Still Life With Meadow Flowers and Roses, a painting once thought to be by Vincent van Gogh but later dismissed has now been confirmed as an authentic work by the Dutch master.
The painting, originally considered a Van Gogh, has belonged to a Dutch museum since 1974.
But doubts crept in due to the painting style and the unusual canvas size and it was discredited in 2003.
However, experts have now authenticated the painting as being a Van Gogh using an X-ray technique.
The painting has now been hung in the Van Gogh section of the Kroeller-Mueller museum in Otterlo for the first time.
The work is thought to have come from the period when Vincent Van Gogh’s lived with his brother Theo in Paris from 1886.
Vincent Van Gogh originally painted a canvas of two wrestlers and then painted Still Life With Meadows and Roses over it.
Vincent Van Gogh originally painted a canvas of two wrestlers and then painted Still Life With Meadows and Roses over it
Using a new X-ray technique, researchers examined the two wrestlers in more detail.
The brush strokes and pigments pointed to Vincent Van Gogh.
Researchers also discovered the large canvas was a standard format for figure paintings at the Antwerp academy where Van Gogh studied at the time.
A senior researcher at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, Louis van Tilborgh, took part in the study.
Louis van Tilborgh said the wrestlers posing half-naked in the original painting was characteristic of the Antwerp academy at the time.
Vincent Van Gogh also wrote to his brother saying that he was pleased with how the wrestler painting had turned out.
But Van Gogh later painted directly over it which experts say accounts for the “uncharacteristic exuberance” of the floral still life.
Audio recordings of a Chongqing senior officials meeting revealed that a police investigation into the family of top Chinese politician Bo Xilai led to his downfall.
The leaked recording is apparently of senior party officials being told of Bo Xilai’s anger over the investigation. He reacted by demoting Wang Lijun, police chief in Chongqing where he was party leader.
Bo Xilai, 62, was removed last week from his post as party secretary in the city.
Many had thought him in line for promotion in a leadership reshuffle.
The investigation appears to have sparked a chain of events that led to Bo Xilai’s demise, one of the most important political dramas in China in recent years.
It suggests there is a fierce battle taking place ahead of the leadership change, expected to happen at the Chinese Communist Party’s 18th congress later this year.
The audio recording, which was posted on the internet, seems to have involved senior officials in the western city of Chongqing.
They heard how the city’s police chief, Wang Lijun, told Bo Xilai in January that his family was being investigated. The politician apparently reacted angrily and demoted Wang Lijun, disregarding established practices.
Audio recordings of a Chongqing senior officials meeting revealed that a police investigation into the family of Bo Xilai led to his downfall
There have been rumors about Bo Xilai’s family for some time, many centred on his son, Bo Guagua.
Bo Guagua studied at one of Britain’s most expensive private schools, Harrow, before going on to Oxford University.
Photographs that appear to show him enjoying himself at parties have whizzed around internet sites.
Speaking at a political meeting just before he was removed from office, Bo Xilai hit back at the rumors surrounding his family.
Bo Xilai claimed that his wife and son had no assets, adding that his son’s schooling was paid for by a scholarship.
Reports that Bo Guagua drives a red Ferrari were also false, Bo Xilai said.
But the audio recording of the Chongqing meeting suggests the rumors were at least significant enough for an investigation.
Those at the gathering were told that after his demotion, Wang Lijun fled to the US consulate in Chengdu, a few hours’ drive from Chongqing, because he feared for his own safety.
Wang Lijun’s visit to the US consulate is already an established fact. This recording suggests the reason behind it.
Wang Lijun eventually came out of the consulate and was detained.
It is difficult to verify the authenticity of the recording – or how it was made and why it was released.
But Li Yuanchao, head of the communist party’s organization department, confirmed to Chongqing officials at a meeting last week that Bo Xilai had been removed because of his involvement in the Wang Lijun affair. His comments were carried on Chongqing television.
Many might wonder, though, whether this is the whole story, as this version of events is convenient for a party that likes to show it plays by the book.
This narrative suggests Bo Xilai’s demise has more to do with wrongdoing than political manoeuvring at the top.
Meanwhile, it is unclear what has now happened to Bo Xilai – and whether he is under investigation because of this alleged interference in the investigation into his family.
UN nuclear inspectors have been invited to North Korea for the first time in three years, the country’s chief nuclear negotiator Ri Yong-Ho has confirmed.
Ri Yong-Ho said the aim of the move was to implement a deal with the US.
North Korea last month agreed to suspend nuclear and long-range missile tests in return for food aid. It also agreed to allow UN inspectors in, the US said.
The invitation comes three months after Kim Jong-Un came to power following the death of his father, Kim Jong-Il.
But North Korea’s pledge to co-operate with the international community was thrown into doubt last week, when Pyongyang announced plans to launch what it called a rocket-mounted satellite.
North Korea said the launch – between 12 and 16 April – would mark the 100th birthday of its late Great Leader Kim Il-sung.
Any launch would be seen as violating UN Security Council resolutions, and the US has described the plans as “highly provocative”.
North Korea sent an invitation letter to UN nuclear watchdog three months after Kim Jong-Un came to power following the death of his father, Kim Jong-Il
The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – the UN’s nuclear watchdog – announced it had received the invitation from North Korea on Monday.
