| Protesters Throw A Fiesta To Razz Lawyer Who Ranted At Spanish Speakers Posted: 18 May 2018 09:32 PM PDT  > Mariachi band continues #AaronSchlossberg #hablamosespanol @NYDailyNews
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| Prince Harry And Meghan Markle's Insane Wedding Cake Will Have 200 Lemons In It Posted: 18 May 2018 12:14 PM PDT  It appears that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will be getting sweet and sour
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| New documents suggest Las Vegas shooter was conspiracy theorist – what we know Posted: 19 May 2018 03:00 AM PDT  Stephen Paddock was the gunman who killed 58 people and wounded hundreds more last October, when he opened fire from the window of his room at the Mandalay hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. Yesterday, following legal action from news organizations, the Las Vegas police department released a trove of documents on the investigation, including statements from witnesses and victims. Mostly the documents contain harrowing accounts from victims of Stephen Paddock's shooting spree.
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| 10 Most-Reliable Luxury SUVs For 2018 Posted: 19 May 2018 08:00 AM PDT |
| Santa Fe High School shooting survivor: 'I've always felt it would eventually happen here, too' Posted: 18 May 2018 10:20 AM PDT  A young student who survived Friday's shooting at a Texas high school told a
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| North Korea demands South Korea send back restaurant workers Posted: 19 May 2018 04:36 AM PDT  SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Saturday reiterated its demands for South Korea to send back 12 North Korean restaurant workers who came to the South in 2016, saying such a move would demonstrate Seoul's willingness to improve relations.
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| Cuba in mourning after deadliest air crash in nearly 30 years Posted: 19 May 2018 01:39 PM PDT  Cuba observed a weekend of national mourning for victims of its worst crash in nearly three decades that killed 110 passengers and crew. An investigation has been launched into Friday's crash of the nearly 40-year-old Boeing 737-200 leased to the national carrier Cubana de Aviacion by a Mexican company. The Boeing crashed shortly after taking off from Havana, coming down in a field near the airport and sending a thick column of acrid smoke into the air.
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| Young father imprisoned in Iran: An American dream turned nightmare Posted: 18 May 2018 04:00 AM PDT  Xiyue Wang, a husband, father and Princeton University doctoral student, has been imprisoned in Iran since August 2016 on charges of espionage. He was invited to study at a foreign language institute in Tehran and was granted permission by Iran's Foreign Ministry to further his dissertation research. But President Trump's decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Iran nuclear agreement has complicated his case, along with the cases of four other Americans detained in Iran. Meanwhile back home in Princeton, N.J., his wife, Hua Qu, has been juggling her career and taking care of their 5-year-old son, all while trying to focus on her husband's case, appealing to President Trump for his release. Qu sat down with Yahoo News' Stephanie Sy to talk about her imprisoned husband and what it's like raising a son on her own.
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| Hannity Flips Out: Mueller Probe 'Is A Direct Threat To This American Republic' Posted: 17 May 2018 11:38 PM PDT  Fox News host Sean Hannity took his defense of President Donald Trump to the
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| Istanbul summit urges international force to protect Palestinians Posted: 18 May 2018 02:32 PM PDT  A summit in Istanbul of Muslim heads of state on Friday called for the creation of an international peacekeeping force to protect the Palestinians, as host Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of "brutality" comparable to the Nazis. The 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) -- seeking to bridge severe differences within the Muslim world -- said in a final communique that Israel had carried out the "wilful murder" of some 60 Palestinians on the Gaza border Monday. It called "for the international protection of the Palestinian population, including through dispatching of international protection force".
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| Santa Fe Shooting: Teacher Killed Left One Last Note For Her Family Posted: 19 May 2018 12:45 PM PDT  They have since framed the heartbreaking note.
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| US criticizes China's militarization of disputed waters Posted: 19 May 2018 05:47 PM PDT  BEIJING (AP) — The Pentagon criticized what it called China's "continued militarization" of island outposts in the disputed South China Sea, where the Chinese air force landed long-range bombers for the first time, putting entire Southeast Asia within their range.
