Zika's ground zero: Generation of babies born with microcephaly face uncertain future

Maria Vitoria is eight months old, but her fragile frame has already seen so much suffering.

She was born with microcephaly, likely as a result of the Zika virus, and her family abandoned her at birth.

Now she is growing, but the development of her brain is stunted by the birth defect, and slowly, day by day, her adopted parents Kely and Josimar Oliveira are learning what this means: can she see, does she hear them?

Discoveries like these -- heart-shredding moments -- are happening every day at the Altino Ventura Foundation Clinic in Recife.

Cardowan stabbing: Dramatic picture from Glasgow 'war zone' incident shows man in blood-soaked t-shirt walking past burning vans

Dramatic footage has emerged from a major incident in Glasgow which reportedly left five people stabbed, shots fired and vehicles ablaze.

Officers were sent to the scene in Cardowan, a suburb in the north of the city, at around 1.30pm on Sunday afternoon.

Scotland's Ambulance Service also confirmed they are attending the scene and said "several casualties" have been taken to hospital.

According to the Daily Record , multiple people have been injured including up to five who may have been knifed.

Boy, 12, 'chokes himself to death taking part in dangerous online craze' that starves brain of oxygen

Karnel Haughton is believed to have choked to death taking part in an online game

A 12-year-old boy has died after reportedly taking part in a dangerous online craze which cuts off oxygen to the brain.

Karnel Haughton, from the Tyburn area of Birmingham, is believed to have lost consciousness and suffocated.

Friends and parents have now shared warnings about the potentially lethal game in which youngsters film themselves choking and post the videos on social media.

Karnel is thought to have been playing the 'game' in his bedroom when he lost consciousness.

He died later that day after being rushed to hospital by his mum Gemma.

Police are treating his death as 'unexplained'.

A family friend said: “It was his mum who found him at home. He was apparently playing the ‘choking game’.

“Karnel was such a witty and happy young boy and really close to his brother and sister.

One dead and thousands evacuated after explosion at a Sri Lankan ammo dump

Eranga Jayawardena/AP PhotoIn this Oct. 12, 2014, file photo. an ethnic Sinhalese Sri Lankan man eats his lunch during his train ride to north from south in Vavuniya, Sri Lanka.

One soldier was killed and thousands of people were evacuated after a fire and a series of explosions on Sunday at one of Sri Lanka's biggest ammunition dumps, where the army stores heavy weapons, officials said.

Explosions at the army camp at Salawa, 33 km (20 miles) east of the capital Colombo, continued for more than five hours and were heard more than 12 km away, local residents said.

The cause was not immediately known and the government ordered an investigation by the police criminal investigation department.

These are the 18 most corrupt countries in the developed world

REUTERS/Henry Romero

Every year, Transparency International, the global anticorruption coalition, releases its Corruption Perceptions Index, a survey into the countries people perceive as the most corrupt on earth.

As Transparency International notes, there is no hard-and-fast way "to assess absolute levels of corruption in countries or territories on the basis of hard empirical data." This is basically because, by its very nature, corruption is usually hidden from the public.

But it creates a ranking based on several other corruption studies, and gives 168 countries a ranking out of 100, where 100 is the least corrupt and 0 is most corrupt. This helps to give a pretty good idea of where in the world is most corrupt.

The countries seen as most corrupt tend to be in Africa and the Middle East, in societies with weak legal and governmental systems and widespread poverty. For example, Somalia tops this year's list, with North Korea and Afghanistan close behind.

Business Insider decided to take a look at the wealthy, democratic nations where corruption is most rife. To do so, we looked at the positions of countries within the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and then picked out those with the highest levels of perceived corruption.

Check them out below:

Amir Khan and wife Faryal splash £100,000 on their 2 year old daughter's birthday party

29 year old boxer Amir Khan and his wife 24 year old Faryal Makhdoom Khan splashed £100,000 on their daughter, Lamaisah Khan's second birthday party.
The birthday party which was held at Khan's Bolton Wanderers football club had 250 guests in attendance. The party took Mrs Khan three months to plan and it featured Disney princesses, Peppa Pig, a real-life ballerina, a giant cake and a carousel.
In an exclusive interview with Hello! magazine, Amir Khan talked about his daughter's 2nd birthday party.

Jihadi Junior smuggled into Sweden for surgery by his Nigerian Jihadi mother

A four-year-old British boy, Isa Dare, AKA Jihadi Junior, who appeared to blow up a group of ISIS prisoners in a propaganda video, has been reportedly smuggled into Sweden for an operation by his London-born Jihadi bride mother Grace Dare, The Sun reports.
It is reported that Grace who has changed her name to Khadijah smuggled her son from the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa to Sweden after he had been sick for some months.

