The head of San Francisco Public Works, which is in charge of cleaning up the city’s feces-filled streets, has been arrested by the FBI on suspicion of public corruption. San Francisco Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru was arrested Monday alongside Nick Bovis, the owner of a popular sports bar in Fisherman’s Wharf, Lefty O-Doul’s. Sources told NBC Bay Area that Nuru was arrested on suspicion of accepting bribes for airport concession contracts. Both Nuru and Bovis were released on bond following their arrest. As the top official in charge of the $312 million city public works budget since 2012, Nuru…
Author: mediahitman
The Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) has announced an independent inquiry into the ongoing bushfires, promising to “leave no stone unturned”. The six-month inquiry will examine the causes of the fires, as well as how the state prepared and responded to them. State Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the inquiry would consider how climate change, human activity and other factors had contributed to the blazes. Bushfires have killed 25 people in NSW and damaged thousands of homes. Ms Berejiklian said she hoped the inquiry would allow the state “to learn from this season and the catastrophic conditions we’ve faced,…
The “whole world needs to be on alert” to fight the coronavirus, the head of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Programme has said. Dr Mike Ryan praised China’s response to the deadly outbreak, saying: “The challenge is great but the response has been massive.” The WHO will meet on Thursday to discuss whether the virus constitutes a global health emergency. The Chinese city of Wuhan is the epicentre of the outbreak. But the virus has spread across China and to at least 16 countries globally, including Thailand, France, the US and Australia. More than 130 people have died in…
Starbucks has closed half of its outlets in China to protect its staff and support government efforts to contain the coronavirus. The coffee shop chain warned that the rapidly expanding infection is likely to affect its financial performance. Starbucks has almost 4,300 outlets in China, making it the company’s largest market outside the US. The number of deaths from the virus has risen to more than 130 and almost 6,000 confirmed infections. Starbucks chief executive Kevin Johnson said the firm was “navigating a very dynamic situation”. The firm told Wall Street analysts that it had been planning to upgrade its…
Ring doorbells are providing customer data to companies such as Facebook and Google, an investigation suggests. The Electronic Frontier Foundation found the Ring app was “packed” with third-party tracking, sending out customers’ personally identifiable information. Five companies were receiving a range of information, including names, IP addresses and mobile networks, it said. Ring said it limited the amount of data it shared. The company told Gizmodo: “Like many companies, Ring uses third-party service providers to evaluate the use of our mobile app, which helps us improve features, optimise the customer experience and evaluate the effectiveness of our marketing.” But the…
Scientists in Australia have become the first to recreate the new coronavirus outside of China in what they have called a “significant breakthrough”. The discovery will be shared with the World Health Organization (WHO) in the hope it may help efforts to diagnose and treat the virus. Scientists in China have also recreated the virus and shared its genome sequence, but not the virus itself. The outbreak has killed 106 people in China and infected more than 4,500. There are at least 47 cases confirmed in 15 other countries, including in Thailand, France, the US and Australia. No deaths have…
The US has charged a Harvard professor and two Chinese researchers based in Boston with assisting the Chinese government. Harvard department chair Charles Lieber is accused of lying about his connections, while the researchers were charged with being foreign agents. Mr Lieber allegedly accepted more than $1m in grant money from the Chinese government. Harvard University called the charges against him “extremely serious”. In a statement, the university added: “Professor Lieber has been placed on indefinite administrative leave.” Prosecutors said Yanqing Ye, a Boston University robotics researcher, concealed the fact that she was in the Chinese army. Ms Ye is…
Democrats hoping their party learned from its 2016 failure have been horrified to discover many of those behind Hillary Clinton’s losing campaign – including John Podesta of hacked email fame – have major Convention posts. Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez has unveiled a 2020 Democratic Convention lousy with Clinton loyalists – Podesta merely the most notorious among them – alongside former Obama administration officials and corporate lobbyists. Democrats hoping the centrist old guard had relinquished its death-grip on the party are livid, and at least one campaign is pushing back. “If the DNC believes it’s going to get away…
Gold is once again proving its reputation as the traditional safe haven during times of uncertainty. The price of the precious metal has been rising amid continuing worries over the spread of the coronavirus. Bullion has gained $20 an ounce to reach a 7-year high of $1,585 this week, before easing to around $1,578 per ounce on Tuesday. It has led the rally of other metals, including silver and platinum. Analysts say gold will continue to gain and could top $2,000 in the not-too-distant future. The safe-haven metal last hit an all-time high of just above $1,900 in 2011 in…
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng stock market index fell 3% when it re-opened on Wednesday as investors feared the economic impact of the coronavirus. Almost all of the 50 Hong Kong-listed Chinese companies that make up the Hang Seng Index were in the red. Travel and casino operators were hit the hardest as traders assess the economic impact of the deadly virus. Coronavirus has already claimed more than 130 lives with more than 9,000 suspected cases. China’s main stock markets, the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, will only reopen on 3 February after Chinese authorities extended the Lunar New Year break…
US scientists have developed a “Trojan Horse” nanoparticle that eats away at the fatty deposits which cause heart attacks and strokes from the inside out. These fatty deposits, or plaques, are made up of cholesterol, fatty substances, cellular waste and other material. The new nanoparticles are designed to selectively target a particular immune cell type and then deliver a drug payload which causes the cells to engulf and consume this accumulated material on blood vessel walls, thus removing the diseased or dead cells at the core of the plaque. In other words, they cause the plaques to eat themselves from the…
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…
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…