Lentz spoke about his relationship with Bieber and his reaction to the events in Charlottesville.Source – abcnews.go.com
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The fans are spurred by cheerleaders to support their teams and create a sense of togetherness.Source – abcnews.go.com
Australia Senate's Stephen Parry 'may be UK citizen'
Australia's Senate president has revealed he could be a dual citizen, meaning he may join five others in becoming ineligible for office.
Stephen Parry, who is part of the government, may have inherited UK citizenship through his father.
Politicians with dual citizenship cannot be elected in Australia.
Mr Parry has said in a statement that he will resign from his position if his citizenship is confirmed by the British Home Office.
On Friday, a court ruled that five politicians – including Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce – were wrongly elected because of the constitutional rule.
"In the event that I am found to hold British citizenship… I believe the High Court has made it abundantly clear what action is required," Mr Parry said on Tuesday.
Mr Parry's role as Senate president is to preside over Australia's upper house, mirroring the role of the speaker in the lower House of Representatives.
A replacement for Mr Parry would be chosen through a recount of votes from last year's election.
If forced to resign, he would be the first member of either the major Liberal and Labor parties to be claimed by a saga that has captivated Australian politics since July.
Mr Joyce and Fiona Nash, the other government member disqualified on Friday, are members of the Nationals, the junior coalition partner.
Mr Joyce's disqualification last week means Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is effectively deadlocked 74-all in the lower house, because the speaker – a government MP – will not vote.
Mr Turnbull will rely on non-government MPs to pass legislation there until at least 2 December, when he learns if Mr Joyce will return through a by-election.
The 16th launch is considered a success; the company's goal is to develop fully reusable rockets.Source – abcnews.go.com
Google-bred Waymo aims to shift robotic cars into next gear
Google's self-driving car spin-off is accelerating efforts to convince the public that its technology is almost ready to safely transport people without any human assistance at all.
Waymo, hatched from a Google project started eight years ago, showed off its progress Monday during a rare peek at a closely guarded testing facility located 120 miles (193 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco. That's where its robots complete their equivalent of driver's education.
The tour included giving more than three dozen reporters rides in Chrysler Pacifica minivans traveling through faux neighborhoods and expressways that Waymo has built on a former Air Force base located in the Californian Central Valley city of Atwater.
The minivans smoothly cruised the roads — driver's seat empty and passengers in the back — at speeds of up to 35 mph (56 kph). By contrast, the Waymo-powered minivans that have been driving volunteer riders in the Phoenix area still use safety drivers to take over control if something goes wrong.
But Waymo's real goal is to get to the point where people in cars are nothing but passengers.
Waymo CEO John Krafcik told reporters that the company will be making some cars and freight trucks totally driverless fairly soon, though he didn't provide a specific timetable. "We are really close," he said. "We are going to do it when we feel like we are ready."
Since Google began working on self-driving cars in 2009, dozens of established automakers such as General Motors and Ford Motors have entered the race, along with other big technology companies, including Apple and ride-hailing service Uber. The competition is so fierce and the stakes so high that Waymo is currently suing Uber , alleging that one of its former managers stole its trade secrets and took them with him when he joined Uber in 2016 as part of an elaborate scheme. The trial in that high-profile case is scheduled to begin in early December.
Waymo is hoping to infuse its technology into ride-hailing services such as its current partner, Lyft, and big-rig trucking companies. It also intends to license its automated system to automakers such as Fiat Chrysler Automobile, which is already using it in 100 Pacifica minivans.
- Star
Russia-linked posts 'reached' 126m Facebook users in US
Facebook has said as many as 126 million American users may have seen content uploaded by Russia-based operatives over the last two years.
The social networking site said about 80,000 posts were produced before and after the 2016 presidential election.
Most of the posts focused on divisive social and political messages
Facebook released the figures ahead of a Senate hearing where it – together with Twitter and Google – will detail Russia's impact on the popular sites.
Russia has repeatedly denied allegations that it attempted to influence the last US presidential election, in which Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton.
- Facebook uncovers 'Russian-funded' misinformation campaign
- Twitter's Russia briefings 'inadequate'
- Can US election hack be traced to Russia?
The latest figures released by Facebook have been seen by Reuters news agency and the Washington Post newspaper.
The 80,000 posts were published between June 2015 and August 2017.
Facebook said they were posted by a Russian company linked to the Kremlin.
"These actions run counter to Facebook's mission of building community and everything we stand for," wrote Facebook's general counsel Colin Stretch, Reuters reports.
"And we are determined to do everything we can to address this new threat."
