Fire and Fury

U.S. President has given North Korea another warning over its plans to fire its weapons. The war of words between Mr Trump and North Korea's president Kim Jong-un is escalating. Countries in the region and around the world are worried that the war of words could become a real war. Tensions increased greatly earlier this week when North Korea announced it had nuclear warheads small enough to fit inside its missiles. President Trump then warned: "North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen." North Korea responded by announcing it would fire four missiles off the coast of the US territory of Guam.

North Korea said President Trump's words were "nonsense". Regardless, Mr Trump issued another warning to the North Koreans yesterday. He said his "fire and fury" statement "wasn't tough enough" and that North Korea should "be very, very nervous". He also said China could do "a whole lot more" to reduce tensions. The Arms Control Association in Washington DC said Mr Trump should stop his verbal attacks on North Korea to avoid a military conflict on the Korean Peninsula. It said: "Recent [talk] from Trump is a dangerous and ineffective strategy to halt North Korea's nuclear development and could trigger a military conflict that would not be in the U.S. Interest." Food Waste

The British government has said that a third of the food the world produces is wasted. It said the high level of food waste in the UK is "unacceptable". Over 7 million tons of food is wasted in the UK every year. A British politician, Neil Parish, said: "One-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally." The government said there were many solutions to the problem of food waste. First, schools could raise children's awareness of food waste from a young age. Secondly, supermarkets could sell vegetables that are thrown away because they are the "wrong" shape. Finally, 'sell-by' dates, "use-by" dates and "best before" labels need to change. Perfectly good food is thrown away because of these labels.

Neil Parish said the fact that so much food is thrown away is both socially and environmentally unacceptable. He said: "Socially, it is a scandal that people are going hungry and using food banks when so much produce is being wasted." He added that: "Environmentally, it is a disaster, because energy and resources are wasted in production, only for the food to end up rotting in landfills where it produces methane - a potent climate- changing gas." He called on supermarkets to help by selling vegetables that have a funny shape. He said: "It's ridiculous that perfectly good vegetables are wasted simply because they're a funny shape." He said these vegetables, "don't cook or taste any different". Plastic Eating Worms

A natural solution to the growing crisis of plastic waste in the environment may be at hand. Researchers have discovered that a tiny caterpillar, commonly known as a waxworm, has a taste for plastic. Researchers from Cambridge University in the UK say that the waxworm devours plastic at "uniquely high speeds". They say that it is possible to utilize this environmentally-friendly solution to global waste on an industrial scale. Millions of waxworms could be bred to spend their days breaking down and consuming plastic bags, bottles, household items and other discarded waste. Around a trillion plastic bags end up in landfills around the world each year. They take centuries to biodegrade.

Researcher Dr Paolo Bombelli said: "It's extremely, extremely exciting because breaking down plastic has proved so challenging." He said the waxworm can break down a notoriously tough plastic like polyethylene more than 1,400 times faster than other organisms. The waxworm uses enzymes in its saliva to break the plastic's chemical bonds. It might be possible one day to replicate these enzymes and spray them on waste to make it decompose. Another researcher said: "We are planning to implement this finding in a viable way to get rid of plastic waste, working towards a solution to save our oceans, rivers, and all the environment from the unavoidable consequences of plastic accumulation." Heart Disease

Researchers have discovered the people with the healthiest hearts in the world. The Tsimane people live in the Amazon region of Bolivia and have almost no risk of serious heart disease because of their plant-based diet and high levels of physical activity. Besides having a healthy heart, the Tsimane also have low blood pressure, low cholesterol levels and low blood glucose. This all adds up to a very strong cardiovascular system. And this means they avoid many of the diseases and conditions that kill hundreds of millions around the world, such as heart attack, stroke, diabetes and kidney failure. A study estimates that an 80-year-old from the Tsimane tribe has the same cardiovascular age as an American in their mid-50s.

The study on the Tsimane is published in the medical journal 'The Lancet'. Study co-author Dr Gregory S. Thomas stated: "This study suggests that coronary [disease] could be avoided if people adopted some elements of the Tsimane lifestyle, such as keeping their cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar very low, not smoking and being physically active." He added: "Most of the Tsimane are able to live their entire life without developing any coronary [disease]. This has never been seen in any prior research. While difficult to achieve in the industrialized world, we can adopt some aspects of their lifestyle to potentially forestall a condition we thought would eventually effect almost all of us." Hate Speech

Social media websites in Germany could be in for fines of up to 50 million euros ($54 million) for removing illegal content too slowly. The German government has decided to crack down on the darker side of online content, including hate speech, slander, fake news and other illegal material. Under the proposed new law, the likes of Facebook and would be given seven days to delete content flagged as illegal, or incur a heavy financial penalty. Any content deemed to be "clearly criminal" would have to be removed within 24 hours. Germany's justice minister Heiko Maas quoted research which suggested Twitter deletes only one per cent of the hate speech it is told about by users, and Facebook, 39 per cent.

