| US decision to merge Palestinian mission with Israeli embassy sparks anger Posted: 04 Mar 2019 06:30 AM PST  The US has officially closed its consulate in Jerusalem, which served Palestinians, and has folded it into the US embassy to Israel. The consulate functioned as a de facto embassy to the Palestinians for decades, but now that mission will be handled by a Palestinian affairs unit under the command of the embassy.
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| 'My Life Is Gone.' Woman Mourns Husband Killed in Alabama Tornado Posted: 05 Mar 2019 08:11 AM PST  'He was done and gone before we got to him'
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| 80 arrests made, including a reporter and 3 clergy members, during Sacramento police shooting protest Posted: 05 Mar 2019 05:15 AM PST  A protest over the shooting of an unarmed black man by Sacramento police has ended with at least 80 arrests, police said. Among those detained were clergy and a reporter.
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| I vetted judges and senior Justice officials and never came across anyone like Jared Kushner Posted: 05 Mar 2019 06:31 AM PST  Trump son-in-law got a top-secret security clearance despite intelligence community concerns. I was denied clearance for a blog post about hacking.
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| Grandma goes viral after posing on iceberg and drifting away: 'I thought it was safe' Posted: 05 Mar 2019 09:22 AM PST ![Grandma goes viral after posing on iceberg and drifting away: 'I thought it was safe']( "Grandma goes viral after posing on iceberg and drifting away: 'I thought it was safe'") Judith Streng went viral after dangerously posing on an iceberg that started drifting away from shore during a trip to Iceland.
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| The Best Stouts to Sip This St. Patrick’s Day Posted: 04 Mar 2019 01:20 PM PST |
| Musk says $35,000 Model 3 to reach volume production mid-year Posted: 04 Mar 2019 01:36 PM PST  "Gap in understanding is that $35k Model 3 production *starts* this month, but will not reach volume production until mid year. Extremely difficult to predict middle part of manufacturing S-curve," Musk said in response to a tweet https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1102669715095212032. It was not immediately clear what Musk meant by "volume production".
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| The Latest: Ghosn lawyer says court OKs bail, rejects appeal Posted: 05 Mar 2019 07:36 AM PST  TOKYO (AP) — The Latest on the decision by the Tokyo District Court to approve the release on 1 billion yen ($8.9 million) bail of Nissan's former chairman, Carlos Ghosn (all times local):
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| Mueller Hammers Manafort's Lack of Remorse as Sentencing Nears Posted: 05 Mar 2019 02:40 PM PST  In their final submission to U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III in Alexandria, prosecutors working for Mueller accused the former chairman of President Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign of shifting blame to "everyone from the Special Counsel's Office to his Ukrainian clients." The filing came in response to Manafort's bid for leniency. "Manafort suggests, for example, that but for the appointment of the Special Counsel's Office, he would not have been charged in connection with hiding more than $55 million abroad, failing to pay more than $6 million in taxes, and defrauding three financial institutions of more than $25 million dollars," prosecutors said. Manafort, 69, faces as long as 24 years in prison after being convicted of bank fraud, tax fraud and failing to disclose offshore bank accounts to U.S. authorities, following a trial last year.