Key recent developments:
- Nov 2016: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg says "the idea that fake news on Facebook influenced the (US) election in any way is a pretty crazy idea"
- Nov 2016: Zuckerberg says only a "small amount" of content on Facebook is hoax news
- Aug 2017: Facebook says it will fight fake news by sending more suspected hoax stories to fact-checkers and publishing their findings online
- Sept 2017: The US Senate Intelligence Committee criticises Twitter for offering an "inadequate" appearance in briefings on alleged Russian interference
- Oct 2017: Google finds evidence that Russian agents spent tens of thousands of dollars on ads in a bid to sway the election, media reports say
- Oct 2017: Facebook says it will provide details of more than 3,000 adverts it says were bought in Russia around the time of the election
- Oct 2017: Twitter bans Russia's RT and Sputnik media outlets from buy advertising amid fears they attempted to interfere in the election
On Monday, Google also revealed that Russian trolls uploaded more than 1,000 videos on YouTube on 18 different channels, according to the Washington Post.
Meanwhile, Twitter found and suspended all 2,752 accounts that it had tracked to Russia-based Internet Research Agency, a source familiar with the company's written testimony was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Getting short shrift
Dave Lee, BBC technology reporter, San Francisco
It's quite staggering how this problem, dismissed just over a year ago by Mark Zuckerberg as "crazy" talk, has exploded into a crisis at the world's biggest social network.
Apparently not learning from that mistake, we understand that the thrust of Facebook's message to various government committees this week will be that just one in 23,000 or so messages shared on the network were from the Russians.
It should not surprise Facebook if such a statement – an engineer's defence, you might say – gets short shrift from a panel already unsatisfied with some of what it's heard from the companies so far.
You won't see Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey or Google's executives answering questions this week. That job will be left up to their lawyers.
You wonder how long tech's great and powerful can get away with not personally standing up for the companies they built.
Follow Dave on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC
Japan man held over bodies and severed heads in flat
Japanese police have arrested a man after finding parts of nine bodies in his apartment in Zama, near Tokyo.
Police found two severed heads in a cold-storage container outside the flat of the suspect, named as Takahiro Shiraishi, while investigating the disappearance of a woman.
They also found the body parts of seven other people, also stored in cool boxes, in his apartment.
The 27-year-old is being held on suspicion of disposing of the bodies.
Police had found the body parts of eight females and one male, some in varying stages of decomposition, Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun reported.
Mr Shiraishi told police he had killed the nine and hid their bodies, broadcaster NHK reported, citing the Metropolitan Police Department.
"I killed them and did some work on the bodies in order to hide the evidence," NHK quoted him as saying.
Meanwhile, his next-door neighbour said he had started smelling strange odours from the flat after Mr Shiraishi moved in in August, NHK and Asahi Shimbun said.
Police made the grisly discovery while looking for a 23-year-old woman, who had been missing since 21 October.
Investigators found that Mr Shiraishi had been in contact with her, after she wrote online that she wanted to commit suicide.
On Tuesday, reporters gathered outside the suspect's home, while neighbours expressed shock at the incident.
"It's a quiet residential area here, with a day care centre nearby. I can't believe the bodies were discovered in an area like this," a 41-year-old neighbour told Mainichi Shimbun.
Manus Island: Refugees refuse to leave Australia centre
Refugees held by Australia in Papua New Guinea have launched legal action over the closure of a detention centre.
Australia holds asylum seekers arriving by boat in camps on PNG's Manus Island and the small Pacific nation of Nauru.
The Manus Island centre is scheduled to close on Tuesday after a PNG court ruled it was unconstitutional.
Detainees argue the closure will breach their human rights by denying them access to water, electricity and security. Many are refusing to leave.
- 'Our situation is just like hell'
- UN fears 'humanitarian emergency'
- Australia asylum: Why is it controversial?
The local authorities have warned that all electricity, drinking water and food at the centre will cease at 17:00 local time (07:00 GMT), and that PNG defence authorities could enter the centre as early as Wednesday.
Refugees told the BBC that detainees planned to protest peacefully, and had begun stockpiling water and dry biscuits, as well as setting up makeshift catchments for rainwater.
They claimed that locals began looting the compound on Tuesday after security guards left.
'Unchecked violence'
About 600 refugees and asylum seekers do not want to go to temporary accommodation in the Manus Island community, citing fears for their safety.
Last week, Human Rights Watch warned that the group could face "unchecked violence" by locals who had attacked them in the past – sometimes with machetes and rocks.
Canberra has consistently ruled out transferring the men to Australia, arguing it would encourage people smuggling and lead to deaths at sea.
However, PNG has said it is Australia's responsibility to provide ongoing support for the men. The Australian government says PNG is responsible for them.
Some men already in the temporary accommodation were "comfortably accessing services and supports there", Australia's Department for Immigration and Border Protection said on Tuesday.
Greg Barns, a lawyer assisting with the legal action, said the closure would breach rights enshrined in PNG's constitution.
"The men are vulnerable to attacks and physical harm so we are seeking to ensure their constitutional rights are not breached and there is a resumption of the basic necessities of life," he told the BBC.
"The men have been dumped on the street, literally. What is going on is unlawful."
The application also seeks to prevent the forcible removal of the men to an alternative centre on the island, and calls for them to be transferred to Australia or a safe third country.
- Australia migrant camp in PNG 'illegal'
- First refugees leave Manus camp for US
- Australia's A$70m asylum payout approved
Future unclear
The refugees can permanently resettle in PNG, apply to live in Cambodia, or request a transfer to Nauru, but advocates say few have taken up these options.
Alternatively, up to 1,250 refugees in PNG and Nauru could be accepted by the US under a resettlement deal.
However, America has not given an estimate of how long the application process will take and it is not obliged accept all of them.
In October, the UNHCR said 1,700 detainees in the two centres had either been granted refugee status or were awaiting a determination. The claims of a further 400 had been rejected.
Australia first opened Manus Island centre in 2001 before closing it in 2008. It re-opened in 2012.
Six asylum seekers have died since 2013, including an Iranian man, Reza Barati, who was murdered during a riot.
Earlier this year, the government offered compensation totalling A$70m (£41m; $53m) to asylum seekers and refugees detained on Manus Island who alleged they had suffered harm while there.
The lawsuit alleged that detainees had been housed in inhumane conditions below Australian standards, given inadequate medical treatment and exposed to systemic abuse and violence.
The government called the financial settlement "prudent", but denied wrongdoing.
Jordan water crisis worsens as Mideast tensions slow action
From a hillside in northern Jordan, the Yarmouk River is barely visible in the steep valley below, reduced from a once important water source to a sluggish trickle overgrown with vegetation. Jordan's reservoirs are only one-fifth full, a record low, and vital winter rains are becoming more erratic.
Jordanians don't need scientists to tell them that they live in one of the world's driest countries in the center of the planet's most water-poor region.
But recent studies suggest the kingdom, a Western ally and refugee host nation with a growing population, is being hit particularly hard by climate change, getting hotter and drier than previously anticipated. One forecast predicts as much as 30 percent less rain by 2100.
"We are really in trouble if we don't take action in time," said Ali Subah, a senior Water Ministry official.
But addressing the problem would require cross-border cooperation, a commodity as scarce as water in the Jordan River basin shared by Jordan, Israel, the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon.
Jordan's flagship Red Sea desalination project, which includes a water trade with Israel, has faced repeated delays, most recently because of a diplomatic crisis that led to a scaling back of cross-border contacts since the summer.
A master plan by the regional advocacy group EcoPeace that seeks to transform the Jordan River valley into an economically vibrant green oasis by 2050 is based, in part, on a state of Palestine being established on Israeli-occupied lands. Palestinian independence remains distant, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently asserted that Israel will never leave the stretch of the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank.
Warning signs abound of what a failure to act looks like.
The Dead Sea and Jordan River, global treasures with religious significance as the cradle of Christianity, have been devastated by dropping water levels due to decades of water diversion to urban areas. Some experts suggest civil war in neighboring Syria, which led to a large influx of refugees to Jordan and other neighboring countries, may have been triggered in part and indirectly by a mismanaged drought.
Munqeth Mehyar, the president of EcoPeace, said the growing water scarcity urgently requires cooperation.
"People need to be aware of their water situation, and try to compromise between their water reality and their nationalistic politics," he said at his group's lush, formerly arid 270-hectare (675-acre) reserve in the Jordan Valley, a witness to nature's power to bounce back.
Stanford University researchers say that in the absence of international climate policy action, the kingdom would have 30 percent less rainfall by 2100. Annual average temperatures would increase by 4.5 degrees Celsius (8.1 degrees Fahrenheit) and the number and duration of droughts would double, compared to the 1981-2010 period.
Water flows to Jordan from the Yarmouk River, which originates in Syria, would remain low due to droughts and diversion, regardless of when the civil war ends.
The results, published in the journal Science Advances and based on improved data analysis tools, suggest the impact of climate change is likely to be more severe than anticipated, said Steven Gorelick, head of the university's internationally supported Jordan Water Project.
