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{ "text": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republicans' ardor for investigations and oversight, on display throughout the Obama administration, has cooled off considerably with Donald Trump in the White House.\nEach day seems to bring a new headache or near-crisis from Trump, the latest being the departure of his national security adviser under questionable circumstances involving Russia.\nYet if there is a line too far, at which point Republicans will feel duty-bound to call for an independent investigation of their president or his administration, Trump hasn't crossed it yet.\nDemocrats are clamoring for a full-scale probe of the resignation of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, including demanding to know what Trump knew, and when, about Flynn's pre-inauguration conversations with a Russian ambassador about U.S. sanctions. White House press secretary Sean Spicer disclosed that Trump was told in late January that Flynn had misled Vice President Mike Pence about those conversations.\nRather than go along with Democrats' call for an independent outside investigation, Senate Republicans insisted Tuesday that the Intelligence Committee could look at the circumstances as part of an existing probe into Russia's interference in the presidential election.\n\"The Intelligence Committee is already looking at Russian involvement in our election and they have broad jurisdiction over the intel community writ large and they can look at whatever they choose to,\" said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., adding that \"it's highly likely they'd want to take a look at this episode as well.\"\nThe intelligence panel's chairman, Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, told reporters that \"aggressive\" oversight would continue \"privately. We don't do that in public.\"\nHouse Republicans were even less interested, with some shrugging off Democrats' calls for an investigation entirely. Rep. Devin Nunes of California, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said that the \"real crime\" is how Flynn's phone conversations were leaked, echoing a complaint Trump himself made over Twitter.\n\"I think the situation has taken care of itself\" in light of Flynn's resignation, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told reporters. That's a far different stance toward potential wrongdoing by the executive branch than Chaffetz took last year, when House Republicans issued more than 70 letters and subpoenas aimed at investigating Democrat Hillary Clinton over a period of less than three months after the FBI announced criminal charges weren't warranted related to her use of a private email server as secretary of state.\nChaffetz did turn his attention to a different Trump administration matter later Tuesday, sending a letter to the White House seeking information about Trump's discussion of a North Korea missile launch while dining al fresco with the Japanese prime minister at a resort in Florida.\nSen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., went so far as to counsel publicly against spending too much time investigating the White House, saying that doing so could only be counterproductive at a moment when the GOP faces a daunting legislative agenda on Capitol Hill.\n\"I just don't think it's useful to be doing investigation after investigation, particularly of your own party,\" Paul said in an appearance on Fox News Radio's \"Kilmeade and Friends.\" ''We'll never even get started with doing the things we need to do like repealing Obamacare if we're spending our whole time having Republicans investigate Republicans. I think it makes no sense.\"\nThe relatively hands-off stance of the GOP toward the Trump White House angers Democrats, who are powerless to do much except fume from the minority in both chambers of Congress.\n\"Do you hear the silence? This is the sound of House Republicans conducting no oversight of President Trump. Zero,\" Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, complained at a news conference Tuesday. \"That is what it sounds like when they abdicate their duty under the Constitution. We've been asking for months for basic oversight.\"\nThe GOP's lack of enthusiasm about investigating the Trump White House comes as Capitol Hill Republicans struggle to come to terms with a new administration that has been engulfed in upheaval after upheaval. Republicans are trying to focus on their agenda despite the distractions. And for now, they appear to have concluded, going easy on Trump is the best way to achieve their goals, including confirming a Supreme Court justice and passing a new health care law and other legislation they want the president to sign.\n\"We know full well that there are issues that are going to come up on a daily basis that we're going to get asked about and have to respond to,\" said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Senate Republican, \"but we're interested in repealing and replacing Obamacare, reforming the tax code, reducing the regulatory burden on businesses, confirming a Supreme Court justice, getting these Cabinet nominees through — that's what our agenda is right now.\"" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — Melania Trump and Brigitte Macron have ditched the White House for the nearby National Gallery of Art to see the works of Paul Cezanne.\nWearing white suits and high heels, the first ladies of the United States and France toured an exhibit of about 60 works by the French post-impressionist painter.\nThey paused near a portrait of Cézanne's father reading a newspaper. Mary Morton, the musem's curator of French paintings, explained that Cezanne had a difficult relationship with his father, who was a banker.\nThe two first ladies then strolled through the building's Rotunda and past a statue of Mercury.\nIt was the second day of French President Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron's visit to Washington. Later Tuesday, the Trumps are hosting the couple at the administration's first state dinner." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A transgender teacher in Kansas has been named \"National Educator of the Year\" by the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network.\nWichita North High School music teacher Stephanie Byers came out as a transgender woman in 2014, The Wichita Eagle reported.\nByers said she decided to come out as a transgender woman just five years shy of possible retirement, despite her fears about what it could mean for her and those around her.\n\"There was an urgency to it, and I could no longer put it off,\" Byers said. \"But there's still the fear, because you never know.\"\nByers said she didn't transition to be a pioneer or an advocate, but that she's become both.\nThe 55-year-old has in recent years met with school leaders, participated on panels about LGBTQ issues, talked with parents about gender identity, chaperoned a local \"Day of Advocacy\" and spoken at the state Capitol.\nByers said she's received \"absolutely amazing\" support from Wichita district officials and from North High Principal Sherman Padgett.\n\"People that I have never spoken to in this building came up and wrapped their arms around me to tell me how much they care for me and love me and were proud of me,\" Byers said. \"It was very, very affirming.\"\nPadgett said he nominated Byers for the award because she's \"just an all-around great teacher and a great person.\"\n\"It would be great if we could get to the point where we can normalize the LGBTQ community,\" said Padgett. \"She chose to live her true identity, and when that just becomes normal, that's when kids will realize they belong here just as much as everyone else.\"\n___\nInformation from: The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle, http://www.kansas.com" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The moon is providing a rare triple treat this week.\nOn Wednesday, much of the world will get to see not only a blue moon and a supermoon, but also a total lunar eclipse, all rolled into one. There hasn't been a triple lineup like this since 1982 and the next won't occur until 2037.\nThe eclipse will be visible best in the western half of the U.S. and Canada before the moon sets early Wednesday morning, and across the Pacific into Asia as the moon rises Wednesday night into Thursday.\nThe U.S. East Coast will be out of luck; the moon will be setting just as the eclipse gets started. Europe and most of Africa and South America also will pretty much miss the show.\nA blue moon is the second full moon in a month. A supermoon is a particularly close full or new moon, appearing somewhat brighter and bigger. A total lunar eclipse — or blood moon for its reddish tinge — has the moon completely bathed in Earth's shadow.\n\"I'm calling it the Super Bowl of moons,\" lunar scientist Noah Petro said Monday from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.\nOthers prefer \"super blue blood moon.\"\nEither way, it's guaranteed to impress, provided the skies are clear.\nThe moon will actually be closest to Earth on Tuesday — just over 223,000 miles (359,000 kilometers). That's about 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) farther than the supermoon on Jan. 1. Midway through Wednesday's eclipse, the moon will be even farther away — 223,820 miles (360,200 kilometers) — but still within unofficial supermoon guidelines.\nWhile a supermoon is considered less serious and scientific than an eclipse, it represents a chance to encourage people to start looking at the moon, according to Petro.\n\"I'm a lunar scientist. I love the moon. I want to advocate for the moon,\" he said.\nThrow in a blue moon, and \"that's too good of an opportunity to pass,\" according to Petro.\nAs the sun lines up perfectly with the Earth and then moon for the eclipse, scientists will make observations from a telescope in Hawaii, while also collecting data from NASA's moon-circling Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched in 2009.\nJust like the total solar eclipse in the U.S. last August cooled the Earth's surface, a lunar eclipse cools the moon's surface. It's this abrupt cooling — from the heat of direct sunlight to essentially a deep freeze — that researchers will be studying.\nTotality will last more than an hour.\n\"The moon is one of the most amazing objects in our solar system,\" Petro said. \"It really is the key to understanding the solar system, through interpreting the geology and surface of the moon.\"\nNASA plans to provide a live stream of the moon from telescopes in California and Arizona, beginning at 5:30 a.m. EST.\n___\nOnline:\nNASA: https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/lunar.html" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "ROME (AP) — Italy's populist 5-Star Movement says it's open to finding agreement with the Democratic Party on forming a government, but that its members would have to vote on any such alliance.\nThe country's March 4 parliamentary election produced an inconclusive outcome. A new round of consultations on creating the next Italian government began on Tuesday.\nFive-Star leader Luigi Di Maio declared all negotiations with the right-wing League dead. He said the League was \"condemned to irrelevance\" by refusing to break with former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia.\nThe 5-Stars, the election's single biggest vote-getter, now are looking to the center-left Democrats, who are badly divided. Some want to be in opposition, while others are open to a 5-Star deal.\nDi Maio says Italians should vote again, if no deal is reached." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — Russian authorities have sent a new extradition request to Greece for a Russian cybercrime suspect also sought on criminal charges by the U.S. and France.\nAlexander Vinnik, 38, a former bitcoin platform operator, was informed of the new Russian request by Thessaloniki court officials Wednesday, and is not contesting it.\nRussia initially sought Vinnik on lesser fraud charges. The new request raises the amount allegedly involved to 750 million rubles ($12 million).\nGreece's supreme court has already approved Vinnik's extradition to the United States for allegedly laundering billions of dollars using the virtual currency. Vinnik had fought that decision.\nAnother court ruled for his extradition to Russia based on the first request. France wants him on charges including cybercrime and money laundering.\nGreece's justice minister will rule on the requests." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "BOSTON (AP) — On the heels of President Donald Trump's State of the Union address, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is expected to target the recently approved federal tax overhaul during a town hall-style meeting in Massachusetts.\nPelosi's appearance at the event in Cambridge on Thursday is part of what organizers say is a nationwide tour featuring members of Congress and others to call attention to the Republican tax plan.\nDemocratic Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts also is expected to take part.\nTrump lauded the tax overhaul during his speech to the nation Tuesday night, saying it would offer \"tremendous relief\" to middle class families and small businesses.\nPelosi and other Democrats say the plan gives tax breaks to wealthy individuals and corporations at the expense of working families." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — In a rare occurrence, two men found beaten and tied to a bridge in the Mexican border city of Reynosa turned out to be alive.\nReynosa and other border cities wracked by drug turf battles have seen the lifeless bodies of drug gang victims hung by their necks from bridges.\nBut this time, the bound men were tied to a bridge's railing Tuesday but apparently not by their necks. Accompanying the men was a banner signed by a reputed drug capo promising to catch common criminals and leave them for police.\nAn official with the Tamaulipas state prosecutors' office says the two men are being treated for their injuries. The official was not authorized to talk to the press and insisted on speaking on condition of anonymity." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "DRAPER, Utah (AP) — Police in Utah investigated an anonymous tip about a man who wanted to kill his ex-girlfriend and himself just before he killed the woman and her son this month in a shooting that also injured two children, according to documents provided Wednesday in response to a public records request from The Associated Press.\nThe tipster called 911 about Jeremy Patterson after getting a message from Patterson saying he had just broken up with his girlfriend and wanted to kill her and himself, according to a report from police in the Salt Lake City suburb of Draper, where Patterson, the shooter, lived.\nThe female tipster told a police dispatcher she wanted to remain anonymous because she said knowing about the situation could put her in danger, the report said.\nA Draper officer investigated the call June 6, the same day Patterson, 32, opened fire on the car his ex-girlfriend Memorez Rackley was riding in, killing her and her 6-year-old son. The shooting happened in the suburb of Sandy, which borders Draper.\nThe officer tried to call the tipster but no one answered the phone number she provided, the report said.\nThe tipster gave Patterson's name but did not provide Rackley's name, it said.\nThe officer then searched for Patterson's name in two police databases, but found several people by the same name and could not determine which one might be related to the call, the documents said. The tipster also did not provide an address for Patterson in the 911 call.\nPolice have said Patterson encountered Rackley later that day and argued with her as she walked her children home from school. A passing motorist with three children in her sports utility vehicle stopped and picked up Rackley and her children to help them.\nBut Patterson followed them in his pickup truck and rammed the SUV off the street, got out and started shooting, police have said. Rackley and her son were killed before Patterson killed himself. Rackley's 11-year-old son and the daughter of the woman driving the SUV were wounded.\nThe shooting came three days after Rackley told Sandy police that Patterson had been relentlessly stalking her and she was afraid for her safety, according to Sandy police documents obtained by the AP in a previous public records request.\nShe told officers she did not want to press charges against Patterson but that she would seek a court protective order for him to stay away from her and her children.\nCourt records in the Salt Lake City area show no indication that she did so before the shooting." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "From a fractured ankle to a thumb sliced on a bottle of bubbly, from broken arm bones to torn knee ligaments, all manner of injuries has interrupted Lindsey Vonn's highly successful skiing career.\nThere was even the time the American was helicoptered off a mountain after a body-battering crash during downhill training at the 2006 Turin Olympics. About 48 hours later, she was on her skis, competing.\nThat's what Vonn does: She gets hurt, gets up and gets back out there.\n\"She's relentless toward her goals. It's not easy to continue to fight like she's done,\" said Vonn's longtime sports physical therapist, Lindsay Winninger. \"With each injury she's had, she's learned something about herself and her body. I believe she's a better athlete for it.\"\nThe 33-year-old Vonn says that her main focus until the Pyeongchang Olympics open Feb. 9 is to stay healthy.\nA look at some of the times she was unable to do that:\nBROKEN RIGHT ARM, November 2016\nHurt during a training run in her home state of Colorado. Needed surgery. The injury led to nerve damage; she couldn't move her fingers initially and taped a ski pole to her right glove when she returned to racing. Vonn said later she worried about whether she would be able to use her hand in a normal way ever again and has called it the \"hardest recovery of my career.\"\nFRACTURES IN LEFT KNEE, February 2016\nCrashed during a World Cup super-G in Andorra. Taken off the mountain in a sled . Competed again the next day, but then went nearly a year without participating in a World Cup race afterward.\nBROKEN LEFT ANKLE, August 2015\nInjured during preseason training camp in New Zealand. Wasn't ready to return at the start of the World Cup season in October, but did compete in late November.\nTORN LIGAMENTS IN RIGHT KNEE, BROKEN BONE IN RIGHT LEG, February 2013\nVonn needed reconstructive surgery after tumbling when she landed in a patch of soft snow during the super-G at the 2013 world championships in Schladming, Austria. She tried to come back but got hurt again in a crash while training in Colorado in November and during a World Cup downhill at Val d'Isere, France, in December, tearing her repaired ACL and requiring another operation on her right knee. Announced in January 2014 she would have to miss the Sochi Olympics.\nCONCUSSION, February 2011\nInjured her head in a fall during World Cup practice in Austria. About a week later, she initially decided to compete — \"skiing in a fog,\" Vonn called it — at the world championships in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, before eventually withdrawing.\nBRUISED RIGHT SHIN, February 2010\nSlammed her right leg in slalom practice 10 days before the Vancouver Olympics started. Initially, could barely walk. Needed painkillers and a Novocaine-like numbing cream; also smeared a semisoft Austrian cheese, topfen, on her leg as a home remedy. Raced in the Winter Games, earning two medals: the first Olympic downhill gold for an American woman, and a bronze in the super-G. But she spun out of control during the giant slalom, breaking her right pinkie.\nBRUISED LEFT FOREARM, December 2009\nCrashed on the first run of a World Cup giant slalom in Lienz, Austria, losing her balance after a sharp turn and falling backward. She wound up not missing a race.\nCUT RIGHT THUMB, February 2009\nSafe to say Vonn's oddest injury came off the slopes during the world championships in Val d'Isere, when she needed surgery after hurting herself with a champagne bottle during a photo op gone awry after winning gold in the downhill. \"I'm not going to be opening champagne bottles any time soon — probably not for the rest of my life,\" Vonn said about a month later. \"That's a mistake you definitely learn from.\"\nHYPER-EXTENDED RIGHT KNEE, BONE BRUISE, February 2007\nPartially tore her right ACL in training. Sat out her last two races at the world championships in Are, Sweden, after winning two silvers earlier. Missed the rest of that World Cup season.\nASSORTED BRUISES AND ACHES, February 2006\nScary fall during downhill training at the Turin Olympics caused a bruised thigh, aching back and sore pelvis. She left the hospital — even trying to grab her belongings and sneak out when the checkout process was taking longer than she wanted — and competed less than 48 hours later. She wound up racing in all four events she'd planned, with a top result of seventh in the super-G. \"It's definitely weird,\" she said back then, \"going from the hospital bed to the start gate.\"\n___\nAP Sports Writer Pat Graham contributed to this report.\n___\nMore AP Olympic coverage: https://wintergames.ap.org/" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — A United Nations envoy says progress has been made on a compromise formula regarding how security will be enforced after ethnically divided Cyprus is reunified.\nBut Espen Barth Eide told the AP there's still \"a long way to go\" on a structure meeting the security concerns of rival Greek and Turkish Cypriots, as well as the east Mediterranean island's \"guarantors\" — Greece, Turkey and Britain.\nEide said after talks with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades Wednesday that the U.N. is assisting in \"structuring\" the deal.\nThe complex issue of security has long stumped peace talks. Breakaway Turkish Cypriots insist on keeping Turkish troops and granting Turkey intervention rights in a reunified Cyprus, something which Greek Cypriots reject.\nCyprus was split in 1974 when Turkey invaded after a coup aimed at union with Greece." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "All Times EST EASTERN CONFERENCE Atlantic Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA Tampa Bay 49 34 12 3 71 175 125 Boston 48 29 11 8 66 157 119 Toronto 51 28 18 5 61 162 146 Florida 48 20 22 6 46 136 159 Detroit 48 19 21 8 46 126 146 Montreal 49 20 23 6 46 129 156 Ottawa 48 15 24 9 39 125 168 Buffalo 50 14 27 9 37 115 166 Metropolitan Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA Washington 49 29 15 5 63 150 138 New Jersey 49 25 16 8 58 147 147 Columbus 49 27 19 3 57 131 137 Pittsburgh 51 27 21 3 57 151 153 Philadelphia 49 24 17 8 56 141 141 N.Y. Rangers 50 25 20 5 55 153 151 N.Y. Islanders 51 25 21 5 55 173 184 Carolina 50 23 19 8 54 139 155 WESTERN CONFERENCE Central Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA Winnipeg 50 29 13 8 66 164 136 Nashville 47 29 11 7 65 145 123 St. Louis 51 30 18 3 63 148 130 Dallas 50 28 18 4 60 155 134 Colorado 48 27 18 3 57 157 139 Minnesota 49 26 18 5 57 144 140 Chicago 49 23 19 7 53 146 136 Pacific Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA Vegas 48 32 12 4 68 164 128 San Jose 48 26 15 7 59 143 133 Anaheim 51 25 17 9 59 144 142 Calgary 49 25 16 8 58 137 135 Los Angeles 49 26 18 5 57 139 121 Edmonton 49 22 24 3 47 135 157 Vancouver 49 19 24 6 44 127 159 Arizona 50 12 29 9 33 118 172\nNOTE: Two points for a win, one point for overtime loss. Top three teams in each division and two wild cards per conference advance to playoffs.\nMonday's Games No games scheduled\nTuesday's Games\nFlorida 4, N.Y. Islanders 1\nAnaheim 3, Boston 1\nCarolina 2, Ottawa 1\nNew Jersey 3, Buffalo 1\nMinnesota at Columbus, 7 p.m.\nSan Jose at Pittsburgh, 7 p.m.\nTampa Bay at Winnipeg, 8 p.m.\nMontreal at St. Louis, 8 p.m.\nChicago at Nashville, 8 p.m.\nLos Angeles at Dallas, 8:30 p.m.\nVegas at Calgary, 9 p.m.\nColorado at Vancouver, 10 p.m.\nWednesday's Games\nN.Y. Islanders at Toronto, 7:30 p.m.\nSan Jose at Detroit, 8 p.m.\nPhiladelphia at Washington, 8 p.m.\nThursday's Games\nToronto at N.Y. Rangers, 7 p.m.\nMontreal at Carolina, 7 p.m.\nSt. Louis at Boston, 7 p.m.\nFlorida at Buffalo, 7 p.m.\nAnaheim at Ottawa, 7 p.m.\nPhiladelphia at New Jersey, 7 p.m.\nVegas at Winnipeg, 8 p.m.\nLos Angeles at Nashville, 8:30 p.m.\nTampa Bay at Calgary, 9 p.m.\nDallas at Arizona, 9 p.m.\nColorado at Edmonton, 9 p.m.\nChicago at Vancouver, 10 p.m.\nFriday's Games\nWashington at Pittsburgh, 7 p.m.\nDetroit at Carolina, 7 p.m.\nSan Jose at Columbus, 7 p.m.\nVegas at Minnesota, 8 p.m." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Europe's economic recovery is in full swing, and in countries like Portugal the unemployment rate is falling steeply from record highs reached during the recent financial crisis. Just don't tell people like Nuno Mendes that the good times are back.\nThe 40-year-old Portuguese government worker lives from six-month contract to six-month contract, doing the same job every day but never sure of his future, and takes home just 1,200 euros ($1,500) a month. He would like to marry his girlfriend and have children, but he can't afford it. Unlike co-workers on permanent contracts, banks won't give him a mortgage.\n\"Everything in my life is on hold — starting a family, making long-term plans,\" Mendes says. \"It's all very limiting and debilitating.\"\nMany workers across southern Europe are in the same boat as Mendes, trapped in poorly-paid, insecure jobs that are locking them out of a life they once felt entitled to. It's one of the legacies of the eurozone debt crisis, and it's the new normal.\nUnemployment across the 19-country eurozone was at its lowest level in nearly nine years in December, at 8.7 percent, official figures showed Wednesday. The improvement from 9.7 percent a year earlier comes amid a strong economic growth rate of 2.5 percent last year.\nThe brightening figures conceal, however, a darker reality.\nTemporary, or fixed-term, contracts that give workers a short horizon of income security have increasingly become the norm since the Great Recession. The European Commission acknowledged last year that \"the overall trend since 2006 indicates growing use of involuntary fixed-term contracts.\"\nEuropean leaders have in recent times urged governments in southern Europe, where the end of 20th-century dictatorships heralded new democratic powers and powerful trade unions demanding job protection, to make their workforces more flexible. That meant making it cheaper and easier to hire and fire employees.\nRecent legislation has watered down some safeguards. Even so, many businesses remain reluctant to risk open-ended contracts that further down the line could be an unwelcome burden due to severance pay and other legal considerations.\nSuch concerns have given rise to what is termed a dual labor market, seen by analysts as a European scourge. It means that some workers get a healthy pay packet, generous benefits and employment security. Others endure low wages, job insecurity and bleak prospects of promotion.\nThe Spanish government said this month that 2017 was a record year for job creation, with 21.5 million employment contracts signed. The downside: 19.6 million of them were temporary.\nItaly's largest trade union says the number of people with temporary or part-time jobs who are seeking permanent, full-time work grew to a record 4.5 million in the first half of 2017. That compares with nearly 3.1 million in 2007. On top of that, the number of Italians who cannot find full-time work more than doubled from 756,000 in 2007 to 1.8 million in the first half of last year.\nEuropean businesses have partly explained that by a mismatch between the skills workers possess and the skills companies need. A survey published this month by the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry, based on responses from more than 50,000 businesses in 23 countries, found that the mismatch \"is becoming a significant obstacle to growth.\"\nPortugal's jobless rate stood at 7.8 percent in December, the lowest in eight years. It peaked at a record 16.2 percent in 2013, which was a third straight year of recession after the country's 78-billion euro ($97 billion) bailout amid the eurozone's financial crisis. A recovery began the following year.\nBut only 34 percent of employment contracts signed between 2013 and last year were open-ended, according to the Observatory of Crises and Alternatives at Portugal's Coimbra University.\n\"The creation of jobs in Portugal has been spectacular ... but most of them are temporary jobs,\" said Nuno Teles, one of the observatory's researchers.\nHe points to a high turnover of fixed-term contracts. From 2013 to the end of 2017, about 3 million employment contracts were signed, but only about 1 million of them still exist. Some workers, Teles says, have two work contracts in the space of a month.\nPart of the reason is the nature of Portugal's economic recovery. It is largely being powered by the tourism sector, where seasonal work is common, and the construction industry, which is frequently offering contracts valid only for the duration of specific building projects.\nAnother driver of change has been new technology. Working patterns are changing, with an increasing number of people freelancing, working part-time from home and holding jobs for short periods. It suits some.\nIn the case of employees like government worker Mendes, there's an added twist: he isn't a temporary worker, he's a fake temporary worker, and the government is behind the sham.\nMendes, who holds a Masters degree, belongs to a loose national association of such workers called \"precarios do estado\" —literally, \"precarious government workers.\" They are employed by the state on temporary contracts that are renewed every six months or annually. The association is pressing the government to make good on its 2015 promise to formally classify them as the permanent workers they effectively are.\nThe association's website includes numerous stories from those in similar circumstances to Mendes. \"Why can't I set out the course of my and my family's life for the next 3, 4, 5 or 10 years?\" complains one of them, 37-year-old school teacher Antonio Fachada.\nThe issue has become a key battleground for trade unions, but Mendes says he doesn't feel resentful. He sees the government as a victim of the financial crisis, too, because the bailout lenders wouldn't let it hire permanent staff.\nWith the economy surging, Mendes is hopeful his limbo will come to an end soon, though he's learned to roll with the punches.\n\"I've stopped worrying about my future,\" he says with a laugh. \"I can't, because I'd end up having no life.\"\n____\nColleen Barry in Milan and Ciaran Giles in Madrid contributed to this story." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "All Times EST EASTERN CONFERENCE Atlantic Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA Tampa Bay 49 34 12 3 71 175 125 Boston 48 29 11 8 66 157 119 Toronto 51 28 18 5 61 162 146 Florida 48 20 22 6 46 136 159 Detroit 48 19 21 8 46 126 146 Montreal 49 20 23 6 46 129 156 Ottawa 48 15 24 9 39 125 168 Buffalo 50 14 27 9 37 115 166 Metropolitan Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA Washington 49 29 15 5 63 150 138 Pittsburgh 52 28 21 3 59 156 155 New Jersey 49 25 16 8 58 147 147 Columbus 49 27 19 3 57 131 137 Philadelphia 49 24 17 8 56 141 141 N.Y. Rangers 50 25 20 5 55 153 151 N.Y. Islanders 51 25 21 5 55 173 184 Carolina 50 23 19 8 54 139 155 WESTERN CONFERENCE Central Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA Winnipeg 50 29 13 8 66 164 136 Nashville 47 29 11 7 65 145 123 St. Louis 51 30 18 3 63 148 130 Dallas 50 28 18 4 60 155 134 Colorado 48 27 18 3 57 157 139 Minnesota 49 26 18 5 57 144 140 Chicago 49 23 19 7 53 146 136 Pacific Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA Vegas 48 32 12 4 68 164 128 San Jose 49 26 16 7 59 145 138 Anaheim 51 25 17 9 59 144 142 Calgary 49 25 16 8 58 137 135 Los Angeles 49 26 18 5 57 139 121 Edmonton 49 22 24 3 47 135 157 Vancouver 49 19 24 6 44 127 159 Arizona 50 12 29 9 33 118 172\nNOTE: Two points for a win, one point for overtime loss. Top three teams in each division and two wild cards per conference advance to playoffs.\nMonday's Games No games scheduled\nTuesday's Games\nPittsburgh 5, San Jose 2\nFlorida 4, N.Y. Islanders 1\nAnaheim 3, Boston 1\nCarolina 2, Ottawa 1\nNew Jersey 3, Buffalo 1\nMinnesota at Columbus, 7 p.m.\nTampa Bay at Winnipeg, 8 p.m.\nMontreal at St. Louis, 8 p.m.\nChicago at Nashville, 8 p.m.\nLos Angeles at Dallas, 8:30 p.m.\nVegas at Calgary, 9 p.m.\nColorado at Vancouver, 10 p.m.\nWednesday's Games\nN.Y. Islanders at Toronto, 7:30 p.m.\nSan Jose at Detroit, 8 p.m.\nPhiladelphia at Washington, 8 p.m.\nThursday's Games\nToronto at N.Y. Rangers, 7 p.m.\nMontreal at Carolina, 7 p.m.\nSt. Louis at Boston, 7 p.m.\nFlorida at Buffalo, 7 p.m.\nAnaheim at Ottawa, 7 p.m.\nPhiladelphia at New Jersey, 7 p.m.\nVegas at Winnipeg, 8 p.m.\nLos Angeles at Nashville, 8:30 p.m.\nTampa Bay at Calgary, 9 p.m.\nDallas at Arizona, 9 p.m.\nColorado at Edmonton, 9 p.m.\nChicago at Vancouver, 10 p.m.\nFriday's Games\nWashington at Pittsburgh, 7 p.m.\nDetroit at Carolina, 7 p.m.\nSan Jose at Columbus, 7 p.m.\nVegas at Minnesota, 8 p.m." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Testimony began Monday in the trial of an Oklahoma man charged with first-degree murder and a hate crime in the slaying of his Lebanese neighbor.\nStanley Vernon Majors, 63, is accused in the August 2016 killing of 37-year-old Khalid Jabara. In opening statements to Majors' 12-member jury, prosecutors alleged Majors acted out of jealousy amplified by racist views.\n\"It's about jealousy and hate,\" Assistant District Attorney Becky Johnson said. Johnson said Majors' resentment toward Jabara and the rest of his family became amplified by his dislike of people of color.\nProsecutors say Majors fatally shot Jabara after bombarding him and his family for years with racial epithets, including \"filthy Lebanese\" and \"Moo-slems.\" The Jabaras are Christian.\nMajors' defense attorney, assistant public defender Travis Smith, told jurors that Majors had untreated schizophrenia. Defense attorneys have indicated they will present a defense based on Majors' mental health, although Majors was previously found competent to stand trial.\nThe first witnesses to testify in the case included 911 operators and a neighbor who testified she heard Khalid Jabara being attacked.\nMajors' has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His jury was seated on Friday following a week of jury selection and prosecutors have said his trial could last two weeks." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "NEW YORK (AP) — DMX has been sent to prison by a judge who says the rapper repeatedly lied to him when he promised to obey bail conditions.\nJudge Jed Rakoff (RAY'-kahf) sent the rapper also known as Earl Simmons to prison Tuesday to await his March sentencing on a tax evasion charge.\nRakoff called DMX a genuine flight risk.\nDefense lawyer Murray Richman says Simmons took drugs to cope with the hospitalization of his year-old daughter for several days this month. She had a 104-degree fever.\nRichman says Simmons left a drug rehabilitation center in the Northeast to see his daughter in New York City.\nThe judge says Simmons tested positive last week for cocaine, opiates and Oxycodone.\nProsecutors had requested he be jailed. He was led from court in handcuffs." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "OTTAWA, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 23, 2018--BioTalent Canada today announced the three finalists for the 2018 MAGNUS Catalyst Award for Top New Hire. The three finalists are:\nThis press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180423005377/en/\nDavid Ness, Health and Safety Specialist, ERA Environmental Management, Montreal, QC Chelsea Lobson, Community-Based Monitoring Coordinator, Lake Winnipeg Foundation, Winnipeg, MB David Rowbotham, Senior Research Technologist, STEMCELL Technologies, Vancouver, BC\nOver 1,400 new hires have been subsidized by BioTalent Canada programs since 2005. In that time, employer feedback on the contribution of these young workers has been overwhelmingly positive. The annual MAGNUS Catalyst Award was created in 2015 to recognize the employers who invest in young talent and the dedicated young people, hired through wage subsidies.\n“Congratulations to these young professionals who are passionate about biotech and innovating to help their biotech employers achieve success,” says Jacqueline Flinker, CEO of MAGNUS Personnel. “We are extremely proud to be supporting this initiative.”\n“Seeing the passion and initiative in this young biotech talent is inspiring,” says Rob Henderson, President and CEO of BioTalent Canada. “Telling their stories in starting their biotech careers is extremely rewarding as is knowing they are having such a positive impact on their employers.”\nDavid Ness Health and Safety Specialist, ERA Environmental Management David exemplifies the values of ERA and acts as a mentor to help other new hires and team members to the importance of the corporate culture; in fact, his commitment to embracing new challenges and continuous learning has helped other team members to setup and take on projects outside their own comfort zones. David has been a leader and role model regarding new projects the team is working on– his attitude towards failures is that they are learning experiences and are actual learning opportunities. I have found it greatly beneficial to include David on projects because he helps set the tone for all the other team members in times of success and times when we hit road blocks. Instead of letting these moments get us down, David is able to shift our way of thinking to, “How can we solve this problem?” and “What can we learn from this obstacle?”\nChelsea Lobson Community-Based Monitoring Coordinator, Lake Winnipeg Foundation (LWF) Chelsea is an enthusiastic, passionate young scientist who is ready and willing to roll up her sleeves and do whatever task is required of her and under her leadership Lake Winnipeg Community-Based Monitoring Network (LWCBMN) greatly exceeded their 2017 objectives. Chelsea is at the forefront of a growing movement of citizen scientists taking action in their communities. Citizen science networks face multiple challenges. Accessing appropriate lab space and equipment can be costly. The time and expertise required to process collected samples can be overwhelming and unrealistic for volunteers. Chelsea overcame all of these challenges. Working closely with LWF’s nationally recognized science advisors, LWCBMN’s protocols have been designed to be compatible with those of provincial and federal programs, including programs in other countries. As a result, LWCBMN is producing robust, credible data which, in turn, is creating additional partnership opportunities – mostly notably with Agriculture Canada, which has offered the use of its equipment in its Morden, Manitoba-based lab where Chelsea is now processing LWCBMN’s samples.\nDavid Rowbotham Senior Research Technologist, STEMCELL Technologies STEMCELL’s motto is “Scientists helping scientists,” and it is their mission to supply high quality innovative reagents to research labs around the world, facilitating discoveries in the life sciences. David is working on a team that develops tools that will enable prostate and breast cancer researchers to preform cutting edge research, and eventually guide medical oncologists in the treatment of cancer patients. David has a genuine passion for the science underlying the products that STEMCELL is developing, and the level of rigor that he incorporates into his experiments is labourious and impressive. Just when he has thought to have reached his limit on what he can take on, he surprises his supervisor by incorporating additional experiments to increase the quality of his data. The company also has a strong culture of collaboration, and in this regard, David is highly respected by his peers for his professionalism, positive attitude and creative thinking.\nBioTalent Canada and award sponsor MAGNUS Personnel congratulate the finalists and salute the employers for hiring outstanding young talent.\nThe finalists were chosen among the many entries received and evaluated by an independent judging committee. The winner of the 2018 MAGNUS Catalyst Award will be awarded a cash prize of $1,000 and will be announced in early May.\nThanks to our partner and title sponsor\nAbout BioTalent Canada\nBioTalent Canada™ is the HR partner of Canada’s bio-economy. Our engagement with employers, associations, post-secondary institutions, immigrant serving agencies and service providers has built a dynamic network that is strengthening skills, connecting job-ready talent to industry and creating opportunities. Please visit biotalent.ca for more information.\nAbout MAGNUS Personnel\nMAGNUS Personnel is a highly-specialized recruitment firm operating in the Medical, Clinical Research, Life Sciences, B2B Industrial and Technology sectors. More than 150 Companies trust us to locate and engage North America’s most talented people for their businesses. We do this with Vigor and with Passion. We are relentless. We are MAGNUS. Call (844) 8MA GNUS or visit magnuspersonnel.com.\nView source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180423005377/en/\nCONTACT: BioTalent Canada\nSiobhan Williams\nDirector, Marketing and Communications\n613-235-1402 ext. 229\[email protected]\nor\nMAGNUS Personnel\nJacqueline Flinker\nCEO\n647-933-9036\[email protected]\nKEYWORD: NORTH AMERICA CANADA\nINDUSTRY KEYWORD: HEALTH BIOTECHNOLOGY\nSOURCE: BioTalent Canada\nCopyright Business Wire 2018.\nPUB: 04/23/2018 08:00 AM/DISC: 04/23/2018 08:01 AM\nhttp://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180423005377/en" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — The newest generation of the Kennedy political dynasty will be introduced to a national audience Tuesday night as he delivers the Democratic response to President Donald Trump's State of the Union.\nRep. Joe Kennedy III, a 37-year-old Massachusetts congressman and grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, says Democrats should focus on the economic worries of working-class voters who bolted the party in the 2016 elections.\nTo drive home the message, Kennedy will deliver his speech at a vocational high school in Fall River, Massachusetts, a gritty former textile hub 55 miles (89 kilometers) south of Boston.\n\"From health care to economic justice to civil rights, the Democratic agenda stands in powerful contrast to President Trump's broken promises to American families,\" Kennedy said in a statement, adding that his speech will be \"guided by a simple belief that equality and economic dignity should be afforded to every American.\"\nKennedy, the red-haired son of former Rep. Joe Kennedy II, D-Mass., was elected to the House in 2012, returning the family to Congress two years after the retirement of Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy, who is the son of Joe Kennedy III's great-uncle Ted.\nBesides his famous last name, Joe Kennedy III also is among a wave of younger Democrats in a caucus whose three top leaders are all in their 70s.\nA former Peace Corps volunteer, Kennedy was an assistant district attorney in two Massachusetts districts before being elected to Congress. He has focused on economic and social justice in Congress and has advocated on behalf of vocational schools and community colleges and championed issues such as transgender rights and marriage equality.\nTo illustrate that message, Kennedy has invited Staff Sgt. Patricia King, a transgender infantry solider, to represent him at the State of the Union. King, an 18-year Army veteran, has twice been deployed to Afghanistan and has been awarded the Bronze Star.\nHouse Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi called Kennedy \"a relentless fighter for working Americans\" and said he \"profoundly understands the challenges facing hard-working men and women across the country.\"\nMatt Gorman, a spokesman for the campaign arm of House Republicans, could not conceal his glee as he welcomed the latest Kennedy as the voice of Democrats.\n\"Democrats using the multi-millionaire scion of a political dynasty as the face of their party shows they've learned absolutely nothing,\" Gorman said in an email, adding that the only way to give the GOP an easier target would be for Kennedy to make the speech \"live from the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis,\" Massachusetts.\nDemocratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley said Kennedy will focus on education and the importance of preparing future generations for jobs while also pointing out \"how Republicans fall short, and certainly the president.\"\nKennedy \"will be talking to the forgotten men and women — the people the president says he is speaking to but since has shown he has little or no regard for,\" said Crowley, D-N.Y.\nThe speech is an opportunity for the three-term lawmaker to \"step out a bit and make his own mark\" in national politics, said Crowley, who recommended Kennedy for the role.\n\"He's young, talented and smart. He's got a great last name, but on his own, he's a wonderful man and that will come through as well,\" Crowley said. \"The sky's the limit for him, frankly.\"\nBefore this speech, Kennedy's best-known moment was a 2017 speech criticizing House Speaker Paul Ryan for defending the GOP effort to repeal former President Barack Obama's health care law as \"an act of mercy.\"\nKennedy called the GOP effort \"an act of malice\" in a late-night speech that was viewed millions of times on social media.\nKennedy's speech will be followed by a Spanish-language response delivered by Elizabeth Guzman, one of the first Latinas elected to the Virginia House of Delegates." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "LONDON (AP) — Britain's information commissioner plans to apply for a warrant to access the servers of Cambridge Analytica, which allegedly used data mined from Facebook to help Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election.\nCommissioner Elizabeth Denham said in a statement Monday that she would request the warrant because Cambridge Analytica had been uncooperative with her investigation into whether the company illegally acquired and used Facebook data.\n\"This is a complex and far-reaching investigation for my office and any criminal or civil enforcement actions arising from it will be pursued vigorously,\" she said.\nDenham launched her investigation after weekend reports that Cambridge Analytica improperly used information from more than 50 million Facebook accounts. Facebook has suspended the company from the social network while it investigates the claims.\nFacebook said Monday that it has put its own audit of the claims on hold at the request of the U.K. information commissioner.\nThe New York Times and the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper reported that the U.K.-based company obtained Facebook account data without the users' knowledge and retained it after claiming it had been deleted. Chris Wylie, who once worked for Cambridge Analytica, was quoted as saying the company used the data to build psychological profiles so voters could be targeted with ads and stories.\nCambridge Analytica says the information was acquired from a contractor who was contractually obligated to comply with data-protection laws. None of the data was used in the Trump campaign, the company said.\n\"I'm not accepting their response so therefore I'll be applying to the court for a warrant,\" Denham told Britain's Channel 4. \"We need to get in there, we need to look at the databases, we need to look at the servers and understand how data was processed or deleted by Cambridge Analytica.\"\nThe scandal has also triggered calls for further investigation from the European Union, as well as federal and state officials in the United States.\nThe head of the EU parliament said Monday that the bloc will investigate Facebook's role in the case.\n\"Allegations of misuse of Facebook user data is an unacceptable violation of our citizens' privacy rights,\" Antonio Tajani tweeted. \"The European Parliament will investigate fully, calling digital platforms to account.\"\nU.S. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen, both Democrats, have sought written responses from Facebook. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, also a Democrat, promised an investigation.\nU.K. lawmakers have already called on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify before a parliamentary committee.\n___\nAssociated Press Writers Nick Jessdanun and Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this story" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "PROVIDENCE, R.I.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 24, 2018--“GOLD!” – a call heard around the world in South Korea earlier this year has rarely been more enthusiastic than for US cross-country skier, Jessie Diggins. As the world discovered, Jessie Diggins is courageous, determined and beautiful. Her hard work and incredible skills will keep her on the world stage for many years. Collaborating with legendary jeweler Ross-Simons, Jessie Diggins will advocate a shared mission of celebrating strong and successful women everywhere.\nThis press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180424005143/en/\nOur favorite 2018 Olympic Gold Medalist and 4-time World Championship Medalist, Jessie Diggins, never misses an opportunity to add some sparkle and earrings when she’s racing. In addition to the glitter on her cheeks, Jessie also wears earrings when she’s racing. She favors studs and small drop earrings on and off the trails. Recently, our yellow gold star studs have been a favorite! (Photo credit: Reese Brown)\nA dynamic skier, Jessie is also a prolific communicator whose social media presence is followed around the globe as she shares her outlook on sports and life. She is a master of cross-country skiing at the highest levels, and she is equally a champion of the importance of giving back. In sharing her success and encouraging the goals of other junior athletes, she is a relentless messenger for the notion that Olympic dreams are possible, on and off the snow.\nIn fact, this is what Darrell Ross, CEO of Ross-Simons, said about Jessie. “For us, Jessie is as perfect an ambassador that we could ever hope for. We know our customers are strong, passionate women in all aspects of their lives. Jessie brings to us – and them – her vibrant success and exuberance without effort. Her authentic enthusiasm combined with her astonishing athletic prowess and genuine kindness literally blew us away. She is the new gold standard of celebrity spokesperson.”\nIn a statement, Jessie wrote; “Fabulous jewelry at great values is what Ross-Simons is all about, and I believe in the sincerity of that message. They’ve been around a very long time, and I can sense their passion for what they do – for women of all ages – celebrating beauty, strength and sparkle. I love this association and can’t wait to get started.”\nJim Speltz, President of Ross-Simons added “It would be hard to imagine a better fit or voice for Ross-Simons than Jessie Diggins. We could not be more proud to officially make this announcement and for us to join her team as she joins ours. It’s truly a great day for us.”\nABOUT JESSIE DIGGINS – From Afton, MN, Jessie is a life-long cross country skier who is well on her way to securing her legacy as one of Team USA’s all-time greats. In February of 2018, she etched her name in Olympic history in dramatic fashion, lunging at the finish line in an epic come-from-behind victory to claim the first-ever Olympic gold medal for Team USA. For her heroics, Diggins was selected by her fellow athletes to be the Team USA Flag Bearer at the closing ceremony. Jessie is a four-time World Championships medalist and 9-time National Champion. Already a two-time Olympian, she intends to lead Team USA back into competition at the 2022 Olympic Games.\nABOUT ROSS-SIMONS As America's favorite jeweler for 66 years, Ross-Simons has provided exceptional service and delivered fabulous jewelry to millions of satisfied customers. Luxury Brand Holdings was formed in 2011 to encompass the expansion of the company’s brand offerings as the Sidney Thomas upscale jewelry stores were introduced. With designer jewelry collections and couture straight from the runway, Ross-Simons and Sidney Thomas have dazzled generations of families with their amazing selection and great prices. Headquartered in Cranston, RI, the company is home to 250 employees encompassing all corporate functions, distribution and customer service. The company operates two e-commerce sites at Ross-Simons ( www.ross-simons.com ) and Sidney Thomas ( www.sidneythomas.com ).\nView source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180424005143/en/\nCONTACT: Ross-Simons\nLarry Davis, 401-463-3100\[email protected]\nor\nRDW Group\nDante Bellini, 401-553-5131\[email protected]\nKEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA RHODE ISLAND\nINDUSTRY KEYWORD: LUXURY SKIING/SNOWBOARDING RETAIL FASHION SPORTS\nSOURCE: Ross-Simons\nCopyright Business Wire 2018.\nPUB: 04/24/2018 09:30 AM/DISC: 04/24/2018 09:30 AM\nhttp://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180424005143/en" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the settlement between the company formerly known as Yahoo and government regulators over a huge 2014 data breach (all times local):\n4 p.m.\nProsecutors say two Russian intelligence agents, Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin, used information they stole from Yahoo to spy on Russian journalists, U.S. and Russian government officials and employees of financial services and other private businesses.\nA U.S. judge in San Francisco on Tuesday, meanwhile, pushed back a sentencing hearing for a 23-year-old Canadian man, Karim Baratov, who prosecutors say was hired by Dokuchaev to breach at least 80 email accounts obtained from the massive Yahoo hack.\nJudge Vince Chhabria questioned whether the sentence of seven years and 10 months that prosecutors were seeking for Baratov was longer than what other hackers had received for similar crimes.\nBaratov's attorneys have called for a sentence of three years and nine months.\n___\n2:15 p.m.\nThe company formerly known as Yahoo is paying a $35 million fine to resolve federal regulators' charges that the online pioneer deceived investors by failing to disclose one of the biggest data breaches in internet history.\nThe Securities and Exchange Commission announced the action Tuesday against the company, which is now called Altaba after its most valuable parts were sold to Verizon Communications for $4.48 billion last year. The Sunnyvale, California-based company neither admitted nor denied the allegations but did agree to refrain from further violations of securities laws.\nPersonal data was stolen from hundreds of millions of Yahoo users in the December 2014 breach attributed to Russian hackers. The SEC alleged that, although Yahoo senior managers and attorneys were told about the breach, the company failed to fully investigate." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "CHICAGO (AP) — Boeing Co. is reporting a fourth-quarter profit of $3.13 billion.\nThe Chicago company on Wednesday reported net income of $5.18 per share. Earnings, adjusted for pretax gains, came to $4.80 per share.\nThe results topped Wall Street expectations for $2.91 per share, according to a survey by Zacks Investment Research.\nThe airplane builder posted revenue of $25.37 billion in the period, also topping analyst projections of $24.83 billion.\nBoeing expects full-year earnings in the range of $13.80 to $14 per share, with revenue in the range of $96 billion to $98 billion.\nShares of Boeing Co. are up sharply before the opening bell.\n_____\nThis story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on BA at https://www.zacks.com/ap/BA" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "CLEVELAND (AP) — Kyle Schwarber hit two of Chicago's four solo home runs and the Cubs defeated the Cleveland Indians 10-3 on Tuesday night in the first meeting between the teams since their classic 2016 World Series.\nThe Cubs won Game 7 of that Series in Cleveland for their first championship since 1908, a game that was delayed by rain in the 10th inning shortly before Chicago took the lead. This matchup was played in a steady rain that began before the first pitch.\nThe Cubs won three games in Cleveland's ballpark during the 2016 Series and continued the trend against Josh Tomlin (0-3), who allowed all four homers. Schwarber connected leading off the second and fourth. Willson Contreras went deep in the third and Ian Happ homered in the fourth.\nTyler Chatwood (1-3) won for the first time with the Cubs, allowing one run in six-plus innings. He was pulled after a leadoff single in the seventh.\nCubs third baseman Kris Bryant was out of the lineup two days after being hit in the head by a pitch. Chicago manager Joe Maddon said before the game that the 2016 NL MVP has a cut above his left eye but no concussion after being drilled Sunday by Colorado's German Marquez.\nSchwarber is batting .500 (15 for 30) with three homers and eight RBIs in seven career games at Progressive Field, including the postseason.\nHapp was 3 for 4 with two RBIs, and Contreras hit his first home run of the season. The Cubs scored three in the seventh off Zach McAllister and two in the ninth against Matt Belisle.\nTomlin has allowed eight home runs in 12 2/3 innings over four appearances. The right-hander gave up five runs and seven hits in 3 2/3 innings.\nJason Kipnis had an RBI groundout in the third, but right fielder Jason Heyward's throw home got Rajai Davis at the plate to end the inning. Davis tried to score from second on Jose Ramirez's single, but was out on a headfirst slide. Cleveland challenged but the call was upheld.\nHeyward also took a hit away from Kipnis with a sliding catch in the sixth.\nThe teams complete the two-game series Wednesday night. The Cubs have won four of five and are two games over .500 (11-9) for the first time this season.\nThe rain intensified throughout the game, leaving puddles in the infield and causing Cubs reliever Steve Cishek to slip on the mound several times. The inclement weather led to a crowd of 16,408.\nUP NEXT\nCubs LHP Jon Lester (2-0, 3.10 ERA) faces RHP Trevor Bauer (1-2, 2.67) in the series finale. Lester went 1-1 with a 3.68 ERA in three appearances against Cleveland during the 2016 World Series.\n___\nMore AP baseball: https://apnews.com/tag/MLBbaseball" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "DETROIT (AP) — The PGA Tour is returning to the Detroit area after a 10-year absence.\nDetroit-based Quicken Loans has signed an agreement to host a new PGA Tour event in the Motor City starting next year. Still to be determined is the name of the tournament and when it will be played, though it likely would be two weeks after the U.S. Open.\nThe tour said Wednesday that the tournament is expected to be held at Detroit Golf Club, a Donald Ross design.\nAs part of the deal, the company will retain its title sponsorship of the Quicken Loans National this summer, the tournament outside Washington that is run by the Tiger Woods Foundation.\nMichigan had the Buick Open from 1958 through 2009, a tournament that Woods won three times." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "PARIS (AP) — France's presidential race this year is upending every political assumption that has governed the country for decades.\nAnd now Emmanuel Macron, a 39-year-old former economy minister who is running an independent, centrist campaign, has a real chance to become France's next president in the country's two-round April-May vote.\nAmong the startling events: an incumbent president is not running. His prime minister did not win the Socialist primary. The far right is surging. The conservative front-runner who vowed to slash government spending has seen his chances plummet after giving his wife and children well-paid jobs for years.\nJealous rivals call Macron a guru with no substance. Macron, who plans to present a budget for the five-year presidential term next week and a platform later, mostly promises the French a better future — and that may be enough.\n\"Some people think we are a sect. Welcome,\" Macron joked in front of hundreds of supporters at the Bobino theater in Paris.\nRecent polls show Macron could be among the two top contenders to emerge from the April 23 ballot and advance to the presidential runoff on May 7, where he would be in a good position to win against his expected opponent, Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front.\nA former investment banker with impressive academic credentials, Macron is young, outspoken and sometimes theatrical. He speaks fluent English and is very familiar with social media. Macron backs free-market, pro-European policies and litters his speeches with references to mythology, philosophy or literature.\nMacron became Socialist President Francois Hollande's economic adviser in 2012 and two years later, his economy minister. Last year he launched his own centrist political movement En Marche (\"In Motion\").\nConservative rival Francois Fillon and far-right politician Florian Philippot of the National Front recently compared Macron to a \"guru.\"\nFillon, the former favorite, has seen his popularity sink following revelations about well-paid — and possibly fake — political jobs that he gave his wife, son and daughter. Fillon admits the practice was legal at the time but is \"unacceptable\" now. Prosecutors are investigating.\nFillon has criticized Macron's \"political adventure without a program\" but Macron told the Journal du Dimanche that politics are \"mystical.\"\n\"It's an error to think the program is at the core of a campaign,\" he said.\nMacron has proposed to cut taxes for businesses, wants to reduce by half the number of pupils per class in poor neighborhoods. He traveled to Algeria, a former French colony, this week to boost his international stature. He has also visited the United States, Germany and Lebanon in the last few months and will hold a rally in London next week.\nIn a video on Twitter, Macron urged researchers, entrepreneurs and engineers working on climate change in the U.S. to leave for France.\n\"You are welcome ... we like innovation, we want innovative people!\" he said in English, in a bid to capitalize on U.S. President Donald Trump's doubts about global warming.\nMacron has also laughed at rumors about his sexuality. He said having a gay affair while also being married would come as news to his wife, Brigitte.