TOMONEWSUS

WASHINGTON — The UK pledged an $88 million investment toward the U.S. government’s yet to be completed subterranean particle physics experiment this week. The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, also known as DUNE, begins at the Long Baseline Neutrino Facility at the Fermilab in Illinois. It ends 800 miles away at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota. When finished, it’ll produce the world’s highest-intensity neutrino beam using the Fermilab’s proton accelerator. This beam will travel westward through the Earth’s mantle to South Dakota where scientists will gather data on the neutrino particles. Scientists believe the DUNE project could lead to a deeper understanding of these weightless subatomic particles and how the universe came to be.

LAS VEGAS — The man behind Sunday night’s atrocity in Las Vegas had 23 firearms in his hotel, including 2 rifles modified with a bump stock, reported Popular Mechanics. Regular semi-automatic rifles require the user to pull the trigger to fire a shot. Bump stock modifications essentially eliminate the need for this. The modification absorbs recoil from the firing rifle, and uses it to bump the trigger into the shooter’s stationary finger. This combined with forward positional pressure from the shooter, allows the gun to fire at a rate closer to that of a fully automatic weapon.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is developing a prototype assault rifle to replace outdated M16 rifles and its variants such as the M4. The current generation of NATO rifles fire 5.56 mm rounds or 7.62 mm rounds. These measurements describe the bullet’s diameter. The U.S. Army is testing several intermediate caliber bullets that fall between these two rounds, Army Times reported. It is also testing cased telescoped ammo, which could be made of a plastic polymer material, according to Army veterans’ website Task and Purpose. Critics of the M4 rifle say the 5.56 mm rounds it fires are less lethal at the longer distances required for modern warfare. Critics also cite improvements in enemy body armor, enemy use of bigger rounds and jamming problems with the M16 and M4 as reasons the Army needs to upgrade its rifles. The new prototype rifle is expected to be ready by 2020.

BARNESVILLE, GEORGIA — The tale of a homeless and hungry teenager who slept under the stars so he could sign up for college is inspiring the residents of a small city in Georgia. Fred Barley, 19, was found sleeping rough by cops over the weekend at the Gordon College campus in Barnesville. But instead of issuing the biology major a ticket, they listened to his amazing story, WSBTV reported. The plucky teenager said he borrowed his little brother’s bicycle and rode for six hours so he could register for class. He carried all his worldly possessions with him as he rode more than 50 miles in Georgia’s scorching summer heat. Campus dorms don’t open until next month, so when Fred got to the school he pitched a tent. The determined youngster was prepared to camp for the next two weeks with nothing more to eat than a box of cereal. Fred spent Saturday job-hunting and had just got back to his tent when he was found by the police. Fred told the cops he thought the bushes would be safer than camping in his hometown of Conyers. The cops took Fred to a motel and paid for him to stay for a couple of nights out of their own pockets. One officer’s wife posted Fred’s story to Facebook, and the community rallied round. Good Samaritans stepped forward to help Fred pay for his motel stay and a local pizzeria hired him as a dishwasher. Meanwhile, a GoFundMe page for the teenager raised more than $27,000 in just two days. Fred released a video message on Facebook yesterday to say thanks, and hoped his supporters would be able to see him graduate.

A BMX rider from Portland, Oregon has attracted police attention after damaging a $350,000 Lamborghini sports car when he used it as a stunt prop and then posted video and photos of the act to Instagram. On the evening of April 18, Josh Navarro performed the stunt outside Jake's Famous Crawfish, a popular restaurant in the city. Bystanders witnessed Navarro jump over the luxury car and sped away, escaping any confrontation. Shortly afterward, video of the event appeared on his Instagram, alongside evidence of similar stunts. The owner of the shiny Lamborghini, Kelly Howard, is a regular customer at Jake's Famous Crawfish. Kelly stated that his car is needed repairs, which will cost thousands of dollars. The video received more than 2,000 comments on Instagram alone, a mixture of praise and condemnation. It is still unclear whether Navarro will face jail time or not.

