Facebook has become the first big US firm to tell staff to avoid travelling to China, as the death toll from the coronavirus rises. The tech giant said it was acting “out of an abundance of caution” to protect its employees. Other global companies have introduced travel restrictions and car makers are taking staff out of the country. More than 100 people have died of the disease, and confirmed cases have risen above 4,500. China has imposed further restrictions on travel in and out of Hubei province, where the virus originated, as it tries to curb the spread of the…
Author: mediahitman
Space debris tracking service LeoLabs has sounded the alarm after discovering that two defunct and decommissioned satellites are hurtling towards each other and may collide over the continental US this week. The pair of satellites are expected to cross paths on January 29 at 23:39:35 UTC, at an altitude of around 560 miles (901 kilometers) above Pittsburgh, PA. At a relative velocity of 9.1 miles per second (14.7 kilometers per second), the machines are expected to come within 50 to 100 feet (15 to 30 meters) of each other. However, there is a one in a hundred chance they’ll hit…
Broadband provider BT will charge new customers up to £50 if they do not send their router back at the end of their contract, in an effort to reduce waste. Since December, BT’s contracts have stated that the company retains ownership of the wi-fi routers and TV set-top boxes it sends to customers. The company told the Financial Times that it would “refurbish” the returned equipment so that it could be reused. Rival Virgin Media already operates a similar policy. BT told the BBC the change would eventually apply to its EE and Plusnet subsidiaries too. It will charge customers…
Online food delivery service Grubhub has defended the practice of adding restaurants to its platform without asking them. The US takeaway app adopted this practice a couple of months ago in cities across the US. But some restaurants who don’t offer takeaways are angry that they’re not being consulted beforehand. A Grubhub spokeswoman told the BBC that restaurants get more orders when they are on Grubhub. “We’ll add restaurants to our marketplace when we see local diner demand for delivery so the restaurant can receive more orders and revenue from deliveries completed by our drivers,” she said. “We work to…
It was reported this month that the top climate change scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has received $4 million in funding from Congress along with permission to study two highly controversial geoengineering methods in an attempt to cool the Earth. According to Science Magazine, David Fahey, director of the Chemical Sciences Division of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, told his staff last week that the federal government is ready to examine the science behind “geoengineering” – or what he dubbed a “Plan B” for climate change. What could possibly go wrong? Before we go any further, it is important…
Florida police have arrested a Sandy Hook “truther” who has long tormented the families of kids killed in the 2012 massacre. Wolfgang Halbig, a former contributor to conspiracy site Infowars, was arrested Monday in Lake County and charged with unlawfully possessing the personal information of Leonard Pozner — whose 6-year-old son Noah was among the 20 students and educators killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. in 2012. Halbig, 73, allegedly emailed Pozner’s Social Security number, date of birth and other personal information to a number of law enforcement agencies and media companies, The New York Times reports. He…
US federal prosecutors have requested an interview with Britain’s Prince Andrew about the late sex-offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein, an attorney for the southern district of New York confirmed on Monday. Speaking outside the mansion formerly owned by Epstein, attorney Geoffrey Berman said Andrew has not yet responded to the FBI’s request and has offered “zero cooperation” so far. That’s despite the British royal earlier saying that he would be willing to help “any appropriate law enforcement agency” in conducting their investigations into sexual assault claims made against Epstein and the co-conspirators who aided him. “[Prince Andrew] publicly offered, indeed…
After decades of secrecy, the UK’s Royal Air Force (RAF) will now publish its entire record of UFO sightings above British territory, in an unprecedented move which is sure to spark even more conspiracy theories. The RAF closed down its ‘UFO desk’ in 2009 after 50 years of reports in which no serious threat was identified. Records from this RAF unit were traditionally sent to the National Archives, where they were kept as classified documents. Now, however, the most recent reports will be placed in an online archive on a dedicated gov.uk page, according to a Freedom of Information request…
Despite reassurances from public health officials that Americans don’t currently need to wear face masks as a precaution against coronavirus, many drug stores are selling out. Why it matters: While it’s not clear how much protection the masks offer, manufacturers are seeing a spike in demand, and the potential spread of the virus in the U.S. is being monitored closely — and spooking out a lot of people. Where it stands: There are severe shortages of surgical face masks in China, where people are being encouraged to wear them. While there have only been a handful of confirmed cases of…