\n\"Since she shares my life from morning to night, her only question is how, physically, I would manage,\" he joked at the Bobino theater.\nBrigitte Macron-Trogneux, who was his secondary school theater teacher, is 24 years older than her husband. While French politicians traditionally keep their private lives private, she acts more like an American political spouse, attending her husband's rallies and public events. The couple appears hand-in-hand on the front page of celebrity magazine Paris Match for the fourth time.\n\"You'll be hearing the worst things about me. It's unpleasant, it's discourteous and sometimes it's hurtful,\" Macron told his supporters. \"I am who I am. I've never had something to hide.\"\nThe polling institute Ifop says Macron tends to be popular among educated people from the upper and middle-class — and unpopular in the working class.\nThis illustrates the dividing line between the winners and the losers of globalization, wrote Jerome Fourquet of Ifop.\n\"By designating each other as their main rival, Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron pursue a common interest: substitute the traditional confrontation between the left and the right by this new division,\" Fourquet wrote.\nMacron calls the divide \"progressives against conservatives\" while Le Pen \"the pro-globalization against the patriots,\" he said.\nPolitical scientist Thomas Guenole says Macron's rising popularity has been aided by the media. Last year, the proportion of articles about him in French newspapers was oversized compared to his relatively low profile, Guenole told The Associated Press.\n\"Nobody can detail his program ... yet people have sympathy for him,\" he said, adding that what he called Macron's \"doped\" popularity is likely to lead to real results in the presidential election." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "PARIS (AP) — The Michelin guide has allowed a three-star chef to withdraw his restaurant from its prestigious listings.\nSebastien Bras had announced in September that he didn't want Le Suquet restaurant in southern France to figure in the guide anymore because of the huge pressure involved.\nMichelin said on Tuesday it granted Bras' request, and that his restaurant wouldn't be listed in the 2018 edition of the guide.\nIn a statement to The Associated Press, Bras praised Michelin for the move and said he would still be seeking \"excellence.\"\nThere have been other cases of chefs giving up their three-stars, the highest recognition in the world of fine dining. In 2005, the late Alain Senderens rejected his stars when transforming the Parisian temple of gastronomy Lucas Carton into a lower-priced establishment." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "SPENCER, Mass. (AP) — Firefighters in Massachusetts responded to a fast food restaurant over the weekend to free a young girl who got stuck in the playground.\nThe Telegram & Gazette reports that firefighters responded to a McDonald's in Spencer at around 8 p.m. Sunday.\nFirefighters say they needed a ladder to reach the girl, who was stuck 10 to 12 feet (3 to 4 meters) in the air. Police say it took a cutting tool and about 30 minutes to free her.\nPolice think the girl suffered a dislocated knee. She was taken to a hospital for treatment.\nHer name and age were not released, and it is unclear how she became trapped.\n___\nInformation from: Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, Mass.), http://www.telegram.com" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "ELKINS PARK, Pa. (AP) — The founder of the Dead Poets Society of America suffered a fatal heart attack little more than a month after commissioning his own tombstone.\nWalter Skold enlisted the son of novelist John Updike to carve a unique tombstone that will be topped with a dancing skeleton and a quill. Michael Updike, who received the poet's deposit last month, said he never expected to be carving the monument so soon.\nThere was no indication of any premonition of an untimely death before Skold's passing at age 57 on Jan. 20 in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, Updike said Friday.\n\"He was a sweet soul,\" said Updike, of Newbury, Massachusetts. \"He was a kind person with this quirky predilection to poets' graves and death and the macabre.\"\nKnown as the \"Dead Poets Guy,\" Skold visited the final resting places of more than 600 poets after launching the Dead Poets Society in 2008 in Maine, drawing inspiration for the name from the 1989 Robin Williams movie.\nAlong the way, Skold drew attention to bards and poetry while producing a massive repository of information on poets' final resting places.\nHe also had a sense of humor.\nHe traveled in a cargo van he dubbed the \"Dedgar the Poemobile,\" sometimes embellishing the dashboard with an Edgar Allan Poe bobblehead.\nBut he was serious about honoring poets, and he launched a movement to create Dead Poets Remembrance Day on the Sunday closest to Oct. 7, the date Poe died.\n\"It takes a little chutzpah to say we're starting a holiday,\" he said in 2010. \"But we believe it's a really good idea, and we hope it catches on.\"\nSkold was living in Freeport, Maine, when he left his job as a public school technology teacher to pursue his passions of poetry and photography and to launch the society.\nA celebration of Skold's life is being held Saturday in York, Pennsylvania, where his family burial plot is located. There also will be a smaller remembrance in Maine at a later date.\n___\nOnline:\nhttp://deadpoets.typepad.com/\n___\nThis story has been corrected to show that the celebration of life is in York, Pennsylvania, not Elkins Park, Pennsylvania." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "CLEVELAND (AP) — Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue is taking a leave of absence from the team to address health issues that have included chest pains and loss of sleep.\nLue said Monday in statement that tests have offered no conclusion about what the issue is and offered no timetable for his return. The coach said he feels he needs to step away \"and focus on trying to establish a stronger and healthier foundation\" from which to coach the rest of the season.\n\"While I have tried to work through it, the last thing I want is for it to affect the team. I am going to use this time to focus on a prescribed routine and medication, which has previously been difficult to start in the midst of a season,\" Lue said. \"My goal is to come out of it a stronger and healthier version of myself so I can continue to lead this team to the championship we are all working towards.\"\nAssociate head coach Larry Drew will run the team in Lue's absence starting with Monday's home game against Milwaukee. Drew said he received a text message from Lue at 1:30 a.m. saying, \"It's your show.\"\nLeBron James said he was informed of Lue's decision at morning shootaround, saying it was \"probably well overdue.\"\n\"I knew he was struggling, but he was never not himself. He was just dealing with it the best way he could,\" James said. \"Once he leaves the gym and goes home, there's things we don't know, but he was the same every single day even though he was going through what he was going through.\"\nA stress-filled season for the Cavs has taken a toll on the 40-year-old Lue, who led them to the 2016 NBA championship after taking over for David Blatt midway through that season. They are 40-29, third in the Eastern Conference, and have endured roster shake-ups, injuries and other distractions as they try to return to the NBA Finals.\nNow they will play without their coach.\n\"We all want great players, we all want the best teams, but with that comes a lot of pressure as well. And what Ty Lue has had to go through this year with that team, with the trades and the injuries and the pressure, it's unrelenting,\" Denver coach Michael Malone said. \"So I hope that he gets healthy and is able to get back in time for the playoffs and help that team win as many games as possible.\"\nLue spent the second half of Cleveland's victory in Chicago on Saturday in the locker room because of an illness, the second time this season he left a game because he wasn't feeling well. The former NBA guard also sat one out against Chicago at home in December.\n\"We know how difficult these circumstances are for Coach Lue and we support him totally in this focused approach to addressing his health issues,\" general manager Koby Altman said.\nDrew, who coached the second half of Saturday's game, the finale of a six-game, 11-day road trip, spoke about Lue before Monday's contest.\n\"He's shown the warrior that he is,\" Drew said. \"If you would have left it up to him he'd be sitting in this chair right now instead of me. That's just who he is. He doesn't want to miss games. He doesn't want to miss practices. He wants to be with the team, but there comes a point where you have to take a step back and assess things. This thing has been lingering just a little bit too long. T-Lue needs to step away and allow himself to heal before joining the team.\"\nDrew has previous head coaching experience with Atlanta and Milwaukee.\nCharlotte coach Steve Clifford also left his team to address his health this season. He took six weeks off. Medical tests revealed that the 56-year-old Clifford did not have any internal problems, but the doctor's diagnosis was the coach was suffering from severe sleep deprivation .\nJust as All-Star forward Kevin Love returned from a broken hand Monday, the Cavaliers will have to go an undetermined length of time without Lue. James was asked how his absence would impact the team.\n\"We're going to find out,\" he said. \"It's tough. It's like losing one of your best players, a guy that's pretty much the captain of our ship who has run the team the last three years. Everyone had to step up. We have coaches in place who are ready for that challenge. We have to do our jobs as players as well.\"\n___\nMore NBA basketball: https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Officials at the nation's only underground nuclear waste repository will be flipping the switch on an interim ventilation system this week, allowing mining to resume for the first time since a 2014 radiation release contaminated part of the facility.\nStill, they caution it will be a few years before the flow of air is enough to meet the pace of operations before the leak.\nBruce Covert, president of the contractor that runs the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, said testing was done and the U.S. Energy Department approved starting up the ventilation system.\nHe called it a big step for the facility, which disposes of waste from decades of bomb-making and nuclear research.\nOfficials are planning for a permanent system that's expected to cost a quarter-billion dollars and take until 2021 to complete." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish President Andrzej Duda has signed into law a bill that largely limits trade on Sundays, saying it will benefit family life.\nThe legislation, worked out by the conservative government and the Solidarity trade union, is expected to draw protests from large Western supermarket chains that are the main target of the law. A large part of their profit is earned on weekends.\nAs of March 1, shops and markets will be closed on two Sundays per month; in 2019 only one Sunday a month will be open for shopping; and starting in 2020, there will be no Sunday shopping, with a few exceptions.\nDuda praised the law on Tuesday as giving children a chance to be with parents and giving shop workers some needed time off." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Uli Stielike has been fired as South Korea's head coach after poor results in World Cup qualifying.\nSouth Korea's football association made the announcement Thursday, two days after a 3-2 loss in Qatar. It was South Korea's third defeat in the last five qualification games and left hopes of progressing to a ninth successive World Cup uncertain.\nLee Yong-soo, chairman of the KFA's technical committee, says Stielike \"has worked hard for the development of Korean soccer but results in qualification for the World Cup have not been what we wanted.\"\nThe KFA did not immediately announce a replacement. With two games remaining in Group A — and the top two progressing to the World Cup automatically — South Korea is in second place." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "KOLKATA, India (AP) — Indian rescue workers on Wednesday recovered another body from a canal where a bus fell earlier this week, reportedly while its driver was talking on his cellphone, bringing the death toll to 43.\nDistrict Magistrate P. Ulganathan said rescuers were continuing to search for four people still missing after the bus plunged nine meters (30 feet) into the canal in Murshidabad district in West Bengal state on Monday.\nUlganathan said 31 bodies were found trapped in the bus when it was pulled out of the canal late Monday. Another 11 bodies were recovered from the canal on Tuesday.\nHe said 11 people were rescued and hospitalized with injuries.\nThe bus careened off a bridge while trying to avoid a head-on collision with a truck. Witnesses said the driver was speaking on his cellphone while driving and refused to heed pleas by the passengers not to do so, The Times of India newspaper reported.\nThe accident site is 220 kilometers (135 miles) north of Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal state.\nMore than 110,000 people are killed annually on India's roads. Most crashes are attributed to reckless driving, poorly maintained roads and aging vehicles." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "PARIS (AP) — Two teenage boys have been rescued after three days underground in the skeleton-lined labyrinth of the Catacombs of Paris.\nParis police said they alerted firefighters early Wednesday that the boys, aged 16 and 17, were missing. Police said teams of rescuers, including climbers and sniffer dogs, set out to search for the youths and found them beneath southern Paris a few hours later suffering from slight hypothermia.\nIt was unclear how the boys got lost.\nSometimes people sneak into the catacombs after the official museum is closed and venture into areas normally off-limits, even organizing special parties or adventure games.\nSome 20 meters (66 feet) below Paris, the catacombs hold the remains of 6 million people, transferred there starting in the 1700s as public graveyards were closed." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "LONDON (AP) — A member of Britain's House of Lords has drawn praise and puzzlement for resigning as a government minister because he was late to answer a question.\nInternational Development Minister Michael Bates apologized to another member \"for my discourtesy for not being in my place to answer her question on a very important matter.\" Bates said Wednesday he was \"thoroughly ashamed\" and \"shall be offering my resignation.\"\nWith that, he walked out of the Lords chamber to the astonishment of other members.\nFormer Foreign Secretary William Hague, who now sits in Parliament's upper chamber, said he hoped \"my noble friend, who has given 20 years of strong public service\" would reconsider.\nBates quit a previous government position in 2016 to walk 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) across South America for charity." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Texas death row inmate is asking the federal courts to keep him from being executed for the 1999 slaying of his ex-girlfriend while he already was on parole for killing his estranged wife.\nWilliam Rayford, 64, would be the nation's second inmate executed this year, both in Texas.\nRayford is facing lethal injection Tuesday evening for beating, stabbing and strangling 44-year-old Carol Lynn Thomas Hall, whose body was found about 300 feet (91 meters) inside a drainage pipe behind her home in South Dallas' Oak Cliff area. Hall's 11-year-old son also was stabbed in the attack but survived to testify against Rayford.\nRayford's lawyers are seeking to have his punishment halted. In their argument before the U.S. Supreme Court, they said his death sentence was tainted because his attorney at his trial in 2000 improperly introduced the subject of race as a factor in prison violence while questioning a prison expert during the punishment phase. Nadia Wood, a Dallas-based federal public defender, told the high court that in bringing it up the trial lawyer implied \"that people like Mr. Rayford — a black man — are the cause of the violence.\"\nAn assistant Texas attorney general, Jefferson Clendenin, disputed the argument, telling the justices the witness never testified as an expert in rates of violence because he wasn't qualified to do so and that none of the witness' trial testimony \"even implied that African-Americans are more likely than others to be violent or that Rayford himself was a future danger.\"\nRayford's lawyers argued in a separate appeal to a lower federal court that earlier a federal court improperly denied money for his appeals and that Hall's slaying may not have qualified for a capital murder charge. They also argued that Rayford suffered from brain damage from lead poisoning because he grew up near a toxic site and carried lead residue from old gunshot wounds.\nEvidence \"more than established\" Rayford kidnapped Hall while trying to kill her, supporting the capital murder charge, and arguments about lead poisoning were based on a \"vague, general and nebulous conclusion\" by a defense expert, Clendenin indicated in his response.\nHall, who knew Rayford since they both grew up in a Dallas housing project, had broken up with him two months earlier, according to evidence in the case. Rayford entered her home on Nov. 16, 1999, using a key she didn't know he had. They argued and it turned violent.\nHall's son, Benjamin, testified at Rayford's trial that he suffered a punctured lung from the stab wound, was hit on the head when he tried to protect his mother, and watched her run from the home with Rayford pursuing her. He said he saw Rayford carry his mother toward the drainage pipe where her body eventually was found.\nPolice responding to a call about the attack arrested Rayford at the scene. Hall's blood was on his face and clothing. He told an officer Hall could be found \"in the hole ... up in the sewer, in the water.\"\nRayford was convicted of murder in 1986 for fatally stabbing his estranged wife, Gail Rayford, in front of their four children. She had obtained a court order four days earlier to keep him away.\nHe was sentenced to 23 years in prison for her slaying but was paroled after eight years under a former Texas law that allowed some prisoners to be released as the state struggled with prison crowding. He had been on parole for five years when Hall was killed. Relatives said she was aware of his previous murder conviction when they became a couple and believed it was her Christian duty to give people second chances.\nAnother Texas prisoner is set to die Thursday. John David Battaglia, 62, of Dallas, is to be executed for the May 2001 shooting deaths of his daughters, ages 6 and 9." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is now estimating the Republican tax bill will generate about $1.8 trillion in new tax revenue over 10 years by boosting economic growth.\nBut that's a lot more than nonpartisan congressional analysts have projected. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that growth stimulated by the anticipated tax cuts will generate some $409 billion in additional tax revenue over 10 years.\nPresident Donald Trump and Republican leaders in Congress have promoted the massive tax plan by promising the tax cuts will boost the economy. The $1.5 trillion House and Senate tax bills combine steep tax cuts for corporations with modest reductions for individuals.\nThe new Treasury Department analysis out Monday says about half the expected increase in economic growth likely will result from tax benefits for corporations." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "BRUSSELS (AP) — The chief of the European border and coast guard agency says migrant deaths in the Mediterranean on the Libya-to-Italy smuggling route have increased to a record level despite ever more rescue vessels trying to prevent mass drownings.\nFrontex Executive Director Fabrice Leggeri said Wednesday \"we face a kind of sad paradox\" that as the international community increases efforts to send more rescue ships close to Libya, smuggling rings pack ever more people onto unseaworthy boats and push them out toward the open sea.\nHe said the recorded number of migrant drowning deaths in 2016 — 4,579 — might be much less than the true loss of life. He says this \"is tragic and the reasons are well known: the number of migrants now (arriving) on very small dinghies.\"" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "SEATTLE (AP) — Amazon, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and the New York bank JPMorgan Chase are teaming up to create health care company \"free from profit-making incentives and constraints.\"\nBuffett, in a prepared statement Tuesday, called the skyrocketing costs of health care in the U.S. the \"hungry tapeworm on the American economy.\"\nThe ambitious goal, they say, is in the early planning stages, but the seismic nature of the announcement sent a shockwave through the health industry.\nShares of health care companies are falling in early trading." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine (AP) — A spokesman says former President George H.W. Bush is in \"good spirits\" at a Maine hospital but will need several more days of treatment.\nThe 93-year-old was taken to a hospital on Sunday when he experienced low blood pressure and fatigue hours after attending a pancake breakfast at the American Legion post in Kennebunkport.\nHis spokesman said in a tweet Wednesday that Bush is talkative and in good spirits but that the treatments to address his blood pressure \"are expected to take several more days.\"\nThe nation's 41st president arrived in Maine on May 20 after being treated for a blood infection. He's without his wife of 73 years, Barbara Bush, who died in April in Houston." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The 8-year-old niece of pop star Britney Spears, who was injured in an all-terrain vehicle accident, still isn't well enough to return to school but was able to take Valentine's Day treats to her class in Louisiana Tuesday.\nEight-year-old Maddie Spears-Aldridge is the daughter of Spears' sister, actress and singer Jamie Lynn Spears.\nAccording to a post on Jamie Lynn Spears' Instagram account, the girl was happy to see her friends again. Jamie Lynn Spears wrote that her daughter still isn't ready to go back to school but doctors cleared her for the Valentine's Day visit.\nThe Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Office says Maddie was submerged in a pond inside the all-terrain vehicle Feb. 5 and nearby family members couldn't free her. An ambulance service arrived and pulled her out.\nShe was released from the hospital last Friday." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The U.S. embassy in Beijing published a Fourth of July message on their official Weibo webpage on July 3, which led to numerous netizens to ask for U.S. salvation, reports say.\nChinese authorities who sensor China's internet more systematically than anyone else, were slow to respond which allowed the post to be visible from when it was published at 1.47 p.m. yesterday until late-morning today.\nIn a Weibo post that explained the Fourth of July to the Chinese audience yesterday afternoon, a host of netizens replied with comments of support and admiration of the U.S. government.\n\"Happy U.S. empire day\" said one, \"The U.S. can save everything in China\" said another, according to the Liberty Times.\n\"Please rescue the Chinese government from high house prices that drink the blood of young people\" implored a netizen.\n\"I wish one day that China with Japan and South Korea can enjoy democratic values as well as U.S. military protection\" hoped another.\nDespite growing controls on the internet and especially Weibo in China, the Chinese government was slow to delete the posts, leading for some to ask why the Chinese government does not dare to delete them, according to the Liberty Times.\nThe post was deleted during sometime the late morning of July 4.\nJuly 4 is the U.S.'s national day, which celebrates the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, a pronouncement of secession by 13 U.S. colonies from the British Empire." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "Stock indexes ended slightly higher Wednesday after overcoming a brief afternoon stumble.\nThe dip came after the Federal Reserve released its latest statement on interest rate policy and the economy. Stocks bounced back in the last hour of trading, with gains by technology companies outweighing losses in health care and other sectors.\nOn Wednesday:\nThe Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 1.38 points, or 0.1 percent, to 2,823.81.\nThe Dow Jones industrial average added 72.50 points, or 0.3 percent, to 26,149.39.\nThe Nasdaq composite climbed 9 points, or 0.1 percent, to 7,411.48.\nThe Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks gave up 7.83 points, or 0.5 percent, to 1,574.98.\nFor the week:\nThe S&P 500 is down 49.06 points, or 1.7 percent.\nThe Dow is down 467.32 points, or 1.8 percent.\nThe Nasdaq is down 94.29 points, or 1.3 percent.\nThe Russell 2000 is down 33.08 points, or 2.1 percent.\nFor the year:\nThe S&P 500 is up 150.20 points, or 5.6 percent.\nThe Dow is up 1,430.17 points, 5.8 percent.\nThe Nasdaq is up 508.09 points, or 7.4 percent.\nThe Russell 2000 is up 39.47 points, or 2.6 percent." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – As snow was falling on the Lala Mountain (拉拉山) in Taoyuan City Saturday afternoon, the authorities announced that roads up the mountain would be closed from 7 p.m.\nTaiwan was falling under the grip of a rare wave of cold air this weekend, with snowfall reported from several of the island’s tallest peaks Saturday. The mention of snow in the media triggered an exodus from the cities with motorists trying to reach mountainous areas to get a glimpse of the unusual scenery.\nThe snow in Taoyuan was concentrated in the “Holy Tree area” (神木區) of Fuxing District near the 2,030-meter-tall Lala Mountain, according to local park authorities. During the afternoon, only cars equipped with snow chains would be allowed to reach the local parking lot, the Central News Agency reported.\nDue to the snowfall and the expected further plunge in temperatures overnight, the stretch of the Northern Cross-Country Highway, also known as the No.7 road, between Xiabaling (下巴陵) and Xicun (西村) would be preventively shut off from 7 p.m. Saturday until 7 a.m. Sunday, according to CNA.\nAreas where the road surface was frozen might also impose overnight traffic bans, while during the day, only vehicles with snow chains on their tires might be allowed to travel there, the authorities said, advising motorists not to drive up the mountains during the night." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "REDWOOD CITY, Calif. & CHONGQING, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 23, 2018--Codexis, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDXS) and Porton Pharma Solutions, Ltd. (SZSE: 300363) announce a strategic collaboration to deploy Codexis’ world-leading biocatalyst technology within Porton’s global custom intermediate and active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) development and manufacturing business. The partnership will accelerate the creation and commercialization of new, low-cost, sustainable manufacturing processes, exploiting the benefits of biocatalysts to a growing number of the world’s small molecule pharmaceuticals.\nThis press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180423005452/en/\nUnder the terms of the collaboration, Codexis will license core elements of its biocatalyst technologies to Porton, including its proprietary biocatalyst libraries, high-throughput screening and enzyme manufacturing know-how. Codexis will also provide preferential access to its CodeEvolver ® protein engineering platform technology for the creation of new biocatalytic process solutions. Porton will install new operations to drive adoption and optimal application of these biocatalyst technologies into its custom contract development and manufacturing (CDMO) offerings to global pharmaceutical customers. Additionally, Porton pledges financial commitments to utilize Codexis’ CodeEvolver ® protein engineering platform technology.\nThe partnership reinforces the benefits of reduced costs, enhanced sustainability and improved product quality that biocatalysts can deliver to the manufacturing of the world’s small molecule pharmaceuticals. These benefits are already impacting a growing set of the world’s drug manufacturing processes and have earned Codexis three U.S. EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge awards for its biocatalysts’ contributions in these commercial-scale drug manufacturing innovations.\n“Technological leadership is central to our strategy to grow and deliver value to our pharmaceutical clients around the globe,” said Oliver Ju, chairman and CEO at Porton Pharma Solutions. “We believe that biocatalysis is the most impactful technology to improve the future of pharmaceutical manufacturing, and there is not a more capable player to partner with than Codexis.”\n“We are delighted to establish this unique partnership with Porton,” said John Nicols, president and CEO of Codexis. “Given Porton’s significant and fast-growing presence as a leading global CDMO, we will now be able to reach a greater share of the world’s pharmaceutical manufacturing market.”\nAbout Codexis, Inc.\nCodexis is a leading protein engineering company that applies its proprietary CodeEvolver ® technology to develop proteins for a variety of applications, including as biocatalysts for the commercial manufacture of pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals and industrial enzymes, and enzymes as biotherapeutics and for use in molecular diagnostics. Codexis’ proven technology enables improvements in protein performance, meeting customer needs for rapid, cost-effective and sustainable manufacturing in multiple commercial-scale implementations of biocatalytic processes. For more information, see www.codexis.com.\nAbout Porton Pharma Solutions\nPorton Pharma Solutions is an industry-leading partner and provider of custom active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) development and manufacturing services to the global drug industry (SZSE, Stock Code 300363). Backed by more than 1,700 customer-centric employees, cutting-edge Process R&D Centers, USFDA and PMDA-inspected cGMP production sites and marketing offices located across Asia, North America and Europe, Porton helps its customers more efficiently deliver improved health outcomes to their patients through chemical process innovation, rapid scale-up and high-quality, cost-effective manufacture of APIs and/or drug intermediates. Learn more by visiting www.porton.cn.\nForward-Looking Statements\nTo the extent that statements contained in this press release are not descriptions of historical facts regarding Codexis, they are forward-looking statements reflecting the current beliefs and expectations of management made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including Codexis’ expectations regarding its strategic global partnership with Porton for the creation and commercialization of new, low cost sustainable manufacturing processes. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements because they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that are, in some cases, beyond Codexis’ control and that could materially affect actual results. Factors that could materially affect actual results include, among others: Codexis’ dependence on its licensees and collaborators; Codexis’ dependence on a limited number of products and customers in its biocatalysis business; potential adverse effects to Codexis’ business if its customers’ pharmaceutical or food products are not received well in the markets; risks, uncertainties and costs associated with the successful development of biotherapeutic candidates, including obtaining development partners for its biotherapeutic programs and progressing such programs to clinical trials and regulatory approvals; Codexis’ ability to develop and commercialize new products for the biocatalysis markets; Codexis’ dependence on a limited number of contract manufacturers for large-scale production of its enzymes; Codexis’ ability to deploy its technology platform in new market spaces, including the fine chemicals, therapeutics and in vitro molecular diagnostics markets; Codexis’ ability to comply with the terms of its credit facility and its associated debt service obligations; Codexis’ need for additional capital in the future in order to expand its business or to adjust for market conditions or strategic considerations, which may involve Codexis entering into equity offerings, debt financings, credit facilities and/or strategic collaborations; Codexis’ dependence on key personnel; Codexis’ ability to establish and maintain adequate protection for intellectual property, trade secrets and other proprietary rights covering its technologies; and any claims by third parties that Codexis is infringing their intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights. Additional information about factors that could materially affect actual results can be found in Codexis’ Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) on March 15, 2018 and Codexis’ other periodic reports filed with the SEC, including under the caption “Risk Factors.” Codexis expressly disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.\nView source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180423005452/en/\nCONTACT: Codexis Contacts:\nInvestors\nLHA Investor Relations\nJody Cain, +1 310-691-7100\[email protected]\nor\nMedia\nSCORR Marketing\nLea Studer, +1 308-237-5567\[email protected]\nor\nPorton Pharma Solutions Contact:\nHelen Pi\nHead of General Office\[email protected]\nKEYWORD: UNITED STATES ASIA PACIFIC NORTH AMERICA CHINA CALIFORNIA\nINDUSTRY KEYWORD: HEALTH ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE BIOTECHNOLOGY CLINICAL TRIALS PHARMACEUTICAL MANUFACTURING CHEMICALS/PLASTICS RESEARCH SCIENCE\nSOURCE: Codexis, Inc.\nCopyright Business Wire 2018.\nPUB: 04/23/2018 06:00 AM/DISC: 04/23/2018 06:01 AM\nhttp://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180423005452/en" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "ST. LOUIS (AP) — The Latest on a fatal drive-by shooting in St. Louis (all times local):\n2:35 p.m.\nPolice say a 40-year-old St. Louis man has been fatally shot in a drive-by shooting that also injured five other people.\nSt. Louis police on Wednesday identified the man who died as Stanley Sparkling. Police said he was unconscious, not breathing and suffering from a gunshot wound to the head when they arrived in a neighborhood on the city's north side to investigate.\nThe St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Sparkling was sitting on a porch. He lived on the same block.\nPolice said someone in a sport utility vehicle began shooting about 5:30 p.m.\nThey said two men were critically wounded as they sat in a car and two women sustained graze wounds. All are listed in stable condition. Police said a third woman refused medical treatment for unspecified injuries.\n___\n11:49 p.m. Tuesday.\nPolice say a man has been killed and five other people injured in a drive-by shooting in St. Louis.\nThe St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that someone in a sport utility vehicle began shooting about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in a neighborhood on the city's north side. A man sitting on a porch was fatally wounded. Police did not immediately identify him.\nTwo other men were critically wounded as they sat inside a car.\nThree women were also hurt. One was listed in stable condition and the other two sustained graze wounds.\nThe SUV drove off after the shooting. No arrests have been reported.\n___\nInformation from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 24, 2018--Westwood Professional Services, Inc. (Westwood) Westwood’s 2018 Board of Directors were announced at the firm’s annual shareholders’ meeting held on April 17, 2018. New member Dan Beckmann, PE, Director, Power Delivery, joins Paul Greenhagen, PS, President/CEO, Kevin Larabee, Vice President, Human Resources, Aaron Tippie, PE, Vice President, Power Division, and re-elected member Jason McCarty, PE, Vice President, Operations.\nThis press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180424006152/en/\nWestwood's 2018 Board of Directors. From left: Dan Beckmann, Kevin Larabee, Jason McCarty, Paul Greenhagen, and Aaron Tippie (Photo: Business Wire).\nNew board members are nominated and then elected by the shareholders each year. Beckmann joined the firm in 2005 and became a shareholder in 2010. Greenhagen looks forward to working with Beckmann on the board, “Dan is a respected leader and a model for Westwood’s culture across our business units. He will bring forward a very balanced perspective considering business strategy, client opportunities, and our team’s strengths.”\nAbout Westwood Professional Services, Inc. (Westwood) Westwood is a multi-disciplined national surveying and engineering services provider for commercial and residential development, wind and solar energy, and electric transmission projects. Westwood was established in 1972 in Minneapolis, Minnesota and has grown to serve clients across the nation from multiple U.S. offices. Westwood’s Corporate Fact Sheet.\nIn 2017, Westwood received Zweig Group’s Best Firms to Work For and Marketing Excellence awards, ranked on industry top 25 lists, and received recognition for its involvement on award-winning projects nationwide.\nView source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180424006152/en/\nCONTACT: Westwood Professional Services, Inc.\nMarissa Tarr, 952-697-5749\nBrand Communications Coordinator\[email protected]\nKEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA MINNESOTA\nINDUSTRY KEYWORD: ENERGY ALTERNATIVE ENERGY UTILITIES LANDSCAPE URBAN PLANNING CONSTRUCTION & PROPERTY COMMERCIAL BUILDING & REAL ESTATE RESIDENTIAL BUILDING & REAL ESTATE\nSOURCE: Westwood Professional Services, Inc.\nCopyright Business Wire 2018.\nPUB: 04/24/2018 11:41 AM/DISC: 04/24/2018 11:41 AM\nhttp://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180424006152/en" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 23, 2018--ABeam Consulting Thailand Ltd., (Head Office: Bangkok; Managing Director: Ichiro Hara), a subsidiary of ABeam Consulting Ltd. (Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President: Toshinori Iwasawa), announced today that it has established a mission-critical system for the Thai manufacturing company Bangkok Glass Public Company Limited (Head Office: Bangkok; Director and President: Mr. Pavin Bhirom Bhakdi). This system became fully operational at its 9 companies in Thailand, in March 2018. It will be implemented gradually across Bangkok Glass’s other business units in the future.\nBackground of implementation and outline of the new system\nFounded in 1974, Bangkok Glass specializes in the manufacture, sale and export of glass and packaging products and is developing business not only in Thailand but also across Asia. Bangkok Glass has been steadily expanding its business since the company was founded. In anticipation of future growth, they decided to renew the mission-critical system that had been in use for many years in order to standardize the business processes and systems that were becoming more diversified and individualized for each office.\nFollowing an evaluation process, Bangkok Glass decided to implement SAP S/4HANA, SAP's next generation ERP business suite built on SAP’s in-memory computing platform, and selected ABeam Consulting as an implementation partner. The mission-critical business system developed on the new ERP platform standardized business processes and unified the IT infrastructure, which were previously spread out over ten offices. In addition to covering a series of mission-critical businesses such as accounting, production and logistics, the use of SAP Fiori ® made it possible to access the system from a variety of channels.\nThe role of ABeam Consulting\nABeam Consulting fully supported the project from concept planning and requirement definition to business process design, system operation and operation migration. ABeam Consulting managed to implement the new system in their 9 companies in period of fourteen months. ABeam Consulting consultants participated in the project and efficiently supported the standardization of business processes and system implementation by using unique methodology and tools based on its excellent track record.\nABeam Consulting will continue to support Bangkok Glass to strengthen its corporate competitiveness through the results of this mission-critical system renewal.\nAbout ABeam Consulting\nABeam Consulting provides business transformation services that create strategic advantage, improve business processes, leverage technology innovation and enhance organizational performance for leading multinational and domestic companies worldwide. ABeam partners with our clients to diagnose and solve their real challenges with solutions that combine industry and operational best practices with technical expertise. Pragmatic approaches ensure that clients gain measurable value more quickly. Headquartered in Tokyo, ABeam’s 5,000 professionals serve more than 700 clients throughout Asia, the Americas and Europe. For more information, please visit http://www.abeam.com/\nNote: “ABeam” and the ABeam logo are registered trademarks in Japan and trademarks of ABeam Consulting Ltd in other countries. Other names and brands appearing in this text may be claimed as the property of others.\nView source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180423006632/en/\nCONTACT: For further information, please contact:\nABeam Consulting Ltd.\nWakana Kabasawa, +81-3-6700-8277\nManager, Corporate Communication Unit\[email protected]\nFAX: +81-3-6700-8145\nKEYWORD: ASIA PACIFIC THAILAND JAPAN\nINDUSTRY KEYWORD: TECHNOLOGY INTERNET SOFTWARE MANUFACTURING CHEMICALS/PLASTICS PACKAGING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES ACCOUNTING CONSULTING\nSOURCE: ABeam Consulting Ltd.\nCopyright Business Wire 2018.\nPUB: 04/23/2018 10:00 PM/DISC: 04/23/2018 10:00 PM\nhttp://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180423006632/en" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — Saudi Arabia's young crown prince has an ambitious list of to-dos: modernize his conservative kingdom, weaken Iran's hand across the Mideast and, this week, rehabilitate his country's image in the eyes of Americans.\nCrown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, son of King Salman and heir to the throne, is opening a marathon tour of the United States with a stop in Washington, where he plans to meet President Donald Trump on Tuesday. He'll hold separate meetings with a long roster of influential U.S. officials, including the secretaries of defense, treasury and commerce, the CIA chief and congressional leaders from both parties.\nThe visit comes as the United States and much of the West are still trying to figure out Crown Prince Mohammed, better known by his initials MBS, whose sweeping program of social changes at home and increased Saudi assertiveness abroad has upended decades of traditional rule in Saudi Arabia. The 32-year-old crown prince also has big economic plans, and over three weeks in the U.S. he will meet businessmen in New York, tech mavens from Google and Apple Inc. in San Francisco, and entertainment bigwigs in Los Angeles. Other stops include Boston and Houston.\n\"This is not the real Saudi Arabia,\" MBS said when asked by CBS News about the repressive version of Islam many outsiders associate with the kingdom. He said he was restoring the more tolerant, egalitarian society that existed before Saudi Arabia's ultraconservatives were empowered in 1979. \"We were victims, especially my generation that suffered from this a great deal.\"\nIt's a message that has earned MBS admirers in the United States, as he allowed women to drive and opened movie theaters shuttered since the 1980s. MBS is turning \"Saudi Arabia into a normal country in which normal people lead normal lives,\" Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters Monday.\nYet Democrats and Republicans have approached some of the crown prince's other bold steps with trepidation, particularly as they pertain to his anti-Iran efforts. One bill in Congress proposes scaling back U.S. military assistance to a Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen.\nMBS, in particular, has been closely identified with the three-year-old war in the Arab world's poorest country, which started while he was defense minister. The Saudis and their allies are fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels, but international organizations have harshly criticized the coalition's airstrikes and blockading of Yemeni ports for contributing to thousands of civilian deaths and a humanitarian catastrophe.\nIt's not the only regional mess the Saudis are in. In November, U.S. officials voiced unease when Lebanon's prime minister unexpectedly resigned while in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia was accused of attempting to bring down Lebanon's government, which is strongly influenced by Iranian proxy Hezbollah. Prime Minister Saad Hariri later reversed his resignation.\nThe Saudis are working aggressively to change perceptions. They've cast themselves as essential partners against Islamist extremist groups and, especially since Trump's maiden overseas voyage last year, touted their lavish purchases of high-tech goods from job-creating American companies. In Yemen, the kingdom says it is improving military targeting, opening up ports and pledging $1.5 billion in new aid.\n\"The concerns expressed there are reflective of deep concerns by the American public at large,\" said Lori Plotkin Boghardt, a Gulf scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. \"The Saudis are very sensitive to this. They're certainly communicating with elite circles to discuss the measures they're taking to try to get humanitarian assistance in to Yemen.\"\nIn MBS, Trump will find a sympathetic ear for his calls to crack down on Iran, Saudi Arabia's archenemy, and strengthen a 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran that former President Barack Obama and world powers brokered. Trump has threatened to pull out of the agreement unless there are changes by May. Last week, Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, an advocate of staying in the accord, choosing Mike Pompeo, the current CIA director and nuclear deal critic, as a replacement.\nMBS could dangle a huge carrot in front of Trump for his support. Stock exchanges in New York and elsewhere are vying for the international listing of Aramco, the Saudi oil behemoth expected to go public soon. Saudi concerns with New York include a post-9/11 law that could jeopardize assets in the United States if victims' families claim Saudi Arabia helped the al-Qaida attackers and sue for compensation.\nAlthough the U.S. has welcomed MBS's determination to purge pervasive corruption in Saudi Arabia, including by royals, the Trump administration hasn't endorsed his tactics. Last year, more than 150 high-level princes, ministers, military officials and businessmen were abruptly rounded up and detained at the Ritz-Carlton hotel. They eventually paid settlements that Saudi Arabia says exceeded $106 billion.\nAl-Jubeir, the foreign minister, said the tough tactics were needed after past anti-corruption campaigns failed.\n\"It didn't work,\" he said. \"So now you do something dramatic.\"\n___\nReach Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "DENVER (AP) — Republicans on the campaign trail this year will be eager to tout the potential benefits of their tax cut plan.\nVoters like Jeanine Limone Draut, a freelance technical writer in Denver, have something else in mind: health care.\nFailed efforts by congressional Republicans last year to repeal former President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act exposed not only deep divisions within the party but also revealed core benefits of the law that millions of Americans now take for granted. Draut is tired of the attacks and the uncertainty surrounding the law's future.\n\"As a small business owner, it just wreaks havoc on how you do business,\" Draut, an independent, said of the on-again, off-again repeal talk from Republicans. \"I don't know if either party has a solution. My vote is pretty closely tied to my livelihood.\"\nBoth parties are paying attention, especially after a better-than-expected enrollment season under the health care law. Democrats especially have used health care to go on the attack, and the issue is coming up in congressional races in California, Colorado, Michigan, Washington and elsewhere. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released Friday found health care as the top issue voters want congressional candidates to address.\nEnrollment was especially robust in many of the states that operate their own insurance marketplaces, where enrollment periods were longer than on the federal exchange and promotional budgets were beefed up. Strong sign-ups came despite Republican attacks against the law and President Donald Trump's administration taking several steps to undermine it, including cutting the federal sign-up period in half and slashing advertising.\nCalifornia, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Maryland, New York, Vermont and other states with their own exchanges saw enrollment approach or surpass 2017 levels. Minnesota's health insurance exchange set a record for private plans with an enrollment period that was more than two weeks shorter than in 2017.\nCalifornia's state exchange, the nation's largest, has reported more than 1.2 million renewals for 2018 and an additional 342,000 new customers. Its 2018 enrollment period doesn't end until Wednesday, as does New York's.\nDemocrats say the level of consumer interest presents a political opportunity.\n\"We're definitely making it an issue,\" said Jason Crow, a Democrat who is challenging five-term Republican Congressman Mike Coffman in a suburban Denver district.\nCrow has criticized Coffman's vote for the GOP tax bill, which eliminated the tax penalty for people who don't get health insurance. That move is expected to undermine the individual insurance market starting next year.\nMore than 22,000 people enrolled last year for coverage on the state exchange in Coffman's district, which went for Hillary Clinton in 2016.\n\"People in our district recognize the progress we've made under health care. The fact that 20 million more people have health care matters — it matters a lot,\" Crow said. \"And under Trump, we are now moving in the opposite direction.\"\nCoffman encountered hoots and boos at town halls last year for his insistence that Obama's health law be repealed, even though he eventually voted against the legislation. He insists that any replacement guarantee coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.\nCoffman's campaign manager, Tyler Sandberg, described the incumbent's approach to health care as nuanced.\n\"His stance ultimately is about pre-existing conditions. It's something everyone can relate to,\" Sandberg said. \"And if Democrats think they can hit him over the head with it, I think they're going to be sorely mistaken.\"\nDemocrats also are making health care a key part of their strategy in this year's race to select a successor to Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. The Democrat last year worked with moderate Republican Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, lobbying Congress in an unsuccessful attempt to maintain the requirement that all Americans have health insurance.\nA Republican field that includes former Rep. Tom Tancredo and Attorney General Cynthia Coffman is focusing on roads, education, immigration and spending limits. The Democrats, including Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne, a longtime health care executive, and U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, have made protecting the state exchange a central campaign theme.\nSafeguarding the Obama-era health care reforms is essential to Colorado voters such as Draut, 45, who said her state exchange policy gives her peace of mind that she'll be covered if she becomes ill, and Caleb Jackson, a 27-year-old graduate student at the University of Colorado-Denver.\nUnder the Affordable Care Act, Jackson was covered until last year on his parents' policy, which allowed him to receive a $200,000 bone marrow transplant that stabilized a debilitating neurological condition. Now treatment-free, he has taken advantage of the law's Medicaid expansion while he pursues an advanced degree in public administration and urban planning.\nHe said he switched his voter registration from Republican to Democrat because of the GOP's repeated attempts to repeal the law.\n\"At this point I couldn't, in good conscience, vote for people who voted to repeal the ACA,\" Jackson said. \"I think it will come back to haunt them.\"\nDemocrats began using health care as part of their congressional campaign strategy last fall. That's when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ran its first radio and cable TV ads of the 2018 election cycle. They were in 11 Republican-held congressional districts and asserted that a Republican-run federal government would keep trying to undo Obama's overhaul: \"They'll never stop,\" the ad said.\nDemocratic committee spokesman Tyler Law said health care is an issue that should help his party in races across the country.\nJesse Hunt, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said his party won't run away from the health care debate, but the focus will be different. If Democrats take control of the federal government in the future, he said, they are likely to push for government-run, single-payer health care.\n\"It's become the litmus-test issue for Democrats,\" Hunt said.\nIn California, many Democratic candidates are unapologetic about their support for a single-payer system and say it's time for the U.S. to follow the health care models in most other wealthy countries.\nAmong Republicans considered vulnerable in the state is Rep. Steve Knight, a former state lawmaker who has drawn criticism from progressive groups for his vote on the GOP health care bill. Knight's 25th Congressional District stretches from the middle class suburbs north of Los Angeles to the high desert. An estimated 34 percent of its residents rely on public health coverage.\nHe defended his vote, saying structural problems with the Affordable Care Act discourage people from buying insurance, which has driven up premiums and forced insurance companies to leave the marketplace.\nTwo leading Democratic contenders, attorney Bryan Caforio and Katie Hill, a former head of a nonprofit helping the homeless, have made health care a top issue and support a universal health care system.\n\"We know that the ACA has been a dramatic improvement from where we were, but we still have a ways to go before we get to a health care system that works for everyone,\" Hill said.\n___\nAssociated Press writers Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta and Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this report." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "BANGOR, Maine (AP) — Residents of a Maine city came just 28 beer cans short of setting a world record last week.\nAttendees at Bangor's Annual Chamber Dinner were attempting to break the record for simultaneously opening beer cans. WABI-TV reports the vast majority of the beers were supplied by Geaghan Brothers Brewing.\nThe Brewer-based brewery says they received word they did not break the record from Guinness World Records recently after sending video of the attempt.\nThe record was set in Japan in 2016 with 1,149 cans opened simultaneously. The Bangor attempt managed 1,122 — which is a record for the city itself.\n___\nInformation from: WABI-AM, http://www.wabiam910.com" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "The kind of scene that plays out on a daily basis on a sheet of ice inside the Gadbois Center in Montreal would never be replicated in the NFL, NBA, professional baseball or hockey or most other sports.\nOn the same rink at any given time, you're likely to find French ice dance world champions Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron training alongside U.S. champions Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue, while two-time Olympic medalists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir wait in the wings.\nAll under the watchful eyes of coaches Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon.\nIt would be like the Patriots and Steelers sharing a practice field. The Lakers and Celtics working in the same gym. The Cubs and Cardinals swapping trade secrets.\nYou see, one of the oddities of figure skating is that training partners are often your biggest rivals. They're the teams that you're likely to run into at major events, trying to knock you down each step of the podium — their every success dovetailing with your own failures.\n\"They have so many teams, so there is only so much ice,\" Hubbell said. \"We skate four hours a day, so usually two of those hours will overlap. It's pretty rare we'll all be on the ice together because there has to be space, but we share the ice. We often train at the same time. We do simulations. We make a fake competition, warm up together, go one after another and cheer each other on.\"\nYes, they cheer each other on.\nThe fact they're competing for the same medals — indeed, those three ice dance couples trained by Dubreuil and Lauzon are medals favorites at the Winter Games in South Korea — doesn't change the fact most training partners tend to be close friends.\nIt beats the alternative: soul-shaking awkwardness.\n\"Oh, absolutely. Marie and Patch are certainly running their school,\" Donohue said. \"No matter who you are, you're going to learn. They don't allow drama or negativity or rivalry. There's no bad blood allowed. We have a certain level of respect, so with that at the forefront of everything we do, it's almost impossible not to root for each other.\"\nNathan Chen and Adam Rippon, two of the three American men headed to South Korea, train with Rafael Arutunian in California. Two-time world champion Javier Fernandez of Spain and reigning Olympic champ Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan work under Brian Orser in Toronto. The favorites in the ladies event, Russian stars Evgenia Medvedeva and Alina Zagitova, train with Eteri Tutberidze in Moscow.\nThe reason this strange dynamic occurs so often is simple: Just as few skaters ever climb to their sport's pinnacle, there are few coaches capable of taking them even higher.\nBesides, the competition that exists in training sessions is often tougher than in events.\n\"Zhenya and I are good friends,\" said Zagitova, using Medvedeva's pet name, after topping her at the recent European championships. \"There's obviously a rivalry at the training sessions, but it's not a bad one. It's playful. We encourage each other. It's good motivation.\"\nMedvedeva points out that figure skating remains an \"individual sport,\" and both Russian skaters choose to focus on their own routines rather than what the other is doing.\n\"I have my own way and I try to follow it,\" she said, \"because time has taught me that you don't need to watch others. There are moments where, like Alina said, competition can stimulate you, but you need to concentrate on your own elements and that's especially important for me.\"\nVirtue and Moir, back for one more Olympics, are certainly accustomed to skating with their biggest rivals. They took gold ahead of training partners Meryl Davis and Charlie White at the 2010 Games in Vancouver, then silver behind the now-retired Americans four years ago in Sochi.\n\"To be honest, we don't directly compare. We don't feel like that's a useful tool for Tess and I,\" Moir said. \"That strategizing against other teams, that's something I got into in the past and it wasn't helpful. It got me away from what I love about the sport and that's skating with Tess.\"\nHubbell called it \"inspiring\" training alongside the top French and Canadian teams, and along with Donohue, she credited their unique training environment in Montreal with helping finally ascend to the top of the podium at the U.S. championships after several close calls.\n\"There are three spots on the podium at the Olympics and we all know we're going for one of them,\" Hubbell said. \"I guess the thing that Marie-France has always said, 'If you shoot for gold, maybe you'll land silver or bronze, but you'll land on the podium.\n\"We'll be happy to be standing up there, representing the team we have in Montreal.\"\n___\nAP Sports Writer James Ellingworth in Moscow contributed to this report.\n___\nMore AP Olympic coverage: https://wintergames.ap.org" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 4, 2018--The global nanobiotechnology market is expected to register a CAGR of nearly 9% during the period 2018-2022, according to the latest market research report by .\nThis press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180704005221/en/\nTechnavio has published a new market research report on the global nanobiotechnology market from 2018-2022. (Photo: Business Wire)\nA key factor driving the market’s growth is the rising R&D architecture in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. The global pharmaceutical industry is witnessing a significant increase in research funding to combat various emerging rare diseases or to explore new therapies for existing conditions. Biotechnology companies are also making increased investments in R&D. The US was the largest investor in biotechnology R&D in 2015.\nThis market research report on the also provides an analysis of the most important trends expected to impact the market outlook during the forecast period. Technavio predicts an emerging trend as a major factor that has the potential to significantly impact the market and contribute to its growth or decline.