The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has dropped its proposal to require Alphabet’s Google to sell off its investments in artificial intelligence companies, including its stake in Anthropic, a competitor to OpenAI, in a bid to enhance competition in online search. However, the DOJ, along with a coalition of 38 state attorneys general, continues to Read More…
(The Center Square) – The Trump administration announced Friday that $400 million in federal funding to Columbia University would be revoked because of the university’ alleged ongoing tolerance of anti-semitic protests on campus. Columbia University and a few other schools became the center of controversy after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks on Israel Read More…
A new survey reveals that while the vast majority of Americans claim they’ve never cheated on their taxes, a significant portion of the population still worries about the possibility of an audit by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). According to a recent Rasmussen Reports national survey, 33% of American adults express concern that the IRS Read More…
Border Patrol agents in Texas, working in coordination with sheriff’s deputies from two counties, have seized more than half a million dollars in cash linked to alleged criminal activities. The occupants of the vehicles involved now face state charges related to cash smuggling. U.S. Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks reported the significant bust on Friday, Read More…
A Denton, Texas grand jury indicted former MLB reliever John Wetteland on three counts of continuous sexual assault of a child on Friday. Police arrested Wetteland in January on charges that he repeatedly sexually abused a 4-year-old relative starting in 2004. Wetteland accused of assaulting 4-year-old relative From an affidavit reported in The Dallas Morning News on January 15: “Wetteland, 52, Read More…
Thirty-four years ago, Rupert Murdoch showed up in Hollywood with $250 million, buying a stake in the 20th Century Fox film studio — even though he had little interest in making movies. The scrappy Australian newsman, then known for his clamorous tabloids, was viewed with suspicion. Skeptics assumed he was a corporate raider intent on Read More…
Francesco “Frank” Cali, the reputed leader of the Gambino crime family, was shot to death outside his house in Staten Island on Wednesday night, in a killing that echoes Mafia murders of the 1980s. The New York Police Department says that at 9:17 p.m. ET, officers received a 911 call reporting an assault in progress Read More…
A dreaded bloodbath at Goldman Sachs under the bank’s new boss has finally begun. The Wall Street powerhouse — whose new chief executive, David Solomon, took the reins from Lloyd Blankfein last October — laid off 65 employees in its New York office at the end of February, according to notice filed Thursday with the Read More…
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has called for Google to be broken up in Australia, the latest salvo in a battle between the corporate media giants. In a petition to Australian regulators, News Corp’s local subsidiary complained that “Google enjoys overwhelming market power in both online search and ad tech services.” Going a step further, the Read More…
A third of British billionaires have moved to tax havens after an exodus over the past decade, a Times investigation has found. They are among 6,800 Britons controlling 12,000 UK firms from low-tax jurisdictions. The Exchequer is denied billions a year but many of the bosses still reap the benefits of British assets. Some have Read More…
At 12:10 a.m. on Sept. 27, 2013, Australian billionaire James Packer texted a 21-year-old British actress named Charlotte Kirk. Kirk had been laboring to establish herself in Hollywood with limited success, but now Packer, who was a partner with director Brett Ratner in the film production/finance company RatPac Entertainment, was saying she was about to Read More…
As the Islamic State’s physical caliphate shrinks to nothing after an almost five-year campaign led by U.S. special operations forces, military insiders say one small unit has killed more of the extremists than any other: the company of Gray Eagle drones in the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Although the military has thrown a Read More…
Wyoming has now enacted a total of 13 blockchain-enabling laws, making it the only US state to provide a comprehensive, welcoming legal framework that enables blockchain technology to flourish, both for individuals and companies. These laws enable innovation and creativity, and are meant to bring capital, jobs and revenue into Wyoming. Law and technology are Read More…
An Alaska Airlines plane from Chicago to Seattle was forced to divert Wednesday night as passengers and crew struggled to breathe. The Boeing 737-900, which had 114 people on board, landed in Minneapolis just after 7pm where 12 people were treated for breathing difficulties. An airport spokesman said four crew members were hospitalized and six more were Read More…
Tax refunds increased by 17 percent last week and are now at the same level as last year, according to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The left and the media have spent the past few weeks arguing that the reduction in tax refunds in the first few weeks of tax filing season meant that families are Read More…
