Tom Cruise hasn't seen daughter in two years

Actor Tom Cruise is said to have not seen his nine-year-old daughter Suri for around 800 days.

According to National Enquirer, the "Mission: Impossible" star has kept his distance from his daughter and ex-wife Katie Holmes because of his religion Scientology.

"He doesn't seem interested in being part of Suri's day-to-day life," aceshowbiz.com quoted a source as saying.

"Katie does her best to be a hands-on mum but there's no replacing her father."

The insider added: "He hasn't been seen in public with his daughter in over two long years - that's a fifth of her lifetime."

Back in April, there was a report saying that Tom hadn't seen Suri for a year because he was busy filming Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation in London. However, a representative for the movie star denied the allegation, saying that Tom did meet Suri, but it happened in private and away from the public eye.

EPL: Milner gives Klopp first Anfield league win

LIVERPOOL: Liverpool gained their first Premier League home win under manager Jurgen Klopp as James Milner's penalty secured a 1-0 home win over struggling Swansea City on Sunday.

Milner lifted his spot-kick into the top of the net with just under half an hour remaining after Neil Taylor handled Jordon Ibe's cross.

Striker Daniel Sturridge and captain Jordan Henderson made returns from injury as Klopp's side laboured to a victory that sent them up to sixth place in the table.

Sturridge, waylaid by a knee problem, made his first appearance since Klopp took charge last month, while midfielder Henderson, who has been absent with a broken foot, played for the first time since August.

Defeat leaves Swansea, who have won just one of their last 10 league matches, hovering just above the relegation zone.

Garry Monk's side were fourth at the end of August, but have faltered badly since.

They looked nervy at first and almost conceded a comical own goal inside the first six minutes as they were undone by a swift Liverpool attack.

Ibe raced in from the right onto Adam Lallana's through-ball after Milner had won possession.

Centre-back Kyle Bartley slid in as the winger lost control, diverting the ball against his own post as goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski stood helpless.

The visitors occasionally broke, with Kyle Naughton eager to get forward, and it was from the right-back's cross that Portugal forward Eder headed wide at the near post under pressure from Martin Skrtel.

By and large, though, it was Liverpool who were creating the early problems with their crisp passing.

One superb diagonal Lallana ball looked to have given a clear run at goal to Christian Benteke, whose first touch was loose and allowed Naughton to nip in and tidy up.

Swansea invited pressure as they dropped deeper to try to keep Liverpool at bay, and lived on their nerves, with captain Ashley Williams surviving a penalty appeal as he tangled with Benteke.

Ibe then lost his footing when he was in a good position to control and finish Alberto Moreno's cross from the left, before Williams made a superb block to deny Lallana as Klopp's side continued to press.

The visitors came through that tricky spell, breaking to engineer a couple of promising attacks of their own, as Gylfi Sigurdsson began to have more of an influence, but Liverpool's defence remained solid.

And still chances were hard to come by, despite Ibe cutting in from the left early in the second half to fire in a low shot that Fabianski pushed around his near post.

But Liverpool got the break they needed on the hour mark when Swansea left-back Taylor was judged to have handled Ibe's cross.

Taylor was turning away from the ball with his arm out as he blocked the cross and referee Anthony Taylor only awarded a penalty on the advice of his linesman.

Milner stayed calm to lift the spot-kick beyond Fabianski, allowing the Kop to breathe a big sigh of relief.

Klopp then brought on Henderson and Sturridge to cheers as they made their returns.

And his team almost added a second, with Milner drilling a shot just wide at the end of a fine passing move.

Ecuador winger Jefferson Montero caused Liverpool concerns when he came on for the final 18 minutes, while fellow Swansea substitute Bafetimbi Gomis saw a late shot deflected wide.

But Liverpool edged home to move into the top six and close to within four points of a Champions League spot.

NBA: LA Lakers' Kobe Bryant to retire at end of season

Los Angeles Lakers great Kobe Bryant, arguably the best player of his generation, announced on Sunday he will retire after the 2015-16 National Basketball Association season.

Bryant, who is struggling through the worst season of his illustrious 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, said in a piece posted on the Players' Tribune website that "I'm ready to let go."

The decision was not totally unexpected as the 37-year-old Lakers guard has been plagued by injuries in recent seasons and had recently said he was considering retirement.

"I can't love you obsessively for much longer. This season is all I have left to give," wrote Bryant. "My heart can take the pounding, my mind can handle the grind, but my body knows it's time to say goodbye."

Bryant, a surefire first-ballot Hall of Famer who is third on the NBA's all-time scoring list, has a career-worst 31.5 shooting percentage through his first 12 games of the season on a Lakers team that has the second worst record in the league.

Named Kobe by his parents after they spotted the popular Japanese cut of beef on a restaurant menu shortly before his birth, Bryant is now a five-times NBA champion having won titles in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2009 and 2010.

He was drafted out of high school with the 13th overall pick in the 1996 NBA Draft by the Charlotte Hornets but was traded shortly after the Lakers for Serbian Vlade Divac.

He has appeared in 17 All-Star games, was named the Most Valuable Player for the 2007-08 regular season and landed MVP honors in the 2009 and 2010 Finals when he led the Lakers to consecutive championships.

Bryant has also won gold medals with the U.S. basketball team at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.

'THRILLING MEMORIES'


Getty Images

During his career, Bryant made a habit of draining game-winning shots despite being double or triple-teamed by opponents and has established a reputation for being one of the best closers in the NBA.

In his essay, Bryant talked about being a boy who would use his father's rolled-up socks to shoot imaginary game-winning shots at the Great Western Forum, where the Lakers played from 1967 to 1999.

"I'm ready to let you go," wrote Bryant, who trails only Hall of Famers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Karl Malone on the NBA's scoring list.

