In the constellation Virgo, some 570 light-years from Earth, a star at the end of its life is grabbing one last late night snack. NASA's K2 mission observed for the first time a white dwarf star consuming an orbiting planetary object.
A Muslim advocacy group is condemning Donald Trump for supporting shutting down American mosques that are deemed “extremist.” The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Wednesday the Republican presidential candidate’s anti-Islamic rhetoric once again shows he would violate the basic rights and liberties of American Muslims if elected.
Dr. Ben Carson has surpassed Donald Trump among likely Republican caucus participants in Iowa, according to a Quinnipiac University Poll released Thursday. A significant boost from women put Carson at the head of the field with 28 percent, while Trump took second place with 20 percent.
In recent weeks, Bab al-Hawa Hospital in Syria has seen a growing number of patients arriving with severed limbs and burns from bomb blasts. The hospital's proximity to Turkey has turned it into one of Syria's safest medical facilities, making it a haven for the wounded in need of emergency care as hospitals elsewhere have suffered from intensified fighting across the country.
Longtime Zimbabwean dictator and President Robert Mugabe has won China's version of the Nobel Peace Prize. Beating a list of candidates that included Microsoft founder Bill Gates and South Korean President Park Geun-hye, Mugabe was awarded the 2015 Confucius Prize, the Guardian reported Thursday.
German carmaker Volkswagen AG said Thursday that it was investigating if a software that falsified emissions data was installed in more vehicles than previously estimated. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the company told Bloomberg that nearly 3 million cars in Europe may need hardware fixes. The latest announcement comes after Volkswagen admitted last month that nearly 11 million vehicles globally with EA 189 diesel engines may have been equipped with the illegal software. The company is now trying to... Читать дальше...
Albert Einstein died 60 years ago but still tweets every day. With the nearly 17 million Facebook fans he has amassed posthumously, his social media following is formidable even by living-person standards, surpassing "Jersey Shore" reality star Snooki, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden — combined.
A former SpaceX employee has filed a class action lawsuit against the rocket company, saying hourly employees are regularly expected to work overtime hours without proper compensation. It's at least the fourth lawsuit alleging SpaceX violated California labor law to be filed since 2014.
"Threshold 2" is coming, and it's going to be big. The first major update to Windows 10 has been known by its codename during development, but Microsoft blogger Paul Thurrott wrote on Wednesday that a "trusted source" speaking to him has revealed the launch name, along with other tidbits and what to expect.
Every time Joanne Jones picks up the phone to call her son in Texas, she cringes thinking about how much it will cost her. That’s because Jones’ son, Nate, is currently locked up in a Texas county jail -- and jail phone calls are notoriously expensive. A 15-minute call costs Jones $10, not including additional fees she’ll be charged.
French business confidence levels reached a four-year high Thursday, indicating possible signs of recovery, Bloomberg reported. The confidence was calculated using a sentiment index that measured the confidence of executives in services, retail, industry and construction.
The tallest building in Pittsburgh owes its title to the industrial giant that made the city famous. But instead of its floundering namesake, the U.S. Steel Tower now displays the initials of a different sort of employer: the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, or UPMC.
UPDATE: 7:45 a.m. EDT -- The European Central Bank (ECB) has reportedly decided to keep interest rates unchanged, according to reports. The central bank's 25-member governing council left the main refinancing rate at a record-low 0.05 percent Thursday, Bloomberg reported, adding that the deposit rate and the marginal lending rate also stayed at minus 0.2 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively. Original story:
A masked man armed with a sword attacked and injured five people at a local school in Sweden Thursday, according to reports. Police later shot and killed the man, according to a local report. The incident took place in the town of Trollhättan in Västra Götaland county in western Sweden, according to initial reports. Those injured are four students and one adult, Svt.se, a local news network reported.
LONDON -- GitHub, the code-sharing website, says it is investigating what appears to be a distributed denial of service (DDoS) cyberattack from an unknown source, months after it was hit by a similar attack that was linked to the Chinese government.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin's approval rating has hit a record high of almost 90 percent, primarily as a result of his decision to launch air strikes against Islamist militants in Syria, Russia's state pollster said on Thursday. VTsIOM, the pollster, said Putin's rating had reached 89.9 percent in October, up from a previous high of 89.1 percent in June. In January 2012, it put his rating at 58.8 percent.
LONDON -- Europe's top court has ruled that purchasing bitcoin through exchanges will not be subject to value added tax (VAT) in a decision that has far-reaching implications on the continent for the viability of the world's most popular cryptocurrency.
PARIS (Reuters) - Reforms carried out by the Greek government are on track and its creditors will disburse the next 3 billion euro ($3.4 billion) installment of its aid program, European Economics Commissioner Pierre Moscovici told French radio on Thursday. "Greece has done a certain number of reforms, and we are going to give them money, 3 billion euros in all," Moscovici told Europe 1 radio. "And in the course of November, December, we will deal with the issue of the recapitalization of Greek banks and Greek debt," he said.
Two former top executives at sports carmaker Porsche are set to go on trial Thursday in Stuttgart, Germany, on charges of market manipulation over their role in a failed takeover of Volkswagen (VW) in 2008, according to reports.
LONDON -- Xiaomi has been unseated as the top smartphone maker in China by Huawei, but the company's co-founder says it is considering expanding into the lucrative U.S. market but won't be drawn on when this might take place.
U.S. officials have launched an investigation to find out if Venezuela’s leaders used Petróleos de Venezuela (PdVSA), a state-owned oil and natural gas company, to embezzle billions of dollars through several schemes and kickbacks, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. The investigation comes despite Venezuelan officials repeatedly dismissing graft allegations as false claims from opposition parties working with the U.S.
Suspected Boko Haram assailants gunned down 20 people Wednesday in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state, local sources told Agence France-Presse (AFP). The incident came a day after Nigerian troops killed at least 150 Boko Haram militants in Borno and neighboring state of Adamawa. The gunmen opened fire on four cars outside Jingalta village, 70 kilometres (45 miles) north of state capital Maiduguri, killing all 20 passengers, a vigilante group member and a local told AFP.
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. is looking to lay off workers in India in a cost-cutting effort that will affect close to 5 percent of the company's 22,000 employees in the country, the Economic Times reported, citing five persons with knowledge of the matter, whom the paper didn't name.
Apple Inc. aims to build 200 megawatts of solar power projects in China and work with local suppliers to cut its carbon footprint. The announcement is Apple’s second green initiative in six months as the company seeks to repair its image after harsh criticism over pollution from the company's Chinese supply chain. “Climate change is one of the great challenges of our time, and the time for action is now,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in Beijing.
Germany clarified Wednesday that responsibility for the Holocaust lay with the Germans and not a Palestinian leader who, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, convinced Adolf Hitler to exterminate Europe’s Jews. Netanyahu set off a controversy earlier Wednesday when he said that Hitler only wanted to expel Jews, and that their extermination was the idea of World War II-era grand mufti of Jerusalem and Nazi sympathizer Haj Amin al-Husseini.