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Still shopping for last-minute holiday presents? You are not the only one | Business | The Guardian
Shopping for the last-minute gifts? You may not be the only one. About 40% of the season’s sales take place in the 10 days leading up to Christmas Day, according to National Retail Federation (NRF). The federation also found that 90% of holiday shop…
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Guns top Christmas wish lists and the industry seems to be booming | Business | The Guardian
This year, among the socks and sweaters, bottles of wine, a large number of Americans will find another present: guns. Gun shop owners across the US have reported a marked increase in interest in their products over the holidays. In November, the FB…
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There’s nothing like family to win over voters – unless your name’s Bush | US news | The Guardian
One closes every speech with the heartfelt tale of his bartender father; another invokes her newborn granddaughter while musing about future generations. And then there are the far more famous father and brother who seldom get a mention unless expli…
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Francis Bacon in Your Blood by Michael Peppiatt review – the artist’s life | Books | The Guardian
In the summer of 1963, exactly 200 years after James Boswell first met Dr Johnson, an impressionable young man named Michael Peppiatt was introduced to Francis Bacon in a Soho pub, the French House. It was a momentous occasion, for one of them at le…
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Landline by Rainbow Rowell – review | Children’s books | The Guardian
Landline was the one book by Rainbow Rowell that I hadn’t read before. Rainbow Rowell is an enthusiastic person whose passion is clearly visible in her work; she always tries to write differently so her plots are normally very unique.
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Jewish Extremists’ Attacks Rattle Christians in Holy Land
Father Matthias Karl hoped to begin rebuilding his shattered church complex on the shores of the Sea of Galilee after Christmas. But following an arson attack six months ago that left one Catholic monk hospitalized and caused nearly $1.
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A New Site Lets You Walk the British Museum From Your Couch
In 1774, the British Museum—founded just 21 years earlier as the world’s first national public museum—had a problem, according to its then-director Matthew Maty. Too many of its 10,000 annual visitors were “persons of mean and low degree.
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Did Egypt’s Old Kingdom Die—or Simply Fade Away?
As world leaders celebrate a new agreement to limit the impact of greenhouse gases on human society, archaeologists have been taking a fresh look at one of the most dramatic instances of a civilization confronted with devastating climate change.
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Our Most Stunning Antique Photos of Women Around the World
In 1907, brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière developed the first commercially viable form of color photography. Their process, called autochrome, used glass plates coated with millions of microscopic color filters, each one consisting of—believe it o…
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Giant Asteroid Makes Christmas Eve Flyby
It looks like Christmas Eve will be a bit busier than usual as a wayward asteroid joins Santa and his reindeers trekking across our Earth skies. A giant space rock known as 2003 SD220, estimated to be 1.
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India’s BJP chief backs unity with Pakistan, Bangladesh – Al Jazeera English
India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) leader believes that through “popular goodwill” parts of India that were separated 60 years ago will come together.
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Politicians, judges and all women exempt from New Delhi car ban | World news | The Guardian
New Delhi’s grand plan to deal with record levels of pollution and clean its air appears to be stalling before it has even been put into action.
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A US critic has penned an open letter to angry Star Wars fans after being hit with a barrage of hatemail over his negative review of new instalment The Force Awakens.
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Ghana demands return of $500,000 spent on bus rebrand – BBC News
Ghana has demanded a $500,000 (£350,000) refund after its transport ministry spent $1m to paint more than 100 buses with portraits of the country’s recent leaders. The contractor, Smartty’s Management Limited, has been asked to return the excess pay…
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Georgia: Prisoner released after singing on TV – BBC News
An inmate has been released from a Georgian prison after performing in a TV song contest. Teona Kolbaia was jailed for armed robbery in 2012, but this year she was allowed to sing in the Voice of Georgia, whose studios she visited under guard.
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Fierce Fire Rips Through Saudi Arabian Hospital, Killing Dozens | VICE News
A fire at a hospital in Saudi Arabia killed 25 people and injured more than 100 others as it ripped through the intensive care unit and the maternity ward before dawn, the Saudi civil defense agency said.
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Roberto Martínez has said Bill Kenwright will sell his stake in Everton only in the best interests of the club, as an American-led consortium assess the financial situation at Goodison Park. Related: What is it that attracts US investors to the mult…
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BBC Sport – Louis van Gaal: Wayne Rooney says players ‘fighting’ for boss
Manchester United captain Wayne Rooney says the team are behind under-pressure manager Louis van Gaal. There has been speculation Van Gaal is facing the sack and he walked out of a news conference on Wednesday.
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Roadside bombs slow Iraqi forces’ advance on Ramadi – Al Jazeera English
Iraqi forces have retaken large parts of Ramadi from Islamic State of Iraq and the levant (ISIL) fighters, but officials expect the city’s “liberation” to take longer than initially expected.
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What We’re Following on Thursday, December 24 – The Atlantic
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Japanese journalist ‘captive and threatened in Syria’ – BBC News
Japan says it is investigating reports that a Japanese freelance journalist is being held captive in Syria and is being threatened with death. Rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says Jumpei Yasuda has been held by an armed group in Syria s…
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Christmas: The Greatest Story Ever Told? – The Atlantic
In America alone, there are more than 220 million professing Christians, and virtually all celebrate Christmas. Two-thirds of them see it as a religious holiday.
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Trump and Cruz Worry New Hampshire’s Republican Establishment – The Atlantic
BERLIN, N.H.—New Hampshire typically crowns an establishment favorite for president—a seal of approval that’s desperately needed in the muddled primary field this year.
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Super PACs Are Changing Their Strategy for 2016 Presidential Race – The Atlantic
Super PACs have spent millions in the 2016 presidential race, but so far there’s been little to show for it. So instead, they’re pursuing a new, equally expensive strategy with no guarantee that it’ll produce better returns.
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Virgina Tightens Concealed-Carry Gun Laws – The Atlantic
Virginia will end a gun law provision that allowed the state to honor concealed handgun permits obtained in other states, even if the permit qualifications in those other states were less restrictive than Virginia’s.
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To heal trauma from childhood, relive the neglect an…
Those who suffer from childhood trauma caused by their family of origin will never heal unless they remember and understand the original neglect and abuse.
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December 24, 1865: The Ku Klux Klan Is Formed | The Nation
On this day in 1865, Confederate veterans joined together to form a secret society called the Ku Klux Klan, convened to terrorize former slaves and white Southern Unionists.
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‘My children do not feel Christmas any more’ – Al Jazeera English
Beirut – Until four years ago, Salim, 50, used to call Aleppo home. When his house was taken over by armed groups for 20 days and later bombed to rubbles, he recalls that an act of Christmas kindness saved his life.
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Stretching some 67 km (41.6 miles) north to south across Jamaica, the $600m four-lane highway skirts around a mountain and will eventually be lined with luxury hotels, restaurants and bars.
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A brief guide to … English football over the Christmas holiday | Sport | The Guardian
With the Guardian’s unstoppable rise to global dominance** we at Guardian US thought we’d run a series of articles for fans wishing to improve their knowledge of the sports history and storylines, hopefully in a way that doesn’t patronise you to wit…
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The Solar Industry’s Christmas Miracle | Mother Jones
This story was originally published by Slate and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. We all know the hallmarks of the classic business-themed Christmas movie. A good, well-meaning executive faces some tough business fundame…
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We Asked an Aerospace Engineer How to Make a Flying Reindeer | Motherboard
Reindeer are pretty earthbound. They’ve got no wings, and weigh way more than dandelion puffs. But when it comes to those in Santa’s service, it seems that sprinkling some gravity-defying magic dust on them does the trick.
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An evening with Marlon James – books podcast | Books | The Guardian
A Brief History of Seven Killings is a kaleidoscopic history spanning three decades. The novel uses multiple voices – CIA agents, drug dealers, ghosts, beauty queens – to explore the turbulent world of Jamaican gangs and politics.
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How to get rid of Christmas garbage, from lights to mistletoe | Grist
Prepare yourselves for snowballs, witch hunts, and a big measles outbreak. Migrating coastlines, urban parking sprawl, and rivers running through it: These maps made our days in 2015.
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Paris attacks: Belgian police arrest ninth suspect – BBC News
Police in Belgium have arrested a ninth suspect in connection with last month’s Paris attacks, which killed 130 people. Prosecutors say Abdoullah C was contacted by the cousin of suspected ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud soon after the 13 November att…
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Christmas in the Jungle: It’s the Worst Time of Year for Thousands of Refugees in Calais | VICE News
It’s a dark and chilly evening in the Jungle refugee camp in Calais, France. A young Afghan man has just picked up a gun. He loads it, cocks it, and peers down the barrel at the assembled crowd, knees bent as he oscillates from side to side.
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Hyatt hotel visitors hit by payments system hack attack – BBC News
Hotel group Hyatt is warning visitors of a security breach in its customer payment system. The company said it had found malware on the payment processing computers for the hotels it managed.
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Italy smog: Milan bans cars for three days to fight pollution – BBC News
Italy’s iconic Vespa scooters will vanish from the streets of Milan for three days next week, as authorities ban cars and motorcycles in an attempt to curb the city’s smog problem. Drivers in the northern city will have to leave their vehicles at ho…
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Frankincense and myrrh: Modern day story of the gifts of Christmas – BBC News
The Bible records that three wise men took him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Gold we all know, but where on earth does one find the other two in the present day?
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Stick Man given the film treatment – in pictures | Children’s books | The Guardian
Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s much loved Stick Man has been turned into an animated film to be shown on Christmas day. Discover the story through stills from the TV film and original illustrations
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These Japanese Researchers Are Making Holograms You Can Touch | Motherboard
Imagine reaching out and physically shaking someone’s holographic hand when you’re Skyping them for the first time. Or how about giving a hologram version of a friend you’re chatting with a hug while you’re in two different countries?
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Kenya: Lighting Up – Al Jazeera English
Last year, the British parliament, despite fierce lobbying from tobacco companies, decided that from May 2016 cigarettes would be sold only in plain packaging in the UK.
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People are easily shelling out $550-$700 on an iPhone, but think $1500 is too expensive for a computer. (self.Showerthoughts) Fuck, I spent only 1200 and I got me a machine that will last me a while.
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Despite Unrest, The Israeli Tech Ecosystem Is Flourishing | TechCrunch
Over the past few months, violence has once again scarred Israel and the Palestinian Territories, yet despite the violence and the losses on both sides of the conflict, technology companies in the region are flourishing.
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Migrating coastlines, urban parking sprawl, and rivers running through it: These maps made our days in 2015. Either we’re in the Twilight Zone, or environmental legislation really did just soar through Congress.
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‘Underwater Christmas trees’ help restore key habitat – BBC News
Australian researchers are encouraging people to buy “underwater Christmas trees” to help restore seaweed that suddenly disappeared in the 1980s. Poor water quality was blamed for the loss of crayweed from 43 miles (70km) of coastline around Sydney.
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Takata airbag fault claims eighth victim in the US – BBC News
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has linked an eighth US death to a faulty airbag inflator made by Japan’s Takata. The NHTSA said a teenager was killed in July after an airbag in a 2001 Honda Accord ruptured.
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Afghanistan: Officials say dozens of Taliban killed in battle for Sangin – BBC News
A local Taliban commander and 50 fighters have been killed in overnight fighting in Sangin in Helmand province, the Afghan interior ministry said.Afghan forces have been trying to recapture the area from the Taliban, who claim to control the distric…
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White raisins – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
White raisins are a variety of raisin that are white in colour. They are often called golden raisins or muscats.[1] White raisins are oven dried unlike the typical sun-dried raisin. They can be eaten in place of “normal” raisins and are less sweet t…
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Israeli wedding party celebrates Dawabsheh killings – Al Jazeera English
A video of Israeli Orthodox Jewish wedding-goers celebrating the killing of a Palestinian toddler has prompted strong condemnation.
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Returning to the days of military rule in Israel – Al Jazeera English
As censorship increases worldwide, journalists are being attacked, kidnapped and even killed for exposing the truth. Is anti-Islamic sentiment threatening Australia’s celebrated multicultural identity?
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Social Commerce Startup Carousell Is Raising $50M To Expand In Asia | TechCrunch
Carousell, a three-year-old mobile marketplace that enables social commerce, could emerge as the next big e-commerce player in Southeast Asia.
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Mississippi tornado hits lorry – video | World news | The Guardian
A tornado is filmed hitting a lorry on a road in Mississippi on Wednesday. Tornadoes have touched down in Indiana and Mississippi and fatal storms in Arkansas and Tennessee have caused search crews to fan out across the worst-hit areas.
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More Chinese cities issue red alerts for heavy smog | Environment | The Guardian
More Chinese cities are issuing their first red alerts for pollution in response to forecasts of heavy smog, after the capital, Beijing, issued two this month following criticism for not releasing them earlier.
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Disturbed’s Sound of Silence cover will mess with your preconceptions | The Verge
Simon & Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence is over half a century old now, and in all that time no one had thought to do a nu-metal cover of it. Probably because that sounds like a really terrible idea.
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Top China financial media chief jailed for corruption – BBC News
Shen Hao, who used to head the 21st Century group of financial newspapers and websites, was convicted of extortion and blackmail. He was sentenced to four years in jail and fined 60,000 yuan ($9,500, £6,220).
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Crisis on Nepal-India border as blockade continues – Al Jazeera English
Birgunj, Nepal – Since Nepal adopted a new constitution three months ago, the landlocked nation has been gripped by a humanitarian crisis.
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Fleabag and the Fire Cat by Beth Webb – review | Children’s books | The Guardian
Fleabag and the Fire Cat is a great book about magic and wizardry.
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NFL previews: it’s a tall order to beat the Patriots, but the Jets can do it | Sport | The Guardian
So here it is, Merry Christmas, everybody’s having fun. Well, not everybody, but certainly the person who put together this delightful, and unnerving, mash-up of Bill Belichick ‘singing’ Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.
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Bestselling books 2015: Fifty Shades still on top | Books | The Guardian
After a 2014 that saw books for kids – led by John Green and David Walliams novels – ruling the annual sales chart, 2015 was the year of the women.
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Harry Potter and the contradictions about racial justice | Books | The Guardian
Hermione is black, and fans are understandably thrilled. When Noma Dumezweni was cast as an adult Hermione in the London theatrical production Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the internet gave an enthusiastic cheer.
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“Symphonies, perfume, sports cars, graffiti, needlepoint, monuments, tattoos, slang, Ming vases, doodles, poodles, apple strudels.
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Iranians Warm Up Winter With ‘Kindness Walls’ | Al Jazeera America
Iranians may not observe Christmas, but as much of the West celebrates this year’s holiday season many in Iran are also embracing the spirit of giving, one wall at a time.
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Nintendo’s first mobile game will sell you clothes | The Verge
Nintendo’s first smartphone game will let players buy clothes for their characters as in-app purchases, the president of DeNA, Isao Moriyasu, said today.
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Top 10 parallel worlds in fiction | Children’s books | The Guardian
When you open the pages of a book you step into a parallel universe. You can discover new worlds, fantastic lands or even see reflections and alternative versions of the real world in the stories that you read.
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Beijing security: ‘Possible threat to Westerners’ governments warn – BBC News
The UK and US governments have warned their citizens about “possible threats against Westerners” in the Chinese capital on or around Christmas Day. British and US officials say they have received information of possible threats in Beijing’s Sanlitun…
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Tenacious D’s Potty-Mouthed Acoustic Cover Version of Queen’s Flash Gordon Rules
Watching this video might make you want to go back to Jack Black’s school of rock. Here’s Black, and Tenacious D bandmate Kyle Gass, performing one of the greatest movie themes of all time: Queen’s “Flash Gordon.” Aaaaaaaa!
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England pace bowler James Anderson has been ruled out of the first Test against South Africa in Durban on 26 December because of injury. More to follow.
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Tornado filmed in Clarksdale, in US state of Mississippi – BBC News
Tornados were seen in Indiana and Mississippi, while strong winds wreaked havoc in Tennessee. In the Clarksdale, Mississippi, where this footage was filmed, planes at an airport overturned and the highway was closed.
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Egypt plane crash: Airline extends suspension of Sharm el-Sheikh flights – BBC News
Travel operator Thomas Cook has extended its cancellation of flights to the Egyptian holiday resort of Sharm el-Sheikh until at least 23 March. The UK government suspended flights to the Red Sea resort in November after the suspected bombing of a Ru…
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Syria agrees to take part in Geneva peace talks – Al Jazeera English
Syria is ready to participate in peace talks in Geneva aimed at ending its civil war, the country’s foreign minister said during an official visit to China.
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My 6-year-old brought this home from school. I am impressed. : pics
My 6-year-old brought this home from school. I am impressed. (imgur.com) You must be a proud pear-ant.
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Uber to Ask for Stay Driver Class-Action | Al Jazeera America
Uber said on Wednesday that it would ask the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to put on hold all proceedings, including a trial, in a class-action lawsuit filed by its drivers over their employment status. A company spokeswoman informed Reuters o…
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Haile Selassie is one of the most bizarre and misunderstood figures in 20th-century history, alternately worshipped and mocked, idolised and marginalised.
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Are penguins the gift that keep on giving or what? Aesthetically perfect for television – sharply delineated black on white, a flash of enlivening colour at the beak, all set against spectacularly snowy wastelands.
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Reinforcements sent to besieged Afghan forces in Sangin – Al Jazeera English
Afghanistan’s government has sent reinforcements to help besieged forces as Taliban claim to have taken control of almost all of Sangin district where heavy fighting continues.
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Rayani Air: Five things about Malaysia’s Islamic airline – BBC News
Billing itself as Malaysia’s first Islamic airline, Rayani Air took to the skies this week offering passengers halal food and no alcohol on board its maiden flight. Here are five things to note about the new airline. This means it follows Islamic la…
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A matter of life or death: China’s pollution dilemma – Al Jazeera English
Smog levels in Beijing this year were almost seven times the maximum exposure recommended by the World Health Organization. That makes the smog a matter of life and death.
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Unsung wildlife heroes of England’s national parks – in pictures | Environment | The Guardian
Many people are aware of the endangered hedgehog, red squirrel or tortoiseshell butterfly, but little attention is given to the less photogenic species that are just as important to the British ecosystem.
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BBC Sport – Louis van Gaal not a Man Utd coach – Kanchelskis
Louis van Gaal “doesn’t understand English football” and is “not a head coach for Manchester United”, says former winger Andrei Kanchelskis. But Kanchelskis believes the Dutchman should remain in charge until the end of the season, despite a six-mat…
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A new study shows that emissions of pollutants that cause acid rain have dropped dramatically in the United States. (syracuse.com)submitted 2 hours ago by loading…
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Top 5 Space Questions of 2015…with Answers!
An artist’s depiction of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, which is shaped like a spiral. Though astronomers suspect there are billions of habitable planets in the Milky Way, even larger nonspiral galaxies may be better cradles for habitable worlds, a…
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A Kansas chemical manufacturing company was fined $1 million this week after admitting it illegally dumped hazardous wastes down a saltwater disposal well. (salina.com)submitted 2 hours ago by loading…
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Japan Silent on Missing Journalist in Syria | Al Jazeera America
Japanese government officials declined to comment Thursday on a reported ransom demand for a Japanese freelance journalist who has been missing since summer in Syria.
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See where the US would have nuked the Soviet Union if the Cold War turned hot | The Verge
(Mark Wilson/Getty Images) This holiday season, while you’re spending time with family and friends, why not take a moment to remember how close the world came to total nuclear destruction just a few decades ago? Du
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Under my mushbrella via /r/pics https://t.co/YHwvceVHMy https://t.co/KQNZXKOPRx https://t.co/xfIkhV5XCU
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Peace Love Beauty Wisdom Balance Imagination Truth Consciousness, Under my mushbrella via /r/pics…
Under my mushbrella via /r/pics https://t.co/YHwvceVHMy https://t.co/KQNZXKOPRx https://t.co/xfIkhV5XCU
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Love Everyone Often Peace Beauty Balance Life Light Magic: Geminid Meteors over Xinglong Observatory
Geminid Meteors over Xinglong Observatory https://t.co/3LdaUjCHqY https://t.co/72VW6frFWp
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It’s a wonderful time to watch It’s A Wonderful Life · What’s On Tonight · The A.V. Club
Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Thursday, December 24. All times are Eastern. It’s A Wonderful Life (NBC, 8 p.m.): NBC continues its annual tradition of airing It’s A Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve.
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Earlier this year, Harvard University Press published the first five handsome-looking volumes of a new series, containing translations of classic texts from ancient and early modern India.
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Every December, there seems to be only a handful of holiday songs, but a multitude of versions of each. This year, we’re throwing down in a Christmas Carol Cage Match to decide the definitive version of some of the most common seasonal cuts.
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This year at The A.V. Club, we wrote about feminism and Ewoks, subjected staff writer Alex McCown to multiple tests of endurance journalism, conducted oral histories of Airplane! and UHF, and got sworn at by Tommy Wiseau. A pretty satisfying year, t…
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Will Ferrell has made some good comedies not directed by his longtime collaborator Adam McKay, but McKay has been at the helm for almost all of his best film work.
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The turtle dove has long been a symbol of Christmas and the loving bonds that bring us together at this time of year. But now the 12 Days of Christmas risks becoming 11, as the iconic species comes increasingly under threat.
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It’s Not Hard to Treat HIV—if You’re Rich – The Daily Beast
A major insurer said recently it would offer life insurance to HIV-positive people because of their rising life expectancies, prompting cheers from AIDS activists. But on the very same day, the nation’s top disease control official described an Amer…
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The Guide to Streaming the Beatles Now That Their Songs Are Online – The Daily Beast
Merry Christmas Eve! The Beatles are finally available on streaming services.
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How Bad Is the 1978 ‘Star Wars’ Holiday Special? – The Daily Beast
With critics and audiences fawning over Star Wars: The Force Awakens it is slowly becoming easier to pretend that the three prequel films that introduced the world to Jar Jar Binks no longer exist.
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Is Prince Paul The True King of Romania? – The Daily Beast
The complicated world of the Romanian Royal family, with its dramatic twists and turns, such as the unilateral disinheriting of the heir apparent which took place earlier this year, never ceases to engage the Royalist.
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Why Women Are Buying More Guns – The Daily Beast
A recently released New York Times/CBS poll included some headline grabbing findings about America’s evolving attitudes on gun control.
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The Over-The-Hill-Mob: Inside England’s Biggest Jewel Heist – The Daily Beast
LONDON, UK — Safely inside a car, the men spoke freely—their voices cracked by age and heavy with Cockney accents. ‘That is the biggest robbery that could’ve ever been. That will never ‘appen again,” one of them bragged.
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Best Coffee Table Books of 2015 – The Daily Beast
Pictorial books to adorn your coffee table or some such, that represent some artist or art form are pretty straightforward—subject and basic materials— some as exhibition catalogues, some as pedagogic monographs and some simply as displays of compe…
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The Lie That Turned Moms Into ‘Murderers’ – The Daily Beast
PHILADELPHIA—Three Philadelphia women will face a judge next week for the murder of a homeless man whom they allegedly attacked in the most savage manner imaginable, with the assistance of several children, because one woman’s son falsely accused th…
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‘I Was in Affluenza Kid’s Deadly Crash’ – The Daily Beast
The Texas rich kid whose “affluenza” defense spared him jail time after he killed four bystanders with his car is trying to evade justice once again. This time, Ethan Couch and his mother are on the lam—inciting a national spectacle two years after …
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The Pothead’s Gift Guide – The Daily Beast
Curated gift guides have changed the game of holiday shopping—providing ideas for everyone from a cat lover to a practical-but-dapper man. But among the weird and wonderful categories, there’s one that rarely makes the list: cannabis aficionado.
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Meet The Jews Who Love Christmas – The Daily Beast
But that ditty aired nearly two decades ago during South Park’s first season, and it’s possible the lament wouldn’t resonate quite the same today.