"So we both can savor every moment we have left together. The good and the bad. We have given each other all that we have."

Bryant was sidelined nearly eight months in 2013 with a torn Achilles' tendon, then played just six games during the 2013-14 season because of a severe knee injury.

Last season, he played 35 games but increasingly suffered soreness in his knees, feet and back, prompting coach Byron Scott to cut back significantly on Bryant's playing time going forward while altering his on-court role.

Lakers head coach Byron Scott, who was Bryant's teammate during the latter's rookie season, said he was shocked when his player told him of the decision on Saturday.

"I think he still loves this game. He still has a passion for it. He's still a competitive young man," Scott said on Sunday. "His purpose is to finish out this season and play."

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, in a statement released moments after Bryant's news surfaced, called the Lakers guard one of the greatest players in the game.

"Whether competing in the Finals or hoisting jump shots after midnight in an empty gym, Kobe has an unconditional love for the game," said Silver.

"I join Kobe's millions of fans around the world in congratulating him on an outstanding NBA career and thank him for so many thrilling memories."

World rallies to save the Earth

PARIS:Protesters linked hands near the heart of the Paris terror attacks on Sunday but others clashed with police, giving an emotional jolt to world leaders flying into the French capital to try to save Earth from climate catastrophe.

As hundreds of thousands of people joined protests worldwide, the human chain aimed to send a highly symbolic message to leaders on the eve of the official opening of a 195-nation UN climate summit in Paris.

French authorities cancelled two climate demonstrations in the City of Light after gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people on November 13 for security reasons. Though the Paris protests were overwhelmingly peaceful, a small band of anti-capitalist militants clashed with riot police in the late afternoon leading to the arrests of about 100 people.

Instead of marching, many activists left thousands of pairs of shoes — weighing more than four tonnes according to organisers — on Place de la Republique square. A pair of running shoes was left by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, and Pope Francis sent shoes to be placed on his behalf.

In the first organised demonstration in the French capital since the attacks, climate protesters of all ages lined the wind-blown streets to link up in a two-kilometre (1.2-mile) human chain.
"Hear our voices! We are here!" they chanted.


Environmentalists protest in front of French CRS riot police near the Place de la Republique after the cancellation of a planned climate march following shootings in the French capital, ahead of the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21), in Paris. (Reuters photo)

"There was a lot of solemnity, dignity on the pavements. There was a powerful current that passed between people's hands," said Genevieve Azam, spokeswoman for organising group Attac. "It was a pleasure to be able to lift the lid that has weighed on French people since the attacks."

Protesters left a 100-metre gap in the human chain outside the Bataclan concert hall, the site where gunmen killed 90 people, as a mark of respect to the victims.

Hours later, though, riot police fired teargas at protesters who pelted them with bottles and candles in Place de la Republique and chanted "State of emergency, police state", referring to the postattack protest restrictions.

Around 100 people were arrested after the clashes, according to police.

Some 150 leaders, including US president Barack Obama, China's Xi Jinping, India's Narendra Modi and Russia's Vladimir Putin, will attend the official start on Monday of the UN conferensince tasked with reaching the first truly universal climate pact. About 2,800 police and soldiers will secure the site of the November 30-December 11 conference, and 6,300 others will deploy in Paris.

The goal of the climate talks is to limit average global warming to no more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), over pre-Industrial Revolution levels by curbing fossil fuel emissions blamed for climate change.

Rallies demanding curbs on carbon pollution have been growing around the world conferensince Friday, with marches involving tens of thousands across Australia on Sunday kickstarting a final day of people-powered protest.

In London, where thousands of people rallied, Oscarwinner Emma Thompson called on world leaders to grab the "historic" opportunity to reach a deal. "I went to the Arctic with my daughter last year and saw for myself the degradation of the environment there and it made me and helped me understand in a much more visceral real way what was happening to the planet," Thompson said.

More than 325,000 people across 175 countries were involved in the rallies, according to a preliminary estimate by Greenpeace, one of the organisers. "People have taken to the streets to demand that we change the way we power our world," Greenpeace International executive director Kumi Naidoo said.

New chip to charge smartphone batteries within minutes

The maker of a new chip claims that it could reduce the charging times of phones to a few minutes, and could prevent dangerous explosions.

The tiny chip could be embedded into batteries of all sizes and monitor how healthy and charged they are. That in turn would mean that the batteries would become much safer and quicker to charge, according to the scientist that developed it.

Unhealthy lithium-ion batteries can be at risk of exploding or catching fire, as well as gradually losing their capacity so that they run out more quickly. Those problems may become even more important as people move towards electric cars or other vehicles.

"Although the risk of a battery failing and catching fire is very low, with the billions of lithium-ion batteries being produced yearly, even a one-in-a-million chance would mean over a thousand failures," said Rachid Yazami from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

"This poses a serious risk for electric vehicles and even in advanced aeroplanes as usually big battery packs have hundreds of cells or more bundled together to power the vehicle or aircraft. If there is a chemical fire caused by a single failed battery, it could cause fires in nearby batteries, leading to an explosion."

Normal batteries can't tell if they are malfunctioning, and have to estimate how much charge they have left.

Knowing the health and state of a battery would also make it able to charge much more quickly, and make sure that it stayed as healthy as it can.

"In addition to knowing the degradation of batteries, our technology can also tell the exact state of charge of the battery, and thus optimise the charging so the battery can be maintained in its best condition while being charged faster," said Prof Yazami.

The battery works using an algorithm that takes measurements from the battery. It can then use those to see the health and charge.

Those behind the battery hope that it will be available for licensing before the end of 2016.

Murray levels Davis final as Goffin survives scare

GHENT (Belgium): Britain's Andy Murray levelled the Davis Cup final at 1-1 with a comfortable defeat of Ruben Bemelmans after David Goffin had escaped from two sets down to give Belgium the lead at the Flanders Expo on Friday.

The 28-year-old world number two Murray, who has almost single-handedly put Britain on the brink of their first title since 1936, duly delivered another point, beating 108th-ranked Bemelmans 6-3, 6-2, 7-5 on the indoor claycourt.

His win left the tie poised at 1-1 ahead of Saturday's doubles when he will partner brother Jamie, although Britain would already be virtually home and dry had debutant Kyle Edmund finished off world number 16 Goffin.

The opening singles of the tie, which was a "must-win" rubber for Belgium as they try to land their first title, was turning into a humiliation for Goffin when he trailed the world number 100 by two sets.

However, roared on by the majority of the 13,000 crowd packed into an arena built inside a charmless warehouse on the edge of medieval Ghent, the 24-year-old hit back from two sets down for the first time to win 3-6, 1-6, 6-2, 6-1, 6-0.

The final began with a 12-minute game in which Goffin wasted two break points, shanking one forehand into the roof girders, then saw him completely overwhelmed for more than an hour by a free-swinging 20-year-old with a thunderbolt forehand.

Goffin finally recovered his senses to put a tiring Edmund in his place, but it was a mighty scare.

"The pressure was more on my shoulders because we needed this point against Kyle," Goffin told reporters.

"I was a little bit worried because Kyle was playing unbelievable. He just had nothing to lose.

"Kyle was really heavy with every forehand. It was tough to manage but I stayed calm and waited for my chance."
NO ERROR

With Murray enjoying such a magnificent unbeaten Davis Cup record this year, having a hand in eight of Britain's nine points won over three ties, Belgium have no margin for error.

Defeat for Goffin would have left Belgium's dreams in tatters and the pressure seemed to freeze the 24-year-old as his game disintegrated in the face of Edmund's withering power.

Edmund was in complete control for more than an hour and looked set to become the first debutant to win a live rubber in the Davis Cup final when he took the second set in 25 minutes with a run of six successive games.

A stunned Goffin finally got a foothold when he broke the Edmund serve to open a 3-1 lead in the third set and the momentum quickly swung his way.

With the spring back in legs that seemed set in concrete earlier, and his shoulders released, Goffin began to feed off the energy of the 13,000 crowd and Edmund wilted.

After levelling the match, Goffin knocked off the last six games in quick time.

Murray's only worrying moments came in the third set when he received a penalty point for an audible obscenity before slipping 4-2 behind.

Bemelmans had a set point on the Murray serve at 5-4, only to hit a forehand return long, and a fired-up Murray quickly snuffed out the danger, wrapping up a straight-sets win before turning his attention to Saturday's doubles.

MLS is tougher than Premier League, says Drogba

LONDON: Major League Soccer (MLS) offers a tougher challenge than the English Premier League and will soon be one of the best domestic competitions in world football, according to Chelsea great Didier Drogba.

The former Ivory Coast striker has just completed a successful first season with the Montreal Impact after leaving Chelsea in May.

"It's a different challenge (in the US)," Drogba said in an interview. "People think it's easy to play there. Believe me, it's more difficult than playing in the Premier League because of the travel.

"You can stay at an airport for three or four hours if you miss your flight, so that is what is really levelling the game.

"There are not a lot of away wins because when the teams arrive they are tired. There are also some very good players in the league," Drogba said.

"It's a growing league and I think it's going to be one of the most important and decisive leagues in the world in a few years."

Montreal qualified for the playoffs by finishing third in the Eastern Conference.

They beat Toronto FC in the knockout round before going out in the two-game Eastern Conference semi-finals where they lost to Columbus Crew.

Drogba scored 12 goals and claimed one assist in 14 regular season and playoff games for Montreal. His overall contribution helped the team out of a slump and ignited a stirring late-season run after they had failed to reach the playoffs in 2014.

The Ivorian said he was unsure what the future held beyond the one year remaining on his Impact contract.
NEW WAY OF LIFE

"I will have time during this year to think about whether I want to carry on or not," said the striker.

"I'm just enjoying playing, running everywhere, defending, scoring goals, travelling, going to new cities, discovering new plans and a new way of life."

In two spells at Chelsea, Drogba won the Premier League four times, the FA Cup four times and the Champions League in 2012 when he scored a late equaliser against Bayern Munich and then converted the winning penalty in a memorable shootout.

He hit 164 goals in 381 appearances for the London team and the fans showed their appreciation in 2012 by voting him the club's greatest ever player.

In his new autobiography 'Commitment', published by Hodder and Stoughton, Drogba said Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich had promised him a role at the club once his playing days were over.

He was twice named African Player of the Year, won 104 caps and scored a record 65 goals for his country but the Ivorian is much more than just a footballer.

The 37-year-old is a United Nations goodwill ambassador while his Didier Drogba Foundation is building health clinics in his native country.

Drogba has given millions of dollars to charity over the years and his new book describes how all of his commercial earnings since 2007 have gone to his foundation.

Asked about his plans beyond his playing days, the man Time Magazine selected in 2010 as one of the world's 100 most influential people for his humanitarian work said he wanted to leave a lasting legacy.

"What I really want is to have an impact on people, to be able to have an impact on social things like my foundation or to be able to change things," explained Drogba. "I want to help people."

However, a career in politics is not on the agenda.

"No, that's not what I want to do," said Drogba. "I want to keep my freedom.

"I want to be able to touch more people, not just the people who believe in me. I want to be able to make people understand that they don't have to believe in me but I'm there to help."

