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plane was barrel-rolled by a Russian jet over the Baltic Sea

when a Russian jet "performed erratic and aggressive maneuvers" as it flew within 50 feet of the U.S. aircraft's wing tip

"intercepted by a Russian SU-27 in an unsafe and unprofessional manner,"

Philippine President Benigno Aquino has approved the purchase of 44 billion pesos (US$932 million) worth of military equipment to help boost maritime security capability as tensions simmer in the South China Sea.

Defence Undersecretary Fernando Manalo made the announcement Saturday after the government received the first two of a dozen new South Korean-made light fighter jets to enhance the country’s air defence capabilities.

Aquino authorised the multi-year contract to purchase two frigates, eight amphibious assault vehicles, three anti-submarine helicopters, two long-range patrol aircraft, three aerial radars, munitions for the fighters and close support planes, Manalo said.

The Event Horizon Telescope collaboration, an international team of radio astronomers that has been staring down the throat of a giant black hole for years, on Wednesday published what it called the most intimate portrait yet of the forces that give rise to quasars

The black hole in question is a monster 6.5 billion times as massive as the sun, and lies in the center of an enormous elliptical galaxy, Messier 87, about 55 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo.

Now, seen through the radio equivalent of polarized sunglasses, the M87 black hole appears as a finely whiskered vortex, like the spinning fan blades of a jet engine, pumping matter into the black hole and energy outward into space.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said Turkey will not apologise for bringing down a Russian jet on the Syrian border.

While he did not mention which particular threat the missiles were meant to counter, it comes six days after the Russian plane was shot down by Turkey.

Turkish forces shot down the Su-24 plane on 24 November, saying it had violated Turkish airspace, which Russia denies.

Days after North Korea claimed it tested a hydrogen bomb, the United States responded with a display of military might on the Korean Peninsula.

A B-52 bomber jet from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam flew over Osan, South Korea, on Sunday "in response to a recent nuclear test by North Korea," United States Pacific Command said.

"This was a demonstration of the ironclad U.S. commitment to our allies in South Korea, in Japan, and to the defense of the American homeland," said PACOM Commander Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr.

NASA spacecraft Juno has collected new data on its mission to Jupiter revealing some of the swirling inner mysteries of the giant gas-planet.The surface of Jupiter, the fifth planet from the sun and the largest in the solar system, consists of alternating bright and dark bands of gas and winds flowing in opposite directions at massive speed.Previously there have been extensive studies of the helium-and-hydrogen planet's surface, but now gravity measurements collected by Juno indicate that this turbulent outer layer extends to a depth of 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers).

"Galileo viewed the stripes on Jupiter more than 400 years ago," Yohai Kaspi, Juno co-investigator from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, and lead author of a Nature paper on Jupiter's deep weather layer, was quoted as saying on NASA's website."Until now, we only had a superficial understanding of them and have been able to relate these stripes to cloud features along Jupiter's jets. Now, following the Juno gravity measurements, we know how deep the jets extend and what their structure is beneath the visible clouds," said Kaspi, who likened the advancement to going from a "2-D picture to a 3-D version in high definition."

"Juno's discovery has implications for other worlds in our solar system and beyond."

taking on the carbon aristocracy, and their most emissions-intensive modes of travel and leisure, may be the best chance we have to boost our collective “climate morale” and increase our appetite for personal sacrifice — from individual behavior changes to sweeping policy mandates.

the diesel fuel powering Mr. Geffen’s boating habit spews an estimated 16,320 tons of carbon-dioxide-equivalent gases into the atmosphere annually, almost 800 times what the average American generates in a year.

The 300 biggest boats alone emit 315,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year, based on their likely usage — about as much as Burundi’s more than 10 million inhabitan

Since launching airstrikes in Syria in support of embattled President Bashar al-Assad, the Russians and Syrian army have been accused of killing tens of thousands of civilians inside Syria.

Russia will likely have to launch their jets without a full complement of bombs and fuel in order to get their planes over the “ski jump” which makes up the bow of the ship. The Russians do have steam catapults to launch fully loaded jets like their American counterparts in the U.S. Navy.

New photos released by Belgium give a close-up look at some interesting Russian aircraft that Belgian F-16 fighters encountered during a four-month stint as part of NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission.

The Russian planes intercepted by the Belgians included a Su-27 Flanker, a Tu-134AK, an Il-76, an An-72 and an An-12PPS, according to The Aviationist blog, which reported on the photos last week

In April, the U.S. accused a Russian Su-27 jet of doing a barrel roll over a U.S. Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance plane over the Baltic Sea.

sending Special Forces. British jets have joined French warplanes over the skies of Syria. Even Germany, whose post-World War II constitution puts restrictions on fighting battles on foreign soil, is becoming increasingly involved.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are down to about one mission against ISIS targets each month, a U.S. official told CNN on Monday. Bahrain stopped in the autumn, the official says, and Jordan stopped in August.

Yemen -- not ISIS -- is the priority for most Arab countries

General Electric Co. GE -1.39% helped invent the world as we know it: wired up, plugged in and switched on. Born of Thomas Alva Edison’s ingenuity and John Pierpont Morgan’s audacity, GE built the dynamos that generated the electricity, the wires that carried it and the lightbulbs that burned it.

To keep the power and profits flowing day and night, GE connected neighborhoods with streetcars and cities with locomotives. It soon filled kitchens with ovens and toasters, living rooms with radios and TVs, bathrooms with curling irons and toothbrushes, and laundry rooms with washers and dryers.

He eliminated some 100,000 jobs in his early years as CEO and insisted that managers fire the bottom 10% of performers each year who failed to improve, in a process that became known as “rank and yank.” GE’s financial results were so eye-popping that the strategy was imitated throughout American business.

Shows like “Billions” and HBO’s “Succession,” a prickly drama about a Murdoch-like media dynasty that returns for its second season this summer, have to offer a convincing visual representation of the ultrawealthy, the 1 percent of the 1 percent. Jesse Armstrong, who created “Succession,” described a governing principle: “Let’s just be as truthful as we can.”

The design of these shows implies, more and less subtly, a critique of wealth itself. Come for the private jets, stay for the inevitable dehumanization.

But extremely rich people don’t always want their homes photographed and they may not wear couture.“When they hit the billion and above number, they’re no longer in a place where they have to impress anybody by their outward trappings,” said David Levien, one of the creators of “Billions.

These two storms are part of a broader weather pattern featuring an ultra-intense jet stream blowing almost straight west-to-east across the North Atlantic at speeds upward of 200 mph. The powerhouse jet stream — a highway of air around 30,000 feet above the surface that helps steer storm systems — is the result of strong air pressure differences between Arctic low pressure and high pressure areas to the south

During the next seven days, computer models are showing the rapid development of a low pressure zone that could have a minimum central air pressure of at least four standard deviations below average for this time of year.

what’s especially noteworthy about this weather pattern is the frequency and intensity of the storms spawned in the North Atlantic. Very few of these storms have their minimum central air pressure drop to 930 millibars or lower. The storm east of Greenland (which helped propel Ciara into Europe) this past weekend accomplished this feat, and so could the tempest southwest of Iceland less than a week later.

He's a frequent flyer who, in his power wheelchair, has traveled to 46 countries.

He also started a website called Wheelchair Travel and hosts a travel podcast.

Now a new policy from one airline could limit the ability of some people such as Morris to fly. American Airlines, the largest airline in the United States, put in place a limit on the weight of a wheelchair, and now many power wheelchairs, such as the one Morris uses, are deemed too heavy to fly on smaller regional jets.