| Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos takes the Ice Bucket Challenge and dares 'Star Trek' stars to go next Posted: 15 Aug 2014 12:36 PM PDT  Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is the latest to answer the call and take a bucket of ice water to the head for charity. Bezos got up on stage in front of what sounds like a pretty big audience to soak himself while standing in what appears to be an inflatable kiddie pool. Bezos, of course, has to pass the challenge on from there, and he makes his selection a bit more interesting by theming it: he's challenging Star Trek stars William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, and George Takei to take the Ice Bucket Challenge next.
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| Marquez tops rainy Czech MotoGP practice Posted: 15 Aug 2014 12:21 PM PDT  Championship leader Marc Marquez topped the Czech Republic MotoGP free practice on Friday ahead of Sunday's race, with the afternoon session disrupted by heavy rain that affected times. The Spanish Honda rider and reigning world champion took 1min 56.803sec to cover the 5.4-kilometre (3.36-mile) circuit in dry conditions on Friday morning. Fellow Spaniard Jorge Lorenzo on a Yamaha came second 0.037sec behind his compatriot and 0.015sec ahead of Marquez's Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa. Italian Ducati rider Andrea Iannone dominated the afternoon session with a time five seconds slower than his morning performance, being one of only two riders who had their times measured before the downpour started.
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| Crimea wants out of Russian food sanctions Posted: 15 Aug 2014 12:04 PM PDT  Crimea has asked Moscow for an exception to Russian sanctions blocking food imports from Ukraine, a senior regional official said Friday. The request was handed over as Russian ministers gathered Thursday to discuss the problems faced on the peninsula five months after Moscow annexed it from Ukraine, Crimean Agriculture Minister Nikolai Polyushkin said according to local media. "We requested that Crimea be excluded from the general economic sanctions that Russia has introduced given that we are in a transition period and that we are still like Siamese twins with mainland Ukraine, especially concerning milk and dairy products," Polyushkin was quoted as saying by Russian news agency RIA-Novosti.
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| Huge launches from Samsung, Sony, Microsoft and more are coming in three weeks Posted: 15 Aug 2014 11:45 AM PDT  This fall is shaping up to be an action-packed one for smartphone fans. While every unannounced handset we know about so far will likely be an iterative update as opposed to an innovative release — this is, after all, a boring year for smartphone lovers — there will still be plenty of solid new options for shoppers heading into the holidays. As is the case each year, Apple's upcoming new iPhone is easily the most hotly anticipated of the bunch. According to dozens of reports, the iPhone 6 will finally feature a significantly larger display alongside upgraded internals. Beyond Apple's new iPhone, however, there is plenty more in store — and it looks like the best and brightest of the bunch
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| India PM axes Soviet-style economic planning body Posted: 15 Aug 2014 11:26 AM PDT  New Delhi (AFP) - India's new right-wing premier Narendra Modi announced Friday an end to Soviet-style economic planning in an Independence Day speech as he pressed ahead with overhauling cumbersome government policymaking.
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| Teens busted after sneaking into home of basketball star Ray Allen Posted: 15 Aug 2014 11:08 AM PDT  By Zachary Fagenson MIAMI (Reuters) - Seven teenagers were questioned by south Florida police after sneaking into the house of former Miami Heat basketball star Ray Allen and could face charges after frightening his wife and children, officials say. "Mrs. Allen woke up ... and screamed out to them, 'What are you doing in my house,'" said Coral Gables Police spokeswoman Kelly Denham. The group of 18- and 19-year-olds had entered the house early Thursday through an unlocked back door and quickly fled once Allen's wife, Shannon Walker Allen, yelled at them. Ray Allen, 39, who was not at home at the time of the incident, according to a media report, joined the Heat in 2012.
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| Defender Per Mertesacker ends Germany career Posted: 15 Aug 2014 10:45 AM PDT  BERLIN (AP) — Germany defender Per Mertesacker is retiring from the national team — becoming the third member of the World Cup-winning squad to quit.
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| 3 killed in Egypt as Islamists protest Posted: 15 Aug 2014 10:29 AM PDT  CAIRO (AP) — Three people were killed in the Egyptian capital Friday as supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi held scattered protests for a second straight day, a year after the mass killing of protesters at two Cairo sit-ins.
