November 29, 2014

Top News Stories –

Did North Korea order hack on Sony Pictures computers? –
Sony Pictures Entertainment is said to be investigating whether North Korea was behind a hack of its computer network, over a Hollywood film depicting a plot to assassinate Kim Jong-un. The hermit state’s anger over the comedy about CIA plans to kill its leader may have been behind the attack on the company’s system, according to tech news website Re/code. A group calling itself #GOP (Guardians of Peace) posted a warning on employees computers on Monday saying “If you don`t obey us, we’ll release the data shown below to the world”, giving a deadline of 11:00 the same day and listing five data links. #GOP said Sony Pictures had been warned before but did not detail its demands. North Korea had threatened “a strong and merciless countermeasure” against the US if it released the Sony Pictures’ film The Interview.

Angelina Jolie ‘set to become a peer’ –
The dusty old House of Lords has been considerably enlivened in the past few weeks when a number of half-famous people have been officially sworn in as members of Parliament’s second chamber. But the most excitement came last week when Arminka Helic – best known as a highly-regarded special adviser to former foreign secretary William Hague – was formally welcomed into the House of Lords as Baroness Helic of Millbank. Elderly Parliamentarians dozing off a good lunch were startled to glance up to the public gallery and spot actress Angelina Jolie, an old friend of Lady Helic, gazing down benignly. Now tongues are wagging in Westminster that Miss Jolie is being lined up herself set on a seat in the House of Lords. The idea is not so far-fetched. Last month Miss Jolie was made an honorary dame by the Queen for her campaign work fighting sexual violence and for services to UK foreign policy. And last week it emerged that Miss Jolie has decided to retire from acting and focus her energies on her humanitarian work.[Daily Telegraph]
Angelina Jolie

Video of the Day –

Sounds of Paragliding from shams on Vimeo.

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December 6, 2014

Top News Stories –

Typhoon Hagupit hits the Philippines –
Typhoon Hagupit is sweeping across the eastern Philippines, threatening coastal areas with a powerful sea-surge. Roofs have been blown off in the city of Tacloban, where thousands were killed by Typhoon Haiyan a year ago and more than half a million people have fled coastal villages.

Slice of Prince William and Kate’s wedding cake sells for $6,000 at auction –
A wedding cake slice from the 2011 wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge has been sold at an auction in Beverly Hills for $6,000 (£4,000).
The buyer of this romantic slice of history was bought by Gee Chuang, the CEO of online marketplace Listia.com, who plans to give away the piece of wedding cake on the company’s website in April of next year to celebrate the royal couple’s fourth wedding anniversary. The eight-tiered wedding cake, made by pastry chef Fiona Cairns and her team, was adorned with icing flowers, petals and leaves. [Daily Telegraph]

iPhone crash landing protection –
Apple Inc was granted a patent last week on an innovation that can detect when a handset is falling – and rotates it to avoid the screen hitting the ground. If sensors calculate the screen or camera will hit the ground, a motor is instantly activated within the phone which moves an internal weight fast enough to affect the ‘rotational velocity’ of the device and spin it around so that it lands on a reinforced area. The idea could also work with iPads and other devices.

Al-Qaeda hostage killed during rescue mission –
Luke Somers, a US journalist who was being held captive in Yemen since 2013, has been shot by his captors during a a military operation to rescue him and later died. A video was released earlier this week showing a member of al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) threatening to kill Mr Somers unless unspecified demands are met.

Video of the Day –

I’ve fallen and I can’t get up – Crowd dynamics test using Miarmy for Maya

I've fallen, and I can't get up! from Dave Fothergill vfx on Vimeo.

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January 6, 2015

Top News Stories –

Prince Ali challenges for FIFA presidency –
Fifa vice-president Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein will challenge incumbent Sepp Blatter for the leadership of world football’s governing body on 29th May 2105. The Jordanian Prince, son of the late King Hussein and the late Queen Alia will stand as a candidate at Fifa’s presidential election where Blatter, 78, will seek a fifth term of office. Prince Ali said: “It is time to shift the focus away from administrative controversy and back to sport. “The headlines should be about football, not about Fifa.” Former diplomat Jerome Champagne, who joined Fifa in 1999, is the only other challenger to run for the presidency.
Prince Ali bin Al Hussein

This is Quite Interesting –
QI presenter Stephen Fry is to marry his partner, Elliott Spencer. The 57 year-old has given formal notice to wed Mr Spencer, 27, at a registry office in Dereham, Norfolk, near where he grew up. He confirmed it to his 8 million plus followers on Twitter (@StephenFry) after The Sun newspaper revealed the marriage plans. Fry said: “Oh. It looks as though a certain cat is out of a certain bag. I’m very very happy of course but had hoped for a private wedding. Fat chance!”

Footballing giant –
His football (soccer) team lost 2-1 to Liverpool in yesterday’s FA Cup but Adebayo Akinfenwa (@daRealAAkinfenwa), Wimbledon FC centre forward not only scored but set Twitter alight with over 39,000 related tweets. The 5’11”, 16 stone (224lb) striker known as the Beast is the world’s strongest player according to the FIFA 15 game. Before the match, the man who can bench press 180kg (392lb) warned team-mates “I want Steven Gerrard’s shirt,” he said before the match. “I’ve told the boys that if anyone gets his shirt before me we are going to have a problem.” He got Gerrard’s shirt.

Lance Percival dies –
Actor Lance Percival, who starred in British hit comedy in Up Pompeii, has died at the age of 81.

Nike shoes accepted as bail –
A man in the US state of Massachusetts has avoided jail for failing to pay court fees by leaving a pair of $85 (£55.94) Nike trainers as a bail bond. Judge Douglas Stoddart offered Jason Duval, who is charged with drug offences, the chance to “be creative”. He can get the shoes back by paying $100 or doing 10 hours of community service.

Video of the Day –

Toronto Skyline Porn from Ryan Emond on Vimeo.

CLICK TO SEE MORE STUFF FROM THIS DAY…

February 1, 2015

Top News Stories –

Patriots win the Super Bowl –
The New England Patriots become the first team in Super Bowl history to trail by double digits in the second half and win Super Bowl XLIX at the University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Arizona. The Patriots took the lead from the Seattle Seahawks with two minutes left and held on for a 28-24 victory. Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who completed a Super Bowl record 37 of 50 passes for 328 yards and four touchdowns, with two interceptions, was named Super Bowl MVP. The half-time show was fronted by Katy Perry, Lenny Kravitz and Missy Elliot.
Tom Brady

Djokovic defeats Murray to win Aussie Open again –
Novak Djokovic wins his fifth Australian Open, beating Andy Murray 7-6, 6-7, 6-3, 6-0. Andy Murray’s fiancee Kim Sears laughed off the controversy over her colourful language caught on camera during Murray’s semi-final against Tomas Berdych on January 29th 2015 in Melbourne by wearing a ‘Parental Advisory: Explicit Content’ t-shirt at the Australian Open final.

Adding insult to injury –
Democratic Republic of Congo footballer Gabriel Zakuani is run into by the stretcher buggy during his team’s semi final against Congo in the Africa Cup of Nations. The defender was already injured when the buggy hit him. DR Congo went on to win 4-2 without Zakuani who also plays for Peterborough United in the UK, but he was not badly hurt.

CLICK TO SEE MORE STUFF FROM THIS DAY…

February 24, 2015

Top News Story –

Perks of the job –
The Brazilian judge presiding over criminal proceedings against charismatic entrepreneur Eike Batista, once Brazil’s richest man, has been spotted driving a Porsche belonging to the fallen tycoon that had been seized by the court. Flavio Roberto de Souza, who is overseeing Batista’s trial for insider trading, was seen driving the white Porsche Cayenne by reporters for Estado de S.Paulo’s news agency after a tip-off from Batista’s lawyer. [Daily Telegraph]
Eike Batista

Video of the Day –

The best table tennis shot ever made?

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February 26, 2015

Top News Story –

Owl attacks in Nederlands –
Residents in the northern Dutch town of Purmerend have been advised to take umbrellas out at night after a spate of attacks by an owl. Dozens of residents have suffered head injuries over the past three weeks at the claws of the rogue European eagle owl. Two runners were attacked on Tuesday, with one requiring stitches for five separate head wounds. The European eagle owl’s usual prey are small mammals and birds. [BBC]

Video of the Day –

Pilot successfully crash lands historic fighter plane

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June 12, 2015

June 11, 2015

Top News Stories –

Sir Christopher Lee death announced –
In one of his final interviews, Sir Christopher Lee declared his intention never to retire. “When I die, I want to die with my boots on,” he said.
The actor remained true to his word. He was preparing for his latest film role – a drama called The 11th, co-starring Uma Thurman – when he died on Sunday morning [June 7, 2015] at London’s Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Sir Christopher was one of the greats of the 20th century, but his career hit new heights in the last 15 years of his life. He will be best remembered by those of a certain age for playing Count Dracula in his Hammer Horror days, but to younger film fans he was a star of two of the biggest franchises ever made: Saruman in Lord of the Rings and Count Dooku in Star Wars. [Daily Telegraph] He appeared in over 200 films (See List of the Day)
Sir Christopher Lee (1922-2015)

Female scientists post ‘distractingly sexy’ photos –
Female scientists have been sharing “distractingly sexy” photos of themselves after a feminist website encouraged them to respond to comments by a Nobel laureate. Nobel Prize winner Tim Hunt was roundly criticised when he detailed his thoughts about the “trouble with girls” at a conference of science journalists. “Three things happen when they are in the lab,” he said, “you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them they cry.” He said his comments were meant to be “light-hearted, ironic comment”, but whatever the intention, it went over like a heavy metallic dirigible in a field with some widely acknowledged gender issues. Hunt has now resigned from his position at University College London. On Thursday the hashtag #DistractinglySexy began taking off, with more than 10,000 tweets in a matter of hours. [BBC Trending] See Top Twitter Trends (UK)

Video of the Day –

Saruman the White – from Lord of the Rings [from Youtube]

List of the Day –

Sir Christopher Lee film appearances (including voiceovers) [List from Wikipedia]

#	Year	Film	Role	Notes
1	1948	Corridor of Mirrors	Charles
2	1948	One Night with You	Pirelli’s Assistant
3	1948	Hamlet	Spear Carrier	Uncredited
4	1948	Penny and the Pownall Case	Jonathan Blair
5	1948	A Song for Tomorrow	Auguste
6	1948	My Brother’s Keeper	Second Constable	Deleted scenes
7	1948	Saraband for Dead Lovers	Bit Part	Uncredited
8	1948	Scott of the Antarctic	Bernard Day
9	1949	Trottie True	Bongo
10	1950	They Were Not Divided	Chris Lewis
11	1950	Prelude to Fame	Newsman
12	1951	Valley of Eagles	Det. Holt
13	1951	Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N.	Spanish Captain
14	1951	Quo Vadis	Chariot Driver	Uncredited^[1]
15	1952	The Crimson Pirate	Joseph (attache)
16	1952	Top Secret	Russian Agent	Uncredited
17	1952	Paul Temple Returns	Sir Felix Raybourne
18	1952	Babes in Bagdad	Slave Dealer
19	1952	Moulin Rouge	Georges Seurat
20	1953	Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot	Voice	Uncredited
21	1953	Innocents in Paris	Lieutenant Whitlock	Uncredited
22	1954	Destination Milan	Svenson
23	1955	Man in Demand
24	1955	Crossroads	Harry Cooper
25	1955	Final Column
26	1955	That Lady	Captain
27	1955	Police Dog	Johnny, a constable
28	1955	The Dark Avenger	French Patrol Captain at Tavern	Uncredited
29	1955	The Cockleshell Heroes	Submarine Commander
30	1955	Storm Over the Nile	Karaga Pasha
31	1956	Alias John Preston	John Preston
32	1956	Private’s Progress	Gen. von Linbeck’s aide	Uncredited
33	1956	Port Afrique	Franz Vermes
34	1956	Beyond Mombasa	Gil Rossi
35	1956	The Battle of the River Plate	Manolo
36	1957	Ill Met by Moonlight	German Officer at Dentists
37	1957	Fortune Is a Woman	Charles Highbury
38	1957	The Traitor	Dr. Neumann
39	1957	The Curse of Frankenstein	The Creature
40	1957	Manuela	Voice	Uncredited
41	1957	Bitter Victory	Sgt. Barney
42	1957	The Truth About Women	François
43	1958	A Tale of Two Cities	Marquis St. Evremonde
44	1958	Dracula	Count Dracula	Alternative title: Horror of Dracula
45	1958	Battle of the V-1	Labor Camp Captain, Men’s Section
46	1958	Corridors of Blood	Resurrection Joe
47	1959	The Hound of the Baskervilles	Sir Henry Baskerville
48	1959	The Man Who Could Cheat Death	Dr. Pierre Gerard
49	1959	The Treasure of San Teresa	Jaeger
50	1959	The Mummy	Kharis, the Mummy
51	1959	Uncle Was a Vampire	Baron Roderico da Frankurten
52	1960	Too Hot to Handle	Novak
53	1960	Beat Girl	Kenny
54	1960	The City of the Dead	Prof. Alan Driscoll	Alternative title: Horror Hotel
55	1960	The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll	Paul Allen
56	1960	The Hands of Orlac	Nero the magician
57	1961	The Terror of the Tongs	Chung King
58	1961	Taste of Fear	Doctor Pierre Gerrard
59	1961	The Devil’s Daffodil	Ling Chu
60	1961	Ercole al centro della terra	King Lico (Licos)	Alternative title: Hercules in the Haunted World
61	1962	Stranglehold
62	1962	The Puzzle of the Red Orchid	Captain Allerman
63	1962	The Pirates of Blood River	Captain LaRoche
64	1962	The Devil’s Agent	Baron von Staub
65	1962	Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace	Sherlock Holmes
66	1963	Katarsis	Mephistoles
67	1963	La vergine di Norimberga	Erich	Aka Castle of Terror and Virgin of Nuremberg
68	1963	La frusta e il corpo	Kurt Menliff	Aka The Whip and the Body and Night Is the Phantom
69	1964	Il castello dei morti vivi	Count Drago	Alternative title: Castle of the Living Dead
70	1964	La cripta e l’incubo	Count Ludwig Karnstein	Aka Crypt of the Vampire and Crypt of Horror
71	1964	The Devil-Ship Pirates	Captain Robeles
72	1964	The Gorgon	Prof. Karl Meister
73	1965	Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors	Franklyn Marsh
74	1965	She	Billali
75	1965	The Skull	Sir Matthew Phillips
76	1965	Ten Little Indians	Voice of “Mr. Owen”	Uncredited
77	1965	The Face of Fu Manchu	Dr. Fu Manchu / Lee Tao
78	1966	Theatre of Death	Philippe Darvas
79	1966	Dracula: Prince of Darkness	Count Dracula
80	1966	Rasputin, the Mad Monk	Grigori Rasputin
81	1966	Circus of Fear	Gregor	Alternative title: Psycho Circus
82	1966	The Brides of Fu Manchu	Fu Manchu
83	1967	The Vengeance of Fu Manchu	Dr. Fu Manchu
84	1967	Night of the Big Heat	Godfrey Hanson
85	1967	Five Golden Dragons	Dragon #4
86	1967	The Blood Demon	Count Frederic Regula, Graf von Andomai	Aka The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism and Castle of the Walking Dead
87	1968	Curse of the Crimson Altar	Morley
88	1968	The Devil Rides Out	Duc de Richleau
89	1968	Eve	Colonel Stuart	Alternative title: The Face of Eve
90	1968	The Blood of Fu Manchu	Fu Manchu
91	1968	Dracula Has Risen from the Grave	Count Dracula
92	1969	The Castle of Fu Manchu	Fu Manchu
93	1969	The Oblong Box	Dr. J. Neuhart
94	1969	The Magic Christian	Ship’s vampire
95	1970	Scream and Scream Again	Fremont
96	1970	Umbracle	The Man
97	1970	The Bloody Judge (es)	Lord George Jeffreys	Alternative title: Night of the Blood Monster
98	1970	Count Dracula	Count Dracula
99	1970	Taste the Blood of Dracula	Count Dracula
100	1970	One More Time	Count Dracula
101	1970	Julius Caesar	Artemidorus
102	1970	Eugenie	Dolmance	Aka Eugenie – The Story of Her Journey into Perversion
103	1970	The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes	Mycroft Holmes
104	1970	Scars of Dracula	Count Dracula
105	1971	The House That Dripped Blood	John Reid	Segment: “Sweets to the Sweet”
105	1971	Cuadecuc, vampir	Count Dracula/Himself
106	1971	I, Monster	Dr. Charles Marlowe/Edward Blake
107	1971	Hannie Caulder	Bailey
108	1972	Death Line	Stratton-Villiers, MI5	Alternative title: Raw Meat
109	1972	Nothing But the Night	Col. Charles Bingham
110	1972	Dracula A.D. 1972	Count Dracula
111	1973	Dark Places	Dr. Mandeville
112	1973	The Creeping Flesh	James Hildern
113	1973	The Satanic Rites of Dracula	Count Dracula
114	1973	Horror Express	Sir Alexander Saxton
115	1973	The Three Musketeers	Rochefort
116	1973	The Wicker Man	Lord Summerisle
117	1974	The Four Musketeers	Rochefort
118	1974	The Man with the Golden Gun	Francisco Scaramanga
119	1975	Diagnosis: Murder	Dr. Stephen Hayward
120	1975	Le boucher, la star et l’orpheline	Van Krig/Himself
121	1976	The Keeper	The Keeper
122	1976	Killer Force	Major Chilton	Alternative title: The Diamond Mercenaries
123	1976	To the Devil, A Daughter	Father Michael Rayner
124	1976	Dracula père et fils	Prince of Darkness	Alternative title: Dracula and Son
125	1976	Albino	Bill	Aka Whispering Death and Death in the Sun
126	1977	Airport ’77	Martin Wallace
127	1977	Meatcleaver Massacre	On-screen narrator	Aka Evil Force and Revenge of the Dead
128	1977	End of the World	Father Pergado / Zindar
129	1977	Starship Invasions	Captain Rameses
130	1978	Return from Witch Mountain	Dr. Victor Gannon
131	1978	Caravans	Sardar Khan
132	1978	Circle of Iron	Zetan	Alternative title: The Silent Flute
133	1979	The Passage	Gypsy
134	1979	Arabian Adventure	Alquazar
135	1979	Nutcracker Fantasy	Uncle Drosselmeyer / Street Singer / Watchmaker	Voice
136	1979	Jaguar Lives!	Adam Caine
137	1979	Bear Island	Lechinski
138	1979	1941	Capt. Wolfgang von Kleinschmidt
139	1979	Captain America II: Death Too Soon	Miguel
140	1980	Serial	Luckman Skull
141	1981	The Salamander	Prince Baldasar, the Director of Counterintelligence
142	1981	Desperate Moves	Dr. Carl Boxer
143	1981	An Eye for an Eye	Morgan Canfield
144	1982	Safari 3000	Count Borgia
145	1982	The Last Unicorn	King Haggard	Voice; also in German language version
146	1983	New Magic	Mr. Kellar
147	1983	The Return of Captain Invincible	Mr. Midnight
148	1983	House of the Long Shadows	Corrigan
149	1984	The Rosebud Beach Hotel	Mr. Clifford King
150	1985	Mask of Murder	Chief Supt. Jonathan Rich
151	1985	Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf	Stefan Crosscoe
152	1986	The Girl	Peter Storm
153	1987	Jocks	President White
154	1987	Mio min Mio	Kato
155	1988	Dark Mission	Luis Morel
156	1989	Murder Story	Willard Hope
157	1989	La chute des aigles	Walter Strauss
158	1989	The Return of the Musketeers	Rochefort
159	1990	The Rainbow Thief	Uncle Rudolf
160	1990	L’avaro	Cardinale Spinosi
161	1990	Honeymoon Academy	Lazos
162	1990	Panga	–
163	1990	Gremlins 2: The New Batch	Doctor Catheter
164	1991	Curse III: Blood Sacrifice	Doctor Pearson
165	1992	Jackpot	Cedric
166	1992	Kabuto	King Philip
167	1994	Police Academy: Mission to Moscow	Cmndt. Alexandrei Nikolaivich Rakov
168	1994	Funny Man	Callum Chance
169	1994	Flesh and Blood	Narrator/Self	Last collaboration with Peter Cushing
170	1995	A Feast at Midnight	V. E. Longfellow, a.k.a. Raptor
171	1996	Welcome to the Discworld	Death
172	1996	The Stupids	Evil Sender
173	1998	Tale of the Mummy	Sir Richard Turkel
174	1998	Jinnah	Mohammed Ali Jinnah	Lee considers this to be his favourite role/most significant^[2]
175	1999	Sleepy Hollow	Burgomaster
176	2001	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring	Saruman
177	2002	Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones	Count Dooku / Darth Tyranus
178	2002	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers	Saruman
179	2003	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	Saruman	Extended Edition only
180	2004	Crimson Rivers II: Angels of the Apocalypse	Heinrich von Garten
181	2005	The Adventures of Greyfriars Bobby	The Lord Provost
182	2005	Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith	Count Dooku / Darth Tyranus
183	2005	Charlie and the Chocolate Factory	Dr. Wilbur Wonka
184	2005	Corpse Bride	Pastor Galswells	Voice
185	2007	The Golden Compass	First High Councillor
186	2008	Star Wars: The Clone Wars	Count Dooku / Darth Tyranus	Voice
187	2009	Boogie Woogie	Alfred Rhinegold
188	2009	Triage	Joaquín Morales
189	2009	Glorious 39	Walter
190	2010	Alice in Wonderland	Jabberwocky	Voice
191	2010	Burke & Hare	Joseph
192	2010	The Heavy	Mr. Mason
193	2011	Season of the Witch	Cardinal D’Ambroise
194	2011	The Resident	August
195	2011	The Wicker Tree	Old Gentleman
196	2011	Grave Tales	Himself	Original version only
197	2011	Hugo	Monsieur Labisse
198	2012	The Hunting of the Snark	Narrator	Voice
199	2012	Dark Shadows	Silas Clarney
200	2012	The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey	Saruman
201	2013	Night Train to Lisbon	Father Bartolomeu
202	2013	Necessary Evil	Narrator	Voice
203	2013	The Girl from Nagasaki	Old Officer Pinkerton
204	2014	The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies	Saruman
205	2014	Extraordinary Tales		Voice
206	2015	Angels in Notting Hill	The Boss, Mr. President

