South Africa farmers have reported a new pest caterpillar, similar to the fall armyworm, causing extensive damage to maize crops since December, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said on Wednesday. South Africa detects pest caterpillar damaging maize crop If the pest is confirmed as the invasive armyworm that has hit neighbouring countries it could have a disastrous impact on production of maize in South Africa, a major supplier of food to the region, the ministry said in a statement. (Reporting by Ed Stoddard; w…
TOKYO (AP) -- Shares were mostly higher in Asia on Wednesday, lifted by upbeat manufacturing data from China and Japan. The U.S. dollar was steady, regaining some lost ground after falling on comments by President Donald Trump accusing China and Japan of manipulating their currencies. KEEPING SCORE: Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 0.6 percent to 19,148.08 and the Kospi in South Korea jumped 0.6 percent to 2,080.48. Australia's S&P ASX 200 gained 0.6 percent to 5,653.20. Hong Ko…
Nearly 19 years to the day that Susan Brouk and her two children were taken to a Missouri pond and killed, one of the men responsible for the crime was put to death Tuesday. Mark Christeson was given a lethal injection — Missouri's first execution since May. Christeson, 37, was hours away from execution in 2014 when the U.S. Supreme Court granted a temporary stay. This time, though, the court allowed the execution to proceed, and Gov. Eric Greitens declined a clemency request for Christeson, the first inmate to be put to death since…
#Health :Train your mind with stimulating activities to keep away dementia or Alzheimer's disease. Mentally stimulating activities can protect your brain against aging, even if you're genetically predisposed toward dementia or Alzheimer's disease, a new study reports. Activities that keep the brain busy -- using a computer, crafting, playing games and participating in social activities -- appear to lower the risk of age-related mental decline in people 70 and older, the Mayo Clinic study found. "These kind of comm…
LONDON (AFP) - Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to sell a chunk of its North Sea assets to oil firm Chrysaor for up to $3.8 billion (3.6 billion euros), it said Tuesday. Shell said in a statement that it will sell its entire holdings in nine oil fields plus a smaller stake in a tenth field to explorer Chrysaor, adding that the deal would streamline its portfolio after the 2016 takeover of BG Group.
A corrupt banker and his cronies ‘financially raped’ small businesses to fund lavish holidays and sex parties with escort girls in one of Britain’s biggest ever frauds. Lynden Scourfield, a senior director of HBOS, forced firms that needed to borrow cash to use a crooked consultancy firm led by David Mills. Behaving like the ‘Mafia’, they would then use threats and extortion to seize control of the businesses, plundering bank accounts and pocketing massive new loans granted in their name. Scourfield, who boasted of being the ‘grand wizar…
A key malaria treatment has failed for the first time in patients being treated in the UK, doctors say. The drug combination was unable to cure four patients, who had all visited Africa, in early signs the parasite is evolving resistance. A team at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said it was too early to panic. But it warned things could suddenly get worse and demanded an urgent appraisal of drug-resistance levels in Africa. Malaria parasites are spread by bites from infected mosquitoes. It is a major killer of the u…
The president has privately acknowledged flaws in the rollout, according to a person with knowledge of his thinking. But he's also blamed the media -- his frequent target -- for what he believes are reports exaggerating the dissent and the number of people actually affected. Trump has also said he believes the voters who carried him to victory support the plan as a necessary step to safeguard the nation. And he's dismissed objectors as attention-seeking rabble-rousers a…
Toyota lost its crown as the world's top-selling automaker in 2016, company figures showed Monday, with the Japanese giant overtaken by Volkswagen as the industry prepares for an uncertain trade environment under Donald Trump. The German automaker moved back into the top spot despite being hit by a massive emissions cheating scandal that rocked its reputation. The carmaker, once a paragon of German industry, was plunged into its deepest-ever crisis after it emerged in September 2015 that it installed emissions-cheating software in …
The driver of an 18-wheeler that crashed into a bus in September 2014, killing four North Central Texas College softball players, killed himself weeks before the case was set to go to trial. Russell Staley, 55, of Saginaw died Friday. His manner of death was determined to be a suicide, according to the Tarrant County medical examiner's office. Russell Staley, 55, of Saginaw died Friday. He was scheduled to stand trial March 8 in Murray County, Oklahoma, on four counts of first degree manslaughter stemming from the Sept. 26, 2…
At least six people are dead after gunmen opened fire in a mosque in Quebec City on Sunday, a police spokeswoman said, as cited by Reuters. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the shooting a “terrorist attack on Muslims.” The attack took place at Centre Culturel Islamique de Quebec (Quebec City Islamic Cultural Center) on Sainte-Foy Street. Two suspects have been arrested so far, according to Quebec Provincial Police spokeswoman Christine Coulombe. Some of the victims were badly injured, she said, adding that those killed in th…