It said it would discuss the possible visit with Pyongyang and “other parties concerned”.
“Nothing has been decided yet,” IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.
The move was confirmed later by Ri Yong-Ho. Speaking in Beijing, he said: “In order to implement the agreement, we’ve sent a letter of invitation to the IAEA to send inspectors to our country.”
It is unclear how much scope for inspections the IAEA would be given.
In the past North Korea has limited access to key sites.
Pyongyang expelled IAEA inspectors 10 years ago after a deal with the US unravelled.
In 2003, the secretive Communist state withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The inspectors were allowed back several years later – but were thrown out again in 2009.
Jessica Simpson has put her extremely blooming figure down to the fact that she has a lot of amniotic fluid.
Jessica Simpson, 31, denied on several occasions that she is having twins because of her ever-increasing size.
The singer told Jimmy Kimmel last night that she had been told by doctors that the excess fluid was to blame for her larger than average baby bump.
Last week Jessica Simpson told chat show host Ellen DeGeneres that she still has a month to go, being due to give birth on April 20th.
Jessica Simpson joked: “I feel I have a bowling ball sitting on my hoo haa!”
The singer then added candidly: “Apparently I have a lot of amniotic fluid, so whenever my water breaks it will be like a fire hydrant!”
Jessica Simpson has put her extremely blooming figure down to the fact that she has a lot of amniotic fluid
Jessica Simpson also spoke about how she and fiancé Eric Johnson met, and when they are planning to tie the knot.
She said: “Eric feels like my husband already, we are just doing it a little bit backwards. We met at my house – he just came with one of my friends to my house, we were watching March madness or something.
“He came over and we sat on my stairwell and talked and I just haven’t let him leave!”
Jessica Simpson’s interview came as she was promoting her new TV show Fashion Star, and just a day after her baby shower.
Talking about the baby shower, which was attended by her sister Ashlee Simpson and famous friends including Ellen Pompeo and Jessica Alba, Jessica said: “I just had a baby shower yesterday which was unbelievable.
“It was a Charlotte’s web thing – we had a whole fair. We had fried Oreos.”
Asked by Jimmy Kimmel if she was nervous about giving birth, Jessica Simpson said: “No, I’m ready to push!”
Walt Disney expects to lose $200 million on its new movie John Carter, making it one of the biggest flops in cinema history.
The John Carter film, about a military captain transported to Mars, could result in an $80-120 million loss for Disney’s movie business during the current quarter.
Disney shares fell 1% in after hours trading after the announcement.
The company is still likely to make a substantial quarterly profit, though, thanks to its TV businesses.
It is estimated that John Carter cost $250 million to make and it is likely that Disney spent another $100 million on marketing.
Walt Disney expects to lose $200 million on its new movie John Carter, making it one of the biggest flops in cinema history
The film’s director, Pixar’s Andrew Stanton, had previously had great success with films such as Finding Nemo and Wall-E.
The John Carter film is based on a series of books written by the author of Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs.
The series began with A Princess of Mars in 1912 and ended with John Carter of Mars, published after the author’s death in 1964.
The film has taken no more than $184 million at box offices worldwide, with cinema owners receiving about half of that total.
It is difficult to compare losses on films, as studios reveal little financial detail and allowances have to be made for inflation.
The Hollywood Reporter says that last year’s biggest flop was Mars Needs Moms, which cost $150 million to make and only took $39 million at the box office.
Disney will be hoping for success from other big budget movies due for release later this year.
The list includes The Avengers, due to be released in May, and Brave, set to be released by Disney Pixar in June.
About 9,000 of possible new ancient sites have been discovered by archaeologists using computers to scour satellite images.
Jason Ur said he had found about the potential early human settlements in north-eastern Syria.
Computers scanned the images for soil discoloration and mounds caused when mud-brick settlements collapsed.
Dr. Jason Ur said surveying the same area on the ground would have taken him a lifetime.
Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researcher said: “With these computer science techniques, however, we can immediately come up with an enormous map which is methodologically very interesting, but which also shows the staggering amount of human occupation over the last 7,000 or 8,000 years.
“What’s more, anyone who comes back to this area for any future survey would already know where to go.
“There’s no need to do this sort of initial reconnaissance to find sites. This allows you to do targeted work, so it maximizes the time we have on the ground.”
About 9,000 of possible new ancient sites have been discovered by archaeologists using computers to scour satellite images
In the past, Dr. Jason Ur used declassified spy satellite photographs and the human eye to try to identify potential sites.
But over the last three years, he has worked with computer expert Bjoern Menze, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to create a software application able to classify a huge range of terrain.
Dr. Jason Ur said this had removed subjectivity and allowed them to look at a much larger area.
In all, about 9,000 possible settlements were identified across 23,000 sq km.
Ideally, Dr. Jason Ur said, some of these would be excavated, but the volatile political situation in Syria had forced them to put any ground searches on hold.
However, Dr. Jason Ur said that he hoped to conduct further research in the Kurdish provinces of northern Iraq, and follow that up with excavations that would be “a very rigorous testing of the model”.
Archaeological work in Iraq has not been popular in the past, but Dr. Jason Ur feels the time is right to identify heritage sites of importance and ensure they are not lost as the country presses on with widespread development of its towns and cities.