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| An Executive Order on Campus Free Speech Posted: 04 Mar 2019 08:10 AM PST  President Donald Trump told a CPAC audience on Saturday that very soon he will unleash an executive order "requiring colleges and universities to support free speech if they want federal research dollars." If we concede that federal grants should exist and that the agencies themselves should exist (though they should not), what could the order do, and what should it do? It seems valuable to build these ideas from a theory perspective rather than merely react to the language of the order when it comes out.Should the order apply to all institutions, including private religious colleges? What conditions should the order include? How could it be enforced, and how can alleged violations trigger enforcement? Having served in the U.S. Department of Education in 2017 and 2018, and having worked at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for five years, I can provide a basic guide to the legal boundaries and tradeoffs involved.First, to which institutions should the order apply? Consider that federal research grants are for public benefit. The results of publicly funded research, from this perspective, do not even belong to the researcher or the college. Therefore, the government may put restrictions on the research dollars, even at private colleges and universities. (This logic also implies that the data and published papers that result from federal dollars should be free to the public and not fenced by subscription journals. Frederick Hess and Grant Addison of the American Enterprise Institute made a similar argument in 2017.)After all, when conducting federally funded research, colleges often say they want the government to pay for all of the costs involved, including 100 percent of the overhead. In effect, these colleges say: We are only doing this research because you want it done. The public should pay for it all, and we do not even want to pay to keep the lights on. It is not really our research but the public's — we are just hired hands and hired minds.From another perspective, however, the researcher studies what he wants, the university has hired him to get outside funding for it, and the government just happens to be one of the funders. From this perspective, maintaining individual and institutional academic freedom means that the funder should provide the money and then go away. Even a public university should leave its faculty alone to pursue truth as they think best.Accordingly, academic freedom belongs first to the researcher, protecting his work not only from outsiders but also from insiders. But beyond that, institutions deserve academic freedom against outsiders, even when the government is paying.Second, which restrictions on federally funded research would promote the search for truth among institutions as well as individuals, at private as well as public institutions? If any restriction makes sense, it is negative: a condition that binds grantees to academic freedom.Academic freedom complements the First Amendment guarantees of free speech, press, religion, assembly, and petition. The best policy will expand the search for truth by preventing incursions on academic freedom.All other restrictions potentially bias the research. Simply privileging certain research questions over others will change who studies what, distorting the research market. Colleges regularly do so by regulating the size of department faculties.More ominously, a granting agency can bias research by having policy goals that are distinct from the search for truth. For example, the National Science Foundation announced last year that it would leverage its grantmaking to fight sexual harassment on campus. Combined with the extremely well-documented kangaroo-court culture on campus, campus social pressure, and often feckless and spineless university administrators, what could go wrong?University researchers already suffer under the administrative burdens of their own campuses, federally mandated (and unconstitutional) institutional review boards, and a variety of federal restrictions when they take on federal grants. One government form requires more than a dozen assurances that, at minimum, the research and the institution will follow all applicable laws, regulations, policies, and executive orders. Free speech and academic freedom easily fit among such assurances.To review: The most morally defensible executive order would apply to recipients of all federal research dollars and would demand protection of core academic freedom for the researcher while respecting institutional mission.Third, how can government enforce this policy goal?Most commonly, institutions fail to provide academic freedom by maintaining speech codes, which are documented restrictions on speech. Most universities have them. Speech codes, by definition, do not pass constitutional muster at public colleges. They also usually conflict with a university's stated commitments to free speech and academic freedom, whether the university is public or private.Unlike social pressures and the general campus climate, speech codes are the explicit policies that a watchdog can most clearly identify as violating public policy or the Constitution. Most such policies are campus-wide. They apply in the research lab and in conversation among researchers, in person and across all media, internally and externally. They apply to faculty members and to students at all levels who are lab assistants. They apply to students in the dorms when they are discussing their research with other students and online when they are engaging with the real world.Therefore, pretty much every unacceptable part of a speech code, wherever and to whomever it applies, should be subject to a federal policy protecting academic freedom for students and faculty members.In contrast, using the executive branch to fight the merely social pressure of "political correctness," which characterizes Bias Incident Response Teams, could become a cure worse than the disease.President Trump said in his speech: "We reject oppressive speech codes, censorship, political correctness and every other attempt by the hard left to stop people from challenging ridiculous and dangerous ideas." Moral rejection of moral failings is a good idea. The best way to challenge ridiculous or dangerous ideas is with more, better speech (ridicule of the ridiculous is well warranted). But the further an executive order runs from black-letter policies and training documents into amorphous campus practices, the more complicated it would be to punish violators.Fourth, how could violations come to the government's attention? The clearest examples are those where a federal court has told the university that its speech code is unconstitutional or has violated its self-imposed contractual obligations of free speech or academic freedom. It is not unreasonable to hold universities accountable for such abuses. Depending on the severity of the violation, executive-branch penalties can run from warnings to immediate cancellation and return of grants.Additionally, if a court finds in a particular case that the institution has violated free speech or academic freedom, whether or not a speech code is involved, the case clearly counts. This means that some violations would not need to be related to a speech code so long as the federal government, through the courts, has already determined the violation.These cases would provide the safest ground for enforcement. But it is not clear that an executive agency needs to wait for the judicial branch to act. Simply having speech