sto

A planet could have been stolen from the solar system as it formed

Stars like our sun formed in a dense cluster with thousands of others, during which time they may have swapped planets




sto

For All Mankind review: A superb alternative history of the space race

When the Soviet Union lands on the moon first people in the US are shocked. But For All Mankind provides an even bigger surprise when one cosmonaut's identity is revealed, says Emily Wilson




sto

Rockets armed with talcum powder could stop deadly space junk

Thousands of dead satellites and chunks of debris in orbit are a threat to active satellites, but rockets that launch clouds of talcum powder may prevent a disastrous collision




sto

The sun is too quiet, which may mean dangerous solar storms in future

Stars that are similar to the sun in every way we can measure are mostly more active than the sun, which hints that the sun’s activity may ramp up someday, risking solar eruptions




sto

Tara Reade Tells Her Story in First On-Camera Interview

Megyn Kelly's exclusive sit down with Tara Reade




sto

U.S. Energy Department is First Customer for World’s Biggest Chip

Cerebras aims to speed deep learning at supercomputing centers




sto

Stochastic Robots Use Randomness to Achieve More Complex Goals

Little swarm robots that can't do much on their own can use their random behavior to accomplish tasks like locomotion




sto

Boston Dynamics' Spot Robot Dog Goes on Sale

Here's everything we know about Boston Dynamics' first commercial robot




sto

Video Friday: Boston Dynamics' Atlas Robot Shows Off New Gymnastics Skills

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos




sto

Is it Time for Tech to Stop Moving Fast and Breaking Things?

Leaders in Silicon Valley—both the real one and the fictional one on HBO—started this week by debating the responsibilities of tech companies




sto

How Boston Dynamics Is Redefining Robot Agility

An exclusive look at the world’s most dynamic robots




sto

Agent payouts to shift stock

Agents are being offered double the normal commission to help shift apartments throughout capital cities.




sto

RPGCast – Episode 304: “Castomel and Order”

We remember Andrew Long. We’ll miss you, buddy. But the show must go on and we talk about Happy Meals, luminescent children, Kemco games, and...




sto

RPGCast – Episode 477: “One Simple Hack For Gamestop”

This week’s cast discusses multiple Dragon Quests, a Dragon Quest mod for a non-Dragon Quest game, squishy things that aren’t Dragon Quest slimes, and many delays for games coming out…in Japan?




sto

Greenock and Stockbridge: A tale of two Scotlands under coronavirus

ON one of those Greenock afternoons when rain and sun fight for the day’s naming rights a statistic becomes flesh and blood. At the side of a four-lane highway bearing the weight of the town’s rush-hour traffic a young wheelchair-user approaches.




sto

Police stop fewer black drivers at night when a 'veil of darkness' obscures their race

After analyzing 95 million traffic stop records, filed by officers with 21 state patrol agencies and 35 municipal police forces from 2011 to 2018, researchers concluded that 'police stops and search decisions suffer from persistent racial bias.'




sto

Grocery store employee working during COVID-19 crisis: 'I'm going to say my prayers'

When his alarm goes off at 3:30 a.m., 54-year-old Jeff Reid knows it's time to begin his day and prepare for an eight-hour shift on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. As a grocery store worker, Reid never imagined he'd find himself in this position. Every day before his 5 a.m. shift, Reid prepares his morning essentials -- 1,000 milligrams of the powdered vitamin supplement Emergen-C and his morning prayers.





sto

‘Every stone will be uncovered’: how Georgia officials failed the Ahmaud Arbery case

