.

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The under-17 team for Ferroviario Maputo of Mozambique gave up one of the most embarrassing goals you'll see against K-Stars of Zambia.

The goal, which was first spotted by the Daily Mail, came in a youth tournament in South Africa.

Ferroviario took a 1-0 lead in the final minutes after an impressive free kick from Dos Santos Adriano.

It was an awesome goal:

The entire team, including the goalie, ran over to the opponents' half of the field for a lengthy, excessive celebration.

They made their way over to the fans on the sideline, where they celebrated more, crossing the midfield line. 

Crossing the line is key here, as an opponent can't kick off while the other team is on their half of the field. Once all 11 Ferroviario players were on their side of the field, their opponents were free to restart play.

K-Stars gathered the ball quickly at midfield, kicked off, and then booted it into Ferroviario's goal from the center circle. The ball soared over the goalie's head, as the rest of the team trotted back into position.

Ferroviario's defenders all pointed fingers and shook their head as the K-Stars ran onto their side to celebrate.

The match finished a 1-1 tie.

Watch the full video below:

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Miami (AFP) - Andy Murray backed up a Davis Cup victory against Donald Young as he defeated the American 6-4, 6-2 on Friday to begin his campaign for a third title at the ATP and WTA Miami Masters.

Murray, seeded third, has defeated Young in five of six meetings, including last month's Davis Cup first-round date in Glasgow.

The Scot, who won titles at the town he uses as a training base in 2009 and 2013, ended with just 14 winners while striking 21 unforced errors to 32 for his opponent.

Victory took less than 90 minutes and puts Murray into the third round against either Colombia's Santiago Giraldo or Robin Haase of the Netherlands.

Murray stands 23-7 in Miami as he plays the tournament for a tenth time.

The former Wimbledon and US Open champion took a 5-1 lead in the opening set before closing it out on the first of three set points and led 5-2 in the second before lifting victory from a concluding Young forehand error.

Eighth seed Tomas Berdych followed the winning example, defeating South Korea's Chung Hyeon 6-3, 6-4 as South African 15th seed Kevin Anderson began with a defeat of American Sam Querrey 6-7 (5/7), 7-6 (7/3), 6-4.

Australian Bernard Tomic shook off effects of last week's wisdom tooth and back pain at Indian Wells which forced him to forfeit a match, coming back strong in Florida for a 7-6 (8/6), 7-5 defeat of American Austin Krajicek.  

Women's third seed Simona Halep had to recover after losing the second set to earn a 6-4, 2-6, 6-1 defeat of Czech Nicole Vaidisova to reach the third round.                 

The Romanian, winner of the Indian Wells title, was stunned in the second set by the 25-year-old Vaidisova, who retired in 2010 but is now making a return to the WTA which began last autumn.

Halep was broken while serving for a three-set win  5-0, but broke back two games later to secure victory in 92 minutes with 17 winners and 27 unforced errors.

Swede Johanna Larsson surprised Czech number 10 Lucie Safarova with a 7-6 (7/5), 6-2 upset victory, while teenaged American Catherine Bellis took revenge for a US Open loss by beating Zarina Diyas 6-2, 6-1.

Bellis, 15, ranks 211 and says she will not decide on turning pro until she cracks the top 100.

Italian Camila Georgi defeated Belgium's Alison Van Uytvanck 6-3, 6-2 while Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova overcame Alison Riske 6-2, 6-2 and Spain's Garbine Muguruza beat Sesil Karatantcheva 6-1, 6-3.

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Baikonur (Kazakhstan) (AFP) - A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying three crew, including a US astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut who will be the first to spend an entire year on the International Space Station, blasted off on schedule Friday, Russian mission control said.

The Soyuz-TMA16M spacecraft took off at 22:42 pm Moscow time (1942 GMT) from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and is headed for the International Space Station. "The flight is normal," mission control said seconds after the launch. 

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San Francisco (AFP) - The Federal Reserve is considering raising the United States' near-zero interest rates "this year" even though this may slow the economy, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said Friday.

"The committee is now giving serious consideration to beginning to reduce later this year some of the extraordinary monetary policy accommodation currently in place," Yellen said in a speech in San Francisco, according to the prepared text.

Earlier this month, the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed's policy arm, opened the door to a federal funds rate hike as early as midyear.

But a string of weak economic data, particularly in consumer spending, housing and manufacturing, has muddied the outlook for an increase in rates pegged at the zero level for more than six years.

"With continued improvement in economic conditions, an increase in the target range for that rate may well be warranted later this year," Yellen said.

The Fed's ultra-low rate has supported a sizeable reduction in labor market slack over the past two years and appears to be leading to "further substantial gains," she said.

"A modest increase in the federal funds rate would be highly unlikely to halt this progress, although such an increase might slow its pace somewhat," the Fed chief acknowledged.

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The embrace of programmatic ad-buying tools is fueling a dramatic uptick in the share of digital ads sold through programmatic platforms, particularly those focused on real-time bidding or RTB.

Total US programmatic ad revenue will top nearly $15 billion this year, according to BI Intelligence estimates. RTB, particularly mobile and video RTB, are spearheading growth. 

