Corax
EU launches yearlong Mediterranean mission Irini to enforce the UN arms embargo on Libya through using aerial, satellite and maritime assets to carry out vessel inspections, Italy blocked the former Sophia mission as the warships attracted migrants, the mission will also build up and train the Libyan coast guard as well as gather information about illegal fuel and oil smuggling
World
EU launches yearlong Mediterranean mission Irini to enforce the UN arms embargo on Libya through using aerial, satellite and maritime assets to carry out vessel inspections, Italy blocked the former Sophia mission as the warships attracted migrants, the mission will also build up and train the Libyan coast guard as well as gather information about illegal fuel and oil smuggling
US indicts Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and more than a dozen other top Venezuelan officials on charges of conspiring "to flood the United States with cocaine" together with a dissident faction of the FARC guerilla, offers reward of up to USD 15 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Maduro
WHO declares Covid-19 a pandemic, Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says several countries have demonstrated that the outbreak can be suppressed and controlled but that other countries have showed alarming levels of inaction, 121,564 cases with at least 4,373 deaths as of Wednesday morning according to Johns Hopkins University
After testing more than 140,000 for covid-19 South Korea has over 6,000 confirmed cases but only about 40 deceased, case fatality rate at 0.6% is significantly lower than previous estimates and based on more comprehensive and reliable data
Turkey prepares a case in the European Court of Human Rights over Greece’s treatment of migrants, says that 135,000 people have crossed into Greece and that the EU has made no concrete offer to deal with the situation, Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin calls it a double standard that the EU can mobilize hundreds of millions of euros to Greece within days but blames bureaucracy when it comes to Turkey
Greece releases video of Turkish riot police firing tear gas canisters at border crossing, Greek security official says gas was used to help migrants breach border and provoke, Turkish security official says purpose was to protect migrants from Greek police firing bullets, Greece denies shooting at migrants and brands Turkish claims that four migrants have been killed in past days "fake news"
US conducts airstrike against Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan days after peace deal was signed, attack performed to counter Taliban assault on Afghan government forces in Helmand province
Russia strongly rejects UN war crime allegations regarding air strikes on popular market and camp for displaced people that killed dozens of civilians in Syria in July and August 2019, says report is one-sided as it fails to account for attacks by militant groups
UN Refugee Agency UNHCR says Greece's decision to suspend the reception of asylum applications is not supported by either the 1951 Refugee Convention nor EU refugee law and that countries must refrain from measures that might increase the suffering of vulnerable people, also says additional support to both Greece and Turkey is needed and appeals for calm and easing of tensions at the borders
Miscellaneous
European football championship Euro 2020 postponed until summer 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Uefa decides during emergency video conference on Tuesday, will now run from 11 June to 11 July next year
Hundreds of crab-eating macaques swarm the streets in Thai city of Lopburi in search of food during current drought crisis, the infamously naughty macaques are a great nuisance in parts of Thailand and the yearly city festival serving the monkeys a buffet exacerbates the problem, authorities began a program in 2014 where gibbons and langurs were trained and deputized to control the monkeys
Teenager in Leeds sent home from school for selling hand sanitizer to fellow students for 50 pence per dose, his mother has trouble disciplining him as father calls him a legend, culprit himself plans to use profits to buy kebab
Test subjects notice no difference when 25% of butter in cake is replaced with larva fat, if ratio is increased to 50% they report an unusual taste and say they would not buy the cake, according to Belgian researchers hoping to find ways to increase consumption of insect food
Actor Max von Sydow dead at 90, appeared in several landmark films and TV series over several decades with iconic roles in for instance The Seventh Seal and The Exorcist
900-strong Hungarian vigilante grouping "Easy Riders" pit biker brawn against against domestic abuse, one phone call summons legion of wind-browned bikers to your residence, Easy Riders also offer counselling services for those who wish to extricate themselves from abusive relationships, existing civil organizations against domestic abuse largely ineffective says female member Vera Mero