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| Exclusive: In run-up to Venezuelan vote, more soldiers dissent and desert Posted: 18 May 2018 11:34 AM PDT  By Girish Gupta and Anggy Polanco CARACAS/SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (Reuters) - Arrests for rebellion and desertion are rising sharply in Venezuela's armed forces, a mainstay of President Nicolas Maduro's Socialist government, amid discontent within the ranks at food shortages and dwindling salaries, according to documents and interviews with army personnel. Internal military documents reviewed by Reuters showed that the number of soldiers detained for treason, rebellion and desertion rose to 172 in the first four months of the year, up three-and-a-half times on the same period of 2017. Former military officials said the figures reflected a dramatic increase in the level of dissent within Venezuela's once-proud armed forces.
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| Twitter Users Pan Ted Cruz After He Tweets 'Prayers' To Santa Fe School Shooting Victims Posted: 18 May 2018 04:46 PM PDT  After Friday's school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, a lot of people are letting
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| Chevrolet Silverado Adds Turbo Four-Cylinder Posted: 18 May 2018 05:00 AM PDT  A four-cylinder full-size pickup is coming, and we took it for a quick spin.
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| Meek Mill Backs Out Of Trump Event On Prison Reform Posted: 18 May 2018 09:31 AM PDT  Rapper Meek Mill withdrew from an event at the White House on Friday where he
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| The Royal Wedding's Order Of Service Contains A Notable Error Posted: 18 May 2018 11:48 PM PDT  Kensington Palace released the official Order of Service for the royal wedding
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| 2019 Corvette ZR1s With Weird Exhausts Caught Lapping The 'RIng Posted: 18 May 2018 06:09 AM PDT  Chevy might be preparing for the ZR1 to set an official lap time around the Nürburgring.
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| All Chilean bishops quit over child abuse scandal Posted: 18 May 2018 08:58 AM PDT  Thirty-four Chilean bishops announced their resignation Friday over a child sex abuse scandal within the Church in Chile that has come to haunt the reign of Pope Francis. "We, all the bishops present in Rome, have tendered our resignation to the Holy Father so that he may decide freely for each of us," the bishops said in a statement after three days of intense meetings with Francis at the Vatican. "We want to ask forgiveness for the pain caused to the victims, to the Pope, to God's people and to our country for the serious errors and omissions we have committed," the statement continued.
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| Two-Tone Trends: 15 Cars With Contrasting Roofs Posted: 18 May 2018 12:24 PM PDT |
| Monitor: 11 killed in blasts inside Syria weapons warehouse Posted: 18 May 2018 12:05 PM PDT  PARIS (AP) — Blasts set off by an explosion at a weapons warehouse in central Syria killed 11 people and wounded dozens Friday, a war monitor said, amid soaring tensions between regional archenemies Israel and Iran.
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| Cleric Sadr wins Iraq poll but forming government far off Posted: 19 May 2018 03:42 AM PDT  Final results from Iraq's election confirmed Saturday that an alliance spearheaded by populist cleric Moqtada Sadr has triumphed, but the fiery preacher faces a huge task to form a governing coalition. Sadr's Marching Towards Reform bloc won 54 of the 329 seats in parliament in a major upset at a May 12 vote that saw a record level of abstentions as Iraqis turned their back on a widely reviled elite. The nationalist -- whose Shiite militia battled US troops after the 2003 invasion -- faces a deeply fragmented political landscape and opposition from key player Iran after he called for foreign influence in Iraq to be cut.
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| Cuba plane crash: Boeing 737 carrying 113 plummets after takeoff, local media reports Posted: 18 May 2018 02:16 PM PDT  Cuban media say a Boeing 737 operated by state airline Cubana has crashed on takeoff from Jose Marti International Airport in Havana with 113 passengers on board. There was no immediate word on casualties.
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| Texas school shooting kills 10, deadliest since Parkland Posted: 18 May 2018 08:17 PM PDT  SANTA FE, Texas (AP) — A 17-year-old armed with a shotgun and a pistol opened fire at a Houston-area high school Friday, killing 10 people, most of them students, authorities said. It was the nation's deadliest such attack since the massacre in Florida that gave rise to a campaign by teens for gun control.