\nThis report is available at a USD 1,000 discount for a limited time only:\nIn this report, Technavio highlights the increasing demand for nanobiotechnology in stem cell therapy as one of the key emerging trends in the global nanobiotechnology market:\nGlobal nanobiotechnology market: Increasing demand for nanobiotechnology in stem cell therapy\nStem cells have the potential to develop into different cell types during early life and function as internal repair systems that divide to replenish other cells in the human body. Stem cells include embryonic stem cells and non-embryonic adult stem cells that are unspecialized cells. Advances in stem cell research reveal the potential of stem cells that can change the way the diseases are perceived and treated.\n“At present, thousands of clinical trials around the world involve some form of stem cell therapy as there is a lack of complete understanding of the fate of the transplanted cells and their distribution after injection. Traditionally, the monitoring of therapies is led by histological analysis that is laborious and invasive and involves multiple tissue biopsies,” says a senior analyst at Technavio for research on health and wellness.\nGlobal nanobiotechnology market: Segmentation analysis\nThis market research report segments the global nanobiotechnology market into the following end-users (pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry and medical devices) and key regions (the Americas, APAC, and EMEA).\nThe pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry segment held the largest market share in 2017, accounting for nearly 64% of the market. This segment is expected to dominate the global market throughout the forecast period.\nThe Americas held the highest share of the global nanobiotechnology market in 2017, accounting for a market share of approximately 49%. The market share occupied by this region is anticipated to decrease by over 1% during 2018-2022. However, this region is anticipated to dominate the global market throughout the forecast period.\nLooking for more information on this market?\nTechnavio’s sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report such as the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more.\nSome of the key topics covered in the report include:\nMarket Landscape\nMarket ecosystem Market characteristics Market segmentation analysis\nMarket Sizing\nMarket sizing Market size and forecast\nFive Forces Analysis\nMarket Segmentation\nGeographical Segmentation\nRegional comparison Key leading countries\nMarket Drivers\nMarket Challenges\nMarket Trends\nVendor Landscape\nVendors covered Vendor classification Market positioning of vendors Competitive scenario\nAbout Technavio\nis a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.\nWith over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio’s report library consists of more than 10,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio’s comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.\nIf you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at .\nView source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180704005221/en/\nCONTACT: Technavio Research\nJesse Maida\nMedia & Marketing Executive\nUS: +1 844 364 1100\nUK: +44 203 893 3200\nwww.technavio.com\nKEYWORD: UNITED KINGDOM EUROPE\nINDUSTRY KEYWORD: HEALTH BIOTECHNOLOGY PHARMACEUTICAL COMMUNICATIONS MARKETING\nSOURCE: Technavio Research\nCopyright Business Wire 2018.\nPUB: 07/04/2018 11:02 AM/DISC: 07/04/2018 11:01 AM\nhttp://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180704005221/en" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "TAIPEI (Taiwan News) - The Chief Minister of India's state of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis, said on his official twitter account Tuesday that a meeting and discussions with Hon Hai executives were held the same day to prepare for setting up manufacturing facilities in the state.\nHon Hai Precision Industry Ltd., better known as Foxconn outside Taiwan, the world's largest electronics contract manufacturer and Apple's major iPhone supplier, signed an agreement to invest US$5 billion in the state in 2015 over a course of five years. Touted as the largest FDI project in the country, the agreement is to build up a plant that produces electronic products.\n“Foxconn reiterated their plans to set up production facility here and investment committed in MoU, said Maharashtra is the most favoured destination,” Fadnavis tweeted after meeting a delegation of Foxconn officials led by Simon CP Hsing, the spokesperson for the company.\nThe company is said to be currently looking for new locations in Pune and Konkan for plants to manufacture electronic components for mobile phones, as part of the company’s plan to make India a key global manufacturing hub serving Africa and West Asia, and a big partner in e-commerce and renewable energy.\nMaharashtra, on India's west coast, includes the city of Mumbai." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Miles Bridges looked comfortable, effortlessly making jump shots toward the end of a tumultuous day at Michigan State.\nBridges scored 24 points and the sixth-ranked Spartans beat the Wisconsin Badgers 76-61 on Friday night, less than 12 hours after athletic director Mark Hollis announced his retirement amid the outcry over how the school handled allegations against Larry Nassar.\n\"There are a lot of things that happened today that are part of life,\" Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said .\nBridges was 8 of 13 overall and made four of six 3-pointers.\n\"Adding the 3 to his game has made him a harder guard,\" Wisconsin coach Greg Gard said. \"Obviously, he's explosive to the rim and he does a good job of putting it on the floor.\"\nThe Spartans (19-3, 7-2 Big Ten) have won three straight after losing two of the previous three games.\nWisconsin (10-12, 3-6) has lost five of six.\nThe court was surrounded by a sea of teal T-shirts worn by students, hoping to raise awareness about sexual violence.\n\"Honoring our survivors was really neat that our students did it,\" Izzo said.\nHollis, a close friend of Izzo, is retiring as the latest leader to step away because of a sexual abuse scandal involving a former physician at the school. Michigan State President Lou Anna Simon announced her resignation Wednesday night, hours after Nassar was sentenced to decades in prison this week for molesting girls and young women.\nIzzo refused to answer many questions related to the scandal, saying the top priority is for \"our courageous survivors,\" during the healing process.\n\"I'm going to worry about my team, I'm going to worry about the survivors and I'm going to worry about what I do,\" he said.\nIzzo, though, said he has no intention on being the next to leave Michigan State.\n\"I'm not going anywhere, in my mind,\" Izzo said. \"I'm definitely not retiring .\"\nThe recent series of events seemed to create a relatively subdued atmosphere at the usually raucous Breslin Center.\nCassius Winston had 17 points and six assists, Nick Ward had 12 points and 11 rebounds and Jaren Jackson had 11 points, seven rebounds and four blocks for the Spartans.\nWisconsin's Ethan Happ had 23 points and seven rebounds and Brevin Pritzl scored 13.\nBIG PICTURE\nWisconsin: The short-handed Badgers are competing hard, trying to overcome to loss of injured guards D'Mitrik Trice and Kobe King along with the loss of five seniors from last year's team. After being down 37-21 at halftime against Michigan State, the Badgers outscored the Spartans 40-39.\n\"Specifically in the second half, we really battled and did a lot of good things,\" Gard said. \"But you have to make shots.\"\nWisconsin was held to 21 percent in the first half and finished making 36 percent of its shots.\nMichigan State: Izzo's mood the rest of the season will be something to watch. Izzo was the best man at Hollis' wedding and they were roommates decades ago when they were starting their careers at Michigan State. Choosing to keep his emotions to himself, Izzo didn't answer a question asking for his reaction to Hollis' decision.\nTHEY SAID IT\nMichigan State football coach Mark Dantonio briefly addressed reporters in response to an ESPN report detailing various allegations involving Michigan State football and basketball players.\n\"I'm here tonight to say that any accusations of my handling of any complaints of sexual assault individually are completely false,\" Dantonio said. \"Every incident reported in that article was documented by either police or the Michigan State Title IX office. I've always worked with the proper authorities when dealing with the cases of sexual assault.\"\nIzzo chose not to say as much about the report.\n\"We will cooperate with any investigation going forward as we have always done,\" Izzo said.\nUP NEXT\nWisconsin: Hosts Nebraska on Monday.\nMichigan State: Visit Maryland on Sunday.\n__\nFollow AP Sports Writer Larry Lage: https://twitter.com/LarryLage\n___\nMore AP college basketball coverage: www.collegebasketball.ap.org and www.twitter.com/AP_Top25" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union's top environment official has warned several member countries that they face legal action if they continue to flout the bloc's air quality standards.\nEnvironment Commissioner Karmenu Vella said Tuesday that \"we cannot go on postponing and delaying,\" noting that some countries are still failing to meet deadlines set for 2005 and 2010.\nHis warning came after talks with representatives from Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Slovakia and Spain.\nVella said some had proposed new measures to meet EU air quality standards governing particles levels from sources like vehicle exhausts or industry, but that at first view the measures appear insufficient.\nHe gave the countries until the end of next week to formally submit the proposals for EU Commission analysis." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "ERIN, Wis. (AP) — Determined to avoid the embarrassing rules mess from a year ago, the USGA is shaking up the way it officiates the U.S. Open at Erin Hills.\nIt pledged to respond quicker and not wait to make a ruling.\n\"I think last year there were two things we fell short on — it took too long to make the ruling and it left uncertainty with the competition,\" said John Bodenhamer, the USGA's managing director of rules and competition. \"I think should a similar circumstance happen, I think we are poised to move quickly.\"\nThe U.S. Open, as well as the USGA's other biggest events, will no longer have referees who walk with each group, a practice that dates to 1991. Instead, officials will be stationed at various spots on each hole around the course.\nThe biggest advancement is having four video monitor stations, along with the use of tablets, that will allow officials to review any rules discrepancies on the course to reach conclusions immediately.\nThat might have made it a lot easier on Dustin Johnson — and everyone else — last year at Oakmont.\nJohnson's golf ball moved slightly as he stepped in for a 3-foot par putt on the fifth hole. He didn't think he caused it to move, called in the walking referee and no penalty was assessed. But when the USGA saw video, officials thought there might be a penalty.\nThey told Johnson when he was on the 12th tee, saying he might be penalized and they could review it after the round. That would have been fine except that it was the final round. Johnson played the last seven holes not knowing if he would be penalized, and thus not knowing the score.\nIt was a major gaffe, saved only by Johnson playing so well that he had a four-shot lead when he birdied the final hole to win the U.S. Open. After meeting with officials, he was given a one-shot penalty that affected only the margin of victory, not the name on the trophy.\nThe USGA has a five-member rules committee led by Thomas Pagel, the senior director of rules. Pagel will be the chief referee for the U.S. Open, who can make immediate decisions that would stand.\nA repeat of the Johnson incident is unlikely this year, and not just because the greens at Erin Hills are nowhere near as fast as Oakmont's putting surfaces. The USGA introduced a local rule last year that if a golf ball or marker moves accidentally, the player puts it back without penalty.\nHaving video more readily available for review should help avoid uncertainty.\nBodenhamer said the rules committee — not always the player, in some cases — would be able to look at the video and quickly decide whether it's a penalty.\nIt was the most significant change for a U.S. Open that is desperate to have a smooth tournament. The previous year at Chambers Bay, the grass on the greens was starting to die before the U.S. Open began and at times on the weekend, players were putting through what amounted to matted dirt.\nJordan Spieth won when Johnson, needing a 12-foot eagle putt to win, three-putted for par to finish second. He missed a 4-foot birdie putt on the bumpy green.\nPart of that could be attributed to weather in the Pacific Northwest that week.\nAs for Oakmont a year ago, that was a breakdown in communication and delivering the ruling at the right time.\n\"We not only learned from it, but we made changes,\" USGA executive director Mike Davis said. \"And I think that's the way you have to approach anything that doesn't go right: 'How can we make it better? How can we make sure it doesn't happen in the future?'\"" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "BERLIN (AP) — Germany's Siemens says it has signed contracts worth some 700 million euros ($824 million) to build two gas-powered electricity plants in Libya.\nThe Munich-based industrial conglomerate said Monday that the plants will be built in Misrata and Tripoli and that the value of the contracts with the state-owned General Electricity Company of Libya includes long-term service agreements.\nIt said the deal will expand Libya's power generation capacity by about 1.3 gigawatts, but didn't specify in a statement when the new plants will start operation.\nThe deal comes weeks after Siemens AG announced plans to cut about 6,900 jobs worldwide at its power, gas and drives divisions, half of them in Germany. It pointed to a sharp decline in earnings amid increasing pressure from renewable energy sources." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "HEERENVEEN, Netherlands (AP) — The mass start is everything traditional Olympic long-track speedskating is not.\nThere are spills, pushes, elbows, evil eyes and worse over 16 laps as two dozen skaters vie in a pack for one gold medal. There is teamwork, strategy and often one nail-biting sprint to the finish line.\n\"That is why it is so exciting,\" said reigning world champion Joey Mantia, already relishing the thought of lining up for the final in the new event. So is just about everybody else.\nTraditionalists in countries like Norway and the Netherlands love speedskating with its endless time trials between two racers, the subtleties of lap time variations and long waits to see which times actually survives for gold.\nBut as the 21st century butted in with its in-your-face Olympic additions like snowboarding and jazzed-up forms of skiing like skicross and slopestyle, speedskating could not stay behind.\nIt needed a serious dose of cool, the complaints of boring races and predictable winners mounting at every Olympics. Critics said 10,000-meter races taking 13-plus minutes between two racers only to be followed by more of the same for the best time of a session was just too much.\nSo now, you get a pack of racers, let them rev up, race for seven to eight minutes, and get first to the line.\n\"This will get people looking at long-track and say, 'OK this is a little bit like Formula One,'\" Mantia said during an interview at the Thialf oval in northern Netherlands. \"It's pretty simple: you have instant gratification in terms of who is across line — first, second, third is gold, silver, bronze. That's it.\"\n\"There is no waiting for 25, 30 minutes to see who else is going to do the time trial and how is it going to unfold,\" he said.\nAnd for all the comparisons to Rollerball, the ultra-violent 1975 sci-fi movie actually set in 2018, there will be no James Caan skating past bodies.\nSometimes, the race can be lulled into a tactical stalemate where skaters weave slowly across the ice before suddenly one racer bursts free on an attempted getaway.\nWith all skaters chasing in a pack it can get hairy, said 2016 world champion Ivanie Blondin of Canada.\nShe explained the attitude going round the oval. \"There's girls grabbing you,\" she said. \"When they are passing you on the outside, or on the inside, they will grab your hips and push them back. And they don't get disqualified for that,\" she said.\n\"And neither do I, so in a way it is kind of a free-for-all.\"\nIn short, she said, \"there kinda are no rules.\"\nHow bad is it really? \"If you like body check someone or if you do make someone fall, then you can get disqualified. But I have yet to see someone get disqualified for a fall.\"\nAnd when there are hot rivalries in time trial races, there is little to see, since they race in different lanes all the time. Here it's different.\nBlondin is known not to get along with Irene Schouten of the Netherlands. \"We don't really see eye to eye, so it makes things a little bit more interesting.\"\nAnd where the other events are carefully honed disciplines with a minimum of interference in their specific lanes, massive upsets are rare.\nIn mass starts, though, who knows who will win, especially in its first showing since the 1932 Games in Lake Placid.\nThe World Cup standings offer some guidance with Lee Seung-hoon of South Korea winning two of three races and Francesca Lollobrigida of Italy leading the women's standings.\nBut what counts a great deal in such races is self-confidence verging on cockiness.\n\"Nobody believes in me more than I do,\" said Mantia. \"I don't think anybody has a better chance than I do to win gold and I am going to skate the race that way.\"\n___\nMore AP Olympic coverage: https://wintergames.ap.org" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "OROVILLE, Calif. (AP) — The stress of evacuation and an uncertain future were enough for Donald Azevedo and his family to opt to stay a few more nights in an emergency shelter rather than risk having to do it all again.\nThe family was among the nearly 200,000 Californians who live downstream from the country's tallest dam who were told they could return home but warned they may have to flee again if repairs made to the battered Oroville Dam spillways don't hold.\nThe fixes could be put to their first test later this week with the first of a series of small storms forecast for the region expected to reach the area Wednesday night.\n\"There is the prospect that we could issue another evacuation order if the situation changes and the risk increases,\" Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said Tuesday, telling residents they could return home but to remain vigilant.\nThat's why Azevedo wasn't budging yet.\n\"My plan is to stay here,\" said Azevedo, who evacuated from Marysville with his wife, Tasha, their four Chihuahuas and more than 30 relatives. They spent two nights at the Nevada County Fairgrounds in Grass Valley, Calif. and he planned to wait out this week's upcoming storm before returning home. Many at the shelter said a drive that should have taken one hour took six hours on Sunday.\n\"I'm not trying to risk traffic, being stuck in floods. I'm safe where I'm at,\" Azevedo said.\nMany other evacuees, such as Oroville resident Margaret Johnston, couldn't wait to get back home.\n\"You don't appreciate home until it's taken away from you,\" said Johnston, 69, who spent the last two nights sheltering at a church in Chico, California. As she packed the blankets, pillows and clothing she had hastily thrown into a black garbage bag, she reflected on the mad rush to leave, the chaos, confusion and bottleneck traffic on the drive out. \"It was just frustrating. Very frustrating.\"\nResidents living below the Oroville Dam were suddenly ordered to evacuate Sunday afternoon after authorities had assured them for nearly a week that the dam was sound despite a gaping and growing hole found in the structure's main spillway. The order came after authorities feared an earthen emergency spillway used when the lake behind the dam overflows its capacity appeared ready to fail Sunday because of erosion.\nTwo days after issuing the evacuation order, officials lifted it Tuesday but uncertainty remained.\nOver the weekend, the swollen lake spilled down the unpaved emergency spillway for nearly 40 hours, leaving it badly eroded. The problem occurred six days after engineers discovered a growing hole in the dam's main concrete spillway.\nState and federal officials ignored calls in 2005 from environmental groups to armor the earthen spillway in concrete to prevent erosion. Federal regulators concluded the earthen spillway could handle a large amount of overflow after water agencies that would have had to pay for the upgrade argued it was unnecessary.\nOthers fear the real test is still to come in the weeks ahead when a record amount of snowfall melts in nearby mountains.\nThe California Department of Water Resources said Tuesday night the Oroville Dam's water levels continued to decrease but it didn't say by how much.\nState water officials said earlier Tuesday the reservoir's water level had been reduced 15 feet by Tuesday afternoon. Officials hope to continue using a damaged main spillway to drain the lake another 37 feet in preparation for coming rain. They say they have drained enough water that the emergency spillway will not be needed to handle runoff from the approaching storm.\nForecasts call for 2-4 inches of rain and snow in the foothills and mountains starting Wednesday night. But the storm was looking colder than initially projected, meaning less rain and less runoff than last week's storms.\nDozens of construction crews were working around the clock dropping 1,200 tons of material on the earthen emergency spillway per hour using heavy equipment and helicopters and the area is being continually monitored with the help of drones carrying cameras, the state water agency said.\nPreliminary estimates say permanently fixing the hole in the main spillway could cost $100 million to $200 million, Croyle said. Experts are drawing up plans for repairs that will begin after the spring runoff season ends.\nGov. Jerry Brown said late Tuesday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency approved his request for federal assistance with the Oroville dam situation.\nState officials clearly were on the defensive about their decision to call for mass evacuations Sunday, just a few hours after saying the situation was stable, forcing families to rush to pack up and get out.\nHonea, the county sheriff, said Tuesday that the call to order nearly 200,000 people to higher ground protected lives and bought time for water experts to address the problems.\nBut after two days away from home, tens of thousands of evacuees were growing weary. They welcomed the news they could return home but vowed to heed the sheriff's warning to remain vigilant.\nRod Remocal said he and his wife would now be ready to leave their Biggs home near the dam at a moment's notice after fleeing in a rush Sunday.\n\"We're all coming back and pack and be ready this time,\" Remocal said. \"This time we're going to be on call like they said.\"\n___\nElias reported from San Francisco.\n___\nContributing to this report were Jocelyn Gecker, Olga R. Rodriguez and Kristin Bender in San Francisco; Don Thompson in Sacramento; Terry Chea in Grass Valley, California; Ellen Knickmeyer in Sonoma, California; and John Antczak and Justin Pritchard in Los Angeles." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "AMERICAN LEAGUE Toronto 000 002 002—4 6 1 Boston 001 012 02x—6 11 1\nGaviglio, Oh (7), Tepera (8) and Maile; Rodriguez, Barnes (7), B.Johnson (9), Kimbrel (9) and C.Vazquez. W_Rodriguez 6-1. L_Gaviglio 2-1. Sv_Kimbrel (18). HRs_Toronto, Hernandez (8). Boston, Nunez (4), Martinez (18).\n___\nChicago 000 000 001—1 5 2 Cleveland 205 200 00x—9 13 0\nLopez, Volstad (3), Avilan (4), Rondon (5), Fry (6), N.Jones (7), Soria (8) and Narvaez; Kluber, Beliveau (7), Marshall (8), B.Taylor (9) and Gomes. W_Kluber 8-2. L_Lopez 1-4. HRs_Chicago, Sanchez (3). Cleveland, Ramirez (17), Encarnacion (13).\n___\nHouston 000 020 001—3 7 0 New York 100 022 00x—5 8 1\nKeuchel, McHugh (6) and Stassi; L.Severino, Robertson (8), Chapman (9) and Romine. W_L.Severino 8-1. L_Keuchel 3-7. Sv_Chapman (12). HRs_Houston, Stassi (5).\n___\nLos Angeles 001 000 000—1 7 0 Detroit 100 005 00x—6 9 0\nOhtani, Bedrosian (6), J.Johnson (6), Morris (8) and Maldonado; Fiers, Jimenez (8), Greene (9) and Greiner. W_Coleman 2-0. L_Bedrosian 1-1.\n___\nMinnesota 001 124 000— 8 11 0 Kansas City 270 000 11x—11 16 0\nRomero, Slegers (2), Pressly (8) and B.Wilson; Keller, Oaks (4), Smith (5), Flynn (6), McCarthy (7), Hill (8), Herrera (9) and S.Perez. W_McCarthy 4-2. L_Romero 2-2. Sv_Herrera (12). HRs_Minnesota, Dozier (8), Adrianza (1). Kansas City, Moustakas (12), Soler (8), Dozier (1).\n___\nINTERLEAGUE Washington 001 000 100—2 7 0 Baltimore 000 000 000—0 4 0\nScherzer, Doolittle (9) and P.Severino; Hess, Castro (7), Hart (8), Wright Jr. (9) and Sisco. W_Scherzer 9-1. L_Hess 2-2. Sv_Doolittle (13). HRs_Washington, Harper (18).\n___\nNATIONAL LEAGUE St. Louis 000 000 200—2 8 1 Milwaukee 000 010 20x—3 10 1\nReyes, Gant (5), Lyons (7), Tuivailala (7) and Kelly; Guerra, Jeffress (7), Hader (8), Knebel (9) and Kratz, Pina. W_Jeffress 5-0. L_Tuivailala 1-1. Sv_Knebel (5). HRs_St. Louis, Bader (5). Milwaukee, Yelich (7).\n___\nCincinnati 000 402 001—7 12 0 Arizona 301 000 000—4 13 1\nRomano, W.Peralta (6), Hughes (7), Garrett (7), R.Iglesias (8) and Barnhart; Corbin, Salas (7), Chafin (8), McFarland (9) and Murphy. W_Romano 3-6. L_Corbin 5-2. Sv_R.Iglesias (9). HRs_Cincinnati, Schebler (6), Duvall (10). Arizona, Goldschmidt (7), Murphy (7).\n___\nChicago 100 000 000—1 9 1 Pittsburgh 110 000 00x—2 9 0\nHendricks, R.Rosario (6), Mazzoni (7), J.Wilson (7) and Contreras; Musgrove, Crick (8), F.Vazquez (9) and Cervelli. W_Musgrove 2-0. L_Hendricks 4-4. Sv_F.Vazquez (10). HRs_Pittsburgh, Harrison (2).\n___\nNew York 000 100 111—4 9 1 Atlanta 000 000 100—1 5 0\nVargas, T.Peterson (6), Familia (8), Gsellman (9) and Plawecki; Teheran, Carle (8), S.Freeman (8), Socolovich (9) and Suzuki. W_Vargas 2-3. L_Teheran 4-3. Sv_Gsellman (2). HRs_Atlanta, Camargo (4)." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "DENVER (AP) — The Denver Sheriff's Department mishandled an investigation into the 2015 death of a man restrained by deputies at the jail and must change its disciplinary and investigative process, a law enforcement watchdog agency said in a blistering report Monday that focused new attention on a case that has already resulted in a $4.6 million settlement.\nThe report made public by Denver's independent police monitor, a civilian oversight agency for Denver's police and sheriff departments, recommends that a civilian be put in charge of the Internal Affairs Bureau of the sheriff's department that investigates allegations of officer misconduct.\nIt also called on the sheriff's department to make a variety of changes to its policies on staff training, hiring and interaction with medical staff when an inmate's health conflicts with jail security.\nThe city of Denver reached the settlement with Michael Marshall's family in November that required other changes at the jail, including mental health coverage being provided there 24 hours a day and training for all deputies on mental illness.\nMarshall, 50, died nine days after he was restrained in a prone position for several minutes by Denver jail deputies because they said Marshall was aggressive with another inmate and had ignored commands. He choked on his own vomit, lost consciousness and died later at a hospital.\nThe report includes new detail about how the sheriff's department responded to Marshall's death and levels harsh criticism at the Internal Affairs Bureau, which began its review of the case in 2016 after prosecutors announced that no criminal charges would be filed.\nAbout a month later, the bureau told the independent monitor's office that its investigation was complete, according to the report.\nIndependent Monitor Nick Mitchell's office objected, arguing that investigators did not interview any of the deputies who restrained Marshall at the jail or the nurses who were called to the area when Marshall became unconscious. The monitor's office also objected in June when investigators again declined to further investigate.\nBoth attempts to end the inquiry \"raised troubling questions about IAB's willingness to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation of this serious case,\" the report says. Choosing a civilian to lead the internal affairs division could insulate it from \"internal pressures,\" it says.\nThe report also questioned why several sergeants present as deputies restrained Marshall were not disciplined.\nAs supervisors, they should have stepped in, the report said. Deputy Bret Garegnani, Deputy Carlos Hernandez and Captain James Johnson received brief suspensions that were overturned after the officers appealed.\nThe report also criticizes the sheriff's department for failing to create a policy for reviewing deaths and other incidents at the jail.\nThe department \"tried to minimize potential issues....instead of seeing it as an opportunity to learn,\" the report said. Garegnani was nominated for the department's \"Life Saving Award\" for performing CPR on Marshall, the report added.\nJess Vigil, Denver's deputy director of its safety department, defended the internal investigation and disciplinary decisions. He said concerns were raised by the watchdog group but that it ultimately found the investigation \"thorough and complete.\"\nVigil said internal investigators mistakenly relied on results of the criminal investigation into the death initially but did end up conducting their own interviews and research.\nThe report said nurses told deputies that too much pressure placed on Marshall's neck could cause him to choke after vomiting but deputies refused and said they had to control Marshall.\nThe monitor's report recommended more training and a supervisor's input during future conflicts between jail medical staff and deputies." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Nearly 3,000 production workers at Boeing's South Carolina plant are deciding Wednesday on whether they want to unionize, writing the next chapter in efforts to organize labor in large manufacturing plants across the South.\nIf successful, the balloting on whether employees should join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers would send a significant message to politicians both in the region and Washington that workers here are demanding the same protections and benefits as their colleagues in other areas. And, to the leaders trying to recruit businesses by promoting their states' lack of union presence, it'd make their jobs more difficult.\nBut this most recent test of Southern acceptance of collective bargaining movements is an uphill battle for the union and its backers. The global aviation giant, which came to South Carolina in part because of the state's minuscule union presence, did so with the aid of millions of dollars in state assistance made possible by officials who spoke out frequently and glowingly with anti-union messages.\n\"It is an economic development tool,\" Gov. Nikki Haley, now President Donald Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, said in a 2012 address of how she sold companies on why they should come to the state. \"We'll make the unions understand full well that they are not needed, not wanted and not welcome in the state of South Carolina.