World

Astronomers reported on Tuesday in The Astrophysical Journal they have found an ancient solar system with several Earth-like planets. They said the system dates roughly to the formation of the Milky Way galaxy. They found the planets orbiting around Kepler-444, about 117 light years from Earth. Researchers investigated Kepler-444 with NASA's Kepler telescope using a method called astroseismology. Scientists explain they studied the star and noticed planets passing in front of it because it created a dimming effect in which the star seems less

Thousands of Ukrainians in Kyiv took part on Sunday in marches in memory of reported victims of Donetsk People's Republic militants in a tragedy on January 13 near Volnovakha in Donetsk Oblast. On that day reportedly thirteen people on a bus were killed and sixteen wounded when separatists struck the bus with a Grad missile launcher near a Ukrainian checkpoint. The same marches also took place in other major Ukrainian cities, including Odessa, Kharkiv, Dniepropetrovsk and Zaporizhia as well as some towns in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. During

On Wednesday, George Djorgovski and collaborators reported in the journal Nature on an unusual light signal they say suggests two supermassive black holes are merging, a phenomenon never seen before, though theorized. The discovery could clarify how black holes merge and galaxies evolve, and could also provide a better understanding of the so-called "final parsec problem" — the inability of theories to predict how, or even how quickly, the final phases of black hole mergers happen. The team discovered the light coming from quasar PG 1302-102

At least twelve people have been killed today in a shooting at the Paris offices of the satirical weekly French magazine Charlie Hebdo. Three men in hoods armed with Kalashnikov rifles entered the magazine's office in the 11th arrondissement and shot dead ten journalists and two police officers before making a getaway in a car driven by a fourth collaborator. Five people have been seriously injured in the attack. A member of the police said after leaving the scene the attackers drove to the northeastern suburbs of Paris where they abandoned the

An explosion that took place in a barber shop next door to the Colorado Springs, Colorado office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) yesterday is currently being investigated by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, as well as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Officials said the explosive device was placed next to a can of gasoline but the gasoline did not ignite after the device detonated. The FBI are seeking a balding white male, aged about 40 years old, as a "person of interest" c

With the English-language Wikinews continuing to increase the amount of original content published, we take a look back at some of the eighty-plus original reports from our contributors during 2014. January 18th: UK media apparently conflict with Scots law in Mikaeel Kular case Media organisations in the United Kingdom focused on Edinburgh early in the year, following the disappearance of three-year-old Mikaeel Kular. As police found a body Wikinews found evidence suggesting media had been caught out by Scottish contempt of court law. The

On Sunday, Egypt opened the Rafah border crossing for two days, allowing many people, who had been waiting since it closed two months ago following a terror attack in the Sinai peninsula, to cross the border with the Gaza Strip in both directions. On Monday, Egyptian authorities announced they were opening the border crossing for another day. During the first two days, almost 1,000 people passed through the border crossing, about two thirds of them from the Gaza Strip to Egypt and a third in the opposite direction. Gaza citizens who had been s

A freighter hit a fishing boat around midnight on Sunday morning in the Gulf of Suez in the Red Sea. Of the 40 Egyptian fisherman on board, thirteen are dead and thirteen more missing. Survivor Al Sayyed Mohamed Arafat told local media he jumped from the fishing boat, named Badr al-Islam, as the container ship approached. He says he hung onto a wooden crate for four hours before rescue. Local authorities have promised compensation to each survivor. A vessel, flagged in Panama, suspected to be involved in the collision has been detained by the

A report released by the US Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday concluded that the CIA misinformed the White House and Congress about its imprisonment and interrogation of suspected terrorists during the years after the September 11 attacks. The committee released an executive summary yesterday ahead of its full 6,000-page report. The summary documented instances where detainees were kept awake for as long as a week and suggested that the agency had waterboarded more suspects than it previously disclosed. The report also revealed that of

A small jet has crashed in Gaithersburg, Maryland near Montgomery County Airpark yesterday at about 10:45 a.m. local time (1545 UTC), causing a house fire. Officials said six people were killed in the accident — three in the plane and three on the ground. Montgomery County's fire chief said all three people aboard the plane were killed in the crash. According to reports, the plane broke apart. In all, a total of three houses were damaged, according to the fire chief. There were some residents in the damaged house who were not accounted for unt

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced yesterday that the North Texas Metroplex NextGen project has been successfully put into place, promising more efficiency in the U.S. airspace. According to U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, this system will save fuel and reduce the emissions from aircraft, thereby benefiting the environment. The FAA said this system could reduce distances flown by one million nautical miles annually and could save tens of thousands of metric tons of carbon emissions annually. To date

Four men and one woman were in jail in Tyler, Texas as of yesterday morning following a robbery allegedly involving an elaborate scam. Police alleged Alneisha Butler originated a scheme to lure a 25-year-old man to an apartment complex in Tyler late Tuesday night, where he was accosted at gun point by four men. Butler and the man had been corresponding online for a few weeks, when she told him she wanted him to meet some friends of hers, according to police. When the two met at the complex, they were met by the four men who demanded money fr