Snapzu News: April 2015

Thursday, 30 April 2015

Jon Jones stripped of UFC world title after hit-and-run incident

Jon Jones has been stripped of his UFC light heavyweight title and suspended indefinitely following his arrest in New Mexico on a hit-and-run that police say left a pregnant woman with a broken arm. The UFC announced the extraordinary penalties on Tuesday night for violations of its athlete code of conduct policy following Jones’ latest arrest in a string of misbehavior.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1E0UlKC

Dead zones — where animals suffocate and die — found in the Atlantic’s open waters

Most dead zones are found along the coast and are a result of chemicals triggering algae blooms.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1JVYZy4

AT&T sacks president Aaron Slator amid $100m racial discrimination suit

Knoyme King, a black woman who worked for Slator, alleges she was passed over for promotions because of her race.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1AnMjLb

Improving the Map of Nepal

The availability of accurate maps is particularly important in times of emergency to help disaster response teams and aid agencies to effectively manage the teams on the ground. Humanitarian Open Street Map Team (HOT) is a non-profit organization which coordinates the creation and distribution of free mapping resources to support humanitarian relief. Since the devastating earthquake in Nepal HOT has been organizing the response of the Open Street Community to improve the OSM maps of Nepal.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1bIo5oQ

From Finland, the 1,341-horsepower electric supercar

The Toroidion 1MW Concept is a battery-powered, four-wheel-drive glimpse into the future of high-performance motoring.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1c0JNFr

Senators Approve Bill To Stop EPA From Using ‘Secret Science’

A Senate committee has advanced legislation that would change how the Environmental Protection Agency uses science to craft regulations intended to protect the environment and public health.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1HWzIVH

Anti-Gay State Rep Outed By Guy He Was Trying To Pick Up On Grindr

What's funnier than a straight anti-gay bigot named "Breda" (Brēd-ä)? A closeted gay Republican elected official named "Randy Boehning." Grand Forks Herald: A North Dakota lawmaker who sent an explicit photo of himself to another man says the exchange being made public is retaliation for a recent vote against expanding gay rights. State Rep. Randy Boehning, a 52-year-old Republican legislator from Fargo, says a Capitol employee told him a fellow lawmaker vowed to out him...
Read more: http://ift.tt/1DFJntA

Rubella virus officially eliminated from the Americas

It's official: rubella, a disease that can be deadly for fetuses, has been eliminated from the Americas. The news was announced today by a scientific panel convened by global health authorities, reports The New York Times. The Americas is the first World Health Organization region to eliminate the disease.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1OK6bUD

Colombia just legalized euthanasia. Here's why that's a big deal

It's highly controversial: Only 3 other countries allow doctors to actually administer their patients' requested lethal dose.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1bHAI3F

Baltimore imposes bail bonds of half a million dollars in legal crackdown

Republican governor extends 24-hour detention-without-charge limit ‘to protect public safety’ while courts impose sky-high bail bonds for minor offences.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1dyFd1M

Secret Anonymous App To Shut Down After Failing To Attract College Students The Way Rival Yik Yak Did

Secret, which aimed to attract college students, will shut down after raising $35 million in 2014.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1zvCz6V

71 get life sentences for torching Egypt church

An Egyptian court has sentenced 71 people to life in prison for their role in the August 2013 burning of a Christian church in the Giza province village of Kafr Hakim, state news reports. The Virgin Mary Church was torched and looted by a mob, some of whom chanted against Coptic Christians and called for Egypt to become an "Islamic state," one of at least 42 churches and many more businesses and homes targeted that August, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch reports.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1zhBorb

Earth's Mysterious Hum Explained

Even planets can get a bad case of tinnitus, according to a new study that explains Earth's mysterious, never-ending hum. Turns out, ocean waves are the culprit behind these mysterious tremors that make the Earth ring like a bell.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1AmziBx

Starbucks wants you to feel good about drinking up California's precious water

The coffee giant says it's solving the world's water problems—yet it's profiting off the Golden State's dwindling reserves.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1AmzjWg

NASA unveils shape-changing bird-like plane wing

Nasa jointly develops a plane wing that can change shape during flight, reducing drag and improving fuel efficiency.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1DZwfQp

'A Gronking to Remember' Becomes Memorable Lawsuit Against Amazon, Apple

A couple is suing the tech giants after finding their faces on an e-book that went viral.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1zuGvF3