In this all-new in-depth research from BI Intelligence that updates our popular July 2014 report on programmatic, we find that the US digital-ad market will reach a programmatic "tipping-point": For the first time this year, programmatic transactions will be a majority (52%) of non-search digital-ad spend. We estimate 30.6% of total digital-ad spend will go to programmatic real-time bidding (RTB) platforms, and 21.7% will go to non-RTB programmatic. 

Access The Full 21-Page Report And Data Sets By Signing Up For A Trial Membership »

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• Advertisers and publishers are rapidly adopting programmatic ad-buying and selling tools. More than four-fifths of agencies and brands already purchase display ads programmatically, while an even greater proportion of publishers are pursuing programmatic channels as part of their sales strategies, according to surveys and our own conversations with industry participants.
• Spending on programmatic advertising is growing quickly, at ~20% annually. 
• Real-time bidding is growing even faster than programmatic overall, at a five-year CAGR of 24%. RTB revenue will top over $26 billion by year-end 2020, up from $8.7 billion this year. Mobile RTB and video RTB are growing even faster, at roughly 2X the rate of programmatic overall. (The report has the full growth breakdowns.)
• Media-agency programmatic "trading desks" are being decentralized as programmatic expertise begins to permeate the agency and brand ecosystem. This may speed growth in programmatic spending among agency clients. 
• The ballyhooed fusion of native and programmatic advertising may be one step closer, thanks in part to OpenRTB 2.3, a new specification from the IAB that makes automated trading of native advertisements technically feasible. Such efforts could bring scale to native advertising and help unlock brand spend. 
• Pricing is following two divergent trends: for premium- and guaranteed placements they are on the upswing, while prices continue to plummet for miscellaneous inventory.

The report is full of charts, data, and case studies that can easily be downloaded and put to use. 

In full, the report: 

• Forecasts programmatic and RTB spending by format through 2020.
• Looks at the latest programmatic adoption trends among both publishers and advertisers.
• Explores the emerging trend of "decentralizing" agency-trading desks and native programmatic.
• Outlines the latest news and trends affecting top programmatic-focused companies.
• Analyzes how programmatic and programmatic-premium is impacting digital ad prices.

For full access receive to all BI Intelligence's analysis, reporting, and downloadable charts and presentations on the digital-media industry, the internet of things, and mobile, sign up for a risk-free trial.

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NOW WATCH: Forget Kim Kardashian — the 'butt selfie' queen of Instagram is a 21-year-old from Long Island

The US is caught in the web of contradictions and sectarian strife that is the Middle East yet again.

American warplanes are backing an Iran-led offensive in Iraq, bombing Sunni ISIS militants who are holed up in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. The US has started providing "air strikes, airborne intelligence, and Advise & Assist support to Iraqi security forces headquarters."

At the same time, Washington is providing "intelligence sharing, targeting assistance, and advisory and logistical support" for airstrikes by Saudi Arabia, a Sunni kingdom, against Iran-backed Houti rebels rampaging across Yemen.

The US officially says that it is backing most Sunni rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad in Syria, but White House policy is actually aligned with the Iran-backed regime as both consider ISIS the largest threat. 

Amid the unfolding chaos, US and Iranian negotiators are trying to hammer out a historic nuclear deal.

A few tweets from this morning illustrate the geopolitical tangle in the region:

Noah Browning, a Reuters correspondent for Israel and Palestine, put it succinctly:

Buzzfeed World editor Miram Elder riffed on what this means for nuclear talks:

And geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer put it all into perspective:

Here's a map of the sectarian makeup of the region:

SEE ALSO: The war on ISIS is getting weird in Iraq

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NOW WATCH: This 26-year-old from Baltimore took a 35,000-mile road trip and ended up fighting in the Libyan revolution

For a moment, the water in this Brazilian river looks peaceful.

Then someone drops in a hunk of meat.

Teddy Roosevelt wrote about the piranha in 1914, calling it the "most ferocious fish in the world":

"If cattle are driven into, or of their own accord enter, the water, they are commonly not molested; but if by chance some unusually big or ferocious specimen of these fearsome fishes does bite an animal—taking off part of an ear, or perhaps of a teat from the udder of a cow—the blood brings up every member of the ravenous throng which is anywhere near, and unless the attacked animal can immediately make its escape from the water it is devoured alive."

But really, according to National Geographic, piranhas rarely attack people. In this case, they probably hang out in this area because someone nearby feeds them. This makes them gather in numbers they normally wouldn't, which can create a dangerous situation.

"Piranhas can be dangerous if they are trapped in a backwater without food, or [are] somehow concentrated in an area and they are hungry,” National Geographic fellow Zeb Hogan told Nat Geo.

Still, this seems like a great place not to fall out of one of those boats into the water.

Check out the full video, uploaded to YouTube by Joao Antonio Cruz Junior. You can hear the water churning.

h/t io9

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The unfolding situation in Yemen is a huge geopolitical challenge for the US. A number of US allies, including Saudi Arabia, are attacking a rebel movement trained and supplied by Iran.