France launched one of the biggest manhunts in recent country’s history after three children and one adult were shot dead at Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse.
French police have linked the attack to two shootings last week in which three soldiers of North African descent died.
The same gun and the same scooter were used in all the attacks, but the gunman has not been identified, officials say.
French schools held a minute’s silence on Tuesday. The area is on the highest level of terrorism alert.
It is the first time in the country’s history that “scarlet alert” has been declared.
The measure enables the authorities to disrupt daily life and implement sweeping security measures, including mixed police-military patrols, powers to suspend public transport and close schools.
Guards are being posted outside all faith-based schools, as well as all Jewish and Muslim religious buildings.
France launched one of the biggest manhunts in recent country’s history after three children and one adult were shot dead at Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse
About 200 investigators from Paris are pursuing two main lines of inquiry – an Islamist motive or the far right.
However, Interior Minister Claude Gueant told French radio the authorities did not know who the killer was.
“For now, we carry on working. We’re no further than that,” Claude Gueant said.
The minister said “a witness saw a small video camera around the killer’s neck” and the authorities were combing the internet for any possible footage.
Claude Gueant said this was an important clue allowing police to build a psychological profile of the killer, who he described as “clearly very cold, determined and master of his actions”.
But there was no sign police were near making an arrest.
A teacher and three children were shot dead at the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, and a 17-year-old boy was seriously injured.
The shootings took place as parents were taking their children to the school on Monday.
“This man alighted from his moped and, as he was outside the school, he shot at everybody who was near him, children or adults,” local prosecutor Michel Valet told journalists.
The scooter – a black Yamaha – was stolen in Toulouse five days before the first shooting. Its number plate was picked up by closed-circuit TV cameras at the school, police sources said.
The dead were Jonathan Sandler, a 30-year-old rabbi and teacher of religion originally from Jerusalem, and his two sons, aged 4 and 5.
The fourth person killed was 7-year-old girl Myriam Monsonego, daughter of the head teacher. She died in her father’s arms.
All the dead were dual French-Israeli nationals and will be buried in Israel, the Israeli foreign ministry said.
The 17-year-old boy was seriously hurt. Initially, the killer used a 9 mm gun, but when it jammed, he switched to a .45 calibre pistol.
Police say the .45 was the same gun used to kill three soldiers in two separate shootings in Toulouse and nearby Montauban last week. All three were of North African or Caribbean origin.
The mother of a girl at the Toulouse school said she was angry with the authorities who she said had not taken last week’s incidents seriously enough and had “lost time to look for this man”.
Since the early 1980s have not been lethal attacks like this in France on Jewish targets. And even then, children were never the primary victims.
All the candidates in the French presidential election have suspended campaigning.
President Nicolas Sarkozy said his campaign would remain suspended until Wednesday at the earliest, when he is due to attend the soldiers’ funerals.
As well as Nicolas Sarkozy, opposition Socialist candidate Francois Hollande visited Toulouse to offer his condolences. Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen called on the authorities to do everything to prevent another such attack.
Bobbi Kristina Brown, Whitney Houston’s daughter, sparked controversy as she and “her adoptive brother” Nick Gordon are set to wed after stepping out with a diamond ring on her wedding finger.
However, a spokesperson for Bobbi Kristina Brown said yesterday that Whitney Houston’s only daughter is not engaged and the ring is actually her late mother’s.
Bobbi Kristina’s rep said: “Bobbi Kristina is not engaged. She is simply wearing her mother’s ring.”
The denial comes four days after reports surfaced that Bobbi Kristina Brown and Nick Gordon were planning on getting married.
Over the weekend the pair was spotted stepping out together hand-in-hand in Atlanta and last Thursday Bobbi Kristina was seen first sporting the ring as she kissed Nick Gordon on a date at a pizza parlour.
As part of Whitney Houston’s will Bobbi Kristina inherited all of her jewellery collection.
A spokesperson for Bobbi Kristina Brown said yesterday that Whitney Houston's only daughter is not engaged and the ring is actually her late mother's
The denial from Bobbi Kristina’s reps come after reports that her grandmother Cissy Houston has slammed the pair’s relationship branding it “incestuous” emerged.
On Friday Bobbi Kristina, who is mourning the death of her mother, was spotted leaving an AT&T store with Nick Gordon, who Houston raised as her own for 10 years.
Bobbi Kristina and Nick Gordon looked happily in love and held hands as they entered and left the store, in their hometown.
HadCRUT, one of the main global temperate records, which dates back to 1850, has been updated by climatologists with amendments on world temperature data.
One of the main changes is the inclusion of more data from the Arctic region, which has experienced one of the greatest levels of warming.
The amendments do not change the long-term trend, but the data now lists 2010, rather than 1998, as the warmest year on record.
The update is reported in the published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
HadCRUT is compiled by the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, and is one of three global records used extensively by climatologists.
The other two are produced by US-based researchers at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
CRU’s director, Phil Jones, explained why it was necessary to revise the UK record.
“HadCRUT is underpinned by observations and we’ve previously been clear it may not be fully capturing changes in the Arctic because we have had so little data from the area,” he said.
“For the latest version, we have included observations from more than 400 (observation) stations across the Arctic, Russia and Canada.”
Prof. Phil Jones added: “This has led to better representation of what’s going on in the large geographical region.”
HadCRUT has been updated with the inclusion of more data from the Arctic region, which has experienced one of the greatest levels of warming
Despite the revisions, the overall warming signal has not changed. The scientists say it has remained at about 0.75C (1.4F) since 1900.
Another change adopted in the HadCRUT dataset is the way sea surface temperature (SST) is recorded, allowing scientists to revisit and recalibrate past calculations.
With advances in technology in recent years, ships now have electronic sensors that can accurately record SST.
This development has highlighted a systematic anomaly in traditional methods of collating the data in the past.
This included differences in the buckets used to collect sea water for measurement, and the locations where those measurements were recorded.
Improvements in the way SST is collected has now allowed scientists to recalculate data, making amendments to the data collected in previous years.
“An example of this is the rapid change in the kinds of measurements we see in the digital archives around the Second World War,” explained Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring and attribution at the Met Office.
“Research has shown readings from buckets were generally cooler so when the database changes from one source to another, you see artificial jumps in the temperature.
“We have quantified these effects and corrected them, providing a clearer view of the evolution of global temperatures.”
US researchers have found that black bears have a surprising capacity to heal while hibernating.
Medical researchers and zoologists worked together to find that the bears’ wounds healed with almost no scarring, and were infection-free.
The scientists hope, eventually, to find out exactly how the bears’ bodies heal while their body temperature, heart rate and metabolism are reduced.
This could aid studies of human wound-healing.
The findings, published in the journal Integrative Zoology, are of particular relevance to medical researchers hoping to improve slow-healing and infection-prone wounds in elderly, malnourished or diabetic patients.
This study was part of a project by scientists from the universities of Minnesota, Wyoming and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, who have tracked 1,000 black bears, in order to monitor their health and behavior, for 25 years.
Whilst tracking the bears – using radio collars – the researchers noticed some early evidence of their surprising healing abilities.
Researchers wrote in their paper: “We identified a few animals each year with injuries resulting from gunshots or arrows from hunters; bite marks from other bears or predators.
“These wounds were considered to have been incurred some time before the bears denned, and were often infected or inflamed… in early winter.
“Yet typically, when we revisited bears in their dens a few months later, most wounds had completely resolved whether or not we [cleaned them], sutured the areas or administered antibiotics.”
To test the bear’s healing abilities experimentally, the team carefully tracked the healing of small cuts on the skin of 14 of their radio-collared bears in northern Minnesota.
Researchers have found that black bears have a surprising capacity to heal while hibernating
Between November (when the bears first settled down in their dens) and March (about a month before they emerged) the wounds healed with “minimal evidence of scarring”.
Added to this, there were no signs of infection, the layers of damaged skin regrew and many of the bears even grew hair from newly formed follicles at the site of their injuries.
Prof. David Garshelis from the University of Minnesota said: “It seems so surprising to us that their wounds would heal so well and so completely when they’re hibernating and their metabolism is slowed down.”
But, he added, the animals had many other “remarkable adaptations to hibernation”.
“They sit in the den for six months and don’t lose any appreciable muscle or bone mass, so I guess this healing is another adaptation,” Prof. David Garshelis said.
During its winter hibernation, a black bear’s core body temperature is reduced by as much as 7C (13F) and their heart rate lowers dramatically. In humans, a lowered body temperature, or conditions that hamper circulation can seriously complicate wound-healing.
For this reason, the team hopes to find out the mechanism behind the bears’ remarkable healing abilities.
Prof. David Garshelis: “We consider this to have implications for medical research.
“If we can work out how the bears heal, we hope there’ll be potential to translate this research to [studies of] human healing.”
This could be especially important for the development of treatments for slow-healing skin wounds in malnourished, hypothermic, diabetic and elderly patients.
Technology giant Apple has announced it will use its cash to start paying a dividend to shareholders and to buy back some of its shares.
Apple said it would pay a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share from July.
The company will buy back up to $10 billion of its own shares starting in the company’s next financial year, which begins on 30 September 2012.
At the end of 2011, Apple revealed it had $97.6 billion in cash. It expects to use $45 billion over the next three years.
It is the first time Apple has declared a dividend since 1995.
Apple has announced it will use its cash to start paying a dividend to shareholders and to buy back some of its shares
“We have used some of our cash to make great investments in our business through increased research and development, acquisitions, new retail store openings, strategic prepayments and capital expenditures in our supply chain, and building out our infrastructure,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement.
“You’ll see more of all of these in the future.
“Even with these investments, we can maintain a war chest for strategic opportunities and have plenty of cash to run our business. So we are going to initiate a dividend and share repurchase programme.”
Apple shares have surged to about $600 in recent days, making it the world’s most valuable company, with a stock market value of more than $500bn. Ten years ago, the shares were trading at about $10.
Booming sales of iPhones and iPads have helped the firm build up its huge cash pile.
“This is consistent with what we, and I think most, expected them to do, which is to address shareholder concerns around the huge cash stockpile while retaining enough of a reserve to keep a wide range of strategic options on the table,” said John Jackson from CCS Insight.
“This, plus the buyback, should continue to bolster the soaring share price.”
A new study suggests that free mobile apps, such as Angry Birds and Facebook, which use third-party services to display advertising, consume considerably more battery life.
Researchers used a special tool to monitor energy use by several apps on Android and Windows Mobile handsets.
Findings suggested that in one case 75% of an app’s energy consumption was spent on powering advertisements.
Report author Abhinav Pathak said app makers must take energy optimization more seriously.
Free applications typically have built-in advertisements so developers can make money without having to charge for the initial app download.
Free mobile apps which use third-party services to display advertising, consume considerably more battery life
Abhinav Pathak said developers should perhaps think twice when utilizing third-party advertising and analytics services in their app.
The research, produced by at team at Purdue University in Indiana, USA, looked at popular apps such as Angry Birds and Facebook.
Due to restrictions built into Apple’s mobile operating system, the team was unable to run tests on the iPhone.
In the case of Angry Birds, research suggested that only 20% of the total energy consumption was used to actually play the game itself.
Of the rest, 45% is used finding out your location with which it can serve targeted advertising.
The tests were carried out by running the app over a 3G connection. The results noted that many apps leave connections open for up to 10 seconds after downloading information.
In Angry Birds, that brief period – described by researchers as a “3G tail” – accounted for over a quarter of the app’s total energy consumption.
In a recent interview, Hugh Grant has claimed that his daughter’s mother Chinese actress Tinglan Hong has been “badly treated” by the media.
Hugh Grant, 51, said that press intrusion prevented him from attending the birth of his baby girl Tabitha in September 2011.
The actor told The Guardian: “I was at one of the party conferences, about to give a speech, and was pacing about on the end of the phone. I shouldn’t have gone to the hospital at all, because it brought all this attention down on the mother’s head. But I couldn’t really resist it, so I went on the second day.”
Tinglan Hong later obtained an injunction which allows Hugh Grant to visit her and baby Tabitha in peace.
Hugh Grant has claimed that his daughter's mother Chinese actress Tinglan Hong has been "badly treated" by the media
Justice Tugendhat said at the time that Tinglan Hong felt that she could not leave her home without being followed and hassled by photographers.
“Had we not got the injunction, I’m sure she’d be in China by now,” Hugh Grant said.
“She is a good person, a nice person; funny, clever, great mother. And she’s been very badly treated by the media.”
Hugh Grant will next be seen in The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists, which opens on March 28 in the UK and April 27 in the US.
A teacher and three children have been killed after a gunman opened fire at Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in the French city of Toulouse.
A teenage boy has been also seriously injured.
The attacker fled on a scooter, in similar style to the killer of three soldiers in two separate incidents in the same part of France last week.
Police say the same .45 calibre gun was used in all three attacks. The search for the killer is now under way.
Sources close to the investigation say the number plate of the scooter has now been recovered from CCTV cameras at the entrance to the school.
A special service in memory of the victims is taking place at one of the synagogues in Toulouse. There will also be a silent march in Paris at 08:00 p.m.
President Nicolas Sarkozy, who flew to Toulouse, described the attack as a “national tragedy”. He has called for all schools in France to observe a minute’s silence on Tuesday and vowed to hunt down the killer.
All candidates in the French presidential election have suspended their campaigns.
The grand rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim said he was “horrified” and “stunned” by what had happened. Israel called on the French authorities “to shed full light on this tragedy and bring the perpetrators to justice”.
Monday’s attack happened at around 08:00 a.m., as children and their parents were arriving at the school, in the Jolimont area of the city.
Witnesses said the gunman pulled up on a black scooter and began shooting at an area which serves as the drop-off point for the school’s nursery- and primary-age children.
“This man alighted from his moped and, as he was outside the school, he shot at everybody who was near him, children or adults. Children were chased right into the school,” local prosecutor Michel Valet told journalists.
A teacher and three children have been killed after a gunman opened fire at Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in the French city of Toulouse
The gunman is reported to have initially used a 9 mm gun, but when it jammed, he switched to a .45 calibre weapon.
A teacher at the school, believed to be aged 30, and his two children, aged three and six, are reported to have been killed.
The third child killed was aged between 8 and 10 years old and belonged to another teacher at the school, French media report.
A 17-year-old was seriously injured.
As the search for the killer got under way, wailing sirens and the sounds of helicopters overhead could be heard throughout the morning.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon has said extra security measures will be put in place at all schools and religious buildings.
Some 60 police officers, including anti-terrorist specialists, had already been drafted in to the Toulouse area earlier in the week to help investigate the attacks on the soldiers.
A paratrooper out of uniform was shot dead in a residential area of Toulouse just over a week ago, while two soldiers were killed and a third wounded as they used a cash machine in the town of Montauban, some 29 miles (46 km) away, on Thursday.
All three – of North African and Caribbean origin – were shot by a man on a scooter. A .45 calibre weapon was also used in the Montauban shootings.
Police have said the .45 calibre weapon fired on Monday was the same as the gun used to kill the three soldiers in Toulouse and Montauban.
Socialist leader Francois Hollande also cancelled his campaigning engagements for next month’s presidential election in order to travel to Toulouse.
“You cannot murder children like this on the territory of the Republic [France] without being held to account,” Francois Hollande said.
President Nicolas Sarkozy echoed the comments of other French officials when he said he was “struck by the similarities” of the recent attacks, but he warned against jumping to conclusions.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it “a loathsome murder of Jews, which included small children” and said an anti-Semitic motive could not be ruled out.
The Vatican also condemned the killings, as did French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who called on the authorities to do everything to prevent another such attack.
Monday’s shooting was the deadliest attack on Jews in France since a shooting in 1982 at a restaurant in Paris, when six people were killed and 22 injured.
A New Zealand judge has ruled that luxury cars, giant TVs and jewellery seized during a police raid will be returned to Megaupload owner Kim Dotcom.
The property was confiscated during a dawn raid on the New Zealand home of Kim Dotcom.
The judge has now ruled that the court order used to justify the seizure should never have been granted.
The raid led to the closure of Megaupload and seizure of the web domains it used.
Judge Judith Potter said the court order should now be considered “null and void”.
On 20 January, police in New Zealand swooped on the $32 million mansion in Auckland where Kim Dotcom lived with his family.
The raid was carried out at the request of US authorities who accuse Kim Dotcom (formerly Schmitz) and his business partners of using Megaupload to engage in large scale copyright theft.
The defendants have denied the charges and said they were diligent in policing Megaupload for any content that violated copyright laws.
A New Zealand judge has ruled that luxury cars, giant TVs and jewellery seized during a police raid will be returned to Megaupload owner Kim Dotcom
Luxury cars, jet skis, jewellery and other assets were confiscated during the January raid even though it now emerges that paperwork justifying the seizure was incorrectly filed.
The seizure left Kim Dotcom briefly unable to mount a legal defense.
Government and police in New Zealand have admitted making “procedural errors” when they filed the paperwork.
Kim Dotcom’s legal team have seized on the errors saying the initial asset grab was “unlawful” and, as a result, his property should be returned.
A hearing was scheduled after the government admitted making five separate mistakes on its first court order. During that hearing Judge Potter ruled that the original paperwork had no legal power.
Alongside documents laying bare the mistake, the New Zealand government filed a second request seeking to confiscate the assets already seized during the raid. This paperwork also sought to confiscate more assets uncovered using evidence found during the original raid.
Judge Judith Potter granted this order temporarily and said she would soon rule whether the blunder would mean Kim Dotcom’s assets would be returned to him.
Heavily airbrushed photographs of Demi Moore from the latest campaign for beauty brand Helena Rubinstein are released and it is appears that any such signs of stress have been entirely erased.
More than that, thanks to an over-zealous session with Photoshop and the omnipresent airbrush, the natural contours of Demi Moore’s face are gone: her strong, angular chin; the lines running from nose to mouth, the shape of her nose – all are entirely obliterated.
Demi Moore, 49, is all but unrecognizable. In her place is a bleached, smooth, line-free version of Demi Moore that looks more like a computer generated fembot than the familiar Hollywood actress with five decades under her belt.
Demi Moore almost unrecognizable after extreme airbrushing for Helena Rubinstein campaign
Life & Style Picture Editor Craig Gunn, who studied a digital version of the images, said: “This would have had been done by someone very expert and would have been at least a day’s work.
“Without seeing the original photographs I can only speculate. But it looks as though the skintone has been heavily airbrushed, with quite a thick application of the brush. Doing this gets rid of all pit marks, pores, moles, blemishes and fine hairs on the face to create a smoother look.”
After a marriage breakdown, severe weight loss and drug-related collapse, Demi Moore has been looking less than her best
“In Demi’s case, they have left nothing behind.
“In the process they’ve also taken out a lot of her natural skintone, and made her look a lot paler than she is in reality.
“She does have good cheekbones herself, but here it looks as though they have been heavily defined in after-effects. The shading underneath is quite clearly enhanced.
“Her natural hazel eyes have been changed to a light green – probably by changing the hue in Photoshop, a simple process that takes moments.
“It’s tricky to see exactly what liquefication she has had done (a process that reshapes and slims the shape of the face, making it look narrower) because the photographer has cleverly made Demi cover the jaw area using her hands.
“But it does look as though she may have had a slight reduction of scale of her face, including a smoothing of her chin into a more almond-like, less angular shape. Her chin bone is visible in normal photos but is not at all here.
“Such subtle changes would change the resulting face shape quite dramatically, even if individually each element is quite subtle.”
Regarding her flawless hairline, Craig Gunn says this too was more than likely created in Photoshop.
“There’s only so much they can do with hair and make up,” he says.
“And here they have clearly made the hairline look very symmetrical.
“She looks quite unlike her usual self. It’s a slightly alien effect. When you start taking away people’s skintones and smoothing out their features, they look like mannequins. You’re removing the human elements of the face.
“There’s no doubt it makes celebrities and models look younger, but you lose the essence of their face.
“Still, it’s commonplace in the beauty industry. It’s all about creating symmetry – but it’s a false beauty.”
Hugh Grant has opened up for the first time about his baby daughter, who he had with former girlfriend Tinglan Hong, admitting that he likes his first child “very much”.
Hugh Grant, 51, made the admission as he revealed he and Chinese actress Tinglan Hong had decided to call the little girl Tabitha.
The famous actor told The Guardian newspaper: “Lots of people warned me that the baby period is not that exciting.
“But I am excited, actually. I thought, well, I’ll bluff through – but very little bluffing has been required.”
Hugh Grant also said he has no regrets about becoming a father for the first time.
The actor said: “I like my daughter very much. Fantastic. Has she changed my life? I’m not sure.
“Not yet. Not massively, no. But I’m absolutely thrilled to have had her, I really am. And I feel a better person.”
Hugh Grant has opened up about his baby daughter Tabitha, who he had with Chinese actress Tinglan Hong
Hugh Grant, who described his relationship with Tinglan Hong as a “fleeting affair”, added to the newspaper that he has no intention of starting a trust fund for his little girl Tabitha.
He explained: “My other worry is about – and as I say, there are few things in life I believe in 100 per cent – but another one is not giving your children money.
“I see nothing but f***-ups among my trust-fund friends. It’s like 99 per cent f***-ups. So I would not want to do that to my children, no.”
Hugh Grant, who has never married, has starred in films including About A Boy and Notting Hill.
In 1995, Hugh Grant starred alongside Julianne Moore in the film Nine Months, which told the story of a commitment-phobe who finds out his long-term girlfriend is pregnant.
Hugh Grant also dated Elizabeth Hurley for 13 years before they split in 2000, five years after he was caught cheating with Hollywood prostitute Divine Brown.
The actor and socialite Jemima Khan then dated for three years from 2004.
Jessica Simpson was seen showing off her blooming figure as she celebrated her baby shower surrounded by her family and famous friends.
Among those attending were Jessica Simpson’s younger sister Ashlee, Ellen Pompeo and actress and mother-of-two Jessica Alba.
According to Us Weekly the affair was themed with pink and yellow tube shaped balloons and spring tulips to decorate the location.
Jessica Simpson, 31, and her fiance Eric Johnson arrived at the venue before any of her famous guests, with Johnson suited and booted for the occasion in a black suit and baby blue shirt.
Apparently the event saw around 50 of the star’s closest friends and family from Texas show up.
Jessica Simpson was seen showing off her blooming figure as she celebrated her baby shower surrounded by her family and famous friends
A source told Us Weekly: “It was a kid friendly shower with many of her friends bringing babies.”
Jessica Alba brought her youngest daughter Haven, seven months, and Ashlee Simpson brought Bronx, three.
The source added: “She received tons of gifts mostly wrapped in pink gift wrap and boxes. There were several books, stuffed toys and clothes among other items.”
Researchers from the University of British Columbia have unlocked a secret code written on everyone’s face which reveals when people are lying.
Scientists have discovered for the first time, five tell-tale muscle groups that control facial expressions, activate differently when we are trying to deceive.
They based their study on more than 23,000 frames of television footage from 52 people emotionally pleading to the public for the return of a missing relative – half of whom were eventually convicted of murdering that person.
The first study of its kind to focus on so-called “high-stakes” emotional deception, discovered that even the most convincing of actors cannot control their facial muscles.
The paper – called Darwin the Detective: Observable Facial Muscle Contractions Reveal Emotional High-Stakes Lies – looked for emotional “leakage”, particularly via those facial muscles which are harder to control – particularly during stressful events or when great concentration is required to maintain a lie.
“Specifically, the <<grief>> muscles, the corrugator supercilli – located around the eyebrow – and depressor anguli oris – between the chin and corner of the lips – were more often contracted in the faces of <<genuine>> rather than <<deceptive pleaders>>,” researchers from the University of British Columbia found.
Researchers from the University of British Columbia have unlocked a secret code written on everyone’s face which reveals when people are lying
Researchers found subtle contraction of the zygomatic major – which runs from cheekbone to the mouth – activated during masking smiles, and full contraction of the frontalis – the brow – which flexed during failed attempts to appear sad, “were more commonly identified in the faces of deceptive pleaders”.
The study said: “During the critical lie, told by each deceptive murderer, upper face surprise and lower face happiness were likely to be expressed, attributed to the failed attempt to appear sad and leakage of happiness.
“Deception – a fundamental aspect of human communication – often is accompanied by the simulation of unfelt emotions or the concealment of genuine emotions to correspond to the false message…
“Given limited cognitive resources and the difficulty of necessary multi-tasking during deception, we suggest that emotional leakage is particularly likely to occur when the lie is complex and/or associated with strong emotions to be concealed or falsified.”
The study concluded “findings support the notion that the human face is indelibly stamped with the tale of our humble origin and attempts to mask our emotions are likely to fail when engaging in a consequential act of deception”.
Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have found that a mutation in a particular gene can lead to obesity.
Mouse experiments suggested the body’s message to “stop eating” was blocked if the animals had the mutation.
The study, published in Nature Medicine, said the brain’s response to appetite hormones was being disrupted.
US researchers hope their findings could lead to new ways to control weight.
Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have found that a mutation in a particular gene can lead to obesity
Many genes have been linked to obesity; one of them – brain-derived neurotrophic factor gene (BDNF) – has been shown to play a role in putting on weight in animal and some human studies.
However, scientists at the Georgetown University Medical Center said the explanation for this link was unknown.
