Iran’s Nuclear Capability, Australia’s Smoke Clouds, and More News
Iran is causing a nuclear stir and Australia is enduring dangerous thunder clouds, but first: a cartoon about getting negged by apps.
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Today’s News
How close is Iran to a nuclear weapon? Here’s what we know
Iran has stated they will no longer abide by most of the restrictions of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal, but does that mean they’re about to build nuclear weapons? Probably not, but they’re closer to it than they have been in the past five years. Experts say it would be at least a year before Iran could feasibly get back to where they were before the 2015 deal, and in all likelihood it would take considerably longer than that.
Watch Australia’s wildfires spawn massive smoky thunderclouds
The wildfires currently tearing through Australia are catastrophic, but they’re doing more than just burning up land: They’re producing pyrocumulonimbus clouds. These ominous clouds carry embers and smoke miles away from the fires, and also produce lightning that can strike dry vegetation and start even more fires.
Fast Fact: 161
That’s how many Amber Alerts were sent out in 2018. The cases involved 203 children; of those, 34 were recovered based on an Amber Alert tip. Since it began in 1996, the return of 967 children has been credited to the program. But now even more alerts, like Blue, Silver, and Camo, are being introduced, which call attention to everything from lost elderly people to missing military veterans. It raises the question: Is it really a good idea to push so many alarming messages to the public?
WIRED Recommends: A New Version of Bluetooth Is Coming
Ever wish you could start your own silent disco or have the audio from a faraway TV beamed directly into your ears? At CES, a Bluetooth update was announced that will allow a standard Bluetooth signal to better share wireless audio streams between devices, and even broadcast a signal to an unlimited amount of devices. You can expect compatible products to roll out later this year.
News You Can Use
Still haven’t set up some of those devices you got over the holidays? Here’s how to do it.
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