Falling to Earth: unmanned Russian spacecraft ‘has nowhere else to go’

A Russian spacecraft that is tumbling around the Earth after it malfunctioned en route to the International Space Station (ISS) could remain in orbit for more than a week before crashing down to Earth.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1DYSTsh

States can ban elected judges from asking for campaign money, Supreme Court says

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld state laws that bar elected judges from asking for money to support their campaigns.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1bXR1Kg

Microsoft’s New Browser Will Be Called Microsoft Edge

We knew that Internet Explorer was dead. We knew a successor was coming. We just didn't know the official name
Read more: http://ift.tt/1Eu5kQe

American Airlines planes grounded by iPad app error

American Airlines delay dozens of flights after an iPad app used by its pilots stopped working.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1FzBg7I

Rand Paul, Who Accepts Bitcoin Donations, Is Trying to Kill Net Neutrality

Sen. Rand Paul is running for the GOP presidential nomination—and he's also vying for the title of "biggest net neutrality hater."
Read more: http://ift.tt/1OHLt7Z

University of Glasgow researcher discovers 'oldest book'

What is believed to be Scotland's earliest non-religious manuscript is discovered by a researcher at the University of Glasgow.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1EsV2ja

Saudi King Resets Succession to Cope With Turbulent Times

Saudi King Salman appointed a new heir and made his young son second in line to rule on Wednesday, a major shift in power within the ultra conservative kingdom's elite at a time of almost unprecedented regional turmoil.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1EsXbvi

Wednesday, 29 April 2015

Chrome Can Now Warn Users Who Type Gmail Passwords in Dumb Places

No matter how much Google does to harden its servers, hire the world’s best security engineers, and root out hackable bugs in its products, it can’t stop dummies like you and me from handing our Gmail passwords over to the first cybercriminal who slaps a Google logo on a fake login page. But now, for users of its Chrome browser at least, it’s trying a new method to protect our passwords from ourselves.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1DLVWVv

Prisoner in van said Freddie Gray was trying to injure himself

According to a police document obtained by The Post, a prisoner in a separate compartment of the same Baltimore police van as Freddie Gray told officers he heard Gray “banging against the walls.”
Read more: http://ift.tt/1GycEs8

8-Limbed Baby Touted as Reincarnated Indian God

A baby in India born with a conjoined twin is being worshipped as the reincarnation of a god.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1bgDbS7

World-first remote air traffic control system lands in Sweden

Small airports often don't have much traffic because they don't have an adequate tower system, and they don't have an adequate tower system because they don't have much traffic.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1zfbhRI

Violence 'Not Going to Happen Tonight,' Governor Says

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said at a news conference today the immediate need is to restore calm in Baltimore and that the city is well on its way. "We're not going to have a repeat of last night," Hogan said. "It's not going to happen tonight." President Obama today called the riots in Baltimore "senseless violence and destruction."
Read more: http://ift.tt/1DLMFMY

Lake Michigan Is So Clear Right Now Its Shipwrecks Are Visible from the Air

A Coast Guard patrol spotted the wrecks in shallow waters that are only clear after the lake's ice melts and before summer sediment swirls and algae blooms.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1EEqBrv

Tiny 'Thin Home' In Vancouver Sells For $1.35 Million

Believed to be the last of its kind, a rare "thin home" has sold in Vancouver for $1.35 million. Built in the late '80s and tucked away in the city's upscale Point Grey neighbourhood, the split-level home is a mere 3.6 metres (12 feet) wide. The floor space is only 945 sq.-ft., but manages to cram in a full kitchen, master bedroom, living room, garage, den and 1.5 bathrooms, according to its listing.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1Erw6Zh

Airbnb nightmare renters leave Calgary home trashed

A Calgary family says their hardwood floors are lifting from "pools of alcohol" and someone left chicken drumsticks in their shoes following an Airbnb rental that turned disastrous.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1GH98yl

Forest Fires Threaten New Fallout From Chernobyl

On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine released a plume of radiation that eventually blanketed an estimated 77,000 square miles of Europe and Eurasia. While the worst of the contamination occurred near the plant — an area still closed to human habitation, now referred to as the exclusion zone — the effects are still seen further afield as well. Radioactive wild boars roam German forests, and radioactive mushrooms grow in Bulgaria.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1OFMcGI

