National / International News

Supermarket group Tesco buys the restaurant chain Giraffe for £48.6m as it moves into the family dining sector.

Overwhelming favourite Sprinter Sacre delights Cheltenham with a stunning 19-length victory in the Queen Mother Champion Chase.

New rights for air passengers are unveiled by the European Commission, including rerouting travellers with rival carriers if a flight is delayed for more than 12 hours.

The Welsh government urges people to think before dialling 999, as A&E departments across Wales continue to operate under "unprecedented" pressure.

Telemedicine sounds like a good idea, but state laws limit it, and insurers usually won't pay for that. Parkinson's specialist Ray Dorsey is determined to prove that it can work, one patient at a time. The latest lure: free 30-minute consults.

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Antonio Pappano, music director of the Royal Opera House in London, criticises the "current generation" of opera singers, saying they "don't care".

American corporations are on hight alert on the hacking front after a series of attacks coming from China.

President Obama sat down with a group of CEOs at the White House today to talk about strategies to protect their companies' confidential business information from the threat of cyber attacks.

But what happens when a company has already been attacked? Kim Zetter, senior writer for Wired, says that companies can't "hack back," or try to retrieve stolen data.

"You can be self-defensive, you can protect yourself against an attack. You can't go back after the hacker or the computer that appears to be attacking you because that's basically doing what the attacker is doing," said Zetter.

President Obama signed an executive order last month designed to make it easier for the government to warn private companies of cyber threats and to set up a system of voluntary cybersecurity standards. The government is in a better position than corporations to fight back after a company has been hacked.

"The government can take certain legal measure," Zetter said. "They can go after the servers and get them taken down. They can't hack the servers, but they can go after the authorities who host the servers and get those taken down."

Paris has culture. Barbados: beaches. The big draw to Southeastern China’s Fujian province: Breathable air.

A television ad from Fujian’s tourism bureau shows off the province’s lush, green mountains, and sandy beaches. Crystal clear views abound. "Take a deep breath," says the voiceover, "you’re in Fujian."

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"We launched the clean air tourism campaign in January, when Beijing’s pollution levels were very bad," says Zheng Weirong, deputy director of the bureau. "We’re promoting 20 tourism sites around the province where people can breathe clean air."

Boasting about clean air may seem to set the bar pretty low. But in a country where just one percent of half a billion urban residents breathe air judged safe by European Union standards, Fujian’s strategy is paying off.

A guide holding a neon pink flag in one hand and a megaphone in the other corrals a group of tourists along an island pathway overlooking the sea in the city of Xiamen. On this particular day, Xiamen’s level of what’s known as PM2.5 -- particulate matter in the air small enough to enter your blood stream -- hovers around 45. That’s dirtier than the most-polluted day on record in Los Angeles over a 24-hour period. But these folks are from Beijing, where on this day the level is 10 times as bad.
What would your city look like with Beijing's smog? Use our Smog Simulator to see. Tourist Yun Ya is thrilled. "The air is so fresh here!" she says, adjusting her sunglasses. "Whenever I go to work in Beijing, I have to wear a mask or else I’ll start coughing uncontrollably. It’s just been terrible lately."

Yun is part of a 38 percent spike in tourists to Fujian this year -- twice the national average. Like most tourists interviewed for this story, she came here to escape the smog. "China has always followed the path of ‘pollute first, clean up later,'" says Yun, who works for an environmental consulting company in Beijing, "But if China doesn’t start cleaning up its environment, I’m afraid of what’s going to happen. An environment like this one in China has become rare."

Fujian hugs China’s Southeastern coast. It’s position along the Taiwain Strait helps diffuse pollutants in the air. Deng Junjun, a researcher at the China Academy of Science’s Institute of Urban Environment, says Fujian’s air is cleaner than other parts of China thanks to policy decisions, too. "For 35 years, Fujian’s government has ensured that it’s had the highest forestry coverage rate throughout China," says Deng.

Still, Deng says an increase in car ownership means that Xiamen’s air, despite its national fame of a clean air city is getting slightly dirtier each year. There are no cars here on a quiet tree-lined alley on the island of Gulangyu in Xiamen; just birds.

And two young lovers on their honeymoon, holding hands, going for a morning stroll. Ai Jintao and Zhang Nana came here from Beijing."It’s nice to be here. On our way here, we drove through Shandong," recalls Ai. "The smog was so thick that police had to close the highway. You couldn’t even see the cars in front of you! There’s no traffic at all here. There’s a little fog in the morning here, but it smells like the ocean."

Ai says he’ll be sure to take a deep breath before he heads back home to smoggy Beijing.

The Los Angeles Times looks at the blog posts written over a 4-year period by "Rocy Bird," who told tales of what it's like inside a People's Liberation Army hacking unit.

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The brother of former Malawi leader Bingu wa Mutharika and 11 others are charged with treason for allegedly trying to prevent Joyce Banda succeeding him as president.

A bill proposed in California today could open the door a bit wider to massive open online courses, or MOOCs. (By the way, if anyone’s got a better name for these things, send it our way). The bill would require public colleges and universities in the state to grant credit for MOOCs and other online courses when students can’t get into those classes on campus

Budget cuts have taken such a big bite out of California’s community colleges and universities that thousands of students are turned away from required classes.

“No college student should be denied the right to complete their education because they could not get a seat [in] the course that they needed in order to graduate,” said Darrell Steinberg, president pro tem of the California senate, in a press conference announcing the bill today.

If it passes, the bill could be good news for companies like StraighterLine, based in Baltimore, Md. The company sells low-cost intro courses like the ones students are having trouble getting into.

“What it also does is open a much larger marketplace,” says Burck Smith, StraighterLine’s CEO.“A larger marketplace will ultimately drive prices down, will raise quality up, and that’s a good thing.”

Others looking for a bigger slice of that market are providers of those massive open courses -- companies like Udacity and Coursera. Classes on artificial intelligence and gamification have been wildly popular, but few colleges accept them for actual credit.

F. King Alexander, president of California State University, Long Beach, is concerned that too few students who sign up for MOOCs actually finish them. Of course, that might change when the stakes are higher.

“At the moment, we’re very neutral but very optimistic about taking advantage of these technologies,” says Alexander.

Faculty also have good reason to be nervous about online alternatives, says Kevin Carey, director of education policy at the New America Foundation.

“It may mean that people who right now are employed as adjunct professors teaching these basic classes will not have those jobs in the future,” Carey says.

The bill has to pass first. With Democrats controlling the legislature, it’s got a good shot. Sen. Steinberg said today, “if it wasn’t at least a little bit controversial, it wouldn’t be worth doing.”

The growing threat of cyber attacks has put business on the front lines of national security. Today, President Obama met CEOs of American defense and technology companies -- in the Situation Room, no less -- to discuss how companies and the government can work together to bolster digital defense. The meeting followed warnings from intelligence, defense and counter-terrorism officials that cyber security could pose as big a threat as terrorism.

One clear impact of the White House cybersecurity push is pressure on business to do more. Stewart Baker, a former senior official at the Homeland Security Department and National Security Agency, says he just met with Silicon Valley execs who are feeling the heat.

“Their boards of directors are asking questions about their cybersecurity and whether they’ve had intrusions and how they’ve responded to them,” says Baker, who is now a partner at Steptoe & Johnson. “And that’s a direct result of the kinds of publicity we’re seeing for these attacks.”

Whether it’s companies or governments, figuring out the right budget for digital defense is tricky. They never really know when they’ve spent too much. And they only know if they’ve spent too little when they get hacked. Experts don’t even agree on how much is actually being spent now.

"One number says annual global spending on cybersecurity is $18 billion. Another number says it’s $60 billion," notes Jim Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former State Department official.

Cybersecurity analysts say a lot of the money spent on digital security is wasted. In some cases, companies aren’t even doing the simple things right, unsexy stuff like managing passwords and updating software.

“This is not rocket science. That’ll remove about 80 percent of the successful attacks," Lewis says.

Then there’s the question of who foots the bill. America’s top cyber commander said yesterday there have been 140 attacks on Wall Street firms in the past six months. An attack on a large American company could damage the entire American economy. So companies argue the government should take more of the burden.

“There’s a sense that you want the government to come in and secure the cyber borders the same way the physical borders are secured,” says Tom Field, a vice president at Information Security Media Group, a cybersecurity trade publisher.

Field hears from a lot of execs frustrated that the government isn’t doing enough. On the other hand, taxpayers may not be too thrilled to pay for the security of private companies. We may not know what the tab will be, but it won’t be cheap.

Kai Ryssdal: The White House calls. Says the president wants you to come for a meeting. You get there this morning. They take you downstairs. Maybe way downstairs. People swipe their ID cards. Maybe there are biometric measuring devices.

All of a sudden, some door whooshes open -- and you're in the Situation Room. The real one -- not the one with Wolf Blitzer. You and a bunch of fellow defense and technology company CEOs there to talk cybersecurity.

This has been a week heavy on digital threats in Washington. Intelligence, defense and counter-terrorism officials have been sounding the alarm in speeches and on Capitol Hill. Today, the White House welcomed Beijing's willingness to hold talks on cyber threats.

But in the meanwhile, there was that meeting in the Situation Room. Marketplace's Mark Garrison has more on business at the front lines of national security.

Mark Garrison: One clear impact of the White House cybersecurity push is pressure on business to do more. Attorney Stewart Baker is a former senior official at the Homeland Security Department. He just met with Silicon Valley execs who are feeling the heat.

Stewart Baker: Their boards of directors are asking questions about their cybersecurity and whether they’ve had intrusions and how they’ve responded to them. And that’s a direct result of the kinds of publicity we’re seeing for these attacks.

America’s top cyber commander said yesterday there have been 140 attacks on Wall Street firms in the past six months. Whether it’s companies or governments, figuring out the right budget for digital defense is tricky. You never really know when you’ve spent too much. You only know if you’ve spent too little when you get hacked. Experts don’t even agree on how much is being spent now.

Jim Lewis: One number says annual global spending on cybersecurity is $18 billion. Another number says it’s $60 billion.

Jim Lewis is a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He says for all they spend, companies aren’t even doing the simple things right, boring stuff like managing passwords and updating software.

Lewis: This is not rocket science. That’ll remove about 80% of the successful attacks.

So, who should pay? Companies argue the government should take more of the burden. Tom Field is VP at Information Security Media Group, a trade publisher. He hears from a lot of frustrated execs.

Tom Field: There’s a sense that you want the government to come in and secure the cyber borders the same way the physical borders are secured.

Of course, taxpayers may not be too thrilled to pay for the security of private companies. We may not know what the tab will be, but it won’t be cheap. In New York, I'm Mark Garrison, for Marketplace.

Transport minister Norman Baker says the number of computer generated announcements on trains has got out of hand and needs to be reduced.

A receptionist at a GP surgery admits accessing sensitive medical information about her former husband's new wife.

Michael Gove was not told about allegations of bullying by his advisers, MPs are told.

An Illinois golfer survives an 18ft (5.4m) fall into a sinkhole on a fairway, two weeks after another sinkhole swallowed a person in Florida.

David Cameron dismisses Ed Miliband's claims that he is living in an economic "fantasy land".

A bold question to the pop star — "could I play with you?" — got an "OK" response. The video of student Michael Pollack knocking it out of the park on the piano as Joel sings is going viral. "Guy's got chops!" Joel declared.

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Plans to impose visa restrictions on Brazilian tourists have been put on hold by Home Secretary Theresa May amid concerns about trade.

Prince Charles visits camp housing Syrian refugees