New Delhi, India – A blanket of smog greeted residents of New Delhi on Monday as air quality deteriorated sharply overnight in India‘s capital, triggering warnings that even healthy people were at risk of health problems.

The air quality index, that measures PM 2.5 tiny particulate matter that reaches deep into the lungs, more than doubled within a few hours to 707 on Monday morning at Mandir Marg, the worst affected area in the city, pollution monitoring agency AQICN data revealed.

This is double the mark of 300 that authorities deem as hazardous.

Suggestion to friends in Delhi. Today the air is incredibly toxic. Please remain indoors, wear a mask and install a filter if you can. Please ask elders to avoid outside exposure through morning walks. Take care.

— Apar Gupta (@apargupta84) November 5, 2018

The US embassy in New Delhi said its air pollution index had on Monday morning breached the “hazardous” level upper limit of 500, at which it stops measuring levels of PM2.5.

New Delhi, with a population of 16 million, ranks among the world’s most polluted cities.

The air quality in the Indian capital usually worsens at this time of year when crops burned in nearby states envelops the city. It is expected to worsen with smoke from firecrackers celebrating Diwali, the festival of lights, on November 7.

Doctors in New Delhi are sounding the alarm, warning people to avoid outdoor exertion. 

“Such levels of pollution will shorten your lifespan. Today, we are talking of levels over 600, so 60 times over the normal level,” Dr Krishan Kumar Aggarwal, president of the Heart Care Foundation of India, told Al Jazeera.

“Everybody, including healthy people are impacted now. All sudden deaths and acute heart attacks during this period in the city should be linked to pollution.” 

“PM 10 is harming our lungs and PM 2.5 and PM 1 is attacking every organ of our bodies,” the cardiologist warned.

“With an air purifier and an air conditioner indoors, still registering PM 2.5 levels over 300, so no place to turn to. It is an extreme situation. Why is there no emergency action from authorities? They mobilised the army when there was a flood in Kerala. Today, there is a flood in Delhi, a flood of pollution. This is a natural disaster of equal gravity,” he added.

While Delhi chokes, @narendramodi TL would make you think there’s an alternate reality that exists in the rarified air of 7 Lok Kalyan Marg – not a word fm the PM about the toxic fumes Delhi is inhaling

There’s a pollution crisis again. And its unforgivable – Mr. Prime Minister.

— barkha deva (@barkhad) November 5, 2018

A latest World Health Organization (WHO) report says India tops a list of countries that recorded high numbers of child deaths linked to air pollution in 2016.

At least 14 of the 20 most polluted cities of the world are in India, according to the WHO.

A senior environmental official said last week that the South Asian country may halt the use of private vehicles in New Delhi if air pollution gets worse.

New Delhi’s main pollutants are missions from vehicles and thermal power stations, as well as construction dust. Crop burning and industrial pollution from adjoining states also add to the bad air in New Delhi, say experts.

According to the Haryana Pollution Control Board, farmers in northern states like Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan burn millions of tonnes of crop waste around October every year to clear farmland before sowing the winter crop.

An estimated 35 million tonnes are set afire in Punjab and Haryana every year, which contributes to the haze and smog in New Delhi.

Monday’s worsening air quality is despite some steps being taken to battle pollution since last month.

“This winter we have some advantages. Some pre-emptive actions have been taken in Delhi already. Since October authorities have shut down coal-powered plants, brick kilns and stone crushers and hot-mix plants. If it worsens, emergency action has to be stepped up,” Anumita Roychowdhury from the Centre for Science and Environment, a non-profit organisation, told Al Jazeera.

“This October did not breach severe levels, but November is going to be much tougher. We need disciplined implementation of a comprehensive action plan which has already been notified,” she added.

Last year, the Supreme Court temporarily banned the sale of firecrackers in and around New Delhi during the festival of Diwali sparking debate over the decision. It also outlawed the sale of luxury diesel vehicles and ordered a tax on trucks entering the city.

This year it declined to order a blanket ban on Diwali firecrackers.

But the grim health warnings are not likely to be heeded by everyone. For some residents of the city like Dilip, a 32-year old cleaner, there is no escape from breathing in the toxic air as he is forced to work outdoors.

“I cough a lot, my eyes are watering, I have had to go to the doctor twice this last week. I know the air is bad. But I can’t stay indoors, who will work and earn for me?” he asked.

Using the average of three CPU tests, the new iPad Pro scored 5,027 on single-core and 18,050 on multi-core compared to the 2017 iPad Pro’s 3,964 single-core and 9,529 multi-core scores. That makes the new iPad Pros 27 percent faster on single-core and 89 percent faster on multi-core — all within Apple’s claims.