codes on the books could be enough. A researcher might simply alert the relevant agency.To move ahead, no new enforcement offices need be created, though this is certainly an option. Consider civil-rights laws in comparison, and recall that grantees already assure the government that they will not violate existing law. If someone alleges racial discrimination in the running of the grant project, for instance, the executive branch can investigate the possible breach of civil rights. Why not also for constitutional rights? Why not also for a government policy or executive order requiring that even private institutions, at a minimum, uphold their own internal promises of free speech and academic freedom when executing federal-grant funds?I understand the concern about program creep — that future administrations will tie other policy goals to federal dollars. That horse left the barn in 2011 if not before, when the Departments of Education and Justice threatened research funding to institutions found in violation of tendentious interpretations of the Title IX law against discrimination on the basis of sex, and the new National Science Foundation policy shows that the horse is still out there.Besides, the arguments supporting this kind of executive order — a policy that uniquely defends academic freedom by liberating researchers from campus orthodoxies and witch hunts — are hard to apply to policies unrelated to that goal. True enough, the doctrine of repressive tolerance teaches that by silencing strong voices, weaker voices are freed, so it is possible that a repulsive future administration would try to kill academic freedom in the name of saving it. Fortunately, here the federal courts are likely to keep enforcing the Constitution regardless of what progressive critics often want it to say.Also, it seems likely that a future administration, hostile to free speech, would simply dismiss or ignore allegations, use selective enforcement, refuse to enforce assurances and the executive order, distort the truth to find that violations are not actually violations, fail to enforce any real accountability, or just rescind the executive order outright. (Not even all the current senior agency appointees are on board. Further, see some points I raised while an appointee.)But the courts are open when executive agencies are closed. And did I mention the agencies shouldn't exist in the first place?
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| Pope Francis announces opening of Secret Archives on 'Hitler's Pope' Posted: 04 Mar 2019 05:35 AM PST  Pope Francis has announced that he will open up the Vatican's secret archives on the papacy of Pope Pius XII, who has been accused of failing to speak up about the Nazis' persecution of the Jews. Historians have for decades been calling on the Holy See to let scholars study the archives, in order to determine whether Pius XII failed to use his moral authority to oppose the Holocaust. The argument that Pius should have been far more vocal in condemning the Nazis' annihilation of six million Jews was put forward most forcefully in the 1999 book Hitler's Pope, by John Cornwell, a British writer and academic. Pope Francis announced his decision during a meeting with staff from the Secret Archives, part of the Vatican's vast repository of documents and records, declaring that "the Church is not afraid of history". He said the archive would be opened on March 2 next year to mark the 81st anniversary of the election of Pius XII in 1939. Francis acknowledged that there had been "moments of grave difficulty and tormented decisions" for the wartime pontiff, saying he had been treated by posterity with "some prejudice and exaggeration". Without referring directly to Pius's actions towards the Jews of Europe, Francis said his predecessor had engaged in "hidden but active diplomacy" in order to pursue "humanitarian initiatives". He thanked archive historians for having worked, since 2006, to catalogue and organise the huge body of documentation relating to Pius's papacy, from 1939 to his death in 1958. Mr Cornwell, the author of Hitler's Pope, said he could not wait for the archives to be revealed. Pope Francis announced that the archives will be open a year from now Credit: Alessandra Benedetti/Getty "It should be really interesting. It might show that he did fantastic things to help the Jews. Or it might shed light on whether he had anything to do with the Nazi rat-run, when some Catholics helped Nazis escape to South America at the end of the war," he told The Telegraph. He said he called his book Hitler's Pope largely because of what the future Pope Pius did before the war, when as Vatican secretary of state he drew up an accord in 1933, the Reichskonkordat, that protected the Catholic Church's rights in Germany but in exchange helped give moral legitimacy to the Nazi regime. He said Pius was, like many Catholics at the time, anti-Semitic, but conceded that he had little scope for limiting the scale of the Holocaust. "He didn't have much room for manoeuvre. He was very much a prisoner inside the Vatican, which was dependent for its light, gas and water on Mussolini's Italy and then on the German regime. Although I still think he didn't do enough when the Jews were being rounded up in Rome." Hitler even plotted at one time to kidnap the Pope, Mr Cornwell said. Pope Pius has been accused by some Jewish groups and historians of failing to speak out against the Holocaust during the war Credit: AP The Vatican insists that by using discreet means, Pius instructed Catholic clergy to give help to the Jews, quietly saving tens of thousands of lives. "The archives will hopefully shed light on the actual possibilities that were open to Pope Pius in condemning the genocide and to what extent he could have made a difference, and at what cost," said Austen Ivereigh, a British expert on the Vatican and the author of The Great Reformer: Francis and the making of a radical pope. While some historians have accused Pius of complicity in the persecution of the Jews because of his decision not to speak out, others insist he did all that he could in the circumstances. They argue that to have criticised Hitler and the Nazi regime more strongly would have imperiled Catholics across occupied Europe. "Had he spoken out, it could have been an excuse for Hitler to turn on the Catholic Church. These were very, very difficult moral choices," said Mr Ivereigh. The planned opening of the archives was welcomed by Jewish groups around the world. "We greatly appreciate Pope Francis's decision," said Noemi Di Segni, the president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities. It would enable historians "to reconstruct with greater clarity the Church's position regarding the Shoah." "It's shame that we'll have to wait until 2020, but better late than never," said Ruth Dureghello, the head of the Jewish community in Rome. More than 1,000 Italian Jews were rounded up in Rome and deported to concentration camps in October 1943. The Pope's decision was also welcomed by Israel. "We are pleased by the decision and hope it will enable free access to all relevant archives," foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon wrote on Twitter. It normally takes the Vatican 70 years from the end of a pontificate to open up its archives relating to the period, but there has been intense pressure to make an exception for those of Pius XII. "Part of the problem is that simply cataloguing the stuff takes a lot of time, especially given that there aren't many staff in the Secret Archives," said Mr Ivereigh. "It's a huge archive because it was a very long papacy."
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| Former ICE agent says attacks by Ocasio-Cortez uninformed and irresponsible Posted: 04 Mar 2019 05:38 AM PST  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attacks ICE as a 'dangerous agency.' Former agent Mark Kelly reacts.
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| Civilians pour out of last IS redoubt in Syria Posted: 05 Mar 2019 11:26 AM PST  Hundreds of civilians streamed out of the Islamic State group's last Syrian stronghold Tuesday into territory held by US-backed forces battling to finish off the jihadists' dying "caliphate". A total of 3,500 people exited the riverside village of Baghouz, including 500 jihadists who had surrendered, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said. Five SDF fighters were also freed, their spokesman Mustefa Bali said on Twitter.
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| Girls aged five and eight found alive after surviving two nights in California wilderness Posted: 04 Mar 2019 04:55 AM PST  Two young sisters who went missing from their Californian home on Friday afternoon have been found "safe and sound" after surviving two nights in the forest. Carolina Carrico, five, and eight-year-old Leia Carrico were discovered uninjured roughly 1.4 miles from their home in Benbow, located about 70 miles south of Eureka around 10:30am on Sunday by two firefighters. Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal said: "This is an absolute miracle.
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| These are all of the routes U.S. airlines fly to Hawaii Posted: 05 Mar 2019 07:12 AM PST  Southwest's expansion to the high-profile leisure market is certain to set off a competitive scrum with rival U.S. airlines that already fly to Hawaii.
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| China suspends customs clearance for Tesla Model 3 imports: Caixin Posted: 05 Mar 2019 03:50 AM PST  BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's customs authority has suspended customs clearance procedures for Model 3 cars built by Tesla Inc, the financial publication Caixin reported on Tuesday. The report said the customs authority in Shanghai had found various irregularities in 1,600 imported Model 3 cars, including the improper labelling of the vehicles. Customs has notified Tesla not to sell or use Model 3 vehicles that have already been cleared, the report said, citing a notice issued by the authority on Mar. 1.
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| Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez Just Hired Joanna Gaines to Help with Their New Malibu Home Posted: 04 Mar 2019 12:56 PM PST  Lopez and Rodriguez purchased the impressive three-story mansion in January
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| The Morgan Plus Six Looks Familiar, in a Reassuring British Sort of Way Posted: 04 Mar 2019 09:01 PM PST  It's an all-new car, with modern conveniences including the first turbocharged engine on a Morgan and even a small digital screen on the dash.
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| Guaido returns to Venezuela, calls for more street protests Posted: 04 Mar 2019 02:46 PM PST  CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A defiant Juan Guaido returned home to Venezuela on Monday despite concerns the opposition leader might be detained and urged supporters at a rally to intensify their campaign to topple the government of President Nicolas Maduro.