\"\nAt least that part of the tactic has worked. While some South Carolina workers have representation — just more than 1,900, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2016 figures — most don't. Other major manufacturers in the state, including BMW and Michelin, aren't unionized or haven't experienced major campaigns to do so. The Machinists initially petitioned for a vote at Boeing in 2015 but withdrew the request because of what the union called a toxic atmosphere and political interference.\nSouthern states for decades have recruited manufacturers by promising freedom from the influences of labor unions, which except for some textile mills have been historically rejected by workers as collective action culturally foreign to a South built around family farms, said Jeffrey Hirsch, a law professor who specializes in labor relations at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.\nA successful union vote at Boeing would have a greater impact on the general view of labor in the South than efforts by autoworkers to unionize Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Tennessee, as a foothold for organizing other Southern car plants. Anti-union advocates could always cite VW as an aberration since representatives of one of its key unions in Germany hold seats on the company's board of directors, Hirsch said.\n\"Boeing is very, very different,\" Hirsch said. \"No one will ever accuse Boeing of being pro-union.\"\nA \"yes\" vote would be meaningful throughout the region, said Daniel Cornfield, sociology professor and labor expert at Vanderbilt University. \"Given the dynamism of industrialization in the Southern region now, especially the development ... of the U.S. automotive industry, any type of heavy-industry union victory would certainly inspire other workers in related industrial sectors in the South to think about unionizing.\"\nWhat strikes Cornfield about the Boeing case is the company's silence over consequences for workers.\n\"The company has not been threatening to relocate its operations in the event of a unionization,\" he said. \"It is often the case that companies try to relocate outside of the United States to find cheaper labor and avoid U.S. unions altogether.\"\nBoeing already may have abstained from those kinds of threats because of its huge South Carolina plant investment and billions of dollars in federal defense contracts. Threatening to move manufacturing would come after Trump blasted Boeing for its cost of building a new presidential Air Force One for future presidents.\n\"Costs are out of control,\" Trump tweeted in early December. \"Cancel order!\"\nBoeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg met with Trump two weeks later.\n\"Given the recent pronouncements of President Trump about keeping manufacturing in the United States,\" Cornfield said, \"it would be interesting and an ironic twist that President Trump is possibly defanging large corporations in their efforts to resist unionization by encouraging companies to stay in the United States, giving workers a leg up and unions a leg up in the campaign period.\"\nCatherine Templeton, South Carolina's former labor director and successful anti-union lawyer, is no stranger to this fight. When Haley picked Templeton to lead South Carolina's labor department, the governor played up Templeton's union-fighting background and saying she needed her help to \"fight the unions\" at Boeing.\n\"They cannot legally deliver higher wages, better benefits or a different working environment. Even if they are promising it, they certainly can't deliver it,\" Templeton said.\nOn Monday, in a final gathering before the vote, several hundred Boeing employees gathered in a hotel ballroom just a mile from the Boeing plant, hearing from activists and members of other unions urging them to vote \"yes\" on Wednesday.\n\"Suppressing working people is the old way of doing business in South Carolina,\" Machinists organizer Mike Evans said, to cheers from the crowd. \"It's not going to be this way anymore.\"\n___\nAssociated Press writer Emery P. Dalesio in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.\n___\nKinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP . Read more of her work at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/meg-kinnard/ ." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour says he will pay a fine after being arrested with a loaded handgun in his briefcase as he went through an airport security checkpoint.\nBarbour — Republican National Committee chairman in the mid-1990s and governor from 2004-12 — told The Associated Press on Tuesday he was trying to board a flight Jan. 2 from Jackson to Washington. He said he forgot he was carrying the gun, which he had put in his briefcase after an assistant removed it from his car days earlier.\n\"This was absentmindedness and nobody's fault but mine,\" said Barbour, 70, who lives in Mississippi and frequently travels to Washington for his job as a lobbyist.\nTransportation Security Administration spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said a TSA officer working at an X-ray machine at a checkpoint at Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport spotted a .38-caliber revolver, loaded with five bullets, in a passenger's carry-on bag. TSA contacted airport police, who arrested the passenger. The TSA would not release the passenger's name, but Farbstein confirmed it was a former governor, and Barbour confirmed to AP that it was he.\nBarbour said he did not dispute Farbstein's use of the word \"arrest,\" though he said he was not handcuffed and no mugshot photo was taken. Barbour described the TSA officers and the airport police as \"very nice but very professional.\"\n\"They did exactly what they should have done, which was treat me like anybody else,\" Barbour said.\nThe fine for having a loaded firearm at an airport checkpoint begins at $3,920, according to a TSA website .\nAP filed a public records request with the Jackson airport authority Jan. 23, seeking a copy of a police report from the Jan. 2 incident. State law gives a government seven working days to respond, and the airport had not done so by Tuesday.\nBarbour said the gun was confiscated and he boarded his flight to Washington.\n\"Next time, I'll be more observant about getting stuff out of my briefcase,\" he said.\n____\nFollow Emily Wagster Pettus on Twitter: http://twitter.com/EWagsterPettus ." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia's military said on Tuesday that a fitness tracking application did not breach security despite revelations that an interactive, online map using its data can show troop locations around the world.\nThe Pentagon announced this week that it was doing a broad review of how the U.S. military forces use exercise trackers and other wearable electronic devices after the revelations about GPS tracking company Strava's application. Strava's online Global Heat Map shows the locations of its users.\nAustralian Defense Industry Minister Christopher Pyne said the Defense Department was preparing a report for the government on the matter. A department statement said it was aware of the possible risks of the collection of location data through personal electronic devices and apps.\n\"The circumstances of this application do not constitute a security breach,\" the statement said.\nThe issue was first publicized last weekend when Nathan Ruser, a 20-year-old student who is studying international security with a double major in Middle Eastern studies at Australian National University in Canberra, tweeted that \"U.S. bases are clearly identifiable and mappable.\" It was later reported by The Washington Post.\nThe map uses satellite information to show the locations of subscribers to Strava's fitness service. The map shows activity from 2015 through September 2017.\nHeavily populated areas are well lit, but warzones such as Iraq and Syria show scattered pockets of activity that could be caused by military or government personnel using fitness trackers as they move around. Those electronic signals could potentially identify military bases or other secure locations.\n\"Who knows if someone from any of the intelligence services noticed it before, but as far as I know, I'm the first person in public to put two and two together,\" Ruser told The Associated Press from Thailand, where he is visiting family.\nHe said more people were interested in the issue than he expected.\n\"I expected it to hang around pretty quietly in some of the open-source analyst circles, intelligence wonks would look at it and then for the government or the company to quietly fix the security vulnerabilities, but it's got pretty big,\" he added.\nHe called the map a \"wakeup call.\"\n\"I wouldn't say it provides an acute security risk to any personnel because a lot of those bases are known and even though this map gives you a huge advantage if you were to prioritize targeting the base, none of America's current adversaries like ISIS can walk up to one of those bases and bomb it,\" he said.\nRuser said he had not been contacted by Strava or any security agency since his tweet attracted attention." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — CJ McCollum scored a franchise-record 28 points in the first quarter and finished with a career-high 50 through three periods before heading to the bench, and the Portland Trail Blazers took advantage of the short-handed Chicago Bulls for a 124-108 victory Wednesday night.\nMcCollum's 28 points in the opening quarter were the most in the NBA this season. His final tally was nine points shy of the team record set by Damian Lillard last season.\nLillard also sat out the final period after adding 13 points and seven assists for the Blazers, who led by as many as 29. It was Portland's fourth straight win overall, a season high, and the club's eighth in a row at home.\nZach LaVine had a season-best 23 points in Chicago's fifth consecutive loss.\nLauri Markkanen was not with the Bulls because he was attending to a personal issue, the team said. The rookie is averaging 15.3 points and 7.7 rebounds per game. Paul Zipser started in his place.\nKris Dunn, averaging 13.7 points and 6.4 assists, missed his sixth straight game after a concussion.\nThe Bulls decided to sit forward Nikola Mirotic while he reportedly seeks a trade. Coach Fred Hoiberg said before the game that the 6-foot-10 forward remained back at the team hotel. Meanwhile, rumors swirled that the Bulls had a deal with the Pelicans but it fell apart.\nPortland shot 74 percent in the first quarter paced by McCollum, who made four 3-pointers in the period and finished with six for the game.\nPat Connaughton's 3-pointer put the Blazers up 54-28. McCollum punctuated the first half with a dunk, and the Blazers went into the break with a 67-44 lead.\nMcCollum finished the half with 32 points, one shy of Lillard's franchise record.\nAfter he sat down in the third quarter, McCollum smiled when the crowd at the Moda Center chanted \"We want CJ!\"\nLillard went into the game needing 25 points to reach 10,000. He'll be the seventh Blazers player to reach the mark, joining Clyde Drexler, LaMarcus Aldridge, Terry Porter, Cliff Robinson, Jerome Kersey and Jim Paxson.\nPortland was coming off a 104-96 victory over the Clippers at Staples Center the night before.\nThe Bulls lost 110-96 at home to Milwaukee on Sunday.\nTIP-INS\nBulls: Markkanen could rejoin the team on the road trip. ... Robin Lopez was greeted by warm applause at the Moda Center. Lopez was a fan favorite during his time with the Blazers from 2013-15.\nTrail Blazers: Wore their black \"City\" uniforms for the first time. The uniforms feature a plaid pattern in a nod to Dr. Jack Ramsay, who coached the 1977 NBA championship team and had a penchant for plaid. ... McCollum's huge quarter surpassed the previous team record of 26 points set by Lillard.\nELITE COMPANY\nMcCollum joined a group of 50-point Blazers: Lillard, Damon Stoudamire, Brandon Roy, Andre Miller, Clyde Drexler and Geoff Petrie.\nMcCollum also joined Houston star James Harden as the only players with 50 points in three quarters this season.\nUP NEXT\nThe Bulls play Saturday night at the Los Angeles Clippers before finishing their three-game road trip at Sacramento.\nThe Trail Blazers visit Toronto on Friday.\n___\nMore AP NBA: https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the first state dinner of the Trump administration (all times local):\n6:30 p.m.\nThe White House has some extra help in the kitchen for the state dinner honoring the president of France.\nFormer National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton is lending his skills to the occasion Tuesday night.\nAnton is known for being particularly talented in the kitchen. In fact, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders cited his \"amazing chef\" skills in a statement earlier this month on his departure. The White House is serving rack of lamb for the main course.\nAnton resigned from the White House just before new national security adviser John Bolton came on board.\nHe is now a writer and lecturer at Hillsdale College.\n___\n5:30 p.m.\nMelania Trump is embracing her moment in the spotlight for the French president's state visit.\nShe traded in her usual dark sunglasses for a white wide-brimmed hat that quickly became a trending topic on social media. She has thrown herself into planning the state dinner for President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte. All eyes will be on the former model again Tuesday when she steps out in a designer gown to greet the Macrons as they arrive for dinner.\nSeeing the gown is typically the highlight of a state dinner. But for once, it may pale in comparison to the hat.\nThe hat bobbed up and down across the bottom of TV screens as the first lady took her seat for the president's news conference with Macron." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina prison officials have for years blamed cellphones for contributing to inmate violence. After a bloody riot at a maximum-security prison last weekend that left seven inmates dead, they find themselves once again asking federal officials to grant waivers and change laws to let them block the signals of these contraband devices.\nGov. Henry McMaster has eased hiring rules for new corrections officers. He says an officer shortage allows contraband to flow freely into the state's prisons, provoking often deadly inmate battles.\nBut some who've spent time in and around these institutions say contraband is so plentiful it is rarely the cause of violent disputes. They also say the problem stems from the inaction and collusion of currently employed correctional officers, not a shortage of employees." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian court has ordered the detention of an activist for failing to report to a police station because he had been detained elsewhere.\nAbdel Azim Fahmy, a senior member of the secular April 6 movement known as Zizo Abdo, was detained for several hours last Wednesday, causing him to miss the court-ordered visit to a different police station. He was detained again on Saturday.\nHis lawyer, Mokhtar Mounir, said the Cairo Criminal Court ordered Abdo returned to pre-trial detention Tuesday on charges of inciting protests and belonging to an outlawed group, which date back to last May. Mounir said he would appeal the order, calling it \"inhumane and irrational.\"\nApril 6 played a leading role in the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A diplomatic dispute between Poland and Israel over pending legislation that would outlaw blaming Poland for the crimes of the Holocaust has led to an outburst of anti-Semitic comments in Poland, including some in the government-controlled media.\nPoland's lower house of parliament gave its approval Friday to the bill, which calls for penalties of up to three years in prison for anyone who \"publicly and against the facts\" accuses the Polish people of crimes committed by Nazi Germany during World War II.\nPoland's ruling Law and Justice party says the law is meant to fight expressions like \"Polish death camps,\" to refer to the wartime camps that Nazi Germany operated in occupied Poland. Poles were among those imprisoned, tortured and killed in the camps, and many today feel Poles are being unfairly depicted as perpetrators of the Holocaust.\nAs part of the same effort, the government launched a website on Tuesday in Polish, German and English with documentary evidence that death camps like Auschwitz were built and operated by Nazi Germany, a historically accurate account.\nGermany occupied Poland in 1939, annexing part of it to Germany and directly governing the rest. Unlike other countries occupied by Germany at the time, there was no collaborationist government in Poland. The prewar Polish government and military fled into exile, except for an underground resistance army that fought the Nazis inside the country.\nThe Israeli government in the past has supported the campaign against the phrase \"Polish death camps,\" but it has strongly criticized the new legislation, which still must be approved by the Senate and President Andrzej Duda, who both support it.\nIsrael, along with several international Holocaust organizations and many critics in Poland, argues that the law could have a chilling effect on debating history, harming freedom of expression and leading to a whitewashing of Poland's wartime history, which also includes episodes of Poles killing Jews or denouncing them to the Germans.\nPolish Holocaust and World War II scholars, as well as international organizations including Yad Vashem, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Wiesenthal Center, are among groups who have criticized the law. Critics have said they fear the law could lead to self-censorship in academia and that the legislation — which also mentions \"other crimes against peace and humanity\" — is so broad that it could be used to fight any form of criticism against Poland by authorities already accused of eroding democratic standards.\nIn a sign of the sensitivities on both sides, Yair Lapid, head of Israel's centrist Yesh Atid party and the son of a Holocaust survivor, insisted in a heated Twitter exchange with the Polish Embassy that \"there were Polish death camps and no law can ever change that.\" An Israeli journalist, Lahav Harkov, also wrote a tweet that consisted only of the phrase \"Polish death camps\" repeated 14 times.\nSuch Israeli remarks offended many in Poland, including many who oppose the law and any expressions of anti-Semitism in Poland.\nFar-right groups have called for a demonstration Wednesday in front of the Israeli Embassy in Warsaw to protest the \"anti-Polish\" sentiment they say is being propagated by Israel and some media.\nAnd there has been an eruption of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish comments online and in the media, including in state media, which is tightly controlled by the right-wing ruling Law and Justice party.\nThe director of the state-run television station TVP 2, Marcin Wolski, even went so far as to say Monday on air that the Nazi death camps should actually be called Jewish. \"Who managed the crematoria there?\" he asked — a reference to the fact that death camp prisoners, usually Jews, were forced to help dispose of gas chamber victims.\nWolski was joined on his show by a right-wing commentator, Rafal Ziemkiewicz, who only a day earlier had used an extremely derogatory term to refer to Jews on Twitter. The comment was later removed.\nAnd on another talk show Saturday on Polish state TV, anti-Semitic messages posted by viewers on Twitter were shown at the bottom of the screen as one participant said that a Jewish guest was \"not really Polish.\" The state TV director later apologized for the messages, blaming a technical glitch that caused them to go onto the screen unedited.\nIn another case, a Polish state radio commentator, Piotr Nisztor, suggested that Poles who support the Israeli position should consider relinquishing their citizenship.\n\"If somebody acts as a spokesman for Israeli interests, maybe they should think about giving up their Polish citizenship and accepting Israeli citizenship,\" Nisztor said in a comment carried on the radio's official Twitter account.\nSome commentators in Poland, however, expressed dismay, saying it reminded them of an official state-sponsored anti-Semitic campaign carried out by Communist authorities in 1968.\n\"There has been a lot of hate speech against refugees and Muslims over the past two years in state media, but anti-Semitism was so far rare,\" said Rafal Pankowski, who monitors anti-Semitism and other forms of extremism as head of the Never Again association. \"But in the last couple of days it seems the floodgates have opened.\"\nIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki agreed after speaking by phone Sunday night to try to resolve differences over the legislation by convening a group of history experts, though it was unclear how effective that will be given the strong support for the bill by the ruling Law and Justice party.\nBefore the outbreak of World War II, Jews had lived in Poland for centuries, thriving in some eras and even becoming the world's largest Jewish population at one point. But anti-Semitism in the decades before the war had grown virulent, driving many Polish Jews to emigrate.\nRelations between Jews and Poles had seen efforts of reconciliation since the fall of communism, but some fear the current controversy has set that back.\nAgnieszka Markiewicz, Central Europe director for AJC, a Jewish global advocacy group, called the language on state media \"shocking.\"\n\"It is hard to imagine that there is actually space in the Polish public sphere for such anti-Semitic language and discourse,\" she told The Associated Press. \"It's unacceptable, I believe, not only for Polish Jews, but also for millions of Poles who know World War II history.\"" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "Today in History\nToday is Wednesday, Feb. 15, the 46th day of 2017. There are 319 days left in the year.\nToday's Highlight in History:\nOn Feb. 15, 1867, \"On the Beautiful Blue Danube,\" a waltz by Johann Strauss (the Younger), was publicly performed for the first time by the Vienna Men's Choral Society, garnering a polite, if decidedly less than enthusiastic, audience response. (A revised orchestral version proved much more successful.)\nOn this date:\nIn 1764, the site of present-day St. Louis was established by Pierre Laclede and Auguste Chouteau.\nIn 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine mysteriously blew up in Havana Harbor, killing more than 260 crew members and bringing the United States closer to war with Spain.\nIn 1933, President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in Miami that mortally wounded Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak; gunman Giuseppe Zangara was executed more than four weeks later.\nIn 1942, the British colony Singapore surrendered to Japanese forces during World War II.\nIn 1952, a funeral was held at Windsor Castle for Britain's King George VI, who had died nine days earlier.\nIn 1961, 73 people, including an 18-member U.S. figure skating team en route to the World Championships in Czechoslovakia, were killed in the crash of a Sabena Airlines Boeing 707 in Belgium.\nIn 1967, the rock band Chicago was founded by Walter Parazaider, Terry Kath, Danny Seraphine, Lee Loughnane (LOK'-nayn), James Pankow and Robert Lamm; the group originally called itself The Big Thing.\nIn 1971, Britain and Ireland \"decimalised\" their currencies, making one pound equal to 100 new pence instead of 240 pence.\nIn 1982, 84 men were killed when a huge oil-drilling rig, the Ocean Ranger, sank off the coast of Newfoundland during a fierce storm.\nIn 1989, the Soviet Union announced that the last of its troops had left Afghanistan, after more than nine years of military intervention.\nIn 1992, a Milwaukee jury found that Jeffrey Dahmer was sane when he killed and mutilated 15 men and boys. (The decision meant that Dahmer, who had already pleaded guilty to the murders, would receive a mandatory life sentence for each count; Dahmer was beaten to death in prison in 1994.)\nIn 2002, a private funeral was held at Windsor Castle for Britain's Princess Margaret, who had died six days earlier at age 71.\nTen years ago: National Guardsmen in Humvees ferried food, fuel and baby supplies to hundreds of motorists stranded for nearly a day on a 50-mile stretch of Interstate 78 in eastern Pennsylvania because of a monster storm. The U.S. Mint unveiled the new presidential $1 coin. Oscar-winning songwriter Ray Evans died in Los Angeles at age 92.\nFive years ago: Congressional negotiators sealed an agreement on legislation to renew a payroll tax cut for 160 million workers and jobless benefits for millions more. In defiant swipes at its foes, Iran said it was dramatically closer to mastering the production of nuclear fuel even as the U.S. weighed tougher pressure on the Tehran government.\nOne year ago: President Barack Obama opened a meeting in Rancho Mirage, California, of leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, calling the landmark gathering on U.S. soil a reflection of his personal commitment to an enduring partnership with the diverse group of countries. Taylor Swift's \"1989\" brought the singer her second Grammy Award win for album of the year; Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars earned top record for \"Uptown Funk,\" while Ed Sheeran won song of the year for \"Thinking Out Loud.\" Vanity, a Prince protege who renounced her sexy stage persona to become a Christian minister, died in Fremont, California at age 57. Her real name was Denise Matthews.\nToday's Birthdays: Former Illinois Congressman John Anderson is 95. Actress Claire Bloom is 86. Author Susan Brownmiller is 82. Songwriter Brian Holland is 76. Rock musician Mick Avory (The Kinks) is 73. Jazz musician Henry Threadgill is 73. Actress-model Marisa Berenson is 70. Actress Jane Seymour is 66. Singer Melissa Manchester is 66. Actress Lynn Whitfield is 64. \"Simpsons\" creator Matt Groening (GREE'-ning) is 63. Model Janice Dickinson is 62. Actor Christopher McDonald is 62. Reggae singer Ali Campbell is 58. Actor Joseph R. Gannascoli is 58. Musician Mikey Craig (Culture Club) is 57. College and Pro Football Hall of Famer Darrell Green is 57. Actor/comedian Steven Michael Quezada (TV: \"Breaking Bad\") is 54. Country singer Michael Reynolds (Pinmonkey) is 53. Actor Michael Easton is 50. Rock musician Stevie Benton (Drowning Pool) is 46. Actress Renee O'Connor is 46. Actress Sarah Wynter is 44. Olympic gold medal swimmer Amy Van Dyken-Rouen is 44. Actress-director Miranda July is 43. Rock singer Brandon Boyd (Incubus) is 41. Rock musician Ronnie Vannucci (The Killers) is 41. Singer-songwriter-musician Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes) is 37. Actress Ashley Lyn Cafagna is 34. Blues-rock musician Gary Clark Jr. is 33. Actress Natalie Morales is 32. Actress Amber Riley is 31.\nThought for Today: \"Nothing is mine, I have only nothing but it is enough, it is beautiful and it is all mine.\" — Katherine Anne Porter, American author (1894-1980)." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko, whose reported death was international news on Tuesday night, has appeared at a televised press conference.\nThe journalist thanked Ukraine's security services for saving his life, purportedly by faking his death in order to foil a genuine assassination attempt.\nThe journalist spoke at a televised press conference in which he apologized to friends and loved ones and thanked Ukraine's security services for saving his life. Vasily Gritsak, the head of Ukraine's security service, told reporters that the operation had been planned for two months.\nDuring the press conference, reporters were told that the staging of Babchenko's death had been coordinated by the journalist and Ukrainian police following serious death threats against him. Police officials said the operation was carried out in an attempt to lure out those behind the threats. They said that one arrest had been made so far.\nBabchenko himself apologized for the pain the news of his death had caused, telling those present: \"I have been forced to bury my friends and colleagues many times and I know the sickening feeling.\" His family was not informed of the plan either, leading him to add: \"Special apologies to my wife, Olechka, there was no other option.\"\nMore to follow...\njs/msh (AFP, AP, Reuters)" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi's governor has signed the nation's tightest abortion restrictions into law.\nRepublican Gov. Phil Bryant signed House Bill 1510 on Monday afternoon. It becomes law immediately and bans most abortions after 15 weeks' gestation. Bryant has frequently said he wants Mississippi to be the \"safest place in America for an unborn child.\"\nThe law's only exceptions are if a fetus has health problems making it \"incompatible with life\" outside of the womb at full term, or if a pregnant woman's life or a \"major bodily function\" is threatened by pregnancy. Pregnancies resulting from rape and incest aren't exempted.\nAbortion rights advocates are calling the law unconstitutional because it limits abortion before fetuses can live outside the womb. The owner of Mississippi's only abortion clinic opposes the law and has pledged to sue." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "New York (AP) — Silver futures trading on the NY Merc Wednesday:\n(5,000 troy oz.; cents per troy oz.)" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 24, 2018--Don Lee Farms has sold more than a million Organic Plant-Based Burgers in less than sixty days, becoming the fastest growing product in its category. “Interest in our Organic Plant-Based Burger has just exploded,” said Donald Goodman, President, Don Lee Farms. “We are just keeping up with demand and are implementing plans to expand distribution every week.”\nThis press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180424005065/en/\nDon Lee Farms' Breakthrough Organic Plant-Based Burger\n“The fact that our Organic Plant-Based Burger is made with plants and not with science has resonated with people. No one wants to eat a burger hidden with artificial or modified ingredients if they have the choice,” said Danny Goodman, Don Lee Farms. “They want natural. They want organic. They want real.”\nThe Don Lee Farms’ burger “bleeds” organic beet juice and sizzles on the grill from organic vegetable-based fats just like raw beef. It is the only burger in its category to qualify for the Organic Seal certified by USDA. The new burger launched to rave reviews. CookingLight Magazine proclaimed, “This burger was really delicious. I’d buy these again,” after tasting the top three leading brands.\n“Having sold a million burgers this quickly has exceeded everyone’s expectations,” continued Donald. “The excitement around this burger has been overwhelming. We are now expanding availability in club stores and will be introducing the burger in restaurants and other retail markets in the upcoming months.”