Everything you need to know about Snapchat's 'HUGE' new emoji update

Snapchat just stealthily launched a "HUGE" update that the company says will "change your life."

Instead of seeing your "best friends" ranked as they used to be, you will now get to follow an emoji coda to see who your most snapped buddies really are.

"Starting today, a bunch of emojis will be popping up in your Snapchat friends list," the company writes (check out the post inside its Snap Discover channel).

"No, they weren't just our favorite ones (shout out to the poop emoji), they actually mean something super-important — they break down your whole squad."

Users will begin to see emojis next to some of their Snapchat friends' names that indicate the status of their photo-sharing friendship.

There are six levels of connection, ranging from best friends to "You're their BF ... but they're not yours," which is aptly represented by a smirking face.

Snapchat cheekily used a bunch of pictures of Beyoncé with members of her crew to mark what each of the different levels means.

Here's the rundown so you can keep track:

Snapchat

Snapchat also launched two other features — one to lighten dark photos and one to nudge you to snap old friends whom you haven't connected with in a while.

Next time you try to take a photo in a dark room, you'll notice a half-moon symbol. Press it, and the picture will brighten:

Snapchat

Snapchat will include a new list of people in a "Needs Love" section of your recent snaps, according to TechCrunch's Josh Constine (we haven't seen any people listed there yet).

Overall, reactions on Twitter seemed to be mixed. Some think Snapchat's new emoji-fication will cause fights (it probably will), while others like the new status symbols:

The ‘Best Friends’ System

When Snapchat launched, there was a ‘Best Friends’ feature showing who other users interacted with frequently. This allowed you to tap other user profiles to see the top three accounts they interacted with. Snapchat removed this feature in 2015, due to a number of high-profile Snapchat users being concerned about privacy issues. We bet it was awkward when people found out their significant other was best friends with someone else! You can imagine the conversations (and maybe even rows!) that occurred with those revelations.

When the ‘Best Friends’ feature was removed, Snapchat introduced a new system, Snapchat emojis. The emojis are a bit more user-friendly and designed to help prevent misunderstandings between friends or relationships happening.

Click Here To read more on What do snapchat emojis mean?

Man with earphone on crushed to death by train in Lagos this morning

An unidentified young man with earphone on, was killed this morning April 8th by a passenger train at Cappa area of Oshodi, Lagos.

A Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) who was inside the train reports that the man was standing on the rail track oblivious to the fast approaching train. The NAN correspondent reports that the Ogun-Lagos-bound mass transit train was leaving its Oshodi station to Mushin when the accident occurred.

The train had as usual, sounded its horn repeatedly as it was approaching the railway crossing at Ilupeju Bye-pass for clearance of its track.

According to an eyewitness, the man who had his earphone on was apparently carried away with either the call he was receiving or listening to music.

Obviously the man was not aware of the approaching train even as it blasted its horn, perhaps because of the earphone. Before he knew it, he was already hit by the train and was not given any chance to escape. Immediately he was hit, the body was mangled as the train dragged it underneath,’’ the eyewitness said.

NAN reports that people standing by the rail track that saw the incident raised their hands over their heads in a show of pity for the deceased.

"The man has suddenly and unwittingly lost his life to sheer carelessness,’’ a passenger said.

NAN reports that it was not the first time a moving train would crush to death people standing on the rail track because of having their earphones on.

Among them was a lady in 2006, killed at Shogunle GRA railway crossing, while another one was killed in 2007 at Oshodi.

man who raped and made her pregnant, Afghan woman forced to marry her attacker to avoid prison

 

Afghan woman known only by her first name Gulnaz, (pictured left) was just 16 years old when was raped by her cousin's husband, a man named Asadullah (pictured right), in 2008. She fell pregnant as a result of the rape. But in Afghanistan, sleeping with a married man is a crime, and it doesn't matter if the married person forced themselves on you. How sad! Rejected by her family and facing 12 year in prison for 'adultery by force' and falling pregnant for a married man, Gulnaz had no choice but to marry her depraved attacker. That was her only hope to get a reduced sentence. She later gave birth to the girl in the photo above.

Talking to CNN about her life, Gulnaz said she only agreed to marry her rapist so that her daughter - named Smile could live a shame-free life in the Afghan capital's 'traditional' society. 

 

 Gulnaz married the rapist in 2013 after her family told her she couldn't return home because she'd 'shamed' their family. Gulnaz said marrying her attacker was her only choice

"I didn't want to ruin the life of my daughter or leave myself helpless so I agreed to marry him. We are traditional people. When we get a bad name, we prefer death to living with that name in society,' Gulnaz said.

