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(Oct 18, 2019 2:07 PM CDT) A new brew just out for 2019 is described on the Sam Adams site as reminiscent of a rich vintage port, old cognac, or fine sherry and is said to be the craft beer community's most renowned and sought-after extreme barrel-aged beer. If that sounds scrumptious, don't whet your palate just yet--first you'll have to make sure you can get it where you live, because it's got a 28% ABV and is illegal in 15 states, per Fox News. This is the 11th edition of Sam Adams' Utopias, which Forbes notes is a mix of the brewery's other extreme beers, made using a time-intensive, multiyear brewing, aging, and blending process. The states where this is considered to be boozy contraband: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, and West Virginia. If you're in one of the other states where you can drink up and have some disposable income, Newsweek notes that Utopias comes in a custom-made 25.4-ounce bottle, made to resemble a copper brew kettle, that goes for $210.
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(May 2, 2016 9:11 AM CDT) Last week in Milwaukee, a 2-year-old fatally shot his mom from the back seat of their car. But where a story like this may have once been a freakish anomaly, the Washington Post notes, it's now becoming increasingly and disturbingly commonplace. A Post analysis of news reports finds 23 shootings by 1-, 2-, and 3-year-olds in the US since Jan. 1 (last year at this time there were 18) and seven just since April 20. Eighteen of the toddlers ended up shooting themselves, with nine of them succumbing to their injuries. The state with the highest number of toddlers pulling the trigger since January 2015 is Georgia (eight such incidents), followed by Texas and Missouri with seven each. Snopes even fleshed out a meme in December, sourced mainly from an October 2015 Post article, that claimed more Americans were killed by toddlers than by terrorists in 2015 (the site ultimately found this assertion to be true). Correlating these shootings to factors such as population or gun-storage laws isn't so simple, the Post notes. The people-dense states of New York and California, for instance, only saw a combined three toddler shootings since January 2015, while Chicago's high gun-violence rate didn't translate into any reported incidents. The paper speculates that cultural factors may cause some areas to have higher numbers of incidents, but it concedes that at this point, figuring out what areas are more prone is still a guessing game, hampered by Congress' stymieing of gun research. See what your state's count is at the Post.
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(May 25, 2012 6:35 AM CDT) The deaths of four people in a Mount Everest traffic jam last weekend haven't stopped a new crowd from pushing toward the peak. More than 150 people plan to attempt to reach the top this weekend, and already today, a number of climbers have made it, an official tells the AP. The AP notes that there have been no reports of trouble thus far, and weather conditions continue to be favorable. This is the last chance for climbers to attempt to reach the summit. If they can't, then there is not going to be another opportunity this season, the official notes. The climbing season normally runs from late March to the first week in June, but this year the season's first clear conditions were only last weekend.
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(Apr 26, 2018 6:45 PM CDT) Human Rights Watch is calling on Saudi Arabia to fix its notoriously unfair criminal justice system after revealing that over the past four months, 48 people have been executed in the country. Half of those people were put to death over non-violent drug charges, the group says. Rights experts are also concerned that, as HRW says in a statement, Saudi Arabia's justice system doesn't provide for fair trials. Capital punishment in Saudi Arabia is carried out via beheading, the Guardian reports. The country has executed almost 600 people since 2014, and more than a third of those were drug cases. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman recently suggested the country may change the penalty for certain crimes other than murder to life in prison rather than execution.
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(Apr 7, 2018 6:00 AM CDT) Tragedy in Western Canada: A bus carrying a junior hockey team collided with a semi-trailer on Friday evening, leaving 14 dead and the remaining 14 injured, three of them critically. The Humboldt Broncos of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League were traveling to the town of Nipawin for a playoff game when the semi T-boned the bus, the AP reports. It's a horrible accident, my God, says the president of the Nipawin Hawks. It's very, very bad. Rescue efforts continued into the evening as air ambulances took survivors to regional hospitals and a crane was seen lifting the bus, the Globe and Mail and Saskatoon Star-Phoenix report. Meanwhile people gathered in a hockey arena in Humboldt, where sobs broke out as phone calls came in with news about loved ones and friends. Others gathered at the Apostolic Church in Nipawin to await news: Some of the families have gotten information and have gone to be with their kids, says the church pastor. Some of them are waiting to hear if their kids are alive. As condolences came in from politicians, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, memories were kindled of a Saskatchewan bus crash that killed four members of the Swift Current Broncos in 1986. It's disbelief. It's shock, says the Humboldt Broncos president of the Friday crash. The deepest grief that you can ever imagine.
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(Mar 11, 2018 6:33 AM CDT) President Trump seems pretty serious about a second term: On the heels of announcing his 2020 reelection campaign manager, he unveiled his 2020 campaign slogan, and no, we won't be making America great again, reports CNN. Rather, Our new slogan when we start running in, can you believe it, two years from now, is going to be 'Keep America Great' exclamation point, Trump told a rally in Pennsylvania. We can't say 'Make America Great Again' because I already did that, he added, per the Hill. He also took a shot at NBC's Chuck Todd, notes Fox News, calling him a sleeping son of a b----. Trump was stumping for GOP House candidate Rick Saccone.
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(Mar 14, 2009 4:17 PM CDT) The oil spill that's polluting beaches along the northeast coast of Australia is 10 times worse than originally thought, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. Officials now say that about 253 tons of oil leaked from a Hong Kong ship on Wednesday, damaging dozens of beaches that span 37 miles in what has been declared a disaster area, BBC says. Today workers began the clean-up effort, which could last a month and cost the ship's owners more than $1 million. We're devastated, said a resident. Others expressed concern for the area's marine life and one official blasted the government for getting caught short. Meanwhile, 661 tons of fertilizer lost by the ship remains missing. That's a big worry, said one business owner.
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(Jul 21, 2016 3:24 PM CDT) It's official: Fox News reports that Roger Ailes has resigned from his role as CEO of the network, effective immediately. Rupert Murdoch will become acting CEO, and will also assume Ailes' former role as chairman of Fox News and Fox Business Network. Roger Ailes has made a remarkable contribution to our company and our country, Murdoch says in a statement. Roger shared my vision of a great and independent television organization and executed it brilliantly over 20 great years. The news comes amid an alleged sexual harassment scandal for Ailes. Earlier Thursday, it was reported that Ailes would take a $60 million payout to leave. Murdoch's sons, Lachlan and James (the executive chairman and CEO, respectively, of 21st Century Fox) also sang Ailes' praises in the statement: We join our father in recognizing Roger's remarkable contributions to our company. Our talented Fox News and Fox Business colleagues, up and down the organization and on both sides of the camera, have built something that continues to redefine the cable news experience for millions of viewers. We are enormously proud of their accomplishments. But rumor has it all three Murdochs wanted Ailes out.
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(Apr 21, 2009 4:21 PM CDT) Yahoo says its slump worsened in the first quarter as the recession made it more difficult to sell the ads that generate most of its profits. The company says it will cut 600 to 700 jobs, or about 5 percent of its work force. Yahoo says it earned $118 million, or 8 cents per share, during the first three months of the year. That represents a 78 percent drop from net income of $537 million, or 37 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Yahoo is not immune to the ongoing economic downturn, Yahoo chief Carol Bartz said in a statement.
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(Jun 13, 2014 12:04 PM CDT) A woman who was raped in Columbus, Ohio, said the 911 dispatcher she called after her attack had zero sympathy after the victim got this response during her call: Ma'am, you're going to have to quit crying so I can get the information from you. The victim was staying with a friend at a sorority house near Ohio State University last Sunday when she woke up with a gun to her head around 4am; the man holding it allegedly forced her to perform sex acts on him. After the alleged assault, he left with some stolen cash and an iPhone and the victim called 911, reports ABC News. Unfortunately, she didn't have the address, and hoped the dispatcher could figure it out by locating her phone. No. We can't. That's why I need to know where you are, the dispatcher reportedly said. The victim also didn't know what door the attacker came in. The dispatcher's response? Well, they're not going to be able to find him with the information that you've given. At this point, the victim lost it, telling the dispatcher, The kind of sympathy you have is zero. Since the suspect was arrested--30-year-old Michael Callaghan has been charged with rape and burglary--the dispatcher's supervisor won't reprimand the employee, but the call will be reviewed. (Last year, a 911 operator came under fire for laughing when a caller said his girlfriend was on fire.)
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(Mar 4, 2019 6:30 PM) A missing 11-year-old girl was found dead in Alabama on Saturday, and on Monday, a 33-year-old Collinsville man was charged with murder in the case. Per DeKalb County Sheriff Nick Welden, the body of Amberly Barnett, who'd been strangled, was found in the woods behind the home of Christopher Wayne Madison, just over 12 hours after she'd vanished Friday night from an aunt's house, CNN reports. Jail records cited by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution note that Madison had been booked Saturday night on drug charges, with the murder charge tacked on Monday. Welden, who says the investigation into Amberly's death is ongoing, is keeping relatively mum on Madison, who's being held without bond. The road to justice for this sweet, innocent little girl is too important to release anything to jeopardize this investigation, Welden says in a release.
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(May 21, 2019 7:47 AM CDT) Dear everyone who's ever climbed Mount Everest: Big deal. That may be exactly what Kami Rita Sherpa is thinking after extending his latest record on the mega-mountain, reaching the peak for the 24th time on Tuesday, per the BBC. Not only that, but the 49-year-old had just ascended Everest for the 23rd time on May 15--less than a week ago. A Nepal Department of Tourism rep confirmed Tuesday's climb to NBC News. Rita, who started climbing in 1994, somewhat shrugs off his place in the record books. I actually never knew that you could make a record, he told the BBC before his 23rd summit. Had I known, I would have made a lot more summits earlier. Three other climbers are on Rita's heels, with 21 ascents each, but two of them have already retired from mountaineering. Rita says he has no plans to retire anytime soon-- I can keep going until I am 60 years old; with oxygen it's no big deal --though NBC and Reuters note his goal is 25 Everest ascents before he hangs up his crampons. Mountain climbing runs in the family for Rita: His father was one of the first Sherpas to start helping people conquer Everest.
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(NoneDate) Usually prisoners get in trouble for breaking out of jail, but not Sylvester Jiles. He was sentenced to 15 years for breaking back in. The 25-year-old Florida man was put on seven years probation after being convicted of manslaughter, and was released from the Brevard County Detention Center. However, once out on the street, Jiles was so scared of reprisal from the victim's family, he begged the facility to take him back. They told him no and advised him to file a police report. Rebuffed, Jiles tried to force his way in, but managed to scale only one of two barbed wire fences, suffering deep cuts in the process. In the end, a judge sentenced him to the maximum of 15 years for the attempted break-in. Read the full article.
