What to Know
- Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook was working with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference during his testimony
- The Carolina Reaper is billed as the world's hottest pepper, apparently so hot it may cause "thunderclap" headaches in people who eat one
- T.J. Miller was arrested for allegedly calling 911 to report a fake bomb threat while aboard an NYC-bound train, federal investigators say
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Military Plane Crashes, Killing at Least 180 People, Officials Say
At least 180 people were killed when a military plane crashed soon after takeoff in a farm field in northern Algeria, officials say. The cause of the crash was unclear, and an investigation has been opened, according to a Defense Ministry statement. Emergency services converged on the area near the Boufarik military base after the crash. "There are more than 100 deaths. We can't say exact how many at this point," Mohammed Achour, chief spokesman for the civil protection agency, said. He said the plane was carrying soldiers. The Defense Ministry did not provide a death toll but expressed condolences to the victims' families. The flight had just taken off from Boufarik, about 20 miles southwest of the capital Algiers, for a military base in Bechar in southwest Algeria, Achour said. It was scheduled to make a layover in Tindouf in southern Algeria, home to many refugees from the neighboring Western Sahara, a disputed territory annexed by Morocco. The Soviet-designed Il-76 military transport plane crashed in an agricultural zone with no residents, Achour said.
Facebook Working With Mueller, Other Top Moments From Zuckerberg's Testimony
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company was working with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference during his testimony before the U.S. Senate. At first, Zuckerberg said the company had received subpoenas from Mueller's office but then clarified that he actually was not aware of a subpoena. Facebook staffers have been interviewed by Mueller's team though Zuckerberg said that he had not. He told the senators that he needed to be careful with his answers because the work with the special counsel was confidential. The Facebook founder is appearing before a joint session of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees, which will continue Wednesday. The senators asked him about the scandal surrounding the firm Cambridge Analytica, which obtained the data of 87 million users and tried to influence U.S. elections, and about Russia-linked accounts that spread false information, harmful in particular to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.
“Thunderclap” Headache Strikes Man Who Ate Pepper, Doctors Say
Local
The Carolina Reaper is billed as the world's hottest pepper, apparently so hot it may cause "thunderclap" headaches in people who eat one, NBC News reported. That's based on a new medical journal write-up of the case of a 34-year-old man who was rushed to the hospital from a pepper-eating contest. He had an excruciating headache triggered by an unusual blood vessel condition, reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome. "His symptoms began with dry heaves but no vomiting immediately after participation in a hot pepper contest where he ate one 'Carolina Reaper,' the hottest chili pepper in the world," the doctors wrote in the publication British Medical Journal's Case Reports. Thunderclap headaches come on vast and strong and doctors take them very seriously, since they can be a sign of stroke or brain hemorrhage. Doctors diagnosed the man with the blood vessel syndrome, which hadn't been linked to eating hot peppers before.
New Way of Defining Alzheimer's Aims to Find Disease Sooner
Government and other scientists are proposing a new way to define Alzheimer's disease — basing it on biological signs, such as brain changes, rather than memory loss and other symptoms of dementia that are used today. The move is aimed at improving research, by using more objective criteria like brain scans to pick patients for studies and enroll them sooner in the course of their illness, when treatments may have more chance to help. But it's too soon to use these scans and other tests in routine care, because they haven't been validated for that yet, experts stress. For now, doctors will still rely on the tools they've long used to evaluate thinking skills to diagnose most cases. Regardless of what tests are used to make the diagnosis, the new definition will have a startling effect: Many more people will be considered to have Alzheimer's, because the biological signs can show up 15 to 20 years before symptoms do.
TJ Miller Arrested for Calling 911 to Report Fake Bomb Threat, Complaint Alleges
Actor and comedian T.J. Miller was arrested for allegedly calling 911 to report a fake bomb threat while aboard a New York City-bound Amtrak train last month, federal investigators say. Miller, who most recently starred in the HBO comedy series "Silicon Valley," was arrested at LaGuardia Airport and released on $100,000 bond after an initial appearance in federal court in Connecticut. A criminal complaint says Miller called a 911 operator while he was aboard an Amtrak traveling from Washington D.C. to New York's Penn Station and said that a female passenger "has a bomb in her bag." An investigator contacted Miller by phone, according to the complaint. Federal investigators say the officer noticed slurring in Miller's voice and asked if he had had anything to drink; the complaint says that he said he had one glass of red wine. It also says Miller was asked if he suffered from mental illness. Miller could face up to five years in prison if convicted.
