The Event Horizon Telescope, an international array of observatories teaming up to form a virtual, Earth-sized telescope in the hopes of capturing the first real image of a black hole, held six simultaneous press conferences across the globe today — and what those conferences announced did not disappoint.
Looks like there's some choice Concorde jet memorabilia on eBay right now, including a few coffee cups and plates from the galley. Also: a Rolls-Royce Olympus Turbo-Jet 593-610 engine, for about a million bucks.
In light of the latest tax policy news out of Washington (and, y'know, the fast-approaching 2018 filing deadline), let's revisit this annual topic with an easy-to-follow chart.
According to this year's Airline Quality Report, a study comparing nine of the largest US airlines, you now have good reason to re-think your travel plans when booking a flight through certain airlines.
Scientists just released the history-making image and it's a... blurry ring? Here's a quick primer to give you a sense of what you're looking at and why it's a big goddamn deal.
After discovering a collection of Walmart employee headshots taken in 1986, photographer Daniel Kraus embarked on a project exploring small-town life in America – through the prism of one of its most recognisable institutions.
Get relaxed and inspired with this lifetime subscription to Humm.ly. It uses music backed by science to improve your wellness each time you open the app, whether you need to unwind after a long day or get inspired.
To date, 21 disembodied feet have washed up on the shores of Seattle's Salish Sea. What at first looked like the work of a serial killer turned out to be something even more unsettling: A message from the ocean about who we are.
New Zealand's Parliament on Wednesday passed sweeping gun laws that outlaw military style weapons, less than a month after mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch left 50 people dead and dozens wounded.
Fresnel lenses were initially developed for use in lighthouses, having a large aperture and short focal lengths while using less material than conventional lenses. They're also really good at burning things.
Military training shoes have become iconic silhouettes the world over, and Reproduction of Found digs up the very best ones to give their handcrafted treatment to create a versatile, premium sneaker steeped in military heritage.
Known locally as gopher wood, local legend has it that the torreya tree with its supple yellow wood was used to build Noah's ark. Now, thousands of years later, the tree faces a new era of ecological violence.
Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to be on the cusp of securing a record fifth term as Israeli Prime Minister Wednesday after a dramatic finish to a closely fought election race.
Handbooks distributed in some Jewish communities in New York, as well as messages on hotlines, contradict the scientific consensus that vaccines are safe and highly effective.
Lost-children stories, a staple of Australia's mythology, have been obsessively retold since the nineteenth century. But are they also a way the country avoids acknowledging its violent colonial past?
Recently, the screenwriter Ed Solomon ("Men in Black," "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure") received a Facebook message from the account of a friend. He quickly realized that the friend's account had been hacked by a scammer, but he decided, out of curiosity, to keep the exchange with the scammer going.
The bloated and confusingly arcane piece of software has been updated and repurposed and jerry-rigged to handle new tasks for the past 18 years, and one developer says it won't live to see its 19th birthday.
After this clip of musician Adam Foote playing handpan in a forest in North Idaho went viral, he was able to quit his day job and pursue his dream of being a musician full-time.
Skin slippage, rigid limbs and rotting flesh are fine if they're making shock appearances in horror films, but when they're being confronted as part of our own personal future, it all starts to feel a bit too real. For morticians, though, these grisly truths are barely worth a second thought.
How do you talk about an emergency when it seems as if no one is listening? For years, journalists, scientists and activists concerned with the ongoing horror of climate catastrophe have faced this problem.
Today's Democratic Party is increasingly perceived as dominated by its "woke" left wing. But the views of Democrats on social media often bear little resemblance to those of the wider Democratic electorate.
In a world so uncertain, it’s eerie how prophetic some writers can be when it comes to forecasting the future.
Fiction Predictions is a new Mashable podcast hosted by Nikolay Nikolov and Sam Haysom. Each week we go down the rabbit hole of fiction writing, exploring authors and past works dealing with curious landscapes that, with time, have come to resemble the world we live in now.
The first episode of Fiction Predictions drops April 19, 2019.
Visiting an Apple Store to purchase a new Mac got $99 cheaper this month if part of that purchase required store staff perform a data migration for you. That's because Apple has quietly dropped the charge.
As TidBits reports, it used to be the case that if you took an old Mac in for repair, or purchased a new Mac and wanted the files from your old one transferring over, Apple would charge $99 to do it for you. However, tech consultant David Price discovered this month that the charge he expected to pay had been removed.
On contacting an Apple Store Operations Specialist, TidBits confirmed the charge has been dropped, with the official line being, "Beginning April 2, there will be no cost for Data Migrations with the purchase of a new Mac or Data Transfers with a repair." Read more...
It turns out one of the riskiest things you can do for your personal data is book a hotel room. That's the conclusion of Symantec after reviewing more than 1,500 hotel websites spread across 54 different countries.
As Reuters reports, the review carried out by Symantec discovered that two out of every three hotels will leak the booking details of guests. Those details include full names, email address, postal address, mobile number, credit card details (last four digits, card type, expiration), and passport numbers. The information is accessible to third-party websites, advertisers, and analytics companies. Read more...
Sounds odd? It actually might be pretty clever. In this way — and unlike some other slide-out phones we've seen recently — the phone's primary camera is also the phone's selfie camera. And given that the camera is a 48-megapixel, f/2.0 sensor coupled with an ultra-wide, 8-megapixel, F2.2 sensor and a 3D depth module, it should actually be better than most selfie cameras out there, while allowing Samsung to save some component money. Read more...
The PlayStation 4 is a favorite among a large swath of gamers — not only can you play some of the industry’s biggest exclusive titles, you can also play Blu-ray discs, use your streaming service of choice, and so much more. What could make it even better? An awesome controller to match.
The PlayStation DualShock 4 Controller is on sale on Amazon in a bunch of different colorways — save up to $18 depending on which design speaks to you.
The DualShock 4 Controller provides a great sense of control and a comfortable, ergonomic grip (which you’re going to need if you’re taking on more difficult games like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice). Its patented clickable touch pad in the center of the device makes gameplay mechanics possible that you couldn’t experience otherwise, and the built-in speaker and headphone jack open the door to a lot of unique audio options (you can also chat with your friends online). No matter what you’re playing, you’ll be happy to have a DualShock 4 in your hands. Read more...
Robot vacuums do the dirty work of cleaning for you, but they’re not always equipped to get the really tough stains out of your carpet. Yeah, you could get a steam cleaner, but then you'd have to do actual labor, and who wants to do that when we live in such an automatic world?
The Bissell SpotBot cleaner deep cleans your floors with just the push of a button, and right now you can save $50 on the SpotBot at Walmart — you'll pay $109.99.
Like a robot vacuum, this Bissell portable spot cleaner has automatic cleaning cycles, only these remove stains — just push a button and walk away while the SpotBot scrubs your home. It knows how to measure and distribute the right amount of water and cleaning formula, then uses brushing and vacuum technology to remove tough stains. Read more...
On Wednesday morning, the National Science Foundation and the Event Horizon Telescope group revealed the first recorded image of a black hole, and it only took seconds for the memes to follow.
Scientists have obtained the first image of a black hole, using Event Horizon Telescope observations of the center of the galaxy M87. The image shows a bright ring formed as light bends in the intense gravity around a black hole that is 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun pic.twitter.com/AymXilKhKe
If your neighbor is playing loud music, there's no need to call the cops on them.
Just consider adopting Mr. Magoo, a bird who recently told Alexa to "stop," presumably in reference to music being played.
In Mr. Magoo's defense, the song in question was Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York," hands down one of the most annoying songs of all time. Read more...
