Mueller says Russians are using his discovery materials in disinformation effort

Russians are using materials obtained from special counsel Robert Mueller's office in a disinformation campaign apparently aimed at discrediting the investigation into Moscow's election interference, federal prosecutors said on Wednesday.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/mueller-says-russians-using-his-discovery-materials-disinformation-effort-n964811?source=Snapzu

OnePlus trolls Apple after OnePlus 6 named the best-selling model in 2018

OnePlus on Wednesday took a swipe at Apple after a Counterpoint report named OnePlus 6 the highest-selling model in the premium segment in 2018 followed by OnePlus 6T. Taking a dig at Apple, OnePlus posted an image on Facebook stating, “Hey Siri, which is India’s no.1 premium smartphone?” According to the Counterpoint report, OnePlus recorded highest ever shipments ever in Q4 2018 and maintained lead in the premium phone segment for three consecutive quarters.
Read more: https://www.hindustantimes.com/tech/oneplus-trolls-apple-after-oneplus-6-named-the-best-selling-model-in-2018/story-5A1fkydpN99wjCjXylz3YN.html?source=Snapzu

The reports of bitcoin environmental damage are garbage

I have a background in electricity, from when I was an investment banker. I worked in a Natural Resources & Power group for about 8 years and modelled electricity systems and assets in the UK and China in the context of acquisitions, capital raisings, restructurings, and regulatory submissions. One of the banks that I worked for was HSBC, in their emerging markets M&A team, and I know China well.
Read more: https://hackernoon.com/the-reports-of-bitcoin-environmental-damage-are-garbage-5a93d32c2d7?source=Snapzu

A Tiny Screw Shows Why iPhones Won’t Be ‘Assembled in U.S.A.’

Despite a trade war between the United States and China and past admonishments from President Trump “to start building their damn computers and things in this country,” Apple is unlikely to bring its manufacturing closer to home. A tiny screw illustrates why. In 2012, Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, went on prime-time television to announce that Apple would make a Mac computer in the United States. It would be the first Apple product in years to be manufactured by American workers, and the top-of-the-line Mac Pro would come with an unusual inscription: “Assembled in USA.”
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/technology/iphones-apple-china-made.html?source=Snapzu

A second Apple self-driving car engineer is accused of stealing trade secrets

The FBI has accused a second Apple employee of attempting to steal trade secrets from the company regarding its secretive self-driving car program, according to a recently unsealed affidavit. NBC's Bay Area affiliate first reported the news. This is the second employee in six months to be accused by the FBI of stealing trade secrets from Apple's self-driving car unit. In July, federal agents accusedformer Apple engineer Xiaolang Zhang of allegedly stealing proprietary information about the project and trying to bring it to XMotors, based in China.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/30/apple-autonomous-vehicle-engineer-accused-of-stealing-trade-secrets.html?source=Snapzu

How Cold Is It In Canada And The Upper Midwest? Colder Than Mars, In Parts

We knew we were in for a very cold, potentially life-threatening, week, but we had no idea that it was going to be this cold, like Mars-is-looking-pretty-good-now-compared-to-Earth degree of coldness. According to Mars Weather, a Twitter account that posts updates on the weather on the red planet, in certain parts of North America, the high temperatures yesterday were even lower than Mars' last reported high...
Read more: http://digg.com/2019/us-canada-colder-than-mars?source=Snapzu

Google+ to Lose Some Features Next Week as Company Prepares to Delete All Data

Alphabet's Google had announced its plans to completely shut down Google+ back in December last year. Launched in 2011, Google+ was expected to be the company's answer to Facebook with a number of similar features. However, it didn't gain much traction over the years. While Google+ will cease to exist from April 2, 2019, the company now says it will start removing some of the features as early as February 4. Google has outlined the timeline when and which features will be taken offline first and how Google+ users can download their data.
Read more: https://gadgets.ndtv.com/social-networking/news/google-plus-shuts-down-april-2-some-features-will-be-taken-offline-starting-next-week-1985973?source=Snapzu

A Former Pastor Of Trump's Church Says He Never Saw Him There

President Donald Trump gave Bible literacy legislation a shout-out on Monday with a tweet praising states that are “starting to make a turn back” to an unspecified time when public schools apparently relished in Bible study. As The Washington Post’s Mark Chancy noted, there was no such time in American history. And as Trump’s former pastor noted, in any case, the president can’t exactly speak with much authority on the subject.
Read more: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/former-marble-collegiate-pastor-says-he-never-saw-trump-at-church_us_5c51f51ee4b04f8645c728a8?source=Snapzu

