Are You In The Loop? A Powerful Cyclone in North Korea, Muslim Protests, and The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon
Sunday (September 9th, 2012)
Visited Yosemite lately? Three people had been exposed to a deadly mouse-borne hantavirus and now officials at the national park are warning visitors about it. There are eight people so far this summer who have been infected and of those eight, three have died. [Source]
Obama cracked a birther joke in Orlando after meeting a six-year-old boy (who turns seven this month) that was also born in Hawaii. “You were born in Hawaii? You have a birth certificate?” joked the Commander-in-Chief.
Monday (September 10th, 2012)
A study out in the journal Circulation Research shows that red wine is actually better for you when it’s not alcoholic. The non-alcoholic wine showed a significant decrease in blood pressure and lowered heart disease risk by 14 percent and the risk of stroke by 20 percent while the alcoholic wine did not seem to have these effects. [Source]
After 25 years, over 30,000 teachers and staff in Chicago are going on strike for the first time after their union and school officials failed to reach a contract agreement. That means about 400,000 students in the Chicago school district are going to be out of school until their teachers return to work. Posters about mayor Rahm Emanuel range from criticism to snide comments about his taste in music, though apparently the mayor is not a fan of Nickelback. [Source]
Serena Williams wins the U.S. Open, which is her fifteenth Grand Slam title (four of which are now from the U.S. Open). Her on-court earnings are now over $40 million, which is the first time any women’s tennis player has broken that number. Congratulations, Serena! [Source]
The Taliban threatens to kidnap and maybe even kill Prince Harry, telling their commanders in Helmand to “do whatever they can to eliminate him” after Prince Harry arrived in Afghanistan last week to fly attack helicopters. In other Buckingham Palace news, one of the Queen’s corgis just died.
Turns out the Apple ID leak wasn’t from a FBI laptop but from a company called Blue Toad, an app company. [Source]
Economists at JPMorgan Chase estimate that the release of the iPhone 5 could add one-quarter to one-half of a percentage point to the annualized growth rate of America’s GDP next quarter. [Source]
Sitting Vice President of China Xi Jinping has missed at least three scheduled meetings and so far there hasn’t been any explanation for his absences. The internet and the media try and come up with explanations ranging from pulling a muscle while swimming to getting hurt in a revenge plot by a military official. [Source]
Scientists may have found a clue to finding the cure for baldness.
Jimmy Carter has set the record for being the longest sitting ex-president. [Source]
Andy Murray wins his first Grand Slam in the US Open final. He’s the first British man to win the major since 1936, beating Novak Djokovic, a childhood rival. [Source]
Tuesday (September 11th, 2012)
The aftermath of a powerful cyclone has led North Korea to accept aid from the South Korean government for the first time in two years. The cyclone killed at least 48 and left 21,000 homeless according to North Korean media though other media reported that the death toll could be higher. [Source]
Protesters gather outside of the U.S. Embassy in Egypt and go as far as to scale the walls and pull down the American flag. They are protesting an American film that insults Prophet Mohammed. The film, Innocence of Muslims, is associated with Pastor Terry Jones (the man who burnt the Koran in protest of plans to develop an Islamic center near Ground Zero) and two Egyptians living in the United States who, according to the Egyptian press, are Coptic, a Christian minority in Egypt. [Source]
More than a million people gather in Barcelona to demand independence for Catalonia from the rest of Spain. About 1.5 million people gathered for the rally and it all went peacefully, a police spokesperson said. The Catalans rally under the slogan: “Catalonia, a new European state.”
Wednesday (September 12th, 2012)
The U.S. Ambassador to Libya is killed, along with three American members of his staff, during an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, the second largest city in Libya. He is killed Tuesday night while he and a group of embassy employees try to evacuate the building during an attack by a mob of guns and rocket-propelled grenades. [Source]
Apparently it’s possible for wild snakes to give virgin births.
The iPhone 5 is released and it does not live up to the hype. Deemed boring by many, the iPhone introduced is a thinner version of the previous iPhone but nothing shocking or amazing.
Moving pictures from a rally in Libya show Libyans trying to make peace with Americans after the horrific events at the consulate in Benghazi. [Source]
Thursday (September 13th, 2012)
Apparently a movie theater in the UK is taking silence in the theater to a whole new level. They started hiring people dressed as ninjas to quiet people who like to talk during movies.
The man behind the Arab film that ricocheted all the riots turns out to not be Sam Bacile, an Israeli man, but Nakoula Basseley Nakoul, a Coptic (Christian minority in Egypt) convict living in California. [Source]
Google implements the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon in its search engine. [Source]
Friday (September 14th, 2012)
Three members of the Kansas State Objectionary Board were looking into removing President Obama from November’s ballot because of concerns of whether or not Obama is a natural born US citizen. Joe Montgomery, the one who filed the claim, later withdrew his complaint due to public reaction.
Protests continue and spread. Protesters in Sudan attacked the German, British and American embassies. [Source]
Bomb threats at University of Texas at Austin, North Dakota State University and Hiram College prompted officials at the three schools to evacuate the campuses. [Source]
The director of the movie that has prompted and fueled protests across the Middle East is confirmed to be Alan Roberts, a softcore porn director. People who worked with Roberts, however, think that he, along with the rest of the cast and crew, may have been duped by the producers to create the anti-Islam film. [Source]
Saturday (September 15th, 2012)
After being missing from the public eye for a suspiciously long period of time, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping finally made an appearance at China Agricultural University for National Science Popularization Day. [Source]
A Wisconsin judge has struck down most of the state law backed by Governor Scott Walker regarding bargaining rights for most public workers. Walker’s administration has appealed the ruling. [Source]
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