Stung by domestic defeat after a losing battle with Democrats in Washington, D.C., this winter, President Donald Trump hopes his negotiating skills can achieve better results some 8,000 miles away when he meets with North Korea’s leader in Vietnam later this month. Trump will travel for his second session with the North Korean dictator Kim Read More…
China’s growth potential could slow to 4.5% by 2030, according to analysts. Officials have shifted to stimulus programs, including tax cuts and infrastructure incentives, in an effort to curb the decline. But that could become increasingly difficult against a backdrop of debt and in wake of the trade war with the US, which has demanded Read More…
The 480-square-foot pink home at 66 Bishop St. in San Francisco is one of the smallest in the city. It’s also, with its whopping $600,000 price tag, one of the cheapest, SFGate reported. The home sold in late December after two months on the market and a $50,000 price cut. It was advertised as a Read More…
After 25 years on the run – hiding from the army and the police, imprisoned and staging astonishingly audacious escapes – Mexico’s most infamous drug lord finally had his day in court. Thirty minutes later, it was all over. Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the $14 billion man, a short and stocky 61-year-old cartel leader sent Read More…
This year some of the Super Bowl ads that grabbed the greatest buzz were surprises, like Bud Light’s “Game of Thrones” teaser. Other crowd-pleasers focused on humor, like Amazon’s take on celebrity product testers. While the New England Patriots bested the L.A. Rams on Sunday in Atlanta during Super Bowl 53, brands were also winning Read More…
The University of Farmington had no staff, no professors, no curriculum, and no classes. But it did have hundreds of foreign “students,” who may now face deportation because of their willingness to participate in what authorities described as a “pay to stay” scheme in which they could live and work in the US under false Read More…
Amazon.com Inc. will use robots to deliver packages in the suburbs north of Seattle, its latest experiment to automate the last-mile of delivery that’s a labor-intensive and costly component of buying products online. The e-commerce giant on Wednesday announced a trial of “Amazon Scout,” autonomous delivery devices the size of a cooler that roll along Read More…
Ivana Polk could not believe what she was hearing. At 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, she put her 5-year-old son, Ibn, on the bus to Linden Hill Elementary School in Pike Creek. At 3:10 p.m., she got a call from the school district informing her that Ibn never made it to class. He had been stuck on Read More…
Are you there, Pope Francis? It’s me … The Holy Father launched an app called “Click to Pray” on Sunday that’ll allow the world’s 1.3 billion Roman Catholics to join him in prayer. The pontiff has a profile on the Android and iOS app that shows Catholics around the globe what he’s currently praying for. Read More…
A Chinese investigation says the scientist behind the birth of two babies whose genes had been edited in hopes of making them resistant to the AIDS virus acted on his own ‘for personal fame and profit’ and will be punished for violating regulations. Confirming the births, the official Xinhua News Agency said Monday that investigators in Read More…
(CNN)Several water fountains were shut down at a Cleveland airport after passengers aboard a Frontier Airlines flight became sick, airport officials said. At least six passengers who traveled on Tampa-bound Frontier Airlines Flight 1397 on Tuesday fell ill after leaving Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. The passengers, who were not traveling as a group, were Read More…
Taliban fighters killed more than 20 Afghan security forces in simultaneous raids on a provincial capital and district in northern Afghanistan, an official said Tuesday, as the city braced for further violence. Hundreds of militants were outside Sar-e-Pul city, which provincial governor spokesman Zabihullah Amani said was at risk of falling to the Taliban if Read More…
PORT ORCHARD, Wash. — A woman accused of drunken driving and jailed really had suffered a stroke, and despite multiple contacts with police and corrections officers, she went days without medical attention. Carol Carlson, 64, of Edmonds, Washington, drove to the Kingston ferry terminal on a Monday morning in December 2017. Washington State Patrol troopers Read More…
Teton County commissioners narrowly approved a new way for Grand Targhee Resort to offset its environmental impacts, allowing the resort to reduce its obligation for conserving land in exchange for paying into a creek restoration project. The compromise that commissioners approved last week on a 3-2 vote will require Targhee to contribute $100,000 up front Read More…
Thousands of Amazon workers across Europe were striking and protesting on Black Friday in anger at the company’s warehouse working conditions. Strikes were taking place across Amazon sites in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany. The Italian press reported that managers were having to pack boxes to meet demand. In the UK, the GMB trade union Read More…