Fear that the impact of militarised artificial intelligence (AI) on war and international relations could be more deadly than the nuclear arms race is both an exaggeration and an underestimation of the threat this represents. It is inevitable that the increasing use of AI for military purposes raises the spectre of a Terminator-esque future where computers and autonomous armies of robots conduct wars with little human control or oversight. It might make good headlines and movies. It will also sell books. But this scenario is an exaggeration. It is based upon a fundamental misunderstanding of what AI is and that…
Legends of Chamberlain Heights Predicts The Death Of Kobe Bryant’s By Helicopter Back In 2016. Predictive Programming ? As I posted yest, there was also a twitter user who claimed the same thing in 2012. So is this just a coincidence or is some trying to tell us something? Now I provide some information I haven’t seen too many people talking about; Who owned his Helicopter before? Kobe Bryant’s helicopter was previously owned by the State of Illinois The Sikorsky-76 helicopter that crashed Sunday, killing basketball legend Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others was previously owned by the State of…
Worries over the continued spread of the coronavirus have hit financial markets, with stocks from Wall Street to Tokyo declining. The three main US indexes closed down more than 1.5%, while London’s FTSE 100 index ended almost 2.3% lower. Firms with significant sales in China were among the hardest hit. The coronavirus has killed 81 people in China with almost 3,000 confirmed ill, while at least 44 cases have been confirmed abroad. The outbreak has coincided with the Chinese New Year, when travel and spending typically spikes. Many Asian stock markets were closed on Monday for the holiday, but concerns…
The Guardian has learned the true identity of the leader and founder of the US-based neo-Nazi terror network the Base, which was recently the target of raids by the FBI after an investigation into domestic terrorism uncovered their plans to start a race war. Members of the group stand accused of federal hate crimes, murder plots and firearms offenses, and have harbored international fugitives in recent months. The Base’s leader previously operated under the aliases “Norman Spear” and “Roman Wolf”. Members of the network do not know his true identity due to the group’s culture of internal secrecy. But the…
China says 106 people have died from the new coronavirus and the cases of newly infected have almost doubled. The number of total confirmed cases in China rose to 4,515 as of 27 January, up from 2,835 a day earlier. The country has meanwhile further tightened travel restrictions to try and curb the spread of the virus. The city of Wuhan, thought to be the epicentre of it, is already in effective lockdown as is much of surrounding Hubei province. The coronavirus causes severe acute respiratory infection and there is no specific cure or vaccine. Most of the deaths have…
More than a dozen teams in the US National Football League have had their social media accounts hacked. The teams included the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs, who will compete in the Super Bowl Championship on 2 February. The hacking group OurMine took responsibility for the attack, which said it was to show internet security was “still low” and had to be improved. The NFL did not respond to a request for comment about the attack. The Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts for 15 teams were compromised. Twitter confirmed the accounts were hacked by a third-party platform. “As…
The US military has acknowledged the loss of a Bombardier/Northrop Grumman E-11A plane in central Afghanistan. They added that they have not found any “indication” that the aircraft was downed. The aircraft crashed in Ghazni city area on Monday. An investigation into the incident is underway and the military will provide further information when its available, a spokesman for the US force in Afghanistan, Col. Sonny Leggett has tweeted. The official also dismissed Taliban claims that another aircraft had crashed in the country, describing them as “false.” Earlier in the day, the Taliban said that a military helicopter went down…
US investigators are working to determine the causes of the helicopter crash that killed basketball star Kobe Bryant in California on Sunday. All nine people on board the helicopter died, including Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter, Gianna. Investigators are expected to focus on the weather conditions, which were foggy, and on any mechanical failures that may have occurred. Bryant was considered to be one of the greatest players in the game’s history. He was a five-time NBA champion for his only team, the Los Angeles Lakers, and a double Olympic gold medallist. He retired in April 2016. Tributes from fans, fellow basketball…
Police involvement in a private landlord’s facial recognition trial has led a regulator to call for government intervention. BBC Radio 4’s File on 4 has learned that South Yorkshire Police shared three photos of serious offenders and one of a vulnerable missing person with Sheffield’s Meadowhall shopping centre. It follows similar controversial tie-ups in Manchester and London. Meadowhall owner British Land said the 2018 test only lasted four weeks. It added that it had “no plans” to use facial recognition at its sites, and that all personal data gathered during the trial was “immediately deleted”. South Yorkshire Police disclosed last…