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We finally have some insight into how Disney will address the death of its “Star Wars” star, Carrie Fisher, as it prepares to release the next movie in the saga, “Episode VIII,” aka “The Last Jedi,” on December 15. Disney CEO Bob Iger, in a new interview, revealed that Fisher’s General Leia role will not undergo any tweaking, nor will there be any reviving of the actress along the lines of what we saw in “Rogue One.”
Today, judges at the International Criminal Court are expected to unveil the first compensation awards to victims of war crimes. The reparations, for 304 victims of former Congolese warlord Germain Katanga, would be a landmark step for the tribunal, which was established in 2002 to prosecute the world’s worst crimes. The judges could decide to try to help the community as a whole, as well as award individual damages to victims. Katanga, 38, now on trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo on other charges of war crimes and insurrection in the mineral-rich Ituri region, is liable for paying any designated compensation.
Before he sped across Westminster Bridge on Wednesday, plowing into pedestrians with a rented SUV before running onto Parliament grounds and fatally stabbing an unarmed policeman, Khalid Masood was considered by intelligence officers to be a criminal who posed little serious threat. A British-born Muslim convert, Masood had shown up on the periphery of previous terrorism investigations that brought him to the attention of Britain’s MI5 spy agency. His personal connections included people suspected of being keen to travel to join jihadi groups overseas, but Masood never joined them and was not being watched for terrorism, according to an anonymous U.S. government source.
In what might be the ultimate test of wills, President Trump and GOP lawmakers will proceed this morning with a vote in the House on the American Health Care bill, not sure if they have the votes to pass it. The risky move was presented to GOP lawmakers behind closed doors Thursday night after a long and intense day that saw a planned vote on the health care bill scrapped as the legislation remained short of votes amid cascading negotiations among conservative lawmakers, moderates and others. Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, told lawmakers the president had had enough and was ready to move on.
If you’ve ever thought of your smartphone as your second brain, the analogy may not be far off. A new study shows that when we follow navigational instructions, such as those given by GPS devices, the parts of our actual brains that normally perform navigation remain quiet. And, over time, this could mean humans will get worse at using their brains for pathfinding, said the study’s main author, Amir-Homayoun Javadi, a neuroscientist at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom.
President Trump says he doesn’t necessarily need facts before making such evidence-free claims as, say, former President Barack Obama’s wiretapping the phones at Trump Tower, because they’ve later been proved right. “I’m a very instinctual person,” Trump told Time magazine’s Michael Scherer in a phone interview from the Oval Office on Wednesday. “But my instinct turns out to be right.” The president offered a list of things he says he “predicted,” including Brexit, Anthony Weiner’s sexting scandal, Bernie Sanders’ loss in the Democratic primary. He even regarded as upheld his false suggestion that a terror attack had occurred in Sweden the night before. Trump said such predictions are why he believes other unsubstantiated claims, like 3 million undocumented people voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election, will be proved right too.
Tyrannosaurus rex and his buddies could be on the move as a new study proposes a massive shakeup of the dinosaur family tree. Scientists who took a deeper look at dinosaur fossils suggest a different evolutionary history for dinosaurs, moving theropods such as T. rex to a new branch of the family tree and hinting at an earlier and more northern origin for other dinosaurs. The revised dinosaur tree makes more sense than the old one, initially designed more than a century ago based on hip shape, said Matt Baron, a paleontology doctoral student at the University of Cambridge in England. He is the lead author of the study in Wednesday’s journal Nature.
Researchers have found that vitamin D seems to play an important role in the development — and prevention — of autism. A study at the Queensland Brain Institute found that giving vitamin D supplements to mice during pregnancy completely prevented autism traits in their offspring. Previous research showed a link between pregnant women with low vitamin D levels and the increased likelihood of having a child with autistic traits. Sun exposure is the major source of vitamin D — which skin cells manufacture in response to UV rays — but it is also found in some foods. A new injection of funding has opened the field for researchers to take next steps in determining how much vitamin D supplement is necessary to reproduce these results in humans, says Dr. Wei Luan, a postdoctoral researcher involved in the study.
Taliban fighters have captured the strategic district of Sangin in the southern Afghan province of Helmand after security forces pulled out, leaving the district center to the insurgents, officials said on Thursday. The capture of the town in the opium-rich region of Helmand, where U.S. and British forces suffered heavy casualties until it was handed over to Afghan personnel, underscores the Taliban’s growing strength and the scale of the challenge facing the western-backed Afghan government and its international partners. Afghan forces have struggled to contain the spreading insurgency since international troops ended combat operations in 2014, leaving the Afghans to fight largely alone. With warmer spring weather beginning, increased fighting is expected across Afghanistan, and security officials have warned that 2017 may be even tougher than last year.
