How Radioactive Poison Became the Assassin’s Weapon of Choice — Matter. The mysterious life and brutal death of a Russian dissident. TUCKED INTO THE Millennium Hotel on London’s Grosvenor Square, the Pine Bar is a place of hush and shadows. Dark wood panelling, leather seats, and black shaded chandeliers cosset those who seek discretion in style. Head barman Norberto Andrade has hidden many celebrities in its recesses during his 27 years of service, including James Bond stars Sean Connery and George Lazenby. The three Russians who ordered drinks on the chilly afternoon of November 1, 2006 had little of the lethal glamour one might expect of spies. True, two of them were smoking cigars and drinking gin.
But the other, a fair-haired man whose slightly angelic face and wide eyes gave him a look of worried alertness, was dressed inelegantly in a khaki t-shirt, jeans, and a denim jacket. The men eventually left, and Andrade cleared the table. Litvinenko lived in north London’s desirable Muswell Hill; he left the Pine Bar and arrived back home around seven. 4-million-year-old whale fossil found in Santa Cruz County. The 4-million-year-old fossilized skeleton of whale has been excavated at a construction site in Santa Cruz County. The fossil, relatively intact and estimated to be about 25 feet long, was found Sept. 4 by a paleontologist assigned to monitor a housing development in Scotts Valley, according to the Santa Cruz Sentinel ( The remains belong to a mysticete whale, an ancestor to the baleen whale, said Scott Armstrong, a scientist with Paleo Solutions, a Los Angeles County-based archaeological consulting service.
Pieces of the skull, much of the jaw, shoulder blades, arm bones and vertebrae were found. The bones made their way into the hills through earthquakes and shifting of tectonic plates, Armstrong told the newspaper. "Most places where you see a hill, somewhere there's a fault line nearby pushing it up," he said. "They're relatively inactive faults. Scientists encased the bones in plaster to preserve the fossil's integrity and make transport easier.
No poverty, hunger in 15 years? UN sets sweeping new goals - seattlepi.com. Steven R. Hurst, Associated Press Updated 9:46 pm, Sunday, September 20, 2015 Photo: Carolyn Kaster, AP FILE - In this Sept. 19, 2015, file photo, President Barack Obama speaks at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 45th Annual Legislative Conference Phoenix Awards Dinner at the Walter E.
Washington Convention Center in Washington. A season of goal-setting opens as the United Nations adopts a new 15-year plan to staunch grinding world poverty, to improve health and education and to quell climate change. FILE - In this Sept. 19, 2015, file photo, President Barack Obama... No poverty, hunger in 15 years? A season of goal-setting begins this month as the United Nations launches a new 15-year plan to fight grinding world poverty, improve health and education and quell climate change. More than 150 world leaders, including President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping, are expected to speak at a three-day summit dedicated to adopting the goals. "Let's be realistic about this. Human Rights Activist To Be Crucified & Beheaded By US Ally. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – A young Saudi Arabian man arrested as a teenager, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, will be decapitated and then crucified, after his death penalty appeal was denied.
Ali was arrested for taking part in an anti-government protest in 2012, when he was only 17 years old. He was allegedly tortured and forced to sign a confession, and was sentenced to death in May 2014, according to anti-death penalty charity Reprieve. The authoritarian Saudi regime in the midst of a bloody crackdown, in the wake of the Arab Spring, came down upon Ali with swift brutality. Ali objected to the use of his forced confession being used to sentence him at trial, but no investigation was ever undertaken into the matter. According to a report by the International Business Times: His charges ranged from explaining how to give first aid and encouraging protests with his BlackBerry, to targeting security patrols and being part of a terrorist organization, charges which he vehemently denies.
Lawmakers announce deal on medical marijuana legislation. California lawmakers said late Thursday that they have reached a deal on legislation to regulate and license medical marijuana. The regulatory framework to corral the billion-dollar medical cannabis industry will be contained in three bills that have received the blessings of the two chambers and Gov. Jerry Brown, said Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, one of the authors of the measures. Bonta said his measure, which along with the others will be released Friday, would require state and local licenses for medical marijuana businesses. It would create a new Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation to oversee the licensing and regulatory effort and involve the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the Department of Public Health.
