| Intel chair Nunes admits mishandling Trump wiretap claim Posted: 23 Mar 2017 11:36 AM PDT  House intelligence committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., apologized to members of the panel today for his public claims about intelligence community surveillance of President Trump's transition team amid charges from Democrats that his unilateral announcement on the White House lawn had "betrayed" the panel's bipartisan investigation of Russian cyberattacks on the 2016 election. "At this point, the committee's independence is on life support," Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., told Yahoo News after a closed-door meeting of the committee Thursday. "Not since Sept. 11 has this committee been charged with such an important responsibility," Swalwell added, referring to the panel's Russia probe.
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| Bernie Sanders Voting Against Gorsuch Nomination Posted: 23 Mar 2017 09:13 AM PDT  Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., discusses the health care debate and says President Trump "doesn't always tell the truth." Sanders also talks about the Russia investigation and Neil Gorsuch's nomination to the Supreme Court.
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| London Mayor Sadiq Khan dismisses Trump Jr.’s Twitter jab following attack Posted: 23 Mar 2017 09:01 AM PDT  London Mayor Sadiq Khan declined to respond to an insult from U.S. President Trump's son hours after a terrorist attack at the Houses of Parliament at the Palace of Westminster on Wednesday. "You have to be kidding me?!" Trump Jr. wrote. Trump Jr. mischaracterized Khan's statements as if he had said that terrorism is an inevitable consequence of living in a big city and that nothing could be done.
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| 4 Killed Including Police Officer After Domestic Dispute Turns into Deadly Shooting Spree Posted: 23 Mar 2017 06:29 AM PDT  A suspect has been detained in the shootings at a law firm, bank branch and apartment complex Wednesday.
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| Trump toots horn at White House Posted: 23 Mar 2017 02:21 PM PDT  President Trump toots the horn of an 18-wheeler semi truck as he met with truck drivers at the White House on Thursday.
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| Aid group says medical assistance needed in Iraq's Mosul Posted: 23 Mar 2017 04:05 AM PDT  BAGHDAD (AP) — A leading international relief organization has appealed for more medical assistance to cope with the increasing numbers of civilians fleeing the intensified fighting between Iraqi government forces and the Islamic State group in western Mosul.
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| Does Laura Dern Handle a Lightsaber in the New ‘Star Wars’? Posted: 23 Mar 2017 10:19 AM PDT  Laura Dern seems to be everywhere these days. That's because she is. She's the ferocious Renata in Big Little Lies, she's a recovering drug addict in Wilson, and she has two top-secret roles in Twin Peaks and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. And it's only March. Her secret to nailing those disparate performances: "You try to find your way in when you read a script."
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| Trump supporter: My husband is being deported Friday Posted: 23 Mar 2017 12:34 PM PDT  As a popular Indiana restaurant owner faces deportation under President Trump's immigration directives, his family becomes the latest in a series of Trump supporters to find campaign promises affecting their lives. According to a report from Indiana Public Radio, Roberto Beristain's family said he's expected to be deported on Friday and has already been moved from the detention facility in Wisconsin where they had been visiting him. Beristain is the owner of Eddie's Steak Shed in Granger, Ind., which he purchased from his sister-in-law earlier this month after eight years of working at the restaurant.
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| The Mud Day in Israel Posted: 24 Mar 2017 07:16 AM PDT ![The Mud Day in Israel]( "The Mud Day in Israel") The Mud Day, an international sports event is produced by a leading French sports organization, A.S.O., that is well known for its top productions: Le Tour de France and the Dakar Rally. More than 150,000 people have participated in Mud Days in France, Switzerland, Belgium and Spain. Now it's Israel's turn to host the 13-kilometer race, with 22 mud-filled obstacles to overcome. (The Mud Day Israel)
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| GOP Sen. Roberts: I ‘deeply regret’ quip about insurance coverage for mammograms Posted: 23 Mar 2017 12:11 PM PDT  Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., speaks at Secretary of Agriculture nominee Sonny Perdue's confirmation hearing. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., expressed remorse Thursday for making a sarcastic comment implying that coverage for mammograms shouldn't be a requirement for the GOP's insurance plan. Mammograms are essential to women's health & I never intended to indicate otherwise," he tweeted.
