Minutes after sunset on 4 January 1984, the body of Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson entered the Pacific Ocean from the deck of a US Coast Guard ship. For civilians, burials at sea happen only with approval from a vice admiral or higher authority. That authority, in Wilson’s case, was also one of the biggest…
Author: THEJOHNANTONIOBLOG
Much shorter working weeks needed to tackle climate crisis – study
People across Europe will need to work drastically fewer hours to avoid disastrous climate heating unless there is a radical decarbonising of the economy, according to a study. The research, from thinktank Autonomy, shows workers in the UK would need to move to nine-hour weeks to keep the country on track to avoid more than…
22 arrested across Europe in swoop on ‘dangerous drug gang’
Police have arrested 22 suspects in an operation across five countries that dismantled one of Europe’s top criminal groups behind drug trafficking and assassinations, the EU’s police agency has said. The operation, codenamed Icebreaker, which took place last week, led to the arrest of the 48-year-old Lithuanian alleged ringleader in Spain and other suspects in…
Could you give up flying? Meet the no-plane pioneers
It has taken Roger Tyers four days to reach Moscow by train from Kiev. His destination is Beijing: a trip that will take 14 days, with a couple of overnight stops along the way. Tyers, an environmental sociologist at the University of Southampton, is on his way to China to research attitudes to the environment,…
Last name first, first name last: Japan minister tells foreign media to get it right
Japan’s foreign minister will ask international media organisations to use the family name first when writing Japanese names – as is customary in the Japanese language – in an attempt to reverse a century of linguistic convention. Taro Kono – or perhaps that should be Kono Taro – said foreign media should follow the same…
San Francisco boasts world’s highest salaries amid rising homelessness
Stock market gadflies were predicting a wealth boom to strike San Francisco this year, with several big-name tech companies set to enter the public market. But according to Deutsche Bank, the city is already there. San Francisco beat out all other world cities for having the highest salaries and most disposable income, according to Deutsche…
‘I get called a sell-out all the time’: Trump’s voters of colour speak out
Donald Trump likes to claim, among other things, that his presidency has been a huge success for non-white Americans. But for all his claims, repeated polls show the president remains very unpopular among people from ethnic minority backgrounds. Nowhere is that more apparent than at his rallies. In Montoursville, Pennsylvania, on Monday evening, the line…
Chagos Islands: isolated UK and US face thrashing in UN vote on ownership
The UK and US are facing a diplomatic rout at the United Nations on Wednesday when the general assembly is expected to vote overwhelmingly to demand Britain relinquish hold of one of the last vestiges of empire in the Indian Ocean. Both countries have lobbied intensely at the UN to avoid support for Britain dropping…
Congo violence sparks fears over UK Ebola response
The UK has agreed not to publicly disclose how much funding has been allocated to the Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, following warnings this might put those responding to the outbreak at risk. Harriett Baldwin, minister of state for Africa, said the Congolese government had asked for these details not to…
Digital assistants like Siri and Alexa entrench gender biases, says UN
Assigning female genders to digital assistants such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa is helping entrench harmful gender biases, according to a UN agency. Research released by Unesco claims that the often submissive and flirty responses offered by the systems to many queries – including outright abusive ones – reinforce ideas of women as subservient….