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(Jan 22, 2012 11:22 PM) The San Francisco 49ers watched their chance at the Super Bowl slip through their fingers yesterday when the New York Giants converted a fumble to a field goal in overtime. The Giants tapped a 20-17 victory and their fifth trip to the Super Bowl. Two key errors by back-up punt returner Kyle Williams cost the Niners the game. Williams, filling in for the injured Ted Ginn Jr., muffed one punt in the fourth quarter to set up a Giants touchdown and a 17-14 lead. Niners kicker David Akers ended up tying the score with a 25-yard field goal. But in overtime, the ball was knocked from Williams' hands to give the Giants the ball at the 24-yard line. Five plays later Lawrence Tynes booted in the winning 31-yard field goal for New York. Williams put his hands on his helmet and dropped his head in disgust, observed AP. The Giants will now face off against the New England Patriots for the Super Bowl title February 5.
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(Nov 15, 2012 5:42 AM) Over the past four years, 13 death reports filed with the FDA have mentioned 5-Hour Energy as a possible factor, reports the New York Times in a review of FDA records. The caffeine shot has appeared in 90 FDA filings during the period, more than 30 of which were tied to serious conditions ranging from heart attacks to a spontaneous abortion. The energy shot's producer, Living Essentials, filed the 13 FDA reports citing deaths, in accordance with federal rules. But the firm says it's unaware of any deaths proven to be caused by the consumption of 5-Hour Energy. The news follows a report last month on five deaths possibly linked to Monster Energy drink. According to Consumer Reports, 5-Hour Energy contains about 215 mg of caffeine, compared to between 100 and 150 mg in a cup of coffee. It also contains large amounts of vitamin B varieties and taurine. The 13 reports citing fatalities compare to 17 fatality reports in 2010 for all dietary and weight loss supplements--some 50,000 products in total. Still, it's likely that many supplement makers don't report such incidents as required, an FDA rep tells the Times.
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(Nov 18, 2014 11:17 AM) Thirty-two states have religious exemptions to some crimes against children; six of those allow a religious exemption in cases including manslaughter, negligent homicide, or capital murder. But Idaho has earned a disturbing distinction: In the past two decades, it's the only one of those six states where kids have died due to parents' adherence to healing by faith alone. The past three years have seen at least 12 children's deaths in faith-healing cases, Vocativ reports. All the deaths were of members of a religious group called Followers of Christ. In a Followers cemetery near Boise, almost 35% of the graves belong to children, says a former member of the group who's now fighting for change. Among the deaths since 2011 are infants who died of sepsis and teens who died of pneumonia; one 15-year-old died after an easily treatable case of food poisoning. According to Idaho's 1972 religious-exemption laws, prayer is a form of treatment. No criminal charges have been filed in such cases since the laws came into existence. Activists say such laws contradict a 1944 Supreme Court decision that notes that while parents may be free to become martyrs themselves ... it does not follow they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children. The Vocativ report comes after parents in Oregon were convicted of first- and second-degree manslaughter in their daughter's death last year. A Followers of Christ member who lost a son defends the group's practices: I would like to remind you this country was founded on religious freedom, he told KATU last year, as Raw Story notes. It's not like you take 'a' freedom away. It's that you chip at the entire thing.
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(Jul 31, 2014 7:51 PM CDT) The Dow tanked more than 300 points today, and the market in general has been sputtering of late, writes Henry Blodget at Business Insider. So are we on the brink of that correction everyone seems to be talking about? Blodget says that he, like everyone else who writes about the market, doesn't know. But what he does know is that stocks are currently overvalued by every valid historical measure. And that doesn't bode well, because it can signal not just a minor correction on the horizon but a market crash. I would not be surprised to see stocks fall ~50% from this level in the next few years, he writes. And, if that happens, you shouldn't be surprised either. Naysayers argue that the market has hit a permanently high plateau, but Blodget doubts it. Expensive stocks, unusually high corporate profit margins, and Fed tightening could combine to do nasty things to portfolios soon. Still, Blodget isn't selling his stocks or suggesting that others do so. But at the very least, investors should be mentally prepared for the possibility of a major pullback and lousy long-term returns. Click for the full analysis.
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(Oct 2, 2011 1:17 PM CDT) A government warplane mistakenly bombed an army position in southern Yemen, killing at least 30 soldiers and wounding many more, military and medical officials said today. The officials said the bombing, which took place last evening in the southern Abyan province, targeted an abandoned school used as shelter by soldiers of the army's 119th Brigade. The school is located just east of Abyan's provincial capital Zinjibar, where militants linked to al-Qaeda have been in control since May. Heavy fighting has been raging in the area for days as part of the army's monthslong campaign to seize back Zinjibar from the militants. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there were unconfirmed reports that militants arrived at the school soon after the airstrike and killed an unspecified number of wounded troops. The airstrike may raise questions about whether the bombing was a mistake since the troops that were hit had sided against President Ali Abudullah Saleh in the country's political crisis.
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(Nov 17, 2011 12:11 AM) When Karl Slover was a boy in what is now the Czech Republic, his 6-foot-6 father tried many ways to make him grow before giving up and selling his 9-year-old son to a traveling carnival. Slover, who has died at the age of 93, never grew taller than 4-foot-5, but he went a long way in life, moving to the US and finding work in show business, including a role as a Munchkin in 1939's Wizard of Oz. Slover was the lead trumpeter in the Munchkins' band and also appeared as a soldier and townsman. Long after Slover retired, he continued to appear at Oz-related events around the country, and was one of seven Munchkins present when their star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame was unveiled in 2007. He has a genuine immortality, the author of 100 Years of Oz tells AP. Of the 124 little people, he's one of the handful who got to enjoy this latter-day fame, to have people know who he was and be able to pick him out of the crowd in the movie. With Slover's death, only three of the original Munchkins remain.
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(Dec 4, 2009 7:47 AM) Job losses slowed and the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell in November, the Labor Department announced today, in its most positive jobs report since 2007. Nonfarm payrolls fell by a mere 11,000, while the unemployment rate, which is determined by surveying households rather than companies, fell from 10.2% to an even 10%. Economists had predicted that the rate would hold steady, notes the Wall Street Journal.
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(Mar 18, 2019 12:04 PM CDT) President Trump refers to the Robert Mueller investigation again and again as a witch hunt, and it appears that a decent number of Americans agree with him. A poll by USA Today and Suffolk University finds that 50% of respondents agree with the president's contention that he is the victim of a witch hunt. Not surprisingly, that 50% figure comes with a strong partisan divide--86% of Republicans agree with Trump on the matter, compared with just 14% of Democrats. Among independents, 54% agree it's a witch hunt and 42% disagree. The poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters over the phone last week; the number of Republicans and Democrats questioned were roughly equal, followed by independents and others. In a related question, 28% of respondents said they had a lot of trust that Mueller's investigation will be fair and accurate, down from 33% in December. In not so great news for Trump, 52% report little or no trust in his denials of Russian collusion. Overall, the president himself sounded happy with the results. Wow! A Suffolk/USA Today Poll, just out, states, '50% of Americans AGREE that Robert Mueller's investigation is a Witch Hunt,' he tweeted. Very few think it is legit! We will soon find out? (Signs continue to mount that Mueller is close to wrapping things up.)
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(Dec 28, 2010 5:10 PM) Gasoline prices will hit $5 per gallon within the next year, the former president of Shell Oil predicts. John Hofmeister says oil demand will ramp up as developed economies approach a full recovery from the shocks of 2008 and developing economies increase their demand. I'm predicting actually the worst outcome over the next two years which takes us to 2012 with higher gasoline prices, Hofmeister tells Platts Energy Week. But his opinion is not the consensus: a chief analyst with the Oil Price Information Service tells CNN that $5-a-gallon is coming, but that the recovery in America and Europe will be sluggish enough to keep oil prices below that threshold in the next 12 months. That wolf is out there and it's going to be at the door, says analyst Tom Kloza. I agree with Hofmeister that we'll see those numbers at some point this decade but not yet. Click here for more.
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(Aug 6, 2019 4:44 AM CDT) Terry Brazier went to a Leicester hospital for a bladder procedure--instead, the 70-year-old ended up getting an accidental circumcision. The hospital, which completed an investigation into the incident, confirmed on Monday it has given Brazier a $24,300 settlement, and apologized for what happened, CNN reports. Brazier tells the Daily Star he was talking to hospital staff and too distracted to realize what was happening until it was too late. The nurse was at the side of me and we were talking so I didn't know what was going on, he says. It was a real surprise. (A man once sued a hospital for circumcising him as a newborn.
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(Jun 16, 2010 5:12 PM CDT) A biology professor charged with killing three of her colleagues at an Alabama university has been indicted in the 1986 shooting death of her brother in Massachusetts. Authorities had originally ruled that the shooting of Amy Bishop's brother was an accident, but they reopened the case after Bishop was charged in February with gunning down six of her colleagues at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, killing three. Bishop, 45, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of her 18-year-old brother, Seth. She had told police that she accidentally shot him while trying to unload her father's 12-gauge shotgun in the family's Braintree home. Her mother, Judith, the only witness to the shooting, confirmed her daughter's account to police.
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(Sep 30, 2019 4:32 PM CDT) Warner Records says Grammy-nominated songwriter-producer busbee, who co-wrote Maren Morris' breakout hit My Church and also crafted songs for Keith Urban, Lady Antebellum, Pink, Shakira, and Florida Georgia Line, has died. He was 43. The record label confirmed his death in a statement released Sunday, but offered no details on the cause of death, the AP reports. Busbee's real name was Michael James Ryan.
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(Jun 10, 2008 11:09 PM CDT) Kobe Bryant scored 36 points to lead his LA Lakers to an 87-81 victory over Boston in Game 3 of the NBA Finals, the LA Times reports. Los Angeles now trails the best-of-seven series 2-1. The Lakers also got a strong lift from Sasha Vujacic (20 points), who came up big during game's closing minutes. Game 4 is Thursday in Los Angeles.
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(Jul 26, 2011 9:43 AM CDT) A C-130 military transport plane crashed into a Moroccan mountain in bad weather today, killing 78 people, says the state news agency. It reports there are three survivors. The crash in a southern region close to the disputed Western Sahara is this country's deadliest in years. Information Minister Khaled Naciri says that the military believes 78 were killed, but that searches are ongoing for all the bodies. The MAP news agency says all three survivors were seriously injured. It reports that the plane was carrying 60 members of the military, 12 civilians, and nine crew members. Citing a Royal Armed Forces statement, the report says that the remains of only 42 people have been found so far. It was not immediately clear how the military determined that 78 were killed.
