Ten Chinese snooker players, including some of the sport’s biggest names, have been charged in an alleged match-fixing scandal that has plunged the game into a major corruption crisis. The governing World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) said in a statement on Wednesday that an investigation by its integrity unit had found a number of violations by the players.

For the last decade, the Atlanta metro has been ground zero for corporate investors buying up single-family homes to turn into rental properties. Studies have consistently shown that more so than any other single metropolitan area across the country, these firms have focused on Atlanta and its suburban fringes, leading Dan Immergluck to label Atlanta a ‘private equity strike zone’. The emergence of corporate-owned single-family rentals was fueled initially by the glut of homes held by banks and the federal government in the wake of the foreclosure crisis. Eager to rid themselves of these properties and their potential liabilities, these various institutions sold off hundreds and even thousands of properties directly to corporate investors who were more than willing to take them off their hands for bargain bin prices. But one of the features of this incredible flow of corporate cash into Atlanta is that it never really stops. Even though a number of studies have looked at the concentration of corporate landlords across Atlanta, these studies are outdated almost as soon as they’re published because these investors are constantly snapping up more and more properties. At the same time, new firms have popped up seeking to emulate these business models, further expanding the reach of these corporations into the housing market. This has led to the point where corporate investors made up more than 40% of metro Atlanta home purchases in the latter months of 2021. And as Elora Raymond has shown in her recent research here in Atlanta, more corporate ownership of housing almost invariably means more evictions and more displacement of Black residents.

What is it like to have a front row seat for the worst show in the world? Four meteorologists describe how they are explaining the reality to viewers – and coping with it themselves

A passenger stormed Delta Air Lines gate D7 at the Atlanta airport, grabbed a fire extinguisher, and came out spraying. According to a witness, the woman dined and dashed from Buffalo Wild Wings. When she was asked to pay she unleashed herself on the rest of the terminal.

On Wednesday, January 18, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), one of the largest workers’ organizations in South Korea, was raided by the intelligence and the police as the government escalated its persecution of trade unions and progressive groups in the country. Multiple raids were conducted at the offices of the KCTU and its affiliates by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) along with the National Police Agency. As per reports, the NIS procured a search and seizure warrant from the court against the KCTU based on alleged charges of violating the controversial National Security Act of 1948. NIS officials reportedly stated that the search came after years of “internal investigations into … alleged links to North Korea,” but refused to divulge any further information. Four people were the prime targets of the raid. These include a senior KCTU leader, one official each from its affiliates, the Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union and the Korean Metal Workers’ Union, and a union organizer and anti-war activist from Jeju Island. Apart from the trade union’s headquarters in Seoul, raids were carried out at multiple locations including at the homes of the accused union leaders. At its Seoul headquarters, KCTU officials confronted the investigators, demanding that the search be conducted in the presence of a lawyer, but the NIS and the police investigators reportedly pushed their way into the office.

Investigation into Verra carbon standard finds most are ‘phantom credits’ and may worsen global heating

Union leaders call for ‘massive mobilisation’ to oppose latest attempt to overhaul pension system

Small businesses tell the BBC they are facing delays and losing money as overseas post is stopped. The record collecting community are a pretty understanding bunch, according to David MacDonald. The 60-year-old, who runs Blue Sky Vinyl, is lucky but he admits: "Their patience will only go so far." Why? Because Mr MacDonald, like many other small business owners, has been waiting for nearly a week to send out international orders via Royal Mail. And, as others have told the BBC, he has absolutely no idea when his shipments can resume. Last Wednesday, Royal Mail asked customers to stop sending letters and parcels overseas after criminals launched a ransomware attack on the company. It has impacted a system used by Royal Mail to prepare mail for despatch abroad, and to track and trace overseas items. The problem first emerged on Tuesday, 10 January. Customers were told of the problem the following day.

Soon after his 20th birthday, Isaac Danian disappeared from his home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in early September 2020, leaving behind a note for his younger siblings that warned them "do not get the vaccine" or "you won't make it to heaven." He's been missing ever since.