After seven years of fervent promises to repeal and replace “Obamacare,” President Donald Trump and GOP congressional leaders buckled at a moment of truth Thursday, putting off a planned showdown vote in a stinging setback for the young administration. The White House insisted the House vote would still happen — Friday morning instead — but with opposition flowing from both strongly conservative and moderate-leaning GOP lawmakers, that was far from assured. The delay was announced after Trump, who ran for president as a master deal-maker, failed to close the deal with a group of fellow Republicans in the first major legislative test of his presidency. Still, leaders of the conservative Freedom Caucus said they were continuing to work with the White House late Thursday on their demands to limit the requirements on insurance companies now in place under former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Under legislation inspired by former “Jersey Shore” reality TV star Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, no more than $10,000 of state money could go to pay speakers at New Jersey’s public universities. The Democrat-controlled Assembly is scheduled to vote on the bill Thursday. If approved, it will go to Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s desk. Republican Assemblyman John DiMaio says he was inspired to write the measure after Polizzi earned $32,000 to speak at Rutgers’ commencement in 2011.
U.S. wireless carriers Verizon and AT&T said on Wednesday that they have suspended advertising on Google’s YouTube and other platforms not related to search. AT&T is removing ads from the nonsearch inventory on Google because its “ads may have appeared alongside YouTube content promoting terrorism and hate,” the company wrote in an email. Verizon said it had suspended all advertising not related to search on Google’s nonsearch platforms after its ads were appearing on “non-sanctioned websites,” a spokeswoman wrote said.
As President Trump, a self-proclaimed master dealmaker, tries to push a health care bill through Congress, he is encountering an entrenched Republican political culture that for years has been rewarded for saying no. Over the last decade, Republicans who wanted to raise money or their profile could simply oppose then-President Barack Obama and get re-elected based on the success of their efforts to obstruct him. Meanwhile, outside groups such as Heritage Action, FreedomWorks and the Club for Growth — who are now opposing Trump’s health care replacement proposal, saying it does not go far enough — have followed this arc, too.
The United States is on top of the baseball world. Behind a brilliant, 1-hit performance from starter Marcus Stroman and a relentless offensive attack, Team USA defeated previously unbeaten Puerto Rico 8-0 to win its first World Baseball Classic. Stroman’s dominance quieted a Puerto Rico offense that had racked up 55 runs over its previous seven wins and earned him the honor of tournament MVP.
British police have made seven arrests in armed raids after an attack near Parliament that left four people dead and around 40 injured, the country’s top antiterrorism officer said on Thursday. In what police called a terrorist incident, authorities worked around the clock to piece together what happened when the attacker drove an SUV into several pedestrians on nearby Westminster Bridge, then charged at a policeman at the Parliament gates, stabbing him to death with a large knife before being gunned down by officers. Parliament was locked down for several hours, and police evacuated hundreds of MPs and visitors to nearby Westminster Abbey and the Metropolitan Police headquarters.
International researchers say they have found a way to assess a person’s genetic risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by a given age, a tool that could lead to better diagnosis and treatment. The report in the journal PLOS Medicine was based on genetic data from more than 70,000 Alzheimer’s patients and elderly people without the disease participating in several major global studies on dementia. Most people with the disease begin to show symptoms in their 60s, but rarer cases of early onset Alzheimer’s can begin as early as the 30s.
Chicago police said Wednesday they were looking for up to six suspects who allegedly raped a teenage girl and broadcast the assault on Facebook Live. The victim was a 15-year-old girl, who went missing Sunday and was reunited with her family on Tuesday morning. It was the latest in a series of troubling incidents in which violent acts have been streamed live on Facebook, including two fatal shootings and the kidnapping and torture of a disabled 18-year-old.
As the godfather of the NBA’s modern player rest movement, San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich has long championed the importance of limiting the wear and tear on players’ bodies in order to prolong their careers and increase the chances of deep runs in the postseason. Commissioner Adam Silver has long been sympathetic to Popovich’s point of view, acknowledging the science that proves what a difference rest can make. But now that Silver is ramping up the pressure to consider more than just X’s and O’s when deciding when to rest players en masse, Popovich and other coaches around the league say they are eager to have dialogue with the league and its television partners to address an approach that is drawing the ire of fans and business partners.
On Wednesday, the professional networking site launched a section on its network dedicated to business news, seeking to draw users onto the service more frequently to read and talk about current events, company officials said. The addition of “Trending Storylines” is the latest attempt by LinkedIn, which was acquired by Microsoft last year, to grow beyond its roots as a job-hunting service and to add features associated with social media.
A knife-wielding man went on a deadly rampage at the heart of Britain’s seat of power Wednesday, mowing down pedestrians with a car on London’s Westminster Bridge before stabbing an armed police officer to death inside the gates of Parliament. Five people were killed, including the attacker, and about 40 others were injured. Lawmakers, lords, staff and visitors were prevented from leaving as the area was put on lockdown. The man was shot by police within the perimeter of Parliament and just yards from entrances to the building itself. He died, as did two pedestrians on the bridge and a police officer. A doctor who treated the wounded said some had “catastrophic” injuries. Police said they were treating the attacks as a terrorist incident and had launched a full counterterrorism investigation. Prime Minister Theresa May condemned the attack as “sick and depraved.”
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