Weasel Shuts Down Large Hadron Collider

The world's most powerful atom-smasher has been shut down after a weasel chewed through its wiring.

The animal died after biting through a wire connected to a 66,000-volt transformer powering the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland.

The £3.74bn machine, which was used to prove the existence of the Higgs Boson - also known as the God particle, will be shut down for a few days while repairs are carried out.

In an in-house report, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), which runs the 17-mile circuit under the Swiss-French border, said it was "not the best week for LHC!"

It said the weasel caused a "severe electrical perturbation", damaging the machine's transformer connections.

CERN spokesman Arnaud Marsollier said the creature did not survive the encounter, and there were few remains of it left.

In 2009, the LHC was shut down in a similar incident, when it is thought a bird dropped part of a baguette on a compensating capacitor.

The giant lab works by racing protons around its tunnels at just below the speed of light.

The energy released when they collide is used to spark the creation of new particles.

With the ability to tap into higher energy, scientists hope to explore the mysterious realms of "new physics" that could yield evidence of hidden extra dimensions and dark matter.

Kenya flooding: Search for building collapse victims

Rescuers in the Kenyan capital Nairobi are searching for dozens of people feared trapped after the collapse of a six-storey building in heavy rain.

TV coverage from the scene showed a crowd gathering at the Huruma residential estate as rescuers dug for survivors. At least three people are known to have died.

The Red Cross criticised "chaotic scenes" as rescuers arrived.

It is unclear how many people are trapped beneath six floors of concrete.

The rainfall in addition has caused landslides, washed away houses and flooded roads.

The Huruma neighbourhood is a poor district on the outskirts of Nairobi made up of narrow streets, meaning firefighters struggled to get to the scene and were delayed by large crowds.

After some time, the army took charge of the rescue - with the help of the Kenyan Red Cross.

"We can still hear voices of people who are still inside," Red Cross spokesman Venant Ndigila said.

"[So far] we [have] managed again to rescue at least 12 people - and there are signs that there are still some people who are still alive."

Residents said that the building shook violently in the rain before collapsing.

Poor building standards are a fact of life in Kenya, correspondents say. A survey carried out last year found that more than half the buildings in the capital were unfit for habitation.

The high demand for housing in Nairobi has led to some property developers bypassing building regulations to reduce costs and increase profits.

There has however been some good news for the rescuers who extracted a number of children from the wreckage throughout Friday.

President Uhuru Kenyatta last year ordered an audit of all the buildings in the country after a spate of collapses.

Meanwhile two boys are missing in another part of the flood-hit country after going herding, according to the Red Cross.

UK joins IMF and World Bank to cut Mozambique aid

The UK government says it has suspended financial aid to Mozambique over an alleged "serious breach of trust" relating to undisclosed debts.

This follows similar action from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

The IMF halted funding 10 days ago when it found Mozambique had not declared debts of more than $1bn (£700m).

The government says the liabilities relate to guaranteeing loans taken out by two mostly state-owned companies.

The UK said in a statement that it was now "working closely with other international partners to establish the truth and coordinate an appropriate response".

The IMF is currently carrying out an analysis to see if Mozambique has a sustainable level of debt, and the World Bank is waiting for its outcome before it approves any more loans.

Mozambique's Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario went to the IMF headquarters in Washington DC last week to explain the government's position. 

The government has admitted that it acted as guarantor for a $622m loan taken out by state-owned Pro-Indicus, and another loan of $535m by Mozambique Asset Management. Both are involved in the maritime industry.

Mozambique has had one of Africa's fastest growing economies in recent years with oil and gas discoveries buoying its prospects and attracting a lot of investment.

The mechanics of this are the same as with a personal loan. 

If you take out a loan from a bank, the bank always asks you about your other liabilities. Do you have other debts? It will also want to see a payslip.

From the bank's point of view, it is all to do with risk. Can you make the payments on their loan, if you have a lot of other debt as well?

And it is the same with countries. So, when the IMF lent money to Mozambique, it would have asked about the country's other liabilities. 

As the Mozambique government failed to disclose that it guaranteed the two large loans, it has put the IMF loan in jeopardy. 

The IMF is now worried that Mozambique will not be able to meet its liability commitments with this extra debt on its books.

Clinic In Syria Hit By Another Airstrike

A Syrian clinic has been hit by an airstrike, the second time this week a medical facility has been struck, officials said.

The strike on the Al-Marja neighbourhood of rebel-held Aleppo wounded several people, the civil defence, known as the White Helmets, said.

Several other strikes appeared to target mosques in rebel-held areas. 

At least one child died and five people were injured in the strikes, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

In separate attacks, insurgents killed at least 15 worshippers as they left Friday prayers.

Another 30 are thought to be injured after rockets struck Malla Khan mosque, according to Syrian state TV.

Earlier this week, the Al-Quds hospital and nearby flats were hit in rebel-held Sukkari neighbourhood.

The death toll from that bombing has since risen to 50 people, including six medical staff and patients, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders has claimed.

The head of the organisation's Syria mission said "the city, consistently at the frontlines of this brutal war, is now in danger of coming under a full offensive, no corner is being spared."

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned that targeting medical facilities could "amount to war crimes."

Overall, airstrikes on rebel-held areas of Aleppo have killed more than 200 civilians over the last week.

The strikes come as the UN called on the US and Russia to salvage the "barely alive" two-month truce.

Russian state media said the "regime of silence", agreed by Russia and the US, will apply for 24 hours in Damascus and Aleppo and 72 hours in Latakia.