The revamped app design is coming to mobile and desktop in 16 cities around the world, including Miami, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., in the U.S.
Now, a five-section tracking bar and animated images show how your order's progressing. You'll kick things off with a confirmation, then watch the app move through the preparation phase. Then, the app tracks your delivery person's route to the restaurant, confirms pickup there, and then shows the delivery route to your door. Read more...
Entertainment royalty and literal British royalty have come together to make television for Apple.
That's right, Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry teamed up to create a multi-part documentary series focused on mental health for Apple TV+, the company's new streaming service.
According to a post from Harry's Duke of Sussex Instagram account, the project "will focus on both mental illness and mental wellness" and aims to inspire viewers "to have an honest conversation about the challenges each of us faces, and how to equip ourselves with the tools to not simply survive, but to thrive."
We have had to be very patient, but the final season of Game of Thrones is finally here.
Yes, after what seemed like an eternity, everything kicks off in the early hours of April 15 in the UK, and we cannot wait.
So gather your friends, clear your schedules, and prepare your favourite snacks, because it's going to be a wild ride. The only thing that could make the experience any better would be a bottle of Johnnie Walker's White Walker whisky.
The limited-edition scotch whisky is inspired by the enigmatic and feared White Walkers, with flavour notes of caramelized sugar, vanilla, fresh berries, and a touch of orchard fruit. You can enjoy this blended whisky in any number of classic cocktails, but it's best drunk directly from the freezer. The choice is yours obviously, but the White Walker develops in complexity as it slowly warms to room temperature, apparently. Read more...
On Wednesday morning, the National Science Foundation and the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration released what they say is the first recorded image of a massive black hole. And it is stunning.
Scientists have obtained the first image of a black hole, using Event Horizon Telescope observations of the center of the galaxy M87. The image shows a bright ring formed as light bends in the intense gravity around a black hole that is 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun pic.twitter.com/AymXilKhKe
The image is a composite of images taken from five petabytes worth of data that was captured by a series of radio dishes laid out around Earth that allowed the project to capture continuous data from the black hole even while Earth rotated. Read more...
You can have all the smart home devices in the world, but if your WiFi connection sucks, you might as well have none.
You don't need to start throwing everything away just yet though, because you can now get an amazing deal on a WiFi system that delivers strong coverage throughout your entire home. That means no dead zones, so you can actually go back into those rooms that were once boarded up. They have probably started to get a little dusty, but we're sure they can be recovered.
The Orbi Whole Home WiFi System by NETGEAR is now available for £299.99 in the Amazon Spring Sale. The price has been reduced from the usual list price of £469.99 until midnight on April 10. So if your WiFi situation needs some help, now is the perfect time to maximise your speeds. Read more...
When you consider the wide selection of available robot vacuum cleaners, the first thing you realise is that we must really hate doing the vacuuming manually. The second thing you realise is that each model from each brand has a slightly different set of features, and therefore a different speciality.
Take the iRobot Roomba 895 for example. This robot vacuum cleaner has a set of impressive features that cover all of the essential components that make an effective device. What sets it apart from the competition is the tangle-free Airforce cleaning system that's ideal for pet hair. So if you have a pet, or pets, in the house, the the Roomba 895 might be the model for you. Read more...
No, you teared up when you heard James Earl Jones do his Mustafa thing in this new trailer for Disney's CGified remake of The Lion King.
With 100 days to go before the movie hits theaters, Disney has delivered a new, revealing trailer that gives Mustafa and Scar (voiced by Chiwetel Ejiofor) more of a centerstage treatment. Fans familiar with the original animated film from 1994 won't exactly be taken by surprise, though; while there are surely some differences, this trailer continues to pitch the movie as a fairly shot-for-shot recreation.
That's not necessarily a bad thing for such a beloved Disney movie. Make sure you watch this one until the end for the most revealing tease yet of Simba's best pals, Timon and Pumbaa (voiced by Donald Glover, Billy Eichner, and Seth Rogen, respectively). Read more...
Easter holidays are approaching. We know you want to host garden parties, but you are embarrassed with the state of your yard. Today is the day to do something about itAmazon is offering a variety of Greenworks mowers, trimmers, leaf blowers, and more tools to help you keep your yard clean and tidy. Don't let a messy garden stop you from enjoying your Easter break with your friends and family.
If you don't own a Nintendo Switch yet, Walmart has a great deal on a bundle, which includes the Nintendo Switch console, choice of game, plus Mario pins, and a backpack for only $329.99, saving you $67.87 than buying it separately.Read more...
Want to hear a sentence that'll make you feel old? It's been 10 years since Parks and Recreation first graced our TV screens.
And what a lovely decade it's been. To mark the occasion, our favourite Pawnee residents Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson posted a very sweet video message thanking fans for their support.
"Citizens of Pawnee, thank you for spending 10 years of your life with us, sharing your laughter, your tears, and even your waffles," said Amy Poehler in the video.
"We love you and we can't thank you enough for your support," added Nick Offerman. Read more...
Trawling through the hundreds of deals in the Amazon Spring Sale doesn't sound like best way to spend your hump day, does it? Thankfully, we have done the trawling for you, and highlighted the very best deals for the home, kitchen, and you.
Save on top brands like Apple, De'Longhi, Morphy Richards, and Sony, with deals on everything from coffee machines to sewing machines. You can even pick up heavily discounted iPhones in this deals round-up. Keep your eyes peeled for those.
These are the best deals from across the internet for April 10.
Best of the best
Your chance to pick up an Apple iPhone, Samsonite suitcase, Seagate external hard drive, and more, all in one place. Read more...
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is not about to be caught out. Appearing Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Tuesday, the Game of Thrones star was confronted with fan theories about how the show might end.
He remained tight-lipped when confronted with the suggestions that 1) Jaime will kill Cersei, and 2) that Arya will kill Cersei using Jaime's face, but his response to Jon Snow becoming the Night King seemed to suggest that one, at least, probably isn't going to happen.
So has Coster-Waldau ever read any fan theories that were correct?
"Some," he replies. "But I've never read anyone who got the whole thing."
"And when I read it the first time I was blown away. I wrote Dan and David, the two creators, and I was like, 'I really don't know how you did it, but I can't imagine a better way of ending the show.'" Read more...
Spoiler warning: If you're not caught up on Game of Thrones and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you should avoid this article for now.
It's the end of an era — but can our favorite franchises stick the landing?
After seven seasons of HBO's Game of Thrones and 21 Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, the two unprecedentedly successful franchises are coming to a close this springGame of Thrones: Season 8 and Avengers: Endgame are all but guaranteed to draw millions of viewers and their studios are alreadyreaping the benefits.
Unfortunately, the satisfying finales their loyal fans deserve could be be bungled, as both Thrones and Endgame appear primed to rely on time travel to drive home their conclusions. Read more...
A Mariah stan who goes by the Twitter handle @mariahlegend tweeted out that he's "not even being dramatic" but hearing the words "I don't like Mariah Carey" is "literally the biggest turn off ever."
In the clip he can be seen going between the posters of his cast-mates in a corridor, gleefully scrawling glasses on Chris Evans' face before writing "I heart Thor" on the cheek of Robert Downey Jr.
One day, you might be telling your grandson that the great satellite broadband race of the 21st century began with a cat emoji.
On Wednesday, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk called Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos a "copycat" (with the "cat" bit supplanted with a cat emoji) on Twitter, pointing to news of Amazon planning to launch a satellite-powered broadband service.
SpaceX announced plans for a similar project back in 2015, and other companies, including Facebook, are planning something of the sort as well. Read more...
