DC legalizes pot, ignoring House Republicans

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser defied congressional Republicans and implemented D.C.'s new local law allowing its residents to smoke marijuana. In implementing the new pot laws that went into effect Thursday, Bowser rebuffed two influential House Republicans who'd warned her that she'd be breaking federal law -- and risking retribution.

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Vince Li, Greyhound bus killer, granted unsupervised passes to Winnipeg

The man who beheaded a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus in Manitoba in 2008 has been granted more freedoms from the hospital where he is living, this time in the form of unsupervised day passes to visit Winnipeg. Tim McLean, 22, was stabbed and beheaded by Li aboard a Greyhound bus near Portage La Prairie, Man., on July 30, 2008. The Manitoba Review Board, which released its decision on Friday afternoon, also said it may consider eventually allowing Li to live in a group home.

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Sony Accidentally Erases List of Anniversary PS4 Winners

Sony in Japan has accidentally erased the list of all 123 winners of its PlayStation 4 Anniversary Edition contest, meaning it will need to restart the competition. The corporation has offered its "deepest apologies," after determining that all data of the winning contestants is irretrievable. "Our deepest apologies for the trouble we have caused to those who entered the previous campaign," Sony wrote on its website, as translated by Kotaku.

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Prince Harry to quit the Army later this year

Prince Harry is to leave the armed forces this year, the Evening Standard can reveal today. He has taken the decision to end his active military career after having served two tours of duty on the front line in Afghanistan with distinction. Harry, 30, plans to focus on his charity work and aims to spend “a significant period abroad” on field projects in Africa.

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China’s Great Firewall is demolishing foreign websites

Craig Hockenberry noticed something strange was happening to his website one morning last month: traffic had suddenly spiked to extremely high levels—equivalent to more than double the amount of data transmitted when Kim Kardashian’s naked photos were published last year. The reason, he discovered, was that Chinas Great Firewall—the elaborate machinery that China’s government uses to censor the internet—was redirecting enormous amounts of bogus traffic to his site quickly swamping his servers.

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Anthony Mason, bruising ex-Knicks forward, dead at 48

Anthony Mason, who died Saturday morning, played 13 seasons in the NBA with six teams but is best remembered for his days with the Knicks.

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Happy Christmas! Stolen Picasso posted to New York by FedEx

It appeared to be a mundane parcel like scores of others lovingly posted across the ocean in the run-up to the holiday season: a package labelled “art craft/toy” with a value put at $37 (£24) and the message “Happy Christmas”. But when US customs officers examined the contents, they found a stolen Picasso painting worth at least $2.5m, which had been lost for 14 years. The 1911 Cubist masterwork, La Coiffeuse (The Hairdresser), had been registered missing from...

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Official: it’s the brand new Audi R8

The fastest and most powerful production Audi of all time has landed. Meet the 602bhp R8 V10.

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First Black NBA Player Passes Away

Earl Lloyd, the first black professional NBA player, passed away Thursday at the age of 86. Known as “the Big Cat,” the 6’5″ forward made his league debut in October 1950, playing for the Washington Capitals. During his legendary career, Lloyd averaged 8.4 points during 560 regular-season NBA games. Lloyd was also twice included in the CIAA All-America team and was three-time all-conference selection. Lloyd retired in 1960, after serving in the U.S. army, playing for...

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Indiana may install 'baby boxes' for abandoned infants

A 2-foot-long metal box is Indiana's attempt to save newborn infants from dangerous abandonment and possible death. The proposed baby box is an answer to the state's problem of unwanted infants who are abandoned in the woods, creeks and dumpsters. Local officials want to put these boxes in local hospitals, fire stations, churches and nonprofits for parents to use as a safe, anonymous last resort.

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China draft counterterror law strikes fear in foreign tech firms

China is weighing a far-reaching counterterrorism law that would require technology firms to hand over encryption keys and install security "backdoors", a potential escalation of what some firms view as the increasingly onerous terms of doing business in the world's second largest economy. A parliamentary body read a second draft of the country's first anti-terrorism law this week and is expected to adopt the legislation in the coming weeks or months.

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Graffiti artist Banksy highlights condition of people living in Gaza

The elusive graffiti artist Banksy has reemerged among Palestinian ruins to give his instantly recognizable stenciling style a meaningful backdrop. A politically charged travelogue of a war-ravaged neighborhood appeared on his YouTube channel late Wednesday with the title "Make this the year YOU discover a new destination.” The footage shows Palestinian civilians standing among the devastation of war as darkly satirical captions appear.

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Wall Street Journal Upset That Wall Street Isn't Upset About Net Neutrality

A few weeks ago, after it was more or less confirmed that the FCC was going forward with full Title II reclassification of broadband, we noted that the stocks of the big broadband companies actually went up suggesting that Wall Street actually knows that reclassification won't really impact broadband companies, despite what they've been saying publicly. Perhaps this is partly because those same companies have been telling Wall Street that the rule change won't have an impact.