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(Sep 13, 2013 6:05 AM CDT) A third person has died as floods continue to ravage northern Colorado, driving some 4,000 people out of Boulder late yesterday. Rainfall in the city has obliterated a 73-year record, with 12.3 inches falling since Sept. 1--compared to 5.5 in September 1940. Floodwater is pouring from neighboring Boulder Canyon, Reuters reports. There's so much water coming out of the canyon, it has to go somewhere, and unfortunately it's coming into the city, says an official. The Denver Post shares these jarring numbers: Boulder Creek typically flows at between 100 and 300 cubic feet per second; it hit 4,500 cfs this week. Further, a rep for the US Geological Survey says there was just a 1% chance Boulder would see a storm like this in a year, meaning the storm is a proverbial 100-year flood, writes the Post. Nearby Longmont has seen 7,000 evacuated, while the National Guard brought supplies to the town of Lyons, which has been cut off from neighboring areas. Landlines and cellphones aren't working in Estes Park, where the only functioning way to communicate with the outside world is via ham radio. With rain likely to continue today, President Obama declared a state of emergency for the state last night, CNN reports.
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(Mar 14, 2011 1:32 PM CDT) The iPad 2 is still brand spankin' new to the market, but glitch reports are already coming in: Apple's latest darling may have a bleeding problem, Gizmodo reports. Check out the video in the gallery: Light shines oddly from the side of the machine, cutting through an image that's supposed to be all black. It's not yet known whether this is a general problem or just an issue in a few machines--but with blogs like Engadget also reporting the story, Apple may be in for a headache.
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(Jul 14, 2009 7:46 AM CDT) Barack Obama has found himself in the odd position of threatening to veto his own defense spending bill, after senators tacked on a last-minute amendment to spend $1.75 billion on seven F-22 fighter jets, Fox News reports. The jets are outdated, costly to fly, require frequent maintenance, and have never been used in Iraq or Afghanistan. But senators from states with F-22 plants are fighting for them. We do not need these planes, Obama told senators yesterday. Standing with him are Robert Gates, Adm. Michael Mullen, John McCain, and Carl Levin. Analysts say it would be unprecedented for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the defense secretary to recommend vetoing their own defense spending bill, but that's what Mullen and Gates are advocating.
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(May 16, 2016 1:14 PM CDT) Colombia's Defense Ministry has announced what it says is the country's biggest cocaine bust ever, with 17,500 pounds of coke seized from the nation's most notorious trafficking gang, CNN reports. The multiday operation targeted Clan Usuga, which has been described by the US Justice Department as Colombia's largest and most influential [criminal group]. Per the AP, the more than 8 tons of coke was taken from a banana plantation in the northwestern department of Antioquia, with at least 50 commandos swooping into the compound, backed up by choppers. The drugs were said to be found in an underground tank buried 8 feet deep, covered by wood and cement, RT.com reports. At least three people were arrested in the sting; the BBC reports three suspects escaped. The biggest seizure of drugs in history. A hit against criminals, President Juan Manuel Santos tweeted Sunday, per NBC News. The drugs, with an estimated value of $240 million, were reportedly being prepped for transfer to the Caribbean, then the US. Although Clan Usuga, also known as Los Urabenos, is heavily involved in the drug market, it's also faced accusations of extortion, illegal mining, forced disappearances, and murder. Security officials have nabbed about 6,700 gang members over the past five years, leaving about 2,000 active members today, per local police. The US State Department has offered a $5 million reward for info leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Dario Antonio Usaga David, one of the leaders of the gang. Colombia is said to produce about 487 tons of cocaine annually, per the United Nations. (Is this Colombian woman the DEA's new El Chapo?)
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(Feb 27, 2009 3:35 PM) The NFL free agency period began at midnight, and the Redskins quickly got down to business, agreeing to a 7-year, $100 million deal with defensive lineman Albert Haynesworth, the Washington Post reports. The former Tennessee Titan's contract includes an NFL-record $41 million in guaranteed money, the AP adds. He joins cornerback DeAngelo Hall, who re-signed with the 'Skins for $54 million over 6 years. In another high-profile transaction, the Vikings finally pried quarterback Sage Rosenfels loose from the Houston Texans, reportedly for an undisclosed draft pick. When they couldn't make a deal last year, Minnesota brought in Gus Frerotte, who was cut today. And the Browns dealt tight end Kellen Winslow to Tampa Bay. The onetime University of Miami star was plagued with medical and disciplinary problems in Cleveland but made the Pro Bowl in 2007.
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(Apr 29, 2008 5:26 AM CDT) The president of the oil-producing cartel OPEC has warned that the price of the black gold could spike as high as $200 a barrel. As crude hovered just below the $120 barrier, Chakib Khelil told an Algerian newspaper that disruptions in production in Britain and Nigeria, coupled with a weak dollar and investor speculation, will keep prices rising.
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(Dec 27, 2012 6:37 AM) Thirty years of dynamic growth in China has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, but the environmental damage has been brutal. The latest evidence: More than 80% of its coral reefs are gone, thanks to development, overfishing, and pollution, reports AFP. A new report calls the damage a grim picture of decline, degradation, and destruction. Adds the study's author: The window of opportunity to recover the reefs of the South China Sea is closing rapidly, given the state of degradation revealed. Around the South China Seas, home to 12,000 square miles of coral reefs, environmental damage has been made worse by competing claims of sovereignty to portions of the waters. On offshore atolls and archipelagos claimed by six countries in the South China Sea, coral cover has declined from an average of greater than 60% to around 20% within the past 10-15 years, said the report.
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(Jul 25, 2009 1:40 PM CDT) Andrew J. Hall, the man who runs Citi's shadowy energy-trading unit, is demanding the company pay him up to $100 million to honor a previously agreed-upon 2009 pay package, the Wall Street Journal reports. If Citi doesn't pay up, Hall could walk and sue, but paying could be a political and PR nightmare, raising the ire of the government's new pay czar. Hall's not your typical Wall Street suit. An avid art collector, he owns an almost 1,000-year-old castle in Germany and once tried to put an 80-foot concrete sculpture on his Connecticut lawn. He runs his secretive Phibro LLC unit from the site of a former Connecticut dairy farm. Phibro occasionally posts huge profits, and Hall is supposed to be paid accordingly. But the Treasury pay czar says TARP recipients need to prove they're not rewarding risk-taking.
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(Jan 11, 2020 11:30 AM) Uneasy about the new decade? Well, it already has is own possible scam--about writing the date on checks. Media stories are warning people not to abbreviate the year 2020 as 20 in case crooks alter the number to look like an earlier or later year, Slate reports. CNN and USA Today are among news outlets quoting police departments and experts about the concern. This is very sound advice and should be considered when signing any legal or professional document, the East Millinocket Police Department in Maine said on Facebook. It could potentially save you some trouble down the road. Let's say a criminal finds an uncashed 2020 check with the date 1/1/20 ; that could be changed to 1/1/2021 and still be cashable next year. Or a shameless creditor given checks starting 1/1/20 could change one to start paying in 1/1/2019 and claim the debtor had missed an entire year of payments. Ira Rheingold, a consumer advocate, says there's far more worrisome fraud out there, but this one is getting airplay since people are bent out of shape because our numbers are turning over. Still, it looks like a valid issue--and the fix is easy. Write this: January 15, 2020, says USA Today. Not this: 1/15/20.
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(May 24, 2013 2:12 AM CDT) A powerful earthquake has hit Russia's Far East with slight tremors spreading westwards as far as Moscow. Marina Kolomiyets, spokeswoman for Obninsk's seismic station of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said today the epicenter was in the Sea of Okhotsk, east of the Russian coast and north of Japan. She said the quake registered 8.0 on the Richter scale. Emergency agencies in the Far East issued a tsunami warning for Sakhalin and the Kuril islands, but lifted it soon afterwards. Kolomiyets said the earthquake originated some 370 miles underground, adding that tremors so far down have the potential to spread quite far. Tremors were felt in central Moscow, prompting some people to evacuate from buildings. Russian news agencies also cited eyewitnesses reporting strong tremors across Siberia. (A 5.7-magnitude quake also shook northeastern California last night, and aftershocks as strong as 4.9 have struck this morning, but no injuries or serious damage have been reported.)
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(Oct 2, 2008 10:46 PM CDT) Shane Victorino's grand slam off a weary C.C. Sabathia blasted the Phillies to a 5-2 win over the Brewers and a 2-0 lead in the NL championship series, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports. The Brewers, who only managed three hits, will put Dave Bush on the mound tomorrow when Milwaukee sees its first postseason game since 1982.
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(Dec 9, 2008 4:14 AM) Five 9/11 suspects yesterday withdrew offers to plead guilty when a military judge warned them that confessions could foil their plans to get the death penalty. A death order may require a military jury conviction, he said. The men want the death penalty so they can die as martyrs. Are you saying if we plead guilty we will not be sentenced to death? asked self-described terror mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. We don't want to waste time. Now the trial is likely to extend beyond the Bush presidency and cause problems for Barack Obama, reports the Washington Post. The Obama team's intention to transfer the case to federal court could be held up if the pleas eventually come through. On the other hand, if a military court sentences the men to death, the president-elect may have to oversee executions decided in a controversial military tribunal with evidence partially obtained through waterboarding.
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(Aug 13, 2011 2:38 PM CDT) No matter how bad your night was, 20 tourists in Germany have you beat. They spent it crammed into a mountain cable car that got stuck at 330 feet. All were finally plucked to safety today--after 17 hours--by helicopters at Tegelberg Mountain, reports AP. The car got jammed yesterday near the famed Neuschwanstein Castle when two paragliders flew into the cables. (They're OK, too.) High winds prevented an immediate rescue. A second cable car also got stuck at a lower height, but those passengers were brought down with safety ropes yesterday.
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(Feb 21, 2020 3:01 AM) After a couple brought a baby with the umbilical cord still attached to a Missouri hospital last week, claiming they had found the newborn on their porch, police soon uncovered the disturbing truth. At their home in suburban St. Louis, police found an 11-year-old girl who had given birth in a bathtub, USA Today reports. Three of her relatives were arrested, including the couple who brought the baby to the hospital and 17-year-old Norvin L. Lopez-Cante. Police say the teen admitted sexually assaulting his relative more than 100 times, the St. Louis-Dispatch reports. The teen has been charged with incest, statutory rape, and statutory sodomy of a child, according to court documents. Lesbia Cante and Francisco Javier Gonzalez-Lopez have been charged with child endangerment. Cante has also been charged with failing to provide medical care for the birth. According to court documents, Gonzalez-Lopez told police that he didn't know that Lopez-Cante, his son, was raping the girl, or that she was pregnant, KSDK reports. Lopez-Cante told investigators that he had been having sex with the girl around twice a week. He also claimed not to have known she was pregnant.