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(Feb 6, 2020 4:15 PM) While Sen. Bernie Sanders remains tied, more or less, atop the Iowa caucus results, he finished January far ahead of the field in fundraising. The presidential candidate raised $25 million last month, his best so far. That's more than any of his rivals collected in a full quarter last year, the New York Times reports. The success of his small-donor fundraising contrasts with the financial situation for his Democratic opponents as they begin campaigning in New Hampshire: Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg are both pausing to raise money in the next two weeks. Sanders' campaign said the January windfall came from 650,000 people, one-third of whom are new donors, another sign of growing strength, per Politico. Working-class Americans giving $18 at a time are putting our campaign in a strong position to compete in states all over the map, said Sanders' campaign manager. Sanders has plans for the new money. He's going to spend $5.5 million on TV and digital ads in 10 states, even as other candidates are canceling their buys. The former vice president especially is struggling financially, starting the year with less than $9 million in the bank. Andrew Yang has cut his expenses after finishing sixth in Iowa, per Politico. His campaign manager said shrinking the staff was the plan all along after Iowa, but among the dozens of employees let go are his national political director, policy director, and deputy national political director. His campaign had reported having 230 paid workers last week. Some of the dismissed employees, who received at least a month's pay as severance, were unhappy at the way they received the news--through back channels or when their email or Slack access was cut off. Yang won 1% of the Iowa delegates.
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(Sep 1, 2009 11:15 AM CDT) The Montana Supreme Court tomorrow will take up the issue of--and likely affirm the right to--assisted suicide, the New York Times reports. The case is being brought on behalf of Robert Baxter, who died last year from leukemia after fighting for the right to end his own life. He yearned for death, his daughter says. Montana's high court has a history of holding up rights to privacy and personal choice outlined in its 1972 constitution. If it does so here, it would make make Montana the first state to sanction assisted suicide in its constitution. Similar laws in Oregon and Washington came about through voter referendums. Arguments against assisted suicide in Montana are myriad--some say health care for underserved rural residents should be addressed first, and religious groups are up in arms. Though not all: I don't think God created us to be string puppets, says one Episcopal deacon.
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(Aug 4, 2014 11:33 AM CDT) PF Chang's confirmed in June that data from credit and debit cards used at its restaurants was stolen, and now the company is providing more details on its ongoing investigation into the security breach, including a list of 33 restaurants that may have been affected and the dates that cards may have been compromised. The list, found in full here, includes PF Chang's restaurants in Baltimore; St. Louis; Pittsburgh; Austin, Texas; and Charlotte, North Carolina. The company said that potentially stolen data includes the card number and may also include the cardholder's name and/or the card's expiration date in some instances.
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(Feb 10, 2016 5:53 AM) Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump won big in New Hampshire on Tuesday, putting their parties in uncharted territory, which the GOP establishment in particular could find tricky to navigate. Here's what analysts expect to see in the days leading up to the Nevada caucuses--which are on Feb. 20 for Democrats and Feb. 23 for Republicans--and the South Carolina primary, which happens on Feb. 20 for Republicans and Feb. 27 for Democrats.
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(Jun 23, 2016 2:17 PM CDT) The US Coast Guard has found a second body four days after a family disappeared off the coast of Florida, WESH reports. The body was found about four miles from a debris field where the first body was discovered Wednesday. Neither body has been identified, but a bucket found floating a few miles away contained birth certificates for the family, according to CBS News. Ace Kimberly, 45, lives on the 29-foot sailboat with his children: Roger, 13, Donny, 15, and Rebecca, 17. They were last heard from when Kimberly contacted his brother Sunday night regarding large waves and thunderstorms. The debris field was found 33 miles off the coast. Searchers believe they may have seen a flare go up shortly before 2:30am Thursday, and the Coast Guard is holding out hope for survivors.
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(Apr 1, 2009 1:28 PM CDT) President Obama's aunt has been granted another year in the US, the Boston Herald reports. A judge today set Feb. 4, 2010, as the date for a hearing on Zeituni Onyango's appeal of a 2004 deportation order, clearing Onyango to live in the country until then. Praise God, Onyango, 56, said on the steps of the courthouse afterward.
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(Mar 19, 2008 11:40 PM CDT) Police arrested more than 160 protesters today at demonstrations across the US to mark the fifth anniversary of the launch of the Iraq war, Reuters reports. More than 100 were arrested in San Francisco alone, where demonstrators staged a die-in and disrupted busy Market Street. About 30 were arrested in Washington, where activists tried to shut down the IRS building to highlight the war's cost. Demonstrators marched down the National Mall chanting, Bush and Cheney, leaders failed, Bush and Cheney belong in jail. In New York, the Granny Peace Brigade gathered in Times Square with their knitting and demanded the troops be brought home. We're out here to show people that this war is madness, said one. We never should have gotten into this war in the first place.
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(Oct 1, 2009 9:49 AM CDT) The Los Angeles Philharmonic greeted its new music director yesterday with waves, cheers, and bursts of brass and strings, and cameras tailed the new boss as he hugged his principal musicians. It wasn't a standard first day, but Gustavo Dudamel of Venezuela isn't a standard maestro--he's only 28 years old, and classical music fans are hoping his youth will bring a new generation into the field. Dudamel says he's unafraid of the pressure: I'm doing what I love to do. This is part of my natural life. Dudamel will make his official debut with the philharmonic with a free concert at the Hollywood Bowl this weekend, followed by a gala at the Frank Gehry-designed Disney Hall on Oct. 8. What's most important is his humility, said a violinist who's been with the LA Phil since 1981--the year Dudamel was born. But the orchestra's president cautioned against too much hype: He's only been elected music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, not president of the United States.
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(Nov 17, 2009 6:53 AM) Business foes of health care overhaul legislation are outspending supporters at a rate of 2-to-1 for TV ads as they grow increasingly nervous over a final bill. Led by the US Chamber of Commerce, opponents of the Democratic health care drive have dropped $24 million on TV commercials over the past month--compared to the $12 million spent by labor unions and other backers. That's an abrupt reversal from the vast spending advantage supporters enjoyed most of this year, say political ad trackers. More than half the opposition spending has been by the chamber. There's no input from any of us, no input from Republicans as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid puts the bill together, said R. Bruce Josten, the chamber's top lobbyist. So what option do we have than to take our message and story to the American people? New alliances of business groups are also proliferating, including one tentatively named the Start Over Coalition, envisioned as a huge alliance of trade groups and companies lobbying to persuade Congress to drop its current effort and settle for far more modest legislation.
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(Jun 23, 2011 8:40 AM CDT) One fairly obvious way to lessen your chances of dying in a car crash: Don't take drugs before getting behind the wheel. Researchers found that a full 25% of drivers who died in single-vehicle accidents between 1999 and 2009 tested positive for drugs, USA Today reports. Of those studied, 22% tested positive for stimulants, 22% for marijuana, and 9% for narcotics. Alcohol doesn't help either: 37% of the dead drivers studied had blood alcohol levels over the legal limit of .08. And though combining drugs and alcohol is certainly not recommended, researchers found that it made no difference in the drivers' level of impairment: When a driver is drunk, it doesn't matter what drugs are in their system. The alcohol takes over, says a co-author. Even so, one activist points out that more attention should be paid to drugged driving separate from the alcohol problem. Only 19 states prohibit any amount of drugs while driving.
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(Jul 19, 2011 1:19 AM CDT) One of the Senate's staunchest budget-cutters has unveiled a massive plan to cut the nation's deficit by $9 trillion over the coming decade, including $1 trillion in tax increases opposed by most of his fellow Republicans. Sen. Tom Coburn's plan is laced with politically perilous proposals--like raising to 70 the age at which people can claim their full Social Security benefits. It would cut farm subsidies, Medicare, student aid, housing subsidies for the poor, and funding for community development grants. It would also slash $1 trillion from the Pentagon's budget over a decade. Coburn was a member of President Obama's fiscal commission, and voted for its plan to cut the budget by about $4 trillion over a decade. He recently dropped out of the closely watched Gang of Six senators seeking a bipartisan agreement to rein in deficits. I have no doubt that both parties will criticize portions of this plan, and I welcome that debate, Coburn told reporters. But it's not a legitimate criticism until you have a plan of your own.
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(Mar 19, 2019 1:54 PM CDT) If you've been on the edge of your seat for the last five years, sit back: the trailer for Toy Story 4 has arrived. It confirms your favorite characters--Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack), Rex (Wallace Shawn), Bo Peep (Annie Potts)--are back for more. But it's a new character that appears to be resonating most with fans. Forky (Tony Hale), fashioned out of a plastic spork by owner Bonnie, faces an existential crisis. Believing he's destined for the trash, he doesn't seem to enjoy life as a toy and flees with Woody in hot pursuit. Forky/everyone on twitter: 'why am I alive?' reads one response, per Mashable. Another tweet suggests tears are already flowing. The movie is out June 21, with Keanu Reeves in a secret role, per Global News. (Missing is screenwriter Rashida Jones.
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(Aug 5, 2008 9:16 AM CDT) Oil prices fell below $120 a barrel today on expectations that the US economic downturn will erode consumer demand for crude products, the AP reports. The dollar's gains against the euro also contributed to lower prices. Crude futures have fallen about $27, or about 18%, since reaching a record high of $147.27 on July 11. The main factor weighing on oil prices is worries about oil consumption being weakened, especially in the US, commented one commodity strategist. Analysts at JBC Energy said the fact that markets were seemingly downplaying bullish factors like Tropical Storm Edouard and the Iran nuclear situation was a sign that there is significant underlying bearish sentiment at play.
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(Nov 27, 2012 1:03 AM) Tens of thousands of people alive today owe their lives to techniques pioneered by Dr. Joseph Murray, who has died at the age of 93 in the same Boston hospital where he carried out the world's first successful human organ transplant. Murray made history in 1954 when he transplanted a kidney from a healthy 23-year-old man into his ailing identical twin, the New York Times reports. Five years later, he made the first successful transplant into a nonidentical recipient, and in 1962 he carried out the first successful transplant using a kidney from a cadaver. Murray served in the Army Medical Corps in World War II, where his experiences treating badly burned soldiers led to his lifelong work in transplantation and facial reconstruction. In the early '50s, organ transplantation was considered a fringe project and he was urged to focus on something more realistic, he wrote in his 2001 autobiography Surgery of the Soul. Before the first successful transplant, we were criticized for playing God, and he only went ahead with the surgery after consulting with clergy from several denominations, he recalled. Murray, who is survived by his wife and six children, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1990.