And through out the interview, she refused to look her husband in the eye. The man, Asadullah - who was jailed for the rape in 2008 but later released, said the woman owed her freedom to him.

'If I hadn't married her according to our traditions, she couldn't have lived back in society. Her brothers didn't want to accept her back. Now, she doesn't have any of those problems." He said.

Asadullah is still married to Gulnaz's first cousin - with whom he has five children.

Anthropologist explains why we cheat on people we love

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(YouTube/TED Talks)Biological anthropologist Helen Fisher has a pretty perfect description of what it's like to be in love with someone:

Simply put, she says, that person becomes the center of the world. You have an intense craving to be with that person, not just sexually, but emotionally. You can list the things you don't like about them, but all that gets pushed aside and you focus only on what you do like about them.

"It's an obsession," Fisher said in TED Talk called "Why we love, why we cheat."

What's going on biologically, though, is far less romantic, and it explains why we sometimes cheat on those we love.

Romantic love is essentially just elevated activity of the reward hormone dopamine in the brain.

In the TED talk Fisher explains an experiment where she and a team of scientists scanned the brains of people who were in love. The team showed the smitten person a neutral photo and then a photo of their beloved. They recorded which regions of the brain were active while the person gazed at the photo of their partner.

The researchers found that one of the most important brain regions that became active when each person looked at a photo of their partner is the reward system — the same brain area that lights up when a person takes cocaine or has an orgasm.

That means that "romantic love is not an emotion, it's a drive," Fisher said. "And in fact, I think it's more powerful than the sex drive."

Many other studies have found the same thing: love operates as a motivation and reward system in the brain. So, if love is rewarding, what drives us to cheat on people we fall in love with?

The problem is that romantic love isn't the only brain system that is activated when we fall for someone. There are actually three brain systems related to love, Fisher explained.

There's the sex drive, which is like an "intolerable neural itch," to get us out searching for a range of partners to help pass on our genes. There's romantic love, which helps us focus our mating energy on one person. And then there's attachment, the calm and security we feel with a long-term partner so we can raise children with them as a team.

However, those three brain systems, sex drive, romantic love, and attachment, aren't always connected to each other.

So it's possible to feel deep attachment to a long-term partner at the same time you feel intense romantic love toward someone else and even also feel sexual attraction toward another person, Fisher said.

"In short, we're capable of loving more than one person at a time," Fisher said.

And that's why, Fisher says, some people may cheat on their partner.

It's why someone can lay in bed at night thinking about deep feelings of attachment to one person and swing to thoughts of romantic love for another person.

"It's as if there's a committee meeting going on inside your head as you try to decide what to do," Fisher said. "I don't think honestly that we're an animal that was built to be happy — we're an animal that was built to reproduce. I think the happiness we find, we make."

This all sounds like a cynical take on love, but Fisher says that, despite all these straightforward and unavoidable biological processes, there's still mystery and "magic to it."

Kenya Morns : photos of some students killed in Kenyan university massacre

Yesterday, Kenyan social media honoured Kenyan university attack victims with #147notjustanumber hashtag. Here are some of the faces of the victims of the Al-Shabaab massacre. Their friends and relatives shared their photos on Twitter. See more after the cut..will bring more photos later...

 

 

Sad : How TV star & actor, Von Apochi was nearly burnt to death

Gulder Ultimate Search 1 contestant, TV star and actor Von Apochi tells his story of how he survived a horrific fire incident when his car went up in flames about a month a go in Lagos, leaving him with second degree burns. His story below...

To say am stunned will be the most mild way to put this... at first my heart skipped so hard i could feel my hands tremble; had to place a quick call to my friend and brother Von; well, if you have never met Von, you'll have no idea how amazing and super supportive of a man he is.

Anyway, let me cut to the chase and allow you guys to read this super mighty testimony... 

''This is my true life experience, I recently went through the fire and back alive. I may not share photos now as the pictures are not very friendly and very worrisome. However, please help me thank God for life and the miraculous healing. The doctors and nurses have not recovered from the awe of my miraculous healing God gifted me with.
Several surgeons and Burn Experts have been thrilled at the miraculous healing. God is wonderful and real... I saw the Hand of God live in my life; a friend of mine that is still surprised at the whole healing process while in shock of excitement, she confirmed to me that she sees a light over me.