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| Google compensates 'underpaid' male employees Posted: 04 Mar 2019 01:21 PM PST  Google has compensated many of its male workers after finding they received comparatively fewer bonuses and pay rises than women last year. The company, which has faced many accusations of failing its female employees, said it had automatically topped up men's pay to address a gender gap within its ranks of software developers. An analysis of pay across the company revealed that more women software engineers at a certain level had been handed bonuses or raises from managers throughout the year. Google said it paid $9.7m (£7.4m) to 10,667 employees to address last year's pay disparities. It did not disclose how much was spent topping up male software engineer salaries. The company uses algorithms to define an employee's compensation based on the market rate, location, level and performance rating, but managers are given an extra budget which they can use for raises and bonuses if they believe a particular employee has excelled. The company's review found at a particular lower-level software engineering position - these had been disproportionately handed out to women, although it did not find a reason why. Google has repeatedly faced accusations of an unfair work environment. In 2017 it fired an employee who had written a viral "anti-diversity" memo arguing that a lack of women in senior positions was partially due to biological reasons. Former employees have sued the company claiming a pay bias against women, while a separate lawsuit claims its video website YouTube stopped hiring white men. Last year thousands of employees protested the company's alleged failures to deal with sexual harassment. To keep tabs on salaries, Google has conducted yearly pay equity reviews since 2012. If it finds any discrepancies, it will automatically pay adjustments. It said that it would be undertaking "a comprehensive review" of the system based on last years' results. Lauren Barbato, Google's human resources analytics chief said: "Our pay equity analysis ensures that compensation is fair for employees in the same job, at the same level, location and performance. But we know that's only part of the story. "Because leveling, performance ratings, and promotion impact pay, this year, we are undertaking a comprehensive review of these processes to make sure the outcomes are fair and equitable for all employees." Liz Fong-Jones, a former Google employee who recently quit the company, said the analysis "failed to control for under-promoting and under-levelling women". "If you have a group of women who are outperforming at level, of course they'll get given more manager discretion. This is not 'sexism against men'," Fong-Jones added.
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| S. Korea's Moon urges new US-North denuclearisation talks Posted: 04 Mar 2019 03:24 AM PST  South Korea President Moon Jae-in on Monday urged the US and North Korea to quickly resume denuclearisation talks after their Hanoi summit last week ended without a deal. Moon, who has adopted a dovish approach to Pyongyang and brokered the US-North Korea talks process, urged his officials to find out what exactly had gone awry at the high-stakes meeting, and predicted a deal would ultimately be reached. "We hope that both countries will continue their dialogue and that their leaders meet again quickly to reach an agreement that was held off this time," Moon said during a security meeting in Seoul.
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| 'Precious, Happy Child.' This Is One of the Youngest Victims of the Alabama Tornado That Killed 23 Posted: 04 Mar 2019 03:39 PM PST  Taylor Thornton was one of at least 23 people killed in Lee County, Ala. after at least one tornado touched down.
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| Exclusive: U.S. to issue meat company guidelines as recalls mount - official Posted: 04 Mar 2019 03:48 PM PST  The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will advise foodmakers to start internal investigations when they receive customer complaints and to notify the government within 24 hours if contaminated products are in the marketplace, Carmen Rottenberg, administrator of the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, said in an interview. The voluntary guidelines, in the works for months, are designed to ensure companies meet pre-existing regulatory requirements, she said. USDA records show that since the beginning of 2018, Tyson Foods Inc, Smithfield Foods Inc and other companies have launched more than 25 recalls involving millions of pounds of chicken nuggets, calzones, sausages and other foods that potentially contained dangerous materials.
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| JPMorgan Ends Financing of Private Prisons After Criticism Posted: 05 Mar 2019 11:28 AM PST ![JPMorgan Ends Financing of Private Prisons After Criticism]( "JPMorgan Ends Financing of Private Prisons After Criticism") "JPMorgan Chase has a robust and well-established process to evaluate the sectors that we serve," spokesman Andrew Gray said in an emailed statement. JPMorgan Chase & Co. has been criticized for lending to Geo Group Inc. and CoreCivic Inc., which run facilities that have held immigrant families. As part of the change, JPMorgan won't extend new financing to the industry and wants to get rid of its credit exposure as soon as possible, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
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| Hundreds leave IS-held area in Syria as fighting slows down Posted: 04 Mar 2019 02:48 PM PST  BAGHOUZ, Syria (AP) — Hundreds of people, including Islamic State fighters, evacuated the extremist group's last foothold in eastern Syria on Monday, after U.S.-backed Syrian fighters again slowed their offensive to allow a way out of the tiny enclave.
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| First lady Melania Trump hits the road to promote her 'Be Best' campaign Posted: 04 Mar 2019 04:34 PM PST  First lady Melania Trump hit the road for a two-day, three-state trip to promote kindness, online safety and fighting opioid abuse.
