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…
Two travelers visiting Hawaii from Louisiana were arrested on Friday and accused of offering a Honolulu airport screener $3,000 to let them pass without quarantining or providing the negative coronavirus tests required for entry, officials say. Johntrell White, 29, and Nadia Bailey, 28, were charged with bribery and flown back to the mainland. The two allegedly flew Read More…
The first U.K. houses where appliances including boilers, stoves and ovens are fueled exclusively by hydrogen are due to be opened by April, with authorities hoping the buildings will provide the public with “a glimpse into the potential home of the future.” The project to develop the two semi-detached properties has received £250,000 (around $347,175) Read More…
Millions of people in Texas remain without power as a bitter cold snap prompted record-breaking wintertime energy demand for the region, all while dozens of gigawatts of power were unavailable. More than 4 million people in the state still don’t have power as of Tuesday morning, according to online tracker poweroutage.us. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, the Texas Read More…
A New York judge issued a restraining order Friday afternoon that prohibits the state from imposing its 10 p.m. curfew on dozens of restaurants in Erie and Monroe counties. The order, which took effect immediately, comes 10 days after about 90 Erie County establishments filed a lawsuit challenging a Cuomo administration order that directs establishments to Read More…
SEATTLE (Reuters) – Freed from his daily obligations at Amazon.com Inc, Jeff Bezos is expected to turn up the heat on his space venture, Blue Origin, as it faces a pivotal year and fierce competition from Elon Musk’s SpaceX, industry sources said. The 57-year-old Bezos, a lifelong space enthusiast and the world’s second-richest person behind Read More…
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Thursday that she and financial market regulators needed to “understand deeply” what happened in the trading frenzy involving GameStop Corp and other retail stocks in recent days before taking any action. READ FULL STORY
Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Americans on Wednesday that large Super Bowl parties could turn into “super-spreader” events for COVID-19. During an interview on the Today show, the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden and the director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases urged football fans to keep gatherings small for Sunday’s game. Read More…
Jalina Porter, who has been named deputy spokesperson for the U.S. State Department under President Biden, once wrote that the largest threat to U.S. national security may be a domestic one. In a 2016 Facebook post, Porter wrote that U.S. cops posed the largest national security threat, greater than that of both Russian hackers and ISIS, because of killings Read More…
New York’s nursing-home death toll from COVID-19 may be more than 50 percent higher than officials claim — because Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration hasn’t revealed how many of those residents died in hospitals, state Attorney General Letitia James announced Thursday. In a damning, 76-page report, James also said that some unidentified nursing homes apparently underreported resident fatalities to the state Department of Read More…
DETROIT — General Motors wants to end production of all diesel- and gasoline-powered cars, trucks and SUVs by 2035 and shift its entire new fleet to electric vehicles as part of a broader plan to become carbon neutral by 2040, the company said Thursday. The company plans to use 100% renewable energy to power its U.S. Read More…
In a report released by the Florida Museum of Natural History, 10 people were killed by sharks worldwide in 2020, which is the highest number since 2013. According to the International Shark Attack File, there were 13 shark-related fatalities in 2020, 10 of which were confirmed to be unprovoked. Six of those fatalities happened in Read More…
A New York Times editor lost her job after receiving criticism for tweeting about her excitement for President Joe Biden’s inauguration. Journalist Yashar Ali broke the news of Lauren Wolfe’s departure from The Times in a series of tweets last Thursday, saying that she had been let go from her editing job at The Times for tweeting about Read More…
Robert Kraft’s legal issues in Florida seem to finally be behind him for good. A federal judge in Florida ordered on Friday that a video allegedly showing the New England Patriots owner paying for sex at a massage parlor be destroyed, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. U.S. District Judge Rodolfo A. Ruiz II ruled that any videos Read More…
(The Center Square) – California, the state that has led population growth nationally for the last 170 years, reported a population loss under Gov. Gavin Newsom for the first time since 1850, according to newly published Census Bureau data. Until 2020, California had gained population in every year since 1900. Increasing taxes, restrictive policies on Read More…
The new $1.9 trillion ‘rescue plan’ introduced by President-elect Joe Biden includes an additional $1,400 in direct payment to Americans. “We will finish the job of getting a total of $2,000 in cash relief to people who need it the most,” Biden said at an event in Delaware on Thursday evening. “The $600 already appropriated is simply Read More…
(CNN) — They’re watching you, wherever you walk. They know exactly where you pause, when you slow down and speed up, and they count you in and out of the city. What’s more, they’re tracking your phone, so they can tell exactly how many people from your country or region are in which area, at which Read More…
Travelers will have a new nonstop route this summer to fly between Las Vegas and Wyoming. Allegiant Air will kick off a new nonstop route from Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, starting June 4. To mark the new route, Allegiant is offering one-way rates starting at $49. “We’re thrilled to announce Read More…
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. – A Kansas woman was executed Wednesday for strangling an expectant mother in Missouri and cutting the baby from her womb, the first time in nearly seven decades that the U.S. government has put to death a female inmate. Lisa Montgomery, 52, was pronounced dead at 1:31 a.m. after receiving a lethal injection at the federal Read More…
Sheldon Adelson, who rose from selling newspapers on Boston street corners at age 12 to one of the most successful luxury resort developers, philanthropists and political influencers of his generation, died Monday night at his home in Malibu, California. He was 87. Adelson founded and served as chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp., Read More…
Free speech advocates are striking out in their legal challenges to revenge porn laws. The Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously upheld a law that bars displaying intimate images or video of another person, either nude or engaged in sexual acts, without the subject’s consent. A lower court had thrown out the state’s non-consensual porn Read More…
Bruce Burnworth used to clip coupons and look for deals before his investment in Tesla Inc. made him a millionaire. He is part of a widening class of affluent Americans who are doubling, or even tripling, down on this year’s highflying stock market. The S&P 500 has soared 66% since bottoming in March in the early days Read More…
For years, California and other states have collected detailed personal data from those getting immunizations to ensure children received the required shots. With the rollout of coronavirus vaccines, experts say the collection of names, addresses, birth dates and other information will be vital to tracking the safety and effectiveness of products that were developed in Read More…
SEOUL—The star of the younger sister of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un has risen so fast and high in the country’s ruling firmament in 2020 as to make her appear as a stand-in for big brother if not his rival for power. At 32, four years younger than Jong Un, Kim Yo Jong has made her Read More…
An autopsy has confirmed a man who died after a medical emergency mid-flight last week had COVID-19 and it likely caused his death. The 69-year-old man, identified by the coroner as Isais Hernandez, and his wife were on a United Airlines flight from Orlando to Los Angeles on December 14 when he had a medical emergency. The plane made Read More…
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech will supply 100 million more doses of their coronavirus vaccine to the United States by this summer after protracted negotiations over how much the companies could deliver, given their commitments to other nations. The $1.95 billion agreement doubles the overall U.S. order for the vaccine to 200 million doses. Read More…
A Wendy’s employee in St. Louis was shot early on Tuesday morning, reportedly after an argument with a customer over dipping sauce. According to St. Louis’ FOX2, a man in a dark-colored Nissan came through the drive-thru at around 1 a.m. He reportedly asked for extra dipping sauce and was denied, which led to an argument Read More…
Entertainment legend Alan Horn is scaling back his duties with Disney company. The 77-year-old executive is stepping down as co-chairman of Walt Disney Studios, but will remain on as the company’s chief creative officer. His partner, Alan Bergman, will run Disney’s studio content as the sole chariman, effective Jan. 1. These executive shifts come less than two Read More…
Amazon said it is closing a warehouse in New Jersey until Dec. 26 after an increase of asymptomatic coronavirus cases was detected through the company’s in-house testing program. An Amazon spokesperson said workers will be paid for all shifts they miss and the company is not expecting any delivery delays as a result of the temporary Read More…
Around 2013, U.S. intelligence began noticing an alarming pattern: Undercover CIA personnel, flying into countries in Africa and Europe for sensitive work, were being rapidly and successfully identified by Chinese intelligence, according to three former U.S. officials. The surveillance by Chinese operatives began in some cases as soon as the CIA officers had cleared passport Read More…
A Virginia man who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2018 and admitted to being a pedophile and white supremacist was arrested for kidnapping a 12-year-old girl, according to local authorities. Nathan Daniel Larson, 40, was arrested last week in Denver during a flight layover from Fresno, California, according to the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department. Larson was on Read More…
President-elect Joe Biden has named several key appointments to his health team, including the nomination of Xavier Becerra to the role of Secretary of Health and Human Services. If confirmed, Becerra will be the first Latino to hold the position. Becerra comes to the Department of Health and Human Services as the 33rd attorney general of California and the Read More…
Recently, there has been much debate about whether billionaires should exist, an idea popularized by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But to former Alphabet executive chairman and investor Eric Schmidt, who is worth more than $17 billion, the idea that extreme wealth is a moral failure is reductive. “We would probably all be better off spending more time understanding Read More…
The city of Fairbanks has petitioned the United States Supreme Court to review a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision allowing the Fairbanks Four to sue the city for wrongful imprisonment. The decision… READ FULL STORY
Dustin Johnson may be the champion of the moment, but the golfer’s future father-in-law knows more than a thing or two about winning. Wayne Gretzky — known to hockey fans as The Great One — is an NHL icon, winning four Stanley Cups during his illustrious career. He’s also the father of Paulina Gretzky, who Read More…
LIMA, Peru — Peru’s political crisis appeared on the verge of resolution Monday as Congress cleared the way for an elder statesman and consensus candidate to become the country’s third president in a week. People waved the nation’s red-and-white flag and blared horns outside the gates of Congress as Francisco Sagasti of the centrist Purple Read More…
President Donald Trump visited Arlington National Ceremony on Wednesday as part of a Veterans Day ceremony. Trump laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in an act that has become a Veterans Day and Memorial Day tradition for presidents in the years since the remains of several unidentified U.S. soldiers who fought in Read More…
Retirement savers appear to be taking advantage of relaxed rules around 401(k) withdrawals during the coronavirus pandemic. The typical 401(k) investor pulled $12,000 from their account in the form of a “coronavirus-related distribution,” according to a new Vanguard analysis of its client data. This figure represents the median withdrawal — in other words, the amount right in the middle Read More…
The former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, is finalizing a plan to become a citizen of the island of Cyprus, Recode has learned, becoming one of the highest-profile Americans to take advantage of one of the world’s most controversial “passport-for-sale” programs. Schmidt, one of America’s wealthiest people, and his family have won approval to become Read More…
After an evening of peaceful protests in the wake of the police killing of Walter Wallace Jr., tensions flared between officers and demonstrators Tuesday evening, and scattered looting broke out in several areas of the city, prompting police to request that residents of West and North Philadelphia, Kensington, and other areas remain indoors. Police and demonstrators Read More…
A court document containing detailed information about Ghislaine Maxwell and her relationship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unsealed on Thursday morning in New York just moments before a court-imposed deadline. This document, an April 2016 deposition, is among about a dozen long-awaited Maxwell files that have been unsealed, with the first filing involving Epstein accuser Virginia Read More…