\nAbout Don Lee Farms\nEstablished in California in 1982, Don Lee Farms is a family-owned food manufacturer and leading national supplier of organic and conventional food products. They are the leading national producer of organic veggie burgers. Don Lee Farms produces meat, vegetarian and plant-based foods for retail, club, foodservice and school foodservice markets. Consumer products and end items are sold at major retailers nationwide such as Costco Wholesale®, Whole Foods Markets® and Walmart® under the Don Lee Farms label, private brands and under brands of their partners. For more information, visit www.donleefarms.com and follow Don Lee Farms on Facebook and Twitter, @DonLeeFarms.\nView source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180424005065/en/\nCONTACT: Don Lee Farms\nMaria Aguilar\[email protected]\nKEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA CALIFORNIA\nINDUSTRY KEYWORD: RETAIL FOOD/BEVERAGE SUPERMARKET\nSOURCE: Don Lee Farms\nCopyright Business Wire 2018.\nPUB: 04/24/2018 08:00 AM/DISC: 04/24/2018 08:01 AM\nhttp://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180424005065/en" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "CHICAGO (AP) — Workers at Chicago hotels now have \"panic buttons\" to summon help if needed.\nAn ordinance that took effect this week requires hotels to provide the buttons. They're intended to protect housekeeping staff and others who work alone in guest rooms from sexual harassment and other crimes.\nA survey of 500 workers conducted by Unite Here Local 1 found 58 percent reported they've experienced at least one incident of sexual harassment by guests. The most common was guests answering their door naked.\nThe buttons trigger a message to the cellphone of the employee's supervisor, manager and human resources department and provide the employee's name and location.\nKaren Kent is president of Unite Here Local 1. She says it's \"a new day for women working in Chicago hotels.\"" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "BERLIN (AP) — German police say they have arrested three suspects during raids against a group that is believed to have smuggled at least 160 migrants into Germany over recent months.\nFederal police spokesman Christian Meinhold said raids were staged in four German states Wednesday. Two suspects were arrested in Berlin and a third in Bad Muskau, on the Polish border, and seven properties searched.\nThe suspects are believed to belong to a group that smuggled migrants from the Czech Republic and Poland, largely using trucks.\nThe alleged smuggling took place since August and an investigation was launched in the fall.\nGermany saw around 186,000 asylum-seekers arrive last year. That's much lower than the previous two years, but officials say it's still too high and that's due in part to smugglers' activities." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "Italy's political situation right now seems like something straight out of a bad TV show. Three potential prime ministers (Paolo Gentiloni, Giuseppe Conte, Carlo Cottarelli), all of them frozen until maybe, somehow, a government appears out of thin air; a serious argument with the president to the detriment of the Italian constitution; populists up in arms, yelling \"They won't let us govern.\"\nIn addition to that, the traditional parties are still in shock, there's the risk of new elections with a completely open outcome and the stock markets are scared, too. Also, the Italians have been spending more than they have for a long time, so the state debt is astronomically high. And there are no long-term, sustainable reforms in sight.\nRead More: Italy and the eurozone: the cloud returns\nA right-wing extremist party (Matteo Salvini's The League) and classic populists (Luigi Di Maio's Five Star Movement) are the ones with power now. They have been saying ― albeit in a confusing and conflicting way ― that an \"Italy of change\" governed by them will leave the eurozone. That of course makes people like far-right figures Steve Bannon, Viktor Orban, Marine Le Pen or even Vladimir Putin very happy.\nEurope's problem child\nYes, the whole world is talking about Italy these days. We are once again the problem child of Europe. The best-known political commentators are calling it a \"Greek tragedy,\" citing the danger of an Italian default ― the fear that the country might not be able to pay back its debt. They warn that Italy, the third-largest economy in the European Union, could go bankrupt.\nBut despite all of that (or maybe even because of it), EU Commissioner Günther Oettinger saying essentially that the markets will teach the Italians how to vote doesn't help Italy or the EU at all. On the contrary, such phrases play right into the hands of populist politicians.\nMajor newspapers wrote in response to Oettinger's remarks about \"Oktoberfest cliches,\" new talking points from the right and left use words and phases like \"blackmail\" and the \"arrogance\" of the \"strong powers\" in Brussels, Strasbourg and Berlin. Within minutes, social networks were full of nonsense posts about the \"Fourth Reich\" and German tanks. In many peoples' minds, Germany has turned into an imperialist superpower again!\nEven Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, immediately realized that Oettinger's statement (which was denied in its first, condensed form) was a bad communications gaffe. Someone who wants to avoid a fire should not pour oil onto the flames ― that should be obvious.\nThe problem is, after all, populism, and not just in Italy. It stokes fears and rocks the democratic structures of established institutions. That has to do with the great loss of trust, of course, that \"traditional politics\" has had to face across all of Europe these past few years. Everything is supposedly part of the \"establishment,\" everything is perceived as alienating globalization and as a loss of identity for those who feel left out of the political discourse.\nArrogant rhetoric and a lack of solidarity\nAs for the case of Italy: Those who are surprised that people here are so hurt by Oettinger's comments should think of our high unemployment numbers, the lack of investments, of the constant rhetoric that's perceived as arrogant about \"homework\" in saving and social cut-backs, of the missing European solidarity when it comes to migrants and refugees. And yes, also of the grinning faces of Bannon, Le Pen and the like.\nRead more: Italy's rising populism leaves refugee aid workers worried over immigration reform\nPopulism is behind many of the mistakes made in Europe in recent years, and those who don't understand that simply don't realize the extent of the risks that are looming now.\nYes, the situation is complicated: That's why we should break the spiral of mutual cliches (lazy Southerners versus arrogant, but frugal northern Europeans) ― in Rome, in Berlin and in Brussels.\nRoberto Brunelli is a foreign policy editor at Rome-based daily La Repubblica. He has also written several books, including a 2013 biography of the German chancellor titled Angela Merkel ― The Sphinx." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "ST. PAUL, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 30, 2018--Today, the Ag Energy Alliance released new Public Opinion Research results showing that Minnesotans support the increased use of pipelines to avoid an increasing number of oil trains traveling across Minnesota. The research further confirms that Minnesotans overwhelmingly support the kinds of critical infrastructure upgrades represented by the Line 3 Replacement Project. It is time for the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to grant the need and route permits down the proposed route and get this critical infrastructure project built.\nThis press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180530006396/en/\n“Our grain elevator members and farmer consumers can’t afford an increased glut of oil trains if we fail to permit the Line 3 Replacement down the proposed route,” said Bob Zelenka of the Minnesota Grain and Feed Association. “We need to replace Line 3 down the proposed route and move these products in pipelines rather than clogging up our rail lines. “\n“It’s clear from the research that Minnesotans overwhelmingly support replacing aging infrastructure – including oil and gas pipelines,” said Joe Goode, CEO of American Strategies, a national public opinion research firm. “The majority of Minnesotans believe pipelines should be used for oil transportation to avoid the safety and efficiency problems caused by the increased use of oil-by-rail.”\n“Replacing Line 3 down the proposed route will avoid the interruption of service from an in-trench replacement which would come at a significant cost to farmers and other customers of our membership,” said Lance Klatt, Executive Director of the Minnesota Service Station and Convenience Store Association, a member of the Ag Energy Alliance.\nThe Minnesota Agriculture & Energy Alliance is a partnership between citizens, government, non-profit organizations and private companies working to support Minnesota’s farmers and agri-business, rural retailers and other small businesses. People and organizations from across the state are working together to help create policies and support projects that improve access to markets for agricultural products, efficient energy and the overall business climate.\nView source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180530006396/en/\nCONTACT: For Minnesota Agriculture & Energy Alliance:\nChris Tiedeman, 612-834-1919\[email protected]\nKEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA MINNESOTA\nINDUSTRY KEYWORD: ENERGY OIL/GAS TRANSPORT RAIL PUBLIC POLICY/GOVERNMENT STATE/LOCAL NATURAL RESOURCES AGRICULTURE MINING/MINERALS URBAN PLANNING ENVIRONMENT CONSTRUCTION & PROPERTY\nSOURCE: Minnesota Agriculture & Energy Alliance\nCopyright Business Wire 2018.\nPUB: 05/30/2018 04:02 PM/DISC: 05/30/2018 04:02 PM\nhttp://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180530006396/en" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is poised to respond to the sex abuse scandal involving sports doctor Larry Nassar by approving legislation that requires governing bodies for amateur athletics to quickly report claims of abuse to law enforcement.\nSen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the bill's main sponsor, said at a press conference that the bill could pass the Senate by voice vote later Tuesday. The measure would then be sent to President Donald Trump for his signature. The House overwhelmingly approved the legislation on Monday.\nNassar was sentenced last week to up to 175 years in prison for sexually abusing more than 150 women and girls over 25 years. Nassar worked at Michigan State University and for USA Gymnastics, the governing body that also trains Olympians.\nFormer gymnast Jeanette Antolin, who was a member of the U.S. national team in the late 1990s when she went to Nassar for treatment, said the legislation is an important step forward. But Antolin said the U.S. Olympic Committee, USA Gymnastics and Michigan State all need to be investigated thoroughly to determine how \"such heinous crimes were allowed to go under the radar\" for so long.\n\"Time's up,\" Antolin said, a nod toward the movement against sexual abuse and harassment. \"Every minute that goes by with unanswered questions, more innocent children can be harmed.\"\nA patchwork of state laws on reporting suspected sex abuse made it necessary to enact a uniform national standard that would apply to amateur sports groups such as USA Gymnastics as well as to other sports organizations that participate in interstate and international travel, according to the bill's backers. The failure to report a sexual abuse allegation could lead to up to one year in prison.\nThe legislation also extends the statute of limitations for victims to sue alleged perpetrators, recognizing that children sometimes don't realize they were abused until years later. The statute of limitations was extended to age 28 or up to 10 years after the reasonable discovery of the violation, whichever is later.\nThe legislation requires the governing bodies for amateur athletes to put in place \"reasonable procedures\" to limit one-on-one interactions between minors and adults, except in emergencies." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "HAMDEN, Conn. (AP) — A dean from UCLA has been appointed the next president of Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.\nJudy Olian, who currently serves as dean of UCLA's Anderson School of Management, will become Quinnipiac's first female president when she takes over for John Lahey, who will retire at the end of June.\nOlian's appointment was announced Monday by William Weldon, the chairman of Quinnipiac's Board of Trustees, nine months after the private school launched a nationwide search for Lahey's successor.\n\"We are confident she will build on the university's current momentum and strong foundation and will lead Quinnipiac to further impact and national recognition,\" Weldon said.\nOlian has served as dean at the Anderson School of Management since 2006. She is credited with raising more than $400 million for student and faculty support at the school. She previously served as dean and professor of management at Penn State and professor and senior associate dean at the University of Maryland.\n\"I'm attracted to the purpose and mission of Quinnipiac, and its comfort in leading change,\" Olian said. \"I've seen a remarkable trajectory of growth in this university. I am eager to partner across the community in building on that.\"\nIn addition to her academic duties directing UCLA's graduate business school, Olian also has written a weekly syndicated newspaper column and hosted a monthly television show on current topics in business.\nLahey has led the school since 1987 as it grew from a small college into a university of nearly 10,000 students on three campuses. The number of graduate students has grown from 106 to almost 3,000 as the school established several new departments including a school of medicine, a school of law and a school of engineering.\nThe university now awards 2,600 degrees annually, compared to only 575 when Lahey arrived 31 years ago.\nHe also oversaw the transition from Division II athletics to Division I." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "SUMMIT, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 24, 2018--Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG) today announced additional phase III data analyses evaluating the efficacy and safety of ozanimod, a novel, oral, selective sphingosine 1-phosphate 1 (S1P 1 ) and 5 (S1P 5 ) receptor modulator, versus interferon beta-1a (IFN β-1a) (Avonex ® ) in patients with relapsing multiple sclerosis (RMS). These additional data analyses from the SUNBEAM™ and RADIANCE™ Part B trials are being presented at the 2018 American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, April 21-27, 2018.\n“These new analyses of the pivotal SUNBEAM and RADIANCE Part B trials provide robust evidence that supports ozanimod as a potential new therapeutic option in a broad spectrum of patients with relapsing multiple sclerosis,” said Ludwig Kappos, M.D., Chair of the Department of Neurology at the University of Basel and a presenter of one of the abstracts. “The reduction in annualized relapse rates with ozanimod in these trials was consistent across a range of pre-specified subgroups versus interferon beta-1a.”\nThe phase III SUNBEAM and RADIANCE Part B studies evaluated two doses of oral ozanimod (1 mg and 0.5 mg ozanimod HCl) compared with IFN β-1a in patients with RMS. In the new analyses, several pre-specified subgroups, including disability severity at baseline (EDSS ≤3.5 vs. EDSS >3.5), presence of gadolinium-enhanced lesions at baseline and prior treatment with disease-modifying therapies, were assessed. Data from these analyses, to be presented in an oral session on April 25, show dose-dependent effects of ozanimod on annualized relapse rates (ARR) versus IFN β-1a across these subgroups that were consistent with the primary endpoint of both SUNBEAM and RADIANCE Part B.\nA pair of poster presentations on April 24 examined reductions in brain volume loss, a measure associated with multiple sclerosis (MS) disease progression, for ozanimod compared with IFN β-1a. As previously reported for SUNBEAM at one year and for RADIANCE Part B at two years, whole brain volume loss was reduced relative to IFN β-1a for both the 1 mg dose of ozanimod and the 0.5 mg dose. For both doses, all comparisons were nominally significant.\nAdditional data in the presentations from exploratory endpoints examined volume loss of specific segments of the brain. Increasing evidence suggests that disease-related damage to grey matter is of major importance in MS. The data analyses to be presented show reductions in cortical grey matter loss and thalamic volume loss are consistent with the reductions in whole brain volume loss seen in SUNBEAM at one year for ozanimod compared with IFN β-1a. Likewise, reductions in cortical grey matter loss and thalamic volume loss are consistent with the reductions in whole brain volume loss seen in RADIANCE Part B at two years.\nIn the clinical trials, adverse reactions that occurred in at least 5 percent of patients in either ozanimod treatment group, with at least a 1 percent difference greater than the IFN β-1a group, were nasopharyngitis, headache, increased alanine aminotransferase, upper respiratory tract infection, hypertension, increased gamma-glutamyltransferase, pharyngitis and urinary tract infections.\nOzanimod is an investigational compound that is not approved for any use in any country.\nAbout SUNBEAM ™\nSUNBEAM is a pivotal, phase III, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, double-dummy, active-controlled trial evaluating the efficacy, safety and tolerability of two doses of oral ozanimod (0.92 mg and 0.46 mg, equivalent to 1 mg and 0.5 mg ozanimod HCl, respectively) against weekly intramuscular interferon beta-1a (Avonex ® ) over a 12-month treatment period. The study included 1,346 people living with RMS across 152 sites in 20 countries.\nThe primary endpoint of the trial was ARR during the treatment period. The secondary MRI endpoints included the number of new or enlarging hyperintense T2-weighted brain MRI lesions over 12 months, number of gadolinium-enhanced brain MRI lesions at month 12 and percent change from baseline in brain volume at month 12.\nAn analysis of the time to onset of 3-month confirmed disability progression was pre-specified using pooled data from both the SUNBEAM and RADIANCE Part B phase III trials.\nAbout RADIANCE ™\nRADIANCE Part B is a pivotal, phase III, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, double-dummy, active-controlled trial evaluating the efficacy, safety and tolerability of two doses of oral ozanimod (0.92 mg and 0.46 mg, equivalent to 1 mg and 0.5 mg ozanimod HCl, respectively) against weekly intramuscular interferon beta-1a (Avonex ® ) over a 24-month treatment period. The study included 1,320 people living with RMS across 147 sites in 21 countries.\nThe primary endpoint of the trial was ARR over 24 months. The secondary MRI endpoints included the number of new or enlarging hyperintense T2-weighted brain MRI lesions over 24 months, number of gadolinium-enhanced brain MRI lesions at month 24 and percent change from baseline in brain volume at month 24.\nAn analysis of the time to onset of 3-month confirmed disability progression was pre-specified using pooled data from both the SUNBEAM and RADIANCE Part B phase III trials.\nAbout Ozanimod\nOzanimod is a novel, oral, selective, sphingosine 1-phosphate 1 (S1P 1 ) and 5 (S1P 5 ) receptor modulator in development for immune-inflammatory indications including relapsing multiple sclerosis, ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.\nSelective binding with S1P 1 is believed to inhibit a specific subset of activated lymphocytes from migrating to sites of inflammation. The result is a reduction of circulating T and B lymphocytes that leads to anti-inflammatory activity. Importantly, immune surveillance is maintained.\nSelective binding with S1P 5 is thought to activate specific cells within the central nervous system (CNS). This has the potential to enhance remyelination (when the body is able to repair damaged myelin after inflammation is reduced) and prevent synaptic defects. Ultimately, neurological damage may be prevented.\nAbout Multiple Sclerosis\nMultiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease in which the immune system attacks the protective myelin sheath that covers the nerves. The myelin damage disrupts communication between the brain and the rest of the body. Ultimately, the nerves themselves may deteriorate — a process that's currently irreversible. Signs and symptoms vary widely, depending on the amount of damage and the nerves affected. Some people living with MS may lose the ability to walk independently, while others experience long periods of remission during which they develop no new symptoms. Multiple sclerosis affects approximately 400,000 people in the U.S. and approximately 2.5 million people worldwide.\nRelapsing multiple sclerosis (RMS) is characterized by clearly defined attacks of worsening neurologic function. These attacks — often called relapses, flare-ups or exacerbations — are followed by partial or complete recovery periods (remissions), during which symptoms improve partially or completely with no apparent progression of disease. Approximately 85 percent of patients with MS have the relapsing form of the disease, compared with 10-15 percent with progressive forms of the disease.\nAbout Celgene\nCelgene Corporation, headquartered in Summit, New Jersey, is an integrated global pharmaceutical company engaged primarily in the discovery, development and commercialization of innovative therapies for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases through next‐generation solutions in protein homeostasis, immuno‐oncology, epigenetics, immunology and neuro‐inflammation. For more information, please visit www.celgene.com. Follow Celgene on Social Media: @Celgene, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.\nForward-Looking Statements\nThis press release contains forward-looking statements, which are generally statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the words “expects,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “intends,” “estimates,” “plans,” “will,” “outlook” and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are based on management’s current plans, estimates, assumptions and projections, and speak only as of the date they are made. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement in light of new information or future events, except as otherwise required by law. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, most of which are difficult to predict and are generally beyond our control. Actual results or outcomes may differ materially from those implied by the forward-looking statements as a result of the impact of a number of factors, many of which are discussed in more detail in our Annual Report on Form 10-K and our other reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.\nHyperlinks are provided as a convenience and for informational purposes only. Celgene bears no responsibility for the security or content of external websites.\nView source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180424005339/en/\nCONTACT: For inquiries, please contact:\nCelgene Corporation\nInvestors:\nPatrick E. Flanigan III, 908-673-9969\nCorporate Vice President, Investor Relations\nor\nMedia:\nCatherine Cantone, 908-897-4256\nSenior Director, Corporate Communications\nKEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA CANADA CALIFORNIA NEW JERSEY\nINDUSTRY KEYWORD: HEALTH CLINICAL TRIALS PHARMACEUTICAL OTHER HEALTH\nSOURCE: Celgene Corporation\nCopyright Business Wire 2018.\nPUB: 04/24/2018 07:30 AM/DISC: 04/24/2018 07:31 AM\nhttp://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180424005339/en" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "TAIPEI (Taiwan News) - Shih Hsin University and 13 other universities in Taiwan have allegedly sought permission from the Ministry of Education to hike tuition and fees by 2.5 percent for the 2018 academic year.\nA student group at Shih Hsin University protested the plan on Wednesday, saying that combined costs for tuition and living expenses over the course of four years would exceed NT$1 million (US$0.33 million) after the hike.\nThe Alliance Against Commercialization of Education (反教育商品化聯盟) said that 14 schools, including National Taiwan University of Science and Technology and Shih Hsin, have sought permission to hike tuition and fees this year. The alliance is having a protest on Thursday at the Ministry of Education to call for a tuition freeze.\n\"The ministry should allocate more budget to subsidize schools to cut tuition and fees progressively to ease the financial burden for students,\" said the alliance spokesperson.\nEducation Deputy Director-General Chu Hung-chang (朱俊彰) told Liberty Times that the ministry has received tuition hike applications from 10 universities, and will convene an internal audit team to review their applications and take into consideration the schools' performance, financial transparency and scholarship availability to decide whether to approve the applications.\nChu said the decision will be made by the end of June.\nThe Shih Hsin student group said the 2.5 percent hike in tuition and fees will exacerbate the financial burden for students as the costs over four years combined would exceed NT$1 million (US$0.33 million).\nThe group also accused the school of poor financial transparency as students have no knowledge of where the money was spent.\nThe school declined to comment on the protest, according to Liberty Times." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A Minnesota jury returns Thursday for a fourth day of deliberations in the trial of a police officer charged with manslaughter in the death of a black motorist, a day after the judge admonished them to keep working.\nDeliberations began Monday in the manslaughter trial of Officer Jeronimo Yanez, who shot Philando Castile during a July 6 traffic stop in a St. Paul suburb after Castile informed the officer that he was carrying a gun. Castile, 32, had a permit for the firearm.\nYanez, attorneys and family members for both Yanez and Castile returned to court Wednesday afternoon, leading to speculation a verdict had been reached. Judge William Leary, without explanation, re-read a portion of the jury instructions to jurors and told them to resume talks.\nThe material dealt with jurors carefully considering and re-examining their views and their duty to \"deliberate with a view toward reaching agreement.\"\nThe hearing took just a couple of minutes. The jury went back to continue deliberations but broke for the day soon after without a verdict.\nOn Tuesday, jurors requested another look at dashcam video captured by Yanez's squad car that shows the shooting. The jury also watched a replay of the video that Castile's girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, livestreamed on Facebook beginning seconds after Castile had been shot.\nDefense attorneys contend the 29-year-old Latino officer saw Castile reach for his weapon, that Yanez was scared for his life and was justified in shooting Castile. Prosecutors insist Yanez never saw a gun and had plenty of options short of shooting Castile, an elementary school cafeteria worker they say was never a threat. Witness testified that the gun was in the pocket of Castile's shorts when paramedics pulled him from the vehicle.\nThe squad-car video shows a wide view of the traffic stop and the shooting, with the camera pointed toward Castile's car. While it captures what was said between the two men and shows Yanez firing into the vehicle, it does not show what happened inside the car or what Yanez might have seen.\nThe failure to reach a quick verdict reflects the infrequent convictions of police officers. Data compiled by Philip Stinson, a criminologist at Ohio's Bowling Green State University who tracks fatal police shootings, shows about 35 percent of the 82 officers nationwide charged with murder or manslaughter since 2005 were convicted.\nAlmost 40 percent resulted in non-convictions, including several recent cases that ended in mistrials or acquittals when an officer testified they feared for their life, Stinson told The Associated Press.\n\"In these cases, it does seem that jurors are very reluctant to second guess the split-second decision of a police officer in a very violent street encounter,\" Stinson said. \"Despite the best prosecution efforts, at the end of trial the defense puts the police officer on (the stand) — and that's all she wrote.\"\nCastile's mother, Valerie, declined comment Wednesday. Danny Givens Jr., a pastor who works with Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and who has been spending time with the family, describe their mood as \"prayerful, hopeful, more importantly just staying in the moment and supporting one another.\"\nReynolds' video of the gruesome aftermath of the shooting was shared widely, and included her statements that Castile hadn't been reaching for his gun.\nThe squad-car video shows Yanez approaching Castile's car and asking for a driver's license and proof of insurance. Castile appears to give something to Yanez through the driver's side window. Castile is then heard saying, \"Sir, I have to tell you, I do have a firearm on me.\" Before Castile finishes that sentence, Yanez has his hand on his own gun and is pulling it out of the holster. There is shouting, and Yanez screams \"Don't pull it out!\" before he fires seven shots into the car.\nYanez is charged with second-degree manslaughter, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, though sentencing guidelines suggest around four years is more likely. He also faces two lesser counts of endangering Reynolds and her daughter for firing his gun into the car near them.\nConviction on the manslaughter charge requires the jury to find Yanez guilty of \"culpable negligence,\" which the judge described in jury instructions as gross negligence with an element of recklessness.\nThe 12-member jury includes two black members. The rest are white. None is Latino." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- Despite having its own constitution, democratically elected government, military, currency, 20 diplomatic allies, population of 23.5 million and territorial boundary encompassing 36,197 square kilometers, Wikipedia editors have decided to demote Taiwan's ranking on the list of countries by GDP to a hyphen for being a \"state with limited international recognition.\"\nOn Monday (March 19), a user of the social media site Reddit posted a link to Wikipedia's English ranking of countries based on their GDP, titled \"List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita.\" The page currently explains because of its \"limited international recognition\" Taiwan is not ranked in the chart, but is listed in italics \"in sequence by GDP for comparison.\"\nA look at the edit history of the page reveals that Taiwan had as recently as January of this year been ranked 34 under the International Monetary Fund estimates, was not in italics and there was no such categorization of it as an having less international recognition.\nScreen capture of Jan. 19 version.\nHowever on Feb. 2, without explanation, Wikipedia editors, took its ranking off the chart and replaced it with a hyphen and added the wording about its limited recognition.\nScreen capture of Feb. 2 version.