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| Shiite insurgents control Yemen’s presidential palace and residence |
| SANAA, Yemen — Shiite insurgents controlled the palace and residence of Yemen’s besieged president Wednesday following attacks that threatened to topple a government that has been a key American ally in the fight against al-Qaeda. Read full article » |
| Surveillance cameras at Biden house provide no clues about gunman |
| Surveillance cameras at Vice President Biden’s private Delaware residence failed to capture images of the gunman who fired shots near the house on Saturday night, leaving authorities with no leads or suspects, according to government officials with knowledge of the home’s security. Read full article » |
| Questions swirl around fire that consumed $6 million Annapolis mansion |
| There was nothing left after the inferno. Just ash and char and an awful mystery.A $6 million Annapolis home so big that neighbors called it “the castle” was destroyed by flames in the wee hours of Monday morning. Its wealthy owners, computer networking executive Donald Pyle and his wife, Sandra, are missing and probably dead. So are their four grandchildren. Read full article » |
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| POLITICS |
| Romney’s speaking fee at public university is $50,000, far less than Clinton’s |
| Mitt Romney will charge Mississippi State University $50,000 to deliver a lecture on campus next week, most of which will go to charity — a dramatically lower fee than the $250,000 to $300,000 Hillary Rodham Clinton requires for her university lectures. Read full article » |
| State of the Union: What Obama said — and what he meant |
| President Obama's State of the Union address on Tuesday night was long. It was also pretty chock full of complex topics and political language that requires a bit of decoding.Which is where The Fix comes in. Below, we have isolated some key passages of Obama's prepared remarks and then provided a political translation. (And here's the full transcript.) Read full article » |
| Climate-change skeptics Cruz and Rubio now help oversee nation’s climate science |
| With Republicans taking control of the Senate this month, two climate-change skeptics became heads of the subcommittees that oversee the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Read full article » |
| McConnell: Obama ‘doesn’t set the agenda’ |
| Even before President Obama arrived at the Capitol on Tuesday to deliver his State of the Union address, Republicans were making clear that the 6,600-word speech would have little impact on what Congress does in the year ahead. Read full article » |
| OPINIONS |
| On terrorism, the State of the Union is strangely quiet |
| In 1938, Winston Churchill published “While England Slept,” about Britain’s failure to prepare for the Nazi threat. Let’s hope that, when the history of this moment is written, the 2015 State of the Union address will not be retold under the title “While America Slept.” Read full article » |
| Mr. Obama’s policy goals may be too ambitious with a Republican Congress |
| PRESIDENT OBAMA declared Tuesday night that “we have risen from recession freer to write our own future than any other nation on Earth.” Economic indicators — jobs, growth, gas prices — are indeed more favorable. And yet his State of the Union address was Mr. Obama’s first to a joint session of Congress controlled by Republicans. The progress on Mr. Obama’s watch did not translate into success for his party in November. Read full article » |
| Two very different States of the Union |
| We got two State of the Union speeches in one tonight. One, laying out President Obama’s domestic policy initiatives, was detailed, specific, fact-filled, forward-looking, ambitious and replete with a certain swagger. The other, on foreign affairs, not so much. Read full article » |
| A meaningless State of the Union |
| Why bother with the State of the Union? The White House, anticipating that no one really wants to listen to these things and perhaps acknowledging that presidents rarely say anything memorable in them, previewed its main proposals from the speech over the last few weeks: a tax hike on the rich, “free” community college tuition and mandatory sick leave. As unrealistic as these items were, what is more striking is how thin and shopworn is the liberal agenda these days. It was however not short, as promised. It was a laundry list, despite White House insistence it would not be one. Read full article » |
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| LOCAL |
| PM Update: Snow develops through midday Wednesday, may last into evening commute |
| Wednesday’s snow forecast is a battle of timing and temperature, and the evening rush hour could get slick, especially in the region’s eastern suburbs. Read full article » |
| As U.S. test scores lag, study shows violence, poverty, teen pregnancy are high |
| U.S. student performance on international exams has fallen compared to other industrial nations in recent years, a fact policymakers and others often cite in arguing that U.S. public schools need rapid reform in order to maintain their global competitiveness. Read full article » |
| D.C. area forecast: Another weekday wintry threat today; watching weekend storm |
| Your morning commute should be fine, but the afternoon commute might be trouble. Read full article » |
| Weather-related closings and delays in the D.C. area for Wednesday, Jan. 21 |
| Following is a list of weather-related closings and delays for Wednesday: Read full article » |