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| Royal Wedding Has People Remembering Emotional Princess Diana Quote About Love Posted: 19 May 2018 06:37 AM PDT  Shots of a beaming Prince Harry at the altar on Saturday as he wed Meghan
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| Raj Nair Is Now President and COO of Multimatic Posted: 18 May 2018 06:30 AM PDT  Nair was ousted from his role as president of Ford North America in February. Now he joins the Canadian racing company that builds the GT.
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| 2020 Mid-Engined Chevy Corvette Spied Up Close Posted: 18 May 2018 12:00 PM PDT  This is our clearest look yet.
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| Two North Koreans defect in latest upset for diplomatic thaw on Korean peninsula Posted: 18 May 2018 09:53 PM PDT  Two North Koreans, including a military officer, defected to the South early on Saturday morning in the latest upset for Pyongyang after a fractious week in which Kim Jong-un threatened to pull out of June talks with Donald Trump, the US president. The officer and a civilian defected by boat and were picked up by the South Korean military in the Yellow Sea, near the inter-Korean sea border, after expressing willingness to defect, reported the South's newswire, Yonhap. The defection, the first of a North Korean military officer since 2008, is awkward timing for Seoul, which has a longstanding policy of accepting any North Korean defectors who want to live in the South. Moon Jae-in, South Korea's president, has been at pains to keep this year's diplomatic détente between North and South on track, particularly in the run up to June 12 summit in Singapore between Kim and President Trump, which aims to make progress on denuclearisation and peace on the peninsula. But despite a friendly first meeting between Kim and Mr Moon at the end of April, during which they held hands as they crossed their shared border, the diplomatic thaw that began in January showed the first signs of a breakdown last week, and the latest defection could raise tensions further. Thae Yong-ho, the highest ranking North Korean official ever to defect Credit: AFP/AFP In a stinging rebuke on Thursday, North Korea's chief negotiator, Ri Son Gwon, called the South Korean government "ignorant and incompetent" for going ahead with joint air combat drills with the US, threatening to halt all talks. Mr Ri also hit out at Seoul for allowing "human scum" to speak at its National Assembly. Although he did not mention him by name, it is believed that Mr Ri was referring to Thae Yong-ho, the highest ranking North Korean official ever to defect, who warned that Kim would never fully give up his nuclear arsenal during a press conference in the Assembly on Monday. Korea summit | Read more Pyongyang's angry outburst at the South followed an earlier threat to Washington last week that it may pull out of the Singapore summit. Citing the joint military drills as one reason, Kim Kye Gwan also took aim at John Bolton, the US national security adviser, for championing the so-called "Libya model" of denuclearisation as one that could be applied to North Korea. "It is essentially a manifestation of awfully sinister move [sic] to impose on our dignified state the destiny of Libya or Iraq which had [sic] been collapsed due to yielding the whole of their countries to big powers," said Mr Kim in a statement.
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| Four dead in eastern Ukraine in fighting uptick Posted: 18 May 2018 04:42 AM PDT  At least four people, including a child, were killed in Ukraine's separatist east, pro-Russian rebel authorities said Friday as fighting intensified in the region. The news came the same day Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were set to meet in Russia to discuss the long-running conflict. Rebel authorities reported two of their fighters were killed and a third wounded in the clashes with the Ukrainian army.
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| Ukraine leader enacts new sanctions against Russia Posted: 17 May 2018 10:53 PM PDT  Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko has signed a decree to enact the recently adopted decision to expand sanctions on Russian companies and entities, according to information published on the presidential website on Friday. Ukraine's council of security and defense approved in early May the sanctions that mirror those of the United States, which has blacklisted tycoons and allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kiev has also extended existing sanctions it introduced against hundreds of Russian companies and entities in response to the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and Kremlin support for a pro-Russian separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine.
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| Blake Lively Teases Ryan Reynolds And Hugh Jackman's Bromance Posted: 18 May 2018 03:51 AM PDT  Blake Lively isn't fooled.
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| Chevy Camaro SS Vs. Ford Mustang GT: Top-Down Tussle Posted: 18 May 2018 06:00 AM PDT  Which Pony car comes out on top, when the sun's out?