Trump gives Pentagon 30 days to develop strategy to defeat ISIS in Iraq & Syria President Donald Trump has signed an executive order directing the US military to develop a preliminary plan to defeat Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria. He discussed the issue earlier in a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “It is the policy of the United States that ISIS be defeated,” reads the order published on the White House website on Saturday. “Within 30 days, a preliminary draft of the Plan to defeat ISIS sha…
A new documentary claims that pornography has got "uglier and nastier", with actors forced to shoot more hardcore films for less since the explosion of free-to-view internet sites like Youporn and Pornhub. "Pornocracy", made by Ovidie, a former French porn star turned director, claims that far fewer films are now being made and fees have been slashed up to 10-fold. She blames "tube" sites -- so-called because they resemble YouTube -- which have been accused of hosting thousands of videos pirated from tradit…
By Amy Norton HealthDay Reporter THURSDAY, Jan. 26, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- It might sound like science fiction, but researchers have successfully used human stem cells to create embryos that are part-human, part-pig. Scientists said the long-range goal is to better understand and treat an array of human diseases. The researchers hope to ultimately cultivate human tissue that can be given to patients awaiting transplants. But that's a long way off, said Jun Wu, wh…
The search for life on other planets is no easy undertaking, however the boffins at NASA have just announced a test that will make the titanic probing for extra-terrestrial lifeforms a little easier. Scientists have developed a chemistry test, known as capillary electrophoresis, specifically designed to analyze for amino acids, the building blocks of all life on Earth, and perhaps life on similar planets. The technique designed in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in California is 10,000 t…
Demand for cosmetic surgery is showing no sign of abating, with a boom in Asia as the procedures become more affordable and less of a taboo, experts said. The global market grew by 8.3 percent in 2016 to an estimated value of $8.9 billion the GDP of the Bahamas, according to data released Friday at the IMCAS aesthetic industry conference in Paris. In 2017, people are projected to spend 10 billion dollars on face and body upgrades, growing to nearly 12 billion dollars in 2020. "There's a general acceptance that doing, whether …
The San Diego Unified School District has been ordered to pay $1.25 million in damages to a former student who was forced to urinate in a bucket after her requests to use the bathroom were denied. The student, who was 14 years old at the time, was attending a 25-minute freshman advisory class at Patrick Henry High School when she requested to use the bathroom. Her art teacher, Gonja Wolf, barred her “from going to the restroom, and directed her to urinate in a bucket in a small room adjacent to the class,” according to a recorded m…
Flames from one of Chile's worst wildfires completely consumed the town of Santa Olga as the death toll from the blazes since November rose to 10, officials said Thursday. The flames engulfed the post office, a kindergarten, and about 1,000 homes in the town, located 220 miles (360 kilometers) south of the Chilean capital. The body of one person was found under the charred remains of the town, which another 6,000 residents fled unharmed. Officials have not identified the person who died. "This is an extremely serious s…
A missing black 2008 Porsche Carrera 911 that belonged to a hair stylist who was fatally stabbed was found on Thursday, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Paramedics from the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to a home in the 5000 block of Queen Victoria Road around 5:50 p.m. Monday and discovered Fabio Sementilli, 49, on the home's outdoor patio with stab wounds to his face, neck and torso, according to an LAPD news release. Fabio Sementilli , internationally know by Toronto,49years old The car was locate…
A man has been arrested after police say he used a knife to try to rob a woman he met on an online dating site. Ocoee (Ocoee is a city in Orange County, Florida, United States) police said 21-year-old Luis Jerez used the alias "Jordan Montana" when he began chatting with a woman on Meetme.com. Authorities said the woman invited Jerez to her apartment. When he arrived, officers said, Jerez pulled a knife on her, placed her in a chokehold and demanded her bracelet. The victim was able to escape. Jerez fled. He was later capt…
Farmer Folahan is one of up to 200 people in the west African country of Benin who still contract leprosy every year. Her face is covered in nodules -- a symptom of the condition -- when she arrives at the screening centre in the town of Pobe, in the east of the country. Doctors put her on medication straight away. If she takes it properly for 12 months and there are no side effects, she will be completely cured. Leprosy is officially a disease of the past, relegated to the annals of history with conditions such as smallpox and bubonic …
The head of the Knights of Malta resigned after entering into a public spat with Pope Francis over the ouster of a top official involved in a condom scandal, a spokeswoman for the ancient lay Catholic order said Wednesday. Matthew Festing met with the pope on Tuesday and offered his resignation, Knights of Malta spokeswoman Marianna Balfour told The Associated Press. “I can confirm this,” Balfour said. Festing had refused to cooperate with a papal commission investigating his ouster of the grand chancellor, Albrecht von Boeselager, over …
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