WUFOOB … (Jan – Mar 2017)

Media responds to Trump’s ‘fake news’ charge — by pumping out fake news!

The Washington Times, 21st February 2017
President Trump, in his extraordinary press conference last week, called out the media for its brazenly biased reporting. Days later, the supposedly bias-free Associated Press (not at all unbiased) dropped this bombshell in a tweet: “BREAKING: The Trump administration considered a proposal to mobilize as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants, including millions living nowhere near the Mexico border, according to a draft memo obtained by The Associated Press,” the AP said in its story. Boom. Huge. Except there was a problem. No, many problems, foremost among them — the story wasn’t remotely true.

£50m of cocaine found on Norfolk beaches

BBC News, 10th February 2017
Cocaine with a street value of £50m has washed up on beaches in Norfolk. About 360kg (793lbs) of the drug was found on Hopton beach, near Great Yarmouth and a beach near Caister, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said. A member of the public contacted Norfolk Police having discovered a number of holdalls containing packages of cocaine on Hopton Beach.

NHS to deliver AI triage phone service

Telegraph, 5th February 2017
Jeremy Hunt has announced that the NHS will work with three artificial intelligence (AI) companies to deliver health advice over the telephone in London, Yorkshire and the West Midlands. AI is improving to the level that it can understand complex areas such as medical diagnosis as well as humans can.

N.B. This post was written by a robot.

Vegetable shortage leads to rationing and panic buying

Euronews, 3rd February 2017
Supermarkets in the UK have introduced rationing of iceberg lettuce and broccoli after poor weather in southern Spain has led to a national shortage. Tesco, the country’s largest supermarket, has limited ‘bulk purchases’ to three per person. Morrisons has imposed a two-lettuce and three-broccoli-head limit on shoppers.

Trump accuses media of downplaying the turnout at his inauguration

news.com.au, 22nd January 2017
Donald Trump and his chief spokesman launched an unprecedented assault on the media Saturday on the US president’s first full day in office, accusing reporters of downplaying the turnout at his inauguration. Trump, visiting the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in nearby Langley, Virginia, insisted against all evidence that he drew 1.5 million people to his Friday swearing-in ceremony. “I made a speech. I looked out, the field was, it looked like a million, million and a half people,” he told CIA staff.

Trump struggles to get people to perform at his inauguration

The Mirror, 20th January 2017
An ever-increasing number of people have vowed to boycott Donald Trump’s inauguration today. The President-elect will be sworn in as the 45th US president, however huge numbers of people have announced they will skip the event. In fact, Trump has been struggling to find celebrities to perform at the usually star-studded spectacle – let alone appear.

Southern Rail passengers face months of disruption

The Guardian, 4th January 2017
A six-day strike by drivers on Southern rail next week has been cut to three days, but there will be three further strike days at the end of the month. The general secretary of Aslef, Mick Whelan, said the move did not mean the union was rolling back and warned of further strikes. “We are taking a longer-term view of this trade dispute,” he said. “The company has not been prepared to move – it is simply going through the motions, turning up at Acas, as it did yesterday, and telling us that it intends to impose driver-only operation. It is difficult to negotiate with people who are not prepared to be flexible. We still believe a deal can be done but we are, at the moment, a long way from that position.” Southern’s passengers have suffered months of disruption because of industrial action, staff shortages and other problems.

Are aliens contacting Earth?

The Mirror, 27th December 2016
Are aliens contacting Earth? Mysterious energy signals received from outer space. A mysterious burst of energy from the far reaches of deep space has been detected by researchers in Montreal using a high-powered radio telescope in West Virginia. They intercepted six pulses of radio waves coming from the constellation Auriga – each one lasting just a few milliseconds.