News Headlines - 29 August 2013

▽As U.K. Parliament Debates Syria, Prospect of British Military Support Dims | TIME.com

the 450-minute parliamentary debate that kicked off with a statement by Cameron at 2.30 this afternoon will conclude with a vote on military action only “in principle,” with a second vote—after a second debate—required ahead of any such action. In place of the strong message Cameron hoped to send to Assad, he simply unleashed a fresh barrage of verbiage towards Damascus, and shot himself in the foot... In 2003, a British Prime Minister supported another U.S. President in a military intervention to topple a tyrant with a track record of killing his own people. Memories of the shambles of the Iraq war and the false claims that secured British backing for action are still painful, and nowhere more so than in Labour ranks. Tony Blair’s decision to stand shoulder-to-should with George W. Bush helped to deprive Labour first of Blair himself and then of power.

▽Tony Blair sons' former school ordered to change admission policy | theguardian.com

The Roman Catholic school where Tony Blair sent his sons has been ordered to change its admissions policy after a watchdog said it broke rules by giving preference to pupils whose parents spent at least three years giving practical help to their local church community. The Office of the Schools Adjudicator ruled that the London Oratory school in Fulham, a state secondary, broke a section of the official admissions code for schools intended to prevent parents from obtaining places for their offspring by giving practical or financial support to schools or associated bodies like the church. Such rules are in place to prevent non-selective schools covertly targeting an overly privileged intake.

▽BBC's head of human resources accused of 'corporate fraud and cronyism' quits | The Guardian

Lucy Adams, the BBC's head of human resources, who is accused of presiding over "corporate fraud and cronyism" for her role in six-figure severance pay deals to top executives, is to leave the corporation. Adams has been under pressure since an unconvincing performance before the public accounts committee (PAC) in July, where Tory MP Stewart Jackson subjected her to a scathing attack.

▽AFP: US fast food workers strike to supersize wages

Thousands of workers at McDonald's and other fast food outlets across the United States halted work Thursday in what organizers called the "largest-ever strike" to hit the $200 billion industry. Workers in 60 cities put down burgers and fries to join the fight for $15 an hour -- double what most currently earn -- and the right to form a union without retaliation, organizers said.

▽The Fastest-Spinning Object Ever Made - The Atlantic

Mazilu and his team needed to trap aggregations of atoms within a beam of light, and then get those atoms spinning really, really quickly. Oh, and in a vacuum. So they took calcium and concocted a tiny sphere (really tiny: about of 4 micrometers, or one-tenth of a human hair, in diameter). Then they levitated the sphere in a beam of laser light. They did all this, yes, inside a vacuum. And then! They took their tiny little sphere and whirled it -- at a rate of 600 million rotations per minute. Which (wheeeee!) must have been quite a ride for the particles inside it.