Warning: The following review for Netflix's The Silence contains some very light spoilers.
In storytelling, originality means a lot. In scary storytelling, it means even more.
Whether it's creating a never-before-seen monster like The Babadook or making the commonplace seem menacing à la Jaws, terrifying in unexpected ways is a critical component of effective horror. So when a trailer aims to frighten and instead gets met with relentless comparisons to already releasedmovies, it can indicate trouble.
Fortunately, The Silence — regularly compared to A Quiet Place and Bird Box —is far more than a rip-off of someone else's good idea. Read more...
Weighted blankets seem to be everywhere these days, finding an online cult following in the past year or so. The secret is in the thousands of microbeads that are stitched into each blanket to give it a certain heft — usually between 10 and 20 lbs. Although there hasn't been a whole lot of real science done to study the effects, the added weight can produce a therapeutic effect for some people. Draping yourself in a weighted blanket is essentially like getting a nice, comforting hug.
Any hot tool aficionado will tell you that the right hair dryer can make or break your look. So you want to make sure that you find one that can handle all of your specific hair styling needs.
And while you've probably already found the perfect hair dryer for your home (if not, read our guide here), this task becomes trickier when you’re looking for a travel hair dryer. Go without and you'll be doomed to use the dreaded hotel hair dryer. We shiver to think of the frizzy outcome.
Sure, you’re still going to want to look for a lot of the same things that you would in a regular hair dryer, like powerful wattage, ceramic tourmaline coating, ionic technology, a variety of heat settings, and most importantly the blessed cool shot button. Read more...
Music has the unique (and some might even argue magical) ability to make you feel good, no matter how bogged down you might be. Tinder date stood you up? Fire up your Bruno Mars playlist. Totally botched a presentation at work? Carly Rae Jepsen's E•MO•TION album would temporarily make you feel like you aced it. Bombed a job interview? Let Ariana Grande lift your sour mood ASAP.
This isn't a surprise, though. Studies have repeatedly shown that music is capable of activating areas in your brain that are responsible for boosting your mood. It could even aid in improving your memory and cognitive ability, ease physical pain, and help you sleep better. Now we understand why Rihanna wrote a song about not stopping the music. Read more...
Prom night is supposed to be a magical milestone of high school. You're dressed to the nines, you dance the night away, and make memories that will surely last a lifetime. Right?
Prom is often as much of a sweat-filled, hormonal nightmare as any other school dance, just with more expensive clothing and the massive anxiety spike that comes with expectations to have thebest night of your life.
Nobody's prom was perfect for everyone. Maybe someone spiked the punch at your prom and you didn't even catch a buzz. Maybe your prom dress caught on fire, or your date ended up making out in the bathroom with someone else. Read more...
Today, at 9 a.m. ET, we might see the first-ever actual image of a black hole.
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project is an international collaboration aimed to capture the first image of a black hole. And now, the National Science Foundation (NSF) is holding a press conference to announce that project's "groundbreaking result."
UPDATE: April 10, 2019, 3:21 p.m. CEST The Event Horizon Telescope has posted the first-ever image of a black hole, located at the center of the galaxy Messier 87. Check it out below.
Scientists have obtained the first image of a black hole, using Event Horizon Telescope observations of the center of the galaxy M87. The image shows a bright ring formed as light bends in the intense gravity around a black hole that is 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun pic.twitter.com/AymXilKhKe
Twitter has taken down a video posted by Donald Trump following a copyright complaint.
The apparent 2020 campaign video was posted on Trump's Twitter account on Tuesday, and featured the soundtrack to The Dark Knight Rises, which was the last film in Christopher Nolan’s Batman series.
In a matter of hours, the video had amassed more than 2.5 million views, but later that day, the video was removed from Twitter, displaying a message that it had been taken down due to a copyright complaint.
Warner Bros. had earlier filed the complaint, a spokesperson for the company confirmed to Mashable. Read more...
* Congress will need an updated cost estimate of program costs * Navy officials likely to be grilled this week on new report
The U.S. Navy may have to ask Congress to boost funding in fiscal 2021 to buy the first in its new 12-ship fleet of nuclear-armed submarines because of unreliable cost estimates, according to congressional auditors.
The service's current procurement cost estimate and design goal are suspect and require updates before those dollars are approved, the Government Accountability Office said in a report issued Monday. The submarine also continues to have problems first identified in 2017 with the vessel's power system.
The Columbia-class program is estimated at $128 billion including research and development, with $115 billion for procurement. That makes it the Pentagon's third-costliest system. But the cost estimate "is not accurate because it relies on overly optimistic" reductions in labor costs, the audit found.
* Japan's military reported on Tuesday that it lost an F-35 stealth jet some 84 miles off the east coast of Aomori prefecture, Japan, in the Pacific. * Experts say Russia and China will do anything to get a look at the crashed jet, and if they do find it or can salvage it, they could seriously undermine the next several decades of US airpower. * Russia and China probably couldn't perfectly reconstruct the F-35, but any of its technology that ends up in the countries' hands would be a blow to the heart of the US military.
Japan's military reported on Tuesday that it lost contact with an F-35 stealth jet some 84 miles off the east coast of Aomori prefecture, Japan, in the Pacific and that the hunt was on for the pilot and the downed plane.
But if Russia or China — which both maintain a heavy naval presence in the region — find the plane first, the future of US airpower could be over before it started.
"Bottom line is that it would not be good" for the future of US airpower if Japan or the US don't quickly recover the jet, retired US Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula told Business Insider.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Search and rescue teams found wreckage from a Japanese F-35 stealth fighter that crashed over the Pacific Ocean close to northern Japan, but the pilot remains missing, authorities said on Wednesday.
The aircraft, less than one-year-old, was the first F-35 to be assembled in Japan and was only in the air for 28 minutes on Tuesday, a defense official said.
It is only the second F-35 to crash in the two-decades it has been flying.
The advanced, single-seat jet was flying about 135 km (84 miles) east of the Misawa air base in Aomori Prefecture at about 7:27 p.m. (1027 GMT) on Tuesday when it disappeared from radar, the Air Self Defense Force said.
Dozens of Afghan forces and Taliban fighters were killed in overnight fighting across Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday, as violence intensified ahead of another round of peace efforts to end the 18-year-old war https://t.co/X9lu8dJxFU
"The White House has tapped the Air Force general in charge of the Pentagon's nuclear enterprise and other strategic assets to become the military's No. 2 general later this year." https://t.co/zkedLZ6W50
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Richard E. Cole, the last surviving Doolittle Raider, tours a U.S. Navy B-25 Mitchell similar to the aircraft he co-piloted. Cole has died at age 103. (Staff Sgt. Vernon Young Jr./Air Force)
* Richard 'Dick' Cole, the last of the Second World War's infamous Doolittle Raiders, passed away early Monday * The retired Air Force Lt. Col.took part in daring raids on Japanese mainland following the Pearl Harbor attack * Led by the legendary James 'Jimmy' Doolittle, the aviators flew 16 stripped-down B-25s 650 miles to Japan * They took off from aircraft carriers in the middle of the Pacific and bombed key Japanese positions in Tokyo * After the audacious Tokyo raid the brave men all bailed out of their planes safely onto friendly Chinese fields * When asked his clearest memory of the raid, he joked: 'The thing I remember most... is my parachute opening' * While the attack caused only minor damage, it played a huge role in boosting morale on the US home-front * Cole remained a hero within the Air Force after retiring and in 2016, announced that a new series of bombers - the B-21 stealth bombers would be named the 'Raider' in honor of Doolittle, Cole and their band of brothers
A retired Air Force Lt. Col. who took part in the daring Doolittle Raids on Japan in the wake of the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor has died, aged 103.
