Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed legislation imposing the nation's first statewide ban on single-use plastic bags, driven to action by a buildup of litter and damage to aquatic ecosystems. A national ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps was arrested for drunken driving early on Tuesday after speeding and then crossing the double-lane lines inside the Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore, Maryland Transportation Authority Police said. Phelps was clocked by radar at around 1:40 a.m. traveling 84 mph in a 45 mph zone, police said. The 18-time Olympic gold medalist was booked and released. Police said Phelps was "unable to perform satisfactorily a series of standard field sobriety tests," adding that the Baltimore native was cooperative "throughout the process. ...
Numbers swell for a third night before national holiday expected to put campaign for free elections into overdrive.
You've always wanted an artificially intelligent yoga mat, haven't you? Here's SmartMat, a yoga mat with a nice Siri-like yoga teacher whispering "downward dogs" to you.>
Regardless, shipments of larger-screened tablets will rise over the next several years, says market researcher NPD DisplaySearch.>
Marissa Garner designs window art featuring superheroes, robots and comic book villains. "I would go to this church," fans tell the artist.>
Ina Garten is a best-selling cookbook author, an Emmy-winning television host and the doyenne of casual elegance. But on a recent afternoon, the so-called "Barefoot Contessa" star looked around her East Hampton, New York, kitchen and realized that she had produced piles of cherry biscotti and tubs of rum-raisin ice cream — but no dinner.
Secret Service director says at least two of her officers recalled man from prior incident, but didn't raise an alarm.
After months of insisting he was not interested in running for president again, the 2012 Republican nominee now says he's keeping the door open for another run.
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) — An Oklahoma man who had been suspended from his job was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder in the gruesome beheading of a co-worker, who was attacked from behind as the man sought revenge, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
StealthGenie intercepted communications to and from mobile phones and was undetectable by most users. It was targeted at people who suspected their spouses or significant others of cheating on them.>
NEW YORK (AP) — Helen Mirren will be seeing some familiar faces when she brings "The Audience" to Broadway.
HOUSTON (Reuters) - The World Bank arbitration tribunal will give its final ruling this week on a multi-billion dollar claim by Exxon Mobil Corp against Venezuela over a 2007 nationalization, legal sources said on Tuesday. "The final ruling will be delivered to the parties on Thursday, October 2, according to a notification they received last week," one of the sources told Reuters. (Reporting by Marianna Parraga; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
By Tim Hepher PARIS (Reuters) - Planemaker Airbus won European safety approval on Tuesday for the A350, clearing the main regulatory hurdle before its newest and most technically advanced jet can start flying passengers. The European Aviation Safety Agency said Airbus, the planemaking unit of Airbus Group, had proved the jet's airworthiness in more than 60,000 hours of certification work including 250 hours spent with safety inspectors in the air. "We dealt with a very mature aircraft," EASA Executive Director Patrick Ky said. ...
Brian Cooley discusses why wireless carriers are chomping at the bit to take over TV broadcast channels in an historic auction set to happen mid-2015.>
The European Commission's competition regulator says something looks fishy in "selective" treatment of Apple by Irish authorities, and he wants answers.>
By Sam Forgione NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. consumer confidence fell in September for the first time in five months and home prices in July rose less than expected from a year earlier, underscoring the unsteady nature of U.S. growth. Another report on Tuesday showed business activity growth in the U.S. Midwest decelerated slightly in September. "We're continuing to effectively struggle," said Mike Englund, chief economist at Action Economics in Boulder, Colorado. "Some of the optimism that we got in the updraft in consumer confidence in the third quarter was probably a bit overstated. ...
By Jorge Otaola BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina deposited a $161 million bond interest payment with a newly appointed local trustee on Tuesday, the Economy Ministry said, defying a U.S. judge who held it in contempt a day earlier for taking illegal steps to meet its debt obligations. The South American country wants to show it can service its debt and that its failure in July to complete a payment to holders of bonds that were restructured after its 2002 default was the result of adverse U.S. judicial rulings. ...
Alternative Investment Management & Research pictures a Yahoo-SoftBank merger, with the latter's CEO running the combined company.>
By Howard Schneider WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve board member Jerome Powell said on Tuesday he feared any move for the Fed and the U.S. Treasury to cooperate on debt management and other issues would undermine the central bank's independence and should be avoided. Powell was responding to research by a team of Harvard economists concluding that the Treasury's effort to ramp up its sales of longer-term bonds in recent years undercut the Fed's effort to bring down long-term rates through quantitative easing. ...
Since spinning off from 21st Century Fox last year, News Corp. has been on an acquisition spree, snapping up a romance-novel publisher, two online business and now a real-estate listing website.>
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. consumer confidence fell in September to its lowest level since May on concerns over the job market and economic growth, according to a private sector report released on Tuesday. The Conference Board, an industry group, said its index of consumer attitudes fell to 86.0 from a upwardly revised 93.4 the month before. Economists had expected a reading of 92.5, according to a Reuters poll. August's reading was originally reported as 92.4. The dip in September came after four straight months of improvement. ...
