to praise Donald Trump’s trade plans. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Matt LeBretton said Barack Obama had “turned a deaf ear” to US business. “Frankly, with President-elect Trump, we feel things are going to move in the right direction,” he said. Since then some Americans have been filmed setting their shoes on fire. Others have been returning used trainers to New Balance shops. [BBC Newsbeat]
Burnt New Balance Shoews (@milftears twitter)

Video of the Day –

John Lewis Christmas Advert 2016 – #BusterTheBoxer

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Syrian Civil War
- Armed opposition militants fired shells containing chlorine and white phosphorus at the 1070 Apartments project in Aleppo. (Al Masdar News)

Disasters and accidents

At least 13 are killed in a fire in New Delhi, India. (VOA News)

Science and technology

An Atlas V rocket successfully launches WorldView-4 for DigitalGlobe from Vandenberg Air Force Base after a two-month delay caused by wildfires near the spaceport. (SpaceNews)

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February 18, 2017

January 20, 2017

Top News Stories –

Donald Trump is sworn in as 45th President of the United States –
There is some dispute to the size of the inauguration crowd, starting an acrimonious war of words between the new president and the press.

The President and First Lady at the Liberty Ball on Inauguration Day

Video of the Day –

How did The Mall in Washington fill up in 2009 compared to 2017 – Daily Mirror

List of the Day –

US Presidents 1 – 45 – source Wikipedia

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Syrian Civil War
- ISIL militants destroy part of Palmyra‘s ancient Roman theatre. (BBC)
- An airstrike kills more than 40 Jabhat Fateh al-Sham fighters at a jihadist camp west of Aleppo. It is currently unknown whether American or Russian planes carried out the attack. (Reuters), (FOX News)

Arts and culture

The Woody Harrelson biopic Lost in London makes history as the first full-length feature film to be filmed and theatrically released simultaneously. (BBC) (The Guardian) (The Telegraph)

Business and economics

Toilets in Japan
- Japanese toilet industries agreed to standardize the iconography of electric toilet seat controls in order to make them less confusing for users. (The Japan Times) (BBC) (The Guardian) (Japan Sanitary Equipment Industry Association)

Disasters and accidents

Search continues for missing firefighters in Tehran‘s Plasco Building site after the building’s deadly fire and collapsing last day. (CNN)
2017 Rigopiano avalanche
- Italian emergency crews rescue 10 people, including four children, from 16½ feet of snow and wreckage from the luxury Hotel Rigopiano following yesterday’s Gran Sasso mountain avalanche. Searchers find four bodies, while families of at least 16 people still missing wait for news. (CBS News)
2017 Verona bus crash
- A bus carrying Hungarian students crashes near Verona in northern Italy with at least 18 people dead and 50 injured. (The Telegraph), (BBC)

International relations

United Kingdom–United States relations
- U.S. President Donald Trump nominates New York Jets owner Woody Johnson to be the next United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. (Sky News)

Law and crime

At least four people have been killed and twenty injured after a man drives a car into the Bourke Street Mall in the CBD of the Australian city Melbourne. A man has been arrested and Victoria Police say the incident is not terror related. (Nine Network) (AAP via Yahoo! Australia)
Inauguration of Donald Trump protests
- Some protesters of the inauguration smash windows, damage cars, and clash with the police. Six police officers and at least one civilian are injured. DC police say 217 protesters have been arrested. (CNN)

Politics and elections

Inauguration of Donald Trump
- Donald Trump is officially sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. (The Telegraph)
2016–2017 Gambian constitutional crisis
- Lieutenant General Ousman Badjie, chief of the Gambian army, recognizes Adama Barrow as the new commander-and-chief of the armed forces and says that his troops will not fight ECOWAS soldiers. (Reuters)
- President Adama Barrow announces that Yahya Jammeh has agreed step down and leave the country following an intervention by ECOWAS states. (BBC)
Cabinet of Donald Trump
- The U.S. Senate confirms the first two members of President Donald Trump‘s Cabinet: retired Marine General James Mattis as Secretary of Defense, and retired Marine general John F. Kelly as Secretary of Homeland Security. (CNN)

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February 27, 2017

February 26, 2017

Top News Stories –

Oscars mistake: Moonlight wins best picture after announcement mix-up –
Moonlight has won best picture at the Oscars – but only after Faye Dunaway initially said La La Land had won. Warren Beatty was handed the previous winner’s envelope, containing a card saying “Emma Stone, La La Land”, resulting in the error. The team from La La Land was in the middle of its acceptance speeches when the mistake was discovered. Stone said backstage afterwards: “Is that the craziest Oscar moment of all time? Cool! It’s going to be history.” PriceWaterhouseCooper, the accountancy firm responsible for counting the ballots, said in a statement: “We sincerely apologise to Moonlight, La La Land, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Oscar viewers for the error that was made during the award announcement for best picture. “The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected. We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred.” [BBC]

Video of the Day –

La La Land as directed by David Lynch – Trailer Mix

List of the Day –

Winners of the 89th Academy Awards [BBC]

Best picture

Winner: Moonlight
Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea

Best actress

Winner: Emma Stone – La La Land
Isabelle Huppert – Elle
Ruth Negga – Loving
Natalie Portman – Jackie
Meryl Streep – Florence Foster Jenkins

Best actor

Winner: Casey Affleck – Manchester by the Sea
Andrew Garfield – Hacksaw Ridge
Ryan Gosling – La La Land
Viggo Mortensen – Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington – Fences

Best supporting actress

Winner: Viola Davis – Fences
Naomie Harris – Moonlight
Nicole Kidman – Lion
Octavia Spencer – Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams – Manchester by the Sea

Best supporting actor

Winner: Mahershala Ali – Moonlight
Jeff Bridges – Hell or High Water
Lucas Hedges – Manchester by the Sea
Dev Patel – Lion
Michael Shannon – Nocturnal Animals

Best director

Winner: La La Land – Damien Chazelle
Arrival – Denis Villeneuve
Hacksaw Ridge – Mel Gibson
Manchester by the Sea – Kenneth Lonergan
Moonlight – Barry Jenkins

Best original screenplay

Winner: Manchester by the Sea – Kenneth Lonergan
20th Century Women – Mike Mills
Hell or High Water – Taylor Sheridan
La La Land – Damien Chazelle
The Lobster – Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou

Best adapted screenplay

Winner: Moonlight – Barry Jenkins and Alvin McCraney
Arrival – Eric Heisserer
Fences – August Wilson
Hidden Figures – Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi
Lion – Luke Davies

Best original score

Winner: La La Land – Justin Hurwitz
Jackie – Mica Levi
Lion – Dustin O’Halloran and Hauschka
Moonlight – Nicholas Britell
Passengers – Thomas Newton

Best original song

Winner: La La Land – City of Stars by Justin Hurwitz, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul
La La Land – Audition by Justin Hurwitz, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul
Moana – How Far I’ll Go by Lin-Manuel Miranda
Trolls – Can’t Stop the Feeling by Justin Timberlake, Max Martin and Karl Johan Schuster
Jim: The James Foley Story – The Empty Chair by J Ralph and Sting

Best cinematography

Winner: La La Land – Linus Sandgren
Arrival – Bradford Young
Lion – Greig Fraser
Moonlight – James Laxton
Silence – Rodrigo Prieto

Best foreign language film

Winner: The Salesman – Iran
A Man Called Ove – Sweden
Land of Mine – Denmark
Tanna – Australia
Toni Erdmann – Germany

Best costume design

Winner: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – Colleen Atwood
Allied – Joanna Johnston
Florence Foster Jenkins – Consolata Boyle
Jackie – Madeline Fontaine
La La Land – Mary Zophres

Best make-up and hairstyling

Winner: Suicide Squad – Alessandro Bertolazzi, Giorgio Gregorini and Christopher Nelson
A Man Called Ove – Eva Von Bahr and Love Larson
Star Trek Beyond – Joel Harlow and Richard Alonzo

Best documentary feature

Winner: OJ: Made in America
13th
Fire At Sea
I Am Not Your Negro
Life, Animated

Best sound editing

Winner: Arrival – Sylvain Bellemare
Deepwater Horizon – Wylie Stateman and Renee Tondelli
Hacksaw Ridge – Robert Mackenzie and Andy Wright
La La Land – Ai-Ling Lee and Mildred Iatrou Morgan
Sully – Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman

Best sound mixing

Winner: Hacksaw Ridge – Kevin O’Connell, Andy Wright, Robert Mackenzie and Peter Grace
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi – Gary Summers, Jeffrey J Haboush and Mac Ruth
Arrival – Bernard Gariepy Strobl and Claude La Haye
La La Land – Andy Nelson, Ai-Ling Lee and Steve A Morrow
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – David Parker, Christopher Scarabosio and Stuart Wilson

Best animated short

Winner: Piper – Alan Barillaro and Marc Sondheimer
Blind Vaysha – Theodore Ushev
Borrowed Time – Andrew Coats and Lou Hamou-Lhadj
Pear Cider and Cigarettes – Robert Valley and Cara Speller
Pearl – Patrick Osborne

Best animated feature

Winner: Zootopia
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
My Life as a Zucchini
The Red Turtle

Best production design

Winner: La La Land – David Wasco and Sandy Reynolds-Wasco
Arrival – Patrice Vermette and Paul Hotte
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – Stuart Craig and Anna Pinnock
Hail, Caesar! – Jess Gonchor and Nancy Haigh
Passengers – Guy Hendrix Dyas and Gene Serdena

Best visual effects

Winner: The Jungle Book – Robert Legato, Adam Valdez, Andrew R Jones and Dan Lemmon
Deepwater Horizon – Craig Hammack, Jason Snell, Jason Billington and Burt Dalton
Doctor Strange – Stephane Ceretti, Richard Bluff, Vincent Cirelli and Paul Corbould
Kubo and the Two Strings – Steve Emerson, Oliver Jones, Brian McLean and Brad Schiff
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – John Knoll, Mohen Leo, Hal Hickel and Neil Corbould

Best film editing

Winner: Hacksaw Ridge – John Gilbert
Arrival – Joe Walker
Hell or High Water – Jake Roberts
La La Land – Tom Cross
Moonlight – Nat Sanders and Joi McMillon

Best documentary short

Winner: The White Helmets – Orlando von Einsiedel and Joanna Natasegara
4.1 Miles – Daphne Matziaraki
Extremis – Dan Krauss
Joe’s Violin – Kahane Cooperman and Raphaela Neihausen
Watani: My Homeland – Marcel Mettelsiefen and Stephen Ellis

Best live action short

Winner: Sing – Kristof Deak and Anna Udvardy
Ennemis Interieurs – Selim Azzazi
La Femme et le TGV – Timo Von Gunten and Giacun Caduff
Silent Nights – Aske Bang and Kim Magnusson
Timecode – Juanjo Gimenez

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Syrian Civil War
- The Syrian Army recaptures the strategic town of Tadef from ISIL, south of al-Bab, securing key transportation routes in eastern Aleppo Governorate. (Xinhuanet)

Arts and culture

89th Academy Awards
- The 89th Academy Awards are held in Los Angeles, California. (ABC)
- Moonlight wins the Academy Award for Best Picture, moments after La La Land was mistakenly announced as the winner. (ABC News Australia)
- Mahershala Ali wins the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Moonlight. He is the first Muslim American to win the award. (The Guardian)
- La La Land ‘s director Damien Chazelle wins the Oscar for Best Director and Emma Stone wins the Academy Award for Best Actress. (The Guardian)
- Casey Affleck wins the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Manchester by the Sea. (ABC)
- Viola Davis wins the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Fences. (ABC)
- The Salesman directed by Asghar Farhadi won Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Farhadi and other film crew did not attend the ceremony in protest of Donald Trump‘s visa ban. First Iranian in space Anousheh Ansari and scienist Firouz Naderi attended in place of Farhadi. (The Guardian)
- O.J.: Made in America wins the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. (ABC)
- The Netflix documentary The White Helmets, a film about the Syrian Civil War, wins the Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). Its cinematographer was unable to recieve the award due to the immigration policy of the Donald Trump administration.(CNN)
- Zootopia wins the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. (ABC)

Disasters and accidents

Millions of residents in the Chilean capital Santiago are left without access to running water after the Maipo River is contaminated by flooding and landslides. At least four people have died in the floods. (BBC)
16 people dead in northern India after a truck carrying villagers to church overturned on a mountain road. (DW)

Politics and elections

Tens of thousands of people march through Moscow, Russia, to commemorate the two-year anniversary of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov’s assassination. (The Guardian) (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
Political appointments of Donald Trump
- Philip Bilden, nominee for Secretary of the Navy, withdraws his name from consideration. Mr. Bilden says his business interests created complications. (CNN)

Sport

2017 EFL Cup Final
- Manchester United beat Southampton 3–2 at Wembley Stadium to win the 2016–17 EFL Cup. (BBC)
2017 Daytona 500
- Kurt Busch wins his first Daytona 500. (Orlando Sentinel)

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