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High school students discover rare pulsar couple
From The Times of India

A team of high school students has detected a rare pulsar with the largest orbit ever.

This pulsar, which is officially dubbed PSR J1930-1852 was discovered by Cecilia McGough, who was a student at Strasburg High School in Virginia, and De'Shang Ray, who was a student at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Baltimore, Maryland.

The discovery took place when the two students were participating in a summer workshop known as the Pulsar Search Collaboratory workshop in 2012. Funded by the National Science Foundation's outreach program it allows interested and curious high school students to analyze pulsar survey facts and figures gathered by the Green Bank Telescope or GBT.

Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars, the superdense remains of massive stars that have exploded as supernovas. As a pulsar spins, lighthouse-like beams of radio waves, streaming from the poles of its powerful magnetic field, sweep through space. When one of these beams sweeps across the Earth, radio telescopes can capture the pulse of radio waves.

The 100-meter Green Bank Telescope is the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope. Its location in the National Radio Quiet Zone protects the incredibly sensitive telescope from unwanted radio interference, enabling it to perform unique observations.

About 10 percent of known pulsars are in binary systems; the vast majority of these are found orbiting ancient white dwarf companion stars. Only a rare few orbit other neutron stars or main sequence stars like our Sun. Students often spend weeks and months poring over data plots, searching for the unique signature that identifies a pulsar. Those who identify strong pulsar candidates are invited to Green Bank to work with astronomers to confirm their discovery.

The orbital path of J1930-1852 spans about 52 million kilometers, roughly the distance between Mercury and the Sun and it orbits its companion once every 45 days. "Its orbit is more than twice as large as that of any previously known double neutron star system," said Swiggum. "The pulsar's parameters give us valuable clues about how a system like this could have formed. Discoveries of outlier systems like J1930-1852 give us a clearer picture of the full range of possibilities in binary evolution."

"This experience taught me that you do not have to be an 'Einstein' to be good at science," said McGough, who is now a Schreyer Honors College scholar at Penn State University in State College majoring in astronomy and astrophysics and physics. "What you have to be is focused, passionate, and dedicated to your work."

"As we look up into the sky and study the universe, we try to understand what's out there," said Ray, currently a student at the Community College of Baltimore County studying biology, engineering, and emergency medical services.

"This experience has helped me to explore, to imagine, and to dream what could be and what we haven't seen."

[May the Fourth be with you: Vanity Fair releases cover showing new star John Boyega with Harrison Ford, Daisy Ridley and Peter Mayhew]

Star Wars Day: The Force Awakens set shot by Annie Leibovitz
From The Telegraph

May the Fourth be with you: Vanity Fair releases cover showing new star John Boyega with Harrison Ford, Daisy Ridley and Peter Mayhew

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRwuD68NHoI

The latest blockbuster in the franchise won't be released until Christmas, but Star Wars fans have been given an early present to celebrate another crucial date in their calendar.

To mark Star Wars Day, an anniversary built around the pun "May the Fourth be with you", a video from the set of the eagerly-anticipated new film has been released.

The video shows Annie Leibovitz, the photographer, shooting cast members of the new film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, for the cover of Vanity Fair magazine. On the set, she photographed Adam Driver, Gwendoline Christie and Lupita Nyong'o.

The magazine has also released the cover which shows new "heroes" alongside old, featuring Harrison Ford as Han Solo, Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca, Daisy Ridley as Rey and John Boyega as Finn.

Boyega, 23, who is playing a lead role in the new film, grew up on a council estate in Peckham, south London, across the road from the estate where Damilola Taylor was stabbed in 2000.

The preview reveals glimpses of the film that will tantalise fans and stoke rumours in the build-up to its release.

In one such teasing exchange, JJ Abrams, the director, said that he had thought about killing off controversial character Jar Jar Binks. "I have a thought about putting Jar Jar Binks's bones in the desert there," he said. "I'm serious! Only three people will notice, but they'll love it."

Abrams also disclosed that the film would feature some "old-school" effects, such as a puppet popping out of the desert, which he decided against remastering with digital effects.

"We just buried it in the sand, and Neal Scanlan, the creature guy, pushed down on one side and the thing came up on the other side," he said. "It's so old-school and crazy. We could improve this thing, but at some point do we lose the wonderful preposterousness?"

Abrams said he was pleased with Ford's performance. "[He was] excited to get back in those shoes again, which was really interesting because I thought he hadn't been a fan. I kept hearing those rumours when I was a kid," he said. "There was a fire in his eyes that you see in the movie."

Some crew members cried when they walked on to the Millennium Falcon set, he added. "It’s a strange thing, the effect it has," he said.

The new film will be released in December.

[The third earthquake in a month hit the Los Angeles region early on Sunday morning.]

Minor earthquake hits Los Angeles region on Sunday morning
From State Column

The third earthquake in a month hit the Los Angeles region early on Sunday morning.

A magnitude 3.8 earthquake shook the Los Angeles area early Sunday morning, rattling many residents awake right before dawn, but officials reported no injuries or damage as a result. The earthquake, which struck at 4am local time was centered in the Baldwin Hills neighborhood, about 7 miles southwest of downtown LA.

The United States Geological Survey reported that residents could feel light or weak shaking as far as 100 miles to the northwest in the town of Maricopa. The quake’s initial magnitude measured 3.9, but it was slightly downgraded shortly after.

According to Reuters, the Los Angeles Fire Department announced the region was safe after its 106 fire stations conducted a 470 square mile damage assessment. Many people took to social media to describe their experience in the earthquake, describing feeling a sudden jolt followed by a gentle rocking sensation.

Sunday morning’s quake was the third to measure greater than 3.0 this year, and occurs along a northern stretch of the Newport-Inglewood seismic fault zone. A quake measuring 3.3 and another measuring 3.4 hit the same area on April 13 and April 30, respectively.

According to the Southern California Seismic Network, such earthquakes are common in the seismically active region and are typically to weak to cause enough ground motion to damage property. Lucy Jones, a USGS seismologist, tweeted that “little earthquakes happen all the time, and we can’t find significant patterns.”

The LA quake follows a stronger 4.2 earthquake that occurred in the middle of the day on Saturday near Kalamazoo, Michgan. The Michigan quake produced weak shaking that residents could feel as far as Detroit, Toledo, Ohio, and South Bend Indiana.

Like the earthquake in Los Angeles, no property damage or injuries were reported as a result of seismic activity in the Midwest.

Royal Baby: Kate and William ‘have chosen princess’ name’ but have yet to reveal to the world
From Independent

Prince William and Kate Middleton are believed to have chosen a name for the new addition to their family. The royal couple welcomed a daughter on Saturday, a sibling for 21-month-old son George.

While the princess made her public debut as her parents left the Lindo Wing of London’s St Mary’s Hospital, her name is still to be revealed. However a source has revealed to the Mail Online that William and Kate have named their new arrival, and will reveal it on Monday after they have spoken with the Queen.

“The Queen and her grandson have grown exceptionally close in recent years and he trusts her judgement implicitly,” the insider said.

“Indeed, William is far more likely to turn to her than even his father, as he did when he was unhappy about the guest list that had been forced upon him for his wedding. She told him to rip it up and start again with the people he actually wanted there.

“She is rather indulgent of her grandson like that and wants him to enjoy family life as much as he can before he becomes immersed in the formalities of royal life. It is understandable that William would want to see her in person.”

While there is no protocol stating that the monarch should be consulted about the name of a newborn, William reportedly feels it would be wrong to tell the public before his own grandmother.

The Queen and Prince Philip are currently residing at Wood Farm, in Norfolk, England and are expected to meet their great-granddaughter at William and Catherine’s Anmer Hall home on the Royal Family’s Sandringham estate.

Bookmakers have got the names Alice and Charlotte as favourites, with Victoria and Elizabeth close behind.

NYPD officer shot in the head over the weekend listed in critical but stable condition
From Fox News

An NYPD police officer remains in critical but stable condition two days after being shot in the head while sitting in an unmarked car in Queens.

District Attorney Richard Brown said Sunday that 25-year-old Officer Brian Moore was in a coma and "fighting for his life."

Moore underwent surgery for what court papers described as "severe injuries to his skull and brain."

The suspect, Demetrius Blackwell, was ordered held without bail Sunday. He didn't enter a plea to charges of attempted murder.

Prosecutors plan to present the case to a grand jury.

Blackwell's court-appointed lawyer says his client denies the charges.

Police say Blackwell fired at Moore and his partner as they sat in plainclothes in an unmarked police car Saturday night. They stopped him after seeing him tugging at his waistband.

Antarctica's Mysterious 'Blood Falls' Explained In New Study
From Huffington Post

Antarctica may seem hostile to life, especially the continent's vast and largely ice-free Dry Valleys. But new research shows there may be an entire world underground, with rivers of liquid salt water flowing to subsurface lakes, all of which could be teeming with microbial life.

One of the continent's most unique features, the rust-red Blood Falls, may even be a "portal" into that subterranean world.

The "falls" are actually a brine, or salt water, mixed with iron from the bedrock below. As bacteria slowly chew the rock, the iron is released into the brine. The salt water and iron combination creates a distinct rust color when it mixes with oxygen as it reaches the surface, according to National Geographic.

Here's a look at the falls, which emerge from the Taylor Glacier and flow into Lake Bonney in one of the Dry Valleys:

During the study, researchers used a sensor in a helicopter to detect salt water flowing beneath the surface.

"We found, as expected, that there was something sourcing Blood Falls," lead study author Jill Mikucki of the University of Tennessee told the Washington Post. "We found that these brines were more widespread than previously thought. They appear to connect these surface lakes that appear separated on the ground. That means there's the potential for a much more extensive subsurface ecosystem, which I'm pretty jazzed about."

Live Science reports that the research team found water stretching from the coast to at least 7.5 miles inland, as well as briny water flowing beneath the Taylor Glacier at least 3 miles deep, which is as far as the device can detect.

"This unique feature is much more than a curiosity â€"- it is a portal into the Antarctic subsurface, a hint at what lies beneath," Mikucki told New Scientist.

Where the briny water flows, so too may microbial life.

"Over billions of years of evolution, microbes seem to have adapted to conditions in almost all surface and near-surface environments on Earth. Tiny pore spaces filled with hyper-saline brine staying liquid down to -15 Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) may pose one of the greatest challenges to microbes," Slawek Tulaczyk, a glaciologist and coauthor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said in a news release. "Our electromagnetic data indicate that margins of Antarctica may shelter a vast microbial habitat, in which limits of life are tested by difficult physical and chemical conditions."

And the distinctive Blood Falls is where it all comes to the surface.

"Blood Falls is the only known surface manifestation of these deep brine systems and has been shown to contain a viable ecosystem with numerable microbial cells," the researchers wrote in their study, published Tuesday in Nature Communications. "Blood Falls reveals how microbial metabolism can release iron from underlying bedrock, which is ultimately discharged to the surface or below ground to Lake Bonney."

The discovery may also hint at how life may appear on other worlds, including Mars, which has an environment similar to that of the Dry Valleys, and some of the frozen moons of Jupiter, which may contain subsurface liquid water.

"The subsurface is actually pretty attractive when you think about life on other planets. It’s cold and dark and has all these strikes against it, but it’s protected from the harsh environment on the surface," Mikucki told the Washington Post.

Ben Stiller Confirms Justin Bieber's Zoolander 2 Cameo
From E! Online

The Zoolander 2 cast keeps getting bigger!

Ben Stiller confirmed that Justin Bieber will make a cameo in the long-awaited sequel. The actor, who reprises his role as male model Derek Zoolander, did his best "blue steel" during a pose-off with the pop star on Instagram Tuesday. Stiller didn't provide further context, writing, " #Zoolander2 @justinbieber."

Bieber gave fans a tiny bit more, writing, "#itsawignotmynewhair."

Rumors of the pop star's casting started swirling on Sunday, when Bieber flew from L.A. to Rome. The singer fanned the flames himself on Facebook Monday, writing, "Working on something big right now in Europe...He is so hot right now."

Might Bieber have a future in film?

"He's definitely interested in movies and starting a film career," a source says.

Will Ferrell, Christine Taylor and Owen Wilson are also reprising their roles from 2001's Zoolander. In recent weeks, Stiller used Instagram to announce that Fred Armisen, Penélope Cruz, Kyle Mooney and Billy Zane joined the cast, and the actor-director also introduced the young actor who is playing his son. Kristen Wiig will also appear in the comedy, though Stiller has not publicly announced her participation. As E! News exclusively reported in March, Karlie Kloss make a cameo. Other models on the short list to appear in the film include Alessandra Ambrosio, Naomi Campbell, Cara Delevingne and Jourdan Dunn.

Only Karl Lagerfeld has publicly turned down the sequel: "I didn't like it," the fashion designer told Hello! Canada. "I'm not an actor."

Stiller and Wilson announced the sequel in an epic fashion. Dressed in character, they made a surprise appearance at the Valentino show during Paris Fashion Week.

"It was kind of surreal. It was sort of exciting," Stiller later told E! News. "I mean, we've never done anything like that before, to be in an actual fashion show."

"That was kind of intimidating. You don't want to trip. You want to get to the end. It's like Green Mile. It's really like that. There's no electric chair at the end. There's just starving models waiting for you, but it's definitely an intense experience."

Zoolander 2 arrives in theaters Feb. 12, 2016.

‘Millennia’ of Marriage Being Between Man and Woman Weigh on Justices
From The New York Times

For thousands of years, in societies around the globe, marriage has meant the union of a man and a woman. “And suddenly,” said Justice Stephen G. Breyer, “you want nine people outside the ballot box” to change that by judicial fiat.

History weighed heavily on the nine members of the Supreme Court on Tuesday as they debated whether the Constitution guarantees gays and lesbians the right to marry. That even Justice Breyer, clearly a supporter of same-sex marriage, felt compelled to take note underscored the magnitude of the issue before the court.

With intellectual side trips to Plato’s Greece and the land of the Kalahari Bushmen, Tuesday’s arguments challenged the justices to decide whether they are ready or willing to overturn not just legal doctrine but also embedded traditions in the name of equal rights. At what point do thousands of years no longer determine right and wrong? And if what was wrong is now right, is it up to them, instead of voters and legislators, to say that?

The collision of ancient understandings and modern sensibilities put the court right in the middle of one of the most defining social issues confronting 21st-century America. If the justices seemed eager to avoid a definitive ruling two years ago, when the issue last came before them, they seemed acutely aware on Tuesday that there may be no turning back this time.

The prospect of breaking so decisively from the past struck not just Justice Breyer but also several of his colleagues, who repeatedly noted the longevity of the institution they had been asked to address.

“The word that keeps coming back to me in this case is millennia,” said Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, widely considered the swing vote.

“Every definition that I looked up, prior to about a dozen years ago, defined marriage as unity between a man and a woman as husband and wife,” said Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

“As far as I’m aware, until the end of the 20th century, there never was a nation or a culture that recognized marriage between two people of the same sex,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said.

“You’re asking us to decide it for this society when no other society until 2001 ever had it,” added Justice Antonin Scalia.

Justice Kennedy noted that the Kalahari people of southern Africa, without a modern government like that in the United States, defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Justice Alito argued that even ancient Greeks, who engaged in same-sex relationships, did not extend marriage to them.

Against this concern, advocates for same-sex marriage pressed their point that history, by itself, was hardly the only guide. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that women were deemed under law to be subordinate in marriage for centuries. Several justices noted that blacks and whites were not allowed to marry in some states until the court intervened in 1967.

“Times can blind, and it takes time to see stereotypes and to see the common humanity of people who had once been ignored or excluded,” Mary L. Bonauto, a lawyer representing plaintiffs suing to overturn state bans on same-sex marriage, told the justices.

And Justice Breyer seemed to answer his own concern later in the oral arguments when he argued that history, even thousands of years of it, might not be enough to justify excluding gays and lesbians from what he suggested was a fundamental right. “The answer we get is, well, people have always done it,” he said. “You know, you could have answered that one the same way we talk about racial segregation.”

The court has always skated a fuzzy line between law and politics, judging not just what the Constitution and statutes say but what they mean in an evolving society. And after the explosive backlash to some of its previous landmark cases on race and abortion, the justices have been wary of getting too far ahead of the country and appearing to foist major social change rather than letting it be resolved by the political system.

Tuesday’s hearing reinforced the expectation that the court will find a constitutional right to marry for gays and lesbians, given Justice Kennedy’s past writings and the tone of his questions and comments in court. But the court set up the issue in a way that lets it look as if it is responding to changing national norms rather than imposing them.

The court’s decision two years ago in United States v. Windsor threw out the heart of the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law that defined marriage as the union of a man and woman, without finding a constitutional right to marry for same-sex couples. Since that case was argued, the number of states where same-sex marriage is legal has grown to at least 36 from nine.

But most of those additional states now granting marriage certificates to gays and lesbians did so only after lower federal courts interpreted Windsor to mean that there is, in fact, such a constitutional right. Just 11 states have extended marriage to gays and lesbians through ballot initiatives or legislative measures. So it was the Supreme Court’s own partial ruling in 2013 that led lower courts to rule in favor of same-sex marriage in so many states, rulings the court is now being asked to validate.

The opponents of same-sex marriage focused part of their argument on that circumvention of the democratic process. Chief Justice Roberts noted that Maine residents voted to outlaw same-sex marriage in 2009 and then reversed themselves and legalized it in 2012, showing that change can happen through expressions of popular will rather than judicial activism.

“That sort of quick change has been a characteristic of this debate,” he told proponents. “But if you prevail here, there will be no more debate. I mean, closing of debate can close minds, and it will have a consequence on how this new institution is accepted. People feel very differently about something if they have a chance to vote on it than if it’s imposed on them by the courts.”

Other conservative justices echoed that sentiment, suggesting that those who favor same-sex marriage should wait for the democratic process to play out. But the other side said the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment made it unconstitutional to prevent gays and lesbians from enjoying the same right to marry that heterosexuals enjoy. Waiting, they said, is not a constitutional remedy.

“Gay and lesbian people are equal,” said Donald B. Verrilli Jr., the solicitor general, arguing on behalf of same-sex marriage for the Obama administration. “They deserve equal protection of the laws, and they deserve it now.”

With the end of the oral arguments, nine people outside the ballot box will have to weigh the millenniums against the here and now.

Nigeria Says It Rescued Hundreds From Suspected Boko Haram Territory
From The New York Times

The Nigerian Army contended on Tuesday that it had rescued hundreds of kidnapped girls and women from a remote region, even as new evidence of a mass killing by Boko Haram terrorists in northern Nigeria emerged, with numerous corpses discovered in a dry riverbed.

The army asserted in a Twitter post on Tuesday that it had rescued 200 girls and 93 abducted women in the Sambisa Forest, where Boko Haram has long been suspected of operating. The army offered few details, but the hundreds of schoolgirls kidnapped from Chibok more than a year ago were not among those rescued, a spokesman later told Reuters.

The mass abduction ignited international alarm at Boko Haram’s unchecked rampages across northern Nigeria. In response, the government has repeatedly declared in the past year that it had reached a cease-fire with Boko Haram, that the girls would soon be rescued, that they had been located and even, on a previous occasion, that they had been rescued. The claims quickly proved to be untrue.

Human rights groups say Boko Haram has kidnapped hundreds of women, and possibly thousands, in recent years.

“It may be women that B. H. has kidnapped from village to village,” said Hussaini Monguno, a security adviser to the governor of Borno State, where the Sambisa Forest is.

“How could they rescue over 200 women without getting Shekau or the top B. H. commanders?” Mr. Monguno added, referring to Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau. “How many were killed? Without clear explanation, people will always believe they just want to cover up.”

Boko Haram has lost ground to Nigerian and international forces in recent weeks, but it remains deadly. Groups of bodies were found by officials sent last week to the town of Damasak to reconnoiter a possible return of residents to the now-deserted town. Damasak, on the border with Niger, was occupied by Boko Haram from last November until the militants were chased out by soldiers from Chad and Niger in early March.

The victims, apparently residents, had been shot in the head and tossed into the river during the Boko Haram occupation of the town, a local official said.

“They were all thrown in the river, and now the river has dried up,” the local official, Babagana Mustapha, said in a telephone interview from the state capital, Maiduguri. “You will see 10 here, seven there. We didn’t have time to assess all the dead bodies,” Mr. Mustapha said.

Boko Haram, now on the defensive after a sustained assault by troops from four neighboring nations, as well as South African mercenaries, punctuated its reign of terror over northeastern Nigeria last year with mass abductions and serial massacres of civilians, like the one apparently carried out at Damasak. For nearly a year it controlled many of the towns and the villages in the region, but since late January has been pushed back.

Nigeria’s president-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, a retired general who is scheduled to take office late next month, has vowed to finish off the Islamist group.

Indeed, attacks in the past week indicate that Boko Haram is not yet defeated. On Saturday, 46 soldiers from Niger and 28 civilians were killed on an island in Lake Chad by militants, 156 of whom were also killed, Niger’s Defense Ministry said. This week the Nigerian news media reported a massacre of 21 displaced civilians trying to return home in Yobe State.

[Makeshift field hospital]

Nepal earthquake death toll climbs above 5,000 as weather hinders relief
From CNN

Rescue workers seeking to reach people who desperately need help in earthquake-ravaged Nepal face myriad obstacles -- and the weather is only making things worse.

In the district of Gorkha, where the 7.8-magnitude quake was centered, a large storm rumbled over the mountainous terrain Tuesday afternoon.

"There was thunder and lightning -- water was rushing down the road where I was standing," said Matt Darvas, an emergency communications officer for the humanitarian group World Vision.

"That essentially shut down helicopter missions for the entire afternoon, except for a small window before sunset," Darvas, who's currently in the main town in Gorkha, told CNN on Wednesday.

The canceled helicopter flights meant fewer airdrops of vital supplies to devastated villages and dashed hopes of rescues for injured people in isolated locations.

Makeshift field hospital

Nepalese authorities have so far said 5,016 people died and more than 10,000 were injured as a result of the massive earthquake that struck Saturday. But officials have warned the death toll is expected to rise.

Two neighboring countries, India and China, have reported totals of 72 and 25 deaths from the quake, respectively.

The frequent downpours in Nepal have made it harder for emergency workers to help the injured.

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta was at an army field hospital in Kathmandu, the capital, when the heavens opened Tuesday.

"The rain has arrived and in many cases this is the worst-case scenario," he said. "This is what they were hoping wouldn't happen."

Pieces of tape held patches in the ceiling as water threatened to bubble in; sheets of canvas served as walls.

Gupta said it was "kind of remarkable what they've been able to do" at the makeshift hospital. Over three days, the medical staff there had treated 617 patients and saved 586 of them.

Monsoon looms

The harsh weather intensifies the hardships for the countless Nepalis who are sleeping out in the open because their homes were destroyed or they don't feel safe inside buildings amid continuing aftershocks.

The rain also increases the risk of landslides and mudslides across rugged terrain already destabilized by the earthquake's tremors.

Two landslides were reported Tuesday afternoon in the Langtang region, a popular trekking area north of Kathmandu. As many as 200 people were feared to be missing in each of the two landslides, officials said.

Foreigners are among the missing from one of them, said Gautam Rimal, a senior official in Rasuwa district. He said 210 people had been rescued from the area Wednesday by government helicopters.

According to army officials, dozens of foreigners are among those to have been rescued from the Dhunche area, near Langtang, in the past three days. Other victims, including foreigners, still wait to be brought out.

And the bad weather isn't expected to give traumatized Nepalis much of a break anytime soon.

"We are staring down the barrel of the approaching monsoon across the subcontinent, and here in Nepal that typically lasts from May through to September," Darvas said. That can generally mean "heavy downpours every day -- and extreme heat," he added.

Villagers cut off from families

Many people are stuck at the main town in Gorkha, unable to reach their families in villages cut off by the earthquake.

They include Kumar Gurung, a 37-year-old man who has had no word from his wife and four children since the hours after the quake, according to Darvas.

Gurung was on his way to a town 80 kilometers (about 50 miles) away for an animal health training course when the huge earthquake threw his plans into chaos.

Now he can't get back to his village, Singla, which is perched on a mountain above a cliff face and would take days to reach after landslides blocked roads. Before he lost contact with them, the people in his village told him that at least 70% of the dwellings in the village had been destroyed.

Darvas said that Gurung told him: "I am incredibly sad about this situation and want to rescue not just my family but all of my friends in the village, but I don't know what to do or how to reach them."

Local leaders in the main town in Gorkha are "absolutely exhausted and totally stretched" as they try to deal with the crisis in their district, Darvas said.

Their difficulties are being felt by other officials across Nepal. An influx of international aid is struggling to find its way to many of the people in need. Officials have reported logjams at Kathmandu's airport as well as on the way to badly affected areas.

Anger flares in Kathmandu

In Kathmandu, where the quake felled temples and homes across the city, many people are desperately trying to return to their family homes in the countryside.

The situation has led to angry outbursts at times. On Tuesday, a squad of riot police was deployed in response to a short-lived effort to block traffic as part of a demonstration.

Protesters were shouting "down with the government" and accusing authorities of not doing enough to stop bus companies from hiking their prices following the earthquake. They also complained the government hadn't done enough to help victims of the disaster.

Police officials said Wednesday that they had deployed troops to help manage the throngs of people seeking transportation out of town and that there had been some reports of looting but no serious breakdown in order.

"People just want to get home," said Pushparam KC, a spokesman for Nepal's Armed Police.

Youthful binge-drinking changes the brain â€" for the worse â€" into adulthood
From News day

The adult brain that was awash in alcohol during its formative years looks different and acts differently than an adult brain that skipped the youthful binge-drinking, says a new study conducted on rats.

All grown up, the brain exposed to periodic alcoholic benders during adolescence and young adulthood shows persistent abnormalities in the structure and function of the hippocampus, the region most closely associated with learning and memory. The specific changes seen in adult rats who were regularly plied with alcohol during the brain’s development generally result in memory problems and neuropsychiatric impairments such as attention and judgment problems and ability to learn new skills.

To make matters worse, the physical changes in hippocampal brain cells appear to make them more-than-usually vulnerable to injury from trauma or disease.

The study was published Monday in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines binge-drinking as a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08 grams per deciliter or above. This typically happens when men consume five or more drinks, and when women consume four or more drinks, in about two hours.

According to a 2005 study by the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, about 90 percent of the alcohol consumed by youth under the age of 21 in the United States is in the form of binge drinks.

The new research suggests that the still-developing brain of an adolescent or young adult is uniquely sensitive to levels of alcohol that are consistent with binge-drinking. Discouraged parents may find their prohibitions against underage alcohol consumption often fall on deaf ears. But the new research offers some solid scientific backing for continuing to urge high school and college-aged youths not to abuse alcohol.

“In the eyes of the law, once people reach the age of 18, they are considered adult, but the brain continues to mature and refine all the way into the mid-20s,” said lead author Mary-Louise Risher, a postdoctoral researcher in the Duke Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

“It’s important for young people to know that when they drink heavily during this period of development, there could be changes occurring that have a lasting impact on memory and other cognitive functions.”

Over a 16-day period during their adolescence, male lab rats were plied with enough alcohol to approximate a binge-drinking episode on 10 separate occasions. The amount of alcohol given to the young rats was enough to cause impairment â€" a buzz â€" but not enough to cause them to nod off or pass out. The hard-partying young rats were then returned to their normal living conditions for 24 to 29 days, during which they were allowed to mature normally into adulthood.

When researchers compared the cells of these rats’ hippocampal area to those of rats who matured without exposure to alcohol, they saw neurons with stunted and misshapen connections to other neurons. When stimulated, those neurons overreacted, disrupting the delicate balance between excitement and inhibition that makes the brain’s cells function properly.

That hyper-sensitivity came as a surprise to the study’s authors. Essentially, the researchers concluded, the brains of the adult rats that had binged in adolescence looked and acted like those of immature rats. But they weren’t immature in a stronger, faster, more youthful way; they were immature in a way that suggested they might never likely settle down and function in ways that allow learning to proceed and memories to be built, stored and maintained efficiently.

“At first blush, you would think the animals would be smarter,” said the study’s senior author Scott Swartzwelder, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University. “But that’s the opposite of what we found.”

In their immature and highly excitable state, the memory circuits affected by early binge-drinking are quickly overwhelmed, and learning must shut down for a time so the brain can catch up, said Swartzwelder.

This immature quality of the brain cells might be associated with behavioral immaturity, said Risher. In addition to changes in the shape and projections of hippocampal neurons, the authors’ colleagues â€" researchers in the Neurobiology of Adolescent Drinking in Adulthood (NADIA) consortium â€" have shown structural changes in other brain regions that control impulsiveness and emotionality.

“It’s quite possible that alcohol disrupts the maturation process, which can affect these cognitive functions later on,” said Risher. Ongoing studies will explore that possibility further, she said.

Apple Bans Watch Apps From the Apple Watch
From TIME

Developers making apps for the Apple Watch have a new rule: You can’t make a watch app.

Apple had already been rejecting time-telling apps from the Apple Watch App Store, but it finally codified that policy into a formal rule, 9to5mac reports.

What this means in practice is that Apple Watch developers can’t sneak new custom watch faces onto the device. Unlike many competitors, the Apple Watch doesn’t support watch faces made by anybody but Apple. There is a chance, however, that Apple could open up that possibility later this year.

The Apple Watch went on sale April 24, though most models are currently backordered until June. The device, Apple’s first wearable, starts at $349 and goes up to $10,000 and above depending on options. It comes with ten watch face options, each with some customizable elements.

New Minecraft skin finally offers girl option
From stuff.co.nz

When Pauline Stanley's 6-year-old daughter, Isabell, started playing Minecraft, she was excited to join her fellow first-grade players, who'd become obsessed with adventuring around the game's vast digital universe and building with Lego-like blocks.

But there was one problem: In the boundlessly creative world of one of the most popular video games, the only character she could play was Steve, a bulky man with short, dark hair and a 5 o'clock shadow. If she wanted to discover and build as a girl, she needed to pay extra.

"Only having boys is telling everybody this is a boy game only," said Isabell, who knew girls in her class who had quit playing the game. "It just doesn't seem fair."

It's a shortcoming that has long plagued the Minecraft franchise, which Microsoft bought last year for US$2.5 billion after it sold more than 50 million copies and become a massively popular children's game and in-class teaching tool.

But the makers of the "sandbox" game first released in 2009 now say they will let gamers play with a more feminine character, named Alex, free of charge.

"Everyone loves Steve - he's probably the most famous Minecrafter in the world, and he has excellent stubble," Owen Hill, the chief word officer for Mojang, a Swedish game studio that created Minecraft, wrote in a blog post Monday morning. "But jolly old Steve doesn't really represent the diversity of our playerbase."

Starting Wednesday, Minecraft players on Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox consoles will be able to select Alex, a seemingly female character with thinner arms, pinker lips, and a swoop of hair around her neck. An update for the game's Pocket Edition, played on cellphones and iPads, is planned for this summer.

Alex first appeared on Minecraft versions on the PC and Mac, although her use was randomly assigned and she could not be selected in-game. In console and mobile versions, players had no female option but eight "skins" of Steve, including Prisoner Steve, Tuxedo Steve and Athlete Steve.

For all of Minecraft's blocky veneer, the "sandbox" game is incredibly intricate, allowing players to build tools, homes and nearly anything else their imaginations allow. Isabell, for instance, was tickled to learn that the flowers she had placed on her bedside table would keep dying until she installed a window to give direct light.

But because of that intricacy, the game's choices on gender had baffled fans, parents and teachers of the game, who were increasingly viewing it as the hallmark of a generation's creative pursuit. In March, the game won the 2015 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for "Most Addicting Game."

Fans of the game created detailed guides for how to play it as a girl, although they often involved paying money or changing the game's code through methods that proved too complicated for children or teachers with many versions of the game.

Nearly all of the characters, like villagers, are male, with the exception of the villainous witch. And for a long time it appeared that Mojang wasn't interested in adding female characters.

Mojang's founder, Marcus "Notch" Persson, said in 2012, "I've tried making a girl model in Minecraft, but the results have been extremely sexist" He added: "Blocky things are more masculine." In a blog post later that year, he said he had designed Minecraft to "be a game where gender isn't a gameplay element."

"The blocky shape (of Steve) gives it a bit of a traditional masculine look, but adding a separate female mesh would just make it worse by having one specific model for female Human Beings and male ones," he wrote. "That would force players to make a decisions about gender in a game where gender doesn't even exist."

Girls and women are an increasing presence in video gaming, playing more on everything from mobile apps to larger living-room consoles. The number of female gamers who said they played Sony and Microsoft's gaming consoles, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, grew 70 per cent between 2011 and 2014, to more than 30 million, data from market researcher Newzoo shows.

But a large gap still remains in who makes the games, and how the women choose to play. About 48 per cent of the nation's 190 million gamers are girls or women, although 4 in 5 game developers are men, International Game Developers Association research shows. About 70 per cent of female gamers said they cloaked themselves online as male characters to dodge sexual harassment, according to research cited by Danielle Keats Citron, a law professor and the author of Hate Crimes in Cyberspace.

For Isabell, the Minecraft change will help her identify a bit with the creator on-screen while she does her favorite thing: building houses. She has a lot of them in different worlds, and her favorite is made of gold and diamonds.

"It's not perfect, but it's way better than before," she said. Next, she'd like to be able to change the way the character's clothes look. She suggests a rainbow dress.

Baltimore calmer after night under curfew; schools reopen
From LA Times

A yellow school bus rumbling through a smattering of downtown traffic was a welcome sign of progress Wednesday morning as this riot-scarred city tried to return to normal after this week’s violence and looting.

No major incidents were reported overnight as a weeklong 10 p.m. curfew took hold and seemed to break city’s fevered response to the death of Freddie Gray, an African American who suffered a mortal injury while in police custody.

Ten people were arrested overnight, police said, two for looting, one for disorderly conduct and seven for violating the curfew. That was in addition to 235 arrests after Monday’s rioting that began hours after Gray’s funeral.

“Tonight I think the biggest thing is the citizens are safe, the city is stable,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said shortly before midnight as he declared the curfew a success. “We hope to maintain it that way.”

More than 3,000 officers and National Guard troops enforced the curfew, which got off to a slow start late Tuesday night when about 200 protesters ignored police warnings and the pleas of community activists to disperse. Some threw objects or lied on the ground.

A line of police behind riot shields hurled tear gas canisters and fired pepper balls, slowly pushing back the crowd.  Demonstrators picked up the canisters and hurled them back at officers. But the crowd rapidly dispersed and was down to just a few dozen people within minutes.

More than 20 police officers were injured in the past days, officials said.

The curfew ended at 5 a.m. and the city attempted to return to its pre-riot routines. Traffic resumed, but against a heavy show of National Guard, city police and law enforcement officers from surrounding cities.

At North and Pennsylvania avenues, one of the centers of unrest, traffic moved as usual and residents went about their business as police in riot gear stood on each of the four corners.

"Things need to get back to normal," said one police officer, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the situation. "That's what's starting to happen."

About half a mile away the Mondawmin Mall, where rioters looted thousands of dollars' worth of merchandise on Monday, remained closed due to extensive damage during the unrest. Camouflaged Maryland National Guardsmen watched over each of the entrances.

However, the Shoppers Food and Pharmacy, which shares a parking lot with the mall, was open for business. And across the street, students entered Frederick Douglass High School after classes were canceled Tuesday.

"It's good to move past all this," said Robert Johnson, 50, who works at Shoppers. "There's enough confusion in the world. We don't need this madness."

School buses were among the earliest vehicles on the roads. Like much of the city, schools were shuttered Tuesday. Educators said they were planning special programs.

“Principals and teachers are planning activities that will help students learn from the past days’ events. Counselors, social workers and psychologists will be on hand to support students’ emotional needs,” the district’s executive officer, Gregory E. Thornton, said in a letter to parents.

Other usual city activities were also planned but with a special twist because of the days of protests.

The Baltimore Orioles were scheduled to play a baseball game against the Chicago White Sox after two previous games were postponed. But in what is believed to be a first in the history of the sport, Wednesday’s game will be played to an empty stadium. As a security measure, the afternoon game will be closed to the public.

On Tuesday, top officials including Gov. Larry Hogan and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake worked to calm the city which has been in turmoil since Gray died on April 19, a week after he was arrested in West Baltimore, which became the epicenter of the riots and looting.

Gray’s spine was severed, but it remains a mystery exactly how and when that occurred. Video has shown Gray being arrested and his hands cuffed behind his back when he is placed in the van for transport. The van made at least two stops and at one, Gray is seen on video being taken out of the van. His legs are placed in irons and he is returned to the wagon.

Officials are still investigating the events, but police have acknowledged that Gray should have been buckled into a seat belt as he was transported and that he should have received early medical care.

Gray’s death touched off protests last week that increased in intensity through the weekend and finally into Monday night’s violence.

[Improved Camera]

5 Reasons To Buy The LG G4 Over The Samsung Galaxy S6
From Forbes

The LG G4 has landed and it’s already causing a stir. The launch-event was filled with barbs aimed at LG’s competitors â€" which is fast becoming a trend â€" and showing off key features that Samsung and Apple have skipped on.

An impressive camera, removable battery and expandable memory make-up some of the new smartphone’s best features, but what other reasons are there for buying the LG G4? If you’re not familiar with my buying guides, don’t forget to check out my round-ups for the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and Galaxy S6 ,HTC One M9 and LG G Flex 2.

Improved Camera

LG is taking-on Samsung directly in the camera department with its new G4 lens. The lens’ f/1.8 aperture slightly edges out the Galaxy S6’s f/19 aperture. What does this mean? The G4 camera should capture more light in a picture, 11% more according to LG. Forbes’ Paul Monckton has some thoughts on the new G4 snapper.

“In reality the difference between f/1.8 and f/1.9 isn’t really that great at all, amounting to around 10-15% more light captured by the G4’s lens over the S6’s. All other factors remaining equal a wider aperture will result in less image noise, but we don’t know yet how equal these other factors may be. The quality of the image sensor itself will play a major part in this.”

LG has clearly focussed on the G4’s 16MP camera and made it the central feature to compete with the industry’s best â€" Samsung and Apple. The improved aperture joins a more in-depth manual mode that lets more competent users customise shutter speed, ISO and white balance levels.

The laser auto-focus from the G3 returns, there’s now 3 axis optical image stabilzation and the camera launches in 0.6 seconds.

Removable battery

LG, to its credit, is resolutely sticking with its customisable design. The LG G3 had a removable back-panel and a replaceable battery, so does the LG G4. Samsung drew the ire of its loyal user-base when it launched the S6 for slashing one of their most cherished features, a removable battery.  It did so in the name of design. LG is bucking the trend by retaining this feature, which brings the dual-benefit of replacing dead batteries and swapping out those leather rear covers.

MicroSD slot

Another popular feature that has been sacrificed in the name of beauty: expandable storage seems to be increasingly rare. The LG G4 will support a microSD slot up to 128GB, which means it joins the likes of the HTC One M9 and former Samsung flagships. This is another area LG touted as a key differentiator between itself and the competition â€" Samsung in particular â€" that don’t offer expandable memory. LG’s reason for the inclusion is in part because of the ability to save RAW image files, which are typically very large.

Giant battery

The G4’s 3000mAh battery is the same size as the G3’s, but it’s significantly larger than the Galaxy S6 and iPhone 6’s, which are 2500mAh and 1800mAh respectively. On top of the large size, there’s less power consumption because of the Qualcomm 808 chipset and toned-down user-interface. LG has also introduced some power-saving features like pausing the processor when there’s a still frame on the screen, and notifying the user when an app is drawing power when the display is off.

Display

The G4 continues with the quad-HD technology of its predecessor. But the 1440 x 2560 5.5-inch display comes with LG’s new IPS LCD “quantum display” technology, which should make it significantly brighter and provide more colour-accurate multimedia. As FORBES’ Ian Morris explains in his hands-on:

“The display on the G4 has seen a significant upgrade too, although it’s not to the resolution or size, because both are the same. LG, however, says it has used”quantum” technology to improve both colour reproduction and brightness. LG says that brightness is up by 25% while contrast jumps by 50%. I’ve been told that this isn’t the same quantum dot technology used in LG TVs, which also boosts colour and brightness.”

Cons

Curiously, there’s no Snapdragon 810 chip powering the G4. The difference? The 810 processor has a slightly faster octa-core processor, whereas the 808 is six-core. In reality, consumers are unlikely to notice any difference in speed and rest assured that the G4 will be as fast as current top-tier handsets.

The leather design is likely to divide some who wanted the premium, metallic, finish of other smartphones like the HTC One M9 and iPhone 6. Or perhaps the glass panels of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Sony xperia Z4. Also, not all leather colours will be immediately available, with some only making an appearance in some markets.

Jared Leto's Suicide Squad Joker revealed
From The Telegraph



Heath Ledger is a tough act to follow but it seems that not many people are keen on Jared Leto's all-new Joker, who will star in director David Ayer's upcoming film Suicide Squad.

In addition to the Joker's trademark green hair and red lips, Ayer's version of the villain also features blackened teeth and "HAHA" tattoos across his body.

Today is the 75th anniversary of the comic-book debut of The Joker in the first issue of Batman, and after months speculation, Ayer has released an official photo of the character.

Ayer, whose previous work includes Fury starring Brad Pitt, is both writing the script and directing the superhero film, which is based on the DC Comics anti-hero of the same name.

Leto, as the Joker/Clown Prince of Crime, will play a supporting role in the film, which concerns a group of supervillains who are recruited by the government (personified by Viola Davis's Amanda Waller) to undertake devious under-the-radar missions that so-called good guys won't touch.

Among others, the film stars Will Smith as Deadshot, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn and Tom Hardy as Rick Flagg, and it is to be released on August 5, 2016.

Leto’s Joker looks unlike any other live-action Joker.

Here's how you can get a $10,000 gold Apple Watch for just $349
From Mashable

Video here.

Much has been made about the $10,000 gold Apple Watch Edition, and how unattainable it is for most of us. But one clever consumer decided to take matters into his own hands, and create a gold Apple Watch almost from scratch.

The price? About $10 â€" the cost of a can of spray paint.

YouTuber Casey Neistat shows how easy it is to make your own gold Apple Watch with just a little care and a steady hand. (Warning: Don't try this at home unless you're okay with possibly destroying your $349 to $399 investment.)

The end result may not fool anyone who looks at your wrist too closely, but at a glance, Neistat's gold-sprayed aluminum Apple Watch looks pretty sweet.

[Food]

Apple Watch app roundup: It's all on the wrist
From EnGadget

It's Apple Watch day. And whether you received one already, or are stuck waiting a few weeks for it, you'll want apps to make the most out of your new wearable when the time comes. Thankfully, we here at Engadget are always thinking about you, the reader, so we've put together a list of third-party apps that stand out from the 3,000-plus expected to be available at launch. But first, let's talk about some essentials. The Twitter and Instagram Apple Watch apps, for starters, will let you check out tweets and view photos right on your wrist, among other things. Sports fans, meanwhile, have access to apps like ESPN, MLB At Bat and NBA Game Time, which makes it easy to keep up with scores without having to pull out your iPhone.

The Apple Watch is going to play a big role for fitness buffs too, and there are a number of apps to choose from in that department: Misfit, Nike+ Running, Runtastic and RunKeeper, to mention a few. Travel often? Don't worry: Delta and American Airlines, two of the most popular airlines, both have apps. Of course, you may also want to kill time every now and then; for those cases, there are games such as Rules!, a tiny puzzle designed to give your brain a workout, and Pantagu, a novel, fast-paced take on the classic Tic-Tac-Toe. Oh, and then there's the Chipotle app. Because burritos.

We'll be updating the list below as more companies and services make their iOS apps friendly with the Apple Watch, so make sure to bookmark this page for future use.

Food

Chipotle

Yelp

OpenTable

Green Kitchen

Lifestyle

Nike+ Running

Runtastic

RunKeeper

Misfit

Lifesum

Strava

Games and Miscellaneous

Rules!

Pantagu

Runeblade

Mattel Magic 8 Ball

justWink

Sky Guide

Honeywell Lyric

AOL

Yahoo Weather

Music

Pandora

iHeartRadio

Shazam

Djay 2

Musixmatch

News and Sports

The New York Times

CNN

NPR One

The Huffington Post

ESPN

NBA Game Time

MLB At Bat

Productivity

Evernote

Adobe Creative Cloud

Mint

Gero Time Management Companion

Merriam-Webster

1Password

Gneo

Shopping

Amazon

eBay

Target

Fandango

StubHub

Social and Messaging

Instagram

Twitter

Foursquare

Yo

Pip

Travel and Transportation

Uber

BMW i Remote

Citymapper

Trip Advisor

Expedia

Delta Airlines

American Airlines

British Airways

SPG: Starwood Hotels

Quarterly Revenue at Amazon Up 15%
From WKRB

Amazon.com the retailing giant on Internet posted its earnings this week for the first quarter that reported profits from its business of cloud services that helped send the stock skyward.

The company exceeded expectations on Wall Street for revenue as well as per share earnings. Stock at Amazon on the news, was up over 4.6% on Thursday in afterhours trading.

Amazon’s sales increased by 15% to end the quarter at $22.72 billion compared to $19.74 billion during the first quarter of 2014. Analysts forecast that Amazon would have $22.39 in revenue.

Excluding losses of 41.3 billion for changes in currency rates during the quarter, net sales were up 22% in comparison to the first quarter of 2014.

Net loss for the first quarter was $57 million equal to 12 cents per share, compared to a net income last year for the same quarter of $108 million equal to 23 cents per share.

Amazon Web Services the company’s cloud service, saw $1.57 billion in revenue during the quarter equal to an annual rate of $6 billion, said the company in its statement on earnings, which represents an increase of more than 49% over the first quarter of 2014 and was in line with expectations by analysts.

AWS had a profit of $265 million up from a profit last year of $245 million.

This is the first time the company broke out the cloud service’s finance in its decade long existence. Jeff Bezos the CEO and founder of Amazon said the AWS is now a $5 billion business that continues to accelerate in growth. It was started one decade ago and is a good example of how the company approaches ideas and Amazon’s risk taking, added the CEO.

Operating income for the quarter was up 74% to over $255  million, compared to last year during the first quarter when it was $146 million.

Operating cash flow was up 47% to more than $7.85 billion compared to $5.35 billion for the trailing two months that ended March of 2014.

Free cash flow was up ending the quarter at $3.16 billion compared to $1.49 billion during the trailing twelve months ending March of 2014.

Obama's comedy, Hollywood star gazing to be top draw at White House correspondence dinner
From Fox News

The White House Correspondents' Association dinner is set to begin Saturday evening, with celebrity watching and President Obama’s late-night comedy routine expected to again be the highlight of the annual Washington event.

The roughly 101-year-old, white-tie gathering of White House reporters, high-profile politicians, their high-powered staffers and other Washington insiders has in recent years faced increasing criticism about become less of charity event than a red-carpet affair. 

However, the opportunity to rub elbows with Washington and Washington royalty and to hear them take political jabs remains one of the toughest tickets in the nation’s capital.

The dinner -- or so-called “Nerd Prom” -- is expected to have roughly 2,600 guests and will again be held at the Washington Hilton. However, the three or four days of events, including the Bloomberg/Vanity Fair after-party, are as much of an attraction as the main event.

Among some of the celebrities who reportedly will attend the 2015 events are Donald Trump, actresses Jane Fonda and Kerry Washington and Matchbox Twenty singer Rob Thomas.

If the dinner is like recent ones, expect the president to make some verbal jabs at his political rivals and the reporters who cover him. In recent years, Obama has ribbed such Republicans as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner.

Adding to jokes about Boehner’s sun-burned, orange-toned face, Obama who is the country’s first black president, last year said: "These days, House Republicans give John Boehner a harder time than they give me, which means orange really is the new black."

Don't expect to find many of the politicians who are hoping to succeed Obama as president -- most, it seems, are staying away from the gathering.

Cecily Strong from "Saturday Night Live" was the professional hired to provide the laughs.

The dinner helps fund scholarships and awards that recognize journalists.

This year's award winners include:

--Josh Lederman of The Associated Press and Jim Avila of ABC News, the Merriman Smith Award for presidential coverage under deadline pressure.

--Peter Baker of The New York Times, the Aldo Beckman Award for repeated excellence in White House coverage.

--The Edgar A. Poe Award, recognizing coverage of news of national or regional significance, to The Washington Post's Carol A. Leonnig and The Wall Street Journal team of Gary Fields, John R. Emshwiller, Rob Barry and Coulter Jones.

Scott Horsley of National Public Radio received a special mention in the Beckman Award category for his coverage of White House policies and politics.

Chilean authorities urge 2,000 people near volcano to evacuate as precaution
From Fox News

Authorities urged 2,000 people living near the Calbuco volcano to evacuate Friday after potentially devastating mudflows of volcanic debris were detected in a nearby river, the result of two huge eruptions this week that sent ash across large swaths of southern South America.

Chilean officials said the evacuations were precautionary but necessary because flows of volcanic mud, known as lahars, are capable of leveling anything in their path once in motion.

The area had been evacuated after the volcano first erupted Wednesday afternoon, but by Friday many people had begun to return home even as Calbuco continued to billow lesser ejections of smoke and ash. Authorities said the evacuees from the towns of Chamiza, Lago Chapo and Correntoso would stay at shelters in the nearby city of Puerto Montt.

"I'm worried about the lava because we're right below it all," said Jorge Vargas, a farmer from a nearby town who was forced to flee to a shelter with his wife and children, leaving behind their dogs, sheep and cows.

"My children are very scared. They just want to go back home, but we can't because of the (volcanic) gases."

The volcano, which had been dormant four decades, sent a plume of ash about 11 miles (18 kilometers) high during Wednesday's blast. A second, spectacular outburst came early Thursday, with lightning crackling through a dark sky turned reddish orange by the explosion.

The head of the National Mining and Geology Service said Friday that the volcano's eruptive process could last weeks and even months and warned that a third eruption was possible.