Systemic flaws within Glynn county’s district attorney offices led to a lack of action against the men involved in this ‘modern lynching’In the days and weeks after Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed, multiple Glynn county law enforcement officials failed to thoroughly investigate his death and, in one case, refused to allow police officers to make arrests, the Guardian has learned.Arbery, 25, was jogging through the neighborhood just outside Brunswick, Georgia, on 23 February when he was shot dead by two white men. Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis, 34, were charged with murder and aggravated assault on Thursday evening, after graphic video footage of the killing was released publicly and sparked national outrage.Lawyers for Arbery’s family have called the killing a “modern lynching” and decried the lack of action in the case prior to the release of the video, pointing to racial inequalities in the criminal justice system.In the police report, Gregory McMichael claimed Arbery “violently attacked” his son, who shot Arbery in self defense.Jackie Johnson, the Glynn county district attorney, refused to allow police officers who responded to arrest the two men, Glynn county commissioner Peter Murphy told the Guardian in a phone call on Friday.The police department was put in touch with one of Johnson’s assistant district attorneys after the shooting, but Johnson made the decision not to charge the father and son, the former having worked in her office for more than 20 years, Murphy said.“The police at the scene went to her, saying they were ready to arrest both of them,” Allen Booker, the Glynn county district 5 commissioner, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday. “These were the police at the scene who had done the investigation. She shut them down to protect her friend McMichael.”Days later, Johnson recused herself. Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. By 27 February, George Barnhill, the Waycross judicial district attorney, and the second of three DAs on the case, took over. Less than 24 hours after seeing the video and evidence compiled by the police, Murphy said, Barnhill decided to not charge the McMichaels.“And so within 24 hours the Glynn county police had been told by two separate DA offices not to make any arrests,” Murphy said. “And obviously, they want to assume no responsibility for their actions.”On 2 April, Barnhill sent an email to law enforcement authorities saying the 25-year-old Arbery had an “apparent aggressive nature” and that his family were “not strangers to the local criminal justice system”.“Arbery’s mental health records & prior convictions help explain his apparent aggressive nature and his possible thought pattern to attack an armed man,” Barnhill said in the email, which was first reported by the New York Times.“What it appears is he was purposely trying to assault the character of the victim and there’s just no reason why,” said Chris Stewart, one of the lawyers representing Arbery’s family.The family have pointed to the McMichaels’ connection to local law enforcement both at the district attorney’s office and police department as evidence of systemic flaws and roadblocks in their search for justice. It was only after the video of Arbery’s death was released this week that the third DA’s office requested the Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI) get involved.On Friday, GBI director Vic Reynolds told reporters he could not “answer what another agency did or didn’t see” in the first two months of the investigation.“But I can tell you that based on our involvement in this case and considering the fact we hit the ground running Wednesday morning and within 36 hours we had secured warrants for two individuals for felony murder, I think that speaks volumes for itself.”In a 7 April email sent to the office of Georgia attorney general Chris Carr, Barnhill recused himself because his son worked on a case involving Arbery while working in Johnson’s office.Lee Merritt, one of the lawyers who represents Arbery’s family, said Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery’s mother, found the connection between Barnhill’s son and her own on Facebook and brought it to the attention of his office.“She followed the links. That’s exactly how it happened,” he said to the Guardian on Friday by phone.According to a police report filed 23 February, Gregory and Travis McMichael grabbed their weapons, a .357 Magnum revolver and a shotgun, jumped into a truck and followed Arbery as he ran.In the email to Carr from early April, Barnhill references a “decent cell phone video of the entire shooting incident”, an apparent reference to the one leaked this week.Reynolds said on Friday that the investigation into the shooting, the video and the person who filmed it, would continue.“Every stone will be uncovered,” Reynolds said.





sto

Max von Sydow: an aristocrat of cinema who made me weep | Peter Bradshaw

From his fateful game of chess to a moving turn in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Von Sydow was the last standard bearer of Bergman’s high-minded movie idiom

Max von Sydow dies aged 90
A life in pictures

The opening of the seventh seal in the Book of Revelation, disclosing the truth of God’s existence and the second coming, will result in a mysterious silence in the kingdom of heaven – then the sound of trumpets and the thunderous uproar of Earth’s apocalyptic ending. In the movies, no actor has ever represented these ideas more seriously, nor shown humanity’s anguish in the face of God’s implacable silence or unassuageable anger more clearly, than Max von Sydow. He was virtually a book of revelation in himself.