Couple Stumble on 1950s Suitcase Full of Cash Hidden in a Wall While Renovating Basement

When a Cleveland couple decided to renovate their home, the last thing they expected was to come out of the whole ordeal $23,000 richer. As they shared in a recent post on Imgur, though, a foray into the previously untouched basement during their renovations yielded quite a handsome payout! The couple, who posted on Reddit under the name Branik12, explained that they had started remodeling their 1940s house on the main floor and hadn’t gotten to the basement until a few years into their residency.
Read more: https://www.theepochtimes.com/couple-stumble-on-1950s-suitcase-full-of-cash-hidden-in-a-wall-while-renovating-basement_2784222.html?source=Snapzu

Apple reportedly testing new iPhones with three rear cameras and a USB-C port

Apple is planning to release an iPhone that has three rear cameras in 2019, according to a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The company’s current top-of-the-line iPhones, the XS and XS Max, have two cameras on the back, one being a portrait lens. But Android phone makers including LG and Huawei have already released triple-camera systems that allow for more creative flexibility and ultra-wide-angle shots.
Read more: https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18204220/apple-new-iphone-testing-camera-three-rear-usb-c-port?source=Snapzu

iFixit's Do-it-Yourself iPhone Battery Replacement Kits to Remain $29.99 Until End of 2019

iFixit today announced that its do-it-yourself iPhone battery replacement kits will remain $29.99 until the end of 2019. The repair website lowered the price of its kits in late 2017 to match Apple's discounted iPhone battery replacement fee of $29, which ended on December 31, 2018. Apple now charges $49 to replace the battery in the iPhone 6 through iPhone 8 Plus and $69 for the iPhone X and newer outside of warranty.
Read more: https://www.macrumors.com/2019/01/30/ifixit-extends-discounted-battery-kits-thru-2019/?source=Snapzu

Fish Poop Could Help Us Sustainably Grow The Food Of Our Future

Today, surrounded by freezing temperatures, thousands of heads of lettuce grow, nestled in a cozy greenhouse fed by nutrient-rich nitrates. Or you could call it what it is: fish poop. The process, called aquaponics, allows farmers to grow local, organic produce anywhere at any time of year. Aquaponics is a sustainable method of farming that combines aquaculture (raising fish) and hydroponics (cultivating plants in water).
Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/aquaponics-fish-poop-food_n_5c48b7e3e4b025aa26bf6f82?source=Snapzu

Tragic reason for whale suicides revealed in major study

Scientists have long known that some beaked whales beach themselves and die in agony after exposure to naval sonar, and now they know why: the giant sea mammals suffer decompression sickness, just like scuba divers. At first blush, the explanation laid out today by 21 experts in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B seems implausible. Millions of years of evolution have turned whales into perfectly calibrated diving machines that plunge kilometres below the surface for hours at a stretch, foraging for food in the inky depths.
Read more: https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/animals/for-some-whales-sonar-provokes-suicidal-behaviour-scientists-say/news-story/0853925d87af89a71f1ea1ea830f9c69?source=Snapzu

Maybe Only Tim Cook Can Fix Facebook’s Privacy Problem

It’s nowhere in his job description, but Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, has recently taken a moonlight gig as Facebook’s privacy watchdog. On Wednesday, Mr. Cook and his lieutenants took aim at Facebook for violating Apple’s rules with a research app that allowed Facebook to snoop on users’ online activity.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/30/technology/facebook-privacy-apple-tim-cook.html?partner=IFTTT?source=Snapzu

NM to join 18 states in climate change coalition

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has ordered New Mexico to join a national coalition of states seeking to combat the effects of climate change, as part of a far-reaching plan to shift the state toward a renewable energy economy. At a news conference in the state Capitol, the Democratic governor described the order as a “game-changer” that outlines broad, state-level initiatives to make up for a lack of federal action on climate change.
Read more: https://www.abqjournal.com/1274267/governor-signs-executive-order-on-climate-change.html?source=Snapzu

