1 China warns Hong Kong protesters (BBC) China's
Foreign Minister Wang Yi has issued a stern warning against any
"illegal" protests in Hong Kong. Visiting Washington, Mr Wang also
warned that the matter was an "internal affair" for China. His US
counterpart, John Kerry, urged Hong Kong to exercise restraint in dealing with
the protests.
Earlier, student demonstrators angry at China's
vetting of candidates for 2017 elections vowed to step up protests if Chief
Executive CY Leung did not quit. They said that protesters would start
occupying government buildings if Mr Leung did not resign by Thursday. Overnight,
protesters massed outside Mr Leung's office in a stand-off with some 200
police.
The US and China expressed different views about events
in Hong Kong. Mr Wang, the most senior Chinese official to speak openly on the
matter, said: "Hong Kong affairs are China's internal affairs. All
countries should respect China's sovereignty. For any country, for any society,
no-one will allow those illegal acts that violate public order."
Mr Kerry said the US supported universal suffrage in
Hong Kong, adding: "We have high hopes that the Hong Kong authorities will
exercise restraint and respect for the protesters' right to express their views
peacefully." In China, an editorial in People's Daily warned of
"unimaginable consequences" if the protests continued, while state TV
said Hong Kong's police should be supported in their attempts to "restore
the social order as soon as possible".
2 US secret service chief quits (Dan Roberts in The
Guardian) The director of the US secret service has resigned amid mounting
criticism of her handling of security breaches at the White House and
allegations of misleading public statements. Hours after an unconvincing
appearance before the House of Representatives government oversight committee,
Julia Pierson tendered her resignation to the Department of Homeland Security, which
oversees the elite agency.
Homeland Security secretary, Jeh Johnson said he was
appointing Joseph Clancy, who retired from the secret service in 2011, as
interim acting director. “I appreciate his willingness to leave his position in
the private sector on very short notice and return to public service for a
period,” Johnson said. Clancy, who had worked at Comcast after his retirement,
was previously the special agent in charge of the secret service’s presidential
protective division.
“The president concluded that new leadership of the
agency was required,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. Earnest said
Clancy had the confidence of President Obama and the first lady, Michelle
Obama, who was reportedly angered by earlier security lapses at the White
House, one of which took place while her daughter and mother were in the
residence.
The final straw appears to have come from a
revelation that Obama was allowed to enter an elevator with an armed man during
a trip to Atlanta on September 16 – something White House officials were not
told about until minutes before press reports about the incident appeared on
Tuesday.
3 Coding for kindergartners (San Francisco
Chronicle) Researchers in Massachusetts have created a basic computer coding
app that they say is the first designed specifically for children as young as
5. Kids who haven’t yet learned to read can use the app to craft interactive
stories and games.
With ScratchJr, children can snap together graphical
programming blocks to make characters and other elements in their project move,
jump, talk and change size. Users can modify various elements in the paint
editor, add their own voices and sounds, and even insert their own photos.
“When many people think of computer programming,
they think of something very sophisticated,” said co-developer Michel Resnick
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “But we don’t think it has to be
that way.” Marina Umaschi Bers, his co-developer from Tufts University, cites
research that shows children start to form convictions by fourth grade about
how good or bad they are in math, science and technology. “So most programs
that introduce coding in fourth grade and up, it’s great, but they are coming
kind of late to the party,” she said.
The project was funded by a $1.3 million grant from
the National Science Foundation to help children learn to think creatively and
reason systematically. ScratchJr was inspired by the popular Scratch
programming language for older kids. Developers say they redesigned the
interface and programming language to make it appropriate for younger children.
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