A 13-year-old boy has sparked public outrage and disbelief after images of him throwing of gang signs, holding guns and using drugs on social media appeared. The teenager, identified as Jonathan from Memphis, Tennessee, is apparently documenting his 'gang' life, with the series of posts on social media platforms Twitter and Instagram. His sister, Deshunda Brown, has a long rap sheet, including Especially Aggravated Kidnapping, Aggravated Robbery and firearm charges among others. However, according to Stevie Moore with Freedom From Unnecessary Negatives, a group counseling troubled youth, that this is 'nothing that would surprise him'. "This child didn't learn this by himself. He had a role model," said Moore. This is certainly a wake up call for America. Troubled children like Jonathan need intervention before they become adult criminals. His behavior has been encouraged by thousands of the account's followers on Twitter and Instagram.

ANTARCTICA — A nation-sized body of water known as a polynya has opened up inside the world’s southern frozen continent. Scientists say this is the second year in a row the massive hole has appeared. According to National Geographic it is 30,000 square miles in size. This would make it half the size of Florida, around the same size as the UAE and three times as big as Hawaii. Warming waters from changes in the environment are said to play a part in the formation of such holes, as well as weather factors.

An Ohio boy punched his grandmother in the face in the middle of a Roses department store after she refused to buy him a toy, according to a report by the Smoking Gun. It's no secret that young children can often be difficult to handle when you take them out shopping during the holidays. Barbara Weeks, however, got more than she bargained for when her 11-year-old grandson did more than just cause a scene when she didn't buy him a toy he demanded. The boy really wanted what was no doubt the hot toy of the season, but his 60-year-old grandmother refused to buy it for him. The kid didn't take it too well, but instead of kicking and screaming like most children, he decided to take matters into his own hands, quite literally. He punched his poor grannie right in the face. When he attempted to land a second blow, his grandmother fled as quickly as she could. The unidentified minor was booked into juvie and charged with domestic violence.

’MERICA — It’s nearly impossible to keep track of the mass shootings that occur in America. Homegrown killers are committing these atrocities on a daily basis. Grab your popcorn, or your gun if that makes you feel safer, and let’s review the worst mass shootings in recent years. Our first American psycho is the nutjob who shot up Sandy Hook Elementary School in December of 2012. Next, we bring you a racist lunatic from South Carolina who targeted a historically significant church. Our third American psycho was a sexually frustrated spoiled brat from California. We may not know why these worthless humans chose to harm innocent people, but it’s possible that some of them had a seriously demented case of beta-male disorder, also known as beta-uprising.

Compound bad things happened in a Georgia prison last week, when a teen inmate was beaten and made to wear a dog leash, then had his picture taken with an illegally smuggled smartphone. 18-year-old Cortez Berry is an inmate at Burruss Correctional Training Center. One day last week, 10 other men cornered him and beat him mercilessly, then they used a smuggled phone to take Berry’s picture, before choking him unconscious. Berry was beaten at 3:15pm, but a guard didn’t find him until 9:15pm, six hours later. In the meantime, his family only heard about the horrific beating when they saw the photo on Facebook. The Georgia Department of Corrections responded to public outcry with a statement saying, it does not allow “inmates to have access to cellphones, as possession of such contraband is deemed illegal.” But Cortez Berry’s mother doesn’t care about that. She’s afraid her son is going to be murdered. The irony is that she only realized the danger Cortez was in because of the photo shared from his assailant’s smuggled phone. She wants the guards to protect her son’s life, and worry about where the phones are hidden later.

LOS ANGELES — An EVA Airlines jet flying to Taipei, Taiwan from Los Angeles International was mistakenly sent into the path of another plane last Friday morning. An air traffic controller told the EVA pilot to make a 180-degree-left turn when she actually meant right, reported ABC 7. This sent the aircraft into the path of an Air Canada flight and close to terrain on the San Gabriel Mountains. The controller realized the mistake and told the EVA Airlines crew, who managed to get the plane onto the correct path before anything happened. The two planes remained the required distance apart, a Federal Aviation Administration official told CBSLA. However, aviation investigators are still trying to determine how close EVA Airlines plane was to the San Gabriel Mountains. The required distance between aircraft and such mountainous regions is 2,000 feet.

LAGUNA BEACH, CALIFORNIA — Southern California inventor Gregg Homer says he and a team of ophthalmologists have developed a procedure that can surgically turn brown eyes blue. Brown-eyed people actually have blue irises, but the blue is obscured by a layer of brown pigment. Homer explained to CNN that if the layer of brown pigment is not there, then light can enter a part of the eye called the stroma. Once light scatters inside the stroma, only the light with the shortest wavelengths — blue light — is reflected back. The relatively new, 20-second laser procedure removes the superficial layer of brown pigment by causing the eyeball to shed pigments that will never regenerate. People who undergo the surgery won’t see a change immediately as the it takes several weeks for the eyes to remove the dead pigment layer, CNN reported. The surgery is currently undergoing human testing in Costa Rica and Mexico through Homer’s company Stroma Medical. Currently there are no known long-term adverse effects of the procedure. But Homer has said it’s too early to say for sure. The procedure will cost around $5,000, but only if the procedure is allowed in the United States.

A news organization in Saudi Arabia reported that a man left his new bride after seeing her face for the first time. According to Okaz, the Medina couple hadn’t met before the wedding, following tradition. The wife reportedly removed her veil for wedding photos, at which point the groom asked for a divorce. “You are not the one I imagined,” he allegedly said to his new bride. “I am sorry, but I divorce you.” Angry readers took to social media Wednesday to attack the man’s actions. The bride and groom have not been identified.

NEW YORK — JetBlue put a damper on a Jersey family’s Las Vegas birthday bash when they decided to boot them off a flight … over a cake. WABC reports that the Burke family had brought the buttercream confection with them as part of their carry on, and initially stored it in the overhead bin. When a flight attendant told them they had to move it, they stashed in under the seat. A second flight attendant reportedly berated her colleague, and then accused dad Cameron Burke of being non-compliant. Her behavior struck him as irrational, so he asked if she had been drinking. She stormed off, and another flight attendant asked them to leave the plane. Burke refused, and instead began filming the scene on his phone. Port Authority police was called on board. In the video, the family looks confused and distressed, and the 7-year-old can be seen crying, claiming they’d followed directions. An officer surnamed Cheung informs the family that despite doing nothing wrong, they will need to take another flight. JetBlue reps later ordered everyone to deplane in order to get the Burkes off the flight. They were refunded in full, and ended up taking a United flight to Sin City the next day. Burke is thinking of suing, and wants the rude flight attendant fired. But JetBlue is standing their ground, claiming Burke refused requests to remove the cake, yelled and cursed at the crew, and made false accusations about one attendant’s fitness to fly.

SHANXI, CHINA — Chinese netizens are furious over a pregnant woman who ended her life last Thursday after her family allegedly repeatedly refused to let her have a C-section to deliver her baby, regardless of the pain she was suffering. When doctors examined the 26-year-old woman, surnamed Ma, she was already more than 41 weeks pregnant. They discovered that the fetus’s head was very large, meaning it would be dangerous for her to undergo a natural birth, China’s China Business News reported. Doctors at the First Hospital of Yulin recommended to Ma and her family that she should have a C-section, but Ma’s family refused and insisted on natural birth. In China, some surgeries can only be performed with the patient’s family’s consent, despite that, doctors repeatedly tried to convince Ma’s family that she just would not be able to do it the naturally, but no no no, they apparently just wanted to have their way. Even Ma pleaded with her family, begging for consent. Even though she was already experiencing pain from her pregnancy, her family refused the plead. Distraught and in excruciating pain, Ma later reportedly jumped from the fifth floor of the hospital, killing herself and her unborn child in the process. Chinese authorities ruled it was a suicide. The incident has since sparked an uproar on Chinese online forums, with many questioning the family’s decision. However, since the news broke, Ma’s family has denied accusations against them, with Ma’s husband claiming that he later did give the go ahead for the C-section. The hospital says as far as they know, no one from Ma’s family gave their consent. The hospital later released surveillance footage showing Ma kneeling on the floor, begging her family to grant their consent. In response, the family claims Ma was not begging, but merely kneeling because she was in pain, and that they did eventually give her what she wanted. While it is not clear who’s actually telling the truth, many Chinese commenters believe the family’s lying. They believe the family is only trying to protect themselves now, and might even be trying to get some compensation money from the hospital in the process.