Richard 'Dick' Cole, the last of the Second World War's infamous Doolittle Raiders, passed away early Monday morning in San Antonio, Texas, surrounded by his family.
Cole was part of a volunteer group of 80 Army Air Force aviators who took part in a series of bombing raids in retaliation for the attack on a United States naval base in Hawaii, which killed 2,403 American citizens.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards fire missiles during a war game in a desert near the holy city of Qom, southeast of Tehran, November 2006. REUTERS/Fars News
Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said China is the No. 1 threat to U.S. security. He also spoke about America's immigration situation, saying that sending troops to the southern border is not an unprecedented mission.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News' Bret Baier on Tuesday, Shanahan seemed to echo President Trump's sentiment that the biggest threat America faces is the modernization of China.
"China is a threat economically and diplomatically. I think it's time we address some of these issues -- militarization of the South China Sea, the Communist Chinese Party launching cyberattacks against the U.S., theft of intellectual property, and a significant expansion of military capability."
* Inquiry comes as House GOP pushes claims of anti-Trump bias * Issue pursued as Democrats emphasize getting Mueller's report
Attorney General William Barr has assembled a team to review controversial counterintelligence decisions made by Justice Department and FBI officials, including actions taken during the probe of the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016, according to a person familiar with the matter.
This indicates that Barr is looking into allegations that Republican lawmakers have been pursuing for more than a year -- that the investigation into President Donald Trump and possible collusion with Russia was tainted at the start by anti-Trump bias in the FBI and Justice Department.
"I am reviewing the conduct of the investigation and trying to get my arms around all the aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that was conducted during the summer of 2016," Barr told a House panel on Tuesday.
Barr's inquiry is separate from a long-running investigation by the Justice Department's inspector general, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters. The FBI declined to comment. Barr said he expected the inspector general's work to be completed by May or June.
WNU Editor: If the above report is accurate, the Justice Department inspector general's report on how the department handled this entire Russian collusion investigation will be completed by May or June. I am willing to bet that this report will lay the groundwork for Attorney General Barr to justify a more comprehensive review on how controversial counterintelligence decisions were made by Justice Department and FBI officials, and to hold people accountable for making them. This has the potential to shake the Washington establishment .... especially those within the intelligence community .... to a level that we have not seen in years.
The probe is "total nonsense aimed mainly at the domestic audience", Vladimir Putin stressed
ST.PETERSBURG, April 9. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has called predictable the outcome of an investigation conducted by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller, which found that the Trump campaign did not collude with Russia to influence the 2016 election.
"From the very beginning we said that this notorious commission led by Mr. Mueller won't find anything because no one knows better than us: Russia has not meddled in any US election, there was no collusion between Trump and Russia, which Mr. Mueller had looked for," Putin told the International Arctic Forum.
A combination picture shows Benny Gantz (left), leader of Blue and White party voting at a polling station in Rosh Ha'ayin and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voting at a polling station in Jerusalem during Israel's parliamentary election April 9, 2019. REUTERS/Nir Elias, Ariel Schalit/Pool via REUTERS
A day after Washington added the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps to the terror list, an elite force's top officer cautioned the US Navy against ordering its warships to sail close to their speed boats.
"Mr. Trump, tell your warships not to pass near the Revolutionary Guards boats," Mohsen Rezaei, a senior officer of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was quoted by the semi-official news agency ISNA.
The U.S. designation of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) marks the first time Washington has officially used that label on a foreign state institution.
"It underscores the fact that Iran's actions are fundamentally different from those of other governments," U.S. President Donald Trump said in an April 8 statement.
His secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said the move was aimed at increasing pressure on Iran and diverting some of the financial resources it allegedly uses to fund terrorism and militant activities.
Exit polls in Israel suggest there will be no clear winner in the closely fought general election.
The centrist Blue and White alliance of former military chief Benny Gantz was projected to win 36 or 37 seats, with the Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu taking 33 to 36.
Both men have claimed victory.
Two exit polls predicted that right-wing parties allied to Mr Netanyahu were more likely to be able to form a governing coalition.
But a third exit poll predicted that the bloc would be tied with centre-left parties allied to Mr Gantz.
Tehran responds fiercely to US's reclassification of its military wing as a terrorist organisation
Politicians in Iran wore uniforms of the Revolutionary Guards in parliament on Tuesday in protest at the US decision to classify the nation's military wing as a foreign terrorist organisation.
There were chants of "Death to America" as the president, Hassan Rouhani, declared the force was "dearer than ever in the hearts of the Iranian nation" and announced countermeasures against the US.
Donald Trump's move on Monday marked the first time Washington has declared another nation's military wing a terrorist organisation – in the same category as non-state groups such as Isis or al-Qaida.
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, April 9, 2019. REUTERS/Chris Wattie
OTTAWA (Reuters) - When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took office in late 2015, he was a political golden boy who seemed destined to build on the legend of his father, who led the country for more than 15 years.
But six months ahead of an October election, polls suggest the 47-year-old politician with the broad smile and a penchant for colorful socks could become the first prime minister to lose power after a single majority mandate since the 1930s.
Trudeau is mired in a relentless scandal over alleged interference in a corporate corruption case that has led to the resignations of two Cabinet members, his top advisor and the head of the federal civil service.
The ruling Liberals have lost 6 percentage points since the start of the year, ceding the lead to the rival Conservatives, according to a Nanos Research poll published on Tuesday.
If an election were held now, the Conservatives would win 34.9 percent of the vote, the Liberals 32.8 percent and the left-leaning New Democratic Party 16.6 percent. The poll suggests the result would be deadlock or a fragile minority government. Read more ....
WNU Editor: I live in Canada and I follow these things very closely. The polling company that is quoted above has IMHO always given results that favour the Liberals. I think the spread is a few points more. This does not mean that Prime Minister Trudeau is going to lose in the next election. The election is still 6 months away, and anything can happen. But being accused of interfering in a criminal case to help a company with ties to his political party, and the expulsion of two key cabinet ministers because they have lost confidence in his leadership, has hurt him. But what my really hurt him is the economy. It is starting to slow down, and that may in the end be his biggest Achilles Heel.
The Afghan man was later determined to have fallen in with a group of civilians in the chaos after the explosion, a U.S. military official told NBC News.
A civilian working for the U.S. military was found alive after he was reported to have been killed by a car bomb in Afghanistan, an American military official told NBC News on Tuesday.
The unidentified Afghan man was wounded in an attack that killed three U.S. service members outside the Bagram Airfield 25 miles north of Kabul.
The victim was riding in the military vehicle with at least four American servicemembers when the roadside bomb detonated, the official said. Coalition forces released a statement on Monday saying the man was killed in the attack.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party finished second with 33 seats, according to Channel 12. Blue and White takes 37.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz each declared that they won Tuesday's election after inconclusive exit polls were broadcast on the three Israeli networks.
Netanyahu claimed victory, because his Right-Center bloc won handily over Gantz's Center-Left bloc in polls broadcast on Channel 13 and KAN, 66 to 54 and 64 to 56, respectively. In Channel 12's poll, the blocs were even at 60 seats.
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela removed eight tonnes of gold from the central bank's vaults last week, and the cash-strapped socialist state is expected to sell the bullion abroad as it seeks to raise hard currency in the face of U.S. sanctions, a lawmaker and one government source said.
