Kanye West will headline this year’s Glastonbury festival performing on the Pyramid stage on Saturday night, organizer Emily Eavis has confirmed.
Emily Eavis has tweeted: “We are thrilled to let you know we have the one and only Kanye West headlining Saturday night on the Pyramid stage!”
The Foo Fighters had already been confirmed as Friday night’s headliners, while the main act for the Sunday night has yet to be announced.
Tickets for Glastonbury 2015 sold out in less than 30 minutes in October 2014.
Photo Instagram
Music fans paid £225 ($340) for a ticket to the festival held at Worthy Farm in Somerset.
Back in 2008, Noel Gallagher claimed it was “wrong” to have a hip-hop headliner when Jay-Z performed on the Saturday.
Today’s announcement seemed to have passed Kanye West by at first as he spent much of it tweeting topless pictures of his wife.
Kanye West, 37, has since acknowledged the announcement tweeting: “Excited to announce I’m headlining Pyramid stage Saturday night @glastofest this year.”
The search for remaining bodies from AirAsia plane crash in the Java Sea has been officially ended on March 17, head of Indonesia’s rescue agency Bambang Soelistyo has confirmed.
AirAsia lost contact with flight QZ8501 on December 28 as it was flying from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore with 162 people on board.
The search effort has recovered 106 bodies, with 56 unaccounted for.
The families of those missing are disappointed but understand that the search cannot go on indefinitely.
AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes told reporters last week that he was satisfied with the search operation.
“We have been successful… To get more than 50% is considered a huge success,” he said.
Tony Fernandes added that the search could not “go on indefinitely”.
The fuselage of the crashed plane was located in the Java Sea in mid January and the final part of it that was recoverable was removed at the end of February. Divers established that those elements of fuselage that had to be left in the sea did not contain any bodies.
The bodies that were recovered were mostly found in and around the wreckage, with a few discovered some 625 miles away, off the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Three were found as recently as March 14.
The plane’s two “black box” flight recorders were also found. They revealed several alarms were “screaming”, drowning out the sound of the pilots’ voices.
Indonesia’s transport minister has said that radar data showed the plane climbing at an abnormally high rate. This could have caused it to stall, experts say.
The plane is thought to have been attempting to fly above a storm. The pilot’s last contact was a request to divert around bad weather.
The less experienced co-pilot was at the controls at the time, investigators have said.
A large crater on the Earth-facing side of the Moon has been named after aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart – the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.
This the first detection of its kind in at least a century, scientists said.
The 200km-wide buried crater was found in data from NASA’s Grail spacecraft, which mapped the Moon’s gravity field.
The results were presented at a major scientific meeting in Texas.
The discovery was the outcome of work by Rohan Sood, Loic Chappaz and Prof. H. Jay Melosh at Purdue University, where Amelia Earhart was a member of the academic faculty from 1935 until her death in 1937.
The find was made while the scientists were searching the data for evidence of hollow underground structures known as lava tubes.
Speaking at the 46th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in The Woodlands, Prof. H. Jay Melosh said: “No-one to our knowledge has ever recognized this as the broken rim of a crater, and we wouldn’t have either except that gravity shows it up very clearly as a big circular anomaly [in the Grail data].”
The Serenitatis Basin is thought to have been created by a giant impact about 3.9 billion years ago. So Earhart crater, which lies partially buried under the debris, must be at least that age, but how much older is not known at this stage.
Grail measured variations in the acceleration of gravity, which can provide a window into the Moon’s internal structure.
The researchers used a mathematical correction that takes away the part that is due to the topography of the lunar surface, in order to show what was underneath.
Further mathematical modeling carried out by Loic Chappaz revealed that the signature picked up near the Serenitatis Basin could be best explained by a crater 200km in diameter.
The team members chose Amelia Earhart because of her association with Purdue and her contribution as a female aviation pioneer.
Amelia Earhart became the first woman to complete a solo transatlantic flight in 1932, piloting a single-engined plane from Newfoundland to County Derry in Northern Ireland.
She set many other records during her lifetime.
Amelia Earhart disappeared in 1937 during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe in a Lockheed Model 10 Electra aircraft.
The name is technically temporary, since the naming of astronomical objects and features needs to be approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). But the team is hopeful that the name will stick.
The LPSC runs from March 16 to 20 in The Woodlands, near Houston.
Malaysia has unveiled plans for a new airline, called flymojo, after signing a $1.5 billion deal with Bombardier for 20 new aircraft.
The new carrier would be based out of Johor Bahru in the south and Kota Kinabalu in East Malaysia.
The deal with Bombardier includes the option to buy 20 more planes, taking its value up to $2.9 billion.
Malaysia has been coping with three aviation disasters in recent months.
In the latest incident, a Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia plane crashed into the Java Sea while en route from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore in December, killing all 162 people on board.
In July, a Malaysia Airlines plane was shot down over pro-Russian rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine, killing 298 people.
That followed another plane that vanished shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014. No trace of the plane has been found.
The launch of the new airline was announced at the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace (LIMA) exhibition on March 17, with PM Najib Razak in attendance.
Aziz Kaprawi, deputy minister of transport, said the new airline would play a key role in improving air travel between the Malaysian Peninsula and other parts of the region.
“As the only airline utilizing the southern corridor as its headquarters, flymojo will transform Senai [Johor Bahru’s airport] into a key regional aviation and logistics hub – augmenting the government’s initiatives in developing Iskandar Malaysia and the southern corridor,” he said in a statement by Bombardier.
The planes ordered from Bombardier are CS100 aircraft, which seat up to 125 people and would make flymojo the first airline in the region to operate the aircraft.
Local reports said flymojo was scheduled to start operating from October this year.
Miguel de Cervantes’ tomb has been found in Madrid, nearly 400 years after his death, Spanish forensic scientists say.
Scientists believe they have found the bones of Spain’s most beloved author Miguel de Cervantes, his wife and others recorded as buried with him in Madrid’s Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians.
Separating and identifying his badly damaged bones from the other fragments will be difficult, researchers say.
The Don Quixote author was buried in 1616 and the church was later rebuilt.
Miguel de Cervantes’ remains were moved into the new building in the late 17th Century and the remains of the man known as Spain’s “Prince of Letters” were lost for centuries.
“His end was that of a poor man. A war veteran with his battle wounds,” said Pedro Corral, head of art, sport and tourism at Madrid city council.
The team of 30 researchers used infrared cameras, 3D scanners and ground-penetrating radar to pinpoint the burial site, in a forgotten crypt beneath the building.
In January, archaeologists found a coffin lid with the initials MC within the first of 33 niches found behind a wall.
The niche contained a number of adult bones matching the group of people with whom Cervantes had been buried before their tombs were disturbed and moved into the crypt.
“The remains are in a bad state of conservation and do not allow us to do an individual identification of Miguel de Cervantes,” said forensic scientist Almudena Garcia Rubio.
“But we are sure what the historical sources say is the burial of Miguel de Cervantes and the other people buried with him is what we have found.”
Further analysis may allow the team to separate the bones of Cervantes from those of the others if they can use DNA analysis to work out which bones do not belong to the author.
Investigator Luis Avial told a news conference on March 17 that Miguel de Cervantes would be reburied “with full honors” in the same convent after a new tomb had been built, according to his wishes.
“Cervantes asked to be buried there and there he should stay,” said Luis Avial, georadar expert on the search team.
The convent’s religious order helped pay for his ransom after he was captured by pirates and held prisoner for five years in Algiers.
The crypt will be opened to the public next year for the first time in centuries to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Cervantes’ death.
Born near Madrid in 1547, Miguel de Cervantes has been dubbed the father of the modern novel for The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, published in two parts in 1605 and 1615.
Don Quixote is one of the most widely read and translated books in the world.
Lufthansa pilots have announced they would go on strike on March 18, affecting the airline’s short and medium-haul flights.
The strike action was called by the pilot’s union Vereinigung Cockpit in an ongoing dispute with the German national airline over its early retirement benefits.
Workers are also in a dispute over Lufthansa’s plan to expand its low-cost operations.
The move is the latest in a series of strikes that have plagued the airline.
Photo PA
The walkout would last 24 hours, affecting flights throughout Germany. But flights at the carrier’s budget units Germanwings and Eurowings would not be affected, the union said.
Pilots have held a series of strikes from last year over Lufthansa’s plans to change their pension arrangements.
Lufthansa wants to get rid of a program that allows pilots to retire at age 55 and receive up to 60% of their pay until they reach the statutory retirement age of 65.
Vereinigung Cockpit union also said that Lufthansa wants to offer younger pilots less attractive working conditions, forcing it to strike.
Strikes cost Lufthansa 232 million euros ($278 million) in 2014.
McDonald’s is under investigation after 28 employees in 19 different US cities said they suffered injuries due to hazardous equipment and lax safety standards.
Some workers claimed they had been told to treat their injuries with condiments such as mustard and mayonnaise rather than medicinal cream.
A McDonald’s spokeswoman said the company would review the allegations.
The company could face fines of up to $70,000 for each violation.
The complaints by McDonald’s employees were filed in the past few weeks to the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and publicized by the Fight for $15 group, which campaigns for better wages and conditions for fast food workers.
An OSHA spokesman confirmed that the agency had opened investigations as a result of the complaints.
He added that McDonald’s could face fines of between $7,000 and $70,000 for each safety infraction, depending on the severity.
In response to the allegations, McDonald’s spokeswoman Heidi Barker Sa Shekhem said the company and its independent franchisees were “committed to providing safe working conditions for employees in the 14,000 McDonald’s Brand US restaurants”.
A separate survey of 1,426 fast-food workers, carried out on behalf of the US National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, found that almost 80% had suffered burns in the past year.
One third of the burn victims said their manager suggested they treat their injuries with condiments such as mustard, mayonnaise, butter, or ketchup.