As I’ve said over and over again, synthetic benchmarks like these CPU scores give you an idea of where the new iPads pro rank in comparison to other devices. But what you really want to know is what kind of tangible performance you can get from such power and will it actually make a difference in your work.

I can’t speak for every kind of person’s needs, but I can tell you editing video on the go is not easy. Ask any video producer and they’ll recommend using a beefy laptop with a discrete graphics processor, especially if you’re crunching 4K video files, and rendering lots of transitions and effects, etc.

The more powerful your CPU and GPU, the faster videos will render and export. So I put the iPad Pro’s to the task.

Using Adobe Premiere Rush CC, I created a 3-minute long project file consisting of five 4K video clips (taken with an iPhone XR for our XR review), tossed in a title at the front and a “Subscribe” card at the end, added three video clip transitions (two dissolves and one dip-to-white), and color-graded two clips each with one filter preset.

The entire project weighed in at 179MB and although I had hoped to export the video in 4K, the highest settings you can export in Rush CC on mobile is 1080p at 30 fps. Since the videos were shot at 24 fps, I selected settings for 1080p and 24 fps, and then hit the export button.

I did this on multiples iOS devices running iOS 12.1 and took the average of three exports tests and here’s what I got (don’t worry, all devices were charged to 100 percent and remained plugged in to prevent any kind of performance throttling from depleted battery health:

• 12.9-inch iPad Pro (2018): 54 seconds
• 10.5-inch iPad Pro (2017): 1 minute and 24 seconds
• 9.7-inch iPad Air 2 (2014): 7 minutes and 18 seconds
• iPhone X (2017): 1 minute and 56 seconds
• iPhone XS (2018): 1 minute and 13 seconds

I also did the export test on my MacBook running the newest version of macOS Mojave and a Surface Pro running the latest version of Windows 10 Pro:

• 12-inch MacBook (2015) with 8GB of RAM: 2 minutes and 1 second
• Surface Pro (2017) with GHz + 8GB of RAM: 8 minutes and 8 seconds

Breaking down the numbers, the new iPad Pro exported the video 56 percent faster than last-gen iPad Pro, and 711 percent faster than a four-year-old iPad Air 2, and 115 percent faster than the iPhone X.

The performance gap is smaller compared to the iPhone XS — the new iPad Pro exported the video 35 percent faster — but still speedier. The time saved from waiting for an export to be finished is time that can be put towards uploading or doing something else.

Even more nuts is the iPad Pro’s performance compared to laptops. It exported the video 124 percent faster than my 2015 12-inch MacBook and 804 percent faster than a 2017 Surface Pro.

These are preliminary performance tests, too. It’s up to developers to optimize their apps to tap into the A12X Bionic’s insane power so it’s very possible better code could mean even faster performance.

Many of the apps I tested such as Rush CC, Lightroom CC, Procreate, and others weren’t optimized for the the iPad Pro’s screen resolution (you’ll know because they don’t fill out the entire display), but I expect them to be updated on the day of the tablets’ release or shortly after.

The A12X Bionic’s raw power makes everything on iOS (and I mean everything) feel faster. Beautiful 3D games like Asphalt 9 and Fortnite run smooth and rarely with any framerate issues. It’s very telling when Fortnite at “high” graphics settings is playable at 30 fps, but a 2017 top-of-the-line 2017 15-inch MacBook Pro with discrete graphics can barely load it without lag.

Battery life is also as excellent as on previous iPads. Apple advertises “up to 10 hours” for mixed usage and I got just about exactly that for reading, playing some games, watchings lots of YouTube and Netflix, and typing out some of this review. More intensive apps like Rush CC and iMovie will drain your battery quicker, so keep that in mind. But even still, I still got around 7-8 hours while working with pro-level apps.

Saudi Arabia deployed a chemist and toxicology expert to Istanbul after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in an attempt to cover up evidence of the killing, according to a Turkish newspaper.

Pro-government daily Sabah reported on Monday that Saudi Arabia sent an 11-member “cover-up team” to Istanbul on October 11, nine days after the Washington Post contributor vanished after entering the Saudi consulate to obtain paperwork for his marriage.

The paper said chemist Ahmad Abdulaziz al-Janobi and toxicology expert Khaled Yahya al-Zahrani were among “the so-called investigative team”, which visited the consulate every day until October 17, before leaving Turkey on October 20.

The newest details may explain why Saudi Arabia did not allow Turkish police to search the consulate until October 15.

Turkish authorities have released gruesome details of a killing that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said was a targeted hit.

