President Trump said Thursday that former Vice President Joe Biden shouldn't go around threatening people — though he himself as a history of doing so.
It took a crucial piece of evidence for Microsoft to win one of its numerous anti-piracy lawsuits in China: A computer seller telling an investigator that he could install a Windows 7 knock-off for free. Premier Li Keqiang pledged this week that China will "strictly protect" intellectual property rights, and special IP courts have been created to hear such cases. As does the Silk Market in the heart of Beijing, where fake Ralph Lauren polo shirts fly off the shelves.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch now contains 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, 16 times higher than previous estimates, experts have warned. A three-year mapping project led by the The Ocean Cleanup Foundation, which is based in The Netherlands, has discovered that the problem is far worse than first thought. The ‘Garbage Patch’ also known as the ‘Pacific Trash Vortex’ was first noticed by US boat captain Charles Moore in 1997 when he was sailing from Hawaii to southern California and claimed to have stumbled upon ‘plastic…as far as the eye could see” Experts said they were surprised about how large some pieces of plastic were Credit: The Ocean Cleanup Foundation Plastic aggregates in the area because of circular ocean currents which pick up rubbish along coastlines and swirl them into the centre. It is estimated that items take around six years to reach the patch from the coast of the USA and around a year from Japan. Previously scientists have used fine-meshed nets to trap the plastic and quantify how much rubbish has accumulated, but the new study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, has found that the method has vastly underestimated the problem. The new study involved traditional trawling with nets, as well as aerial scanning to map plastic in the ocean in 3D. The team used huge nets to trawl for trash Credit: The Ocean Cleanup Foundation The results show that the Garbage Patch is now three times the size of France, with nearly two trillion pieces of plastic, weighing the equivalent of 500 jumbo jets. The figures are four to sixteen times higher than previous estimates. 92 per cent of the mass is represented by larger objects such as fishing nets, while eight per cent of the mass was due to microplastics. “We were surprised by the amount of large plastic objects we encountered,”said Dr. Julia Reisser, Chief Scientist of the expeditions. “We used to think most of the debris consists of small fragments, but this new analysis shines a new light on the scope of the debris.” Much of the plastic was marine waste Credit: The Ocean Cleanup Foundation By comparing the amount of microplastics with historical measurements of the Garbage Patch, the team found that plastic pollution levels have been growing exponentially since measurements began in the 1970s. It is estimated that there is now a 1:2 ratio of plastic to plankton and, left unchecked, plastic will outweigh fish by 2050. Plastic in the oceans swallowed by marine animals that cannot digest it. Chemicals leach into the water, and it has been shown that even humans who eat seafood ingest 11,000 pieces of microplastic each year. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch sites between California and Hawaii Boyan Slat, Founder of The Ocean Cleanup Foundation and co-author of the study, elaborated on the relevance of the findings for his organisation’s cleanup plans: “To be able to solve a problem, we believe it is essential to first understand it. “These results provide us with key data to develop and test our cleanup technology, but it also underlines the urgency of dealing with the plastic pollution problem. “Since the results indicate that the amount of hazardous microplastics is set to increase more than tenfold if left to fragment, the time to start is now.”
“I’ve always liked Roseanne, she holds nothing back.” “Finally someone on a talk show with a dissenting opinion.” After her headline-making appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Rosie’s got Newsroom commenters talking — and applauding. Things got a bit awkward during the Thursday appearance. Barr, who voted for President Trump (and makes no apologies), shut down the late-night host after he questioned her political views. A defiant Roseanne replied: “A lot of us, no matter who we voted for, we don’t want to see our president fail.” Then came the bleeps: “Because we don’t want [Mike] Pence! Are you f***ing kidding me? You want Pence? You want Pence for the freaking president? Well, then, zip that f***ing lip.” Newsroom has her back. See the video above for more responses. Kimmel and Barr’s little debate ended with some laughs, and the two agreeing to disagree. What do you think of Roseanne Barr’s outburst? Join the conversation in Newsroom.
It took a crucial piece of evidence for Microsoft to win one of its numerous anti-piracy lawsuits in China: A computer seller telling an investigator that he could install a Windows 7 knock-off for free. Premier Li Keqiang pledged this week that China will "strictly protect" intellectual property rights, and special IP courts have been created to hear such cases. As does the Silk Market in the heart of Beijing, where fake Ralph Lauren polo shirts fly off the shelves.
A German court on Thursday sentenced an Afghan migrant to life in prison for raping and murdering a university student, as the country wrestles with security and integration concerns after taking in over a million migrants since 2015. In December 2016 police detained the young Afghan man, who had arrived in the country at the height of the refugee crisis a year earlier. A test determined that his DNA matched that found near the site where a 19-year-old German female student had died in the southwestern city of Freiburg two months earlier.
The bodies of Kevin Sharp, 41, his 38-year-old wife Amy, and their children Sterling, 12, and Adrianna, 7, of Creston, Iowa, were discovered by authorities in Akumal, Mexico, the Iowa city's police department said in a statement. Akumal, a small coastal resort on the Yucatan Peninsula about an hour south of Cancun in the Riviera Maya, is known for its white sand beaches and warm-water bay. Ashli Peterson, a relative, posted on Facebook on Thursday night that the family was not on their scheduled Wednesday flight from Cancun to St. Louis, Missouri.
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Residents startled awake by loud noise and smoke signaled for help with lit mobile phones and crawled onto cranes from their balconies to escape a fire Friday at a large condominium complex in southern Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City. At least 13 people were killed and 28 injured, with police saying it was unclear if anyone was missing.
A teenage girl left brain dead after she was wounded in a school shooting in Maryland died after she was removed from life support, local officials said Friday. The girl, 16 year old Jaelynn Willey, was shot in the head by the attacker, with whom she had had a relationship. "My daughter was hurt by a boy who shot her in the head and took everything from us," said her mother, Melissa Willey, according to The Washington Post.
The vast dump of plastic waste swirling in the Pacific ocean is now bigger than France, Germany and Spain combined -- far larger than previously feared -- and is growing rapidly, a study published Thursday warned. Researchers based in the Netherlands used a fleet of boats and aircraft to scan the immense accumulation of bottles, containers, fishing nets and microparticles known as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" (GPGP) and found an astonishing build-up of plastic waste. "We found about 80,000 tonnes of buoyant plastic currently in the GPGP," Laurent Lebreton, lead author of the study published in the journal Scientific Reports, told AFP.