Outlying areas of Vanuatu suffered significantly worse damage than capital Port Vila after the South Pacific archipelago was hit by Cyclone Pam over the weekend, aid workers have reported.
Teams carrying medical supplies, food, water and shelter equipment landed on the outer islands of Tanna and Erromango, agencies said.
Getting aid to the islands has proven difficult because of a lack of landing strips or deepwater ports.
Eleven people have died, the UN said, revising down an earlier toll of 24.
Tanna island has a population of about 30,000 people and is about 125 miles south of the capital Port Vila. It was directly in the path of the cyclone.
Tom Perry from Care Australia said relief workers in Tanna reported the hospital was functioning but had no roof.
“The impression they got from their initial observations was that the damage is significantly worse than Port Vila,” Tom Perry told AFP news agency.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said military planes flown over the islands had reported major damage to houses and crops.
“We understand that the reconnaissance imagery shows widespread devastation,” Julie Bishop said of Tanna.
“Not only buildings flattened – palm plantations, trees. It’s quite a devastating sight.”
Communication to many of the other 80 islands in the archipelago are still down and officials have warned survivors could quickly run out of food.
Aurelia Balpe, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) for the Pacific, says the Vanuatu government is coordinating assessment and aid, including flights to other islands.
Aid agencies have organized themselves in clusters to better co-ordinate help, but getting to islands is not easy.
“There are difficulties in understanding how large a plane can land on some islands. In many of these small islands, they don’t have ports that can handle large vessels. In some places we may need to construct landing places for planes and boats,” she said.
Many smaller boats in Port Vila were damaged by the storm, and the distance is a challenge.
“It’s about 150km from Port Vila to the island of Erromango – which would take at least four hours in a small boat – and another 80km from Erromango to Tanna,” Aurelia Balpe said.
Poor weather and rough seas are also an issue.
“The first couple of days were very difficult because of the cyclone, and even now there are really bad swells and storm surges,” Aurelia Balpe said.
Cyclone Pam, a category five tropical storm, hit Vanuatu on March 14, bringing very high winds.
Across the Pacific nation, many people have lost their homes or face extensive rebuilding. Telecommunications, power and water supplies have all been badly affected.
In Port Vila a clean-up is under way but the destruction was extensive. Power and water have been restored in some areas but up to 90% of homes have been damaged.
The hospital is coping with an influx of injured people but a surgeon said beds had been moved outside because of structural damage.
On the main island and in the provinces of Torba and Penama to the north, some 3,300 people were in evacuation shelters, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
Vanuatu’s President Baldwin Lonsdale, returning from a conference in Japan, has described the storm as a “monster” that wiped out years of development.
He has linked the disaster to climate change, citing changing weather patterns, rising seas and heavier-than-average rain in Vanuatu.
Australia announced on March 17 that it was sending more personnel, including a search and rescue team, and three more military planes carrying aid.
Robert Durst, who was recorded in private appearing to confess to three killings on HBO’s The Jinx, has been charged with murder in Los Angeles.
The former property tycoon was filming HBO documentary The Jinx: Life and Deaths of Robert Durst about his connections to three deaths when he remarked off camera he had “killed them all”.
Prosecutors charged Robert Durst with murdering his friend Susan Berman. He may face the death penalty.
Earlier, his lawyer told Fox News he had not meant what he said.
Robert Durst was arrested in New Orleans on Saturday, a day before the final episode of The Jinx.
Photo AP
He appeared in court on March 16 and agreed to be taken to Los Angeles, where prosecutors announced later that day a first-degree murder charge.
Susan Berman had acted as Robert Durst’s spokeswoman and was about to be questioned by police when she was shot in the back of the head at home in Los Angeles in 2000.
The tycoon had long been suspected in the death of his wife, Kathleen Durst, who went missing from their country home in New York State in 1982.
After Susan Berman’s death, he moved to Texas, where he was acquitted of the murder of his elderly neighbor, Morris Black, despite admitting to cutting up the body in a panic after killing him in self-defense.
Robert Durst was arrested on March 14 by FBI agents acting on an arrest warrant issued by Los Angeles prosecutors.
The following night, HBO viewers heard Robert Durst muttering to himself in a hotel bathroom while still wearing a wireless microphone.
“There it is, you’re caught,” he whispered to himself.
“What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”
The remarks came after the filmmakers asked Robert Durst whether he had written a letter only Susan Berman’s killer could have sent.
Nearly six million Israelis are expected to polls to vote for a new parliament on March 17.
The new elections are expected to be a close contest between PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s party and a centre-left alliance.
The centre-left Zionist Union promises to repair relations with Palestinians and the international community.
Benjamin Netanyahu, whose party has trailed in opinion polls, vowed on March 16 not to allow the creation of a Palestinian state if he wins a fourth term.
The economy and living standards have emerged as key issues.
Polls opened at 07:00 and are due to close at 22:00 local time.
Results could be declared soon afterwards, but a lengthy period of negotiations over the formation of the next coalition government may follow.
No party has ever won an outright majority under Israel’s proportional representation voting system, and neither side is expected to get more than a quarter of the votes in Tuesday’s election.
