Thursday, January 5, 2006 A hostel collapsed in Mecca, the holy city of Islam at about 10 o’clock this morning local time. The building housed a number of pilgrims who came to visit the holy city at the eve of hajj pilgrimage. The hostel’s guests were mostly citizens of the United Arab Emirates. The death toll is at least 15, a figure which is expected to rise. The building was situated very close to the…

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Monday, August 17, 2009 The Sayano–Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station, located on the Yenisei River in Russia, experienced a problem after a pressure surge caused water pipes to burst, flooding the engine room. The water triggered an explosion in a transformer. Ten workers were confirmed dead and as many as 68 more injured. Some are still missing. The power station was shut down, and backup sources were enabled. The dam across the Yenisei was not damaged…

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Monday, May 28, 2018 On Saturday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un held an unannounced meeting in the Joint Security Area straddling the Korean Demilitarized Zone, two days after United States President Donald Trump withdrew from the scheduled June 12 high-level meeting in Singapore. Moon initiated the meeting after hearing Trump had withdrawn from the proposed summit with Kim. Trump’s decision to withdraw came on Friday after increased tensions…

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Tuesday, September 9, 2008 A number of relatively unknown entrants made the Taiwan 2008 Invitational Games for the Deaf soccer tournament an unpredictable event. Teams from Thailand, Australia, Iran (Silver Medalist in soccer at the 2005 Summer Deaflympics), Uzbekistan, Malaysia, and Japan took part. On September 6, soccer giants Thailand and Iran defeated Malaysia and Uzbekistan in shutouts of 11-0 and 9-0 respectively. Anothai Sathiyamat, Somsak Thongdee, Nares Numphakdee of Thailand all scored hat-tricks in…

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Tuesday, January 24, 2006 January’s second Interview of the Month was with Danny O’Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on 23 January in IRC. The EFF is coming off a series of high-profile successes in their campaigns to educate the public, press, and policy makers regarding online rights in a digital world, and defending those rights in the legislature and the courtroom. Their settlement with Sony/BMG, the amazingly confused MGM v Grokster decision by…

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Thursday, September 4, 2008 The Dow Jones Industrial Average, a stock market index used to gauge the performance of American stock exchanges, fell 344.65 at the close of trading Thursday. The exact reason for the drop is unknown, with different news agencies pointing to different causes. The New York Times cites a rise in unemployment numbers released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Labor and a fall in retail sales released by several large corporations.…

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Saturday, March 14, 2009 Rico Daniels is a British TV presenter living in France who is known for his two television series — The Salvager — whilst he still lived in the UK and then Le Salvager after he moved to France. Rico has been in a variety of jobs but his passion is now his profession – he turns unwanted ‘junk’ into unusual pieces of furniture. Rico’s creations and the methods used to fabricate…

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Saturday, July 23, 2005 Scotland Yard issued a statement that Jean Charles de Menezes, the 27-year-old Brazilian electrician shot to death yesterday by police in a London Underground station was “not connected” to Thursday’s bombings and called the incident “a tragedy”. A day earlier, the police commissioner said the man was “directly linked” to Thursday’s attacks. The police statement said “We are now satisfied that he was not connected with the incidents of Thursday 21st…

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Sunday, November 25, 2007 Despite the hopes of many University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) students, The Onion was not named after their student center. “People always ask questions about where the name The Onion came from,” said President Sean Mills in an interview with David Shankbone, “and when I recently asked Tim Keck, who was one of the founders, he told me the name—I’ve never heard this story about ‘see you at the un-yun’—he said it…

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