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| 3 ideas for rescuing Windows Phone Posted: 15 Aug 2014 10:12 AM PDT  Windows enthusiast Paul Thurrott takes some exception to people who are tossing dirt onto Windows Phone's grave. I agree with him that it's still too early to say that Windows Phone is doomed to Zune-style failure but let's be honest: Microsoft's current strategy is floundering and it desperately needs a course correction. FROM EARLIER: Windows Phone is dying on the vine Before I go any further let me acknowledge that, yes, I have never run a major tech company and am not at all qualified to do so. But just as Detroit Lions fans didn't need to have experience running a sports franchise to determine that Matt Millen was a horrible GM, I don't need an MBA to see that Microsoft's mobile
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| Woman tested for Ebola in Scotland Posted: 15 Aug 2014 10:03 AM PDT  A woman who fell ill at an immigration facility centre in Scotland is being tested for the Ebola virus, health officials said Friday. "We are currently investigating a possible case" of Ebola, the spokesman said. The Ebola outbreak has so far claimed more than 1,000 lives in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia and Nigeria.
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| TV Time: 3D-Modeled Version of Futurama's City is Shockingly Beautiful Posted: 15 Aug 2014 09:24 AM PDT  Photo via Architizer Inspired by the late-20th-century NYC cityscape from the animated sitcom Futurama—a show developed by the same guy who created The Simpsons—Russian artist Alexy Sakharov decided to give the cartoonish opening credits a photo-realistic, 3D makeover dazzling enough...
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| India 125-9 against England at tea in fifth Test Posted: 15 Aug 2014 09:07 AM PDT  London (AFP) - India, after losing the toss, were 125 for nine at tea on the first day of the fifth Test against England at The Oval on Friday.
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| Defense seeks acquittal in corruption trial of Virginia Governor, wife Posted: 15 Aug 2014 08:45 AM PDT  By Gary Robertson RICHMOND Va. (Reuters) - Defense lawyers for former Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, have moved that the couple be acquitted in their federal corruption and bribery case. The defense motions, which were filed late on Thursday and Friday in U.S. District Court, came after prosecutors wrapped up their case against McDonnell, a Republican, and his wife after almost three weeks of testimony. They face a 14-count indictment alleging they accepted more than $165,000 in loans and gifts from businessman Jonnie Williams Sr. in exchange for promoting his dietary supplement company Star Scientific Inc and its main product, Anatabloc.
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| Police: Teen shot by cop in Ferguson, Mo. was robbery suspect Posted: 15 Aug 2014 08:24 AM PDT  Police also identified the officer involved in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager.
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| Mourinho headache over Chelsea number one 'keeper Posted: 15 Aug 2014 08:03 AM PDT  Jose Mourinho knows he faces a tough job keeping both Petr Cech and Thibaut Courtois at Chelsea when he finally decides which will be the club's number one goalkeeper. On Friday, Mourinho described the pair as two of the best three goalkeepers in the world and revealed he has yet to announce his line-up for the opening Premier League game at newly-promoted Burnley. Cech, 32, has been the established first choice for the last 10 years but finds himself under pressure from Courtois, 22, who is back at Stamford Bridge after spending the last three years on loan at Atletico Madrid. The Chelsea manager insists the club has yet to receive an approach for Cech or Courtois but accepts that situation could change.
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| Hamas negotiators in Qatar to discuss Israel truce Posted: 15 Aug 2014 07:45 AM PDT  CAIRO (AP) — Hamas negotiators met with the Islamic militant group's leadership in Qatar on Friday to discuss a proposal for a long-term truce with Israel, with an official saying the group was inclined to accept the Egyptian-mediated offer.
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| Police ID officer involved in Ferguson, Mo. shooting Posted: 15 Aug 2014 06:57 AM PDT  Police in Ferguson, Missouri have identified the officer who fatally shot an unarmed black teenager in the St. Louis suburb.
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| Platinum producer Implats issues profit warning Posted: 15 Aug 2014 06:40 AM PDT  The world's second-largest platinum producer, Impala Platinum, issued a stark profit warning on Friday, saying full year earnings would fall by up to 75 percent after a five-month strike. Implats, which operates mines in the platinum mining belt north west of Johannesburg, saw its share price sink by more than one percent on the news. The slump in profits "is mainly due to the five-month industrial action experienced by the Impala Rustenburg operations," the firm said in a statement. Implats is due to release its financial results on August 28.