Wuhan stages perfunctory grocery deliveries just in time for Sun Chunlan's Premier progress through Wubei province, entourage of Party sycophants stand by in mute admiration as couriers defy infection hazard for the good of the nation, 15-second video clip of residents jeering "It's fake!" from rooftops trends briefly on Weibo before vanishing without trace Friday
61 year old woman in Ireland spends 20 years cutting down non-native spruces planted by the state and replacing them with indigenous trees, convicted for stealing logs but claims she has only fulfilled civic duty to protect environment and biodiversity
Media
Google removes Infowars' app from the Play store after Alex Jones posted a video where he questions the world governments' Covid-19 approach including quarantines and lockdowns, Jones blasts the ban and says the app is still available on the Infowars website
Netflix and YouTube reduce streaming quality in Europe for 30 days after appeals from EU officials to reduce network strain
Fox News averaged 3.5 million viewers during prime time in February, 35% more than same month previous year, highest rating since channel was founded 24 years ago, top shows by Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham also sets records, Trump's State of the Union address month's most watched telecast with 11.6 million viewers
More than 80% of workers in UK cultural sector say controversial opinions are punished with ostracism, 70% would not criticise a funder and 40% have been pressured by funders not to speak out, according to survey by journal ArtsProfessional
Twitter tests adding brightly colored labels to lies and misinformation posted by politicians and other public figures, corrected data by verified users to be shown directly beneath the tweets and visibility to be reduced, also tries system where users can earn points and badges by acting "like a good neighbor" and providing critical context to help people, the company calls misinformation a critical issue and says they're testing many different ways to address it
Scandinavia's largest airline SAS deletes commercial about nothing being truly Scandinavian, ad claimed windmills were invented in Persia and meatballs in Turkey along with a black man stating that we are not better than our Viking ancestors, heavily criticised online with numerous comments referencing #BoycottSAS and #GetWokeGoBroke
Digital publishers fills void left by dying local press in US, some through hyperlocal news platform Patch which has 1,200 such sites, successful projects focus heavily on local reporting and make money through subscriptions and donations
Donald Trump awards conservative radio legend Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom during his State of the Union address – says the highest civilian honor is in recognition of his decades of tireless devotion to the country, the millions of people he inspires per day and his incredible charity work
Politics
Orthodox Church locks horns with Montenegrin government over new anti-ecclesiastical legislation, law gives state leave to seize ecclesiastical property from churches who cannot produce ownership titles notarised before 1918, thousands march through streets of Podgorica amid clerical hymn chants decrying "[the State] ... snatching people's souls", gloves come off as President Milo Djukanovic attacks the Orthodox Church for undermining Montenegrin independence, The Church has 12 million followers in Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro
Greta Thunberg throws down the gauntlet at Bristol climate rally, rain-soused teenagers bellow "The ocean is rising and so are we" and other equally stirring slogans, Greta—donning her iconic yellow mac—attacks political complacency in face of impending climate apocalypse
Sweden's foreign ministry summons Chinese ambassador with the intention of demanding immediate release and consular access to Gui Minhai, apprehended and detained by Chinese authorities in 2018 for sale of literature vilifying the Chinese state apparatus
Donald Trump's adviser and confidant Roger Stone sentenced to 40 months' imprisonment, found guilty on five counts of obstructing House Intelligence Committee investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Trump retweets Tucker Carlson segment calling for pardon, request for retrial filed by Stone's legal team
Arts Council England (ACE) threaten to withold public funding for museums and arts organisations who don't implement diversity quotas, appalled ethnic non-whites should be so woefully underrepresented in arts, report unearths a number of unnerving statistics - only 6% of workforce disabled as opposed to 21% in the national labour force
EU arch-bureaucrat Josep Borrell tells Munich Security Conference the European Union must learn to embrace its oft-derided hegemonic structure by "developing an appetite for power", the EU must throw equivocation, dawdling and prudence to the winds and learn to act, a conciliatory EU won't be able to challenge U.S. dominance in global politics
