The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now
REUTERS/Suzanne PlunkettScottish bank notes are displayed in London, April 23, 2014. Scotland's bank notes look different from English ones, but are legal tender throughout the the United Kingdom. Scottish separatists are closing the gap on their unionist rivals as a September independence referendum draws nearer, according to a poll. Good morning! Here's what people will be taking about on Friday.
1. Israel and Hamas agreed to a 72-hour ceasefire in the Gaza strip, which began 8 a.m. local time on Friday. Officials from both sides will next head to Cairo to work out a more permanent end to the fighting that has now dragged on for three weeks.
2. The leaders of Liberia and Sierra Leone have declared states of emergency in the midst of the worst ever outbreak of Ebola. Schools are closed and at-risk communities will be placed under quarantine. Both African leaders will also skip Obama's U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit next week to deal with the crisis.
3. Electric automaker Tesla is planning a massive expansion with plans to build more than 60,000 cars by 2015, Reuters reports. The company, run by serial entrepreneur Elon Musk, said it expects to deliver 35,000 cars for 2014.
4. As part of a $500 million project to find all the genes responsible for cancer and rare diseases, scientists have predicted that "chemotherapy will be obsolete in 20 years," The Telegraph reports. The treatment will be replaced by more targeted therapies, according to the researchers.
5. A mother and her three-month-old baby were rescued from beneath mud and debris caused by a landslide that slammed a village in western India on Wednesday. The landslide has already claimed 51 lives, but rescuers fear that at least 100 more are dead, the Associated Press reports.
6. An internal investigation by the CIA has revealed that its officers spied on computers used by workers at the Senate Intelligence Committee. "The C.I.A. officials penetrated the computer network when they came to suspect that the committee's staff had gained unauthorized access to an internal C.I.A. review of the detention program that the spy agency never intended to give to Congress," The New York Times explains.
7. The Royal Bank of Scotland warned on Friday that if Scotland votes in favor of becoming independent from the United Kingdom "it could significantly increase [the bank's] costs and have a material impact on its business," according to Reuters. Business Insider earlier pointed out that an independent Scotland would not be able to use the British pound and the Scottish economy isn't big enough to support its own currency.
8. International investigators have finally been able to reach the Malaysia Airlines crash site in eastern Ukraine thanks to a temporary break in fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists. Dutch and Australian police officers made at least four attempts to reach the site.
9. Tropical storm Bertha is forming in the Atlantic. The storm, packing 45 mile per hour winds, is now located around 275 miles southeast of Barbados, CNN reports.
10. Thousands of Turkish women are posting photos of themselves laughing and smiling to Instagram and Twitter in response to comments made by the deputy prime minister, who said in a speech on Monday that women should not laugh in public. "A woman should be chaste, "leader Bülent Arinç told a crowd. "She should know the difference between public and private. She should not laugh in public."
And finally...
A ticket stub signed by legendary baseball player Lou Gehrig on July 4, 1939, the day he retired from the game, sold for $95,600 at an auction in Cleveland on Thursday night. A pair of Muhammad Ali's boxing gloves sold for nearly $390,000.