The new bureau would be housed in the Department of Consumer Affairs and led by a director confirmed by the state Senate. Sen. It has been nearly two decades since voters first approved medical marijuana. Not everyone is entirely satisfied. Forbes Welcome. 2014 Census Data Confirm Dramatic Impact of the Affordable Care Act. SOURCE: AP/Eric Gay A man using two canes is helped in the waiting area at Nuestra Clinica Del Valle in San Juan, Texas. By Thomas Huelskoetter | Wednesday, September 16, 2015 New census data released today on poverty and health care measures for 2014 provide indisputable proof that the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, is working to improve access to health care across the country. Since these new data only cover 2014, they do not include the full second open enrollment period of the ACA’s marketplaces and thus understate the full impact of the ACA. As evident from the recently released National Health Interview Survey, however, the national uninsured rate had dropped by about one-third to a historic low of 9.2 percent as of early 2015, with 15.8 million people gaining coverage since the ACA’s marketplaces opened in late 2013.
Medicaid expansion would improve coverage gains even further As the above table confirms, in 2014, the uninsured rate dropped in every state. California’s Upward-Mobility Machine. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Video The is struggling with budget woes that have deeply affected campus life. Yet the system’s nine colleges still lead the nation in providing top-flight college education to the masses. At many other colleges, poor and truly middle-class students remain a distinct minority. Affluent students predominate at liberal-arts colleges like Oberlin and Bates, private universities like Cornell and Texas Christian and even many public universities, including Wisconsin, Penn State and Georgia Tech.
The University of California, by contrast, enrolls a large number of high-performing students of all economic backgrounds. That contrast is the most striking result of this year’s College Access Index, a New York Times measure of economic diversity at top colleges. Continue reading the main story OPEN Graphic Economic diversity has become a much-debated topic lately. Continue reading the main story Video Economic diversity has stagnated. Photo. The Disappeared 43: Report Exposes Mexico’s Student Murder Cover-Up. On the road to stardom from the back seat of the family’s minivan. IRVING, Texas — Ahmed Mohamed is watching himself trend on my iPhone. “Man, I went viral.” Ahmed’s looking at a video of himself posted online, while he and his sister Eyman argue inside the family minivan over whether it has 24 million or 24,000 views. “This is seven digits!” It’s 24 million views, in 24 hours,” Ahmed yelps.
“I feel like I could just walk on the street and people would know who I am.” The level of fame he’s achieved 24 hours after his suspension, arrest, and interrogation at MacArthur High School for a “bomb” that was really a clock has gone beyond the streets of Irving. Ahmed’s story struck such a nerve because the world saw a model student thrown in handcuffs like a suspect whose crime was being brown.
Walking up to Ahmed’s house and seeing the media, I wondered, What more is there to write? “Um, OK.” “I don’t know.” In any event, she tells us we’ve got to go. “You’re gonna be late for TV. “Daniel! California airman who thwarted train attack will get Purple Heart. Defense Secretary Ash Carter will personally hang the Purple Heart around the neck of Airman 1st Class Spencer Stone, the Carmichael, Calif., native hailed as a hero for having helped thwart a gunman’s rampage on a French train last month.
In addition to receiving the military medal for combat wounds, Stone will be promoted two ranks, bypassing the level of Senior Airman to reach Staff Sergeant, an upgrade worth an extra $380 a month in pay. The promotion is to take effect by November. Carter and Adm. James Winnefeld, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will honor Stone along with his childhood Sacramento-area friends, Oregon National Guard Spc. The three friends tackled, disarmed and bound a Moroccan man armed with an AK-47, a Luger pistol and a box cutter Aug. 21 after he started shooting on a train headed for Paris.
The 2015 Defense Authorization Act expanded Purple Heart eligibility to include service members killed or wounded in attacks by foreign terrorist organizations. 10 Easy Ways To Free Up A Lot Of Space On Your iPhone. Your iPhone is full of junk you don't need. And a recent class action lawsuit against Apple has brought to light that even if you buy a 16 GB iPhone, you can't actually use all 16 GB of storage. So let's try to make the most of what you have. We have identified 10 simple ways you can manage and clear space on your iPhone: 1. Check your usage First thing: Find out what’s taking up the most space on your phone. You may have some unexpected storage hogs.
Open the Settings app then go to General > Usage > Manage Storage. At the top, you’ll see how much space you’ve used and how much you have available. 2. The numbers you see in Manage Storage include how much the app itself takes up combined with the data inside it. For example, the Spotify app is only 56 MB. You can tap any app icon in Manage Storage to see the app size versus the downloads within it. 3. Many gaming apps are small, but there are some that can take up more than 1 GB of space because of 3-D graphics. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Hometown Salute for 3 Boyhood Friends Who Thwarted Train Attack in France.