At the same time, the US is desperate for a nuclear deal with Tehran, reportedly giving ground on Iran's demand that it be able to operate advanced uranium centrifuges in a heavily fortified, bomb-proof nuclear facility carved into the inside of a mountain even after a deal is signed.

At the same moment the US is wiling to retreat on major nuclear demands in the hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran, the US's own allies are launching a military coalition aimed at restraining Iranian power.

The US has been trying to triangulate, aiding Operation Decisive Storm with logistical and intelligence support while attempting to reassure Iranian negotiators, who are currently meeting with their US counterparts in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The Yemen conflict presents an even more immediate problem for the US. As the Los Angeles Times reported on March 25th, Iran-allied Houthi rebels obtained US intelligence files left behind after raiding an air base in Sana, the capital.

The files were then passed on to Yemeni "officials" sympathetic to the Houthis, who are in turn suspected of relaying them to Tehran, according to the Times.

"This is a disaster for US counterterrorism efforts across the Horn of Africa," Robert Caruso, a former US Navy intelligence officer, explained to Business Insider by email. "While it would be irresponsible to say what may have been compromised, this is a nightmare for our military and especially our counterterrorism forces in the region." 

Basically, the Houthi advance through Yemen may have just delivered crucial information about US intelligence operations in the Middle East to a US-listed state sponsor of terrorism. And that may complicate the US's efforts in both Switzerland and the Arabian Peninsula.

The US may want to reassure Iran that it is willing to spare it the embarrassment and potential strategic cost of an even greater escalation against the Houthis, like an Egyptian and Saudi ground invasion. US negotiators also may be hamstrung by the Iranian possession of fresh US intelligence.

"News reports that Iranian military advisers now have classified information about US military and intelligence operations is extremely disconcerting and could be used to harm Americans if the nuclear deal fails," Caruso wrote. "I think we will find later on that Iran deliberately targeted the airbase and the US facilities there to gather and exploit intelligence that could be used as leverage or to target Americans later on."

The problem of balancing the nuclear negotiations against other aspects of the US relationship with Iran unique to Yemen. The US has troops in Iraq fighting ISIS and providing air cover to Iranian-allied militant groups. Meanwhile Hezbollah, and Iranian proxy, has a presence on every continent and Iran has plotted against targets inside the US as recently as 2011, when an Iranian effort to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US at an upscale Washington, DC restaurant was uncovered. 

The US and Iran are strategically intertwined in Iraq, while Iran has the capability and perhaps even the intention of seriously undermining US interests around the world. Tehran realizes that it has plenty of potential leverage over its US negotiating counterparts.

That might explain why Tehran has demanded so many concessions in the nuclear negotiations — and gotten them.

SEE ALSO: The Yemen war is already shifting the tide in the Middle East

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Ron and Joan Zahn have been budgeting since 1962, the year they got married.

The Zahns are now in their mid-70s living in De Pere, Wisconsin, and Ron has been retired for a decade from his work teaching and working in administration for parochial schools. Joan stopped working full-time as she raised their five children, but took on at-home babysitting jobs to bring in a little extra income.

Ron explains that they've been investing for retirement from "day one."

"In 1962, we started investing $25 a month into a mutual fund," he remembers. "Those investments, over time, allowed us to have resources in retirement, and I committed to not extracting more money than the required minimum distribution each month."

(He's referring to the mandatory account withdrawals after age 70 1/2, the amounts of which depend on how much you have saved. Bankrate has a calculator to help figure out yours.)

Ron says 80% to 90% of their savings are in their IRAs, and the remainder is in mutual funds. "If I use only the required minimum distributions, it's almost guaranteed — unless there's a total national collapse — there will be money left for the rest of our lives," he says. In their will, they'll leave whatever is left to their children and to the church.

Now, the Zahns live on $4,080 a month from both of their Social Security payments, his pension, and required minimum distributions from both of their IRAs. They also gain occasional income from substitute teaching and from a charitable gift annuity.

Ron's income leaves them "safely below the threshold of paying income taxes," and he estimates they have about $300,000 saved in IRAs.

Here is how they budget:

The Zahns have always been frugal, and Ron explains that they generally don't spend much money. The "housing" category includes their mortgage ($889), property tax (~$520), and any needed maintenance and repairs. The "medical" category includes $210 per month for Medicare Part B, and the "utilities" category includes TV, phone, internet, and garbage removal.

Ron explains that their budgeting strategy is to give to the church and charity first, and then "the rest is application of reason. We don't need as much for clothes as we do for groceries. To a degree, our spending is based on personal desire. We don't desire to travel the world, so our vacation budget isn't particularly large. However, on occasion, we'll do a longer trip — mostly to see kids."

There is no specific category for savings other than what they're putting together for a new car because, after a lifetime of diligent budgeting, Ron says they don't need to make a concerted effort to save. "I just didn't feel like we needed a special category, because a special category implies I take the money and isolate it. In this household, the money just automatically ends up in a savings vehicle of some kind if we don't spend it."

Are you saving an incredible amount of money, paying off major debt, or finding a creative way to earn more? To share your story, email lkane[at]businessinsider[dot]com. Anonymous submissions will be considered.