Votes are cast for a party, rather than individual candidates. There are 120 seats up for grabs though electoral system means no single party will achieve a majority.
Photo Flash 90
Blocs of parties must command at least 61 seats to form a government and the president has seven days in which to appoint a member of parliament with best chance of forming a government. The candidate has initial 28 days to put workable coalition together.
Opinion polls published before the weekend suggested that the centre-left Zionist Union is likely to win the most seats.
It might still be possible for Benjamin Netanyahu to form a coalition government even if his Likud party fails to top the poll.
As Benjamin Netanyahu cast his vote on Tuesday, he ruled out forming a coalition with the Zionist Union: “There will not be a unity government with Labor. I will form a nationalist (rightwing) government.”
Zionist Union party co-leader Yitzhak Herzog said his rival represented the “path of despair and disappointment”.
“Whoever wants change, hope, and really a better future for Israel, will vote the Zionist Camp,” he said.
International issues, from Israel’s relationship with the United States to concerns over Iran’s nuclear program, have been one focus of the campaign.
Many of the candidates have concentrated on Israel’s socio-economic problems, including the high cost of living and slow economic growth.
The future of the city of Jerusalem has also been a central election issue.
Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently accused his centre-left challengers of being willing to relinquish Israel’s claim to Jerusalem as its indivisible capital in peace talks with the Palestinians.
On March 16, Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at the Har Homa Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem and said he was the only person who could ensure the city’s security.
He said no Palestinian state would be formed were he to remain prime minister.
Palestinians seek East Jerusalem – occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East war – as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Yitzhak Herzog has accused Benjamin Netanyahu of “panicking”.
Visiting the Western Wall, one of the holiest sites in Judaism, on Sunday, Yitzhak Herzog pledged to “safeguard Jerusalem and its residents in actions, not just words, more than any other leader”.
It’s sometimes surprising to see that people can go against a brand, or be so passionate about a brand that they see all others as abhorrent. It’s the latter that stands for customer loyalty and makes you more money. Loyal customers tend to spend more and bring in new business with positive referrals and word of mouth.
Branding plays a crucial role in enhancing customer loyalty, which is critical for success in the turbulent marketplace. Since loyal customers stick with the brand they know, businesses need to execute branding in a way that promotes business image and leaves a memorable effect on customers. Here are 4 branding ideas that have the potential to take customer loyalty through the roof:
Create a contest
Contests allow your customers to showcase their happiness and talent, and when you pick the right theme, showcase your products. A photo contest, for example, can be hosted on your website or even in a physical location such as a coffee shop. It will likely result in lots of happy customers sharing pictures, which can be used in marketing materials, or just displayed in your office.
A San Francisco pizza chain, Pizza Orgasmica, hangs photo frames of customers and has also published a gallery on its website of people who share pictures wearing the brand’s t-shits from around the globe. Such contests are easy to execute and don’t require you to spend an arm and leg on branding.
Incorporate your brand into packaging
Branding can be incorporated into the packaging of your products. Custom printed packaging for retailers can be used for more than just brand promotion. They are also for product differentiation and eco-friendly image development. Additionally, it can help retailers provide technical information and re-order information about products with ease. The brand logo and artwork can be applied on custom boxes in a variety of ways.
That’s how Apple’s iPad branding was executed, and it left a significant impact on customers. The packaging is driven by a great design and user-friendliness. Apple utilized custom packaging to deliver its promise of a great product while implementing a smart branding strategy. The image on the cover of the packaging featuring a life-size photo of an iPad does a great job in fulfilling customer expectations.
Branding through a cause
Giving back to the community by supporting a cause will build your brand image as a business that cares. Choose a cause relevant to your business. For example, if you run a pet shop, then a no-kill animal cause would be a perfect fit. Promote the cause and your brand together through special events.
For instance, a pet shop owner can ask customers to buy a pack of pet food while your outlet donates 20 percent of the sale to the animal shelter. Promote such events on social media and through press releases to increase the visibility of your brand’s support to the cause.
Utilize special days
While the holiday season is the prime time for branding, you don’t have to be limited. That’s because you can increase customer loyalty by promoting your brand on other holidays.
For example, you can offer a special deal to customers on Valentine’s Day, or a surprise gift in Easter eggs on Easter holiday. The same can be done on the fourth of July for anyone wearing patriotic clothes.
Robert Durst’s lawyer says his client is innocent and is ready to stand trial.
The millionaire, who is accused of murder, was recorded during HBO’s show The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst saying in private that he had “killed them all”.
The Jinx is a documentary about Robert Durst’s connections to three unsolved deaths.
Earlier, another lawyer told a Fox News host, “you’ve said things under your breath that you probably didn’t mean”.
Former real estate tycoon Robert Durst was arrested at a hotel in New Orleans on March 14.
Photo New Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office
Wearing an orange jumpsuit and with his hands shackled at his waist, Robert Durst appeared before a judge in New Orleans on March 16 and agreed to be transferred to Los Angeles.