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| Trump investigation in House to be led by prosecutor ‘comfortable charging him with felony campaign finance fraud’ Posted: 05 Mar 2019 10:52 AM PST  The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has hired Daniel Goldman, former Assistant US Attorney from the Southern District of New York, to spearhead an investigation into Donald Trump's White House administration. Mr Goldman began serving as a senior adviser and director of investigations last month after being hired by Adam Schiff, the committee's Democratic chairman.
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| U.S. woman’s family arrested for murder first pinned on panhandler: police Posted: 03 Mar 2019 11:01 PM PST  The husband and stepdaughter of Jacquelyn Smith, a woman thought stabbed to death by a panhandler, were arrested while trying to leave the country at the Mexican border. Rough cut - no reporter narration.
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| Chanel to pay tribute to Lagerfeld with his final collection Posted: 04 Mar 2019 06:40 PM PST  Karl Lagerfeld's final collection for Chanel will be presented in the Grand Palais in Paris on Tuesday, the scene of some of the legendary designer's greatest triumphs. Lagerfeld died aged 85 on February 19, less than a month after missing a Chanel haute couture show at the vast venue in the centre of the French capital, saying he was "tired". Chanel said that "a farewell ceremony will take place at a later date" after the German-born designer's no-fuss cremation attended by only his closest friends and colleagues.
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| U.S. East Coast digs out from snow, braces for bitter cold Posted: 04 Mar 2019 01:43 PM PST  New England dug out from more than a foot of snow on Monday that snarled commutes and canceled flights, although New York City was spared the worst of the late-winter storm, which was expected to be followed by bitter cold in the days ahead. A band of winter weather stretching from Maryland to Maine dumped 15 inches (38 cm) of snow overnight on downtown Boston and some 5 inches (13 cm) on Central Park in the heart of New York City, National Weather Service meteorologist Marc Chenard reported. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio took the rare step of shutting the city's massive public school system, and New Jersey Transit canceled about a dozen trains on its sprawling commuter system.
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| Aston Martin Vanquish Vision Concept Has Ferrari and McLaren in Its Sights Posted: 05 Mar 2019 02:15 AM PST  A bold new direction for the Vanquish, and we'd be surprised if it doesn't match its rivals' horsepower numbers.
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| Mega Millions winner of $1.5B jackpot comes forward: Why they chose the lump sum Posted: 05 Mar 2019 05:51 AM PST  The $1.5B Mega Millions jackpot winner chose to get paid in a lump sum. Here's a breakdown of why that makes sense.
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| The History of Your Social Security Payments Posted: 04 Mar 2019 07:12 AM PST ![The History of Your Social Security Payments]( "The History of Your Social Security Payments") The Social Security program was created in 1935 and began paying out monthly benefits to retired workers five years later. Here's how Social Security has changed over nearly 85 years. What Is the Social Security Act?
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| Office Depot and Alibaba opening online store Posted: 04 Mar 2019 11:07 AM PST  NEW YORK (AP) — Office Depot and Alibaba.com are creating a co-branded online store to expand the reach of both companies with small and medium size businesses.
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| Bernie Sanders on 'The Breakfast Club' is a 'no' on slavery reparations Posted: 04 Mar 2019 12:10 PM PST  The Vermont senator has spent the first few weeks of his Democratic presidential campaign trying to connect with African-American voters, something he largely failed to do in 2016.
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| View Photos of the Bentley Continental GT Number 9 Edition Posted: 05 Mar 2019 06:24 AM PST |
| China is going to Mars with a new rover next year Posted: 04 Mar 2019 11:23 AM PST  China got a very, very late start in its efforts to explore space. The U.S., Russia, and other countries forged new paths to the Moon and beyond before China even got started, but it's making up for lost time in a big way. Following successful Moon missions, including landing on the far side of the rock for the first time ever, China is now looking to the Red Planet for its next big space mission.As CNN reports, China's space division is planning a rover mission to Mars that could launch as early as next year. Wu Weiren of China's lunar exploration program talked about the plans at an event held in Beijing."Over the past 60 years, we've made a lot of achievements, but there is still a large distance from the world space powers. We must speed up our pace," Wu said during a speech. "Next year, we will launch a Mars probe, which will orbit around the Mars, land on it and probe it."China has had its eye on Mars for some time, and is even working on simulating Martian settlements which could one day serve as a model for actual human colonies on the Red Planet.Details of China's 2020 Mars line up pretty well with previous missions carried out by other countries. The orbiter will be equipped with high-resolution cameras and various instruments like radar, while the rover will carry a number of cameras as well as a magnetic field detector and instruments to test samples of the surface.China plans to launch its hardware into space sometime around July of next year, with the spacecraft arriving at Mars in early 2021 before eventually landing on the surface a few months later.
