Boko Haram's twisted agenda devastating

A large part of northern and central Nigeria is now at the mercy of intensified attacks by Boko Haram, and the group seems to be embarking on a new phase of its campaign against the Nigerian state -- piling further pressure on the government of President Goodluck Jonathan.

Last week we have seen devastating bomb attacks in Jos, in central Nigeria, as well as a suicide bombing in Kano - the largest city in the north. Two more villages in the state of Borno, Boko Haram's stronghold in the northeast, came under attack, with at least 30 civilians killed. There have also been two bomb attacks in the federal capital, Abuja, in the last five weeks.

What alarms analysts is the way Boko Haram and its supporters are able to carry out multiple attacks on targets far apart, all within days of each other. Jos and Kano are more than 300 miles from Borno.

The double car-bomb attack against a market in Jos on Tuesday, which killed 118 people, according to the National Emergency Management Agency, is typical of its strategy beyond Borno: to strike soft targets in places where sectarian tensions are already high, with massive force. The use of two bombs some 30 minutes apart copied an al Qaeda tactic.

World's tallest Lego tower built in Budapest

Imagine the size of the box this one came in -- a Lego tower stretching 36 meters into the sky above the Hungarian capital Budapest.

The 34.76- meter (114 feet) tower, which was completed on Sunday, has been certified as the world's tallest toy brick structure by Guinness World Records.

It beat the previous record holder, a 34.4-meter structure constructed last year with the help of U.S. students from a school in Delaware.

A spokesman for Guinness World Records confirmed that the tower qualified as the "tallest structure built with interlocking plastic bricks."

He said the record was officially registered to Lego Store Budapest on May 25.

The Budapest tower, topped by a Rubik's cube -- a Hungarian invention -- was also built with the help of Hungarian primary school children, according to local news websites.

The structure, built in front of the city's St. Stephen's Basilica, used hundreds of thousands of blocks.

Culled from CNN.com

Twitter page gives out cash

It's a scavenger hunt for cash through the most modern of means: social media.

An anonymous, wealthy California man is hiding up to $100 or so in public places in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose and then posting clues to the money's whereabouts through his Twitter page, appropriately dubbed Hidden Cash.

San Francisco residents find hidden cash

The $100 bills or envelopes containing several $20 bills are amounting to $1,000-a-day philanthropy in what the Twitter account calls "an anonymous social experiment for good."

The results have been a feel-good sensation in California: The Twitter page features selfies of joyous people who found the money -- flashing smiles and cash -- with testimonials of what they're going to do next. The cash hunts ventured into a third city, San Jose, on Wednesday.

The anonymous donor and owner of the Twitter page is a real estate investor who's had the good fortune of joining the wealthiest 1% of American society, especially in the past few years, he said.

When he recently closed a deal with a six-figure profit, the philanthropist decided to "give some of it back" through random acts of kindness, he told CNN.

Boko Haram kills 33 security personnel in Nigeria attacks, sources say

Militants with Islamist terror group Boko Haram killed at least 33 security personnel in attacks this week on a military base and a police station in northeastern Nigeria's Yobe state, security sources said Wednesday.

Monday night's attacks in the town of Buni Yadi killed 18 soldiers and 15 police, the sources said.

"There were attacks by Boko Haram insurgents in Buni Yadi, but details are still sketchy," Yobe state police commissioner Sanusi Rufa'i said.

The attacks come more than a month after the group abducted an estimated 276 girls from a boarding school in Chibok, also in northeastern Nigeria. Dozens escaped, but more than 200 girls still are missing.

Boko Haram translates as "Western education is a sin" in the Hausa language. The militant group says its aim is to impose a stricter enforcement of Sharia law across Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, which is split between a majority Muslim north and a mostly Christian south

Google introduced new self-driven car: no driver and no steering wheel.

Google has revealed a prototype of its latest driverless car -- and this one doesn't even have a steering wheel.

 The car will only have a stop and go button. No steering wheel. No pedals.

Unlike Google's previous self-driving vehicles, which have been based on conventional cars adapted to navigate around without a driver, this model has been designed from scratch.

"They won't have a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, or brake pedal... because they don't need them," Google said in a statement.

The car can carry two passengers and has a maximum speed of 25 miles per hour.

Google says the car's most important feature is its safety.

"They have sensors that remove blind spots, and they can detect objects out to a distance of more than two football fields in all directions, which is especially helpful on busy streets with lots of intersections," the company said.

With its front designed to look like a friendly smiley face, the Google autonomous car is not just efficient and futuristic, but also cute to look at.

Google said it planned to build around 100 prototypes, which it will start testing in a few months.

The company started developing its self-driving cars in 2005, and is testing previous models across the U.S. They are expected to be available to buy by 2020.

A pregnant woman stoned to death by family members

A pregnant woman is beaten to death by her relatives outside a court building. Her crime? To elope with the man she loved rather than marry the groom chosen by her family.

The terrible fate of Farzana Parveen, 25, is one shared by all too many women in Pakistan and elsewhere.

She was killed in the name of "honor," on the grounds her actions had brought shame on her family.

"I do not even wish to use the phrase 'honour killing': there is not the faintest vestige of honour in killing a woman in this way," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement condemning the killing.

Pillay called on Pakistan's government to work harder to stop such killings and protect women from violence.

According to a report published in April by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, 869 women in the country were the victims of honor killings last year. And activists say the true number may be much higher.

Parveen's brutal killing is all the more shocking because it was so public.

She was beaten to death with bricks close to the high court in the eastern city of Lahore by a group of about 20 people, including her brothers, father and cousin, police said.

Robert De Niro to release dcoumentary on his Gay father.

Robert De Niro says it was his "responsibility" to make a documentary about his father, artist Robert De Niro Sr., he told Out magazine in an interview.

De Niro's father was a gay man who divorced De Niro's mother when the actor was a child. The elder De Niro is the subject of a new documentary, "Remembering the Artist: Robert De Niro, Sr.," which premieres on HBO June 9. (HBO, like CNN, is a unit of Time Warner.)

In a chat with Out, De Niro says that though he and his father weren't close -- he grew up with his mother -- the senior De Niro had a profound influence on his actor son. De Niro wants to pay tribute in the documentary, partly for the sake of his own children.

"We were not the type of father and son who played baseball together, as you can surmise. But we had a connection," he said. "I wasn't with him a lot, because my mother and he were separated and divorced. ... But my father wasn't a bad father, or absent. He was absent in some ways. He was very loving. He adored me ... as I do my kids."

Man says walking in heavy iron shoes cure back pain and hemorrhoids.

A Chinese factory worker says walking in huge iron shoes weighing more than 440 pounds each can cure back pain, but faces hefty competition in his bid to build the country's heaviest footwear.

"I've been walking with iron shoes for seven years," said Zhang Fuxing, before strapping two crudely-welded iron blocks to his feet.
"After they reach 400 kilograms (882 pounds), I felt very proud. Next spring I plan to add 50 kilograms".

Zhang took a deep breath before each wrenching step in the towering footwear, with every impact leaving him struggling for balance.
It took him over a minute to walk 10 paces, but he claims to walk up to 15 metres each day in the shoes, which he has gradually increased in weight and touts them as a cure for back pain and hemorrhoids.

Zhang, 52, credits his ability to move the shoes - which he leaves outdoor, safe in the knowledge