CHICO, Calif. – Days after his boss generated controversy for suggesting poor forest management is to blame for California’s latest wildfires, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is pledging President Trump’s “full support” to help the torched state recover. But the former Montana lawmaker is still insisting forest management is key to curbing future disasters. “I don’t Read More…
U.S. businesses added 250,000 jobs in October, the Labor Department said on Friday—a blowout number that surpassed Wall Street’s expectation. The monthly average job creation now stands at about 180,000 for the last three months. That incorporates revised data for September, which saw an unusually low jobs figure thanks to Hurricane Florence. Wages jumped. Average monthly earnings Read More…
WASHINGTON – The Justice Department has been referred an investigation into Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, raising the possibility for criminal charges, according to the Washington Post and CNN. The probe was one of several the Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General had opened into allegations that Zinke, who heads the agency, used his office for personal Read More…
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – Another NASA space telescope has shut down and halted science observations. Less than a week after the Hubble Space Telescope went offline, the Chandra X-ray Observatory did the same thing. NASA said Friday that Chandra’s automatically went into so-called safe mode Wednesday, possibly because of a gyroscope problem. Hubble went Read More…
By Andrew J. Tobias, cleveland.com atobias@cleveland.com CLEVELAND, Ohio — Although the 2018 election isn’t yet over, a potential 2020 Democratic contender nonetheless made a political pilgrimage to Ohio on Thursday. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock traveled to Cleveland to lend his support to Richard Cordray, the Democratic Ohio governor candidate. Bullock and former Rep. Betty Sutton, Read More…
President Donald Trump has withdrawn ex-CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance, in a move hitting one of the administration’s most vocal critics. The action, announced Wednesday by press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, appears to be more of a political than practical move. Brennan and most other prominent former White House officials do not use their Read More…
A Forbes report alleging Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross “grifted” more than $120 million from former business partners has been widely slammed for relying heavily on anonymous sources and being laced with “petty” accusations, raising questions of whether the magazine’s Chinese owners were ultimately bashing Ross for his tough pro-American stance in trade talks with Beijing. Read More…
WikiLeaks is claiming that the Senate Intelligence Committee has asked its founder, Julian Assange, to testify as part of the panel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The organization posted a letter on its Twitter account dated Aug. 1 that purports to come from committee leaders Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark Read More…
Barnes & Noble is cashing in on anxiety. The bookstore chain said in a press release on Wednesday that sales of books related to anxiety are up 26% year-over-year compared to last June. The bestselling books in the category include workbooks, toolkits, and self-help books about managing anxiety. “The Anxiety category has really popped in Read More…
In the age of social media and the internet, instant digital connectivity can paradoxically make us feel very isolated. “People are a lot lonelier than we realize,” said Alison Darcy, the founder and CEO of Woebot, a virtual therapist that will talk you through a panic attack at 3 a.m. Woebot is among multiple new Read More…
MGM Resorts International has filed federal lawsuits against more than 1,000 Las Vegas mass shooting victims in an effort to avoid liability. The company, which owns Mandalay Bay and the Route 91 Harvest festival venue, argues that it cannot be held liable for Oct. 1 deaths, injuries or other damages, adding that any claims against Read More…
An emergency descent by an Air China aircraft after cabin oxygen levels dropped has been linked to a co-pilot smoking an e-cigarette during the flight, state media said on Friday. The state-backed Air China Boeing 737 aircraft was flying to the Chinese city of Dalian from Hong Kong when it went down to 10,000 feet Read More…
Smugglers are using video cameras and small drones to spot vulnerabilities along the U.S.-Mexico border, and the Department of Homeland Security is struggling to stop them. Reports of unmanned aircraft flying along the Southwest border have spiked in recent months, with more than three dozen sightings since October, when the current fiscal year began. That Read More…
Tax preparation company Avalara soared as much as 33 percent Thursday after a historic Supreme Court decision on collecting sales tax from e-commerce. The stock later pared its gains, but still ended the session 13 percent higher at $51.04. READ THE FULL STORY.