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| Iran's Khamenei doubted Europe could help Tehran against U.S. sanctions Posted: 04 Mar 2019 01:08 PM PST  A closed-door speech last year by Iran's Supreme Leader voicing doubt about the Iranian government's diplomatic overtures to Europe was released on Monday in a sign of feuding over foreign policy that led to a short-lived resignation by the foreign minister. The address by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in mid-2018 appeared to forecast difficulties European countries would have in honoring pledges to protect trade with Iran from new U.S. sanctions after Washington abandoned a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.
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| The 2019 Pritzker Prize Is Awarded to Arata Isozaki Posted: 05 Mar 2019 07:00 AM PST  The highest honor in architecture has been presented to a Japanese-born architect who has spent his career pushing the boundaries of solid geometric forms
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| 'Absolute miracle': Missing Northern California girls found safe Posted: 04 Mar 2019 05:38 AM PST  After going missing for nearly two days in Northern California, on Sunday two young sisters, Caroline and Leia Carrico, were found safe.
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| Three 'explosive devices' found in London Posted: 05 Mar 2019 10:40 AM PST  British counter terrorism officers are investigating three "small improvised explosive devices" believed capable of starting small fires that were found in separate locations in London on Tuesday. The suspicious packages containing padded envelopes were found at an office block next to Heathrow Airport, the post room at Waterloo station, and at offices near London City Airport in the east of the capital, according to Scotland Yard. "The packages -- all A4-sized white postal bags containing yellow Jiffy bags -- have been assessed by specialist officers to be small improvised explosive devices," London's Metropolitan Police said in a statement.
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| Autoworker upheaval: Families split, children left behind Posted: 03 Mar 2019 06:05 PM PST  TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — Hundreds of workers at four General Motors plants slated to close by January are facing a painful choice: Take the company's offer to work at another factory — possibly hundreds of miles away — even if that means leaving behind their families, their homes and everything they've built. Or stay and risk losing their high-paying jobs.
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| Google denies secretly continuing to work on censored Chinese search engine Posted: 05 Mar 2019 04:58 AM PST  Google has denied that it is secretly working on a censored Chinese search engine after saying it would scrap the project in December. Several Google employees have reportedly spotted signs that they say show development on the controversial search engine is still underway, according to a report in the Intercept. The employees claim that computer code stored inside Google for the project was updated thousands of times in January and February. A Google spokesman said "this speculation is inaccurate". "As we've said for many months, we have no plans to launch Search in China and there is no work being undertaken on such a project. Team members have moved to new projects." At the time the project was made public, Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, said that Google's decision to create a censored search engine that would filter results in China was "absolutely chilling". And Google employee Jack Poulson resigned from the company shortly after the existence of the project to build a censored search engine was revealed, citing his "ethical responsibility". The public outcry over the plans prompted Google to cancel the search engine's development in December and move staff to different projects. Google chief executive Sundar Pichai told Congress last year that "right now there are no plans for us to launch a search product in China ... to the extent we approach a position like that, I will be fully transparent, including with policy makers here, and engage and consult widely". Google does not currently operate in China after it pulled its service from the country in 2010 following a series of cyberattacks by the Chinese government which were aimed at human rights activists in the country and elsewhere. The scrapped Google project to re-enter China and gain market share among its 800m internet users was known as Project Dragonfly inside the business. The project would have seen Google create a custom Android app, with different versions nicknamed "Maotai" and "Longfei". At its peak, more than 300 employees worked on the project.
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| Fontana mother arrested in death of 3-year-old daughter Posted: 04 Mar 2019 04:59 PM PST  A Fontana mother who previously served time for child abuse is now facing murder charges in the death of her 3-year-old daughter, police say.
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| Hillary Clinton still not locked up, still haunts conservative dreams Posted: 04 Mar 2019 06:37 AM PST  Clinton is no longer conservatives' greatest foe, that role having almost entirely been taken over by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive Democrat from New York who was invoked at the convention with insistent frequency.
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