SEE ALSO: Here's the budget of a 31-year-old who wants to retire before 60

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NOW WATCH: 6 Crazy Things Revealed In HBO's Explosive New Scientology Documentary 'Going Clear'

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From its striking reenactments to its shocking conclusion, HBO’s "The Jinx" has become our latest true-crime fix. But with the series over where do you go now to consume a juicy real life whodunit?

Coincidentally, the film that started the true-crime film genre just became available on Blu-ray Tuesday for the first time ever.

“The Thin Blue Line” (1988) is Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Errol Morris’ masterpiece that reexamines the 1976 murder of a slain Texas police officer in which Randall Dale Adams was convicted and sentenced to death. Morris interviews most of the lawyers, investigators, and witnesses involved in the case in an attempt to prove that Adams was innocent of the crime. Morris also interviewed David Harris, who said he was in the car with Adams when the murder took place.

His testimony was one of the chief reasons Adams was convicted, but "The Thin Blue Line" suggests that it was actually Harris who was guilty.

And to top this incredible story, Morris added something that set his film apart from the talking heads in documentaries of the 1980s; he incorporated lush reenactments of the night in question accompanied by a stirring score from composer Philip Glass (he’s since done the music for four more Morris films) to create an immersive experience that elevates the story and makes you feel you're right there investigating what really happened. "The Jinx" incorporates similarly vivid reenactments. 

"The Jinx" and "The Thin Blue Line" both have shocking endings. In the former, the real-estate heir Robert Durst apparently confesses to killing his wife, his good friend, and his neighbor when he utters the phrase, "What the hell did I do? Killed them all of course."

At the end of "The Thin Blue Line," Harris admits to Morris it was he, not Adams, who killed the police officer.

Morris, who talked to Business Insider from Los Angeles last week, says he hasn't seen "The Jinx" yet, but moments he recounts from his experience making "The Thin Blue Line" are almost a carbon copy of what we see "The Jinx" director Andrew Jarecki go through while making his HBO documentary series. 

Like in the final episode of "The Jinx" where Jarecki is filled with anxiety preparing for the final interview with Durst, Morris told BI he also had his own issues when doing his final interview with Harris. Perhaps even worse than Jarecki's nerves, Morris' camera malfunctioned while interviewing Harris and he had to tape record their conversation instead of filming it.

“I thought it was a disaster at the time,” said Morris. “I remember I came home from doing the interview with the tape recorder and I started crying.”

The scene has since become one of the most memorable endings in cinema, the shot of a lone tape recorder playing Harris’ confession. Many believed at the time that it was Morris’ intention to film the conversation in this unconventional way. Morris admits it's taken him some time to finally appreciate the power of the scene as it is. 

"The Jinx" fans may recall that Jarecki also uses shots of a tape recorder playing interviews with sources.

Morris admits he still wonders if Harris would have been as open to him on that day if a camera were in front of him. “I felt very strongly that I had a case, a very powerful case, with or without that,” he said. “But I may not have had as powerful a film.”

In "The Jinx," Jarecki speaks about the guilt of having to question Durst about new evidence he found after having built a relationship with his subject over the course of making the film. Morris felt similarly about Harris.

Although Morris was certain he was “a cold blooded killer,” he had spent numerous years talking to him on and off camera and began to like him. So, after the film's release, when he had to appear at Harris' trial for the unrelated killing of another man in Beaumont, Texas in 1985, he was extremely nervous that he would be called to the stand and betray his subject's trust. Morris says he was never called.

Morris' relationship with Harris was on such good terms, in fact, that the director spent time with Harris several hours before he was executed by lethal injection in 2004 in Texas for the murder of the Beaumont man. (Harris never officially confessed to killing the police officer.)

“We talked about his absolute conviction that he would never be executed," Morris said. "He didn't believe that it would ever happen, even a couple of hours before his death."Jarecki and his filmmaking team are preparing for the likely chance of being called in a future Durst trail.

But perhaps one of the biggest things that links the two films are their ties to advocacy journalism and the paradox of providing new information to the authorities for the good of society versus keeping it to use for their films. The release of "The Thin Blue Line" in theaters in 1988, which at that time for a documentary was unheard of, didn't only get a man off death row but brought more discussions to the fore about capital punishment.

"The Jinx" doesn’t have such lofty aspirations, but Jarecki and his team discovered new evidence that could link Durst to unsolved murder cases. There are now questions as to whether Jarecki and company delivered materials to authorities in a timely fashion, but the LAPD have denied that their arrest of Durst was related to findings in "The Jinx." 

Recently, filmmaker Joe Berlinger — who along with his filmmaking partner Bruce Sinofsky brought new evidence in the case of the West Memphis Three in their "Paradise Lost" films that eventually got them off death row — commented on this topic following the final episode of "The Jinx."

"The great success of 'The Jinx' raises, for me, issues we have been grappling with and that is the continued blurring of the lines between reporting and entertainment. Documentaries are in a unique position to go the distance … you can go deep and you can get answers, but at the same time there are some issues. The selective withholding of information at the right dramatic moment, the recreation of gory details that are painful for those involved, and yet, it's entertainment. So I think this raises a lot of issues, the most important of which is when somebody knows something that is key to a case when do you communicate that to the police?"

For "The Thin Blue Line," Morris struggled with the issue of when to divulge new evidence he'd uncovered to the authorities, because they were convinced they had got their man.

"I'm sure there were Dallas police officers who, until their dying day, believed Randall Adams was guilty," he said.

And Morris did not trust Adams' lawyer, either. "Inevitably you always, in life as in art, volunteer and withhold information for a lot of different reasons. Some of them are defensible reasons, some are indefensible reasons. I came to distrust Randall Adams' attorney and I withheld information from the attorney while I was doing my investigation for a number of reasons. I would defend those reasons to this day. And I reached a certain point where I knew I had to turn over everything I had to him. Didn't like him. Think he's the principal reason why Randall Adams sued me. But I realized I had to give him everything. It was the correct thing to do."

That is the main point behind any true-crime story, according the Morris. Whether it be told through a novel or movie, whether the subjects are arrested the day before the story we're watching ends or years later, regardless how great the stories are presented to the audience or how popular they become, it isn't what closes a case.

"What a documentary should do is make you think about what is true and false," Morris said. "It should make you question the nature of the evidence that you are being presented with. When people say ["The Thin Blue Line"] got Adams out of prison I remind them it brought an unknown, unheralded, obscure case to national attention. It was the evidence, the evidence I uncovered, that got him out of prison."

Randall Dale Adams would eventually go free in 1989 and "The Thin Blue Line" would become a classic, added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2001.

As of today, “The Thin Blue Line” is available now on Blu-ray through The Criterion Collection. 

SEE ALSO: Oscar-winning director Errol Morris reveals what his Netflix series will be about

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NOW WATCH: Hugh Hefner's Son Has A Surprising And Inspiring Attitude Toward Women

The outbreak of Ebola fever brought to the world's attention on March 22nd 2014 by Médecins Sans Frontières, an international charity, has infected some 25,000 people and killed more than 10,000 of them--almost all in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

It is abating. Liberia is close to declaring itself free of the virus and infection rates are falling in Sierra Leone. But it is not over yet, for in Guinea Ebola still kills dozens of people a week. Moreover, the aftermath will harm the three countries' economies, costing at least $1.6 billion in forgone economic growth this year, according to the World Bank.

Though it could have been a lot worse (at the height of the crisis some epidemiologists were talking of hundreds of thousands of deaths) it might also have been a lot better. Previous Ebola outbreaks killed dozens or hundreds. The whole episode therefore suggests that the world's defences against epidemics, though they have been strengthened since the rapid spread of SARS in 2002 and 2003 demonstrated their weaknesses, could do with reinforcing still further.

The prime directive of epidemic prevention is early detection. That means good surveillance. Unfortunately, only 64 of the 194 members of the World Health Organisation (WHO) have surveillance procedures, laboratories and data-management capabilities good enough to fulfil their obligations under an agreement known as the International Health Regulations. This, though, is changing.

In Africa, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda have sharpened up. So has Vietnam. America is now helping 30 other countries, including the three affected by Ebola, to follow suit while, at the same time, improving their networks of clinics. Groups of neighbours are also coming together to form regional surveillance networks that can follow outbreaks across borders. Researchers in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, for example, have formed what they call the Asian Partnership on Emerging Infectious Diseases Research.

Along with early detection, the world needs to get better at responding--both institutionally and technologically. The WHO, notoriously slow off the mark when it came to Ebola, is widely regarded as too ponderous and bureaucratic to react with the speed needed to nip an emerging epidemic in the bud. There is talk of setting up a specialist international epidemic-prevention organisation.

Bill Gates, a philanthropist whose foundation does a lot of work on disease control in poor countries, encourages this idea in this week's New England Journal of Medicine. He notes that epidemics and war are similarly costly of blood and treasure, but that only war is taken seriously by politicians--at least in terms of preparations such as standing armies. As if to prove the point, the threat of bioterrorism has been one motive for what preparations have been put in place.

An army, of course, needs weapons. And, in the case of epidemics, it is important to think about what those might be. The temptation is to put money into high-profile areas like vaccines and drugs. It may, though, be more useful to concentrate on diagnosis, because this can stop people spreading a disease. The science of diagnostic testing is advancing rapidly, making it easier to come up quickly with a test for a new pathogen.

That, Mr Gates believes, presents an opportunity. But it is one, he says, which requires the establishment of a rapid approval and procurement process, so that diagnostic tests can be made available quickly during outbreaks. They also need to be portable, like pregnancy tests, to keep people out of clinics where they might otherwise spread infection.

Drugs and vaccines are still important, of course. Research is going on into ways to make new vaccines quickly, so trials can start within days of an outbreak. Modern biological techniques mean a pathogen's genome can be copied and stuck into other cells to turn out proteins which might be used as a vaccine's active ingredients. Once a vaccine has been identified, the same techniques could be used to make it quickly, and possibly locally if a portable factory were shipped to an affected area.