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| Laptop ban creates turbulence for airline profits Posted: 23 Mar 2017 08:52 AM PDT  A carry-on ban by Washington and London for laptops on flights from some airports will hit the profits of affected airlines, especially the lucrative business class segments of Gulf carriers, analysts said Thursday. Washington decided to ban electronic devices bigger than mobile phones on direct flights to the United States from 10 airports in seven Middle Eastern countries and Turkey.
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| 4 Killed Including A Police Officer In Wisconsin Posted: 22 Mar 2017 08:32 PM PDT  Police confirmed that the suspect was taken into custody. However, they did not release the names of the people involved and killed during the shootings in Wisconsin.
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| Time magazine presses Trump on his slew of evidence-free and false claims Posted: 23 Mar 2017 07:22 AM PDT  President Trump says he doesn't necessarily need facts before making such evidence-free claims as, say, former President Barack Obama's wiretapping the phones at Trump Tower, because they've later been proved right. "I'm a very instinctual person," Trump told Time magazine's Michael Scherer in a phone interview from the Oval Office on Wednesday. The president offered a list things he says he "predicted" would happen, including Brexit, Anthony Weiner's sexting scandal, Bernie Sanders' loss in the Democratic primary — even his false suggestion that a terror attack had occurred in Sweden the night before.
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| Sunken South Korean ferry slowly emerges three years after disaster Posted: 23 Mar 2017 01:17 AM PDT  By Ju-min Park SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean ferry that sank nearly three years ago, killing 304 people, most of them children on a school trip, slowly emerged from a gray sea on Thursday, a somber reminder of a tragedy that traumatized the country. "We can't help but feel stunned seeing the ship being raised," Lee Kum-hee, whose daughter Cho Eun-hwa was one of the nine, told reporters. "The work needs to be done very cautiously," Lee Cheol-jo, an official at the Ministry of Ocean and Fisheries, which is in charge of the operation, told a briefing.
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| Japan PM Abe accused of giving cash to nationalistic school Posted: 23 Mar 2017 07:59 AM PDT  TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe donated 1 million yen ($9,000) through his wife to a school run by a group of ultranationalist educators, the group's leader told Parliament on Thursday, while also suggesting there was "political influence" in a land-buying scandal involving the school.
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| Think your groceries are expensive? Japan has $27,000 melons. Posted: 23 Mar 2017 08:40 AM PDT  Imagine going into a high-end luxury store filled with sparkling display cases, security at every turn and an attentive staff and finding not expensive jewelry but...fruit encased in the glass. In Sembikiya, Japan's oldest fruit shop, fruit is treated and sold like an elaborate gift. And this is no ordinary fruit. Sembikiya sells anything from heart-shaped watermelons to ping-pong ball sized "Ruby Roman" grapes to giant strawberries that are a bit more expensive than your average box of sad market fruit. SEE ALSO: People can't believe a supermarket is selling a single boxed strawberry for $22 Words can't describe how delicious this Melon was. #GinzaSembikiya #Sembikiya by mango… http://t.co/7zPrWz6VU7 pic.twitter.com/eNNBohRVYR — InstaKyoto (@InstaKyoto) April 4, 2015 A post shared by @puapupupu on Jan 31, 2017 at 4:50pm PST According to CNN, cultivating these luxury fruits involves meticulous and labor-intensive practices. Although the way Japanese farmers grow these beauties is a secret, it was revealed that sometimes it takes 45 days to grow one strawberry and usually sell for 500,000 yen ($4,395) each. The strawberries even have a special name - Bijin-hime, which means "beautiful princess". ONE STRAWBERRY is $4,395. And if you think that's just a bit beyond your fruit budget, in 2016 a premium Hokkaido cantaloupe sold for a record $27,240 (3 million yen) at an auction. Expensive fruit isn't unique to Sembikiya, though. According to the Semikiya website, fruit is given as gifts to people who are important to you on special occasions. Soyeon Shim, dean of the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told CNN, Besides being a symbol of respect, the Japanese see fruit in spiritual terms, regularly offering it to the gods at home alters. A post shared by ingingkiku (@ingingkiku) on Oct 23, 2016 at 4:21am PDT A piece of fruit this magnificent isn't sold in some regular cardboard box. The fruit is wrapped in packaging that, of course, matches is luxury. CNN reports that single strawberries are sold in packages that resemble jewelry boxes, while melons are sold in ornate wooden boxes. A post shared by Cecilia Schena (@ceciliaske) on Aug 7, 2016 at 4:32am PDT To consumers, according to CNN, the expense represents quality and some say that they even taste better than normal-priced fruit. Seeing as though one strawberry is more than four month's rent, we'll stick to our small, slightly mushy, questionable fruit. We'll admire these from afar. [H/T: CNN] WATCH: This nail polish is made from prosecco — making you both sparkly and tipsy
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| Democrat Joe Manchin cautions against Gorsuch filibuster: ‘What goes around comes around’ Posted: 23 Mar 2017 12:55 PM PDT  Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Thursday that he would not join a Democratic filibuster of President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, arguing that the integrity of the Senate needs to be preserved. Manchin, a conservative Democrat and key vote, told Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric that Senate decorum needs to be preserved and that it started to fall apart in 2013 when then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid instituted the so-called nuclear option.
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| ISPs can now sell your browsing history without permission, thanks to the Senate Posted: 23 Mar 2017 10:42 AM PDT 
The US Senate has voted to overturn consumer privacy laws enacted last year by the FCC. The rules, which forced internet service providers to actually get permission before selling your data, were overturned using the little-used Congressional Review Act (CRA). Democrat Senator Richard Blumenthal said before the vote that "This resolution is a direct attack on consumer rights, on privacy, on rules that afford basic protection against intrusive and illegal interference with consumers' use of social media sites and websites that often they talk for granted." Hope you enjoyed it while it lasted.
Assuming that this resolution passes through the House, which seems likely at this point, your broadband and wireless internet service provider will have free reign to collect and sell personal data along to third parties. That information may include (but is not limited to!) location, financial, healthcare and browsing data scraped from customers. As a result of the ruling, you can expect ISPs to begin collecting this data by default. Some ISPs may choose to include an opt-out from data collection in account settings. The privacy rules were adopted by the Federal Communications Commission last October, under Obama-era chairman Tom Wheeler. The new chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, is trying to rebrand the Commission as a technological regulator that manages things like spectrum, with the minimum possible amount of regulation of the telecoms industry as a whole. That might sound like an ideal situation for light-touch regulation, but with the wireless and cable industries both operating as powerful oligopolies, consumers will be left with zero protection against price-gouging, no advocate for net neutrality, and as today demonstrates, far less control over their own data.
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| 5 dead in vehicle, knife attack at British Parliament in London Posted: 22 Mar 2017 08:19 PM PDT  Five people were killed, including the assailant, and 40 others were injured in what Prime Minister Theresa May condemned as a "sick and depraved terrorist attack."
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| Tanzanian minister sacked after condemning TV intrusion Posted: 23 Mar 2017 06:05 AM PDT  Tanzania's information minister was fired on Thursday after he criticised an ally of President John Magufuli who had stormed into a television station accompanied by armed men. The sacking comes amid an uproar over the incident at one of Tanzania's main private broadcasters, seen as yet another example of the government riding roughshod over basic freedoms since Magufuli came to power in October last year. On Friday, Dar es Salaam regional commissioner Paul Makonda stormed into the offices of the Clouds FM Media Group with six armed men to demand the airing of a muckraking video aimed at undermining a popular local pastor with whom Makonda has a dispute.
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| Uncertain fate of Obamacare causes some hospitals to halt projects, hiring Posted: 23 Mar 2017 05:12 AM PDT ![Uncertain fate of Obamacare causes some hospitals to halt projects, hiring]( "Uncertain fate of Obamacare causes some hospitals to halt projects, hiring") Hospitals typically lay out multi-year operating plans that prioritize investments, such as new clinics, medical wings, technology or other projects that help draw in more patients and increase revenue. Denver Health Medical Center, for example, opened a new $26.9 million clinic in the city's southwest in 2016 to provide care to an area lacking in health services and saw more patients within six months than it had expected over two years. The health system planned to build or remodel five more facilities based on the new clinic's success.
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| North Dakota oil spill 3 times larger than first estimated Posted: 24 Mar 2017 08:05 AM PDT  BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A December oil pipeline spill in western North Dakota might have been three times larger than first estimated and among the biggest in state history, a state environmental expert said Friday.
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| Pete Souza joins chorus gloating over Trumpcare failure with epic Instagram Posted: 24 Mar 2017 02:15 PM PDT  The schadenfreude online when Trumpcare collapsed for a second time was deafening. However, amid all the resurfaced Trump tweets and Art of the Deal jokes one troll stood out once again. Pete Souza, Obama's official White House photographer, added another Instagram post to his mammoth shade collection against Trump after the news broke Friday. SEE ALSO: Obama's official White House photographer is Insta-trolling Trump This time, Souza shared a photo of Obama and Mike Pence from 2010 — and the caption was devastating. "Before voting on the Affordable Care Act in 2010, President Obama met with many members of Congress on both side of the aisle over the course of many months," he wrote. "This picture was taken at the end of a multiple hours-long meeting with the entire Republican House caucus in which he responded to dozens of questions and critiques. It was carried live on cable TV." In other words, Obama knew that healthcare was — you know — complicated, and worked hard with Republicans and Democrats, in the glare of the media, to get the ACA pushed through. An approach that differs, you may say, from Trump's efforts this week. Before voting on the Affordable Care Act in 2010, President Obama met with many members of Congress on both sides of the aisle over the course of many months. This picture was taken at the end of a multiple hours-long meeting with the entire Republican House caucus in which he responded to dozens of questions and critiques. It was carried live on cable TV. A post shared by Pete Souza (@petesouza) on Mar 24, 2017 at 1:40pm PDT Of course, Souza's lesson to Trump is a bit late now. WATCH: Trump never has to buy sunglasses again because Obama's photographer will shade him forever
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| Amid deepening ties, Chinese troops join Pakistan Day parade Posted: 23 Mar 2017 03:07 AM PDT ![Amid deepening ties, Chinese troops join Pakistan Day parade]( "Amid deepening ties, Chinese troops join Pakistan Day parade") Chinese, Saudi and Turkish troops for the first time joined the Pakistan Day parade in the capital Islamabad on Thursday, in a sign of deepening ties. Before Pakistan showed off long-range rockets, tanks and other military hardware, armed Chinese troops marched past Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and General Qamar Javed Bajwa, the chief of Pakistan's powerful military. Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain said it was the first time Chinese troops participated in a parade in a foreign country, terming it a "historic event", with the two countries embarking on building vast infrastructure together.
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| Hackers still threaten a remote wipe of iPhones, despite Apple’s statement Posted: 23 Mar 2017 02:37 PM PDT 
After news had emerged earlier this week that a hacker group called Turkish Crime Family (TCF) is holding millions of Apple ID accounts for ransom, Apple said that its servers and databases were not hacked. Instead, the company said that hackers may be using user databases acquired from massive data breaches that affected other parties, such as LinkedIn. Since the initial disclosure, the TCF reached out to media to provide additional details about their anti-Apple quest, explaining some of their reasoning behind the attack.
