The head of the National Security Agency Wednesday defended US surveillance programs as part of a “noble” mission to protect the nation and said reports on them were “sensationalized.” “The future of this country depends on our ability to defend against cyber attacks...
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NSA chief defends his agency’s ‘noble mission’ to defend the U.S.
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Scientists create state of matter that’s pretty much the same as light sabers
Scientists have created a state of matter that so far has been found in fictional galaxies far, far away. The joint team of physicists from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said they’d been exploring the properties of photons when they were able to coax them into binding...
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Neil deGrasse Tyson: Life in solar system most likely on other planets’ moons
Author and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson said in a video released Thursday that if humanity hopes to find other forms of life in this solar system, then our next exploratory missions should target not our interplanetary neighbors, but their moons. Going to Venus, he said, would be a terrible...
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Anti-paparazzi bill backed by Halle Berry now California law
Anti-paparazzi legislation championed by Halle Berry has been signed into California law by state governor Jerry Brown. Put forward by state senator Kevin de León, the bill sought to prevent harrassment of the children of public figures, and Berry testified before the California state assembly in...
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Ted Cruz: The GOP’s self-made monster
Over the past couple of days, as I’ve watched Ted Cruz capture the political world’s attention and drive the GOP’s self-defeating strategy on the budget and the debt limit, I’ve tried to think about what is the best metaphor to describe his extraordinary political rise –...
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Save the date: Conservative activist says Obama will be overthrown Nov. 19
A conservative activist who’s repeatedly called for the overthrow of President Barack Obama has set a date for when he thinks that might happen. Judicial Watch founder Larry Klayman wrote Monday that the president had been indicted Sept. 18 by a citizens grand jury in Ocala, Fla., and convicted by...
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Kansas school board votes to allow student-led prayer over school intercom
A school board in Kansas voted this week to allow student-led prayer at all activities, and even went as far as offering the schools’ public address systems for religious use. According to the Leader and Times, school prayer had not been on the agenda for Monday’s meeting of USD No. 480...
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Obama poster artist says drones have killed hope
The artist who created the iconic “Hope” posters during President Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign says he’d choose a different caption now. A camera crew from TMZ asked Shepard Fairey if he’d use the same word underneath his portrait of then-Sen. Obama,...
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Matt Taibbi: Wall Street hedge funds are stealing public workers’ pensions
Rolling Stone magazine’s Matt Taibbi appeared on Democracy, Now! Thursday to talk about how Wall Street hedge funds are set on sacking the pension funds of public employees. Those funds are the “last great, unguarded piles of money in this country,” he said, and naturally the top...
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Obama mocks Republican’s comparison of Obamacare to slavery
President Barack Obama appeared Thursday before a noisy and enthusiastic crowd in Largo, MD, and made fun of Republicans’ dire predictions of doom about the Affordable Care Act. He notably dinged one Republican congressman who declared that “Obamacare” is as evil and unjust a law...
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Limbaugh grumbles about women’s forum, MSNBC host Karen Finney’s ‘testicle lockboxes’
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Thursday slammed a Washington women’s forum because he said that MSNBC host Karen Finney and the other “testicle lockboxes” were attacking him. At the “Fair Shot: A Plan For Women to Get Ahead” event last week, Finney had noted...
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WATCH LIVE: Toronto mayor Rob Ford holds news conference
Toronto mayor Rob ford, who admitted smoking crack, is holding a press conference. Watch live video, courtesy of NBC News, below:
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Judge dismisses lawsuit against Google’s book digitization project
A US judge Thursday dismissed a long-running lawsuit challenging Google’s huge book digitization project, ruling that the scanning of millions of books is not copyright infringement. Judge Denny Chin dismissed the case which dates back to 2005, saying Google’s project is “fair...
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Israel bombs Gaza in response to mortar fire
Israeli warplanes bombed two separate targets in the Gaza Strip on Thursday after Palestinian militants fired projectiles across the border, the army said. The strikes in northern Gaza came just hours after witnesses reported an Israeli army incursion inside the Strip’s eastern borders, which...
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New Hampshire man shoots self in head after gun permit links him to racist graffiti
A New Hampshire man who had been accused of scrawling racist graffiti on the homes of African immigrants was hospitalized recently after shooting himself in the head. According to court records obtained by the Concord Monitor, 43-year-old tattoo artist Raymond Stevens attempted suicide last week by...
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Rep. Gohmert upset Obama’s Israel policy not based on Biblical prophecies
A tea party lawmaker cited the Bible during a speech Wednesday on the House floor criticizing the Obama administration for its treatment of Israel. “There are many who have been aware of Scripture, and it has often been a guide in our relations with Israel,” said Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX)....
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Toronto crack mayor: I’ve got ‘too much (p*ssy) to eat at home’ to proposition staffers
In what may have begun as an attempt to stem the tide of bad news out of the Toronto mayor’s office, embattled conservative Mayor Rob Ford gave a press conference on Thursday that stirred up even more controversy. Ford was answering accusations about a reportedly epic night of drug and...
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Athens to finally begin construction of first mosque after years of delay
Work is finally set to begin on Athens’ first mosque, 13 years after plans were first announced, the Greek government announced on Thursday. A Greek consortium has been chosen, the infrastructure ministry said, after five previous attempts to find a business group to lead the project failed....
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Lily Allen denies accusations that ‘Hard Out Here’ music video is racist
Lily Allen has denied accusations that her new music video is racist, insisting that Hard Out Here’s scantily clad black and Asian dancers were chosen for their twerking skills, not the colour of their skin. Criticism of Allen’s video followed almost immediately after its release on...
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Airline passengers refuse to fly after a blind man and his guide dog are removed from the plane
Airline passengers rallied around a blind man Wednesday night after he and his guide dog were removed from the plane. Albert Rizzi and his seeing eye dog tried to board a US Airways express flight from Philadelphia International Airport to Long Island, but passengers said flight attendants would...
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