Missing body

While Riyadh officials have admitted the murder was planned, they have so far declined to release details of the whereabouts of the 59-year-old journalist’s missing body.

Turkey‘s chief prosecutor said last week that Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the consulate and also confirmed the body was dismembered.

Yasin Aktay, an advisor to Erdogan, hinted in an article published on Friday that the body may even have been dissolved in acid.

Khashoggi’s body parts transported in suitcases: Report

In an editorial published in The Washington Post, Erdogan accused authorities in Riyadh of refusing to answer key questions about the murder, despite their arrest of 18 suspects a fortnight ago.

He said the order to murder the journalist came from “the highest levels” of the Saudi government, adding that he did “not believe for a second” that King Salman was to blame.

But he pointedly failed to absolve Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of responsibility for unleashing a “death squad” against the outspoken Saudi journalist.

The murder has badly tainted the kingdom’s de facto ruler.

Unwilling to ‘genuinely cooperate’

Last week, Saudi Attorney General Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb met with Turkish authorities in Istanbul but refused to share information from Riyadh’s own investigation, according to Turkish officials.

A senior Turkish official said the Saudi officials that appeared unwilling to “genuinely cooperate” with the investigation.

“The Saudi officials seemed primarily interested in finding out what evidence the Turkish authorities had against the perpetrators,” the official told AFP news agency on the condition of anonymity.

“We did not get the impression that they were keen on genuinely cooperating with the investigation.”

On Monday, Turkish Vice President Fuad Oktay said that reports of Khashoggi’s body being dissolved in acid needs to be investigated.

Oktay told Turkey’s Anadolu news agency it was now accepted that Khashoggi was targeted in a pre-meditated murder.

“The question now is who gave the orders. This is what we are seeking answers to now,” Oktay said.

“Another question is where the body is… There are reports of [the body] being dissolved with acid now. All of these need to be looked at.”

According to Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons, reporting from Istanbul, Saudi investigators had repeatedly asked Turkish officials for access to Khashoggi’s phone while they were investigating the case in Istanbul.

Similarly, on Sunday a Turkish security source told Al Jazeera that audio recordings from inside the consulate indicate that Khashoggi’s murderers were trying to find his phone immediately after killing him.

Prior to entering the consulate, Khashoggi had given both of his mobile phones to his fiance Hatice Cengiz as she waited outside.

SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies

Gordon Ramsay is probably the scariest person to cook for on the planet. Set aside every kitchen tantrum you’ve seen him throw, though, because his reaction to his kids cooking for him will surprise you. 

For the TV chef’s 50th birthday, his children rustled up a birthday feast that looked fit for a Michelin Star, frankly. His kids, Matilda and Jack, cooked ravioli for the first course. “It looks beautiful. The pasta is so nice and thin,” said Ramsay. “Tilly, it’s beautiful.” 

For the main course, the kids served a filet de boeuf. “Wow, a nice sear on the outside and pink in the middle. The perfect way to eat filet,” said Ramsay. The meal was polished off with a melting chocolate ball, which Ramsay hailed “delicious.”

Praise indeed! 

Speaker of Sri Lanka‘s parliament has said he will not accept Mahinda Rajapaksa as the new prime minister until he proves a majority in 225-member parliament.

President Maithripala Sirisena fired the sitting Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on October 26 and appointed Rajapaksa – a controversial former president – in his place, throwing the country in a constitutional crisis with two rival prime ministers.

“The majority of the members are of the view that the changes done in the parliament are unconstitutional and against the traditions,” Karu Jayasuriya, the speaker of parliament from Wickremesinghe‘s United National Party (UNP), said in a statement on Monday.

“Therefore, I am requested by the majority of the parliament to accept the position which was prior to these changes. Until the new group shows the majority, I will have to accept the status quo prior to the changes.”

‘Too late’

On Sunday, Sirisena ordered parliament to reconvene in 10 days to resolve the protracted political crisis, drawing sharp criticism from Wickremesinghe’s party which decried it as “too late“.

Sirisena had suspended parliamentary proceedings until November 16 after abruptly firing Prime Minister Wickremesinghe last week and replacing him with Rajapaksa.

The United Nations and many Western countries have urged Sirisena to summon the House immediately.

Mangala Samaraweera, a member of UNP, condemned Sirisena’s decision to recall parliament two days prior to the initial suspension order, saying it was “an eyewash to appease the ever increasing” international and local pressure.

The deposed leader has demanded a vote to prove his majority. But in recent days, a steady stream of defections has eroded his narrow majority in the House.

At least eight legislators from the UNP and a member of an opposition party have now crossed over to the Sirisena and Rajapaksa-led United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), which had the backing of 96 legislators prior to the crisis.

