Fake News
ICR Falsely Placed on False News List icr.org
As soon as we learned of it, we contacted the assistant professor behind the list, a Harvard journalism web resource that linked to the list, and the Harvard library harvard.edu that also linked to the list. Our respectful requests for removal from the list—after all, ICR.org icr.org does not report false news, misleading news, clickbait, or satire—brought a variety of results.
Airlines
Customs outage causes chaos, backups at airports usatoday
People returning home from the New Year's holiday weekend were being processed at international terminals by hand at some airports, resulting in long lines and short tempers. Travelers reported issues in Chicago, Boston, New York City, Baltimore, Miami and Atlanta, among others.The outage lasted for four hours, the Customs agency cbp.gov said in a statement late Monday, before the system was up and running again.
"I've never seen anything like it," [Michelle Sencibaugh, a K-12 teacher in St. Louis] told USA TODAY. "No one was giving us direction. They didn't tell us what was going on. It was just a herd of people."
Israel
Sanhedrin Asks Putin and Trump to Build Third Temple in Jerusalem breakingisraelnews
Rabbi Hillel Weiss, spokesman for the Sanhedrin jewishvirtuallibrary.org, contacted Breaking Israel News to announce that the election of Trump, who has promised to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, coupled with Putin’s expressed desire for the Temple to be rebuilt, prompted the Jewish court to send a letter offering the two the opportunity to act as modern-day Cyrus figures: non-Jewish kings who recognize the importance of Israel and the Temple.
Isreal
Rare First Temple-era scroll exposes earliest Hebrew mention of Jerusalem jpost
Written in ancient Hebrew script, and dating back to the Kingdom of Judah during the 7th century BCE, the rare relic made of papyrus is the earliest extra-Biblical source to mention Jerusalem in Hebrew writing.
Israel
UNESCO votes: No connection between Temple Mount and Judaism jpost
In a 24-6 vote, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization unesco.org on Thursday gave preliminary approval to a resolution that denies Jewish ties to its most holy religious sites: the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.
Also see Israel Decries UNESCO Vote on Jerusalem Site voanews and Israel suspends ties with Unesco over motion that downplays Jerusalem links theguardian
Turkey-EU
Give us EU visa freedom in October or abandon migrant deal, Turkey says whbl
[Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu] comments in Bild's Monday edition coincide with rising tensions between Ankara and the West that have been exacerbated by the failed coup attempt in Turkey on July 15. Turkey is incensed by what it sees as an insensitive response from Western allies to the failed putsch, in which 240 people were killed.
Also see Greek Migration Minister: Refugee Flows from Turkey Manageable greece.greekreporter
Temple Mount
King David’s Descendents Making Case to Reclaim Ownership of Temple Mount breakingisraelnews
While their claim is legally sound and verifiable, it faces significant political hurdles. One of the suit’s beneficiaries, who claims descent from the Davidic Dynasty, is ready for the legal battle but cautiously pragmatic.
Israel
Israel claims partial victory as UNESCO delays vote to erase Jewish ties to Temple Mount jpost
The failed Turkish coup over the weekend delayed until October a UNESCO unesco.org vote on Jerusalem that ignores Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.
Israel
Israel to UNESCO: ‘We’re not ISIS, don’t sever our ties to the Temple Mount’ jpost
UNESCO unesco.org called on Israel to halt all its archeological and restoration work in and around the Old City, as it submits its latest draft resolution on Jerusalem that ignores Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.
Israel
Controversial religious activist enters Israel’s parliament washingtonpost
For years, Yehuda Glick has pushed for greater Jewish access to Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site — promoting an ideology that has unnerved Palestinians and made him the target of an assassination attempt. Now, as a new member of Israel’s parliament, Glick is vowing to use his office to press his cause, bringing his explosive campaign to the nation’s corridors of power.
“Twenty years ago, Temple Mount activists were considered totally delusional, extreme, marginal. Today, half of the Knesset’s members agree with the basis of what I express,” Glick, 51, told The Associated Press in an interview.
Society
Eleven states sue Obama administration over bathroom guidance for transgender students washingtonpost v
The federal lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, states that the guidance “has no basis in law” and could cause “seismic changes in the operations of the nation’s school districts.”
Pagenism
Pagan prisoners to be allowed robes, incense and tarot cards behind bars ibtimes.co.uk
The guidance is included in a 104-page document, called Faith and Pastoral Care for Prisoners, that sets out provisions for worshippers of all faiths, including Zoroastrianism and Baha'i.
Miltary Budget
Pentagon wants $582bn in 2017 budget, quadrupling of spending in Europe rt
Carter said the budget was guided by five factors: the rise of power from Russia and China; the threat of North Korea to the US and its Pacific allies; Iran's “malign influence” against allies in the Gulf; and the ongoing fight against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).
AI
MIT develops system that can detect 85% of cyberattacks using artificial intelligence ibtimes.co.uk
Rather than requiring cybersecurity analysts to spend all day analysing huge amounts of data that may or may not be a sign that cybercriminals are attacking a network, AI2 is instead trained to pick out the 200 most abnormal events it has detected during that day.
