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Nico Rosberg won the opening race of this year's Formula 1 season in Australia yesterday. TV commentators spoke of "fascination throughout the field" as big names retired and new names proved themselves. Former champion Lewis Hamilton qualified on pole but problems were evident by the second lap when he received a team radio message telling him "we need to retire... save the engine, save the engine!" Another followed rapidly, however, telling him to "just stay out, stay out, just keep on rolling". Hamilton left the race on the fourth lap. Re

Formula 1 racing driver Lewis Hamilton has taken pole for tomorrow's 2014 Australian Grand Prix after a last ditch attempt got the Brit on top. Daniel Ricciardo qualified second by only three tenths. In the final fifteen seconds of the final qualifying session Nico Rosberg held the lead before Ricciardo took four hundredths off the time. The switch put the home crowd into a frenzy before Hamilton took the fastest time by three tenths. Kevin Magnussen is set to start from fourth position. The defending champion Sebastian Vettel struggled in t

Wheelchair curling continued today at the Ice Cube Curling Center at the 2014 Winter Paralympics on difficult playing conditions as a result of the warm temperature outside. In the morning session, the South Korea lost to Russia in the eighth end by a score of 5–7, the United States lost to Canada 2–7 in seven ends, Norway edged out Finland 6–8 in extra ends, and China defeated Sweden 8–4 in seven ends. At the conclusion of the morning session, round robin standing had Canada in first with 4 wins; Slovakia in second with 3 wins; Russia in t

A court in Israel today jailed Muhammad Abed al-Jaffer Nasser Mafarja, 19, for 25 years after he bombed a bus in Tel Aviv in 2012. Two people received significant injuries in the explosion, which also wounded eight others and sent fourteen victims into shock. Mafarja was under 18 at the time of the attack. He placed the device on the bus after rejecting several others he rode on as insufficiently crowded, according to the prosecution. He then left the bus and phoned a co-conspirator, who detonated it remotely. Mafarja was convicted on his own

Earlier today, in the second game of sledge hockey play at the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Sochi, Russia, top-seeded Canada routed Sweden by a score of 10–1. Anthony Gale, Adam Dickson, and Dominic Larocque led their team in scoring with two goals a piece. Canada dominated possession in the first period, and ended with four goals on eleven shots. With the puck rarely in the Canadian third, Sweden managed only one shot on goal in the first. Billy Bridges scored first for Canada, with Ben Delaney scoring Canada's second, Adam Gale scoring Canada

Sochi, Russia — Yesterday, Jon Lujan of Littleton, Colorado was named the United States flag bearer for the 2014 Winter Paralympics opening ceremony scheduled to take place tomorrow in Sochi, Russia. Lujan is a United States Marine Corps veteran, and will be competing in the alpine events at this year's Games. In Sochi, Lujan is rooming with Heath Calhoun, the 2010 Winter Paralympics United States flag bearer. Like Lujan, Calhoun is also a veteran, having served in the army. In 2003, while serving in Iraq, Lujan ruptured two discs in his bac

Despite the intervention in parts of Crimea, Ukraine by forces connected to Russia in the past few days, the rail border between the countries remains open today. Neither Ukrzaliznytsia, the Ukrainian national railway, nor Russian Railways have any announcements on their website regarding any changes in service. According to Ukrainian Independent Information Agency, people entering the Ukraine from Russia are receiving extra scrutiny at at the border. At platform checkpoints for passport control, If the guards suspect people are entering fo

In a response published Saturday by The Associated Press, the International Paralympic Committee commented on Russian adherence to the Olympic Truce in regards to the country's actions in the Ukraine, saying "As with situations around the world, we hope a peaceful resolution can be found in the spirit of the Olympic Truce, which has covered the Paralympic Games since 2006. [...] We want the story here to be the great festival of sport that has already taken place in Sochi and will continue now that athletes are arriving for the start of the Win

Gerry Collins, star of Ireland's QUIT anti-smoking ad campaign, died yesterday morning. He was 57 and had terminal lung cancer. Collins began smoking at seventeen but had stopped by the time he was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2008. He described the treatment as "horrendous" and was featured by the QUIT campaign in 2011 after defeating the illness. He was later diagnosed again with cancer, this time of the lung and terminal. "I wish I was an actor," he says in the two TV ads he filmed last year, "because if I was an actor I'd be acting abo

On Wednesday, NASA announced the confirmed discovery of 715 new exoplanets orbiting just over three hundred stars; this confirmed using data from the orbiting Kepler telescope. Scientists made the discoveries by analyzing data from the first two years of the Kepler Telescope's operation, from May 2009 to March 2011. These findings have nearly doubled the total number of known exoplanets. It is also the largest number of exoplanets ever confirmed at once, exceeding any previous discovery by a factor of 20. In addition to vastly increasing the

A judge in England yesterday jailed "cruel, calculating, selfish and manipulative serial killer" Joanne Dennehy for life without parole. Dennehy murdered three men known to her and then tried to murder two random strangers. At the Old Bailey in London, Mr Justice Spencer sentenced Dennehy, 31, previously referred to in court as Joanna, and three accomplices. Gary Stretch, 47, also convicted of the attempted murders, was given a life term and can apply for parole after nineteen years. Leslie Layton, 37, received a fourteen-year term for helping

Heidi Hopkins, a taxonomic researcher and PhD candidate at the Museum of Southwestern Biology of the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States, conducted a four-year study revising the Arenivaga genus of cockroaches, discovering 39 new species in the genus previously thought to contain 9 species. ZooKeys journal published her findings Wednesday. The study involved examining over 5200 specimens from universities and collections throughout the United States. The researcher had to dissect the specimens' genitalia to accu