| Trump donates 3 months’ salary to Interior Department, offsetting 0.005% of proposed budget cut Posted: 03 Apr 2017 02:14 PM PDT  The White House announced Monday that President Trump would be donating his first-quarter salary to the Department of the Interior, which stands to lose $1.6 billion under his budget proposal.
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| The Latest: 'Help me,' kidnapped girl says after car crash Posted: 03 Apr 2017 06:08 PM PDT  WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the slaying of a North Carolina couple and the arrest of their son discovered with his missing 11-year-old niece in Washington (all times local):
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| Deadly Storms Hit 9 Southern U.S. States Posted: 03 Apr 2017 08:44 AM PDT  With tornadoes to flash floods and fires, several people were killed across the southeast U.S.
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| China vows fresh smog crackdown as toxic air shrouds capital Posted: 02 Apr 2017 11:30 PM PDT  China's smoggiest cities have pledged to ramp up the battle on pollution after air quality deteriorated in the first few months of this year, the China Daily reported on Monday, as smog blanketed the capital, Beijing, and the surrounding region. Top officials from seven districts in Beijing, Tianjin and cities in Hebei and Shanxi provinces were scolded at the weekend by the environmental watchdog for lax control of pollution this year, the paper said. The officials promised to submit plans to the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) to resolve the problem within 20 days, it said.
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| Cocaine Smuggler Pretends to Be Delta Airlines Pilot: Authorities Posted: 04 Apr 2017 09:19 AM PDT  U.S. Customs and Border Protection says the alleged smuggler was carrying $85,000 worth of cocaine.
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| Afghanistan sacks top generals over brazen hospital attack Posted: 03 Apr 2017 11:33 PM PDT  Afghanistan on Tuesday sacked 12 army officers including two generals for negligence over an insurgent attack on the country's largest military hospital, which pointed to a spectacular intelligence failure. Gunmen disguised as doctors stormed Sardar Daud Khan hospital in Kabul last month, with multiple surviving staff telling AFP that insiders including two interns were among the attackers. The military head of intelligence and the official in charge of medical support were among those who have been dismissed and will face prosecution, the defence ministry said.
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| New Remains of Millennia-Old Pyramid Discovered in Egypt Posted: 04 Apr 2017 09:11 AM PDT  It's thought to be some 3,700 years old.
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| Russia Nixes Former White House Aide for Top U.N. Job in Libya Posted: 03 Apr 2017 12:10 PM PDT  The Trump administration's torpedoing of a former Palestinian prime minister as U.N. envoy to Libya may have boomeranged on the White House.
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| Little Badger Buries Entire Cow — on Camera Posted: 03 Apr 2017 08:46 AM PDT  The badger spent five days excavating a hole around the cow carcass and burying the animal in it, before lolling around near its cache of food for weeks. "Not to anthropomorphize too much, but he looks like a really, really, happy badger, rolling in the dirt and living the high life," University of Utah doctoral candidate in biology Evan Buechley, who discovered the footage, said in a statement. To document the behavior of scavengers like vultures, Buechley dragged seven calf carcasses out to the Grassy Mountains west of Salt Lake City.
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| Philippines arrests 3 South Korean fugitives Posted: 02 Apr 2017 10:20 PM PDT ![Philippines arrests 3 South Korean fugitives]( "Philippines arrests 3 South Korean fugitives") MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine authorities said Monday that have arrested three South Koreans wanted in their home country, including a man who allegedly swindled his compatriots of more than $5 million.
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| Correction: Overpass Collapse-Fire story Posted: 03 Apr 2017 11:58 AM PDT  ATLANTA (AP) — In a story April 2 about a fire that caused part of an interstate highway to collapse, The Associated Press erroneously reported details about a man accused of starting the fire. Arrest warrants say Basil Eleby discussed smoking crack before the fire started, but he is not accused of smoking crack under the highway before it collapsed.
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| Trump presses China on North Korea ahead of Xi talks Posted: 02 Apr 2017 08:18 PM PDT ![Trump presses China on North Korea ahead of Xi talks]( "Trump presses China on North Korea ahead of Xi talks") By David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump held out the possibility on Sunday of using trade as a lever to secure Chinese cooperation against North Korea and suggested Washington might deal with Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs on its own if need be. The comments, in an interview published on Sunday by the Financial Times, appeared designed to pressure Chinese President Xi Jinping ahead of his visit to Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida this week. "China has great influence over North Korea.
