Depression Did Not Make the Germanwings Co-Pilot Murder a Plane Full of People

Because Germanwings pilot Andreas Lubitz killed himself when he purposefully drove a plane carrying 149 other people into a mountain in the Alps, there has been an assumption that he suffered from “depression”—an assumption strengthened by the discovery of antidepressants in his home and reports that he had been treated in psychiatry and neurology clinics. Many patients and other interested parties are rightly concerned that Lubitz’s murderous behavior will further stigmatize the mentally ill.

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Arkansas passes Indiana-style 'religious freedom' bill criticised as anti-gay

State ratifies Religious Freedom Restoration Act that critics see as a way to discriminate against gay and lesbian people under the guise of religious freedom

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Rise of the Red Prince

How Xi Jinping took control of China.

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Facebook 'tracks all visitors, breaching EU law'

People without Facebook accounts, logged out users, and EU users who have explicitly opted out of tracking are being tracked, report says

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After Snowden, The NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge

To keep its code-breaking prowess, the National Security Agency must recruit scores of the brightest students in math and computer science each year. The Snowden revelations are hurting those efforts.

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Air strikes in Yemen

Images of Yemen air strikes

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Vladimir Putin's formative German years

Anyone who wants to understand Vladimir Putin today needs to know the story of what happened to him on a dramatic night in East Germany a quarter of a century ago. It is 5 December 1989 in Dresden, a few weeks after the Berlin Wall has fallen. East German communism is dying on its feet, people power seems irresistible. Crowds storm the Dresden headquarters of the Stasi, the East German secret police, who suddenly seem helpless.

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Elon Musk Says Tesla Will Unveil Something New April 30

Elon Musk certainly knows how to steal the thunder from his competitors. While other automakers are gearing up for big announcements at the New York Auto Show this week, the Tesla Motors chief just tweeted this: "Major new Tesla product line -- not a car -- will be unveiled at our Hawthorne Design Studio on Thurs 8pm, April 30"

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AP chief: Killing of journalists should be a war crime

The president and CEO of The Associated Press called on Monday for changes to international laws that would make it a war crime to kill journalists or take them hostage. Gary Pruitt said a new framework is needed to protect journalists as they cover conflicts in which they are increasingly seen as targets by extremist groups. "It used to be that when media wore PRESS emblazoned on their vest, or PRESS or MEDIA was on their vehicle...

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George Takei: Boycott Indiana

My husband Brad and I like to spend our holidays in the White Mountains of Arizona. There’s a small town called Show Low where we’ve passed many a merry Christmas. We’ve been regulars at the July 4th parades there, entertained friends and family over the years, and consider it our home away from home. But last year, it was very nearly going to be impossible for us to travel back to Arizona in good conscience.

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China Appears to Attack GitHub by Diverting Web Traffic

The attack on GitHub, a code library that includes code for viewing Internet sites blocked in China, comes as China has increased its censorship.

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Police All Over the U.S. Are Issuing Fewer Traffic Tickets

Drivers appear to be catching a break from cops, who are writing fewer tickets of late. But don't think for a second the decrease is because police have become softies all of a sudden.

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Common bacteria on verge of becoming antibiotic-resistant superbugs

Antibiotic resistance is poised to spread globally among bacteria frequently implicated in respiratory and urinary infections in hospital settings, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The study shows that two genes that confer resistance against a particularly strong class of antibiotics can be shared easily among a family of bacteria responsible for a significant portion of hospital-associated infections.

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Obama promised an era of openness, but journalists say it’s the opposite

Reporters often encounter closed doors when seeking data and interviews from the administration.

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Minimal Maps

Minimal Maps is an ongoing project that explores how richly-detailed single subject maps can give us new imagery to understand our landscape. The data is accurate for the year 2014 and explores the American (lower 48 states) landscape as a whole entity. The project is a continuation of the work began in 2012 while at Archework's Chicago Expander Workshops, where I was a research fellow.

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Fort Meade Incident: 2 Injured at Gate of Army Installation

At least one person was shot after a vehicle attempted to ram a gate at the National Security Agency headquarters at Fort Meade Monday.

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DARPA to re-invent GPS navigation without the use of satellites

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has unveiled its plan for the future, and it’s a huge shift, marked by new goals in four main areas. Arguably the biggest change is its plan to reinvent complex military systems and make them more modular, in an effort to ensure “superiority in the air, maritime, ground, space, and cyber domains.”

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Elizabeth Warren will/not run for president.

Heard this interview with Elizabeth Warren on NPR this morning: http://ift.tt/1xRgAX6 But her denials of running for president sounded hollow. Something bothered me; the reporter asked, essentially, 'but you could be doing so much more if you ran for president'. And she responded with a non-response, basically saying 'I'm working hard'. That's not a response. So then I read this... http://ift.tt/1xRgDSV

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In Brazil, Some Inmates Get Therapy With Hallucinogenic Tea

The provision of ayahuasca, a psychedelic brew used in the Amazon basin for centuries, to inmates on short furloughs reflects a quest to ease pressure on Brazil’s prison system.