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(May 17, 2011 7:37 PM CDT) Another name to add to the GOP mix for 2012: Rick Perry. The Texas governor publicly denies he's considering a run, but Real Clear Politics reports that he sees a vacuum and is waiting to be summoned into the race, possibly by late summer. Already, an aide is making discreet inquiries in Iowa. With Haley Barbour and Mike Huckabee out, and Newt Gingrich tripping over himself at the starting gate, Perry could indeed fill a conservative void, write Erin McPike and Scott Conroy. One potential snag: Sarah Palin. Both are larger-than-life figures to the tea party rank and file, but the race might not be big enough to hold both a Texas cowboy and a certain Mama Grizzly, they write. This isn't so far-fetched, observes Allahpundit at the conservative Hot Air blog, adding that Perry has both policy cred and personality. But he better not dawdle: The surest way for him and other grassroots favorites to discourage Palin from running is to jump in ASAP and start claiming votes (and political operatives in primary states) whom she'd need to boost her chances against the Romney/Pawlenty/Daniels centrists.
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(Feb 1, 2011 9:21 AM) On Christmas Day 2009, Robert Park crossed into North Korea, shouting South Korea and America love you. After spending 43 days in detention, he was released. That was one year ago, but his ordeal is far from over, reports the Washington Post. The Christian missionary says he lost his mental health in the country: He stutters. Prays compulsively. Hasn't gotten a haircut, for fear of being touched. Has tried to commit suicide. Believes North Korean agents will kill him. But still Park, who says he was tortured and sexually abused while imprisoned, chose to leave a psychiatric hospital in Tucson and moved to Seoul, where he speaks about North Korean issues in as many churches as he can. The Post reports on good days, Park is so articulate that his friends think he'll one day be able to testify before Congress. He presents slideshows filled with photos of malnourished children, and illustrations of firing squads. He uses the word genocide. But he does not want others to do as he did. Says Park, I just hoped that this could galvanize people to action. Because this is a society that needs change now. Honestly this is my only reason to live--to support the North Korean people.
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(Feb 22, 2016 9:09 AM) Even 106-year-olds dance for joy. Need proof? You've got it thanks to a White House video shared on Twitter on Sunday. It shows centenarian Virginia McLaurin busting a move while meeting President and Michelle Obama at the White House for Black History Month, reports Us Weekly. It's an honor, it's an honor, she told the president, before rushing across the Blue Room to meet Michelle Obama, forcing the president to tell her to slow down. I want to be like you when I grow up, the first lady joked to McLaurin, before joining her for an impromtu dance party. The first lady held McLaurin's hand while the president held her cane.
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(Feb 10, 2011 4:44 AM) Rumor in the tech world has it that Steve Jobs will be bringing out as many tablets as Moses this year. Apple hasn't even admitted that the iPad 2 exists--although plenty of details have been leaked--but the iPad 3 could well be on its way already this fall, according to TechCrunch. Sources say that the iPad 2 will be available within weeks, to be followed by Apple's fall surprise --a third version of the tablet, likely incorporating the iPhone 4's retina-like display. Apple is known for sticking fairly rigidly to product development cycles, notes the Huffington Post, so why bring out two iPad models within 6 months? It could be an attempt to outflank HP's upcoming TouchPad tablet, speculates John Gruber at Daring Fireball. If my theory is right, they're not only going to be months behind the iPad 2, but if they slip until late summer, they might bump up against the release of the iPad 3, he writes.
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(Apr 3, 2012 9:41 AM CDT) Scientists believe they've uncovered the earliest known evidence of human fire usage. Charred bones and plant ash sediment found in Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa suggest that Homo erectus was playing with fire a whopping 1 million years ago, more than twice as far back as previous evidence had indicated, according to a study published yesterday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Indeed, these early humans may even have been cooking. There is convincing evidence that mankind had fire 400,000 years ago, the LA Times explains, but scientists are divided on how much earlier it struck its first sparks. To determine that these newly found bone fragments had indeed been burned, scientists examined them under infrared light to examine their mineral structure. Since the bones were deep within the cave, they were likely not burned by some accidental wildfire, though researchers admit they didn't find a smoking gun like a hearth.
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(Dec 9, 2009 9:57 AM) Just when it seemed Nicolas Cage couldn't possibly get more broke than he already is, his ex is suing him for fraud and breach of contract--and wants $13 million. Christina Fulton says Nicolas Cage gave her a Los Angeles home years ago in exchange for raising son Weston, now 18--but she finally figured out the house wasn't in her name in September, when Cage allegedly gave her 60 days to vacate the premises. Fulton, who blames her $1.2 million in debt on Cage's financial fiasco, also claims he failed to pay credit card bills he agreed to cover, and that one of his staffers racked up fraudulent charges on said credit card. This lawsuit is ridiculous and absurd, Cage's lawyer tells People, adding that the actor gave Fulton approximately $3 million every year for many years.
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(Dec 17, 2012 8:11 AM) The world can only hope this means no more bunga bunga parties: Silvio Berlusconi is getting married--to a woman almost 50 years his junior no less, the Independent reports. Finally I feel less lonely. I am engaged to a Neapolitan, it's official, said Italy's former PM, 76, on a talk show yesterday. Francesca Pascale, 27, has very solid values, he said, and is beautiful on the outside and even more beautiful on the inside. Berlusconi added that his daughter Marina, 46, appreciates her and loves her very much. The Telegraph last week profiled Pascale, calling her Berlusconi's new girlfriend, though acknowledging there had been rumors of a relationship for months. Pascale, a former shop assistant, also served as provincial councilor in Berlusconi's political party until July. Bizarrely, she helped found a Berlusconi support group called Silvio, we miss you. And she has said in the past that her life revolves around her family, politics, and the former prime minister. In political news, support for a possible Berlusconi re-election bid is dropping.
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(Jul 25, 2009 12:50 PM CDT) Harry Patch, the last British man to survive World War I's trenches, has died at age 111, the BBC reports. He was the oldest man in Europe, and the third oldest in the world. I had the honor of meeting Harry, and I share his family's grief at the passing of a great man, Gordon Brown said. The noblest of generations has left us, but they will never be forgotten. Patch, a plumber by trade, served as a machine gunner. A friend described him as an extremely modest, dignified gentleman, with a slightly wicked sense of humor. His passing comes a week after Navy vet Henry Allingham's death at age 113. There are now three certified surviving WWI vets: a Canadian, and American, and a British seaman.
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(Oct 12, 2012 11:42 AM CDT) Word has it a smaller iPad will debut at an Apple event on Oct. 23--though, to be fair, word has previously been wrong. This time, however, AllThingsD sounds pretty sure about it. The invite-only event, set for three days before Microsoft's Surface tablet hits stores, will take place on a Tuesday, unlike most Apple launches, which occur on Wednesdays. The so-called iPad mini will have a 7.85-inch liquid crystal display, a smaller Lightning connector, and is likely to be thinner than the regular iPad, according to the report. The Atlantic Wire, which has a link to photos, notes that it may be WiFi-only.
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(Jul 3, 2019 7:21 AM CDT) The 90th birthday celebration for former Philippines first lady Imelda Marcos wasn't much of a party for more than 260 people hospitalized with suspected food poisoning. Rice, boiled eggs, and chicken Adobo was prepared for 2,500 well-wishers at a sports complex in Manila on Wednesday before dozens reported vomiting, diarrhea, and dizziness, reports Reuters. CNN reports some fell ill after drinking bottled water distributed at the event. Some 261 people in all were rushed to nine hospitals. Marcos--the wife of late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos who is appealing corruption convictions stemming from illegal bank transfers in the 1970s--wasn't affected. The food may have been spoiled, but we remain solid, Marcos' daughter, Imee Marcos, told partygoers following the mayhem, per Reuters. The Washington Post reports the party continued with a concert that media were unable to attend. Marcos' son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., later apologized in a statement. We have reached out to those affected and are taking care of them, he said. The acting head of the Philippine National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said the Food and Drug Administration would test the meal served, with results expected in a few days, per CNN.
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(Jun 10, 2018 6:03 AM CDT) Amid the inevitable landslide of photos that emerges from any G7 summit, there's one in particular from the latest contentious such event that's raising some eyebrows, and it comes courtesy of the German chancellor's official Instagram account. In it, Angela Merkel sternly stares down President Trump as world leaders including Emmanuel Macron and Shinzo Abe look on. If a picture is worth 1,000 words, Angela Merkel has some thoughts, muses USA Today, while the Washington Post notes the stark difference between this photo and the posed photos released by the White House. The disparity prompted some to wonder: Was Merkel--or someone on her staff--trolling the U.S. president? Though the photo might appear to summarize the tense summit, the AP notes that another photo of the leaders from the same meeting suggests a much more relaxed interaction.
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(May 3, 2016 1:23 PM CDT) There was champagne, there was celebrating, there was ... probably a lot of noise as some very expensive steel and rubber smashed into a tree. A man in Essex, England, appeared terribly excited to take delivery of his new $313,000 McLaren 650S sports car (a supercar that Jalopnik notes can hit 100mph in under six seconds) last week, and neighbors spotted him downing some bubbly to commemorate the occasion, the Telegraph reports. But a mere 10 minutes later (10 minutes!), the car was reduced to a mangled lump of carbon-fibre and metal, as the paper puts it. Police don't know yet whether the champagne-chugging man who welcomed the car was behind the wheel or if someone else smashed up his luxury purchase. (Rowan Atkinson, aka Mr. Bean, once had a close call in a McLaren.
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(Dec 19, 2017 5:36 AM) The Amtrak train that derailed in Washington state Monday morning, killing at least three people, was speeding, officials say, and not by a trivial amount: The train was going 80mph in a zone where the limit was 30mph when it came off the tracks on an overpass between Tacoma and Olympia, spilling cars onto Interstate 5, National Transportation Safety Board member Bella Dinh-Zarr said Monday night. She said it was too early to tell why the train, which was making its first run on a new route, was going so fast, the AP reports. Washington state transportation department spokeswoman Barbara LaBoe says the train was supposed to slow down dramatically as it entered the curve, and speed-limit warnings were posted two miles ahead of the zone as well as just before it, reports the Seattle Times. Amtrak President Richard Anderson says positive train control, a system that can slow down speeding trains, was not in use on the stretch of track where the accident occurred. More than 70 people were injured in the crash, at least 10 of them seriously, authorities say. It's not clear yet whether the three people killed were motorists or people from the train, which carried 80 passengers, five crew members, and a technician, the Oregonian reports. State police say 19 uninjured people from the train were reunited with their families. President Trump tweeted that the accident showed why his infrastructure plan must be approved quickly, though the New York Times notes that the accident happened on brand new tracks that were part of a state-funded infrastructure investment program.