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| Man Fatally Shoots Girlfriend, Her 8-Year-Old Son and Injures 4 Others: Cops Posted: 03 Apr 2017 02:55 PM PDT  Allen Cashe has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and four counts of attempted murder.
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| Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice: ‘I leaked nothing to nobody’ Posted: 04 Apr 2017 11:00 AM PDT  President Obama's former White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice is battling claims that she mishandled classified information when she requested the identities of people connected to President Trump's transition team in raw intelligence reports. Rice told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, "I leaked nothing to nobody."
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| Tesla overtakes giant Ford in market cap Posted: 04 Apr 2017 03:28 AM PDT  Tesla on Monday became the second-largest US car maker in terms of market capitalization, displacing Ford, whose sales lagged amid concerns about the ability of the US market to keep growing. Many major auto makers reported US sales declines in March compared to a year ago, but Tesla over the weekend said it saw a huge jump in vehicles delivered to consumers in the first three months of the year. Tesla said it delivered 25,000 of its high-tech vehicles in the January-March period -- a 69 percent surge compared to the first three months of 2016 -- indicating it was on its way to meeting its goal of 50,000 vehicle deliveries by mid-2017.
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| How to Stop ISPs from Selling Your Private Data Posted: 04 Apr 2017 10:45 AM PDT  The Internet may seem like an apolitical entity, but the fact is, the United States government has a great deal of influence over it. On Thursday (Mar. 23), the U.S. Senate voted to overturn an important broadband privacy rule instituted, but not implemented, during the Obama administration. Just as it could before, your ISP will be able to collect and sell your online data with reckless abandon, and frankly, unless you're willing to kneecap your own Internet access, you can't do much about it.
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| Second Lady Criticized For 'Thanking' Female Service Members Posted: 03 Apr 2017 10:23 AM PDT  Karen Pence made spoke and attended events honoring women in the military, but did not address the nude photo-sharing scandal.
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| Tesla, Google, and Uber are all losing the self-driving car race Posted: 03 Apr 2017 05:00 PM PDT 
If you see a headline about self-driving car tech, chances are great that it's a story about Tesla, Uber, or Google, but mindshare doesn't always match up with reality and a new study focusing on what companies are leading the charge in automated vehicles puts seasoned carmakers firmly in the driver's seat. The study, which was conducted by Navigant, declares Ford, GM, Daimler, and Renault-Nissan to be the current leaders in automated vehicle technology, with Silicon Valley stars like Uber and Tesla still trying to catch up.
The study looked at a number of criteria in order to give each company a ranking based on two overall factors: strategy and execution. The combination of those two scores produced the final rankings chart you see above, along with the ranking list: Leaders - Ford
- GM
- Renault-Nissan Alliance
- Daimler
Contenders - VW Group
- BMW
- Waymo
- Volvo/Autoliv/Zenuity
- Delphi
- Hyundai Motor Group
- PSA
- Tesla
- Toyota
- ZF
Challengers - Honda
- Uber
- nuTonomy
- Baidu
Ford, as you might expect, was quite happy to be placed number one on the list, and company Executive VP and CTO Raj Nair took to Medium to put the study into perspective. Nair highlights the fact that Navigant's research takes a big-picture approach in determining not just what companies are leading in technology development such as sensor advancements and AI, but also the capability of the companies to actually bring self-driving cars to the public en masse. In short, just because a company like Google or Uber can build a suite of self-driving software and a sensor array, that doesn't mean those innovations will ever actually be adopted on a level the general public will benefit from.
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| 13 States Without Pension or Social Security Taxes Posted: 03 Apr 2017 09:00 AM PDT ![13 States Without Pension or Social Security Taxes]( "13 States Without Pension or Social Security Taxes") Property owners in Alabama paid a median of just $556 in real estate taxes in 2015. The state sales tax rate is also a relatively low 4 percent, but there may be additional local sales taxes in some areas of the state. Alaska is the only state with no state income tax and no state sales tax.
