Photo Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, after a Republican caucus at the Capitol on Tuesday. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times WASHINGTON — The Senate voted on Thursday to extend American sanctions against Iran for a decade, sending to President Obama a measure that supporters said would help ensure that the United States could fully respond if Iran were to violate its obligations under the nuclear […]
Tomaso Poggio, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT and director of the Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines, has long thought that the brain must produce “invariant” representations of faces and other objects, meaning representations that are indifferent to objects’ orientation in space, their distance from the viewer, or their location in the visual field. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT researchers and their […]
Photo Tiger Woods watched his tee shot on the third hole on Thursday at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas. Credit Lynne Sladky/Associated Press NASSAU, the Bahamas — As he made his way to the first tee for his first competitive shot in 466 days, Tiger Woods breezed right by the Golf Channel reporter Notah Begay, his former Stanford teammate and good friend. His focus before […]
In this Feb. 25, 2014 file photo, theSamsung Galaxy S5 is displayed at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2014. Leading tech companies are increasingly nudging consumers to use their own fingers, faces and eyes as digital key to unlock phones and other gadgets. But there are downsides: Hackers could still steal your fingerprint, or its digital representation. And police may have broader […]
Pursglove would soon learn, however, that navigating this offshore archipelago is not easy. In any given year, trillions of dollars sit safely in the offshore financial world, effectively stateless, protected by legions of well-compensated defenders and a tangle of laws deliberately designed to impede creditors and tax collectors. Even the United States government finds it challenging: A special Internal Revenue Service division known as the “wealth squad,” […]
Photo Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, center, was greeted by fellow Fatah members on the second day of the Fatah party conference, in Ramallah, the West Bank, on Wednesday. Credit Majdi Mohammed/Associated Press RAMALLAH, West Bank — Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority that operates in the West Bank, proposed on Wednesday the creation of a temporary unity government along with Hamas, […]
PITTSBURGH // You probably don’t know his name, but you’ve almost certainly devoured his creation: two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions on a sesame seed bun. Michael James “Jim” Delligatti, the McDonald’s franchisee who created the Big Mac nearly 50 years ago and saw it become perhaps the best-known burger in the world, died on Monday at home in Pittsburgh. Delligatti, who according […]
While this should come as a shock to precisely no one other than some disaffected Hillary supporters who were hoping for a miracle, Jill Stein’s request for a full “hand recount” in the state of Wisconsin has officially been denied by Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn. According to the StarTribune, the request was denied after the judge found that Stein failed to show any mistakes or […]
Salvatore Ferragamo is often mistaken for his iconic fashion designer grandfather and founder of the Salvatore Ferragamo fashion brand, who became known after his shoes because a must-have in Hollywood for actresses such as Katherine Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. Eighty-nine years later, Ferragamo’s grandson is nowhere near the fashion house. Instead, he heads the family’s $680m hospitality estate in Tuscany, Il Borro. The 700 hectares historic hillside […]
Photo Khalid al-Falih, center, the Saudi energy minister, at the OPEC meeting in Vienna on Wednesday. Credit Christian Bruna/European Pressphoto Agency VIENNA — After years of trying fruitlessly to prop up energy markets, OPEC on Wednesday finally reached a consensus on production cuts, sending oil prices soaring. The problem is, the euphoria may not last. With prices still at less than half the levels of two years […]
In this Wednesday, June 22, 2016, file photo, a driver uses her mobile phone while sitting in traffic in Sacramento, Calif. The government wants smartphone makers to lock out most apps when the phone is being used by someone driving a car. The voluntary guidelines unveiled Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2016, are designed to reduce crashes caused by drivers distracted by phones. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File) The government […]
Photo Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2015. In a four-page letter posted on his personal website, the prince argued that “it is high time that Saudi women started driving their cars.” Credit Fayez Nureldine/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images A prominent Saudi prince and business magnate has added his voice to the debate over women’s rights in his country, urging it to abandon its […]