Nearly all politicians who left the UNP took up ministerial posts in the new cabinet.

While the president has the authority to appoint the prime minister, he does not have the power to sack the incumbent, legal experts have said, citing constitutional amendments passed three years ago.

SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies

The Boring Company CEO Elon Musk seems to be confounded about what a tunnel is. It’s ironic since the company’s main mission is to build tunnels for quick, high-speed underground travel. Or the tweets are just Musk being faux-modest about what his company’s accomplished.

Musk, the man behind SpaceX and Tesla, said ln October that a tunnel in Los Angeles would open by the end of the year. On Saturday night he tweeted a preview of the dark and “one-dimensional” underground tube. 

He said he walked the entire tunnel and found it “disturbingly long.” The tunnel is supposed to be 2.7 miles upon completion.

These all seem to be common descriptors for tunnels, but Musk is still surprised by the tunnel’s tunnelness.

The first section of the Hawthorne test tunnel that Musk showed in a 34-second timelapse video will be open for rides, so pedestrians and cyclists can try it out, after an opening party on Dec. 10. 

In a new podcast interview with Recode’s Kara Swisher Musk talked about The Boring Company and building a network of tunnels under Los Angeles. Again he brought up the dimensionality of the tunnel — and distinguished what makes his tunnels different from a subway system. 

“…even subways tend to be essentially two-dimensional. You’ll have a subway cross another subway, but they’ve never really tried to make many layers of subways,” he said.

He called the upcoming opening event a “one-dimensional party” — it seems he really wants us to understand this is a single tunnel going from point A to point B. Low expectations.

The sons of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi have asked Saudi authorities to return the body of their father so the family can properly grieve, they told CNN in an interview.

Khashoggi was killed inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul by a team sent from Riyadh on October 2, a murder Turkey’s president said was ordered from “the highest levels” of Saudi Arabia’s government.

“I really hope that whatever happened wasn’t painful for him, or it was quick. Or he had a peaceful death,” Abdullah Khashoggi told the US network during the interview in Washington on Sunday.

His brother Salah said “all what we want right now is to bury him in Al Baqi in Medina with the rest of his family,” referencing a cemetery in Saudi Arabia.

“I talked about that with the Saudi authorities and I just hope that it happens soon.”

Salah told CNN that his handshake with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman shortly before he left Saudi Arabia was misinterpreted in the media.

“I mean there was nothing, they were just over-analysing the whole situation … I understand why they’re trying to do that. They’re trying to get as much information as they can out of anything, which is something that we’re also doing. Sometimes they’re just baseless claims, sometimes they just don’t make any sense,” he told the network.

‘Body dismembered’

Turkey’s chief prosecutor said recently that Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the consulate and also confirmed the body was dismembered.

Yasin Aktay, an adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, hinted in an article published on Friday that the body may even have been destroyed in acid.

Vice President Fuat Oktay said on Monday that the acid theory needs to be further investigated. 

He told Turkey’s Anadolu news agency it was now accepted that Khashoggi was targeted in a premeditated murder.

“The question now is who gave the orders. This is what we are seeking answers to now,” Oktay said. “Another question is where the body is … There are reports of [the body] being dissolved with acid now. All of these need to be looked at.”

A newspaper close to Turkey’s government claimed on Monday that a team from Saudi Arabia sent to help Turkish authorities investigate the killing worked instead to remove evidence of the slaying.

Sabah newspaper, citing “trusted sources,” said that an 11-member team of Saudi investigators that arrived in Turkey nine days after Khashoggi was killed included a chemical expert and a toxicology expert.

Khashoggi’s killing has provoked widespread outrage and sharp criticism from Washington, usually the staunchest of allies.

Khashoggi’s sons voiced worry that the work of their father, a columnist for The Washington Post, was being distorted for political reasons.

“I see a lot of people coming out right now and trying to claim his legacy and unfortunately, some of them are using that in a political way that we totally don’t agree with,” Salah told CNN. “My fear is that it’s being over politicised.”

“Jamal was never a dissident. He believed in the monarchy, that it is the thing that is keeping the country together.”

The brothers said they have relied primarily on news reports to piece together an understanding of their father’s death.

“There’s a lot of ups and downs … We’re trying to get the story – bits and pieces of the story to complete the whole picture,” Abdullah said. “It’s confusing and difficult.”

“It’s not a normal situation and not a normal death.”

Salah emphasised that “the king has stressed that everybody will be brought to justice. And I have faith in that.”