Europa League: Liverpool, Spurs into last-32 as Celtic crash

PARIS: Liverpool and Tottenham reached the Europa League last 32 on Thursday while Scottish interest in continental competition came to another sobering end when Celtic were knocked out.
Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool defeated Bordeaux 2-1 at Anfield having endured the worst possible start when injury-plagued England striker Daniel Sturridge's comeback from a knee injury stalled when he hurt his foot in the warm-up.
The English side then fell a goal down in the Group B clash in bizarre fashion after 33 minutes when goalkeeper Simon Mignolet was penalised for holding onto the ball for 20 seconds rather than the permitted six.
Henri Saivet buried the resulting free-kick but Liverpool were level just five minutes later when James Milner scored from the penalty spot after Ludovic Sane fouled Christian Benteke.
Belgian star Benteke then hit what proved to be the winner in first-half injury time with a rasping right-footed drive.
"It was an important night for the whole team because we are in the next round. A few weeks ago we were with three points and now we have nine," said Klopp.
On Sturridge's latest setback, he added: "We have to wait for some things, it's a fight again, we have to be prepared and we will be prepared."
Harry Kane headed Tottenham into the last 32, the red-hot England striker's ninth goal in six matches earning Spurs a 1-0 win at Azerbaijani champions Qarabag.


Kane's decisive second half goal assured the Group J leaders qualification into the knockout stages with a game to spare.
The North Londoners could probably have done without the 8,000 kilometre-round trip to the Azerbaijan capital just three days before the visit of Chelsea to White Hart Lane.
Despite the imminent arrival of the ailing Premier League champions Spurs coach Mauricio Pochettino fielded a strong side at Qarabag's Azersun Arena in Baku.
The first hour was unforgettable, the game finally bursting into life when forward Son Heung-min smashed a shot from the edge of the box with the ball hitting the crossbar.
Shortly after Qarabag's keeper Ibrahim Sehic edged Eric Dier's angled shot wide.
Qarabag's Spanish winger Dani Quintana then forced Spurs' keeper Hugo Lloris into action down at the other end.
Having sprung to life Tottenham looked the more likely to break the deadlock, and in the 78th minute they deservedly took the lead.
Christian Erikssen fired in their umpteenth corner from the left with in-form Kane flicking in Son's header.
"Very happy to be qualified! It wasn't easy but delighted with the win!" tweeted Kane.
Pochettino added: "The objective is gone now. We will make sure we will arrive in a good condition to play Chelsea. We have a strong squad and a strong mentality, with the maturity."
Scottish champions Celtic slumped to a 10th consecutive Europa League game without a win - a 2-1 loss at home to Ajax in Group A.
Callum McGregor had given Celtic a fourth-minute lead at Parkhead but Arkadiusz Milik levelled in the 21st minute for the Dutch side.
Ajax substitute Vaclav Cerny scored the late winner just two minutes from time to keep his team's qualification hopes alive while Celtic's fate was sealed when Fenerbahce defeated already-qualified Molde 2-0.

Elsewhere, Russian side Krasnodar ran out 1-0 winners over already-qualified Borussia Dortmund to go through from Group C.

Also through were Spaniards Villarreal courtesy of Viktoria Plzen's 1-0 loss to Minsk.

Swiss champions Basel drew 2-2 with 10-man Fiorentina to go through from Group I while Sporting Lisbon boosted their prospects of escaping from Group H with a 4-2 win at Lokomotiv Moscow.

Lazio continued their Europa League campaign with 3-1 win over Dniepropetrovsk while Sporting Braga went through from Group F thanks to a last-minute winner in a 2-1 home win against Slovan Liberec.

Heart patient? Cut down on sitting time

TORONTO: If you are suffering from ailments related to the heart, make it a point to get up and move every half an hour as researchers have found that patients with heart disease who sit a lot have worse health even if they exercise.

"Limiting the amount of time we spend sitting may be as important as the amount we exercise," said study lead author Stephanie Prince from University of Ottawa in Canada.

"Sitting, watching TV, working at a computer and driving in a car are all sedentary behaviours and we need to take breaks from them," Prince explained.

Previous research has shown that being sedentary increases the risk of cardiovascular disease but until now its effect on patients with established heart disease was unknown.

The current study investigated levels of sedentary behaviour and the effect on health in 278 patients with coronary artery disease.

The patients had been through a cardiac rehabilitation programme which taught them how to improve their levels of exercise in the long term.

Patients wore an activity monitor during their waking hours for nine days. The monitors allowed the researchers to measure how long patients spent being sedentary, or doing light, moderate or vigorous levels of physical activity.

The researchers also assessed various markers of health including body mass index (BMI) and cardio-respiratory fitness. Next they looked at whether the amount of time a person spent being sedentary (which was mainly sitting) was related to these markers of health.

The results showed that patients who sat more had a higher BMI. They also had lower cardio-respiratory fitness.

The study was published in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to launch a multi-billion-dollar clean tech initiative

NEW YORK/PARIS: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates will launch a multi-billion-dollar clean energy research and development initiative with heads of state, the opening day of the UN climate change summit in Paris, the French government said.

Gates and a group of developing and developed countries will launch the Clean Tech Initiative, in which countries will commit to doubling their clean energy technology research and development budgets by 2020 and private investors will boost their own investments in the sector.

Access to clean energy technology will play a key role in a global agreement to combat climate change. More than 190 countries will negotiate a new pact in Paris from November 30 to December 11 at the 21st UN Conference of the Parties summit.

France, the United States, India, South Korea, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Canada and Norway have said they will join, a source close to the conference presidency told Reuters.

"Gates' announcement should prompt other countries to follow suit," the source said.

Gates will join Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US president Barack Obama and French president Francois Hollande to announce the initiative on the opening day of the two-week summit, according to an agenda released Friday.

For India, the world's third largest greenhouse gas emitter, access to clean energy technology is at the core of its national strategy to combat climate change.

India has argued that developed countries need to help poorer countries gain access to renewable energy or zero-emission technologies by helping reduce costs and removing barriers such as intellectual property rights.

On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September, Gates attended a bilateral meeting focused on climate change between Hollande and Modi.

The French presidency source said India will be one of the founding beneficiaries of the new initiative.

"This is one of the main points of the negotiation: How to improve clean technologies and give the poorest countries access to these technologies," the source said.

This summer Gates pledged $2 billion of his personal wealth over the next five years to "bend the curve" on climate change.

In a blog post in July, he said more breakthrough technologies are needed to combat climate change and that current technologies reduce emissions at a cost that his "beyond astronomical."

He said accelerating government funding for clean energy research and development is crucial to attracting private investment.

Man stole human brains from US museum, then sold them on eBay

A Man has admitted breaking into a medical museum and stealing preserved human brains and other tissue that he then sold online, authorities say.

David Charles, Indiana, Indianapolis, pleaded guilty to six charges including receiving stolen property, and burglary in a Marion County court where Magistrate Amy Barbar sentenced him to one year of home detention and two years of probation, county prosecutor spokesman Anthony Deer said.

The 23-year-old broke into the Indiana Medical History Museum a number of times to steal jars of brains and other human tissue, according to Marion County prosecutor's office.

The museum is a former hospital for the insane founded in 1848 and later converted into a museum with an autopsy room and anatomical museum that displays preserved specimens, mostly brains, organized by pathology.

Charles was arrested in December 2013 after a San Diego man who bought six jars of brain material for $600 on eBay alerted police, according to court documents. Many of the items Charles sold were recovered when the San Diego man matched the items he bought to those stolen from the museum based on research he did online, according to court documents.

Investigators were able to identify Charles partly because he left behind in the museum a piece of paper with his bloody fingerprint on it, according to court documents. They recovered 80 jars of human tissue, according to court documents.

Charles, who was ordered to stay away for the museum, also stole an EKG machine, about 10 scopes, a baby scale and other miscellaneous historical items from the museum, Deer said.

Leonardo Dicaprio eyes froze on set

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio's eyes froze shut while working on the set of his latest movie "The Revenant". 

The 41-year-old actor was working on the Alejandro G. Inarritu directorial when the crew got caught in horrific weather conditions which lasted for an hour in temperatures that dropped to minus 40, reports femalefirst.co.uk. 

He said: "We were doing an emotional scene, and then this windstorm came, and it was just brutal. We were out there for an hour, and I said, 'Alejandro, what the hell are we doing?'"

Despite the weather conditions, Inarritu encouraged the cast of the thriller to forget about the cold climate. 

He said: "It's a mental state. Weather doesn't exist." 

DiCaprio admitted he was extremely grateful for a hot air blower on set which he nicknamed "the octopus". 

Speaking at a question and answer session here, he added: "We actually had a machine on set, I nicknamed it the octopus because it was like a giant hot air blower with eight tentacles, and we'd all rush up to it and thaw our hands."

First mirror installed on NASA's James Webb Telescope

WASHINGTON: NASA has successfully installed the first of 18 flight mirrors onto the James Webb Space Telescope, beginning a critical piece of the observatory's construction to replace the Hubble Space Telescope in 2018. 

At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland this week, the engineering team used a robot arm to lift and lower the hexagonal-shaped segment that measures just over 1.3 meters across and weighs approximately 40 kilogrammes. 

After being pieced together, the 18 primary mirror segments will work together as one large 6.5-metre mirror. The full installation is expected to be complete early next year. 

"The James Webb Space Telescope will be the premier astronomical observatory of the next decade," said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA. 

"This first-mirror installation milestone symbolises all the new and specialised technology that was developed to enable the observatory to study the first stars and galaxies, examine the formation stellar systems and planetary formation, provide answers to the evolution of our own solar system, and make the next big steps in the search for life beyond Earth on exoplanets," said Grunsfeld.

An engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center worked to install the first flight mirror onto the telescope structure at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. (NASA)
Several innovative technologies have been developed for the Webb Telescope, which is targeted for launch in 2018, and is the successor to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. 

Webb will study every phase in the history of our universe, including the cosmos' first luminous glows, the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, and the evolution of our own solar system. 

The 18 separate segments unfold and adjust to shape after launch. The mirrors are made of ultra-lightweight beryllium chosen for its thermal and mechanical properties at cryogenic temperatures. Each segment also has a thin gold coating chosen for its ability to reflect infrared light. 

The telescope's biggest feature is a tennis court sized five-layer sunshield that attenuates heat from the Sun more than a million times. 

"After a tremendous amount of work by an incredibly dedicated team across the country, it is very exciting to start the primary mirror segment installation process," said Lee Feinberg, James Webb Space Telescope optical telescope element manager at Goddard. 

"This starts the final assembly phase of the telescope," said Feinberg. 


The James Webb Space Telescope team successfully installed the first flight mirror onto the telescope structure at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. (NASA)

LG Display to invest $8.7 billion in new OLED plant

SEUL: South Korea's LG Display said it will invest more than 10 trillion won ($8.71 billion) to build a large plant to make panels using organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels, raising its big bet on the ultra-clear display technology.

The company said it will spend an initial 1.84 trillion won to begin building the plant, called P10, in Paju, South Korea, to make panels across all product segments including large screens for TVs and flexible OLED panels for devices such as smartwatches and auto displays.

Production is expected to begin in the first half of 2018.