The sinews of war

But none of this rapid response can happen without cash. One lesson of an earlier incident, the H1N1 influenza ("swine flu") pandemic of 2009, was the lack of a contingency fund to deal with such things. This is a problem Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, is determined to solve. He has been meeting with politicians and the private sector to advance the case for a "global pandemic emergency financing facility".

One more modest possibility is that pools of research funding could be set up in advance, along with agreed research protocols, allowing health studies to start more quickly. An existing example of this is a fund created by the Wellcome Trust, a British medical charity.

Even on the coldest of calculations, a contingency fund would be a wise precaution. The damage caused by Ebola to west Africa's economy is trivial compared with the cost of, say, a global influenza pandemic. The World Bank reckons that might reduce global economic activity by almost 5%. How many would die would depend on the virus's virulence. But even a 1% death rate, for something that was truly worldwide, would add up to millions. That is too much blood, and too much treasure, for politicians to ignore.

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SEE ALSO: Emails show the World Health Organization intentionally delayed calling Ebola a public health emergency

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NOW WATCH: Animated map of what Earth would look like if all the ice melted

North Wilkesboro Speedway, which served as a stop in NASCAR's Winston Cup Series from 1949 until September 1996, has sat abandoned for 20 years.

Aside from a brief year of activity in 2011, the speedway has been left to rot in the elements.

Photographer Seph Lawless captured the decrepitude as part of his "Autopsy of America" project. The images are gathered in his new book, "The Last Lap – North Wilkesboro Speedway."

In his new photo series, photographer Seph Lawless revealed just how far a former NASCAR track has declined.

Lawless explored the abandoned North Wilkesboro Speedway, capturing every decrepit nook and cranny.

The track has sat empty since it was closed and sold in September 1996.

If you seek his monument, look around Singapore.

Wealthy, orderly, efficient and honestly governed, it is not the work of Lee Kuan Yew alone. But even his severest critics would agree that Mr Lee, who died this week at the age of 91, played an enormous part.

Singapore's leader from before "self-government" from Britain in 1959, he was prime minister until 1990, leaving the cabinet only in 2011. Under him Singapore, with no natural resources, was transformed from a tiny struggling island into one of the world's richest countries.

Admirers look to Singapore as a model, and Mr Lee as a sage. Part of his influence stemmed from his role as a clear-eyed, blunt-speaking geostrategist. He was an astute observer of the defining contest of the times--China's emergence and how America reacts to it. More than that, though, the admirers look to Singapore's combination of prosperity and one-party rule. They see flaws in "Western-style democracy": its short-termism; its disregard for non-voters such as children and foreigners; and its habit of throwing up unqualified leaders. Mr Lee's "meritocracy" promises a solution.

China's leaders, especially, are fascinated by Mr Lee's firm grip on power: it is no accident that the second-most-powerful man in the Chinese hierarchy is not running the economy or the interior ministry, but is President Xi Jinping's enforcer, Wang Qishan.

Others, including Rwanda's authoritarian president, Paul Kagame, who is seeking to rewrite the constitution to allow himself a third term (see page 56), enthusiastically compare themselves to Singapore's founding father. Mr Lee does indeed have much to teach the world; but when his admirers conclude that Singapore proves authoritarianism works, they are drawing the wrong lesson.

Pyongyang with broadband

Mr Lee got many things right, especially in his choice of economic managers. They kept government small, the economy open and regulation simple, transparent and effective. Singapore often heads the World Bank's "ease of doing business" rankings. It has deftly exploited the advantages that made it a successful entrepot as early as the 14th century: a fine natural harbour and strategic position on the Malacca Strait, through which an estimated 40% of world maritime trade now passes. Foreign investment has poured in.

Political stability and social order were part of the attraction. With a big ethnic-Chinese majority but sizeable Malay and Indian minorities, Singapore suffered race riots in the 1960s. Since then ethnic harmony has been preserved: by quotas in public housing that enforce integration; by restrictions on inflammatory speech; and by harsh penalties for lawbreaking (including corporal and capital punishment). Strikes and other forms of protest have been extremely rare. Social policies are illiberal--homosexual acts, for example, remain illegal.

Throughout, Mr Lee's own People's Action Party (PAP) has had a vice-like grip on power. The political system is based on the Westminster model inherited from Britain, but modified to prevent the emergence of a serious opposition party. Constituencies have been designed to magnify the distortions of a first-past-the-post system.

In the most recent general election in 2011 the PAP won 60% of the votes, but more than 90% of the seats. Mr Lee and other leaders have also used defamation suits to defend their reputations. The mainstream press was tamed. Opposition leaders have found themselves bankrupt.

Critics mock Singapore for being like North Korea or "Disneyland with the death penalty", as William Gibson, an American novelist, described it in 1993. But Mr Lee's defenders argue that the restrictions are a small price to pay for stability and prosperity. GDP figures do not lie: Mr Lee's policies have worked. Singapore is a thriving city-state. Unlike North Korea or Disneyland, it offers a real challenge to the liberal notion that growth, prosperity and freedom go together.