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| How to Mind Your Manners When Having Tea With the Queen Posted: 18 May 2018 10:08 AM PDT  Inside Edition's Deborah Norville learned the proper method from British etiquette expert Diana Mather.
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| Fujifilm set to sue Xerox soon for scrapping takeover deal Posted: 18 May 2018 01:18 AM PDT  Fujifilm Holdings Corp is planning to sue Xerox Corp soon deeming that the U.S. photocopier company has no legal right to unilaterally scrap their $6.1 billion merger, a senior Fujifilm executive said on Friday. "We are currently in talks with lawyers on the schedule for filing the lawsuit and plan to go to court as soon as possible," Chief Operating Officer Kenji Sukeno said at an earnings briefing. In January, Fujifilm and Xerox agreed to a complex deal to merge Xerox into their 56-year-old Asia joint venture Fuji Xerox and give Fujifilm control.
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| Saudi Arabia detains women's rights activists weeks before female driving ban comes to an end Posted: 18 May 2018 07:58 AM PDT  Saudi Arabia has detained several prominent female activists who campaigned for women's right to drive, taking them into custody just weeks before the decades-long driving ban finally comes to an end. Human rights groups said Loujain al-Hathloul, Eman al-Nafjan and Aziza al-Yousef - three of the most prominent voices demanding women be free to drive - were all detained on Thursday. Two male advocates for women's rights were also detained, activists said. The activists were detained as Saudi Arabia prepares for the driving ban to come to an end on June 24. The policy shift has become a symbol of the modernising drive of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and the Saudi government is eager for positive media coverage of the move. The detentions appear to be an effort by Saudi authorities to make sure they do not have to share credit for the end of the driving ban with activists who spent years campaigning for it. They may also be concerned that the women right's campaigners would use the end of the driving to call for further advances in women's freedom - like an end to the male guardianship system that severely limits Saudi women's ability to travel independently. A woman in a black niqab drives in Saudi Arabia Neither Ms Narfjan nor Ms Hathloul could be reached for comment. Ms Hathloul told The Telegraph earlier this year that shortly before Saudi authorities announced the end of the driving ban in September she was warned not to speak publicly about it. Instead, she Tweeted just the word "Alhamdulillah" in Arabic, or "Praise be to God". "Shutting up or submitting to these threats is unacceptable to me, it is not an option to stay quiet any more," she said, breaking her silence in January. "We have been quiet for too long." Ms Hathloul had been detained twice before for her activism. She and other Saudi women sometimes filmed themselves driving in defiance of the ban and published the videos online, to the fury of the government. Ms Hathloul was voted the third-most powerful Arab woman by Forbes in 2015, but was forced to quit her job that same year because of driving restrictions. Her husband, a well-known Saudi comedian who acts as her male guardian, was often out of the country meaning she had to pay for taxis to and from work. Saudi women tour a car showroom for women on January 11, 2018, in the Saudi Red Sea port city of Jeddah. Credit: AFP "The Uber and Careem applications would take more than 30 per cent of my salary. For instance I would pay 2,000-3,000 riyals (£375-560) a month to get around, while my salary was 6,000 riyals," she said. "At the end of the month I basically had nothing." It was not clear if she or any or any of the other activists had been charged with a crime. Prisoners of Conscience, a human rights group, said that two men - Mohammed al-Rabjah and Ibrahim al-Mdmyegh - had also been arrested. The driving ban has been in place since 1979 and women's rights activists have been fighting it against for it for decades. In 1990, around 50 women launched the first high profile protest by driving in a convoy around Riyadh. They were eventually stopped by police. The Saudi government under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed has shown itself willing to use detention as a tool against political rivals. Dozens of princes and prominent businessmen were arrested in November and detained at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh on allegations of corruption. Most were released only after agreeing to pay large sums as part of a settlement with the authorities.
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| BMW X8 Allegedly Coming As Early As 2020 Posted: 18 May 2018 03:53 AM PDT  Automakers seem to believe you can never have too many SUVs - and they're probably right considering the current market trend.
