The French state will reimburse 100 percent of the cost of abortions beginning 1 April, while girls aged between 15 and 18 will be offered access to free and anonymous birth control.
The change comes as a law approved in late 2012 comes into force.
Until now, French women over 18 could only receive up to 80 percent of the cost of the procedure, which can run up to 450 euros.
There are around 12,000 such procedures a year in France — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Roger Ebert, the popular film critic and television co-host who along with his fellow reviewer and sometime sparring partner Gene Siskel could lift or sink the fortunes of a movie with their trademark thumbs up or thumbs down, died on Thursday in Chicago. He was 70.
His was announced by The Chicago Sun-Times, where he had worked for many years.
Mr Ebert’s struggle with cancer, starting in 2002, gave him an altogether different public image — as someone who refused to surrender to illness. Though he had operations for cancer of the thyroid, salivary glands and chin, lost his ability to eat, drink and speak (he was fed through a tube and a prosthesis partly obscured the loss of much of his chin) and became a gaunter version of his once-portly self, he continued to write reviews and commentary and published a cookbook he had started, on meals that could be made with a rice cooker.
When I am writing, my problems become invisible, and I am the same person I always was,
he told Esquire magazine in 2010. All is well. I am as I should be
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
Around 17 million people in Germany suffer from impaired hearing. For many of them, their hearing is so damaged that a standard hearing aid is no longer enough. A new device will improve patients’ hearing and can be implanted during outpatient surgery — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Residents have been evacuated and traffic diverted in Berlin as sappers defused an unexploded WWII bomb near the capital’s main train station on Wednesday.
A police spokesman said the 100 kilogram explosive was dropped by an Allied plane during the Second World War. Media reports said it was a Soviet bomb.
The site lies about 1.5 kilometres north of the main station and the rail operator, Deutsche Bahn, said up to 50 regional and long-distance trains had to be re-directed to other hubs from 9:00am (local time).
The bomb was found [on Tuesday] afternoon on property belonging to the rail company,
the police spokesman said.
The changed travel plan was expected to last three hours, with suburban train links unaffected and the main station itself still open.
It took just half an hour for the disposal team to complete the delicate operation — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A year ago, I published a series that sought to identify the real-life hackers behind the top spam botnets. Using much the same methodology, I was able to identify and locate a young man in Russia who appears (and privately claims) to be the author of Flashback. As it happens, this individual hangs out on many of the same forums as the world’s top spammers (but more on that at another time).
Given Flashback’s focus on gaming Google’s ad networks, I suspected that the worm’s author probably was a key member of forums that focus on so-called black hat SEO
, (search engine optimisation), or learned in illicit ways to game search engines and manipulate ad revenues. Sure enough, this individual happens to be a very active and founding member of BlackSEO.com, a closely guarded Russian language forum dedicated to this topic.
Below is a screen shot taken from a private message between a VIP
user named Mavook
and a top forum member on BlackSEO.com. The conversation took place on 14 July 2012. A rough translation of their conversation is superimposed on the redacted screen grab, but basically it shows Mavook asking the senior member for help in gaining access to Darkode.com, a fairly exclusive English-language cybercrime forum (and one that I profiled in a story earlier this week).
Mavook asks the other member to get him an invitation to Darkode, and Mavook is instructed to come up with a brief bio stating his accomplishments, and to select a nickname to use on the forum if he’s invited. Mavook replies that the Darkode nick should be not be easily tied back to his BlackSEO persona, and suggests the nickname Macbook
. He also states that he is the Creator of Flashback botnet for Macs
, and that he specialises in finding exploits and creating bots
— via Krebs on Security
Sammy Fox, originally uploaded by Melanie Stanton.
Having a Wonderful Vacation, originally uploaded by ElectroSpark
— via Steve Niles Tumblr
The New Haven Police Department had to improvise during a standoff to coax two suspects, who were wanted for stealing a car, out of a house by literally barking like dogs.
The standoff came after investigators said the two men led them on a chase through Hamden into the Elm City.
Officers were called to a home on Emerson Street at after masked men were seen entering the residence at 10:40 a.m.
The officer knew that the first floor was vacant, no one was home on the second floor and there was a family on the third floor who were told by police to lock their doors and stay put.
A dozen officers surrounded the multi-family house.