Bernie Sanders says Bloomberg doesn't have enough clout with younger generations to defeat Trump, history of 'racist' policies, minimum wage law criticisms and cautious skepticism towards taxes on the wealthy tantamount to political suicide among younger voters, according to Sanders
Emmanuel Macron sets out 10-year EU vision – says the union needs larger budget, integrated capital markets and abolished vetoes, argues that moving faster on issues of European level sovereignty is key, seeks strategic dialogue with Russia as well as with UK and US as being defiant and weak is an inefficient system
Opinion
Bryan Caplan: 15.8% probability that Bernie Sanders is secretly a communist according to my calculation using Bayes' theorem, crypto-communism should be considered a serious risk as indicated in history by Fidel Castro, Nelson Mandela and Ho Chi Minh
Alexander von Schönburg: A subdued Germany once known for innovation and its industry is trapped in an EU obsessed with regulation and welfare, while looking fearfully and enviously at a confident Britain with a powerful economy and a strong leader in Boris Johnson moving towards a brighter future than the union they are leaving behind
Doug Casey: Incommensurate development of technology and ethics is the bane of civilization, human ethics develop at glacial pace while technology develops rapidly, enabling instantaneous proliferation of ideas and values inimical to Western Civilization, all these quandaries may be rendered irrelevant by impending AI singularity
Vicky Spratt: Baleful that the likes of Laurence Fox should publically boast about pruning 'woke women' from their social life, emblematic of the resurgent reactionary sentiment which prompted the murder of Jo Cox and the ousting of Meghan Markle
Jeff Deist: The left-wing college professor is not just a trope, surveys show virtually all tenured scholars are of a left-wing persuaion, think twice before enrolling
Tyler Cowen: Elizabeth Warren is touting the worst economic programme ever to have been put forth in my lifetime, proposed fracking ban would stall domestic industry and enrich Saudi Arabia at the expense of the environment – proposed policies for agriculture, taxes, student debt, education and healthcare equally inane
Micah White: I, Occupy Wallstreet co-founder and staunch anti-globalist, will be attending the World Economic Forum in Davos this year, easy to say no when you're not invited, I'm hoping to tap its revolutionary potential
Mike Adams: Anti-Soleimani jingoism is moot as long as Big Tech is allowed to censor anti-establishmentarian voices online, securing domestic freedom on the altar of the First Amendment is unconstitutional and immoral
Thomas Luongo: Iran jingoism direct consequence of Trump's cowardly decision to leave the JCPOA Iran Nuclear Agreement, US withdrawal gave Democrats and Neocons leave to vie for power in the Senate under the auspices of Pelosi's sham impeachment, Qassem took great strides in neutering ISIS and killing him is a political ploy to secure acquittal in impeachment case
Dominic Cummings: Brexit is the harbinger of the new civil servant, Downing Street should be staffed by exceptionally competent mavericks, with stellar qualifications in mathematics, software-development and economics, quirky misfit geniuses welcome too, goal is maximising performance and rendering myself largely redundant, also looking to find and exploit 'very high leverage ideas'
Europe
Orthodox Church locks horns with Montenegrin government over new anti-ecclesiastical legislation, law gives state leave to seize ecclesiastical property from churches who cannot produce ownership titles notarised before 1918, thousands march through streets of Podgorica amid clerical hymn chants decrying "[the State] ... snatching people's souls", gloves come off as President Milo Djukanovic attacks the Orthodox Church for undermining Montenegrin independence, The Church has 12 million followers in Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro
Greta Thunberg throws down the gauntlet at Bristol climate rally, rain-soused teenagers bellow "The ocean is rising and so are we" and other equally stirring slogans, Greta—donning her iconic yellow mac—attacks political complacency in face of impending climate apocalypse
Sweden's foreign ministry summons Chinese ambassador with the intention of demanding immediate release and consular access to Gui Minhai, apprehended and detained by Chinese authorities in 2018 for sale of literature vilifying the Chinese state apparatus
Donald Trump's adviser and confidant Roger Stone sentenced to 40 months' imprisonment, found guilty on five counts of obstructing House Intelligence Committee investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Trump retweets Tucker Carlson segment calling for pardon, request for retrial filed by Stone's legal team
Arts Council England (ACE) threaten to withold public funding for museums and arts organisations who don't implement diversity quotas, appalled ethnic non-whites should be so woefully underrepresented in arts, report unearths a number of unnerving statistics - only 6% of workforce disabled as opposed to 21% in the national labour force
EU arch-bureaucrat Josep Borrell tells Munich Security Conference the European Union must learn to embrace its oft-derided hegemonic structure by "developing an appetite for power", the EU must throw equivocation, dawdling and prudence to the winds and learn to act, a conciliatory EU won't be able to challenge U.S. dominance in global politics
Bernie Sanders says Bloomberg doesn't have enough clout with younger generations to defeat Trump, history of 'racist' policies, minimum wage law criticisms and cautious skepticism towards taxes on the wealthy tantamount to political suicide among younger voters, according to Sanders
Emmanuel Macron sets out 10-year EU vision – says the union needs larger budget, integrated capital markets and abolished vetoes, argues that moving faster on issues of European level sovereignty is key, seeks strategic dialogue with Russia as well as with UK and US as being defiant and weak is an inefficient system
North America
Texas appeals court upholds five-year prison sentence for 45-year-old Crystal Mason who illegaly tried to vote in the 2016 presidential election, Mason who has a tax fraud related felony conviction says she was unaware that the state bans persons on supervised release from voting but the court says her ignorance is irrelevant
Two Tennessee brothers donate 17,700 bottles of hand sanitizer after Amazon and the state attorney general banned them from reselling, drove 2,100 kilometers across two states in a rented truck to buy the supples, price gouging case involving the brothers under investigation
Florida politician Andrew Gillum found in hotel room with bag of methamphetamine, was too intoxicated to answer questions from police and in company of man who had overdosed, was previously mayor of Tallahassee and came within 34,000 votes of becoming governor in 2018
US judge orders immediate release of former intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning from prison, was scheduled to appear in court on Friday but judge rules it no longer necessary
Harvey Weinstein sentenced in New York court to 23 years in prison for 2013 third-degree rape and 2006 criminal sex act, maintains his innocence and says thousands of men are losing due process, also faces California charge for 2013 rape and sexual assault against two women where trial follows
US Air Force and SpaceX collaborate in exercise where company's satellites interoperate with military systems, goals include studying whether a greater number of smaller satellites can be more robust alternative to fewer large ones
Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein convicted of rape and sexual assault, faces up to 29 years in prison, verdict seen as milestone as case has become most prominent symbol of #MeToo movement
Bernie Sanders' victory in Nevada with 46% of votes casts doubt on conventional assumptions that he can't win outside his own base or among blacks or hispanics, received most votes in all demographics except people over 65 where plurality voted for Joe Biden
New Jersey raises its threat level for white supremacists to the topmost category and drops the IS terrorists one level to "low", the El Paso Walmart shooting and local incidents such as the arrest of a man who admitted to instructing neo-Nazis to vandalize synagogues mentioned as examples of the rising threat while the global focus of the IS terrorists resulted in the down-grading, 168 reported instances of white supremacist propaganda distribution during 2019
Latin America
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro posts on Facebook that he tested negative for Covid-19 after rumours that he tested positive, dined with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago last Saturday along with his press secretary who was diagnosed with the disease following the trip
President Nicolás Maduro wants Venezuelan women to have six children each as part of governmental birth method program, initiative critiziced as the country already lacks food access and health care, 4.5 million Venezuelans have emigrated since 2015 and one-third of the population is unable to meet basic dietary needs according to UN
Mexican national guardsmen round up 800 mainly Honduran migrants en route to USA, fly and bus the caravan members back home
Hundreds of US-bound migrants stopped from entering Mexico by security forces – the migrants tried wading across Suchiate river and threw stones at the police but were repelled by tear gas and riot shields, the migrant group dubbed "2020 Caravan" is expected to consist of between 2,000 and 3,500 people
Migrants gathering on the Guatemala-Mexico border on Sunday aiming to cross en masse during Monday in hope of being let through by authorities to avoid clashes, Guatemala says at least 4,000 people have entered from Honduras since Wednesday, Mexico says no safe conduct passes to the US will be issued