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(Jun 17, 2016 7:49 AM CDT) A group of nearly three dozen migrants, most of them kids, paid smugglers to whisk them out of Niger and Nigeria and to a new life to the north--but instead paid the ultimate price. The five men, nine women, and 20 minors were found dead Sunday in the Sahara, per Niger's Ministry of Interior, apparently ditched by those they'd hoped would save them and likely victims of extreme thirst, ABC News reports. The interior minister said the migrants had perished between June 6 and June 12 near Assamaka, per the BBC, with the Guardian noting that temps in the desert can soar upward of 105 degrees Fahrenheit. What transpired isn't an uncommon consequence: Thousands of people have lost their lives as a result of the indifferent or even deliberate actions of migrant smugglers, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime says on its website, noting that as borders have become more tightly policed, migrants have become more wary of trying to cross over on their own. Which often leads to a highly profitable endeavor for the smugglers, who enjoy low risk of detection and punishment, and tragedy for the smuggled, who may pay upward of $345 each for the chance to escape, per an International Organization for Migration report. The IOM notes that Niger is a waypoint for escapees on their way to Algeria and Libya (and Europe after that), with migrants usually hailing from Nigeria, Cameroon, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea-Bissau. What made this group of doomed deserters unusual: the number of children. Per the IOM report, a tracking tool showed that between February and April, the 60,000-plus migrants who passed through Niger were overwhelmingly male and between the ages of 18 and 59. (A drowned baby has become a crushing symbol of Europe's migrant crisis.)
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(Aug 5, 2011 4:45 PM CDT) Honda is recalling about 1.5 million vehicles in the US to update the software on the automatic transmission and reduce the possibility of transmission damage. The recall affects certain 2005-2010 4-cylinder Accord, 2007-2010 CR-V, and 2005-2008 Element vehicles. The transmission's secondary shaft bearing can be damaged when the car is shifted too quickly--say when a driver tries to get out of mud or snow. Honda will begin sending recall notices at the end of the month. It also affects about 800,000 vehicles sold outside the US.
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(Oct 9, 2015 3:49 PM CDT) A 13-year-old boy appears to have deliberately shot and killed a 12-year-old girl outside a home in rural southwest Missouri with a gun that came from the house, the local sheriff said Friday. Officers tried to revive the girl, Teresa J. Potts, but she died Thursday evening near the town of Jasper in front of a foster home, Jasper County Sheriff Randee Kaiser said. Jasper is about 130 miles south of Kansas City. The boy was arrested without incident and is being held by the Jasper County Juvenile Office, Kaiser said at a news conference in nearby Carthage, adding that the boy will be charged in the shooting later on Friday. The sheriff's comments were first reported by the Joplin Globe. It was not a situation where they were playing. It does not appear to be a situation where it was an accident, Kaiser said. It was not clear if either of the children was a resident at the foster home. An adult was home at the time of the shooting, Kaiser said. He declined to describe the relationship between the adult and the teenagers. The sheriff said investigators believe the gun used in the shooting came from the home, but he would not talk about the weapon or how many times the girl was shot. There was more than one weapon missing at the time of search. All of those weapons have been recovered, he said. The boy and girl were both students in the Jasper School District.
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(Aug 31, 2011 10:00 AM CDT) At least 88 people have been tortured and killed in Syrian detention centers over the past five months, including 10 children, according to a new report from Amnesty International. Victims were burned, beaten, and electrocuted, among other abuses, the report alleges. These deaths behind bars are reaching massive proportions, Neil Sammonds, the group's researcher in Syria, tells the BBC. Many of these abuses have been documented on video, the group adds. Most occurred near the protest hotbeds in Homs and Daraa, but deaths were reported in other places as well. Amnesty has the names of 3,000 people in detention, but there are said to be 12,000 to 15,000 detained overall. We know that torture has been widespread over many years, Sammonds says. It has gotten much worse. The group says this level of torture hasn't been seen in Syria since the 1980s.
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(Apr 21, 2016 5:30 PM CDT) A man nicknamed the Ninja Burglar who confessed to committing more than 100 break-ins over a decade accepted a plea deal with authorities in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut on Thursday, the AP reports. Robert Costanzo pleaded guilty to three counts of burglary, according to Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon. The statute of limitations had expired on many of the other cases. He is set to receive 25 years in prison and five years of post-release supervision. Costanzo, a convicted rapist and registered sex offender, stole more than $4 million in cash and valuables like jewelry and designer handbags, often brazenly entering houses in wealthy areas at night while the residents were home, authorities said. Costanzo admitted to more than 100 break-ins on Staten Island. Prosecutors said he had been linked to 160 in that borough and was responsible for upward of 200 overall in the three states. The burglaries, which occurred between 2005 and 2015, caused some neighborhoods to supplement police patrols with private security. The case took a major turn during an October 2014 law enforcement meeting when a detective from Saratoga Springs, in upstate New York, told New York City officers that her department was investigating a residential burglary pattern and that Costanzo was the main suspect. That led to surveillance and his eventual arrest. His reign of terror is officially over, McMahon said..
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(Oct 25, 2011 12:24 PM CDT) Lia Vega's mother, Larissa Taylor, never taught the 2-year-old girl how to use a phone. But when Taylor collapsed Thursday, little Lia picked up the phone, called her grandmother, and said, My mom fell down, grandma Bobbie Gonzalez recalls to KTRK-TV. I said, 'Let me talk to your mom,' and she said, 'She won't wake up.' Gonzalez then called 911 and rushed to the house; Taylor made it to the hospital with little time to spare. I was going to wash my daughter's bottle and I blacked out after that, and woke up to my mom shaking me, waking me up, says Taylor, who did not know she was diabetic. As for Lia, she's been wearing a towel around the house, calling herself a superhero, because mommy has told her about it, Taylor says. So definitely she's my little superhero.
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(Mar 16, 2017 4:30 PM CDT) When he was 20 years old, an introverted young man named Christopher Knight hopped in his car with a tent and backpack, drove into the most remote reaches of Maine, and, without knowing where he was going, with no particular place in mind, he stepped into the trees and walked away. In an excerpt in the Guardian from his newly published book, The Stranger in the Woods, Michael Finkel tells Knight's incredible tale of nearly three decades living in the wilderness, including how he purposely tried to become lost in the woods (not as easy as it sounds) and how he perfected his survival skills as he went along. But because he wanted to be unconditionally alone, Knight had to make some ethical concessions when it came to eating--meaning he had to start to steal. Knight put the same meticulous study into his new life of crime as he did in building shelters and foraging in the forest. Sometimes he'd lie low for hours to make sure a target location was safe. I enjoy being in the dark, he says. He was so good at what he did that his victims felt begrudging respect for the spotless crime scenes he left behind. His life alone finally ended after 27 years when he was caught and arrested for burglary and theft while trying to scoop up food from a camp. Locals couldn't wait to hear what the hermit had to say about his time alone, how he survived, and why he left in the first place back in the '80s. Knight has thought long and hard about that last question, and after ruling out religious, artistic, or anti-modern society reasons, he simply says: It's a mystery. The rest of Knight's incredible survival tale here. (A woman lived deep in the Siberian wilderness for decades.)
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(Mar 9, 2012 12:24 PM) The US government's $10 million L Prize was supposed to go to a manufacturer that developed an affordable low-energy light bulb, but the Philips LED bulb that won--now available for purchase--will set you back $50. LED bulbs similar to the L Prize winner can cost less than half that, the Washington Post notes. Indeed, the contest sought a bulb that would go for just $22 its first year on the market, and $8 by its third year. Following legislation signed by George W. Bush, traditional incandescent bulbs are gradually being banned: This year, it's the 100-watt bulb; next year, the 75-watt, and then the 60-watt. The prize was intended to create an affordable alternative to the 60-watt, the most commonly used bulb. Philips attributes the added cost to the fact that the bulb is so efficient, using just 10 watts, as well as effective. This is a Cadillac product, and that's why you have a premium on it, says a Home Depot rep.
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(Apr 17, 2009 8:34 AM CDT) The doing-your-life-over-again movie 17 Again does what its many predecessors have done over and over again, say critics, but Zac Efron runs through the cliches with charismatic charm.
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(Jul 11, 2013 4:48 AM CDT) Clues to what may have caused the Asiana Airlines crash this weekend continue to emerge. The latest: The plane's pilot said that while flying at 500 feet, he was blinded by light, investigators say. It was a temporary issue, says National Transportation Safety Board chair Deborah Hersman, but its cause remains uncertain. We need to understand exactly what that is, she says, per USA Today. She also discussed the plane's apparently delayed evacuation. The pilot told flight attendants not to start evacuating as soon as the plane stopped moving; the evacuation didn't begin until a flight attendant spotted a fire near a door, about 90 seconds later. We need to understand what they were thinking, Hersman says. In two minutes, rescue vehicles were on the scene; a minute later, crews took on the fire, part of which occurred near an oil leak from the right engine. One of the flight attendants who was pinned down by evacuation slides broke her leg, Hersman said, and at least three attendants were ejected from the plane, not two, as previously reported. The disaster has prompted speculation about whether the plane's automatic controls were working, CNN notes, but whether or not they were, there are two pilots in the cockpit for a reason, Hersman says.
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(Apr 6, 2015 7:10 PM CDT) Gertrude Weaver was the oldest-known living person on Earth for nearly a week, and she got a kick out of it, too, NBC News reports. When 117-year-old Misao Okawa died of heart failure on April 1, Weaver took the top spot at age 116 and basked in the limelight from her Arkansas senior care facility, where she liked reading news articles about herself. She died there peacefully this morning due to complications from pneumonia, KATV reports. She certainly enjoyed it, says the facility's administrator. We are devastated by her loss. Weaver was born to a family of sharecroppers in Arkansas, near Texas, on July 4, 1898, and took on work as a domestic aid, Reuters reports. Weaver credited her long life to being kind to people and eating food she cooked herself, says NPR. One of her last wishes was to have President Obama visit the Silver Oaks Health & Rehabilitation Center in Camden, Ark., for her birthday. The new world's-oldest is Jeralean Talley, who turns 116 in May and lives outside Detroit with her daughter. She puts her longevity down to faith: It's the Lord, she says. Everything is in his hands. She also bowled until age 104 and says she never drank alcohol or smoked. (Weaver had more advice for living a long life.)