The human expert looks at the events and picks out which events relate to a cyberattack, and as days pass by, the computer learns how to identify more and more of the events as attacks, accurately, by itself – meaning that, eventually, the cybersecurity analyst might only need to look at 30-40 flagged events per day.
Future Tech
THIS FLEXIBLE CAMERA TAKES CRAZY IMAGES digitaltrends v
The camera lens looks vaguely like a flexible solar tile. When bent, it captures an image that may appear altered but is still a high quality full picture. The team used silicone for the prototype sheet camera that lets the focal length of each lens vary with the curvature of the sheet, meaning there is no missing information as the lens deforms.
Abortion
Study: When tests detect birth defects, babies can still be born healthy worldmag
Researchers at the University of Cambridge, who published their results in the journal Nature Communications, found even when half the cells of an early-stage mouse embryo were abnormal, the embryo was still able to fully repair itself because the abnormal cells self-destructed and healthy cells replaced them. In many cases, the process completely repaired a defective embryo, leaving it with all healthy cells even though some of the placental cells were still abnormal. Even in cases where 75 percent of an early-stage embryo’s cells were abnormal, the ratio of normal cells increased as the embryo developed.
North Korea
North Korea Fires 5 Short-Range Missiles Into The Sea npr
"The missiles were fired near the eastern coastal city of Hamhung, and analysts say the short-range projectiles traveled about 120 miles," Elise tells our Newscast unit.
Creepy Robots
Sophia The Robot youtube
(Video - 2:37)
AI
The Sadness and Beauty of Watching Google’s AI Play Go wired
At first, Fan Hui thought the move was rather odd. But then he saw its beauty. “It’s not a human move. I’ve never seen a human play this move,” he says. “So beautiful.” It’s a word he keeps repeating. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful.
Google just proved how unpredictable artificial intelligence can be businessinsider
Like the previous article, but includes an interesting section near the bottom:
Like sociopaths and psychopaths, AIs may be able to learn to imitate empathetic and ethical behaviour, but we should not expect there to be any moral force underpinning this behaviour, or that it will hold out against a purely utilitarian decision.
Exploring the risks of artificial intelligence techcrunch
Artificial intelligence is making an extreme entrance into almost every facet of society in predicted and unforeseen ways, causing both excitement and trepidation. This reaction alone is predictable, but can we really predict the associated risks involved?
Twitter Facial Analysis Reveals Demographics of Presidential Campaign Followers technologyreview
The analysis by Wu and co is straightforward. They study both candidates’ followers, their user names, geographical information and each follower’s number of followers to determine their influence. In particular, they look at each user’s picture and use a machine-learning program to determine whether it shows a male or female and to identify that person’s ethnicity.
Medical
Blind woman may see thanks to gene therapy and light engadget
The procedure injected her eye with viruses containing DNA from light-sensitive algae, letting them mimic the eye's rods and cones by generating electricity whenever they're subjected to light.
Korean startup develops handheld sonogram zdnet
Mobile healthcare isn't just about fitness trackers and apps: South Korean startup Healcerion has developed an innovative handheld sonogram device and accompanying big data analyses for on-scene check-ups that could save thousands of lives.
Medical?
Brain-Zapping Headphones Could Make You a Better Athlete technologyreview
The mild stimulation, called transcranial direct current stimulation, essentially makes it “slightly easier for the neurons to fire,” says Chao. ...some scientists say marketing claims like the ones Halo is making are irresponsible because they are not grounded in peer-reviewed science.
Israel
Jordan to install cameras at Jerusalem mosque news.yahoo
Jordan said on Sunday it will set up security cameras around Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound in the coming days to monitor any Israeli "violations".
Some of the last Jews of Yemen brought to Israel in secret mission jpost
Clandestine activity of the Jewish Agency culminated in the aliya of the 19 Jews, fourteen from the town of Raydah and a family of five from the capital Sanaa.
The Jewish Agency noted that some fifty Jews remain in Yemen...These last Jews have chosen to remain in the country without Jewish communal or organizational infrastructure, the Jewish Agency said.
Apostasy
Who is an evangelical Christian? christiantoday
Evangelical: One word, various shades of meaning. Thus, the confusion on who are the real evangelicals and what their real numbers are.
British Baptists and same-sex marriage: Can the denomination hold it together? christiantoday
The statement, emailed to ministers and church secretaries on Friday, stressed the independence of the local congregation – part of the BUGB 'Declaration of Principle' – but under the heading 'Walking together in Unity' said that "recognising the costs involved and after careful and prayerful reflection and listening, we humbly urge churches who are considering conducting same-sex marriages to refrain from doing so out of mutual respect".
Others...
Marble Machine (music instrument using 2000 marbles) youtube
(Video - 4:32)
Mathematicians Have Discovered a Prime Conspiracy wired
Metallic Ink Revealed in Burned Vesuvius Scrolls news.discovery
1896 Horseless Carriage Was a Hybrid Car news.discovery
