A rumor that NBC News projected Elizabeth Warren as the winner of the race for Massachusetts’ open Senate seat went viral on Twitter Tuesday evening, duping some news sites into publishing stories about the news. NBC News hadn’t projected her to be victorious at the time of the rumor, which came about at approximately 9…
Tag: US & World
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Bizarre Creature Found in 200-Million-Year-Old Cocoon
by Staff •
About 200 million years ago, a leech released a slimy mucous cocoon that unwittingly encased and trapped a bizarre animal with a springy tail, preserving it until researchers discovered the teardrop-shaped creature in Antarctica recently. The cocoon looks like those produced by living leeches, such as the medicinal leech Hirudo medicinalis. Encased inside was a…
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Watch Felix Baumgartner Jump From Space Live
by Staff •
UPDATE: Watch NOW: Supersonic Freefall From Space [LIVE VIDEO] Today, Felix Baumgartner will try to do something no other human has done before: He will jump from a height of 22 miles, breaking the world record for highest altitude free fall. Baumgartner’s suit and support crew are equipped with more than 30 cameras, so every…
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Open-Source Everything: The Moral of the Healthcare.gov Debacle
by Staff •
Right as the U.S. government shut down on Oct. 1, the new national health-care exchange went live at healthcare.gov. Intended for people who want to buy health insurance under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, the website failed from the start. It was unusable to hundreds of thousands of Americans who wanted to enroll.…
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Police Won’t Take Explicit Photos of Teen’s Penis in Sexting Case
by Staff •
Image: Mashable McLEAN, Va. — Police in Virginia said Thursday that they no longer will pursue efforts to take sexually explicit photos of a 17-year-old in an effort to prove a sexting case against him. Police and prosecutors faced a wave of criticism following media reports that they had obtained a warrant to take photos…
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Rare ‘Sea Serpent’ Caught on Video
by Staff •
The giant oarfish is the longest bony fish in the world, measuring — according to some reports — about 56 feet from tip to tail, although recorded lengths are somewhat more modest. Its size and its snake-like shape suggest that it may have been the source of at least some legends of sea serpents. In…
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New Fears About Ebola Spread After Plane Scare
by Staff •
Medical personnel inside a clinic taking care of Ebola patients in Sierra Leone on July 27, 2014. Image: Youssouf Bah/Associated Press DAKAR, Senegal — No one knows for sure just how many people Patrick Sawyer came into contact with the day he boarded a flight in Liberia, had a stopover in Ghana, changed planes in…
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Bachelor Party Unearths 3-Million-Year-Old Elephant Fossil
by Staff •
An archaeological team sets the stegomastodon head right side up in Elephant Butte State Park outside Albuquerque, New Mexico.Image: New Mexico Museum of Natural History Randall Gann Most bachelor parties are hazy memories of booze-addled debauchery. But one group of guys stumbled onto something lasting longer than a hangover. The men were hiking through Elephant…
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NYC Is Turning Payphones Into Wi-Fi Hotspots
by Staff •
Payphones in New York City have largely been made obsolete by the fact that almost everybody’s got a cellphone for staying in touch on-the-go. Luckily for the long-forgotten phones that still dot the city’s streets, they’re about to get a twenty-first-century upgrade. New York City’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications introduced on Wednesday the…
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Supreme Court’s Angry Email Solution: Justices Only Send Each Other Paper Memos
by Staff •
Here’s another one to add to the charming Elena Kagan anecdote file providing a wonderful glimpse into how the least transparent of the three branches of government operates. Speaking during an interview at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C., Wednesday night, Supreme Court Associate Justice Kagan elaborated…
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Amid Uproar Over NSA, Malaysia Wants to Expand Its Spying Powers
by Staff •
The spying scandal roiling the National Security Agency in the U.S. may turn out to provide great air cover for other countries wanting to expand electronic surveillance. Take the Malaysian government. The official in charge of fighting graft in the Southeast Asian nation says that the government may soon use phone tapping and Internet monitoring…
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Tumblr to Live-GIF Presidential Debates
by Staff •
Tumblr — home of the blogger and land of the .GIF — is planning a unique, true-to-style approach to covering the upcoming presidential debates: it’s live-GIFing them. That’s right: As potentially viral moments happen on stage, Tumblr’s team — along with a reporter from The Guardian — will be turning debate video into GIFs at…
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Romney or Obama? Predict the Election With Fox News’ iPad App
by Staff •
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President Obama Rocked a Tan Suit, So Twitter Went Nuts
by Staff •
US President Barack Obama holds a press conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, DC, August 28, 2014. Image: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images President Obama, likely knowing full well that stricter fashion rules go into place following Labor Day, wore a tan suit to a press conference on Thursday. The…
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Mitt Romney Sees Sudden Unexplained Spike in Twitter Followers
by Staff •
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Twitter account saw two sudden and massive spikes in new followers over the weekend. The spikes were first noticed by Zach Green of 140elect.com, a blog which monitors Twitter trends relating to the 2012 presidential election. According to Green’s data, Romney “was gaining around 3000-4000 new followers per day for…
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Romney Reveals Space Exploration Plans
by Staff •
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has unveiled his plans for the future of NASA and American space exploration, unleashing a blistering attack on President Barack Obama in the process. In a policy paper released on Sept. 22, Romney and running mate Paul Ryan pledge to secure the nation’s global leadership position in space, which, they…
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Facebook to FTC: Let Us Advertise to Children
by Staff •
The Federal Trade Commission is considering an update to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a 1998 bill designed to protect children’s online privacy. Most of COPPA’s regulations are geared toward websites specifically designed for children under 13, such as Club Penguin. COPPA’s also the reason that children under 13 can’t sign up for…
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U.S. sends 6 Guantanamo Bay prisoners to Uruguay to be resettled as refugees
by Staff •
The U.S. government said on Sunday Dec. 7, 2014 that six men who have been held more than 12 years at Guantanamo Bay have been sent to Uruguay to be resettled as refugees. Image: Brennan Linsley/Associated Press MIAMI — Six prisoners held for 12 years at Guantanamo Bay have been sent to Uruguay to be…
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Huge Asteroid Cruises Past Earth
by Staff •
An asteroid wider than nine ocean liners sailed safely past Earth today (May 31), making its closest flyby of our planet for at least the next 200 years. Asteroid 1998 QE2, which is about 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers) wide, cruised within 3.6 million miles (5.8 million km) of Earth at 4:59 p.m. EDT (2059 GMT)…
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How Victory in the Scottish Vote is Tearing the UK Apart
by Staff •
British Prime Minister David Cameron addressed a press conference in Aberdeen, Scotland on September 15, ahead of the referendum on Scotland’s independence. Image: BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty Images At the end of the movie Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, when it looks like our hero has the upper hand, he lets his adversary Moriarty get a…