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| Lawyer: Dead Cincinnati nightclub shooting suspect is victim Posted: 04 Apr 2017 08:33 AM PDT ![Lawyer: Dead Cincinnati nightclub shooting suspect is victim]( "Lawyer: Dead Cincinnati nightclub shooting suspect is victim") A man wounded in a gunbattle at a Cincinnati nightclub that killed his close friend and hurt 16 people was a victim, not the assailant police allege him to be, and his family will fight to clear his name in the wake of his death Tuesday, their attorney said.
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| Heavy security as Congo opposition strikes over election delays Posted: 03 Apr 2017 05:27 AM PDT  By Amedee Mwarabu Kiboko KINSHASA (Reuters) - Congolese police deployed heavily across the capital Kinshasa on Monday as opposition calls for a general strike after a breakdown in talks with President Joseph Kabila's allies last week raised fears of renewed violence. Security forces in Democratic Republic of Congo killed dozens in protests over election delays last year but the strike appeared to be peaceful on Monday morning as stores and banks were shuttered and streets quiet. With police deployed at bus stops and intersections, there were only a handful of cars on the central boulevard in Kinshasa, a city of more than 10 million people, and the normally bustling central market was shut.
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| Girl Throws Costco-Themed 5th Birthday Party, Complete With Memberships and Food Samples Posted: 04 Apr 2017 10:00 AM PDT  In true Costco fashion, party guests were invited to sample Kirkland treats around the home and enjoy pizza purchased from the food court.
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| Messages show New York police surveillance of Black Lives Matter Posted: 04 Apr 2017 03:41 PM PDT  Documents released by the New York Police Department and published by a newspaper on Tuesday shed new light on how undercover officers surveilled organizers from the Black Lives Matter movement who were protesting police tactics. The documents include brief internal messages between officers that track demonstrators' movements during "die-in" protests at New York City's Grand Central Terminal in 2014 and 2015, as well as photographs and a video of the protests.
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| More than 270 dead in Colombia mudslides Posted: 03 Apr 2017 09:20 PM PDT  The Colombian government declared a state of economic emergency in the town of Mocoa in southern Colombia, after mudslides left more than 270 people dead, including 43 children. "We have the toll of the people who have unfortunately died," said President Juan Manuel Santos, as he revisited the scene of Friday's disaster. The president said reconstruction would begin, dismissing risks of further mudslides, but he warned that the country faces rainy weather until June.
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| Suiting up the Swiss Guard: Austrian blacksmiths practice vanishing craft for Vatican guards Posted: 04 Apr 2017 09:54 AM PDT ![Suiting up the Swiss Guard: Austrian blacksmiths practice vanishing craft for Vatican guards]( "Suiting up the Swiss Guard: Austrian blacksmiths practice vanishing craft for Vatican guards") Austrian blacksmiths who produce ceremonial suits of armor for the Vatican's Swiss Guards are close to the end of their current deal to do so, and say supplying the suits will not be an issue for many years to come. One of the drawbacks of the Swiss Guards' medieval uniforms is that the craftsmanship needed to make them is disappearing. Faced with an aged stock in need of replacement, the Guards turned to brothers Johann and Georg Schmidberger—the fifth generation to run the family blacksmith's business in the Austrian town of Molln—to provide them with 80 suits of armor covering the torso and arms.
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| Rex Tillerson to chair UN meeting on North Korea's nukes Posted: 03 Apr 2017 04:03 PM PDT ![Rex Tillerson to chair UN meeting on North Korea's nukes]( "Rex Tillerson to chair UN meeting on North Korea's nukes") UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is coming to the United Nations for the first time later this month to chair a ministerial meeting of the Security Council on reining in North Korea's nuclear program, a top priority of the Trump administration.
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| White House on Jared Kushner’s growing portfolio Posted: 03 Apr 2017 12:32 PM PDT  On Monday, April 3, White House press secretary Sean Spicer answered questions surrounding President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. He is currently in Iraq to meet with leaders and to be briefed in the fight against the Islamic State. Spicer also answered questions about Kushner's growing portfolio in recent weeks.
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| Sugar Bear Responds To Mama June Weight Loss Posted: 04 Apr 2017 10:14 AM PDT  All he could muster to say was, "Oh s---."
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| Justice Department asks for 90 days to review agreement with Baltimore Posted: 04 Apr 2017 08:46 AM PDT  (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department on Monday asked a federal court for 90 days to review an agreement reached with Baltimore for the city to enact a series of police reforms in how officers use force and transport prisoners, court documents showed. The city and justice department reached the agreement, known as a consent decree, in January, almost two years after the death of a black man, Freddie Gray, of injuries sustained while in police custody sparked a day of rioting and arson in the majority-black city. Gray, 25, died of injuries sustained in the back of a police van in April 2015.