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#LiamDay	NOT AVAILABLE	#MakeAMovieLessRomantic
2	#QueSeriaMiVidaSin	NOT AVAILABLE	#LiamDay
3	Marge y Homero	NOT AVAILABLE	Christopher Lee
4	Christopher Lee	NOT AVAILABLE	Ornette Coleman
5	#ConfiesoQue	NOT AVAILABLE	#SAScon
6	Perrie Malik	NOT AVAILABLE	#MyDadWouldAlwaysSay
7	#WorstChildhoodRumors	NOT AVAILABLE	#TimeToDeactivate
8	#RetoTelehit	NOT AVAILABLE	#distractinglysexy
9	Dusty Rhodes	NOT AVAILABLE	#VFintelligence
10	#BuenJueves	NOT AVAILABLE	#ROWYSOLiverpool

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Military intervention against ISIL
- A US citizen fighting alongside Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) against ISIL is killed in action near Kobani. (Today’s Zaman via AP)
Syrian Civil War
- Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, the Al-Nusra Front, shoots dead at least 20 Druze villagers in Idlib in what is being described as a “massacre”.(The Telegraph)
Boko Haram
- Residents of northeast Nigeria claim that Boko Haram has killed at least 43 people and burnt down three villages in recent attacks. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel
- A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip towards the Ashkelon region fell short and did not land in Israel with Palestinian sources indicating it may have hit a house. There were no immediate reports of injuries, or claims of responsibility. (Times of Israel)

Arts and culture

Spain gives the late writer Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, a formal burial at a Madrid convent nearly 400 years after his death in 1616. (AP)

Business and economics

After a poor 1st quarter earnings report, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo steps down with co-founder Jack Dorsey taking over as interim CEO effective July 1. (USA Today)
Rupert Murdoch will step aside as CEO of 21st Century Fox to be replaced by his son James Murdoch. (AFP via ABC Online)

Disasters and accidents

At least 41 people have been killed, 8 injured, and scores are missing in landslides in Nepal‘s Taplejung District caused by heavy rain. (The Hindu)

Health

Health officials in the United States are advising doctors to be on the lookout for MERS following an outbreak in South Korea. (AP via Washington Post)

International relations

NGO Save the Children
- Federal Interior Ministry of Pakistan has sealed the offices of the NGO Save the Children in Pakistan and issued order for its foreign staff to leave the country within 15 days on account of the NGO’s anti-Pakistan activities. (Express Tribune).
Nuclear program of Iran:
- A new version of the Israeli-linked malware Duqu is found at hotels hosting Iran nuclear talks by Kaspersky; Israel denies involvement. (The Guardian)

Law and crime

China‘s former security chief Zhou Yongkang is given a life sentence for bribery, leaking state secrets and abuse of power. (ABC News Australia)
Shooting of Tamir Rice
- A court in the American city of Cleveland, Ohio, finds probable cause that Cleveland Police Department officer Timothy Loehmann should face murder charges in relation to the shooting of Tamar Rice. (Cleveland.com)
King Felipe VI of Spain strips his sister Cristina of her titles after she is charged with tax evasion. (AFP via Yahoo!)
Authorities from the Marshal’s Service, the FBI, Customs, state and local police, and the Forest Police searching for 6 days in northeastern New York (about 25 miles south of the Canadian border, near Lake Champlain and Vermont, in the Adirondack Forest area, in Dannemora, New Yorkand Plattsburgh, New York) for two high-risk murderers who staged an elaborate escape from the high-security Clinton Correctional Facility– the first there- the night of Friday, June 5, 2015 (it was discovered the next morning), using bloodhounds, find a scent and leftover evidence that could be from the two, Richard Matt and David Sweat. (CNN)

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June 20, 2015

Top News Stories –

Dylann Roof: The Charleston killer’s racist manifesto –
The white supremacist accused of massacring nine black people in a Charleston church is believed to have written a hate-filled manifesto shortly before the killings and posed with a gun as he spat on and burned the American flag. Describing himself as the “Last Rhodesian”, 21-year-old Dylann Roof gave a chilling account of the racist anger that allegedly led him to open fire on unarmed worshippers in the Mother Emanuel church. He posted it on a website called The Last Rhodesian along with dozens of bizarre photographs of himself, posing with a handgun and a Confederate flag and, in another, spitting on the American flag. [Daily Telegraph]

Shane Warne: Women don’t believe it’s me on Tinder –
He has been named one of the cricketers of the century and Elizabeth Hurley was his sometime fiancée, but Shane Warne still appears to be on a sticky wicket when it comes to romance.T he 45-year-old former Australian international has downloaded Tinder, a dating app popular among twentysomethings, but most women he messages do not believe he is really the famous cricketer. He said he was not “trying to find the love of his life” through the app, but spoke of his loneliness at being “very, very single”. He has now been on two dates organised through the app, one of which was “OK”. “One was horrific,” he said. “It was just bad. Bad.” [Daily Telegraph]
Shane Warne

The Simpsons say divorce rumours are ‘baseless’ –
They are one of TV’s longest married couples, but of late there have been rumours that it’s divorce-ville for Homer and Marge Simpson. Not true, says the animated couple. In a video posted online, called Together Forever, Marge says: “Homie and I are here to address baseless rumours that we are going to split up.” The rumour-mill kicked in after Al Jean, one of the original writers of the show, said that there could be a legal separation for the pair. He made the comments in an interview with Variety magazine, which discussed various future storylines. Marge and Homer have been married for 26 series of the cult TV show. See Video of the Day [BBC Newsbeat]

Video of the Day –

THE SIMPSONS | Homer And Marge, Together Forever | ANIMATION on FOX

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#7YearsOfCampRock	#7YearsOfCampRock	#EndAusterityNow
2	#MeEnamorasCuando	#ROWYSOSydney	#WestEndLIVE
3	#NiallWeLoveYourVoice	#GoodBandNameBadFirstDate	Claude
4	#SabadoDeGanarSeguidores	Jack Hemmings	#7YearsOfCampRock
5	フォロワーA	Mitt Romney	#ROWYSOSydney
6	#EndAusterityNow	#thankyouNash	#NiallWeLoveYourVoice
7	Anitta Nós Te Amamos	#birdafilm	#birdafilm
8	#ExijoYAQue	#UFCBerlin	John Eustace
9	Boechat	Max Scherzer	Dolapo
10	#لو_بتالف_لنا_ك…	#AgeAMovie	James Salter

Other News Stories –

Attacks and armed conflicts
- Second Libyan Civil War
  - Dozens of ISIL militants are killed following a militia attack on the eastern city of Derna. ISIL has had a significant presence in Derna since the end of 2014. (Yahoo)
Law and crime
- In Slovakia, thousands of demonstrators rally against European Union plans to host asylum-seekers, and dozens are detained after they attacked spectators of a cycle race in the capital, Bratislava. (New York Times), (RT)
- Three people are killed and dozens more are injured as a man drives his car into a crowd in Graz, Austria. (AP via News24)
Politics
- Anti-austerity movement
  - Tens of thousands in London demonstrate anti-austerity protests outside the Parliament. (Reuters UK)
Sport
- In association football, the 2015 FIFA U-20 World Cup concludes in Auckland with Serbia defeating Brazil, 2–1, in the final. (AP via ESPN)
- In Major League Baseball, Washington Nationals pitcher Max Scherzer, one strike away from a perfect game, loses his bid when he hits thePittsburgh Pirates‘ José Tábata with a pitch. Scherzer retires the next batter to complete a 6–0 win and a no-hitter. (ESPN)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

June 21, 2015

Top News Stories –

India yoga: PM Narendra Modi leads thousands in celebration –
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has led thousands in a mass yoga programme in the capital, Delhi, on the first ever International Yoga Day. Mr Modi did stretches, bends and breathing exercises with 35,000 school children, bureaucrats and soldiers. Security was tight in the city with thousands of police and paramilitary deployed for Sunday morning’s event. Millions of others are expected to do yoga at similar events planned in hundreds of Indian cities and towns. Mr Modi, a yoga enthusiast who says he practises the ancient Indian art daily, lobbied the United Nations to declare 21 June International Yoga Day. Authorities said 35,000 people attended the 35-minute yoga session on Rajpath, aimed at setting a new Guinness World Record for the largest yoga class at a single venue.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Taylor Swift pulls 1989 album from Apple Music –
Taylor Swift has pulled her hit album 1989 from Apple’s new streaming music service and criticised the company. In an open letter to Apple, Swift said she was withholding the record as she was unhappy with the three-month free trial offered to subscribers. “I’m not sure you know that Apple Music will not be paying writers, producers, or artists for those three months,” she wrote. She said the plan was “unfair”, arguing Apple had the money to cover the cost. “I find it to be shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company,” the 25-year-old said, describing Apple as one of her “best partners in selling music”. “These are not the complaints of a spoiled, petulant child. These are the echoed sentiments of every artist, writer and producer in my social circles who are afraid to speak up publicly because we admire and respect Apple so much,” she continued. “We know how astronomically successful Apple has been and we know that this incredible company has the money to pay artists, writers and producers for the 3 month trial period – even if it is free for the fans trying it out. “Three months is a long time to go unpaid, and it is unfair to ask anyone to work for nothing.” She ended her letter by calling on Apple to change its policy, suggesting she would reinstate her album on the service if the company changed its mind. “We don’t ask you for free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation.” Apple has yet to comment on the issue.
Taylor Swift

Video of the Day –

Remnants from Nate Atwater on Vimeo.

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	FRASE DO MEU TÚMULO	#GoHomeDeray	Katie Hopkins
2	#FelizDiaDelPadre	#MyDadIn4Words	Broner
3	#HappyBirthdayLanaDelRey	Dads	#JamesBrokeTheDoor
4	#UnaVezEnPedo	Happy Fathers	Ramos
5	#NoEsTuPapaSi	#HappyBirthdayLanaDelRey	#FathersDay
6	레바 와카루	Chuck Todd	Daddy
7	파쿠리	#AndThenIWasAskedToLeave	#SummerSolstice
8	Dads	Father’s Day	#GetLoveMeSo
9	Jamaica	#FelizDiaDelPadre	#MyDadIn4Words
10	#BugünBabalarGünü	#SummerSolstice	#InternationalDayofYoga

Other News Stories –

Disasters and accidents

Ninety-four people die, and 45 others are hospitalized, after drinking moonshine in Mumbai (Bombay), India. (Reuters via News24)

Law and crime

Ten people are injured in a shooting at a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania block party. (AFP via News24) (NBC Philadelphia)
One person dies and nine others are injured in a shooting at a block party on a basketball court in Detroit, Michigan. (AP via News24) (ABC News)
A Palestinian teenager is in police custody after he stabbed in the neck and critically injured a policeman in Jerusalem and then was shot by the same policeman. (YNet)

Politics

Prime Minister of Greece Alexis Tsipras makes a new offer for reforms which could signal a late deal in the country’s debt talks. (ITV News)

Sport

2015 U.S. Open (golf)
- In golf, American Jordan Spieth wins his second major championship of the year winning the U.S. Open by a stroke and becomes the first golfer since Gene Sarazen to win two majors before the age of 22. (The Guardian)

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June 23, 2015

Top News Stories –

Tom Holland is announced as the new Marvel Spider-Man –
Tom Holland, who was in Wolf Hall and the stage musical Billy Elliot, has grabbed the lead in the franchise reboot. Marvel and Sony confirmed the news in a statement on their website. The 19-year-old takes over from Andrew Garfield for the new film which is due out July 2017. In a statement posted on their website, Marvel said: “Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios are proud to announce that after a full worldwide casting search, Tom Holland will play Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the next Spider-Man film.” The statement also said: “The studios and producers were impressed by Holland’s performances in The Impossible, Wolf Hall, and the upcoming In the Heart of the Sea, and by a series of complex screen tests.” [BBC Newsbeat] He celebrated with some acrobatic videos on his Instagram account
Tom Holland

Titanic composer James Horner dies in plane crash –
The composer James Horner, who won Oscars for the theme song and score for the film Titanic, has died in a plane crash in California. He was 61. His credits included numerous other high-profile films, among them Avatar, Braveheart and Aliens. He was alone in his two-seater plane when the accident happened. [BBC]

Formula 1: US-Qatari investors ‘to bid for sport’ –
The Miami Dolphins American football team owner Stephen Ross is reportedly working with investors from Qatar to buy a stake in Formula 1 racing. RSE Ventures and Qatar Sports Investments plan a bid for CVC Capital Partners’ 35.5% stake in the holding company that owns F1. The Financial Times and Reuters said the deal could be worth up to $8bn, and help build F1’s presence in the US. [BBC]

Video of the Day –

7 Days in Hell: Trailer (HBO)

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#EnLaPrimaria	George Karl	James Horner
2	James Horner	Undo Send	#NWED
3	#FelizMartes	#RejectedPrezCampaignSlogans	#skinnyjeans
4	#PudimosSerTodoPero	#filmprequels	#charitytuesday
5	#UnaTrompadaAEsosQue	#LameSuperGroups	Calais
6	Ylenia	James Horner	#filmprequels
7	#DecimeQueGanasCon	Spider-Man	Spider-Man
8	#LameSuperGroups	#Smallzys5SOSCakeBake	Auschwitz
9	#MiProblemaEs	#O2LFOREVER	#Lionesses
10	Diddy	Dick Van Patten	#Smallzys5SOSCakeBake

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Syrian Civil War, Military intervention against ISIL
- The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) capture the military base Brigade 93 and enter the town of Ayn Issa, the first defense line of ISILnorth of its de facto capital al-Raqqah.
- ISIL claims it has started the destruction of the ancient complex of Palmyra. (euronews)

Arts and culture

South Korean author Shin Kyung-sook admits to plagiarising a short story from Japanese author Yukio Mishima. (AP)
Australian author Sofie Laguna wins the Miles Franklin Award for her novel The Eye of the Sheep. (ABC News Australia)

Business and economy

The deputy speaker of the Greek parliament, Alexis Mitropoulos, warns that the body may reject concessions the government had made to the country’s creditors. (Reuters)

Disasters and accidents

2015 Pakistani heat wave
- The death toll from the 2015 Pakistan heatwave rises to 450. (AFP via Yahoo News)

Health

South Sudan declares a cholera outbreak after 18 people die and 171 are infected. (Al-Jazeera), (REUTERS)

International relations

Hungary unilaterally suspends European Union asylum seeker rules that require it to take back people who first enter Hungary, then travel to other nations. (Reuters)

Law and crime

Charleston church shooting
- Amazon.com announces that it is removing Confederate Flag merchandise from sale following the shootings. (Time)

Sport

The suspension appeal hearings for Tom Brady‘s 4-game suspension over Deflategate begin today. (New York Times)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

June 26, 2015

Top News Stories –

Same-sex marriage is now legal across the U.S. –
Same-sex marriage is now legal in the United States. The Supreme Court handed down a historic 5-4 ruling that state-level bans on gay marriage are unconstitutional. The court agreed to hear cases filed by gay and lesbian couples from Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, and Michigan in January, setting the stage for the decision that has been highly anticipated by gay rights groups ever since. The Obama administration supported the cause. After the ruling came down, the White House changed its official Facebook photo to a rainbow variation. [The Daily Dot]
The White House Facebook Page official photo today

Hilary Clinton made a similar change to her logo when the Supreme Court was earlier ruling in April.
Hilary Clinton Twitter (April 28 2015)

British And Irish Tourists Die In Beach Horror –
A gunman disguised as a holidaymaker has killed at least 37 people, including five Britons, in an attack on a popular tourist resort. Terrified sunbathers ran for their lives as the attacker, dressed in shorts and hiding his Kalashnikov inside an umbrella, opened fire on the beach in Port el Kantaoui on the outskirts of Sousse, Tunisia. He then entered the Imperial Marhaba hotel through the swimming pool area, shooting people as he went and also threw an explosive, witnesses said. The gunman in Tunisia was a young student from the city of Kairouan who was reportedly unknown to authorities. He was later shot dead by police. [Sky News]

France attack: Man decapitated at factory near Lyon –
A van driver who was investigated for links to Islamist radicals has attacked a gas factory near the south-eastern city of Lyon, a French prosecutor says. Yassin Sali, 35, caused an explosion by ramming his car into an area containing flammable liquids and was arrested at the scene, Francois Molins said. Mr Sali’s boss, the owner of a delivery firm, was found beheaded alongside flags containing Arabic inscriptions. The attack put France back on to its highest terror alert. An investigation has been launched by French anti-terror police. [BBC]

Bobbi Kristina Brown: Legal action filed against boyfriend –
The boyfriend of Bobbi Kristina Brown has been accused of assault and theft, on the same day her family announced she was being moved into hospice care. Brown, the only child of Whitney Houston, was discovered face down in a bath at her Atlanta home in January. She has never regained consciousness. Her boyfriend Nick Gordon has now been accused of causing her “substantial bodily harm” in a $10m civil case. [BBC]

Bobbi Kristina Brown and Whitney Houston in 2009

Video of the Day –

#ProudToLove – Celebrating Marriage Equality and LGBT Pride Month [The Top YouTube video of the day]

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#weknowtherealharry	#weknowtherealharry	#NationalCreamTeaDay
2	#تفجير_مسجد_ال�…	#LoveWins	Tunisia
3	#LoveWins	#5sosfamisconfident	#HappyBirthdayMoonlight
4	#NBADraft	#HappyBirthdayAriana	#weknowtherealharry
5	Knicks	#askthenearesthippie	#LoveWins
6	#GoodForYouMusicVideoTODAY	#UrbanOutfittersBeLike	#5sosfamisconfident
7	#TeSigoDeUnaSiTeGusta	Justice Kennedy	#JackAndJackGirlsAreConfident
8	アベンジャーズ	Aaron Harrison	#fridayfeeling
9	Hayırlı Cumalar	Bruins	#EqualMarriage
10	Tyus Jones	#HispanicGirlsUnited	#NBADraft

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Al Shabaab militants attack an African Union base in the Leego district of Somalia and kills more than 70 African Union soldiers and seizes control of their military base. (Reuters) (VOA News)
Saint-Quentin-Fallavier attack
- A man is decapitated and at least two others are injured during an attack in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier as a man carrying an Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant flag attacks a factory near the French city of Lyon. (The Local)
2015 Kuwait mosque bombing
- At least 27 people are killed and 227 injured after a suicide bombing at the Shia Imam Sadiq mosque in Kuwait City, Kuwait. ISIL claims responsibility for the attack. (Al Jazeera), (Reuters)
2015 Sousse attack
- Two hotels in Sousse, Tunisia came under attack from an unknown number of gunmen; at least 37 people have been killed and 36 injured. Libyan branch of ISIL is suspected. (Sky News), (BBC), (USA Today)
Syrian civil war
- June 2015 Kobani attack
  - Islamic State kills 146 civilians in Kobani, the second largest massacre since the start of conflict when the extremist group executed 700 members of the al-Sheitaat tribe in eastern Syria. (IBT), (VOA NEWS)
- An Islamic State suicide bomber kills at least 20 people in the city of Hasakeh. (AFP via Yahoo! News)

Business and economy

The Prime Minister of Greece Alexis Tsipras says that Greece will hold a referendum on a bailout deal with creditors on July 5. (BBC), (Reuters)

Disasters and accidents

An early monsoon arrives in India resulting in floods in Gujarat state that have killed 60 people so far this week. (Hindustan Times)

International relations

The European Union has reached agreement to share at least 40,000 migrants over two years. (Reuters), (BBC)
Authorities in Thailand stop the launch of a report by Human Rights Watch on alleged persecution of Montagnard Christians in Vietnam. (AP via ABC News America)

Law and crime

A South Korean court rules that South Korea is not obliged to pay compensation to its nationals who were victims of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who have not been compensated by Japan. (Yonhap)
Obergefell v. Hodges:
- In a 5-4 decision, the United States Supreme Court declares state bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional and effectively legalizes it across the United States. (CNN)
2015 Clinton Correctional Facility escape
- Richard Matt, one of the two escapees, has been shot dead south of the town of Malone, New York. (New York Times)

Politics and elections

Sri Lankan parliamentary election, 2015
- Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena dissolves the Parliament to pave the way for the upcoming parliamentary election. (BBC)

Sports

2015 NHL Entry Draft
- The NHL Draft is held at the BB&T Center with the Edmonton Oilers selecting Connor McDavid as their number 1 pick. (Bleacher Report)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

July 5, 2015

Top News Stories –

Greece votes ‘No’ and gambles its future –
Greek voters have delivered a defiant response to Europe. Political leaders and heads of government had lined up to warn the Greeks that a “No” vote would be a vote to leave the euro. It did not deter them. Indeed many voters seemed to revel in their resistance. The European Project is now facing its gravest crisis. [BBC]

USA beat Japan 5-2 in Women’s FIFA World Cup Final –
Carli Lloyd scored an incredible 13-minute hat-trick as the United States thrashed Japan to win their third Women’s World Cup title. In a repeat of the 2011 final, which Japan won on penalties, the Nadeshiko could not live with their stronger and quicker opponents, who went 4-0 up when Lloyd scored an astonishing third from the halfway line. The pulsating finale to an entertaining tournament was the highest-scoring final in the tournament’s history, and matched the highest scoring men’s final, when Brazil defeated Sweden by the same scoreline in 1958. [BBC] See Video of the Day
Carli Lloyd

Video of the Day –

List of the Day –

FIFA Women’s World Cup results [from Wikipedia]

Year	Host	Champions	Score	Runners-up	Third Place	Score	Fourth Place	Teams
1991	China	United States	2–1	Norway	Sweden	4–0	Germany	12
1995	Sweden	Norway	2–0	Germany	United States	2–0	China PR	12
1999	United States	United States	0–0 a.e.t. (5–4 pen)	China PR	Brazil	0–0 ^[A] (5–4 pen)	Norway	16
2003	United States	Germany	2–1 asdet	Sweden	United States	3–1	Canada	16
2007	China	Germany	2–0	Brazil	United States	4–1	Norway	16
2011	Germany	Japan	2–2 a.e.t. (3–1 pen)	United States	Sweden	2–1	France	16
2015	Canada	United States	5–2	Japan	England	1–0 a.e.t.	Germany	24

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#ToNoTwitterPq	Happy 5th of July	#greekreferendum
2	#QueLindoEstariaQue	#USAvJPN	Chile
3	デスノート	#dontjudgechallange	Messi
4	#Grefenderum	#ImThatGirlfriend	#UKBuyWorthIt
5	AGUANTE MESSI CARETAS	#YouMightBeARacist	#PutWalesinaFilm
6	Dragon Ball Super	#WeLoveYouHalsey	Argentina
7	#كم_رصيد_حسابك	#BadCharitiesToDonateTo	#YouMightBeARacist
8	#شي_مانستغني_عنه	#MakeAMovieMoreAmerican	Sanchez
9	Messi	Best 4th of July	#BritishGP
10	Vidal	Take Jackson Off the $20 Bill	#marr

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts

American-led intervention in Syria
- A United States bombing campaign against ISIL has killed at least 30 people in the Syrian city of Al-Raqqah. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
Iraq War (2014–present)
- Iraqi government air strikes kill at least 73 people in the ISIL held cities of Ramadi and Fallujah. (Al-Jazeera)
War in North-West Pakistan
- A roadside bomb in North Waziristan kills at least three Pakistan Army soldiers and injures six others. (AFP via Daily Star)
Boko Haram
- A suicide bomber attacks a church in the Potiskum area of Nigeria‘s Yobe State, killing five and raising the toll of Boko Haram attacks for the past week to 200. (BBC) (DailyStar via AP)

Arts and culture

UNESCO adds more sites to the World Heritage List including the San Antonio Missions National Historic Park in the US city of San Antonio, Texasand Scotland‘s Forth Bridge. (My San Antonio), (BBC)

Disasters and accidents

2015 Pacific typhoon season
- Over 1000 people in the Philippines are stranded temporarily by Severe Tropical Storm Linfa (Egay) as landslides occur in Palawan province.(GMA Network)
Canadian wildfires
- More than 60 wildfires start in the Canadian province of British Columbia over the weekend leading to several communities declaring a state of emergency. (CBC)
- Nearly 1,000 military personnel are sent to fight wildfires in Saskatchewan, (CTV)

Politics and elections

Greek bailout referendum, 2015
- Greek voters solidly rejected (61.3 percent) the latest austerity proposal of the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and theEuropean Central Bank. (Sky News), (The Guardian) (Reuters)
- The Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel and the President of France Francois Hollande call for an international summit of Eurozone leaders to discuss the next moves. (Bloomberg)
- The Greek opposition leader Antonis Samaras resigns as leader of his party, New Democracy; the new temporary leader is Evangelos Meimarakis. (To Vima)

Science and technology

A Russian space capsule reaches the International Space Station allowing resupply of provisions after the crash of the SpaceX space capsule last week. (CNN)

Sports

2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup
- The United States defeats defending champion Japan, 5-2, to win the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Vancouver, British Columbia,Canada. (BBC) (AP via Washington Post)
2015 British Grand Prix
- In motorsport, Lewis Hamilton wins the race for the second consecutive year with team mate Nico Rosberg finishing second. (News24)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

July 17, 2015

Top News Stories –

Jules Bianchi: F1 driver dies from Suzuka crash injuries –
French Formula 1 driver Jules Bianchi has died, nine months after suffering severe head injuries in a crash at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix. Bianchi, 25, had been in a coma since crashing his Marussia into a recovery vehicle at October’s rain-hit race. His family said: “Jules fought right to the very end, as he always did, but today his battle came to an end.” The Marussia team, now known as Manor, said Bianchi had left an “indelible mark on all our lives”.
Jules Bianchi

Video of the Day –

Ciara – Dance Like We’re Making Love

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#1DRADIOPARTY	#1DRADIOPARTY	#1DRADIOPARTY
2	#WorldEmojiDay	#WorldEmojiDay	#fridayfeeling
3	#SHESKINDAHOT	#SHESKINDAHOT	#WorldEmojiDay
4	Kiko Casilla	David Brooks	Eid Mubarak
5	#GrowingUpWithStrictParents	#EidMubarak	#SHESKINDAHOT
6	#BuenViernes	The Revenant	Fabian Delph
7	Fabian Delph	#LyricsThatShouldBeShouted	#GrowingUpWithStrictParents
8	Luis Coronel	#GrowingUpWithStrictParents	#DavisCup
9	時かけ	#Take10MinutesADayTo	James Holmes
10	Gawker	Gawker	Gawker

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Boko Haram, Timeline of Boko Haram insurgency
- Suicide bombers killed at least 64 people in multiple blasts in the northeastern towns of Gombe and Damaturu, Nigeria. (WSJ via AP)(Local 10) (BBC)
- Niger’s army killed at least 30 suspected Boko Haram fighters as it searched for militants in villages just over the border with Nigeria. (NewsDay Zimbabwe)
At least six people are killed in clashes between supporters of the banned Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian police. (BBC)
Iraq War (2014–present), ISIL
- A car bomb in Khan Bani Saad City massacres more than 100 people, mostly Shias, celebrating the Eid after end of Ramadan. ISIL claims responsibility. (Reuters)

Arts and culture

Australian artist Nigel Milsom wins the 2015 Archibald Prize for a portrait of barrister Charles Waterstreet who represented Milsom when he was sentenced for armed robbery. (ABC News Australia)
Holy Trinity University, Puerto Princesa, Philippines has been named as a new center to research ancient Palawan man, Tabon Caves, and large sculptures found along Palawan’s coast.(Palawan-News)

Business and economy

Greek government-debt crisis
- Bundestag, the German lower house of parliament, approves Greece’s bailout plan by 439–119 with 40 abstained. (Reuters)

Disasters and accidents

2015 Pacific typhoon season
- Typhoon Nangka passes through the western part of the main Japanese island of Honshu, causing at least two deaths, widespread flooding and the evacuation of 100,000 people. (Reuters)
Indonesian volcano eruptions
- Thousands of Indonesians are stranded on the Eid al-Fitr holiday at the end of Ramadan as five airports remain closed as a result of the eruption of the Raung and Gamalama volcanoes. (BBC)
At least five people are dead and three are missing after a coal mine in the Philippines province of Antique collapses. (AP)
Two commuter trains collide at the Booysens train station in Johannesburg, South Africa, injuring more than 250 people. (News24)

International relations

The People’s Republic of China releases 10 South African tourists held for allegedly distributing terrorist material. (News 24)
Ukraine expels Valery Shibeko, Russia’s top envoy to Odessa, after declaring the consulate general “persona non grata” for conducting unnamed activities “incompatible” with his diplomatic work. (AFP)

Law and crime

The Pakistan Rangers, a paramilitary group, raid the Karachi headquarters of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) party on the grounds that it had allegedly been producing hate speech, and arrest two people. (Reuters via Business Insider)
A man goes on a shooting spree in Maine, U.S., killing two people and wounding three others in the towns of Lee and Benedicta. A manhunt is executed, and the suspect is arrested in Houlton. (CBC)

Sport

List of world records in athletics
- Genzebe Dibaba of Ethiopia breaks the world record for women’s 1500 metres at the Herculis IAAF Diamond League event in Monacorunning three minutes 50.08 seconds. (BBC)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

July 18, 2015

Top News Stories –

South Korea spy kills himself amid hacking scandal –
An employee of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) spying agency has been found dead in his car after apparently taking his own life on a mountain road, police say. His death comes as a scandal over phone-hacking gathers pace. The man left a suicide note admitting that he had deleted important information about the hacking. It has emerged that mobile phones were tracked and monitored just before the presidential election in 2012. [BBC]

North Korean elections – not too close to call –
Worker’s Party expected to fare well in polls this Sunday with only one name on ballot paper and punishment for anyone who fails to endorse Kim Jong-un’s policies. To indicate support for the approved candidate, the voter goes into a booth and carries out his democratic duty. Anyone who does not agree with the name on the ballot paper must go to a different booth and cross out the candidate’s name. With the every move closely scrutinised, it would be an act of extreme bravery in a nation that is not known for tolerating dissenting voices for that to happen. [Daily Telegraph]
Kim Jong-un (sketch)

Bratz are back after Barbie owner fails to kill franchise –
After almost a decade of a back-and-forth legal battle between Mattel and Bratz-owner MGA, the spunky dolls are back and ready to take on an already weak Barbie. Years before toys of Frozen characters knocked Barbie off her perennial perch, a gaggle of ethnically-diverse fashionistas known as Bratz temporarily toppled the word-famous doll – and now they’re back after winning a protracted legal battle with Barbie-owner Mattel.
Bratz, which first came to market in 2001, is relaunching this weekend with a revamped look, an extra character and new range of accessories in an attempt to regain its place at the top of toytown. [Daily Telegraph]

Video of the Day –

Chuck Jones – The Evolution of an Artist from Tony Zhou on Vimeo.

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#ZaynAppreciationDay	McCain	#lyricsthatshouldbeshouted
2	Stereo Kicks	#UFCGlasgow	#ZaynAppreciationDay
3	#ArianaRESPECTLouis	#MandelaDay	Nazi
4	あなたの心の壁	#arianarespectlouis	#ImInWorkJeremy
5	#MeGustaCuando	#OTRAVancouver	#RIPJules
6	#RIPJules	#LyricsThatShouldBeShouted	Jules Bianchi
7	DEIXA ELE SOFRER MUSIC VIDEO	#GrowingUpWithSiblings	#UFCGlasgow
8	ICFES	Van Miller	#ArianaRESPECTLouis
9	#OTRAVancouver	#ROWYSOVegas	Stereo Kicks
10	jules bianchi	#LouisAppreciationDay	#DavisCup

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Terrorism in Pakistan
- In a failed suicide blast, a security guard intercepted a suicide bomber clad in female clothing attempting to enter Quetta’s Hazara town, who then detonated their device that contained 6 to 7 Kg of explosive material, killing themselves and the guard. (Dawn).
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)
- The Kurdish‘s People’s Protection Units and independent monitors accuse ISIL of using poison gas while fighting in northern Syria late in June.(Reuters)
- Saudi Arabia arrests 431 people accused of links to Islamic State. (Al-Arabiyah)
- ISIL claims responsibility for kidnapping three African Christians in Libya. (Reuters via Trust)
War in Donbass, Timeline of the war in Donbass (July 2015–present)
- Three civilians have been killed in shelling in the Donbass town of Avdiivka. Despite being in government-held territory local residents claimed they were fired on by pro-Ukrainian forces. (Reuters)
Sinai insurgency
- Militants kill at least five soldiers in attacks on two Egyptian Army checkpoints. (AP via ABC America)

Disasters and accidents

At least four people are dead, seven injured and a girl trapped as a four story building collapses in West Delhi in India‘s National Capital Territory of Delhi. (NDTV)

2015 Cajon Pass wildfire
- The wildfire burning in San Bernardino County, California has burned over 3,500 acres, and destroyed 16 homes and other buildings. The fire has also burned over 60 passenger vehicles and tractor-trailers. (CBS-Los Angeles)

Law and crime

2015 Chattanooga shootings
- The sailor wounded in Thursday’s shooting at two military installations in Chattanooga, Tennessee, dies a little after 2 a.m. Saturday, bringing the death toll of the shooting to five. (Chattanooga Times-Free Press)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

July 27, 2015

Top News Stories –

Vladimir Putin says Sepp Blatter deserves Nobel Prize –
Vladimir Putin has said that Sepp Blatter deserves to win the Nobel Prize and does not believe a word of the corruption allegations against the Fifa president. In an interview with Swiss broadcaster RTS, the Russian president gave his full support to the Fifa president just days after Mr Blatter had assured him that Russia had Fifa’s “complete trust” as hosts of the next World Cup finals in 2018. Mr Putin added that he believed that bribery scandal being investigated by US, Swiss and other law enforcement agencies was as a result of the failure of England and the US to win the rights to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. [Daily Telegraph]
Vladimir Putin

Norwegian court orders bank to cover man’s £23k lap-dance and drinks bill –
A Norwegian court has ordered a bank to cover a £23,400 drink and lap-dance bill run up by one man during a night at a Polish strip club. The court made the decision after it concluded he had been drugged and could not be held responsible for his actions. Sparebank 1 will now have to make up for its client’s losses even though an investigation by Polish police into the incident at the club in the up-market seaside town of Sopot has been discontinued. The court rejected Sparebank’s argument that the man was responsible for how he spent his money, saying all the evidence suggested he was doped, and therefore a victim. [Daily Telegraph]

Video of the Day –

The High Voltage Ejector Bed

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#3YearsOfFifthHarmony	#DirtyWorkMusicVideo	Sergio Romero
2	#OTRAMinneapolis	#WhenTrumpIsElected	#3YearsOfFifthHarmony
3	#LaPeliQueMeHizoLlorar	WWGTM	#mondaymotivation
4	Martinoli	#3YearsOfFifthHarmony	#BobbiKristina
5	Sergio Romero	#BuyBEAToniTunes	Conley Thompson
6	#dirtyworkmusicvideo	#mondaymotivation	Khloe Kardashian
7	Bugs Bunny	#ImStrongestWhen	#OTRAMinneapolis
8	#CiteCoisasQueOdeiaNoFacebook	#IWasSoHighOneDay	#ImHardLeft
9	Gago	Bugs Bunny	#jaiappreciationday
10	#MexicanPartyCopaOro	Google+	Lord Sewel

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

At least 7 people are killed and many injured after gunmen attack an Indian police station in Punjab. (The Hindu)
Syrian Civil War, Battle of Sarrin (June–July 2015)
- YPG led forces capture the town Sarrin from ISIL after a month-long offensive. (The Daily Star)

Business and economy

2015 Chinese stock market crash
- The Shanghai Composite Index drops 8.5%, the largest one-day decline in the index since 2007. (Bloomberg)

Law and crime

The Turkish National Police warns of possible bomb attacks on crowded places in central Istanbul, including metro stations and bus stops, following the escalation of Turkey–ISIL conflict. (Hürriyet Daily News)

Politics and elections

Philippines President Benigno Aquino III holds his final State of the Nation Address before stepping down in 2016. He advocates the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law and an anti-dynasty bill. (CNN Philippines), GMA News Online
French farmers protesting low prices within the country turn back hundreds of trucks suspected of carrying foreign agricultural products at the country’s border with Germany. (AP)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

August 16, 2015

Top News Stories –

Guardian Angels return to New York’s Central Park –
With their bright red jackets and berets, the Guardian Angels were once a common sight in a city riddled with violent crime. And this week they made a pointed return to New York’s Central Park for the first time in more than two decades, citing a 26 per cent rise in crime there so far this year. “We realise things are much better than they were” in the crime peak of the 1980s and early 90s, said Curtis Sliwa, the group’s founder, but “we want it to stay that way.” After years of celebrating reductions in crime, the nation’s biggest city has seen murders rise by 9 per cent so far this year, although serious crime overall is down 5 per cent. [Daily Telegraph]

PGA Championship: Australia’s Jason Day breaks major drought with three-shot win over Jordan Spieth –
Australia’s Jason Day has ended a long wait for his first major, shooting a final round 67 to clinch victory in the PGA Championship by three shots. He led by three shots at the turn and held his nerve through the back nine to seal a memorable win over America’s Masters and US Open champion Jordan Spieth at the Whistling Straits course in Wisconsin. Day’s four-round total of 20-under was a record low score for a major championship. [ABC]
Jason Day

Video of the Day –

Visualization of nuclear detonations from 1945 to present.

Trinity from Orbital Mechanics on Vimeo.

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#DragMeDownDay	Julian Bond	#7YearsOfJLS
2	#ZAYNHASNOCHILL	#WordsNotUsedOftenEnough	#DragMeDownDay
3	#TeJuroQueMeCuesta	#ZAYNHASNOCHILL	Gordon Brown
4	Julian Bond	#TeenChoiceAwards	Jason Day
5	Chelsea	#DragMeDownDay	Tracy
6	Goiás	Jason Day	#CorbynMediaFear
7	#CarnaCoxinha	#MaybeYouShould	Sunderland
8	#اشخاص_ترفع_له�…	Little Mix	Mourinho
9	#DomingoDeGanarSeguidores	Tebow	Chelsea
10	#كلمتين_عن_شخص�…	Chris Sale	#MOTD

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

2015 Douma market air strikes, Syrian Civil War
- More than 110 people have been killed and hundreds injured following a series of air-raids by the Syrian Arab Air Force on the rebel-held market town of Douma according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. (BBC) (IBT) (Reuters) (Xinhua) (Al Jazeera English Online)
2014–15 India–Pakistan border skirmishes, Kashmir conflict
- Eight people have been killed in the past week as India and Pakistan trade gunfire over the border in the disputed area of Kashmir. (AP via Fox News)
Turkey–PKK conflict
- A Turkish Army soldier and three PKK militants are killed in a clash in Turkey‘s Kars Province. (Daily Star via Reuters)
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
- ISIL militants reportedly execute 15 women in Mosul. (Al-Manar)
- Former Prime Minister of Iraq Nouri al-Maliki is among dozens of officials named in a parliamentary report on why Mosul fell to ISIL with so little resistance. (Washington Post)

Disasters and accidents

2015 Tianjin explosions
- The death toll from the explosions rises to 112 with 95 people missing including 85 fire fighters. (Reuters) (Al Jazeera English Online)
An Indonesian plane (Trigana Air Service Flight 257) with 54 people on board goes missing in Papua. There are later reports that the remains of the aircraft have been found in the Oksibil district. (BBC),(AFP via Yahoo!)
Ecuador declares a state of emergency over increased activity at the Cotopaxi volcano near the capital of Quito. Its last major eruption was in 1877. (BBC) (Dalje.com) (Al Jazeera English Online)

International relations

North Korea–South Korea relations
- South Korea establishes a surveillance center on its northernmost island of Baengnyeongdo to better deter North Korean threats. (Korea Times) (Yonhap)

Politics and elections

Crowds gather throughout Brazil to demand the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff due to a bribery and corruption scandal involving senior members of the governing Workers’ Party. Recent polls show her approval ratings below 10%. (France 24)

Sport

2015 Netball World Cup
- In netball, Australia defeats New Zealand 58–55 in the final of the Netball World Cup in Sydney. (Fox Sports Australia)
2015 PGA Championship
- In golf, Jason Day of Australia wins the PGA Championship on the Straits Course of the Whistling Straits complex in the American village of Kohler, Wisconsin. (ABC News Australia)
- Day’s 20-under-par is the lowest score in relation to par at a major championship, beating Tiger Woods‘ previous record of 19-under at the 2000 Open Championship. (ABC News Australia)
- Jordan Spieth of the United States finishes second and by doing so becomes the number one ranked golfer in the world ahead of Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland. (ABC News Australia)

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August 24, 2015

Top News Stories –

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

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

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

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

Video of the Day –

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

List of the Day –

The top 10 funniest jokes of the Edinburgh Fringe

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

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	Windows 95	#BlackMonday	Justin Wilson
2	#SummerSlam	#HeadlinesWeWouldLove	#3YearsOfUnionJ
3	#OTRAChicago	#NationalWaffleDay	#mondaymotivation
4	#كرتون_ادمنتو_�…	Windows 95	#TubeStrike
5	Yarbay Alevi	#firstdayofschool	#BlackMonday
6	#هل_تتزوج_فتاه_…	Quentin Tarantino	#SummerSlam
7	#شي_تحتاجه_حال�…	Reggie Wayne	#OneDirection
8	Aamir Khan	#ask5sos	Fight Club
9	#BlackMonday	#InBedThinkingAbout	#iamgratefulfor
10	#FelizLunes	David Wright	#RuinASongYouLike

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

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

Business and Economy

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

Disasters

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

International relations

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

Law and crime

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

Politics

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

Science and technology

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

Sports

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

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

August 25, 2015

Top News Stories –

Italian woman, 46, arrested for locking ‘toy boy’ in basement over sex demands –
An Italian woman has been arrested after allegedly locking up her “toy boy” boyfriend for refusing to have sex with her, in a story that has evoked comparisons with the classic film The Graduate. The woman, 46, who was divorced, met the 25-year-old during a holiday romance in Campania in southern Italy. Initially they got on well but the young man reportedly became increasingly vexed by the amount of sex that the older woman was demanding. He declined her advances on several occasions but she then took revenge by locking him up, against his will, in the basement of her house at Arzano, near Naples. The young man managed to raise the alarm, calling for help from passers-by. [Daily Telegraph]

George Clooney photobombs Cindy Crawford as she takes romantic selfie with husband –
Does anyone enjoy looking at “romantic selfies” of couples kissing on Instagram? It’s worse than a public display of affection (PDA), as it is done purely to show off how in love you are with the person you’re smooching. Cindy Crawford and her husband Rande Gerber were taking a tender selfie together, when George Clooney decided to ruin it by pulling a strange face in the background. [Daily Telegraph]
Cindy Crawford Instagram with Rande Gerber and George Clooney

International bridge champions accuse teammates of cheating –
Two Israeli men, Lotan Fisher and Ron Schwartz, have been accused by their team mates of cheating in three matches including the Spingold tournament – one of the most famous of all.
A triumphant team of bridge players has been ripped apart by accusations that would, in the words of the whistleblower, “even make a Hollywood movie surreal.” Two Israeli men, Lotan Fisher and Ron Schwartz, have been accused by their team mates of cheating. Quite how they cheated is unclear, but Norwegian bridge professional Boye Brogeland, one of the world’s highest-rated bridge players, said the other four members of the team were handing back three titles they had won together. [Daily Telegraph]

Video of the Day –

Dismaland [See August 23, 2015]

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#5monthswithoutzayn	#SolveMyProblemsIn4Words	#ask5sos
2	#RelationshipGoalsIn3Words	#RelationshipGoalsIn3Words	#RelationshipGoalsIn3Words
3	#Tucumanazo	Vick	#charitytuesday
4	#فتاه_تغتصب_شاب	#5monthswithoutzayn	House of Fools
5	#NuncaMePasoEsoDe	Curt Schilling	#1YearOfMyEverything
6	BeliebersVoteHottest	Aaliyah	#5monthswithoutzayn
7	#SolveMyProblemsIn4Words	#ask5sos	#TravelTuesday
8	LANA EU TE AMO	#BornToRun	Colin Fry
9	#FelizMartes	You Oughta Know	Harvey Proctor
10	NCAE	Jorge Ramos	Greg Rutherford

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Boko Haram
- A teenage girl suicide bomber kills five people and injures fourteen in the Damaturu area in northeast Nigeria. (AP via Fox News)
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
- Fourteen people are arrested in Spain and Morocco for allegedly trying to recruit people to ISIL. (Times of Israel)
North Korea and South Korea agree to stop airing propaganda at the border and stand down preparations for war. (NPR)

Business and economics

The People’s Bank of China cuts interest rates and lowers minimum requirements for bank reserves for the second time in two months. (Reuters)

Disasters and accidents

2015 Pacific typhoon season
- Typhoon Goni makes landfall in southwestern Japan with at least 26 people injured but no people killed. The death toll in the Philippines rises to 21 while South Korea is on alert. (AP), (Yonhap)
A gas explosion in the Afghanistan city of Herat kills eleven people and injures 18. (AP via Ahram Online)

International relations

A record number of migrants crossing the Balkans results in a record number of people in Hungary despite the government building a wall on the border with Serbia. (AP via The Columbian)

Law and crime

A Federal Security Service court in Russia sentences Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov to 20 years in prison for plotting terrorist acts in Crimea, amid allegations of torture and US claims that he is being held hostage in Russia after having been abducted from Ukraine by Russian-backed separatists. (BBC)
4 people are killed and 3 others are severely injured in a shooting at a camp in Roye, Somme, France. (L’Express)
Protests by the Patidar community in Ahmedabad turn violent, sparking violence across the state of Gujarat, India.(DNA)

Politics and elections

The Parliament of Singapore is dissolved with a general election to be held on September 11. (AFP/Reuters via ABC Australia)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resourceAugust 23, 2015

September 10, 2015

Top News Stories –

New human-like species discovered in S Africa –

Scientists have discovered a new human-like species in a burial chamber deep in a cave system in South Africa. The discovery of 15 partial skeletons is the largest single discovery of its type in Africa. The researchers claim that the discovery will change ideas about our human ancestors. The studies which have been published in the journal Elife also indicate that these individuals were capable of ritual behaviour. The species, which has been named naledi, has been classified in the grouping, or genus,Homo, to which modern humans belong. [BBC] See List of the Day

Pope Francis emojis launched for US visit –
Pope Francis draws huge crowds wherever he goes and now his fans can share their admiration with papal emojis. A new keyboard app is being released to mark the Pope’s upcoming visit to America. You can have the Pope balancing a basketball or riding a taxi (although we suspect he’d prefer his Popemobile). They’re among 52 emojis and 14 GIFs in the app from Swyft Media, the company which created the first ginger emojis.
Pope emojis by Swyft Media

Giant Lenin ‘head’ unearthed 24 years after burial in Berlin –
The giant head of a statue of Russian revolutionary Lenin has been unearthed, 24 years after it was buried in a German forest. Workers dug up the granite structure from woodland outside Berlin, following a campaign by historians. The head was once part of a 19m (62ft) monument to the communist leader, which towered over the east of the city. It was dismantled in 1991 after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the pieces were buried in a secluded forest. [BBC]

Video of the Day –

iPhone 6s – The Only Thing That’s Changed Is…

List of the Day –

Comparative table of *Homo* species
Species	Temporal range Mya	Habitat	Adult height	Adult mass	Cranial capacity (cm³)	Fossil record	Discovery / publication of name
H. habilis	2.1 – 1.5^[136]	Africa	150 cm (4 ft 11 in)	33–55 kg (73–121 lb)	510–660	Many	1960/1964
H. erectus	1.9 – 0.07^[137]	Africa, Eurasia (Java, China, India, Caucasus)	180 cm (5 ft 11 in)	60 kg (130 lb)	850 (early) – 1,100 (late)	Many^[138]	1891/1892
H. rudolfensis membership in Homo uncertain	1.9	Kenya			700	2 sites	1972/1986
H. gautengensis also classified as H. habilis	1.9 – 0.6	South Africa	100 cm (3 ft 3 in)			3 individuals^[139]	2010/2010
H. ergaster also classified as H. erectus	1.8 – 1.3^[140]	Eastern and Southern Africa			700–850	Many	1975
H. antecessor also classified as H. heidelbergensis	1.2 – 0.8	Spain	175 cm (5 ft 9 in)	90 kg (200 lb)	1,000	2 sites	1997
H. cepranensis a single fossil, possibly H. erectus	0.9 – 0.35	Italy			1,000	1 skull cap	1994/2003
H. heidelbergensis	0.6 – 0.35^[141]	Europe, Africa, China	180 cm (5 ft 11 in)	90 kg (200 lb)	1,100–1,400	Many	1908
H. neanderthalensis possibly a subspecies of H. sapiens	0.35 – 0.04^[142]	Europe, Western Asia	170 cm (5 ft 7 in)	55–70 kg (121–154 lb) (heavily built)	1,200–1,900	Many	(1829)/1864
H. rhodesiensis also classified as H. heidelbergensis	0.3 – 0.12	Zambia			1,300	Very few	1921
H. tsaichangensis possibly H. erectus	0.25 – 0.2	Taiwan				1 individual	pre-2008/2015
H. sapiens (modern humans)	0.2^[143] – present	Worldwide	150 – 190 cm (4 ft 7 in – 6 ft 3 in)	50–100 kg (110–220 lb)	950–1,800	(extant)	—/1758
H. floresiensis classification uncertain	0.10 – 0.012	Indonesia	100 cm (3 ft 3 in)	25 kg (55 lb)	400	7 individuals	2003/2004
Denisova hominin possible H. sapiens subspecies or hybrid	0.04	Russia				1 site	2010
Red Deer Cave people possible H. sapiens subspecies or hybrid	0.0145–0.0115	China				Very few	2012

