5.9 quake -- rocks northern Italy
By News in news wire, Posted in Ecology / Environment
May 20, 2012, 12:33 am CDT
BOLOGNA - One person died and two others were injured Sunday when a powerful earthquake, lasting about 20 seconds, sent panicked people into the streets of northern Italian towns, Sky Italia reported.
The 5.9-magnitude quake which struck about 2:00 GMT in the Emilia-Romagna region and the area around Venice had its epicenter 22 miles north of Bologna, according to the United States Geological Survey.
One person died in the collapse of the industrial area in Bondeno, in the Ferrara region, Sky said. The two people injured were in the area of St. Augustine.
Earlier, another 4.1-magnitude quake was felt in the Lombardy region around Milan, Italy's financial and business capital, ANSA news agency reported.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/05/19/5-magnitude-earthquak...
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Zuckerberg: No longer single, marries Prescilla Chan
By News in Fox, Posted in Celebrities (all sorts)
May 20, 2012, 12:31 am CDT
PALO ALTO, Calif. - Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg updated his status to "married" on Saturday.
Zuckerberg and 27-year-old Priscilla Chan tied the knot at a small ceremony at his Palo Alto, Calif., home, capping a busy week for the couple, according to a guest authorized to speak for the couple. The person spoke only on the condition of anonymity.
Zuckerberg took his company public in one of the most anticipated stock offerings in Wall Street history Friday. And Chan graduated from medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, on Monday, the same day Zuckerberg turned 28, the person said.
The couple met at Harvard and have been together for more than nine years, the person said.
Zuckerberg designed the ring featuring "a very simple ruby,...
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Be Afraid- There's Cause: Obama Says Euro Zone Crisis Threatens Global Econ
By News in Reuters, Posted in Recession / Depression
May 20, 2012, 12:27 am CDT
Confronting an economic crisis that threatens them all, President Barack Obama and leaders of other world powers on Saturday declared that their governments must both spark growth and cut the debt that has crippled the European continent and put investors worldwide on edge.
"There's now an emerging consensus that more must be done to promote growth and job creation right now," Obama proclaimed after hosting unprecedented economic talks at Camp David, his secluded and highly secure mountaintop retreat. Seeking a second term amid hard economic times, Obama hailed a debate heading in the direction he likes, with nations now talking of ways to spark their economies instead of just slashing spending.
Yet there were no bold prescriptions at hand. Instead, leaders seemed inte...
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Japanese Woman age 73 climbs Mt. Everest
By News in Wore Services, Posted in Conscience & Courage
May 20, 2012, 12:25 am CDT
KATMANDU, Nepal - A 73-year-old Japanese woman has set the world record for being the oldest female to conquer Mount Everest, Kyodo news agency reported.
Tamae Watanabe reached the 29,029-foot peak of the world's tallest mountain Saturday morning after launching her assent Friday night from an altitude of 27,231 feet.
Watanabe's accomplishment broke her own record of being the oldest woman to scale Mount Everest. In May 2002, she reached the top of the mountain at the age of 63.
The 73-year-old embarked on her latest expedition last month but weather conditions forced her to twice delay her assent to the summit.
"Several climbers abandoned summit plans in the past weeks due to bad weather," Nepalese Tourism Ministry spokesman Tilak Pandey said.
Watanabe, a re...
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NAACP accounces support of gay marriage
By News in Wire Services, Posted in The Society (trends / histories)
May 20, 2012, 12:23 am CDT
The NAACP announced Saturday the 103-year-old black civil rights group is supporting same-sex marriage.
The group's board of directors made the decision at a meeting this weekend, saying it was a "continuation of its historic commitment to equal protection under the law."
The decision follows President Obama's recent support of gay marriage, a move that threatened to divide key parts of the Democratic voting base -- the gay and black communities.
"The mission of the (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) has always been to ensure political, social and economic equality of all people," said Roslyn M. Brock, chairman of the board. "We have and will oppose efforts to codify discrimination into law."
Black religious leaders...
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Chicago: Provocateurs Entrap Patsies as NATO War Council Plans Further
By News in InfoWars, Posted in Conspiracies/Conspiracy Theories
May 20, 2012, 12:20 am CDT
On Saturday Chicago police arrested three patsies "accused of making Molotov cocktails" and who were "planning to attack President Barack Obama's campaign headquarters, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's home and other targets during this weekend's NATO summit," according to prosecutors.
Brian Church, Vincent Betterly and Jared Chase are charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism.
The incident follows a familiar pattern. According to defense attorneys, police agents provocateurs are responsible for the Molotov cocktails and the arrests were timed to discredit protests against the NATO war council held this weekend in Chicago.
"This is just propaganda to create a climate of fear," said defense attorney Michael Duetsch. "We believe this is all a set...