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‘The Revenant’ and ‘Hateful Eight’: Is This the Bloodiest Christmas Ever? – The Daily Beast
Nothing says Christmas like a good bear rape. We kid. Despite a confusing, idiotic, and totally inaccurate report on Drudge, Leonardo DiCaprio is not—nor is anyone, for that matter—raped by a bear in The Revenant.
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Hyatt Is Latest Hotel Brand Hacked After Finding Malware On Its Payment System | TechCrunch
Hyatt, the global hotel chain with 627 properties across more than 50, countries is the latest in its industry to suffer a cyber security attack.
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I Came Clean to My Kids About Santa – The Daily Beast
I used to get called “Grinch” a lot, and not without reason.
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High levels of a toxic chemical have been discovered in rock samples taken from an area of the UK targeted for shale gas extraction, according to researchers from the University of Aberdeen. (news.stv.tv)
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Dead whale closes popular South African beach amid shark concerns | World news | The Guardian
A South African beach popular with Christmas holidaymakers has been closed until the carcass of a beached whale is removed amid concerns its blood may attract sharks, the City of Cape Town said.
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A Peep at Sunnyside – Washington Irving funeral: archive, 24 Dec 1859 | Books | The Guardian
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 2.It was with some surprise and much sorrow that I found myself, yesterday, at the funeral of Washington Irving.
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India PM Narendra Modi to focus on defence in talks with Putin – BBC News
Indian PM Narendra Modi will arrive in Moscow at the start of a two-day visit during which he will hold annual talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two leaders are expected to sign energy and defence agreements.
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Puff-tails with puffy eyes, legacy of the human will | Environment | The Guardian
A wild rabbit, caught by a ferret and from Somerset, was put on my plate at the weekend smothered in apple sauce. I have had to kill a few rabbits myself; pitiful creatures so horribly afflicted with myxomatosis that I could easily pick them up to e…
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Thai Finds Myanmar Migrants Guilty Murder UK Pair | Al Jazeera America
In its ruling Thursday, the court said it found Win Zaw Htun and Zaw Lin, both 22, guilty of killing David Miller, 24, and raping then murdering Hannah Witheridege, 23, last year on the island of Koh Tao.
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Illinois Attorney General Says DraftKings And FanDuel Are Illegal Under State Law | TechCrunch
Jumping on the daily fantasy sports bandwagon, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has joined NY AG Eric Schneiderman in deciding that DraftKings and FanDuel violate state law.
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APOD: 2015 December 23 – Geminid Meteors over Xinglong Observatory
Explanation: Where do Geminid meteors come from? In terms of location on the sky, as the featured image composite beautifully demonstrates, the sand-sized bits of rock that create the streaks of the Geminid Meteor Shower appear to flow out from the …
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US storms: At least six dead in trail of destruction – BBC News
A storm described by forecasters as “particularly dangerous” has hit the south and mid-west of the US, killing at least six people and injuring scores more ahead of the Christmas break.
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Japan’s cabinet approves record boost in defence spending – BBC News
Japan’s cabinet has approved a record 5.1 trillion yen ($42.1bn; £28.4bn) military budget for the next financial year, its fourth annual increase. The spending boost is part of a 96.72 trillion yen overall budget that also sets a record high.
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Deadly fire rips through Saudi Arabian hospital – Al Jazeera English
At least 25 people have been killed and 107 injured in a fire at a hospital in Jizan, Saudi Arabia, authorities said. The Saudi civil defence directorate said in a post on Facebook that the fire at the Jizan General Hospital started at about 2.30am …
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Dozens dead in Saudi hospital fire – BBC News
Two Burmese men are found guilty and sentenced to death by a court in Thailand for the murder of two UK backpackers whose bodies were found on a Thai beach in 2014.
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UN Security Council backs Libya unity deal – Al Jazeera English
The UN Security Council has given its backing to the new national unity government in Libya, a move it hopes will help stem mass migration to Europe and reverse gains made by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.
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The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) has been directed to focus on innovative and emerging technologies, reversing a mandate by the former prime minister Tony Abbott that would have specifically blocked funding for windfarms and small-scale s…
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From grandmother’s recommendations to dating apps, matchmaking endures. But love still manages to arrive unexpectedly, ushered by a mischievous twist of fate or the fluidity of fierce emotions.
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My family made a gingerbread rendition of the Overlook Hotel from Kubrick’s “The Shining,” complete with a rice crispie treat maze and interior rooms depicting famous scenes (imgur.com)submitted 16 minutes ago by loading…
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Cascading Greenery and Swimmer Image, Singapore – National Geographic Photo of the Day
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Wild Bees Decline In Areas Where Crop Pollination Most Needed, Study Finds (ucanr.edu)submitted 31 minutes ago by loading…
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sea otter pup trying to sleep on mom : aww
sea otter pup trying to sleep on mom via /r/aww https://t.co/rN2n6Xki8h https://t.co/3hCF6kKWQO https://t.co/Z9vQ7oSmAr
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sea otter pup trying to sleep on mom via /r/aww https://t.co/rN2n6Xki8h https://t.co/3hCF6kKWQO https://t.co/Z9vQ7oSmAr
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This guy has it all figured out via /r/pics https://t.co/umn5axJAEd https://t.co/di1FInTymi https://t.co/wlQ20QF0Qw
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This guy has it all figured out via /r/pics https://t.co/umn5axJAEd https://t.co/di1FInTymi https://t.co/wlQ20QF0Qw
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That includes senator Ted Cruz and his totally wasted 21 hour faux filibuster supposedly trying to defund the Affordable Care Act. (Which everyone knew would never happen, so total waste of time.) You know, the one where he read green eggs and ham.
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Like cheap Christmas giftwrap, environmental laws fail to protect against climate threat: The approval of large-scale coal projects in Queensland expressly ignores the threat to the world’s climate posed by burning vast amounts of fossil fuels. (the…
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Deadly Storm System Sweeps Across South | Al Jazeera America
States from Louisiana to Illinois were under a tornado watch. Tornadoes touched down in Indiana and Mississippi, where three were killed.
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TIL that in 2004 the Republic of Georgia fired 30,000 police officers (almost the entire traffic police force) due to corruption and built glass police stations to encourage an image of transparency.
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Imagine if Trump came out in support for both of these policies in the general election. These are both positions that he’s supported for decades, and he can say that he supports marijuana legalization to take profits from the cartels Holy shit, no.
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British sprinter Joey Duck : pics
British sprinter Joey Duck via /r/pics https://t.co/XoBzDgPzE8 https://t.co/GOFJhanSZ2 https://t.co/dJE40sQsnC
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British sprinter Joey Duck via /r/pics https://t.co/XoBzDgPzE8 https://t.co/GOFJhanSZ2 https://t.co/dJE40sQsnC
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meow irl via /r/MEOW_IRL https://t.co/zrCidiFFgy https://t.co/JMtUqb59Qu https://t.co/Us2myL8eQX
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meow irl via /r/MEOW_IRL https://t.co/zrCidiFFgy https://t.co/JMtUqb59Qu https://t.co/Us2myL8eQX
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Open thread for night owls: Sen. Reid furious rooftop solar got screwed in Nevada thanks to Kochs
Kochs are doing what they can to keep more of this from happening.
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Removing Rhodes statue ‘moral vanity’, says Tony Abbott – BBC News
Oxford University should not remove a controversial statue of Cecil Rhodes from Oriel College, former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said. Students say the 19th Century colonialist’s views are against the “inclusive culture” at the univer…
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Peggy, my lovely ginger loaf. : Catloaf
Peggy, my lovely ginger loaf. via /r/Catloaf https://t.co/W9PBGpeGpk https://t.co/uFYIHCSYNv https://t.co/2imCXvijvR
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Peggy, my lovely ginger loaf. via /r/Catloaf https://t.co/W9PBGpeGpk https://t.co/uFYIHCSYNv https://t.co/2imCXvijvR
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meow irl via /r/MEOW_IRL https://t.co/x5g0j2ioKc https://t.co/50BRGBDe34 https://t.co/nZCmkpH9X0
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meow irl via /r/MEOW_IRL https://t.co/x5g0j2ioKc https://t.co/50BRGBDe34 https://t.co/nZCmkpH9X0
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China smog sparks red alerts in 10 cities – BBC News
Hazardous smog blanketing China’s north-east has sparked more red alerts, with authorities advising residents in 10 cities to stay indoors. The announcement follows last week’s warning that a vast area of China would be badly hit by pollution.
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N Korea diplomat expelled from S Africa for rhino horn trading – BBC News
A North Korean diplomat has been expelled from South Africa for illegal rhino horn trading, according to a spokesman for South Africa’s Department of International Relations.The diplomat was arrested in neighbouring Mozambique in May. Local media na…
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Burmese guilty of UK tourists’ murder – BBC News
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
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Bernie Sanders: I Couldn’t Care Less About Rahm Emanuel – The Daily Beast
CHICAGO—Bernie Sanders doesn’t whisper. He yells and he yells effusively, gripping any nearby podium like a vise almost as if to keep him from toppling over from the fire in his belly.
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My cats, Izzy and Oslo, when they were kittens. : cats
My cats, Izzy and Oslo, when they were kittens. via /r/cats https://t.co/rUPw4WCqfK https://t.co/m8822XcpTW https://t.co/IihZDZrVO2
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My cats, Izzy and Oslo, when they were kittens. via /r/cats https://t.co/rUPw4WCqfK https://t.co/m8822XcpTW https://t.co/IihZDZrVO2
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Japan Cabinet OKs Record Defense Budget | Al Jazeera America
Japan’s Cabinet approved a record-high military spending plan Wednesday, endorsing the purchase of a pricey U.S. surveillance drone and F-35 fighter jets as Tokyo steps up cooperation with Washington amid China’s increasingly assertive activity in r…
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meow irl via /r/MEOW_IRL https://t.co/vYaiUeDoe7 https://t.co/5xQrlWbA6Y https://t.co/l5I6iwm4Dj
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meow irl via /r/MEOW_IRL https://t.co/vYaiUeDoe7 https://t.co/5xQrlWbA6Y https://t.co/l5I6iwm4Dj
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Meow_irl via /r/MEOW_IRL https://t.co/KVhJ3i9tEE https://t.co/vSwLv3cMMt https://t.co/0hxO8HI8dw
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Meow_irl via /r/MEOW_IRL https://t.co/KVhJ3i9tEE https://t.co/vSwLv3cMMt https://t.co/0hxO8HI8dw
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One-Handed College Basketball Player Scores His First Basket On Sick Spin Move – Digg
Zach Hodskins is a walk-on with the University of Florida basketball team. Hodskins was also born without a left hand. As you can see here, that small impediment didn’t stop him from dominating the Jacksonville defense with a powerful spin move and…
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US Black Lives Matter protests disrupt airports and shopping – BBC News
Protests by the Black Lives Matter group have taken place in the US states of Minnesota and California on one of the busiest retail days of the year. The demonstrators in Minnesota temporarily closed the international airport and interrupted Christm…
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I, for one, welcome our new robot reindeer overlords
Boston Dynamics wins the holidays with this trio of robot reindeer drawn sleigh.
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More Chinese creating ‘clean living’ environment. : environment
More Chinese creating ‘clean living’ environment. (straitstimes.com)
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meow_irl via /r/MEOW_IRL https://t.co/1OjT2iO6As https://t.co/Nz0sBOOseQ https://t.co/rRciLdsSgP
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meow_irl via /r/MEOW_IRL https://t.co/1OjT2iO6As https://t.co/Nz0sBOOseQ https://t.co/rRciLdsSgP
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meow irl via /r/MEOW_IRL https://t.co/7aQimclVKz https://t.co/dyJLpOgR1b https://t.co/rUAECncoO5
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meow irl via /r/MEOW_IRL https://t.co/7aQimclVKz https://t.co/dyJLpOgR1b https://t.co/rUAECncoO5
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Planned Parenthood Gunman to Get Mental Evaluation | Al Jazeera America
Robert Lewis Dear, 57, interrupted Judge Gilbert A. Martinez at a status hearing as the judge was ordering the evaluation. “Do I sound like a zombie? Do I sound like I have no intelligence?” he asked the judge.
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Seattle Seahawks’ Michael Bennett on why he’s voting for Bernie Sanders: “I just think he’s an honest guy and one of the main people that really has a platform to really tell the truth” (seattletimes.com)submitted 3 hours ago by loading…
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Twice the trouble via /r/cats https://t.co/2k6dNvhFLL https://t.co/qzmcHouprf https://t.co/VCMrsp688X
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Peace Love Beauty Wisdom Balance Imagination Truth Consciousness, Twice the trouble via /r/cats…
Twice the trouble via /r/cats https://t.co/2k6dNvhFLL https://t.co/qzmcHouprf https://t.co/VCMrsp688X
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Night Walk at Little Hunter’s Beach – Acadia Nat’l Park, Maine [810×1200] [OC] https://t.co/uYsKArXK3S https://t.co/OXkJ6kdbbm
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A 23-year-old from the Bahamas hacked the email accounts of 130 celebrities, taking unreleased movie scripts, social security numbers and even a few sex tapes, federal prosecutors have alleged.
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Yet another significant difference between the two parties. Although not as universally opposed by Republicans as one may expect.
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I’m a freelance writer, but I didn’t do a lot of freelance writing this year, mostly because I’ve been working on a book.
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Poll: Majority of Americans Favor Idea of Single-Payer Healthcare System : politics
Poll: Majority of Americans Favor Idea of Single-Payer Healthcare System https://t.co/zdETYx1A8I https://t.co/hOEa9EXoHV via /r/#politics
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Poll: Majority of Americans Favor Idea of Single-Payer Healthcare System – Morning Consult
Poll: Majority of Americans Favor Idea of Single-Payer Healthcare System https://t.co/zdETYx1A8I https://t.co/hOEa9EXoHV via /r/#politics
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Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president has been savvy about talking to young voters in the parlance of the social web, using emojis, sleek graphics and other formats. But the list “7 things Hillary Clinton has in common with your abuela” seemed to…
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Who is Lamar Smith, and why won’t he stop bothering NOAA? | Grist
We take you on board a fishing boat in the San Juan Islands, where local fishermen are bringing back traditional Native American catch methods. Prepare yourselves for snowballs, witch hunts, and a big measles outbreak.
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Quiz of the Year: 52 weeks 52 questions, part four – BBC News
It’s the fourth and final part of the Magazine’s quiz of the year. Test your recollection of 2015 over four days with four sets of 12 questions – themed on the lines of “who?”, “what?”, “why?” and “where?” – and a four-part puzzler. Today it’s “wher…
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US energy rally extends into Asian markets – BBC News
Australian shares are off to a positive start on Thursday, boosted by a commodities-led rally in US stocks overnight. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 rose by a little over 1% in the first hour of trade, hovering around 5,192 points.
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Super smash face catloaf cat : Catloaf
Super smash face catloaf cat via /r/Catloaf https://t.co/3kIDkQGvrG https://t.co/rRBTsvT6x3 https://t.co/6dSigYZMR9
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Super smash face catloaf cat via /r/Catloaf https://t.co/3kIDkQGvrG https://t.co/rRBTsvT6x3 https://t.co/6dSigYZMR9
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Video Ad Startup Innovid Raises $27.5M | TechCrunch
Less than a year after its last round, Innovid is announcing that it has raised $27.5 million in new funding. The New York City-headquartered company works with more than 220 advertisers, including Best Buy, Procter & Gamble and Walmart, to create, …
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Nigeria Boko Haram: Militants ‘close to defeat’ – Buhari – BBC News
The Nigerian military is close to completely defeating Islamist Boko Haram militants, President Muhammadu Buhari has told the BBC. He said the militants could no longer mount conventional attacks against security forces or population centres.
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Your pictures: Best of 2015 – BBC News
Your pictures: Best of 2015 24 December 2015 Last updated at 01:14 A selection of the best of our readers’ photographs on various themes in 2015. Each week, we publish a gallery of readers’ pictures on a set theme, and at this time of year we like t…
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Happy holidays from the Beatles: As of 12:01 a.m. on Dec. 24, the band’s music will finally be available on streaming services worldwide.
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Sgt. McBride Wasn’t Supposed to Come Home Like This – The Daily Beast
NEW CASTLE AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, Delaware — The six U.S. troops killed this week first appeared amid bright lights and a dusky sky. Their bodies rested C-17 aircraft that transported them here, illuminated in the sunset by the lights of the plane…
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Environmental Peace Ecology is out! https://t.co/Admmrhk60e Stories via @UN_CTED
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40 Diverse People In Tech Who Made Big Moves In 2015 | TechCrunch
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The Christmas flash mob tradition
The holiday season is a time for music. More and more often, that music is brought to you—unexpectedly—while shopping in a mall, eating in a food court, or visiting a museum—by a flash mob. Flash mobs of all kinds have been a worldwide cultural sta…
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Vox Sentences: A huge new concussion study — from which the NFL is conspicuously absent – Vox
A major grant to study CTE launches with a funding controversy; an earthquake in Shenzhen, China; and the Mall of America tried to get a restraining order against the entire Black Lives Matter movement. NOTE: Vox Sentences will be on hiatus for Chri…
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Most Popular Clever Uses and MacGyver Tips of 2015
If you’re clever enough, anything can be a tool. This year we saw a ton of clever tips and tricks than any “MacGyver wannabe” would be proud of, but only a select few stood out as the best.
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EFF’s roundup of internettish TV, movies and books from 2015 / Boing Boing
In a clever marketing stunt, German book publisher Bastei Lübbe and bookshop Hugendubel built a vending machine that accepts unwanted Christmas presents as payment for new books. According to TheBookseller.com, the machine will be tour shopping cent…
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The Midwest Startup Formula Will Change The Status Quo For Building Businesses | TechCrunch
In the age of unicorns and record-level private-market valuations, there are those who warn that the dreaded startup bubble is bearing down upon us again. That’s understandable. In recent years, many highly anticipated tech IPOs hit their peak… just…
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This Short Film About Memories Is Both Stunningly Gorgeous and Strangely Hypnotic
Raymond McCarthy Bergeron’s candy-colored short film re÷belief has won a huge array of festival awards, and it’s not hard to see why—it’s inventive and pulses with an unusual rhythm. This is due to the process he used to make it: 3D printed zoetrope…
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Today’s comic book villain is a corporate snake
To wit: Captain America: Sam Wilson #4–written by Nick Spencer with art by Paul Renaud, Romulo Fjardo, and Joe Caramagna–finds its lead character looking a lot different than he usually does.
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The stories of Syrian children that went viral in 2015 – BBC News
Around 2 million Syrian children live as refugees, but it’s the heart-breaking stories of a small number of individuals that struck a chord on the internet. BBC Trending looks at the stories of five Syrian refugee children who captured the attention…
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Salesforce Grabs Quote To Cash Vendor SteelBrick for $360 Million | TechCrunch
They say there’s not supposed to be much M&A action the week of Christmas, but Salesforce apparently didn’t get the memo, picking up quote-to-cash vendor SteelBrick today for $360 million.
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Crocodiles and tigers to guard prisoners in Indonesia – BBC News
Officials in Jakarta have proposed a new prison with some very special guards. In November 2015, Indonesia bowed to international pressure and put a temporary halt on executing death row prisoners, so alternatives were sought by the authorities.
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Illinois attorney general says FanDuel and DraftKings are illegal gambling operations | The Verge
In another hit to daily fantasy sports companies like FanDuel and DraftKings, the Illinois state attorney general has declared that fantasy sports businesses are “gambling” businesses under Illinois law, and are thus operating illegally in the state.
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Martin Shkreli’s other pharma company is dramatically collapsing | Ars Technica
In a swift set of blows, KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biotech company formerly headed by Turing’s Martin Shkreli, announced that it is being delisted from the Nasdaq stock exchange, and that the company’s interim CFO and accounting firm have bo…
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Shine on: Why Colombian men like to get their nails done – BBC News
A group of men serving sentences for corruption and financial misconduct in a Bogota prison had a manicurist visit them in their cells to get their nails done. The little luxury the inmates treated themselves caused anger in Colombia when it was rev…
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The miners’ union is calling for a public inquiry into the re-emergence of black lung disease in Queensland. Nine people have either been diagnosed with the chronic respiratory condition or are showing symptoms, according to the Construction, Forest…
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Christmas in Bethlehem: Hopes and fears for the future – BBC News
As Bethlehem prepares for Christmas, five people chosen to represent characters in the original Nativity story have been speaking about their hopes and fears for the festive period. Celebrations are taking place in the West Bank town where it is bel…
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How To Talk About The NBA Christmas Day Games With Your Family | FiveThirtyEight
If you plan to spend Christmas Day watching more NBA basketball than is really polite, odds are you’ll be watching with family or friends who aren’t as keen on basketball as you are. Here’s a rundown of every game on the marquee, and what the thinki…
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Five things you need to know about US visa changes – BBC News
Changes to the US’s visa waiver programme will affect many EU citizens with ties to the Middle East. Could it affect you? 1. What’s will change once the law goes into effect?
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Torn in two: Yemen divided – BBC News
Yemen is broken. The country once dubbed by the Romans as “Arabia Felix” – “Fortunate Arabia” – because of its lush valleys and rich agriculture has been torn apart by war.
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What did Jesus really look like? – BBC News
Everyone knows what Jesus looks like. He is the most painted figure in all of Western art, recognised everywhere as having long hair and a beard, a long robe with long sleeves (often white) and a mantle (often blue). Jesus is so familiar that he can…
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Germany Pays to Halt Danish Wind Power to Protect Own Output – Germany’s wind farms are now producing so much electricity one of its grid managers is paying generators in neighboring Denmark to shut down to keep its network from overloading (bloombe…
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A Nano Step For Man, A Giant Leap For Mankind | TechCrunch
Last month I was invited to join a couple of scientists for a visit to Capitol Hill to talk to our nation’s leaders about how innovations in nanotechnology are shaping the country today.
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Michael Moore Is Angrier than Ever | Vanity Fair
“I feel more optimistic because I’m more angry, actually, than I’ve ever been,” Michael Moore says.
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Scientists find 1500-year-old Viking settlement beneath new airport site | Ars Technica
When Norway announced plans to expand its Ørland Airport this year, archaeologists got excited. They knew that pre-construction excavation was likely to reveal ancient Viking artifacts. But they got far more than they had hoped.
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The runaway children Malaysia failed to save – BBC News
Earlier this year seven children from an indigenous Malaysian tribe ran away from school and got lost in the jungle. Seven weeks later, only two survivors were found. The shocking case raises uncomfortable questions about Malaysia’s treatment of thi…
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Laramie Sunset (1024 x 790] : SkyPorn
Laramie Sunset (1024 x 790] via /r/SkyPorn https://t.co/O7vOAeXqVb https://t.co/0gE1eufEOA https://t.co/WYRtwf0Njk
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Laramie Sunset (1024 x 790] via /r/SkyPorn https://t.co/O7vOAeXqVb https://t.co/0gE1eufEOA https://t.co/WYRtwf0Njk
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[Sanders] warned: “The sad reality is that the Federal Reserve doesn’t regulate Wall Street; Wall Street regulates the Fed. It’s time to make banking work … for all Americans, not just a handful of wealthy speculators.” (theguardian.com)submitted 3 …
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The Future of American Dining Is Fancy Chains – Eater
hake Shack’s IPO. The fried chicken sandwich explosion. Peet’s acquisition of Intelligentsia and Stumptown. Waves of food poisoning at Chipotle. McDonald’s all-day breakfast. The minimum wage fight.