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| TMZ runs ‘exclusive photos’ of iPhone 6 clone thinking it’s the real thing Posted: 15 Aug 2014 06:14 AM PDT  "Drool, geeks!" Those were TMZ's instructions on Friday when it published exclusive photos of what it claimed to be Apple's next-generation iPhone 6. The only problem, however, is that the photos didn't show Apple's upcoming iPhone 6 at all. Instead, they're just another handful of images of a well-known iPhone 6 clone running Android underneath an iOS 7 skin. SEE ALSO: Don't be fooled by this extremely detailed iPhone 6 clone running Android "Tech geeks may want to take a hit off their inhalers and brace themselves … because TMZ has obtained possible pictures of Apple's brand spanking new iPhone 6," TMZ wrote in its post. "We're told the phone was smuggled out of a Foxconn factory in China … where the
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| Thailand stops US and Australian couples leaving with surrogate babies: advocate Posted: 15 Aug 2014 05:54 AM PDT  By Byron Kaye SYDNEY (Reuters) - U.S. and Australian couples attempting to leave Thailand with babies born by surrogate mothers have been stopped at the airport and prevented from leaving the country in recent days, an Australian surrogacy advocate said on Friday. The crackdown follows the case of an Australian couple - one of whom is a convicted child sex offender - who left a male twin surrogate baby with Down Syndrome in Thailand, bringing only his sister back to Australia. The incident, made public earlier this month, unleashed an international outcry over a shadowy business that rights groups say preys on poor and vulnerable women in countries such as India and Thailand. In response, Thailand's new military government gave preliminary approval on Wednesday for a draft law to make commercial surrogacy a criminal offense.
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| ‘Insulted’ Comcast withdraws funding from FCC commissioner’s dinner Posted: 15 Aug 2014 05:40 AM PDT  You see what you did, you meanies? You insulted Comcast so much that it's decided not to spend $110,000 sponsoring a dinner to honor an FCC commissioner who will hold significant influence over the fate of its merger with Time Warner Cable. Deadline Hollywood reports that Comcast, which earlier this week said it was "insulting" to think there was anything shady about spending that much money to honor one of the most important telecom regulators in the country, said that it's withdrawing funding for the dinner and that it's asking that "there be no recognition of Comcast at the dinner." The dinner in question is part of an annual event held by the Walter Kaitz Foundation, at which FCC commissioner
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| Two Venomous Jellies Discovered in Australia Posted: 15 Aug 2014 05:17 AM PDT  Two new species of jellyfish have been discovered off the coast of Western Australia. One is surprisingly large. The other is tiny. Both are extremely venomous.
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| Top Iraqi cleric backs new premier, calls for unity Posted: 15 Aug 2014 05:01 AM PDT  By Raheem Salman and Michael Georgy BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's most influential cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, threw his weight on Friday behind the new prime minister, calling for national unity to contain sectarian bloodshed and an offensive by Islamic State militants that threatens Baghdad. Speaking after Nuri al-Maliki finally stepped down as prime minister under heavy pressure from allies at home and abroad, the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shi'ite majority said the handover to Maliki's party colleague Haider al-Abadi offered a rare opportunity to resolve political and security crises. Iraq has been plunged into its worst violence since the peak of a sectarian civil war in 2006-2007, with Sunni fighters led by the Islamic State overrunning large parts of the west and north, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee for their lives and threatening the ethnic Kurds in their autonomous province. Sistani, a reclusive octogenarian whose authority few Iraqi politicians would dare openly challenge, also had pointed comments for the military, which offered serious resistance when the Islamic State staged its lightning offensive in June.
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| Corporate founders battle boards to overturn forced exits Posted: 15 Aug 2014 04:42 AM PDT  By Nadia Damouni NEW YORK (Reuters) - From American Apparel Inc to Lululemon Athletica Inc, Men's Wearhouse Inc and Best Buy Co Inc, a series of boardroom battles across North America underscore how difficult it can be for companies to part ways with their founders. In each of these cases, the boards decided it was time for the founders to step down from their roles either as chief executive or chairman, but faced stiff resistance from the founders, some of whom used their substantial equity stakes to fight back. Corporate governance experts expect more such corporate dramas as shareholders are increasingly holding boards accountable for succession planning, investment returns and overall fiduciary duties. As a result, boards are asserting their authority more frequently, which can put them on collision courses with CEOs, including founders. "Today's boards are increasingly feeling pressure to anticipate the CEO leadership needed to drive future success. This is especially true when the CEO is the founder of the company," said Jane Stevenson, head of the global CEO succession practice at Korn Ferry International. "In these situations the board can feel significant conflict between appropriate homage to the past and the leadership needed to drive success in the future." As many as 42 Fortune 500 companies have founders in CEO positions, according to data compiled by recruitment firm Heidrick & Struggles for Reuters.
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| Orbital cargo ship departs space station Posted: 15 Aug 2014 04:29 AM PDT  Orbital Sciences Corporation's unmanned Cygnus cargo ship left the International Space Station Friday on its way to a fiery re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. The spacecraft was released from the orbiting lab at 6:40 am (1040 GMT), NASA said in a live broadcast of the event. "Cygnus is free of the International Space Station," a NASA commentator said. The spaceship will stay in orbit until Sunday morning, when it will fire its engines and push its way into Earth's atmosphere.
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