The tycoon faces a first-degree murder charge in Los Angeles for the shooting death of his friend Susan Berman in 2000.
Robert Durst, 71, has always maintained his innocence in Susan Berman’s murder.
Speaking after the extradition hearing, defense lawyer Dick DeGuerin said: “We came here to waive jurisdiction and to go back to California and to get it on. Bob Durst didn’t kill Susan Berman. He’s ready to end all the rumor and speculation and have a trial.”
He added that the transfer to Los Angeles may be delayed because authorities in New Orleans are considering other charges. Dick DeGuerin did not elaborate on the possible charges.
A spokesman for the Orleans Parish district attorney’s office, Christopher Bowman, refused to comment on possible future charges.
Robert Durst has long been suspected in the death of his wife, Kathleen Durst, who went missing from their country home in New York State in 1982.
Susan Berman, whose father was an associate of Las Vegas mobsters Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky, was a close friend of Robert Durst and also acted as his spokeswoman.
She was shot in the back of the head at her home in Los Angeles as investigators from New York prepared to question her over the disappearance of Kathleen Durst.
After Susan Berman’s death, the eccentric Robert Durst moved to Texas and posed as a mute woman.
In 2001, Robert Durst was acquitted of murder after his defense team convinced a jury that he was acting in self-defense when he killed his elderly neighbor, Morris Black.
Robert Durst was arrested on March 14 by FBI agents acting on an arrest warrant issued by Los Angeles prosecutors as he walked into a hotel in New Orleans where he had checked in under a false name.
Los Angeles police said the arrest resulted from “investigative leads and additional evidence that has come to light in the last year”.
Robert Durst’s lawyer, Chip Lewis, said his client would continue to maintain his innocence.
Chip Lewis said the arrest was orchestrated in co-ordination with The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, which included lengthy interviews with the tycoon.
The final episode, broadcast on March 15, included what appeared to be a Robert Durst’s confession to the killings of Susan Berman, Kathleen Durst and Morris Black.
According to the filmmakers, Robert Durst was still wearing a wireless microphone when he went into a hotel bathroom after the interview.
“There it is, you’re caught,” he whispered to himself.
“What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”
It is not known if Robert Durst is speaking sincerely in the recording, but it came after he was asked whether he had written a letter only Susan Berman’s killer could have sent.
The filmmakers found similarities between handwriting on a letter from Robert Durst to Susan Berman and that on an anonymous note sent to police alerting them to a dead body in the victim’s home. The word “Beverly” is also misspelled as “Beverley” on both documents.
When asked about the letter and the audio recording, two of the documentary’s filmmakers, Andrew Jarecki and Marc Smerling, told the New York Times that they “provided the relevant evidence to law enforcement some months ago”.
They also said that they had not confronted Robert Durst about the audio recording from the bathroom.
Twenty four people have died and 3,300 are displaced after Cyclone Pam hit Vanuatu archipelago, the UN says.
The UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination team in the capital, Port Vila, said 37 evacuation centers had been set up, but communication with outer islands was still down.
President Baldwin Lonsdale said the storm had “wiped out” all development of recent years.
He called again for international aid.
Of those who died, 11 were from Tafea island, eight from the main island, Efate, and five from Tanna.
The evacuation centers were catering for the many people who had lost their homes, the UN said, adding that the response effort was for now focusing on the capital and Efate.
After aerial assessments of the damage caused by the storm, Shefa remained the only province declared an emergency, the UN said.
Aid began arriving in Vanuatu – one of the world’s poorest countries – after flights to Port Vila resumed.
Tropical Cyclone Pam is slowly weakening as it travels towards New Zealand and poses no further threat to Vanuatu or the South Pacific, a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says.
Boston has experienced the snowiest winter in the city’s recorded history.
The National Weather Service said Boston broke the record after receiving 108.6in of snow this winter, beating the 1995-1996 record of 107.6 inches.
The record was broken around 19:00 local time on March 15, when 2.9in fell on Boston.
This season, the Massachusetts city saw more snowfall than any winter since 1872, when records were first kept.
“Boston, you survived the snowiest winter on record!!!” the local branch of the National Weather Service wrote on its Facebook page.
Photo Reuters
This winter, Boston has been forced to close schools, public transit, and businesses as it has dealt with the record snow.
Before the record-breaking snow began to fall, the city hosted a St Patrick’s Parade in its slush-lined streets. Earlier this winter, it celebrated the New England Patriots’ Super Bowl championship win with a parade, despite the snow.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh tweeted: “Super Bowls, World Series’, Stanley Cups, and snowfall records. We are truly a title city. There will be no parade.”
There is the potential that this season’s record could grow. In years past, Boston has recorded several inches of snow during the month of March.
Other US cities have recorded far more snow. The small village of Copenhagen, New York has recorded more than 240in of snow, the Los Angeles Times newspaper reported.
The snowfall season is recorded from 1 July to 30 June each year.
The Cuban government has granted approval to contemporary artist Kcho to open the country’s first public wireless hub at his cultural center.
