The gunning-down of Russian opposition leader Boris Y. Nemtsov has some pundits consumed with the whodunit. “The biggest theory which dumbfounded me is the notion that Nemtsov’s own party ordered his murder because that’s just absolutely ridiculous and I can’t even believe it’s being dignified,” Knight says. Ms. Knight has a PhD degree in Russian politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 posted its best monthly gain since October 2011 on Friday, but U.S. stocks ended lower for the day as U.S. economic growth slowed more sharply than initially thought in the fourth quarter.
Phiona Mutesi happened upon chess as a famished nine-year-old foraging for food in the sprawling and impoverished slums of the Ugandan capital. Now a chess champion who competes internationally, her tale of triumph over adversity is being turned into a Hollywood epic with Oscar-winning Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong'o tipped to play her mother. One day, Mutesi discovered a chess program held in a church in the Katwe slum districts in Kampala. The young girl developed a talent for chess, which was only introduced in Uganda in the 1970s by foreign doctors and was still seen as a game played by the rich.
The London man believed to be Islamic State executioner "Jihadi John" told a journalist four years ago that surveillance by British security services had left him contemplating suicide, it emerged Saturday. Mohammed Emwazi, named by media and experts as the militant thought to have beheaded at least five Western hostages held by the IS group, told the Mail on Sunday reporter that he felt like a "dead man walking". Prime Minister David Cameron and a former head of foreign spy agency MI6 strongly rejected the idea, while London mayor Boris Johnson accused Cage of an "apology for terror".
President Nicolas Maduro says “gringo” meddling forced him to adopt new requirements.
Four guidelines for any company seeking to employ technology in innovative ways.
"Adventure Time," which follows the whimsical adventures of Jake the Dog and Finn the last human through the land of Ooo, might be getting a movie deal with Warner Bros.>
Herbalife Ltd cut the pay of Chief Executive Michael Johnson 36 percent for 2014 after the nutrition and weight loss company failed to meet performance goals set for him and other top executives, according to a securities filing on Friday. Herbalife said Johnson, who is also chairman, received total compensation of $6.73 million last year, down from $10.5 million in 2013, mainly because he did not receive the incentive plan compensation of $3.7 million he got the prior year. Herbalife has been closely watched since activist investor William Ackman accused the company of running a pyramid scheme in 2012, while rival investor Carl Icahn became the company's biggest owner in 2013. Herbalife, being investigated by state and federal regulators, has denied Ackman's charges.
This week in iOS came reports of Apple looking at tracking iPhones when turned off, and analysts chiming in about Apple Watch and Apple Pay,
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A white dress that strongly resembles the custom gown taken from Lupita Nyong'o's hotel room earlier this week turned up Friday under a bathroom sink in the same hotel, a Los Angeles County Sheriff's official said.
MADRID (AP) — Spanish police have broken up a gang that allegedly created and then sold fake works of art purporting to be by renowned artists including Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Joan Miro.
Matthew thought T-Mobile's free international text and data offer was too good to be true. He was wrong and won't leave home without his T-Mobile SIM.
This was a big week for Android, with news of the platform's dominance of the smartphone market, the upcoming Android Pay, and Google's enterprise push.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Warren Buffett, in his 50th anniversary letter to shareholders, said on Saturday that Berkshire Hathaway had finally chosen the right person to succeed him.
Feuding lawmakers fund the agency only until March 6, forcing Congress to revisit the issue next week.
(Reuters) - Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc on Saturday said profit declined 17 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, reflecting lower investment gains, though operating results improved.
An annual event in San Francisco has often been where game developers come together to discuss design. Now, it's one of the biggest showcases of the latest VR tech.>
WASHINGTON (AP) — Jewish House Democrats personally offered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a chance to lower the political temperature after he accepted a Republican invitation to speak to Congress next week on Iran — a less provocative, closed-door session.
