New submitter q4Fry writes: When Google released its changes to the Chrome WebExtensions API for comment, many groups criticized them for cutting off ad-blockers at the knees. Now, Mozilla has released its plan for following (and departing from) the APIs that Chrome may adopt. Will Mozilla follow Google with these changes? In the absence of a true standard for browser extensions, maintaining compatibility with Chrome is important for Firefox developers and users. Firefox is not, however, obligated to implement every part of v3, and our WebExtensions API already departs in several areas under v2 where we think it makes sense.

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South Africa has seen several days of looting and attacks in what President Cyril Ramaphosa calls 'xenophobic attacks'.

Nigeria withdraws from WEF gathering in Cape Town in the aftermath of attacks on foreigners in South African cities.

Suffering a third defeat in the House of Commons in two days, Boris Johnson's Brexit plans are now in disarray.

Tehran takes third step in scaling back commitments under the 2015 nuclear agreement that appears to be near its end.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The Trump administration announced new rules on Wednesday to roll back requirements for energy-saving light bulbs, a move that could contribute to the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. The Energy Department's filing in the Federal Register will prevent new efficiency standards from going into effect on Jan. 1 under a law passed in 2007. The changes are likely to be challenged in court. "We will explore all options, including litigation, to stop this completely misguided and unlawful action," said Noah Horowitz, director of the Center for Energy Efficiency Standards at the Natural Resources Defense Council, last week in anticipation of the move. "One part of the new standards would have required the adding of four kinds of incandescent and halogen light bulbs to the energy-efficient group: three-way, the candle-shaped bulbs used in chandeliers; the globe-shaped bulbs found in bathroom lighting; reflector bulbs used in recessed fixtures; and track lighting," the report adds. "A rule that will be published Thursday in the Federal Register will eliminate the requirement for those four categories of bulbs." "The Department of Energy was also supposed to begin a broader upgrade concerning energy efficiency in pear-shaped bulbs, scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, 2020. The department is proposing a new rule that would eliminate that requirement, subject to a 60-day comment period."

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Isra'a Gharayeb was allegedly killed by relatives in an 'honour' killing after video showed her meeting a male suitor.

Italian far-right's bid to seize power has collapsed with the appointment of a more moderate, pro-Europe government.

Hundreds of millions of phone numbers linked to Facebook accounts have been found online. TechCrunch: The exposed server contained over 419 million records over several databases on users across geographies, including 133 million records on U.S.-based Facebook users, 18 million records of users in the U.K., and another with more than 50 million records on users in Vietnam. But because the server wasn't protected with a password, anyone could find and access the database. Each record contained a user's unique Facebook ID and the phone number listed on the account. A user's Facebook ID is typically a long, unique and public number associated with their account, which can be easily used to discern an account's username. But phone numbers have not been public in more than a year since Facebook restricted access to users' phone numbers. TechCrunch verified a number of records in the database by matching a known Facebook user's phone number against their listed Facebook ID. We also checked other records by matching phone numbers against Facebook's own password reset feature, which can be used to partially reveal a user's phone number linked to their account.

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UK prime minister loses again after former Conservative rebels align with the opposition to delay 'no-deal' Brexit.

A millipede-like creature from 550 million years ago is among the earliest examples of this.

necro81 writes: The Aptera 2e was a head-turning 3-wheeled electric vehicle when it debuted a decade ago. With a body more like an aircraft than a car, it was designed for maximum efficiency. Unfortunately, the company went bankrupt and liquidated before it hit production. Now IEEE Spectrum reports the founders are having another crack at it, taking advantage of a decade of improvement in batteries, computation, and EV component supply chains. By utilizing sandwich composite body panels, lightweight 3D-printed metal components, and speedier fluid dynamics simulations, their aim is a maximum efficiency, low-volume production vehicle that, with its largest battery configuration, could achieve a range of 1000 miles (1600 km).

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An anonymous reader shares a report: If you've spent much time thinking about the political divide in the United States, you've hopefully noted how bloody weird it is. Somehow, just about every topic that people want to argue about splits into two camps. If you visualize the vast array of topics you could have an opinion about as a switchboard full of toggles, it seems improbable that so many people in each camp should have nearly identical switchboards, but they do. This can even extend to factual issues, like science -- one camp typically does not accept that climate change is real and human-caused. How in the world do we end up with these opinion sets? And why does something like climate change start an inter-camp argument, while other things like the physics behind airplane design enjoy universal acceptance? One obvious way to explain these opinions is to look for underlying principles that connect them. Maybe it's ideologically consistent to oppose both tax increases and extensive government oversight of pesticide products. But can you really draw a straight line from small-government philosophy to immigration attitudes? Or military funding? A new study by a Cornell team led by Michael Macy approaches these questions with inspiration from an experiment involving, of all things, downloading indie music. That study set up separate "worlds" in which participants checked out new music with the aid of information about which songs other people in their experimental world were choosing. It showed that the songs that were "hits" weren't always the same -- there was a significant role for chance, as a song that got trending early in the experiment had a leg up.

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Security forces and ruling party's youth league accused of gross rights abuses to intimidate people for support.

How should we deal with the irredeemably racist monuments to white supremacy that crowd our cities?