A Closer Look at 5G Equipment that is Being Installed Across Los Angeles
Google parent company Alphabet has its life sciences division focused on forcing a mass mosquito extinction. In the California city of Fresno, researchers are breeding and setting loose sterilized mosquitos that could help wipe out the larger population, according to a new Bloomberg report on the early testing of the program.
Like the buzz of an obnoxious fly, it’s a headline that’s hard to ignore, if only because it seems so strange. And sure, mosquitos are annoying. But this isn’t overkill. The bloodsucking insects are a public health issue as disease-carrying, infection-spreading pests responsible for disseminating serious and sometimes deadly illnesses such the Zika virus, malaria, and the dengue virus.
The man who allegedly killed a California police officer during a DUI traffic stop Wednesday is still at large and in the country illegally, police say.
The man suspected of killing Newman Police Officer Ronil Singh may currently be in an area southeast of San Francisco, according to the Stanislaus County sheriff’s department,
Police warn he is armed and very dangerous.
“This suspect … is in our country illegally,” Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson said at a press conference Thursday. “He doesn’t belong here. He is a criminal.”
Singh, a Fiji native who’s served on the Newman police force since 2011, was described as an “American patriot” by Newman Police Chief Randy Richardson.
“He came to America with one purpose, and that was to serve this country,” said Chief Richardson.
A team of Chinese researchers from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Liaoning, has transformed copper into a new material “almost identical” to gold, according to a new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances, and first reported by the South China Morning Post on Saturday.
Professor Sun Jian and his team of scientist blasted a copper target with a stream of hot, electrically charged argon gas. The fast-moving ionized particles smashed the copper atoms. The atoms cooled and condensed on the surface of a collecting device, producing a thin layer of sand.
South China Morning Post said each grain of sand measured a few nanometers, or a thousandth of the size of a bacterium.
The researchers placed the material in a reaction chamber and used it as a catalyst to turn coal to alcohol, a complex and intricate chemical process that only precious metals can handle efficiently.
“The copper nanoparticles achieved catalytic performance extremely similar to that of gold or silver,” Sun said in a statement on Saturday.
“The results … proved that after processing, metal copper can transform from ‘chicken’ to ‘phoenix’,” claimed Sun, who was not available for comment.
Copper has a similar weight and looks to gold.
The research paper notes that the new material based on copper can replace gold and silver in the manufacturing process of electronic devices, which requires significant amounts of precious metals.
Following reports that Israel is plotting a full-scale offensive in Syria (after years of carrying out airstrikes on Iranian or Iranian-affiliated targets south of Damascus), Russia on Wednesday accused the Jewish state of endangering the lives of civilians during a Christmas Day bombing raid carried out by Israeli F-16s flying out of Lebanon.
According to Al Jazeera, Russia accused the Israelis of violating Israeli sovereignty and threatening two civilian flights landing at a nearby airport in Damascus during attacks on targets allegedly affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in the Damascus countryside.
“We are very concerned by the attacks and how they were made. This is a gross violation of the sovereignty of Syria,” the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The provocative actions of the Israeli air force…directly threatened two airliners,” Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.
Syrian state media claimed it intercepted most of the Israeli missiles. Israeli, for what it’s worth, has denied that it planned an attack, saying that its fighter jets were merely protecting themselves from anti-aircraft gun fire.
YALAMBOJOCH, Guatemala (Reuters) – Between heavy sobs, Catarina Alonzo explained that when her husband left Guatemala to try to reach the United States, they hoped taking their 8-year-old son would make it easier for the pair to get in. Instead, the boy fell ill and died.
Detained on the U.S. border, Felipe Gomez Alonzo died late on Christmas Eve in a New Mexico hospital a few weeks after setting off with his father, becoming the second Guatemalan child to die this month while in U.S. custody.
The two deaths have led to increased criticism of the Trump administration’s hardline stance on illegal immigration, as well as fresh scrutiny of why some migrants from Central America travel with children on the long, dangerous road north.
Speaking at her home in a mountainous region of western Guatemala, Catarina Alonzo said neighbors had told the family that taking a child would provide her husband with a way in.
“Lots of them have gone with children and managed to cross, even if they’re held for a month or two. But they always manage to get across easily,” she told Reuters in an interview.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has yet to give an official cause of death for the boy, prompting Democratic lawmakers to intensify calls for an investigation.
The Department of Homeland Security, which says that Felipe Gomez Alonzo and 7-year-old Jakelin Caal, who died on Dec. 8, were the first children to die in CBP custody in a decade, this week said it would step up medical checks of migrant children to try to prevent any more deaths.
Alonzo, an indigenous Maya and native speaker of Chuj, has little Spanish and communicated through a translator. Wearing a sweatshirt and a purple dress, she spoke outside her hut in Yalambojoch, a village of about 1,000 people near the Mexican border.
She related how her son and his father, Agustin, an agricultural worker, had left in early December to find work in the United States to pay off debts. The two also hoped the boy would get a better education in the United States, she said.
Still, Alonzo said her husband had doubts and at one point decided he did not want to take the boy. But that upset the boy, so they resolved he should go.
Alonzo’s sobs could be heard for minutes outside the house before she came out to be interviewed. Afterwards she went back inside to a tiny altar she had adorned with three photos of the boy that a local school teacher had printed out for her.
The altar stood to one side of a room with cement walls that serves as a bedroom and living area for Alonzo and her three surviving children. Adjoining it was a kitchen with a dirt floor and wooden walls.
Her husband remains in U.S. custody.
“NOW OR NEVER”
Marta Larra, a spokeswoman for Guatemala’s Foreign Ministry, said smugglers known as “coyotes” often encourage migrants to take children as a form of “visa.” Many coyotes, she noted, are trusted by migrant families, so their word carries weight.
But Lucas Perez, the mayor of Yalambojoch, said some coyotes are only interested in ripping off people. Still, for many migrants trying to cross the U.S. border, taking a child along was the “only option,” he told Reuters.
Describing migration from the area as “constant,” Perez estimated about 200 people from the tiny village live in the United States.
Agustin Gomez, the boy’s father, has two brothers in the United States he hoped to meet, his wife said.