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| Rescuers, locals dig for Colombia flood victims, 254 die Posted: 02 Apr 2017 07:54 PM PDT  By Jaime Saldarriaga MOCOA, Colombia (Reuters) - Families and rescuers searched desperately on Sunday through mud-plastered rubble for victims of flooding and landslides in Colombia that have killed 254 people, injured hundreds and devastated entire neighborhoods. Several rivers burst their banks near the southwestern city of Mocoa in the early hours of Saturday, sending water, mud and debris crashing down streets and into houses as people slept. Volunteers and firefighters tended to 82 bodies downstream in the town of Villagarzon and said many corpses were still caught in debris.
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| The Latest: Trump calls Putin to offer condolences for bomb Posted: 03 Apr 2017 05:43 PM PDT  ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — The Latest on the explosion on a train in the Russian city of St. Petersburg (all times local):
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| Boy or Girl? Text Alerts to Deliver Gender of April the Giraffe's Calf Posted: 04 Apr 2017 09:34 AM PDT  For the many millions of internet viewers who are checking YouTube (or Live Science) daily to see if April the pregnant giraffe has had her calf, the vigil continues — when the sun rose this morning (April 3), the big-bellied giraffe was still pregnant. However, April's many anxious fans can now subscribe to receive text alerts when April goes into labor — and for the first disclosure of whether the newborn is male or female. The announcement of the calf's gender will be made after its birth by a text alert system, revealing the big news hours in advance of an official press release, representatives of Animal Adventure Park (AAP), the facility in Harpursville, New York, where April is housed, reported April 3 on Facebook.
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| Protests rattle Ecuador following election fraud claims Posted: 03 Apr 2017 08:08 PM PDT  QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Supporters of Ecuadorean opposition leader Guillermo Lasso gathered in the streets for a second night Monday to protest what they consider fraud at the ballot box that tilted a presidential runoff in favor of his leftist rival.
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| Boy, 13, Dies of Suspected Heroin Overdose After Allegedly Getting Into Dad's Drugs: Reports Posted: 04 Apr 2017 03:14 PM PDT  Medics reportedly administered four milligrams of Narcan to Nathan Wylie, 13, to no avail.
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| What happens when a small Apple supplier loses its contract Posted: 03 Apr 2017 10:14 AM PDT 
Until Monday morning, Imagination Technologies was a successful processor technology company going through a bit of a rough patch. The company designed some of the underlying architecture of chips that Apple uses in its iPhone range, and as a result, it earns royalty money from every iPhone sold. It's a solid business model, so despite a downturn in iPhone 6s sales causing a cash shortage, Imagination was doing well. Emphasis on the "was."
Early this morning, Imagination dropped a bombshell on its investors: Apple is planning a fundamental rebuild of the GPU used in the iPhone, to increase control over the design and to remove the need to pay Imagination royalties. As you can imagine, the result has been ruinous for Imagination. In the hours since the press release dropped, Imagination Technologies stock dropped by 65 percent, as investors bail out hard. It's a hard result for Imagination: though Apple's revenue does make up about half of Imagination's revenue in total, the stock has dropped by more than half. The revenue for Apple relates to patents and designs that Imagination already owns, so the marginal costs required to earn that cash from Apple are minimal. Without the promise of future cheap revenue streams from Apple, Imagination's core business is left looking a lot more tenuous. But before Imagination's stock fully craters, it's worth looking at the press release the company put out in greater detail. Imagination points out that it will be difficult to Apple to completely abandon the design and architecture that it pays Imagination for. Redesigning a new GPU may well reduce Apple's reliance on Imagination's design, but cutting out the company's intellectual property altogether will be difficult. In a statement, Imagination described its reaction to Apple's news: Apple has not presented any evidence to substantiate its assertion that it will no longer require Imagination's technology, without violating Imagination's patents, intellectual property and confidential information. This evidence has been requested by Imagination but Apple has declined to provide it. Further, Imagination believes that it would be extremely challenging to design a brand new GPU architecture from basics without infringing its intellectual property rights, accordingly Imagination does not accept Apple's assertions. Apple's notification has led Imagination to discuss with Apple potential alternative commercial arrangements for the current license and royalty agreement.
That last line in particular raises the specter that this is just a bargaining move from Apple: announce it plans to sever ties entirely, watch Imagination's investors freak out, and then offer the company a lifeline of reduced royalty payments.
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| Sovereignty of Gibraltar remains unchanged: Britain's Johnson Posted: 03 Apr 2017 01:59 AM PDT  There will be no change to Gibraltar's sovereignty without Britain's consent, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Monday, while his Dutch counterpart called for calm after a British politician raised talk of defending the outpost. "The sovereignty of Gibraltar is unchanged and is not going to change, and cannot conceivably change without the express support and consent of the people of Gibraltar and the United Kingdom, and that is not is going to change," Johnson said on arrival at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg.
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| Pentagon reviewing how it counts troop numbers Posted: 03 Apr 2017 01:32 PM PDT  The Pentagon is reviewing how it counts US troop numbers in Iraq and Syria, an official said Monday, as it moves from Obama-era troop limits that critics said were misleading. Currently, the Pentagon provides "force management levels" that set limits on how many US troops are supposedly in each country. Former president Barack Obama, who tried to end US involvement in Middle East conflicts, set relatively low numbers to avoid the impression America was getting dragged back into new wars.
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| 'Selfie monkeys' are now endangered because people can't stop eating them Posted: 03 Apr 2017 11:39 AM PDT  Apparently, everyone's favorite adorable "selfie monkey" is cute enough to eat—literally, in Indonesia. The crested black macaque became legendary after one of them, Naruto, took a selfie of himself in 2011 and catapulted into internet stardom. Though approximately 2,000 of the macaques remain protected in one of the country's reserves, the primate is now critically endangered due to over-hunting, according to a new report from Seeker. SEE ALSO: You can now take selfies... with your feet? Activists on Sulawesi island have been trying to convince locals to stop consuming the crested black macaque. The population has dropped approximately 80 percent in the past four decades alone. Macaques play a key role in Indonesian ecosystems by helping to spread seeds. "I like the taste, hot and spicy, it is similar to wild boar or dog," Nita, a local from the area, told AFP. Celebes Crested Macaque Image: FLPA/REX/Shutterstock Fans of Naruto, now the mascot of the species, have responded with shock and horror. Of course, Americans eat and *enjoy* plenty of "versatile canned meat products"—are we really to judge? PETA filed a suit on behalf of Naruto in 2015, claiming that the macaque owned his selfie because of the Copyright Act. The judge in the case ruled in January 2016 that the act did not apply to animals, even obscenely adorable smiling ones like Naruto. It was, some speculated, a grotesque display of adorable animal-phobia. Or, you know, just logical. Hunting the macaque is punishable by up to five years in jail. WATCH: The first zero emissions ship looks pretty badass
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| Amazon Launches 'Amazon Cash', A Credit-Free Way To Make Purchases: Here's How To Use It Posted: 03 Apr 2017 09:24 AM PDT  Amazon announced its latest Amazon Cash service that lets users make purchases without using a credit card. Find out how to use the all cash payment system, here.
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| 2017 Mini Cooper Countryman Grows Bigger, Gains Power, and Adds Practicality Posted: 03 Apr 2017 02:09 PM PDT  A model from the Mini brand is unmistakable, no matter the guise, version, or body style. Some may consider the all-new 2017 Mini Cooper Countryman—the biggest Mini yet—an SUV, but the model embo...
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| 1,000-Year-Old Toy Viking Boat Unearthed in Norway Posted: 03 Apr 2017 08:40 AM PDT  A wooden toy discovered during an excavation of an Iron Age site in central Norway hints that 1,000 years ago, a child may have imagined ferocious Viking battles by playing with a carved replica of a ship. "This toy boat says something about the people who lived here," Ulf Fransson, a field leader for the dig and an archaeologist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) University Museum, said in a statement. Not only does the wooden toy indicate that a child — or children — lived on the farm, it suggests what that child's lifestyle may have been like, Fransson said.
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| California Senate OKs statewide immigrant sanctuary bill Posted: 03 Apr 2017 06:48 PM PDT  SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers gave initial approval Monday to a measure that prevents law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration officials, a measure that proponents said rebukes President Donald Trump for his immigration crackdown.
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