Guatemala's new President Alejandro Giammattei cuts diplomatic ties with Venezuela and orders closing of the Caracas embassy, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Rodríguez accuses Giammattei of bowing down to Donald Trump and says that "his government will surely become another bad joke"
Asia
North Korea launches its eighth and ninth short-range missiles this month on Sunday, flying 230 kilometres into the sea, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff reports, calling it inappropriate at a time the world fights the Covid-19 pandemic
North Korea fires what appears to be two short-range ballistic missiles for 410 km into the Sea of Japan outside the waters of Japan's exclusive economic zone, according to South Korea's military, North Korea launched multiple missiles as part of firing drills earlier this month
30-year-old Japanese Satoshi Uematsu sentenced to hang for knifing to death 19 disabled people and injuring 24 other residents and two caregivers at a Sagamihara residential center in 2016, has repeatedly stated that he has no regrets as he has improved the world by killing people he view as burdens
Japan outlines road map for military technology including hypersonic cruise missiles, armor-piercing warheads for penetrating aircraft carriers, satellite network for continuous positioning and methods for identifying stealthy naval targets
100,000 Chinese ducks mobilized to fight locust in Pakistan, each bird can eat 200 locusts per day and agricultural experts hope they will prevent further spread of swarms to China
At least 20 killed and 189 injured after clashes between Hindus and Muslims in New Delhi over new citizenship law, critics say the new law is biased against Muslims and undermines the secular constitution, at least two mosques set on fire
20,000 Chinese wildlife farms shut down in the wake of the Covid-19 breakout, peacocks, pangolins, civet cats and sika deer among included species, government agencies promoted wildlife farming as an easy income source up until a few weeks ago
Public restrooms upgraded in Japan ahead of Olympic Games, 40% had squat toilets when preparations began in 2016 but since then more than 300 have been refurbished and equipped with sitting models, process similar to that which proceeded 1964 Olympics when 80% of Tokyo lacked sewage system
MIDDLE EAST
Afghanistan to release 1,500 Taliban prisoners in coming days to pave way for peace talks, plans releasing additional 5,000 prisoners over 20 weeks if the talks make progress, demands written guarantee from all released Jihadists that they not return to the battlefield, according to Reuters
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan files 164,000 USD lawsuit against opposition MP Engin Özkoç (CHP) for "impudent remarks", Özkoç called Erdoğan dishonorable and a traitor for referring to a dead Turkish soldier as a "head" and accused the president of being responsible for the massacre of millions of Muslims in Syria, investigation regarding insulting the president also launched by the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office where Özkoç risks four years in prison
Iran has tripled enriched uranium stockpile since November in breach of nuclear deal, refuses to answer questions regarding three locations where possibly nuclear material is stored or nuclear-related activities is undertaken without declaring it to international observers, according to IAEA
Turkish court approves Minister of Treasury and Finance Berat Albayrak's request for ban on reporting about the ban on reporting about his property purchases along the planned shipping canal project Kanal İstanbul, the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan son-in law purchased 13 hectares of farmland in 2012 and the land is listed as residential zones in the mega project
Palestinians prefer Israeli employers over Palestinian ones due to higher salaries, better benefits, more extensive legal protection and absence of gender or religious discrimination
Up to 90% of the 11 million saplings planted in more than 2,000 sites in Turkey during National Forestation Day last November are dead according to the country's agriculture and forestry trade union – the ministry of agriculture and forestry denies the claim and says 95% of the saplings are healthy and growing, union head Şükrü Durmuş says the number is untrue as the normal success rate is about 70% and here the planting was done at the wrong time and not by experts
Afghan forces kill 51 Taliban during 24 hours of combined ground attacks and air strikes in nine provinces, 13 terrorists wounded and six arrested, the Taliban respond by killing 18 security force members and capturing large weapons cache in two attacks against checkpoints, escalation reported to signal renewed deadlock in peace talks