\nSince the creation of the page in 2004 (when Taiwan was listed as a country), Taiwan's status as a sovereign country has been changed multiple times on the page, with those in favor of keeping Taiwan on the list saying that it is recognized as a sovereign state by Wikipedia itself. \"Taiwan is described as a \"sovereign state\" on its wiki article. Italics and dash only for non-sovereign entities,\" wrote EvergreenFir on May 17, 2016.\nWhile those he seek to demote Taiwan's status on the page or remove it entirely argue that Taiwan is not recognized by certain international organizations such as the IMF: \"Taiwan's eventual status is undetermined and is certainly not sovereign. In fact, they are considered a \"Province of China\" by the IMF,\" wrote Shen333 on May 22, 2016.\nYet, in a textbook case clearly demonstrating that Wikipedia is anything but reliable and consistent, the traditional Chinese version of the page ranks Taiwan 34 and does not subjugate it as a state with limited status.\nScreen capture of current traditional Chinese version.\nThis year's removal of Taiwan from the ranks of countries by Wikipedia matches the timing of a series of corporate and government websites that have relented to pressure from Beijing to list Taiwan as \"province,\" \"area\" or part of China." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — At heart, Ernie Barnes the professional football player was always Ernie Barnes the artist.\nHis teammates on the San Diego Chargers nicknamed him \"Big Rembrandt\" because he was always scribbling on pieces of paper.\nHe ended up painting vivid and highly acclaimed images from the playing field and from African-American life. He's most famous for \"Sugar Shack,\" which shows African-Americans dancing at the Durham Armory. Marvin Gaye used a version of it for an album cover, and a print of it appeared in the closing credits of the sitcom \"Good Times.\"\nNow, an exhibit has opened in his home state titled \"The North Carolina Roots of Artist Ernie Barnes.\" The exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of History includes 38 paintings by Barnes, many unseen by the public until now, along with several pieces of memorabilia.\nIt's the first exhibit of Barnes' artwork in 11 years, and the first since he died at age 70 in 2009 in Los Angeles. It continues through March 3.\nBarnes never considered football his true calling. From his childhood, he was drawn to art. In his 1995 autobiography, \"From Pads to Palette,\" he wrote, \"Throughout my five seasons in the arena of professional football, I remained at the deepest level of my being an artist.\"\nBut he played professionally from 1960 to 1964, signing first with the Baltimore Colts and then with the Titans of New York, the San Diego Chargers and the Denver Broncos. His sports connections led to his first exhibit through the support of New York Jets owner Sonny Werblin. And Barnes credited football with helping him develop the elongation technique for which he's known.\nAn art instructor told him \"to pay attention to what my body felt like in movement,\" Barnes once said. \"And when I did that, it was an elongated feeling. ... I hate to think, had I not played sports, what my work would look like.\"\nHe also spoke of how the \"dehumanization\" of professional football played out in his art. \"I painted until I exhausted the hate,\" he said, according to comments provided by his estate.\nTroy Vincent, the NFL's vice president of operations, is probably the largest collector of Barnes' art and someone in whom Barnes confided about his love-hate relationship with football. Vincent estimates that he owns just shy of 30 Barnes' paintings, most of them commissioned and never seen by the public.\nIn a phone interview, Vincent said that he and his wife \"didn't classify it as black art. He happens to be African-American, but it's not black art. It's art.\"\nAt the time of Barnes' death, Paul Von Blum, an art history and African American studies professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, called him one of the premier figurative artists of his era.\nBarnes, who was born in 1938 in Durham during the Jim Crow era, graduated from what's now North Carolina Central University. His painting, \"Homecoming,\" shows a marching band in Durham with U.S. 15-501 signs in the background.\n\"Ernie said when he was growing up, the high school band used to come down from the segregated area and make the turn into the black community, and the band would kick it up right there,\" Luz Rodriguez, his longtime assistant and estate trustee said last week in Raleigh before the exhibit opened. \"So that's what he painted.\"\n\"Sugar Shack\" came from Barnes' memories growing up in Durham, Rodriguez said. His mother had told the 13-year-old Barnes that \"they don't do Christian things there\" so of course he had to sneak in to find out what was happening, she said.\nActor and comedian Eddie Murphy owns the painting now, exhibit curator Katie Edwards said. A second version that Barnes painted is part of the North Carolina museum exhibit.\nBarnes could bring to life \"the hopes and dreams of what could be — families together, strong men, strong women, the true representation of the godly family,\" Vincent said. Barnes was able to \"share our dark past yet articulate in color what the future could be — the proudness of our history, the proudness of our future. Ernie encapsulated all of that.\"\n___\nFollow Martha Waggoner on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mjwaggonernc" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "A couple who fell seriously ill near the English town of Amesbury were poisoned with the same Novichok nerve agent used in the Skripal incident, British police confirmed on Wednesday.\nThe Skripal case caused a rift between the UK and Russia, after the UK concluded that the nerve agent used was Soviet-made. Moscow denied the claim and the confrontation led to an exchange of diplomat expulsions between both countries.\nWhat we know so far:\nThe victims are a 45-year-old man and a 44-year-old woman, who were discovered unconscious on Saturday at a house in a quiet neighborhood of Amesbury.\nThe couple are in a critical condition in the same UK hospital where Sergei Skripal and his daughter Julia were treated earlier this year.\nAmesbury is 12 kilometers (8 miles) from Salisbury, where the Skripals were poisoned.\nLocal police have established two help lines to take calls from those who may have concerns about a possible contamination.\nCounter-terrorism police are now handling the case.\nNo danger to public\nNeil Basu, Britain's most senior counter-terrorism officer, told reporters it was unclear how they came into contact with the nerve agent or whether they had been specifically targetted.\nA Downing Street spokesperson said the incident was being treated \"with the utmost seriousness.\"\nEngland's Chief Medical Officer said the risk to the general public remained low.\nMore to come..." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The series of bombings this month in the Texas capital city of Austin has generated a vast response by state and federal law enforcement agencies that are sifting through hundreds of tips to find what Austin police Chief Brian Manley has described as a serial bomber.\nHere's a look at the investigation so far, by the numbers:\n— 2, 4: Number of people killed and the number wounded. The first explosion occurred March 2, killing a 39-year-old man. A 17-year-old boy was killed and two women were injured in two separate blasts on March 12. The latest happened Sunday, injuring 22- and 23-year-old men.\n— 500: The number of leads that have been closed since the bombings began, according to Fred Milanowski, special agent in charge of the Houston division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.\n— $115,000: Amount of reward being offered for a tip leading to a conviction.\n— 350: Number of FBI agents currently involved in the investigation, according to FBI Special Agent in Charge Christopher Combs. Hundreds of other law enforcement personnel also are involved, including those with Austin police and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.\n— 240: Approximate number of interviews conducted with witnesses, people calling in tips and others since the first explosion.\n— 600: Calls that Austin police have responded to for suspicious packages since the second and third blasts happened March 12." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A United Parcel Service driver who opened fire during a meeting with co-workers had filed a grievance that he was working excessive overtime.\nUPS union official Joseph Cilia told The Associated Press that 38-year-old Jimmy Lam had filed the grievance in March and had requested that the package delivery company relieve him of working extra hours going forward.\nLam appeared to specifically go after the three drivers he killed before fatally shooting himself.\nOfficials late Wednesday confirmed 50-year-old Benson Louie, 56-year-old Wayne Chan, and 46-year-old Mike Lefiti were killed in the shooting.\nTwo other UPS employees were wounded, but Cilia said both were released from the hospital." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Atlantic City, New Jersey, is trying to put years of casino closings and job losses behind it.\nSince 2014, five of its 12 casinos have closed, putting 11,000 people out of work.\nFor many laid-off workers, the first step on the road to recovery started Tuesday, when the shuttered former Trump Taj Mahal casino began interviewing job applicants for its reincarnation this summer as a Hard Rock casino resort.\nThe event was for former Taj employees. About 1,600 such workers were invited to apply for jobs, and 1,400 did.\nFormer Taj dealer Monica Weekes described herself during her interview as \"fun first.\"\nHard Rock will create more than 3,000 jobs. And the former Revel casino is reopening as the Ocean Resort casino and will add thousands more." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "ASIA:\nMALAYSIA-NORTH KOREA — Police were checking surveillance tapes Wednesday for clues about who may have assassinated the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at an airport in Kuala Lumpur, a senior official said. By Eileen Ng. SENT: 1,000 words, photos. With MAYALSIA-NORTH KOREA UNSANWERED QUESTIONS.\nNKOREA-LEADERS' HIDDEN LIVES - The alleged murder of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's estranged half-brother could be the best cloak-and-dagger thriller North Koreans will never get to hear. And if they did, they'd likely need some plot explainers — few know Kim Jong Un even had a half-brother. By Eric Talmadge. SENT: 750 words, photos.\nCHINA-TRUMP TRADEMARKS — There's a Trump toilet, a Trump condom, a Trump pacemaker and even a Trump International Hotel among hundreds of trademarks in China that don't belong to Donald Trump. But after a decade of grinding battle in China's courts, the president was expected to get an unlikely win this week: the rights to his own name. By Erika Kinetz. SENT: 1,400 words, photos.\nINDONESIA-JAKARTA ELECTION — Voting was underway in the election for governor of the Indonesian capital after a months-long campaign in which the monumental problems facing Jakarta took a backseat to religious intolerance and racial bigotry. By Niniek Karmini and Stephen Wright. SENT: 730 words, photos.\nAUSTRALIA-REFUGEES — Sri Lankan asylum seekers held on Pacific island camps who could potentially find new lives in the United States are free to return home without fear of persecution, Sri Lanka's prime minister said Wednesday. By Rod McGuirk. SENT: 700 words, photos.\nCHINA-XINJIANG ATTACKS — Eight people were killed in China's far western Xinjiang region, including three knife-wielding assailants, in the latest outbreak of violence in the volatile territory, authorities said Wednesday. SENT: 370 words.\nCHINA-POLLUTION PROTES — A Chinese aluminum company targeted by protests over pollution fears in a northern Chinese city says its production facilities conform to the highest international environmental standards, but that it hasn't decided whether to proceed with a massive investment in a new plant. By Louise Watt and Christopher Bodeen. SENT: 570 words.\nCHINA-CORRUPTION - A Chinese court has sentenced the former Communist Party chief of the major northern Chinese province of Hebei to 15 years in prison on corruption charges. SENT: 200 words.\nNEW ZEALAND-WILDFIRES — Hundreds of homes in the New Zealand city of Christchurch have been evacuated as wildfires threaten some suburbs. SENT: 200 words, photos.\nBUSINESS AND FINANCE\nJAPAN-SOFTBANK — Japanese telecommunications, internet and solar company SoftBank Group Corp. is buying U.S. investment company Fortress Investment Group for $3.3 billion. By Yuri Kageyama. SENT: 300 words.\nFINANCIAL MAREKTS — Most Asian stock markets rose Tuesday after U.S. stock indexes hit a new high and the American central bank chief said it could raise interest rates as early as next month. By Joe McDonald. SENT: 540 words, photos.\n___\nHOW TO REACH US:\nThe editor in charge at the AP Asia-Pacific Desk in Bangkok is Scott McDonald. Questions and story requests are welcome. The news desk can be reached at (66) 2632-6911 or by email at [email protected]. The Asia Photo Desk can be reached at (81-3) 6215-8941. Between 1600 GMT and 0000 GMT, please refer queries to the North America Desk in New York at (1) 212-621-1650.\nExpanded AP content can be obtained from http://www.apexchange.com. For access to AP Exchange and other technical issues, contact [email protected] or call (1) 877-836-9477." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "All Times EST EASTERN CONFERENCE GP W L OT Pts GF GA Tampa Bay 49 34 12 3 71 175 125 Boston 47 29 10 8 66 156 116 Washington 49 29 15 5 63 150 138 Toronto 51 28 18 5 61 162 146 Columbus 49 27 19 3 57 131 137 Pittsburgh 51 27 21 3 57 151 153 New Jersey 48 24 16 8 56 144 146 Philadelphia 49 24 17 8 56 141 141 N.Y. Islanders 50 25 20 5 55 172 180 N.Y. Rangers 50 25 20 5 55 153 151 Carolina 49 22 19 8 52 137 154 Detroit 48 19 21 8 46 126 146 Montreal 49 20 23 6 46 129 156 Florida 47 19 22 6 44 132 158 Ottawa 47 15 23 9 39 124 166 Buffalo 49 14 26 9 37 114 163 WESTERN CONFERENCE GP W L OT Pts GF GA Vegas 48 32 12 4 68 164 128 Winnipeg 50 29 13 8 66 164 136 Nashville 47 29 11 7 65 145 123 St. Louis 51 30 18 3 63 148 130 Dallas 50 28 18 4 60 155 134 San Jose 48 26 15 7 59 143 133 Calgary 49 25 16 8 58 137 135 Colorado 48 27 18 3 57 157 139 Los Angeles 49 26 18 5 57 139 121 Minnesota 49 26 18 5 57 144 140 Anaheim 50 24 17 9 57 141 141 Chicago 49 23 19 7 53 146 136 Edmonton 49 22 24 3 47 135 157 Vancouver 49 19 24 6 44 127 159 Arizona 50 12 29 9 33 118 172\nNOTE: Two points for a win, one point for overtime loss. Top three teams in each division and two wild cards per conference advance to playoffs.\nSunday's Games\nCentral All-Stars vs Pacific All-Stars: Pacific 5, Central 2\nMetropolitan All-Stars vs Atlantic All-Stars: Atlantic 7, Metropolitan 4\nAll-Star Game Final: Pacific 5, Atlantic 2\nMonday's Games No games scheduled\nTuesday's Games\nMinnesota at Columbus, 7 p.m.\nSan Jose at Pittsburgh, 7 p.m.\nFlorida at N.Y. Islanders, 7 p.m.\nAnaheim at Boston, 7 p.m.\nOttawa at Carolina, 7 p.m.\nNew Jersey at Buffalo, 7 p.m.\nTampa Bay at Winnipeg, 8 p.m.\nMontreal at St. Louis, 8 p.m.\nChicago at Nashville, 8 p.m.\nLos Angeles at Dallas, 8:30 p.m.\nVegas at Calgary, 9 p.m.\nColorado at Vancouver, 10 p.m.\nWednesday's Games\nN.Y. Islanders at Toronto, 7:30 p.m.\nSan Jose at Detroit, 8 p.m.\nPhiladelphia at Washington, 8 p.m.\nThursday's Games\nToronto at N.Y. Rangers, 7 p.m.\nMontreal at Carolina, 7 p.m.\nSt. Louis at Boston, 7 p.m.\nFlorida at Buffalo, 7 p.m.\nAnaheim at Ottawa, 7 p.m.\nPhiladelphia at New Jersey, 7 p.m.\nVegas at Winnipeg, 8 p.m.\nLos Angeles at Nashville, 8:30 p.m.\nTampa Bay at Calgary, 9 p.m.\nDallas at Arizona, 9 p.m.\nColorado at Edmonton, 9 p.m.\nChicago at Vancouver, 10 p.m." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The French retailer giant Carrefour has removed dog meat products from two of its supermarket chains in China.\nCarrefour announced the measures following outcry from the animal rights group, Animal Asia.\nThe group claims to has been asking the chain to remove dog meat products from its shelves since 2012.\nAlthough the company had given its word to do so, but an inspection by the group found two of its branches in the eastern city of Xuzhou still featured dog meat products.\nThese items included \"Fankuai turtle-juiced dog meat,\" selling for 136 yuan ($20), as well as smaller packages of dried dog meat selling for 25.60 yuan.\nAs many as 10 million dogs are killed every year for the purpose of consumption in China, according to the Humane Society International.\nEven though dog meat consumption is not illegal in China, animal rights groups have sought to stop its sale at the controversial annual Yunlin dog meat festival in the southwestern town of Yulin in Guangxi Province." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Shubhankar Sharma won his first European Tour title by a shooting 3-under 69 Monday in the final round of the weather-delayed Joburg Open.\nThe 21-year-old Indian resumed his round on the eighth green after play was halted early Sunday afternoon because of storms. He parred that hole, birdied No. 9 and made par on every hole on the back nine.\nSharma finished at 23-under 264, three strokes ahead of the pack, and qualified for next year's British Open, too.\n\"I actually wasn't going to come here about a week ago ... so I'm really happy that I came,\" said Sharma, who shot 61 in the second round. \"I don't think I'm ever going forget my first time in South Africa.\"\nErik van Rooyen (66) was second, three strokes ahead of Shaun Norris (65) and Tapio Pulkkanen (68)." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "NEW YORK (AP) — The dirty word for describing President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address was \"presidential.\"\nThat was what some Trump critics tried to put in the mind of pundits assigned to analyze Tuesday's address, urging them ahead of time not to be seduced by a smooth speech — an unusual form of \"working the refs\" that reflects today's divided times politically.\nSince the word \"presidential\" didn't come up much among television's chattering class Tuesday, that effort was largely successful. Instead, the \"p'' word that mostly came to mind was partisan. Pundits were no more successful finding common ground than the politicians they cover." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "LOS ANGELES (AP) — Sony is revising its plan to make sanitized versions of R and PG-13 rated movies available for home viewing after directors like Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen publicly expressed their disapproval. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment President Man Jit Singh said Wednesday that they will only make the films available with the directors' approval.\nLast week Sony unveiled their Clean Version initiative, which makes available the less violent, salacious and profane broadcast television and airplane edits of certain movies when you purchase the regular title on a streaming service. Titles currently available include \"Pixels,\" ''Ghostbusters\" and \"Moneyball.\"\nSingh said they believed they had obtained approvals from filmmakers to use the airplane and broadcast television versions of their films for home viewing, but promised to pull individual titles if a director objects." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States and Qatar have reached a deal to resolve a years-old quarrel over alleged airline subsidies, seven individuals familiar with the deal said Monday, as Qatar's government works to defuse tensions with the Trump administration.\nThe agreement will see state-owned Qatar Airways agree voluntarily to open up its accounting books, the individuals said. U.S. airlines say the company receives billions of dollars in government payments that leave them at a competitive disadvantage. Qatar will also make a loose commitment that the flag carrier won't launch flights to the United States from Europe or other non-Qatari cities, creating yet more competition for the U.S. airlines.\nThe individuals briefed on the agreement demanded anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss it ahead of a formal announcement, expected Tuesday when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis meet with the visiting Qatari foreign and defense ministers.\nBoth sides of the dispute can claim the agreement as a victory — for very different reasons.\nThe U.S. airline industry can claim the increased transparency will create a powerful disincentive to unfair subsidies, as Qatar will no longer be able to mask such payments through creative accounting. The three major U.S. carriers — Delta Airlines, American Airlines and United Airlines — have spent huge sums over the last three years pressing the Obama administration and Trump administration for tough action. They're eager to show a win.\nYet for Qatar, the agreement averts the more serious step U.S. airlines wanted: re-opening the so-called open-skies treaties that could lead to less favorable conditions for Persian Gulf airlines.\nQatar, denounced by President Donald Trump last year for allegedly funding terrorism, can also show it's cooperating closely and productively with U.S. regulators. That could help the tiny gas-rich kingdom draw a contrast with the United Arab Emirates, whose two airlines are also accused of improper subsidies but have yet to reach an agreement with Washington.\n\"Everybody gets to claim victory in this,\" said Helane Becker, an airline analyst for Cowen and Co.\nIndeed, even before any announcement, American, the world's biggest airline by passenger traffic, praised the deal as a way to \"thoughtfully address\" Qatari subsidies. And United CEO Oscar Munoz applauded the agreement while thanking Trump's administration for \"effectively representing the interests of the American aviation industry.\"\nThough on the same side of the airline dispute, Qatar and the UAE oppose each other in a bitter, unrelated standoff. Last year, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations blockaded Qatar after accusing it of supporting extremism and fomenting dissent throughout the region. Qatar hopes to change that narrative by enhancing counterterrorism cooperation and allowing greater U.S. visibility into its finances and banking practices.\nIn an eight-paragraph document laying out \"understandings\" between Qatar and the U.S., the Gulf nation will commit within one year to releasing audited financial statements for Qatar Airlines \"in accordance with internationally-recognized accounting standards,\" according to a text of the agreement obtained by The Associated Press. Within two years, Qatar Airways is to disclose any transactions with other state-owned entities, such as caterers or other companies that support airline operations, closing what the U.S. airlines have claimed is a backdoor used by Gulf nations to hide illicit subsidies.\nA side-letter to the agreement will state that Qatar's civilian aviation authority is unaware of any plans by Qatar Airlines to start so-called \"Fifth Freedoms\" flights — routes from third countries to the United States. Under the scenario U.S. airlines fear, Qatar Airways could offer flights from its Doha hub to, say, Paris or London, stop to pick up more passengers, then fly on to New York.\nThe side-letter only says there are no current plans to operate such service. That's short of a binding guarantee. There's also no commitment Qatar Airways won't expand its offering of Qatar-U.S. flights.\n\"This appears to be the administration essentially throwing a meatless bone to the three U.S. carriers to put an end to their rants against the Gulf carriers,\" said John Byerly, who was the chief open skies negotiator in the Obama administration and has also consulted for Emirates Airline and UPS.\nThe two UAE airlines — Dubai-based Emirates and Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways — aren't a party to the U.S.-Qatar agreement. Emirates Airline currently offers \"Fifth Freedom\" flights in which passengers can fly from New York-area airports to Milan, Italy or Athens without ever setting foot in the UAE.\nAll three Gulf airlines have long denied receiving unfair government subsidies. A Qatari government spokesman declined to comment on the agreement. There was no immediate reaction from either Emirates or Etihad.\nA State Department official said the U.S. planned to pursue talks with the Emiratis and address subsidy concerns. An individual familiar with planning for those talks said they could begin within weeks.\n___\nAP Airlines Writer David Koenig in Dallas and AP writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.\n___\nReach Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Muslim aerospace engineer has sued the Spirit Boeing Employees Association for religious discrimination stemming from a party at a lake in Wichita, Kansas.\nThe American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit Friday on behalf of Munir Zanial, a Malaysian national of Indian ancestry.\nThe association declined to comment.\nZanial rented the group's lake last year to host a party to celebrate Malaysian Independence Day. The lawsuit alleges the association reported him out of fear he used the lake to hold an Islamic State meeting.\nIt alleged an American flag that had been \"desecrated ISIS symbols.\" But the flag was actually a Malaysian flag and the guests included people of Malaysian Indian ancestry, some wearing hijabs.\nSpirit filed a complaint with the FBI, and the association terminated his rental benefits." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "All Times EST EASTERN CONFERENCE GP W L OT Pts GF GA Tampa Bay 50 34 13 3 71 176 128 Boston 48 29 11 8 66 157 119 Washington 49 29 15 5 63 150 138 Toronto 51 28 18 5 61 162 146 Pittsburgh 52 28 21 3 59 156 155 New Jersey 49 25 16 8 58 147 147 Columbus 50 27 19 4 58 133 140 Philadelphia 49 24 17 8 56 141 141 N.Y. Rangers 50 25 20 5 55 153 151 N.Y. Islanders 51 25 21 5 55 173 184 Carolina 50 23 19 8 54 139 155 Florida 48 20 22 6 46 136 159 Detroit 48 19 21 8 46 126 146 Montreal 50 20 24 6 46 130 159 Ottawa 48 15 24 9 39 125 168 Buffalo 50 14 27 9 37 115 166 WESTERN CONFERENCE GP W L OT Pts GF GA Vegas 49 33 12 4 70 168 130 Winnipeg 51 30 13 8 68 167 137 Nashville 48 29 12 7 65 146 125 St. Louis 52 31 18 3 65 151 131 Dallas 51 28 19 4 60 155 137 San Jose 49 26 16 7 59 145 138 Los Angeles 50 27 18 5 59 142 121 Minnesota 50 27 18 5 59 147 142 Anaheim 51 25 17 9 59 144 142 Colorado 49 27 18 4 58 160 143 Calgary 50 25 17 8 58 139 139 Chicago 50 24 19 7 55 148 137 Edmonton 49 22 24 3 47 135 157 Vancouver 50 20 24 6 46 131 162 Arizona 50 12 29 9 33 118 172\nNOTE: Two points for a win, one point for overtime loss. Top three teams in each division and two wild cards per conference advance to playoffs.\nMonday's Games No games scheduled\nTuesday's Games\nMinnesota 3, Columbus 2, SO\nPittsburgh 5, San Jose 2\nFlorida 4, N.Y. Islanders 1\nAnaheim 3, Boston 1\nCarolina 2, Ottawa 1\nNew Jersey 3, Buffalo 1\nWinnipeg 3, Tampa Bay 1\nSt. Louis 3, Montreal 1\nChicago 2, Nashville 1\nLos Angeles 3, Dallas 0\nVegas 4, Calgary 2\nVancouver 4, Colorado 3, OT\nWednesday's Games\nN.Y. Islanders at Toronto, 7:30 p.m.\nSan Jose at Detroit, 8 p.m.\nPhiladelphia at Washington, 8 p.m.\nThursday's Games\nToronto at N.Y. Rangers, 7 p.m.\nMontreal at Carolina, 7 p.m.\nSt. Louis at Boston, 7 p.m.\nFlorida at Buffalo, 7 p.m.\nAnaheim at Ottawa, 7 p.m.\nPhiladelphia at New Jersey, 7 p.m.\nVegas at Winnipeg, 8 p.m.\nLos Angeles at Nashville, 8:30 p.m.\nTampa Bay at Calgary, 9 p.m.\nDallas at Arizona, 9 p.m.\nColorado at Edmonton, 9 p.m.\nChicago at Vancouver, 10 p.m.\nFriday's Games\nWashington at Pittsburgh, 7 p.m.\nDetroit at Carolina, 7 p.m.\nSan Jose at Columbus, 7 p.m.\nVegas at Minnesota, 8 p.m." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "PHOENIX (AP) — A rare second-degree murder trial of a U.S. Border Patrol agent accused of shooting across the international boundary into Mexico and killing a teenager is set to get under way with jury selection.\nLonnie Swartz is accused of killing 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez five years ago. The teenager was on the street in Nogales, in the Mexican state of Sonora, just across the border from Nogales, Arizona. An autopsy showed the unarmed teen was hit 10 times, mostly from behind.\nThe trial starting in U.S. District Court in Tucson on Tuesday comes amid President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration and his promise to build a wall along the 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) U.S.-Mexico border.\nJury selection was set for Tuesday, with opening statements either later that day or on Wednesday, said Cosme Lopez, spokesman for the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.\nLee Gelernt, a New York-based lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, said he believes Swartz will be the first border agent prosecuted by the U.S. Justice Department in a fatal shooting across the international border.\nGelernt is handling a civil lawsuit for the teen's mother, who is seeking monetary damages against Swartz.\n\"This historically important trial is coming at a time when all eyes are on the border,\" he said.\nProsecutors say Swartz opened fire at about 11:30 p.m. on Oct. 10, 2012, through the metal poles of a 20-foot (6-meter) fence that sits on a 25-foot (about 7.6-meter) embankment above Mexico's Calle Internacional, a street lined with homes and small businesses.\nAbout 20,000 people live on the Arizona side and about 300,000 live on the Mexico side, but the two communities linked by family members, trade and culture have long been referred to locally as \"Ambos Nogales\" — \"Both Nogales\" in Spanish.\nSwartz's lawyers have said Elena Rodriguez threw rocks just before he was shot in an attempt to create a distraction for drug smugglers and that the officer was justified in using lethal force. They want jurors to visit the site at night to experience the area after dark.\nWitnesses from the Mexico side of the border said they did not see the teen throw rocks and his relatives have denied he was helping drug smugglers, saying he was walking home after playing basketball.\nThe U.S. Attorney's Office has said it won't dispute that the boy was throwing rocks, but it's unknown if he had any link to drug smugglers. They argue an unreasonable amount of force was used.\nSwartz pleaded not guilty after being indicted by a federal grand jury in 2015 and is currently on administrative leave and free on his own recognizance. The Border Patrol has not said if he is continuing to receive his salary.\nDefense attorney Sean Chapman has declined to comment while the trial is ongoing. A spokesman for the agents' union, the National Border Patrol Council, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.\nThe case is expected to last more than a month and activists who oppose U.S. border policies say they will rally outside the courthouse.\n\"For so long, prosecutors have been reluctant to charge Border Patrol agents with violent crimes,\" said John Fife, a retired Presbyterian minister who was active in the sanctuary movement that sheltered citizens of Central American countries who came to the U.S. in the 1980s fleeing civil war. \"Now we will see if they can be held accountable.\"" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }