How phone apps put millions of Britons' internet addresses up for sale

Millions of Britons’ internet addresses are being sold online without their knowledge, allowing fraudsters and criminals to raise ticket prices, create fake social media followers and to conduct cyber attacks.

Software hidden within smartphone apps allows individuals and organisations to route internet traffic through devices owned by members of the public. It can be used to mask traffic to social networks and online retailers, experts said.

Luminati, an Israeli start-up owned by a British investor, boasted that it had access to 1.7 million Britons' internet protocol (IP) addresses and millions more worldwide.

The company legally obtains access to people's connections by embedding software within apps that run on Android smartphones. Another proxy network provider, Oxylabs, boasts of 1.1m British IP addresses and GeoSurf, which Luminati is suing for allegedly stealing its technology, said it has tens of thousands.

Luminati says that it offers reputable Fortune 500 clients a way to detect advertising fraud and check cyber security. However, it is not clear to the Britons giving up their IP addresses, which is linked to their residential address, what they are sharing and for what purpose.

Fast food may contribute to teen depression, study says

Preteens are known for their defiant attitudes and dramatic mood swings, but over the last decade a much more disturbing characteristic has been increasing: depression.

A new study finds that one culprit may be a high fast-food, low plant-based diet. When researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham analyzed urine from a group of middle schoolers, they found high levels of sodium and low levels of potassium.

"High sodium, you've got to think of highly processed food," said lead author Sylvie Mrug, chair of the psychology department at UAB. "This includes fast food, frozen meals and unhealthy snacks."
Low potassium, Mrug added, is an indication of a diet that lacks healthy fruits and vegetables that are rich in potassium, such as beans, sweet potatoes, spinach, tomatoes, bananas, oranges, avocados, yogurt and even salmon.
The study also found that higher urine levels of sodium, and potassium at baseline, predicted more signs of depression a year and a half later, even after adjusting for variables such as blood pressure, weight, age and sex.

Wingsuit Champion And Former NASA Scientist Angelo Grubišić Dies In Base Jump

A wingsuit scientist who worked on making the extreme sport garments safer has died in a base jump in Saudi Arabia, his family has confirmed.

Dr Angelo Grubišić - who had led a wingsuit design team at the University of Southampton - was killed in the jump on Tuesday.
The 38-year-old - who was crowned a British wingsuit champion just last month - had previously worked on spacecraft propulsion for the European Space Agency and NASA.

In a statement to the BBC, Angelo's family said he was 'phenomenally talented'.

They added: "Angelo lost his life doing what he loved the most, wingsuit base jumping, and we want to ensure his achievements and ambitions are known to the world and to celebrate the mark he made on all of our lives.

US Health Officials Say First Patient Has Died Due To Illness Caused By Vaping

Health officials in the US have announced the first death of a person due to an illness caused by vaping.

The unnamed patient from Illinois was said to have developed a severe respiratory disease after using e-cigarettes. As yet, the person's age or gender have not been revealed.
Dr Jennifer Layden, the chief medical officer and state epidemiologist in Illinois, said the patient was taken to hospital with an 'unexplained illness after reported vaping or e-cigarette use'.

Robert Redfield, director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement: "We are saddened to hear of the first death related to the outbreak of severe lung disease in those who use e-cigarette or 'vaping' devices."

He added: "This tragic death in Illinois reinforces the serious risks associated with e-cigarette products."

'Black Panther' sequel release date announced

"Black Panther" fans can finally mark their calendars for the highly-anticipated sequel. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige took the stage at Disney's D23 Expo in Anaheim, California, along with film director Ryan Coogler, to announce that the second movie of the "Black Panther" saga will debut in theaters on May 6, 2022.

 The Disney-Marvel movie won three Oscars for original score and production as well as costume design. Since hitting theaters in February 2018, "Black Panther" has grossed more than $700 million, according to Box Office Mojo.

US seizes 52,000 gun parts illegally imported from China to California

Federal officials say they've seized more than 52,000 firearms parts that arrived illegally from China at California's Los Angeles and Long Beach ports.