This is not one of those oratorical compositions or some popular prose or write up, this is real and true.
I do not like to think of the way it happened but I will try to explain part: My car was burnt totally as the fire started from the bonnet of the car and engulfed the entire car. I was literally engulfed with fire while I ran alone and helpless along the lonely road beside the Harvey road cemetery; for those of you who are conversant with Lagos and the Yaba area, you will understand the loneliness I speak of as this happened at about 4am on my way back from a quick strategy meeting.

 At first my car hit one of those big blocks meant for constructing gutters. The block was placed by the side of the road instead of being placed in the gutter, and then the fire started from the bonnet of my car. With the fire over my body, I screamed, "Blood of Jesus" severally and dove to the ground to roll but suddenly, the fire went out. At this moment I could not feel my face anymore, my hands were burnt black.


My little Von-Edric back at home was crying unusually that morning my wife said. My wife had called me before the accident to tell me that my son was crying heavily. I normally change his dippers at night and sometimes feed him, this is to allow my wife rest at night as the responsibilities during the day are quite tasking. She then called me again to ask if I was getting close to the house, then and there I broke the news to my wife that I was burnt by fire. She screamed and went into prayers.

At this time my mind was racing through a lot of things, my acting career, and my job as a business consultant with one of the multinational companies in Nigeria. Oh my political career, oh my face, oh my "shakara" lol! Oh my job as the host of miss tourism 2015 oh my... what a devil is this I thought, well, many things went through my mind. But, in all of that moment the worst of the things that bothered me was the excruciating pain I was feeling, the pain was so severe that I felt like knocking off. I had heard that people mostly die from pain and infection in cases of burn, this thought bothered me further. All I could do was pray, pray!! And pray!!!

Let me reserve details of the entire process of the accident for the sake of post-traumatic stress, I shall continue with the hospital experience instead. I was rushed to a specialist hospital in Surulere Lagos by some unknown security men patrolling the area.

The hospital was the only one I could remember at that time, maybe it is because the hospital is close to my home because I told then the hospital they should take me to. We finally got to the hospital, they rushed me inside and handed me over to the doctor on duty, God bless those men wherever they are. Whilst in the hospital receiving first aid, the doctor on duty had given me the strongest pain killer they had in the hospital, he said.

This pain killer was supposed to knock me out but my eyes were wide open as my brain was still contending with the pains rather than respond to some drowsy pain killer. I was so unstable and disturbed; I got up severally to pace about hoping I could walk away from the pain. Suddenly my wife walked into the hospital looking worried and of course to also check the extent of damage the fire had caused but at this point in time, one could not measure the damage caused as all my face was black like burnt coal and hands burnt dry. My two lower palms were bruised from the dive, my thighs were slightly burnt and my upper bum was also burnt, my neck was burnt from the front but nothing happened to any other part of my body.

I quickly asked my wife to inform my mother whom I know would back me up with serious prayers. Please help me say a word of thanks to my praying wife and praying mother and I thank those who heard early and prayed for me and those of you praying for me now, God bless you.
On the third day, my face was swollen to the extent that my eyes were covered, my hands were swollen also, and my neck was largely blistered also with my bum blistered too. Too much pain for one brain to cope with, pain killers were like taking water as injections. I was steadily on drips, my hands were pierced at random looking for veins; I was suffering.

This is about a Month now and this is my testimony… you will appreciate God more when I release the pictures of my current look and my look then. Yes I had plastic and burn surgeons consulted; I have a skin specialist working on my face and neck but believe me these surgeons, skin specialist, nurses and doctors are marvelled at the healing and recovery of my face and other body parts. They say there is no medical explanation to this speed and healing process but they just say, “thank God for you Von, you are a gifted and blessed child of God”.

I just want to conclude this by saying Thank God for the miracle of life, thank God for healing and speedy recovery, thank God for my Wife, Mother, Father, other Family members and of course you because I believe your lips will say Thank you Lord for this miracle and testimony.

Von before the fire incident

I am bouncing back to my job and of course back to the movies again fresher and finer.

God bless you all this is my testimony.

A college math professor brilliantly pranked his students and won the internet

A college math and computer science professor at Biola University in California had the best April Fools' Day prank of 2015.

The resulting YouTube video, which is going viral on Reddit, shows a lecture that professor Matthew Weathers gave to his class with a projector. At the end of his lecture, he pulled up a YouTube video of one of his classes to show the students that they were also available online.

Unexpectedly, the video counterpart picks a fight with the real Weathers, and they begin to argue with each other.

And then things get really weird:

YouTube

Weathers goes behind and "into" the screen, where the pair begin to exchange blows and throw icons, some of which even fly out into the real world.