Kcho, who has close ties to the Cuban government, is operating the hub using his own, government-approved internet connection, and paying approximately $900 per month to run it.
Only an estimated 5% – 25% of Cubans have any type of internet service.
That is because internet access is incredibly expensive.
For instance, an hour of internet access at a cafe can cost $4.50 – nearly a week’s wages for the average Cuban.
Kcho told the Associated Press he decided to offer free internet at the centre, which opened in western Havana in January, in order to encourage Cubans to familiarize themselves with the internet.
Photo AP
The Cuban government has expressed a keen desire to upgrade its dilapidated or non-existent telecommunications infrastructure.
Although Cuba’s connectivity to the internet was greatly expanded with the completion of an undersea cable between the island and Venezuela in January 2013, the country still has some of the lowest internet connectivity rates in the world.
On January 15, the US announced new rules that ease long-running sanctions against Cuba. A trade embargo has been in place since 1962.
A key part of that decision by the Obama administration was a stated desire to help boost telecommunications on the island.
Last week, Cuba’s state telecom agency Etecsa said it had established a direct telephone connection between the US and Cuba for the first time in 15 years, as relations between the two countries continue to thaw.
Vladimir Putin has laughed off speculation about his health as he reappeared in public since after ten days.
“Life would be boring without gossip,” the Russian president told Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev at talks in St Petersburg.
Vladimir Putin, 62, appeared relaxed and smiled before the television cameras.
His disappearance from public view had sparked rumors that he might have fallen ill, died, been removed in a coup, or once again become a father.
Photo AFP
A brief video of Vladimir Putin’s meeting with his Kyrgyz counterpart at the Constantine Palace in Russia’s second city was broadcast by state television without sound.
Asked by reporters about the speculation on his health, Vladimir Putin replied: “It would be boring without gossip.”
Almazbek Atambayev, for his part, said Vladimir Putin had driven him around the palace for 20 minutes before the meeting.
“I can confirm that he’s in excellent form,” Almazbek Atambayev was quoted by one journalist as saying.
Vladimir Putin’s last public appearance was on March 5 when he met Italian PM Matteo Renzi.
Last week, Vladimir Putin cancelled a number of scheduled events, including a visit to Kazakhstan that was due to take place on March 12-13, and the signing of an agreement with South Ossetia.
As speculation about Vladimir Putin’s disappearance mounted, the hashtag #Putinumer (#Putinisdead) trended on Twitter. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was forced to counter questions about each rumor, dismissing them as “March madness”.
“So everyone has now seen the paralyzed president captured by a general who has just returned from Switzerland where he was delivering a baby?” Dmitry Peskov asked journalists sarcastically on March 16.
Vladimir Putin’s reappearance coincides with the first anniversary of a controversial referendum in Crimea, which Russia used as justification for annexing the Ukrainian peninsula.
Disney’s Cinderella has topped the US box office on its opening weekend.
The new live-action adaptation directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Lily James and Richard Madden, earned $70.1 million over the weekend.
The success of Cinderella replicates that of previous Disney live-action films including Maleficent.
Liam Neeson saw his star falter with Run All Night making just $11 million.
The New York crime saga, co-starring Ed Harris, marked the weakest debut weekend for Taken star Liam Neeson as an action film lead.
Cinderella follows the box office lead of Into the Woods, based on the Stephen Sondheim musical, which made more than $173 million worldwide to date.
Live action Disney adaptations of The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast and Dumbo are all on the way.
A sequel to Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is also due to be released in 2016.
This year will also see Disney releases The Avengers: Age of Ultron and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Elsewhere in the box office chart, last week’s top film, the South African sci-fi thriller Chappie from District 9 director Neill Blomkamp, dropped to fifth with $5.8 million.
Kingsman: The Secret Service and Focus rounded out the top five.
Stefano Gabbana has responded to calls from Elton John for people to boycott the Dolce & Gabbana fashion label.
Elton John criticized the fashion designers after they called children born through IVF “synthetic” in a magazine interview.
Stefano Gabbana has since said that “it was never our intention to judge other people’s choices.”
“We do believe in freedom and love,” Stefano Gabbana added in a statement.
Elton John, who has two children with his husband David Furnish, had a go at the fashion designers for rejecting same-gender families and the use of IVF treatment.
On March 15, Elton John wrote on Instagram: “How dare you refer to my beautiful children as <<synthetic>>.
“And shame on you for wagging your judgemental little fingers at IVF – a miracle that has allowed legions of loving people, both straight and gay, to fulfill their dream of having children.
“Your archaic thinking is out of step with the times, just like your fashions.
“I shall never wear Dolce and Gabbana ever again. #BoycottDolceGabbana.”
Business partners Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, who are both gay and were a couple for 23 years until breaking up in 2005, have rejected same-gender marriage in the past.
In an interview with Italian magazine Panorama this weekend Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana went further saying they also didn’t agree with the idea of gay families.
“We oppose gay adoptions,” they said.
“The only family is the traditional one.
“No chemical offsprings and rented uterus: life has a natural flow, there are things that should not be changed.”