The passionate severity of Von Sydow – and his ability to impersonate the ascetic nobility of some impossibly remote priestly or knightly order but with very human flaws – formed the bedrock of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal and the staggering series of films he was to make with Bergman in the 1950s and 1960s. Beyond that, he virtually epitomised an entire, distinctively high-minded attitude to cinematic art in Europe. His films for Bergman were composed in a movie idiom that drew on Ibsen and Strindberg, Sjöström and Dreyer – and of which, since Bergman’s death in 2007, Von Sydow could be said to be the final standard bearer.

Continue reading...




sto

Gladiator at 20: how Ridley Scott's epic rejuvenated the historical blockbuster

The Oscar-winning sword-and-sandals Russell Crowe vehicle refreshed old cliches, before ushering in a spate of copycats

“Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?” the creepy pilot asks the small boy in Airplane!. To younger audiences, the joke no longer makes any sense. In Airplane!’s day, sword-and-sandals movies had become an outdated, unwittingly homoerotic joke. But then came Gladiator, and the joke was on us. Released 20 years ago this month, Ridley Scott’s Roman epic gave the old cliches a new lease of life. It was all here: Colosseum action! Rippling man-flesh! Tigers! But Gladiator had its cheesecake and ate it. It served up crowd-pleasing spectacle and airline-ad visuals but also solemn, Oscar-worthy drama (and, in retrospect, a fair degree of camp).

Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips

Continue reading...




sto

Beastie Boys Story review – Spike Jonze and the boys are back in town

Ad-Rock and Mike D host a convivial trip down memory lane in this filmed record of a live show staged in tribute to third member Adam Yauch

The release of this documentary coincides with #MeAt20, a heart-twisting craze on social media for posting pictures of yourself at 20 years old. Middle-aged people’s timelines are speckled with funny, sweet and sometimes unbearably sad images of themselves in unlined, unformed youth, doing goofy things in milky analogue pictures from back when you had 12 or 24 exposures on your roll-film camera and getting them developed at Boots was a pricey business. That’s what I thought of while watching this engaging, oddly moving film from Spike Jonze: a record of the live stage show he devised at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, New York, in tribute to white hip-hop stars and tongue-in-cheek party-libertarian activists the Beastie Boys. It is presented by the two surviving members, Adam Horovitz and Michael Diamond, in tribute to the third member, Adam Yauch, who died of cancer in 2012. Jonze is reuniting with the band after having directed a string of their music videos, including the crime-TV spoof for their single Sabotage in 1994.

Horovitz and Diamond amble on stage, apparently dressed head-to-toe in Gap, and appear for all the world to be about to unveil the iPhone 4S, although actually their jokey anecdotalism makes the show in some ways like the regional tours once presented by George Best and Rodney Marsh. With amiably rehearsed back-and-forth banter, they introduce the embarrassing photos and excruciating TV clips that are shown on a big screen. And the effect of seeing them juxtaposed with the plump-faced frizzy-haired imps of 1986 is startling and bizarre. In the present day, the advancing years seem to have boiled away the badass attitude, leaving behind the quirky humour.

Continue reading...




sto

Andy Serkis to read The Hobbit nonstop to raise money for the NHS

The actor, best known for playing Gollum in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, will read the entire JRR Tolkien novel

Andy Serkis is to give a continuous, live reading of The Hobbit – lasting around 12 hours – in aid of charity. The actor, best known as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, will read the entire book from start to finish with no breaks.

Money raised from the performance will be split equally between NHS Charities Together and Best Beginnings.