HILLSIDE, NEW JERSEY — A man found 30,000 bees and 40lbs inside his house wall last month.All 30,000 had to buzz off after being evicted in a single night, but not before stinging the beekeeper nearly 40 times. They were relocated to a local church that lost its beehive in the summer.

SINTON, TEXAS — As Hurricane Harvey swept through Texas, a lost dog in Texas showed it takes more than a raging storm to beat it. According to Houston Chronicle, before Hurricane Harvey’s landfall Friday night, Sinton resident Salvador Segovia left his grandson’s German shepherd mix, Otis, in his screened-in back porch. When Segovia went to check on Otis later, he was gone. Segovia checked his porch next day morning and noticed Otis’ bag of dog food was missing. Segovia went looking for the dog, and was told by a neighbor that they saw Otis strolling around with a bag of dog food in mouth. Fortunately, Segovia was able to track down the dog’s whereabouts and bring him home before his grandson returned. A neighbor named Tiele Dockens saw Otis thought he was stray, took a snap of him strolling around with the dog food and uploaded it to Facebook where the image went viral. According to Segovia, Otis is loved by the folks in Sinton and he’s been helpful to Segovia’s 5-year-old grandson, who often goes to the hospital for seizures and asthma.

CARLOS , MINNESOTA — A Minnesota teen has finally been reunited with her family after enduring 29 harrowing days of sexual and physical abuse. The Twin Cities Pioneer Press reports that 15-year-old Jasmine Block disappeared on August 8, after family acquaintance Thomas Barker tricked her into coming with him to help with a family situation. At his home, Barker and housemate Joshua Holby allegedly restrained Block with zip ties before assaulting and threatening her with weapons. A third man, Steven Powers, got involved two weeks into the teen’s abduction, after he stopped by the men’s home. The three men repeatedly assaulted the teen sexually and physically, and also reportedly tried to kill her on multiple occasions. Following a close call with police, the teen was moved to an abandoned house in rural western Minnesota. It was from here that she escaped, after the men went to get pizza and left her alone for the first time in a month. She knocked on several homes in the area before swimming across a nearby lake to get help. She lost her pants and shoes during the swim, but was luckily found by a farmer, who recognized her as a missing girl and helped her call the police. Barker, Holby, and Powers have all been arrested, and are currently being held in jail for kidnapping, false imprisonment, and assault.

PLANET EARTH — The most explosive volcanic eruptions spit out a fast-moving and incredibly destructive mass of material known as a pyroclastic flow. Should you ever find yourself in the path of one, you should run in the opposite direction as quickly as possible, according to the United States Geological Survey. Pyroclastic flows are made up of a basal flow of volcanic ash, lava, rock and gases, which move beneath a cloud of ash. Their temperatures can exceed 1,000 degrees Celsius, and they can move at 700 kilometers per hour. Typically, pyroclastic flows move downslope but they can go uphill when the ratio of gas to ash is higher, according to Forbes. This is known as a pyroclastic surge. These dense pyroclastic surges can even move over water. Pyroclastic flows generally destroy everything in their path including vegetation, buildings and people. There are generally two kinds of pyroclastic flow. The first type forms when an eruption column cools and the ash becomes too dense to maintain an upward thrust. The second type is rarer and occurs when so much pressure builds up inside a volcano that it erupts laterally and boils over. The last known example of this is when Mount St. Helens in Washington state erupted in 1980.

Volcano Villarrica erupted in southern Chile on Tuesday morning at about 3 a.m. local time. Prior to the eruption, 3,385 people were evacuated from their homes as a precaution. On Monday officials observed volcanic activity in the volcano’s crater, prompting them to declare a “red alert.” No one was injured during the eruption, and when the volcano quieted down an hour after it began erupting everyone returned to their homes. Villarrica’s eruption on Tuesday spewed ash and lava up to 1,000 meters into the air. Senior meteorologist at AccuWeather.com Jason Nicholls says that the volcanic ash from the eruption will probably spread to Buenos Aires and cover much of the less-populated parts of Argentina. The 2,840-meter high Volcano Villarrica is a stratovolcano, formed by many layers of hardened lava and volcanic ash. Villarrica is rather unique because along with a conical shape that defines most stratovolcanoes, it also has a crater at its brim. The crater was formed when the edifice of the volcano collapsed. As one of Chile’s most active volcanoes, Villarrica is also one of the few volcanoes in the world with an active lava lake within its crater. According to Chile’s Ministry of Mining, Villarrica’s last major eruption was in 1985.