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Al-Shabaab video show civilians being gunned down in the sea

The Somali extremist group Al Shabaab have released a new video, showing civilians being forced into the sea and murdered in a hail of gunfire. Entitled 'In Remembrance 2',the video show Al-Shabaab coldly executing civilians with machine guns before leaving the bodies to rot on the beach. The chilling video is the second part of a two episode series by Al-Shabaab's main media branch, al-Kataib Foundation.

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Poland blames Russian air controllers in 2010 crash

Two Russian air traffic controllers are among those charged in a military investigation of a 2010 plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski. The military prosecutors said bad weather was the primary cause of the crash, which killed 95 people on their way to Katyn, Russia.

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Messaging apps shouldn't make money

Four days after Facebook announced its $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp on February 19 last year, an unadvertised six-month-old free messaging app called Telegram was downloaded 4.95 million times

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ISIS Cuts Off 4 Kids Hands, One for Stealing Toy; Executes Starving Child for Stealing Food

A mixed Sunni-Shia family that once lived in ISIS' Iraqi stronghold of Mosul but has fled to live in the Kurdish north after the militant group took over the town last June, has provided deeper insight and revelations about the horrors that people living under the jihadis brand of sharia rule must deal with.

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Why Singapore banned chewing gum

Lee Kuan Yew, who died on Monday at the age of 91, is famed as the man who turned Singapore from a small port into a global trading hub. But he also insisted on tidiness and good behaviour - and personified the country's ban on chewing gum. What was it about gum he so disliked? For a while after the gum ban was introduced in 1992 it was all foreign journalists wanted to talk about, Lee Kuan Yew complained later, in conversation with US writer Tom Plate.

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Italy's Top Court Overturns Amanda Knox conviction

In a final ruling, Italy's highest court on Friday overturned the convictions of American Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend in the sensational murder case of Knox's British roommate.

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NSA Behind "Malware" Infection of Computer Hardware Used by "Enemies" of the U.S.?

The NSA’s “Equation Group” is apparently behind the infection with malware of hard drive firmware on computers used by nations considered “enemies” by the United States. The installation of the malware is believed to have required access to trade secrets of IT manufacturers as well as physical access to the soon-to-be infected computers.

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The FBI used to recommend encryption - Now they want to ban it

The FBI wants to make us all less safe. At least that’s the implication from FBI director Jim Comey’s push to ban unbreakable encryption and deliberately weaken everyone’s security. And it’s past time that the White House makes its position clear once and for all. Comey was back before Congress this week - this time in front of the House Appropriations Committee - imploring Congressmen to pass a law that would force tech companies to create a backdoor in any...

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Debunking the Myth of the Job-Stealing Immigrant

When I was growing up in the 1980s, I watched my grandfather — my dad’s stepdad — struggle with his own prejudice. He was a blue-collar World War II veteran who loved his family above all things and was constantly afraid for them. He carried a gun and, like many men of his generation, saw threats in people he didn’t understand: African-Americans, independent women, gays. By the time he died, 10 years ago, he had softened. He stopped using racist and homophobic...

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Magnitude 7.7 earthquake strikes near Papua New Guinea

A magnitude 7.7 earthquake strikes off Papua New Guinea with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre warning hazardous waves are possible.

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Apple's Tim Cook to donate his fortune to charity

Apple CEO Tim Cook is going to give away his entire fortune multi-million dollar fortune to charitable causes.

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The myth of Europe’s Little Ice Age

The Little Ice Age is generally seen as a major event in European history. Analysing a variety of recent weather reconstructions, this column finds that European weather appears constant from the Middle Ages until 1900, and that events like the freezing of the Thames and the disappearance of English vineyards have simpler explanations than changing climate. It appears instead that the European Little Ice Age is a statistical artefact...

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A Blood-Thirsty Gentleman

Some characters seem to grow more real than their creators, and perhaps no villain better exemplifies this than Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula.

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19 states that have ‘religious freedom’ laws like Indiana’s that no one is boycotting

Indiana has come under fire for a bill signed Thursday by Gov. Mike Pence (R) that would allow businesses to refuse service for religious reasons. The NCAA has voiced its concern ahead of Final Four in Indianapolis next week, there are calls to boycott the state, and Miley Cyrus has even weighed in, calling Pence a name that we can't reprint on this family Web site in an Instagram post.

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The War Nerd: A Brief History Of The Yemen Clusterf*ck

I ought to be familiar with the Houthi, the Shia militia that’s now conquering most of what’s worth taking in Yemen. After all, the Houthis started in Saada Province, just a few miles due south of Najran, Saudi Arabia, where I was living a few years ago. But...