Continue reading...




sto

Jobs Report Reveals Racial Inequality in Unemployment at an Historic Low, Thanks to Pandemic

More than 20 million Americans lost their jobs in the last month, and unemployment among African-Americans has hit 16.7 percent.




sto

Hunger is Main Driver of Stone Juggling in Otters, New Study Shows

A team of researchers from the University of Exeter has studied potential drivers of ‘rock juggling’ in two species of otters in zoo environments. Although elusive in the wild, otters are noted to be very playful and inquisitive animals based on observations in captivity. The animals are often seen lying on their backs and batting [...]




sto

Juno, Hubble, Gemini Observatory Probe Jovian Storm Systems

Multiwavelength observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and Gemini Observatory combined with close-up views from NASA’s Juno spacecraft reveal that lightning strikes and huge storm systems that create them in Jupiter’s atmosphere are formed in and around large convective cells over deep clouds of water ice and liquid; the observations also confirm that dark [...]




sto

Epic Games launches Fortnite on the Google Play Store and they’re not happy about it

Epic Games is finally settling its feud — kind of — with Google and putting Fortnite onto the Google Play Store, but the studio sounds pretty pissed about it. When Fortnite launched on mobile in 2018, Epic Games very notably sidestepped the Google Play Store and pushed users to download the title directly from their […]




sto

5 top gaming investors explain how the pandemic is reshaping MMOs and social games

Now that the COVID-19 pandemic has forced millions into isolation, video games are seeing a surge in usage as people seek entertainment and social interaction. When we surveyed gaming-focused VCs in October, Andreessen Horowitz partner Jonathan Lai predicted that “next-generation games will be bigger than anything we’ve seen yet,” eventually reaching “Facebook scale.” This month, […]




sto

Rock 'n' roll pioneer Little Richard dies at age 87: Rolling Stone

Little Richard, the self-proclaimed "architect of rock 'n' roll" who built his ground-breaking sound with a boiling blend of boogie-woogie, rhythm and blues and gospel, died on Saturday at the age of 87, Rolling Stone magazine reported.




sto

Digest for domestic stories for week May 2 - May 8, 2020




sto

Following are the top foreign stories at 2000 hours




sto

Wuhan’s covid-19 crisis: Intensive care doctors share their stories

Three doctors reveal what it was like at the heart of Hubei province’s coronavirus crisis, as the epidemic peaked in Wuhan and spread elsewhere




sto

What four coronaviruses from history can tell us about covid-19

Four coronaviruses cause around a quarter of all common colds, but each was probably deadly when it first made the leap to humans. We can learn a lot from what happened next




sto

Mayor: La Loche grocery store to reopen after cleaning

"Right now it is a concern, but they're taking measures ... we'll be up and running again shortly."




sto

'Great entertainer' Stokes clearly deserving of world's best honour, says Ford

Graham Ford hailed Ben Stokes as a "great entertainer" after the England all-rounder's recent recognition by Wisden.





sto

Russo on Hercules Remake: 'We’re Going to Give You a Different Story'

Fans shouldn't expect Disney's planned live-action remake of its animated hit Hercules to be "a literal translation," according to the film's producer Anthony Russo.




sto

Ends Tomorrow: Save 15% on All Pullover Fleece at the IGN Store




sto

Migrant workers throw stones at police in India in protest against lockdown

Hundreds of migrant workers in India's western state of Gujarat have clashed for a second day with authorities, hurling stones at police trying to enforce a lockdown to stem the spread of coronavirus.








sto

Coronavirus map LIVE: UK reaches grim milestone of 36,000 deaths as daily toll rises 346



THE UK reached a grim milestone today as the total number of coronavirus deaths is believed to have surpassed 36,000.




sto

10 takeaways from the worst jobs report in US history

BALTIMORE (AP) - Brutal. Horrific. Tragic.