Photo SACRAMENTO — In bursts of fluttering ticker tape and amid peals of cheers on Friday, this city reclaimed the somber date of Sept. 11 as a day of celebration. Under the blazing California sun, an exuberant parade unfurled through the streets in honor of the three young natives who last month tackled a would-be terrorist on a speeding train in , likely preventing untold casualties. The three men — Alek Skarlatos, 22; Anthony Sadler, 23; and Spencer Stone, 23, all boyhood friends — stood on a float labeled “Hometown Heroes” as it trundled down Capitol Mall. They doled out handshakes and high-fives and batted off flakes of ticker tape, looking slightly bewildered by all the attention. It had been less than a month since the trio’s European vacation, when they encountered the gunman, Ayoub El Kahzani, who was armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle and packing a pistol and a box cutter on a from Amsterdam to Paris on Aug. 21.
Moments after Mr. “It’s absolutely unreal,” said Mr. Photo. 3 Who Stopped Train Attack Were Boyhood Friends. Photo By May, it was decided: Three friends who met as middle-schoolers in California would take a European vacation. “I’m going to Europe!!!! Like wow,” Anthony Sadler, 23, wrote on Twitter on May 14, three months before jetting off with Alek Skarlatos, 22, and Spencer Stone, 23. On his first international trip, he planned to spend three weeks traveling across Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Spain with Mr. Skarlatos and Mr.
Stone, two of his closest friends, both of whom are in the Armed Forces. Meals and sightseeing were part of the itinerary. But on Friday, they did just that, tackling and subduing a gunman on a to France. The three friends had planned to spend Friday night in Amsterdam, but changed their minds at the last minute and took a train that day headed to Paris, Mr. Mr. They were on a high-speed train bound for Paris when, after a stop in Brussels, they heard what sounded like gunfire, according to Mr. Mr. Col. Mr. Mr. Ms. Mr. Photo “I’m going to Europe!!!! Mr. Scientists Discover New Human Ancestor, Creationists Lose Last Remaining Brain Cell Freaking Out | Addicting Info: The Knowledge You Crave. September 10, 2015 •By Jameson Parker Anthropologists in South Africa announced the fascinating discovery of a never-before-seen human ancestor that has turned everything we know about the origins of our own species on its ear. Thought to be millions of years old, the species dubbed Homo naledi was a mixture of modern humans (slender arms and legs) and much more ancient extinct ancestors (like a very small brain cavity).
Even more astonishing, scientists believe that despite the relatively small brains, this species buried their dead. “I think it’s going to take generations to get over that,” Berger said. “Even for us now. You’re faced with a remarkable situation of a small-brained primitive hominid that is almost certainly deliberately disposing of its dead in a sort of repeated ritualized fashion, in an underground chamber. That alone is remarkable. Fascinating, right? Not for modern day America’s own primitive man known as the Fox News audience. Via Fox News. Newyorker. As a physicist, I do a lot of writing and public speaking about the remarkable nature of our cosmos, primarily because I think science is a key part of our cultural heritage and needs to be shared more broadly.
Sometimes, I refer to the fact that religion and science are often in conflict; from time to time, I ridicule religious dogma. When I do, I sometimes get accused in public of being a “militant atheist.” Even a surprising number of my colleagues politely ask if it wouldn’t be better to avoid alienating religious people. Shouldn’t we respect religious sensibilities, masking potential conflicts and building common ground with religious groups so as to create a better, more equitable world?
I found myself thinking about those questions this week as I followed the story of Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky who directly disobeyed a federal judge’s order to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, and, as a result, was jailed for contempt of court. Hillary Clinton Email Scandal Crumbles As Justice Department Says No Laws Were Broken. Reality has bitten Republicans in the backsides again as the Justice Department is saying that Hillary Clinton’s emails broke no laws.
Justice Department lawyers argued before a federal court that Hillary Clinton’s handling of her emails broke no laws. The Washington Times reported: In the most complete legal defense of Mrs. Clinton, Justice Department lawyers insisted they not only have no obligation, but no power, to go back and demand the former top diplomat turn over any documents she hasn’t already given — and neither, they said, can the court order that. The defense came as part of a legal filing telling a judge why the administration shouldn’t be required to order Mrs.
Clinton and her top aides to preserve all of their emails. “There is no question that Secretary Clinton had authority to delete personal emails without agency supervision — she appropriately could have done so even if she were working on a government server,” the administration lawyers argued. Jerry Brown: Oil lobby gutted climate bill - SFGate. The Syrian refugee crisis, in 4 maps and charts. Pulitzer Prize Reporter Exposes Trump's Lack of Wealth, Mob Ties, Failure to Support Charity, and Much More. The Hunger Game. Just exactly what is the universe expanding into?