Domenico Dolce went on to say that having children should be an “act of love”.
He said: “You are born to a mother and a father – or at least that’s how it should be.
“I call children of chemistry, synthetic children.”
Stefano Gabbana added: “The family is not a fad. In it there is a supernatural sense of belonging.”
In an interview in 2006, Stefano Gabbana revealed in another Italian magazine that he had approached a woman to be the mother of his baby but said he struggled with the idea.
“I am opposed to the idea of a child growing up with two gay parents,” he said.
“A child needs a mother and a father. I could not imagine my childhood without my mother. I also believe that it is cruel to take a baby away from its mother.”
Meanwhile, a fair few celebrities have backed Elton John’s boycott call.
Among them was Courtney Love, who tweeted that she wanted “to burn” her D&G clothes.
A BBC internal investigation has begun after Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson was suspended from the show following a “fracas” with producer Oisin Tymon.
The enquiry is being headed up Ken McQuarrie, the director of BBC Scotland.
Jeremy Clarkson, 54, was suspended from Top Gear last week following an alleged altercation with producer Oisin Tymon.
Oisin Tymon, 36, did not file a formal complaint and its understood that Jeremy Clarkson reported the incident himself.
The row has been said to have occurred because no hot food was laid on for Jeremy Clarkson following a day of filming in North Yorkshire.
Writing in his column in the Sun newspaper, Jeremy Clarkson appeared to hint that he was close to quitting calling himself a “dinosaur” and adding: “These big imposing creatures have no place in a world which has moved on.”
An online petition to reinstate Jeremy Clarkson has reached more than 900,000 signatures.
The critic AA Gill also voiced his support for Jeremy Clarkson in his Sunday Times column, calling the investigation into the row “preposterous and ponderous”, and praised Clarkson as hard-working.
Top Gear is one of the BBC’s most popular and profitable TV shows, with an estimated global audience of 350 million.
The remaining shows in the current series were pulled off-air following the incident.
A lawyer for Oisin Tymon said his client “intends to await the outcome of the BBC investigation and will make no comment until that investigation is complete”.
No official date has been fixed for the investigation to present its findings.
Toto bass-player Mike Porcaro has died at 59 after a long battle with motor neurone disease (MND), also known as ALS.
The rock band is best known for its hits Africa and Rosanna.
The band’s keyboardist Steve Porcaro said in a statement that his brother had died peacefully in his sleep at home, surrounded by family. Michael Joseph Porcaro passed away on Sunday, March 15.
Toto, which broke up in 2008, reformed in 2010 to raise money for Mike Porcaro and raise awareness of his illness.
Also known for the hit Hold the Line, Toto sold 35 million albums.
Toto guitarist Steve Lukather wrote on Facebook that Mike Porcaro was “now at peace”.
Motor neurone disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)or Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a rare condition which attacks the nervous system.
As the condition progresses sufferers find basic activities such as walking, speaking and breathing increasingly difficult.
Vanuatu’s President Baldwin Lonsdale has appealed for an “immediate” help after Cyclone Pam devastated the tiny country over the weekend.
Baldwin Lonsdale said Cyclone Pam, a category 5 tropical storm, had “wiped out” all development of recent years and his country would have to rebuild “everything”.
Aid has begun arriving in Vanuatu – one of the world’s poorest – but contact has still not been made with some of its more remote islands.
Aid agencies say it could be one of the worst disasters ever to hit the region.
Photo Xinhua Agency
The official death toll stands at eight, but it is expected to rise.
The sense of devastation is absolutely immense and when you land it doesn’t take long for that sense of devastation to increase.
Many family homes have been stripped of their roofs or flattened by very powerful winds and torrential rain.
The air here is very thick with smoke because the cleanup has already begun – the debris is being chopped down, collected and burned. There is a sense here that people will rebuild but it only takes a brief moment in the capital to realize that this rebuilding effort will take many months if not years.
Vanuatu is a vast archipelago in the South Pacific with its population spread over more than 60 islands.
As the country’s communications are down, it is very difficult for the authorities to have a true picture of the devastation but it’s clear the number of dead will increase when communications are made with those outlying areas.
Vladimir Putin has appeared in public for the first time after 10 days of absence, quelling intense speculation about his health.
The Russian president was meeting Kyrgyzstan President Almazbek Atambayev in St Petersburg. He was last seen in public on March 5.
Commenting on the rumors about his health, Vladimir Putin said: “Things would be boring without gossip,” RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Earlier, Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s navy on to a state of full combat readiness in the Arctic.
Photo Twitter
Russia says the navy drills involve 56 warships, planes and 38,000 personnel.
According to a tweet from the meeting in St Petersburg, Almazbek Atambayev said that Vladimir Putin “just took me for a little drive – he was at the wheel – nearby here, and I can confirm that he’s in excellent form”.
The Russian TV news channel Rossiya 24 also showed some brief footage of Vladimir Putin at the meeting, without sound.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov – quoted in a Russian journalist’s tweet – said St Petersburg was chosen as a convenient venue for Almazbek Atambayev, whose daughter is studying there.