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(Jan 17, 2013 12:58 PM) Looks like President Obama was right when he said the majority of Americans support universal background checks for gun buyers--in a huge way. A whopping 90% of the public supports the idea, according to a new New York Times/CBS News poll, including 95% of Independents, 93% of Democrats, and 89% of Republicans. Even NRA members overwhelmingly supported the idea. Overall, only 7% said they actively opposed background checks. The poll also indicates, however, that the public agrees with the NRA's proposal to protect schools with armed guards, with roughly three-quarters of respondents saying they would help prevent mass shootings to at least some degree, and only a quarter saying they would do little or nothing to help.
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(Oct 31, 2019 3:48 PM CDT) Chicago teachers and the nation's third-largest school district reached a labor contract deal on Thursday, ending a strike that canceled 11 days of classes for more than 300,000 students, the AP reports. Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced that the district had reached a deal with the Chicago Teachers Union after months of unsuccessful negotiations led to the city's first significant walkout by educators since 2012. The union's 25,000 members went on strike Oct. 17, holding marches and rallies across the city. Chicago Teachers Union delegates voted late Wednesday to approve a tentative deal, but they initially refused to end the strike unless the mayor added school days to cover the lost time. The union said Lightfoot had agreed to make up five days of lost time. The school district said classes will resume Friday. Teachers said the strike was based on a social justice agenda and aimed to increase resources, including nurses and social workers for students, and reduce class sizes, which teachers say currently exceed 30 or 40 students in some schools. Union leaders said the strike forced the city to negotiate on issues they initially deemed out of bounds, including support for homeless students. The strike was another test of efforts by teachers' unions to use contract talks typically focused on salaries and benefits and force sweeping conversations about broader problems. The agreement approved on Wednesday was not immediately released but Sharkey said some of teachers' wins could transform schools in the district. The full union membership still must hold a final vote on the agreement. Broad outlines include a 16% raise for teachers during the five-year contract, a new committee to investigate and enforce classroom sizes that surpass limits in the agreement, and funding to add social workers and nurses to the city's schools.
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(Apr 15, 2020 12:28 PM CDT) Starting in March, schools across America began shuttering amid the coronavirus pandemic. With kids from kindergarten through college now holed up at home, a Washington Post reporter made a startling observation: Last month was the first March without a school shooting in the United States since 2002, Robert Klemko noted on Twitter Monday in a tweet since shared nearly 170,000 times. That would mean that current high school seniors were just infants, or not even born, the last time US schools didn't see a shooting in the third month of the year, notes CBS News, which cites data from National School Safety and Security Services and the National School Safety Center as confirmation. However, the Hill reports it's not clear what Klemko considers to be a school shooting, as he also cites stats from the gun safety advocacy site Everytown, and Everytown does list seven gunfire incidents at schools in March 2020, including a deadly shooting involving adults on a Texas high school football field on a Sunday and four unintentional discharges. As for March 2002, we came damn close to it not being a shooting-free month, Klemko tweeted: A 13-year-old in Carmichael, Calif., brought a gun and hit list to school on March 20 of that year, but a school resource officer deputy stopped him before any shooting could be carried out.
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(Oct 5, 2015 5:20 PM CDT) Add this to the long list of things that do not warrant a 911 call: an annoying roommate. Junes Rose Gines, 20, of West Palm Beach, was arrested last week after calling 911 three times in quick succession to say that she wanted her roommate arrested for bothering her by turning the lights on and off and knocking on Gines' door. She was given multiple warnings not to call 911 again unless she was experiencing a life or death emergency, the Palm Beach Post reports, yet she continued to call until deputies followed through on their threat to arrest her on misuse of 911 charges. She managed to dial 911 one last time while deputies were inside her home, the Sun Sentinel reports.
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(Oct 3, 2011 3:40 AM CDT) What a difference a few years and too much exercise between the sheets can make. For the first time in 15 years, Tiger Woods is no longer in golf's top 50, reports CNN. Woods had been tied for 50th with Louis Oosthuizen, but Oosthuizen tied for fifth in a tournament in Scotland, moving him up the rankings. Woods was last out of the top 50 on Oct. 13, 1996, but since then has won 14 major tournaments. His last tournament win was in November 2009 at the Australian Masters.
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(Aug 10, 2012 2:51 AM CDT) Tracking Internet users who had a do not track privacy setting switched on has cost Google $22.5 million. The fine, the largest the Federal Trade Commission has ever levied against a company, came after investigators found that the search firm had bypassed privacy settings in Apple's Safari browser to track users and show them personalized ads, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Google--which does not have to admit to wrongdoing as part of the settlement--exploited a loophole that let its cookies be installed via advertisements on popular websites, even if users' browser preferences had been set to reject them. This sends the message that the FTC isn't kidding around, said the chief of the commission's competition bureau. The head of the Big Brother Watch privacy group applauded the heavy fine. It's an essential part of a properly functioning market that consumers are in control of their personal information, and are able to take steps to protect their privacy, he said. The size of the fine in this case should deter any company from seeking to exploit underhanded means of tracking consumers. It is essential that anyone who seeks to over-ride consumer choices about sharing their data is held to account.
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(Feb 20, 2011 7:25 PM) Leading on the final lap of the Daytona 500, a pack of veterans baring down on his bumper, Trevor Bayne didn't panic. He figured it would be a cool story to tell someday, how he led a lap in NASCAR's biggest show. Somebody, maybe Tony Stewart, would pass him any moment and Bayne would dutifully push him to the win. But the pack never came. Nobody ever passed him, and with one smooth block of Carl Edwards, Bayne pulled off a stunning upset. Unlikely? Absolutely. Unworthy? He sure thought so. Unbelievable? That's Daytona for you. This is so crazy. I don't even know what to say, Bayne said after the win. I almost feel undeserving because ... all these guys out here that are racing against us that have been trying to do this for so long. It took Dale Earnhardt 20 years to win the Great American Race, and on the 10th anniversary of his death in an accident on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500, Bayne became the youngest winner in race history. He won a day after his 20th birthday, in his first Daytona 500, in his second Sprint Cup Series start. Edwards wound up second; David Gilliland finished third and was followed by Bobby Labonte and Kurt Busch.
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(Apr 2, 2009 6:19 AM CDT) G20 leaders have nearly completed an agreement to confront the global financial crisis, reports the Times of London. Gordon Brown opened the summit by saying that the draft communique already prepared reflected a high degree of consensus between us. The British PM said that the leaders needed to focus today on global financial regulation--which France and Germany said again last night must be beefed up if they are to sign the deal. According to the BBC, the final communique should announce an increase of $500 billion for the International Monetary Fund to help struggling economies. There will also be a statement about limiting executive pay, although fixing numbers to that may be unlikely. Anti-protectionist measures will also be included, and the G20 may agree to name and shame countries that violate free trade rules.
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(Apr 29, 2019 7:23 AM CDT) Police investigating five murders in Tennessee on Saturday made an additional horrific find: Two more bodies in one of the two homes that were searched in rural Sumner County. Michael Cummins, the 25-year-old suspect in all seven slayings, was taken into custody after a massive manhunt Saturday night. Police say Cummins was shot in the leg after being cornered in a creek bed about a mile away from where the killings took place, the Tennessean reports. Police believe he is related to at least some of the victims, which include a 12-year-old girl. Authorities say that six bodies and a seriously injured person were found at one home and the body of a woman was found at a second home, where Cummins apparently stole a car. No motive in the killings has been disclosed. Sheriff Sonny Weatherford has confirmed that Cummins has an extensive criminal record and pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated arson and aggravated assault last year. In 2017, he pleaded guilty to offenses including domestic assault and evading arrest. We've never had this many deceased people in a criminal case before, Ray Whitley, who has been Sumner County district attorney general for 30 years, tells the New York Times. It's pretty shocking to everybody. He says no weapon has been recovered. I think everybody assumed that it was shooting, but that might be a false assumption, he says.
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(Oct 15, 2009 9:32 AM CDT) Jett Travolta was dead, d-e-a-d, dead before the ambulance arrived, Bahamian paramedic Tarino Lightbourne testified yesterday--adding that it was the Travoltas' lawyer who offered him $15 million to destroy a Refusal of Transport/Treatment document signed by the actor. The paramedic is charged along with a former Bahamas senator with attempting to extort $25 million from Travolta over claims that he and wife Kelly Preston intentionally killed their son. [Travolta's lawyer Michael McDermott] said, 'We're going to give you $15 million,' and my eyes popped, Lightbourne testified. I said, 'I can't even count to $1 million.' I still don't know what extortion is.
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(Aug 11, 2019 4:34 PM CDT) In what a 91-year-old woman's family is calling a massive violation of trust, two Illinois nursing home aides allegedly filmed themselves taunting the woman, who has dementia, and then posted the video to Snapchat. Margaret Collins' family is now suing the Abington nursing home in Glenview for more than $1 million in damages, ABC 7 reports. They say the aides knew Collins didn't like hospital gowns, and the video shows the great-grandmother flailing her arms as she attempts to push one away from her. It was captioned, Margaret hates gowns along with two laughing emojis. She's waving her arms because of one reason. She doesn't have mobility to get away. That's the only option she has to protect herself, her son says. The video was posted just before Christmas, and Collins' family says the nursing home initially cleared the workers involved and allowed them to stay on the job after a six-day suspension, WGN reports. Brayan Cortez and Jamie Montesa, who are also named in the lawsuit, have since been fired and are also now facing charges of misdemeanor disorderly conduct. CBS Chicago reports the two were romantically involved and that Cortez told police it was an ongoing inside joke to wave a gown toward Collins. A report from the Illinois Department of Public Health accuses the Abington of failing to implement its policy on abuse prevention. Collins is no longer living there, and her family says the incident has left her with anxiety.
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(Dec 11, 2009 12:48 PM) House Democrats are attempting to raise the national debt ceiling by $1.8 trillion to pay for loans coming due next year, despite strong opposition from Blue Dogs, their brethren in the Senate, and the GOP. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said today the move is necessary, and Nancy Pelosi plans to include the measure in a defense spending bill next week. Not so fast, pipes in the varied opposition. A bipartisan group of moderates in the Senate, led by Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, wants a task force created to manage the deficit, with power to impose tax increases and spending cuts, before they allow the debt to increase. Blue Dogs in the House want a pay-as-you-go law that balances the budget in real time. And the GOP is just going to vote against the defense bill, a risky but principled stand to point out the excessive spending that's going on, John Boehner tells the Washington Post.