Mr Maas said the new fines and regulations were necessary due to heightening concern over the influence social media is having in shaping public opinion. He said: "The biggest problem is that the social networks do not take the complaints of their own users seriously enough." He added that voluntary efforts to tackle the problem were not working, saying: "Too few comments are deleted, and they're not being deleted quickly enough." Mr Maas said all social media companies would be required to set up a complaints team that must be operational 24/7. A digital trade organization feared that removing content within 24 hours from sites that handle more than one billion posts per day was "utterly impossible". Humanitarian Crisis

The United Nations (UN) has reported that the world is facing its biggest humanitarian crisis since 1945. It has issued a plea to all nations to help avoid "a catastrophe". UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O’Brien, warned that more than 20 million people face the threat of starvation and famine in Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. He stressed there was an urgent need for, "accelerated global efforts to support UN humanitarian action on the ground". Mr O'Brien told the UN Security Council: "We stand at a critical point in history. Already at the beginning of the year we are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the UN."

The UN warned of a bleak future for millions in the affected African countries and Yemen. It said: "Without collective and coordinated global efforts…people risk starving to death and succumbing to disease … [with] stunted children, lost futures, mass displacements and reversed development gains." While the natural El Niño weather phenomenon has brought little or no rain, a lot of the problems fuelling the crisis are man made. War and conflicts are displacing many in these countries and are hampering efforts to distribute aid. There are reports of aid convoys being attacked. Mr O'Brien said: "It is possible to avert this crisis, to avert these famines, to avert these looming human catastrophes. It is all preventable." Sleep

This news might not come as a great surprise to mothers, but a new study confirms that moms (and mums) get less sleep than fathers. Researchers at Georgia Southern University in the USA analyzed data on the sleeping habits and patterns of nearly 3,000 women and 3,000 men. They wanted to get to the bottom of what affects adults' sleep. The researchers discovered that having children in the house leads to sleep deprivation in many mothers. Motherhood significantly reduced the number of hours a mother slept each night. Unsurprisingly, this had an adverse effect on mothers' energy levels and tiredness during the day. The study found that fathers' sleep remained largely unaffected by having kids in the house.

The study reveals that children were the biggest cause of mothers being sleep deprived. Dr Kelly Sullivan, co-author of the report, said each child increased a woman's risk of getting insufficient sleep by 46 per cent. In addition, 48 per cent of mothers under 45 reported getting an average of seven hours of sleep a night, compared with 62 per cent of women of the same age who did not have children at home. Dr Sullivan said a lack of sleep negatively impacts physical and mental well-being. It increases the risk of diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and depression. She added: "It's important to learn what is keeping people from getting the rest they need so we can help them work towards better health." Fasting

Scientists have conducted tests on mice showing that fasting could have many health benefits. Fasting is eating or drinking very little or nothing for a short period of time. It is usually around 24 hours but can be for a few days. The tests were carried out by scientists at universities in the USA and Italy. They found that occasional fasting in mice could reduce the risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other diseases. The scientists fed mice for four days on a low-calorie, low-protein and low-carbohydrate but high-fat diet. They then gave the mice just 10% of their normal calorie intake for three days. The scientists found this diet made the pancreas in the mice work better.

The pancreas is an organ in the body that uses special cells called beta cells to produce the hormone insulin. The body uses insulin to break down glucose (a kind of sugar) in the blood. People with diabetes have trouble producing enough insulin so they have health problems because there is too much sugar in their blood. This can cause death. In type 1 diabetes, the pancreas stops producing insulin. In type 2 diabetes, either not enough insulin is produced or the insulin that is produced has no effect. Scientists said the mice on the fasting diet produced increased amounts of beta cells and insulin. They said their results were very promising and that tests now need to be done on humans. Manchester Trees

The city of Manchester in England has embarked on an ambitious plan to plant three million trees. The project is called the "City of Trees". Project director, Tony Hothersall, explained that the green venture had three main aims. He said: "One is to plant three million trees - a tree for every man, woman and child - over the next 25 years. Next, we are very much focused on bringing existing woodland into management because there is no point in planting new woodland if you can't manage what you've got already. Finally, we want to engage people a lot more in their natural environment - in planting trees, in managing areas, [and] in understanding more about the benefits that trees and woodlands bring to our society."

Mr Hothersall further outlined the rationale behind the recently-launched environmental project. He said: "Manchester wants to be a world-class city region. We have a lot of fantastic development going on, but the natural environment needs to keep up with that." He believes the initiative will reconnect people with trees and the natural world, provide benefits to health and reduce stress. He said: "Woodlands can do great things in terms of air pollution reduction and can help to screen for noise pollution. They can also help cities and towns become more resilient to climate change both in terms of things like reducing the urban heat island effect and also reducing…flooding." Chili Peppers

There is good news for lovers of hot and spicy food – the chili inside it can help you live longer. Researchers from the University of Vermont College of Medicine in the US have discovered that capsaicin, the active ingredient in hot red chili peppers, may boost the metabolism, strengthen the cardiovascular system and help reduce high blood pressure and obesity. They said people who regularly ate hot red chili peppers had a 13 per cent reduced risk of premature death compared with those who did not eat them. They concluded that: "The consumption of hot red chili pepper was associated with reduced mortality. Hot red chili peppers may be a beneficial component of the diet."

The researchers surveyed a total of 16,179 adults over a period of six years. Survey participants answered questions on their health, lifestyle, income and eating habits. The researchers analysed the deaths that occurred in the 18 years following the survey. A total of 4,946 of the participants died. Of these, 21.6 per cent regularly consumed chili compared with 33.6 per cent who did not. This led the researchers to believe hot red chili peppers helped prolong life. Britain's National Health Service urged people not to rely on one "superfood" like chili to stay healthier. It said: "Eat a balanced diet high in a variety of fruit and vegetables, limit salt, sugar and saturated fat, stay active [and] avoid smoking."