QUIRKY WORLD ... Popular TV crime shows spawn generation of amateur sleuths
The recreation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, starring Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role, and other shows including Broadchurch and The Killing have bred a generation of armchair detectives.
A survey of 1,500 adults found that almost two-thirds (64%) said they thought watching detective dramas had made them experts in criminology, with a fifth saying they thought they could get away with committing crime without being caught because of what they had learned. The survey was commissioned by TV channel Really to mark the launch of real-life crime series Cold Justice.
Dozens of US Air Force nuclear missile launch officers face disciplinary action — over cheating on proficiency tests.
At least 82 officers are caught up in the scandal, but investigators are focusing on four they dub “the librarians” who allegedly facilitated the cheating, in part by sending test answers by text message.
The USAF has already fired nine mid-level commanders at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. A 10th commander, the senior officer at the base, resigned and will retire from the USAF.
A reliance on technology means most people will forget the clocks go forward this weekend, according to new research.
A study by Samsung UK found more than a quarter did not know the clocks change this weekend, and more than half said they would wait for their smartphone or computer to change it for them.
Of the 2,000 people surveyed, 51% said they would not remember to change the time unless prompted, instead leaving it to be done automatically on their devices.
Around 300 people surveyed said that being late for work after a clock change had cost them their job.
Chief executives swapped the boardroom for the cold outdoors as they slept rough to raise awareness of increasing youth homelessness, and to raise money for charity.
Thirteen top business leaders spent the night outside in sleeping bags in Paternoster Square, in front of the London Stock Exchange, as part of the first “CEO Sleepout” for Action for Children.
Tony Hawkhead, chief executive of the charity, was joined by 12 other chief executives, including ITN’s John Hardie, who made £1.2 million in 2012 alone and has an average remuneration since 2009 of £785,000.
The violins of Antonio Stradivari, arguably the most famous instruments ever created, have an almost mystical reputation for beauty and heavenly tone — and this week eight of them have been brought together in the City of Angels.
Strad Fest LA is a four-day series of performances culminating in a charity concert. Xiang “Angelo” Yu says it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience to hold one of the nearly 350-year-old violins. For the festival he is playing the 1666 Serdet, the earliest known existing Stradivarius violin.
Stradivari created violins, guitars, cellos and other stringed instruments in his workshop in Cremona, Italy. About 650 survive and they can sell for millions of pounds.
Nearly a million jars of untainted peanut butter are being dumped at a New Mexico landfill.
The $2.6 million-worth of nutty goodness is being hauled to a site in Curry County to expedite the sale of the bankrupt Sunland, the peanut-processing plant in Portales that was at the heart of a 2012 salmonella outbreak.
Bankruptcy trustee Clarke Coll said the peanut butter was produced for Costco Wholesale before the plant shut last autumn. Costco refused to take shipment of the product and declined requests to let it be donated to food banks or sold to brokers who provide food products to institutions like prisons, even though tests showed it was safe.