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This Staircase is amazing! : pics
This Staircase is amazing! via /r/pics https://t.co/ILvMDpBGKU https://t.co/xIA6Bf1H74 https://t.co/wOTuIKWxz7
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This Staircase is amazing! via /r/pics https://t.co/ILvMDpBGKU https://t.co/xIA6Bf1H74 https://t.co/wOTuIKWxz7
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“Drunken” Pasta Makes for Quick, Delicious Weeknight Meals
Whipping up quick, tasty dinners on busy weeknights can be challenging. This “drunken” pasta requires only two ingredients: dry red wine and pasta, with the option to beef it up with things already in your pantry. Combine 3 and ¼ cups of red wine wi…
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Belgium Syria: How a Belgian teenager was lured to jihad – BBC News
Last month, jihadist group Islamic State (IS) claimed that Abdelmalek Boutalliss had blown himself up in Iraq. Originally from the Belgian city of Kortrijk, he had been preparing for his exams when he told his mother, “Don’t expect me for dinner”.
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A drone, an architect, and a tourist walk into a bar
Drones have spawned the architectural tourist who can fly over buildings, dive through doorways, and sail down hallways without ever leaving his or her home. Curbed has a nice collection of architectural-tourism-by-drone videos.
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The secrets revealed by coastal erosion – BBC News
Erosion is problem on large parts of the UK coastline. Now a scheme in Scotland, which gets the public logging at risk sites, is set to be expanded into England during 2016.
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Indian women who are fighting to stop genital mutilation – BBC News
The cruel practice of female genital mutilation is banned in many countries globally, but it remains widespread among the Bohras – a small Muslim community in India. Now, some Bohra women have started a campaign demanding an end to the ritual, write…
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Thick layers of toxic smog often blanket the skies in Hanoi, limiting visibility to less than a mile away. When the pollution gets really bad in Beijing, children are kept home from school or restricted to classrooms during recess.
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First-Person Drone Racing Is An Awesome New Sport That Will Make You Vomit – Digg
Technology Sports Strapping a headset to your face for a first-person view from your racing drone is something we definitely want to try, as long as there’s a bathroom nearby.
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Sheldon Adelson’s Top Editor Reveals Why He Quit – The Daily Beast
With the $140 million purchase of Nevada’s biggest and most influential newspaper by the family of billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson—a transaction that the litigation-prone Republican mega-donor had tried to keep secret—the collateral damag…
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Challenge to plans to redevelop Arthur Conan Doyle house fails | Books | The Guardian
Author John Gibson, founder of the Undershaw Preservation Trust, attacked a decision made by the local planning authority to give the go-ahead for redevelopment of the Grade II-listed building in Surrey for use as a school.
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Can You Work Out the Mechanism on This Alcohol Clock From 1945?
Alcohol clocks never caught on with consumers, so they were only marketed for a short time in 1945. Have a look at one in action, and see if you can figure out how it turns. You might be able to find an old alcohol clock in a museum, or in the home …
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BBC Sport – Didier Drogba: Chelsea hold talks with Montreal Impact over striker
Chelsea are in talks with Major League Soccer franchise Montreal Impact over the future of striker Didier Drogba. Montreal say Drogba has expressed a “desire to help” his old club.
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Russia rejects Amnesty charges over Syria raids – BBC News
Russia has dismissed as “total lies” a report by Amnesty International accusing it of indiscriminate air strikes in Syria. He also denied the Russian military used cluster munitions in Syria.
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How will Midwest farmers prepare for the impact of climate change? | Grist
Prepare yourselves for snowballs, witch hunts, and a big measles outbreak. Migrating coastlines, urban parking sprawl, and rivers running through it: These maps made our days in 2015.
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Beatles back catalogue streamed for first time – BBC News
The Beatles back catalogue will be available on streaming services, such as Spotify, for the first time. Their studio albums and many compilations are available from Christmas Eve.
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Are We Living in a Multiverse?
Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the creator, writer and host of “Closer to Truth,” a public television series and online resource that features the world’s leading thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions.
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Child ‘locked in hidden Australia drug den’ – BBC News
Australian police have charged three people after a child was reportedly found locked inside an elaborate underground drugs compound. Police said the boy, aged eight, was kept locked in a small room in the compound for several weeks and was allowed …
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Spotlight on green news & views: Methane leak made visible; lobbying trade deals on climate chan
The Daily Bucket – Invasive Giant Snails written by enhydra lutris: “A pair of Giant African Snails and a bunch of eggs were found on pallets at the Port of Oakland this month. An article at SFGate stated: These were live Giant African snails — and …
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My family went to The Alchemist escape room and loved it / Boing Boing
Escape rooms are popular. I’m not surprised. I’ve been to three of them with my wife and kids, and have enjoyed them all. The latest one we participated in was called The Alchemist, at Escape Room L.A..
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The first trailer for Everybody Wants Some, Richard Linklater’s long-awaited (but what Linklater movies aren’t long awaited these days?) “spiritual sequel” to Dazed And Confused, has hit the internet.
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Donald Trump Seriously Schlonged Himself – The Daily Beast
Donald Trump’s latest lie is that “schlonged,” a word exclusively used to describe a penis, is instead a verb that is “often used in politics” and means “got beaten badly.”“When I said that Hillary Clinton got schlonged by Obama, it meant got beaten…
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This Short Story About Death and Bees Is the Strangest, Most Beautiful Thing in Ages
I was blown away by “Telling the Bees” by T. Kingfisher, newly published in Strange Horizons. To the point where I was kind of amazed that I’d never heard of the author before, until I realized it was a pseudonym for Ursula Vernon.
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Tubby loaf via /r/Catloaf https://t.co/9lQJtvXFwQ https://t.co/lGAmajnOAn https://t.co/33iJ80FeOj
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Tubby loaf via /r/Catloaf https://t.co/9lQJtvXFwQ https://t.co/lGAmajnOAn https://t.co/33iJ80FeOj
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Letter K: Sirmilik National Park : Image of the Day
Today’s Image of the Day is derived from our newest feature: Reading the ABCs from Space. K, k…what begins with K?
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Hateful Eight screener leak linked to Point Break producer’s office · Newswire · The A.V. Club
In what appears to be becoming an annual tradition, earlier this week someone leaked screener copies of several high-profile upcoming movies, including The Revenant and The Hateful Eight, onto torrent sites, something we’re sure no one reading this …
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An interview with director Charlie Kaufman
Charlie Kaufman, who wrote “Being John Malkovitch” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and wrote and directed “Synecdoche, New York,” talks about his latest writing/now co-directing project, “Anomalisa,” which is “a stop-motion animated dark…
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The ‘Unitasker’ Kitchen Gadgets Alton Brown Loves To Loathe : The Salt : NPR
Cooking gadgets seem to be a solid go-to when you’re not sure what to give someone. Who wouldn’t be charmed with a laser-guided pizza cutter? A one-click butter dispenser? An electric bacon-bowl maker? , that’s who.
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Get People to Do You Tiny Favors by Giving Them a Reason—Any Reason
For the most part, people don’t mind helping out one another. If you’re asking for a favor, however, it never hurts to explain why. In fact, according to a classic study, your reason doesn’t even need to be a good one. The study, led by Ellen J.
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Hear Fairground Saints’ Lilting ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’ | Rolling Stone
Bing Crosby’s “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” was written in the middle of World War II and found something universal in the aching melancholy experienced by military families for whom being together was not an option.
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He ate a lizard and turned around with this face : aww
He ate a lizard and turned around with this face via /r/aww https://t.co/YMBpaUkZ6w https://t.co/1CVzG0IkL5 https://t.co/pxZzDkpsRU
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He ate a lizard and turned around with this face via /r/aww https://t.co/YMBpaUkZ6w https://t.co/1CVzG0IkL5 https://t.co/pxZzDkpsRU
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A French Mother’s Fight Against Radicalization : Parallels : NPR
The terrorist attacks in Paris this year — in January and November — were both carried out by French citizens who became Islamist radicals.
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Christmas Twister Is the Most Hilariously Awful Movie About Climate Change Ever
Christmas Twister, also known as F6: Twister, is a 2012 action thriller that’s awfully light on action and thrills, but positively dripping with terrible acting and even worse special effects.
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Migrant crisis: ‘A century of exile and homelessness’ – BBC News
In 2015, the war in Syria and economic hardship in parts of Africa led to record levels of migration in Europe.
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The Milky Way, an Island and ‘The Little Prince’: A Photographer’s Tale
An inspiring story prompted this stunning image of the Milky Way over an island in Argentinian Patagonia. The image was taken by astrophotgrapher Sergio Montúfar on Oct. 16 from Península Valdés, Puerto Madryn, Chubut, in Argentinian Patagonia.
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90-Year-Old Gay Man Recalls Long Struggle With His Sexuality : NPR
Ninety-year-old Hector Black has been on Radiolab and StoryCorps, talking about how he forgave the man who murdered one of his daughters. But he tells NPR’s Ari Shapiro a different story — one he hasn’t shared before.
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Big, Bold, Wild: We Re-Create Christmas Dinner, 17th-Century Style : The Salt : NPR
If you are eating turkey this Christmas out of some sense of tradition, food historian Ivan Day says, put down that drumstick. After studying 400-year-old English cookbooks, Day says the giant bird isn’t even that traditional. Besides, he says, “It’…
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New infrared video reveals growing environmental disaster in L.A. gas leak (washingtonpost.com)
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Pro-Tip: Never Ask Darth Vader to Dance
Darth Vader is many things—tragic villain, almighty horror, dab hand with a lightsaber—but he is not a dancer. Thanks the the Darth Vader Annual, we now know that this is what happens when you’re stupid enough to insist that the Dark Lord of the Sit…
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Modify a Standard Band-Aid to Be a Perfect Over-the-Knuckle Bandage
Unless you have special band-aids, cuts and scrapes on your knuckles are really annoying to deal with. If you need a knuckle bandage, you can modify a typical, rectangular band-aid with a few cuts from a pair of scissors.
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Livestream is notifying users of a possible data breach | The Verge
Just as everyone is settling in for serious holiday streaming marathons, Livestream is alerting customers of a possible data breach. The streaming company notified users this week that an unauthorized party might have accessed its account database, …
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El Gordo: Senegal refugee wins €400,000 in Spain lottery – BBC News
A refugee from Senegal who travelled to Europe by boat has won a stake of some €400,000 (£294,000; $436,000) in Spain’s annual Christmas lottery.The man, named Ngagne, travelled from Morocco to Spain in 2007.
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Watch Tesla’s Model X SUV put on a holiday light show | The Verge
It’s that time of year for corporate holiday videos. Some are a little creepy, but some, like this one from Tesla, are actually pretty clever. Now watch the video, smile at it, and put a deposit down on a new Model X. It can go from 0-60 mph in 3.
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Fire destroys Aleister Crowley’s former home Boleskine House|Dangerous Minds
A fire has destroyed much of Boleskine House, the former home of occultist Aleister Crowley and later Led Zepplin guitarist Jimmy Page. Firefighters were called to the house situated on the banks of Loch Ness at 13:40. hours GMT today, after flames …
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Johnny Depp tops Forbes’ list of 2015’s most overpaid actors · Newswire · The A.V. Club
Due in large part to the poor performance of his critical and commercial flop Mortdecai, Johnny Depp tops Forbes’ list of the most overpaid actors of 2015. Depp’s 2015 slate of films returned only $1.
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Conflicting Narratives in Resignation of Review-Journal Editor | Vanity Fair
Days after the Las Vegas Review-Journal published several articles on the questionable circumstances surrounding the sale of the paper to billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his family, the paper’s editor, Mike Hengel, announced suddenly on…
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Wave of Attacks Kills at Least 15 in Iraq | Al Jazeera America
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, though they bore the hallmarks of ISIL, a Sunni armed group that has targeted Iraqi forces, civilians and especially Shias.
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The Cleveland grand jury has been conducting its work in private, investigating the police shooting of a 12-year-old boy named Tamir Rice that set off protests nationwide. But a steady stream of evidence has been trickling out to the public.
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Black Lives Matter rallies at Mall of America against police shooting of Jamar Clark | VICE News
Hundreds of Black Lives Matter activists gathered at America’s biggest mall on one of the busiest shopping days of the year Wednesday, to draw attention to the fatal police shooting of unarmed black man Jamar Clark.
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Career Spotlight: What I Do as an Astrophysicist
Zoom out far enough and astrophysics is really the study of everything: planets, heavenly bodies, and all that star stuff from whence we came. It’s literally a broad subject that can include anything from quantum mechanics and relativity to exoplane…
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In the last fiscal year, Australia earned $172bn from international sales of its natural resources. But earnings are decreasing.
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Palantir Has Raised $880 Million At A $20 Billion Valuation | TechCrunch
Palantir, the data analytics platform used by government agencies and law enforcement pocketed $880 million in new funding, according to a filing from the Securities and Exchange Commission out today. The startup has now raised $2.32 billion in tota…
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Ho ho nope via /r/cats https://t.co/ekGl8VOsBY https://t.co/HhxieEU2Cg https://t.co/IaRDJi5oTX
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Ho ho nope via /r/cats https://t.co/ekGl8VOsBY https://t.co/HhxieEU2Cg https://t.co/IaRDJi5oTX
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Infomercial for $90 “power” candles / Boing Boing
Dr. Linda Salvin is a “spiritual doctor, famous psychic, healer, medium” who sells Wicks of Wisdom, $90 candle sets alleged to have special powers.
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If You’re Launching A Tech Startup In 2016, Focus On Privacy And Fast Data | TechCrunch
Enterprises over the last decade have devoted large portions of their IT budgets to collecting, securing and analyzing huge volumes of big data. Or at least trying to.
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This just in: Pretty much all major oil companies are lying liars | Grist
Migrating coastlines, urban parking sprawl, and rivers running through it: These maps made our days in 2015. Either we’re in the Twilight Zone, or environmental legislation really did just sore through Congress.
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Your 2035 dinner is a waste ball
I’m having a hard time choosing between the Artificial Meat Ball and the Crispy Bug Ball. Or there’s the Wonderful Waste Ball.
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Somalia and Brunei ban Christmas celebrations – Al Jazeera English
Somalia has issued a ban on Christmas celebrations in the Muslim-majority country after the Southeast Asian sultanate of Brunei announced a similar prohibition earlier this month with the threat of five years in jail.
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In Real Universe, Rockers Coheed and Cambria Still Reach for the Stars
Rock band Coheed an Cambria in front of Orion Capsule training mock-up at NASA’s Johnson Space Center In Houston, Texas – Sept. 17th, 2014Credit: NASA Johnson Space Center View full size image Steve Spaleta, Space.com senior producer, contributed th…
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The Kardashian Family’s 2015 Christmas Card, Featuring North West, Has Arrived | Vanity Fair
In the last decade, the Kardashian family Christmas card has eclipsed advent calendars and eggnog to become one of the nation’s most cherished holiday traditions.
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Joshua Harris’s Philadelphia story offers insight to Crystal Palace fans | Football | The Guardian
There are billionaire owners – step forward Roman Abramovich and Mike Ashley – who will never be held accountable. Then there are investors such as Joshua Harris, the American worth $2.7bn who has added Crystal Palace to a sporting portfolio that al…
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Slack And HipChat Are On The Verge Of Launching Chat Wars | TechCrunch
Slack and Atlassian, the two leaders in the enterprise software market, are on a collision course, whether they like it or not.< Slack has been the clear leader in media hype so far, as the company soaked up most of the positive PR throughout 2015.
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How to Make People Fall in Love With Your Ridiculously Competent Hero
We all love characters who are good at what they’re doing. Nobody wants to root for someone who screws up constantly or walks into traps we can see a mile away. But at the same time, it can be hard to love someone who’s too perfect. So how do you ma…
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Rocket Launch as Cultural Event – The Atlantic
If it’s a big American launch, there is a rocket, a marsh, and an ocean. The rocket sits between the marsh and the ocean. The camera focuses on the rocket and does not move. Sometimes there are two cameras: one behind the marsh, far from the rocket,…
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India church builds massive Santa Claus statue – Al Jazeera English
A Catholic church in the Indian city of Bangalore says it has built one of the biggest Santa Claus statues in the world – more than 27 metres tall and weighing about three tonnes.
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Meet Kymeta, The Company That Could Bring High Speed Wi-Fi To Cars | TechCrunch
Kymeta, the developer of a new, “smart” antenna, recently completed a milestone test for their core technology, the mTenna.
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Canada Probably Won’t Bring in All the Syrians It Wanted to This Year | VICE News
Canada has been showered with accolades over how it’s welcoming in Syrians, but the government revealed today that it might not hit its already reduced target of 10,000 refugees from the ravaged country by the end of the year.
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1980s teenagers gleefully record family van hitting the 100,000 mile mark / Boing Boing
The Bowman family shot this excellent home movie of the odometer on their family van reaching 100,000 miles. Can anyone who isn’t car-blind like me figure out exact year this was made? [via]
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Muslims love Jesus, too: 6 things you didn’t know about Jesus in Islam – Vox
Christmas, as everyone knows, commemorates the birth of Jesus and is a major religious celebration for Christians around the world.
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Accused Planned Parenthood gunman wants to fire lawyer and defend himself | US news | The Guardian
The man who killed three people in an attack on a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic halted court proceedings on Wednesday by demanding that he be allowed to fire his public defender and represent himself.
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Hillary Clinton on Trump: ‘Nothing really surprises me anymore’
As could be expected, Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton was asked about Donald Trump. That speaks for itself, so we needn’t dwell.
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Scotland Is Fighting to Make Booze More Expensive to Solve Its Drinking Problem | VICE News
Scotland’s government is squaring off against distillers and others it accuses of flooding the country with cheap booze that has caused spikes in liver disease, cirrhosis, crime, and workdays lost to hangovers.
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Natural chain that hangs the mistletoe | Science | The Guardian
Mistletoe is a wonderful plant, and not just for Christmas. It is actually a vampire, a parasite which sucks water and minerals out of the trees it grows on, drawing the sap out with such power it can leave the trees short of water. For Christmas, t…
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After 500,000 Apps Built, Bizness Apps Launches Apex, A New White-Label App Builder | TechCrunch
Founded in 2010 as a DIY app and website development platform, Bizness Apps has quietly turned its attention to resellers and digital agencies, becoming one of the largest providers of white-label app development software on the market.
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Four Halfway Decent Last-Minute Gifts You Can Grab at the Grocery Store
You’re on your way to the relatives’ for the holidays and it hits you—you forgot a gift for that one family member that always seems to fly under the radar. If you can swing by a grocery store, however, you still have a chance to grab something rela…
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Enter The Christmas Special Thunderdome | FiveThirtyEight
Christmas specials: They’ve survived unchanged for decades and still pull absolutely crazy TV viewership.
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Why Jon Stewart’s Family Decided to Open an Animal Sanctuary | Motherboard
There’s been much speculation about how Jon Stewart will spend his retirement. So far he’s been using a lot of his free time to basically do what he did for 16 years as host of The Daily Show: spit truth.
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Hip-Hop Vocab: The Lexicon Is In The Lyrics : NPR Ed : NPR
Austin Martin, a junior at Brown University, stands in front of an eighth-grade class at Community Preparatory School in Providence, R.I.
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The Relatives of Missing Migrants Find Joy and Pain While Searching in Mexico | VICE News
Elvira Mendoza Rios is looking for her brother Manuel. He left their small village in Guatemala nine months ago and went missing a few weeks later in the northern Mexican border city of Reynosa. He wanted to get to Florida to work. “If he had reache…
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English Chef Recreates Dinners Of Christmas Past : NPR
A chef in the North of England is recreating the Christmas dinners of two centuries ago.
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From Anheuser-Busch InBev To Dow Chemical: A Look At The Year In Mergers : NPR
2015 was a year of mega-mergers — deals made because of falling commodity prices, and deals that came with big tax advantages. NPR looks back at the year in mergers.
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Low Gas Prices Expected To Continue In 2016 : NPR
Gas prices are under $2 a gallon across much of the country. That’s because crude oil has plummeted to the lowest price in over a decade. The average U.S. household has saved an estimated $700 this year because of lower gas prices. And drivers can e…
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At Least 70 Missing After Landslide Buries Industrial Park In Southern China : NPR
NPR’s Robert Siegel talks with Jennifer Turner, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum, about the toxic waste disaster in Shenzhen, China.
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Hoverboard Fires Linked To New Manufacturing Process In China : NPR
The hot gift this Christmas season is a hoverboard — those two wheeled electronic scooters. But they have been catching fire. The boards and the danger result from a new kind of manufacturing process on the rise in China.
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Despite Energy Savings, Consumers In Vermont Remain Cautious : NPR
Average gasoline prices fell below $2 a gallon this week. That means U.S. consumers saved more than $100 billion this year at the gas pump, or about $550 per licensed driver.
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Despite Grim Media Reports, Crime Rates Are Actually Down In The U.S. : NPR
Media reports this past year have gestured toward an incoming crime wave. But according to a study from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, crime rates are actually down from last year and half what they were in 1990.
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Iran Sanctions Could Be Lifted As Soon As January : Parallels : NPR
Iran has been dismantling parts of its nuclear program faster than many anticipated and could meet its obligations for the lifting of some sanctions as soon as January, according to some officials monitoring the agreement.
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2 Students Hope Their Investment In Arts Education Will Pay Off : NPR Ed : NPR
Throughout this academic year, we’re following a group of students who graduated from high school a few years ago in Montgomery County, Md. just outside Washington, D.C. We’re asking about the choices they’ve made and about the cost and value of hig…
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#NotMyAbuela: Hillary Clinton Offends Some Latinos With Blog Post : NPR
Building alliances is key in politics. Sometimes it’s done well and other times, well, not as much. Take one effort by Hillary Clinton to reach out to Latinos, which some activists call, “Hispandering.”
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An Icy Chill From The Past Threatens A Steady Flame In ’45 Years’ : NPR
A short story about a long marriage — “In Another Country” by David Constantine — provided source-material for Andrew Haigh’s breathtaking marital drama, 45 Years, but it’s been enhanced and sharpened in its transition to the screen.
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What Is Fair? High School Students Talk About Affirmative Action : NPR Ed : NPR
Now that the Supreme Court is considering the issue of affirmative action in college admissions, all kinds of groups are weighing in. But we’re not hearing from the people who will be most affected by the court’s decision: college-bound teenagers.
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Jigsaw Puzzles And A Swear Jar: Democratic Convention Chief Prepares For Philly : NPR
Who would you turn to to build a temporary city that will come to life for four days, then disappear? That’s what planning and managing a national political convention amounts to, and the Democrats have turned to a Pentecostal minister and jigsaw pu…
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12 recipes that will let you eat well for the rest of your life / Boing Boing
As a kid I’d watch my dad as he’d throw (his unit of measurement) some olive oil, onions, garlic, lemon, and olives into a pan to make a quick pasta. It’s learning to cook this way that gave me a love and appreciation for food and cooking. That’s wh…
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It doesn’t matter if the NSA planted the Juniper backdoor | The Verge
All week, the security world has been puzzling over a newly discovered backdoor into Juniper’s VPN software. The software isn’t popular, but it’s often used for high-security corporate work, making it exactly the kind of software intelligence agenci…
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Tracy Morgan crash: truck driver charged with vehicular homicide | US news | The Guardian
The driver of the truck that crashed into a vehicle, severely injuring Tracy Morgan and killing a close friend, has been indicted on charges that could send him to prison for decades.
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io9 Star Wars: The Force Awakens Was Way Better The Second Time Around | Kotaku Which Video Game Console Should You Buy? | Deadspin Deadspin’s Favorite Sports Moments Of 2015 | Jezebel No Offense |
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Find Keywords on Web Pages Quickly in iOS 9 with the Find on Page Button
In previous versions of iOS, to find a keyword on a page you needed to tap the URL bar in Safari and type in your search. In iOS 9, it’s a little easier with a button tucked away in the share menu.
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News | Radar Images of a Christmas-Eve Asteroid: An Early Gift for Astronomers
Asteroid 2003 SD220 will safely fly past Earth on Dec. 24 at a distance of 6.8 million miles (11 million kilometers).
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Love Everyone Often Peace Beauty Balance Life Light Magic: Sternen-Cluster [3000 x 1688]
Sternen-Cluster [3000 x 1688] https://t.co/aQPrzmalmO https://t.co/r3iehsyFlS
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After Hillary Clinton attacked Donald J. Trump for proposing to bar Muslims from entering the United States, calling him “ISIS’ best friend,” Mr. Trump’s response Monday night was angry and vulgar.
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There’s a New Fighting Force in Increasingly Violent Burundi | VICE News
A former Burundian army official has declared the formation of a rebel force in the country, a development that threatens to widen violence and wreak havoc with attempts to resolve Burundi’s political crisis peacefully.
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One of the recurrent themes of this presidential election so far is a determined belief that Donald Trump is tapping into working class economic anxiety. And given what we know about the Republican party and the subset of American that are attracted…
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Ace the Amazon Web Services certification exams and save 87% in the Boing Boing Store / Boing Boing
Become a Cloud guru with this AWS Associate Certification Bundle. These three courses, all brimming with mini lectures that are just five to 20 minutes long, take you from newbie to pro as efficiently as possible.
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Will Shipping Companies Like UPS and FedEx Improve Holiday Package Delivery Soon? – The Atlantic
In the final few days before Christmas, there’s an increasingly common scene in neighborhoods around the U.S.: Delivery trucks as far as the eye can see.
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How to Stop Nightmares and Night Terrors – Scientific American
Who hasn’t woken up tangled in sheets, sweating, terrified from a nightmare? Whether you’re late for an exam, naked in public, or being chased by anything from a dinosaur to a scary clown, we’ve all been jolted awake, afraid of the monsters in our h…
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The New York Times Magazine has published its annual death roundup: “The Lives They Lived.” Rowdy Roddy Piper: With Andre, Piper asks if it’s true that Big John Studd body-slammed him. No, Andre says, it isn’t. Piper, neck veins pulsing, suggests th…
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A look at sockeye salmon, Native American nets, and a modern fishery | Grist
We take you on board a fishing boat in the San Juan Islands, where local fishermen are bringing back traditional Native American catch methods. Prepare yourselves for snowballs, witch hunts, and a big measles outbreak.
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Here are the Apps We Actually Used This Year | Motherboard
You probably have a lot of apps, but how many of those do you actually use? When you really think about it, probably not many! And that’s okay. Some apps are only for occasional use, a specific time or place. But the apps you use the most often say …
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Microsoft let people vote for its next game and they chose a word game | The Verge
Microsoft decided to let fans pick what Windows’ next casual game should be, and today the votes are in: it’ll be a word game. I know what you’re thinking: that’s not very exciting.
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Making healthy foods the default menu dupes people into eating better | Ars Technica
If you serve it, they will eat it—or at least that seems to be a take-away from a new study on healthy menu options published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.
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Jewish leader demands expulsion of ‘Christian vampires’ – Al Jazeera English
The leader of a right-wing Jewish group has called for a ban on Christmas in Israel and the expulsion of Christians, describing followers of the religion as “blood-sucking vampires”.
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‘I’ll be back’, vows Blatter after football ban – Al Jazeera English
Whatever else may be wrong with Sepp Blatter, he is rarely boring. Just as the international media assembled at the banned FIFA president’s press conference in Zurich on Monday, Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” started blaring it out over the PA system on re…
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Gizmodo Everything Apple Introduced This Year Kinda Sucked | Gawker The 10 Best Articles Wikipedia Deleted This Week | Jalopnik Chris Harris And Sabine Schmitz Chosen As New Top Gear Hosts: Report | Lifehacker Four Outdated Ideas Advertisers Are Sti…
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io9 Star Wars: The Force Awakens Was Way Better The Second Time Around | Kotaku Which Video Game Console Should You Buy? | Deadspin Deadspin’s Favorite Sports Moments Of 2015 | Jezebel No Offense |
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“The corporate mainstream media hates Bernie and censors him, attempting to make it look like he endorses Hillary. Trump gets WAY more mainstream coverage than Bernie despite both polling similarly. If you want to choose someone who wasn’t handpicke…
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Fancy spending Christmas with a Dalek? The newest Humble Bundle collection is just for you. The Doctor Who humble audiobook bundle features 4 series of classic audio dramas from Big Finish: Dalek War 1 and 2, Dalek Empire and The Sixth Doctor: The L…
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Movie theater manager recounts ‘Star Wars’ premiere | Fusion
Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released last weekend to sold-out crowds across the country. This required movie theater workers to survive what might be one of the most trying moments of their career.
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It Came Up From the Water, Black and Spiked
When it emerged, no one knew what it was and where it came from. And when people started to disappear, all anyone wished for was that it went back to where it came from. This is one of two versions of the same art done by Shannon Ekundayo Reddy (AKA…
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Federal Circuit judges say rule against “disparaging” trademarks is unconstitutional | Ars Technica
An Asian-American rock band called The Slants has taken a legal fight over its name all the way to an appeals court, resulting in a major decision over trademark rights.
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A View to a Kill | New Republic
On November 21, at around 7 p.m., narcotics officers in vests that said police (but not full uniforms) served a no-knock warrant to 933 Neal Street in Northwest Atlanta. The resident, Kathryn Johnston–88 years old by some accounts, 92 years old by …
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Go Behind the Scenes of Motley Crue’s Epic Final Tour | Rolling Stone
Go Behind the Scenes of Motley Crue’s Epic Final Tour “The premise was, ‘We have to make this the most fucking insane thing that’s ever happened and no one will ever be able to pull this off,’” Tommy Lee says
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Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant demagoguery works because it’s not about jobs. It’s about fear. – Vox
When Donald Trump said that “murderers” and “rapists” were coming over the US/Mexico border during his campaign launch, it was just one in a barrage of outrageous lines. It only became the centerpiece of his presidential campaign when he realized th…
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Preview Kanye West’s ‘American Idol’ Audition | Rolling Stone
Preview Kanye West’s ‘American Idol’ Audition “My name is Kanye,” rapper says in surprise appearance.
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What is it that attracts US investors to the multi-million-pound EPL? | Football | The Guardian
The news that Everton’s long, public search for investment is attracting interest from two US investors, following Crystal Palace’s sale of a 36% stake and Bournemouth a 25% shareholding, extends the incongruous spectacle of English football clubs b…
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This Christmas, Tune It All Out | Rolling Stone
Before I had kids, I despised Christmas. I thought the holiday was symbolic of everything that was fake, exploitative and wasteful about our culture.
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Amazing Short Film on Old Time Radio Sound Effects: “Back of the Mike” (1938) – YouTube
Insider’s view of the 1930s radio studio showing the production of dramatic sound effects.A boy lies on his bed (wearing a white shirt and a necktie), listening to a radio western. We see the images the radio creates in his mind, then we cut to the …
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Here Are the Ways People Cope With China’s Dirty Air | VICE News
Prior to the month of December, the Chinese government had never issued a “red alert” for severe smog levels in any of its cities.
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Sage, Ink: One More Donald Trump Comment to Mark 2015 – The Atlantic
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VLC for iOS Adds Support for Split-Screen, Customizable Gestures, Touch ID, and More
iOS: The VLC app on iOS got an update today that adds a ton of new features, including support for split-screen on the iPad, Touch ID support, and a bunch more.
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Several retailers in the Mall of America have temporarily closed after Black Lives Matter protesters descended on the shopping center to protest killing of Jamar Clark, an unarmed black man who was shot by a Minneapolis police officer last month.
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Rand Paul on being bumped to the undercard debate: ‘I won’t participate’
The news that Rand Paul’s ever-lackluster poll numbers may bump him down to junior varsity status in the Fox Business-hosted Republican presidential debate three weeks from now is not sitting well with Rand Paul.
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Khodorkovsky: ‘There will be regime change in Russia’ – BBC News
The former Russian oligarch, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has dismissed as “politically motivated” an arrest warrant issued against him over a murder 20 years ago. Russian police accuse the former head of the now bankrupt Yukos oil company of ordering the …
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CBGB is reopening—at Newark International Airport · Newswire · The A.V. Club
In a move only slightly less punk rock than casting the ginger kid from Harry Potter as Cheetah Chrome, Gothamist brings the downbeat (sorry) news that legendary New York City punk club CBGB is reopening…at Newark Liberty International Airport.
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Extraordinary X-Men Throws Another Wrench Into The Cyclops Mystery
Scott Summers has not been in Marvel’s new X-Men books. Okay, well, his time-displaced teen self has, but that’s a long story for another time. But while Cyclops has been absent, he’s had a very strong presence in the X-Men’s current adventure—for v…
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Down the hill they came that night, almost a thousand of them young and white and furious about a man who was black. This was in November of 1948, and the students at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania were outraged. Some stormed the city’s r…
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Deadspin’s Favorite Sports Moments Of 2015
The Deadspin staff pick their favorite sports moments from 2015, and explain what made them so special. Here they are. Two years ago, Steph Curry’s defining performance was his 54-point strike in Madison Square Garden, but in 2015 there was no compa…
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Larycia Hawkins, an associate professor of political science at Wheaton college, said she wouldn’t accept an offer by officials to teach again, which was contingent on her agreeing to revoke her tenure for at least two years.
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Cat does tricks for treats
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Can groups of people “remember” something that didn’t happen? — Hopes&Fears
In a recent Public Policy Polling survey of registered Republicans, over one third of the participants believed that thousands of Muslims had been cheering in the streets while the Twin Towers crumbled on September 11th.
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Burning Man: the art of maker culture / Boing Boing
For sixteen of the past eighteen years I’ve embarked on an unusual pilgrimage: an annual voyage to a distant desert plain in northern Nevada. I didn’t go to gamble, to mine, to visit a brothel, to roam the wilderness. Instead I went to document a te…
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When dead birds were a good thing to put on Christmas cards / Boing Boing
Henry Cole invented the Christmas Card in 1843 as a way to escape the drudgery of hand-writing a bunch of letters to his friends. In this article, Hunter Oatman-Stafford of Collectors Weekly presents the curious history of the Christmas card.
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Something is indeed wrong here, but it’s not “cultural appropriation,” a term that carries more meaning as a signal of media outrage than as a descriptor for variegated forms of cultural borrowing or pilfering.
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Russian ex-tycoon Khodorkovsky may seek UK asylum – BBC News
Former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, says he is considering applying for political asylum in the UK and feels safe in London.
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Seinfeld parody @Seinfeld2000 made a slow jam with How to Dress Well | The Verge
If you like Seinfeld parody Twitter accounts and smoothly seductive pop from perpetually sad boys, maybe you’ll like “The Speed Dial,” a new collaborative song from musician How To Dress Well and @Seinfeld2000.
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Why Donald Trump Leads National Polls – The Atlantic
The critique I hear most often of my big piece on Trump and the GOP is that I neglected the role of race.
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Help Your Teen to Be Independent at the Doctor’s Office
If you have a teenage son or daughter, you’re more than a decade into the same routine: Take them to the doctor, do all the paperwork, answer the doctor’s questions, and ask your own. But as your kid grows up, they need to learn to take over those j…
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Swiss Researchers solve side-scrolling immersion / Boing Boing
Researchers at the ETH Game Technology Center of the Swiss national technical institute in Zürich, have applied their considerable talents to the critical problem of immersion in 2D side-scrolling, 8-bit era games.
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Midday open thread: WaPo removes cartoon of Cruz’s girls as monkeys; drone nearly whacks ski racer
US Department of Homeland Security officials provided no explanation for why the country refused to allow the family of 11 to board the plane even though they had been granted travel authorization online ahead of their planned 15 December flight.
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“Madeline the Robot Tamer” is a really lovely video about Madeline Gannon, a woman who dances, so to speak, with robots. As a resident at Pier 9, she developed Quipt, “a gesture-based control software that gives industrial robots basic spatial behav…
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All T-Mobile Users Just Had Their Video Streaming Quality Degraded | Motherboard
T-Mobile came under fire on Wednesday after the Wall Street Journal reported that YouTube claimed the wireless carrier is “interfering” with its video traffic, and thereby raising net neutrality concerns, as a result of its recently launched BingeOn…
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Donald Trump is finishing 2015 with an expanding lead in the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination: The latest CNN poll has the billionaire 21 points ahead of Texas Senator Ted Cruz—the Trump-lite candidate who has kept competitive by…
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33,636 Gun Deaths Visualized / Boing Boing
The US government has tried to apply its arms export control rules to 3D model files that describe firearms, and declare that publishing those files is the same thing as exporting guns, and is therefore prohibited.
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Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders warned on Wednesday that if he wins the White House he will “fix” the Federal Reserve by throwing bankers off its boards and increasing transparency and regulation as a way of reining in Wall Street.
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The ‘Dreamcast 2’ Is Just a Dream | Motherboard
You could call me a “Sega fan” in the same way you’d call someone who dressed up as Boba Fett and camped in line all day before the premiere of The Force Awakens a “Star Wars fan.
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Christmas, like other winter-solstice holidays, evolved in part as an antidote to the darkest, deadest time of year.
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Sternen-Cluster [3000 x 1688] : spaceporn
Sternen-Cluster [3000 x 1688] via /r/spaceporn https://t.co/UUviWbBOQR https://t.co/HxYZEOjnFp https://t.co/CgIuBuzIbz
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Sternen-Cluster [3000 x 1688] via /r/spaceporn https://t.co/UUviWbBOQR https://t.co/HxYZEOjnFp https://t.co/CgIuBuzIbz
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My son was also REALLY happy to see Santa. : pics
My son was also REALLY happy to see Santa. via /r/pics https://t.co/7h7iIDPXxe https://t.co/ydl4RxFuEi https://t.co/W9LgFltuRl
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My son was also REALLY happy to see Santa. via /r/pics https://t.co/7h7iIDPXxe https://t.co/ydl4RxFuEi https://t.co/W9LgFltuRl
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The state of the GOP race: Trump, Cruz, and a 4-way battle for the establishment – Vox
The year is winding down with a nightmare scenario for Republican Party elites: Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, two candidates they believe to be highly likely to lose the general election, are in first and second.
The state of the GOP race: Trump, Cruz, and a 4-way battle for the establishment https://t.co/r5hHz5vJcO https://t.co/0L2cfbtg89 -
This year, these maps made us see the world differently | Grist
I love maps. I love watching how maps change with our changing priorities. During election cycles, they’re all about shades of political affiliation.
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Those Unsuspecting Hikers Return in This Hilarious Ash vs Evil Dead Clip
Merry early Christmas, Ash vs Evil Dead fans! In this delightful clip from episode nine, “Bound in the Flesh,” Ash, Kelly, and Pablo take a quick porch meeting to strategize.
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All The Ways Christmas Tries To Kill You | FiveThirtyEight
Each year, people head to emergency rooms with holiday-related injuries by the thousands — if the data kept by the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System is any guide.
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Letters From the January 11-18, 2015, Issue | The Nation
Juan Cole articulated exactly my feelings about the casual use of the word “war” by so many people who are supposed to be smart [“No Cause for War,” Dec. 14].
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The Abandoned Trailer Showcases a Strong Contender for Scariest Basement Ever
In first-time feature director Eytan Rockaway’s spooky thriller, a mentally fragile woman ventures down a career path that’s probably not what the doctor ordered.
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What Beatles’ Streaming Decision Means for Music Industry | Rolling Stone
Now that the Beatles have announced they’ll activate their famous catalog on every on-demand streaming service, from Spotify to Apple Music, as of midnight on December 24th, the record business has one overwhelming reaction: What took them so long? …
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Click HERE to download a printable PDF of this puzzle. SOLUTION TO PUZZLE NO. 3384
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Sorry Bernie supporters, but your candidate completely disagrees. He would be really bummed out to find out his supporters shit on Hillary all day everyday. Something he has not done once in 3 debates.
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Carbon Emissions Link To Regional Impacts Is Clear, Study Says | ThinkProgress
The link between manmade carbon emissions and global warming has been hotly contested, as a lack of research meant scientists couldn’t say that emissions created a specific damage. That link however, has now been measured in various cases, according…
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The easy last minute Christmas gift: a video game headset | The Verge
I was talking with my friend’s spouse last night about what she was getting him for Christmas. She’d considered buying a video game, but she wasn’t sure which one he’d like and assumed if he really wanted a certain game, he’d probably already bought…
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Richard Garriott’s Cabinet of the Universe – The Big Bang – Scientific American
Is Wool Really Warmest for Winter? December 22, 2015 — Jayde Lovell and Bec Susan Gill
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9 times Mr. Rogers said exactly the right thing – Vox
Fred Rogers, host of the beloved Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, used television for good.
9 times Mister Rogers said exactly the right thing https://t.co/jMNJW5fPY6 https://t.co/tagOZiejPD -
Private group now sues NOAA for climate scientists’ e-mails | Ars Technica
We’ve been covering the twists and turns of Congressman Lamar Smith’s (R-TX) tussle with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Rep. Smith, who chairs the House Science Committee, has accused NOAA scientists of manipulating clim…
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This Is Exactly the Rudolph Revenge Fantasy We’ve Always Wanted
Contact the author at
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Star Wars: The Force Awakens Was Way Better The Second Time Around
Has any movie every had more pre-release baggage than Star Wars The Force Awakens? Expectations, rumors, hype—it felt like the fate of the universe was resting on this movie. So maybe it’s no wonder that I enjoyed Episode VII a lot more the second t…
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Is Anxiety the Price We Pay For Freedom? | The Nation
Among the inhabitants of my household is a five-year-old pug, Alfred.
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Dreamers, Drifters, Mopers, and Defeatists | The Nation
Cartooning is an art of omission and suggestion. A pair of black dots can do for eyes. Make a pair of box shapes for eyeglass frames, and those dots aren’t even necessary. Put a crisscross pattern on a patch of a wall, and the mind will fill in rows…
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How Has Islamic Orthodoxy Changed Over Time? | The Nation
The medieval English allegorical poem Piers Plowman described the birth of Islam as the result of a clever hoax. Muhammad, it asserted, was a former Christian who had made a failed attempt to become pope and then set off for Syria to mislead the inn…
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It’s Going to Be a Wet, Hot Christmas for Much of the US | VICE News
VICE News is closely tracking global environmental change. Check out the Tipping Point blog here. What’s all but certain to be the warmest year on record is pouring on additional steam on its way out the door.
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Best of VICE News: Detroit’s ‘Walking Man’ Walks On | VICE News
Watch Charlie LeDuff’s ‘The Americans,’ featuring James Robertson, here. If you want to work and you’re black and you’re a blue-collar guy from Detroit and you don’t have a car, chances are you’ve got to take a bus to whatever suburb it is where the…
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Pay Women the Money They Need to Make the Culture — Matter — Medium
Because this is 2015, we open on an Instagram. My favorite of the year. I didn’t take this particular photograph, but I did screengrab it, meditate on it, make it my phone background. It was a picture of an Excel spreadsheet.
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Internet Freedom Is Actively Dissolving in America | Motherboard
It’s the end of 2015, and one fact about the internet is quickly becoming clear this year: Americans’ freedom to access the open internet is rapidly dissolving. Broadband access is declining, data caps are becoming commonplace, surveillance is incre…
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The National Basketball Association, alarmed by the death toll from shootings across the country, is stepping directly into the polarizing debate over guns, regulation and the Second Amendment with an unusual advertising campaign in p
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The Washington Post pulled a cartoon from its site on Tuesday that depicted Senator Ted Cruz’s young daughters as monkeys. Mr. Cruz, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, angrily denounced the cartoon in a fund-raising email that s…
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Dio looking dapper for his first Christmas photo : cats
Dio looking dapper for his first Christmas photo via /r/cats https://t.co/rBSv1uyP6s https://t.co/8qomQJs522 https://t.co/1yBYKwuSHs
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The old man has still got it : aww
The old man has still got it via /r/aww https://t.co/VHZxs6TNEx https://t.co/WthLrBiMBO https://t.co/jsgJpWKJRu
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Dio looking dapper for his first Christmas photo via /r/cats https://t.co/rBSv1uyP6s https://t.co/8qomQJs522 https://t.co/1yBYKwuSHs
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The old man has still got it via /r/aww https://t.co/VHZxs6TNEx https://t.co/WthLrBiMBO https://t.co/jsgJpWKJRu
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Fox Business Network’s New Debate Criteria Could Demote Several 2016 Candidates – The Atlantic
Republican primary contestants just got an unwelcome early Christmas gift. Fox Business Network, which is slated to host the first debate of the new year, announced its qualifying rules this week for the January 14 contest.
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When and How to Rebalance Your Investment Portfolio for the Biggest Tax Savings
If you have money invested in a taxable account, now’s the perfect time for some rebalancing. Money Magazine also offers a simple rule of thumb for when to rebalance, whether or not your assets are in a taxable or tax-sheltered account.
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Fireball filmed over Nevada and California – BBC News
US defence officials have confirmed a streaking fireball over the skies of Nevada and California was Russian space debris. Officials were tracking the fireball, which caught the attention of many, on Tuesday night. The rocket had been launched the d…
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More than 45,000 drones have been registered with the FAA since Monday | The Verge
This month, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that drone owners have until February 19th, 2016, to register their units. That window opened on Monday, and in a new release, the FAA gave a short update on how many owners have registered s…
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The Thrilling Uncertainty of the Understudy – The New Yorker
For close observers of the cultural phenomenon that is “Hamilton,” a new milestone in the musical’s unfolding journey was reached last week: the appearance of the understudy in the title role. “Today marks the premiere of @JonRua as Hamilton. Go get…
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Bach’s Prélude N°1 Played on Boomwhacker Percussion Tubes | Open Culture
Since 1999, the French juggling group Les Objets Volants (The Flying Objects) have been entertaining audiences worldwide. Beyond juggling, their shows incorporate elements of theater, visual arts and even mathematics.
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Despite judge’s ruling, Black Lives Matter activists will protest at the Mall of America today
Despite attempts from Bloomington, Minnesota’s Mall of America to sue the group, local Black Lives Matter protesters will still go forward with mass protests planned today on the grounds on the mall.
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This Modern World | The Nation
Ad Policy Skip to content Facebook Twitter Log In ignore this Copyright © 2015 The Nation
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A Look Back at the Most Bizarre Christmas Crimes of All Time | VICE | United States
Nothing highlights the scuzzy, pustule-ridden underbelly of humanity quite like Christmas.
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Two Israelis die following Jerusalem stabbing attack – BBC News
One Israeli has been stabbed to death and a second apparently shot dead accidentally by police during an attack by two Palestinians in Jerusalem. Both Palestinians were shot by police trying to stop the attack – one died at the scene, the other in h…
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What’s Behind Rocker Grace Potter’s Space Fashion? | Video
WATCH MORE SHOWS
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In my latest Guardian column, The problem with self-driving cars: who controls the code?, I take issue with the “Trolley Problem” as applied to autonomous vehicles, which asks, if your car has to choose between a maneuver that kills you and one that…
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Hear Rick Springfield’s country-esque new single · Newswire · The A.V. Club
Noted Star Wars collector Rick Springfield is a longtime pal of The A.V. Club: He contributed a remarkable acoustic Fleetwood Mac song to our Undercover series and joined us for an extensive tour of his acting career for our Random Roles feature ear…
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Wu-Tang Clan and Bill Murray plan to steal their album back from Martin Shkreli|Dangerous Minds
Some quick ‘n’ dirty animation, a few cleverly pinched audio clips from Rushmore and Coffee and Cigarettes and you’ve got a full-blown operation, to perpetrate a heist on the one motherfucker in the world who needs to get boosted. You know exactly t…
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This Interactive Map Shows Whether It’s More Affordable to Rent or Buy a Home, by County
Deciding whether to rent or buy a home is more than just about the numbers. However, money is a very big part of the equation—as is location and what buying and rental prices are like in your neighborhood.
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2015: a year of fake outrage and the backlash that made us feel better – Vox
When #BoycottStarWarsVII began trending on Twitter in October, Lord Humungus (@DarklyEnlighten, before the account was suspended) was smiling in some deep pocket of the internet.
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Let The Strokes reassure you “The End Has No End” · Hear This · The A.V. Club
In Hear This, The A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week: Songs about endings. Like most (Western) folks, I follow the Gregorian calendar, but January 1st has rarely served as a reset button for me.
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The GoPro drone’s killer feature could be a 360-degree camera | The Verge
Maybe it’s because we just spent a year over-analyzing Star Wars trailers, but I’m beginning to think GoPro CEO Nick Woodman is trying to tell us something in the teaser video for the company’s forthcoming drone.
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The closest thing to being right there on the frontlines of Euromaidan · Watch This · The A.V. Club
Every day, Watch This offers staff recommendations inspired by a new movie coming out that week. This month: The A.V. Club atones for its sins of omission, recommending the best movies of the year that we didn’t review.
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Christmas Is Officially Canceled in Somalia | VICE News
It turns out that the war on Christmas is actually no joke. In some quarters of the world, ’tis the season to keep your holiday cheer quiet.
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At the end of 1843, when most good Victorians were commemorating the season by dutifully drafting hand-written letters to their colleagues, friends, and relatives, Henry Cole was working out a way to avoid all this sentimental drudgery.
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Driver charged with murder in deadly Las Vegas crash appears in court | US news | The Guardian
An Oregon woman accused of plowing her car into a crowd on the Las Vegas Strip, killing one person and injuring dozens, wore handcuffs and showed little emotion as she made her first court appearance on Wednesday to face charges including murder.
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Did Sean Penn Beat Up Madonna? An Archaeology of Hollywood’s Most Explosive Rumor
Sean Penn goes by a number of honorifics: actor, journalist, philanthropist, activist, humanitarian. At scattered points throughout his career, however, media outlets and biographers have branded him with a much less noble title: wife beater.
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Leaked Salvation Army memo details internal homophobia and discrimination / Boing Boing
The Salvation Army has struggled to distance itself from its reputation for homophobia, but a 2014 memo on “LGBT issues” by midwest Commissioner Paul Seiler spells out a number of ways in which the organization discriminates against LGBT employees.
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The Declaration of Independence Project
Artist and illustrator is working on a terrific new project: . His goal is to draw all 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence. What’s the twist? You can see the rest here, and you can track his progress on Twitter and Instagram.
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Former world number four Robin Soderling has retired from tennis after suffering glandular fever since 2011. The 31-year-old Swede, who became the first man to beat Rafael Nadal at the French Open in 2009, has not recovered sufficiently to return to…
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New Argentina leader finds fix in Kirchner Twitter spat – BBC News
Argentina’s new president has unveiled a new official Twitter account after outgoing leader Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner decided to keep the old one. It was the latest public spat over the transfer of power since Mauricio Macri narrowly beat Ms Fe…
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TV time. Like father like son. via /r/cats https://t.co/kopaMCghrq https://t.co/U9l6lM4DJ3 https://t.co/Qr141BOASG
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TV time. Like father like son. via /r/cats https://t.co/kopaMCghrq https://t.co/U9l6lM4DJ3 https://t.co/Qr141BOASG
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The alps from above [OC] [2384×3179] : EarthPorn
The alps from above [OC] [2384×3179] via /r/EarthPorn https://t.co/q05ynQOocp https://t.co/zrcegX3p6o https://t.co/l0GMifh6hr
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The alps from above [OC] [2384×3179] via /r/EarthPorn https://t.co/q05ynQOocp https://t.co/zrcegX3p6o https://t.co/l0GMifh6hr
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Incredible sculpture via /r/pics https://t.co/vDaCd6WFzC https://t.co/iZxK2nirwk https://t.co/0Dd70GVTRz
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Peace Love Beauty Wisdom Balance Imagination Truth Consciousness, Incredible sculpture via /r/pics…
Incredible sculpture via /r/pics https://t.co/vDaCd6WFzC https://t.co/iZxK2nirwk https://t.co/0Dd70GVTRz
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Why Does The World Hate Mast Brothers Chocolate? – Digg
A few weeks back, a Dallas food site dropped a massive, multi-part (4 parts!) exposé about Mast Brothers Chocolate Makers, revealing that the company has not always produced the fancy-schmancy “bean-to-bar” chocolate it claims to sell. And now peop…
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The Republican Establishment Thinks Ted Cruz Can Save Them From Trump. There’s One Big Problem: Cruz supports a return to the gold standard, a relic of the pre-Depression past that would wreak havoc on the American business class, and on the rest of…
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US-CERT director Ann Barron-DiCamillo on the challenges of stopping cyberattacks
Amid a torrent of cyberattacks and seemingly endless data breaches, the U.S. Computer Emergency Response Team, the government’s premier cybersecurity monitoring unit, has never been busier.
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[OC] Kodiak, Alaska [960×720] : EarthPorn
[OC] Kodiak, Alaska [960×720] via /r/EarthPorn https://t.co/cGqik3grKW https://t.co/olDUbmYMzs https://t.co/VeemyaYjqH
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[OC] Kodiak, Alaska [960×720] via /r/EarthPorn https://t.co/cGqik3grKW https://t.co/olDUbmYMzs https://t.co/VeemyaYjqH
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Evernote’s Exits Continue As VPs Of Partnerships And Brand Both Move On | TechCrunch
Evernote is a company very much in transition, and that’s highlighted by the exit of couple of notable vice presidents at the company.
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Curb Your Miss Universe / Boing Boing
We all know about the 10,000-hour rule, whereby that amount of practice (or thereabouts) is held to be necessary to fully master a given skill. And not long ago I proposed the 5-hour rule, which is what it takes to pretend to be able to do something…
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DoJ forced Google to turn over Jacob Appelbaum’s email, then gagged Google / Boing Boing
Google’s lawyers fought strenuously against the DoJ’s demands for access to the Gmail account of Jacob Appelbaum, a journalist, activist and volunteer with the Wikileaks project; they fought even harder against the accompanying gag order, arguing th…
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2015: The Year That Black Lives Mattered, At Last
Michael Brown. Eric Garner. Laquan McDonald. Sandra Bland. Walter Scott. Rekia Boyd. Tamir Rice. Most Americans have at least heard their names, and the stories of how they died. We have seen videos and images of their deaths, or of the aftermaths.
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Robot Reindeer Are Cute, Terrifying – The Atlantic
In Futurama, they have killer Santa. In the real world, we get robot reindeer. They’re the latest creation from Boston Dynamics, where engineers make robots that look like a mix between the Predator and those terror dogs from Ghostbusters.
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The War On Christmas Is Real In New Hampshire | ThinkProgress
The secular hellscape Bill O’Reilly warned us about is here! Or, at least, it is real if you are unfortunate enough to be incarcerated in the state of New Hampshire.
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Layoffs Hit Dinner Lab As Company Shifts To Contract Model For Event Staffers | TechCrunch
Dinner Lab is laying off around 30 employees from their full-time positions as it shifts to a contract-based model for its events staff, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. Most of those layoffs consisted of on-the-ground events execution staff.
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How is El Nino affecting countries around the world? – BBC News
Powerful hurricanes in Mexico, drought in Ethiopia, flash-floods and mudslides in southern California – all have been attributed to the El Nino weather phenomenon.
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Make a Bacon and Egg Bread Wreath for a Great Holiday (or Anytime) Breakfast
It’s bacon and eggs stuffed into buttery bread. It cooks in under 15 minutes. It’s shaped like a wreath and can feed eight people. What more can you ask for in a breakfast treat? Crescent rolls are the MVP of this dish, which you can assemble the ni…
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Why Did Joss Stone Sell More Reggae Albums Than Any Black Artist in 2015? – The Daily Beast
Billboard announced Tuesday that British soul singer Joss Stone is their Reggae Artist of the Year, and the “accolade” sparked widespread scoffs and criticisms on social media.
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Stephen Colbert: Donald Trump’s Populism ‘Very Appealing’ | Rolling Stone
Stephen Colbert: Donald Trump’s Populism ‘Very Appealing’ “There is something really hopeful about the fact that, well, 36 percent of the likely voters want him so the people in the machine don’t get to say othe
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Progress! New CMOS chip can process both light and electricity | Ars Technica
Moving data around inside a computer means shoving it through wires, which have inherent bandwidth limitations and produce a lot of heat.
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Families traveling from far-flung places and returning home for the holidays. That image of an American Christmas fits the perception of Americans as rootless, constantly on the move to seek opportunity even if it means leaving family behind.
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How a Homeless Woman Rescued a Brazilian Murder Castle | Atlas Obscura
The abandoned Castelinho da Rua Apa in Sao Paulo. (Photo: Eli Kazuyuki Hayasaka/flickr) It was May 12th, 1937. Elza Lengfelder, the housekeeper of a rich family in São Paulo, was putting her sons to bed in the back room where they lived when she hea…
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Phil Demers worked as an animal trainer at Niagara Falls, Ontario’s Marineland for 12 years before resigning because he believed that the animals in his care were being mistreated and he did not believe that his employers would listen to him or his …
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Defense Secretary used personal email for defense business; Republicans call it a ‘simple mistake’
Somehow our nation will forge on. Ya know, at some point House Republicans risk looking insincere. Congressional Republicans are largely brushing off the news Defense Secretary Ash Carter used his personal email to conduct business at the Pentagon, …
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Kristmas with the Kinks, 1977|Dangerous Minds
Who says the Germans have no sense of humor? Here we have the Kinks weighing in with an energetic rendition of “Father Christmas”; it appeared on the German TV show Plattenküche (Record Kitchen) on December 15, 1977, and it’s punctuated by the kind …
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Ted Cruz Vows To Break Up Historic Climate Change Agreement If Elected President | ThinkProgress
The United States will break its recent promise to approximately 200 countries to join in the fight against climate change if Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is elected president. That’s according to Cruz himself, who on Tuesday said he would withdraw the U.S.
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Why Are the Democrats Burying Their Best Moments? | The Nation
The Democratic debate in New Hampshire on December 19 provided a stark contrast to the GOP’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” spectacle a few days earlier.
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Irish government rules out fracking in the Republic of Ireland : environment
Irish government rules out fracking in the Republic of Ireland https://t.co/mbpQEDFgZG https://t.co/Oats7qMEEc via /r/environment
Irish government rules out fracking in the Republic of Ireland (belfasttelegraph.co.uk)submitted 1 hour ago by loading… -
Irish government rules out fracking in the Republic of Ireland – BelfastTelegraph.co.uk
Irish government rules out fracking in the Republic of Ireland https://t.co/mbpQEDFgZG https://t.co/Oats7qMEEc via /r/environment
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The 10 Best Articles Wikipedia Deleted This Week
When the faceless, unaccountable (and nearly exclusively male) editors of Wikipedia decide that an article is not fit for public consumption, it’s gone—disappeared into the site’s recesses, and only accessible to the most elite editors.
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You know what I’m talking about, of course — that feeling of glee mixed with fear as one watches the cynical race-baiting of the Republican establishment finally come home to roost, confirming that you were right to be shrill (and the centrists were…
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CGI gives us the first glimpse inside Porsche’s electric Mission E | Ars Technica
Have you ever watched a car commercial that features exploding cutaway views of cars in motion or impossible location shots, then wondered where the CGI cars they used came from?
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Elon Musk fights Jeff Bezos in the latest Taiwanese Animators cartoon | The Verge
SpaceX finally landed its Falcon 9 rocket this week, which is a big deal. And now it’s gotten the ultimate big deal treatment: an appropriately absurd video from the Taiwanese Animators YouTube account.
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Meat eating could save the planet | Letters | Environment | The Guardian
George Monbiot’s demonisation of meat eating (Your festive meal could be worse than a long-haul flight, 23 December) is oversimplified and misleading.
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Linda Cardellini Is Used to Being the Only Girl on Set | Vanity Fair
It might be a little hard to believe for anyone who grew up idolizing Lindsay Weir, but Linda Cardellini is grown-up now.
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Superfast Computer Chip Transmits Data With Light – Scientific American
Christopher Intagliata
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Russia rejects accusations of killing Syrian civilians – Al Jazeera English
Russia denied as “fake information” accusations made on Wednesday that its air strikes in Syria have killed hundreds of civilians and could be treated as war crimes.
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Chris Christie’s bizarre transgender bathroom / terrorism bloviation / Boing Boing
Here is New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s explanation why trans children shouldn’t be given the right to use the school restroom they feel most comfortable in: “Life is confusing enough right now for our children.
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How Marriage Equality Almost Didn’t Happen | ThinkProgress
Here is the story of a camel hair coat, a horse meat bait-and-switch, two just-out-of-college conservative activists from liberal Brandeis University, a millionaire anti-gay publisher, a longtime lesbian activist who did not believe in playing by th…
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Remembering Benedict Anderson | The Nation
Young academics are often advised to prioritize scholarship over citizenship, meaning political involvement. But as the careers of some of our most influential scholars repeatedly demonstrate, especially in the humanities and social sciences, this i…
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Catching Up With DC Comic’s Biggest Changes
It’s been one hell of a year for DC Comics. Sure, they didn’t explode their comic book universe, but the heroes and villains of DC have gone through some big changes.
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Four Outdated Ideas We Still Believe About Smartphones Because of Advertisers
Sometimes, advertisers are misleading. It’s sort of their job. What starts as a little misdirection to get you to buy something can eventually snowball into a myth so pervasive we all just assume it’s true.
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In the end, what Frank Murphy learns from his months of familial and workplace turmoil is completely predictable, considering the world that F Is For Family creators Bill Burr and Michael Price have set forth.
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As families across the US come together in joy two days before Christmas, Rand Paul has chosen instead to tweet out his annual list of Festivus Grievances. As the Kentucky Senator explained last year, that’s what Festivus is for. Christmas is a time…
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‘New Bush Strategy: Attack Trump’—Newspaper Headlines | The Nation
They said that Jeb would now get tough. First shot: He said that Trump’s “a jerk.” If that’s a sample of his cuts, Jeb’s insult skills could use some work.
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Six Common Traits of People Who are Chronically Underpaid
It’s not easy to ask for more money. And because it’s so intimidating, a lot of people end up earning much less than they’re worth. Over time, not asking for a raise can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars.
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Solar-System-Size Object Detected Orbiting a Supermassive Black Hole Hidden Inside a Quasar https://t.co/U31BHbDh5Z https://t.co/XafovP5w9e
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Blue eyes via /r/aww https://t.co/o0uouNE6Tt https://t.co/WV0HXqYaWC https://t.co/WxtMSz6EQp
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Blue eyes via /r/aww https://t.co/o0uouNE6Tt https://t.co/WV0HXqYaWC https://t.co/WxtMSz6EQp
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In 2015, The Dark Forces Of The Internet Became A Counterculture – BuzzFeed News
If you were going to draw up a short list of places on the internet that should be excited about the first good Star Wars movie in more than three decades, you would have to include 4chan and 8chan.
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No, this isn’t a dream. And by dream, I mean, no, this isn’t a nightmare.
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The majority of the Southwest’s needleleaf evergreen trees will disappear by 2050, according to a new study.
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Cool “Star Wars” poster by Tomer Hanuka. See the other version at This Isn’t Happiness.
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Howto: make a glowing bottle of Fallout 4’s Nuka Cola Quantum / Boing Boing
Redditor MymlanOhlin shares their method for making a glowing bottle Nuka Cola Quantum from Fallout 4, a fiendishly difficult videogame whose brilliant storytelling and gorgeous, explorable landscapes have totally colonized our household.
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Flu Season Will Likely Peak in February, New Model Suggests – Scientific American
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Move over graphene—boron now used to make 2D semi-metals | Ars Technica
Graphene is an exceptionally strong and conductive material composed of a single atomic layer of carbon. Its discovery sparked interest in the development of other two-dimensional (2D) materials, and, over the past decade, scientists have discovered…
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Looking for nightlife? Prickwillow awaits | Letters | Environment | The Guardian
John Cornish (Letters, 22 December), comments on the Pass notes for Shippea Hill and rightly draws attention to the excellent Drainage Museum in nearby Prickwillow. But the Pass notes bemoaned the lack of nightlife in the area.
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10 Adele Songs to Get You Through Awkward Holiday Situations | Vanity Fair
Feeling uncomfortable at a family or office holiday party is almost unavoidable. Someone’s going to drink too much eggnog and share their unsolicited 2016 pick or reveal the undying love they’ve held for you ever since that first conversation at the…
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Shutting Down Planned Parenthood Would Catapult Women Into Poverty | The Nation
Already forgotten in the aftermath of the San Bernardino shootings is a more persistent terrorist threat to average Americans: right-wing extremists.
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We should have seen this dumb Dragon Ball Z Ford commercial coming | The Verge
It was going to happen eventually. Some company in the States went ahead and made a car commercial using footage from Dragon Ball Z, and it’s about as silly as you could possibly expect. Here, Dende, Krillin, and Gohan have just summoned Porunga, th…
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Young Earth Creationist will run Arizona Senate education panel / Boing Boing
Sylvia Allen, the GOP state Senator from Snowflake, AZ, believes the Earth is 6,000 years old. She will run the state Senate’s committee to oversee educational legislation. Allen also believes in chemtrails and mandatory church attendance.
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iSafe Drive Lite is the first MFI-certified, ultra-high-speed drive to safely store 32GB of data and employ the same encryption used by the US federal government. It’s the fastest and easiest way to transfer between your computer (Mac or PC) and you…
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Stephen Colbert: I May Have Been ‘Wrong’ to Say Trump Can’t Win – The Daily Beast
Yes, you read that correctly, Stephen Colbert finds some aspects of Donald Trump’s persona “very appealing.
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Attackers charged after Indian lynched for eating beef – Al Jazeera English
Indian authorities have charged 15 people suspected of taking part in the mob killing of a Muslim man accused of eating beef.
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New Trailer for the Damien TV Series Appropriates The Omen’s Most Famous Line
We recently got a new trailer for the upcoming Fox show Lucifer; not to be outdone, A&E would like to remind you of its own entry into the “2016: The Year of Our Dark Lord” television sweepstakes, busting out a teaser for Damien, which builds off th…
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While trying to come up with a photo essay for today, I came across this simple image of a cat sitting contentedly in a crib meant for baby Jesus, in a nativity scene in Poland.
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The Folgers Brother/Sister Christmas Commercial Explained By The Broth | Vanity Fair
Have we all spent the last six Christmases watching a coffee commercial about a brother and sister falling in love without ever knowing it?
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What Do We Laugh at When We Laugh at Trump? | The Nation
It’s widely said that Donald Trump is a clown. As he sits atop the polls, I’m intrigued by the perverse power of that clowning in shaping his success.
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Returning to Life with Jane Austen’s “Emma” – The New Yorker
While recovering from eye surgery, I spent a lot of time looking down at the floor. I saw that the beige carpet was worn away—not discolored or faded but just worked through by the ceaseless back-and-forth of my desk chair.
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What the Cash Star Wars Made Can Buy You – The Daily Beast
The Force Awakens had biggest weekend debut ever, pulling in $529 million in ticket sales. To put that number in perspective, that’s 1,007 times the opening weekend of the previous record holder Jurassic World, and 84 times the opening weekend of th…
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Rand Paul’s celebrating Festivus by airing his grievances against fellow GOP presidential candidates on Twitter – “I’ve got a lot of problems with you people and now you’re gonna hear about them!” (salon.com)submitted 2 hours ago by loading…
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This is a prime example of why people NEED to vote at the state and local levels. The GOP is very successful in pushing their agenda of disenfranchising voters and making sure the poor stay poor, it’s disgusting. Repubs fuck over Repubs. Lol.
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My favorite part about being home for Christmas : cats
My favorite part about being home for Christmas via /r/cats https://t.co/Ppa4Mz6OIL https://t.co/ERkwwJprIq https://t.co/XSL66g1agG
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My favorite part about being home for Christmas via /r/cats https://t.co/Ppa4Mz6OIL https://t.co/ERkwwJprIq https://t.co/XSL66g1agG
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Sharp Top, Virginia [4160×3120] [OC] : EarthPorn
Sharp Top, Virginia [4160×3120] [OC] via /r/EarthPorn https://t.co/uqIACYxkZO https://t.co/mMjXgktQG0 https://t.co/yOlTpOviSj
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Sharp Top, Virginia [4160×3120] [OC] via /r/EarthPorn https://t.co/uqIACYxkZO https://t.co/mMjXgktQG0 https://t.co/yOlTpOviSj
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Too Many Secrets: The Fight to Make the US Government More Accountable in 2015 | VICE News
It’s been yet another year of intense government secrecy in the US.
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In Kentucky, county employees will no longer be required to suffer the indignity of their names signifying love and equality. This is the legacy of Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis.
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Jaromir Jagr may be the NHL’s oldest player, but he’s crossing his fingers that Santa will come on Christmas night – and bring him a new set of teeth.
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Will US economy improve in 2016? Americans remain unimpressed | Business | The Guardian
Even as the White House has been touting the economic recovery seven years after the 2008 recession, 45% of Americans think that US economy is “only fair”. Less than a third, at 27%, think of economy as good or excellent, according to the Pew Resear…
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You’ve Got Space Mail: New Service Offers Daily Space Photos in Your Inbox
They’ve invited the public to name exoplanets and radio messages to Mars. Now, the space-research funding company Uwingu is offering to deliver the universe to your inbox every day for a year.
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The Internet’s most hated people of 2015: Where are they now? / Boing Boing
The Washington Post takes a fond look back at 15 people who became briefly infamous for one reason or another. Some of these villains are new to me, like prankster Sam Pepper, who pretended to execute a man in front of the man’s best friend.
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The medieval origins of mass surveillance / Boing Boing
Many have remarked upon the parallels between Santa’s naughty list and mass surveillance, but the idea that a supernatural being is watching your every move and judging you for it is a lot more pervasive than just the Santa story: it’s the bedrock o…
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U.S. Bread Basket Shifts Thanks to Climate Change – Scientific American
In September 2014, a group of leading plant and agricultural researchers sat down at Washington University in St. Louis to discuss a looming question — how will agriculture in the Midwest be affected by climate change? This wasn’t just an academic …
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2016 will be a year of distraction, fear and disruption. Around the world, a host of economic and political threats – including the refugee crisis, terrorism and teetering markets in Europe and China – will crowd headlines.
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A flowchart for arguing with science denialists / Boing Boing
Whether you think you might win over the crowd who’re watching from the sidelines or change a denialist’s mind, John Timmer’s flowchart presents tried-and-true tactics for using science, reason, and facts to overcome ignorance and fear.
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A hacker allegedly targeted celebrities to steal unaired TV scripts | The Verge
Even celebrities fall victim to phishing attacks. A complaint filed in New York earlier this week claims that a man from the Bahamas allegedly tricked hundreds of stars into telling him their email account passwords.
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2015: The Year in Tarantino Controversies | Rolling Stone
Quentin Tarantino can’t help himself.
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BBC Sport – Don Howe: Former Arsenal and England coach dies aged 80
Former England player and coach Don Howe has died at the age of 80. The defender played for West Brom and Arsenal, earning 23 England caps, before establishing himself as a renowned coach.
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Donald Trump opens 21-point lead over Ted Cruz as others trail, poll finds | US news | The Guardian
Donald Trump has pulled further ahead of his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, as he heads towards 2016 with a 21-point lead, according to a new CNN poll. Ted Cruz has also surged into a clear second place, leaving others trailing f…
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What We’re Following This Afternoon, December 23 – The Atlantic
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UK police rely heavily on cyberweapons but won’t answer any questions about them / Boing Boing
The UK police and security services have frequently touted the necessity of “equipment interference” techniques — cyberweapons used to infect suspects’ computers — in their investigations, but they have refused to release any information about the…
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Where to stream the best Christmas specials | The Verge
It’s Christmastime. You need something to entertain your entire family. You don’t have time to run to the store, and Amazon Prime delivery can’t help you now.
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The face said it all. Moments after floating aboard the International Space Station, Tim Peake, Britain’s European Space Agency astronaut, was on our screens and beaming. Who can blame him? After years of tough preparation, Mr Peake had at last reac…
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50 games to buy during the Steam Winter Sale | Ars Technica
Sorry wallets, but it’s Steam sale time again. Yes, the Steam Winter Sale is once again upon us, offering deep discounts on over 10,000 downloadable PC titles from now through 10am Pacific Time on January 4, 2016.
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Turning a Sci-Fi Series into a TV Epic: Q&A with ‘The Expanse’ Authors
The duo behind “The Expanse,” the space adventure series turned newest Syfy epic, sat down with Space.com to discuss the story’s creation, its many different forms, working on the show and writing space’s biggest threat.
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‘Fargo’ Pays Homage to Body Count With ‘In Memoriam’ Video | Rolling Stone
‘Fargo’ Pays Homage to Body Count With ‘In Memoriam’ Video From Rye Gerhardt to Fluffy the rabbit, reminisce about those who perished on FX series’ bloody second season
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Odell Beckham Aftermath: When Does Trash Talk Go Too Far? | Rolling Stone
Trash talk – the art of the finely placed “Fuck you” – is part of the fabric of sports, but some words cut deeper than others. Where do players draw the line between snaps that are OK and chirps that go too far?
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Live Nation Sued Over Fan Club Ticket Sales | Rolling Stone
When Live Nation, the world’s biggest promoter, and Ticketmaster, the world’s biggest ticketing company, proposed a merger seven years ago, rivals feared the newly formed Live Nation Entertainment would unfairly monopolize the concert business.
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Yahoo joins Google and Facebook in warning users about state-sponsored attacks | The Verge
Tech giants are increasingly doing more to notify users who are the victims of state-sponsored attacks. Google and Facebook will both notify you if they detect your account has been targeted or compromised, and now Yahoo is joining in as well.
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“The Big Short,” the movie version of the Michael Lewis book about a bunch of misfits who foresaw the housing and mortgage bubble a decade ago and profited handsomely from its popping, is to be released widely Wednesday.It is the strongest film expl…
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WIRRAL, England — WHOM should we blame for the Islamic State? In the debate about its origins, many have concluded that it arose from the American-led coalition’s errors after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
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Waiting for Running Water (Excerpt from ‘Contamination Nation’) | VICE News
There are tens of thousands of Americans living without clean, running water on the Navajo Nation today. This is because decades of uranium mining have contaminated the majority of water sources on the reservation.
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Tens of thousands of Nigerians, including children, have been subject to brutal attacks and killings and millions more have been deprived of basic human rights by both Boko Haram and the government fighting to curb the Islamist extremist group, two …
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Iran Says New US Travel Restrictions Could Violate Nuclear Deal | VICE News
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Wednesday that a new US law putting visa restrictions on Iranians and those who had visited Iran would, if implemented, breach a nuclear deal Tehran had struck with world powers earlier this year.
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The Year of Black Lives Matter: A Movement With Mixed Success | VICE News
In the very last photo ever taken of Sandra Bland alive — shortly before she was found hanging from a slipknotted plastic bag in her Waller County, Texas, jail cell — the 28-year-old stares emotionless at the camera, clothed in an orange jumpsuit.
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In 2015, The Dark Forces Of The Internet Became A Counterculture – BuzzFeed News
If you were going to draw up a short list of places on the internet that should be excited about the first good Star Wars movie in more than three decades, you would have to include 4chan and 8chan.
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FAA Pushes Past 45K Drone Registrations After 2 Days
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) drone registry went online on Monday. As the agency announced this morning, more than 45,000 people have now used the online service to register their drones. If you own a drone (or really any model a…
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The British comedy Peep Show was a very funny show about very sharp pain – Vox
“I’ve never been personally that crazy about the name of the Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show,” David Mitchell, who is incidentally the star of Peep Show, said in a 2011 YouTube video. “It sounds a bit sexy.
The British comedy Peep Show was a very funny show about very sharp pain https://t.co/gvWy66FGLf https://t.co/MjTAIZRLF4 -
*Vanity Fair*’s 2015 Year in Photographs | Vanity Fair
January 2015
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PSA: Get all three current-generation consoles for $570 | Ars Technica
Last week, we tried our best to navigate the competitive world of console gaming in order to make a recommendation for which current system should sit under your TV.
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“The Expanse” Authors Talk Space’s Epic Size and Crazy Sci-Fi Tech
The two authors of “The Expanse” book series, now a new Syfy TV show, were deeply involved with the look, feel and script of the new TV epic. Here, they discuss how they made it happen and the coolest tech and science elements of the show.
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India puts brakes on Facebook’s Free Basics scheme – BBC News
Facebook’s effort to provide Indians with free access to a limited number of internet services has run into trouble. The country’s telecoms regulator has asked the mobile network that partnered with the US firm to put their Free Basics offer on hold.
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Earth-Smashing Space Rocks Undercounted
Planet Earth could be at higher risk of a space rock impact than widely thought, according to astronomers who suggested Tuesday keeping a closer eye on distant giant comets.
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New 3D Touch apps on iPhone hint at future beyond Peek and Pop | The Verge
I haven’t used 3D Touch much since it was introduced on the new iPhone 6S this fall.
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Mercury Rising: Elusive Planet Makes Appearance This Week
On the evening of Monday, Dec. 28, Mercury will be at greatest elongation eastward from the sun. It is seen here half an hour after sunset. This will be the last good opportunity to spot Mercury this year.Credit: Starry Night software.
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$10 “bean to bar” chocolates were made from melted down Valrhona / Boing Boing
The Mast Brothers, a pair of bearded chocolatiers in Brooklyn, have built an empire on beautifully packaged “artisanal” chocolates that run $10/bar, billed as “bean to bar” confections.
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Will an Asteroid Threaten Earth on Christmas Eve? Not a Chance, NASA Says
Reports that an asteroid will pose a serious threat to Earth on Christmas Eve are unfounded, NASA official said. Here, an artist’s depiction of an asteroid flying close to Earth.Credit: ESA / P.
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Southern US braced for tornadoes, thunderstorms and flooding | US news | The Guardian
Southerners in large parts of Louisiana and Arkansas awoke to tornado watches on Wednesday, two days before Christmas. Forecasters warned that the pain could soon spread, with powerful tornadoes, thunderstorms and flooding possible across Mississipp…
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Scientific American’s Most-Read Stories of 2015 – Scientific American
It’s near impossible to predict which stories will draw the most eyes, and this year was no different. The top 10 stories published in 2015—ranked by the number of overall page views—both confirmed our intuitions and surprised us, too.
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What keeps us happy and healthy as we go through life? If you think it’s fame and money, you’re not alone – but, according to psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, you’re mistaken. As the director of 75-year-old study on adult development, Waldinger has un…
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British Muslims Are Being Barred From U.S. Travel | ThinkProgress
After months of saving for a family trip to Disneyland, a family of 11 British Muslims was told by UK border officials that they wouldn’t be allowed to board a plane to the United States. “A man from UK Border Force came and said, ‘I’m sorry you can…
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Late submission for best new Vine celebrity of 2015: this ‘spider’ | The Verge
Gretchen, the best new Vine celebrity of 2015, is not technically a spider, as I learned through grueling research. As a “daddy longleg” she is an arachnid, but she only has two eyes (not eight), she doesn’t make silk, and she doesn’t have a waist.
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A Bahamian man hacked into celebrities’ email accounts to steal unreleased movie and TV scripts and private sex tapes and sought to peddle some of the scripts, boasting to an undercover agent that he had dossiers on at least 130 accounts of stars an…
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Q&A: Zuma ‘stunned’ S Africa, says Kgalema Motlanthe – Al Jazeera English
It’s been a presidency characterised by indecision and incompetence, critics say. But earlier this month, the South African President Jacob Zuma did the unthinkable.
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The Vatican Hilariously Pans Star Wars: The Force Awakens | Vanity Fair
The pan will likely not have any effect on whether Pope Francis sees the movie, though. Not because he is a diehard Harrison Ford fan, but because, as a source for NBC says, “he doesn’t watch movies.”
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Everyone’s at Each Other’s Throats on The Expanse
The Expanse is pulling off something amazing. It’s showing a solar-system-wide conflict through the experiences of just the characters we’re following. It’s a really tough rope to walk, and they’re doing it wonderfully. Spoilers for “Remember the Ca…
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Did The Force Awakens Really Have to [SPOILER ALERT]? | Vanity Fair
Seriously, do not read this unless you’ve see The Force Awakens. We’re going to talk about the one thing—the only thing—everyone who’s seen The Force Awakens absolutely has to talk about. And we’re going to ask the one question foremost on everyone’…
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Incredible Video Taken Through a Microscope – Nikon Small World – The Atlantic – The Atlantic
Next video in seconds Share “Incredible Video Taken Through a Microscope ” Presented by
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A Complete List of Full Moon Christmases for the Last 2,000 Years | Motherboard
One of the most essential tropes of Christmas movies is the shot of Santa Claus and his physics-defying reindeer dashing in front of a full Moon. That angle of the gift-giving vigilante and his quadruped minions shows up dozens of times, from Prance…
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Ground Offensive Against Islamic State in Ramadi Continues – The Atlantic
Iraqi government forces and local fighters on Wednesday entered the second day of a ground offensive against Islamic State militants in the city of Ramadi.
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Solar Customers In Nevada Are Getting A Rate Hike For Christmas : environment
Solar Customers In Nevada Are Getting A Rate Hike For Christmas (thinkprogress.org)submitted 54 minutes ago by loading…
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Historic Los Angeles methane leak puts natural gas emissions under scrutiny : environment
Historic Los Angeles methane leak puts natural gas emissions under scrutiny (utilitydive.com)submitted 37 minutes ago by loading…
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NH reporter: Marco Rubio is like “a computer algorithm designed to cover talking points” – Vox
NH reporter: Marco Rubio is like “a computer algorithm designed to cover talking points” https://t.co/7iKOZhbk13 https://t.co/ynEOwohm5m
Yet when he did try to win over one local New Hampshire newspaper’s endorsement in a short meeting this week, he didn’t have much success. Here’s Conway Daily Sun reporter Erik Eisele’s pretty brutal description of how a meeting with Rubio went: -
Rand Paul celebrates the holiday season by insulting all his opponents on Twitter – Vox
Rand Paul celebrates the holiday season by insulting all his opponents on Twitter https://t.co/6VyFsqwfdq https://t.co/9jySvo8bFT
Sen. Rand Paul has a lot to be upset about this year. He’s behind Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, and even New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the polls. He’s a libertarian skeptical of new military spending in a party that’s largely in favor of it. -
Did you come out the theater at The Force Awakens humming any brand new Star Wars melodies, or recalling any fantastic, unexpected music cues? Unlikely. Yet new music is there — a lot of it. The soundtrack is as invasive as it always is in any Star …
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The State of the Modern Political Logo | WIRED
Caption: Hillary Clinton’s arrowed-H was widely criticized when it was first unveiled. It has since proven to be not only resilient but versatile, having been iterated into a variety of clever thematic variations. Hillary for America
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Cards Against Humanity is threatening to destroy this 1962 Picasso. Is that all they got?
The makers of Cards Against Humanity, the smash-hit way to monetize people’s desire to laugh about rape, have a new promotional thought-experiment: We used the money for the seventh night of Hanukkah to purchase Tête de Faune, an original 1962 Picas…
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Texas Strips Planned Parenthood Of HIV-Prevention Money | ThinkProgress
In the latest attack on Planned Parenthood in Texas, state health officials cut off funding to the organization’s HIV-prevention program on Monday. The Texas Department of State Health Services informed the Houston-based provider that it would not r…
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Celebrating Expanded Advent to Reclaim the Meaning of Christmas – The Atlantic
My family’s Advent ritual begins with the lighting of squat tea candles sitting atop a wooden wreath I made out of cedar shingles from our neighbor’s kindling pile, and a prayer. The wreath is simple, tacked together with wood glue and a few nails.
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Ukrainian startup: We’ve solved long-range wireless charging | Ars Technica
Wireless chargers using standards like Qi have been on the market for a while; IKEA even includes them in some of its furniture these days. But if you think about it, there’s not that much difference between wired and wireless charging of this kind.
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The Transportation Security Agency has ended a policy that allows any passenger to opt out of an electronic screening, under a new directive issued last week.
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What Christmas cards would look like if they told the truth – Vox
But what if our Christmas cards told the truth about our lives? Not the shining, happy, upwardly mobile ones we want everyone to believe in — but what we actually experienced and felt, told without any filters? It might look a little something like …
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Stockholm’s ‘Reverse’ Congestion Charge Would Pay Cyclists With Driving Fees (citylab.com)submitted 32 minutes ago by loading…
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All the Oil Companies Knew About Climate Change – Decades Ago (billmoyers.com)submitted 26 minutes ago by loading…
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All the Oil Companies Knew About Climate Change – Decades Ago : environment
All the Oil Companies Knew About Climate Change – Decades Ago https://t.co/WtlzoZbIxl https://t.co/kOMIkkbwFW via /r/environment
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Morning Reads: ALL the Oil Companies Knew About Climate Change – Decades Ago – BillMoyers.com
All the Oil Companies Knew About Climate Change – Decades Ago https://t.co/WtlzoZbIxl https://t.co/kOMIkkbwFW via /r/environment
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Two sailors celebrating the end of World War II via /r/pics https://t.co/Q7M5g0sgiJ https://t.co/c3HaO5IJjl https://t.co/po93vhZ1Xr
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Two sailors celebrating the end of World War II via /r/pics https://t.co/Q7M5g0sgiJ https://t.co/c3HaO5IJjl https://t.co/po93vhZ1Xr
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Welcome to Bethlehem at Christmas, Where Tear Gas Is Clouding Any Festive Cheer | VICE News
It’s just days until Christmas, but in Bethlehem there is little sign of festive cheer, as violent street clashes keep tourists away and locals stay at home.
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WALL STREET is still out of control. Seven years ago, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department bailed out the largest financial institutions in this country because they were considered too big to fail. But almost every one is bigger today th…
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What Chief Justice Roberts Gets Wrong About the Role of Student Diversity in Physics – The Atlantic
Late in his life, Albert Einstein published the nearest he ever came to an autobiography. It’s scant on actual details of his life, on his triumphs and fiascos, loves and losses. Instead, Einstein wrote an account of what a life in science offers th…
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Back in October, we posted about Paramount Pictures’ making available more than a hundred movies free to watch on Youtube.
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The decade in pop music, explained by mashup artist DJ Earworm – Vox
It started as a challenge. Jordan Roseman, a.k.a. DJ Earworm, was bored. So in 2007, he decided to raise the stakes, assigning himself a daunting task: to combine the top 25 pop songs of the year into one.
The decade in pop music, explained by mashup artist DJ Earworm https://t.co/f3lDODP4I4 https://t.co/XtpNWHqDXz -
Robot reindeer wish you season’s greetings – video | Technology | The Guardian
Engineering and robotics design company Boston Dynamics dresses up robots as reindeer. A female Santa Claus is pulled by three robot reindeer, wishing everyone ‘happy holidays’.
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This School Cafeteria Worker Gave A Hungry Student A Free Lunch. She Was Fired. | ThinkProgress
A school cafeteria worker at Irving Middle School in Pocatello, Idaho was fired after giving a 12-year-old student a free lunch. The cafeteria worker, Darlene Bowden, said the girl was hungry but didn’t have any money to purchase the $1.70 lunch. Ac…
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The Post-1991 World Order Is Crumbling–When Will the US Adjust? | The Nation
Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War.
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Beatles’ 5 Boldest Rip-Offs | Rolling Stone
Accused of exploiting other artists’ songs in the Beatles, John Lennon defended himself by saying, “It wasn’t a rip-off; it was a love-in.” Paul McCartney’s take: “We pinch as much from other people as they pinch from us.
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The Washington Post Retracts Cartoon Depicting Ted Cruz’s Daughters as Monkeys | Vanity Fair
In politics, there’s no better antidote to a bad news story than someone else’s equal and opposite gaffe.
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See Willie Nelson’s Spiritual Take on John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ | Rolling Stone
See Willie Nelson’s Spiritual Take on John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ Red Headed Stranger’s loose, respectful performance was taped earlier this month at Lennon’s 75th Birthday Concert
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Could Unions Disrupt Uber’s Empire? | The Nation
Uber and Lyft boast of being the vanguard of the sharing economy, blazing new trails in digital innovation. The City of Seattle has just tempered that idealistic vision with some much-needed worker protections.
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Top 10 kitchens in literature | Books | The Guardian
As part of the research for my new book, a narrative encyclopaedia of spices called The Book of Spice, I read a lot of historical cookery books, but also a lot of novels – which I hoped would yield information about food storage and preparation.
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A Startup’s Guide To International Expansion | TechCrunch
Startups can now reach international markets almost immediately at launch. Product/market fit is geographically, industry and company-size agnostic — SaaS makes your product adoption almost instantaneous.
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Fox Business shakes up debate casting, but kiddie table lives on
John Kasich and Carly Fiorina, coming soon to a kiddie table near you.
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Opposition to political correctness has always been a weapon brandished by the right against what it sees as “multicultural” liberalism, but Trump has taken this to new extremes.
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The woman accused of driving her car into a crowd of pedestrians in Las Vegas Sunday night, killing one person and injuring dozens more, had been repeatedly chased out of parking lots where she and her 3-year-old daughter were attempting to sleep, a…
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The Star. via /r/aww https://t.co/Q676B8OcC0 https://t.co/F4de3nSDpx https://t.co/up0rXvL0yE
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The Star. via /r/aww https://t.co/Q676B8OcC0 https://t.co/F4de3nSDpx https://t.co/up0rXvL0yE
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Welcome to Bethlehem at Christmas, Where Tear Gas Clouds Any Festive Cheer | VICE News
It’s just days until Christmas, but in Bethlehem there is little sign of festive cheer, as violent street clashes keep tourists away and locals stay at home.
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As Many as 3,200 Inmates Released Early in Washington State Due to Computer Glitch | VICE News
Software errors can often produce unintended consequences, but they rarely involve the premature release of convicted felons — such goofs make for really bad press.
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How the Civil War Inspired “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” | Mental Floss
It may not be as popular as “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” but “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is a holiday classic. In case you need a refresher, here’s Bing Crosby’s rendition:
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On Sept. 4, employees of Good Technology, a mobile security start-up in Sunnyvale, Calif., awoke to discover that their company was being sold to BlackBerry, the mobile device and software maker.
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It’s strange to edit a feminist website when almost nothing offends you, because the feminist website is traditionally imagined to run on offense. This is not how we imagine it ourselves while we’re working. I’ve learned it slowly, watching stranger…
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Yup, The Internet Is In Charge Of Saving Or Shredding A Picasso
This week in WTF art news, the makers of Cards Against Humanity — you know, “the party game for horrible people” — are threatening to shred an original Picasso print.
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Storm Eva and flooding in the UK: how have you been affected? | Environment | The Guardian
Streets in parts of Cumbria ran with fast-flowing water after more rain fell across the county on Tuesday night. Firefighters attended eight incidents, rescuing several residents including a woman in her 70s.
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Sears Xmas Wishbook ’77: synthetic fabrics, expensive video games, digital watches / Boing Boing
Greg Maletic scanned the 1977 Sears Christmas Wishbook, “Amazon, printed out.” He presents a guided tour of its highlights, starting with the nascent console game and handheld electronic game industry’s top offerings, which, when converted to 2015 d…
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Community Rallies To Give Homeless Man A Place To Live For The Holidays | ThinkProgress
When a Domino’s delivery driver noticed one of her customers living in extreme poverty, she decided to do something about it. Minnesota resident Angela Nguyen had been delivering pizzas to Lee Haase for years.
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BBC Sport – Louis van Gaal: Manchester United boss walks out of news conference
Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal answered just three questions before bringing a news conference to an abrupt halt on Wednesday. The 64-year-old Dutchman was unhappy at being asked about his future following speculation that he could be sack…
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FDA and CDC probe second wave of Chipotle E. coli outbreak | Ars Technica
Amid an ongoing E. coli outbreak investigation at Chipotle Mexican Grill, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday announced that it is joining the effort to investigate what may be a second wave of illnesses linked to the chain restaurant.
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Steam’s winter sale features deals on Witcher 3, GTA V, and much more | The Verge
Steam’s annual winter sale is back, and this year it features deals on some of 2015’s biggest games. You can catch up on games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Metal Gear Solid V, Rocket League, and many, many more, without spending a lot.
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Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg: The Clash’s alternate version of ‘Combat Rock’|Dangerous Minds
It was 1981, and looking to soak up some revolutionary—and authentically countercultural—inspiration, The Clash recorded what would become their fifth album, Combat Rock in Frestonia,” the 1.
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Greek doctors’ long hours ‘break EU law’, ECJ decides – BBC News
The EU’s top court says Greece is violating EU law by allowing doctors to work long hours without adequate rest. Ten Greek medical associations lodged a complaint at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and were backed by the European Commission. The…
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Media Notices Homeless People on Streets, Blames Progressive Mayor | The Nation
If you listen long enough to Bill de Blasio’s conservative critics, you might almost believe that New York’s mayor has singlehandedly created the epidemic of modern urban homelessness, all but luring men and women onto the streets himself.
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Hot New Job: Playlist Creator | Rolling Stone
Carlos López Casany’s plan was to become a Barcelona doctor. But in 2012, while in medical school, he posted a Spotify playlist full of Blur, Vampire Weekend, the Beach Boys and Outkast and called it “Just smile, Happy Songs.” The next thing he knew…
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Why Splatoon is my game of the year | The Verge
Splatoon is an atypical game for Nintendo. It’s a third-person shooter. It’s heavily focused on online play. It doesn’t have any traditional Nintendo characters — in fact, it’s the first time in well over a decade that Nintendo has started from scra…
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Why The Next Republican Debate Might Actually Be Watchable | ThinkProgress
Five gone, seven to go. Republican presidential debate season is not even halfway over, but already there’s a palpable feeling of repetition. A huge crowd of candidates shuffle onstage. The moderator asks about Donald Trump. Someone at the far end o…
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State legislatures have not officially convened for their 2016 sessions, but anti-LGBT bills are already piling up for consideration. The latest such bill was pre-filed last week in New Mexico.
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Burundi: New rebel group formed to oust president – Al Jazeera English
Burundi’s opposition has come together for the first time with the stated aim of using force to oust President Pierre Nkurunziza, a rebel leader said on Wednesday.
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India beef lynching: Police charge 15 suspects in Uttar Pradesh – BBC News
Indian police have filed charges against 15 suspects, including a juvenile, over the lynching of a Muslim man accused by Hindus of eating beef. Mohammad Akhlaq was beaten to death by a mob in Dadri in Uttar Pradesh state in late September.
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Oracle Agrees to FTC Settlement Over Java Security Lapses | Motherboard
Oracle has agreed to settle FTC charges that it had been deceiving consumers about the security of updates to its nearly ubiquitous Java SE platform, which it acquired in 2010 as part of Sun Microsystems.
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My Friend, the Compulsive Hoarder | Motherboard
“No, I’ve been looking for my phone for a few weeks,” he answers. What kind of answer is that? “No. It must be at home somewhere, I can’t find it.” I’ve heard a lot of excuses—but this?
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Poll: Against Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump Would Get ‘Schlonged’ | Rolling Stone
Poll: Against Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump Would Get ‘Schlonged’ A new national poll finds Sanders would beat Trump if they went head-to-head in the general election
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Watch ‘Orange Is the New Black’ Cast Confess to Roughing Up Santa | Rolling Stone
Watch ‘Orange Is the New Black’ Cast Confess to Roughing Up Santa “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” parody video finds Litchfield prisoners telling tale of Saint Nick visit gone wrong
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Hear Ronnie Hawkins Cover The Band’s Christmas Staple | Rolling Stone
Just a few weeks from turning 81, Ronnie Hawkins admits he’s slowing down. But the early rock & roll career-maker — he assembled the players that would become The Band — is far from finished.
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Watch Darth Vader Invade a Mexican Soccer Press Conference | Rolling Stone
It’s official: Omar Gonzalez has turned to the Dark Side. Gonzalez, a member of the U.S. Men’s National Team, has played with the L.A. Galaxy since being drafted by the team a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (or 2009, at the MLS SuperDraft …
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Festive loaf via /r/Catloaf https://t.co/MXkgkjH04d https://t.co/dElwlNllqi https://t.co/DcFjRVS4IA
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Festive loaf via /r/Catloaf https://t.co/MXkgkjH04d https://t.co/dElwlNllqi https://t.co/DcFjRVS4IA
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Rey’s English accent in Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a clue about her parents – Vox
Rey’s English accent in Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a clue about her parents https://t.co/sevj1VDCf0 https://t.co/uK0kQkKsvl
Spoilers for The Force Awakens follow. -
The Beatles are coming to streaming services on Christmas Eve – Vox
The Beatles are coming to streaming services on Christmas Eve https://t.co/j7W1tasQvO https://t.co/bf6BvG7ok4
Streaming music services have long had a giant, Beatles-shaped hole in their offerings. The classic band has been notably absent from Spotify, Apple Music, and other apps. That will change at midnight on Dec. 24. -
The People Displaced by the Hunt for El Chapo Tell of Helicopter Attacks | VICE News
Gonzalo Peña woke up to breakfast one Tuesday morning at his mountaintop ranch when he said the Mexican navy helicopter attack started. He heard and saw bullets pierce his rooftop from above.
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The Glasnost Bowl and Russia’s first-ever football game.
The realization that the Soviet Union hadn’t evolved as much as Mikhail Gorbachev suggested quickly dawned on Raycom Sports Chairman Rick Ray during a trip to Moscow in 1988.
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Space Debris: 1957 – 2015 – YouTube
Almost 20,000 pieces of space debris are currently orbiting the Earth. This visualisation, created by Dr Stuart Grey, lecturer at University College London and part of the Space Geodesy and Navigation Laboratory, shows how the amount of space debris…
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The secret genius of the Haunted Mansion: its amazing, invisible queue / Boing Boing
The latest installment of the Long Forgotten blog’s series on the lost designs for the Haunted Mansion’s corridor of changing portraits (previously) hits on one of the most significant elements of the Mansion’s design genius, something that’s never …
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Is String Theory Science? – Scientific American
Is string theory science? Physicists and cosmologists have been debating the question for the past decade. Now the community is looking to philosophy for help.
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A 15-Foot Long Flying Star Destroyer Brings us One Step Closer to the Real Thing
Amongst all the toys revealed on Force Friday back in September were some of the first flying Star Wars drones easy enough for kids to pilot. The same can’t be said about this impressive 15-foot long Star Destroyer, though. Even its creators had a h…
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How to Shop, Cook, and Eat Healthy When Eating for One
Solo folks face unique challenges for eating healthy, beyond a lack of cooking skills. It’s less fun to cook and eat alone, and very little food comes in packs of one. The trick is to muster up the will to cook once a week so you can enjoy healthy m…
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Girl, three, calls 999 after pregnant mum falls down stairs – BBC News
In the 999 call, Emma, who was alone in the house with her mother Catherine, told the emergency operator what had happened and where they lived. She told call handler, Sarah Morris, mummy was not bleeding but had banged her head and “has a baby in h…
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Gun Dealers May Actually Have To Pay For Some Of The Carnage They Cause In Seattle | ThinkProgress
A National Rifle Association lawsuit seeking to immunize gun dealers from a recently enacted tax was rejected by a state trial court on Tuesday.
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August 15, 1977: the night before Elvis Presley died, at 11:16 p.m.
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No One Can Confirm If a Lawsuit Alleging Fallout 4 ‘Addiction’ Is Real | Motherboard
Last Thursday, Russia Today reported that a Siberian man was suing the creators of Fallout 4 for some $7,000 because the game was so addictive that he lost his job and broke up with his wife.
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India temporarily bans Facebook’s controversial free internet service | The Verge
Facebook’s plan to bring limited, free internet access to India has hit a hurdle: a regulator in the country wants it blocked. India’s telecom regulator has asked that the service be disabled while investigating whether it poses a threat to net neut…
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America’s Cities Are Still Too Afraid to Make Driving Unappealing – Tough policies are the ones that would truly change commuter habits, but we’re barely seeing them. (newrepublic.com)
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Why alcohol doesn’t come with nutrition facts – YouTube
Ever wonder why almost everything you buy has a nutrition label, but alcoholic beverages don’t? It’s all thanks to some crazy regulations and powerful industry lobbyists.Subscribe to our channel! http://goo.gl/0bsAjOVox.com is a news website that he…
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The Climate Battle Of 2016 Will Be Waged In The States
The year is ending on a good note for the planet. The Paris climate deal commits every nation to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and averting a climate crisis.
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The real reason Ted Cruz scares GOP elites — and why they might fall in line anyway – Vox
When Ted Cruz finally picked a fight with Marco Rubio over immigration in the December Republican primary debate, it was supposed to force Rubio into days of explaining his immigration position to the press, defending himself against charges of flip…
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Nigerian army accused of ‘unjustified’ Shia killings – Al Jazeera English
Nigerian soldiers fired on unarmed Shia children without provocation before unjustified raids that killed hundreds of the minority group in the West African country, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday.
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Paris attacks: France unveils tough anti-terror plan – BBC News
Dual citizens born in France and found guilty of terror offences will be stripped of their French nationality under tough new proposals detailed by Prime Minister Manuel Valls. The proposals come a month after 130 people died in attacks in Paris led…
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What if Sheldon Adelson buys your newspaper? Write about him, then leave | US news | The Guardian
Since Republican megadonor and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson confirmed that he was the new owner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal last week, journalists and readers alike have fretted that the conservative billionaire might impose a political and bu…
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Solar-System-Size Object Detected Orbiting a Supermassive Black Hole Hidden Inside a Quasar
Spanish astrophysicists obtain precise measurements for an object orbiting a black hole five billion light-years away. This is like detecting the ridges of a one euro coin located 100,000 kilometers away.
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Paper Puppets Animate the Discovery of the Coelacanth, a Living Fossil
We’re always happy when there’s a new Animated Life to watch, and the last one for the year is no exception. This time out, we’ve got the coelacanth and the discovery that the fish with the 400 million-year-old lineage is still alive.
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Displaced in Sinaloa: The Hunt for ‘El Chapo’ | VICE News
As the Mexican Navy continues the hunt for fugitive Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, hundreds of people have been forced to flee the Golden Triangle, the Sinaloa Cartel’s stronghold in Northern Mexico.
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Clever CEO Tyler Bosmeny Talks New Hires And EdTech In 2016 | TechCrunch
Clever CEO Tyler Bosmeny says that more than 50,000 schools are now using the service — and that this year, and next, are going to be the years that education tech in general finally hits its stride.
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Less than three weeks before he leaves office, outgoing Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) is refusing his replacement’s request to spare 31,000 of Louisiana’s poorest from a needless hardship.
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If You Have a Hard Time Writing a Bio, Talk It Out With a Friend
Even if you’re a decent writer, writing your own bio or mission statement can be a challenge. If you’re having a hard time with it, try talking it out with a friend. Recently, a good friend of mine was struggling to write a quick bio about herself f…
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Seattle shows San Francisco and New York how to fix the housing crisis – Vox
Seattle and the San Francisco Bay Area have a lot in common — coastal locations, high-tech economies, and relatively high wages. But as California’s Legislative Analysis Office wrote in a recent report, it’s much easier to get permission to build ne…
Seattle shows San Francisco and New York how to fix the housing crisis https://t.co/syywGS0vhb https://t.co/bCwRAj5lG6 -
Solar Customers In Nevada Are Getting A Rate Hike For Christmas | ThinkProgress
Last year, the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada issued a report finding that rooftop solar customers actually give back more to the grid than they cost.
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Scientific American’s Top 10 Science Stories of 2015 – Scientific American
It’s been an eventful year, from surprising finds in space and on Earth to technological innovations and its perils to developments in biology.
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Madame Claude, “World’s Most Exclusive Madam,” Dies at 92 | Vanity Fair
Madame Claude, a French madam who reportedly had the likes of John Kennedy, Marlon Brando, and Muammar Qaddafi on her client list, has died at the age of 92.
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Newly Elected Governor Strips 140,000 Of Voting Rights, Lowers The Minimum Wage | ThinkProgress
Less than a month after taking office, Kentucky’s newly elected Republican Gov. Matt Bevin reversed a move by his Democratic predecessor that had restored the voting rights of about 140,000 former felons.
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Santa Claus and ‘Easy Listening’ icon Korla Pandit Conquer the Martians|Dangerous Minds
The master of easy listening exotica, Korla Pandit, meets Santa Claus Conquers The Martians in a video mashup far more enjoyable and hypnotic than a digital Yule log. Santa Conquers The Martians is considered by many to be among the worst films ever…
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How August Alsina Is Bringing Hope Back to Mainstream R&B | Rolling Stone
How August Alsina Is Bringing Hope Back to Mainstream R&B “I’m the black sheep around this motherfucker,” singer says of frank, socially conscious new album
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PsBattle: Marilyn Monroe’s first modeling photo (1946) : photoshopbattles
This is hilarious. Well done. Oh hello erection, where’d did you come from so suddenly?
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These Milk Carton Devices May Save California from Drought – They may not bring rain, but they could help us better use the water we have (outsideonline.com)submitted 47 minutes ago by loading…
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‘Somebody Intervened in Washington’ – How oil industry lobbyists played the long game — wearing down an overmatched federal bureaucracy to gain access to a fuel-rich corner of the Alaskan wilderness. (propublica.org)submitted 40 minutes ago by loadi…
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A not-so-modest proposal to remove atmospheric carbon dioxide – You just have to spread rock powder over a Russia-sized area. Every year. (arstechnica.com)
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Looks like he had fun in the parking lot : pics
Looks like he had fun in the parking lot via /r/pics https://t.co/tViX1JdFoO https://t.co/k3xJL72iO1 https://t.co/38XozwZrtI
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Looks like he had fun in the parking lot via /r/pics https://t.co/tViX1JdFoO https://t.co/k3xJL72iO1 https://t.co/38XozwZrtI
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Connemara, Ireland [OC] [2448×3264] : EarthPorn
Connemara, Ireland [OC] [2448×3264] via /r/EarthPorn https://t.co/Dzz6MTgJCg https://t.co/PJnlJ4wKWX https://t.co/rpzfRpvl7y
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Connemara, Ireland [OC] [2448×3264] via /r/EarthPorn https://t.co/Dzz6MTgJCg https://t.co/PJnlJ4wKWX https://t.co/rpzfRpvl7y
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Start Making Sense: The Best of the Left in 2015 | The Nation
The most valuable activist, the biggest ideological comeback, the best newspaper front page, and more: John Nichols presents The Nation’s Progressive Honor Roll for 2015. Also: guns in America. What is to be done? Amy Wilentz comments—starting with …
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A new kind of funeral director – The Long and Short
Our weekly newsletter features updates on all the latest articles from The Long + Short, and a roundup of the best stories of innovation from around the web, too. Sign up below.
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Slack’s New “Do Not Disturb” Feature Protects Work-Life Balance – The Atlantic
One of the great features of Slack, the instant-messaging service many workplaces use, is how easy it can be to reach any colleague. For those on the receiving end of such “pings,” the notifications they receive can be at times largely helpful, but …
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Uncharted 4 has been delayed again, now coming in April | The Verge
The PlayStation 4’s biggest game has been delayed again. After being pushed out of 2015, Uncharted 4 was scheduled to hit Sony’s console in March, but developer Naughty Dog now says that the game will be available on April 26th.
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Australian government tells citizens to turn off two-factor authentication | Ars Technica
The Australian government has repeatedly called for citizens to turn off two-factor authentication (2FA) at its main digital government portal, myGov.
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Today’s Best Deals: Apple TV, Virtual Reality, Mini Jambox, and More
Apple’s new set top box, a cheap VR headset, and the smallest Jambox highlight today’s best deals.
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UK imam’s US business visa ‘revoked without explanation’ before flight | UK news | The Guardian
A British imam whose business visa was revoked without explanation as he tried to board a flight to America has accused the US State Department of enacting the policies of Donald Trump “before he has received a single vote”.
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Santa Claus and ‘Easy Listening’ icon Korla Pandit Conquer the Martians|Dangerous Minds
The master of easy listening exotica, Korla Pandit, meets Santa Claus Conquers The Martians in a video mashup far more enjoyable and hypnotic than a digital Yule log. Santa Conquers The Martians is considered by many to be among the worst films ever…
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Black Lives Matter activists are planning to hold a demonstration at the Mall of America on Wednesday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year.
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Make Your Own Cheap, Compact Cat Tree from Ikea Tables
Building your own cat tree means you can customize it for your home and for your cat. Here’s a compact one you can make from Ikea Lack side tables for less than most cat trees of similar size. Perfect for a corner or small space, you can make this f…
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Love Reborn by Yvonne Woon – review | Children’s books | The Guardian
Love Reborn is the final book in the Dead Beautiful trilogy and in all honesty after finishing this book I can say that this trilogy has been the best trilogy that I have ever read and no, I am not exaggerating.
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Palestinians Killed After Stabbing Israelis | Al Jazeera America
Israeli police shot dead two Palestinian alleged to have carried out a stabbing attack that injured at least three Israelis along a popular walkway in Jerusalem on Wednesday. One of the Palestinians was killed on the scene while the other later died…
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The Silliest Star Wars Tie-Ins From Our Force Awakens Photoshop Contest
Last week, we tasked you with celebrating the release of The Force Awakens by trying to match the movie’s completely bizarre and overwhelming array of tie-in products. The results are in, and from what I can tell, io9 readers love bad puns and going…
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I Accidentally Uncovered a 19th Century Con Woman and Probable Murderer – History Buff
In the summer of 2013, I was sent to the University of Texas in Austin to research the life of Harry Houdini for a TV biopic.
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This Week On Bullish: The Rise Of American Ecommerce | TechCrunch
Hello and welcome to Bullish, TechCrunch’s first talk show. This episode matters a bit more to me than usual, as it is the last week that I will host.
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The King of Star Wars Leaks Talks Scoops and Spoilers | WIRED
If you’re the kind of Star Wars fanatic who puts on a blast shield helmet to avoid seeing spoilers, you’ve probably never read Making Star Wars, a scoop site that’s become a go-to omnibus of surprisingly spot-on Force Awakens plot points.
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Black women are already superheroes / Offworld
What can game developers do to better represent black women in games? “They need to get some fucking empathy,” says Tanya dePass, a campaigner for better representation inside game worlds and among those who create them.
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Bahamas man accused of hacking celebs, stealing movie scripts & sex tapes | Ars Technica
Federal prosecutors announced charges today against 23-year-old Alonzo Knowles, a Bahamas resident who stands accused of hacking into the e-mail accounts of celebrities and entertainment studios, then trying to sell off unreleased scripts, audio tra…
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Afghan Taliban claim gains in Helmand province – BBC News
Afghan government forces have lost control of the centre of the town of Sangin in Helmand province, reports suggest. The Taliban say they have seized the entire district and eyewitnesses told the BBC the Taliban controlled the local government build…
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Donald Trump: The schlong and short of it – BBC News
And so, an unlikely year in US politics comes near to the end with Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump sparking a debate about Yiddish semantics. It all stems from his use of the word “schlonged” against Democratic challenger Hillary Cl…
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Civil rights groups are alleging Maryland violated federal discrimination laws when it canceled plans for a long-considered Baltimore transit line that would have benefited predominantly African American neighborhoods.
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The Beatles coming to Spotify, Apple Music, and elsewhere on Dec 24 | Ars Technica
Music lovers who have abandoned their MP3 libraries for streaming apps will soon be able to listen to the The Beatles’ music on pretty much any service they want, according to a report from Re/code.
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We’re Getting a Whole Year of Never-Before-Seen Star Trek History in 2016
Next year marks the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, and fans are getting a lot to celebrate with—a new movie in Star Trek Beyond, and the promise of a brand new Star Trek show in early 2017.
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Sri Lankan maid spared stoning sentence in Saudi Arabia – Al Jazeera English
A Saudi Arabian court has commuted the death-by-stoning sentence passed on a Sri Lankan maid convicted of adultery, Sri Lanka’s government said on Wednesday.
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The Beatles: Now Streaming, As of Christmas Eve | Vanity Fair
If you bought a Beatles box set as a Christmas gift for a parent who held you on the phone for 10 minutes complaining about “The Long and Winding Road” not being available on Apple Music . . . well, it’s not too late to return it.
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Mexico’s Literary Prankster Goes to War With His Publisher – The New Yorker
For several months this year, Mario Bellatin, one of Mexico’s best-known novelists, waged a quixotic war against Grupo Planeta, the largest publishing group in the Spanish-language world.
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British Muslim children heartbroken by US flight ban, says father – video | US news | The Guardian
Mohammad Tariq Mahmood, whose British Muslim family were banned by the US from flying to Los Angeles to visit Disneyland, describes their ordeal on Wednesday. Mahmood, who was travelling with his brother, says their nine children were ‘devastated’
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Everybody pees. That’s actually the name of a public service campaign by the National Kidney Foundation, and I thought it a needless statement of the obvious until Donald Trump brought me to my senses. Apparently some people think that the laws of u…
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Long car rides wear him out : aww
Long car rides wear him out via /r/aww https://t.co/en8jyGeqGb https://t.co/ys3mdGfECI https://t.co/Zh0O5xVjTF
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Long car rides wear him out via /r/aww https://t.co/en8jyGeqGb https://t.co/ys3mdGfECI https://t.co/Zh0O5xVjTF
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Your guide to the ugliest Christmas sweaters on the Internet
This article contains explicit material and may be NSFW. National Ugly Sweater Day is a real holiday.
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Share your referral link with friends and earn $10 credit upon their first purchase.
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How To Make A Smartphone-Powered Hologram [Video] | Popular Science
Holograms aren’t just for droids and dead rappers. You can make your own with a piece of transparency paper and a four-sided hologram video.
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Madame Claude’s ‘Girls’ Took Care of the Rich, Powerful, and Maybe JFK – The Daily Beast
PARIS — She said she sought to “make vice pretty,” and in doing so, added a heady dose of glamor and intrigue to the world’s oldest profession. On Dec.
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Help me name my new grey kitten! : cats
Help me name my new grey kitten! via /r/cats https://t.co/OiwMklhOHG https://t.co/BwrqZhqVO4 https://t.co/e0UB2cyjG1
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Love Everyone Often Peace Beauty Balance Life Light Magic: Year in images
Year in images https://t.co/aUw3MNhsPn https://t.co/h9NtLNBM2S
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Help me name my new grey kitten! via /r/cats https://t.co/OiwMklhOHG https://t.co/BwrqZhqVO4 https://t.co/e0UB2cyjG1
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Carmelize White Chocolate to Add Deep, Complex Flavor
I’ve never considered white chocolate to be “real chocolate.” Besides sweetness, it usually doesn’t have much flavor, but caramelizing can take it from “one note” to “surprisingly complex.
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“If they don’t like someone, they just behead him”: why ISIS fighters quit – Vox
ISIS territory, from everything we hear, is an absolutely miserable place to live. This should be a liability for ISIS: if it’s really so terrible to be live under its rule, you’d think that a number of their fighters would want to leave.
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Alice Cooper, Jimi, James Brown, Marc Bolan, Frank Zappa (and many more) do Santa|Dangerous Minds
‘Tis the Season folks and as I’m getting ready to roll off Dangerous Minds for a week, I wanted to share some choice photos of famous folks dressed up like our savior, Santa Claus or in some cases, just hanging out with jolly old Saint Nicholas.
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The hidden tax women pay on just about everything – Vox
Whether you’re buying pink toys with your allowance as a kid or canes and compression socks in old age, it’s cheaper to be a man and more expensive to be a woman.
The hidden tax women pay on just about everything https://t.co/CqdwNkDt7Z https://t.co/6FyXP1rEKr -
Migrant crisis: 13 people drown as boat capsizes off Greece – BBC News
At least 13 people, most of them children, drowned when their boat capsized in the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece, officials say. Another 15 people were rescued off the Greek island of Farmakonisi but one person remains missing.
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Stabbing Attack at Jerusalem’s Jaffa Gate Leaves Three Injured and Two Attackers Dead | VICE News
Israeli security forces shot dead two Palestinians who had gone on a stabbing spree along a popular walkway in Jerusalem on Wednesday and wounded three people in what police described as a terrorist attack.
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BBC – Earth – If you think penguins are cute and cuddly, you’re wrong
Reputation: Penguins only live in icy regions near the poles. Penguins form lifelong loving relationships with their partners and are the perfect caring parents. Reality: Most penguin species live in temperate or tropical places.
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Kate Hudson and Dakota Johnson Swapped Moms for a Holiday Instagram | Vanity Fair
It’s not too late: drag the “HolidayCard.JPG” you have on your desktop right now (that you were planning to send out to 150 b.c.c.’d acquaintances later today) to the trash, and just use this glorious image as your card instead.
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Palestinians shot dead after stabbing attack – Al Jazeera English
Two Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli police on Wednesday after a stabbing attack near Jerusalem’s Old City. Israeli police said the two Palestinians attacked Israelis at Jaffa Gate, one of the main entrances to Jerusalem’s walled Old City.
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Best Country Christmas Releases of 2015: The Ram Report | Rolling Stone
Best Country Christmas Releases of 2015: The Ram Report Kenny Rogers, Kristian Bush and LeAnn Rimes highlight this year’s holiday music
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Here’s What the Hell Happened In Bitcoin In 2015 | Motherboard
Bitcoin season seven—on the web since 2008!—is drawing to a close, and it’s clear that the writers have started to run out of ideas. Earlier seasons of the series had their fair share of drama, like in season six when the gigantic Mt.
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The Beatles Coming to Streaming Services Christmas Eve | Rolling Stone
The Beatles, who have long withheld their legendary catalog from streaming services, will finally offer up their discography to Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal and more starting December 24th at 12:01 a.m. local times around the globe.
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Corey Taylor Skewers Trump, Bieber, Hall of Fame in Epic Year-End Rant | Rolling Stone
“I just want this year to be over with,” Slipknot’s and Stone Sour’s ever-stentorian frontman Corey Taylor says of 2015.
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WASHINGTON — Virginia will no longer recognize concealed-handgun permits issued by 25 other states, its attorney general announced Tuesday, a stark change in a state known for its expansive gun rights. Attorney General Mark R.
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It’s impossible to appreciate how vast the universe is. But this video will help. – Vox
It’s impossible to appreciate how vast the universe is. But this video will help. https://t.co/i6mc593YKh https://t.co/6BCQWbZ1ZV
Earlier this month, NASA released a gigantic, incredibly sharp photo of the Andromeda Galaxy, taken by the Hubble space telescope. Below is a small crop of the full image (which, NASA points out, is so big that to display it at full resolution, you’… -
The coat hanger abortion is back, and that’s scary for all women – Vox
A Tennessee woman was charged with attempted first-degree murder last week for allegedly trying to use a coat hanger to end her pregnancy. Anna Yocca, 31, was arrested in Tennessee in September after she showed up bleeding at a hospital, fearing for…
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A Brief History of People Getting Stuck in Chimneys and Dying | VICE | United States
Late last month in Central California, an alleged burglar died a grisly, torturous death when he got stuck in a chimney. It was far from the first such case, but the horrific twist in this situation was that the homeowner lit a fire while the would-…
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America Is Not Becoming More Liberal | New Republic
In the new issue of The Atlantic, Peter Beinart argues that America is inexorably moving left.
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Las Vegas Newspaper Editor Resigns After Sheldon Adelson Purchases Paper | ThinkProgress
Last week, after days of secrecy and denials, billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his family confirmed that they had purchased the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The days since have not gone well for the new ownership of Nevada’s largest newspap…
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Year in images / Highlights / ESA
On 9 November 2005, 10 years ago today, ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft left Earth and began its 153-day journey to Venus. The craft then spent eight years studying the planet in detail before the mission came to an end in December 2014.
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It’s The Night Before Christmas, Orange is the New Black Style | Vanity Fair
No matter what chaos your family holiday traditions may have in store for you, it likely won’t compare to spending Christmas with the women of Litchfield Prison.
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Google’s BigDog robots pull Santa’s sleigh – BBC News
One of Google’s robot divisions has marked the festive season by tasking three of its machines with pulling Santa’s sleigh. The demonstration was carried out by the firm’s Boston Dynamics unit.
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Here’s How We’ll Meet the Justice League In Batman v Superman
Kurt Russell confirms he’s in talks for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Mark Ruffalo once again kills our hopes for a standalone Hulk movie. James Cameron talks Avatar 2.
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Dr. Ben Carson says he’s not ‘weak’
Sleepy? Perhaps. Uninformed? No question. But weak? Absolutely not. This just in: Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson says he’s not “weak.” Good to know.
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Family Christmas book reviews – in pictures | Children’s books | The Guardian
Our family reviewers donned their festive gear this month: they’ve dodged snowball fights, survived snow day antics, seen Christmas saved by socks and learnt about Christmas traditions across Africa.
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Mossberg: The next big thing didn’t show up this year | The Verge
Welcome to Mossberg, a weekly commentary and reviews column on The Verge and Re/code by veteran tech journalist Walt Mossberg, now an Executive Editor at The Verge and Editor at Large of Re/code.
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Photo highlights of the day | World news | The Guardian
Skip to main content World news Best photographs of the day Photo highlights of the day: Hillary Clinton, and a festival in Harbin The Guardian’s picture editors bring you a selection of the best photographs from around the world, including a presid…
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Russian Raids in Syria May Amount to War Crimes | Al Jazeera America
Russia’s bombing of Syria may amount to a war crime because of the number of civilians its airstrikes have killed, Amnesty International said on Wednesday, presenting what it said was evidence that the air raids had violated humanitarian law.
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National Geographic release their pictures of 2015 : pics
National Geographic release their pictures of 2015 via /r/pics https://t.co/hMxUKAs0Hn https://t.co/8eCxEO7hw4 https://t.co/Un6qVFh2iP
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National Geographic release their pictures of 2015 via /r/pics https://t.co/hMxUKAs0Hn https://t.co/8eCxEO7hw4 https://t.co/Un6qVFh2iP
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11 weird and wonderful Christmas tree patents – Vox
11 weird and wonderful Christmas tree patents https://t.co/bov7coLkFs https://t.co/S7c21OEsl9
For hundreds of years, families have been cutting down evergreen trees and bringing them into their homes to celebrate Christmas. For much of that time, the Christmas tree has been simple: a live tree, some ornaments. Not much to improve on, right? … -
Why It Sucks to Be a Professional Cook During the Holidays | First We Feast
Richie Nakano is a chef based in San Francisco. Follow him on Twitter @linecook. I’m prepping the Sunday after Thanksgiving when the first signs appear: The morning reservationist has turned off Migos and suddenly the restaurant is drowning in Mari…
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The mystery isn’t why support for Trump is so high. It’s why it’s so low. – Vox
According to the latest CNN/ORC poll, 39 percent of Republican voters favor Trump — that’s up from 27 percent in October, 24 percent in August, and 12 percent in June. But it’s not the most interesting part of the poll. There’s a persistent argument…
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‘80s goths spied dancing in their natural habitats|Dangerous Minds
I always get a little excited when I run across some previously unseen vintage footage of dancing goths that has bubbled up to the surface. There doesn’t seem to be a great deal of documentation of early ‘80s goths dancing in their natural habitats.
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The young miners of Donbass – Al Jazeera English
Donbass, Ukraine – Donbass is a coal-mining district in the east of Ukraine, lying on the border with Russia, more than 700km from the capital city of Kiev. Aside from some heavy industry and breathtaking countryside, Donbass has little to offer its…
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Sharing her lunch with friend : aww
Sharing her lunch with friend via /r/aww https://t.co/9Uq5ekGybv https://t.co/tGu8WohFyE https://t.co/o1FUbrWDyr
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Sharing her lunch with friend via /r/aww https://t.co/9Uq5ekGybv https://t.co/tGu8WohFyE https://t.co/o1FUbrWDyr
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After my father died unexpectedly in 2011, I went home to Virginia to help my sisters attend to his personal effects. His 60 years of life were soon dismantled with startling and mind-numbing speed.
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2015: The Year Wearables Became More Than a Bad Word
“Wearable” is a stupid term, when you think about it.
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The Sixers have made losers out of all of us. The 1-29 experiment in tanking analytics is being tainted by the introduction of “basketball people” in Jerry Colangelo and Mike D’Antoni.
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Daily Kos Radio is IN THE WAY-BACK MACHINE at 9 AM ET!
The list of holiday and year-end errands has gotten the best of us, and we’re forced into reruns for the balance of the week. Hope you don’t feel too schlonged! We’ll be back on the air live next week. For today, please enjoy .
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He was a trusted heart specialist who stepped in swiftly whenever he thought his patients were in peril, rushing them in for sophisticated tests and the promise of life-saving surgery.
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Alexander von Humboldt: The Forgotten Father of Environmentalism – The Atlantic
On September 14, 1869, 25,000 people marched through New York to celebrate the centennial of the birth of German scientist Alexander von Humboldt. Manhattan’s cobbled streets were lined with flags and even the ships on the Hudson River were garlande…
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This Scholarship Is Sending A Message Of Acceptance To Rural LGBT Students | ThinkProgress
Jacob Wilson and Courage Scholarship co-chair Geneviève Steidtmann, plan the “Cookies for Courage” initiative. Last summer, Jacob Wilson began raising money for graduating seniors at his former high school in Missouri.
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White Christmas is off as ice rinks melt in mildest UK December since 1960 | UK news | The Guardian
The mildest start to December for years has seen larger sprouts than usual, early daffodils and now melting ice rinks. Colchester Winter Wonderland and Ice Rink, which opened 25 days ago but has been unable to open on six of those days, has been for…
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If Your YouTube Quality Sucks On T-Mobile, Disable Binge On
T-Mobile’s newest plan to subvert data caps, Binge On, may come with a nasty downside. According to YouTube, the carrier is throttling all video streams down to 480p, even if the service isn’t included in Binge On and still counts towards your data …
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I knew you were here. I felt your presents. via /r/aww https://t.co/0FaStidDeH https://t.co/pmeqp27pi9 https://t.co/zGgL2E4cjm
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I knew you were here. I felt your presents. : aww
I knew you were here. I felt your presents. via /r/aww https://t.co/0FaStidDeH https://t.co/pmeqp27pi9 https://t.co/zGgL2E4cjm
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The celebrity diet that captivated your state this year, in one map – Vox
The celebrity diet that captivated your state this year, in one map https://t.co/bR1vKGWdJ0 https://t.co/WiuqJ6nScY
It’s no secret that people look to the stars for tips on how to slim down. But we didn’t expect that a former late-night talk-show host would be the diet guru of choice for some Americans. We asked Google for the most uniquely searched celebrity die… -
On a summer day in 1974, Elizabeth Fink walked into a small legal office in Buffalo, having borrowed her mother’s car and driven 400 miles from Brooklyn to present herself for a new job. She was 29 and a year out of law school.
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Today is the magical holiday known as Festivus. In accordance with tradition, I submit part of my 2015 list for the Airing of Grievances. The following have disappointed me over the past year:
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The environmental cost of shipping stuff is huge. Can we shrink it? – Vox
Originally published on Ensia. Much of the stuff around us at any given moment — be it product, commodity, or raw material — was once on a boat.
The environmental cost of shipping stuff is huge. Can we shrink it? https://t.co/yi34iMpSBx https://t.co/oS81hQrXFh -
UK Police Are Using Hacking Tools, But Refuse to Say How | Motherboard
As the UK considers controversial surveillance legislation that would govern law enforcement’s hacking capabilities, the extent and nature of police forces’ use of these tools remains opaque. It is clear that police forces regularly use this kind of…
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‘Crow cam’ catches birds using hook tools in the wild – BBC News
Ecologists have used a tail-mounted “crow cam” to catch wild New Caledonian crows in the act of making and using hook-shaped tools. This species is well-known for its clever tool tricks, but studying its behaviour in the wild is difficult.
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The Hateful Eight piracy leak traced to DVD sent to Hollywood producer | Film | The Guardian
The source of the online leak of Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight has been traced to an awards-season DVD screener that had been sent to a leading Hollywood studio executive.
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The Most Notable Medical Findings of 2015 – The New Yorker
Every week, I peruse around fifteen journals, some featuring basic science, others clinical research and patient cases, and still others a mix. As a specialist in blood diseases and cancer, I pay particular attention to those articles reporting adva…
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New Hampshire primary: Republican establishment races to topple Trump | US news | The Guardian
Republican establishment candidates are locked in a mortal fight to win the state of New Hampshire – where failure, for some, could mark the end of their presidential ambitions.
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The US Stopped a British Muslim Family From Visiting Disneyland — With No Explanation | VICE News
A British family on their way to Disneyland were barred by US officials from boarding a plane at London’s Gatwick airport and removed from the airport.
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The Trouble With Online Customer Reviews – Bloomberg Business
Like a lot of people, Jared Andrews finds online customer reviews frustrating and often unhelpful. Andrews typifies the love-hate relationship American consumers have with customer reviews, which — for better and worse — have come to define the on…
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Billionaires Are Making Fresh Fortunes Off Terrible NBA Teams – Vocativ
Russian billionaire playboy Mikhail Prokhorov’s Brooklyn Nets are one of the worst teams in the NBA. At 7-20, they own a better record than only the Philadelphia 76ers and the Los Angeles Lakers. Worse still, the Nets are a team with no future. Even…
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Harry’s Guide To 2016 Election Polls | FiveThirtyEight
NPR’s “On The Media” has a great series called the “Breaking News Consumer’s Handbook,” and as part of our ongoing partnership with them, we put together a handy list of rules for interpreting election polls. Listen to the whole episode, or just to …
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Concussion isn’t angry enough for a polemic, and it isn’t interesting enough to be an uplifting Hollywood message movie, which means it’s just competent enough to fail on two separate, parallel fronts.
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US Reportedly Denied Boarding to Muslim Family | Al Jazeera America
British Prime Minister David Cameron’s office says he will investigate a lawmaker’s claim that U.S. officials prevented a British Muslim family from flying to Disneyland for a planned holiday. Stella Creasy, a member of the opposition Labour Party, …
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Donald J. Trump’s tax plan would benefit the wealthiest Americans the most while saddling the economy with trillions of dollars in new debt, according to an analysis released on Tuesday by the Tax Policy Center. Mr.
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How to Map an Exoplanet’s Rings [Video] – Scientific American
Lee Billings is an editor at Scientific American covering space and physics. Follow him on Twitter: @LeeBillings
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Afghan Taliban push further into Sangin – BBC News
Afghan government forces have lost control of the centre of Sangin in Helmand province following days of fierce fighting, reports suggest. Eyewitnesses told the BBC that the Taliban controlled the district headquarters and police station.
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Wind Energy Reaches Record Production | ThinkProgress
Despite a recent slowdown in wind energy production in the United States, the industry is still growing as there are enough projects to generate energy for a record 19 million homes, according to data released Monday by the American Wind Energy Asso…
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How Rock-Paper-Scissors Went Viral and Became a Competitive Sport – The Atlantic
It was 1995, in the early days of the web, when the brothers Doug and Graham Walker decided they wanted to start a website. They hadn’t settled on a topic, but the two were fond of playing rock-paper-scissors in their garage, their matches filled wi…
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12 Days of Christmas Songs: The Cosmopolitan Genius of ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’ – The Atlantic
Welcome to The 12 Days of Christmas Songs: an attempt to uncover the forgotten history of some of the most memorable festive tunes. From December 14 through 25, we’ll be tackling one secular song and one holy song each day.
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Star Wars: The Force Awakens receives belated Critics’ Choice nomination – BBC News
Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been added to the nominations for the Critics’ Choice best picture award. The Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA) chose to add the film to the 10 nominees it announced last week.
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Ars Science Q&A: How to deal with science denialists | Ars Technica
In my blog post on my 10th anniversary at Ars, I promised to answer readers’ questions. This is one of my attempts to do so. Someone asked how to deal with a denialist/skeptic on scientific topics. I think the process can be best explained using a f…
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Cleaning the Chicago River With Catfish and Algae – The Atlantic
In the world of angling, voracious channel catfish are considered an easy catch.
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Can A Website Give Mothers A Leg Up In The Workplace? | ThinkProgress
At two months pregnant and the mom of a one-year-old, Georgene Huang found herself looking for a job after a management shakeup at her employer, Dow Jones.
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2015: The Year in Nostalgia – The Atlantic
This year in pop culture, nostalgia reigned. It seemed like every film was a reboot, and older artists making new music prompted collective reminiscing. The nostalgia pervaded generations.
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Being a Creative Doesn’t Mean You’re “Bad at Business”
Every creative struggles when it comes time to sell their skills. At best, it feels like “selling out,” and at worst it seems like business is just a world you’ll never understand. Neither could be further from the truth.
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The Japanese Professor Who’s Spent Three Decades Perfecting a Human Avatar | Motherboard
When Susumu Tachi made his first prototype telexistence machine in 1981, he was amazed at what he saw. As he peered through the contraption, he glimpsed another version of himself from behind, looking through the very same prototype device. The effe…
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Baltimore is a city of kitsch. Home to John Waters, women with beehive hairdos, steamed crabs and National Bohemian ‘Natty Boh’ beer, it also has one of the biggest holiday light displays in America.
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These Will Be The Biggest Climate Fights Of 2016 | ThinkProgress
It has been quite the year for the climate movement, from the Paris climate agreement to the final rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline.
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So far, 2015 was one of the safest years to be a police officer – Vox
For much of 2015, Fox News pundits and other defenders of police decried the Black Lives Matter movement, specifically blaming it for enabling a wave of violence against police officers in the US.
So far, 2015 was one of the safest years to be a police officer https://t.co/dywcOEdxZR https://t.co/cNQKk6GM1S -
New Ink, and Regular Pen, Draw Working Electrical Circuits – Scientific American
Want to string together some holiday lights? Or test an idea for a circuit? A new elastic silver ink could let users jot down electrical circuits and wiring on walls and paper with a regular ballpoint pen (ACS Nano, 2015, DOI:10.1021/acsnano.5b05082…
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3,200 inmates mistakenly released early in Washington – CNN.com
(CNN)As many as 3,200 convicted offenders were mistakenly released too early from Washington state prisons because of errors in calculating good time credit, officials said Tuesday.
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What Does NASA Mars Lander’s Launch Delay Mean for Red Planet Exploration?
The solar arrays on NASA’s InSight Mars lander are deployed during a test on April 30, 2015 inside a clean room at a Lockheed Martin Space Systems facility in Denver.
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Just In Time for Christmas: Russian Cargo Ship Makes Space Station Delivery
Russia’s Progress 62 cargo ship arrives at the International Space Station on Dec. 23, 2015 delivering food, supplies and other equipment just in time for Christmas.
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Santa in Space? Christmas Full Moon Prompts St. Nick Webcast at Slooh
Think you can spot a jolly, red-clad old man as he speeds across the moon in a sleigh, spreading Christmas cheer? If so, the Slooh Community Observatory wants to hear from you. On Christmas Day (Dec.
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People Want News About Iran, But The News They Get Is About Canada | FiveThirtyEight
Canada gets the most foreign news coverage in U.S. newspapers, but Iran gets searched on Google much more often by Americans. We checked which countries get the most newspaper coverage last month, as part of a look at the popularity and importance o…
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Significant Digits for Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2015 | FiveThirtyEight
You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the telling numbers tucked inside the news. Heads up: After today, Significant Digits will settle down for a long winter’s nap and emerge triumphant on Monday, Jan. 4.
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What We’re Following This Morning, December 23 – The Atlantic
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Hello Kitty security leak ‘corrected’ – BBC News
A security loophole on the Hello Kitty website that exposed millions of people’s personal data has been “corrected” says the brand’s owner.Earlier this week a computer security researcher revealed that information about 3.3 million Sanrio Town membe…
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Nick Cave – The Ship Song – YouTube
Nick Cave – The Ship Song https://t.co/cNIQMmjXUP
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A Real-Life Trader Talks About “The Big Short” – Facts So Romantic – Nautilus
After watching The Big Short, I felt I had a decent grasp on the causes of the 2008 financial crisis. The film, which is being released across the United States today, is based on the book by Michael Lewis, and describes how a few prescient financie…
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The problem with self-driving cars: who controls the code? | Technology | The Guardian
The Trolley Problem is an ethical brainteaser that’s been entertaining philosophers since it was posed by Philippa Foot in 1967: A runaway train will slaughter five innocents tied to its track unless you pull a lever to switch it to a siding on whic…
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Where To Say ‘Merry Christmas’ vs. ‘Happy Holidays’ | FiveThirtyEight
‘Tis the season for some to take offense when a store clerk says “happy holidays” instead of “merry Christmas,” or when a coffee chain converts to plain red cups for the holiday. The “war on Christmas” trope seems to surface with Black Friday sales,…
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BBC Sport – Louis van Gaal treatment ‘disrespectful’ – Arsene Wenger
Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger says rumours about Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal’s position is “disrespectful”. Dutchman van Gaal’s future at Old Trafford is rumoured to be in doubt after a run of six games without a win.
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A year at the White House as seen through an iPhone’s lens | The Verge
Pete Souza has been Barack Obama’s chief White House photographer throughout the US president’s two terms in office, having previously done the same job for Ronald Reagan. He’s also an avid iPhone user.
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The Taliban’s growing reach – Al Jazeera English
The Taliban says it killed six United States troops in a suicide attack on a military base on Sunday. The attack underlines the group’s ability to hit high-profile targets linked to the US-backed government, which wants to restart the peace process …
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John Cleese’s Advice to Young Artists: “Steal Anything You Think Is Really Good” | Open Culture
So you want to be a rock and roll star? Or a writer, or a filmmaker, or a comedian, or what-have-you…. And yet, you don’t know where to start. You’ve heard you need to find your own voice, but it’s difficult to know what that is when you’re just beg…
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Japanese bookshop stocks only one book at a time | Books | The Guardian
With hundreds of thousands of books published every year, the choice of what to stock can prove bewildering for booksellers.
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TALAMANCA, COSTA RICA — In a globalized society where people are buried in phones, computers, and tablets, the quiet calm of Costa Rica’s Yorkín River evokes a sense of simpler times. The only disruption comes from the roar of a motor.
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Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: The 2016 election, demographics and the Republican base
You hear from people like them in many other democratic countries too.
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Turkey denies targeting civilians in fight against PKK – Al Jazeera English
The Turkish government has denied a human rights group’s claims that it has killed more than 100 Kurdish civilians during recent security operations and armed clashes in the country’s southeast.
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What Gene Therapy Needs Now: A Good Off Switch – Scientific American
Humans don’t molt,” R.J. Kirk tells me. Kirk is a billionaire geek who runs his offices out of West Palm Beach, Fla., a balmy land of pelicans and tangled mangroves.
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Absolve Yourself of Guilt to Better Deal With Your Debt
For some, piles of debt can come from defensible sources like student loans, but maybe you just got more credit card debt than you planned on and now you’re struggling. The first step? Stop guilting yourself.
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Kotaku Kylo Ren’s Fake Twitter Account Is The Best | Adequate Man What Is The Best Birthday Month? | Jezebel I Rewatched Love Actually and Am Here to Ruin It for All of You | Gizmodo Boston Dynamics’ Robo-Dogs Pulling a Sleigh Is a Terrifying Glimps…
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Some meteors from the Geminid Meteor shower in Banff, Alberta [OC][5920×3947] https://t.co/RmwzBUDgJ7 https://t.co/ubKkRwqKID
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Love Everyone Often Peace Beauty Balance Life Light Magic: Principia
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Love Everyone Often Peace Beauty Balance Life Light Magic: Probing Mars, charging cars
Probing Mars, charging cars https://t.co/SBPJ1cpvLu https://t.co/DG9VH9Fx1L
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Saudi Arabia ‘spares’ Sri Lankan maid in adultery case – BBC News
The life of a Sri Lankan maid due to be stoned to death in Saudi Arabia for adultery has been spared, Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry says. She will instead be imprisoned, Sri Lankan Deputy Foreign Minister Dr Harsha de Silva announced.
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Inside the Ji Xiang temple, China’s elderly orphanage – BBC News
China has the fastest-ageing population in human history but the state provides very little support for elderly people. Ageing parents have traditionally been looked after by their children – but in today’s China that is not always the case.
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The UK will provide an extra £30m in aid for Ethiopia, where a prolonged drought means that more than 18 million people will need urgent relief in the next year, according to the Department for International Development (DfID).
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In Yemen’s besieged city of Taiz, peace is the priority – Al Jazeera English
Taiz, Yemen – Wasim al-Khaishani, 38, lost his job as a driver back in April and cannot earn an income for his family of six. Instead, he has been selling his wife’s jewellery to buy necessities.
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Winter weather is upside down in the US – Al Jazeera English
Spring-like warmth is surprising the northeast, a risk of tornadoes recurs in the south and there is so much snow in the west that even the ski slopes have been overwhelmed.
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Iraq MP: Ramadi to be ‘liberated’ in three or four days – Al Jazeera English
A senior politician says Iraqi forces are likely to retake Ramadi from Islamic of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters within “three or four days”, as fierce fighting for the key city continued.
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Review: Mint 17.3 may be the best Linux desktop distro yet | Ars Technica
The Linux Mint project recently unveiled Linux Mint 17.3. The latest release from this Ubuntu-based Linux distro just might be the best Linux desktop around. Linux Mint 17.
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Santa’s Home Is Melting. Will We Ever Bring It Back?
Vast and white, easily visible from space, Earth’s Arctic ice cap seems such a permanent fixture—a frozen country at the top of the world—that the idea that it could ever vanish almost defies comprehension.
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What’s Behind the Freakishly Warm Winter in the Eastern U.S.?
People from Massachusetts to Mississippi cut down their Christmas trees while wearing shorts and t-shirts this year. Now, the chances for a white Christmas are slim to none for much of the East Coast, leaving kids disappointed and adults scratching …
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Physicists Say Cinderella’s Glass Heels Would Have Shattered
We all know the story: The clock strikes midnight and Cinderella, facing an imminent wardrobe malfunction, flees the royal ball, leaving behind a single glass slipper. The prince travels the kingdom until he finds the woman who fits the shoe, and th…
Love Everyone Often 12/24/2015
Still shopping for last-minute holiday presents? You are not the only one | Business | The Guardian Shopping for the last-minute gifts? You may not be the only one. About 40% of the season’s sales take place in the 10 days leading up to Christmas Day, according to National Retail…
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