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#WorldSuicidePreventionDay	#WorldSuicidePreventionDay	#WorldSuicidePreventionDay
2	#SameOldLove	Pokemon Go	#RenameAFilmLiterally
3	#FelizJueves	#HumanExperienceIn4Words	#charlotteproudman
4	#ChamuyeCuandoDije	Grace Jones	Pokemon Go
5	#CizreUnderAttack	#pitmad	#RejectedAppleProducts
6	#MeCambiaLaCara	#RejectedAppleProducts	Bonang
7	#ZaynWeAreAlwaysHere	#BieberTODAY	#HomoNaledi
8	#SemiIsBack	Bobby Jindal	Jonathan King
9	Palacio de Justicia	Aladdin	iPhone 6s
10	鬼怒川	#FallonTonight	#HumanExperienceIn4Words

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Syrian Civil War, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
- ISIL attacks a government held air base near the eastern city of Deir ez-Zor with dozens of government loyalists and ISIL militants killed. (Reuters)
Operation Martyr Yalçın
- At least 30 people have been killed in the southeastern Turkish city of Cizre following clashes between Turkish security forces and pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) supporters. Locals say Cizre has been “under siege” since the militaryimposed a curfew. (BBC)
Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen
- Air strikes target Houthi political leaders and military bases in Sana’a, Yemen. (Al Jazeera English Online)

Disasters and accidents

2015 Pacific typhoon season
- In Japan, tens of thousands are forced to evacuate due to flooding and landslides caused by Tropical Storm Etau. So far, one person is reported as missing. (Radio NZ Online), (AP via US News and World Report), (Al Jazeera English Online),(BBC)

International relations

European migrant crisis
- Denmark reopens rail services to Germany after closing rail lines and a motorway in order to stem the flow of migrants on their way to Sweden. (ITV)
- President of the United States Barack Obama directs his administration to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the next fiscal year from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (Washington Post)
Russia–United States relations
- The United States expresses concern about alleged Russian military activities in Syria. (Al Jazeera English Online)
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
- The United States Senate fails to pass a resolution blocking approval of the nuclear agreement with Iran, meaning it will formally be adopted on October 19. (New York Times)

Law and crime

An indigenous Lumad child dies in an evacuation center while the Philippine Senate investigates the alleged September 1 murders of an indigenous Lumad family and the alleged rape of an indigenous Manobo girl by soldiers and militiamen of the Philippine Army. (Rappler), (Mindanao News), (Philippine Daily Inquirer)
Azerbaijan jails journalist Khadija Ismayilova after a trial that many believe is politically-motivated. (Al Jazeera English Online)
Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez is convicted and sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for allegedly inciting violence at anti-government rallies. (AP)
A U.S. federal jury awards nearly $17.5 million to five former migrant workers at a South Florida farm in their case of sexual harassment and abuse in their work. (Reuters)

Politics and elections

Peter Robinson, the First Minister of Northern Ireland, steps aside after the Democratic Unionist Party fails to get enough support to adjourn the assembly. (BBC)

Science and technology

Homo naledi
- Elife publishes a discovery by scientists at the University of the Witwatersrand announcing a new species of hominid (Homo naledi) in the Rising Star Cave in South Africa. Although the remains have yet to be properly dated, they could be three million years old. (BBC) (Al Jazeera English Online)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

October 20, 2015

Top News Stories –

‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Crushes Presale Ticket Records –
Fan demand led to crash of multiple websites like Fandango and MovieTickets.com. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” broke the record for the highest number of first-day presale tickets for Fandango, AMC and IMAX. According to Fandango, the site has sold eight times as many tickets as it did on the first day for the previous record holder, “The Hunger Games” in 2012 — and that’s even before the 24-hour mark was reached. “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” in 2010 slipped to third place in first-day advance sales. Traffic on Fandango surged to seven times the site’s typical peak levels, a site spokesperson reported. Similarly, MovieTickets.com reported that the online ticketer saw traffic “three times higher than the highest peak in the company’s 15 plus year history.” Comparably, the advance ticket sales for “The Force Awakens” are already four times greater than advance tickets sold for “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.” [The Wrap] See Video of the Day

Fed-up cafe bans money from underwear –
In this tough economic climate, small business owners need every dollar they can get their hands on. Unless said dollar comes from a customer’s undies, apparently. Staff at a Carnarvon cafe were so fed up with patrons paying with money retrieved from undergarments they put the attached sign at the cash register for a six-week period. Fascine Coffee Lounge owner Robin Weeks said the straw that broke the camel’s back was a man who tried to pay his bill with money from his jocks. “My son thought people shouldn’t put money there and he shouldn’t have to touch it,” Weeks said. “We had four or five people that did it. A lot of women think their bra is the best place for their money because they don’t have pockets.” Weeks said while most people approved of the sign, there were some who refused to change their ways. [Western Australian]
Fascine Coffee Lounge sign

Video of the Day –

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Trailer (Official)

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#ScaryStoryIn5Words	#WhyIWrite	#ScaryStoryIn5Words
2	#FelizMartes	Cha Cha	Hotline Bling
3	#vote5sos	#vote5sos	#vote5sos
4	De Narvaez	Rick Pitino	#canadavotes
5	Drake	#TacoTuesdayAlternatives	Sajid Javid
6	Star Wars	Ryan Kelly	#charitytuesday
7	#الهلال_الاهلي	#PerfectMusicVideo	Canada
8	#صباحات_الهلال	#ScaryStoryIn5Words	#ChinaStateVisit
9	Balón de Oro	#OutInHipHop	Star Wars
10	Harper	#TIDALX1020	Justin Trudeau

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Iraqi Civil War (2014–present), American-led intervention in Iraq
- The United States Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford arrived in Iraq to discuss the ongoing battle against ISIS. (AP)
Israeli–Palestinian conflict (2015)
- U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, during a surprise visit to Jerusalem today, calls for calm ahead of meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in an effort to bring an end to the month-long wave of violence. (CNN) (Time)
Syrian Civil War
- Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War
  - Russian airstrikes in Syria’s coastal Latakia province have killed a top FSA commander, Basil Zamo and several other rebel fighters. (Reuters)
  - At least three Russian troops fighting along side the Syrian Army are reportedly killed after a shell hit their position in the coastal province of Latakia. If confirmed, the deaths would be the first Russian military casualties since intervening in the civil war in September. (Reuters)
Libyan Civil War (2014–present)
- Warplanes of unidentified origin carry out airstrikes on ISIS camps in the Libyan city of Sirte. (The Daily Star)
Military intervention against ISIL
- The U.S. deploys around a dozen A-10 ground-attack planes to Turkey‘s southern Incirlik Air Base. A U.S. military official said the deployment had “added capability” to the coalition’s efforts against ISIL in Iraq and Syria. (AFP via Yahoo)
- Canada‘s prime-minister elect Justin Trudeau informs U.S. President Barack Obama that Canada will be withdrawing fighter jets from both Iraq and Syria, effectively ending Canada’s military participation in the war on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. (AFP via Yahoo)
War in Afghanistan (2015–present)
- The Taliban kill 22 policemen and kidnap 19 others, including the district’s security chief, during clashes with Afghan troops who kill 12 of the insurgents in the battle in Faryab Province in northern Afghanistan. (New York Times) (Latin American Herald Tribune)
- Taliban forces advance on Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, amid fierce fighting with government forces that threatens to cut off a major highway and has prompted many families to flee. (Reuters)

Arts and culture

Former BBC journalist Jacky Sutton is found hanged in a restroom at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport. Of late, she was the acting director of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. (BBC)
Oslo’s city council announces plans to ban cars from the Norwegian capital’s city centre by 2019. (Reuters) (Christian Science Monitor)

Disasters and accidents

Hidden Pines Fire
- At least 70 homes have been destroyed by a raging wildfire in Bastrop County, central Texas. The Texas A&M Forest Service reports the blaze in Bastrop County is currently 80 percent contained. (AP via ABC News)

Health and medicine

The American Cancer Society recommends women at average risk of breast cancer should begin annual mammograms at age 45, and women 55 and older scale back screening to every other year. (USA Today) (Reuters)

International relations

Venezuelan parliamentary election, 2015
- Brazil pulls out of an electoral mission to observe crucial legislative elections in Venezuela over what it says are a lack of guarantees by the government of Venezuela and its veto of the choice to head the delegation. (ABC News)
European migrant crisis
- European Union members agree to provide 291 border guards to Greece and Italy to help identify and register migrants. (AP)
Saudi Arabia receives US State Department approval for the purchase of four Multi-Mission Combat Ships for $11.25 billion. (UPI)
Syrian Civil War
- The United States and Russia sign an agreement designed to avoid conflict between both countries’ warplanes in Syria. The Pentagon said the agreement will remain secret; a hotline will enable both countries to directly communicate. (CBS News)(UPI)

Law and crime

The Israeli Defense Force arrests senior Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef for alleged incitement to commit violence. (Jerusalem Post)
A French public prosecutor said charges against far-right leader Marine Le Pen should be dropped. Le Pen is being tried for comments she made five years ago comparing Muslim street prayers to Nazi occupation. Prosecutor Bernard Reynaud said, “Madame Le Pen in denouncing prayers in public space addressed not the entire Muslim community but a minority and was only exercising her freedom of expression.” (Al Jazeera) (Reuters)

Politics and elections

Democratic Party presidential candidates, 2016
- Former Virginia Senator Jim Webb announces his withdrawal from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination during a press conference at the National Press Club. He added that he would consider his other options in the coming weeks. Webb’s campaign said he is weighing an independent bid. (NBC News) (AP) (Washington Post)

Science

Research from University of California, Los Angeles scientists indicates that life on earth may have started 4.1 billion years ago – 300 million years earlier than previously thought. (Economic Times)
Research by the University of Central Florida indicates a common UV-filtering compound, oxybenzone, found in sunscreen lotion is killing coral, especially among reefs frequented by recreational divers and snorkelers. (UPI) (Time)

Sports

Lamar Odom, who had been hospitalized in grave condition after ingesting, in a binge, herbal Viagra, alcohol, and other substances in a 3-day, $75,000 stay at a legal brothel in Nevada, comes out of his coma, improves, and is able to have conversations, though he is still on dialysis to deal with the renal damage he suffered. He is released from intensive care and Sunrise Hospital, to a hospital closer to his Los Angeles home. (MSN via Sporting News)

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October 27, 2015

Top News Stories –

Halle Berry and Olivier Martinez announce divorce after two years of marriage –
Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry and her French actor husband, Olivier Martinez, said on Tuesday they are divorcing after two years of marriage. It is the third divorce for Berry, 49, who has a two-year-old son with Martinez. The couple cited irreconcilable differences, according to celebrity website TMZ.com. Berry in 2002 became the only black actress to win an Academy Award for a lead role, clinching the Oscar for her performance in Monster’s Ball. [Daily Telegraph]
Halle Berry

Darth Vader supporter Chewbacca arrested in Ukraine –
It’s a sentence we never thought we’d write, but here goes: Chewbacca has been arrested in Ukraine after police say they caught him campaigning for Darth Vader. A candidate, using the identity of the Star Wars Sith Lord has been running in local elections in the city of Odessa. It’s claimed the man dressed as Chewbacca had broken election day rules by campaigning on voting day. It’s being reported Chewbacca was fined the equivalent of a fiver. He’d arrived at a polling station along with the candidate when police stepped in. [BBC]

Video of the Day –

Create & Explore 009 – Braden Lee x HWLS from Create & Explore on Vimeo.

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#AMAs1D	#BlackCatDay	#BlackCatDay
2	#FelizMartes	#HappyBirthday1989	#AssaultAtSpringValleyHigh
3	#كلمه_تتحرك_في�…	#AMAs1D	#charitytuesday
4	Pujol	Don Lemon	Philip French
5	#شي_حلو_بحرف_ال…	Greenland Is Melting Away	Trigger
6	#TengoGanasDe	Halle Berry	#AMAs1D
7	Ravens	#AdviceForTeenagersIn4Words	Chris Grayling
8	처녀자리	Coke Zoo	#ScreamQueens
9	Bro Ocholla	#IWillOnlyDateYouIf	#3daysTilFocus
10	#UKVOTY1D	#IDontBelongToYou	#stateofthenorth

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen
- A Yemeni hospital in Saada run by Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) is destroyed by several Saudi-led coalition airstrikes overnight. The director of the hospital, Ali Mughli, reported “The air raids resulted in the destruction of the entire hospital with all that was inside – devices and medical supplies – and the moderate wounding of several people”. Another airstrike hit a nearby girls school and damaged several civilian homes according to local media. UNICEF said the Saada hospital was the 39th health center hit in Yemen since March. The Saudi-led coalition denies that its planes had hit the hospital. (Reuters)
Syrian Civil War, Destruction of cultural heritage by ISIL
- The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports the Islamic State, on Sunday, executed three detainees in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra by strapping them to pillars and blowing them up with the antiquities. ISIL has yet to tell locals the identities of the three individuals or say why they had been killed. (BBC) (USA Today)
American-led intervention in Iraq (2014–present), American-led intervention in Syria
- United States Defense Secretary Ashton Carter says the U.S. will begin “direct action on the ground” against the ISIL forces in Iraq and Syria, aiming to intensify pressure on the militants as progress against the militants remains elusive. The U.S. has done some special operations raids in Syria, e.g., last week’s rescue operation with Kurdish forces in northern Iraq to free hostages held by ISIL. Carter also said the U.S. would intensify the air campaign against ISIL with heavier airstrikes and will focus on Raqqa, the group’s declared capital in Syria. (NBC News) (Al Jazeera) (AP via Boston Globe)
Libyan Civil War (2014–present)
- A Libyan helicopter carrying cash for a local bank on the way out and returning to Tripoli with passengers is shot down near the coastal Almaya area west of the capital city, killing at least 14 of its 23 passengers including senior officers Hosein Bodaya and Duhain Al-Rammah, officials with Libya’s Dawn militias. (AP via ABC News) (BBC) (UPI)
Israeli-Palestinian conflict (2015)
- Three Palestinians are shot dead after attacking Israeli soldiers with knives in the occupied West Bank. Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital reports that 76-year old American-Israeli Richard Lakin, who was critically injured in a bus attack on October 13, 2015, died of his injuries. (Reuters) (Israel Hayom)
War in North-West Pakistan
- Pakistan says seven of its soldiers have been killed in the South Waziristan tribal region by fire from across the border with Afghanistan. The soldiers belonged to the Frontier Corps; the attack targeted a checkpoint northeast of the border village ofAngoor Adda. (UPI) (BBC)

Business and economics

In a plea bargain with U.S. federal prosecutors, Rohit Bansal, a former Goldman Sachs banker accused of using private information leaked by source inside the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, has agreed to plead guilty. The leaked information was said to have given Goldman an undue advantage regarding client advisement. Goldman also faces fines from the New York State’s Department of Financial Services. (New York Times)
Walgreens Boots Alliance agrees to buy Rite Aid for US$9.4 billion in a move which will create a retail pharmaceutical giant with 13,000 stores. (Dow Jones via Fox Business)
Northrop Grumman, the developer of the Air Force’s current bomber, the B-2, beats out the Boeing–Lockheed Martin team and is awarded the Pentagon contract to build a fleet of stealthy planes known as the Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B).(Washington Post) (CNN)

Disasters and accidents

2015 Hindu Kush earthquake
- Rescuers continue a search for survivors of the earthquake in Afghanistan and Pakistan including in areas controlled by the Taliban. The death toll from the earthquake is 339 with many thousands injured. (AFP via ABC News) (Himalayan Times)
- The Taliban, which effectively controls some of the worst-affected areas across multiple provinces, urged charity organizations not to hold back in delivering aid to Afghan victims of the quake, saying militants in the affected areas were ordered to provide “complete help.” (Reuters) (Daily Star)
2015 Southeast Asian haze
- Raging Indonesian forest fires have advanced into dense forest on Borneo and now threaten one third of the world’s remaining wild orangutans, say conservationists. (South China Morning Post) (ABC news)

International relations

Territorial disputes in the South China Sea, China–United States relations
- A United States Navy ship, the USS Lassen, sails near the Spratly Islands, challenging Beijing‘s claim that the islands are Chinese territory. China‘s Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly condemned the actions of the United States in the South China Sea, saying “China will firmly react to this deliberate provocation”. (Wall Street Journal) (NPR) (The New York Times)
- Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui summons US ambassador Max Baucus to protest a US naval patrol close to Beijing’s man-made islands in the South China Sea. Zhang called the US patrol “extremely irresponsible” and urged Washington to cease actions that harm China’s sovereignty and security. (Hong Kong Standard) (The Guardian)
- Greg Poling, a director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says the U.S. operation was aimed at testing control of the seas, not sovereignty over the disputed islands, to force a clarification of China’s claims. Undermaritime law, artificial islands were not usually afforded the 12-mile territorial zone, and that the U.S. Navy deliberately chose to send the destroyer near Subi Reef for this reason. (CNN)
Humanitarian International Services Group, an NGO founded by evangelical Christian Kay Miramine, was part of a secret Pentagon program devised by Lt. Gen. William Boykin used to spy on North Korea, according to an investigation by the online publication The Intercept. The program, which started in 2004, was shut down in 2012 by now-retired Admiral William McRaven, concerned with pushback if this became public. Some current and former American NGO staff with experience in North Korea have expressed doubts about key claims in the report. (The Intercept) (Christian Post) (NK News)
Syrian Civil War
- Iran is invited to attend the next round of talks over Syria’s future, along with the representatives from the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Britain, France, Germany, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Nations mediator forSyria, Staffan de Mistura. The next round of the “Vienna II” meeting is expected to start tomorrow and continue Friday in Vienna, Austria. (Irish Examiner) (Reuters) (Sputnik News) (New York Times)
- United Nations humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien tells the Security Council the worsening conflict in Syria has left 13.5 million people in need of aid and some form of protection, including more than six million children. (AP) (Arab News)
The United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly condemns the U.S. embargo of Cuba in its first vote on the matter since the start of normalization of relations between the two countries. The largely symbolic tally on the unenforceable resolution was 191 to 2 (U.S., Israel). (UPI) (AP via ABC News)