Ubuntu 18.04 needs patching

Canonical is updating Ubuntu 18.04 to the 4.15.0-44.47 Linux kernel to fix several security bugs.
Read more: https://www.zdnet.com/article/ubuntu-18-04-needs-patching/?source=Snapzu

Bill Gates says poverty is decreasing. He couldn’t be more wrong

Last week, as world leaders and business elites arrived in Davos for the World Economic Forum, Bill Gates tweeted an infographic to his 46 million followers showing that the world has been getting better and better. “This is one of my favourite infographics,” he wrote. “A lot of people underestimate just how much life has improved over the past two centuries.”
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/29/bill-gates-davos-global-poverty-infographic-neoliberal?source=Snapzu

BuzzFeed laid off its Director of Quizzes because lots of people are willing to make quizzes for free

The impact of the deeper-than-expected multi-day cuts to BuzzFeed continue, with more layoffs being announced via tweet, with more of today’s seeming to come from the buzz side of the operation rather than the news side (which was hit hard on Friday).
Read more: http://www.niemanlab.org/2019/01/buzzfeed-laid-off-its-director-of-quizzes-because-lots-of-people-are-willing-to-make-quizzes-for-free/?source=Snapzu

YouTube Strikes Now Being Used as Scammers' Extortion Tool

In a terrible abuse of YouTube's copyright system, a YouTuber is reporting that scammers are using the platform's "three strike" system for extortion. After filing two false claims against ObbyRaidz, the scammers contacted him demanding cash to avoid a third - and the termination of his channel.
Read more: https://torrentfreak.com/youtube-strikes-now-being-used-as-scammers-extortion-tool/?source=Snapzu

The Creator of the Roomba Just Launched a Lawn Mower

Product to go on sale in Germany in 2019, globally in 2020.
Read more: https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/irobot-s-follow-up-act-to-the-roomba-vacuum-mowing-the-lawn#gs.hkzRXmgX?source=Snapzu

Adulterer Trump approves of forcing public schools to teach Bible classes to improve morality

North Dakota State Representative Aaron McWilliams has introduced a bill that would require high schools to teach a Bible class instead of the required semester of civics. The law would not distinguish between teaching the course as “literature” or religious studies. The bill is seen as a gift to evangelical Christians who have attempted to use similar laws to push anti-LGBTQ, misogynistic, and xenophobic religious teachings to children.
Read more: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/01/adulterer-trump-approves-forcing-public-schools-teach-bible-classes-improve-morality/?source=Snapzu

It’s time to start taking the search for E.T. seriously, astronomers say

Long an underfunded, fringe field of science, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence may be ready to go mainstream. Astronomer Jason Wright is determined to see that happen. At a meeting in Seattle of the American Astronomical Society in January, Wright convened “a little ragtag group in a tiny room” to plot a course for putting the scientific field, known as SETI, on NASA’s agenda.
Read more: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/astronomers-say-time-start-taking-search-aliens-seriously?source=Snapzu

NASA is back to work, but the effects of the government shutdown linger

This week, thousands of civil servants and contractors are back at work at NASA’s various centers throughout the country following a record 35-day government shutdown — but it will be a while before it’s work as usual again at the agency. These first few days back on the job will be consumed with practical matters, such as figuring out employee backpay and how to dive back into projects.
Read more: https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/29/18202071/nasa-government-shutdown-recovery-backpay-contractors?source=Snapzu

These YouTubers are owed $1.7 million, and they’re probably never going to get it

A group of approximately 50 YouTube creators allegedly owed more than $1.7 million following the collapse of network Defy Media are unlikely to see that money. Ally Bank, one of Defy Media’s financial backers, tweeted a statement on January 25th following a video from popular YouTube creator Matthew “MatPat” Patrick asking Ally to give him and other YouTube creators the money they’re owed by Defy.
Read more: https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/29/18202131/matpat-defy-media-youtube-ally-bank-ryland-adams-multi-channel-network?source=Snapzu

EU proposes ban on 90% of microplastic pollutants

European Chemicals Agency draft law aims to cut 400,000 tonnes of plastic pollution
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/30/eu-european-union-proposes-microplastics-ban-plastic-pollution?source=Snapzu

Can AI help crack the code of fusion power?