"What I can say for certain is that this process is not going to end now," the service's director, Rodrigo Alvarez, said. "It's highly likely that we will have other eruptions, maybe not with the same amount of energy, but with activity that can be worrisome."

The two mighty blasts left Ensenada a ghost town, abandoned by most of its 1,500 residents. Sitting at the foot of the volcano, the town was covered in thick soot and some roofs collapsed under the weight of the ash.

Just about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from Calbuco's peak, Ensenada is within the official evacuation zone, and most residents complied. But about 30 refused to leave because of worries about their homes and animals.

Ensenada was eerily empty except for a few residents using masks against the ash and an occasional horse or dog roaming its only street.

The 6,500 foot (2,000-meter) Calbuco, which last erupted in 1972, lies near the cities of Puerto Varas and Puerto Montt, about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) south of Santiago.

Officials worried the clouds of ash could contaminate water, cause respiratory illnesses and ground more airline flights.

LATAM, Sky and other airlines said they had resumed service to and from Puerto Montt after cancelling flights over fears airborne ash could damage jet engines.

But with the coarse dust spreading over nearby countries, Argentine officials grounded flights in Buenos Aires, some 923 miles (1,485 kilometers) from the volcano, after a small amount of ash arrived Friday and clouded the sky.

American Airlines and Air France canceled flights to the Argentine capital's main airport of Ezeiza, while Aerolineas Argentinas grounded flights to some cities in the country's southern Patagonian provinces.

Ash also forced the cancellation of some flights to Uruguay's capital, Montevideo.

Heavier amounts of ash covered towns closer to the volcano. Cars and streets were coated with a thick blanket of ash in Villa La Angostura, Argentina, a town about 56 miles (90 kilometers) northeast of Calbuco.

Weather experts said the haze from the ash would likely clear up quickly unless there was another eruption.

"It doesn't look like the wind will support a very long trail based on the current forecast," said Michael Ventrice, an operations scientist at Weather Service International.

Minecraft fans invited to design Australia's perfect national park
From The Guardian

Parents may be looking for reasons to coax their square-eyed offspring away from the flicker of the computer screen but the South Australian government is taking a more entrepreneurial approach to young gamers.

Australia’s next national park could be designed on the video game Minecraft â€" and by primary school children â€" if a new venture by the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges natural resources management board (NRAMLR) goes to plan.

In a move worthy of Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation, pupils from the Adelaide Hills area have been invited to design their “perfect national park” using the block-building game, with $8.9m allotted to bring the winning student’s design to life, reported the Adelaide website In Daily.

Suggestions for design elements include bushwalking, mountain biking or horse riding trails, wheelchair accessible and interpretive paths, campsites and, for the digital natives out there, geocaches. Entries must incorporate five Minecraft screenshots and a narrated flythrough of no longer than three minutes.

They will be judged on design, real-world usability, and sustainability â€" the park design must complement the natural environment of the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges and use sustainable materials and resources. Judges will also be looking out for that elusive fun factor and “how amazing we think it is”.

The educational potential of Minecraft is attracting attention worldwide. In March, the CultureTECH innovation festival announced it would be distributing the game free to every secondary school in Northern Ireland. Teachers recently shared creative ways to use the game in the classroom on the Guardian Teacher network.

“It’s a really good thing to get kids using [video games] as a positive,” Georgia Gowing of South Australia’s environment department told In Daily. “They do this stuff on a screen and then they get out into a real national park.”

The competition is open to class groups from fourth to seventh grade until 12 June, with shortlisted entries uploaded to the NRAMLR YouTube channel and a winner announced in July. The successful student will win a free trip to Belair national park for his or her class.

The rules state that entrants must use the basic version of the game with no add-ons “to keep it fair and creative”. The board has also published an online consultation for adults â€" though sadly with no gaming element.

Volkswagen Chief Piech Consumed By The Fire He Started
From Forbes

VW board chairman Ferdinand Piech set the crisis running that led to his downfall by threatening to fire his number 2, Martin Winterkorn.

Piech has been a fearsome, powerful and highly successful leader of Volkswagen, Europe’s biggest car company which wants to be the world leader. In the past when under pressure, Piech always managed to force into line the group of family members, unions and politicians who control VW. Not this time.

 VW is controlled by a complicated corporate structure that includes unions. The Porsche and Piech families control 50.7 per cent of VW votes on the board. The state of Lower Saxony has 20 per cent, while unions have half of VW’s 20 supervisory board seats. When it became clear that Piech was seeking to oust VW Group CEO Winterkorn, some members of the Porsche family and union boss Bernd Osterloh supported him, suggesting the chairman couldn’t carry votes on the board. That led Piech to attempt to back-off earlier this week. It appeared that he was outnumbered on the board, but veteran VW watchers weren’t convinced that this wily old campaigner was on his way out. Surely, he wouldn’t pick a fight he couldn’t win. There must be some subtlety they were missing and he would get his way.

On Saturday, VW announced Piech had resigned, and his wife Ursula, tipped by some to replace him as board chairman, had gone too.

It was never made clear why Piech suddenly decided to get rid of Winterkorn. After all, the company has been hugely successful in terms of sales. But reports suggested Piech had become impatient with the lack of progress making the VW brand profitable, and fixing the dismal failure in the U.S.

Piech, grandson of the producer of the VW Beetle, has been a powerful figure at the company for more than 20 years.

According to the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) at Germany’s University of Duisberg-Essen,the profit margin earned on VW brand cars is pitifully low compared with rivals like Toyota. CAR calculates that Toyota’s global profit margin is more than three times higher than the VW brand â€" at around the equivalent of $1,783 or 8.6 per cent per car compared with VW’s $585 or 2.5 per cent.

VW’s group profit margin, including all the brands, is closer to 6.5 per cent.

CAR pointed to VW’s pitiful performance in the U.S.. VW redesigned its Passat sedan especially to appeal to U.S. buyers by removing some of the expensive, high-tech content which Europeans demand, and by making it in America. Result? A dismal flop, says CAR. The factory in the U.S. can produce between 150,000 and 200,000 Passats a year, but this year will likely only sell around 80,000, said CAR.

In its pursuit of the crown as world number one auto maker, VW has been on a brand buying spree and now has 12, including the upmarket luxury Bentley, Lamborghini supercars, Audi , Porsche, Ducati motorbikes and MAN trucks. It sells cheaper versions of VW brand cars using the Skoda and SEAT brands.

Winterkorn’s contract as VW CEO expires next year. Winterkorn, 67, has been in place since 2007, and was expected to take over from 78 year old Piech when he retired in 2017.

During Winterkorn’s tenure, VW has expanded rapidly, but hasn’t managed the transition well. Volkswagen is said to employ too many people, doesn’t make enough money, and is relying on raising sales to flex its muscles rather than focusing on the bottom line. VW has earned the ire of investors by increasing sales by 30 per cent in five years while profits remained relatively flat.

The company is in the midst of $11.8 billion cost cutting program. Some say the efficient administration of the company is hampered because it is dominated by the state government of Lower Saxony and the trade unions.

Kim Kardashian Shares Support for Bruce Jenner but Admits Transition Has Been an 'Adjustment' for the Family
From People Magazine

In an interview with Today host Matt Lauer airing Monday, Kim Kardashian West says that while the Kardashian-Jenner clan is certainly still adjusting to the news that Bruce Jenner is transitioning from male to female, "we really all support him."

"I think there is still an adjustment and there's family therapy, and we're really close," Kardashian West, 34, says in a preview clip from the interview.

Jenner, 65, confirmed his transition during a soul-baring sit-down with 20/20's Diane Sawyer, which aired Friday night.

Jenner said that some members of the family have taken the news of the transition harder than others; and an inside source told PEOPLE that it's been a "difficult" time for everyone.

It has been rough, Kardashian West tells Lauer in the clip, but the family isn't breaking up. (She, brother Rob Kardashian and mom Kris Jenner have all posted public messages of support for Bruce; and many in the family appeared in the Friday special.)

"I see reports that say, 'This one doesn't support him and this one's over here and my mom feels this way.' And it's all really so made up," she says. "We really all support him. Is it a hard adjustment? Yes."

Baltimore Crowd Swells in Protest of Freddie Gray’s Death
From New York Times

Pledging to shut down the city, hundreds of demonstrators jammed the streets of Baltimore on Saturday to protest the death of an black man who sustained a fatal spinal cord injury while in police custody.

Daily demonstrations have swept across the city since the man, Freddie Gray, died last Sunday, but Saturday’s turnout was among the largest. The march began at the housing project in West Baltimore where Mr. Gray was arrested, the Gilmor Homes, and proceeded downtown to City Hall, where organizers addressed the crowd.

“The voice of pain and suffering in Baltimore will be heard today,” Malik Shabazz, a founder and the president of Black Lawyers for Justice, said in an interview on Saturday. “The focus will be on Freddie Gray and how his back and spine were broken, and how the cover-up must end today.”

The protest drew participants from outside Baltimore, from places like Ferguson, Mo.; New York City; and Washington, D.C. Organizers included the New Black Panther Party, the World Socialist Party and the Peoples Power Assemblies.

“I want outside people to come in,” Carron Morgan, 18, a first cousin of Mr. Gray, said as he watched people gather Saturday afternoon at the Gilmore Homes to listen to the first of the day’s speeches. “But I want them to understand that we don’t want to harm any police officers. We just want justice.”

Mr. Morgan, a student at Baltimore City Community College, said he had helped plan the protest. Asked what he expected from it, he said: “I just hope that before the funeral, the state and the federal government step up and bring these police to justice.”

Funeral services for Mr. Gray, 25, are scheduled for Monday at New Shiloh Baptist Church in West Baltimore.

On Friday, the Baltimore police commissioner said his officers should have sought medical attention for Mr. Gray much sooner than they did, but that admission, the first from police officials, was not enough to satisfy the protesters. They continued their demands for the firing of six officers involved in Mr. Gray’s arrest and the resignation of the commissioner, Anthony W. Batts.

The six officers were suspended with pay while the Baltimore Police Department carries out a criminal investigation. (Some demonstrators carried signs on Saturday reading, “No paid vacations.”) The Justice Department also is reviewing the case for possible civil rights violations. Mr. Gray’s family has hired a third party to conduct an independent investigation.

Mr. Batts said Friday that officers should have called for an ambulance when Mr. Gray was first arrested instead of waiting until he arrived at the police station 50 minutes later. The police commissioner also said it was unacceptable that the officers had not put Mr. Gray in a seatbelt for the ride.

Mr. Gray was arrested on April 12 after making eye contact with a police lieutenant and then fleeing, according to the police account. He was tackled by police officers, who held him down and handcuffed him before dragging him to a police van. A bystander recorded the arrest on video using his cellphone.

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Until Friday, efforts to pinpoint how and when Mr. Gray was injured had focused on what happened inside the van, with a lawyer for the officers involved playing down the suggestion, based on the cellphone video, that Mr. Gray had been hurt before he was placed inside. In the video, Mr. Gray can be heard asking for assistance while on the ground and screaming while being dragged to the police van.

The police acknowledged gaps in the timeline involving three stops made by the van. According to Police Department accounts, at the first stop, officers placed leg bars on Mr. Gray, who they said had become irate; the second stop was made to pick up another arrestee. At the third, Mr. Gray had to be picked up off the floor.

Mr. Gray’s family said that his spinal cord had been 80 percent severed, and that his voice box had been crushed. He died at a hospital last Sunday, a week after his arrest.

On Friday, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake demanded to know why the police had not followed procedures for transporting arrestees and why they had failed to get timely medical attention for Mr. Gray.

The police said more than 30 investigators were reviewing the arrest. The investigators are expected to submit their preliminary findings to the state’s attorney for Baltimore on Friday.

Mr. Shabazz said he was skeptical that the police investigation would hold anyone accountable for Mr. Gray’s death, and said he expected Mr. Gray’s death to be ruled an accident.

The Baltimore Police Department has a well-documented history of brutality complaints, and Mr. Shabazz said he believed police brutality had been at play in Mr. Gray’s case.

“We strongly suspect that his death and his injuries are due to the intentional acts of the Baltimore Police Department, not mere negligence and lack of a seatbelt,” he said.

Mr. Gray’s death was the latest in a string of fatal police encounters with unarmed and mostly black civilians that have forced a national debate about how law enforcement officers use lethal force on the job, especially in high-crime and minority communities.

“There is a national Holocaust of black men being killed by police officers, and Baltimore is the center and will be the center of that issue today,” Mr. Shabazz said.

Ahead of Saturday’s protest, state and city officials warned against outsiders coming into Baltimore to cause the type of unrest that roiled Ferguson after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in August. Gov. Larry Hogan sent dozens of state troopers to Baltimore, at the request of Ms. Rawlings-Blake, who urged those taking to the city’s streets to remain peaceful.

“If you’re going to come here, come here to help us, not to hurt us,” she said.

But many of the protest’s leaders dismissed the statements by the government officials.

“They need a little history,” Larry Holmes, a national organizer for the Peoples Power Assemblies, told the crowd on Saturday. “Martin Luther King was an outside agitator. Malcolm X was an agitator. Jesus Christ was an agitator.”

“You can’t keep a problem like police brutality a local thing,” Mr. Holmes said. “The world is watching Baltimore now.”

Earthquake Devastates Nepal, Killing More Than 1,100
From New York Times

A powerful earthquake shook Nepal on Saturday near its capital, Katmandu, flattening sections of the city’s historic center and trapping dozens of sightseers in a 200-foot watchtower that came crashing down into a pile of bricks.

Officials in Nepal put the preliminary death toll at 1,157, nearly all of them in the valley around Katmandu. But it was an event that touched a vast swath of the subcontinent. The quake set off avalanches around Mount Everest, where several hikers were reported to have died. At least 34 deaths occurred in northern India. Buildings swayed in Tibet and Bangladesh.

The earthquake, with an estimated magnitude of 7.8, struck shortly before noon, and residents of Katmandu ran into the streets and other open spaces as buildings fell, throwing up clouds of dust. Wide cracks opened on paved streets and in the walls of city buildings. Motorcycles tipped over on their sides and slid off the edge of a highway.

By midafternoon the United States Geological Survey had counted 12 aftershocks, one of which measured at a magnitude of 6.6.

Seismologists have expected a major earthquake in western Nepal, where there is pent-up pressure from the grinding between tectonic plates â€" the northern Eurasia plate and the upthrusting Indian plate. Still, witnesses described a chaotic rescue effort during the first hours after the quake, as emergency workers and volunteers grabbed tools and bulldozers from construction sites, and dug with hacksaws, mangled rebar, and their hands.

Kanak Mani Dixit, a Nepalese political commentator, said he had been having lunch with his parents when the quake struck. The rolling was so intense and sustained that he had trouble getting to his feet, he said. He helped his father and an elderly neighbor to safety in the garden outside and then had to carry his elderly mother.

“And I had time to do all that while the quake was still going on,” Mr. Dixit said. “It was like being on a boat in heavy seas.”

Though many have worried about the stability of the concrete high-rises that have been hastily erected in Katmandu, the most terrible damage on Saturday was to the oldest part of the city, which is studded with temples and palaces made of wood and unmortared brick.

For many, the most breathtaking loss was the nine-story Dharahara Tower, which was built in 1832 on the orders of the queen. The tower had recently reopened to the public, which could ascend a narrow spiral staircase to a viewing platform around 200 feet above the city.

The walls were brick, around one and a half feet thick, and when the earthquake struck they came crashing down.

The police on Saturday said they had pulled around 60 bodies from the rubble of the tower. Kashish Das Shrestha, a photographer and writer, spent much of the day in the old city, but said he still had trouble grasping that the tower was gone.

“I was here yesterday, I was here the day before yesterday and it was there,” he said. “Today it’s just gone. Last night, from my terrace, I was looking at the tower. And today I was at the tower â€" and there is no tower.”

Joydeb Chakravarty, managing director of the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in Nepal, said he had been grocery shopping when the quake struck. “And suddenly, everything started collapsing around us,” he said. “The shelves all came down, the food items all crashed down. We were barely able to get out the emergency exit.”

For years, people have worried about an earthquake of this magnitude in western Nepal, which saw its last massively destructive event more than 100 years ago. Many feared that an immense death toll would result, in part because in recent years construction has been largely unregulated, said Ganesh K. Bhattari, a Nepalese expert on earthquakes now living in Denmark.

He said the government had made some improvements in making some buildings more robust and reinforcing vulnerable ones, but that many larger buildings, such as hospitals and old-age homes, remained extremely vulnerable. “There is a little bit of improvement,” he said. “But it is really difficult for people to implement the rules and the regulations.”