NFL Relinquishing Tax-Exempt Status

Every so often, in a bid to sound threatening, a member of Congress has vowed to revoke the NFL's tax-exempt status. Now Commissioner Roger Goodell says the league will give it up voluntarily to "eliminate this distraction." One result is that Goodell's compensation — about $35 million 2013, and approximately $44 million in 2012 — will no longer need to be made public.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1EE41iS

Nasa spaceship takes stunning photo of Mercury - before it crashes into the planet

These astonishing images, taken by the Nasa Messenger spacecraft, show Mercury as never seen before.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1GxekCn

As protests continue, Baltimore looks to buy police body cameras

Facing criticism for a controversial veto, National Guard troops in the streets, and protesters clashing with police, the Baltimore Mayor’s Office says it is actively searching for vendors to supply police body cameras to fulfill a multimillion dollar program that’s been in the works since last year.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1J9Lsmt

Color-switching nano-laser brings real optical nanotech much closer

A breakthrough makes it possible to tune the color of a nano-scale laser in real time - and that could be the key to making useful, real-world nano-optical devices.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1bVwaqV

Fully Restored WWII Fighter Plane Up for Auction

A British warplane that was shot down in 1940 during World War II and was later meticulously restored to flying condition is slated to hit the auction block this summer.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1ES0lfn

Nurse who raped unconscious patients in A&E jailed for 18 years

A nurse who filmed himself raping two patients while they were unconscious in A&E has been jailed for 18 years. Andrew Hutchinson, 29, carried out the assaults on women aged 18 and 35 who were brought in to the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, where he worked, after drinking too much alcohol on a night out.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1OEybJj

Why is the Sun's Atmosphere Hotter than its Surface?

Clear evidence now suggests that the intense heat of the sun's atmosphere depends on explosive bursts, not continuous heating. This solution to the coronal heating mystery was presented at a media briefing on April 28, 2015.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1ODWqHN

D.A. Charges Bumble Bee Tuna After Worker Baked to Death in Industrial Oven

On Oct. 11, 2012, Bumble Bee Foods worker Jose Melena entered an industrial oven at the company's Santa Fe Springs plant in order to load it with racks of tuna cans. The oven was used to sterilize the products, and part of the 62-year-old's job was to get those cans properly placed in the 35-foot cylindrical oven. That day co-workers began loading cans of their own, unaware that Melena was deep inside, prosecutors said.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1ODWnvj

Twitter tamps troll tweets

New policies at Twitter for reporting, automatic message muting, and enforcement could turn the noise way down for users subject to harassment.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1zdbUvb

Baltimore and the State of American Cities

The death of Freddie Gray and the protests that have sent Baltimore teetering into bedlam are part of a national tableau of frustration.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1GF8Zvl

Tuesday, 28 April 2015

Bali Nine: Indonesia executes eight prisoners but reprieves Mary Jane Veloso

Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran and six other men are executed by firing squad, as Filipina Mary Jane Velosa wins a last-minute reprieve.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1JQhN1u

Firefighter Arrested for 3 Slayings in 15-Year-Old Cold Case

While David Watson was rising through the ranks at the Tucson Fire Department, authorities working to solve three cold-case murders had him in mind as their main suspect. Watson, 46, was finally arrested on Saturday, nearly 15 years after the first of the killings. The fire department captain is accused of killing his ex-wife, her mother and a third woman, and he now faces three counts of first-degree murder.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1AcpYA8

Removing Payment Feature From Skyrim Workshop

We're going to remove the payment feature from the Skyrim workshop. For anyone who spent money on a mod, we'll be refunding you the complete amount. We talked to the team at Bethesda and they agree.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1EAAKFI

'Bizarre' Jurassic dinosaur discovered in remarkable new find

Chilesaurus diegosuarezi belongs to the theropod group of dinosaurs, which includes tyrannosaurs, but was vegetarian and has other curious features
Read more: http://ift.tt/1JPl7u0

Google will pay you to keep your ideas out of the hands of patent trolls

2013 was a record year for patent lawsuits, which have been rising rapidly. As University of Iowa law professor Jason Rantenan recently pointed out, "in the 16 years from 1994 until 2010, the annual number of patent lawsuit filings doubled; it doubled again in the three years from 2010 to 2013." Today Google announced a new initiative to try and keep patents out of the hands of patent trolls, entities whose only business is amassing intellectual property and filing lawsuits.
Read more: http://ift.tt/1P3hB0w