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Pentagon says: China Biggest Perpetrator of Economic Spying
By News Feature in Reuters, Posted in Politics / World
May 19, 2012, 11:48 am CDT
The Pentagon said on Friday it believes China spent up to $180 billion on its military buildup last year, a far higher figure than acknowledged by Beijing, and it accused "Chinese actors" of being the world's biggest perpetrators of economic espionage. The Pentagon, in its annual assessment to Congress of China's military, flagged sustained investment last year in advanced missile technologies and cyber warfare capabilities and warned that Chinese spying threatened America's economic security. "Chinese actors are the world's most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage," the report said.
"Chinese attempts to collect U.S. technological and economic information will continue at a high level and will represent a growing and pers...
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Hedges: Ruling overturning indefinite detention provision of NDAA is 'huge'
By COMMENTARY & NEWS ANALYSIS in RawStory, Posted in Communications / Censorship / Freedom
May 19, 2012, 11:42 am CDT
Earlier this week, a federal judge blocked a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act which had provided for the possibility of indefinite detention of anyone, including American citizens, charged with providing "substantial support" for terrorist organizations.
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges, who was one of the plaintiffs in the case, told Russia Today that the impact of the decision was "huge."
"It invalidates a law," he explained, "that was, of course, signed by the president on New Year's Eve and permitted the U.S. military - overturning about 200 years of domestic law - to engage in domestic policing, to seize U.S. citizens, to hold them in military facilities, including our offshore penal colonies, to strip them of ...
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Shocking 'possession ratio' of firearms in USA: 9 guns for every 10 people
By COMMENTARY & NEWS ANALYSIS in Current TV, Posted in The Society (trends / histories)
May 19, 2012, 11:41 am CDT
Friday night on Current TV's "The Young Turks," host Cenk Uygur charged that there's one party in the Trayvon Martin slaying that is truly, undeniably guilty, but it isn't a person.
"Guns are the real problem," he said.
Rolling recently released store camera video of 17-year-old Martin buying a pack of Skittles candy and an Arizona Iced Tea just moments before he encountered Zimmerman and was fatally shot, Uygur said, "That kid that you just saw - he's 17 years old - he would be alive today if George Zimmerman didn't have a gun."
Citing the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies's Small Arms Survey, Uyger pointed out that the United States is the most heavily armed nation in the world, with 90 guns per 100...
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Google+: Still not as interesting as Pinterest, new study finds
By News Feature in RawStory, Posted in Other
May 19, 2012, 11:38 am CDT
Comparing public user engagement suggests that Google+ is still a niche pursuit, despite Google claiming it has 170 million people signed up - while Pinterest's attraction remains high. Away from all the hubbub over that other social network, how is Google+ - described by Larry Page and others as the new "social spine" of the company - doing?
As far as user numbers go, swimmingly: Page said that it has crossed the 100 million user mark. In April, Vic Gundotra said that "More than 170 million people have upgraded to Google+". That's a lot. That's more than Twitter claims as monthly active users (140 million).
But as far as user engagement goes, previous studies have said that it's not a hit. What we don't know is how many of those 170 million...
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U.S. Says Will Bar Some Motorola Mobility Phones
By News in WireServices, Posted in Consumerism
May 19, 2012, 11:35 am CDT
Some Motorola Mobility smartphones infringe on a Microsoft patent and will be barred from importation in to the United States, a U.S. trade panel said on Friday. The order by the U.S. International Trade Commission has been sent to President Barack Obama, who has 60 days to consider whether to overturn it for policy reasons. The legal fight at the ITC is one of dozens globally between various smartphone makers over which company's operating system will prevail. Google's Android system has become the top-selling smartphone operating system, ahead mobile systems by Apple, Microsoft, Research in Motion and others. The ITC order did not say which models of smartphone were affected but Microsoft has asked for the following devices to be stopped at the U.S. border: the Atrix, Backflip,...
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Romney's Favorables Rising Despite Attacks
By News Feature in Fox, Posted in Presidential Race 2012
May 19, 2012, 11:26 am CDT
ROMNEY: "I hope that our campaigns can respectively be about the future and about issues and about a vision for America. I've been disappointed in the president's campaign to date, which is focused on character assassination."
-- Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney when asked by reporters about a rejected proposal to a billionaire political activist to run an ad campaign reminding voters of the decades President Obama spent in the Chicago congregation of Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
The two most important questions in any presidential re-election bid are these: Do we want to keep the guy we've got and is the alternative acceptable?
Americans pretty clearly would like something different than what they've got. The president has been on the wron...
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EU Drafts Plans for Possible Greek Exit
By News in WireServices, Posted in Economy-(Global)
May 19, 2012, 11:23 am CDT
European officials are working on contingency plans in case Greece bombs out of the euro zone, the EU's trade commissioner said on Friday, while Berlin said it was prepared for all eventualities.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, one of Greece's harsher critics, said market turmoil fuelled by the euro zone debt crisis could last another year or two.
"Regarding the crisis of confidence in the euro ... in 12 to 24 months we will see a calming of the financial markets," he said. European shares hit their lowest level since December, depressed by the prospect of a Greek euro exit spreading a wave of contagion in the currency bloc which could engulf much larger economies such as Spain's.
Policymakers insist they want Greece to remain in the euro zone but Eu...
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Blind Chinese activist headed to US, closing month long tussle
By News in Fox, Posted in Politics / World
May 19, 2012, 11:22 am CDT
A U.S. official confirmed Saturday morning that blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng and his family are en route to the United States so he can pursue studies at an American university.
The announcement is a closing chapter to a dramatic past few weeks in which Chen escaped house arrest April 22 in his rural, home province and fled to the U.S. embassy in Beijing.
"We are looking forward to his arrival in the United States later today," Victoria Nuland, State Department spokeswoman, said. "We also express our appreciation for the manner in which we were able to resolve this matter and to support Mr. Chen's desire to study in the U.S. and pursue his goals."
His arrival at the U.S. embassy following his escape started delicate, high-stakes diplomatic negotiations...
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Launch Pad glitch: Commercial space vehicle launch aborted
By News in CNN, Posted in Technology
May 19, 2012, 11:21 am CDT
(CNN) -- SpaceX aborted the historic launch of its Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station on Saturday at the last second because of a rocket engine glitch.
The launch would the first attempt to send a private spacecraft to the space station. SpaceX and NASA officials say the next launch attempts could come Tuesday or Wednesday in the early morning hours at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
As the countdown reached zero, the engines began firing -- but then shut down, NASA and SpaceX officials said.
SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said "high chamber pressure" was detected in Engine 5 of the Falcon 9, the rocket to carry the Dragon spacecraft. She said technicians will inspect the engines later on Saturday and is looking forward to another takeoff soon.
CNN expla...
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Headline: House Ignores Obama, Approves Defense Bill
By News in WireServices, Posted in Nat'l-Defense / Military
May 18, 2012, 5:50 pm CDT
House backs defense spending bill that adds $8B to military's budget, ignoring White House veto threat
Facebook IPO: Big Volume, But Little to Show For It
By COMMENTARY & NEWS ANALYSIS in CNBC, Posted in Business Economics
May 18, 2012, 5:48 pm CDT
Facebook set a record for volume on its first day of trading, but the stock otherwise failed to live up to all the hype and posted just a modest gain for the day. After an attention-grabbing half-hour delay to start its initial public offering, Facebook shares [FB 38.2318 0.2318 (+0.61%) ] opened at $38, surged as much as 11 percent during the day, but ultimately finished just above unchanged after hitting an intraday high of $45.
Late in the trading day the stock threatened to hit negative numbers, vacillating around unchanged as underwriters put up a vigorous fight to defend the breakeven point.
The lackluster performance was both a testament to good pricing and a bit of an embarrassment for a company that was supposed to wow Wall Street on its opening day.
And after the m...
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Zimmerman case: now MORE evidence and more shift in views
By News in CNN, Posted in Law and Legal Matters
May 18, 2012, 5:45 pm CDT
(CNN) -- Trayvon Martin's girlfriend, talking to him on the telephone, heard the teenager saying "get off, get off," in the moments before his cell phone cut off and he was shot dead, according to a recording released Friday of the girl's interview with a prosecutor.
Another witness, however, seems to put Martin on top of George Zimmerman for at least part of the struggle, according to another recording.
"Where I first walked out there, the black guy was on top, and the only reason I can tell that was because the guy that was on the ground under him at that point wrestling was definitely a lighter color," the witness, whose name has not been made public, said in the interview.
Martin was African-American. Zimmerman is a white Hispanic.
Another witness said...
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Facebook trading sets record IPO volume
By News in CNN, Posted in Business Economics
May 18, 2012, 5:39 pm CDT
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Facebook's stock market debut finally came and went -- but for all the breathless hype, shares ended right near their offering price.
On Thursday night, Facebook (FB) set its final IPO price at $38 a share. When the stock began trading at 11:30 a.m. ET on Friday, the first trade came in at $42.05 per share -- a gain of nearly 11%.
What is an IPO?
But the stock quickly reversed course, dropping down to hover right around the $38 IPO price for much of midday trading. Though shares rose modestly for short bursts of time throughout the day, they ended the session at $38.23.
While the price itself didn't move much, trading was fast and intense. More than 80 million shares changed hands in the first 30 seconds of trading. By the end of the day, volume had s...
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Amazing heoric courage: Georgia woman with bizarre medical nightmare
By News in CNN, Posted in Conscience & Courage
May 18, 2012, 5:38 pm CDT
DISCRETION ADVISED:: graphic descriptions
(CNN) -- The rare, aggressive bacteria that have infected a University of West Georgia graduate student have taken a further toll: Doctors have amputated both hands and the remaining foot of 24-year-old Aimee Copeland, according to a blog on the school's website.
The masters psychology student had already lost a leg and soft tissue from her torso to the bacteria.
On a Facebook page dedicated to his daughter's recovery, Andy Copeland describes speaking with the surgeons before Thursday's procedures.
"The hands were endangering Aimee's progress," he writes. "As always, my decision was simple. Do whatever it takes to give us the best chance to save Aimee's life."
Second case of flesh-eating bacteria...
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