With the click of a mouse and a loud bang, I blasted jets of super-hot, ionized gas called plasma into one another at hundreds of miles per second. I was sitting in the control room of a fusion energy startup called TAE Technologies, and I’d just fired its $150 million plasma collider. That shot was a tiny part of the company’s long pursuit of a notoriously elusive power source. I was at the company’s headquarters to talk to them about the latest phase of their hunt that involves an algorithm called the Optometrist.
Read more: https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/29/18201220/nuclear-fusion-energy-artificial-intelligence-machine-learning-tae-google?source=Snapzu

Extreme cold torturing much of the US, Minnesota may see wind chills of minus 70 degrees

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds," the saying goes. But whoever said that didn't face weather of the kind predicted for Wednesday. So postal workers won't be out delivering anything in six entire states, and parts of four others. The US Postal Service said Tuesday night on Facebook that because of the predicted deteriorating weather conditions in the Midwest, delivery will be suspended in some areas.
Read more: https://cnn.it/2B82TrU?source=Snapzu

The Hubble Telescope's Deep View of the Universe Is Now Even More Astounding!

One of the Hubble Space Telescope's most famous images peered even deeper into the cosmos than scientists had thought. That photo is the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (HUDF), which combines hundreds of images taken by the space telescope over multiple years into the deepest view of the universe ever created. The composite pic of a small patch of sky contains a whopping 10,000 galaxies, astronomers have estimated. (The HUDF also refers to that patch of sky, not just imagery of it.)
Read more: https://www.space.com/43147-hubble-telescope-deepest-universe-view-photo.html?source=Snapzu

FBI Finds No Motive In Las Vegas Shooting, Closes Investigation

More than a year after the FBI began its investigation, the agency has completed an analysis of the man behind the Oct. 1, 2017, mass shooting in Las Vegas, concluding there was "no single or clear motivating factor" driving Stephen Paddock's killing rampage and subsequent suicide.
Read more: https://www.npr.org/2019/01/29/689821599/fbi-finds-no-motive-in-las-vegas-shooting-closes-investigation?source=Snapzu

It's clearer than ever Apple's iPhone problem isn't going away

Apple's iPhone business is in decline -- and there appears to be no end in sight. Apple (AAPL) said Tuesday that iPhone revenue for the all-important holiday quarter fell 15% from the same period a year ago, a steep drop for a product line whose sales growth defied gravity for years. The shrinking iPhone sales led to Apple's first holiday quarter revenue decline since 2000.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/29/tech/apple-iphone-sales/index.html?source=Snapzu

Newborn babies have inbuilt ability to pick out words, study finds

Newborn babies are born with the innate skills needed to pick out words from language, a new study published in Developmental Science reveals. Before infants can learn words, they must identify those words in continuous speech. Yet, the speech signal lacks obvious boundary markers, which poses a potential problem for language acquisition.
Read more: https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2019/01/29/newborn-babies-have-inbuilt-ability-to-pick-out-words-study-finds/?source=Snapzu

Apple CEO Tim Cook 'I Do Think Price is a Factor' in Declining iPhone Upgrades

During today's earnings call for the first fiscal quarter of 2019, Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked whether he thought that the pricing of the iPhone XR, XS, and iPhone XS Max was too high. In response, Cook said that while he didn't feel that was as much of a factor in the United States, it was an issue in emerging markets.
Read more: https://www.macrumors.com/2019/01/29/tim-cook-price-a-factor-declining-sales/?source=Snapzu

Apple says iPhones were down 15% last quarter, but everything else was up 19%

Apple today shared its fiscal first-quarter revenue with shareholders. As investors feared and as previously warned, Apple posted revenue of $84.3 billion for the quarter ending in December, missing revenue expectations in the quarter by around $4 billion. CEO Tim Cook primarily credited macroeconomic conditions in China and their impact on iPhone sales in that region for the failure to meet expectations.
Read more: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/apple-says-iphones-were-down-15-last-quarter-but-everything-else-was-up-19/?source=Snapzu

‘Welcome to my high-fashion, trash shopping mall’

Anna Bergstrom had a dilemma. She loved the glitzy world of high fashion, but had also come to feel that it was unsustainable and bad for the planet. She's now found peace of mind by running a stylish shopping mall in Sweden, where everything is second-hand. "Do you notice the smell?" Anna Bergstrom says, as she surveys her mall from the mezzanine level. "It smells nice here, doesn't it?" It's very important to Anna that this place is enticing, because she feels it is making a statement. Everything for sale here, in 14 specialist shops covering everything from clothes to DIY tools, is recycled.
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-47001188?source=Snapzu

AI dramatically cuts time to process chest X-rays

New research has found that a novel Artificial Intelligence (AI) system can dramatically reduce the time needed to ensure that abnormal chest X-rays with critical findings will receive an expert radiologist opinion sooner, cutting the average delay from 11 days to less than three. Chest X-rays are routinely performed to diagnose and monitor a wide range of conditions affecting the lungs, heart, bones, and soft tissues.
Read more: https://www.futuretimeline.net/blog/2019/01/25-2.htm?source=Snapzu

Facebook has been paying teens $20 a month for total access to their phone activity

Facebook has run a program to collect intimate user data from paid volunteers for the past three years, according to a new report. TechCrunch reported that the company has been paying people ages 13 to 25 as much as $20 month in exchange for installing an app called Facebook Research on iOS or Android, which monitors their phone and web activity and sends it back to Facebook. The company confirmed the existence of the research program to TechCrunch.
Read more: https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/29/18202880/facebook-research-enterprise-root-certificate-onavo-techcrunch?source=Snapzu

U.S. on track to add $12 trillion to national debt by 2029 unless Washington changes course

Washington has been drowning in red ink for years and it’s only going to get a lot worse over the next decade, a fresh government estimate shows. The U.S. is likely to add $12 trillion in public debt from 2020 to 2029 through a combination of higher government spending and slower economic growth, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That’s on top of the $16.6 trillion the government is expected to owe to the public at the end of 2019.
Read more: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-on-track-to-add-12-trillion-to-national-debt-by-2029-unless-washington-changes-course-2019-01-28?source=Snapzu

Vatican has 'one of the largest homosexual communities in the world'

LSN reported that a press release is to be be published today in several different languages that contains more disclosures about the book authored by French journalist Frédéric Martel, above. According to the French version of the press release, the book, which became available on Amazon last week, claims that there now exists in the Vatican...
Read more: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/thefreethinker/2019/01/vatican-has-one-of-the-largest-homosexual-communities-in-the-world/?source=Snapzu

Resident Evil 2 Remake is getting three free DLC stories, starting in February

Free DLC is coming to Resident Evil 2 Remake starting in February, Capcom has confirmed. The Ghost Survivors is a trio of ‘what if’ stories following three other survivors of the Raccoon City outbreak. Leon and Claire aren’t the only people doing exciting things amid the zombie apocalypse. No Time to Mourn, Runaway and Forgotten Soldier explore the survivor stories of the gunshop owner, the mayor’s daughter and the soldier, respectively. The first, No Time to Mourn, is due out on February 15.
Read more: https://www.pcgamer.com/resident-evil-2-remake-is-getting-three-free-dlc-stories-starting-in-february/?source=Snapzu

Is a slider better than a notch?

For the past 15 months or so, the dominant design trait of many smartphones has been the notch. The notch, which has various shapes and sizes depending on which phone you’re looking at, allows phone makers to put a larger screen inside a phone and still include the necessary front-facing camera and earpiece speaker. But it’s safe to say that the notch is not universally liked — in fact, it’s perhaps the most polarizing design trait in years.
Read more: https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/29/18201055/xiaomi-mi-mix-3-slider-no-notch-phone-design?source=Snapzu

A boy who was lost in the woods says a bear kept him company. No one can prove it didn't happen.

We may never know what Casey Hathaway was doing during the three days he was missing. He was found on Thursday, cold but alive, in a mess of vines and thorns. But the 3-year-old has volunteered one noteworthy detail about those days in the woods: a bear kept him company. "He made a comment about having a friend while he was in the woods -- his friend was a bear," Maj. David McFadyen with the Craven County Sheriff's Office told CNN Monday. "In the emergency room he started talking about what happened in the woods and he said he had a friend that was a bear with him while he was in the woods."
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/28/us/casey-hathaway-bear-claims/index.html?source=Snapzu

Toshiba unveils robot to probe melted Fukushima nuclear fuel

Toshiba Corp. unveiled a remote-controlled robot with tongs on Monday that it hopes will be able to probe the inside of one of the three damaged reactors at Japan's tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant and grip chunks of highly radioactive melted fuel.
Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/beta-story-container/Technology/wireStory/toshiba-unveils-robot-probe-melted-fukushima-nuclear-fuel-60673515?source=Snapzu