In studies on mice which had been genetically modified to have the mutation, the mice consumed up to 80% more food than normal.
After a meal, hormones such as insulin and leptin should tell the brain that the body is full and should stop eating. The researchers showed that in the mutated mice the message was not being passed on from the hormones in the blood to the correct part of the brain.
One of the researchers Prof. Baoji Xu said: “If there is a problem with the BDNF gene, neurons can’t talk to each other, and the leptin and insulin signals are ineffective, and appetite is not modified.”
Prof. Baoji Xu said the discovery “may open up novel strategies to help the brain control body weight” such as finding a “drug that can stimulate BDNF expression”.
Two children and one adult have been killed in a shooting outside a Jewish school in Toulouse, south-west France.
Eyewitnesses said a man opened fire on people waiting at a school drop-off point and then fled on a scooter.
The attack is reported to have happened outside Ozar Hatorah school in the Jolimont area of the city.
The latest incident comes days after three soldiers were shot dead by a man on a scooter in the same part of France.
A 30-year-old paratrooper was gunned down in a residential area of Toulouse just over a week ago, while two soldiers were killed and a third wounded as they used a cashpoint in the town of Montauban, some 29 miles (46km) away, on Thursday.
Two children and one adult have been killed in a shooting outside Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse, south-west France
Local residents immediately linked last week’s attacks with the latest shootings.
Christopher Bockman, a freelance journalist in Toulouse, said the soldiers who had been targeted were of ethnic origin and it appeared as if the gunman was deliberately targeting ethnic minorities in the area.
He said the city was in lockdown as police scoured the streets for the culprit.
A French television correspondent at the scene said a man on a black scooter opened fire, killing three people – including two children – and badly wounding several others.
Interior Minister Claude Gueant has ordered security to be tightened around all French Jewish schools and is due to arrive in the city later in the morning, the AFP news agency reports.
UPS (United Parcel Service) has agreed to buy rival TNT (Thomas Nationwide Transport) in a 5.2 billion-euro ($6.8 billion) deal.
TNT has accepted an improved bid of 9.5 Euros a share, a 54% premium on its closing price of 6.18 Euros on 16 February, the day before the two firms announced they were in talks.
The takeover is being seen as a move by UPS to expand its business in Europe.
UPS has agreed to buy rival TNT in a $6.8 billion deal
UPS is the world’s largest package delivery company.
“The complementary strengths of both organizations will create a customer-focused global platform that will be a leader in transportation technology and customer service,” the companies said in a joint statement.
“The combination underlines UPS’s long-standing commitment to Europe by expanding its express capabilities in Europe.”
Damascus bomb blasts over the weekend have been followed by firefight between the rebel Free Syria Army and the forces of President Bashar al-Assad.
Witnesses say the sound of machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades can be heard from the district of al-Mezze.
The central neighborhood hosts several security facilities and is one of the most heavily guarded areas.
The UN estimates more than 8,000 people have now died in a year-long uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.
Al-Mezze has previously been the scene of large anti-government protests.
One resident told Reuters news agency that there was “fighting near Hamada supermarket and the sound of explosions there and elsewhere in the neighborhood”.
The resident added: “Security police have blocked several side streets and the street lighting has been cut off.”
Opposition activist Amer al-Sadeq said he had spoken to a contact in al-Mezze who reported four blasts within five minutes and then heavy gunfire.
Al-Mezze is an upmarket residential area but has a substantial security presence. Close by is the Mezze 86 district, a security stronghold, whose residents are loyal to President Assad.
Early last month, residents of 86 district fired at protesters who took to the streets calling for an end of President Assad’s rule.
Damascus bomb blasts over the weekend have been followed by firefight between the rebel Free Syria Army and the forces of President Bashar al-Assad
In January the Free Syria Army briefly seized several Damascus suburbs.
The latest incident follows bomb blasts in Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo over the weekend.
The car bomb that exploded in Aleppo on Sunday killed at least two people and injured 30 others.
A day earlier, at least 27 people were reported to have been killed and 97 wounded in two explosions in the capital.
State TV described the blasts as “terrorist” attacks.
However, activists have accused the authorities of staging incidents to discredit opposition groups.
As diplomatic efforts to end the crisis continue, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Jakob Kellenberger, has travelled to Moscow to meet Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and ask the Russian government to press Syria to allow more humanitarian access.
The ICRC says that, in the worst-hit areas, a daily pause in the fighting of at least two hours was needed for the evacuation of the wounded and to allow in food and medicine.
Russia is a key ally of Syria and, along with China, has thwarted attempts to form a UN resolution condemning the repression.
Sergei Lavrov is likely to say that while Russia is engaging with Syria, it cannot tell the government there what to do.
There is some frustration in Moscow with the speed at which Damascus is responding to some initiatives, particularly that of UN and Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan.
In another development, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces beat and arrested senior opposition figure Mohammed Sayyed Rassas on Sunday.
Mohammed Sayyed Rassas, a leader of the National Co-ordinating Body for Democratic Change (NCB), had been taking part in a protest march in Damascus, the group said.
President Bashar al-Assad is trying to quell an increasingly armed rebellion that sprang from a fierce crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy protests a year ago.
He insists his troops are fighting “armed gangs” seeking to destabilize Syria.
