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- Kazakhstan says 164 people were killed in week of unrest
- Italy’s iconic Scala dei Turchi cliffs defaced by vandals
- Support increases for Manchester bus driver sacked for being ‘too short’
- At least 200 villagers killed by bandits in north-west Nigeria
- New treatment may save eyesight of children with ‘devastating’ Batten disease
- London hospital boss says he may lose 1,000 staff over Covid vaccine mandate
- Are we witnessing the dawn of post-theory science?
- Is it good to talk? A history of the west’s summits with Russia
- Student sleuths: Scotland’s undergraduate-led cold case unit
- The trouble with Roblox, the video game empire built on child labour
- Home Office tells asylum seeker he can return to Syria safely
- ‘When QAnon and the Tea Party have a baby’: Ron Johnson will run again for US Senate
| Kazakhstan says 164 people were killed in week of unrest Posted: 09 Jan 2022 06:49 AM PST Almaty and other cities calm after violent protests, but authorities say 'counterterrorist operation' still underway Authorities in Kazakhstan have said 164 people were killed in the unrest that rocked the country in the past week, including three children. The health ministry said 103 of the deaths were in Almaty, the country's largest city and the centre of the violence. Continue reading... |
| Italy’s iconic Scala dei Turchi cliffs defaced by vandals Posted: 09 Jan 2022 07:39 AM PST The white marl cliffs in Sicily are famed for featuring in the Inspector Montalbano books An investigation is under way after the famed white limestone Scala dei Turchi cliff in Sicily was "shamefully defaced" with red powder dust. The Scala dei Turchi, or Turkish Steps, is one of Italy's most visited tourist sites and features prominently in the Inspector Montalbano books by the late author, Andrea Camilleri. Continue reading... |
| Support increases for Manchester bus driver sacked for being ‘too short’ Posted: 09 Jan 2022 06:15 AM PST More than 13,000 sign petition backing Tracey Scholes, who was dismissed after 34 years of service More than 13,000 people have joined a campaign to support one of Greater Manchester's first female bus drivers who was dismissed for being "too short". When Tracey Scholes, 57, walked into Manchester's Queen's Road depot in 1987 as the first, and only, woman, she said "you could have heard a pin drop". Continue reading... |
| At least 200 villagers killed by bandits in north-west Nigeria Posted: 09 Jan 2022 06:47 AM PST Militants opened fire and burned homes in Zamfara state after military airstrikes on hideouts At least 200 people are believed to have been killed in villages in the north-western Nigerian state of Zamfara, in some of the deadliest attacks by armed bandits at large in the region. Gunmen, themselves fleeing from airstrikes by the Nigerian army, attacked villages for days, opening fire and burning homes between Tuesday and Thursday. Some residents who fled returned to the villages on Saturday after the military organised mass burials. The state government said 58 people had been killed during the attacks, yet distraught residents reported far higher death tolls. Continue reading... |
| New treatment may save eyesight of children with ‘devastating’ Batten disease Posted: 09 Jan 2022 06:00 AM PST Brineura, already given to children with life-limiting genetic disease, to be injected into back of eye in Great Ormond Street trial Eight children born with a "devastating" genetic disease in England have become the first in the world to receive a "pioneering" treatment aimed at stopping them from going blind. Doctors at Great Ormond Street hospital in London are trialling a drug they believe may save the eyesight of the children who have CLN2-type Batten disease. Brineura, already successful in animals, is being administered to four boys and four girls on a compassionate use basis. Continue reading... |
| London hospital boss says he may lose 1,000 staff over Covid vaccine mandate Posted: 09 Jan 2022 06:01 AM PST Head of King's College NHS trust concerned that 10% of 14,000 workers are not fully vaccinated A London hospital leader has said he may lose 1,000 staff to the Covid vaccination mandate, but hopes admissions from the Omicron wave have peaked in in the capital. The chief executive of King's College hospital NHS trust, Prof Clive Kay, told the BBC's Sunday Morning programme that his organisation was working urgently to encourage staff to come forward for vaccination to avoid redeploying or losing them. Continue reading... |
| Are we witnessing the dawn of post-theory science? Posted: 09 Jan 2022 01:00 AM PST Does the advent of machine learning mean the classic methodology of hypothesise, predict and test has had its day? Isaac Newton apocryphally discovered his second law – the one about gravity – after an apple fell on his head. Much experimentation and data analysis later, he realised there was a fundamental relationship between force, mass and acceleration. He formulated a theory to describe that relationship – one that could be expressed as an equation, F=ma – and used it to predict the behaviour of objects other than apples. His predictions turned out to be right (if not always precise enough for those who came later). Contrast how science is increasingly done today. Facebook's machine learning tools predict your preferences better than any psychologist. AlphaFold, a program built by DeepMind, has produced the most accurate predictions yet of protein structures based on the amino acids they contain. Both are completely silent on why they work: why you prefer this or that information; why this sequence generates that structure. Continue reading... |