But the Syrian army declared that a temporary truce would affect Damascus and Latakia - but not in Aleppo.

The ceasefire brokered by the US and Russia in February has been crumbling, as casualty figures from government and opposition violence escalates.

FBI Arrests Three In San Bernardino Inquiry

The FBI has arrested three people over an alleged marriage fraud conspiracy uncovered during the investigation into last year's mass shooting in San Bernardino.

Federal agents detained the gunman's older brother, his Russian immigrant wife and her sister during raids on Thursday morning in the Californian cities of Corona and Ontario.

Syed Raheel Farook, 31, his wife Tatiana Gigliotti, also 31, and her sister, Mariya Chernykh, are accused of conspiracy to make a false statement to immigration officials while under oath.

Chernykh, 26, who was wed to another suspect in the terrorism investigation, is also charged with fraud and two counts of making false statements to federal agents.

In the 2 December mass shooting at San Bernardino, California, Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 29, shot dead 14 people before being killed by police.

Chernykh is married to Enrique Marquez, a former neighbour of the San Bernardino attackers.

Marquez was charged in December with conspiracy to support terrorism and lying about the purchase of the assault rifles used in the shooting.

He was also accused of entering into a sham marriage with Chernykh, who lives in Ontario.

On Thursday, investigators said that marriage was for Chernykh to obtain immigration benefits that she could not access because she lacked legal status in the US.

Federal agents had already searched the Corona home of the gunman's brother in February.

Neighbours had reported seeing agents carrying out papers, manila envelopes and computer equipment from Raheel Farook's house.

No one was arrested on that occasion.

Miley Cyrus is Not Entirely Wrong About Her Tat

Miley Cyrus and Galileo Galileihave a lot in common. OK, Miley Cyrus and Galileo Galilei don’thave a lot in common. But give them this: at one point in their lives they both got punked by Saturn.

For Miley, it happened on April 28, when she Instagrammed a picture of a new tattoo on her left arm—a tattoo which was clearly a picture of Saturn—and captioned it #lilbbjupiter, for “li’l baby Jupiter.” (She later corrected the post, deleting the Jupiter reference.) And then everyone on Instagram did what everyone on Instagram always does, which was to engage her in polite conversation and gently correct her mistake. Oh, and practically set the tips of their thumbs on fire typing back snark.

For Galileo, it happened one evening in 1611, when he climbed to the top of his favorite tower in Padua and turned his little two-foot telescope toward Saturn and noticed for the first time that the planet had…he didn’t know what. Ears, maybe. “Ears” was actually the word he wrote in his notebook, which makes it a very good thing they didn’t have Google Docs then because all of the other people in Padua could have hacked his password, seen what he wrote and made fun of him. It wasn’t until 1654 that Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, who had a better telescope, discovered that the ears were rings. Galileo, as it happened, was dead by then, so he went to his grave thinking that Saturn looked slightly like Prince Charles.

But the point is, planets can be confusing and what you think is true about them isn’t always true. So you can make fun of Miley all you want for calling a ringed planet Jupiter, but guess what: Jupiter does have rings. And so does Uranus and so does Neptune.

Neptune’s five rings were discovered in 1968 when Earth-based telescopes first noticed that starlight near the planet seemed to flicker on and off as if something was getting in the way of the light now and then. In 1989, Voyager 2 flew by Neptune and discovered that that something was a set of fine rings—so fine in fact that they were more like arcs. Uranus’ rings were discovered the same way—first by so-called “stellar eclipsing” in 1977 and then by Voyager 2.

For Jupiter, it was both Voyagers 1 and 2, which flew by the planet in 1979 and discovered four rings. None are as vivid as Saturn’s, but all are big enough and distinct enough to have been later observed by the Hubble Space Telescope and to have earned some evocative names: the halo ring, the main ring, the Amalthea gossamer ring and the Thebe gossamer ring.

Call them anything you want, but the rings are there, astronomers know they’re there—and they’ve known since 13 years before Miley Cyrus was even born. It’s entirely possible Miley wasn’t thinking about the Amalthea gossamer ring and the history of the Voyager probes when she posted her picture. And the rest of the text that accompanied it—”permaaaa skinnnnn arrrrrttttt by daaaa mosssst bad a$$”—might need some vetting before she submits it for peer review.

But sorry snarkers and haters, this time Miley may know something you don’t. So, nice tat Miley, and if you’re considering another one, I vote for l’il baby Pluto. That guy’s just adorable.

Huge Haul Of Roman Coins Unearthed In Spain

Workers laying pipes in a southern Spanish town have stumbled upon thousands of bronze and silver-coated coins dating as far back as the third century.

Culture officials have described it as a "unique historic discovery", which is now being looked after by Seville's archaeology museum.

Workers came across 19 Roman amphoras - a type of storage jar - containing the coins while carrying out routine work in a park in Tomares.

They were found just under a metre underground, and the coins are stamped with the inscriptions of emperors Maximian and Constantine.

It is thought they had been newly minted and stored to pay soldiers or civil servants, with little sign of wear and tear.

Ana Navarro, head of the Archaeological Museum of Seville, told a news conference: "It is a unique collection and there are very few similar cases".

"I could not give you an economic value, because the value they really have is historical and you can’t calculate that."

The museum has contacted counterparts in the UK, France and Italy, and believes the find is one of the most important from the period.

Construction work has been suspended in the park while archaeologists investigate further.