Some brief news headlines and videos from around the world
If only prom had a red carpet! Sassy teen recreates Beyoncé’s VERY risque 2015 Met Gala look for her school dance – and wins over thousands of fans online
- India Ross, 18, loved Beyoncé’s sheer, crystal-covered Givenchy gown and high ponytail
- She enlisted St. Louis designer Toi Hall, of Toi Box Couture, to make a similar dress, which used 2,000 hand-placed crystals
- The dress cost India $800, but she said she felt like Queen Bey at the Grammys at her prom
What’s a beautiful high school senior to do when she wants to look like Beyoncé at her prom, but doesn’t have the pop star’s access to celebrity designers? Well, if she’s as ambitious as one St. Louis teen, she just teams up with a local designer to make her own.
Price point: The whole thing cost $800 — a bargain compare to the Grammy winner’s Givenchy gown
Like many fashion fans, India Ross fell head-over-heels for Queen Bey’s Met Gala look in 2015. The star showed up for the event in a mostly sheer Givenchy gown, which was heavily embellished with multicolor crystals.
But instead of just dreaming wistfully that she’d one day get famous and have the chance to wear such a stunning dress, India enlisted a local designer to help create an original Beyoncé-inspired look.
Updated: Together, they worked to get the right look of the beading and sheer fabric, which was more opaque covering her body since she was wearing it to a school dance
‘Mesh material with over 2,000 hand-placed crystals was used to create my dress,’ she said, revealing that the whole project cost her about $800.
Toi said it was a ‘tedious pleasure’ to painstakingly put together the gorgeous gown, which featured a more opaque nude fabric to comply with school dress code rules.
Finally, on the night of the big dance, India made sure to do the incredible dress justice. She styled her hair just like Beyoncé in a twisty high pony-tail, nailing her head-tilt pose.
She drew inspiration from the star’s make-up and jewelry, too, coming off as a total dead-ringer for the 24-year-old songstress.
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Google ‘Daydream’ will put VR capabilities into every Android handset
- Firm has also set up dedicated virtual reality unit within Google
- Google will incorporate VR support into Android, rather than using an app
- Chief executive Sundar Pichai recently said the public will ‘see a lot more’ from Google and partners in this area in 2016
Google is gunning for its rivals in the battle for virtual reality.
The firm today revealed it will build new VR capabilities into the next version of Android.
It is also working with manufacturers on a new headset that uses a phone as its screen.
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The new capabilities were unveiled by Clay Bavor, the head of Google’s VR project, and the annual IO event in San Francisco.
The new capabilites were unveiled by Clay Bavor, the head of Google’s VR project.
It will build the new Daydream software into Android N, and work with manufacturers to develop handsets capable of supporting the advanced graphics.
Experts believe the resulting experiences will be far superior to efforts such as the Sanmsung and Oculus Gear VR – but not as powerful as Facebook’s Oculus Rift, which requires a dedicated $1500 PC.
‘We’ve taken a very different approach,’ he told CNET.
‘We’ve approached the whole thing much more like something you wear — a piece of clothing rather than this gizmo.
‘The phone slips into it in seconds, and then you could be in another world.’
Google’s bare-bones entry into the still-nascent field of virtual reality came two years ago when it unveiled a cheap headset made out of cardboard.
The company is poised to get more serious, given far more sophisticated options available for sale.
With Daydream, manufacturers including Samsung, HTC and Huawei will have smartphones capable of handling it.
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ISIS barbarians ‘torture children to death’ after jailing them for insulting Allah according to former inmates who have managed to flee the regime’s brutal prisons
- Last week 20 prisoners managed to escape an ISIS-run prison in Syria
- Some of the men have spoken out about the horrors they witnessed inside
- Said children were ‘tortured like men’ and female prisoners just disappear
Former prisoners who managed to escape a prison run by Islamic State have spoken out about the horrors they witnessed while incarcerated – including seeing children being tortured to death.
Last week around 20 prisoners managed to escape one of the terror group’s prisons in Tabaqa, Syria, after using a piece of jagged metal to scrape a hole in their cell wall.
Some of the survivors spoke to the Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently citizen journalism site, which aims to show the human rights abuses carried out by ISIS.
Last week around 20 Islamic State prisoners managed to escape one of the terror group’s prisons in Tabaqa, Syria, after using a piece of jagged metal to scrape a hole in their cell wall (Pictured: ISIS fighters)
One of the men, who were not named in the piece in order to protect their identities, told the site the prison they escaped from has around 40 female prisoners, some of whom are incarcerated with their children.
The source, who had been sentenced to death before his escape, revealed at least three of the young women have been sentenced to death for ‘apostasy’ and many prisoners are tortured even when they have already confessed.
The source said: ‘The prison has special rooms for ‘Al-Balanko’ which is a hook used to hang detainees so that their tiptoes could hardly touch the floor.’
He also described ISIS guards using rods, a torture chair, electric shocks and whipping as other methods of torture, adding the majority of the masked guards are from Raqqa in Syria.
He added: ‘ISIS confiscates properties of detainees with death sentence. There are a variety of charges such as cooperating with apostates, not supporting their state, possessing a weapon and inhibiting the public from obeying The Caliph.’
A source, who had been sentenced to death before his escape, revealed at least three women have been sentenced to death for ‘apostasy’ and many prisoners are tortured even when they have already confessed
The man said he was sentenced to death by a judge in his prison, where he was told he would be executed in ‘a few days’ and that his crucified body would be left on the street for two days.
He said there were children in the prison and many had been arrested for insulting Allah and cooperating with apostates, adding: ‘They are being tortured just like men, and some of them died under torture.’
Another of the men who escaped was tortured every day for three months, a friend told FoxNews.com. He said: ‘But after a while, the torture just became routine.’
He said the basements of churches, hospitals, schools and office buildings seized by ISIS are used to hold imprisoned Iraqi Army officers and local policemen captured.
He said: ‘These people were mostly arrested after ISIS took over Mosul and Tikrit. ISIS lied to them and told them, ‘We will give you safety if you give up your weapons,’ but then they arrested them.
‘Many have been executed, but many are still in these prisons.’
The revelations come just hours after a leading international rights group released a report documenting atrocities by Libya’s Islamic State affiliate — including instances of ‘crucifixions’ and shooting a man to death for ‘cursing God’ — in the coastal city of Sirte, a stronghold of the militants.
Human Rights Watch recounts ‘scenes of horror’ that followed the city’s seizure by IS militants in February 2015, with beheadings of dozens of residents accused of being spies or sorcerers.
Men were flogged for acts such as smoking or listening to music, and fathers were ordered to ‘marry off their daughters’ to the group’s fighters as IS spread a wave of terror among the townspeople.
The militant branch, more known for its spread in Iraq and Syria, gained a foothold in Libya amid the chaos that engulfed the country since the ouster and killing of the longtime autocratic leader Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
ISIS managed to exploit the turmoil as political rivalries left Libya torn between rival governments, parliaments, and myriad of militias backing either side.