The parts -- sights, stocks, muzzles, buffer kits and grips -- arrived in three shipments and had a combined value of more than $378,000, US Customs and Border Protection said Thursday in a news release.
The parts arrived over a period of three months and were bound for a legitimate US-based gun parts seller and distributor, agency spokesman Jaime Ruiz told CNN.
The United States restricts imports from countries with which it has an arms embargo, including China. The US imposed an arms embargo after the deadly 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square.
"This seizure is an exceptional example of CBP officers and import specialists vigilance, commitment and keen focus in enforcing complex arms embargo regulations," Carlos C. Martel, the CBP's director of field operations in Los Angeles, said.

Inside dark underbelly of Las Vegas where Pornhub star Jenni Lee battles to survive in deadly flood tunnels with 1,000 homeless ‘mole’ people who eat scraps from casino bins

THE Las Vegas strip is the ultimate in glittering excess, with glaring neon lights, headline shows and millions being gambled in the luxurious casinos. But just 25ft below the roulette tables of Sin City lurks a hidden world where hundreds of homeless people fight for survival in a network of underground tunnels. The grim underbelly of the Nevada gambling mecca was revealed this week, when Dutch documentary workers discovered Pornhub star Jenni Lee living in the dank storm drains.




 It’s estimated around 1000 homeless eke out an existence below the strip, living on food rescued from bins and the odd cash handout from jubilant gamblers who struck lucky. Residents - dubbed 'mole people' - range from full-time workers, unable to afford housing in the cash-rich city, to gambling addicts and drug addicts, who occupy three separate tunnels depending on whether they prefer crack, meth or heroin.

Khachaturyan sisters who killed father touch Russian hearts

In July 2018 three teenage sisters stabbed and battered their father to death in his sleep, in their Moscow flat.

Investigators have confirmed the girls' father abused them physically and psychologically for years.

Charged with murder, the sisters and what should happen to them have become one of the hottest topics of debate in Russia and more than 300,000 people have signed a petition calling for their release.

What happened to the father?
On the evening of 27 July 2018 Mikhail Khachaturyan, 57, summoned Krestina, Angelina and Maria, who was a minor at the time, one by one to his room. He scolded them for not cleaning the flat properly and sprayed pepper gas in their faces.

Soon afterwards, when he had fallen asleep, the girls attacked him with a knife, hammer and pepper spray, inflicting fatal wounds to his head, neck and chest. He was found to have more than 30 knife wounds.

The young women then called the police and were arrested at the scene.

The investigation soon uncovered an extensive history of violence in the family. Khachaturyan had regularly beaten his daughters over three years, torturing them, keeping them as prisoners and sexually abusing them.

That evidence against their father is cited in their indictments.

California hotel employee 'prevents mass shooting'

California police say a hotel worker may have prevented a mass shooting after the worker reported that a disgruntled colleague had threatened to shoot staff and guests.

Acting on the tip-off, officers arrested a 37-year-old man who was found to have high-powered weapons and ammunition at his Los Angeles home.

It comes amid a wider FBI effort to prevent such shootings.

That followed attacks in El Paso and Dayton that killed 31 people.

Since then US authorities say they have foiled a series of alleged plots to carry out attacks, some of which would have targeted minority groups.

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The FBI has reportedly instructed its field offices to conduct threat assessments and has also urged the public to report threats or suspicious activity.

What happened in California?

Execution set for US killer who preyed on gay men

A serial killer who preyed on gay men along the US east coast is set to be put to death in Florida on Thursday, barring a stay by the US Supreme Court.

Gary Ray Bowles admitted to killing six men in 1994 from Florida to Maryland but was only convicted of three deaths.

Sometimes dubbed the "I-95 killer", most of his victims were found nearby to the interstate corridor that spans the entire eastern seaboard of the US.

The Florida Supreme Court rejected his appeal earlier this month.

Investigators say the 57-year-old West Virginia native left an abusive household as a child and worked as a prostitute to gay men for a number of years before beginning his killing spree.

After two jail sentences for grand theft, robbery, assault and rape, he moved to Daytona Beach in 1993.

During this time he continued to work as a prostitute, and was living with a girlfriend who left him after discovering his sex work.