Japan's Nikkei Asian Review reported without identifying sources that LG Display was building a new plant in anticipation of Apple Inc adopting OLED technology for its iPhone in 2018. A spokeswoman for LG Display declined to comment to Reuters on the report.

LG Electronics Inc and its affiliate LG Display are investing heavily on OLED for TVs, and LG Electronics recently slashed the prices of TV sets in the United States using OLED in a push to popularize the technology.

Raspberry Pi Zero launched: A full-fledged computer at $5

Raspberry Pi has released a new device, an even cheaper version of the best-selling British computer ever made.

The Raspberry Pi Zero is just 3cm wide, but packs in everything that's needed for full-fledged computing tasks.

The new computer costs £4 in the UK and $5 in the US. But it can be made so cheaply that the company is also giving it away with its £5.99 magazine, MagPi, which is in stores in the UK now.

The Raspberry Pi computers have cost around $20-$35. But the company said that it has been working since the beginning of the year to make an even cheaper version.

The company said that despite the already cheap price, some people were still being put off from buying the small computers. "We still meet people for whom cost remains a barrier to entry," said Eben Upton.

The new, tiny computer includes many of the far from insubstantial components that allow it to run advanced programs. That includes 512MB of Ram, a 1GHz processor, and sockets that allow for it to be connected to a HD TV, a memory card and a USB slot.

That means that the computer packs in all of the important parts of a computer once they are hooked up to accessories like a screen and a keyboard. As such, their small size and low price has led to them being used in schools and hobby projects.

The company has been gradually working to improve the tiny computers. That included a new model released earlier this year that kept the budget priced but gave it six times the power.

Earlier this year, it was discovered that one of the models of Raspberry Pi computer could reset itself if it was hit by a camera flash.

Google received maximum 'Right to be Forgotten' requests from this country

SAN FRANCISCO: Since a top European court ruled people have a right to be forgotten online, Google has received 348,085 requests for tidbits to vanish from search results.

Silicon Valley-based Google, a subsidiary of newly-created parent company Alphabet, complied with less that half of the demands, basing decisions on criteria intended to balance privacy with the public's right to know.

A report released on Wednesday by Google showed that the top country for requests was France, where the internet giant is in a standoff with data protection officials.

A European Court of Justice ruling in May 2014 recognizing the "right to be forgotten" on the net opened the door for Google users to ask the search engine to remove results about them that are inaccurate or no longer relevant.

Google set up an online form that people in Europe can fill out to ask for information to be excluded from search results.

Similar processes have been put in place to ask to be forgotten by Microsoft's Bing search engine that also powers queries at Yahoo.

It is the internet companies themselves who get to decide which requests to grant.

Microsoft previously disclosed that in the first half of this year it got 3,546 requests that online information be forgotten by Bing, granting half of them.

In the report released on Wednesday, Google said that right-to-be-forgotten requests have targeted slightly more than 1.23 million internet pages (URLs), and that it agreed to remove 42% of them from online search results in Europe.

France was the country with the top number of requests, accounting for 73,399 applications aimed at nearly a quarter of a million URLs, followed by Germany with 60,198 requests concerning 220,589 URLs.

In both countries, about 48% of the unwanted links were eliminated from Google search results, according to the report.

Meanwhile, the report indicated that Google granted about 38% of the 43,101 requests submitted in the United Kingdom; 37% of the 33,106 requests in Spain, and just shy of 30% of the 26,186 requests made in fifth-placed Italy.

Google said it complied with nearly 46% of the 10,121 requests in Belgium, nearly 41% of the 9,687 requests in Sweden, and about 45% of the 8,339 requests in Switzerland.

A Google outline of scenarios leading to information being forgotten in searches included pages with content solely about someone's health, race, religion or sexual orientation.

Common causes for "delisting" pages also included criminal convictions regarding children or stories focusing on criminal charges that were subsequently overturned by courts.

Google said that it had endorsed requests from crime victims or their families to remove from search results news reports of rapes, murders or other assaults.

"We may decline to delist if we determined that the page contains information which is strongly in the public interest," Google said in an online post.

"Determining whether content is in the public interest is complex and may mean considering many diverse factors."

The list of factors included whether content relates to the petitioner's professional life, a past crime, political office, position in public life, or whether the content itself is self-authored content, government documents, or journalistic in nature, according to Google.

Facebook was the top online spot where people wanted information forgotten from searches, with a total of 10,220 URLs removed, according to Google.

The second most common venue for removals was profileengine.com, with 7,986 links to the people-focused search engine removed from Google search results, the report indicated.

The list of Top 10 sites for URLs to be forgotten included Google Groups, YouTube, Badoo, Annuaire, Twitter, and the Google+ social network.  

Algae could be a green power source

TORONTO: Researchers led by an Indian origin scientist have developed a technology that harnesses electrical energy from blue-green algae, that could be used to power cell phones and computers in future. 

The team created a power cell that harnesses electrical energy from the photosynthesis and respiration of blue-green algae. "Both photosynthesis and respiration, which take place in plants cells, involve electron transfer chains. By trapping the electrons released by blue-green algae during photosynthesis and respiration, we can harness the electrical energy they produce naturally," said a researcher Muthukumaran Packirisamy. 

Currently, the photosynthetic power cell exists on a small scale, and consists of an anode, cathode and proton exchange membrane. The algae are placed in the anode chamber. As they undergo photosynthesis, the cyanobacteria release electrons to the electrode surface. An external load is connected to the device to extract the electrons and harness power. 

Mars to lose its largest moon, but gain a ring

WASHINGTON: Mars' largest moon, Phobos, is slowly falling towards the planet and is likely to be shredded into pieces that will be strewn about the red planet in a ring like those encircling Saturn and Jupiter, scientists, including one of Indian-origin, say.