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Weed Vending Machines Have Hit the U.S.

This month, Washington state’s legalization of recreational marijuana seemingly reached its logical conclusion with the installation of the state’s first weed vending machine in Seattle. In abstract, the device (which is also Bitcoin-compatible, just for added zeitgeist-y value) sounds like a terrible idea, prone to the sort of general abuse that could set back the tide of legalization that’s been sweeping the country.

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The remote Alaskan village that needs to be relocated due to climate change

This is a project that has been in the works for a while now, but funding is an issue (most of Alaska's income is from oil, which is down right now). Another issue is the fact that this is relatively unprecedented. There is no 'Depertment of Relocating Villages' to take charge of this project.

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Toronto Police Try To Uncover Riddle Of Mystery Tunnel

Police in Toronto are asking for the public's help to solve the riddle of a mysterious tunnel discovered more than a month ago. Investigations have so far been unable to determine who built the tunnel or its purpose, but its discovery has fueled security concerns ahead of the Pan American and Parapan American Games in Canada this summer.

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Marco Rubio Tries To Lecture Obama On ISIS, Commits Epic Error

Rubio says Obama doesn't want to fight ISIS because that would upset Iran.

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Breakthrough in understanding how cancer cells metastasize

A protein commonly found in human cells could be an important switch that activates cancer cell metastasis, according to a new study by researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital -- The Neuro at McGill University and the MUHC. The finding focuses attention on a biological mechanism that until now was largely overlooked. The discovery of the protein's effect significantly expands our understanding of epithelial cancers such as breast and lung cancer.

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Life in Prison for Selling $20 of Weed

On September 5, 2008, Fate Vincent Winslow watched a plainclothes stranger approach him. Homeless and hungry, on a dark street rife with crime, the 41-year-old African American was anxious to make contact, motivated by one singular need: food. Another man, this one white, stood next to Winslow. He is referred to in court documents exclusively as “Perdue.”

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Lockheed Martin's new fusion reactor might change humanity forever

This is an invention that might change civilization as we know it: A compact fusion reactor developed by Skunk Works, the stealth experimental technology division of Lockheed Martin. It's the size of a jet engine and it can power airplanes, spaceships, and cities. Skunk Works claims it will be operative in 10 years.

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Hyperloop Construction Starts Next Year With the First Full-Scale Track

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, the company that wants to move the revolutionary transit system out of Elon Musk’s brain into the real world, plans to start construction on an actual hyperloop next year. OK, it will only run five miles around central California, and it won’t come anywhere close to the 800 mph Musk promised, but it’s a start.

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Remember Leonard Nimoy with 12 great Spock moments

We take a trip down memory lane to bid a fond farewell to a sci-fi icon.

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Couple married 67 years dies holding hands

Floyd and Violet Hartwig died holding hands at the end of a marriage lasting 67 years. Their daughter, Donna Scharton, said Thursday that once the family sensed the couple was close to death, they pushed their two hospice beds together, gently joining their hands. Floyd went first, followed by Violet five hours later. They died Feb. 11 at home in Central California, as they had wished.

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Mom loses custody for alienating dad

In a stunning and unusual family law decision, a Toronto judge has stripped a mother of custody of her three children after the woman spent more than a decade trying to alienate them from their father. The mother's "consistent and overwhelming" campaign to brainwash the children into thinking their father was a bad person was nothing short of emotional abuse, Justice Faye McWatt of the Superior Court of Justice wrote in her decision.

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Bangladeshi-American blogger Avijit Roy hacked to death in Dhaka

Machete-wielding assailants hacked to death a blogger in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka, in the latest of a series of attacks on writers who support freethinking values in the Muslim-majority nation.

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Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov shot dead in Moscow

Former Kremlin insider and critic of Vladimir Putin who was due to take part in march on Sunday was reportedly killed near the Kremlin.

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Walker perceived to liken union protesters to IS

The Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference's new post-speech question-and-answer format claimed its first victim on Thursday evening.

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Facebook Will Now Reach Out To Users Who Their Friends Think Are Suicidal

"Social connectedness helps people," says Facebook, "and that's what we do best."

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'American Sniper' killer found guilty in murders

Eddie Ray Routh, the former Marine and Iraq War vet struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder, was found guilty of capital murder Tuesday night in the shooting deaths of American Sniper Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield.

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Peanut allergies? For children, the best treatment may be peanuts

It seemed like a good idea at the time: With the incidence of peanut allergy climbing among children, the American Academy of Pediatrics advised parents in 2000 to keep peanuts far away from infants and toddlers who might have a life-threatening reaction to them.

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Yemen ex-president amassed up to $60 billion, colluded with rebels

Yemeni ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh is suspected of corruptly amassing as much as $60 billion, equivalent to Yemen's annual GDP, during his long rule, and colluding in a militia takeover last year, U.N.-appointed investigators have told the Security Council. The report by the world body's Panel of Experts on Yemen echoes criticism by his opponents that Saleh's rule from 1978 to 2012 was marred by graft, and that even out of office he is fomenting instability...