With sanctions imposed by Washington choking off revenues from exports by state oil company PDVSA, President Nicolas Maduro's increasingly isolated administration has turned to sales of Venezuela's substantial gold reserves as one of the only sources of foreign currency.
The government source said the Central Bank's reserves had fallen by 30 tonnes since the start of the year before U.S. President Donald Trump tightened sanctions, leaving the bank with around 100 tonnes in its vaults, worth more than $4 billion.
WNU Editor: I am willing to bet that this gold is either going to Russia or China, and it is to pay off debts and the support that both countries have given to the Maduro regime.
Eastern-based warlord Khalifa Haftar struck Tripoli's only functioning international airport on Monday, drawing a rebuke from the United Nations and escalating an advance on the capital that threatens to spark civil war and convulse oil markets.
Mitiga International Airport, Libya's largest, temporarily suspended flights after the airstrike, which the UN's secretary-general, Antonio Gutteres, condemned. In a statement, Gutteres urged an immediate halt to hostilities ``to prevent an all-out conflict.'' Ahmed al-Mismari, spokesman for Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army, said his forces were targeting two military aircraft and were not intending to disrupt passenger traffic.
British Prime Minister Theresa May met the leaders of Germany and France on Tuesday in a last-gasp bid to keep her country from crashing out of the European Union later this week without a deal.
May's huddles with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin and French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris come on the eve of another tension-packed summit in Brussels focused on the fate of the 46-year-old partnership.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to galvanize supporters into voting in Israel's parliamentary election by playing up the prospects of his strongest rival, an ex-general who has pledged clean government, to deny him a fifth term.
Netanyahu, in power consecutively since 2009 after a first term from 1996 to 1999, is fighting for his political survival. He faces possible indictment in three corruption cases in which the right-wing leader has denied any wrongdoing.
Final opinion polls on Friday showed Netanyahu, who heads the Likud party, falling behind his main rival, former military chief Benny Gantz of the Blue and White faction, but with an easier path to form a government.
* Roughly 6.3 million Israeli voters are expected to cast their ballots today in an election that will have major implications for both Israelis and Palestinians. * Incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces his toughest challenge yet after months of being dogged by corruption and bribery allegations. * Top opposition candidate Benny Gantz, a former army general, leads a center-left coalition but is currently trailing in close polls.
Roughly 6.3 million Israelis are expected to cast their ballots today in an election that will have serious implications for the legacy of incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for Palestinians, and for Israel's relationship with the rest of the Middle East.
Netanyahu faces his toughest challenge yet after months of being dogged by corruption and bribery allegations. His top competitor Benny Gantz, a former army general, who leads a center-left coalition. If Netanyahu wins — and polls are currently giving him a lead, though it remains close — the 69-year-old will become the longest-serving prime minister in the country's history.
Russia and Turkey have closely coordinated moves on Syria, where they struck a deal last year to create a security zone in the northern province of Idlib.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has welcomed his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Moscow. The two leaders discussed the sale of advanced Russian missiles to Turkey that has riled the United States.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip on Monday arrived in Russia for his third visit this year, highlighting the increasingly close cooperation between the two countries and Turkey's willingness to defy the United States.
Senior leaders from Japan's Ministry of Defense, US Forces Japan, Pacific Air Forces, and Lockheed Martin at a Japan Air Self-Defense Force hangar to welcome the first operational F-35A Lightning II to JASDF's 3rd Air Wing, at Misawa Air Base, Japan, February 24, 2018. US Air Force/Tech. Sgt. Benjamin W. Stratton
Japan's first operational F-35 squadron was stood up just days ago at Misawa Air Base, the same base the F-35 in question supposedly launched from.
Details remain extremely limited at this time, but there are reports from Japanese media outlets stating that one of the Japan Air Self Defense Force's F-35As has gone missing during an evening training mission off Northern Japan. A search effort is supposedly now underway.
Reports state that the F-35 went missing at around 7:30pm local time on the 9th of April, 2019. The aircraft had taken off from Misawa Air Base and was around 85 miles east of that location, over the Pacific Ocean, when it disappeared from Japan's tracking systems.
SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Monday he is working with the U.S. government to sow dissent within the Venezuelan Army.
Bolsonaro, during an interview with Jovem Pan radio, said that if there is a military invasion in Venezuela, he would ask seek the counsel of Brazil's National Defense Council and Congress on what, if any, action his country should take.
"We cannot allow Venezuela to become a new Cuba or North Korea," the right-wing president said.
INDIA will take to the polls tomorrow for the first in seven phases of voting in the largest democratic exercise in history. But what time do the polls open?
PAKISTAN'S Prime Minister Imran Khan issued a dire warning to his neighbouring country as he branded India's attack on his "nuclear-armed" country as "irresponsible" and warned Pakistan "would have no choice" but to strike back in the future.
ISRAEL ELECTION results are slowly trickling in, in a tight race as Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party and Benny Gantz's Blue and White party went head-to-head in a bid to form a new government. Who won the Israeli election last night and is Mr Netanyahu still the Prime Minister?
INDIA'S 2019 election is being held across seven phases between April 11 to May 19. But can you vote in India's election as an expat? How can you vote online?
VENEZUELAN capital Caracas was plunged into darkness on Tuesday night during the country's latest planned electricity blackout, as dictator Nicolas Maduro desperately maintains his grip on power.
INDIAN prime minister Narendra Modi has been compared to divisive politician Donald Trump as he bids for another term as leader in the upcoming India elections.
THE US attorney general has assembled a team to review controversial decisions made during the probe into Donald Trump following the release of the Mueller report last month.
Fewer people faced death penalty executions worldwide in 2018 than at any point in the past decade, according to a new report by advocacy group Amnesty International.
Across 20 countries, at least 690 executions were known to have taken place last year, a 31% decrease from the 993 recorded in 2017, the annual report released Wednesday said. The drop is mainly due to an amendment of Iran’s drug laws, which saw executions reduced by 50%, from 507 in 2017 to 253 in 2018.
Iraq, Pakistan and Somalia also carried out fewer executions.
“This is a hopeful indication that it’s only a matter of time before this cruel punishment is consigned to history, where it belongs,” Kumi Naidoo, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, said in a statement.
Even factoring in the decrease however, Iran is still one of the world’s leading executioners. According to Amnesty, more than half of the known executions were carried out in Iran and Saudi Arabia. China, where the numbers are classified but estimates suggest thousands of people are put to death each year, is believed to be the world’s top executioner.
Despite the overall decline, several countries increased their use of capital punishment in 2018, including Belarus, Japan, Singapore, South Sudan and the United States. Japan and Singapore both reported their highest number of executions in a decade. In the U.S., the number grew marginally for the second consecutive year, to 25 in 2018.
“The positive news of 2018 has been marred by a small number of states who are shamefully determined to buck the trend,” Naidoo said.
Thailand re-introduced executions after not putting anyone to death since 2009, and Sri Lanka threatened to emulate the Philippines by using capital punishment to fight drug use and narcotics trafficking.
Vietnam, for which figures are normally not obtainable, was found in 2018 to be one of the world’s top executioners, with 85 death penalties implemented.
But globally, abolition of the death penalty appears to be gaining traction. Burkina Faso eliminated the death penalty, while Gambia and Malaysia both declared moratoriums.
In December last year, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution with the support of 121 member states supporting a global moratorium on the punishment.
“The increased support for the 2018 resolution constitutes a further indication that a global consensus is building to consign the death penalty to the history books,” Amnesty’s report reads.
(UNITED NATIONS) — The U.N. refugee chief said Tuesday he has never seen “such toxicity, such poison” in politics, the media, social media and every day conversation focused on refugees, migrants and foreigners.