HSBC , in the spotlight after details emerged about how its Swiss unit allegedly helped clients dodge taxes, isn't the troublemaker it is currently depicted as, the head of a rival private bank was quoted saying on Saturday. "HSBC has been described as the troublemaker in class, and it is not," Carlos Esteve, founder and CEO of Geneva-based Heritage, said in an interview with Swiss daily Le Temps. "HSBC was among the first to take steps to regularize its clients. Founded in 1986, Banque Heritage is part of a program brokered by the Swiss government for Swiss banks to come clean on their untaxed American clients, paying fines and cooperating with authorities in order to avoid prosecution.
Greece called into question on Saturday a major debt repayment it must make to the European Central Bank this summer, after acknowledging it faces problems in meeting its obligations to international creditors. Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said Athens should negotiate with the ECB on 6.7 billion euros ($7.5 billion) in Greek government bonds held by the Frankfurt-based bank that mature in July and August. Varoufakis did not say what he hoped to achieve in any talks, but he accused the ECB of making a mistake in buying the bonds around the time Greece had to take an EU/IMF bailout in 2010. The government of leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras promised to honor all its debt obligations when it struck a deal with the euro zone last week that extended Greece's bailout program for four months.
BERLIN (AP) — Hoping to demonstrate their posture, agility and strength, a handful of boys and more than 120 girls between ages 7 and 9 tried out for the Young Ensemble of Berlin's Friedrichstadt-Palast theatre in February.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Leonard Nimoy, who died Friday at age 83, likely had the most famous lobes in Hollywood. As the logical half-human, half-alien Mr. Spock in "Star Trek," his pointy Vulcan appendages became a signature — and a nuisance — for the actor. Here's a few facts about those iconic ears:
The United States set out what it called its "bottom lines" to reach a deal with Iran to rein in its nuclear program, ahead of new talks next week. Washington had stuck to its guns that it wanted a "good deal" and had agreed to several extensions of the negotiations "because we have held firm to certain bottom lines," a senior US administration official said. "We will only accept an agreement that cuts off the different pathways to the fissile material that Iran needs for a nuclear weapon," the official stressed. US Secretary of State John Kerry will leave at the weekend for Switzerland, where he will meet once again with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif.
Since the nonprofit American Conservative Union hosted its first Conservative Political Action Conference in 1973, CPAC has morphed into a massive annual event, with everyone from bloggers to national networks enticed by the opportunity to observe conservatives in their natural habitat in hopes of witnessing something controversial. And CPAC, for its part, rarely disappoints.
By David Lawder and Richard Cowan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in the House of Representatives were planning to pursue on Friday a temporary funding bill to keep the lights on at the U.S. domestic security agency for three weeks, postponing the threat of a partial agency shutdown. As the clock ticked toward a midnight Friday deadline for funding the Department of Homeland Security, lawmakers said a stop-gap extension would buy time to try to work out differences between the Republican-controlled House and the Senate. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, who has insisted on a full Homeland Security funding bill free of immigration reform restrictions that have caused weeks of delay, said on Thursday he would refuse to allow such negotiations with the House.
A rural Missouri county that had zero homicides last year spent Friday reeling after seven people were murdered by a man who police said went on a house-to-house shooting rampage in the middle of the night.
(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Friday ruled the trial for the accused Boston Marathon bomber can go ahead in the city, over attempts from his attorneys to change the venue on the basis an impartial jury could not be seated so close to the site of the 2013 attack. The split three-judge panel of the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals backed District Judge George O'Toole, who has three times rejected pleas by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyers to move the trial out of Boston, where the bombing killed three people and injured 264. "We are unable to conclude that it is clear and indisputable that the petitioner cannot receive a fair trial by an impartial jury in the Eastern Division of Massachusetts," the judges wrote in the 80-page opinion.