Israel to build network of seismic and acoustic sensors buried in the ground along Lebanese frontier to detect cross-border tunnel building, a year after Israeli military destroyed a series of infiltration tunnels dug by Hezbollah
Africa
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni proclaims Ugandans and other Africans will stay poor if they keep splitting their time between sleeping and doing "things without mathematics", says he's very happy that Archbishop John Baptist Odama together with other church leaders have joined his campaign against sleeping
Dozens of Chinese factories produce thousands of tonnes of zombiefying metarhizium fungus to help fight locust swarms in East Africa, UN warns of worst situation in decades and that the swarms might result in famine affecting 13 million people, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization also works with the Somalian government to prepare a custom metarhizium species in what is described as the largest ever use of biopesticides against the insects
Joint operation by Nigerien and French troops kills 120 jihadists in southwest Niger region of Tillaberi, no losses among the coalition forces, security restrictions ramped up in the area after jihadist attacks killed 174 Nigerien forces over December and January, state of emergency in place in the region for the past two years
At least 22 killed of which at least 14 children killed in Anglophone region of Cameroon after security forces burn down the village of Ntumbo in search for Ambazonian separatists according to UN official James Nunan, Cameroon army spokesman disputes the figures and says only one woman and four children were killed in crossfire and that exploding fuel containers caused the blaze, more than 670,000 internally displaced and 60,000 fled to Nigeria due to the conflict that has been ongoing since 2016
6,032 bodies found in six mass graves in Burundi's Karusi Province, largest finding since nationwide excavation was launched in January, the country's government-run Truth and Reconciliation Commission has mapped more than 4,000 mass graves across the country since being set up in 2014
Worst locust plague in decades in East Africa where 20 million people already faced high levels of food insecurity before the outbreak, 70,000 hectares of Kenyan land infested, the insects that can cover 150km in a single day now heading toward South Sudan and Uganda, combatting the infestation made more difficult particularly in Somalia due to al-Shabaab control
Zimbabwe expropriates land from allies of former leader Robert Mugabe, Grace Mugabe and several ministers among those recently issued with eviction letters stating that the farms are underutilised – most of country's commercial farms lying fallow due to bad government policies and corruption, according to the European Union
Burkina Faso arms citizens after Islamist terrorists kill 36 civilians in attacks against two villages and burn one of the villages to the ground, calls for "frank collaboration" between civilians and security forces, militant attacks surging in recent months as Islamic insurgents spill across the borders from neighboring Mali and Niger
Former Zimbabwean Cabinet Minister Jonathan Mayo disappointed as his Mazowe farm is expropriated – Moyo who went into exile after Mugabe's ouster in 2017 calls the decision politically motivated, says he has invested USD 120,000 into the farm which was then valued to USD 723,000, that the farm is one of the country's most productive and that he acquired the farm from the State through a transparent process
Economy
Bill Gates resigns from boards of Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway, states intention to focus more on philantropic efforts, remains involved in Microsoft which he founded 45 years ago and where he remains a top shareholder with 1.36% of shares
Bank of England bid to thwart Covid-19 recession drives Euro Zone banks index .SX7E 1.5% higher by kindling hope of ECB following suit, precarious 6% gain dashed as U.S. stock market opens sharply lower, British minister of finance say he will do "whatever it takes" to protect the UK economy, BoE gives UK banks provisional leave to tap capital reserves
Federal Reserve takes flak from President Trump for not cranking out the stimulus necessary to thwart looming Coronavirus downturn, insists the US take a leaf out of Europe's playbook and set the "lowest rates in the world"
Scheming bureaucrats flock to G20 to hatch new strategy for mulcting Big Tech, issued communique projects proposed legislation will yield governments worldwide an additional $100 billion dollars in tax revenue, rules will prohibit tech companies from secreting revenue in tax-havens, taxes must be paid locally and not where subsidiaries are registered, "There is no time to wait for elections" intones German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz
Wuhan disease primary uncertainty for world economy according to IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva, companies including Apple has warned investors about reduced demand and supply chain interruptions, comparisons with SARS must take into account that China's share of world economy is now twice as large