YouTube

YouTube

Eventually, video Weathers wins and traps the real Weathers. The video Weathers deletes his competition and exits the screen at the end.

YouTube

The students went crazy for it.

Weathers said he used Adobe Premier and After Effects to create the on-screen skit and spent a lot of time practicing to make sure everything was perfect — what we see in the video is exactly what happened in class.

"I practiced about 20 times to get the timing right," Weathers told Reddit. "But yes, I also had audio cues that helped a lot."

The video, which was filmed Tuesday because Weathers did not have class on April 1, has been viewed almost 2 million times on YouTube.

This is not Weathers' first April Fools'-inspired math class. Last year, he also went "inside the screen" to buy a book on Amazon, and back in 2010 he did a skit in which his shadow kept messing up his presentation.

His videos have been so popular that he even uploaded a tutorial on how to do it.

As for future pranks, Weathers told Reddit, "I haven't figured that out yet … we'll see what happens on April 1, 2016."

Fire outbreak at INEC office in Imo

INEC office in Nwaorubi in Mbaitoli LGA of Imo State was raised down by fire in the early hours of today at about 1.30am. Speaking on the incident, the state Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) Gabriel Ada, said all the sensitive and insensitive materials kept in the building were destroyed in the fire. Mr Gabriel said that the fire might be due to an electric spark from a generating set.

He said although the fire did not destroy the card readers meant for next Saturday's governorship election, the fire incident might cause a little hitch during the governorship elections which is to hold next Saturday April 11th. He however promised that the agency would do everything possible to ensure that all materials, sensitive and non sensitive, needed for the governorship election is replaced.

Emmanuel Emenike, survives gun attack in Turkey

 

Super Eagles star, Emmanuel Emenike survived a gun attack in Turkey yesterday April 4th after unknown gunmen attacked the bus conveying him and his turkey based football club, Fenebahce team mates. The group was heading to the airport from a match they had just finished playing against Rizespor in the North Eastern part of Turkey when the gunmen attacked their bus. The driver of the bus was the only casualty while the players and team officials suffered no injury.

Honest taxi driver finds £10,000 in his cab - then hands it back to grateful passenger

A grateful passenger has said a taxi driver will be “his friend for life” after he hung on to a  bag with £10,000 he left behind in his cab.

Car dealer Adrian Quinn said he never usually carried that amount of cash but had been running late and been unable to get to a bank.

He said: “I was physically sick when I realised what I had done. Losing that money would have meant the end of my business.”

Caters

New best mates: Adrian Quinn with 'friend for life' Mohammed Nisar

But Mohammed Nisar, 55, was in his car with the bag at his side when Adrian raced back to Walsall station in the West Midlands.

He said: “I told him ‘Do you know what’s in the bag? It’s not sandwiches or a newspaper, but £10,000’.”

Adrian, 46, of Hereford, gave Mohammed a cash reward to thank him in an envelope marked “to my best friend in the world”.

Aspiring D.C. rapper (Kealo) fatally shot while filming music video

 An aspiring D.C. rapper and YouTube video artist was shot and killed while filming a music video in Maryland, sources told ABC7 News.

According to police, 21-year-old Keaway Lafonz Ivy was filming a rap video along with as many 20 people when a gun being used a prop was fired; tragically, Ivy was hit and killed. Authorities are questioning numerous people as they investigated the death to try to determine whether it was an accidental shooting or intentional.

Ivy, who used the rap name Kealo, died of a gunshot wound near 62nd Place and Eastern Avenue in Seat Pleasant on Wednesday night.

Now police are calling the fatal shooting a ‘homicide’ and Prince George’s County Crime Solvers offered a $25,000 reward for information in the case leading to an arrest or indictment

Exposed: Luxurious life style and Private JET of Diezani Alison-Madueke’s son

SPY NIGERIA has obtained photos of  Nigeria Oil Minister,  Diezani Alison-Madueke’s sons, living like Kings in America, complete with private jet travel, luxury ship vacations, frolicking with local and international superstars such as Dbanj, Neyo and Cecil Hammond.

dbanj cecil hammond chima madueke

John Legend & Common Face Off On ‘Lip Sync Battle’ With Classic Hits — Watch

What happens when Oscar-winning duo, John Legend and Common, face off against each other on ‘Lip Sync Battle?’ Huge hair, elaborate costumes, epic dance moves and other things you won’t want to miss! Watch the action go down here!