Only one Lee Kuan Yew

But four peculiarities of Singapore make it look like an anomaly, rather than a model for the leaders of China and Rwanda or others who think the best thing for their people is their own unending and unquestioned rule. The first is size. Singapore is a city with a foreign policy, which gives it a cohesion that more politically and ethnically chaotic countries cannot match.

Second, this cohesion is reinforced by the turbulent circumstances of its birth. After a painful divorce from Malaysia in 1965, the government has never let Singaporeans forget that a Chinese-majority island, surrounded by Muslim-majority Indonesia and Malaysia, would always be vulnerable.

Third, it shines by comparison with its less well-run neighbours. Rather as Hong Kong's prosperity was based on being Chinese but not entirely part of China, Singapore has flourished by being in South-East Asia, but not of it.

However, the most important reason for Singapore's singular experience is Mr Lee himself. Incorruptible, he kept government unusually clean. He ensured that Singapore pays its ministers and civil servants high salaries. Under today's prime minister, his son Lee Hsien Loong, the bureaucracy has remained efficient and untarnished.

Unlike many other independence leaders, Mr Lee designed a system to outlast him. Singapore's government claims it has faced enough electoral competition to keep it honest, but not so much that there was a high risk of losing power. So it has been able to eschew populism and take decisions in the country's long-term interests.

But outside Singapore, maintaining probity requires checks and balances. In much of the developing world, critics are regarded as enemies and those in opposition are treated as traitors whether their complaints make sense or not.

Even in Singapore the model may not long outlast its creator. Singaporeans are having few children and ageing fast. The government faces demands for more social spending. Growth depends on immigration, angering natives who feel the influx is suppressing their wages--and making it impossible to get a seat on the tube. That balance between competition and inevitable re-election is shifting. The Singapore model may yet prove unsustainable even in Singapore.

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Last September, "Shark Tank" investor Daymond John flew his mentee Moziah Bridges, the then 12-year-old founder and CEO of bow tie company Mo's Bows, to New York City for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week.

Besides taking him to events and making introductions to power players in the industry, John accompanied Bridges on a morning taping of CNBC's "Squawk Box."

Later that day, John got a call from Karen Katz, CEO and president of the Neiman Marcus Group.

He assumed the call was for him, he tells Business Insider, but it was for Bridges.

"I've never been in Neiman Marcus with any of my brands, and it takes the 12-year-old child to get Neiman Marcus to call me!" John says, laughing. "So that's the student teaching the teacher, you know?"

Today, the precocious CEO is 13. With the help of his mother Tramica Morris ("Mo is the CEO of the company, but I'm the CEO of Mo," she says), he's sold about $200,000 of his handmade bow ties and other men's fashion accessories. He has seven employees — including his mom and grandmother.

John became Bridges' mentor in 2013 after he and his mom appeared on "Shark Tank" in its fifth season. The mother-son entrepreneur duo from Memphis sought $50,000 in exchange for 20% equity in the company.

Bridges had the idea for Mo's Bows when he was just 9 years old. His grandmother, a retired seamstress, taught him early on the importance of dressing sharp. He asked her to teach him how to sew, and soon he was making bow ties and selling them online and to several stores in the South.

By the time he taped the "Shark Tank" segment, he'd sold 2,000 bow ties he made by hand with his grandmother, bringing in $55,000 in revenue. Kevin O'Leary offered a deal for the $50,000 in exchange for a $3 royalty per tie sold, which Mark Cuban and John advised Bridges not to take.

John says that when he saw Bridges up there with Morris, a single mother, he was reminded of his own situation growing up. He told Bridges that in 1989 he declined an offer of $10,000 for 40% of his hat company; 10 years later, that hat company had grown into FUBU and was valued at $100 million.

Saying it would be a mistake for Bridges to take an investment at that point in his business, John offered to be Bridges' mentor for free, which Bridges and Morris agreed to.

John reconnected with Bridges and Morris a few weeks later and has continued to be in touch. He says that he mentors several entrepreneurs, but that due to the unique "Shark Tank" situation, his mentorship of Bridges was the first to be formally agreed on. "I pay attention to them just as much as I pay attention to the ones I have investments in."

Bridges tells Business Insider that John has advised him to continue to avoid investments as he builds his company, and to not grow too quickly. Rather than expand into denim, for example, John recommended that Mo's Bows expand into neckties.

John taught him to "not think about what everybody else is doing and stay true to my brand," Bridges says.

He also inspired the Mo's Bows team to acquire licensing deals with companies. It secured its first one with Cole Haan late last year.

It also secured a deal with Neiman Marcus. Mo's Bows are available on the store's online shop and in a limited brick-and-mortar release.

"It's playing out well," John says. "The product is moving."

Bridges says that his recent success has inspired his friends back home, and that John taught him that with success comes the responsibility to give to others. It's why Bridges decided to make an annual bow tie and use 100% of the proceeds to help underprivileged kids who want to attend summer camp.

Bridges plans on following in John's footsteps. "I want to have my own clothing line by the time I'm 20," he says.

John is confident he'll achieve what he sets out to accomplish, noting that when he met Bridges when he was 11 years old, Bridges had the vision and focus that John didn't have until his early 20s. Plus, Bridges has the support of his mother and grandmother.

