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In Syria, the danger of a war between Turkey and Russia is on the rise. Officials in Berlin are worried that the situation could become an uncomfortable test case for NATO while Moscow seems intent on sowing divisions within the alliance. http://m.spiegel.de/international/world/a-1078349.html#spRedirectedFrom=www&referrrer=https://t.co/hdUJTPydno

The Revenant wins five awards, including Best Film and Best Director (Alejandro G. Iñárritu), at theBritish Academy Film Awards.

At least 71 people are killed in a head-on collision between a bus and a truck in Ghana.

Two suicide bombers kill at least 19 people and injure 50 others at a market in northernCameroon

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key says his country is willing to accept some asylum seekers from the Middle East and Asia, currently in detention camps on impoverished Pacific island nations. Presently, 267 refugees in Australia for medical treatment, some accompanied by a relative, are set to be returned to Nauru’s detention camp. Australia is hesitant about the offer, concerned that it could encourage people smugglers

A suicide bomber kills at least 13 recruits at a Yemeni Army base run by forces loyal to ousted President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi in the southern port city of Aden. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claim responsibility for the attack.

I am new here and was wondering how this site works. My husband is a JW and I'm studying now.

Rapper Killer Mike sparked a major controversy after quoting Jane Elliott, an anti-racism activist and feminist who said, “A uterus doesn’t qualify you to be president of the United States. You have to have policy that’s reflective of social justice.” Mike made the polarizing comments during a Bernie Sanders rally at Morehouse College in Georgia and shortly after, the sound bite began to circulate on social media and the firestorm began. Many believe the rapper’s comments were taken out of context, while others are calling him sexist

One of the many trials of solar power: Solar panels work best if they're directly under the sun, and since the sun moves through the day, a fixed panel doesn't work as well as it could most of the time. A new house solves the problem in an unusual way: As the Earth rotates, the house moves with it. The panels on the roof always soak up as much sunlight as possible. The shape-shifting house also gives more room where it's needed. "The main drive for the project was to bring life to buildings by adding dynamics to their interior and exterior spaces," says Manuel Vieira Lopes, founder of the Portugal-based Casas Em Movimento, who first started developing the d…

Pope Francis has indicated that women exposed to the Zika virus may be permitted to use contraception to avoid pregnancy, in a departure from Catholic teaching. However he reiterated the church’s staunch opposition to abortion, saying it was a crime and “absolute evil”. His comments came as women in South America frantically try to terminate pregnancies for fear of giving birth to babies with microcephaly, which gives them unusually small heads. Speaking to reporters on the papal plane as he returned to Rome after a visit to Mexico, Francis obliquely suggested that artificial contraception could be used in extreme situations to avoid pregnancy. Unlike …

I'm going to take a break from scripture commentary to talk about another fascination of mine - All things technical. Specifically, this time, data. Years ago I saw a comic strip with a dimwit manager directing his subordinate tech support person to "download the internet on this diskette.” Recently I read two articles about advances in memory storage that "blew my mind.” The first was about the potential for storing one zettabyte of data in a gram of DNA. (The article and accompanying video in the foregoing link have discrepancies. The article first says a gram can store 5.5 petabytes and then says that equates to 700 terabytes. That is incorrect. It equates to 5,500 ter…

Over the years, nearly 30 Roman Catholic dioceses around the country have publicly disclosed a list naming priests accused of sexually abusing children. The names of all those 6,427 clergy are not publicly known, but through court documents, diocese lists and news reports,BishopAccountability.org has aggregated the names of 4,129 accused priests. This means there are at least 2,298 accused priests that have not yet been identified.

If you back up your photos on optical disks or storage drives, there’s a good chance your data won’t last as long as you do due to things known as “disc rot” and “data rot“. But what if you want to ensure that your precious photos live longer than you? Good news: a new “eternal” storage technology may be on the horizon. Scientists have created nanostructured glass discs that can storage digital data for billions of years. Researchers at the University of Southampton announced this week that they’ve figured out how to store huge amounts of data on small glass discs using laser writing. They call it five dimensional (5D) digital data because in addition to the posit…

And raises gas prices for the first time since 1996. Not yet sure how much of a devaluation yet... I heard 59%

The Tesla Model X just so happens to be the fastest SUV ever; not just American SUV; not just electric SUV—the Model X P90D’s combined (available) horsepower of over 530 from its front and rear motors meeting a claimed 0 to 60 time of just 3.2 seconds makes it the fastest sport utility vehicle ever made. But how does it compare to its equally fully-electric mind-blowing sibling, the Model S P90D (which sits on the same platform)?

To be viable in the mass market for vehicles, an alternative vehicle needs to be competitive with the internal combustion engine (ICE) in three ways. It must have: a price point of about $25,000 a record of reliability, and a driving range of at least 300 miles, typical of mid-size sedans. http://www.forbes.com/sites/woodmackenzie/2016/02/17/is-tesla-about-to-unleash-a-black-swan-on-the-energy-industry/#7dbe0d944104

http://fortune.com/2016/02/17/tesla-referral-program-home-charging/ Tesla’s latest referral program began Tuesday and runs through April 15. Customers who purchase a Model S through a unique referral link and take delivery by April 15 will receive a $1,200 credit towards the cost of installing a home EV charger applied to the purchase price. The credit should cover the bulk of the cost to install home charging. The company recommends installing a NEMA 14-50 outlet or a Tesla Wall Connector, a hard-wired charging station, to prepare for home charging. The average NEMA 14-50 installation is between $1,000 and $2,000, according to Tesla. The Wall Connector costs $7…

Pope Francis has again lambasted treatment of workers in the global market system, bluntly declaring to day laborers and their employers in a meeting here Wednesday that "God will hold accountable the slavers of our day.

Germany calls for a no-fly zone in northern Syria which could, among other things, reduce the number of displaced Syrians. Similar requests have been made by Turkeyand others throughout the 5-year-old war. Russia rejects this strategy without Syria's consent.

Experts confirm the discovery of a lost Spanish settlement in Florida from an expedition led by Tristan de Luna.

Military vehicles explode outside a Turkish Armed Forces barracks in Ankara, Turkey, killing at least 28 people and injuring 61 others. Authorities believe a car bomb caused the blast. A senior Turkish security source says initial signs indicate that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) are responsible.

After more than 200 years, Mozart's and Salieri's lost cantata Per la Ricuperata Salute di Ofelia is discovered in Prague.

UEFA charges Dmitri Tarasov and his football club Lokomotiv Moscow with improper conduct after Tarasov pulled off his team's jersey to reveal an undershirt that was emblazoned with a picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin following Lokomotiv Moscow's loss to Fenerbahçe S.K.on Tuesday.

Iran says that it plans to increase its crude oil output until it achieves pre-sanction levels, although that contravenes OPEC efforts to restrain output.