A man armed with a handgun went on a house-to-house shooting spree in a rural Missouri town, killing seven relatives and neighbors before taking his own life, officials said on Friday. All of those killed by the gunman, identified as Joseph Aldridge, 36, lived within a few miles of each other in the tiny community of Tyrone, an unincorporated area with a population of about 50, authorities said. Authorities said the motive was unclear and declined to comment on whether the murders had been triggered by the death of Aldridge's mother, who was found at her home. Authorities said she may have died from natural causes.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a one-week funding extension for the Department of Homeland Security late on Friday, in time to avert a partial shutdown for the agency at midnight. The two-thirds majority vote, which came with support from Democrats a few hours after the House failed to pass a three-week extension, buys time for Congress to sort out a longer-term funding solution for the domestic security agency. (Reporting By David Lawder; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
The ride-hailing service says it was the victim of a hack last May that could have exposed thousands of driver names and driver's license numbers.>
The multiplayer game that uses real-world environments as its playground is now even more accessible -- as an app on our wrists.>
The leader of a truth commission investigating abuses during Brazil's 1964-85 military dictatorship lambasted German automaker Volkswagen AG at a hearing on Friday for providing what he called "unsatisfactory" testimony regarding its alleged ties with the regime. In a contentious, nearly three hour-long session, Sao Paulo state legislator Adriano Diogo and several former Volkswagen employees pressed a company executive to explain whether and how the automaker collaborated with the right-wing regime. Documents uncovered last year suggest that Volkswagen and dozens of other companies gave the dictatorship names, home addresses and other sensitive information regarding union activists on their payrolls in the 1980s. Volkswagen, which had more workers on the list than any other company, was one of three companies called to testify on Friday before the Sao Paulo state commission, chaired by Diogo, a member of Brazil's ruling Workers' Party.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said on Friday it will recall about 467,500 SUVs worldwide in order to fix a fuel-pump issue that could cause the engine to either stall or not start. The U.S. arm of Fiat Chrysler said it wasn't aware of any crashes or injuries linked to this issue. The vehicles affected are the Dodge Durango from model years 2012 and 2013 and the Jeep Grand Cherokee diesel versions from 2011 model year sold outside North America. The recall is related to one last September in North America for 230,760 Grand Cherokee and Durango SUVs with gasoline engines, both from the 2011 model year.
Researchers at a Swiss institute have come up with a new technique for software testing that could make finished products more reliable.
ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. (AP) — A Minnesota band camp is giving baby boomers and younger musicians a chance to prove they are never too old to rock and roll.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Even if it never wins another award, "House of Cards" already ranks among the most influential series in television history.
STEPHENVILLE, Texas — The “American Sniper” murder trial was closely followed in this rural town, but also drew international attention in part because of the Oscar-winning blockbuster film based on Chris Kyle’s memoir of his four tours in Iraq. Late Tuesday, a jury took a little more than two hours to find an ex-Marine guilty of gunning down Kyle and his friend, Chad Littlefield, two years ago. “Most people around here, if you talk to them, would say that they think he's guilty,” Lana Karlberg said.
This year, his 50th at Berkshire's helm, the world's third-richest person could write something quite different. When Buffett releases this year's letter on Saturday, he may point to opportunities outside of the United States, after he recently decided to buy a German motorcycle accessories retailer and said he may shop more in that country. In his letter, eagerly awaited on Wall Street for Buffett's candid thoughts on investing, business and life, the 84-year-old Buffett may detail his vision for Berkshire in the decades to come, including after he is gone. His comparatively taciturn second-in-command, 91-year-old Charlie Munger, is also expected to express his thoughts.
Swedish mobile telecom gear maker Ericsson is suing Apple Inc for patent infringement, Ericsson said on Friday. Ericsson said it filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) requesting an exclusion order against Apple's products for infringing Ericsson patents that are essential to the 2G and 4G/LTE standards. It also filed a second ITC complaint seeking an exclusion order and multiple complaints in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas requesting damages and injunctions for infringement of patents "critical to many other aspects of Apple's devices".
The European Union's financial affairs chief Pierre Moscovici told German radio on Friday, just before a Bundestag vote on a bailout extension for Greece, that allowing any country to leave the euro zone would simply raise the question "who's next?". "If a country, any country, leaves, the question will arise: who is leaving next?" the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs told Deutschlandfunk in an interview.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — On the outside, the metal box looks like an oversized bread container. But what's inside could save an abandoned newborn's life.
Emergency workers say collapse occurred at a 3-story building that was under construction.
High-end watchmakers Frederique Constant, Mondaine and Alpina built new watches that look traditional, but have motion and sleep tracking.>