Another study found that man-made climate change was a major force behind an extreme drought in the area in early 2014, said co-author Rachael McDonnell of the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture in Dubai.
"The findings are more severe than anticipated and more imminent," she said.
The World Bank named Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco and Syria as the countries in the Middle East and North Africa that will experience significantly increased water stress driven by climate change. The bank's report in August described the region as the "global hotspot of unsustainable water use."
Israel is on the road to resolving its water scarcity, producing close to 75 percent of water for domestic use in desalination plants and recycling more than half of its waste water for agricultural use, said Yacov Tsur, a professor of environmental economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Israel is being aided by technological advances, easy access to sea water and a strong economy that can afford large-scale projects, he said.
Jordan, which pulls 160 percent more water from the ground than nature puts in, views desalination as the main answer.
A Jordan-only option would be costly. Jordan's main population center is about 300 kilometers (190 miles) from the only coastline, making it prohibitively expensive to deliver desalinated Red Sea water to the capital, Amman.
In recent years, a water trade plan was developed to get around high transport costs.
Jordan would desalinate Red Sea water, sell some to nearby southern Israel and pump the brine into the Dead Sea to raise water levels there. Separately, water from northern Israel would be sold to nearby northern Jordan and to Palestinian communities.
Israel has a strategic interest in the stability of security ally Jordan, a land buffer against the region's turmoil.
But the Red Sea-Dead Sea project has hit snags, in part over funding, and Jordan still hasn't approached five short-listed consortiums to submit their bids.
The ongoing diplomatic crisis, triggered by the fatal shooting of two Jordanians by an Israeli Embassy guard in Amman in July, also contributed to delays by reducing cross-border contacts, said Subah, the Water Ministry official.
He said Jordan remains committed to the regional project but will also look at fallback options. "The Jordanian solution for water in the future is desalination," he said. "If it's regional, if it's on our own, we will go in this direction."
Some say the government's focus on desalination is linked, in part, to reluctance to implement politically painful conservation measures.
For example, more than 50 percent of Jordan's water is used for agriculture which produces only a small share of the local food supply.
Water for irrigation remains heavily subsidized, encouraging waste and the planting of water-intensive crops such as bananas and tomatoes.
About half the water supply is lost from the network, most of it due to misuse or theft.
The government has cracked down on illegal water use, announced a slight price increase and plans to ramp up waste water treatment for use in agriculture as budgets permit.
But there are fears that draconian reforms could lead to instability, said Hussam Hussein, a water expert at the American University of Beirut.
"This would not be popular at all," he said. "That's why, from a political perspective, it's easier for the government to increase the supply and maintain the status quo."
At EcoPeace, Jordanian, Israeli and Palestinian activists try not to lose hope, despite what Israeli co-director Gidon Bromberg acknowledged to be "enormous" political obstacles.
The group is floating a new swap idea, in addition to the Red-Dead project, in which Jordan would sell solar energy to Israel and the Palestinian self-rule government in exchange for water.
Separately, the group's master plan outlines 127 projects with an investment value of $4.6 billion to help rehabilitate the Jordan River and the Dead Sea and grow the Jordan Valley's economy almost 20-fold by 2050. The group recently identified 13 projects as doable now.
In a setback, the diplomatic crisis derailed a conference on the water-energy swap idea and a trilateral official meeting on how to move forward with the 13 projects.
Bromberg remains optimistic.
He said progress will be made once all involved realize that failure to respond to the water and environmental crises poses a risk to their national security.
"Where national security interests are clarified, they trump," he said.
- Star
Netflix ends House of Cards amid sex claim against Kevin Spacey
Netflix has pulled the plug on House of Cards, a day after its lead actor Kevin Spacey was accused of sexually harassing a teenage boy.
The media streaming company said it was "deeply troubled" by the allegation, made by the actor Anthony Rapp.
In an interview with Buzzfeed, Rapp alleged Spacey tried to seduce him when he was 14, after a party in 1986.
Spacey said he was "beyond horrified" to hear the story but did not remember the encounter.
Kevin Spacey said he owed Anthony Rapp a "sincere apology" for what he said would have been "deeply inappropriate drunken behaviour".
Spacey also announced that he was now living "as a gay man" but the Oscar winning actor has been widely criticised for choosing this moment to come out.
Gay rights activists have said linking his sexuality to an apology over allegations of sexual harassment was harmful to the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) community.
In House of Cards, Kevin Spacey plays the ruthless American politician Frank Underwood. The drama has been widely acclaimed and filming is currently on the sixth series.
While Netflix has said it will be the last, several reports have suggested that the producers had decided to end the series well before the allegation emerged.