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said the March 15 attack on a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand that killed 50 Muslim worshippers was the result “of that toxic language of politics.”
Grandi urged countries everywhere to take “a leaf from the exemplary response of the people and the leadership of New Zealand” in responding to the “toxic trends” by restating the values that underpin global solidarity and “reaffirm that our societies will not be really prosperous, stable and peaceful if they do not include all.”
An Australian white supremacist, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, who has been charged with the mosque killings which included many immigrants, livestreamed the shootings and sent out a lengthy manifesto. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said the world has been stuck in a vicious cycle of extremism which must end, and she will never utter his name and give his views the oxygen he wanted.
Grandi told the Security Council “there is unprecedented stigmatization of refugees and migrants,” and responses are increasingly inadequate.
He said he has worked with refugees for over three decades and has seen “much solidarity, even heroism in some of the responses that are provided on the ground” to help them.
And “that solidarity is still very strong” in many parts of the world, from African villages to the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar, to communities in Latin American helping Venezuelans, Grandi said.
“But also in these 3 1/2 decades I have never seen such toxicity, such poison in the language of politics, in media, in social media, even in everyday discussions and conversations around this issue — toxicity that focuses sadly, tragically, often, on refugees, on migrants, on foreigners,” he said. “That should be of concern to us all.”
Grandi added that “many politicians believe that — and I think they are proven right — that doing this expands their consensus.”
But he said this is wrong and unfair to people “that are fleeing because they seek safety from war, from persecution.”
He said the mosque attacks in New Zealand showed this has become an issue of security and stability for all countries — and governments need to address the issue of language on social media and in politics.
“It is an issue if left unchecked may have very grave consequences, not only for our work but for the world in general,” Grandi warned.
Airbnb has backpedaled on its plan to delist rentals in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, announcing Tuesday that it will instead donate proceeds from such bookings to humanitarian organizations, according to Reuters.
Last November, the vacations rentals giant courted controversy with a decision to remove about 200 properties in the contested territory as critics questioned the ethics of doing business in an area at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict. But the company’s delisting move prompted legal action and backlash from hosts and potential hosts in the U.S. and Israel.
Airbnb says that it has settled all lawsuits related to the issue, and under the settlement terms, will not be moving forward with the delisting of properties.
“We understand the complexity of the issue that was addressed in our previous policy announcement, and we will continue to allow listings throughout all of the West Bank,” the company said in a statement.
“Airbnb will take no profits from this activity in the region,” it added, saying that money from the listings will be donated to non-profit organizations that help people across the world.
Israeli and Palestinian officials did not offer an immediate reaction to the announcement, but Airbnb’s shift comes just days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to extend Israeli control over parts of the occupied West Bank if re-elected.
There are approximately 600,000 Israelis living in the West Bank, but settlement activities have intensified in recent months. The U.N., which calls the settlements a “flagrant violation” of international law and “a presumptive war crime,” released a statement recently laying out fears that the increased activity is paving the way for Israeli annexation of the West Bank.
Airbnb and other tourism companies like Booking.com, Expedia and TripAdvisor have faced harsh criticism from rights groups for operating in the region.
“They are doing so despite knowing that Israel’s settlements are illegal under international law, and a war crime,” Amnesty International said in a statement.
The West Bank is the subject of a decades long conflict between Israel and Palestine, with both sides making historical claims to the territory. Israel took control the area from Jordan in 1967, and has returned only parts of it to direct Palestinian administration.
(JERUSALEM) — Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to be headed toward a historic fifth term as Israel’s prime minister on Wednesday, with close-to-complete unofficial election results giving his right-wing Likud and other nationalist and religious parties a solid majority in parliament.
The outcome affirmed Israel’s continued tilt to the right and further dimmed hopes of a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Re-election will also give Netanyahu an important boost as he braces for the likelihood of criminal charges in a series of corruption scandals.
With 97.4% of the vote counted, Likud and its traditional political allies were in command of a 65-55 majority in parliament. A couple of small parties were still teetering along the electoral threshold and fighting for their survival, so the final makeup of the next parliament has yet to be decided. Final results were expected Thursday.
Two of his potential allies, hawkish former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman and economic-centric Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, have yet to formally confirm they would sit with Netanyahu and could emerge as wildcards. In any case, the country now faces what could be weeks of political negotiations over the composition of a ruling coalition.
But under nearly every scenario, Netanyahu was the big winner.
The long-time Israeli leader had fought a tight, ugly race against centrist ex-military chief Benny Gantz, whose nascent Blue and White party emerged as a viable alternative to Netanyahu’s decade in power. The near-final results showed it deadlocked with Likud at 35 seats. But most of its support seems to have come at the expense of the venerable Labor and leftist Meretz parties, who both earned historic lows in Tuesday’s election.
Together with his current Jewish ultra-Orthodox and nationalist partners, Netanyahu seemed to have a clear path toward building a coalition government that has a majority in the 120-seat parliament.
With a victory, Netanyahu would capture a fourth consecutive term and fifth overall, which this summer will make him Israel’s longest-ever serving leader, surpassing founding father David Ben-Gurion.
“It’s a night of tremendous victory,” Netanyahu told supporters early Wednesday. “I was very moved that the nation of Israel once again entrusted me for the fifth time, and with an even greater trust.”
He said he had already begun talking to fellow right wing and religious parties about forming a new coalition.
“I want to make it clear, it will be a right-wing government, but I intend to be the prime minister of all Israeli citizens, right or left, Jews and non-Jews alike,” he said.
Netanyahu’s message of unity was a sharp contrast from his campaign theme in which he accused Gantz of conspiring with Arab parties to topple him. Arab leaders accused Netanyahu of demonizing the country’s Arab community, which is about 20 percent of the population.
His attacks on the Arab sector fueled calls for a boycott and appeared to result in relatively low turnout by Arab voters.
Overnight, with fewer of the votes counted, Blue and White still appeared to be ahead by one seat and Gantz projected optimism that he would be tasked with building a coalition. But by morning, he seemed to have realized his dream of becoming prime minister was lost, even if he didn’t formally concede defeat.
“Though the skies appear gloomy, nothing is final. There could be changes and some political options could open up,” he wrote to his supporters. “Our voters asked for hope and we gave it to them. They wanted a different way and we outlined it.”
Though the Palestinian issue was rarely mentioned in the raucous campaign, Netanyahu had in the final stretch pledged for the first time to annex parts of the occupied West Bank in a desperate bid to rally his right-wing base. Netanyahu has welched on election eve promises before, but should he follow through on this one, it would mark a dramatic development and potentially wipe out the already diminishing hope for Palestinian statehood.
An aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the outcome of the election raised Palestinian fears about an Israeli annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank. Ahmed Majdalani said Palestinians will seek the help of the international community to try to block any such plans. He said that the outcome of the election means a boost for what he called the “extreme right-wing camp” in Israeli politics.
Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian official, said Israel chose to entrench “the status quo of oppression, occupation, annexation and dispossession.”
The 69-year-old Netanyahu has been the dominant force in Israeli politics for the past two decades and its face to the world. His campaign has focused heavily on his friendship with President Donald Trump and his success in cultivating new allies, such as China, India and Brazil.
But his corruption scandals created some voter fatigue. Along with two other former military chiefs on his ticket, Gantz was able to challenge Netanyahu on security issues, normally the prime minister’s strong suit, while also taking aim at the prime minister’s alleged ethical lapses.