Saturday’s earthquake struck when schools were not in session, which may have reduced the death toll. And the building collapses in Katmandu appeared largely confined to brick structures in the city’s historic area, rather than concrete high-rise buildings. But there was not yet a full picture of the damage to villages on the mountain ridges around Katmandu, where families live in houses made of mud and thatch.

As night fell, aftershocks were still hitting, prompting waves of screaming. Many residents sat in the road for much of the day, afraid to go back indoors, and many insisted that they would spend the night outside, despite the cold. Thousands camped out at the city’s parade ground. The city’s shops were running short of bottled water, stocks of dry food, and telephone charge cards.

China and India, which jockey for influence in this region, have each pledged to step in with disaster assistance.

The earthquake set off avalanches on Mount Everest, where several hundred trekkers were attempting an ascent, according to climbers there. Via Twitter, Alex Gavan, a hiker at base camp, described a “huge earthquake then huge avalanche,” and “running for life from my tent.” Nima Namgyal Sherpa, a tour guide at base camp, described one avalanche as “huge” and said it had caused many injuries.

“Many camps have been destroyed by the shake and wind from the avalanche,” Mr. Sherpa, the base camp manager for Asian Trekking, wrote in a post on Facebook. “All the doctors here are doing our best to treat and save lives.”

Ten people died on Mount Everest after the earthquake, Nepalese officials said.

Tremors from the quake were felt across northern India, rattling bookcases and light fixtures as far away as Delhi. Electricity was switched off for safety reasons in the Indian state of Bihar, where three deaths were reported in one district, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, India’s minister of skill development, told reporters in New Delhi. Two other deaths were reported in a second district.

Historically, the region has been the site of the largest earthquakes in the Himalayas. A 2005 quake in Kashmir and a 1905 earthquake in Kangra, India, resulted in a death toll of more than 100,000 people, according to the United States Geological Survey.

Lufthansa chief visits crash area as 'cabin video' emerges
From Yahoo News

The heads of Lufthansa and Germanwings paid their respects Wednesday near the spot where one of their planes slammed into the French Alps, following reports that a video has emerged showing the final terrifying seconds in the cabin.

Descriptions of the chilling mobile phone footage in French and German media angered prosecutors probing the March 24 disaster, who called on anyone with video of the accident to hand it over to investigators immediately.

Carsten Spohr and Thomas Winkelmann's visit came at a time of intense scrutiny on Germanwings owner Lufthansa, which has revealed it was aware that the co-pilot suspected of deliberately crashing the airliner, killing all 150 on board, had suffered from severe depression.

Lufthansa said 27-year-old Andreas Lubitz had told the airline in 2009 about his illness after interrupting his flight training.

Lufthansa's Spohr and Germanwings chief Winkelmann arrived at Seyne-les-Alpes near the crash site aboard a helicopter, later making their way to the village of Le Vernet where they laid a wreath at the foot of a memorial erected for the victims.

Spohr then read out a statement to reporters, but refused to answer a torrent of questions.

There are "no words to describe how terrible this accident is," he said, thanking rescue teams and locals for their support in the aftermath of the disaster and promising continued help for the victims' relatives.

The two executives later attended a service in the small German town of Haltern am See to pay their respects to 16 pupils and two teachers from the local school who were among the 150 victims.

- 'Screaming passengers' -

The crash, which caused shock worldwide, continues to make headlines, with French and German media saying they had seen a video purportedly showing the final seconds aboard the doomed airliner, which they said was shot on a mobile phone that somehow survived the crash.

"The scene was so chaotic that it was hard to identify people, but the sounds of the screaming passengers made it perfectly clear that they were aware of what was about to happen to them," said French weekly Paris Match.

People were heard crying "My God" in several languages, the magazine said.

Investigators say the plane's cockpit voice recorder indicated Lubitz locked the flight captain out of the cockpit before deliberately crashing the plane.

Paris Match said "metallic banging" could be heard more than three times -- tallying with reports that the pilot tried to smash down the cockpit door with an axe.

French police poured cold water on the magazine's footage claims, telling CNN the reports were "completely wrong."

Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin, one of the lead investigators into the crash, added that anyone with footage "must hand it over immediately to investigators".

But the Paris Match journalist who wrote about the footage said he did not own the video, and had merely seen it.

"It's a passenger who films from the back of the plane," Frederic Helbert said.

In Berlin on Tuesday, French President Francois Hollande said authorities hoped to identify the remains of all 150 passengers and crew within a week, though investigators previously said it could take weeks and that some of the victims may never be identified due to the extent of the devastation.

Some 450 relatives have visited the site so far, a local official said Tuesday.

The town of Haltern am See on Wednesday held an emotional service at the central St Sixte Church for the schoolchildren and teachers from the Joseph Koenig Gymnasium who perished in the crash.

Germany lost 72 of its citizens in the disaster -- down from an earlier estimate of 75 -- and the town's school has become a symbolic focal point of the country's national mourning.

Lufthansa said $300 million (280 million euros) had been earmarked to cover the damages, while Germanwings will immediately compensate each family with 50,000 euros -- a sum that will not be deducted from any final compensation deal.

- Blow to Lufthansa's image -

The catastrophe has dealt a heavy blow to the image of Lufthansa, which announced Tuesday it would cancel celebrations next month to mark its 60th anniversary.

German prosecutors have said Lubitz was diagnosed as suicidal "several years ago", before he became a pilot, but had appeared more stable of late.

Doctors had recently found no sign that he intended to hurt himself or others, but he was receiving treatment from neurologists and psychiatrists who had signed him off sick from work a number of times, including on the day of the crash.

Police found torn-up sick notes during a search of his apartment after the crash.

The plane's second black box recorder, which gathered technical data on the flight, has yet to be found.

French investigators said Tuesday they would now concentrate on "the systemic weaknesses" that might have caused the disaster, including the logic of locking cockpit doors from the inside, which was introduced after the September 11, 2001 terrorist hijackings in the United States.

Several airlines and countries around the world have since ruled that two authorised crew members must be present in the cockpit at all times.

Girl Born With An 'Elephant Trunk' Deformity Being Worshipped For Bearing Resemblance With Lord 'Ganesha'
From International Business Times

A baby girl born with a facial deformity is being worshipped as god in an Indian village. The deformity looks similar to an elephant's trunk, and doctors are suspecting that it might be because of a rare genetic mutation.

The little girl is being regarded as "divine" since her deformity resembles Indian god Ganesha, who had a head like that of an elephant. The people living in and around the Aligarh region of Uttar Pradesh, India, are coming in flocks to catch a glimpse of the girl, considering her as an incarnation of the god.

The little girl's facial deformity is in the form of a lump between both her eyes that has resulted in the division of her nose into two parts. The deformity reportedly took place when the baby was in the womb of the mother. The fourth child of the family is otherwise healthy and well.

Doctors are yet to examine the baby to assess the need for a surgical intervention to make necessary facial corrections. However, they warned people that the deformity could have resulted because of a genetic mutation facilitated by pollution or malnutrition.

According to a report released in 2003 by the environment magazine Down to Earth, Aligarh and its surrounding area, being an industrial site, has poor sewage drainage and inappropriate working conditions. This is being suspected as one of the main reasons that may have triggered such deformity.

The family of the little girl can opt for a corrective surgery at a later stage in life when desired, reported Yahoo News. On the other hand, the father of the baby girl believes that the birth of her daughter with such deformity will change the fortune of the entire family.

Meet the World's New Oldest Person
From TIME

Following the death on Wednesday of Misao Okawa, a 117-year-old who lived in Japan, the world's new oldest person is an American.

The title now belongs to Gertrude Weaver, 116, who lives at Silver Oaks Health and Rehabilitation, a nursing home in Camden, Arkansas, according to the Gerontology Research Group.

"At the moment, Gertrude Weaver is the oldest living person for whom the Gerontology Research Group can adequately verify her age, with the three documentary conditions of original proof of birth, name change and recent identification having been met," Robert Young, director of the group's super-centenarians division, tells TIME.

In an interview with TIME last year after she was first recognized as the oldest-living American, Weaver said her secret to longevity is "kindness."

"Treat people right and be nice to other people the way you want them to be nice to you," she added. These days, she enjoys "wheelchair dancing," manicures, Bible study and attending concerts by singers from schools and church groups.

On Wednesday, Weaver told the Associated Press she would like President Obama to attend her party for her 117th birthday on July 4.

'Exploding Head Syndrome' proven to exist, amazingly common among young people
From Modvive

A new study suggests that a condition known as "Exploding Head Syndrome" may occur in as many as one in five young people.

This condition causes the sufferer to be awakened by a loud exploding noise or noises in their head potentially accompanied by the person even experiencing the sensation of an actual explosion.

This sensation often occurs when a person is just beginning to fall asleep.

According to the American Sleep Association, attacks can increase or decrease with time, and can disappear for long stretches at a time, or entirely, of their own volition.

The study's author, Brian Sharpless, director of the psychology clinic at Washington State University, says it may be caused by brain cells associated with hearing firing all at once.

"That's why you get these crazy-loud noises that you can't explain, and they're not actual noises in your environment," Sharpless said in a university news release.

The ASA also says exploding head syndrome is a rare condition that occurs primarily in people older than 50. But Sharpless says he has had his doubts about that for awhile now.

"I didn't believe the clinical lore that it would only occur in people in their 50s. That didn't make a lot of biological sense to me," said Sharpless.

This new survey appears to have proven him right.

Of the 211 college students questioned, one in five (or 18 percent) said they had experienced exploding head syndrome at least once.

According to a News Release from WSU, the study also found that more than one-third of those who had exploding head syndrome also experienced isolated sleep paralysis, a frightening experience in which one cannot move or speak when waking up.  People with this condition will literally dream with their eyes wide open.

For most people their isn't any documented lasting harm caused from the condition, although in about 2 percent of sufferers, the effects are so startling and cause such confusion that they suffer what the study refers to as  "clinically significant distress and/or impairment."

"Some people have worked these scary experiences into conspiracy theories and mistakenly believe the episodes are caused by some sort of directed-energy weapon," Sharpless said.

Sharpless notes that exploding head syndrome lasts just a few seconds but can be extremely frightening, leading people to think they're having a seizure or a stroke, or even that they are losing their mind.

"They may think they're going crazy and they don't know that a good chunk of the population has had the exact same thing," said Sharpless, "Unfortunately for this minority of individuals, no well-articulated or empirically supported treatments are available, and very few clinicians or researchers assess for it."

However, just getting a diagnosis and learning they aren't alone can help some people, he added.

"There's the possibility that just being able to recognize it and not be afraid of it can make it better," Sharpless said.

The study is the largest of its kind, with all 211 undergraduate students being interviewed by either  psychologists or graduate students that were specifically trained to recognize the symptoms of exploding head syndrome and isolated sleep paralysis.

The results appear online in the Journal of Sleep Research.

Antarctica hits 63 degrees, believed to be a record
From CNN

A high temperature of 63.5 degrees Fahrenheit might sound like a pleasant day in early spring -- unless you're in Antarctica.

The chilly continent recorded the temperature (15.5 degrees Celsius) on March 24, possibly the highest ever recorded on Antarctica, according to the Weather Underground.

The temperature was recorded at Argentina's Esperanza Base on the northern tip of the Antarctica Peninsula, according to CNN affiliate WTNH. (Note to map lovers: The Argentine base is not geographically part of the South American continent.)

The World Meteorological Organization, a specialized United Nations agency, is in the process of setting up an international ad-hoc committee of about 10 blue-ribbon climatologists and meteorologists to begin collecting relevant evidence, said Randy Cerveny, the agency's lead rapporteur of weather and climate extremes and Arizona State University professor of geographical sciences.

The committee will examine the equipment used to measure the temperature, whether it was in good working order, whether the correct monitoring procedures were followed, whether the equipment was placed in the correct location and whether the measurement is matched by corresponding records from surrounding stations, Cerveny said.

The committee will discuss the issues and make a recommendation to Cerveny, who will make an official finding, probably by late summer or early fall.

Researchers who study climate change carefully watch weather changes in the Antarctic region and elsewhere for evidence that the Earth is getting warmer.

Oceans might take thousands of years to recover from climate change, study suggests
From Sydney Morning Herald

Naturally occurring climate change lowered oxygen levels in the deep ocean, decimating a broad spectrum of seafloor life that took some 1,000 years to recover, according to a study that offers a potential window into the effects of modern warming.

Earth's recovery from the last glacial period, in fact, was slower and more brutal than previously thought, according to the study, published online Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers deciphered that plotline from a 30-foot core of sea sediments drilled from the Santa Barbara Basin off the coast of California containing more than 5,000 fossils spanning nearly 13,000 years.

"The recovery does not happen on a century scale; it's a commitment to a millennial-scale recovery," said Sarah Moffitt, a marine ecologist at the University of California, Davis' Bodega Marine Laboratory and lead author of the study. "If we see dramatic oxygen loss in the deep sea in my lifetime, we will not see a recovery of that for many hundreds of years, if not thousands or more."

Studies already have chronicled declines in dissolved oxygen in some areas of Earth's oceans. Such hypoxic conditions can expand when ocean temperatures rise and cycles that carry oxygen to deeper areas are interrupted.

As North American glaciers retreated during a warming period 14,700 years ago, an oxygen-sensitive community of seafloor invertebrates that included sea stars, urchins, clams and snails nearly vanished from the fossil record within about 130 years, the researchers found.

"We found incredible sensitivity across all of these taxonomic groups, across organisms that you would recognize, that you could hold in your hand, organisms that build and create ecosystems that are really fundamental to the way ecosystems function," Moffitt said. "They were just dramatically wiped out by the abrupt loss of oxygen."

That highly diverse community soon was replaced with a relatively narrow suite of bizarre and extreme organisms similar to those found near deep-ocean vents and methane seeps in modern oceans, Moffitt said.

Evidence of that transition was confined to such a narrow band of sediments that the turnover could have been "nearly instantaneous," the study concluded.

Then, beginning around 13,500 years ago, the seafloor community began a slow recovery with the rise of grazers that fed on bacterial mats. Recovery eventually was driven by a fluctuation back toward glaciation during the Younger Dryas period, a cooling sometimes called the Big Freeze.

"The biological community takes 1,000 years to truly recover to the same ecological level of functioning," Moffitt said. "And the community progresses through really interesting and bizarre states before it recovers the kind of biodiversity that was seen prior to the warming."

That relatively brief freeze also ended abruptly around 11,700 years ago, virtually wiping out all the seafloor metazoans, the study found. They were gone within 170 years and did not appear again for more than 4,000 years, according to the study.

The climate changes chronicled in the study arose from natural cycles involving Earth's orbit of the sun, and the oxygen declines that ensued were more extreme than those that have occurred in modern times, the study noted.

Still, the abrupt fluctuations offer a glimpse at the duration of the effects of climate change driven by human activity pumping more planet-warming gases into Earth's atmosphere, Moffitt said.

"What this shows us is that there are major biomes on this planet that are on the table, that are on the chopping block for a future of abrupt climate warming and unchecked greenhouse gas emissions," Moffitt said. "We as a society and civilization have to come to terms with the things that we are going to sacrifice if we do not reduce our greenhouse gas footprint."

Shortest lunar eclipse of the century: How to see it this weekend
From LA Times

Look sharp, sky watchers: You can catch the shortest total lunar eclipse of the century this weekend - if you keep your eye on the clock.

The moment of totality, when the entire moon is bathed in the Earth's shadow, will begin at 4:58 a.m. Pacific time Saturday and last for just under five minutes.

That's seriously short. For some lunar eclipses, totality can last for more than an hour.

Saturday's eclipse is so brief because the moon will pass through the upper part of the Earth's circular shadow. If the moon had traveled across the center of the shadow, the eclipse would last longer. (The NASA video embedded here has a good illustration of this.)

The celestial show will get going at 3:15 a.m. Pacific time when the darkest part of the Earth's shadow begins to fall on the moon. Over the next hour and 45 minutes you can watch as more of the moon becomes engulfed by the Earth's shadow until finally the entire lunar disk is covered.

After totality ends, a partial eclipse will still be visible until about 6:45 a.m.

If you live in the Eastern U.S., the moon will set before you are able to enjoy the total eclipse. If you live west of the Mississippi, you will at least be able to see totality, but only those on the West Coast of the U.S. will be able to see the whole thing from start to finish.

Remember that even when the moon is covered entirely by the Earth's shadow it will appear reddish in color, rather than black.

That's because when the Earth moves directly between the moon and the sun, the scattered light from all the sunsets and sunrises on the rim of our globe still make it to the moon's surface.

"If you were standing on the moon during a total lunar eclipse you would see the Earth as a black disk with a brilliant orange ring around it," said Alan MacRobert of Sky and Telescope magazine. "And this brilliant ring would be bright enough to dimly light up the lunar landscape."

The reddish color has led some people to dub the lunar eclipse a "blood moon."