General Motors clubs egress from Thai, New Zealand and Australian markets, GM scrambles to cut losses to recoup 200 million USD shortfall in all Australasian branches, board plans sale of Thai Rayong factory to Chinese Great Wall Motors by end of 2020, spokesman for Thailand's Ministry of Industry Krichanont Iyapunya says the "Detroit of Asia" will take sale in its stride since plant openings and closures are part and parcel of an "adaptive automobile industry", Australia's minister for Industry Karen Andrews grieves expected job losses
Security guards decrease risk of bank robberies but increase risk in nearby banks without guards, according to study of all Italian bank robberies in ten year period, researches suggest more guards beneficial in urban markets but less might be better in rural ones
Makers of psychedelic pharmaceuticals plans public offering, Mind Medicine Inc has developed analogue of ibogaine and is one of several companies investing in therapeutic potential of illegal substances including psilocybin, ketamine and MDMA
Technology
Dyson designs and builds entirely new ventilator in 10 days and plans selling 10,000 units to the UK government as well as donating 5,000 units to international efforts, UK firm Gtech is also working to produce ventilators and has submitted two examples to the government for assessment, in the US Ford has announced working together with 3M and GE Healthcare to produce medical equipment and GM as well as Tesla have pledged to make ventilators
World Athletics rules controversial patented Nike Vaporfly shoes saving elite marathon athletes up to two minutes legally allowable, puts "indefinite moratorium" on future technology advances as well as soles thicker than 40mm with more than one rigid embedded plate and only allows shoes that has been available on open retail market for four months, the AlphaFly shoes Eliud Kipchoge used when running a marathon distance under two hours in Vienna in October to be banned under new rules
European Parliament wants to force tech companies to use same kind of charger for all mobile pohones, tablets and e-book readers, Apple says such legislation would stifle innovation and create environmental waste
Source tells The Guardian Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' phone was compromised by Saudi cyberattack in 2018, claims prince Mohamed bin Salman sent Bezos infected video file through WhatsApp
Google CEO Sundar Pichai urges governments to regulate AI in Financial Times piece, excessively heavy-handed regulation might unduly stifle innovation, regulations must be tailored on a sector-by-sector basis, scheduled to speak at World Economic Forum later this week
Separate computer network disconnected from Internet successfully tested in Russia according to its government, sovereign Runet goal with similarities to solutions used in China and Iran
Science
[email protected] shuts down after 20 years of enabling volunteers to contribute computing power to the search for extraterrestial life, reasons include diminishing returns and need to focus more on analyzing the results already achieved
Largest explosion ever observed came from supermassive black hole in galaxy cluster Ophiuchus 390 million lightyears from Earth, according to researches who studied it using four radio telescopes including two in orbit, one i Australia and one in India
Two distinct forms of schizophrenia exists and are associated with different changes in brain structure, one with lower volume of grey matter and the other with increased volumes in some structure but normal volume overall, according to researches who studied 307 schizophrenics and 364 healthy subjects with magnetic resonance imaging
Covid-19 stimulates new culture of research where results are published faster and more researchers collaborate, central roles are played by prepublishing services like bioRxiv and medRxiv as well as communication platforms like Slack and Twitter where researchers analyze information in real time
All humans have Neanderthal ancestry, not only non-Africans as previously thought, according to Princeton researchers using novel computational method for identifying genetic overlap, Africans got Neanderthal genes due to migration from Europe
Study shows ambient lighting modulates fatty acid secretion within fat cells, infrequent exposure to full-spectrum light leads to increased risk of obesity and metabolic syndrome among mice, whether the same mechanism obtains for human metabolism is yet to be determined
Studies show ostensibly non-psychoactive medications are more deleterious to psychological wellbeing than previously thought, statins, paracetamol and Parkinson's medicines found to exacerbate aggression, dull empathy and promote high-risk behaviour respectively, cause for great concern in hyper-medicated West
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