Month: October 2019

By night, Baghdad’s streets are eerily quiet, punctuated with smatterings of gunfire — be it a single shot or something more sustained and intense. Roads leading to popular protest areas are blocked off, lined with security forces slumped up against buildings or napping on the hoods of their Humvee vehicles. This relative calm belies the

Tiny fossils trapped in amber have revealed a previously unknown creature that lived 30 million years ago that scientists are calling the “mold pig.” Researchers say the fossil suggests a new family, genus and species of microinvertebrates that lived during the mid-Tertiary period. The mold pig, well, looked like a microscopic pig and munched on

The Nobel Prize in Physics has been jointly awarded to James Peebles, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz for their work in furthering our understanding of the universe. In a ceremony in Stockholm on Tuesday, one half of the prize was awarded to Peebles for “theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology,” and the other half to Mayor

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Medicine has been jointly awarded to William Kaelin Jr., Sir Peter Ratcliffe and Gregg Semenza for their pioneering research into how human cells respond to changing oxygen levels. Announcing the prize at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm on Monday, the Nobel committee said that the trio’s discoveries have paved the

JT is free. The rapper, born Jatavia Johnson, is one half of the Miami rap duo City Girls and newly home from prison. Johnson had been open about the two-year sentence for credit card fraud she began serving in 2018 and is now celebrating her release just as publicly. “B***H IM RIGHT ON TIME FOR

“I’ve been in my share of compromising positions,” says the guy in the airline company video. “Here’s my guide to getting lucky at 35,000 feet.” “Try treating her, or him, to something delicious using the new seat-to-seat feature of Red, the Virgin America inflight entertainment system,” he goes on. “Just order a drink, meal or

Five days after Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey deleted his now famous tweet with the words “stand with Hong Kong,” the most popular sports league in the most populous country in the world is getting an earful from all directions. Although Morey backtracked from supporting the Hong Kong protesters and Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta

The NBA has abruptly called off a hotly anticipated press event for the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers in Shanghai, the latest attempt to contain what is fast becoming a major crisis after a team official tweeted support of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. The tweet has placed the basketball league at odds with

Shortly after takeoff on an eight-hour flight from London to Washington, DC, a woman says she started receiving disturbing messages on the in-flight system. Jessica Van Meir, 24, was traveling on Saturday for business. She told CNN she got up to use the bathroom early in the flight, and when she returned to her seat

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham, and Akira Yoshino for their research in improving battery technology. The trio will share the prize for their work on “the development of lithium ion batteries,” according to the Nobel committee. “Lithium ion batteries have revolutionized our lives and

A bank robber who used his legal right to a “last word” to speak for five days in court has been sentenced to 12-and-a-half years in jail. A district court in Hamburg, Germany sentenced Michael Jauernik, 71, to more than 12 years in jail for 3 bank robberies, attempted murder and violation of weapons law.

The Eagles are embarking on a nationwide tour in 2020 where they’ll play the entire track list of Hotel California from beginning to end. The tour will kick off in Atlanta in February 2020, and then the iconic rock group will hit New York, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Don Henley, Joe Walsh

Josh Adams scored a hat-trick to help Wales recover from an early 10-point deficit to beat Fiji 29-17 and qualify for the quarterfinals of the Rugby World Cup. The Pacific Islanders made the perfect start as Josua Tuisova produced a brilliant solo finish to score a fourth-minute try. Fiji then took advantage of a yellow

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday announced visa restrictions on Chinese officials suspected of being involved in the detention and human rights abuses of millions of Uyghur Muslims and other minority groups. In a statement describing the “highly repressive campaign” of detention, mass surveillance, “draconian controls” on religious and cultural expression, and coercion,

The wives of former England football internationals Wayne Rooney and Jamie Vardy have become embroiled in a social media row over “leaked stories.” Coleen Rooney said she suspected a follower on her personal Instagram account of leaking stories to British tabloid newspaper The Sun. Rooney says she blocked the account of every follower from viewing

Native New Yorker Alec Baldwin got scammed by a ticket seller in New York City. The actor, apparently unaware he was being sold bum tickets, purchased his family four passes to a Statue of Liberty “boat tour” that turned out to be a scam. The tour will take passengers past the statue — but first

American Airlines announced Wednesday that it is removing the Boeing 737 Max from its flight schedule until mid-January, an acknowledgment that the aviation industry does not expect the plane to carry passengers during the busy holiday travel season. The aircraft was grounded earlier this year after two fatal crashes that killed a total of 346

A 4-year-old Chinese boy has been rescued after getting his head stuck in security bars, leaving him dangling from a fourth-story window. Dramatic footage of the incident shows the boy hanging high above the ground in a residence in Linyi City, in eastern China’s Shandong province. According to Chinese state media CCTV, the boy climbed

A social housing project in Norwich, England, hailed as a “modest masterpiece,” has won the prestigious Stirling Prize architecture award. Goldsmith Street, made up of almost 100 ultra-low-energy homes for Norwich City Council and built in seven terraced blocks, was designed by London-based Mikhail Riches with Cathy Hawley. The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA),