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{{DISPLAYTITLE:Pixar Studios animator Bud Luckey, designer of Toy Story'''s Woody, dies aged 83}} On Saturday, William Luckey, also known as Bud Luckey, US animator who designed Pixar Animation Studios' Toy Story character Sheriff Woody, died in a hospital in Newton, Connecticut; his son Andy Luckey announced the death via a Facebook post. Bud Luckey was 83 years old. Luckey was born in Billings, Montana on July 28, 1934. He was known for animating counting songs for Sesame Street in collaboration with music of Turk Murphy and lyrics by Donald

On Friday, international charity organization Oxfam unveiled an action plan to improve its safeguarding systems and whole internal culture. This follows a news article on February 9 in The Times, describing sexual misbehaviour by some Oxfam members on a Haiti mission following the big earthquake in 2010. The plan includes establishment of a special independent "High-Level Commission on Sexual Misconduct, Accountability and Culture Change", as well as other measures such as an immediate injection of money. The Times reported some members of O

On Thursday, Phil Scott of Vermont became the fourth governor in the United States to sign an executive order requiring all companies providing Internet access to state agencies to abide by net neutrality for all customers in his state. He said he did this because Vermonters rely on Internet access without blocking, throttling and paid prioritization, threatened by the December 14 decision of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the matter of "Restoring Internet freedom". The first state governor to challenge the FCC in this wa

On Tuesday, an engine cowling of a United Airlines airliner flying from San Francisco to Honolulu, in Hawaii, flew off over the Pacific Ocean, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing. The Boeing 777-200 two-engine jet left San Francisco International Airport shortly after 9:00 am PST (1700 UTC) and was flying the scheduled United Flight 1175 when there was a sound described by one passenger, Maria Falaschi, as "a big bang". Pieces of the right-side engine assembly could be seen blowing in the wind. Passengers said the plane landed 40 or

On Thursday, the Competition Commission of India (CCI), a government anti-trust watchdog, fined US-based internet technology company Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, Inc. ₹135.86 crore (about ₹1.36 billion, US$21 million) for manipulating their search results in favour of its products and syndicates, which affected business of rival companies. In the 190-page long decision, CCI said, "Google was leveraging its dominance in the market for online general web search, to strengthen its position in the market for online syndicate search services".

On Thursday, Dhaka high court sentenced former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to a five year prison term for corruption. Her son Tarique Rahman and four others involved in the case were each sentenced to ten years. Zia was prosecuted for embezzling ৳21 million (about US$250 thousand) from foreign donations to an orphanage while she was prime minister. 72-year-old Zia, who became the first female to head the Bangladeshi government in 1991, was sent to jail minutes after the ruling. Her son Tarique Rahman, who lives in England, was not p

Yesterday, a court in the Sakhalin region of Russia sentenced former governor Alexander Khoroshavin to thirteen years prison term and a fine of ₽500 million (US$8.6 million) on corruption charges. Judge Elena Polikina said Khorodhavin was guilty of "Bribetaking" and "Money laundering". Khoroshavin's case started consideration on the merits on March 6, last year. The 58-year-old, who served as the region's governor from 2007, was arrested in 2015 for bribery when he allegedly received a sum of US$5.6 million. Per the ruling, Khoroshavin cannot

On Wednesday, an anti-terrorism court in the Pakistani city of Haripur sentenced one man to death, and five others to life imprisonment, for killing 23-year-old Mashal Khan in a mob violence incident last year. 57 out of 61 verdicts were announced, which took place behind closed doors for security reasons, and about 250 police officials and commandos were deployed. Imran Sultan Mohammad, who had confessed about shooting Mashal Khan, was sentenced to death by judge Fazal-e-Subhan. Khan was a journalism student in Mardan's Abdul Wali Khan Univer

On Monday, Margot Duhalde, Chile's first female military pilot, died at the age of 97, the Chilean government said. Duhalde volunteered for the Free French Forces, and served with the British Royal Air Force and British Air Transport Auxiliary during the second World War. Duhalde, who learnt to fly an airplane at the age of sixteen, got her license to fly aircraft in 1938. She had left her home in Rio Bueno to undertake pilot's training at the Chilean Air Club in the capital city of Santiago. In 1940, Duhalde volunteered for the Free French F

At 3:45 p.m. Tuesday, Eastern Time (2045 UTC), the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, United States. Its cargo: a US$100,000 Tesla sportscar, the personal property of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, which he hopes will soon be in its own orbit around the Sun. This is the most powerful rocket since the Saturn V of Project Apollo was retired in 1970. The rocket is meant to follow a course called a Hohmann transfer orbit. "It'll be a really huge downer if it blows up," Musk told the press the day before the launch, bu

Thursday morning, at Salvador Castro Middle School in the Westlake District, Los Angeles (L.A.), California, US, four students were injured when a gun went off in a girl's backpack, according to police. L.A. police took a suspect into custody, a twelve-year-old female student, and recovered the gun at the scene. The four injured students were transported to a local hospital. A fifteen-year-old boy suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was recovering according to a Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center spokesperson on Wednesday. A fifteen-ye

On Wednesday, following the rape in India's capital, New Delhi, of an eight-month-old girl, Swati Maliwal, head of the Delhi Commission for Women, announced she was beginning a 30-day Satyagrah Aandolan — a form of non-violent civil protest — to persuade the Government of India to impose the death penalty promptly when offenders rape children. She asked for others to join in her protest action. As reported in the Indian press on Monday, the baby girl was initially in critical condition after she was raped on Sunday at her home in Subhash Nagar