Dmitry Peskov was also quoted as saying the “little drive” mentioned by the Kyrgyz leader lasted about 20 minutes, and Vladimir Putin “showed what a beautiful place Strelnya is”.
Vladimir Putin and Almazbek Atambayev were meeting at a tsarist palace in Strelnya, outside St Petersburg.
According to the UN, the South Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu is one of world’s least developed countries.
Vanuatu has a GDP of $828 million compared to neighboring Australia’s $1.56 trillion, according to the World Bank.
About two-thirds of Vanuatu’s population makes a living from agriculture. Fishing, tourism and offshore financial services are the other main industries.
Australia estimates that about 70% of Vanuatu’s population of 250,000 people lives on remote islands or in rural areas, with few services and limited access to clean drinking water, transport or electricity.
Australia is Vanuatu’s main donor, giving A$60.7 million ($46.5 million) in 2013-2014, about 60% of total aid.
Saddam Hussein’s tomb has been almost completely destroyed in fighting near Tikrit, Iraq.
Footage filmed by the Associated Press shows that all that remains standing of the once-lavish mausoleum in the village of al-Awja are some pillars.
Iraqi forces and Iranian-backed Shia militia are battling to drive Islamic State (ISIS) militants from Tikrit.
In 2014, the local Sunni population said they had removed the former Iraqi leader’s body and taken it to an unknown location.
The capture of the tomb came as fighting intensified north and south of Tikrit on March 15 as Iraqi security forces vowed to reach the city centre within 48 hours.
The footage shows the mausoleum, south of the city, reduced to concrete rubble.
Poster-sized pictures of Saddam Hussein that once covered the tomb have been replaced with Shia militia flags and pictures of militia leaders, including Iranian General Qassem Soleimani who advises the Shia militias.
There are suspicions among many in Iraq’s Sunni community that Saddam Hussein’s tomb was deliberately destroyed by the Shia militias.
AP said that its crew was embedded with the Iraqi military and may have been subject to reporting restrictions.
“This is one of the areas where ISIS militants massed the most because Saddam’s grave is here,” said Captain Yasser Numa, an official with the militias.
“The ISIS militants set an ambush for us by planting bombs around.”
ISIS said in August 2014 that the tomb had been completely destroyed but local officials denied this, saying it had been ransacked and suffered only minor damage.
Saddam Hussein, who was from Tikrit, was captured by US forces in 2003.
An Iraqi tribunal convicted him of crimes against humanity for the killings of Shia Muslims and Kurds and hanged him in 2006. Saddam Hussein’s body had been kept in the mausoleum since 2007.
The mausoleum featured a marble octagon with a bed of fresh flowers at the centre, covering the place where Saddam Hussein’s body was buried.
According to Iraqi media, loyalists removed Saddam Hussein’s remains last year amid fears that it would be disturbed in the fighting.
Tikrit was overrun by ISIS in June 2014 and several hundred militants are believed to be holding out there.
Robert Durst has been detained in New Orleans after a warrant was issued by Los Angeles police investigating the murder of mobster’s daughter Susan Berman.
The tycoon was arrested just before the finale of HBO’s show The Jinx investigating the alleged crime.
Robert Durst has always maintained his innocence in the murder in 2000.
The show catches Robert Durst on tape apparently confessing to three killings, saying: “[I] killed them all.”
The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst suggested in a previous episode that the property tycoon had written a letter only Susan Berman’s killer could have sent.
It sought to match handwriting on a letter from Robert Durst to Susan Berman with that on an anonymous letter sent to police alerting them to a dead body in the victim’s home.
Robert Durst’s lawyer, Chip Lewis, said his client would not challenge his transfer to Los Angeles and would continue to maintain his innocence.
The tycoon’s estranged family thanked the authorities.
“We are relieved and also grateful to everyone who assisted in the arrest of Robert Durst,” said his brother, real estate developer Douglas Durst, in a statement quoted by the Associated Press news agency.
“We hope he will finally be held accountable.”
Robert Durst, 71, had been previously questioned by police investigating Susan Berman’s execution-style killing.
Photo HBO
The Jinx also investigated two other unsolved murder cases linked to Robert Durst:
In 2003 he admitted killing Morris Black, dismembering his body and throwing the remains into a bay in Galveston, Texas, but a jury accepted his claim of self-defense
He was also questioned by police following the disappearance of his first wife, Kathleen, in 1982 in New York. Robert Durst has always denied any involvement in that death
Susan Berman, whose father David Berman was an associate of Las Vegas mobsters Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky, was killed with a bullet to the back of her head in her home, just as investigators prepared to question her about Kathleen’s disappearance.
In The Jinx which aired on March 15, Robert Durst is challenged about the letter evidence in a long interview.
According to filmmakers, Robert Durst was still wearing his microphone when he went into a hotel bathroom after the interview at a hotel, and he apparently spoke out loud to himself.
Robert Durst can be heard saying: “There it is, you’re caught. What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course”.