Chase Lankford and his companions were on their way to visit family in Indiana. That’s when the trio discovered what they initially thought was a deer decoy sitting on a frozen lake. But upon closer inspection, they realized it was an actual deer, unable to get up and walk on the ice to safety. Lankford and company then set out to rescue the deer. The video shows the buck being pulled from the ice. At one point, the buck walks on his hind legs as his human rescuer holds the fore legs. The buck seemed appreciative following the rescue. Lankford reports the family returned the following day to check on the deer, following his tracks in the snow for 30 minutes. Alas, they never saw him again.

MINNEAPOLIS — A Minneapolis mattress company unveiled a smart bed at Las Vegas’ Consumer Electronics Show that can help prevent users from snoring, thus eliminating the chances of them disturbing their partners in their sleep.Sleep Number has developed the 360 Smart Bed, which can continuously track users’ heart rates, movement and breathing, then automatically adjusting depending on body positions.When the bed detects the sound of snoring, it is programmed to raise the user’s head slightly to help clear his or her airway. It also traces bedtime routines, and helps wake up the user when they’ve reached the lightest stage of sleep.This year’s CES featured a SleepTech Marketplace, which showcased technologies such as sleep trackers and alarms that can improve the quality of sleep.

AMSTERDAM — Scientists in the Netherlands are working at the country’s aerospace center to develop circular airport runways. After several years of research, scientist Henk Hesselink believes that circular runways could have several benefits, including being more environmentally friendly and less noisy, the BBC reported. The European Commission funded the research project called the Endless Runway, on which Hesselink and five European institutes collaborated together, the NL Times reported. The group proposed constructing a 3.5-km-wide circular runway with banked sides divided into 18 runway segments, with the airport terminal in the center of the circle. The length of the runway would be equal to three straight runways, while being able to handle the air traffic of four. Circular runways would allow planes to land and take off at any point in the circle, according to Hesselink. Pilots would be able to land in directions with the most favorable weather conditions, while avoiding difficult maneuvers in situations such as strong crosswinds. The circular design would also mean aircraft would have to circle the airport less, thus using less fuel. The design allows for three planes to land and take off at the same time. Because of centrifugal forces, planes would automatically go slower, and move towards the center of the runway, Hesselink said. Circular runways could also limit noise pollution by spreading it out more evenly around the airport. The U.S. military conducted tests in the 1960s with circular runways, but commercial circular runways have never been built.

DELFT, NETHERLANDS — A group of robotics and engineering students from Delft University of Technology in Netherlands have created a robot pillow that can improve sleep quality. Dubbed Somnox, the pillow is equipped with multiple high-sensitivity sensors and artificial intelligence algorithm. It can interpret whether the user is awake or in a deep sleep and use the data to create a breathing rhythm that can induce the user to sleep in minutes. It can also emit a gradually increasing light to wake up the user in the morning. Somnox is still in the prototype phase and it is not yet known when it will be available to the market.

INDIA — A woman in India got the shock of her life after discovering that the crawling sensation up her nose was in fact an actual creepy crawler. Selvi, a 42-year-old domestic worker from Chennai, woke up to an itchy, tingling feeling in her nasal cavity one night and asked her son-in-law to take her to a nearby clinic. Soon, the itchy sensation turned painful, with Selvi feeling a burning between her eyes, according to the Times of India. Doctors initially suspected a nasal growth, before deducing it was a foreign body that appeared to be mobile. To everyone’s horror, a nasal endoscopy revealed the intruder to be a fully-grown, live cockroach. The vile insect had crawled up the Selvi’s nose while she was sleeping, and eventually crawled up the cavity between her eyes. It didn’t want to leave, either. It took nearly 45 minutes and a combination of suction and forceps before the live roach was finally pulled out of the woman’s nose. Had it stayed in, doctors believe it would have died and given the unfortunate patient an infection.