Israel’s attorney general has recommended charging Netanyahu with bribery, breach of trust and fraud in three cases and a potential fourth case emerged during the campaign. He will only decide on indicting Netanyahu after a legally mandated hearing. Legal experts expect at least some charges to be filed, which could set the stage for a short term in office for Netanyahu and another round of elections soon.
“This is a clear beginning of Netanyahu’s fifth term, but his fifth term might end up being his shortest one”, says Reuven Hazan, a political scientist from Jerusalem’s Hebrew University. “In another year, we might be in a battle for either leadership of the Likud or another election.”
Pieces from the wreckage a Japanese fighter jet that crashed into the Pacific Ocean Tuesday have been found, Japan’s Self-Defense Force confirmed a day after the incident.
Officials said the relatively new F-35A was on a training mission with three other jets of the same model when contact was lost, according to Japan’s national broadcaster NHK.
Japanese Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya said the jet, which flew from the Misawa Air Base in Aomori Prefecture, lost radar contact just before 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. The plane was around 85 miles east of the coast. Just before the crash, the pilot contacted the other jets in an attempt to cancel the mission, according to officials.
Patrol aircrafts and ships were deployed to search for the missing F-35A after the disappearance. On Wednesday, search teams recovered debris from the jet, including parts of the tail, but Japanese and U.S. forces are continuing to look for the missing pilot.
The F-35 was developed by the U.S. and eight other countries. According to NHK, the jet’s stealth capabilities make it particularly difficult to detect.
Officials said there was no known problem with the aircraft before contact was lost, but the 12 other F-35As have been grounded at the Misawa Air Base in the wake of the crash.
The incident is not the first time an F-35 has crashed. Last September, a F-35B, the Marine Corps version of the aircraft, downed near Beaufort, South Carolina, forcing the pilot to eject from the cockpit. In 2014, the U.S. Department of Defense grounded the entire fleet of F-35 jets after a fire broke out at a Florida air base.
With a price tag of $90 to $115 million per aircraft, the single-seater F-35 fighter jet has been dubbed the single most expensive weapons system ever built.
NEW DELHI (AP) — The Dalai Lama has been hospitalized in the Indian capital with a chest infection and is feeling better, his spokesman said Wednesday.
The 83-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader is under medication and likely to spend a day or two in the hospital, spokesman Tenzin Taklha said.
The Dalai Lama flew from Dharmsala for consultations with doctors in the capital and was hospitalized on Tuesday. The north Indian hill town has been his headquarters since he fled Tibet in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
Takhla said the Dalai Lama was feeling much better now but has already cut down on travel in the past year as he has to take care of his health.
He usually spends several months a year traveling the world to teach Buddhism and highlight the Tibetans’ struggle for greater freedom in China.
“Long-distance travelling is tiresome. Generally, he is in very good health. But he is taking precautions,” he told The Associated Press.
The Dalai Lama addressed a conference of educators and students in New Delhi last week.
Answering a question related to Tibet’s future with China, he reiterated that he is not seeking independence for Tibet, but would prefer a “reunion” with China under mutually acceptable terms.
(TOKYO) — Japan partially lifted an evacuation order in one of the two hometowns of the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant on Wednesday for the first time since the 2011 disaster.
Decontamination efforts have lowered radiation levels significantly in the area about 7 kilometers (4 miles) southwest of the plant where three reactors had meltdowns due to the damage caused by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
The action allows people to return to about 40 percent of Okuma. The other hometown, Futaba, remains off-limits, as are several other towns nearby.
Many former residents are reluctant to return as the complicated process to safely decommission the plant continues. Opponents of lifting the evacuation orders in long-abandoned communities say the government is promoting residents’ return to showcase safety ahead of the Tokyo Olympics next summer.
The government has pushed for an aggressive decontamination program by removing topsoil, chopping trees and washing down houses and roads in contaminated areas, though experts say the effort only caused the contamination to move from one place to another, creating massive amounts of radioactive waste and the need for its long-term storage.
The meltdowns at three of Fukushima Dai-ichi’s six reactors caused massive radiation leaks that contaminated the plant’s surroundings, forcing at its peak some 160,000 people to evacuate their homes for areas elsewhere in Fukushima or outside the prefecture.
Evacuation orders in most of the initial no-go zones have been lifted, but restrictions are still in place in several towns closest to the plant and to its northwest, which were contaminated by radioactive plumes from the plant soon after its meltdowns. More than 40,000 people were still unable to return home as of March, including Okuma’s population of 10,000.
Town officials say the lifting of the evacuation order in the two districts would encourage the area’s recovery.
Many people are reluctant to return home because of lingering concerns about radiation, and they have adapted to new jobs and homes after more than eight years away.
Only 367 people, or less than 4 percent of Okuma’s population, registered as residents in the two districts where the order was lifted. A survey last year found only 12.5 percent of former residents wanted to return to their hometown. The government hopes to allow some of Futaba’s 5,980 residents to return next year.
Okuma is also home to a temporary storage facility for the radioactive waste that came out of the decontamination efforts across Fukushima. A much delayed facility is still underway.
Fukushima plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., and government officials plan to start removing the melted fuel in 2021 from one of the three melted reactors, but still know little about its condition inside and have not finalized waste management plans.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to be headed toward re-election early Wednesday, as exit polls and partial results showed him surging ahead of his main competitor in a tight race that was seen as a referendum on the long-serving leader.
Both Netanyahu and former military chief Benny Gantz, leader of the rival Blue and White party, declared victory in speeches to boisterous gatherings of supporters. But as the night went on, there were growing signs that Netanyahu’s Likud was pulling ahead.
With a victory, Netanyahu would capture a fourth consecutive term and fifth overall, which this summer will make him Israel’s longest-ever serving leader. Perhaps more crucially, re-election will give him an important boost as he braces for the likelihood of criminal charges in a series of corruption scandals.
The 69-year-old prime minister has been the dominant force in Israeli politics for the past two decades and its face to the world. His campaign has focused heavily on his friendship with President Donald Trump and his success in cultivating new allies, such as China, India and Brazil.
But the corruption scandals created some voter fatigue. Along with two other former military chiefs on his ticket, Gantz was able to challenge Netanyahu on security issues, normally the prime minister’s strong suit, while also taking aim at the prime minister’s alleged ethical lapses.
Israel’s attorney general has recommended charging Netanyahu with bribery, breach of trust and fraud. The telegenic Gantz, who has been vague on key policy fronts, has presented himself as a clean, scandal-free alternative to Netanyahu.
Initial exit poll results by Israel’s main TV stations showed the two parties far ahead of all of the other competitors in the race and indicated that Blue and White would emerge as the largest party.
“Elections have losers and elections have winners. And we are the winners,” Gantz told a victory rally shortly after midnight.
He vowed to change the tone of Israel’s divisive political system and “be the prime minister of everyone, not just the ones who voted for me.”
But as results trickled in throughout the night, the Likud appeared to be gaining strength. Two stations projected Likud to win 35 seats in parliament, compared to 34 for Blue and White. With about 60 percent of the votes counted, Likud held a narrow lead.
Though both parties were well short of a majority in the 120-seat parliament, the polls showed Likud and its religious and nationalist allies controlling a solid majority.
“It’s a night of tremendous victory,” Netanyahu told his own victory rally. “I was very moved that the nation of Israel once again entrusted me for the fifth time, and with an even greater trust.”
He said he had already begun talking to fellow right wing and religious parties about forming a new coalition.
“I want to make it clear, it will be a right-wing government, but I intend to be the prime minister of all Israeli citizens, right or left, Jews and non-Jews alike,” he said.