SHARJAH // Soldiers, students, police and taxi drivers were just some of those calling into the Sharjah Blood Transfusion and Research Centre in the build up to National Day celebrations to give blood to those who need it most. The centre extended its opening hours from 8am to 8pm for the public holiday to encourage more people to visit the clinic and top up the nation’s blood […]
Toyota Motor Corp. engineer Hisao Yamashige speaks to reporters at the Japanese automaker’s Tokyo office Thursday, Nov. 24, 2016. Toyota says it has developed a new way of observing the movements of tiny particles in a battery used to power electric vehicles—an advance it says will help boost their cruise range by 10 percent to 15 percent. Yamashige explained to reporters the complex method for tracking the […]
/By Maxwell Wessel/The term “big data” is ubiquitous. With exabytes of information flowing across broadband pipes, companies compete to claim the biggest, most audacious data sets. And businesses of all varieties — old and new, industrial and digital, big and small — are getting into the game. Masses of social, weather, and government data are being leveraged to predict supply chain outages. Enormous amounts of user data are being […]
Photo Yoenis Cespedes, who helped the Mets reach the wild-card game in 2016, agreed to a four-year, $110 million deal. Credit Al Bello/Getty Images This was the test, the proving ground for the Mets as annual playoff contenders. At some point, they would have to take a risk to keep their new identity. By agreeing to a reported four-year, $110 million contract extension with Yoenis Cespedes on […]
Submitted by Kelli Sladick via Tenth Amendment Center, During the last eight years, the Obama administration failed to live up to its promise reverse the Bush era’s mass surveillance of American citizens. In fact, it was expanded and justified. If you were silent, the sweeping power controlled by the president may not be on your radar for the right reasons. While there is a deep fear resonating, […]
Photo Mahmoud Abbas, third from right, the Palestinian Authority president, at a Fatah party conference on Tuesday in Ramallah, West Bank. Credit Presidential Office, via Reuters RAMALLAH, West Bank — Under fire at home and abroad, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority moved on Tuesday to solidify his decade-long hold on power with a party conference that had already been purged of most of his opponents. […]
Replicas of R$100,00 banknotes are hung on a clothesline during a protest of the national union of prosecutors against money laundering in Brazil, at the Esplanade of Ministries in Brasilia March 18, 2015 (Reuters/Ueslei Marcelino). The Brazilian Federal Revenue Secretariat (SRF) has some good news to cheer: a big haul of fines and taxes from assets held offshore by Brazilians. The deadline for filing under Brazil’s equivalent […]
Motivated by public hazards associated with contaminated sources of drinking water, a team of scientists has successfully developed and tested tiny, glowing crystals that can detect and trap heavy-metal toxins like mercury and lead. (via WSJ)
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The ferocious ground assault and aerial bombardment in eastern Aleppo has forced some 16,000 people to flee for their lives in the last few days, according to Stephen O’Brien, the United Nations under secretary general for humanitarian affairs. “The parties to the conflict have shown time and again they are willing to take any action to secure military advantage even if it means killing, […]
Tullett Prebon will formally separate the 1,500 voice brokers it is buying from ICAP on January 1, setting what were once two long-time rivals in the over-the-counter markets on radically different paths. Last Thursday Tullett received approval for the deal from German regulators, the final significant hurdle of more than 30 regulatory permissions it needed, according to three people familiar with the process. The sign-off was important as […]
Video ‘The Priority: Saving Lives’ A chartered plane carrying 81 people, including a soccer team from Brazil, crashed on the outskirts of Medellin, Colombia, killing most on board. By YARA BISHARA on Publish Date November 29, 2016. Photo by Luis Benavides/Associated Press. Watch in Times Video » A chartered plane carrying 81 people, including members of a Brazilian soccer team that had made a stunning climb up […]
An employee of a foreign exchange trading company works near monitors showing U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaking on TV news (top) in Tokyo, Japan, November 9, 2016. (Toru Hanai/Reuters). With Donald Trump’s victory, the prospects for digital trade have dimmed. This development owes much to the hostility towards trade that Trump brings to the presidency. But it also involves shifts more fundamental than Trump’s rejection of trade […]