The bill for Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is coming due, with the billionaire facing unpalatable options on the company’s enormous debt pile, ranging from bankruptcy proceedings to another costly sale of Tesla shares. Three people close to the entrepreneur’s buyout of Twitter said the first instalment of interest payments related to $13bn of debt he used to fund the takeover could be due as soon as the end of January. That debt means the company must pay about $1.5bn in annual interest payments.

Typically, bees don’t eat meat. However, a species of stingless 'vulture' bee in the tropics has evolved the ability to do so, presumably due to intense competition for nectar. UC Riverside scientists find these bees' guts resemble those of hyenas and other carrion feeders.

Despite California’s immediate deluge, the ongoing water problem in much of the West is drought — reduced rainfall, increasing use of water, dry rivers, mandated cuts. In all the stories I keep reading and hearing about the water crisis in the Colorado River basin and elsewhere, two words are absent: markets and prices.

Humans were the most frequent cause of death for research wolves that live in five of the nation's most highly protected places, national parks, and those deaths led to long-term consequences for wolf packs, a new study has discovered. Some 36% of collared wolves in the five parks included in the study died at the hands of humans, usually when they ventured just outside the park boundaries and were shot. The research shows that many wolves that spend most of their time in national parks, like Voyageurs in Minnesota and Yellowstone in Wyoming, still amble out of the park frequently, where they are vulnerable to human-caused deaths, often illegal poaching and, where allowed in some states, legal hunting. “In all the years of our study, we’ve never had a single wolf that remained entirely within the park for an entire year,” said Thomas Gable, lead scientist in the Voyageurs Wolf Project and a University of Minnesota researcher.

Tech executives who “connive” in ignoring regulatory warnings to protect children from online harms face up to two years in jail under changes to landmark legislation announced by the government. The culture secretary, Michelle Donelan, confirmed that the online safety bill would be amended after pressure from Conservative backbenchers. Under a further change to the bill, video footage that shows people crossing the Channel in small boats in a “positive light” will be added to a list of illegal content that all tech platforms must proactively prevent from reaching users. Donelan said posting positive videos of crossings could be aiding and abetting immigration offences. Natalie Elphicke, the Conservative MP for Dover, had originally tabled an amendment proposing the change.

Dookey Dash asks you to humiliate yourself for the opportunity to upgrade your NFTs

She’s so much happier now that she’s undead.

At least one person found this speech "distasteful."

The cover of one of only 150 known copies of ‘Waiting Out The Eighties,’ the sole album from The Coupe de Villes—a trio featuring director John Carpenter, Nick Castle, and Tommy Lee Wallace. Horror fanatics, especially those dedicated to the films of director John Carpenter, are likely familiar with this image taken from Halloween‘s wrap party in 1978. In it we see three performers all wearing Michale Meyers’ aka The Shape masks. The trio would then lose the masks and reveal themselves to be John Carpenter, Nick Castle, and Tommy Lee Wallace or The Coupe de Villes. The long-time friends would start making music for films in college at USC Cinema in mid-1971 where Carpenter had become a bit of a go-to for USC students when it came to providing the music they used in their films. According to Wallace, they wrote music together with Carpenter and Castle contributing most...

early two thirds of the sharks and rays that live among the world's corals are threatened with extinction, according to new research published Tuesday, with a warning this could further imperil precious reefs. Coral reefs, which harbour at least a quarter of all marine animals and plants, are gravely menaced by an array of human threats, including overfishing, pollution and climate change. Shark and ray species -- from apex predators to filter feeders -- play an important role in these delicate ecosystems that "cannot be filled by other species", said Samantha Sherman, of Simon Fraser University in Canada and the wildlife group TRAFFIC International. But they are under grave threat globally, according to the study in the journal Nature Communications, which assessed extinction vulnerability data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to look at 134 species of sharks and rays linked to reefs. The authors found 59 percent of coral reef shark and ray species are threatened with extinction, an extinction risk almost double that of sharks and rays in general. Among these, five shark species are listed as critically endangered, as well as nine ray species, all so-called "rhino rays" that look more like sharks than stingrays.

The CEO of Scottish brewery BrewDog apologized for a costly snafu.