April 19, 2013 Edition

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) emergency webpage reported that as of 10 am Friday, April 19 (Manila time) “gunshots were reported near Building 32 (Stata) which is currently surrounded by responding agencies.” An MIT police officer was shot, and was pronounced dead upon reaching Massachusetts General Hospital. The emergency alert notice said: “Please stay clay of area until further notice.” MIT is located in Boston, where two bombs at the city’s marathon killed 3 people and injured 180 last Monday, April 15.

Read the full story on Rappler. 

Rescuers in Texas combed through rubble on April 18 in a painstaking search for survivors after a massive blast at a fertilizer factory killed as many as 15 people and destroyed dozens of homes. With the country already on edge after the deadly Boston Marathon attacks, the factory exploded Wednesday with the force of a 2.1-magnitude earthquake, devastating much of the small town of West and sending up a toxic cloud. Authorities said they feared they could find more bodies in the rubble of homes and businesses leveled by the explosion, which may have been sparked by a fire that broke out at the West Fertilizer plant in the southwest US state.

Read the full story on Rappler. 

Rejoice and place more advertisements – at your own risk. The Supreme Court (SC), after all, has not issued a final decision on airtime limits, Commission on Elections (Comelec) chair Sixto Brillantes Jr warned candidates. The SC said it issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the Comelec’s airtime rules. Brillantes earlier criticized the SC for putting election reforms “in limbo.” Feeling “very, very disappointed” with the SC, he blasted the high court for delays in cases involving the Comelec. Brillantes said the Comelec will soon ask the SC to resolve the merits of the airtime case.

Read the full story on Rappler. 

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has further relaxed the foreign exchange rules to encourage dollar outflows and, hopefully, keep the peso from further appreciating. On April 18, the BSP said Philippine residents could now buy from banks up to US$120,000 for tourism, education, and medical purposes without having to present supporting documents. The previous ceiling was $60,000. In a briefing on Thursday, April 18, BSP Deputy Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr said this move is meant to simplify transactions between banks and customers.

Read the full story on Rappler. 

Ban Ki-moon became the first UN secretary general to visit the Pentagon on April 18, holding talks with US military leaders on the crisis over North Korea and a planned peacekeeping mission in Mali. Ban had asked for the meeting amid mounting tensions on the Korean peninsula and drastic threats from the regime in Pyongyang. His talks with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, focused on North Korea as well as planned or potential UN missions in Mali, Somalia and Syria.

Read the full story on Rappler. 

Astronomers have reported that with the help of the Kepler space telescope, they have discovered 3 more Earth-sized worlds orbiting nearby stars that have ocean-friendly orbits. According to their report, the Kepler-62 star has two planets, Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f, orbiting in ocean-friendly orbits around the star, and team astrophysicist Alan Boss mentions that this looks to be “the best example our team found yet of Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of a sun-like star.” A second star, dubbed Kepler 69, also looks to have a planet with a habitable zone, called Kepler-69c, which is 70% larger than earth.

Read the full story on USA Today. 

Twitter has launched a music service that recommends tunes based on what people are ‘tweeting’ about and lets people sample songs they might like. “We’re releasing Twitter #music, a new service that will change the way people find music, based on Twitter,” the San Francisco-based firm said in a release. “It uses Twitter activity, including Tweets and engagement, to detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists,” Twitter continued. Twitter users can get 30-second samples of songs from iTunes, Spotify or Rdio music services, but the default provider is Apple’s online shop iTunes.

Read the full story on Rappler.



 

With the backing of more than 1,300 people on crowdfunding website IndieGoGo, Anonymous has surpassed its modest goal of US$2,000 (P80,000), acquiring $54,668 (P2.25M) in funding to build its own news website. The goal of the YAN website would be to provide livestreamers and independent journalists with support and a platform to report the news. As their explanation states, “Our goal as YAN contributors will be to take what we have learned over the past few years and create a new environment,” where content will not be determined “solely by external sources.”

Read the full story on Rappler.

The stage is set for the biggest sporting event in the Philippines. Dumaguete hosts Palarong Pambansa 2013, and it’s ready to welcome more than 10,000 athletes from all over the country. Hundreds of delegates have already arrived in the city before the official kick-off of the Palaro on Sunday, April 21. With this year’s theme focused on promoting peace and progress through the Palaro, the Negros Oriental government promises has promised the 2013 edition “not to be surpassed.” Rappler is the media partner of Palarong Pambansa 2013.

Read the full story on Rappler. 

Police captured on April 20 (Manila time) one of the suspects in the Boston marathon bombing, 19-year old Dzhokar Tsarnaev. He is alive but is in a serious condition, after he fought it out with authorities. US President Barack Obama vowed to find out what turned two young US residents accused of the Boston bombings to violence. Police earlier surrounded a district where the Boston marathon suspect was believed to be hiding after a burst of automatic gunfire. Tsarnaev’s brother, Tamerlan — the other suspect in the bombings — died in the hospital after an earlier encounter.

Read the full story on Rappler.