Choose your description. The April jobs report showed, in harrowing detail, just how terribly the coronavirus outbreak has pummeled the U.S. economy. Most obviously, there's the 14.7% unemployment rate, the highest since the Great Depression. And the shedding of more than 20 million jobs, ...




sto

What's it like graduating into a recession? We want to hear old and new stories

NBC News wants to hear from people who graduated in a recession and from students set to graduate this spring.




sto

The 'mind-blowing' story of the ex-Green Beret who tried to oust Venezuela's Maduro

Jordan Goudreau once pushed a plan to protect U.S. schools. Then he moved on to a more daring pursuit, which also didn't end well.




sto

Georgia lawyer says he leaked Ahmaud Arbery shooting video to 'stop a riot'

The graphic video of Ahmaud Arbery being shot on a residential Georgia street was fed to the media by a lawyer who was friends with the two men who were charged with the killing, according to a report.




sto

Earth Day 2020 could mark the year we stop taking the planet for granted

The 50th annual call for environmental reform falls at a time when the health of people and nature has never been more urgent

Fifty years ago today, the first Earth Day was marked in the United States as a peaceful call for environmental reform, following a massive oil spill off the coast of California. Half a century later, this annual day unites millions across the globe, drawing attention to the huge challenges facing our planet.

Now more than ever, Earth Day offers an opportunity for us all to reflect upon our relationship with the planet, amid the most powerful possible message that nature can surprise us at any moment, with devastating consequences for pretty much every individual. It is a time when the health of the planet and its people has never been so important.

Continue reading...




sto

This Earth Day, we must stop the fossil fuel money pipeline | Bill McKibben

Taking down the fossil fuel industry requires taking on the institutions that finance it. Even during a pandemic, this movement is gaining steam

1970 was a simpler time. (February was a simpler time too, but for a moment let’s think outside the pandemic bubble.)

Simpler because our environmental troubles could be easily seen. The air above our cities was filthy, and the water in our lakes and streams was gross. There was nothing subtle about it. In New York City, the environmental lawyer Albert Butzel described a permanently yellow horizon: “I not only saw the pollution, I wiped it off my windowsills.” Or consider the testimony of a city medical examiner: “The person who spent his life in the Adirondacks has nice pink lungs. The city dweller’s are black as coal.” You’ve probably heard of Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River catching fire, but here’s how the former New York governor Nelson Rockefeller described the Hudson south of Albany: “One great septic tank that has been rendered nearly useless for water supply, for swimming, or to support the rich fish life that once abounded there.” Everything that people say about the air and water in China and India right now was said of America’s cities then.

Continue reading...




sto

Keystone XL: police discussed stopping anti-pipeline activists 'by any means'

Revealed: records show law enforcement has called demonstrators possible ‘domestic terrorism’ threats

US law enforcement officials preparing for fresh Keystone XL pipeline protests have privately discussed tactics to stop activists “by any means” and have labeled demonstrators potential “domestic terrorism” threats, records reveal.

Internal government documents seen by the Guardian show that police and local authorities in Montana and the surrounding region have been preparing a coordinated response in the event of a new wave of protests opposing the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, which would carry crude oil from Canada to Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska.

Continue reading...




sto

Big Oil is using the coronavirus pandemic to push through the Keystone XL pipeline | Bill McKibben

The oil industry saw its opening and moved with breathtaking speed to take advantage of this moment

I’m going to tell you the single worst story I’ve heard in these past few horrid months, a story that combines naked greed, political influence peddling, a willingness to endanger innocent human beings, utter blindness to one of the greatest calamities in human history and a complete disregard for the next crisis aiming for our planet. I’m going to try to stay calm enough to tell it properly, but I confess it’s hard.

The background: a decade ago, beginning with indigenous activists in Canada and farmers and ranchers in the American west and midwest, opposition began to something called the Keystone XL pipeline, designed to carry filthy tar sands oil from the Canadian province of Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico. It quickly became a flashpoint for the fast-growing climate movement, especially after Nasa scientist James Hansen explained that draining those tar sands deposits would be “game over” for the climate system. And so thousands went to jail and millions rallied and eventually Barack Obama bent to that pressure and blocked the pipeline. Donald Trump, days after taking office, reversed that decision, but the pipeline has never been built, both because its builder, TC Energy, has had trouble arranging the financing and permits, and because 30,000 people have trained to do nonviolent civil disobedience to block construction. It’s been widely assumed that, should a Democrat win the White House in November, the project would finally be gone for good.

Continue reading...