World

British-based utility company Centrica, which holds ownership of British Gas, has announced its intentions to increase the prices of domestic electricity and gas later this year. On August 18, 2011, the company plans to raise the costs of gas and electrical supplies by eighteen and sixteen per cent, respectively. According to The Guardian, nine million customers will be affected by these changes. British price comparison website uSwitch has reported that the "[a]verage household bill for a dual fuel British Gas customer will now go up from £1,

Modern polar bears are genetically related to an extinct species of Irish brown bear, according to a study published Thursday in Current Biology. The two share a distinct genetic marker not present in other brown bears, strongly suggesting that all modern polar bears are descended from the same extinct species. The study found evidence of polar bear hybridization with a now-extinct population of brown bears that lived in Ireland and Britain during the last ice age. Brown bears are no longer found on the British Isles, and it had been thought

The trial of eight retired police officers and two witnesses involved in a high-profile Welsh miscarriage of justice began yesterday in Swansea, south Wales. The ten are accused of framing three men for murder. The Independent Police Complaints Commission thinks it is the largest trial of police the UK has ever seen. 20-year-old prostitute Lynette White was murdered in her Cardiff flat in 1988. Two years later, the 'Cardiff Three' — Stephen Miller, Yusef Abdullahi and Tony Paris — were convicted of her murder. They were cleared on appeal in 1

Only 44.47 percent of Romanian high school students passed last week's 2011 baccalaureate exam, according to the results published by Romanian education authorities on Sunday. The baccalaureate exam in Romania is the secondary school educational qualification test, and passing it attests that a student has graduated high school and may be admitted to a university. This is dramatically different from 69.3 percent last year and 81.4 percent in 2009. Sunday's passing figures are a record low since the exam was introduced in Romania and comes

Hundreds of thousands of British public sector workers went on strike across the country yesterday to protest planned changes to pensions. As industrial action swept the country, half of all schools were hit when teachers walked out, thousands of emergency service responders did not arrive at work, and there were warnings of immigration delays at Heathrow airport. Police arrested 26 people as protesters picketed on a march in London, and riot police kettled demonstrators as clashes broke out. Reports vary, but it is thought that up to half of

NASA, the space agency of the United States, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against former astronaut and sixth human to walk on the Moon Edgar Mitchell. NASA filed the lawsuit in a Miami federal court after learning of Mitchell's plans to auction off a camera that was used on the surface of the Moon during the Apollo 14 mission. Mitchell, 80, claims that he had permission from NASA to keep the camera, saying that astronauts of his era were permitted to keep mementos from their missions. He argues that had he not kept the camera, it would have be

In a 7-2 decision handed down on Monday, the US Supreme Court struck down California's violent video game law and ruled that video games are protected speech covered by the First Amendment. The California law banned the sale and rental of violent video games to minors. The underlying question was whether the violence in video games has the ability to affect children more than violence in other media, such as books, movies, plays and other forms of entertainment. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said that depictions of violenc

Space debris passed within a short distance of the International Space Station (ISS) Tuesday, forcing the crew to enter their escape capsules to be ready to depart in case of a collision. The debris ultimately missed the orbital outpost and passed within of the station at 12:08 UTC (8:08 EDT). Approximately half an hour after the closest approach of the debris, the crew were given the all-clear to reenter the space station from their escape capsules. Under normal circumstances and had mission controllers known about the collision threat soon

On Monday, Google added the "+1" button to its search results. It works similarly to the Facebook "Like" button. Today, Google began planning to add it to text ads, globally known as "AdSense". Google Product Manager Nick Radicevic commented at Google's AdSense blog: "Today, +1's will start appearing on Google search pages globally. .... We'll be starting off with sites like google.co.uk, google.de, google.jp and google.fr, then expanding quickly to most other Google search sites soon after." Individual websites also can use this feature. Pe

The New York State Legislature passed a bill Friday that legalizes same-sex marriage in the state. It was signed into law by Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo. New York now becomes the sixth and largest U.S. state with legalized same-sex marriage. The practice is legal in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Iowa and Washington, D.C.. Four Senate Republicans including Stephen Saland of Poughkeepsie, Mark Grisanti of Buffalo, Roy McDonald of Saratoga Springs, and James Alesi of Rochester, joined 29 Democrats in support, for a m

Celebrating their 70th anniversary, news agency RIA Novosti, along with the Russian chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, have started the 'Eternal Values' project. This project includes the release of images from RIA's archive to the public under free licenses. During the first phase, one hundred World War II-time photos were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons share alike license. The license allows the images to be freely used, including within the commercial industry without a fee and allows for creations of derivative

Reflecting an "overwhelming imbalance", the majority of the world's forcibly displaced refugees have been taken in by poor, developing countries, not industrialized countries, according to the 2010 Global Trends report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) released on Monday. The report states that many of the poorest countries in the world have accommodated the largest numbers of refugees in absolute terms and also in proportion to their economies. There were 43.7 million people displaced worldwide at the end o