If you feel like there have been an awful lot of total lunar eclipses - or blood moons - lately, you are exactly right. Saturday's eclipse is the third total lunar eclipse in less than a year. The first two occurred on April 15 and Oct. 8 last year. A fourth will take place on Sept. 28.

Astronomers call a series of four eclipses each separated by a span of six months an eclipse tetrad, and it is a rare event. The last one occurred 10 years ago and the next won't take place until 2032, according to Sky & Telescope.

So fight your lunar eclipse fatigue and set your alarm for early Saturday. You won't need any special equipment to enjoy the eclipse - just a clear sky and a good view of the moon.

And when you are climbing out of your warm, cozy bed, just imagine how awesome you will feel by the end of September when you will be able to say that you saw all four lunar eclipses of the 2014-15 tetrad.

Happy sky watching!

Scientists say polar bears won't thrive on land food
From The Washington Post

A group of researchers say polar bears forced off melting sea ice will not find enough food to replace their current diet of fat-laden marine mammals such as seals, a conclusion that contradicts studies indicating that bears may be benefiting from bird eggs, berries and other land food sources.

Few bears are using land food and what they find can't replace lipid-rich ringed or bearded seals, said Karyn Rode, a U.S. Geological Survey research wildlife biologist and lead author of the review paper published Wednesday in the journal, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

The paper by federal and academic researchers reviews current polar bear research. It's aimed at recent research documenting bears feeding on land and suggestions that those foods are becoming more important for them, which could increase their chance for survival as summer sea ice recedes, preventing seal hunting.

But not everyone agrees with the conclusions reached by Rode and the other authors at Washington State University and Polar Bear International.

Robert Rockwell, a population biologist and ecologist at City College of New York, who is also affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History, has conducted research at western Hudson Bay for 47 years. He has watched polar bears change their behavior to eat goose eggs and caribou calves, he said Tuesday.

"I find it hard to believe they're going to get nothing out of it," he said.

Polar bears are marine mammals that spend most of their lives on sea ice. They use the frozen ocean to hunt, often catching ringed seals.

The world's 19 polar bear populations are divided into four regions. In three, entire populations historically remained on sea ice year-round. The fourth has seasonal sea ice and includes Hudson Bay, where polar bears have always spent time on land.

The Bush administration in 2008 listed polar bears as threatened because of an alarming loss of summer sea ice and climate models indicating major declines in polar bear distribution and abundance.

Land food such as berries can be abundant for polar bears but low quality, Rode said. Eggs from ground nests are higher quality but limited. Polar bears feeding on berries lose significant weight, Rode said.

"There is evidence that some bears are using terrestrial sources in a place such as Hudson Bay, but there's been no evidence that it's contributing a significant amount to their energy requirements," Rode said.

Land food may benefit individuals, but the overall contribution to polar bear diets probably will be negligible, the authors said.

"This paper establishes in no uncertain terms that polar bears are very unlikely to be able to make a living on land, and that if we don't save the sea ice, polar bears will indeed be gone," said another author, Steven Amstrup, chief scientist at Polar Bear International and a retired USGS polar bear researcher, in an email statement.

Polar bears on land face competition for food from Arctic foxes, birds and grizzly bears. Rode said. Arctic grizzlies are among the smallest of their species.

"Food limitations would be particularly problematic for the much larger polar bears, which often have a body mass double that of Arctic brown bears," the authors said.

Studies suggesting polar bears have benefited from food on land have not assessed the food's energetic contribution, Rode said. The ultimate indicator of any food benefit would be their health, she said.

"In western Hudson Bay, where more high-quality terrestrial food (birds, bird eggs, and caribou) may be more readily available than in most other Arctic landscapes, survival rates and population size have declined with increasing time spent on land despite terrestrial foraging," the authors said.

Rockwell said the paper may be using outdated information. The paper cites western Hudson Bay polar bear research from more than a decade ago, before bears started coming ashore early to feed on snow geese and caribou calves, he said.

Rode and her colleagues have underestimated the number of bears eating food on land and discount that they can learn new behavior, he said. One bear he documented raided 250 eider nests in 96 hours and filled 20 percent of its annual caloric intake.

"My 47 years of experience tells me these bears are changing their behavior," he said. "How much is that going to benefit them? I don't know. It's got to benefit them some. If you eat the eggs from 40 nests, then you just consumed the same number of calories as if you ate a seal."

Cynthia Lennon, the First Beatles Wife, Dies at 75
From New York Times

Cynthia Lennon, the first wife of the Beatles' John Lennon, who chronicled their troubled marriage in two memoirs, died on Wednesday at her home in Mallorca, Spain. She was 75.

The cause was cancer, according to a memorial on the website of her son, Julian.

Ms. Lennon, then Cynthia Powell, met Lennon when he was a student at the Liverpool College of Art in the late 1950s. She was a studious, proper young lady, in stark contrast to him.

"He was a total rebel, and everybody was amazed by him," she said in a 2005 interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."

She ended her engagement to another man, he broke up with his girlfriend, and they began dating. It was during this period, Ms. Lennon said, that she first dealt with his jealousy and anger. She said that he smacked her in the face for dancing with another man, after which she broke up with him for several months.

She became pregnant in 1962 and married Lennon on Aug. 23, just weeks before the Beatles recorded their first single, "Love Me Do." She was ill prepared for the fame that engulfed John and his bandmates.

"I didn't marry a Beatle," she told the British newspaper The Independent in 1999. "I married a broke student who played the guitar and ponced all my grant money off me."

Their son was born in April 1963, as Beatlemania was spreading across England. Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager, hid the existence of Lennon's wife and son to make him seem available to the legions of young women obsessed with him. Many fans were distraught when the Beatles appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1964 and the words "Sorry, girls, he's married" appeared with his image on the screen.

As the Beatles' fame grew, Lennon became more distant, with little time for his wife and their son. Ms. Lennon stayed home with Julian while John toured and traveled. Lennon came to resent his wife's conventional ways.

It was around this time that Lennon met the artist Yoko Ono. Ms. Lennon discovered their relationship after finding the two of them sitting on the floor of the Lennon home cross-legged, clad only in robes. John and Cynthia Lennon divorced in 1968, and she received a reported settlement of £100,000 (roughly $150,000 at the time).

After the divorce, Lennon cut off contact with her and their son for years, and many accounts of the Beatles' history minimized them. "We are like walk-on parts in John's life," Ms. Lennon said in 2005.

Ms. Lennon told her side of the story in two memoirs: "A Twist of Lennon," which she also illustrated, and "John."

Julian Lennon rekindled his relationship with his father before he was murdered by Mark David Chapman in 1980. Ms. Lennon wrote that Ms. Ono asked her not to come to the memorial ceremonies in New York. But the two women grew closer over time.

"I felt proud how we two women stood firm in the Beatles family," Ms. Ono wrote on her website on Wednesday.

Cynthia Powell was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, on Sept. 10, 1939. She was married four times, most recently to Noel Charles, who died in 2013.

Julian, who is also a singer and songwriter, is her only immediate survivor.

On the last page of "John," Ms. Lennon wrote that if she had had another chance, she would have lived differently.

"If I'd known as a teenager what falling for John Lennon would lead to," she said, "I would have turned 'round right then and walked away."

[The Edge Case]

The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Is The New Hotness
From TechCrunch

The smartphone to beat this season is the Galaxy S6 Edge. It's slim, stylish, and powerful, a mashup between the previous Galaxy S series with the original iPod Touch. It's well-made and unique, a combination rarely found in cellphones these days and it is as far from the Galaxy S5 as the T-1000 was from the original Terminator. In short, it's pretty cool and probably the only S6 – the other being the non-curved standard model – I'd buy.

The Edge Case

This review is primarily about the S6 Edge. Out of the two phones released by Samsung at MWC the Edge most deserves to be called a flagship – a device that shows the best of what the company has to offer. While the "standard" S6 is solid, usable, and handsome, I think the Edge is the real winner here. Why? First off the design is unique and unique to Samsung. It is the one that you will notice and it feels great in the hand. The standard S6 is another solid slab and although the size difference is minuscule you can truly feel the difference. The Edge disappears in the pocket while the S6 is just another smartphone.

Everything in the S6 is available in the Edge. Both run a Exynos 14nm 64-bit Octa Core processor and both come in 64 and 128GB variants (you can get the S6 in 32GB.) Both have a built-in IR blaster for changing channels on your television, a usable heart rate monitor that doubles as a flash, acceptable front and back cameras, and a beautiful 5.1-inch 2560 x 1440 pixel Super AMOLED display that Samsung uses to excellent effect. Everything about the phone is smooth – from the pixel-free screen to the lush colors to the animations and transitions. This is Samsung kicking out the stops.

The Good

Those familiar with modern Android won't be surprised by everything the S6 has to offer. It's more of the same but better. NFC payments are on the table, where available, as is fingerprint recognition. The processor and 3G of RAM make things snappy and Samsung's Milk services are built in to supply music and video. SHealth, Samsung's health offering, can measure your steps and take your pulse. They pre-bundled Hancom Office on board in case you wanted to check out some spreadsheets on your flight.

The S6 Edge is just good. It has great battery life – it's run for about 1 day on a charge with heavy use and lasted about two days on standby. This time will degrade with use, however, so expect about 18 hours of firm usage, less if you're watching video or browsing a lot. Samsung has truly streamlined Android notifications and made them pleasing to swipe through and read. The lock screen is eminently useful thanks to a little list of icons under the notifications that show you what you have in your queue. A button on the right side wakes the phone up from sleep and there are volume buttons on the left side. That's it. The rest of the phone is nearly featureless except for a little slot for the SIM card and the iPhone-like bottom face.

In terms of size the S6 is just right. While I'm honestly used to a bigger phone these days – the Note or the 6 Plus are my go-to devices – this is phone is a great size and, because it is amazingly slim, it fits the hand and pocket well. I never expected a Samsung device to look this good and feel this premium but it's 2015 and they finally pulled it off.

The Bad

A few bugs popped up in my testing. First, I found the fingerprint sensor to be useless.

While the enrollment process for the fingerprint sensor was surprisingly easy (and Apple-like with a little print that filled in as you put down your finger), using it was surprisingly hard. I enrolled a thumb that I use regularly on the iPhone with no issues but try as I might I couldn't unlock the phone with a simple press. I turned off fingerprint recognition and used a standard PIN while I was testing.

The S6 is also missing an SD card slot and a removable battery. I find this fact quite ironic as, for years, Samsung proponents have held up these two features as must-have items. I would argue that the fast charging system, acceptable battery life, and usability should assuage your grief over a non-removable battery and I also suspect those who need more storage space will be happy just getting a phone with more memory rather than swapping in fingernail-sized SD cards. I could be wrong, but them's the breaks.

The lack of waterproofing is a bit harder to swallow. Water fastness, for the most part, was a killer feature for the last Galaxy. What compelled Samsung to add it is anyone's guess but I know it has saved number of phones after a trip to the drink. There are far more important things they could have left out but I know that the waterproofing was a fan favorite. You might also be annoyed by the wartish rear camera which sticks out quite prominently from the glossy white back. I would be concerned that it – along with the thin metal edges – would be a point of impact while tooling around with this device. I'm also concerned that a case – and I haven't seen a case on this phone yet – could hide a lot of what makes this phone beautiful. It is, in fact, the first phone that I would honestly say shouldn't be hidden inside a case. Here's hoping the Gorilla Glass panels survive abuse.

Otherwise the S6 Edge is nearly perfect. The pre-installed bloatware – mostly carrier specific software – is acceptable and easily removed and the UI shows just how polished Android can be. The phone is pleasant to use, fun, and definitely worth a look.

The Bottom Line

Compared to the S6 the Samsung S5 seems like a fever dream. Designed to please all the people all of the time, Samsung poured everything they could into their previous model, resulting in something that, in the end, hit their profits. The S6 is Samsung at its finest. It is a phone that speaks to a consumer looking for a premium product and priced accordingly. Would I also recommend the standard S6? Given that the edge costs $100 more both off-contract ($650 vs $750) and on-contract ($200 vs $300) you should probably let your wallet be your guide. The phones are functionally identical but the features and value truly stands out in the Edge. It's your call but I'd definitely lean towards Edge if it were my money.

I hesitate to say that Samsung "Finally Did It!" The fact that it took them this long to think carefully about design and not just paste a laundry list of features on the design lab wall is shameful. This phone can beat any lesser manufacturer's offerings handily and it stands toe-to-toe with Apple. If Samsung can keep this up they will be truly successful in all facets of the manufacturing process. A friend once told me that he doesn't buy Samsung phones because Samsung is a washing machine and air conditioner company. With this phone they are finally a mobile company.

[Fighting in the Yemeni city of Aden has intensified as Houthi rebels try to seize control of the city.]

Yemen crisis: Fighting intensifies in Aden
From BBC News

Fighting in the Yemeni city of Aden has intensified as Houthi rebels try to seize control of the city.

Concern is growing over the number of casualties after heavy clashes between local militia fighters and rebel forces.

Witnesses have reported bodies lying in the street after rebel shelling and sniper attacks.

The fierce fighting has continued despite airstrikes on Houthi forces by a Saudi-led coalition.

Houthi rebels allied with troops loyal to the former President Ali Abdullah Saleh have reportedly advanced deeper into Aden to try and wrest control of the city from fighters loyal to President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

The BBC's Security Correspondent Frank Gardner says that if reports of rebel tanks entering the centre of the southern port city are confirmed, then the rebels will have consolidated their grip on the most important parts of Yemen.

Civilian deaths

As the fighting continues, there have been increasing concern about the number of casualties.

A spokeswoman for the aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) told the BBC that its hospital in Aden had received more than 500 injured people from all sides in the conflict over the last two weeks.

"The major injuries are gunshots and since the bombs we have some people with injuries linked to explosions," said spokeswoman Marie-Elisabeth Ingres.

On Wednesday, AFP news agency reported that at least 19 people had been killed, including six civilians, in clashes in the city's Khor Maksar district.

The UN has also expressed alarm at the rising number of civilian deaths in Yemen.

On Tuesday, the high commissioner for human rights warned that the country seemed to be "on the verge of total collapse".

Factory blast

President Hadi fled abroad last week after rebels advanced on Aden, where he had taken refuge after the Houthis took full control of the capital Sanaa in January and placed him under house arrest.

A Saudi-led coalition is attempting to help Mr Hadi in his fight against the Houthis by conducting airstrikes against the rebels and their allies.

On Wednesday, at least 35 workers were killed by a blast at a dairy factory in the Red Sea port city of Hudaydah.

There were conflicting reports about the cause of the overnight explosion but witnesses said coalition aircraft hit warehouses belonging to the factory.

The latest violence comes as dozens of Yemenis are reported to have crossed the Gulf of Aden in small boats to get to Somalia and Djibouti to escape fighting and airstrikes on the city of Taez.

The arrival of the Yemeni refugees reverses a decades-old trend in which thousands of Somalis have sought sanctuary in Yemen to escape their own country's violence.

The Houthis have said their aim is to replace President Hadi's government, which they accuse of being corrupt. Their leader has refused to surrender to what he called the "unjustified aggression" by the coalition.

[Better learning, memory linked to greater number of sleep spindles during nap]

A short daytime nap could improve memory by fivefold, study finds
From Medical News Today

We have all been there; whether in class at school or a meeting at work, sometimes it feels as if our brain just gives up and leaves the building. But according to a new study by researchers from Saarland University in Germany, a short daytime nap could significantly boost brain power.

Publishing their findings in the journal Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, the team reveals that a sleep of around 45-60 minutes could improve learning and memory by fivefold.

This is not the first study to associate daytime napping with improved memory performance. In January, Medical News Today reported on a study by researchers from the University of Sheffield in the UK, who found that a 30-minute nap within 4 hours of a learning task significantly improved infants' memory.

But this latest study reveals that power naps may also benefit memory for adults, with the team revealing how a short sleep may affect the brain to produce this outcome.

To reach their findings, study leader Alex Mecklinger, of the Experimental Neuropsychology Unit at Saarland, and his team enrolled 41 participants to take part in a learning task.

Participants were shown a list of 90 single words and 120 unrelated word pairs and were asked to learn them. The researchers explain that unrelated word pairs were used in order to eliminate the possibility that participants may have remembered the words as a result of familiarity.

"A word pair might, for example, be 'milk-taxi.' Familiarity is of no use here when participants try to remember this word pair," explains Mecklinger, "because they have never heard this particular word combination before and it is essentially without meaning. They therefore need to access the specific memory of the corresponding episode in the hippocampus."

After the learning task, participants were immediately required to complete a memory recall test. Half of the participants were then asked to take a nap of up to 90 minutes, while the remaining subjects were asked to watch a DVD.

The brain activity of the napping participants was measured via electroencephalogram (EEG) while they slept, with the team specifically focusing on "sleep spindles" - a burst of activity in the hippocampus region that plays a key role in memory consolidation.