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(Jul 15, 2014 3:19 PM CDT) The F-35 fighter jet is back in the air, with limitations. The military's entire 97-plane fleet was grounded earlier this month following a June 23 engine fire. As the New York Times reports, the investigation thus far hasn't uncovered a design flaw. The apparent problem was a turbine blade in the engine whose excessive rubbing led to friction that broke a fan blade and started the fire; no other plane's turbine blades were found to have a similar issue. The jet has now been given a limited flight clearance with an engine inspection regimen and restrictions on its flights, but that clearance won't allow it to make its international debut before would-be buyers at the Farnborough International Airshow this week. The Times says the potential no-show has been the talk of the airshow, which started yesterday in Southern England, with a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society in London calling it a huge embarrassment. The Pentagon's press secretary, Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, today said it was a difficult decision to cancel the appearance, but explained that a number of restrictions essentially prohibit the F-35 from crossing the Atlantic. Among them: After a maximum of three hours of flight the front fan section of the engine must be inspected, he said per the AP.
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(Jul 11, 2011 5:47 AM CDT) The numbers are getting worse: 41 people, including five children, are dead, with more than 80 still missing after an overpacked cruise ship sank on the Volga River in Russia yesterday afternoon. An official now says the Bulgaria was carrying 208 people--far more than the 120 it was licensed to hold, the AP reports. The cause of the sinking remains unclear, but survivors say a wave hit the deck as the boat leaned into a turn; the ship then sank within eight minutes in 65-foot deep water, says an official. Local investigators say the ship was listing as the voyage began, possibly due to unemptied sewage tanks, and that the port engine was malfunctioning, according to Russia's state news agency. Some 80 Russians have been rescued as searchers continue to work.
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(Apr 11, 2014 10:08 AM CDT) Chances are that you have heard the wisdom that it takes 21 days to form a new habit. It's a comforting thought. Who wouldn't like the idea of changing your life in just three weeks? asks James Clear at the Huffington Post. Unfortunately, it's also just not true. Clear traces the history of the myth back to a 1960 book by plastic surgeon Maxwell Maltz, who observed that it tended to take patients at least 21 days to adjust to their new faces and other bodily changes--the key words being at least. Over time, those words fell away and 21 days gained fame as the hard-and-fast rule. So how long does it really take? Clear dug up a 2009 study in which researchers followed 96 people as they tried to adopt new habits (example: drinking a bottle of water with lunch). The results? Subjects reported behaviors becoming automatic in an average of 66 days. For some it took as little as 18, but for others it stretched as long as 254. Bottom line: Building habits takes time. All the '21 Days' hype can make it really easy to think, 'Oh, I'll just do this and it'll be done,' Clear writes. But habits are a process, not an event.
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(Jan 31, 2019 6:51 PM) It turns out you can change your fingerprints, but it sounds painful. A Spanish fugitive dodged arrest for 15 years by cutting and burning the skin of his fingertips, then replacing it with micro-implants, the Guardian reports. The man, who was not named by police, was arrested Tuesday on drug trafficking charges in Getafe, a city near Madrid. He'd used very sophisticated methods to alter the fingerprints of both hands so that he couldn't be identified, a police spokesman said. He used skin implants to change the shape of his prints so that the scars beneath couldn't be detected. The process took place over several years. The fugitive evidently had other, less unusual tricks up his sleeve as well. Police said he had used false documents in the name of a Peruvian citizen to travel around the world and also posed as a Croatian citizen. He had also had a hair transplant to avoid being recognized, said the police spokesman. In the US, the FBI has previously warned police agencies that suspects could be trying to change their prints or at least avoid a clear match, again by cutting or burning their fingertips. (Three decades after a brutal killing, a fingerprint led to an arrest.)
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(Dec 15, 2010 1:01 PM) President Obama's compromise tax deal with Republicans--a package of cuts that would add nearly a trillion dollars to the US debt--won approval in the Senate today in a 81-19 vote. The measure still faces stiff opposition in the House where Democrats see it as overgenerous to the wealthy. The House could consider it tomorrow. Despite strong criticism from fellow Democrats, Obama has made passage of the bill a key year-end priority, calling it essential for the economy as it struggles to recover from the worst recession in decades. House Democrats are fuming over extended benefits to the wealthy, but even critics expect the package to pass, as is. There's a political reality here, says a New Jersey Dem. We can jump up and down all we want about the higher end estate taxes, (but) the Senate isn't going to change it. Obama needs to get the tax measure out of the way to get to a Senate vote on the New START treaty.
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(May 7, 2013 8:22 AM CDT) You might recognize some names in the obituary published yesterday for Margaret Ruth Groening, who died last month at age 94: She was married to Homer and had two daughters named Lisa and Maggie ... plus a son named Matt, of Simpsons fame. Yes, Margaret Groening was the inspiration for Marge Simpson, and here's a sweet line from her obituary about why she chose Homer Groening for her husband: He made her laugh the most. Groening also had a third daughter, Patty, and a second son, Mark. Groening never actually went by Marge, the Oregonian notes, but many equated her with the TV mom nonetheless. As one commenter wrote to Matt in the online obituary guest book, Your mom became everyone's mom. The Simpsons creator has said more than once that the characters were named after his family; he even gave one character, Chief Wiggum, his mom's maiden name.
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(May 10, 2013 12:44 PM CDT) One of the separate storylines that emerged after the Boston bombings is that police were looking at Tamerlan Tsarnaev as a possible suspect in a grisly triple-murder involving one of his old boxing friends in 2011. (On Sept. 11 of that year, as a matter of fact.) So how goes the case? ABC News reports that both Tamerlan and Dzhokhar are now potential suspects, based on unspecified forensic hits cited by its anonymous sources. Cell phones records also suggest the brothers were in the vicinity the day of the murder. Definitive DNA testing is apparently still under way, however, and the rest of the case amounts to a mishmash of admittedly thin circumstantial evidence: Friends thought Tamerlan was acting strange after the murder of his friend, for instance. One other tenuous link: The brothers may have worked as deliverymen for the pizzeria where the victims ordered their last meal (the employee who tried to deliver the order that night says no one answered the door). The store denies it, but acquaintances of the brothers remember differently. Investigators took a bin from the store nine days after the marathon bombing when a driver noticed it contained discarded fireworks; the gunpowder had been removed. Whether it all ties together will apparently take some time to figure out.
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(Apr 28, 2019 4:00 PM CDT) Former senator Richard Lugar, a Republican who worked to alert Americans about the threat of terrorism years before 9/11, died Sunday at age 87 at a hospital in Virginia. He was being treated for a rare neurological disorder called chronic inflammatory demylinating polyneuropathy, the AP reports. Indiana's longest-serving senator helped start a program that destroyed thousands of former Soviet nuclear and chemical weapons after the Cold War ended--then warned during a short-lived 1996 run for president about the danger of such devices falling into the hands of terrorists. Every stockpile represents a theft opportunity for terrorists and a temptation for security personnel who might seek to profit by selling weapons on the black market, Lugar said in 2005. We do not want the question posed the day after an attack on an American military base.
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(May 31, 2016 1:11 AM CDT) Wildlife officials in Thailand have begun removing some of the 137 tigers held at a Buddhist temple following accusations that the monks were involved in illegal breeding and trafficking of the animals. The director of Thailand's Wildlife Conservation Office, Teunjai Noochdumrong, says three tigers were tranquilized and transported Monday in an operation involving about 1,000 state personnel that's expected to continue for a week. The animals will be taken to three government animal refuges elsewhere in Thailand. The temple, a popular money-earning tourist attraction in the western province of Kanchanaburi, has been criticized by animal rights activists because of allegations it's not properly set up to care for the animals and flouted regulations, the AP report The monks resisted previous efforts to take away the tigers, and they impeded the effort again on Monday morning despite the massive show of force by the authorities. It was mayhem, Noochdumrong tells CNN. When our vet team arrived, there were tigers roaming around everywhere, he says. Looks like the temple intentionally let these tigers out, trying to obstruct our work. The monks relented after police obtained a court order. More than 300 officials remained at the temple overnight to ensure the tigers remained safe. (This tiger was found roaming a residential neighborhood in Texas.)
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(Dec 4, 2009 10:00 PM) An explosion and fire caused by fireworks killed more than 100 and injured at least 140 overnight at a nightclub in Russia's sixth-largest city. The Lame Horse in Perm was celebrating its eighth anniversary, one official says, and there were fireworks launched at the scene, and one hit the plastic ceiling, setting all ablaze. People panicked and succumbed to burns, general crush and gas poisoning.
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(Jul 19, 2011 6:01 PM CDT) The hackers of Anonymous are apparently a far-flung group. The Justice Department today said it arrested 14 of them across nine states and the District of Columbia, reports the AP. They are accused of taking part in last year's attack on PayPal, which took place after the website suspended accounts from WikiLeaks. Seven other people--two in the US and five in Europe--also were charged with cybercrimes in the bust, notes CNN.
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(Nov 25, 2013 10:37 AM) Virginia has declared a winner in the state's tightest election ever: Democrat Mark Herring has been certified as the next state attorney general. But the fight may not be over: The Washington Post expects a recount. More than 2 million voted in the election, but Herring beat fellow state senator Mark Obenshain by just 165 votes. Despite a unanimous vote by the state Board of Elections to certify Herring the winner, the board's chair said he was concerned about the integrity of the data. Success for Herring, the Post notes, would give Democrats all three statewide office wins.
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(Jan 25, 2011 7:03 AM) Its menus say beef, but its packaging cites meat filling: Taco Bell has been hit with a class-action suit over false advertising, WTOL-11 reports. Chock full of extenders and other non-meat items, the chain's filling has no right to call itself beef, claims the Alabama firm's suit. Taco Bell will vigorously defend itself, says a rep: We deny our advertising is misleading in any way. (He also, amusingly enough, refers to the Bell's menu as Mexican inspired food. The product shipped to Taco Bell stores is labeled Taco Bell Meat Filling, but customers--not surprisingly--don't see that. According the USDA, beef is flesh of cattle ... not water, Isolated Oat Product, maltodrextrin, or anti-dusting agent, all of which the filling contains, notes the lawsuit. Even to be called taco filling, the suit argues, the USDA says a product must contain at least 40% meat ... and Taco Bell's product is only 36%. (Click to find out just how many of us eat at Taco Bell each week.)
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(Oct 23, 2010 1:30 PM CDT) Hollywood's million-dollar question: Who will play the tattoo artist in Thailand in the Hangover 2 now that Mel Gibson got booted from role? Liam Neeson, reports Variety. A-Team co-star/Hangover hunk Bradley Cooper invited him to take the role, says Neeson. I just got a call to do a one day shoot on Hangover 2 as a tattooist in Thailand, and that's all I know about it. I just laughed my leg off when I saw The Hangover, I was shooting in Berlin earlier this year and rented it on the hotel TV. Hollywood's second million-dollar question: Was Zach Galifianakis behind Mel's firing? Click here to find out.
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(Oct 1, 2015 5:28 PM CDT) Hackers have stolen personal information belonging to about 15 million T-Mobile wireless customers, including Social Security numbers, home addresses, birthdates, and other personal information. The hackers got the information from credit reporting agency Experian, which T-Mobile uses to check the credit of its customers. Experian said T-Mobile customers who applied for wireless service between Sept. 1, 2013 and Sept. 16, 2015 may have had their information stolen. Experian said it immediately notified law enforcement authorities after discovering the hack and that there is no evidence to-date that the data has been used inappropriately. The companies said that payment card and banking information was not affected. T-Mobile customers can sign up for two free years of credit monitoring services via a service owned by Experian at this link. The company said that affected customers should remain vigilant against identity theft and watch for phishing email scams that ask for sensitive information such as bank account and Social Security numbers. I am incredibly angry about this data breach and we will institute a thorough review of our relationship with Experian, said T-Mobile US Inc. CEO John Legere in a statement.
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(Dec 6, 2016 12:05 AM) Fans of Joe Biden memes, rejoice: The vice president has hinted at a 2020 White House run--though he may have been less than 100% serious. After presiding over a Senate session Monday, CNN asked Biden if he plans to run for office again, and he said: Yeah, I am. I'm going to run in 2020. Asked what position he was going to run for, the six-term senator said: For president. What the hell, man. The AP notes that Biden, who will turn 78 in 2020, had a slight smile when he spoke, and he walked the remarks back a little when asked if he was joking. I'm not committing not to run. I'm not committing to anything, he said. I learned a long time ago, fate has a strange way of intervening. Biden, who ran for president in 1988 and 2008, had considered running for president this time around but decided against it because he was still dealing with the May 2015 death of son Beau Biden from cancer, Politico notes. Biden was in the Senate Monday for a vote on a bipartisan cancer treatment bill that will speed up drug approvals. The AP reports that lawmakers from both parties applauded and lined up to speak with an emotional Biden after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sought and received approval to rename part of the bill after Beau. Biden has known the cruel toll this disease can take. But he hasn't let it defeat him, McConnell said. The measure passed with an 85-13 vote.
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(Nov 21, 2016 3:26 PM) A tsunami warning has been issued after a 7.3 earthquake hit off of Fukushima, Japan, Monday, the AP reports. Per Reuters, residents have been advised to flee the Fukushima coast and a tsunami was expected within minutes. The story is developing.
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(Feb 15, 2017 1:04 PM) Two 13-year-old Indiana girls had Monday off from school and were dropped off at a popular hiking spot in Delphi, but didn't show up when it was time for them to be picked up--and on Tuesday, their bodies were found. On Wednesday, police officially identified the bodies as Liberty German and Abigail Williams, the AP reports. Police say that foul play is suspected, the Indianapolis Star reports; their deaths are being investigated as homicides. The girls were dropped off around 1pm Monday and were supposed to be picked up later by family members, who searched the area when the girls didn't meet them as planned. They were reported missing at 5:30pm, and search parties set out; the bodies were found around 12:15pm the next day near Deer Creek, a half-mile or so upstream from Monon High Bridge, an abandoned railroad truss that spans the creek, where the girls had been dropped off. The bridge is a popular hiking spot-- a lot of people go out there for a little hiking, a nice day in the woods, get a little exercise, a local tells the Lafayette Journal & Courier--and Heavy notes that, even before her daughter went missing, Abigail's mother had a picture of it as her Facebook cover photo. The last known photo of the girls is a picture of Abigail walking along the bridge, which has no guard rails, that Liberty posted to her Snapchat account around 2:07pm Monday, the Indy Channel reports. Per the Logansport Pharos-Tribune, police say they suspect foul play because of the nature of the bodies. The public information officer for the Indiana State Police says autopsies will be done Wednesday; authorities have not commented publicly on cause of death. The school district sent letters home with students Tuesday saying that counseling will be available.
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(Jul 23, 2018 4:48 PM CDT) A daredevil has made history as the first person to ever ski down the world's second highest peak. Polish climber Andrzej Bargiel recently ascended K2 on the border of China and Pakistan, reaching the summit on Sunday, Radio Poland reports. The 30-year-old then made history by skiing all the way back down. At 28,251 feet above sea level, K2 is about 777 feet shy of the top of Mt. Everest. Speaking to the folks at Red Bull, which sponsored the daring feat, Bargiel said he hit some roadblocks on the way to accomplishing his dream. Some problems appeared when I reached the peak and started to ski down. It was very cloudy and I had to wait for it to clear up at Base IV because the next phase of my downhill was going to be very difficult and technical on an extremely steep wall, he said. Sunday's was Bargiel's second attempt. His first, in 2017, was aborted due to dangerous conditions caused by high temperatures. Speaking after his successful run this time around, Bargiel jokingly referenced the earlier failure. I feel huge happiness and, to be honest ... I'm glad that I won't be coming here again, he said. Bargiel was accompanied on his ascent by a crack team of climbers that included his brother and several expert sherpas.
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(Jun 15, 2017 12:17 AM CDT) Gunmen posing as military forces were holding an unknown number of hostages inside a popular restaurant in Somalia's capital at dawn Thursday after an attack that began when a car bomb exploded at the gate, police say. The extremist group al-Shabab has claimed responsibility. At least 17 people, including foreigners, have been killed according to police and an ambulance driver. Two of the gunmen were shot dead and 10 hostages were rescued but five other attackers were thought to remain inside, cutting off electricity to complicate security forces' efforts to end the siege, Capt. Mohamed Hussein says. The roofs were blown off the Pizza House restaurant and nearby buildings from the powerful blasts. An ambulance driver with the Amin Ambulance service, Khalif Dahir, said early Thursday they had carried 17 bodies and 26 wounded people. Police said the dead included a Syrian man. Most of the victims were young men who had been entering the Pizza House when the vehicle exploded, Hussein says. The gunmen were dressed in military uniforms. They forced those fleeing the site to go inside the restaurant, witness Nur Yasin tells the AP.
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(Oct 24, 2014 6:45 AM CDT) San Diego police have named two suspects in a teen girl's cold-case murder, including a former San Diego Police Department criminologist. DNA evidence found in November 2012 led police to Ronald Clyde Tatro and Kevin Charles Brown--though as of Tuesday, both men are dead. Claire Hough, 14, was found strangled with sand pushed into her mouth at Torrey Pines State Beach on Aug. 24, 1984, the Los Angeles Times reports. One of her breasts had been cut off. Brown, who processed evidence for the force from 1982 to 2002 but was not assigned to any part of the murder investigation, knew he was a person of interest, FOX 5 reports. The 62-year-old was found dead in a state park on Tuesday, and his death has been ruled a suicide. Tatro was 67 when he died in a 2011 boating accident in Tennessee. Officers had been building a case against Brown over the last two years and were planning an arrest, NBC San Diego reports. I can only surmise that was part of the reason he killed himself, a police rep says. Authorities aren't saying what kind of DNA evidence led them to the suspects, how the two men knew each other, or their relationship to the victim. The Rhode Island teen had been visiting her grandparents at the time of her death; it's unclear why she went to the beach that night. Police continue to investigate a similar killing at the same beach in August 1978. The body of Barbara Nantais, 15, was found beaten and strangled, with one breast cut. Police say there's no evidence to link the murders. We are not treating them as related cases, a rep tells the AP. (A TV show helped bring about an arrest in a 1997 murder.)
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(Mar 10, 2009 11:16 AM CDT) The Dow surged more than 300 points this morning, as investors welcomed news from Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit that his bank had shown a profit the first two months of this year, and optimistic comments from Fed chairman Ben Bernanke. The Dow had risen 312 points by noon, led by Citigroup's 26% gain, the Wall Street Journal reports. Bank of America climbed 24%; struggling Alcoa was up 12%; General Electric jumped 15%; and even GM rose more than 11%. The S&P 500 was up 5.4% at noon, and the Nasdaq 5.7%, with tech stocks bouncing back from yesterday's trouncing, and Google topping $300.
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(Nov 19, 2009 2:58 AM) Duck and cover. Sarah Palin made only positive noises when asked about a possible run at the presidency with Glenn Beck as her running mate. I can envision a couple of different combinations if ever I were to consider running for anything in the future. But Glenn Beck I have great respect for. He's a hoot. And he's so bold -- I have to respect that, Palin told Newsmax. Don't panic just yet, counsels Joan Walsh in Salon. She will never be our president, Walsh insists. But I can't rule out her being the 2012 Republican nominee. When you look at the charisma-free roster of likely GOP candidates, it's easy to see Palin creaming them. As for Beck, Palin's praise is just chicken-fried red meat for her base, Walsh notes.
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(Oct 17, 2011 5:53 PM CDT) A record-breaking 50% of Americans now say it's OK to smoke up for recreational purposes, a new Gallup poll finds. Support broke down along political lines, with liberals 69% in favor and conservatives only 34%; moderates crossed the line at 57%. By region, only the South opposed legalizing marijuana, while Americans aged 18-29 approved (62%) and those over 65 did not (only 31% approved). Marijuana approval hit a previous Gallup-high of 46% last year after a long ride that started at 12% in 1969. Support hovered around the mid-20s into the mid-1990s, and then--after the era of I didn't inhale jokes--jumped past 30% in 2000 and 40% in 2009. A survey in that year found that nearly 17 million Americans over the age of 11 had used Mary Jane at least once a month before being surveyed.
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(Sep 18, 2013 1:12 PM CDT) Linda Martin and Wendy Norrie have been writing to each other for 55 years, ever since Norrie's fourth-grade teacher started a pen pal project in 1958. On Monday, they met for the first time. Norrie, who lives in Australia, mentioned in a recent letter to Martin that she was planning to take her first trip to the US and hoped they could visit. Martin responded by inviting Norrie to stay with her in Arizona for two weeks. The response I got just blew me away, Norrie tells the Arizona Republic. I was completely flabbergasted. For the first time, the women exchanged email addresses so they could make plans more quickly. All their previous communication had been via snail mail; as kids, they wrote every few months, as adults they exchanged annual Christmas letters and birthday gifts. I wasn't in it to make great history. It was just to create friendship with somebody on the other side of the world and compare lifestyles and that sort of thing, Norrie says. Both women said they were excited, and a little nervous, to meet. It was very emotional to us, says Martin, who plans to visit Australia in 2015. I cried, and she cried.
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(Jun 27, 2011 2:26 PM CDT) Turns out Rod Blagejevich was right that President Obama's old Senate seat was worth something: A whole bunch of jail time. A jury today convicted Blago on 17 of 20 charges after deliberating for nine days. Blagojevich showed little emotion after the verdicts were read, notes the Chicago Tribune, but turned simply to his wife and whispered, I love you. The former governor faced up to 350 years behind bars if convicted on all charges; however, sentencing guidelines would result in less time. The jury deadlocked on two charges and acquitted Blagojevich on one, but found him guilty of wire fraud, attempted extortion, bribery, and conspiracy, among others. His legal team will likely appeal.
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(Jun 21, 2012 4:35 PM CDT) Uganda plans to kick out 38 nongovernmental organizations over their alleged support for gay rights, say officials there. Some NGOs, under the pretext of providing social services, are receiving funds to promote homosexuality, its ethics minister says. We will ask them to step aside and stop pretending to work in human rights. The government holds that the as-yet-unnamed groups are trying to recruit kids into homosexuality, which is illegal in Uganda, CNN notes. The US is resolutely opposed to the bill, says a state department rep, who calls it inconsistent with Uganda's international human rights obligations and a bad, bad precedent in the neighborhood.
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(Nov 5, 2018 8:00 AM) Robert Young is the author of a best-selling book called The ph Miracle in which he argues that the real culprit behind cancer and other diseases is acidity in the body, and that much can be fixed with the right diet, per the San Diego Tribune. Putting that theory into practice, however, already has landed Young a jail sentence for practicing medicine without a licence--and last week it cost him $105 million in a civil suit, reports NBC San Diego. A former patient named Dawn Kali sued Young after she underwent his regimen of baking soda infusions and colonic therapy in the hope that it would cure her breast cancer and allow her to avoid chemo and radiation. Instead, her cancer grew, and she eventually turned to a medical oncologist. The mother of four, now with stage 4 cancer, accused Young of negligence, and a jury needed only about three hours to agree. I hope that this sends him the message that he will not be able to profit off of hurting other people, says Kali's attorney. The award--more than double what Kali asked for--includes $1 million for medical expenses, about $89 million for pain and suffering, and $15 million in punitive damages. It's totally outrageous, says Young, who was sentenced last year to nearly four years for practicing medicine illegally. He also says it is appalling that Kali got so much more than she sought, especially since she knew he was not a medical doctor. Kali's new doctor says she has between three and four years to live. Kali's advice to other patients: I think they need to be really leery of any alternative practitioner that is claiming they can cure your cancer. (A groundskeeper with cancer is getting nearly $80 million from the maker of Roundup.)
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(Oct 5, 2020 4:21 AM CDT) A Louisiana 4th-grader was suspended from school for six days after a teacher spotted what turned out to be a BB gun on his screen during a virtual class on Sept. 11. Now the 9-year-old's parents are suing, CNN reports. During a hearing last month, the school board found Ka'Mauri Harrison guilty of displaying a facsimile weapon while receiving virtual instruction from Woodmere Elementary School, per the lawsuit, which seeks at least $50,000 for mental pain, suffering, anguish and embarrassment, humiliation and loss of self-esteem, future counseling and tutoring and lost income. It also requests Ka'Mauri be allowed to make up the work he missed. Per NOLA, Ka'Mauri was taking a test in his bedroom when his brother came in and tripped over the gun, which was next to Ka'Mauri's desk. Ka'Mauri moved it to the other side, leaning it against the desk. The teacher, who could then see the gun's barrel on camera, attempted to get Ka'Mauri's attention but he had his volume down. He was then disconnected from the class. His mother called the school and was told the incident had been reported to the principal; her son was recommended for expulsion, though that did not come to pass. The school district has not commented on the case, but says teachers may employ reasonable disciplinary and corrective measures to maintain order. A lawyer for Ka'Mauri's family, who says Ka'Mauri's record now lists a weapons violation, says the teacher went too far in applying the school's on-campus weapons policy to a remote learning class. She also tells WDSU the district did not allow the family to appeal. The Louisiana AG's office investigated the incident and told the school last month that Ka'Mauri's constitutional rights afford him an appeal.
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(Dec 26, 2017 4:26 AM) Some 115 million years ago in what is now South Australia, a theropod dinosaur left a footprint that remained through the ages until this month, when somebody deliberately smashed it. Officials say they were disheartened to discover the vandalism at the famous Flat Rocks site in Victoria state. It looked like somebody had taken to it with either a hammer or a rock, and had broken off sections of the toes, Parks Victoria ranger Brian Martin tells the BBC. Martin says the vandals left freshly broken pieces of rock scattered around the tidal rock platform. The site, which dates from a time when Australia was still connected to Antarctica, is one of the only polar dinosaur sites ever discovered. The footprint was discovered in 2006, and officials say it was left uncovered so that visitors could have the thrill of standing where a meat-eating dinosaur stood millions of years ago. For someone to damage it intentionally, you'd have to have a rough idea of where it is because seaweed grows on the rock platform and it looks like a normal rock until you look closely and see the outline of the footprint, Martin tells the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Authorities say they may be able to restore the footprint to some degree, using the broken pieces of rock and a rubber mold taken by paleontologists in 2006. (Scientists in Alaska have discovered what they say is one of the world's great dinosaur track sites.)
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(Jun 27, 2010 11:12 AM CDT) Germany reached the World Cup quarterfinals today by beating England 4-1 in a match that will be remembered for the goal not awarded to Frank Lampard. Thomas Mueller finished two quick German counterattacks within four minutes in the second half to sink England's hopes of beating Germany at the World Cup for the first time since the 1966 final. Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski gave Germany a 2-0 lead before Matthew Upson pulled a goal back for England in the 37th minute. Lampard then had a legitimate goal not awarded in the 38th. The England midfielder later hit the crossbar in the 52nd.
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(Sep 7, 2018 7:30 AM CDT) A man accused of kicking a seagull that tried to eat his cheeseburger at a New Hampshire beach has been fined $124. Police investigated the report from a bystander at Hampton Beach earlier this summer, the AP reports. Per NH1, Nate Rancloes says he'd just returned from getting a cheeseburger and fries and was sitting on the sand when seagulls got to the burger. He says he spun around with his leg to shoo one away but struck the bird; he says it was a simple mistake and a one in a million bad luck kick. A witness backed up his story that the kick was accidental. There was no culpable mental state that occurred, New Hampshire Fish and Game Lt. Mike Eastman said. He didn't stomp on it. He hit the ... bird with his foot.
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(Jan 25, 2010 8:09 PM) The latest detail to trickle out about initiatives President Obama plans to serve up in Wednesday's State of the Union address is one aimed at cutting the $1.4 trillion federal budget deficit. Obama will announce a 3-year freeze on $447 billion in spending, a measure that could save $250 billion in the next decade. About 17% of the budget will be affected, the Wall Street Journal reports, with much discretionary spending untouched, including defense and entitlement programs like Social Security.
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(Jan 29, 2017 1:54 PM) Uber finds itself persona non grata this weekend, after it kept giving rides--and turned off surge pricing--at JFK Saturday as taxi drivers stopped work to protest President Trump's executive order on refugees and immigration. Its rival finds itself on the other end of the press stick: Lyft in a Sunday blog post calls Trump's move antithetical to both Lyft's and our nation's core values and says that it will not be silent. The ridesharing company is speaking with its wallet: The co-founders write that the company will donate $1 million to the American Civil Liberties Union over the next four years to defend our Constitution. Airbnb is taking a stand, too, with CEO Brian Chesky tweeting Saturday, Airbnb is providing free housing to refugees and anyone not allowed in the US. Stayed tuned for more, contact me if urgent need for housing. He elaborated in a statement picked up by CNBC: Airbnb is providing free housing to refugees and anyone else who needs it in the event they are denied the ability to board a US-bound flight and are not in your city/country of residence. We have 3 million homes, so we can definitely find people a place to stay.
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(Oct 12, 2010 1:30 AM CDT) Joan Sutherland, the soprano Luciano Pavarotti once called the voice of the century, has died at her home in Switzerland at age 83. The Australian-born singer--known as La Stupenda or The Stupendous One to opera audiences--became one of the most celebrated opera singers of all time thanks to her warm, vibrant sound and ability to sing evenly over an astonishing range, the AP notes. Sutherland's voice helped revitalize the school of early 19th-century Italian opera known as bel canto. Her magnificent voice, with its enormous range and power, and the interpretations she brought not only to standard repertoire operas but also to bel canto works that had nearly been forgotten, ensure a permanent place for her in the history of our art, said Spanish tenor Placido Domingo, who first worked with Sutherland when he made his US debut in 1961.
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(Oct 17, 2016 2:46 PM CDT) Some people might be backing off their support for Trump in the wake of the controversy surrounding his leaked 2005 comments about women, but not these 100 business leaders. In an open letter released by the Trump Organization, the business leaders--including PayPal founder Peter Thiel, who recently donated $1.25 million to Trump's campaign--explain that Trump's economic plan is, in their opinion, better than Hillary Clinton's, Fortune reports. The Trump plan cuts taxes, stops trade cheating, reduces regulations, unleashes America's powerful energy sector, and eliminates our growth-draining trade deficit, all while creating millions of jobs and trillions in additional income, they write. Clinton, on the other hand, will raise taxes, continue to increase the already oppressive regulatory burden on both consumers and businesses, stifle efforts to make our nation energy independent, and negotiate more bad trade deals that ship our jobs and factories offshore. The full letter is available on Trump's official website. The signers also include hedge fund manager Carl Icahn, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, Home Depot co-founder and former CEO Bernie Marcus, former Los Angeles Dodgers co-owner and president Jamie McCourt, and David Perdue, former Reebok and Dollar General CEO. Not all of Trump's business world donors signed the letter; Fortune notes that Renaissance Technologies co-founder Robert Mercer, Colony Capital's Tom Barrack, Cerebus Capital Management's Stephen Feinberg, and BP Capital's T. Boone Pickens are all missing. Earlier this month, a dozen business leaders wrote their own letter calling Trump bad for the economy because he's too reckless, Fox Business Network reports; those signers included Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and the former Kellogg Company CEO. As for Thiel, New York looks at why he's donating to Trump now, theorizing that the move could be a first-round investment in the cable channel many think Trump will launch if he loses the election.
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(Mar 19, 2012 6:23 PM CDT) TSA agents have already been caught patting down a 6-year-old and making a mom pump breast milk. But TSA's finest at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago recently achieved a new level of diligence by patting down a wheelchair-bound 3-year-old in a leg cast. A video of the pat down, posted on Huffington Post, shows the boy squirming in his wheelchair, holding back tears, and saying he wants his mommy. Look closely, and you'll even see a senior with a cane being taken into the same screening area to face TSA scrutiny.
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(May 8, 2015 3:01 AM CDT) Blue Bell Creameries could have done a lot more to prevent a deadly listeria outbreak, according to newly released Food and Drug Administration reports. The company knew about a serious listeria problem at one of its production plants years before an outbreak linked to the company's products killed three people, the FDA says. In what food safety attorney Bill Marler tells ABC are among the worst results he's seen in his career, inspections found listeria on surfaces at an Oklahoma plant five times in 2013, 10 times in 2014, and once in January this year. The FDA told the company it had failed to show that its cleaning and sanitizing program is effective, but Blue Bell failed to make major changes to procedures, the Houston Chronicle reports. Blue Bell halted operations at the plant last month before recalling all its products. The report also outlines cleaning problems at plants in Alabama and Texas, the Wall Street Journal reports. A Blue Bell spokesman tells ABC that the company thought our cleaning process took care of any problems, but in hindsight, it was not adequate, which is why we are currently conducting such a comprehensive re-evaluation of all our operations. The FDA report could lead to major lawsuits against the company, which says it will be months before its products are back on the market, the Chronicle reports. There's no question that Blue Bell's Oklahoma plant was out of control from a listeria perspective, Marler tells the Journal, adding that it appears Blue Bell did nothing about it.
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(Mar 12, 2008 10:05 AM CDT) A doctor accused of leaving a bloody trail of surgical mistakes from New York to Australia to Oregon, has been arrested in Portland, the AP reports. Jayant Patel, a US citizen, fled to Oregon in 2005 after an inquiry was launched into botched operations linked to 17 deaths at a Queensland hospital. Patel bungled surgeries with tragic results, said a court memo. Patel moved to Australia after being banned from surgery in New York and Oregon. He hid his past but quickly earned a reputation for incompetence so bad that nurses tried to hide patients from him, according to law enforcement authorities. Proceedings are now under way to have Patel extradited back to Australia, where the charges against him include manslaughter and causing grievous bodily harm. Patel could face three life sentences if convicted.
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(Jan 14, 2008 6:14 AM) The new owners of record company titan EMI are cleaning house, starting with the elimination of 2,000 jobs--a third of its workforce--in a restructuring that could also include dumping artists, reports the Wall Street Journal. The layoffs come as new owner, Terra Firma Capital, tries to rejuvenate the fourth-place company during an industry skid that saw album sales drop 15% last year. Rocker Robbie Williams has threatened to withhold his next album in protest, while his manager blasted executives as bean counters. Terra Firma is announcing plans tomorrow to centralize EMI's marketing department and trim spending. Artists aren't exempt, the Journal notes. Close to 30% of the company's 13,000 artists haven't yet released an album, and some of them could also be cut.
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(Aug 28, 2013 2:15 AM CDT) American police and intelligence agencies are by far the most eager to get their hands on the data of Facebook users, the company has revealed in its first detailed report on such requests. Facebook says that in the first half of this year, it received requests for information on around 38,000 users from 74 countries, with the US responsible for requests on between 20,000 and 21,000 users, Reuters reports. The company says it complied at least partially with around 80% of the requests. We fight many of these requests, pushing back when we find legal deficiencies and narrowing the scope of overly broad or vague requests, a Facebook spokesman says. The company granted 45 requests from Turkish agencies but it denies any of them were related to protest organizers, the AP reports. In other Facebook news, a lawsuit has been settled with an agreement to pay 614,000 Facebook users $15 each for using their information for advertising in its Sponsored Stories campaign, reports the Christian Science Monitor. The campaign used the images of around 150 million users but only those who entered a claim before May this year will get the payout.
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(Mar 20, 2016 2:32 PM CDT) Returned a few purchases on Amazon? Then take note of Greg Nelson, a computer programmer who saw his account canceled after he returned 37 of 343 items, the Guardian reports. I could understand if there were evidence that I had somehow tried to abuse the system, but I haven't, says Nelson. He claims the returns were all justified, but Amazon UK simply axed his account and deleted any remaining gift card balance. Customers who lose their account also lose access to Amazon Prime streaming services and downloading on Kindle. I find [Amazon's] actions in this situation totally egregious, adds Nelson, who questions whether the site can legally swipe a customer's unspent balance. Questioned by the Guardian, an Amazon spokesman said that in a tiny fraction of cases we are forced to close accounts where we identify extreme account abuse. So what constitutes extreme? Amazon UK allows customers to return items within 30 days but refuses to say how many returns are too many. Tech Walls advises customers to keep return rates at under 10%--a threshold that may explain Nelson's canceled account and those of two others (described in this tweet and this posting on Amazon). Making a new Amazon customer account, however, remains a simple task, says Inquisitr. A lot of individuals will just use a spouse or family member's account after their account is closed. (In other Amazon news, read about the company's unusual tactic for curbing warehouse theft.)
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(Feb 20, 2013 11:05 AM) Only in Norway: A primetime TV program featuring four hours of people chopping wood, then eight hours of that wood burning in a fireplace ran this month ... and 20% of the population watched some part of it. Not only that, but the program, called National Firewood Night, inspired quite a bit of controversy: We received about 60 text messages from people complaining about the stacking in the program, author Lars Mytting tells the New York Times. Fifty percent complained that the bark was facing up, and the rest complained that the bark was facing down. One thing that really divides Norway is bark. Mytting's best-selling book, Solid Wood: All About Chopping, Drying and Stacking Wood--and the Soul of Wood-Burning, inspired the program. Firewood is the foundation of our lives, explained the show's host; 1.2 million households in the country have fireplaces or wood stoves. And lest you think the wood-burning portion of the program was anything like a TV Yule Log, think again: The fire burned live, rather than on a repeating loop, and the wood was continually replenished (with help from viewers, who sent in recommendations for where new wood should be placed). I couldn't go to bed because I was so excited, said one viewer, who insisted she wasn't being ironic. Stephen Colbert had some fun with the program, joking that it destroyed the other top Norwegian shows like So You Think You Can Watch Paint Dry and The Amazing Glacier Race.
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(Jan 11, 2019 2:38 PM) Thousands of requests by men to bring in child and adolescent brides to live in the US were approved over the past decade, according to government data obtained by The AP. In one case, a 49-year-old man applied for admission for a 15-year-old girl. The approvals are legal. In weighing petitions for spouses or fiancees, US Citizenship and Immigration Services goes by whether the marriage is legal in the home country and then whether the marriage would be legal in the state where the petitioner lives. Marriage between adults and minors is not uncommon in the US, and most states allow children to marry with some restrictions. But the data raises questions about whether the immigration system may be enabling forced marriage. There were more than 5,000 approvals in cases of adults petitioning on behalf of minors and nearly 3,000 for minors seeking to bring in older spouses or fiancees, according to the data.
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(Jul 7, 2008 9:16 AM CDT) A 70-year-old Indian grandmother of five has become the world's oldest mom after giving birth to twins, the Sun reports. Omkari Panwar and her husband, a retired farmer, mortgaged their land, sold off their buffaloes, and took out loans to finance IVF treatment so they could produce a male heir. Panwar, who has no birth certificate but bases her age on how old she was during India's 1947 independence, delivered the 2-pound preemies--a boy and a girl--by C-section. We kept no stone unturned and God has rewarded us, the 77-year-old father said. The treatment cost me a fortune but the birth of a son makes it all worthwhile.
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(Feb 2, 2011 12:22 PM) Al-Qaeda is actively pursuing the nuclear materials and rogue scientists necessary to make dirty bombs or worse, according to a series of documents released by WikiLeaks and published in the Daily Telegraph. In 2009, NATO security chiefs warned that al-Qaeda was working on dirty radioactive IEDs, and a year earlier Indian officials warned America that al-Qaeda has the technical competence to manufacture an explosive device beyond a mere dirty bomb. That year the International Atomic Energy Agency also warned of the danger of a nuclear 9/11 if more wasn't done to protect uranium and plutonium supplies. That's not all there is to worry about either; other security briefings indicate that the terrorists are close to creating workable and efficient biological and chemical weapons. Pakistan's stores of deadly pathogens like anthrax and foot-and-mouth disease are believed to be especially ripe for theft by extremists.
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(Nov 29, 2014 3:29 PM) If you'd checked on Bill Cosby's celebrity-trustworthiness ranking a year ago, you would have found him ranked among Betty White, Brian Williams, and Tom Hanks. Now, amid continuing sexual assault allegations, he's dropped from 3rd to 2,615th on a scoring firm's list of about 3,000 people, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Omnicom Group's list, which evaluates public perception of celebrities, now puts Cosby in the company of ex-Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o--the guy involved in a 2012 story about a fake girlfriend. Cosby was also previously at no. 5 among effective product spokespeople, the same company says; now he's at 2,746, the Journal reports.
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(Nov 13, 2010 12:37 PM) Ever found yourself watching a commercial and thinking, Whose voice is that? The Daily Beast rounds up 15 commercials with very famous actors behind them. Click through a few in the gallery or click here for the complete list. (Sometimes celebs actually get in front of the camera to shill a product--click here for the most cringeworthy results.
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(Sep 6, 2014 12:31 PM CDT) Simone Battle, a singer with the group GRL, is dead at 25 of an apparent suicide, reports TMZ. Battle was found in her Los Angeles home yesterday morning, and authorities think she hanged herself. Battle first rose to national fame on the X Factor reality show in 2011. Though she got eliminated in the first live show in competition, she made an impression that helped her land a spot with GRL, a reboot of the Pussycat Dolls, reports the Daily News. Simone was an exceptional young talent and human being, and we are all devastated to learn of her passing, said a joint statement from RCA Records and two other music companies. As an actress, Battle appeared in episodes of Everybody Hates Chris and Zoey 101, notes Billboard.
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(Aug 14, 2008 5:30 AM CDT) Connecticut ACLU officials are blasting a blanket 9pm teen curfew in Hartford and are considering challenging the crackdown in court, AP reports. The month-long curfew is due to begin tonight. The city announced the curfew after weekend shootings left one dead and 10 wounded. ACLU lawyers say the move violates minors' civil rights and punishes an entire demographic for the acts of a few people. We need to take firm action and this is the kind of action that's required in order to ensure the safety of our residents, said Mayor Eddie Perez. The Arkansas town of Helena recently enacted a city-wide 24-hour curfew for all residents that allows police to question anyone outdoors.
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(Nov 2, 2020 2:45 AM) Nikki McKibbin, the third-place finalist from the first season of American Idol, died Sunday at age 42. The love of my life Nikki Sadler suffered an aneurysm on Wednesday, her husband Craig Sadler posted on Facebook on Saturday. She would already be gone, but she's an organ donor and has been kept on life support to make that possible. That shouldn't be a surprise to us. Even at the end she is still giving. He said she would be taken to the operating room in the wee hours of Sunday to give her final gift that will save the lives of strangers. The show itself, the host and a judge, season one runner-up Justin Guarini, and other 2002 contestants were among those sharing tributes. McKibbin went on to appear on reality shows including Fear Factor and Battle of the Network Reality Stars, Us reports. In 2008, she participated in Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew, where she was treated for cocaine and alcohol addiction, and TMZ reports she later moved into a sober living house for a stint on Celebrity Rehab spin-off Sober House on VH1. She returned to Celebrity Rehab to celebrate three years of sobriety. She released her debut album in 2007 and an EP five years later that was recorded with the band Love Stricken Demise. The AV Club reports that in the wake of her first album, which was delayed due to her record company wanting her to do a country album rather than rock, she toured with a metal band and appeared on Christmas compilations. People reports that in 2014, she supported her then 15-year-old son as he competed on Idol; he made it to Hollywood but was then cut.
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(Jun 8, 2010 12:00 AM CDT) The Goonies came out 25 years ago this month and thousands of fans of the '80s favorite have flocked to the Oregon town where it was filmed to visit sites from the film, meet the cast, and maybe do a Truffle Shuffle or two. The mayor of Astoria--who was an extra in the film--estimates that more than 2,500 fans, some from as far away as Japan, have swelled the town's population for the 4-day Goonies extravaganza. The fictional band of treasure-seeking misfits are part of our culture, the mayor tells the Washington Post. They're part of our history. As we go, so go the Goonies. Jeff Cohen, who played Chunk in the movie, took time off from his job as an LA entertainment lawyer to come to Oregon. I think it's nice, he says. It's nice to make something people like, that people are attached to. The Truffle Shuffle, however, is something he says he hasn't done since the '90s and won't be doing again.
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(Dec 7, 2020 10:25 AM) Whether Rudy Giuliani brought down the house during his testimony last week on alleged election fraud is debatable--but he did succeed in shutting down the House, and the Senate, in Arizona after he tested positive Sunday for COVID-19. The Arizona Republic reports the state legislature is closing shop for a week out of an abundance of caution after President Trump's personal lawyer spent upward of 10 hours at a meeting in a Phoenix hotel on Nov. 30, where he discussed his election concerns with at least two GOP members of Congress (Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs) and nine state lawmakers. The paper notes Giuliani led the meeting maskless, flouting social distancing guidelines and posing for photos. At one point, he even asked a witness to remove her mask, though she was sitting less than 6 feet away from him, the Hill notes. On social media, lawmakers indicated that Giuliani had also held private meetings on Tuesday with GOP lawmakers and leaders from the legislature, while some newly elected Republican lawmakers who attended the Monday meeting also reportedly went to an orientation later in the week, possibly spreading the virus to even more people. It's the epitome of COVID-19 irresponsibility, Democratic state Sen. Martin Quezada said of the chain of events. An email to Arizona House members said no one will have permission to work or meet in the building this week, per the Washington Post. The Trump campaign issued a statement noting that Giuliani had tested negative for the virus and shown no symptoms shortly before heading to Arizona last week, as well as to Georgia and Michigan.
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(Oct 21, 2008 4:25 PM CDT) Saturday Night Live has lined up Barack Obama for Nov. 1--the weekend before the election, blogger Martin Eisenstadt says he's hearing from an aide to Sarah Palin. In boozy glee over the successful Palin appearance Saturday, SNL political writer Seth Meyers blurted, just wait til you see what we have cooked up for Obama's appearance right before the election, Eisenstadt paraphrases. Obama canceled his appearance for the season premier because of Hurricane Ike, but it now seems possible that SNL honcho Lorne Michaels and the Obama campaign instead chose to reschedule the appearance to be closer to the election, Eisenstadt posits ... adding that although previously listed as contributing to McCain's campaign, Michaels recently gave $4,600 to the Illinois Democrat.
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(Jan 6, 2020 6:38 PM) Mexico's national search effort to find tens of thousands of missing people has so far uncovered 1,124 corpses in 873 clandestine burial pits, officials said Monday. The country's National Search Commission said that in its first 13 months of work, only about one-third of the bodies found were identified and less than a quarter of the total had been turned over to relatives, the AP reports. While Mexico faces a backlog of about 40,000 missing-persons cases dating to the country's 2006-12 drug war, it also faces a crisis of unclaimed or unidentified bodies.
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(Oct 24, 2019 1:15 PM CDT) The 21-year-old son of a well-known Christian rapper died suddenly this week, USA Today reports. Truett Foster McKeehan was the oldest child of TobyMac, who got his start with Christian group DC Talk before breaking out into a solo career. Truett did pass away at home in the Nashville area sometime Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, a family rep confirms. Cause of death has not been determined. Per Heavy, a 911 call stating McKeehan was in cardiac arrest was made at 11am Wednesday. TobyMac left a weeklong tour in Canada to be with his wife and four other children at their Franklin, Tenn., home after getting the news. The younger McKeehan was a rapper in his own right, releasing songs as Truett Foster, truDog, TRU, and Shiloh. He was also a member of the group HySociety, and had collaborated with his father on multiple songs as well. Last year, TobyMac released a song about his eldest child, Scars, which includes lyrics like Now you won't take my phone calls / You won't text me back at all / I just wanna see you / I can't stand to see you gone. He told the Tennessean at the time that it was inspired by Truett leaving home. He moved to LA and he's making music, and he's doing his thing. But to watch him go through that, and watch him get bruised, it's not easy, he said at the time. So that's one of the ways life has changed. In that song, I just want him to know he's not alone.
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(Jul 1, 2015 11:44 AM CDT) The death toll has skyrocketed to 141 after an Indonesian military transport plane slammed into houses and a hotel in Medan yesterday. Though it initially wasn't clear how many people were on board the C-130B Hercules, officials now say it was carrying 122 passengers--including maybe five to eight children, an official tells the Guardian--and 12 crew, meaning several were killed on the ground. Not all those on board were military personnel or relatives, who can fly with special permission. A woman tells Reuters her brother, a civilian, bought a ticket for the flight from Medan to the Riau Islands. The air force chief says no one should have been asked to pay. What we fear is that there may be certain people offering to take passengers on board without permission, that is what we are investigating, he says. Meanwhile, Indonesian President Joko Widodo has called for a thorough investigation after smoke was seen billowing from the plane before the crash. He also promises an evaluation of the age of planes and defense systems in the country, adding, Hopefully, we can stay away from disasters. Vice President Jusuf Kalla tells the Jakarta Post the plane was an old aircraft, already 50 years, but it was about to undergo a retrofit. It was built in the US in 1964. This incident shows us that we must renew our aircraft and our military equipment, adds a lawmaker and member of the parliamentary commission for defense. As parliament we will support giving more funding to the military so that they can upgrade. The Aviation Safety Network notes 10 fatal plane crashes over the last decade have involved Indonesian military or police aircraft.
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(Jun 12, 2015 2:01 PM CDT) Albert Woodfox's time behind bars is not over. An order barring his release was extended today by a federal appeals court, NBC News reports. The timeline: A federal judge this week ordered Woodfox's immediate and unconditional release and barred the state from trying him a third time in the 1972 death of prison guard Brent Miller. But the state appealed, and a three-judge panel of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked his release. That panel today extended the order until the state's appeal plays out. The judges ordered an expedited appeals process, with final legal briefs in the case due Aug. 7. Woodfox was placed in solitary in 1972 after the death of Miller, whose body was found in an empty prison dormitory; he has spent four decades there. State officials have objected to the term solitary confinement : They say Woodfox is allowed to watch TV through the bars of his cell, talk to other inmates in his tier, read books, talk to visiting chaplains, and leave his cell every day for an hour. How polarizing the back-and-forth surrounding Woodfox's possible release has been: Miller's widow, Teenie Roger, is convinced Woodfox is innocent. I wish the state of Louisiana would stop spending all this money paying lawyers to keep Albert in prison for even longer than the 43 years he has already been there, she said in a statement this week, per the Advocate. But Wanda Callender, Miller's sister, told the Advocate in a phone call this morning that Rogers had been married to her brother for just two months before he died ( she is not part of our family and never has been ) and that Woodfox has a debt to pay to society, as well as our family.
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(Feb 17, 2020 5:55 PM) Jason Davis, the actor who voiced Mikey Blumberg on the Disney series Recess from 1997 to 2001, died Sunday in Los Angeles at age 35, CNN reports. I am so heartbroken to share the saddest news of my life , his mother says in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter. Jason had a true heart of gold with such a zest for life. He was such a caring soul to everybody who ever knew him. He loved his friends and his family above all else. We ask for privacy as we take time to grieve this most devastating loss. Davis, the grandson of philanthropist Barbara Davis and late studio chief Marvin Davis, had also appeared in shows including Roseanne and 7th Heaven, had been open about his struggles with substance abuse, but had co-founded the charity Cure Addiction Now to support people working toward recovery.
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(Apr 21, 2016 11:23 AM CDT) We all know Donald Trump isn't a fan of political correctness. That's why he's also not a fan of Harriet Tubman replacing Andrew Jackson on the new $20 bill. I don't like seeing it. Yes, I think it's pure political correctness, Trump tells Today, per Politico. Jackson--who many condemn for owning slaves and removing Native Americans from their lands-- had a history of tremendous success for the country and should stay put on the bill, Trump continues. (Jackson is to be moved to the back of the bill.) Tubman was fantastic, but would be more appropriate on the $2 bill or some other denomination, Trump adds. He was actually repeating an idea of Ben Carson's. I love Harriet Tubman. I love what she did, but we can find another way to honor her. Maybe a $2 bill, he said Wednesday on Fox Business, per Politico. He added Jackson was a tremendous president and the last president who actually balanced the federal budget, where we had no national debt. Hillary Clinton had a different take. A woman, a leader, and a freedom fighter. I can't think of a better choice for the $20 bill than Harriet Tubman, she tweeted Wednesday. I cannot think of an American hero more deserving of this honor, added rival Bernie Sanders.
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