In an email from a TCF domain to BGR that was likely distributed to other members of the media, the hackers say they're still committed to unleashing the attack come April 7th, unless Apple pays up. The message, which reads like an ad-hoc press release coming from a hackers startup — the email does come from a "press" email account — explains that the report that said the hackers want $75,000 in ransom is false. The hackers also claim that all the communication with Apple was done via ICQ, and all the chats were kept private. "[We] requested $100,000 for each of our members which is 7 in total or $1 million worth in iTunes vouchers for instant resale at 60% of the original gift card value + Some private stuff that we have agreed not to publicize as we believe it may ruin Turkish Crime Family and Apple relations," the hackers say. "The second thing is worth more to us than money." The hackers say that Apple will force users to reset their passwords to stop them and avoid "serious server issues and customer complaints." The TCF group claims it can reset some 2,550 iPhones per minute per server, which amounts to over 38 million accounts per hour. As for the number of affected accounts, it was bumped "from 519 million to 627 to then 717 million." A Twitter account for the group mentioned that 200 million iCloud accounts will be factory reset. https://twitter.com/turkcrimefamily/status/844225625909051393 Why are they targeting Apple? Well, strangely enough, this appears to be some sort of retaliation for the recent measures the Department of Justice has taken against the four hackers that breached Yahoo in 2014, an attack that may have affected more than 500 million users. "We're doing this because we can, and mainly to spread awareness for Karim Baratov and Kerem Albayrak which both are being detained for the Yahoo hack and one of them is most probably facing heavy sentencing in America," the hackers said. "Kerem Albayrak on the other hand is being accused of listing the Yahoo database for sale online." The group says this isn't a political attack, and that the TCF is a new criminal organization with a lot of resources and power. "This is just the start," they say. They even have a media department. The attack on Yahoo was actually a military operation conducted by Russia, the FBI's investigation proved, so it's strange to see the hackers claim this isn't political. Is this threat real? That remains to be seen. I think it's rather unlikely for this massive remote iPhone wipe to happen. Not because Apple confirmed its servers were not hacked but because of this whole messy PR campaign coming from the hackers. But fo yourself a favor and change your Apple ID password especially if you've been using it for any of the online services that were hacked in recent years.
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| 5 dead in vehicle, knife attack at British Parliament Posted: 22 Mar 2017 10:04 PM PDT  LONDON (AP) — A knife-wielding man went on a deadly rampage in the heart of Britain's seat of power Wednesday, plowing a car into pedestrians on London's Westminster Bridge before stabbing a police officer to death inside the gates of Parliament. Five people were killed, including the assailant, and 40 others were injured in what Prime Minister Theresa May condemned as a "sick and depraved terrorist attack."
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| 15 under 15: Rising stars in cybersecurity Posted: 23 Mar 2017 02:43 PM PDT ![15 under 15: Rising stars in cybersecurity]( "15 under 15: Rising stars in cybersecurity") Everything in their lives is captured in silicon chips and chronicled on Facebook. Turns out, CyFi had unearthed a new class of previously undisclosed security weaknesses, otherwise known as zero days, spanning across all mobile devices.
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| Man held for driving car at crowd in Belgium's Antwerp Posted: 23 Mar 2017 01:31 PM PDT  Belgian security forces arrested a man Thursday after he drove into a shopping area at high speed in the port city of Antwerp, officials said. Authorities found a rifle and bladed weapons in the car after the suspect, identified by prosecutors as 39-year-old Mohamed R., tried to flee and was detained in the northern city. The man was "under the influence of something" but it was not clear what substance, a source close to the investigation told AFP.
