Life

Los Angeles museum celebrates the art of the selfie

by Javier Tovar © Agence France-Presse GLENDALE, United States (AFP) — There’s an art to taking the perfect selfie — from the angle, to the focus, cropping out that pesky outstretched arm and above all, the smile. In a celebration of self-portraits in the social media age Tommy Honton and Tair Mamedov are set to open the Museum of Selfies in Los Angeles this Sunday — an interactive exhibition exploring the history and cultural phenomenon of […]

1968, key events in “The Year That Changed America”

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The year 1968 featured a series of tumultuous events in the United States. Here are some of the most notable occurrences during the year: January 23  North Korea captures the USS Pueblo, claiming the US Navy intelligence vessel violated its territorial waters. One member of the Pueblo’s crew was killed in the attack and the other 82 held for 11 months before being released. January 30  North Vietnamese troops launch the […]

S. Korean musicians leave for Pyongyang performance

  SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — K-pop stars led a group of South Korean musicians departing for Pyongyang Saturday to take part in the latest set of cross-border cultural performances ahead of next month’s rare inter-Korean summit. The 120-member group including top girlband Red Velvet flew from Seoul’s Gimpo airport aboard a chartered civilian flight to Pyongyang via the rarely used direct air route between the two Koreas, as a rapprochement on the peninsula gathers […]

Japan whalers return from Antarctic hunt after killing 333 whales

  TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japanese whaling vessels returned to port on Saturday after catching more than 300 of the mammals in the Antarctic Ocean without facing any protests by anti-whaling groups, officials said. A fleet of five whalers set sail for the Southern Ocean in November, as Tokyo pursues its “research whaling” in defiance of global criticism. Three of the vessels, including the fleet’s main ship, the Nisshin Maru, arrived in the morning at Shimonoseki […]

China says Earth-bound spacelab to offer ‘splendid’ show

BEIJING, China (AFP) — An out-of-control space laboratory that will plunge back to Earth in the coming days is unlikely to cause any damage, Chinese authorities say but will offer instead a “splendid” show akin to a meteor shower. China’s space agency said on Thursday that the nearly eight-tonne Tiangong-1 will re-enter the atmosphere sometime between Saturday and Monday. The European Space Agency has a smaller window between midday Saturday and early Sunday afternoon GMT […]

Leaked Facebook memo questions cost of growth

SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Facebook troubles worsened late Thursday with the leak of a two-year-old memo from a high-ranking executive hinting that the social network was determined to grow despite risks to users. The 2016 memo published by news website Buzzfeed was written by veteran Facebook executive Andrew Bozworth, considered part of chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s inner circle. “The ugly truth is that we believe in connecting people so deeply that anything that […]

Look: Space junk

(AFP) — Millions of pieces of man-made debris are currently orbiting the earth. This huge cloud of space junk is suspended between 800 and 2,000 kilometers above us. Since space exploration began in 1957, fragments from more than 5,000 space launches and 290 orbital explosions have been accumulating. Old rockets, satellites, tools lost by astronauts and even flecks of paint pose a serious threat to future space exploration, particularly manned flights and stations. Sensors carried […]

Astronomers find the ‘impossible’: a galaxy without dark matter

by Marlowe Hood Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Stupefied astronomers on Wednesday unveiled the first and only known galaxy without dark matter, the invisible and poorly-understood substance thought to make up a quarter of the Universe. The discovery could revise or even upend theories of how galaxies are formed, they reported in the journal Nature. “This is really bizarre,” said co-author Roberto Abraham, an astronomer at the University of Toronto. “For a galaxy […]

Facebook overhauls privacy settings amid data breach outcry

  WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Facebook on Wednesday launched a fresh effort to quell the firestorm over the hijacking of personal data, unveiling new privacy tools and settings aiming to give users more control over how their information is shared. The new features follow fierce criticism of the social network giant after it was revealed that the personal data of tens of millions of users was harvested by a British firm linked to Donald Trump’s […]

BMW sued in US over diesel emissions

NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — German luxury carmaker BMW has been sued in the United States over “defeat devices” installed in tens of thousands of vehicles in order to cheat diesel emissions tests, lawyers for the plaintiffs said Tuesday. The case, filed in federal court in New Jersey, will become a class-action suit once it is certified by a judge. The suit singles out the BMW X5 and 335D model diesel cars sold between […]

Mama bear keeps cubs longer as shield against hunters

by Hazel Ward Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Female brown bears have learned to protect themselves from being shot by spending more time caring for their young as they adapt to legislation banning the hunting of mothers with cubs. The finding, published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, was made by a team of international researchers who spent 22 years studying data on the reproductive strategy and survival of Scandinavian brown bears. “Man […]

Mama bear keeps cubs longer as shield against hunters

by Hazel Ward Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Female brown bears have learned to protect themselves from being shot by spending more time caring for their young as they adapt to legislation banning the hunting of mothers with cubs. The finding, published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, was made by a team of international researchers who spent 22 years studying data on the reproductive strategy and survival of Scandinavian brown bears. […]