"We suspect that certain types of memory content, particularly information that was previously tagged, is preferentially consolidated during this type of brain activity," says Mecklinger.

Next, all participants were asked to retake the memory recall test, requiring them to once again remember the words and word pairs shown to them prior to napping or watching a DVD.

Better learning, memory linked to greater number of sleep spindles during nap

The researchers found that, compared with participants who watched the DVD, those who napped for around 45-60 minutes following the learning task performed approximately five times better when it came to remembering the word pairs.

In fact, the researchers note that word pair recall of the napping participants was just as good as it was on the memory tests completed immediately after learning.

Short naps were not associated with improvement in item memory - the ability to remember phone numbers, for example, or a friend's name - the team says.

According to the researchers, these findings suggest that a short nap can significantly boost associative memory - the ability to remember a link between items that are unrelated, such as the name of a person we have just met.

What is more, the team found that better learning and memory recall was associated with a greater number of sleep spindles in the EEG, supporting their theory that sleep spindles play a role in specific forms of memory; in this case - associative memory.

Commenting on their findings, Mecklinger says:

"A short nap at the office or in school is enough to significantly improve learning success. Wherever people are in a learning environment, we should think seriously about the positive effects of sleep."

Earlier this month, MNT reported on a study published in Nature Neuroscience, in which researchers found our head-direction cells - the "internal compass" that tells us which direction we should face - continue to be active during sleep.

[Marcin Kostrzewa breaks into next-door neighbour Shane Spencer's flat using stolen keys before taking sensitive documents stored in airing cupboard, jury told]

Thief 'tries to sell secret documents on British nuclear submarines to Polish government'
From The Telegraph

Marcin Kostrzewa breaks into next-door neighbour Shane Spencer's flat using stolen keys before taking sensitive documents stored in airing cupboard, jury told

A Polish loner stole sensitive Royal Navy documents about Britain's nuclear submarines from his engineer neighbour before trying to sell them to the Polish government for £50,000, a court heard.

Marcin Kostrzewa, 31, broke into his next door neighbour Shane Spencer's flat using stolen keys and took sensitive and technical drawings about the subs which were stored in his airing cupboard, Plymouth Crown Court heard.

But he was caught in an MI5 sting when he tried to sell the information to a man called "Alex" who he thought was from the Polish embassy but was a British spy.

In secretly-recorded conversations he told Alex what he was offering was "just the beginning". In the month before he was arrested he had searched Google using terms like "spy games, spies and secret documents", the jury heard.

Opening the case, prosecutor Alexander Chalk said it was a "slightly unusual burglary".

He said it was about the theft of sensitive and technical drawings of British nuclear submarines and their attempted sale to the Polish Government.

Mr Chalk said Kostrzewa entered the flat of Mr Spencer who works as an engineer on submarines in the Royal Naval dockyard at Devonport in Plymouth, Devon.

He said: "He then contacted the Polish embassy to sell these documents." He thought he was in contact with a man called Alex from the Polish Government but in fact he was an agent for the British security services.

Mr Chalk said the two men met in a Plymouth hotel and their conversation about the deal was recorded. He also claimed he had stolen the contents of a computer hard drive.

The jury heard at the time Mr Spencer was working as an engineer and worked on designs for Trafalgar and Astute class submarines.

From time to time, he took home restricted documents to work on and these were kept in an airing cupboard at the flat. The jury heard Mr Spencer first met Kostrzewa in late 2011 when the Pole had knocked on his door to complain about noise.

Mr Spencer's girlfriend Sophie Berriman came to the conclusion that Kostrzewa was lonely and kept turning up at weekends and in the evenings with alcohol. She thought the Pole was "infatuated with Shane".

Mr Chalk said: "He said he worked on submarines and showed him a picture of a bulkhead and that image excited the defendant."

That unrestricted image from a Trafalgar class submarine was one of those later stolen and Mr Chalk said the Pole must have seen the folder which was also stolen.

Mr Chalk said Kostrzewa's frequent attendance began to grate on Shaun Spencer and his friends and they refused to answer the door to him, and the defendant could be heard saying "you reject me, you reject me".

The court heard that the Pole asked Shane Spencer out for a drink but Kostrzewa then let himself back into his neighbour's flat alone.

Miss Berriman also discovered that she had lost her key to her boyfriend's flat and Kostrzewa let her into the shared entrance and then said he had found her key on the floor of a Co-Op store.

In the covert recording with the agent Alex, the defendant said he had "acquired keys to Shane Spencer's flat".

Mr Chalk said: "He then offered to sell off the documents relating to UK submarines to the Polish Government."

In April agent Alex rang the Pole and they met at a hotel in Plymouth in a room that was rigged up with hidden recording gear.

Alex asked him how much he wanted for 'all of it' with the hard disk and Kostrzewa asked for £50,000 for the material as 'there are over 20 boats' and 'they are boats that are already sailing'. "Alex said he needed time to consider the documents."

In the recorded conversation the defendant said "this is only the beginning". He told Alex his neighbour Mr Spencer 'designs nuclear submarines'.

He said Mr Spencer did not know he had stolen the material from him.

He said he pulled out the sheets of paper and replaced them empty sheets of paper to make the file look as thick in the folder.

He said he and Mr Spencer would "booze it up on the vodka" but his pharmacist girlfriend is intelligent and stops Mr Spencer talking about his work as a mathematician and physicist.

As Kostrzewa left the room he was arrested by police on suspicion of breaking the Official Secrets Act.

Kostrzewa denies burglary between January and April 2014, "stealing a quantity of documents". The trial continues.

[Scientists at Cern could prove the controversial theory of 'rainbow gravity' which suggests that the universe stretches back into time infinitely, with no Big Bang]

Big Bang theory could be debunked by Large Hadron Collider
From The Telegraph

Scientists at Cern could prove the controversial theory of 'rainbow gravity' which suggests that the universe stretches back into time infinitely, with no Big Bang



The detection of miniature black holes by the Large Hadron Collider could prove the existence of parallel universes and show that the Big Bang did not happen, scientists believe.

The particle accelerator, which will be restarted this week, has already found the Higgs boson – the God Particle – which is thought to give mass to other particles.

Now scientists at Cern in Switzerland believe they might find miniature black holes which would reveal the existence of a parallel universe.

And if the holes are found at a certain energy, it could prove the controversial theory of 'rainbow gravity' which suggests that the universe stretches back into time infinitely with no singular point where it started, and no Big Bang.

The theory was postulated to reconcile Einstein's theory of general relativity – which deals with very large objects, and quantum mechanics – which looks at the tiniest building blocks of the universe. It takes its name from a suggestion that gravity's effect on the cosmos is felt differently by varying wavelengths of light.

The huge amounts of energy needed to make 'rainbow gravity' would mean that the early universe was very different. One result would be that if you retrace time backward, the universe gets denser, approaching an infinite density but never quite reaching it.

The effect of rainbow gravity is small for objects like the Earth but it is significant and measurable for black holes. It could be detected by the Large Hadron Collider if it picks up or creates black holes within the accelerator.

"We have calculated the energy at which we expect to detect these mini black holes in gravity's rainbow [a new theory]. If we do detect mini black holes at this energy, then we will know that both gravity's rainbow and extra dimensions are correct, Dr Mir Faizal told Phys.org.

The second run of the LHC will begin this week and the beams are expected to go full circle on Wednesday for the first time since the 27km accelerator was shut down in early 2013 for an upgrade.

When it is fired up it will smash protons together at nearly double the energy that was used to find the Higgs boson.

Rolf Heuer, Director General of CERN, said the switch-on would create 'a new era for physics' which could also shed light on dark matter, dark energy and super-symmetry.

"I want to see the first light in the dark universe. If that happens, then nature is kind to me."

Scientists believe they could find the first proof of alternative realities that exist outside out own universe.


The newly revamped Large Hadron Collider

It is even possible that gravity from our own universe may 'leak' into this parallel universe, scientists at the LHC say.

"Just as many parallel sheets of paper, which are two dimensional objects [breadth and length] can exist in a third dimension [height], parallel universes can also exist in higher dimensions," added Dr Faizal,

"We predict that gravity can leak into extra dimensions, and if it does, then miniature black holes can be produced at the LHC.

"Normally, when people think of the multiverse, they think of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, where every possibility is actualised.

"This cannot be tested and so it is philosophy and not science.

"This is not what we mean by parallel universes. What we mean is real universes in extra dimensions.

"As gravity can flow out of our universe into the extra dimensions, such a model can be tested by the detection of mini black holes at the LHC."

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has undergone important upgrades and repairs over the past two years since the first shutdown.

The particle collider boasts new magnets, superior cryogenics, higher voltage and higher energy beams that will allow the machine to run at nearly double the collision energy of the first run.

The first circulating beams of protons in the LHC are planned for the week beginning 23 March, and by late May to early June the LHC aims to be running at 13 TeV.

Frances Saunders, president of the IOP, said, "This has been a massive effort by all the scientists and engineers at CERN to upgrade the LHC and its detectors and get it ready to operate at almost double the collision energies of the first run.

"As well as allowing greater study of the Higgs boson there is much anticipation amongst the physics community as to what else may be found at these higher energies, testing our theories and understanding of concepts such as supersymmetry and potentially giving greater insight into the 95 per cent of the universe that is composed of dark matter and dark energy."

[Behold the fearsome "Carolina Butcher," a 9-foot-long ancestor of the modern crocodile whose skeleton was discovered in the Pekin Formation in Chatham County, N.C.]

'Carolina Butcher' is massive crocodile that ran on two legs 230 million years ago
From NY Daily News

Behold the fearsome "Carolina Butcher," a 9-foot-long ancestor of the modern crocodile whose skeleton was discovered in the Pekin Formation in Chatham County, N.C.

A 9-foot-long, 230-million-year-old fanged crocodile that used to roam across North Carolina on its back legs has been discovered.

Carnufex carolinesis — which translates to "Carolina Butcher" — is thought to have prowled the state hundreds of millions of years ago.

The blade-toothed beast had a bizarrely long skull and feasted on armored reptiles and early mammals.

But unlike its modern descendants, it was not aquatic and did not walk on four legs.

Instead, it's thought to have been mainly land-based — and prowled around upright on its hind limbs.

Paleontologists from North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences found shattered parts of the prehistoric croc's skull, spine and leg while digging in the Pekin Formation in Chatham County.

They scanned in the individual bones of the skull to create a 3D model. The group's findings have been published in the journal Scientific Research.

"As one of the earliest and oldest crocodylomorphs, Carnufex was a far cry from living crocodiles," wrote Lindsay Zanno.

"It was an agile, terrestrial predator that hunted on land. Carnufex predates the group that living crocodiles belong to," she added.

The "Carolina Butcher's" period at the top of the chain did not last, however, as it was killed off when the Triassic period ended.

Smaller crocodylomorphs were left untouched, and went on to evolve into the crocodiles that we know today.

"As theropod dinosaurs started to make it big, the ancestors of modern crocs initially took on a role similar to foxes or jackals, with small, sleek bodies and long limbs," said study co-author Susan Drymala.

"If you want to picture these animals, just think of a modern-day fox, but with alligator skin instead of fur," she said.

'Mission: Impossible 5' teaser trailer: See first footage of Tom Cruise in 'Rogue Nation'
From NY Daily News

Ethan Hunt is back in action.

The first teaser trailer for "Mission Impossible 5" shows Tom Cruise performing the high-flying stunts viewers have come to expect in the spy franchise.

The one-minute clip released Sunday features Cruise's Hunt dangling from a plane and racing on a motorcycle as she takes on a crime organization called the Syndicate.

It also confirms that the film's official title is "Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation."

Cruise tweeted the trailer Sunday morning, saying he was "excited to share the first footage" from the movie.

Fans will get to see the first full trailer Monday.

The Christopher McQuarrie-directed flick, which follows up 2011's "Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol," also stars Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson and Alec Baldwin

It will hit theaters on July 31.

Ariana Grande impersonates Celine Dion on 'Tonight Show'
From Fox News

Before Ariana Grande was known for her own hit tunes, she used to spend her time doing impressions of other big stars' top songs.

And on Friday's episode of "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," host Fallon asked Grande if she would entertain the audience with her imitation of Celine Dion.

A jittery Ariana obliged and picked up a mic to duet with Fallon, doing a spot-on impression of one of the most-recognizable voices in the music industry.

Grande even matched Dion's accent as she wrapped up her short, but impressive performance.

Ahead of the song, the young starlet told Fallon it was her first sit-down interview on a talk show and she felt "vulnerable."

"I'm so nervous," she told Fallon. "I don't speak. This is my first time speaking in front of people."

Stocks up as dollar adds to losses, oil gains
From Reuters

U.S. stocks edged higher on Monday following strong gains in major indexes the previous week, as investors assessed gyrations in the dollar and crude prices and their impact on equities.

Energy stocks were among the largest gainers as crude oil prices changed course to trade higher as the greenback weakened further.

The action in the dollar has closely affected stocks of late as traders focus on the Federal Reserve and its expected monetary policy tightening sometime later this year. The 20-day correlation between the dollar index .DXY and the S&P 500 sits at -0.79. The dollar index was down 0.7 percent on the day.

"The market has been in a back-and-forth motion for the last couple of weeks, caught between the potential for rising interest rates and its impact on the dollar and the feeling by investors that the economy is gaining some strength," said Rick Meckler, president of LibertyView Capital Management in Jersey City, New Jersey.

He said, equity traders were "maybe a little bit too focused" on the daily dollar moves and the impact of a stronger greenback on earnings was not entirely clear.

At 9:56 a.m. EDT (1356 GMT) the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI rose 45.61 points, or 0.25 percent, to 18,173.26, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 2.93 points, or 0.14 percent, to 2,111.03 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 10.19 points, or 0.2 percent, to 5,016.23.

The S&P 500 energy sector .SPNY rose 0.7 percent as Brent LCOc1 reversed a slide to gain 0.9 percent, while U.S. crude CLc1 added 0.4 percent even after top exporter Saudi Arabia said it would only mull cutting output if producers outside OPEC do so as well.

Gilead Sciences (GILD.O) shares fell 2 percent to $100.24 after a report by Bloomberg said the company told healthcare providers nine patients taking its hepatitis C drugs along with a heart treatment developed abnormally slow heartbeats and one died of cardiac arrest.

Immunogen (IMGN.O) rallied 14.4 percent to $8.51 after it licensed Japan-based Takeda Pharmaceutical (4502.T) to develop and commercialize anticancer therapies.

The Nasdaq Biotech index .NBI fell for the first time in nine sessions, down 2.5 percent, after running up nearly 20 percent from its February low.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 1,839 to 958, for a 1.92-to-1 ratio; on the Nasdaq, 1,234 issues fell and 1,168 advanced for a 1.06-to-1 ratio favoring decliners.

The S&P 500 was posting 41 new 52-week highs and 1 new low; the Nasdaq Composite was recording 67 new highs and 12 new lows.

[Mine is yours]

How Minecraft is helping kids learn code one block at a time
From TechRadar

In turtles, the inability to stop walking in circles can indicate a serious health problem — from partial blindness to irreversible brain damage.

It was habitual behaviour for one particular creature in 1969, but its American owners were far from concerned. That's because the turtle was a robot.

Created by MIT, the Logo Turtle was a three-wheeled machine used to help teach the Logo Programming Language. Children could direct the Turtle, which resembled a moving dome, by inputting computer commands. By drawing shapes of varying complexity, it would help them visualise what was being programmed, with activities ranging from mathematics to language, music and robotics.

The Turtle eventually migrated to the computer screen to help teach Logo using moving graphics.

More than 45 years on, the underlying principle of using a visual aid to help teach children programming lives on. But instead of opting for robotic reptiles, Ray Chambers, Head of IT at Uppingham Community College in Rutland, England, has taken the unconventional route of using the popular open-world sandbox game Minecraft to teach programming to 11-to-16-year-olds.

Mine is yours

Downloaded more than 19 million times since its launch in 2009 — Minecraft, which was bought from its creator by Microsoft for a multi-billion pound sum in 2014 — has no end goal.

The poster child of the sandbox genre, its colourful virtual environments are made up of cube-shaped blocks that let users create anything from houses to castles, statues, towers, fortresses and beyond. But despite its "anything goes" appeal, it wasn't immediately obvious to Chambers that the game would lend itself to teaching programming.

"It all began when I was teaching an IT lesson using a Powerpoint slide to talk about the inputs and outputs of logic gates," he told TechRadar at BETT 2015. "I was showing students a NOT gate, explaining that if you have a switch turned on, the output on the other side is off, which confused some of them.

"One of my other students said, 'Sir, you mean like in Minecraft?', and I half-shrugged in agreement. That's when I started looking into it. If it wasn't for my student piping up, I probably wouldn't know anything about it."