24-year-old Nigerian man and Thai woman nabbed in Bangkok with 8.5kg of drugs hidden in handbags

A Nigerian man and a Thai woman have been arrested after 8.5kg of crystal methamphetamine or "ice" were found stuffed into new handbags imported from China.

24-year-old Nigerian national John Anike Chinedu & Sawaros Nathawil, 34, were arrested separately in Samut Prakan and Bangkok.

 

Venezuela's political crisis is reaching a breaking point

Social unrest has simmered in Venezuela for the last few years, at times breaking out in widespread protests, and tensions have mounted this year, as an opposition-led legislature leads aneffort to recall President Nicolas Maduro.

But a protest that broke out near the presidential palace in Caracas on Thursday indicates that the strife has reached a segment of the country critical to the government's popular support.

A group of Venezuelans waiting in line at a supermarket in Caracas made a run for Miraflores, the presidential palace, after they sawwhat appeared to be people affiliated with the government taking food they had been waiting for hours in the heat to buy.

I transformed my Jeep into a moving house to travel around Africa for 2 years — here's what it was like to build

Dan Grec

Hi, I'm Dan. A few years ago, I drove a Jeep from Alaska to Argentina.

I learned a lot on that trip about where I want to go and what kind of vehicle I want to live in.

After years of saving and planning, I bought a 2007 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited (4 door) Rubicon to turn into a house on wheels to drive around Africa for two years.

My build focused on interior living space, strong 4x4, and it had to fit inside a standard 20-foot shipping container.

Here's what it was like:

You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or visit me over at my websiteor YouTube channel. I also wrote an e-book, "Work Less to Live Your Dreams."

First, the finished project: My house on wheels completed.

Apple should buy Uber

Calling Uber a Silicon Valley unicorn is passé. Uber is a $62.5 billion monster that's threatening to take down a nervous tech market.

The latest news is that Uber last week accepted a $3.5 billion investment from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund.

That means Uber now has $11 billion to fuel its growth. But what's conspicuously lacking from that assumed growth is some type of exit strategy for Uber's earlier investors.

Will there ever be an IPO? Not anytime soon, if CEO Travis Kalanick has his way.

There is another option of course: acquisition.

Conservatively, Uber's acquisition value would be something like $80 billion. That's a big bite. Tesla has a market cap of about $30 billion. General Motors is $46 billion. Ford is $52 billion.

WOMEN WANT MORE SEX THAN MEN THINK, SAYS AWESOME NEW STUDY

According to a series of studies, men in relationships often underestimate how often and when their girlfriends or wives want to have sex.

The researchers at University of Toronto and the University of Western Ontario studied a total of 229 couples who reported having sex an average of one to two times a week, with an average relationship of six years. 

The couples documented their general sexual desire, perception of their partner’s sexual desire, and their satisfaction with their relationship via journal over the course of three weeks, or went into the lab and reported those same factors in person.

THE WORLD'S FIRST SEX CRUISE WILL BE AN 8-DAY ORGY AT SEA

Mexican "adult hospitality" firm Original Group has just chartered the Royal Caribbean Azamara Quest for the world's first sex cruise setting sail to Italy, Croatia and Slovenia in 2017. Dubbed the “Desire” cruise, the 690 passenger ship will spend eight days indulging in epic debauchery in international waters where anything goes.

Lightning strikes 71 rock music fans as a freak thunderstorm hits a German festival leaving injured with scorch marks and burn holes on their jeans

More than 70 festival goers were struck by lightning at a major music event in Germany.  

Dozens of medics have treated people at Rock-am-Ring festival after severe storms caused heavy flooding. 

The organisers said acts will continue to perform over the three-day event as Saturday night headliners, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, prepare to play.

One man suffered burn holes and scorch marks after being hit by lightning.  

Spokeswoman for the festival Katharina Wenisch said: 'We are not considering cancelling the festival.'

Emergency services attending to a man at Rock-am-Ring festival, It is believed the man was hit by lightning when a storm passed over the festival

Dozens of medics have treated people at Rock-am-Ring festival after severe storms caused heavy flooding

Muhammad Ali, The Greatest in pictures: A look back at the life of the most famous sportsman in the world

Muhammad Ali was the first person to become heavyweight champion of the world three times.

Born Cassius Clay in 1942, he won Olympic Gold in Rome aged 18 and floored Sonny Liston to shake up the world in 1964. 

Then heavyweight champion, he became Muhammad Ali and would dominate the division for more than a decade - minus his three-year exile for refusing to fight in the Vietnam war - beating the likes of Joe Frazier, Ken Norton and George Foreman.

Here, Sportsmail looks back at the life of one of the most remarkable men to walk the planet...

Muhammad Ali knocks out British challenger Richard Dunn in the fifth round of their fight in Munich in May 1976