| Is it good to talk? A history of the west’s summits with Russia Posted: 09 Jan 2022 07:35 AM PST A week of meetings lies ahead – and the wisdom of them largely comes down to whether you judge Russia to be driven by insecurity or expansionism So high have the stakes been set by Russia over the future security architecture of Europe, and so imminent is the threat of war in Ukraine, that the three separate meetings arranged between Russia and the west this week are drawing comparison with some of the great western-Russian exchanges of the past, from Yalta in 1945 to Paris in 1960, over the future of Berlin, and Reykjavik in 1986. Vladimir Putin, with his keen sense of his place in Russian history, would probably revel in these comparisons. Indeed, the very scheduling of the three meetings – a bilateral security meeting with the US on Monday, a rare meeting of the Nato-Russian Council on Wednesday and an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) meeting on Ukraine on Thursday – is seen by some as a mistake. Continue reading... |
| Student sleuths: Scotland’s undergraduate-led cold case unit Posted: 09 Jan 2022 07:54 AM PST Glasgow criminology students work with experts to crack seven unsolved missing person cases An Italian newspaper, a book of finely drawn sketches, a half-remembered photograph glimpsed on social media: these are the fragmented details of lost lives that Scotland's only student-led cold case unit must make sense of. The group of criminology students at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) are investigating seven long-term unidentified bodies in partnership with Locate International, a community interest company dedicated to helping the families of missing persons to find their loved ones. Continue reading... |
| The trouble with Roblox, the video game empire built on child labour Posted: 09 Jan 2022 02:00 AM PST Young developers on the platform used by many millions of children claim they have been financially exploited, threatened with dismissal and sexually harassed Anna* was 10 when she built her first video game on Roblox, a digital platform where young people can make, share and play games together. She used Roblox much like a child from a previous generation might have used cardboard boxes, marker pens and stuffed toys to build a castle or a spaceship and fill it with characters and story. There was one alluring difference: Roblox hosted Anna's tiny world online, enabling children she had never met and who maybe lived thousands of miles away from her home in Utah to visit and play. Using Roblox's in-built tools – child-friendly versions of professional software – Anna began to learn the rudiments of music composition, computer programming and 3D modelling. Game-making became an obsession. When she wasn't at school Anna was rarely off her computer. As she became more proficient, Anna's work caught the attention of some experienced users on Roblox, game-makers in their 20s who messaged her with a proposition to collaborate on a more ambitious project. Flattered by their interest, Anna became the fifth member of the nascent team, contributing art, design and programming to the game. She did not sign up to make money, but during a Skype call the game-makers offered the teenager 10% of any profits the game made in the future. It turned out to be a generous offer. Within a few months, the game had become one of the most played on Roblox. For Anna, success had an unfathomable, life-changing impact. At 16 her monthly income somehow exceeded her parents' combined salaries. She calculated that she was on course to earn $300,000 in a year, a salary equivalent to that of a highly experienced Google programmer. Anna cancelled her plans to go to college. Continue reading... |
| Home Office tells asylum seeker he can return to Syria safely Posted: 09 Jan 2022 07:22 AM PST Man, 25, fears he will be killed after fleeing forcible conscription into Bashar al-Assad's army in 2017 The Home Office has told a Syrian asylum seeker he can return to the country he fled during the war because it is safe to do so, in what is thought to be the first case of its kind. The 25-year-old asylum seeker sought sanctuary in the UK in May 2020. He fled forcible conscription into Bashar al-Assad's army in 2017, saying that he would have been forced to kill other Syrians. He said that if he is forced back to Syria he will be targeted as a draft evader, arrested, detained and killed. Continue reading... |
| ‘When QAnon and the Tea Party have a baby’: Ron Johnson will run again for US Senate Posted: 09 Jan 2022 07:50 AM PST Republican announces run for third term, delighting both his own party and Democrats seeking a win The Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson, a hardline Trump supporter once described as "what you get when QAnon and the Tea Party have a baby", has confirmed he will seek a third term, a step he once promised not to take. Johnson announced his decision in an editorial on Sunday. Continue reading... |
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