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(May 14, 2018 1:23 AM CDT) A 5-year-old girl in Colorado was seriously injured after going outside in the middle of the night to investigate noises she thought were coming from her dog and being attacked by a bear. Kimberly Cyr's father tells NBC 11 that the Grand Junction girl will be fine after the attack at around 2:30am Sunday. Her mother says that after she heard screaming, she went outside to see a black bear dragging the girl away. The mother says the bear dropped her daughter after she started screaming at it. Kimberly, whose condition was upgraded from serious to fair Sunday afternoon, needed 77 stitches but suffered no life-threatening injuries, a pediatric surgeon at St. Mary's Medical Center tells Q13 Fox. Colorado Parks and Wildlife public information officer Rebecca Ferrell tells ABC that traps have been set for the bear. She says that if it is captured, it will be euthanized and a necropsy will be carried out to determine what happened. Ferrell says Kimberly may have startled the bear, since the animals are not expecting people to be up and about at that time of night. Ferrell says bear encounters in Colorado are unusual, but anyone who does encounter one should stay calm and make it aware that there are people near it. Do not ever run from a bear, don't try and climb a tree, because a bear can do both of those things much faster than we can, she says.
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(Oct 18, 2016 3:16 PM CDT) Stocks closed solidly higher on Wall Street after several companies delivered positive surprises in their quarterly earnings reports, the AP reports. Netflix soared 19% Tuesday after reporting results that were far better than analysts were expecting. Goldman Sachs rose 2% and Comerica gained 4% after both banks also reported better-than-expected results. Safe-play stocks lagged the market. Phone companies had the smallest gain in the Standard & Poor's 500 index. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 75 points, or 0.4%, to 18,161. The S&P 500 index climbed 13 points, or 0.6%, to 2,139. The Nasdaq composite increased 44 points, or 0.9%, to 5,243.
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(Oct 5, 2011 2:24 PM CDT) Spain's Duchess of Alba walked down the aisle with a commoner groom more than 20 years her junior today, with a crowd of hundreds gathered around to cheer. As she left the ceremony at her 15th-century residence in Seville, the 85-year-old kicked off her shoes and danced a flamenco in celebration, while her groom, 61-year-old Alfonso Diez stood by, hand outstretched as if to catch her if she fell, the AP reports. The Duchess, whose full name is Maria del Rosario Cayetana Alfonsa Victoria Eugenia Francisca Fitz-James Stuart y de Silva, has been twice-widowed and is among the richest and most famous women in Spain. Her children reportedly objected to the wedding, even though Diez signed a document denying any claim to her estate, and she gave them much of their inheritance early. One skipped the wedding, reportedly because he was upset with his slice of the fortune.
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(Aug 23, 2011 5:24 PM CDT) A British Columbia 12-year-old was watching TV at 2 am when his mother called him in: She was having a baby, and she needed help. I didn't go through any of the preliminary labor pains, so the birth was a complete surprise, his mother, Danielle Edwards, tells the Times Colonist. He put his hands on his hips and said, 'Mom, this is not going to be an at-home baby.' But when it became clear that it would be, he knew just what to do. Seeing the baby's head emerging, Gaelan Edwards grabbed the baby by the shoulders, with the head on his wrist, and eased him out, Danielle recalls. Then he fetched some scissors and a clamp usually used on plastic bags, which he used to cut the cord. Danielle says he acted just like by instinct, but Gaelan attributes it to his mom's medical books. It was over the due date, so I'm like, 'Oh, whatever, I'll start reading these books, he says. I'm surprised that I actually did it. CTV has video.
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(Jul 3, 2018 12:31 PM CDT) It's not every day Americans are rankled by baby clothes, but today is apparently that day. Fortune reports that Walmart is finding itself in President Trump supporters' crosshairs after the presence of a T-shirt sloganed Impeach 45 was found on its website. Per a tweet, searching for the phrase Impeach 45 previously turned up 13 items, among them baby clothes. MarketWatch reports the T-shirts, which are no longer available on the site, ranged in price from $16.95 to $41.95 and were made by the brands including Old Glory, City Shirts, and Hanes. Make America Great Again and other pro-Trump apparel is still available on the site. USA Today reports the chairman on Students for Trump first flagged an image of the baby onesie on Monday, with Ryan Fournier tweeting, @walmart why are you selling Impeach 45 baby clothes on your website????? His find apparently spurred the hashtag #BoycottWalmart. USA Today provides a brief history of Walmart's other recent T-shirt debacles, noting it pulled clothing that read Bulletproof - Black Lives Matter in December 2016 after complaints from the National Fraternal Order of Police and removed a shirt reading Rope. Tree. Journalist. SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED just shy of a year later.
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(May 27, 2016 8:34 AM CDT) For 18 years, a North Korean couple have lived a life in America that their friends call lucky --they run a dry-cleaning business and have three successful children. But these are no ordinary immigrants. For the first time, Ko Yong Suk and husband Ri Gang are revealing their identities: as aunt and uncle to Kim Jong Un. Those names are their Korean ones; in a bid to protect their privacy, the Washington Post isn't sharing the names they use here or the town where they live in a house paid for with $200,000 they say was given to them by the CIA. But the paper is sharing plenty of tidbits it gained in nearly 20 hours of interviews about the Hermit Kingdom--like Kim's real age. Ko, the 60-year-old sister of Kim's late mother, says Kim was born in 1984, not 1982 or 1983 as thought. And she's sure of that, as her own son was born that year. I changed both of their diapers, she says. While the couple doesn't have any nuclear or military secrets to share, they do know a lot about the man they repeatedly called Marshal Kim Jong Un, including that he was groomed to be leader from age 8. Top generals even attended his birthday party and bowed to him, according to the pair. As for his love of basketball, Ko says Kim's mother told him playing the sport would help him grow taller, closing the height gap between him and his friends. As for their 1998 decision to defect, made while they were living in Switzerland, this is where Ko and Ri's version of events starts to become opaque, the Post writes. Given that Ri is trying [to] get back into Kim Jong Un's good graces, he has reason to present their defection as nothing but altruistic. Read more about that here.
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(Oct 26, 2019 11:45 AM CDT) UK police have charged a truck driver with 39 counts of manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people in connection with 39 deaths in the back of the truck he was driving in southeastern England, the AP reports. Police say Maurice Robinson, 25, of Craigavon, Northern Ireland is due to appear at Chelmsford Magistrates Court on Monday. He was the first of those arrested to be charged in what is seen as one of the UK's biggest cases of people smuggling. Five others have been arrested in the case. UK police are struggling to identify the victims, who are believed to have come from Asia, and autopsies are being performed. The Vietnamese Embassy in London has set up a hotline for families to call about missing family members.
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(Oct 13, 2008 6:57 PM CDT) Screaming girls, predawn starts, and 6-day weeks are a lot to handle on $10 an hour--but NBC pages see success at the end of the tunnel, the New York Times reports. They know that hours of smiling schlep work--think photocopies and coffee--have led luminaries like Regis Philbin and Ted Koppel to stardom. What made them good pages? We're all hams, one said. They also overcame odds worse than getting into Harvard to get the gig, and passed a grueling test on NBC trivia. We all have an unhealthy knowledge of NBC, one admitted. They also have about a 70% chance of getting a job at NBC. By that time, they hopefully know the keys to the business. It was a wonderful time, said Koppel. I dated my way through the Radio City Rockettes.
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(Jul 3, 2019 6:57 AM CDT) With at least two tanks now parked close to the Lincoln Memorial, the stage is set for President Trump's Fourth of July Salute to America. Trump, who will speak at the memorial Thursday evening, has also ordered flyovers from Air Force One and aircraft from each branch of the military, reports the New York Times. The tanks were spotted on flatcars at a DC rail yard Tuesday before they were trucked to the National Mall. The president has described the event as a salute to the military, though critics who accuse Trump of politicizing the holiday--and the military--noted that White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said the president's speech will highlight some of the administration's successes, the AP reports. After it emerged Tuesday that GOP donors had been given tickets to sit with other VIPs in a special area in front of the memorial, a Republican National Committee spokesman defended the move, saying it was standard practice for the RNC to receive a small number of tickets to events just as the DNC did under Democrat Presidents. Funding for the event is also controversial: Sources tell the Washington Post that the National Park Service is diverting around $2.5 million in park entrance fees to the event, using money that would normally have gone to park improvements. A spokeswoman for Rep. Betty McCollum, chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee, promised that the Democrat would seek a full accounting of the event's cost to taxpayers, which the administration has declined to disclose.
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(Jun 6, 2012 10:30 AM CDT) Are you close to someone who's gay? If not, you're now officially in the minority, according to a new CNN poll. Some 40% of respondents said they don't have any close friends or family members who are gay, and that's actually a pretty big decrease from 2010, notes CNN. Two years ago, 51% cited zero; in the 1990s, the vast majority did. Attitudes toward sexual orientation have also changed over the same time period, CNN's polling director observes. In 1998, most people believed being gay was a choice, while today only a third believe that. A majority--54%--now also support same-sex marriage, with only 42% opposed. But the partisan and generational divides on the issue are predictably stark: Seven in 10 Democrats support same-sex marriage, seven in 10 Republicans oppose it. Two-thirds of those under 50 support, and 55% of those over 50 oppose.
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(Mar 19, 2016 5:50 AM CDT) All 62 people on board a flight from Dubai to Rostov-on-Don were killed when the Boeing 737-800 crashed on landing in the Russian city, authorities say. Poor visibility and high winds are suspected to be factors in the crash, reports the BBC. The FlyDubai jet is believed to have abandoned an earlier attempt to land and circled for two hours before the second attempt ended in disaster. Different versions of what happened are being looked into, including crew error, a technical failure, and bad weather conditions, Russian authorities said in a statement, per Reuters. The airline says the 55 passengers and seven crew included 44 Russian citizens, eight Ukrainians, and two Indian nationals, the Guardian reports.
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(Sep 30, 2011 1:52 AM CDT) Britain's government--citing major advances in vehicle safety and the fact that half the country's drivers are ignoring the current limit of 70 miles per hour--is planning to raise the speed limit to 80 on the nation's highways. Britain's roads should be the arteries of a healthy economy and cars are a vital lifeline for many, the country's transport secretary said, slamming the previous administration's shortsighted and misguided war on the motorist. Highway deaths have fallen by more than 75% since the 70 limit was introduced in 1965, the transport secretary noted. Safety campaigners and environmentalists plan to fight the move, while motorist groups warn that the rise is likely to result in many drivers doing 90 mph, the Guardian reports. The new limit would be as high as any that can currently be found on American highways. Lawmakers in Texas recently approved a maximum speed of 85 miles per hour, but they have yet to identify any stretches of highway where the new limit can be applied.