The demise of Phobos will probably happen in 20 to 40 million years, leaving a ring that will persist for anywhere from one million to 100 million years. Postdoctoral fellow Benjamin Black and graduate student Tushar Mittal estimate the cohesiveness of Phobos and conclude that it is insufficient to resist the tidal forces that will pull it apart when it gets closer to Mars. 

Just as Earth's moon pulls on our planet in different directions, raising tides in the oceans, Mars too tugs differently on different parts of Phobos. As Phobos gets closer to the planet, the tugs are enough to actually pull the moon apart, the scientists say. This is because Phobos is highly fractured, with lots of pores and rubble. 

While the largest chunks would eventually spiral into the planet and collide at a grazing angle to produce eggshaped craters, the majority of the debris would circle the planet for millions of years until these pieces, too, drop onto the planet in `moon' showers, like meteor showers.Only Mars' other moon, Deimos, would remain. 

"While our moon is moving away from Earth at a few centimetres per year, Phobos is moving towards Mars at a few centimetres per year, so it is almost inevitable that it will either crash into Mars or break apart," Black said. PTI 

UV rays wiped out carbon from Red planet 

Scientists have found that UV rays from Sun caused Mars to lose its atmospheric carbon dioxide. Mars is blanketed by a carbon dioxide atmosphere that is too thin to keep water from freezing or quickly evaporating. However, scientists have concluded that ancient Mars was once a warmer, wetter place than today. 

But scientists have been puzzled by why they have not found more carbon -in the form of carbonate -in Martian rocks.Scientists suggest that 3.8 billion years ago, Mars might have had a moderately dense atmosphere. Such an atmosphere could have evolved into the thin one, not only minus the "missing" carbon problem, but also consistent with the observed ratio of carbon-13 to carbon-12, which differ by number of neutrons in the nucleus. 

Promising new melanoma drug in the offing

NEW YORK: Scientists have discovered a new compound that shows promise for treating deadly skin cancers like melanoma that are resistant or unresponsive to leading therapies today. 

The new compound, named SBI-756, targets a specific molecular machine known as the translation initiation complex. 

These structures are in every cell and play the critical role of translating mRNA into proteins. 

In cancer cells the complex is impaired, producing extra protein and providing a growth advantage to tumours. 

SBI-756 causes the translation complex to dissociate, and was shown to inhibit melanoma cell growth, said scientists from Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP). 

"The unique target of SBI-756 makes it especially promising for use in combination therapy," said Ze'ev Ronai, senior author and scientific director of SBP's La Jolla campus in California. 

A major issue limiting the effectiveness of current melanoma therapies is that tumours become resistant to treatment. 

"Combining drugs that come at a melanoma from different angles may help overcome the problem of drug resistance," Ronai added. 

About 50 percent of melanomas are caused by mutations in a specific gene called BRAF. 

The team found that if SBI-756 is co-administered with vemurafenib, a BRAF inhibitor, the tumours disappeared and most importantly, they did not reoccur. 

Even in mice with advanced/late stage skin cancer, the reappearance of resistant tumours was slowed by including SBI-756. 

These data suggests that SBI-756 provides a significant advantage in overcoming tumour resistance. 

"The ability of this compound to delay or eliminate the formation of resistant melanomas is very exciting," Ronai added. 

The team is now testing whether combining SBI-756 with existing drugs used for treating these types of melanomas can make the tumours disappear. 

The paper was published in the journal Cancer Research. 

Neymar will be best in world next year: Ronaldo

SAO PAULO: Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are the two best players in the world right now but Neymar will eclipse them both next year, former Brazil striker Ronaldo told Reuters.

FIFA will release the names of the three finalists for the Ballon d'Or on Monday, with the choice of world's best player to be announced on Jan. 11.

Brazilians have featured heavily in the voting over the last 20 years with Romario, Rivaldo, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Kaka lifting the trophy eight times between 1994 and 2007.

However, the Spain-based duo have had a stranglehold on the award since 2008, with Portugal's Ronaldo winning it three times (2008, 2013 and 2014) and Messi winning four awards (2009-2012).

"I would bet on Neymar next year," Brazil's Ronaldo told Reuters. "I think Neymar is still growing a lot and I think the growth of Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi has reached its limit.

"Maybe they will be there another year or two and I think it's natural that Neymar takes over that position in which Brazil has always had representatives."

Ronaldo said he had hoped his countryman would break the duopoly this year but was not confident the Barcelona forward would even be in the running given the stiff competition.

"I really want Neymar to win and interrupt the series of Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi," the former Real Madrid, Inter Milan and Barcelona striker said.

"I think this year it will be between the two of them again. I don't know if Neymar will finish in third."

Barcelona's Luis Suarez, Paris St. Germain's Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Bayern Munich's Robert Lewandowski are among the other possible contenders for the trophy.

Toyota recalls vehicles in Japan, Europe for air bag defect

TOKYO: Toyota Motor Corp is recalling 1.6 million vehicles for defective air bags supplied by embattled Japanese manufacturer Takata Corp. 

The recall includes 22 models sold in Japan, including the Corolla and Vitz, manufactured from January 2004 through December 2005, as well as vehicles in Italy, Britain and Spain, although those numbers were still unclear. It doesn't include any vehicles in the US. 

Takata inflators can explode with too much force, sending out shrapnel. At least eight people have been killed worldwide and hundreds injured. 

 The problem has led to the recall of 19.2 million vehicles in the US, and government regulators are investigating. Millions more may be recalled. 

No injuries were reported in Toyota vehicles related to the latest defect, which affects the passenger seat air bag, but a person in a Nissan Motor Co. car was injured recently in Japan. 

Toyota has announced nearly 15 million recalls in relation to problem Takata inflators worldwide, nearly 3 million each in the US and Japan, spokeswoman Kayo Doi said. 