JOBS: Do You Know A Good Rocket Scientist

Meet Beth Moses, chief astronaut instructor at Virgin Galactic. The woman who teaches the super-rich to slip the surly bonds of Earth. And who also teaches them a little about the niceties of “adult undergarments” on a space flight without loos.

Why should I trust her? Because NASA did. And because her day job involves using words such as “mothership” and “spacecraft”. Also, though she isn’t strictly a rocket scientist, her advice will be ringing in your ears when you’re on a flight into space, travelling at Mach 3.

What does she do? She trains people to go into orbit. Or almost. Virgin Galactic plans to send people into space but turn round and come back without going into orbit.

Turn back? Sounds a bit Apollo 13. Absolutely not. (Though Tom Hanks is said to have signed up for a flight.) This is turning back in a planned, calm, the-champagne-is-in-the-ice-bucket sort of way. Think private jet zooming through the clouds and then keeping on going.

Will the trolley service include drinks and light refreshments? Trollies do very badly in zero gravity. But you won’t starve without your in-flight peanuts. One of the chefs mooted for the swish Foster + Partners New Mexico spaceport on the ground specialises in Japanese-inspired dishes. Feast before you fly. In her NASA days, says Moses, she usually had “a tuna-fish sandwich from the cafeteria”.
And no cabin crew in natty red suits? No cabin crew. And no one knows what any passengers will be wearing. Virgin’s spacesuits, even more than their science, are “top secret”. The most Moses will say is that the suits are not in the traditional “puffy like a Michelin man” vein but are instead “exceptionally sleek”. Albeit with room for those undergarments.

America angers China with a sale of fighter jets to Taiwan

FOR TAIWAN, there is nothing like an American president who is not squeamish about outraging China. Even before he took office, Donald Trump stirred indignation in Beijing by taking a congratulatory phone call just after his election from Tsai Ing-wen, the president of Taiwan. (China saw this as a breach of the “one-China principle”, under which it demands that countries that maintain formal diplomatic ties with it do not also have them with Taiwan, which it views as part of China.) America recently allowed Ms Tsai to visit New York for one of the longest stays ever granted to a Taiwanese president, and sold Taiwan tanks and anti-aircraft missiles worth $2.2bn. But this week Mr Trump thrilled Taiwan with a step that China will see as an even bigger affront.

Spider-Man Fallout: Sony ‘Disappointed’ But Planning To Move On Without Marvel

Seismic waves ripped through the Marvel universe yesterday when news broke that Sony and Disney no longer could figure out how to cooperate on a proper deal to share Spider-Man, meaning that the Tom Holland iteration of the character would be leaving the MCU and only appearing in Sony films from here on out. In a nutshell, it was Sony taking its ball and going home after Disney reportedly asked for a new revenue-share model that was more of a 50/50 split – giving Sony far less than they were getting in the previous agreement.

Since the initial report, new statements have been floated to various outlets suggesting that the report of a complete break are premature, but Sony did officially weigh in on its own social media account, explaining:

Larry King files for divorce from 7th wife, Shawn King

Larry King is ending his marriage to his 7th wife Shawn Southwick King, after being together for 22 years.

The American television and radio host had reconciled with his estranged wife when she tried pulling the plug in April 2010, but initiated the divorce process himself in 2019. Larry King who has been married 7 times to 8 different women, tied the nuptial knots with Shawn in 1997.

Their wedding took place in his hospital room while preparing to undergo surgery to clear a clogged blood vessel in his heart. The couple have two grown sons together, and they are said to be 19 and 20 years old.

Boy, 13, hanged himself after finding out his crush has a boyfriend

A 13-year-old schoolboy took his life after finding out the girl he has a crush on had started dating somebody else.
Harry Storey, told friends on Whatsapp that he was feeling suicidal but they thought he was joking. Later that night on March 1 his father Andrew found his body at their home in Chilton, Oxfordshire.
Mr Storey said: "I could not comprehend what I was seeing."
He carried out CPR and when his wife walked in he shouted for her to call emergency services. Harry was taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital where he died three days later.