The murdered journalist’s fiancee meanwhile has called on US President Donald Trump to back Turkey’s efforts to probe the death.

SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies

Best-selling crime author James Patterson has released an interactive thriller novel on Facebook Messenger, and instead of turning a page, the only way to progress through the story is by clicking the knife emoji.

The Chef follows the exploits of Caleb Rooney, a New Orleans “police detective by day, celebrity food truck chef by night.” Rooney finds himself under investigation for murder, so he’s got to follow the trail of clues — and that means you can too.

Want to dig in? The Chef has been sitting in wait on Messenger since Oct. 30, but the hard copy is not due out until Feb. 2019. All you have to do is hit “send message” to the Facebook page for The Chef by James Patterson to get started.

Image: mashable screenshot

You’re encouraged to use the knife emoji to progress through the story’s 34 chapters, and “review evidence” by swiping through image carousels, or hitting play on video testimonies, depositions, and surveillance footage, along with sound clips.

At first glance, it’s a pretty, uh, novel experience. There are little asides that shake up the regular pace of Patterson’s story, for example, when Rooney mentions something he’s cooking in the food truck, you can ask for the recipe. Whether I can keep this enthusiasm up for 34 chapters remains to be seen. 

The story’s not just restricted to Messenger, however. The novel’s protagonist, Caleb Rooney, has an Instagram account, stocked with pics from his fictional food truck “Killer Chef”, his partner, Marlene, and a mysterious “guy in yellow.”

Patterson will be taking part in live Q&As on Facebook, with dates to be announced.

“Ten years ago, if you told me I’d see one of my novels come to life through scrolling chat bubbles, I would have laughed,” reads a statement from the author.

“But exploring new ways to connect with fans is important to me and Messenger’s experience for The Chef not only makes the story more accessible to readers across new generations, but offers an enticing and thrilling read like never before.”

This article contains spoilers for Season 9, Episode 5 of The Walking Dead.

Rick Grimes ain’t done. He’s hopped on a helicopter, and is flying right into a film series.

Planning to continue Rick’s story after the events of the series, AMC has announced multiple films in development for The Walking Dead universe, starring Andrew Lincoln.

Written by AMC’s chief content officer, Scott M. Gimple, and based on the character from Robert Kirkman’s comic, the series of AMC Studios Original Films will begin production as early as 2019.

So, where will we meet up with Rick? Last we saw, our mortally wounded hero hopped on a helicopter and flew to an unidentified location, away from the land of The Walking Dead in Season 9, Episode 5 — Rick’s final episode. 

According to AMC, the first film will explore exactly where Rick is taken, and “what he faces in a new corner of the zombie apocalypse.”

“For many years, fans have talked about things in the apocalypse they want to see and now we have an opportunity to explore those stories, beginning with the character who started it all, Rick Grimes,” said David Madden, president of original programming for AMC, SundanceTV and AMC Studios, in a press statement.

It’s not the only project currently in development for The Walking Dead Universe, with Gimple set to roll out a multi-year plan involving films, specials, series, and other vaguely described “digital content.” Some stories will be standalone tales, while others will relate directly to characters in The Walking Dead series.

“We have a lot on the horizon — starting with a new epic featuring one of the greatest leading actors in television history and one of the best people I’ve ever met,” said Gimple in a press statement. 

“These films are going to be big evolutions of what we’ve been doing on the show, with the scope and scale of features. We’re starting with the first part of the continuing story of Rick Grimes, and there is much more on the way, featuring yet-unseen worlds of The Walking Dead and faces from the show’s past, as well as new characters we hope to become favorites, told by TWD veterans and emerging voices,” he added.

“We want to break new ground with different, distinct stories, all part of the same world that’s captured our imagination for nearly a decade of the Dead.”

Image: Steve Dietl/Netflix

Wondering how the sixth episode of Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House, the one that looks like it’s all one continuous shot, was made? 

Writer and director Mike Flanagan gave fans a rare look at how the ambitious episode of the streaming platform’s horror series was created, in a lengthy Twitter thread on Sunday.

Flanagan broke down the scenes for the episode, and the difficulties involved in filming what he describes as essentially “five long takes,” three in a funeral home, two in Hill House. 

The director speaks to problematic flooding caused by rain machines, praises the stand-in actors who helped rehearse the lighting, blocking and cinematography, and explains how the crew pulled off a 360-degree shot featuring adult characters being replaced with their child selves.

Flanagan even details exactly how long each shot runs for, which would be stitched together in post-production for the seemingly one-shot full episode.

Here we go. There’s a mild spoiler vibe in a few of the tweets, just so you know.

Phew! So much detail. But there was one final question to answer.