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| The Web's Coolest Cars For Sale This Week Posted: 18 May 2018 04:57 AM PDT |
| American bishop brings human rights focus to royal wedding Posted: 18 May 2018 09:56 AM PDT  He's the son of an American civil rights activist and the descendant of African slaves. He condemned last year's white supremacist rally in Charlottesville as fascist and he has outspokenly stood up for gay rights.
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| The first photo from NASA's planet-hunting TESS satellite is full of so many stars Posted: 18 May 2018 11:01 AM PDT  A new NASA telescope, sailing toward its assigned orbit, took a moment to look around before it starts its ultimate mission: searching the galaxy for alien planets. NASA's TESS spacecraft — short for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite — beamed home one of its first photos taken from space, and it's a doozy. SEE ALSO: Here's how NASA's TESS will hunt for alien planets The photo, which effectively amounts to a test of one of the satellite's four cameras, contains more than 200,000 stars, NASA said. But that's only a fraction of the number of stars it will eventually study in order to find alien worlds out there circling them. A test image from NASA's TESS.Image: NASA/MIT/TESS"TESS is expected to cover more than 400 times as much sky as shown in this image with its four cameras during its initial two-year search for exoplanets," NASA said in a statement. The satellite is designed to hunt for new worlds by using the transit method, meaning that TESS will watch for minute dips in a star's light as a planet passes in front of its host star. By detecting these transits, TESS can piece together a bit about the orbits of these worlds and whether or not they might be friendly to life. In total, the satellite's field of view will include about 20 million stars that could all play host to worlds unknown. Researchers hope that TESS will be able to find at least 50 planets that are around the size of Earth during its quest. "TESS is kind of like a scout," TESS scientist Natalia Guerrero said in a statement. "We're on this scenic tour of the whole sky, and in some ways we have no idea what we will see. It's like we're making a treasure map: Here are all these cool things. Now, go after them." TESS still has a bit of a ways to go before it begins its hunt for planets outside of our solar system in earnest. It should start its search in June after scientists check to make sure that its instruments are in working order. Scientists hope that NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, expected to launch in 2020, will be able to follow up on some of the results sent back to Earth by TESS. The powerful telescope — designed as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope — is expected to be able to scope out the atmospheres of alien worlds, learning more about their composition and possible habitability. WATCH: NASA's TESS planet-finder satellite just rode a Falcon 9 to space
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| Grimes is legally changing her name, thanks to Elon Musk Posted: 18 May 2018 02:03 PM PDT  Elon Musk and Grimes are being the world's nerdiest couple, again. SEE ALSO: Of course Elon Musk and Grimes spawned a beautiful new meme Originally born Claire Boucher, Grimes announced on Thursday that she's legally changing her name to just c, which is the measurement for the speed of light in a vacuum. She tweeted a screenshot of the Wikipedia article about it, adding "this will be much better." Grimes also specified the name c will be lowercase and italicized. i'm legally changing my name from claire to 'c' , as in the speed of light. {☄️ lowercase and italics ��} ___ this will be much better pic.twitter.com/nOG5kNEU9O — Grimes (@Grimezsz) May 17, 2018 Grimes/ c said that she's wanted to change her name "4ever" but her friends already call her c. Musk pointed out that her nickname "actually rox" and that she didn't need to look for another. well he's the one who pointed out that my working nickname (c) actually rox and i don't need to look further (been trying 2 change name 4ever but couldn't find a gud 1, but my friends call me c } — Grimes (@Grimezsz) May 17, 2018 She added that she hasn't liked her given name since she "became sentient" (confirming that Musk is into manic pixie dream robots) and that her speech impediment makes it difficult to say. if u like ^_^ claire has been the bane of my existence since i became sentient... i can barely say it w my speech impediment altho c is technically worse 4 lisp haha , omg nice quiet avatar �� and general font — Grimes (@Grimezsz) May 17, 2018 The tech mogul and indie pop artist made their relationship official at the Met Gala earlier this month after weeks of awkward Twitter flirting. Apparently they got together because of a niche joke that blended artificial intelligence and French baroque art. The couple's debut at the Met Gala — with Grimes dressed as a goth fairy queen and Musk dressed as a standard rich guy — had people wondering if we really are in a simulation. Grimes went from tweeting Elon Musk to being his date at the #MetGala SOMEBODY END THIS SIMULATION pic.twitter.com/MvKm1aZzWL — �� (@moonlightzenty) May 8, 2018 With her name change, coming up with couple names will be a little more challenging. Space C? Elon Mus c? cElon Musk? But don't worry, everyone — professionally speaking, Grimes is staying Grimes. of course, i'm just changing my legal name not the band haha �� — Grimes (@Grimezsz) May 17, 2018 She also announced that she's releasing new music "soon ish" — we're either getting a "super dark heavy ballad about fighting balrog in the center of earth that is a sex metaphor" or a "very not pg13 ethereal shadow of colossus demon nu metal song abt insomnia." Musk, being the supportive AI enthusiast boyfriend that he is, can add a few more jams to his list of favorite Grimes songs. Want more clever culture writing beamed directly to your inbox? Sign up here for the twice-weekly Click Click Click newsletter. It's fun – we promise.