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| Infant's Rare 'Parasitic Twin' Successfully Removed with Surgery Posted: 23 Mar 2017 09:38 AM PDT  A 10-month-old girl who was born with a rare "parasitic twin" attached to her body has undergone a successful surgery to separate her from this underdeveloped twin. The infant, named Dominique, was born with the lower half of her twin's body — including legs and feet — protruding from her upper back and neck, according to information released from Advocate Children's Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois, the facility where the surgery was performed. To receive the medical care she needed, she traveled from her home in Ivory Coast, a country in West Africa, to the United States.
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| Smuggled Month-Old Lion Cub Found Hidden Among 2,245 Parrots and 4 Cats Posted: 23 Mar 2017 10:40 AM PDT ![Smuggled Month-Old Lion Cub Found Hidden Among 2,245 Parrots and 4 Cats]( "Smuggled Month-Old Lion Cub Found Hidden Among 2,245 Parrots and 4 Cats") The 1-month-old lion was inside a bag hidden between cages of other animals, officials said.
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| Turkey summons Russian envoy after soldier shot from Kurdish-held Syria Posted: 23 Mar 2017 02:26 AM PDT ![Turkey summons Russian envoy after soldier shot from Kurdish-held Syria]( "Turkey summons Russian envoy after soldier shot from Kurdish-held Syria") Turkey summoned the Russian charge d'affaires to convey its unease after a Turkish soldier was killed by sniper fire from a part of Kurdish-held Syria where Russian forces are active, Turkey's foreign ministry spokesman said on Thursday. The Turkish military fired into the northwestern Syrian border region of Afrin on Wednesday, an area controlled by the Kurdish YPG militia, after the soldier was killed by cross-border fire. The YPG said Russian forces headed to the area.
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| 29 inmates tunnel out of northern Mexico prison Posted: 23 Mar 2017 03:25 PM PDT ![29 inmates tunnel out of northern Mexico prison]( "29 inmates tunnel out of northern Mexico prison") MEXICO CITY (AP) — A group of 29 inmates have tunneled their way out of a prison in the northern Mexico border state of Tamaulipas, authorities said Thursday.
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| Around 250 feared dead on 'Black Day' in Mediterranean Posted: 23 Mar 2017 04:02 PM PDT  More than 250 African migrants were feared drowned in the Mediterranean Thursday after a charity's rescue boat found five corpses close to two sinking rubber dinghies off Libya. The UN's refugee agency (UNHCR) said it was "deeply alarmed" after the Golfo Azzuro, a boat operated by Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, reported the recovery of the bodies close to the drifting, partially-submerged dinghies, 15 miles off the Libyan coast. "We don't think there can be any other explanation than that these dinghies would have been full of people," Proactiva spokeswoman Laura Lanuza told AFP.
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| Chuck Schumer says Democrats will filibuster Neil Gorsuch Posted: 23 Mar 2017 04:12 AM PDT  Republicans have said they will change Senate rules to end the 60-vote floor for voting on Supreme Court nominees if Democrats block President Donald Trump's nominee. "If this nominee cannot earn 60 votes—a bar met by each of President Obama's nominees and President Bush's nominees—the answer is not to change the rules, it's to change the nominee," Schumer said.
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| German candymaker Haribo to build plant in Wisconsin Posted: 23 Mar 2017 01:03 PM PDT ![German candymaker Haribo to build plant in Wisconsin]( "German candymaker Haribo to build plant in Wisconsin") MADISON, Wis. (AP) — German candymaker Haribo, which is known for its brightly colored gummy bears and bow tie-wearing gold bear mascot, plans to build its first North American factory in southeastern Wisconsin not far from Chicago, Gov. Scott Walker announced Thursday.
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| Come down from pulpit to deal with sexual abuse, Catholic leaders told Posted: 23 Mar 2017 08:07 AM PDT ![Come down from pulpit to deal with sexual abuse, Catholic leaders told]( "Come down from pulpit to deal with sexual abuse, Catholic leaders told") By Philip Pullella ROME (Reuters) - Catholic leaders must come down "from the pulpit" to acknowledge that clergy sexual abuse of children and cover-ups had broken the Church's heart and to do more to prevent it, speakers at a conference said on Thursday. The gathering at a pontifical university in Rome took place as the Vatican was still stinging from the shock resignation on March 1 of Marie Collins from a commission advising Pope Francis on how to root out sexual abuse. Collins, who as a teenager was abused by a priest in Ireland, quit in frustration, citing "shameful" resistance to change within the Vatican.