Earlier this month, US auto safety regulators fined Takata $70 million for concealing evidence for years that its air bags are prone to explode. 

Under a five-year pact, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration can increase the penalty to a record $200 million if the company fails to abide by the terms. 

Toyota, Ford Motor Co. of the US, Japanese automakers Honda Motor Co. and Nissan have decided not to use Takata inflators in vehicles under development. 

FBI has lead in probe of 1.2 billion stolen Web credentials: Documents

A hacker who once advertised having access to user account information for websites like Facebook and Twitter has been linked through a Russian email address to the theft of a record 1.2 billion Internet credentials, the FBI said in court documents. 

That hacker, known as "mr.grey," was identified based on data from a cybsecurity firm that announced in August 2014 that it had determined an alleged Russian crime ring was responsible for stealing information from more than 420,000 websites, the documents said. 

The papers, made public last week by a federal court in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, provide a window into the Federal Bureau of Investigation's probe of what would amount to the largest collection of stolen user names and passwords. 

The court papers were filed in support of a search warrant the FBI sought in December 2014 and that was executed a month later related to email records. 

The FBI investigation was prompted by last year's announcement by Milwaukee-based cybersecurity firm Hold Security that it obtained information that a Russian hacker group it dubbed CyberVor had stolen the 1.2 billion credentials and more than 500 million email addresses. 

The FBI subsequently found lists of domain names and utilities that investigators believe were used to send spam, the documents said. 

The FBI also discovered an email address registered in 2010 contained in the spam utilities for a "mistergrey," documents show. 

A search of Russian hacking forums by the FBI found posts by a "mr.grey," who in November 2011 wrote that if anyone wanted account information for users of Facebook, Twitter and Russian-based social network VK, he could locate the records. 

Alex Holden, Hold Security's chief information security officer, told Reuters this message indicated mr.grey likely operated or had access to a database that amassed stolen data from computers via malware and viruses. 

Facebook and Twitter declined comment. The FBI declined to comment, and U.S. Justice Department had no immediate comment.

The probe appears to be distinct from another investigation linked to Hold Security's reported discovery that 420,000 websites, including one for a JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) corporate event, were targeted by the Russian hackers.

In a case spilling out of the discovery of the JPMorgan breach, U.S. prosecutors this month charged three men with engaging in a cyber-criminal enterprise that stole personal information from more than 100 million people.

Prosecutors accused two Israelis, Gery Shalon and Ziv Orenstein, and one American, Joshua Samuel Aaron, of being involved in a variety of schemes fueled by hacking JPMorgan and 11 other companies.

An indictment in Atlanta federal court against Shalon and Aaron names as a defendant an unidentified hacker believed to be in Russia. 

Some Amazon passwords may have been exposed

Amazon has sent an email to an unknown number of users warning them of a potential leak and forcing them to reset their passwords, Zack Whittaker reports for ZDNet. 

Just as it revs up for a rush of holiday shoppers, the company sent a message to some users telling them that their passwords "may have been improperly stored on your device or transmitted to Amazon in a way that could potentially expose it to a third party." 

The email continued that although Amazon had "no reason" to believe the password was exposed to a third party, it has sent them a temporary password "out of an abundance of caution."

Business Insider has reached out to Amazon about the size of the potential leak and will update when we hear back.

In the meantime, this is the perfect opportunity for ensuring that you sign up for two-factor authentication.

Two-step authentication gives websites a way to verify that you're really who you say you are when logging into an account, usually through a code texted to your phone. Services like Facebook and Gmail have offered the feature for a long time, but Amazon just activated it last week.

If you had two-factor authentication, third parties wouldn't be able to get into your account even if they had both your email address and your password. 

Gerrard to train with Liverpool but rules out loan return

Steven Gerrard will return to former club Liverpool to train next week and is looking forward to learning from manager Juergen Klopp, but has ruled out returning to Anfield in a playing capacity. 

Gerrard, who plays in the United States with the LA Galaxy, met Klopp earlier this month and the German invited him to train with the first team during the Major League Soccer (MLS) close season.

"I'm going to go in next week, for a couple of weeks, and work with Mr. Klopp. I'm really looking forward to that, to see what he's about and try and learn a few things off him," the 35-year-old said in his role as a pundit on BT Sport on Tuesday night.

Klopp has also ruled out a playing return for Gerrard, saying this month that while Liverpool's "doors are always open for him", there was no chance the former England captain would return to the club where he spent 17 years in the middle of the season and while he was under contract with LA Galaxy. 

Gerrard joined the Galaxy on an 18-month contract at the end of last season. The West Coast club were dumped out of the MLS playoffs by Seattle Sounders last month. 

Dell acknowledges security hole in new laptops

Major US computer company Dell Inc said on Monday a security hole exists in some of its recently shipped laptops that could make it easy for hackers to access users' private data.

A pre-installed programme on some newly purchased Dell laptops that can only be removed manually by consumers makes them vulnerable to cyberintrusions that may allow hackers to read encrypted messages and redirect browser traffic to spoofs of real websites such as Google or those belonging to a bank, among other attacks.

"The recent situation raised is related to an on-the-box support certificate intended to provide a better, faster and easier customer support experience," Dell said in a statement to Reuters. "Unfortunately, the certificate introduced an unintended security vulnerability."

Dell declined to say how many computers or which specific models are affected. The software began getting installed on laptops in August, according to a spokeswoman. The company also said future systems would not contain the bug.

Dell said it would provide customers with instructions to permanently remove the certificate by email and on its support website, a process that will likely be highly technical.

Dell's security flaw is similar to a so-called "Superfish" programme detected on Lenovo computers earlier this year.