He’s pretty scared to get back into his house,
said Gideon Gurley, who witnessed the standoff. It’s not good for the neighbourhood.
According to police, Kwame Wells-Jordan, 20, of Hamden and Norman Boone, 23, of New Haven were holed up in the stairwell of the home.
Police hostage negotiators threatened to unleash the canine units, but the dogs weren’t available.
So they had officers pretend to bark like dogs and it worked.
The two men walked outside and were arrested on the spot — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Red Barn, originally uploaded by Doug Solis.
Another bonus of playing Daryl Dixon is the fact that he has his own Hello Kitty character, he even has his own Daryl Hello Kitty
iPhone cover (some people have it all) — via Nerd Like You
Infogr.am is a free webapp that ingests spreadsheets and .csv files, and spits out gorgeous, interactive infographics. If your job involves distilling and presenting data, infogr.am might be your new best weapon. Once you’ve imported your data, you can illustrate it with standard bar, line, and pie charts, as well as a dizzying selection of customizable templates and interactive elements. For example, if your data has a geographical element, you can incorporate a zoomable map. If it involves sorting people into different groups or demographics, you can do that with a cloud of color-coded human outlines. The finished product beats the pants off of anything you could make in Excel, and you easily share it on social networks or embed it on your own site
Marine biologists have learned new secrets about the Humboldt squid by attaching video cameras to the elusive creature, which has a razor sharp beak and hooks on its suckers and can reach the size of a grown man.
The footage revealed previously unknown information about the carnivorous squid, including that they hunt in large, synchronized groups, are able to travel at nearly 45 mph and rapidly change their body color when they are near other Humboldt squid to communicate, according to a study from Stanford University.
Researchers used the National Geographic Society’s Crittercam to film the behavior of the squid. Getting the camera on the slippery squid took some MacGyver-like innovation. William Gilly, of Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station in Monterey, California, used a child’s bathing suit cut to fit like an elastic sleeve.
The footage, along with tagging studies, have shed new light on the creatures — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Octopus, originally uploaded by Brandon Galbraith.
A Japanese man who allegedly tried to kill a woman he was stalking by putting poison in her shoes has been arrested.
The woman, who is a colleague of suspect Tatsujiro Fukasawa, did not die but developed gangrene in part of her left foot, police said.
It was not known to what extent she was injured or if she had to have any amputations.
Fukasawa, 40, allegedly put hydrofluoric acid, a highly caustic chemical, in her shoes in December, a police spokeswoman said — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A large new government study should reassure parents who are afraid that kids are getting autism because they receive too many vaccines too early in life.
The study, by researchers at the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, found no connection between the number of vaccines a child received and his or her risk of autism spectrum disorder. It also found that even though kids are getting more vaccines these days, those vaccines contain many fewer of the substances that provoke an immune response.
The study offers a response to vaccine skeptics who have suggested that getting too many vaccines on one day or in the first two years of life may lead to autism, says Frank DeStefano, director of the Immunization Safety Office of the CDC.
To find out if that was happening, DeStefano led a team that compared the vaccine histories of about 250 children who had autism spectrum disorder with those of 750 typical kids. Specifically, the researchers looked at what scientists call antigens. An antigen is a substance in a vaccine that causes the body to produce antibodies, proteins that help fight off infections.
The team looked at medical records to see how many antigens each child received and whether that affected the risk of autism. The results, published in The Journal of Pediatrics, were unequivocal — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Amphibian horror
isn’t a movie genre, but on this evidence perhaps it should be. Harvard biologists have described a bizarre, hairy frog with cat-like extendable claws.
Trichobatrachus robustus actively breaks its own bones to produce claws that puncture their way out of the frog’s toe pads, probably when it is threatened.
David Blackburn and colleagues at Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, think the gruesome behaviour is a defence mechanism.
The researchers say there are salamanders that force their ribs through their skin to produce protective barbs on demand, but nothing quite like this mechanism has been seen before.
The feature is also found in nine of the 11 frogs belonging to the Astylosternus genus, most of which live in Cameroon — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The Executive is an all aluminium polished keyboard with a clean black and silver theme. The elements of this wonderfully hand crafted keyboard declare confidence and boldness — traits typically reserved for people of great attainment. Just as a company’s executive defines the success of the business, the Executive keyboard defines the success of one’s work space — via Etsy
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