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Domino's policy changes on deliveries angers residents

There will be no more Domino's deliveries in the Lower 9th Ward after dark. It is one of the changes the pizza company is making after another one of its drivers was murdered in the Lower 9th Ward while on the job, but residents and one city leader say the policy change is a knee-jerk reaction that is singling out their community. "It just, again, puts a black eye on this community," said Vanessa Gueringer, a life-long resident of the Lower 9th Ward.

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“Make me the villain of your next book”: Maine governor fires back at Stephen King

Maine Gov. Paul LePage is refusing to apologize for falsely insinuating that Stephen King no longer pays taxes in the state, but he did make the bestselling author an acerbic offer: “Just make me the villain of your next book, and I won’t charge you royalties.” The current dispute between King and the Tea Party Republican stems from LePage’s assertion in a radio address last week that King and a number of other prominent Mainers had abandoned the state...

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Saudi Arabia says it won't rule out building nuclear weapons

Saudi Arabia will not rule out building or acquiring nuclear weapons, the country’s ambassador to the United States has indicated.

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Missouri Governor Nixon Is Putting Libraries in Peril

Libraries in Missouri need help. Here's why, and what you can do to help.

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Fraudster escapes from one of Britain's most secure prisons by forging letter granting him bail

The trickster used 'extraordinary criminal inventiveness' to slip out of the jail from which notorious Great Train robber Ronnie Biggs escaped in 1965

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Bill allows businesses to reject gay customers

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is set to sign into law a measure that allows businesses to turn away gay and lesbian customers in the name of "religious freedom." WXIN reports.

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This 19th Century 'Stench Map' Shows How Smells Reshaped New York City

During the 19th century, it was widely believed that bad smells carried diseases. In the 1870s, the New York City Metropolitan Board of Health created the "stench map" below to point out where malodorous industries—then called "offensive trades"—were located in the city.

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The Radical Humaneness of Norway’s Halden Prison

The goal of the Norwegian penal system is to get inmates out of it.

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BREAKING: Air Canada plane crashes on runway at Halifax Airport; dozens sent to hospital

A frightening landing for passengers aboard Air Canada flight 624 arriving in Halifax from Toronto. The plane crashed on the runway of the Halifax International Airport Sunday night, but no major injuries were reported.

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Spain Accused of Bullying Protesters With New ‘Gagging Law’

The Spanish parliament passed a controversial “gagging law” yesterday, sparking outrage among rights groups who accuse the government of “bullying” protestors and quashing freedom of expression. Demonstrators will now be hit with fines for committing a public order offence, which could be as high as €600,000 for unauthorized demonstrations outside certain buildings, including the Congress, Senate and regional legislative assemblies, nuclear power plants, docks and airports.

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Church Of Scientology Calls New HBO Documentary 'Bigoted'

The Church of Scientology is famous for its efforts to silence its critics, but it has not blocked an upcoming HBO film that turns a harsh light on the powerful organization and its leadership. Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, directed by Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney, will debut Sunday over the vigorous objection of Scientology officials.

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Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz ‘wanted to make everyone remember him’

The co-pilot on the Germanwings flight that crashed in the French Alps wanted to do “do something” history would remember him by, according to reports. Andreas Lubitz, 27, had hidden a sicknote declaring him unfit to work on the day of the disaster before boarding the Düsseldorf-bound Airbus A320 and flying it into a mountain in the southern French Alps, killing all 150 people on board.

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German airline could face 'unlimited' damages for crash blamed on co-pilot

Lufthansa could face "unlimited" compensation claims for the crash that killed 150 people in the French alps and it would be difficult, even counterproductive, for the German carrier to try to avoid liability, experts said Friday. Under a treaty governing deaths and injuries aboard international flights, airlines are required to compensate relatives of victims for proven damages of up to a limit currently set at about $157,000 -- regardless of what caused the crash.

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2 crew members in the cockpit at ALL times: EasyJet and Virgin Atlantic among airlines to announce radical new changes in wake of Germanwings tragedy

EasyJet (pictured) will implement the new rule from tomorrow in the wake of the Germanwings air disaster where the co-pilot locked the pilot out of the cockpit and deliberately crashed the plane.

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Anti-terror Bill C-51 to be changed as Tories respond to criticism

The government will propose a handful of amendments to the proposed anti-terror bill when it goes to clause-by-clause review on Tuesday, CBC News has learned, including a proposal that would protect protests from being captured by the new measures.

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Nissan GT-R Flips Into Crowd At Nürburgring Race, One Dead

A Nissan GT-R driven by Jann Mardenborough flipped off the track and into the spectator area at this weekend's VLN endurance race at the Nürburgring in Germany. The driver survived without serious injuries but one spectator was killed and more were injured.

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