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| Sheriff: Suspected gunman is Sante Fe High School student Posted: 17 May 2018 09:06 PM PDT  Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez says 8 to 10 victims feared dead in Texas school shooting.
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| Serena Williams Went All Out For The Royal Wedding Posted: 19 May 2018 02:42 AM PDT  Serena Williams looked simply stunning as she arrived at the royal wedding of
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| Yanny vs Laurel explanation: Why people hear different names when they listen to same audio clip Posted: 17 May 2018 09:44 PM PDT  The question is seemingly a straightforward one: Do you hear Yanny or Laurel? Yet the answer for the millions of people who have listened to the short clip since it appeared on Twitter on Monday is proving as divisive as the infamous gold and white dress debate of 2015. The seconds-long soundbite has provoked intense discussion on social media as well as in offices and living rooms across continents, as people adamantly insist that their version is indeed what the synthetic voice is saying. Academics have also offered a number of explanations for the baffling phenomenon. Theories range from the way our hearing changes as we age, to people's brains being primed by seeing the written word first, to accent variation between British and American listeners influencing what they pick up. The debate started after the clip was first posted on social media site Reddit by user RolandCamry after he looked up the word "laurel" in the online dictionary, Vocabulary.com. RolandCamry, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Telegraph that after hitting the website's audio pronunciation function to hear how the word should sound his sister told him she heard it as "Yanny". To settle the debate he posted the audio clip on a Reddit forum, posing the simple question: "What do you guys hear?" The comments soon blew up with posters arguing about whether it was saying Yanny or Laurel. One commented: "I hear Laurel and everyone is a liar". The clip then went viral when it was tweeted on Tuesday by YouTuber Cloe Feldman and has since been listened to more than five million times. What do you hear?! Yanny or Laurel pic.twitter.com/jvHhCbMc8I— Cloe Feldman (@CloeCouture) May 15, 2018 The conundrum has even reached the White House, which released a video featuring various members of the staff weighing in. Senior adviser Ivanka Trump says, "So clearly Laurel." Strategic-communications director Mercedes Schlapp says, "Yanny's the winner, Laurel's the loser." #Laurel? #Yanny? Or... pic.twitter.com/5hth07SdGY— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 17, 2018 White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway pokes fun at her endless willingness to spin and bend the truth for the president, saying, "It's Laurel. But I could deflect and divert to Yanny if you need me to." The video ends with President Donald Trump deadpanning, "I hear covfefe" - a reference to a botched tweet he wrote last year that was never explained. Other celebrities have joined the debate, including talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and American model Chrissy Teigen, who have both weighed in with their thoughts. Literally everything at my show just stopped to see if people hear Laurel or Yanny. I hear Laurel. https://t.co/efWRw1Gj0L— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) May 15, 2018 it's so clearly laurel. I can't even figure out how one would hear yanny.— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) May 15, 2018 Neuroscientist Dr Hannah Critchlow of Cambridge University, whose new book Consciousness discusses how the brain alters perception, said a number of factors could influence what people hear, including recent experiences. She said: "The brain is trying to make sense of the world all the time, and everyone has a unique perception on what is going on around them, and what they see and hear. "I have just been sent flowers for my birthday, and I hear 'laurel', so that could be because my mind is focused on those flowers. Younger people can also hear higher frequencies so there could be something in that too. There are probably several things going on here." An 'ambiguous figure' Scientists say it highlights the difference between hearing and listening, where hearing happens in the ear, but listening occurs in the brain, where meaning is attributed to