Tapping the option to Reset All Settings vaporizes some iCloud Drive files, say a handful of iOS users.>
"We want PayPal to be a presence however consumers want to pay," eBay CEO John Donahoe says.>
"The Glass Cage: Automation and Us" (W.W. Norton & Co.), by Nicholas Carr
By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secret Service Director Julia Pierson said on Tuesday the recent White House breach by a man carrying a knife was unacceptable and promised it would not happen again. "I take full responsibility," Pierson said in prepared testimony to a U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating the Sept. 19 intrusion. "What happened is unacceptable and it will never happen again." Pierson told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that she ordered extra security measures around the White House immediately after the breach. ...
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A central Pennsylvania man and woman have been charged with homicide in the death of their 9-year-old son, whose decomposing body was found in their Harrisburg home during the summer.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Chinese e-commerce heavyweight Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's options contracts were active in their first day of trading on U.S. exchanges on Monday, with bullish and bearish bets about even in the early going. Options volume for Alibaba was 45,000 contracts, with 24,000 calls and 21,000 puts traded so far, according to data from options analytics firm Trade Alert. A relatively equal number of calls and puts implies equal numbers of bets on the Alibaba stock climbing or falling from current levels. ...
PARIS (Reuters) - Tag Heuer, the biggest watch brand in French luxury group LVMH , has cut some management and production jobs in Switzerland in response to the industry slowdown, the head of LVMH watches said on Monday. Jean-Claude Biver said Tag Heuer had cut 46 managerial and production positions, and placed 49 people on temporary unemployment from Sept. 1 until the end of the year. ...
LONDON (Reuters) - State-backed Royal Bank of Scotland said on Monday it would invest more than 1 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) to improve services for its commercial and corporate customers. The bank is keen to improve its image among small business customers after accusations about how its turnaround division dealt with struggling firms and the mis-selling of interest rate hedging products. ...
Ahead of its October 9 "Great Demand" event, the company releases nine videos that focus on products such as its Xperia Z3 flagship phone and its Smartband Talk wearable fitness tracker.>
The $2.1 billion deal ups Lenovo's enterprise offerings, as it takes the No. 3 spot in the x86 server market behind HP and Dell.>
Lego artist Iain Heath built an incredible 6-foot-long Lego model of scenes from the 1993 classic video game Doom.>
Prime Instant Video shifts its release strategy for the second season of the John Goodman political comedy by switching to the all-at-once tack of rival Netflix.>
The search titan is touting a program to help Greek companies expand the country's tourism economy. Could be it'll also improve Google's image in Europe.>
The company has been testing its "highly automated" vehicles in Europe but now wants to challenge its tech in China where multi-level highways reign supreme.>
Alleged internal memo to Apple employees in China suggests prototype phones will hit shelves on October 7, leading to a launch a few days later.>
Device prices have sunk by up to $1,000 now that the initial hype surrounding the new iPhones has worn off.>
The country's parliament is set to consider whether to authorize military action against Islamic State militants.
NEW YORK (AP) — "Sleepy Hollow" was renewed after just three episodes last year, and star Tom Mison, who plays Ichabod Crane, calls the new season "the tricky second album."
Montreal (AFP) - The trial of a former Canadian porn actor accused of killing and dismembering a Chinese engineering student started Monday with prosecutors saying this was not the act of a lunatic.
New York (AFP) - Norwegian electronic artists Royksopp said Monday that they would stop making albums with the release of a final, darker work.
MIAMI (AP) — A 20-year-old man has died after falling from a mast on a Carnival Cruise Lines ship docked at Miami's port.
As gaming consoles such as the Xbox and the PlayStation diversify into video, social media and other non-gaming apps, it seems only fair that streaming TV devices start nudging into gaming territory. Amazon's ...
By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court met behind closed doors on Monday to consider whether they should take up the hotly contested question of whether states can ban gay marriage. The court has seven cases pending before it concerning bans in five states: Virginia, Utah, Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Indiana. If the court agrees to take one or more of the cases it has the chance to rule when, if ever, gay men and women in the 31 states that now bar them from marrying could get marriage licenses. ...
"How Star Wars Conquered the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of a Multibillion Dollar Franchise" (Basic Books), by Chris Taylor
Flighting resumed in Donetsk on September 25 , despite a three-week old ceasefire agreement between Ukraine’s government and pro-Russia separatists. This video, filmed by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s correspondent Levko Stek on September 25-26, shows Ukraine’s 11th Territorial Defense Battalion clashing with separatists at a checkpoint in Nikishino, in the Donetsk region. Credit: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Israel's foreign minister said Monday it's clear that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has no intention of making peace with Israel, calling his speech to world leaders last week "a message of hatred and incitement."
FAA says it will review how it deals with unexpected incidents after last week's fire grounded Chicago airport.
Prince, "Art Official Age" (Warner Bros.)