‘World’s Loneliest Duck’ Dies on Tiny Pacific Island That Loved Him

His nickname was a little off, since Trevor, the only duck on the island of Niue, was beloved by its 1,600 residents. They mourned after he was killed by a stray dog.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/29/world/asia/niue-loneliest-duck.html?source=Snapzu

EA buckles in Belgium, stops selling FIFA Points following loot box gambling pressure

EA has announced plans to stop selling FIFA Points in Belgium following government pressure over loot boxes. In FIFA Ultimate Team, you can spend real world money on FIFA Points, which can then be used to buy card packs.
Read more: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-01-29-ea-buckles-in-belgium-stops-selling-fifa-points-following-loot-box-gambling-pressure?source=Snapzu

5 things I've learned about the power of influencer-hosted webinars

When your startup doesn’t have an audience yet, creating content can be frustrating. Many formats, like in-depth blog posts or YouTube videos, don’t get seen until promotion takes off – if it takes off. Take a piece of “skyscraper content,” for example. You’ll need to put in hours and hours of effort to create the content. But no matter how good the result in, you still need to put in just as much time finding people to read it. But what if you could gain an audience before your content is published?
Read more: https://www.techstars.com/content/community/power-influencer-hosted-webinars/?source=Snapzu

Artificial Skin Could Help Burn Victims "Feel" Again

University of Connecticut (UConn) scientists say a new type of sensor could lead to artificial skin that someday may help burn victims “feel” again. They described their research (“An Ultra-Shapeable, Smart Sensing Platform Based on a Multimodal Ferrofluid-Infused Surface”) in Advanced Materials. “The development of wearable, all‐in‐one sensors that can simultaneously monitor several hazard conditions in a real‐time fashion imposes the emergent requirement for a smart and stretchable hazard avoidance sensing platform that is stretchable and skin‐like.
Read more: https://www.genengnews.com/news/artificial-skin-could-help-burn-victims-feel-again/?source=Snapzu

Pancreatic Cancer Diagnosis on the Tip of Your Tongue…Microbiome

Scientists in China report that differences in the abundance of various types of bacteria living on the tongue can distinguish patients with early pancreatic cancer from healthy individuals. The researchers, headed by a team at Zhejiang University, say that their findings could feasibly help direct the development of diagnostic tests for pancreatic cancer or even hint at new approaches to preventing the disease.
Read more: https://www.genengnews.com/news/pancreatic-cancer-diagnosis-on-the-tip-of-your-tongue-microbiome/?source=Snapzu

US shutdown cost $3bn, says budget office

The partial shutdown of the US government is estimated to have cost the US economy $3bn (£2.3bn). The loss is expected to slash 0.02% from the country's growth in 2019, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said. The agency said overall damage amounted to about $11bn, but much of that will be recovered as work resumes. New trade tariffs could also knock about 0.1% off growth up until 2029, as higher costs prompt lower consumption and investment, it said.
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47033219?source=Snapzu

The tiny library bringing books to remote villages

“Without a book, so often the child is alone,” says Antonio La Cava. The retired schoolteacher converted his three-wheeled van into a mobile library, the Bibliomotocarro. Driving the hills and mountains of Basilicata, Italy, La Cava is able to reach children in remote villages like San Paolo Albanese, which only has two children of primary school age. “I was strongly worried about growing old in a country of non-readers.” La Cava believes that it’s important to spread the joy of literature to as many children as possible: “carrying out such action has a value, not only social, not only cultural, but has a great ethical meaning.”
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190125-the-tiny-library-bringing-books-to-remote-villages?source=Snapzu

Lawmakers Propose Bill That Would Make Animal Cruelty A Felony In The U.S.

A pair of Florida congressmen reintroduced a bill last week that would make animal cruelty a felony nationwide. According to the Orlando Sentinel, the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act from Rep. Ted Deutch, D-West Boca, and Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota, would target “crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating and impaling animals.” The measure would also address bestiality and other efforts to sexually exploit animals.
Read more: https://5newsonline.com/2019/01/28/lawmakers-propose-bill-that-would-make-animal-cruelty-a-felony-in-the-us/?source=Snapzu