sound. Scientifically, the clip is not actually an illusion at all, but rather an "ambiguous figure", or bistable precept, in which the mind is forced to choose between two different states. It is the auditory equivalent of Joseph Jastrow's well known rabbit/duck illustration, or Rubin's vase, where the brain interprets either two vases or two faces. In the word "laurel", the noises made by the throat and mouth to produce the sound are at two different frequencies, creating the ambiguity. For example, a high frequency is needed for the "l" but a low frequency is required for "r". A spectrogram of the clip shows that both the sounds "laurel" and "yanny" are present, but at different ends of the sound spectrum. Thousands have been left stumped as to whether the audio clip is saying Yanny or Laurel Credit: EyeEm Likewise, because the original audio clip is slightly muffled it leaves room for individual interpretation. The way people make sense of sound is influenced by what they hear regularly, so people who have closer friends called "Danny" or "Annie" would be more likely to pick up the sound "yanny". Trevor Cox, professor of acoustic engineering at the University of Salford said: "If you look at the spectrogram you can see both sounds are there, on top of each other. "So the sound that an individual picks up could be based on sounds they hear often, or how words are pronounced in their language or dialect. Or maybe you've got a friend called Laurel, so you are more attuned to hearing that word. "Also if you have noise-induced hearing loss you will struggle to hear sounds in the middle of that range so would only be able to hear 'laurel'. So if you struggle to hear 'yanny' maybe you are getting into that region of hearing loss." Age gap One factor that could be affecting what people hear is age as our ears become less adept at picking up higher frequencies as we get older. Young people find higher frequencies easier to hear, while people suffering age-related hearing loss start to lose the ability to hear sounds around 4,000HZ, exactly the frequency of the "yanny" noise. So if you can't hear "yanny", it could be a sign of increasing years or even hearing damage. Lauren Laverne, the radio broadcaster , tweeted that she was hearing "laurel" whereas her seven-year-old daughter was hearing "Yanny". Laurel for me (no surprise after 20 years in DJ headphones) Yanny for the 7 year old https://t.co/DX23SscQhm— Lauren Laverne (@laurenlaverne) May 16, 2018 Charles Spence, professor of experimental psychology at Oxford, said he could only hear "laurel" and that could be because of his age. He said: "If there was stuff going on at high frequency range maybe you would get young people hearing/and being influenced by that, but not oldies?" Accent variation Jane Setter, a professor of phonetics at the University of Reading, said people may also be hearing different names depending on where they live. "There may well be differences between British and American listeners," she told the Telegraph. "The phenomenon seems to have started off with American listeners' perceptions of a recording of 'Laurel' generated by computer ie synthesized. "Accent differences will predispose the brain to hearing certain patterns so it would be interesting to see if a Brit, Aussie, American pattern emerges – but I'm not sure who's collecting that data, and it will be difficult to do so now with any research rigour." Another factor that could influence what name listeners hear according to Prof Setter was seeing the written word first in the tweet. As English speakers read from left to right this could prime the brain to expect to hear "yanny" for some people. Sound quality Alex Holcombe, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Sydney, has also explained that the audio quality of the clip could be an influence as our brains effectively fill in the blanks when presented with low sound quality. you can hear both when you adjust the bass levels: pic.twitter.com/22boppUJS1— Earth Vessel Quotes (@earthvessquotes) May 15, 2018 He said: "Because our brains are almost every day trying to understand what was said under less than ideal (noisy) conditions, it is in the habit of making strong guesses from ambiguous stimuli. "If the auditory signal is somewhere between the prototypical way of saying 'laurel' and 'yanny', then the brain may tend to force it towards one or the other, as it does with the phonemic restoration effect."
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