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'You are not suitably dressed': Quebec judge refused to hear single mother's case because of hijab

A Quebec Court judge refused to hear the case this week of a single mother trying to retrieve her car because the woman would not remove her Muslim head scarf. “In my opinion, you are not suitably dressed,” Judge Eliana Marengo told Rania El-Alloul Tuesday, according to a courtroom recording obtained by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

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Harrison Ford to reprise role as Deckard in 'Blade Runner' sequel - CNET

The original Rick Deckard returns in a sequel to Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic. Scott will executive produce while "Prisoners" director Denis Villeneuve has been tapped to helm the new film.

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Leonard Nimoy dead at 83

Leonard Nimoy, who lived long and prospered, died Friday at his Los Angeles home.

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Meet 2 New Spider Species: 'Skeletorus' and 'Sparklemuffin'

A graduate student studying peacock spiders in Australia discovered two new species of the colorful eight-legged beasts.

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Dartmouth Scientists Show New Evidence That Comet Killed Dinosaurs, Not Asteroid

Some 66 million years ago, a giant hurtling mass killed off almost all the dinosaurs and around 70 percent of all other species living on Earth. Most scientists think that the extinction event was an asteroid. Professors Jason Moore and Mukul Sharma of the Department of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth in New Hampshire say that a high-velocity comet killed off the dinosaurs.

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Spaniards turn against domestic violence football chant

Tens of thousands of people have posted online messages of anger against Real Betis FC fans, because of a chant that seems to encourage domestic violence.

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American Sniper ballad reaches No 1 on country music chart

Tribute to Chris Kyle, recorded by his friend Pete Scobell, is released just days after man who shot him is found guilty of murder.

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Missouri Auditor and Governor Candidate Is Dead from Apparent Suicide

Tom Schweich, Missouri's Republican state auditor and a leading contender for the governor's office in next year's election, has died, according to his office. Earlier in the day, a police source said Schweich had sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The police source said Schweich's wife was in another room of their house when she heard her husband making phone calls, followed by a single gunshot.

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Why I’m Saying Goodbye to Apple, Google and Microsoft

I’m done sending my money and data to corporations I don’t trust

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KFC Introduces Edible Cookie Coffee Cups in the UK

When will they land in the U.S.?

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China 'drops US technology firms'

Some speculated that one reason for the cull was ongoing allegations from National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden about the extent of surveillance that US had been carrying out.

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Chewing Tobacco Could Be Banned In California Ballparks

Two California lawmakers are teaming up to take on a classic trapping of American baseball: chewing tobacco. At a baseball field near the state capitol, Assemblyman Tony Thurmond introduced first-in-the-nation legislation on Wednesday that would prohibit the use of smokeless tobacco—including electronic cigarettes—wherever organized baseball is being played. San Francisco supervisor Mark Farrell is slated to introduce a similar bill in the coming days...

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Disney XD To Reboot 'Ducktales' Animated Series For 2017 Launch

Disney XD is revisiting Ducktales. The network said today that it has ordered a new animated comedy series based on the Emmy-winning series that aired from 1987-1990 as part of The Disney Afternoon daily syndicated cartoon block. The new series is slated to launch in 2017. Produced by Disney Television Animation, Ducktales will again star Disney’s iconic characters Scrooge McDuck, his grandnephews Huey, Dewey and Louie, and Donald Duck.

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Ross River Fever confirmed in Queensland

Ross River fever is expected to afflict thousands of Queenslanders in coming weeks after an outbreak was confirmed in the state's south.

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US Researches claim that North Korea could have as many as 100 nuclear weapons by 2020

North Korea appears poised to expand its nuclear program over the next five years and in a worst case scenario could possess 100 atomic arms by 2020, US researchers warned today. And cutting-edge European companies could be unwittingly contributing to Pyongyang's suspect nuclear program with their equipment diverted to the isolated country via China, they said. Unveiling the first results of what will be a 15-month study, Joel Wit, senior fellow at the US-Korea...

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FCC votes to Protect the Internet With Title II Regulation

Net neutrality has won at the FCC. In a 3-to-2 vote, the Federal Communications Commission today established a new Open Internet Order that implements strict net neutrality rules

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Europe destroys last space truck to ISS

The European Space Agency (ESA) on Sunday said it had destroyed its last supply ship to the International Space Station, bringing a seven-year venture to a successful close.

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The Girl Who Gets Gifts from Birds

Lots of people love the birds in their garden, but it's rare for that affection to be reciprocated. One young girl in Seattle is luckier than most. She feeds the crows in her garden - and they bring her gifts in return.

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Lithuania restores compulsory military service

Lithuania will restore compulsory military service for young men as tensions in Ukraine continue to worry the small Baltic nation, the government said Tuesday. After a meeting of military leaders and top government officials, President Dalia Grybauskaite said the measure was necessary because of “growing aggression” in Ukraine.

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