John Legend, 36, and Common, 43, throw it way back on Spike TV’s amazing new show, Lip Sync Battle, while lip syncing to some classic hits. The “Glory” collaborators went head to head for the battle, and though it was a close call, only one winner was determined. While Common channeled Lionel Richie for his rendition of “All Night Long (All Night)”, John did his best at MC Hammer‘s “U Can’t Touch This.” Watch their amazing renditions here!

‘Lip Sync Battle': John Legend & Common Face Off

Common started the night by stepping out as a clone to Lionel — wig and all! His outfit was exactly something of what the iconic musician would wear in the 80s, which definitely added to his performance of “All Night Long (All Night).” He gave a passionate lip syncing performance complete with back up dancers and moves of his own, surprising everyone with his major breakdancing skills! Both John and his supermodel wife Chrissy Teigen, 29, were loving it!

Next, John took the stage and transformed into 90s sensation MC Hammer. Let us say he nailed the outfit — special shout out to THOSE PANTS! Like John, he also had back up dancers, but he completely stole the show with his special dance moves while owning his epic performance — Chrissy couldn’t help herself from bopping around either!

And the winner of that Lip Sync Battle was… Common! The rapper tweeted his victory.

‘Lip Sync Battle': The Rock & Jimmy Fallon Face Off In Premiere

The very first episode of Lip Sync Battle also showed an epic battle between Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, 42, and Jimmy Fallon, 40. The Rock did a hilarious take on Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” while Jimmy opted forMadonna’s classic “Like A Prayer.” You can find out who won and watch that hilarious showdown here!

Up next we will see beauties Anna Kendrick and Jennifer Lopez along with Justin Bieber doing his best Ozzy Osbourne. We can’t wait either.

Plies: Rapper Thrown Off Stage By Fan At Concert

So scary! A Plies concert got way out of hand when the ‘Bust It Baby’ rapper was violently thrown off stage by a fan while performing a set. Watch the shocking video here.

What started out as a friendly invitation to come on stage with Plies quickly turned violent after a fan attacked the rapper while he was performing a concert on April 3 in Tallahassee, Fla. Things got heated very fast as the rapper was thrown off stage by the fan within the blink of an eye.

Plies Thrown Off Stage During Concert — See Shocking Video

So shocking! Plies, who likes to interact with his fans during concerts, clearly had no idea what he was in for when inviting a fan to come on stage.

As the fan hovers over him, Plies attempts to make a joke about how he was in his personal space. “We can’t be that close now, we too close,” Plies says.

Apparently, his words set off the fan, who, without any obvious warning, grabs Plies from the waist and flips him over off of the stage. (That seriously had to have hurt.) Other fans in the audience begin to scream, and it’s only a matter of time before the attacker was escorted out by security.

The most shocking thing, however? Plies gets right back on stage and continues to perform, as fights break throughout the crowd. That’s some dedication.

Plies’ Attacker Explains His Side

As seen in the second part of the video, Plies’ attacker uploaded videos as to explain his side of why he attacked the rapper. In his eyes, Plies was the one who started it and he was just fighting back. He also admits that Plies is one of his top 5 artists.

Two FBI agents steal Bitcoins

The Silk Road, the notorious online black market, has been closed for a year and half.

And yet illegal activity linked to the Dark Web’s most infamous site, which did over $200 million in transactions, continues to crawl out: A criminal complaint unsealed Monday charged two federal agents with wire fraud and money laundering, committed while part of a task force assigned to investigate the Silk Road.

According to the complaint, both Carl Mark Force IV of the Drug Enforcement Administration and Shaun Bridges of the Secret Service, “abused their positions as federal agents and engaged in a scheme to defraud a variety of third-parties, the public, and the government, all for their financial enrichment.”

They did so, according to a federal affidavit signed by IRS investigator Tigran Gambaryan, by using their positions on the Baltimore Silk Road Task Force, to seize large quantities of bitcoins — the cryptocurrency that was the primary unit of exchange on the Silk Road — and move them into their personal bank accounts.

According to the affidavit, Force “stole and converted to his own personal use a sizable amount of bitcoins…rather than turning those bitcoin over the government”; meanwhile, Bridges “despite having personally benefitting in the amount of $820,000 from a Mt. Gox account…two days later served as the affiant on a multi-million dollar seize warrant for Mt. Gox and its owner’s bank accounts.”

The FBI took down the Silk Road, which at its peak listed 10,000 products for sale, 70% of which were drugs, in October 2013. And last month, a federal jury in New York convicted Ross Ulbricht on seven drug and conspiracy charges related to its operation.

But today’s complaint, filed in the United States District Court in San Francisco demonstrates that not even the government agents assigned with investigating the Silk Road were immune to the temptations presented by the anonymous black market.