Law and crime

Guatemala arrests 11 in a public hospital, medicine-buying kickback scheme. Two others remain at large, including Gustavo Alejos Cambara, the former private secretary to ex-President Álvaro Colom. A U.N. commission set up to tackle criminal networks in Guatemala participated in the investigation. (AP)

Politics and elections

Britain is reviewing the powers of the House of Lords after the unelected peers stalled legislation yesterday that would have eliminated some tax allowances for the nation’s poor. Senior Conservatives say the upper chamber of Parliament stepped out of their usual roles as technical overseers of legislation. However, Conservative MP David Davis warned that such a move was “bully politics” that would “disgust” the public. (BBC) (AP via Washington Post)
Ivorian presidential election, 2015
- Partial results from Sunday’s election give Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara an overwhelming lead (83.18 percent) on the way to a second five-year term. This weekend’s vote was judged to be peaceful and transparent by observers, making it the first in Côte d’Ivoire’s history not to be marred by serious rights violations or irregularities. (Reuters) (Financial Times) (Abidjan.net)

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November 14, 2015

Top News Stories –

South Africa’s ‘Blade Runner’ Pistorius starts community service –
South Africa’s “Blade Runner” Oscar Pistorius on Saturday started performing community service as part of his parole conditions after being released from prison last month, local media reported. The Paralympic gold medalist was freed on parole less than a year into a five-year sentence for the “culpable homicide” of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, who he killed on Valentine’s Day in 2013. Pistorius, dubbed “Blade Runner” because of the carbon fiber prosthetic blades he uses to compete, was freed from prison in line with sentencing guidelines that say non-dangerous prisoners should spend only a sixth of a custodial sentence behind bars. [Reuters] Pistorius was originally refused early release in August 2015
Oscar Pistorius competing

Video of the Day –

Kaleidoscope: See Things Differently

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#espalheamor	#MTVStars	#TerrorismHasNoReligion
2	#TodosSomosParis	#MakePeaceIn5Words	#ViveLaFrance
3	#MTVStars	#DemDebate	#MTVStars
4	#PrayForWorld	#JackAndJackUSTixOnSale	#PrayForPeace
5	우리나라	#MuslimsAreNotTerrorist	#ParisAttacks
6	David Luiz	#EveningWithJB	Muslims
7	#ParisAttacks	Act of War	ISIS
8	Muslims	#strandedinUS	#PorteOuverte
9	#PorteOuverte	Monmouth	#PrayForJapan
10	광화문	#PurposeTheMovement	Paris

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

November 2015 Paris attacks, Spillover of the Syrian Civil War
- The death toll from the terrorist attacks in Paris stands at 129. (Reuters)
- Michel Cadot, the head of the Paris Police Prefecture, says that all the attackers are believed to be dead. (The Guardian)
- French President François Hollande announces the cancellation of his participation at the G-20 Antalya summit in order to focus on the attacks. (Reuters via Channel News Asia)
- Thousands are turning to social media (#PorteOuverte/twitter) to check-in on loved ones in the area, many using Facebook’s “Safety Check” feature. (CBS News)
- The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant releases an official statement and video, claiming responsibility for the attacks. (The Jerusalem Post)
- A Syrian passport is found near the body of one of the gunmen who died in Friday’s attacks in Paris. The holder passed through the Greek island of Leros on October 3 as a refugee, according to Greek officials. A Greek police source said the passport’s owner was a young man who had arrived in Leros with a group of 69 refugees and had his fingerprints taken by authorities there. Police declined to give his name. (Reuters) (ABC News Australia)
- Poland‘s recently elected government led by Law and Justice (PiS), declares it will no longer accept EU-mandate quotas for refugees following the terrorist attacks in France. (RT)
Military intervention against ISIL, Libyan Civil War (2014–present)
- A U.S. airstrike on a compound in the Libyan port city of Derna is said to have killed Wisam al Zubaidi, also known as Abu Nabil al-Anbari, who commands the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant‘s branch in Libya. A Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the operation, said the airstrike involved F-15 aircraft and was believed to have killed Zubaidi. He said the attack had been planned for some time. (The Washington Post) (BBC)
Iraqi Civil War (2014–present), Persecution of Yazidis by ISIL
- Kurdish Peshmerga forces discover a mass grave believed to contain the remains of more than 70 members of Iraq‘s Yazidi minority, mostly women, east of the recently liberated town of Sinjar. (Reuters via The Huffington Post)
Spillover of the Syrian Civil War, Turkey–ISIL conflict
- Turkish forces engage Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants along the Syrian border:
  - Turkish troops kill four Islamic State militants in Turkey’s southeastern Gaziantep Province when two cars with ISIS passengers advanced on a Turkish armored vehicle near a border post in Oğuzeli. (Daily Sabah)
  - During a raid on a suspected ISIL hideout in the city of Gaziantep (Antep), a suicide bomber fires on Turkish police before he explodes, wounding five police officers, one seriously. (Al Jazeera)

Disasters and accidents

The U.S. Geological Survey reports a magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck off the southwest coast of Japan. The quake occurred 119 miles (191 km) west-southwest of Kagoshima. The Pacific Tsunami Center reported no major tsunami threat. A small tsunami, 30 centimeters (11.8 inches), was observed on the southern island of Nakanoshima. No reports of major damage or injuries. (Reuters) (AP via Marysville Appeal-Democrat)(AFP via Channel News Asia)
Eckwersheim derailment
- Ten people are dead and eleven injured after a high-speed TGV train catches fire and derails near the northeastern French city of Strasbourg. (Independent) (BBC)
Four people are killed after a light aircraft crashes near the village of Churchstanton in Somerset. (BBC)

International relations

China–Indonesia relations, Territorial disputes in the South China Sea
- Indonesia announces that it is planning to take China to court over the Natuna Islands. (Forbes)

Law and crime

Scott N. Johansen, a Utah Juvenile Court judge, reverses his original order to remove a foster child from same sex-parents. The state Division of Child and Family Services and foster parents all filed motions asking for the reconsideration and promising an appeal. The new decision eliminates the phrase, “It is not in the best interest of children to be raised by same-sex couples” and strikes an order for the child to be placed with a non-same-sex couple. (New York Times)
Police in South Korea fire tear gas and water cannons at anti-government protesters in Seoul. Around 70,000 people took part in the protests, the largest in Seoul since the 2008 US beef protest in South Korea. (Christian Science Monitor).

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November 19, 2015

Top News Stories –

World’s second-largest diamond ‘found in Botswana’ –
The world’s second-largest gem quality diamond has been discovered in Botswana, the Lucara Diamond firm says. The 1,111-carat stone was recovered from its Karowe mine, about 500km (300 miles) north of the capital, Gaborone. It is the biggest diamond to be discovered in Botswana and the largest find in more than a century. The 3,106-carat Cullinan diamond was found in South Africa in 1905 and cut into nine separate stones, many of which are in the British Crown Jewels. [BBC]
copyright Lucara Diamond Corp.

Scientists have trained pigeons to diagnose breast cancer –
Doctors train for years in order to be able to correctly diagnose cancer – but could they soon be replaced by pigeons? Well, no. Obviously not. However, scientists have now discovered that pigeons are surprisingly adept when it comes to spotting cancerous cells. In a study led by Professor Richard Levenson of the University of California, pigeons were shown microscope images of breast tissue, and then rewarded with food if if they correctly pecked a coloured button that corresponded to either cancerous or healthy tissue. [Daily Telegraph]

Bangladesh: Government ‘mistakenly’ cuts off internet –
An internet shutdown in Bangladesh which lasted for more than an hour was a “mistake”, according to the authorities. Officials announced on Wednesday that access to Facebook, Viber and WhatsApp had all been blocked in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling upholding death sentences for two men convicted of war crimes. But the country’s Telecommunication Regulatory Commission says it accidentally cut off access to the internet across the whole country. The web blackout started at around 13:00 local time and lasted at least 75 minutes, according to the Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star. “We restored the internet as soon as we realised the mistake,” says Shahjahan Mahmood, the commission’s chairman. The messaging services were blocked as originally planned in order to maintain security, he says. [BBC]

Video of the Day –

Zoolander 2 Trailer – Paramount Pictures

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#TemporaryFixProject	#InternationalMensDay	#InternationalMensDay
2	#InternationalMensDay	#JaredFogle	#WorldToiletDay
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4	#Empire	#SexyHolidays	Richie McCaw
5	#PrayForMegaFilmes	#WorldToiletDay	#ChampagneCampaign
6	#ALDUB18thWeeksary	Blac Chyna	#IStillFacebookBecause
7	Marta Domínguez	#TemporaryFixProject	#SixWordSciFi
8	Luis Miguel	#LatinGRAMMY	#juniordoctors
9	#CosasQueTerminanMal	Abdelhamid Abaaoud	Peter Robinson
10	#DiaInternacionalDelHombre	Jimmy Butler	Birms

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Killing of captives by ISIL
- China vows to “bring to justice” those responsible for executing one of its citizens after the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant said it had killed a Chinese hostage. China’s Foreign Ministry also confirms the hostage’s identity for the first time, naming him as Fan Jinghui. (Channel News Asia)
Metrojet Flight 9268
- According to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant‘s official propaganda magazine, a “Schweppes bomb” was used to destroy the Russian airliner. (Reuters)
November 2015 Paris attacks
- The French National Assembly approves President François Hollande‘s request to extend the current state of emergency for three months. The Senate must still approve the measure. (NPR)
- U.S. officials say at least four of the Paris attackers were listed in a central counter-terrorism database maintained by the United States Intelligence Community. (Reuters) (UPI)
- United States authorities report dozens of suspected radicals in the U.S. are under “tight surveillance” to preclude a Paris copycat. Federal officials are aware of a possible second ISIL video threatening Washington, D.C. Again, no credible plot has been identified. The U.S. beieves this is a part of a propaganda campaign to scare the American public. (ABC News)
Israeli–Palestinian conflict (2015)
- A Palestinian kills three people, including an American student and another Palestinian, and injures four others, after opening fire at Israeli cars and then ramming his vehicle into a group of pedestrians, injuring several more near Alon Shvut in the West Bank. (The Times of Israel)
- A Palestinian kills two men and wounds another outside an office building synagogue in southern Tel Aviv. (Ynet), (The Times of Israel)
A gunman shoots dead two Saudi Arabian policemen while they are on patrol in their vehicle in Saihat, located in Saudi Arabia’s restive Eastern Province, which is predominantly Shia. (BBC)
U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehend five Pakistani nationals and one Afghan national trying to sneak into Arizona through the Mexico-U.S. border. (Fox 10 Phoenix)

Arts and culture

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reports more than 500,000 people – a quarter of them children – were homeless this year amid scarce affordable housing across much of the nation. Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Oregon, andHawaii all recently declared emergencies over the rise of homelessness. (Reuters)
16th Annual Latin Grammy Awards
- The Latin Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences members present the Latin Grammy Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Paradise, Nevada. (newser)
  - “Hasta la Raíz” wins Song of the Year and Record of the Year. (ABC News)
  - Todo Tiene Su Hora performed by Juan Luis Guerra wins Album of the Year. (Miami Herald)

Business and economy

The World Economic Forum in its annual Global Gender Gap Report says that it would take 118 years before women and men have equal pay for similar occupations, such as white collar jobs. (BBC), (The Huffington Post), (The Guardian)
The New York State Department of Financial Services fines Barclays $150m (£98.2m) for the way it treated its foreign exchange customers. (The Guardian)

Health and medicine

In connection with World Toilet Day, the United Nations reports that 2.4 billion people lack adequate sanitation, and nearly one billion have no toilet facilities and are forced to relieve themselves in areas without facilities. (AP)
The U.S. clears genetically-modified salmon for human consumption. (Reuters)
The American Medical Association urges Congress and/or the FDA to ban direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs and medical devices. The AMA says that the ads increase demand for inappropriate, expensive treatments even if cheaper ones have the same potentials. (The Washington Post), (The Science Times)

International relations

APEC Philippines 2015
- Asia-Pacific leaders, in the Philippines for the 2015 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, which has been overshadowed by the concurrent Paris attacks, call on governments to urgently increase cooperation in the fight against terrorism.(AP)
- Local labor and farmer groups protest in Manila over talks on inclusive growth during the APEC meeting. (The Economic Times)
A Pew Research Center report finds, from 2009 to 2014, more Mexicans, including unauthorized immigrants, are leaving the United States than entering it. An increasing share of Mexicans says life north of the border is neither better nor worse than life in Mexico. (Reuters)
The United Nations General Assembly humanitarian committee adopts, by a 112-19 vote with 50 abstentions, a resolution that condemns North Korea for gross violations of human rights and supports referring the country and its leaders to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The resolution will be sent to the full General Assembly, where it is expected to pass, given the committee vote. (Reuters via CBS News) (UPI)
The United States State Department expresses deep frustration over the lack of democratic progress in Thailand after last year’s military coup, saying a new constitution there won’t pass the “smell test” unless civil society helps to draft it. (AP) (US Dept of State)

Law and crime

A court sentences former restaurant spokesperson Jared Fogle to over 15 years imprisonment for sex with minors and the possession of child pornography. (NPR)
Convictions for sex offenses against minors accounts for the largest group of military inmates in U.S. military prisons. (AP via The Star Tribune)
Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S. intelligence analyst convicted to a life sentence for providing top secret classified information to Israel, will be released on parole Friday after serving 30 years in U.S. federal prison. He will be given an ankle monitor while he completes five years of parole in America. (CNN) (AP) (Jerusalem Post)

Politics and elections

2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference
- A mass rally due to be held on November 29, 2015 in Paris on the eve of climate change talks is called off due to the threat of terrorism. (ABC News)
Peter Robinson announces he will step down as Northern Ireland‘s First Minister and as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, corresponding with recent tensions in the area and a murder linked with the Irish Republican Army. (ITV News)
The U.S. House of Representatives, defying a veto-threat by President Barack Obama, overwhelmingly passes legislation to suspend the Obama administration’s program to admit 10,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees into the country. The bill will now face a vote in the U.S. Senate. (Reuters)

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November 20, 2015

Top News Stories –

Indian Railways holds disabled recruitment drive on top floor – with no lifts –
A bid to recruit more disabled employees to work on India’s railways has ended in farce after test centres were set up on the top floors of buildings with no lifts or ramps. Many candidates who arrived at recruitment offices across India on Thursday either had to be carried or drag themselves up the stairs to their designated computers. Some were forced to abandon their applications entirely. [Daily Telegraph]

Vengeful surfer vows to eat the shark that bit him –
Don’t get on the wrong side of Allen Engelman – he has exacted the ultimate revenge on a shark that bit him. The Florida surfer was bitten by a shark, so the next day went out on a vengeful hunt. He killed a shark which he believes to be the same one that bit him. Not only did he kill it, but he now vows to eat it in order to punish the animal for the bite inflicted upon him. The surfer received 15 stitches, and from then on he was hell-bent on revenge. Him and his five-year-old son went back to the beach the following day and caught a shark with the same markings as the one which bit him. [Daily Telegraph]

New York follows UK in banning ‘hoverboards’ in public places –
New York has become the latest city to ban self-balancing scooters, known as “hoverboards”, warning that anyone caught riding them in public places could face a fine of up to $500. The two-wheeled electric vehicles, which use gyroscope technology to keep the rider upright, have exploded in popularity over the last few months – with celebrities including Justin Bieber, Chris Brown, Lily Allen and Jamie Foxx all spotted riding them. However, according to the the New York City Police Department, hoverboards are prohibited by New York state law since they are considered “motor vehicles that cannot be registered with the Department of Motor Vehicles”. [Daily Telegraph] October 21 2015 was the Back to the Future Day that featured real hoverboards

Video of the Day –

Blue Hue
Blue Hue

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#LatinGrammys2015	#Adele25	#HappyBirthdayMichael
2	#BuenViernes	Mali	#FridayFeeling
3	#HTGAWM	Phuc Dat Bich	#Adele25
4	Corinthians	#PerfectMomentIn4Words	#Mali
5	基本給	#ThanksgivingIn5Words	Blac Chyna
6	1 in the UK	#JessicaJones	#bbcqt
7	#HappyBirthdayJaxonBieber	Woodrow Wilson	1 in the UK
8	#Mali	#HappyBirthdayMichael	Eddie Jones
9	Hayırlı Cumalar	#TDOR	Katie Hopkins
10	#DosPalabras	Tyga	Baker Street

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Military intervention against ISIL
- Cyprus offers France the use of its airbase facilities to bomb the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Syria. Cypriot airbases are being used by British and Canadian air forces. (The Guardian)
Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War
- Russian warships launch cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant positions in Syria‘s eastern Deir ez-Zor. Russian Defense Minister, Sergey Shoigu, reported over 600 terrorists were killed in the strikes. Video footage also emerged of Russian ground crew servicemen writing the words “For Paris” on bombs to be dropped on ISIL targets in a show of solidarity with France in the wake of the November 13 terror attacks that left 130 people dead in Paris. (RT)(Sky News)
2015 Bamako hotel attack
- Ten gunmen storm the five-star Radisson Blu Hotel in the Malian capital Bamako, taking 170 hostages with at least 27 people killed. The grenade-toting assailants free captives who are able to recite the Quran. The hotel is “often used” by Air Francestaff. (France 24), (NBC News), (The New York Daily News), (Reuters via Yahoo! News)
- Mali security forces launch an assault on the gunmen and all surviving hostages are freed. (UPI) (BBC)
- Mali declares a 10-day state of emergency following the attack. (i24 News)
- African militant jihadist organization Al-Murabitoun and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claim responsibility. (CNN) (Reuters).
Xinjiang conflict
- Chinese security forces have killed 28 members of a supposed terrorist group in the mainly ethnic Uyghur Xinjiang region. (BBC)
November 2015 Paris attacks
- Officials report three people died in the Saint-Denis raid. The body of a second woman is found at the apartment where a woman and Paris attacks ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud were killed. (Sky News)
- The French Senate approves President François Hollande’s request to extend the state of emergency until the end of February 2016. The National Assembly passed the three-month extension yesterday. (AP) (Radio France Internationale)
- Fugitive ISIS gunman Salah Abdeslam called three friends saying he is hiding in the Brussels area and is desperately trying to get to ISIS territory in Syria. He said local ISIS members are unhappy with him since he failed to detonate his suicide vest. His brother Mohamed Abdeslam has publicly pleaded with Salah to turn himself in. (ABC News)
A newly released ISIS video threatens attacks on the White House in the U.S., monuments in France, U.S. President Obama, French President François Hollande, and targets in Italy. (Reuters) (CNN)
Yemeni Civil War (2015)
- Two attacks on security checkpoints by ISIS militants in Yemen‘s historic Shibam town and Al Qatn District in the central Hadhramaut Governorate leave at least 15 pro-Hadi government soldiers dead. (The National)