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| Tillerson alias emails from his ExxonMobil era prove elusive Posted: 22 Mar 2017 10:27 PM PDT  Emails sent under a pseudonym by current US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson when he was still CEO of ExxonMobil, and which are sought by a court, cannot be produced, lawyers for the oil giant said. According to a letter dated March 21 and sent Wednesday by ExxonMobil to AFP, these emails, sent under the name Wayne Tracker, cannot be recovered for the period from September 5, 2014 to November 28, 2014. The letter is addressed to the Supreme Court of the State of New York as part of an investigation opened in November 2015 by State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
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| White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer holds the daily press briefing on March 23, 2017 Posted: 23 Mar 2017 11:54 AM PDT  On Thursday, March 23, 2017, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer holds the daily White House press briefing with the White House press corp.
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| Russia may be helping supply Taliban insurgents: U.S. general Posted: 23 Mar 2017 10:57 AM PDT ![Russia may be helping supply Taliban insurgents: U.S. general]( "Russia may be helping supply Taliban insurgents: U.S. general") By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. general in Europe said on Thursday that he had seen Russian influence on Afghan Taliban insurgents growing and raised the possibility that Moscow was helping supply the militants, whose reach is expanding in southern Afghanistan. "I've seen the influence of Russia of late - increased influence in terms of association and perhaps even supply to the Taliban," Army General Curtis Scaparrotti, who is also NATO's Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
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| Queueing to survive: Long lines and short on supplies in Venezuela Posted: 23 Mar 2017 10:12 AM PDT ![Queueing to survive: Long lines and short on supplies in Venezuela]( "Queueing to survive: Long lines and short on supplies in Venezuela") Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's hours-long televised visits to clinics and schools are meant to soften his image, but foes say they instead highlight his disconnect from a national economic crisis in which millions of people are missing meals.
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| Philippines' Duterte reignites martial law fears Posted: 22 Mar 2017 07:46 PM PDT  Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte warned Thursday he may impose martial law and suspend elections for tens of thousands of local posts, fuelling concerns about democracy under his rule. Duterte said he was considering both measures as part of his controversial campaign to eradicate illegal drugs in society, and that martial law would solve a range of other security threats. "If I declare martial law, I will finish all the problems, not just drugs," Duterte told reporters in a pre-dawn briefing after returning from neighbouring Thailand, which is under military rule.
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| From caricature to man of character: How time and art change image of Bush Posted: 23 Mar 2017 02:46 PM PDT ![From caricature to man of character: How time and art change image of Bush]( "From caricature to man of character: How time and art change image of Bush") Last July, when former President George W. Bush began to smile and sway to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," holding hands with both his wife and former first lady Michelle Obama during the closing moments of a memorial service for five Dallas police officers, many of his long-time detractors could only look and mock. On traditional and social media, Mr. Bush, making a rare public appearance at the time, was once again the president of the malaprop, seemingly lacking in seriousness and curiosity, the smirking architect of a disastrous and unnecessary war.
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| Dead Sea Salt Shows Climate Change’s Most Extreme Drought Posted: 23 Mar 2017 09:54 AM PDT  Salt found deep below the Dead Sea floor shows how climate change can cause an extreme drought that could potentially hurt millions of people.
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| Police: Parents delay help for wounded boy to scrub evidence Posted: 22 Mar 2017 08:07 PM PDT  PHOENIX (AP) — The parents of a 9-year-old boy who was shot in the head in their Phoenix home put off calling 911 as they cleaned up evidence in multiple rooms of the house, police said Wednesday, calling it a case that "shocks your conscience."
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