The message was a sharp contrast from his campaign theme in which he accused Gantz of conspiring with Arab parties to topple him. Arab leaders accused Netanyahu of demonizing the country’s Arab community, which makes up about 20 percent of the population.
His attacks on the Arab sector fueled calls for a boycott, and appeared to result in relatively low turnout by Arab voters. Israel’s central elections commission banned parties from bringing cameras into polling stations after Likud party activists were caught with hidden cameras in Arab towns.
The final results were still subject to change. Some 40 parties took part in the election, and only those that receive at least 3.25% of the votes make it into parliament.
The final results will depend on the performance of several small parties, including the Arab Balad party and the ultranationalist “New Right,” that were on the cusp of entering parliament. If any of them fail to cross the threshold, the makeup of the next coalition could be dramatically affected.
Yohanan Plesner, a former lawmaker and head of the nonpartisan Israel Democracy Institute, called the close and conflicting exit polls “an unprecedented situation.”
“We’ve had elections before where he didn’t know the results but here it is even messier,” he said.
Once the final results come in, attention will turn to President Reuven Rivlin. The president, whose responsibilities are mostly ceremonial, is charged with choosing a prime minister after consulting with party leaders and determining who has the best chance of putting together a majority coalition. That responsibility is usually given to the head of the largest party.
The election included several other surprises. Exit polls all projected the iconic Labor party, which ruled the country for its first 30 years, tumbling to single digits in the parliament.
Zehut, an iconoclastic party that combined an ultranationalist ideology with libertarian economic positions and calls for the legalization of marijuana, had appeared poised to emerge as the Cinderella story of the election. But the exit polls showed it falling short and not entering parliament.
If Netanyahu is re-elected, attention will quickly focus on his legal woes. The attorney general has recommended a series of criminal charges against the prime minister, but will only make a decision on indicting him after a legally mandated hearing. Legal experts expect at least some charges to be filed.
Netanyahu will likely focus his efforts on getting guarantees from his coalition partners to continue to back him if he is indicted, and perhaps find a way to grant him immunity from prosecution.
Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing and claimed he is the victim of a witch hunt.
In order to appeal to his religious and ultranationalist parties, Netanyahu veered sharply right on the campaign trail with attacks on Arab politicians, the media and the judiciary. He also pledged to annex West Bank settlements, a step that could snuff out any remaining hopes for a two-state solution with the Palestinians.
Palestinian official Saeb Erekat lamented that the Israelis voted to maintain “the status quo.”
“They want their occupation to be endless,” he said.
A 24-year-old cyber criminal, who blackmailed computer users worldwide has been jailed for six years for his role with what U.K. investigators described as one of most sophisticated cyber crime groups they have ever investigated.
An investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA), the UK’s agency to stop serious organized crime, found that Zain Qaiser, was member of an international, Russian-speaking crime group that made huge profits from victims in more than 20 countries. Qaiser, a computer science student from London, received at least $900,00 from the group for his role.
The crime agency worked with its partners in the US, Canada and Europe in this “extremely long-running, complex cyber-crime investigation.” The F.B.I. and the U.S. Secret Service also arrested people in relation to the campaign. Nigel Leary, NCA Senior Investigating Officer, said: “This was one of the most sophisticated, serious and organized cyber crime groups the National Crime Agency has ever investigated.”
Under the guise of fake identities and made-up companies, Qaiser managed to buy huge amounts of advertising traffic from pornographic websites. Users who clicked on his ads became targets for the malware. They were redirected to another website, containing highly-sophisticated malware strains including the infamous Angler Exploit Kit (AEK) – thought to have been created by one of Qaiser’s Russian-speaking associates.
One type of malware used, called ‘reveton’ would lock a user’s browser. Once locked, the infected device would display a message pretending to be from law enforcement or a government agency, which claimed an offense had been committed and the victim had to pay a fine of between $300-$1,000 to unlock their device. The message hit millions of computers worldwide.
Qaiser also blackmailed users through virtual and crypto-currency money laundering. Some online ad agencies that sold Qaiser the advertising traffic realized what he was doing and tried to stop him. But Qaiser then blackmailed them, telling one company director: “I’ll first kill your server, then send child porn spam abuses.” The companies lost at least £500,000 in revenue losses and mitigation costs.
Browser locking software displaying a message telling users criminal proceedings would begin unless they paid a fee
The student’s work is believed to have started in September 2012 when he was 17 years-old and lasted until he was put in custody in December 2018. The NCA found that he spent the money on gambling, luxury hotels and a Rolex watch.
Leary said this investigation shows that cyber-criminals can’t “operate from behind a veil of anonymity.” The NCA has the “tenacity and specialist skills to catch them and bring them to justice.”
(KABUL, Afghanistan) — U.S. forces in Afghanistan revised on Tuesday the death toll from a Taliban attack the previous day near the main American base in the country, saying three service members were killed but not a contractor who was initially reported among the fatalities.
The U.S. and NATO Resolute Support mission issued a statement “to clarify initial reporting” about Monday’s roadside bombing of an American convoy near the main U.S. base. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Pentagon said later that all three service members killed were Marines.
The mission said a roadside bomb hit the convoy near the Bagram Airfield, killing three American service members, and said “the contractor who was reported as killed, is alive.”
The statement said “the contractor, an Afghan citizen, was initially treated along with other injured civilians, later identified as a contractor and treated at Bagram Airfield.”
Three other U.S. service members were also wounded in the attack. The base in Bagram district is located in northern Parwan province and serves as the main U.S. air facility in the country.
The wounded were evacuated and are receiving medical care, the statement said.
Christopher Slutman, a 15-year New York City fire department member, was among the three Marines killed. He leaves behind his wife, Shannon, and three daughters.
“Firefighter Slutman bravely wore two uniforms and committed his life to public service both as a New York City firefighter and as a member of the United States Marine Corps,” Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said in a written statement.
The Pentagon identified the two other Marines killed as Cpl. Robert A. Hendriks, 25, of Locust Valley, New York, and Sgt. Benjamin S. Hines, 31, of York, Pennsylvania.
In their claim of responsibility, the Taliban said they launched the attack and that one of their suicide bombers detonated his explosives-laden vehicle near the NATO base. The conflicting accounts could not be immediately reconciled.
On Tuesday, local Afghan officials said at least five Afghan civilians were wounded in the commotion after the attack on the American convoy.
Four were passersby and the fifth was a driver of a car going down the road, said Abdul Raqib Kohistani, the Bagram district police chief. Abdul Shakor Qudosi, the district administrative chief in Bagram, said American soldiers opened fire immediately after their convoy was bombed.
Monday’s U.S. fatalities bring to seven the number of U.S. soldiers killed so far this year in Afghanistan, underscoring the difficulties in bringing peace to the war-wrecked country even as Washington has stepped up efforts to find a way to end the 17-year war, America’s longest.
There are about 14,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan, supporting embattled Afghan forces as they struggle on two fronts — facing a resurgent Taliban who now hold sway over almost half the country and also the Islamic State affiliate, which has sought to expand its footprint in Afghanistan even as its self-proclaimed “caliphate” has crumbled in Syria and Iraq.
Last year, 13 U.S. service members were killed in Afghanistan.
The Taliban have continued to carry out daily attacks on Afghan security forces despite holding several rounds of peace talks with the United States in recent months. The Taliban have refused to meet with the Afghan government, which they view as a U.S. puppet.
Meanwhile, the Taliban have agreed to take part in an all-Afghan gathering later this month in Qatar, where the insurgents maintain a political office. But the Taliban say they will not recognize any government official attending the gathering as a representative of the Kabul government, only as an individual Afghan participant.
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