Art and culture

A New York City businesswoman, who wanted to bring a “grander scale” to her yearly charitable giving, bought a toy store’s entire inventory to donate to homeless kids. (UPI)
The world’s second-largest diamond of gem quality, Karowe AK6, is found in the Karowe mine located north of the Botswanan capital Gaborone by the Lucara Diamond Corp. The 1,111-carat diamond is second only to the 3,106-carat Cullinan diamond (Star of Africa) found in South Africa in 1905. (Forbes)

Business and economy

Britain’s National Union of Journalists announces a strike against the Financial Times, protesting the changes in pension arrangements since the acquisition of the FT by a Japanese media group, Nikkei. (BBC)

International relations

European migrant crisis
- Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia shut their borders to so-called economic migrants, those not coming from war-torn countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, or Iraq, leaving thousands stranded at Balkan border crossings. Around 500 migrants fromIran, Morocco, and Algeria gather on the border between Greece and Macedonia to protest the closure. (The Irish Independent)
- European Union ministers, in light of the attacks in Paris last week, gather in Brussels for an emergency security summit on the need to strengthen border checks on travelers. (AFP via NDTV)
- French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said some of the Paris attackers exploited Europe’s refugee crisis to “slip in” to France unnoticed. Valls warns the passport-free Schengen zone is at risk if Europe fails to “take responsibility” over border controls. (Sky News)
North Korea–South Korea relations
- North Korea and South Korea agree to hold talks next week. (Yonhap)

Law and crime

Sweden‘s national security service Säpo are questioning terrorist suspect Moder Mothama Magid, a 22-year-old Iraqi, who is accused of planning to launch a terror attack on the Swedish capital Stockholm. (Local)
The family of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who saved tens of thousands of Jews from the Holocaust only to languish in a Russian prison, have asked authorities to officially declare him dead. (Times of Israel)
The United States releases on parole convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S. intelligence analyst, who served 30 years in federal prison. His parole, approved on July 28, 2015, is for five years during which time he has to remain in the United States. A supporter said Pollard will have a curfew and will wear a GPS unit. (The Globe and Mail) (The Globe and Mail-2)
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Pollard’s lawyers, two Democratic members of Congress from New York, Eliot Engel and Jerrold Nadler, and others have requested Pollard be able to travel immediately to Israel so he can live with his family. The White House has said it has no intention of altering the conditions of Pollard’s parole. (The Globe and Mail)
The U.S. Justice Department files criminal charges against three individuals and three companies–Black Elk, Grand Isle Shipyard and oil field services company Wood Group–in connection with a 2012 oil platform incident in the Gulf of Mexico that left three workers dead. The charges range from manslaughter to violations of the federal Clean Water Act. (UPI)
USPlabs and S.K. Laboratory are indicted following a U.S. Department of Justice investigation finds synthetic ingredients manufactured in China were added to workout boosters and weight-loss products the firms claimed to be natural. Supplements from these companies were previously implicated in consumer illnesses and death. Several other defendants from the companies face additional charges. (Military Times)

Politics and elections

New Zealand flag referendum
- The first stage of the voting process to potentially select a new flag of New Zealand starts. (BBC)

Science and technology

NASA orders its first commercial crew mission from private company SpaceX. (The Verge)
A jury in a Texas federal court finds for Apple Inc., in a lawsuit brought against Apple by a subsidiary of Pendrell Corporation. Pendrell has charged that Apple infringed patents on techniques that help restrict the use of web content to authorized persons, i.e.anti-piracy software. (Reuters)

Sport

Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, who has two Olympic gold medals and 30 world records, told Sky News she is going to fight for what she believes to be her right to compete at the 2016 Olympics. She calls on the IAAF, at the world governing track and field organization’s annual meeting on 26 November, to rescind their ban on clean Russian athletes. (Sky News)
In association football, Corinthians win their sixth Campeonato Brasileiro Série A title with four games remaining of the season. (Yahoo! via AFP)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

November 26, 2015

Top News Stories –

Pirate needs 200,000 video views to avoid being sued –
A convicted software pirate has been handed an unusual punishment. The man, named only as Jakub F, will be spared having to pay hefty damages – as long as a film denouncing piracy he was made to produce gets 200,000 views.
He came to the out-of-court settlement with a host of firms whose software he pirated after being convicted by a Czech court. In return, they agreed not to sue him. The 30-year-old was also given a three-year suspended sentence. The criminal court decided that any financial penalty would have to be decided either in civil proceedings or out of court. The firms, which included Microsoft, HBO Europe, Sony Music and Twentieth Century Fox, estimated that the financial damage amounted to thousands of pounds, with Microsoft alone valuing its losses at 5.7m Czech Crowns (£148,000). [BBC] The video had received over 212,000 views by today. See Video of the Day

Asteroid mining made legal after passing of ‘historic’ space bill in US –
Business opportunities in space could soon be about to open up for adventurous entrepreneurs after US Congress signed off on a bill to legalise space mining. While some websites are already offering investors the chance to step onto the intergalactic property ladder with a plot on the moon from £16.75, asteroid mining is predicted to become a trillion-dollar industry over the next few decades. Private companies in the US can now legally extract materials from the moon, asteroids and other celestial bodies after a commercial space act was approved by Congress. [Daily Telegraph]

Video of the Day –

SDÍLENÍM TO ZAČALO, SDÍLENÍM TO MŮŽE SKONČIT

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#ImThankfulFor	#ImThankfulFor	Happy Thanksgiving
2	Can Dündar	Happy Thanksgiving	#ImThankfulFor
3	あなたのツイッタ��…	#MacysParade	#NationalCakeDay
4	#NoMeCabeEsoDe	#ImNotGoingToBedBecause	Eagles of Death Metal
5	#اوصف_مجتمعك_ب�…	#BringBackMST3K	#pizero
6	#ALDUB19thWeeksary	#ARIAs	BBC Three
7	#Empire	#TurkeyTrot	#PAKvENG
8	Nilson	Eagles	#WWENXT
9	Niall Holland	Jason Kidd	#INDvSA
10	#MeReSobranLasGanasDe	Chip Kelly	#VampsAlbumOutTomorrow

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

2015 Russian Sukhoi Su-24 shootdown
- The Turkish military releases what it says are a series of audio recordings of warnings issued to a Russian jet before it was shot down near the Syrian border. (ABC Australia)
Israeli–Palestinian conflict (2015)
- The Palestinian Ministry of Health says a 21 year-old man has died in clashes with Israeli Army soldiers. (AP)
Military intervention against ISIL
- British Prime Minister David Cameron, in a speech to the House of Commons says that Islamic extremists have already threatened citizens of the United Kingdom and UK military airstrikes against ISIL in Syria will serve only to make the UK safer. Cameron also says that the UK cannot outsource its security and must stand by France in the wake of the November 2015 Paris attacks. (BBC)
- Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French Minister of Defence, calls on the United Kingdom to join France in bombing ISIL. (The Guardian)
2015 Brussels lockdown, Paris attack aftermath
- Belgian authorities reduce the threat level in Brussels from its highest level of four to three. The escalation to level four came after suspects in the ISIL attacks in Paris were linked to the city. Suspected Paris gunman, Salah Abdeslam, who lived in Brussels for several years, remains at large. (BBC)
- A suspicious powder feared to be anthrax found at a Brussels mosque, close to the European Union headquarters, is a false alarm. Testing determines it is flour. (Reuters) (Intenational Business Times)
Boko Haram
- At least 18 people are killed and over 100 homes torched after Boko Haram militants attacked a village near the commune of Bosso in Niger‘s southern Diffa Region. (AFP via Yahoo)

Disasters and accidents

At least 15 people are killed after a Russian Mi-8 transport helicopter carrying oil workers crashes in eastern Siberia near the Yenisei River. (AP via ABC News) (Reuters)
A sinkhole the size of a football field swallows a large section of beach on Australia‘s North Stradbroke Island. Local authorities have warned beach-goers to stay away from Jumpinpin beach due to fears the sinkhole could grow even larger. (The Guardian)
2015-16 Australian bushfire season
- A New South Wales Rural Fire Service firefighter dies while fighting an out of control bushfire near Cessnock in the Hunter Valley. (Daily Telegraph)
At least eleven people have died and 70 injured after two buses carrying tourism workers collide in the eastern Dominican Republic. (AP)

International relations

Pope Francis’ 2015 visit to Africa
- Pope Francis condemns the way young people have been “radicalized in the name of religion to sow discord and fear,” during a talk in Nairobi, Kenya. (Washington Post)
- Pope Francis celebrates a historic Mass in Kenya before delivering a stern environmental warning to the world. “It would be sad, and I dare say even catastrophic, were particular interests to prevail over the common good and lead to manipulating information in order to protect their own plans and projects,” the Pope said, urging nations to reach agreement over curbing fossil fuel emissions. (CNN)
2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21)
- France is deploying more than 10,000 personnel to provide security for the two-week UN Climate Change Conference that opens in Le Bourget in Paris on Monday, November 30, 2015. Around 150 heads of state or government are expected to attend COP21’s opening day. (Xinhua News Agency)
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2015
- Queen Elizabeth II (U.K.) arrives in Malta for the Commonwealth summit what begins tomorrow. The then-future Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh lived on the island from 1949-51. The Commonwealth is a group of 53 nations; most member states were once part of the British Empire, 16 remain Commonwealth realms. (Telegraph)
Song Tao is named head of the International Liaison Department of the Communist Party of China, a key post responsible for relations with other communist parties, replacing Wang Jiarui. (SCMP)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

November 28, 2015

Top News Stories –

Jamie Vardy breaks record for goals in consecutive games –
Jamie Vardy broke Ruud van Nistelrooy’s record as he became the first player to score in 11 consecutive Premier League matches. The Leicester striker netted in the first half of his side’s 1-1 draw against Manchester United. Dutchman Van Nistelrooy achieved his feat for Manchester United across two seasons in 2003. Vardy’s run has included 13 goals, making him the league’s top scorer with 14 goals in total. [BBC] See List of the Day
Jamie Vardy

Video of the Day –

Je Suis Paris – Paris Saint-Germain

List of the Day –

Jamie Vardy’s record breaking goals run

Date	Match			Goals
29-Aug-15	Bournemouth	1 – 1	Leicester	1
13-Sep-15	Leicester	3 – 2	Aston Villa	1
19-Sep-15	Stoke	2 – 2	Leicester	1
26-Sep-15	Leicester	2 – 5	Arsenal	2
03-Oct-15	Norwich	1 – 2	Leicester	1
17-Oct-15	Southampton	2 – 2	Leicester	2
24-Oct-15	Leicester	1 – 0	C Palace	1
31-Oct-15	West Brom	2 – 3	Leicester	1
07-Nov-15	Leicester	2 – 1	Watford	1
21-Nov-15	Newcastle	0 – 3	Leicester	1
28-Nov-15	Leicester	1 – 1	Man Utd	1

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#LiamLaryLovesYou	#SmallBizSaturday	#BleepASongToMakeItSoundDirty
2	#TeletonChile	Robert Lewis Dear	#PlannedParenthood
3	#ALDUBStaySTRONG	#UFCSeoul	Britain to the Tories
4	#PlannedParenthood	#AndImDarnProudOfIt	J Cole
5	#TahirElçi	Auburn	#UnpopularPartyGames
6	CONFIDENT BY DEMI	ADIDASTM	#DontBombSyria
7	SEM MARA SEM AUDIENCIA	Kris Dunn	Burt Bacharach
8	파쿠리	Penn State	#VampsAlbumOutNow
9	CONFIDENT BY DEMI LOVATO	#BleepASongToMakeItSoundDirty	Grant Shapps
10	#WelcomeToBrazilJUSTINBIEBER	#FSUvsUF	#NUFC

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

At least three people are killed in an attack on a United Nations peacekeeping base in Kidal, northern Mali. The jihadist group Ansar Dine claims responsibility. (Euronews), (AFP via Yahoo! News)
Terrorism in Egypt
- At least four Egyptian police officers are killed in a drive-by shooting in Saqqara, south of Cairo. An Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant affiliate claims responsibility. (BBC), (AP via Fox News)
Turkey–PKK conflict
- Tahir Elçi, a pro-Kurdish lawyer, is shot dead at a press conference in the city of Diyarbakir as clashes break out between Turkish security forces and PKK militants. (Bloomberg via Washington Today)
Syrian Civil War, Military intervention against ISIL
- U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, despite deep uncertainty over how many Labour MPs will back him, is planning to stage a parliamentary vote on British military action against ISIL in Syria this week. (The Guardian)

Arts and culture

Egyptologists announce that radar scans indicate an empty space behind King Tutankhamun’s tomb. British archaeologist Dr. Nicholas Reeves speculates if a second chamber exists, it could be Queen Nefertiti’s long-lost burial place. Antiquities Minister Mamdouh Eldamaty says work inside the tomb will not begin until all the data from the radar and infrared devices are carefully analyzed by Japanese experts. (Sky News) (CNN)

Disasters and accidents

A slow moving wintry storm system is responsible for more than a dozen deaths in the U.S. states of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. (AP)

International relations

2015 Russian Sukhoi Su-24 shootdown, Russia–Turkey relations
- A day after Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had harsh words for Russia, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, in an essay in the London Times, says the downing of the Russian jet, “was not — and is not — an act against a specific country. … While the measures to defend our territory will remain in place, Turkey will work with Russia and our allies to calm tensions.” (CNN) (Times of London)
- Russian President Vladimir Putin signs a decree imposing economic sanctions on Turkey. The sanctions include a ban on charter flights from Russia to Turkey, that Russian tour operators should stop selling trips to Turkey, and that imports of some Turkish products are to be halted. All work visas for Turkish citizens are cancelled.(Irish Times)
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reports North Korea appears to conduct a submarine-launched ballistic missile test that ended in failure with no indication that the missile successfully ejected from the vessel and took off. (Reuters)
European migrant crisis, Macedonian border crisis
- Macedonia‘s Army begins erecting a metal fence on its southern border with Greece. Around 250 migrants later clash with Macedonian police on the border. (CNBC), (AP)
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2015
- The Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Malta calls for an ambitious and legally binding outcome at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
- The United Kingdom will host the next CHOGM meeting in 2018 as Vanuatu, which was to host the meeting, had its infrastructure damaged by Cyclone Pam earlier in the year. (AFP via Yahoo! News)

Law and crime

2015 Colorado Springs shooting
- Colorado Springs Police Chief Peter Carey says all nine of the injured – five police officers and four civilians – are listed in good condition at area hospitals. (Reuters)

Politics and elections

The United Kingdom‘s Minister of State for International Development, Grant Shapps, resigns amid claims he failed to act on allegations of in-party bullying of a young Conservative Party activist who committed suicide in September. (BBC)

Sport

Tyson Fury of the United Kingdom defeats Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko in a title fight in Dusseldorf winning the WBA Super, IBF and WBO heavyweight titles. (BBC)
2015–16 Premier League
- Leicester City‘s Jamie Vardy scores in a record eleven consecutive Premier League matches after scoring against Manchester United in a 1-1 draw at the King Power Stadium, breaking former Manchester United player Ruud van Nistelrooy‘s record.(BBC)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

November 30, 2015

Top News Stories –

New Zealand: Auckland aims to become trilingual city –
New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland, has announced plans to encourage the entire population to speak English, Maori and a third language. The initiative, launched by the council-controlled educational organisation COMET, aims to get all of Auckland’s 1.4 million residents speaking the national language of Te Reo Maori, Radio New Zealand reports. Currently, only 2.3% of Aucklanders speak the language, the lowest rate in the country, while over 1m of the city’s residents are monolingual – usually English, the radio says. Some 377,000 residents already have two languages as a result of the city’s diverse ethnic mix, where 40% of Aucklanders were born overseas, but their languages tend to be overlooked in favour of English. [BBC]

Video of the Day –

Domestic Appliances from Lewis Firth Bolton on Vimeo.