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(Jun 23, 2010 8:30 AM CDT) Remember that big scary shadow RNC Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie cooked up to lure the big GOP donors scared off by Michael Steele? It's not going so well. The group, dubbed American Crossroads, raised just $200 last month, according to a report filed with the IRS--and no, that figure isn't missing any zeros. Since launching in March, it's raised $1.25 million, putting it just a bit behind in its quest to raise $52 million this year. The big donors simply haven't materialized, Politico explains--in fact, it's actually been a bigger boon for Democrats, who use it as a bogeyman in their fundraising appeals. But American Crossroads isn't worried, its president says. We spent our first six weeks building a structure that our donors want to see in place, he says, and now we are at the stage where the checks will begin catching up.
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(May 17, 2012 4:41 PM CDT) Good thing he wrote a bestseller. Houston dad Marc Ostrofsky has tallied up his family's college costs, and we're looking at roughly $60,000 to $70,000 per child per year, he tells KHOU. A total of about $1.5 million after tax dollars. Ostrofsky has five daughters and stepdaughters; the oldest just graduated Berklee School of Music, while the youngest is about to start at Boston University. There's a pair of twins, one of whom is graduating from Duke while the other graduates from Washington University in St. Louis. And there's one more at the University of Denver. I think in the future it's going to be different. I don't think a lot of people are going to play that game, says Ostrofsky, an online entrepreneur and author of Get Rich Click! He expects a combination of online and traditional classes to take over. Should kids stay in school? Be careful what you wish for, he says.
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(Dec 31, 2010 12:23 PM) Chubby babies are adorable, sure, but a new study shows that overweight or obese babies (researchers shy away from attaching the label to kids so young) are likely to stay that way--and a huge number of infants fall into those categories. Almost 32% of babies are obese or overweight by nine months, and that number rises to 34% by two years, LiveScience reports. The study looked at the weight of 7,500 children born in 2001 over time. Children who were normal weight at nine months had a 75% chance of remaining at normal weight by two years--but kids in the at-risk category (similar to overweight for adults) had just a 50% chance of transitioning to normal weight by two years; more than 28% actually moved up to the obese category (defined as those in the 95th percentile of weight) by that time. For obese nine-month-olds, the situation was even more sobering: Just 37.6% achieved normal weight by two years, while 18% moved to at-risk, and 43.9% stayed obese. Click to see how you can halt childhood obesity before birth.
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(Feb 17, 2020 12:00 PM) When a Utah mom of five discovered, at 2am while her husband was out of town, that she couldn't breastfeed her hungry newborn, she called 911--and police delivered, literally. Shannon Bird tells KSL-TV that she first called her husband upon discovering that her breast milk had apparently dried up and their 6-week-old was screaming, and they brainstormed ideas. But when she was unable to get a hold of any neighbors or relatives for help, she called police in the hope that they would patrol and make sure her other sleeping children were safe while she ran to the store for formula. Instead, officers showed up on her doorstep with a gallon of milk. Upon realizing the infant was too young for regular milk, they went back out. We'll leave this with you, Officer Brett Wagstaff is heard saying on body-cam footage of the Jan. 28 incident. We'll be right back with some formula for your baby--she's adorable. Then, when they got back--refusing to be reimbursed--he added, That's the same stuff we gave my daughter when she was first born, so hopefully it doesn't upset her stomach. The Lone Peak Police Department's public information officer applauded his colleagues' actions. It's been about protect and serve. This is part of the serve. We are here to serve the public. The department posted on Facebook how proud it is of the officers.
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(Jun 19, 2014 5:50 PM CDT) And another for the cat came back files: This one's a doozy, with a woman in Australia reporting that her cat Shelby turned up on her doorstep after 13 years on the lam, reports 7News Melbourne. Paula Harper-Adams says she at first didn't recognize the sorry-looking creature, but suddenly had an aha moment that was later confirmed by the vet's office. I think we all sort of felt pretty emotional about that, says one of the staffers. Adds a blogger at Jezebel: This is one of the few times I wish cats could talk. (Click to see a genuine hero cat in action.
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(Oct 15, 2018 4:18 PM CDT) Authorities searched Monday for a 13-year-old girl they believe is in danger after her parents were found dead in their western Wisconsin home, the AP reports. Deputies went to the home in Barron after dispatchers received a 911 call from an unknown person at around 1am Monday, Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said. He said they found the bodies of Jayme Closs' parents, though he didn't release their names. He also said there had been gunshots, but he stopped short of saying that's how the couple died. Investigators don't have any leads or suspects, but they have enlisted the help of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the FBI, which has agents who specialize in missing children cases, the sheriff said. He said Jayme is not considered a suspect in her parents' deaths.
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(Sep 30, 2019 4:07 AM CDT) Low-cost fashion retailer Forever 21 says it has filed for bankruptcy protection--but that doesn't mean it is doomed. In a letter to customers Sunday, the 35-year-old chain said it will be business as usual during reorganization and filing for Chapter 11 protection is a deliberate and decisive step to put us on a successful track for the future. The company says, however, that it is going to close up to 178 of its 500 or so stores in the US, as well as many of its approximately 300 international locations, the AP reports. That will include all 44 stores in Canada as well as most of its locations in Asia and Europe, though the company says most of its stores in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America will remain open. Once we complete a reorganization, Forever 21 will be a stronger, more viable company that is better positioned to prosper for years to come, the company said. Analysts say the company has been struggling with changing consumer tastes and competition from online retailers. The entry of Forever 21 into Chapter 11 bankruptcy is a consequence of both changing trends and tastes within the apparel market and of missteps by the company, Neil Saunders at GlobalData Retail tells the BBC. Over the past few years, the brand has lost much of the excitement and oomph which is critical to driving footfall and sales and is now something of an also-ran which is too easily overlooked.
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(Jun 7, 2010 9:06 AM CDT) Miley Cyrus's 7-inch Christian Louboutin spike heels made headlines in Madrid ( Hannah Montana star struggles to stay upright! )--but the New York Daily News would like you to know that there are quite a few benefits to wearing such ridiculous shoes. For one, heels will make your legs and butt look better, which will boost your confidence-- and confidence, explains one stylist, helps you get laid.
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(NoneDate) On the last day of a G8 summit stymied on climate change and trade, leaders have pledged $20 billion to farms in poor countries in the fight hunger, Reuters reports. Some $3.5 billion will come from the US, which wants to focus on farm aid instead of food aid. There is no reason Africa should not be self-sufficient when it comes to food, said President Obama. In his call for the funds, Obama invoked his father, the AP reports. The telling point is when my father traveled to the United States from Kenya to study, he said. The per capita income of Kenya was higher than South Korea's. Today, South Korea has industrialized and is holding its own, while his relatives live in Kenyan villages where hunger is real.
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(Jul 26, 2012 6:44 PM CDT) House Republicans won't stand for any new regulations until the employment rate drops to 6%, thus putting unemployment at 94%. At least that's what a typo in a new bill suggested--they meant unemployment, the Hill reports. Democrats spotted the error, and the bill's sponsors rushed to correct it. And of course, in the process, another mistake was made, GOP Rep. Virginia Foxx reported on the House floor. That second mistake cited H Res 783--a nonexistent measure. Lawmakers meant to write 738. The errors sparked much amusement, frustration, and general Congressional dawdling, Politico reports. Democrats resisted going through the error-correction procedure, thus highlighting the mistakes; Republicans then attacked Dems for wasting time. The fact that the Democrats are making a crusade out of a typo shows their lack of commitment to serious debate, said a Congressional aide. Dems, meanwhile, teased Republicans, who often complain that Democratic bills are too long. My, my, my how carefully the Republicans read bills, said Rep. Steny Hoyer.
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(Dec 17, 2015 8:29 AM) The US stands by the one-China policy, but that doesn't mean it can't sell weapons directly to Taiwan, citing ithe Taiwan Relations Act to ensure Taiwan can adequately defend itself--and China isn't happy about it. The Obama administration announced a $1.8 billion arms package sale to Congress on Wednesday, Reuters reports, including guided-missile frigates, anti-tank missiles, Amphibious Assault Vehicles, and $416 million worth of guns, ammo, and other supplies. The announcement came amid reports that the US had stalled the sale to avoid hearing about it from China, which still claims Taiwan as a territory, per the Wall Street Journal. Reuters notes the sale comes as US-China relations simmer over the latter's man-made islands in the South China Sea and US patrols in those waters. China notes it's going to sanction the companies involved in the sale (including Lockheed Martin and Raytheon), with a foreign ministry official telling Xinhua that the sale flouts international rules and severely damages China's sovereignty. China's government and companies will not carry out cooperation and commercial dealings with these types of companies, a ministry spokesman says. A Pentagon spokesman gave the equivalent of an eyeroll Wednesday, per the New York Times, noting, The Chinese can react to this as they see fit. ... It's a [clear-eyed], sober view of an assessment of Taiwan's defense needs. ... There's no need for it to have any derogatory effect on our relationship with China. Meanwhile, the AP notes that China has issued similar threats before, with no evidence they've had any meaningful effect. (All this despite a lengthy handshake last month.)
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(Oct 6, 2020 4:36 PM CDT) One of the greatest rock guitarists of all time died Tuesday morning after a long battle with cancer. Wolfgang Van Halen, Eddie Van Halen's son and bandmate, confirmed his father's death in a tweet. He was the best father I could ask for, he wrote. Every moment I've shared with him on and off stage was a gift. Van Halen was 65. He founded the band Van Halen with drumming brother Alex Van Halen, singer David Lee Roth, and bassist Michael Anthony in Pasadena, Calif. in 1974, and his incredible guitar skills helped make them one of the most successful hard rock bands in history, the Guardian reports. He led the band through multiple lineup changes in the decades that followed, including several changes of lead singer. His son replaced Anthony in 2006. Van Halen, whose family moved from the Netherlands to California when he was eight, was the most influential guitarist of his generation, writes Jim Farber at the New York Times. His outpouring of riffs, runs and solos was hyperactive and athletic, joyous and wry, making deeper or darker emotions feel irrelevant. Rolling Stone notes that without Van Halen's influence, hard rock would have evolved in unimaginably different ways after the late '70s. I don't know s--- about scales or music theory, he told the magazine in 1980. I don't want to be seen as the fastest guitar in town, ready and willing to gun down the competition. All I know is that rock and roll guitar, like blues guitar, should be melody, speed, and taste, but more important, it should have emotion.
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(Mar 4, 2013 12:07 AM) Bobby Rogers, a founding member of Motown hit machine The Miracles, has died at the age of 73 after a long illness. Rogers--a songwriter and choreographer as well as one of the group's five voices--kept the group going through various incarnations until health issues forced him to retire in 2011; he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year. He had the sparkling personality that was loved by everyone, fellow Miracle Claudette Robinson tells the Detroit Free Press. He was personable, approachable, and he loved talking to the women, loved talking to the guys, loved to dance, loved to sing, loved to perform. That was the joy of his life. Another soldier in my life has fallen, longtime Miracles frontman Smokey Robinson tells CNN. Bobby Rogers was my brother and a really good friend. He and I were born on the exact same day in the same hospital in Detroit. I am really going to miss him. I loved him very much.
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(May 2, 2019 7:50 PM CDT) Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Chewbacca in the original Star Wars trilogy, has died at 74, Variety reports. His family announced Mayhew's death at his home in north Texas on Twitter. He was the gentlest of giants, co-star Mark Hamill tweeted, saying Mayhew never failed to make me smile. Mayhew's Star Wars roles spanned 1977 through 2015, per the BBC. He put his heart and soul into the role of Chewbacca, his family said, and it showed in every frame. Mayhew was a hospital attendant in London, where he was born, when a producer spotted him and cast him in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. He won the role of Chewbacca, the 200-year-old Wookiee, the next year, per Variety. The Star Wars family meant so much more to him than a role in a film, his family said. The 7-foot-2 actor is survived by his wife, Angie, and three children. (Peter Mayhew's cane/lightsaber worried the TSA.)
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(Mar 2, 2020 6:28 PM) Every morning, Jerrnia Horne, 6, was walked to her school bus stop by a parent or grandparent. On Friday, as the South Carolina girl waited for her bus, holding her grandmother's hand, a truck hit her. She died later at a hospital. We were on the sidewalk. Then, I saw the black truck coming, Beatrice Mayson said. I tried calling her, 'Jerrnia! Jerrnia!' (but) I can't hear no voice. Lancaster County officials are investigating the death and have not said whether the 39-year-old woman who was driving the truck will be charged, ABC reports. Earlier last month, a 6-year-old girl was killed in Wisconsin while waiting for her school bus with a family member. The bus was stopped, its lights flashing, when a car going the same way hit both of them. The girl's female relative was hospitalized with injuries, per USA Today. Waushara County authorities are investigating. (In Brooklyn, a school bus hit and killed a girl walking to school with her brother.)
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(May 14, 2014 6:53 AM CDT) The late Earl Van Best Jr. was the Zodiac Killer, at least according to his own son. HarperCollins yesterday released a book by Gary L. Stewart that got a quick avalanche of press, due in part to the fact that the publisher managed to keep the lid on the book for a year. The Most Dangerous Animal of All is the result of Stewart's 12-year search for his biological father, a quest launched when his birth mother made contact with him in 2002. As NOLA.com reports, Jude Gilford married Best, then 27, when she was 13. The two fled San Francisco, and Gilford gave birth to Stewart in 1963; Best left him in a Baton Rouge apartment building when he was four weeks old. Best was ultimately jailed through July 1965 after facing charges of raping a minor and document and wire fraud. Gilford never spoke with him again (interestingly, she ended up marrying a San Francisco Police Department detective who worked on the Zodiac Killer case). The Zodiac Killer first struck in Northern California in 1968; Best died in 1984. The 51-year-old Stewart tells People that the book is the result of some 500 interviews and holds what he sees as evidence of his father's guilt: a similarity between his father's fingerprints and one left at the crime scene; a comparison of his father's handwriting from his parents' marriage certificate with that of letters written by the killer that a handwriting expert found to be virtually the same; the victims' resemblance to Gilford. Further, many of the Zodiac Killer's letters were directed to Chronicle reporter Paul Avery, who had written critically of Best after he married the teen. But there's one thing Stewart hasn't been able to do: Compare his DNA to what the SFPD had among its evidence; he says he's unsuccessfully lobbied for such a comparison for a decade. A rep for the SFPD tells CNN the department had no knowledge of the book but will certainly ... take a look at it.
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(Feb 23, 2012 12:04 PM) On Friday, Joyce Hardin Garrard found out her 9-year-old granddaughter Savannah Hardin had eaten a candy bar on the school bus, and allegedly punished her by making her run around the house, without stopping, for three hours. Savannah, who had a bladder condition that could have been aggravated by the candy, began having seizures and was rushed to the hospital, where she died Monday. Garrard and Savannah's stepmother, Jessica Mae Hardin, are charged with the girl's murder, MyFox Alabama reports. Hardin was considered the girl's primary caregiver because Savannah's father was working overseas for the government at the time; Hardin was charged along with the grandmother for not halting the punishment. Savannah, who weighed just 65 pounds, was found to be severely dehydrated with low sodium levels. The third-grader was caused to undergo physical exertion to the point in time where she just got dehydrated and her electrolyte levels got to the point where she couldn't survive life, the district attorney says. Hardin, 26, gave birth yesterday afternoon while sheriff's deputies guarded her.
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(Jul 4, 2013 9:00 AM CDT) Boston University is asking a court to stop the sales of the iPhone 5, iPad, and MacBook Air, claiming that all those products infringe on a patent filed by one of its professors back in 1997. The patent covers a method of generating blue lasers in a cheap, compact fashion using gallium nitride film semiconductors. The school wants a cut of all the profits Apple has made on all those devices, plus interest, which an expert tells CNET could amount to $75 million. But don't worry Apple junkies, the court probably won't take those devices off the market, nor will BU really pressure it to do so; the request is pro forma, the Verge explains, included in almost all such lawsuits. And if BU seems like an unlikely litigant, you should know it has tried to enforce this same patent before, suing both Amazon and Samsung over it in just the past year. (In other must-read tech news, the visionary inventor of the computer mouse has died.)
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(May 11, 2017 1:03 AM CDT) India Prime Minister Narendra Modi says he is pained beyond words by a disaster that killed dozens of people at a wedding in Rajasthan state Wednesday. Authorities say at least 25 people were killed and nearly 30 others injured after a dust storm hit as hundreds of people were dining outside, the Telegraph reports. As guests sought shelter inside, an 80-foot-long wall in the wedding hall collapsed onto them, trapping many people in debris. Police say the building owner is being questioned on suspicion of culpable homicide, the AP reports. Modi has promised payments of around $3,000 to the next of kin of deceased victims and $775 to those badly injured.
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(Aug 10, 2012 2:51 AM CDT) Tracking Internet users who had a do not track privacy setting switched on has cost Google $22.5 million. The fine, the largest the Federal Trade Commission has ever levied against a company, came after investigators found that the search firm had bypassed privacy settings in Apple's Safari browser to track users and show them personalized ads, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Google--which does not have to admit to wrongdoing as part of the settlement--exploited a loophole that let its cookies be installed via advertisements on popular websites, even if users' browser preferences had been set to reject them. This sends the message that the FTC isn't kidding around, said the chief of the commission's competition bureau. The head of the Big Brother Watch privacy group applauded the heavy fine. It's an essential part of a properly functioning market that consumers are in control of their personal information, and are able to take steps to protect their privacy, he said. The size of the fine in this case should deter any company from seeking to exploit underhanded means of tracking consumers. It is essential that anyone who seeks to over-ride consumer choices about sharing their data is held to account.
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(Mar 18, 2010 8:57 PM CDT) Armon Bassett scored 32 points to help 14th-seeded Ohio beat No. 3 Georgetown, 97-83, to become the second team seeded in the teens to win in the NCAA men's basketball tournament today. The Mid-American Conference's Bobcats (22-14) took the lead early on their 3-point shooting and were never seriously threatened by the Hoyas on the way to the school's first tournament victory in 27 years. For a complete scoreboard, click here.
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(Jul 15, 2020 1:34 PM CDT) A man in suburban Detroit was given the wrong lottery ticket. But there was no mistake about the result: a $2 million winner. The Michigan Lottery said the man stopped at a gas station in Eastpointe, Michigan, to put air in a tire. He needed change for the air machine and also asked for a $10 Lucky 7's scratch-off ticket, the AP reports. The clerk handed me the $20 ticket by mistake. He offered to exchange it for me but something told me to keep it. I am sure glad I did! the man said in a statement released Tuesday by the Lottery. The name of the 57-year-old man wasn't released. He decided to take a lump sum of about $1.3 million instead of $2 million spread over many years, the Lottery said.
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(May 19, 2016 4:03 AM CDT) The owner of a gold ring and necklace found at Auschwitz was almost certainly murdered by the Nazis, but she hid her valuables so well that they weren't found by her killers--or by anybody else for another 70 years. The Auschwitz Museum says curators discovered the items in an enamel mug with a double bottom. The mug, one of 12,000 pieces of kitchenware in the museum's collection at the former extermination camp, had begun to fall apart with age and employees discovered its secret during maintenance work, the BBC reports. Tests revealed that the pieces, which had hallmarks featuring the head of a knight with the number three on the right side, were made in Poland between 1921 and 1931. Museum director Dr. Piotr Cywinski says the Nazis, who murdered more than 1 million Jews at the camp, told people being rounded up and sent to Auschwitz that they were being deported for resettlement--a lie that ensured they brought their valuables with them in the small amount of luggage they were allowed. The fact that victims went to great lengths to hide their valuables shows they knew they would be robbed, he says, but on the other hand, it shows that the Jewish families constantly had a ray of hope. The museum says the jewelry will remain in its collection--there's little chance of identifying the owner--displayed in a way that shows how it had been hidden. (An Auschwitz survivor wasn't allowed to testify at a guard's trial.)
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(Mar 8, 2008 5:17 PM) Barack Obama easily won the Wyoming caucuses today and added 7 delegates to his tally, Chris Cillizza reports in his Washington Post blog. Obama won 61% of the vote and Hillary Clinton won 38%, scoring 5 delegates. Obama campaign chief David Plouffe called the victory a very important win while Clinton's camp depicted the result as a surprisingly good near split in delegates. Both campaigns fired off memos over Iraq war plans as the Wyoming votes were being tallied. Clinton's blasted her rival for claiming to have a pullout plan even though departed adviser Samantha Power said the campaign had none. Obama's camp replied that he has made hard end dates about Iraq a centerpiece of his campaign.
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(May 22, 2009 5:05 AM CDT) Florida's BankUnited went bust yesterday as the FDIC seized the critically undercapitalized bank and sold it off to a private-equity team including Blackstone, reports the Wall Street Journal. BankUnited's troubles stemmed from overeager moves in the housing market. It specialized in loans for foreigners wanting to buy Florida property. After Indymac, BankUnited is the largest bank failure since the start of the financial crisis. The already weakened FDIC reckons the bust will cost it $4.9 billion.
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(Feb 27, 2009 12:00 PM) President Obama didn't mince his words in his address at Camp Lejeune, NC, today. By Aug. 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end, he declared, earning his first applause from the audience of Marines. Iraq is not yet secure, and there will be difficult days ahead, he said, but all US troops will be out by the end of 2011, USA Today reports. Those dates are in line with the Status of Forces agreement the Bush administration signed with Iraq. Obama said he settled on the Aug. 31 deadline, three months later than the 16 months promised during the campaign, after consulting with military leaders. He also reassured Iraqis that America pursues no claim on your territory or resources, and is hoping for a new era of American leadership and engagement in the Middle East.
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(Jan 20, 2011 12:17 PM) A pair of car bombs blasted through security checkpoints ringing the Iraqi holy city of Karbala today and killed at least 51 people, most of whom were Shiite pilgrims headed to observe yearly religious rituals. Authorities estimated as many as 183 people were wounded in the near-simultaneous blasts set off by suicide bombers driving cars packed with explosives. A pilgrim from Sadr City said he saw the car speeding toward one of the checkpoints, its driver ignoring frantic calls to stop. He sped up and blew up his car near the checkpoint, he said. People started running in all directions. It was the latest in a wave of attacks in recent days, as insurgents test Iraqi security forces ahead of the planned US withdrawal at the end of the year. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the attack bore the hallmarks of Sunni extremist groups like al-Qaeda, which often strike Shiite pilgrimages.
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(Mar 7, 2016 7:20 PM) A Connecticut teen accused of stabbing a classmate to death at their high school for rejecting his invitation to the junior prom pleaded no contest to murder Monday, and prosecutors say they will seek a 25-year prison sentence. Christopher Plaskon, 18, accepted a plea bargain during a brief appearance in Milford Superior Court, the AP reports. Sentencing is set for June 6. Plaskon was charged with killing 16-year-old Maren Sanchez at Jonathan Law High School in Milford on April 25, 2014. His family and friends said he became upset that Sanchez turned down his prom invitation. Plaskon was held at a psychiatric hospital after the stabbing. His attorneys were considering an insanity defense. Plaskon lawyer Edward Garvin said his client suffered from psychosis and called the claim that the stabbing was over a prom rejection inaccurate. State's Attorney Kevin Lawlor, however, said evidence from several sources pointed to the rejection as the reason for the attack. Garvin said state law would allow Plaskon to apply for parole in 13 years, based on the fact that he was 16 at the time of the killing. Lawlor said the plea bargain was the best result possible in the case. Sanchez was posthumously voted prom queen by her devastated friends.
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(Nov 21, 2014 9:22 AM) Ten reports of full or partial fingertip amputations and one finger laceration have prompted the voluntary recall of 5 million strollers manufactured by Graco Children's Products, CNN reports. The Graco- and Century-branded models have folding hinges that can pinch a child's finger, posing a laceration or amputation hazard, reports the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, which also warns those watching children to show extreme care when unfolding the stroller to be certain that the hinges are firmly locked before placing a child in the stroller. A free repair kit with hinge covers will be offered for affected models, which were sold through Target, Toys R Us, Walmart, Amazon, and other retail and online sites, according to Graco. Recalled models include Aspen, Breeze, Capri, Cirrus, Glider, Kite, LiteRider, Sierra, Solara, Sterling, and TravelMate model strollers and travel systems, with a manufacture date of Aug. 1, 2000, to Sept. 25, 2014. Even such a big recall might not take babies out of harm's way, though. An investigation set to air on ABC's 20/20 tonight shows that most recalled products are never brought in or fixed--at best, the number hovers around 20%, at worst 5%, ABC News reports. Instead, the products stay in use or--worse--are listed for resale, which is illegal, according to the CPSC. ABC News found plenty of such resale items available and points out that manufacturers don't have federal minimums to meet in terms of either effort or money when it comes to recalls. (See full recall details.)
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(Feb 19, 2019 9:14 AM) A whistleblower at Grand Canyon National Park has made a startling disclosure in what the Arizona Republic calls a rogue email: Three 5-gallon paint buckets of uranium ore were stored for 18 years in one of the park's buildings, possibly exposing tourists and workers to radiation. In a Feb. 4 message sent to all NPS employees, park safety chief Elston Stephenson says the uranium specimens, previously kept in the cellar at park HQ, were moved to the museum collections building in 2000, where they remained until June 2018. The radiation readings, at first blush, exceeds [sic] the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's safe limits. ... Identifying who was exposed, and your exposure level, gets tricky. He notes that the teen son of a park employee discovered the radiation threat when he brought his Geiger counter on a visit in March; Stephenson found out about it a few months later. Newsweek notes we're naturally exposed to small amounts of radiation every day. But Stephenson says that the containers were kept near a taxidermy exhibit that kids often sat near during presentations, which could go on for more than half an hour--meaning they could've been blasted with up to 4,000 times what's considered safe exposure. Stephenson says the ore was dumped by NPS specialists into a nearby mine in June (though, he adds, they inexplicably brought the buckets back to the museum collections building). He says park management tried to cover up the story, and that it's immoral not to get the word out. A rep says the NPS is working with OSHA and Arizona's health services department to get to the bottom of things. There is no current risk to the park employees or public, she says.
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(Jul 1, 2009 7:53 AM CDT) Ezra Merkin, the financier who pumped billions of his clients' money into Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, is selling more than 10 paintings by Mark Rothko and two sculptures by Alberto Giacometti for $310 million, reports the Wall Street Journal. Some of the proceeds may go to his defrauded investors, who include charities and nonprofits. The sale was announced by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who is suing Merkin and has frozen his assets. The price tag on the paintings is surprisingly high, and the identity of the buyer is unknown--but many in the art world think the Rothko family may have acquired the works. The family told associates they wanted to buy back the paintings after the Madoff scandal broke.
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(Jan 10, 2020 2:00 PM) And then there were six. On Thursday morning, just Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren had met polling and fundraising requirements to participate in Tuesday's Democratic debate in Iowa. By Thursday evening, there was a new entry: businessman Tom Steyer, who Politico notes was able to take advantage of a surge in two early-state polls to qualify. In the first of two Fox News polls released late Thursday, Steyer ties for third with Warren with 12% among Democratic caucusgoers, behind Biden at 23% and Sanders at 17%. In the second poll, out of South Carolina, Steyer jumps to second with 15%, though he's way behind Biden at 36%; Sanders and Warren come in at 14% and 10%, respectively. Buttigieg placed fifth in both polls, with 6% in Nevada and 4% in South Carolina. Candidates can qualify polling-wise by Friday night's deadline by reaching 5% in four DNC-approved polls, or 7% in two early-state polls. What likely helped push Steyer into debate contender territory in these two polls, per Politico: the $21.5 million he's forked over in both states for direct-mail appeals and TV and radio ads. Steyer has spent $116 million on TV ads overall, reports the Washington Post, which compares his strategy with that of Mike Bloomberg, this campaign season's other big spender. Cory Booker, Tulsi Gabbard, and Andrew Yang are the only other candidates who appear to have a chance to meet all requirements by Friday night's debate deadline, but Politico says it doesn't look likely. At least one more poll--the Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom survey--will be released before the door is shut.
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(Apr 29, 2019 5:00 PM CDT) No money was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, not two Million Dollars, not anything else, President Trump insisted on Friday. That may be the case, but the former North Korea envoy tells CNN he did indeed sign an agreement to pay Pyongyang $2 million for Warmbier's hospital care, and he believes his authorization to do so came from Trump. Joseph Yun never interacted with the president. But as the State Department Special Representative for North Korea, he said he contacted his boss at the time--Rex Tillerson--and told him the North was insisting on the payment. Tillerson got back to me very quickly thereafter to say yes, go ahead and sign. Though he did not ask Tillerson, Yun's understanding was that Tillerson had gotten Trump's OK. National security adviser John Bolton wasn't part of the administration at the time but confirmed on Sunday that he was told a pledge was indeed signed. When asked by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday whether the payment has ever been made, Bolton said, Absolutely not, and that's the key point. Yun told CNN that he thought the US should honor the agreement and pay.
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(Apr 15, 2008 6:27 AM CDT) A car bomb ripped through the Iraqi city of Baquba today, leaving at least 40 people dead and more than 70 injured, Reuters reports. The bomb went off near midday outside a restaurant that faces the city's main courthouse. Only a short while later a second bomb went off in the city of Ramadi, killing another 13 people. Baquba, capital of Iraq's multi-ethnic Diyala province, is one of the key battlegrounds in the American and Iraqi armies' struggle against al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgents. With a shortage of ambulances, eyewitnesses reported that charred bodies remained inside cars at the scene of the blast.
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(Nov 23, 2020 9:50 AM) The US is making General Motors recall and repair nearly 6 million big pickup trucks and SUVs equipped with potentially dangerous Takata air bag inflators, per the AP. The decision announced Monday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will cost the automaker an estimated $1.2 billion, about one-third of its net income this year. Drivers can check to see if their vehicles have been recalled by going to www.nhtsa.gov/recalls and keying in their 17-digit vehicle identification number. The company has 30 days to give NHTSA a proposed schedule for notifying vehicle owners and starting the recall. GM had petitioned the agency four times starting in 2016 to avoid a recall, contending the air bag inflator canisters have been safe on the road and in testing.
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(May 5, 2011 4:23 AM CDT) The last known survivor of the tens of millions of people who fought in World War I has died in Australia at the age of 110, reports AP. Claude Choules began training with Britain's Royal Navy when he was just 14 and served on the battleship HMS Revenge, where he witnessed the surrender of Germany's main fleet in 1918. He moved to Australia after the war and served in the navy there during World War II, acting as chief demolition officer for the western side of the continent, which was considered vulnerable to Japanese attack. Choules met his wife Ethel on the first day of his sea journey to Australia and they stayed together for 76 years until her death in 2003, raising three children and settling down to a quiet life crayfishing south of Perth after he left the military in 1956. I had a pretty poor start, he told an interviewer in 2009. But I had a good finish. The only known WWI service member still alive is Florence Green, also 110, who served as a waitress in Britain's Women's Royal Air Force.
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(Apr 22, 2008 7:48 AM CDT) Internet calling system Skype is introducing a plan for unlimited overseas phone calls for $9.95 a month, CNET reports. The plan includes 34 European and Far Eastern countries, along with Australia and New Zealand--but the deal is limited to landlines except for calls to cell phones in Canada, China, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The plan also includes unlimited domestic calls in the US. Skype, a unit of eBay, is already offering unlimited calls in the US and Canada for $2.95 a month, and plans to offer unlimited calls to key Mexican cities for $5.95. The new offerings demonstrate that eBay, despite some concerns about the call provider, is giving it a chance to prove its worth, say analysts.
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