Set in stone

Chambers discovered that one of the blocks, called Redstone, can be used to simulate electrical circuits in the real world.

Because Redstone blocks represent live power sources, laying Redstone wiring between them and activating switches can trigger devices — from lighting bulbs to opening doors, setting traps or blowing up TNT (a firm favourite among students, unsurprisingly).

After learning basic commands using worksheets, students are able to progress at their own pace to tackle different parts of the curriculum — such as understanding boolean logic, logic gates and their uses in circuits and programming, and operations on binary numbers. Whatever level they are at, students need time to experiment on the game if they are to progress, explains Chambers.

"Whenever you're teaching a lesson on computing, students need to have tinkering time," he says. "If you restrict it, they say you're taking the fun out of it."

Tinkering time

The amount of tinkering time students get ultimately depends on their enthusiasm for the subject. Such is the level of engagement that many continue their projects after school on their own PCs, tablets and consoles, something that Chambers says is down to personal empowerment.

"If you have to teach ICT using spreadsheets, Word and Powerpoint, the lessons can be disengaging and students sometimes can't be bothered," he says. "By giving them more creativity to program, and saying it doesn't matter how they do something so long as they do it, it gives them more ownership of the task."

In September 2013 it was announced that it would be mandatory for UK schools to teach computing, so it is inevitable that not every student will want to enter a programming-related career in later life. But even though Chambers's ultimate aim with Minecraft is to teach programming, he says that the skills acquired in the process go beyond the mere acquisition of knowledge.

"Programming doesn't just teach students that they have to code because every one says so — it teaches them problem-solving skills that they can use in general life," he says. "If something in Minecraft doesn't work, they have to carry out debugging and check syntax to see why.

"I can give them a hint — such as checking their braces, but they have to use their analysis skills. It's a 21st-century skill that applies to all of their subjects — not just IT."

Beyond Programming

Using the thousands of mods available, Minecraft can also be used to teach subjects other than programming. Rather than problem solving, it can be tailored to foster creativity, and tasks can be designed to be collaborative rather than carried out alone.

"The great thing about Minecraft is that it's a tool you can use in any subject so long as you have the imagination," says Chambers, adding that multiple subjects can even be taught simultaneously. "Some mods are educational, while others are specifically for programming and allow you to introduce students to things such as javascript, braces and syntax."

To dig deeper into Minecraft's educational potential beyond programming, Chambers outlined a series of ways that the game can be used to teach a range of different subjects.

History

"In a history lesson you can get students to design and dig war trenches, and then start talking about what life must have been like down there for those people. Teach them the terminology about the Somme, what might have been there, and where the sandbags might have gone."

Mathematics

"In maths lessons, some students might need to build a house. You could give them a challenge such as how many blocks they will need to do that. Give them the measurements of each block and tell them how many planks of wood they will need. Suggest some mathematical equations to get them thinking about how many blocks they will need to build a house that was 5 x 5 — and you don't have to stop there.

Geography

"I've seen some students who have used Minecraft mods with javascript to make a map of the world, so you could challenge your students to make maps for your lessons. Throw in biology by asking them to tunnel into the land and find different objects in the the digestive system that you've placed there."

Science

"Students have to craft things and actually go and find the physical materials to make things they want in their world. That gives them the confidence to say they've created things such as a box to store extra items in, which can be really engaging for them. There's a really scientific element to it in knowing which materials to collect, so if they want to make glass for their house or any type of building, they need to know if they've got enough sand to put in a furnace to make glass windows."

Creative writing

"You can encourage creative writing by getting students to develop a world and then describe to them what's happening. It could be used for the basis of a story, or you could develop a world and get them to describe what they see – use it as a stimulus for your lessons."

Music

"Music can be taught through the use of music blocks. There are people out there making songs by Katy Perry or Avichii. It all links into technological science with logic gates, because they can connect music blocks together and repeat them to play different sounds."

Ebola outbreak, declared one year ago, could be 'gone by the summer,' U.N. says
From The Washington Post

Exactly one year ago, on March 23, 2014, the World Health Organization announced that there was an Ebola outbreak in Guinea. There were 49 cases and 29 deaths from the disease then. More than 10,000 people have since died of Ebola in West Africa, according to the WHO.

Although the disease's spread exploded and then slowed over the course of the past year — and its grasp on Western attention has waxed and waned — it is clear that the deadly virus is not done with West Africa.

But Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the head of the United Nations' Ebola mission, believes the outbreak could be "gone" by the end of August. He told the BBC that the U.N.'s initial efforts to fight the outbreak were slowed by a combination of "arrogance" and a "lack of knowledge," but that the international organization had "learn[ed] lessons" from that.

"We have been running away from giving any specific date, but I am pretty sure myself that it will be gone by the summer," he said.

The prediction follows a disappointing development out of Liberia: The country, which hadn't had an active Ebola case since March 5, has recorded another case, with officials diagnosing a new patient on Friday. The WHO requires 42 days without Ebola — twice the incubation period for the virus — before declaring that a country is free of it. Officials still aren't sure how this new patient contracted Ebola.

Still, the fact that Liberia came that close to being Ebola-free demonstrates some limited success in the sustained efforts to fight the disease. At the heart of the epidemic, more than 4,200 people died of Ebola in Liberia.

Although several countries — including the United States — had cases of Ebola stemming from this epidemic, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone bore the worst of it. In Sierra Leone, President Ernest Bai Koroma recently announced that he planned to try to slow transmission there with a series of national lockdowns into April. Lockdowns, tried once before by the country, are controversial: While the government has said they're necessary to help stop the spread of the disease, groups such as Doctors Without Borders have questioned their effectiveness.

Many international aid organizations have criticized early delays in fighting against the disease's spread. Although the outbreak was officially declared a year ago, the first fatality of what became the deadliest Ebola epidemic in history probably occurred in December 2013, WHO wrote in a January assessment.

On Monday, Doctors Without Borders released a critical report about the Ebola response to mark the anniversary of the outbreak's declaration. "The world at first ignored the calls for help and then belatedly decided to act," the report reads. "Meanwhile, months were wasted and lives were lost."

The group notes that the death toll remains unknown, because "the resulting collapse of health services means that untreated malaria, complicated deliveries and car crashes will have multiplied the direct Ebola deaths many times over."

The latest data from the WHO, released Monday, put Ebola's death toll in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea at 10,299.

"Today, describing the epidemic as 'unprecedented' is stating the obvious, though for months [Doctors Without Borders] felt alone in this analysis," the group wrote of its early time on the ground in West Africa. The report singles out the WHO, writing that the international public health organization "should have recognized much earlier that this outbreak required more hands-on deployment."

The report also accuses the governments of Sierra Leone and Guinea of being "initially very reluctant to recognize the severity of the outbreak," which had the effect of obstructing some early efforts to fight the outbreak. However, that initial reluctance is "far from unusual in outbreaks of Ebola — or indeed other dangerous infectious diseases," the report says. "There is often little appetite to immediately sound the alarm for fear of causing public panic."

As the aid group notes, it can be politically difficult for a government to respond to an unprecedented outbreak. In Liberia, where Doctors Without Borders believes officials responded with more transparency, the government's early handling of the outbreak was widely criticized by Liberians as "scaremongering" and "a ploy to raise international assistance."

[Spoiler alert! The following contains details from Sunday's episode of The Walking Dead.]

The 5 biggest moments from last night's 'The Walking Dead'
From USA Today

Spoiler alert! The following contains details from Sunday's episode of The Walking Dead.

Keep walking, Pete.

The latest episode of The Walking Dead, "Try," continued to drive our survivors and the people of Alexandria closer and closer to conflict, which we can only guess will come in next Sunday's 90-minute season finale. And while most of the episode was spent setting the table for what we assume will be an intense episode next weekend, we still spent most of it on the edge of our seats. Here are the biggest moments from "Try":

5. Carl and Enid get close in the woods



Aw, isn't pre-teen love adorable when it comes packaged with potential horrible death? Carl, still wearing that sheriff's hat, discovered that he wasn't being too secretive when he followed fellow outcast teen Enid into the woods. But that was OK, because she likes him too! The two shared a touching moment hiding inside a hollow tree while a herd of walkers went by (which basically is a date — hey, you can't be too picky in the post apocalypse). We're sure, given how lucky romantic couples have been on this show, that everything is going to work out great for these crazy kids.

4. Daryl and Aaron stumble into an episode of True Detective



The back half of season five has shown us more than a few walkers with a "W" carved into their foreheads. We haven't had a lot of time to give it too much thought, given everything else that's been happening lately, but it seems clear that "W" (if it stands for a person) is going to play a bigger role in the season finale, after Daryl and Aaron come across the naked body of a woman tied to a tree, eaten by walkers with a big "W" on her head. It's a scene that kind of looks like it belongs in True Detective, and definitely indicates that the person behind the initial is, well, not a nice guy.

3. Sasha goes on a suicide mission



Sasha is dealing with some issues. After losing Bob and Tyreese this season, she's not doing too well. She's taking out her emotions by hunting walkers outside the wall, which is great and everything, except that she would have died this episode if Michonne and Rosita hadn't tracked her down. It's a reiteration of the theme of this episode, of our survivors "trying" to make it work in Alexandria, only being drawn back to the outside world that they have come to call home. It's the reason Carl and Enid had their rendezvous while they teased a walker, why Glenn called out Nicholas (aka the worst man left alive) and why Rick does everything he does in this episode, like when...

2. Pete and Rick finally come to blows



It was only a matter of time. After Carol confirmed that Pete was hitting his wife (which she didn't even need to, given that Pete is basically a drunk, sweaty caricature of an abusive husband who only appears at the worst moments possible), Rick decided it was high time he did something about it. First he went to Deanna, who basically said Pete was too valuable to piss off because he's a doctor, and then he went to Jessie and kind of bullied her into asking him for help (really there was little difference between Rick and Pete in that scene). Obviously when Rick confronted Pete, it led to a brawl that took the two crashing through a window into the street. They only stopped when a blood-soaked Rick incapacitated Pete enough to give a crazed speech about the Alexandrians being ignorant of the realities of the world. And then he was only stopped when...

1. Michonne takes care of business

Michonne got to do what pretty much everyone wanted to do this episode: Punch Rick in the face. When our fearless leader was going on and on and on about the way the world works, without an end in sight, Michonne took matters into her own hands and knocked him out cold. We have to say, Rick wasn't doing himself any favors by ranting on like a crazy person covered in the blood of a man who most Alexandrians respect. We're guessing he's not going to be in a very good situation when he wakes up.

We have so many questions that need to be answered in next week's finale. Who's behind the "W" zombies? How did Nicholas find Rick's hidden gun? Does Rick still have the support of our survivors? What happened to Carol's casserole?

We're just going to have to tune in next week to find out.

In China and West, contrasting views on legacy of Singapore's patriarch
From The Washington Post

Tributes poured in Monday for the late founder of modern Singapore and the enormous influence he had on Asia and the world. But the debate over Lee Kuan Yew's legacy, and the lessons from his paternalistic model of governance, also continued to simmer.

Lee, Singapore's first prime minister and its ruler for 31 years, built his city-state into a global financial and trade center — and one of the world's richest nations — with little corruption, safe streets, good schools and low tax rates.

But he did so while crushing dissent and muzzling the press, while jailing some political rivals without trial for decades.

Such was Singapore success that Lee's influence was felt far beyond his tiny island state. His autocratic, technocratic and development-focused approach was emulated across South East Asia. And the idea of an economically free and prosperous nation under an authoritarian rule also helped inspire China's Communist Party and its opening to the world under Deng Xiaoping.

But his legacy of micromanagement — imposing both his vision and whims — now could leave Singapore struggling for new political footing at a time when China is casting a wider shadow over the region and rights issues increasingly become intertwined with Western foreign policy.

In China, President Xi Jinping called Lee "an old friend of the Chinese people" and said he was "widely respected by the international community as a strategist and a statesman." As of Monday afternoon, four of China's seven standing committee members — its highest-ranked party officials — had sent condolences.

Lee visited China 33 times since his first trip in 1976, meeting all five generations of Chinese leaders from Mao Zedong to current President Xi.

He described Deng as one of the most impressive leaders he had met; defended the bloody suppression of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989 as necessary to maintain stability, and he also compared Xi Jinping to South African President Nelson Mandela.

Chinese state media chose to celebrate his refusal to bow to Western democratic ideals, arguing this provided an alternative, Asian model of governance.

"Neither slander from the foreign media, nor criticism from the West, has ever shaken Lee Kuan Yew's governing ideals and values," state news agency Xinhua wrote. "He thought the U.S. and Europe would not succeed in imposing their so-called human rights and democratic standards onto the world. It is exactly thanks to his firm belief and long implementation of Asian values, that he could establish an Asian 'micro power' with good order, a prosperous economy and a rich culture."

But China's reading of Lee's legacy has always been selective, and the former Singaporean leader's personal attitude towards China were always more complicated than Xi and Xinhua wanted to admit.

On the one hand, Lee foretold the rise of modern Chinese might and praised China for staying away from Western influence and seeking its own path. On the other hand, Lee also warned against the threat a powerful China could pose to its neighbors and stressed the necessity of U.S involvement in Asia as a counterweight of sorts.

Singapore under Lee cooperated militarily with Taiwan, to Beijing's intense annoyance, and was the last South East Asia nation to establish diplomatic relations with China in 1990. Lee, who was sometimes known by his initials LKY, also carved out a Singaporean identity distinct from the Chinese heritage of most of its citizens, with English the main language of instruction in primary and middle schools.

Just as fundamentally, Lee established a very different version of authoritarian rule than China. Singapore's model stresses an independent judiciary, a corruption-free government and genuine rule of law under a British-influenced system. In China, the Communist Party remains fully in control of the judiciary, and corruption is extremely widespread, despite a campaign to stamp it out under Xi.

"China has been learning from the economic and social policies of Singapore, but they will not learn Singapore's political system," said Willy Wo-lap Lam, an adjunct professor of history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "The difference between China and Singapore is still huge in terms of rule of law."

Several commentators said the challenge for Singapore now was to continue to move away from dependence on a single ruler who called all the shots, toward a more consensus-based and democratic model of governance — a process that has already begun.

Ernest Bower at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Lee was one of Asia's "great men" — including Indonesia's Suharto and Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad — who centralized power and drove economic development, spawning a large, fast growing and increasingly confident middle class.

But the very rise of that middle class, Bower wrote, "will challenge the paternalistic, top-down and centrally controlled governance models" Lee and his contemporaries championed.

That could force their successors to move away from dependence on a single vision and towards a consensus-based system "where competing parties and leaders argue to convince a nation their ideas are best."

But the very rise of that middle class, Bower wrote, "will challenge the paternalistic, top-down and centrally controlled governance models" Lee and his contemporaries championed.

That could force their successors to move away from dependence on a single vision and towards a consensus-based system "where competing parties and leaders argue to convince a nation their ideas are best."

PlayStation Is The Go-To Platform For Digital Console Downloads

Digital gaming has become a major part of the video game industry over the last many years, with the prevalence of digital downloads of full games becoming even more readily available on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Wii U console wise. This is helped by most every game being available the day of online, along with pre-loading on many games now as well. According to a report by VentureBeat, PlayStation consoles led the way in January when it comes to digital downloads.

Throughout January, digital gaming generated $263 million on consoles alone. Specifically, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 generated 63% of the digital sales in January. Newcomers Dying Light and Resident Evil HD Remastered did very well in their debut digitally as well across all available consoles.

Grand Theft Auto V took the top spot with ease, selling $31.8 million in digital copies alone, which is incredibly impressive for a game that just realized a few months ago. VentureBeat also revealed the entire top 10 that can be seen below:

Most of these games are relatively new, but Call of Duty: Black Ops II being so high is downright incredible.

Digital gaming will only grow larger, so it will be intriguing to see the numbers in future months.

Man Suffers 3rd-Degree Burns After iPhone Explodes In Pocket
From CBS News

A Long Island man claims he cannot work after he suffered burns from his iPhone when it burst into flames.

As WCBS 880's Sophia Hall reported, 29-year-old Erik Johnson was still in pain as he sat in his Lindenhurst home.

Johnson said he was in New Jersey for his cousin's wake when all of a sudden, he felt a severe burning on his leg — his iPhone 5C had exploded in his front pocket.

"All I heard was a pop, and it started fizzling, and it just started to burn my leg," he told Hall. "It went to a pretty much instant burn, it didn't even warm up; it just went to burn. And the only way I could get the phone away from me was to rip off my pants to get the phone out."

Johnson suffered third-degree burns on his leg and spent 10 days in the hospital.

"You don't expect something like this to happen, never," he said. "It's still hard to grasp the concept of this happening."

Johnson's attorney said they're looking into a lawsuit against Apple.

Apple did not return WCBS 880's request for comment.