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#CyberMonday	#CyberMonday	Sam Pepper
2	#FelizLunes	#mondaymotivation	#CyberMonday
3	Kobe	#PopeBars	#mondaymotivation
4	水木先生	Tomorrow is December	#StAndrewsDay
5	#SoulTrainAwards	#RejectedReindeer	Kobe Bryant
6	Balón de Oro	#COP21	#AuthorDay
7	水木しげる先生	Sam Pepper	75% of Labour
8	#TheWalkingDead	#ISurvivedHighSchoolBy	Overweight Haters Ltd
9	#الهلال_التعاون	Clay Helton	#PAKvENG
10	Sam Pepper	Anne of Green Gables	#TWDMidSeasonFinale

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Paris attack aftermath
- French intelligence services are reportedly operating under the theory that Paris-attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam has escaped to Syria despite country-wide martial law in 3 different countries. (CNN)
Iraqi Civil War, Military intervention against ISIL, American-led intervention in Iraq
- With the support of Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve, Iraqi Armed Forces have launched operations to retake Ramadi from ISIL. (Military Times)
Syrian Civil War, Military intervention against ISIL
- The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that at least 50 United States military instructors have deployed to northern Syria from Turkey and Iraq to train Kurdish forces ahead of an assault on ISIL‘s de-facto capital Al-Raqqah. (Deutsche Welle)
Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen
- At least three Saudi border guards are killed following clashes with Yemeni forces in the kingdom’s southern Jizan Region near the border with Yemen. (Reuters)

Business and economics

Responding to reports, the American Tribune Publishing Co. states it is not in talks to sell the company. (Chicago Tribune) (Wall Street Journal)
Canadian BlackBerry Limited announces plans to shut down operations in Pakistan at year’s end because it cannot comply with the Pakistani government’s monitoring orders which would result in a massive invasion of user privacy. (CNET)
The International Monetary Fund modifies its benchmark currency basket to include the yuan of the People’s Republic of China. The basket also includes the U.S. dollar, the euro, the pound sterling, and the Japanese yen. (Reuters)
The United States Federal Reserve Board approves a rule prohibiting the government from extending emergency loans to “too big to fail” companies, a practice deemed essential during the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. (UPI)

Health and medicine

The capitals of the world’s two most populous nations, China and India, are blanketed in hazardous, choking smog. Beijing, on the second-highest pollution alert, is closing highways, halting or suspending construction while warning residents to stay indoors. The U.S. New Delhi embassy’s monitoring station recorded an air quality index of 372, putting air pollution levels into “hazardous” territory. No action by the New Delhi government. (Hindustan Times)
A UNICEF report finds AIDS is now the leading cause of death for African teenagers and the second most common killer for adolescents across the globe. While the Asia Pacific region has seen a 31 percent drop in new HIV infections, and 28 percent decline in AIDS-related deaths, the estimated number of adolescents dying of AIDS in the region has more than doubled since 2005. Tomorrow is World Aids Day. (AP via Huffington Post) (Reuters)

International relations

Martyrs’ Day (United Arab Emirates) is being observed in United Arab Emirates as Commemoration Day this year on November 30, 2015, recognising the sacrifices and dedication of Emirati martyrs who have given their life in the UAE and abroad in the field of civil, military and humanitarian service. (GulfNews)
South Korea’s parliament approves a free trade pact with China after opposition lawmakers, concerned that deal that would hurt agriculture and fisheries, secured a $1.4 billion relief package for farmers. (AP via Fox News)
2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference
- Around 150 world leaders attend the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, aiming for a global deal on limiting greenhouse gas emissions. (CNN)
Pope Francis’ 2015 visit to Africa
- Pope Francis travels to a besieged Muslim neighborhood known as PK5 in the Central African Republic, a country wracked by sectarian violence. This visit is part of Francis’s message of peace and reconciliation. As a result of the violence over the last two years, most of the capital Bangui’s 100,000-plus Muslims have fled; now only 15,000 remain. (AP via Bastrop Daily Enterprise)
- Pope Francis tells a crowd in a mosque in Bangui that “Christians and Muslims are brothers and sisters.” (BBC)
Israel will open a diplomatic mission to the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena), the headquarters of which are located near the capital of the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi. Israel will be the first Irena member to open such a mission; other member nations work Irena relations from their missions to the UAE, which Israel does not have. (New York Times)
Arctic Joint Strategic Command (Russia)
- A Russian Airborne Troops spokesman says the VDV is planning to expand their military exercises into the North Pole area of the Arctic in 2016. (UPI)

Law and crime

The University of Chicago cancels classes for the day, and asks students, faculty, and non-essential staff to stay away from its main campus after being informed by the FBI of a threat of gun violence. (Reuters via The Jerusalem Post) (USA Today)
- One suspect, a student from the University of Illinois at Chicago is arrested. The University of Chicago announces classes remain canceled for the day. (Chicago Tribune)
Russian undesirable organizations law
- Russia bans two George Soros-run foundations, including the Open Society Foundations, for posing a threat to “Russian national security”. The Open Society Foundation and the Open Society Institute’s Assistance Foundation, both financed by business magnate Soros, are the latest additions to a list of “undesirable organizations”, a list the Russian government says is necessary to stop foreign governments from interfering in Russia’s internal affairs. (The Guardian)
Jury selection begins for the trial of William Porter, a Baltimore, Maryland police officer charged with manslaughter and other charges surrounding the April 19 death of Freddie Gray. Porter is the first of six officers to be tried. (CNN)

Politics and elections

Venezuelan parliamentary election, 2015
- Venezuela announces it will suspend the sale of alcoholic beverages, fireworks and weapons before Sunday’s parliamentary elections, starting Friday at 6 p.m. until next Monday at 6 p.m. Civilian permits for the possession and use of firearms and kniveswill be also be suspended for the same period. (UPI)
Burkinabé general election, 2015
- Former prime minister Roch Marc Kaboré appears on course for a commanding victory in Burkina Faso’s election, one large enough to eliminate the need for a run-off. According to the Independent National Electoral Commission, with results from about 72 percent of the country counted, Kaboré has 54 percent of the vote with his closest challenger, former finance minister Zéphirin Diabré, getting 29 percent. (The Globe and Mail)
Saudi Arabia elections, 2015
- For the first time in the country’s history, Saudi Arabian women are allowed to vote and to stand for office in the December 12, 2015, elections. Candidacy filings opened yesterday. In two days, more than 900 women have signed up to run for various local government positions in the Arab nation. (UPI)

Science and technology

Researchers at North Carolina State University discover a new diamond-like, solid phase of carbon, called Q-carbon, that can be attained at room temperature. The result is a uniquely crystalline material, harder than a real diamond and likely boasting a variety of new properties, most unknown or unstudied. (UPI)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource

December 1, 2015

Top News Stories –

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to give away 99% of shares –
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan say they will give away 99% of their shares in the company to good causes as they announce the birth of their daughter Max. Mr Zuckerberg made the announcement in a letter to Max on his Facebook page. He said they were donating their fortune to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to make the world a better place for Max to grow up in. The donation amounts to $45bn (£30bn) at Facebook’s current value. [BBC]
Mark Zuckerberg

Mariah Carey gets $300,000 for a one-hour store visit –
[Maria] Carey’s kicking off December with an appearance Tuesday night at a Pier 1 pop up store in New York, where Confidenti@l has learned she’s being paid a whopping $300,000 to attend the event for just one hour. “Let’s call it 45 minutes,” laughs our source, who adds that the “Hero” singer also had a few demands about her appearance. “She specifically wanted (it noted) that she was ‘appearing’ not ‘performing.’ They would have loved her to perform but just getting her is worth it.” Our insider adds that Carey gave final approval on the invite before it went out, requesting that she be called “The Queen of Christmas,” at the “Pier 1 Imports: Christmas Pop-Up Storybook” at 503 Broadway. [NY Daily News]
Mariah Carey

Video of the Day –

Amazon Prime Air

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	Rosa Parks	#WorldAIDSDay	1st of December
2	#GivingTuesday	Rosa Parks	#PipKnit
3	#DiaMundialSida	ITS DECEMBER	#WorldAIDSDay
4	#BienvenidoDiciembre	#BreakUpIn5Words	#GivingTuesday
5	#WorldAIDSDay	#SnowmanDatingProblems	#christmascountdown
6	トリプルスリー	David Price	#newsnight
7	#1MesProAnoAcabarEEu	#WeLoveYouNiall	#adeletickets
8	#جوري_الخالدي	#GivingTuesday	Yorkshire Ripper
9	#BreakUpIn5Words	#Force4Ham	#LHHHReunion
10	Cameron Dallas	Mark Zuckerberg	Public Enemy

Other News Stories –

Armed conflict and attacks

Azerbaijan law enforcement agencies launch a special operation against Islamists in Nardaran, a suburb in the capital Baku. (Tass)
Syrian Civil War spillover in Lebanon
- The Lebanese Army and the al-Nusra Front conduct a prisoner exchange with Saja Dulaimi, former wife of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, being one of the prisoners released. The exchange was brokered byQatar. (Al-Jazeera) (Reuters)
Iraqi Civil War, Military intervention against ISIL, American-led intervention in Iraq
- The Iraqi government, via state TV, requests all civilians leave the ISIL-held city of Ramadi in Anbar province, after several days of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes against ISIL. Observers speculate this request precedes major ground operations to retake Ramadi, which fell to ISIL in May. (Deutsche Welle)
- U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said, in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, the U.S. military is preparing to establish a new Special Operations task force of about 200 service members in Iraq to intensify pressure on Islamic State commanders and expand U.S. troops’ direct involvement in battling the militant group. There are now about 3,500 U.S. troops in Iraq, including some Special Operations forces who are advising Iraqi forces in northern and central Iraq. (The Washington Post) (The Hill)
Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen
- Dozens of Houthi fighters are reportedly killed, according to Saudi state television and residents, following a major push by Yemen-based Houthi forces into the kingdom’s southern Najran Region. The Houthi-run Saba News Agency said that Houthi fighters had seized three Saudi military outposts near the city of Najran, destroying several armored vehicles, including two U.S.-made M1 Abrams tanks and three Bradley vehicles. (Reuters)
Allied Democratic Forces insurgency
- U. N. attack helicopters launched strikes against positions of Allied Democratic Forces. This comes a day after a series of clashes between rebels and soldiers in a town in eastern Congo killed at least 30 people. (Yahoo news), (Reuters), (Press TV)
Five people are injured, says Bayrampaşa mayor Atilla Aydiner, when a pipe bomb explodes on an overpass near his city’s central metro station in suburban Istanbul, Turkey. (The Guardian) (The Atlantic) (BBC)

Arts and culture

So called “White Student Unions” begin springing up at several Australian universities, including the University of Queensland, University of Southern Queensland, University of Technology Sydney, Macquarie University, Western Sydney University,University of New South Wales and the University of Western Australia. The groups say they are defending the interests of white students who they say are becoming marginalized from on-campus life and politics. (News Corp Australia)

Business and economics

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announces the plan to donate 99 percent of the company stock he and his wife Priscilla Chan own over their lifetimes, shares today worth about $45 billion, to “advance human potential and promote equality for all children.” (The Washington Post)

Disasters and accident

Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501
- Indonesia releases a report into the crash of AirAsia Flight 8501 by the National Transportation Safety Committee. The report finds that crew error was responsible for the crash that claimed 162 lives. (Channel News Asia) (Sky News)

Health and medicine

The World Health Organization urges Ukraine’s health ministry to declare a state of emergency due to a polio outbreak, a move meant to prompt more action from the government in Kiev. Half of Ukraine’s children have not been vaccinated against polio, according to Dorit Nitzan, head of the WHO’s office in Ukraine. (AP via US News & World Report)
One of three people who contracted Legionnaires’ disease in Hannibal, Missouri, has died, according to health officials. Hannibal is about 20 miles from Quincy, Illinois, where a Legionnaires’ outbreak occurred earlier this year, contributing to 12 deaths and sickening dozens more. (AP via ABC News America) (ABC7 via WLS AM)
An American E. coli scare results in the recall of hundreds of thousands of products in a dozen states and covering major supermarket chains including Walmart, Safeway and Albertsons. (CNN)
The United States Centers for Disease Control announces the number of people newly diagnosed with diabetes declined in 2014 for the fifth consecutive year. Experts do not know whether efforts to prevent diabetes are finally started to work, or if the disease has simply peaked in the population. (NPR) (The New York Times)

International relations

European migrant crisis
- The U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement notifies all 50 states that if they deny services to any group of refugees, states may risk losing resettlement funding altogether. More than half of the nation’s governors have said they will not accept Syrian refugees in their states. (The Washington Post)

Law and crime

Death of Jennifer Laude
- A Philippine Olongapo City Regional Trial Court convicts U.S. Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton of homicide over the death of a transgender Filipina woman. (Rappler) (Buzzfeed) (BBC)
Chicago, Illinois Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked for and received the resignation of that city’s police superintendant Garry McCarthy. Emanuel spoke of the loss of the public’s confidence in the city police and announced a task force on police accountability. The change comes in the wake of protests over the release of police footage showing the October 2014 shooting of Laquan McDonald. (CNN)

Science and technology

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports brains do not really fit into “male” or “female” categories. Tel Aviv University’s Daphna Joel’s research team, in analyzing the MRI scans of some 1,400 individuals, found only a very small number of the brains studied had features that were entirely male, female, or intermediate between the two. The vast majority had a mosaic. (The Washington Post) (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) (Daphna Joel)

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December 2, 2015

Top News Stories –

British parliament votes to bomb Islamic State in Syria –
Britain’s parliament voted on Wednesday to launch bombing raids against Islamic State in Syria, supporting Prime Minister David Cameron’s case that the country needs to help destroy militants who are “plotting to kill us”. After more than 10 hours of tense debate, lawmakers voted in favour of air strikes, by 397 to 223. British Tornado GR4 bombers could leave an air base in Cyprus within hours to launch the country’s latest military action in the Middle East. [Reuters] See Top Twitter Trends.
David Cameron

Video of the Day –

The Dreams of an Astronaut – with Helen Sharman from The Royal Institution on Vimeo.

Top Twitter Trends –

	Worldwide	USA	UK
1	#SyriaVote	#SyriaVote	#terroristsympathiser
2	JELENA IS BACK	#SanBernadino	#SyriaVote
3	男根のメタファー	Samurai Jack	Gary Neville
4	#معلمه_تعض_تلم�…	#MillenialChristmasSongs	Mark Zuckerberg
5	#MAMA2015	#WeLoveYouLiam	#GeordieShore
6	Gary Neville	#FirstDraftCartoons	#RSAMake
7	#MeSobraTalentoPara	Sandy Hook	#TWU15
8	#FNS歌謡祭	Inland Regional Center	#NUSNEC
9	DEMI LOVATO CONFIDENT	#CelebrityChristmasCarols	#AAOOD3
10	#زد_رصيدك19	#CMTAOTY	Stella Creasy

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

Syrian Civil War, Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War
- Russia expands its military presence in Syria with an additional airbase that can accommodate fixed-winged military aircraft. The U.S. Department of Defense also confirms that Russia added S-400 surface-to-air missiles to its Syrian stockpile and armed its military aircraft with air-to-air missiles. According to Military Times, “A Pentagon spokesman expressed concern” these moves indicate Russia’s commitment to aiding the embattled Assad regime as opposed to combating ISIL. No Syrian opposition groups including ISIL have combat-ready aircraft that require air-to-air missiles. (Fox News) (Military Times)
Yemeni Civil War (2015), Al-Qaeda insurgency in Yemen
- Al-Qaeda militants seize control of Zinjibar, capital of Yemen‘s southern Abyan Governorate, as well as the town of Jaʿār, following fierce clashes with pro-Hadi government forces. (CNN)
2015 West African offensive, Islamist insurgency in Nigeria
- Cameroon’s army, backed by a regional taskforce, has killed at least 100 members of the militant Islamist Boko Haram group and freed 900 people it had held hostage, the west African country’s defence ministry has said. Regional taskforce conducts sweep along border with Nigeria. (The Guardian), (Yahoo news),
Military intervention against ISIL
- The Parliament of the United Kingdom votes 397-223 to authorize Royal Air Force air strikes on ISIL in Syria. (The Journal)
2015 San Bernardino shooting
- As many as three people open fire in San Bernadino, California (U.S.) at a center for people with developmental disabilities, killing at least 14 people and injuring 14 others in what the city’s police chief described as an act of domestic terrorism.(Reuters), (Los Angeles Times), (AFP via The Australian), (CNN), (Fox News), (The Washington Post)
- A second shooting incident near 1757 Richardson in San Bernardino unfolded around 3:00 p.m. PST, with police requesting a BearCat and medical assistance. A suspect was shot on-scene around 3:16 p.m. PST and another taken into custody shortly afterwards. (The New York Times), (Los Angeles Times)

Arts and culture

The Institute of Contemporary History in Munich announces a publication of a two-volume set of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. The new edition, which contains 3,500 scholarly annotations, is intended, The New York Times reports, “To set the work in historical context, to show how Hitler wove truth with half-truth and outright lie, and thus to defang any propagandistic effect while revealing Nazism.” This is the first printing in Germany since the end of World War II. (The New York Times) (The Week)

Business and economics

Janet L. Yellen, chairperson of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, states that economic conditions improved to the point where a rise in the Fed’s benchmark interest rate is likely when the Federal Open Market Committee meets in mid-December. (New York Times)

Disasters and accidents

2015 South Indian floods
- Days of heavy rain in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu causes floods with many areas in the city of Chennai under water. The death toll from rain-related incidents has reached 188. (The Hindu)
- The Indian Navy and Army are conducting rescue operations in low lying areas. (NDTV)
- India’s National Disaster Response Force sends 600 officers to Chennai to assist. (IBN Live)

International relations

Hearings begin in the legal battle between the Japanese government and local officials in Okinawa over plans to move a U.S. military air base on the southern island. This fall, Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga revoked his predecessor’s authorization for aUS Marine Corps air base. (AP) (Financial Times)
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha orders officials to improve aviation safety standards after the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) downgraded Thailand’s safety ratings. The lower rating is for failure to tackle commercial aviation standards shortcomings found in an audit this year. The European Aviation Safety Agency is due to announce the results of its own audit later in December. (Reuters)
Enlargement of NATO
- NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announces the invitation sent to Montenegro to join the military alliance, 16 years after the alliance bombed the country, as part of Yugoslavia, in the Kosovo War. Montenegro’s accession would result in “retaliatory actions”, according to a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin. (BBC News) (CNN)
Kuril Islands dispute
- Russia is reportedly constructing hundreds of buildings for military use on the disputed Kunashir and Iturup islands in the Sea of Okhotsk. The Russian Defence Ministry said the new military buildings would help “raise the combat readiness of troops on the eastern frontiers of Russia”. (The Japan Times)

Law and crime

Four men, alleged jihadists from Kosovo are arrested, three in Italy and one in Kosovo, for making nonspecific threats against Pope Francis and the former U.S. Ambassador to Kosovo. The men are described by police as highly dangerous and as having celebrated the November 2015 Paris attacks. (The Independent, via MSN)

Politics and elections

Yemeni Prime Minister Khaled Bahah rejects a cabinet reshuffle ordered by President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, another sign of the deepening rift between the two leaders. These problems started in March after the president appointed the minister of health as acting foreign minister without consulting the prime minister. (Reuters)
Myanmar general election, 2015
- Myanmar’s democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi discusses the smooth transfer of power to her National League for Democracy (NLD) party with President Thein Sein, their first public meeting since the November election. The new administration will be sworn in early next year. (Reuters)
2015 protests in Brazil
- Brazil‘s lower house of Congress opens impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff over a corruption scandal involving the state-owned oil giant, Petrobras. (BBC)

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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
2	#زد_رصيدك27	#AUSvWI	#HumanRightsDay
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)

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The 2010s

The story of a decade

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