"I'm just adding fuel to the fire, but they can't be stopped regardless," John says. "I don't want to pat myself on the back because they're amazing."

Here's the Mo's Bows update that recently ran on "Shark Tank":

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Billionaire banking tycoon Igor Kolomoisky was appointed governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, a region in the east of the country that includes Ukraine's third-largest city, in March last year. He had one job: prevent the territory from falling into the hands of pro-Moscow rebels.

Although he was a close ally of President Petro Poroshenko's new government in Kiev, neither had the financial nor military clout to achieve that aim. So Kolomoisky decided to build his own private army of volunteers, equipped with heavy weaponry. He paid for all of this from out of his own pocket.

The recruits came from Ukraine and Europe. There are even a couple of Americans. Estimates suggest Kolomoisky could call on over 20,000 troops and reserves. His Dnipro Battalion, also known as Dnipro-1, includes around 2,000 heavily armed fighters. The unit is reported to have cost the banking billionaire $10 million to set up. They helped play a key role in halting the advance of the Moscow-backed rebels from their strongholds in the neighbouring Donetsk and Luhansk. 

However, there are doubts about where the troops' ultimate loyalties lie — to the government in Ukraine or to their regional paymaster. Last week, armed men in masks stormed the headquarters of state-owned oil company UkrTransNafta in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, following the sacking of its director Oleksander Lazorko, a key ally of Kolomoisky.

On Tuesday, Poroshenko fired Kolomoisky and now this private could become a major problem for the Ukrainian authorities.

Click here to see the private army under the command of sacked billionaire Kolomoisky >>

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Showtime Networks has just picked up a new hedge fund drama called "Billions," according to a press release.

The 12-episode series "is a complex and contemporary drama about power politics in the New York world of high finance."

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Last night, 105 members of the British public got a rare treat: A partial recital of a crude 1950s comic song by the Prime Minister himself.

David Cameron was at the Sky Studios to be grilled by Jeremy Paxman, followed by questions from a studio audience. During an advert break he mentioned to Sky News host Kay Burley his affection for long-dead British comedian Benny Hill— before, at her urging, reciting some of the ditty to the audience.

For those who aren't up to scratch on their mid-century English comics, Benny Hill was born in 1924, and epitomises a certain kind of British vaudeville seaside comedy — slapstick, innuendo-filled, and now desperately unfashionable. (Re-runs of The Benny Hill Show ran in the US on cable TV stations for years after he fell out of fashion in the UK.)

The song in question, "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)," tells the comic tale of milkman Ernie struggling (and ultimately failing) to win the affections of a young window.

The opening verse — which Cameron quoted on Thursday night — goes as follows:

You could hear the hoof beats pound as they raced across the ground,

And the clatter of the wheels as they spun 'round and 'round.

And he galloped into market street, his badge upon his chest,

His name was Ernie, and he drove the fastest milk cart in the west.

And here's the TV version of it, innuendos and all:

"Ernie" was originally written in 1950, but didn't enjoy its first TV release until 1970. At the time, Cameron was the tender age of 4, and living at the family home in Berkshire. The following year it was released as a single — it was a smash hit, and was the 1971 Christmas number 1.

Cameron has spoken fondly of his"happy childhood," one where "whinging was not on the menu." The struggles of Ernie to woo the "too good for him" widow Sue clearly had a strong impact upon the Conservative party leader — on radio show Desert Island Discs in 2006, he chose the song as one of his picks, saying it"really just reminds me of my childhood."

"I just remember playing this at home, over and over again."

Ernie is also, Cameron revealed, "the only song whose words I can remember." He even recites some of the words on Desert Island Discs — you can listen to the entire show here (Cameron discusses the song from the 7:30-mark onwards):

"Wonderful, universal themes," the Conservative party leader remarks after the song finishes playing. "I haven't heard it in ages that that was ... that was ... bliss."

(He hastily writes off its more suggestive sections as an "early love song.")

Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that though he's not much of a singer, he does sometimes sing "Ernie" in the shower. But his passion for Benny Hill isn't relegated to his personal life.

In 2011, Cameron accused Luton Labour MP Kelvin Hopkins of being from"fairy-dairy land!" This is, of course, a reference to the last verse of "Ernie," when the song's eponymous hero meets an unfortunate end:

Ernie was only fifty-two, he didn't want to die

Now he's gone to make deliveries

In that milkround in the sky

Where the customers are angels

And ferocious dogs are banned

And a milkman's life is full of fun

In that fairy dairy land

It's a strange fascination for Cameron. The Prime Minister is often criticised for being out-of-touch — Eton-educated, descended from aristocracy, and very well off. In contrast, Benny Hill's crude, slapstick comedy was unapologetic in its proletarian appeal.

But Labour leader Ed Miliband has also been accused of being elitist. One of his own MPs, Simon Danczuk, told the New Statesman that Miliband is even"more aloof" than Cameron is. "They'd prefer to go for a pint with David Cameron than they would with Ed Miliband," he said, "that's the reality of it."

And perhaps he's got a point. When Burley subsequently asked Miliband if he knew "Ernie," his response was simple: "Absolutely not."

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