| SPORTS |
| Capitals spit up two-goal lead, fall in shootout to lowly Oilers, 5-4 |
| The Washington Capitals felt the all-star break glistening up ahead, promises of warm-weather destinations and five full days of rest dangling before them. They had stumbled through the weekend, losing two straight for the first time since early December, but a feel-good win Tuesday night over the NHL’s second-worst team could zap all that away. All they needed was to beat the Edmonton Oilers. Read full article » |
| Michael Irvin and Cris Carter picked the first 26 players for the Pro Bowl sides |
| Hey, the Pro Bowl is this Sunday! Well, that’s what the NFL wishes people were saying to each other, instead of, you know, talking about deflated footballs.Nevertheless, the league’s annual all-star game is, in fact, set to take place the week before the Super Bowl, and at the same site (Glendale, Ariz.). On Tuesday, Hall of Famers Michael Irvin and Cris Carter began the process of choosing sides, picking 13 players each to fill out some of the less glamorous positions. Read full article » |
| TV and radio listings: January 21 |
| NBA8 p.m. Oklahoma City at Washington » ESPN, Comcast SportsNet, WNEW (99.1 FM), WFED (1500 AM)10:30 p.m. Houston at Golden State » ESPNNHL8 p.m. Chicago at Pittsburgh » NBC Sports Network Read full article » |
| Alex Rodriguez’s new trainer is … Barry Bonds?!?! |
| Just over a year ago, Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez was banned for the entire 2014 season because of his involvement with Biogenesis, a Miami clinic found to have distributed steroids. Now, Rodriguez is back, and at age 39 and having seen his OPS dwindle every season since 2007, it stands to reason that he could use all the help he can get. Read full article » |
| FEDERAL GOVERNMENT |
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| Postal Service proposes rate hikes to keep up with inflation |
| The U.S. Postal Service has proposed raising postage rates this spring to adjust for inflation, according to a recent filing from the organization.Under the USPS plan, which was submitted to the Postal Regulatory Commission last Thursday, prices across all classes of mail would increase by an average of 1.966 percent on April 26. The cost of a single-piece stamp would remain at 49 cents, but the rate for letters weighing more than 1 ounce would increase from 21 cents to 22 cents per additional ounce. Read full article » |
| With lowered expectations, is State of the Union just a glorified Cabinet meeting? |
| (This post has been updated)The White House’s various “previews” of President Obama’s State of the Union (SOTU) address Tuesday night seemed almost calculated to ensure that viewers will join Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in nodding off long before it’s over. Read full article » |
| NATIONAL |
| Why I stopped defriending everyone on Facebook who disagreed with me |
| As a journalism professor, I had made a decision to be politically neutral on social media. Then an Egyptian-born former student tweeted about “Israeli war criminals” with a swastika next to the Israeli flag. Read full article » |
| I’m a firefighter and a pilot. If I got stuck on a smoky Metro train, I’d ignore the train operator. |
| Cell phone cameras rolled last week as smoke filled a Metro train in the tunnel just south of L’Enfant Plaza. The images and sounds are chilling, especially for anybody who commutes on the train.It will take months to untangle exactly what happened. But tonight, if I get stuck on a crowded Orange Line train in a smoke-filled tunnel, what would I do to maximize my chance of survival? Read full article » |
| How not to think about foreign policy for 2016 |
| Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan wrote up an interesting exchange she had with a sitting GOP governor-turned-2016 presidential aspirant. She posited that a big difference between governors and senators who aspired for the White House was that the former had a comparative advantage in domestic policy and the latter had a comparative advantage in foreign policy: Read full article » |
| WORLD |
| N. Korea seizes on defector’s inaccuracies, but rights advocates focus on bigger picture |
| SEOUL — North Korea has seized upon recent admissions by Shin Dong-hyuk, the prison-camp escapee who now says parts of his harrowing tale were inaccurate, using them to try to scupper the international campaign to condemn the totalitarian state’s human rights abuses.But human rights advocates say Shin is just one of hundreds of defectors from North Korea who have together painted a collective picture of brutal treatment at the hands of the regime.“Just because there are clouds, it doesn’t mean there is no sun,” said Kim Seung-chul, a defector who started North Korea Reform Radio to try to get information into the tightly sealed state. “Maybe Shin exaggerated some details, but that doesn’t change the reality that terrible human rights violations are being committed in North Korea.”North Korea is trying to argue otherwise. Read full article » |
| Russian orphans: Reality television to the rescue? |
| MOSCOW — Russia has a problem placing orphans. But a federal government oversight body has a plan to fix that — with reality television.That the genre better known for the money-driven antics of Russia’s “Big Brother” spinoff, to the love triangles of the home-construction-centered “House” series, to the salacious and sometimes disturbing narratives of “Don’t Lie to Me” would be part of an official plan to open hearts and homes to abandoned children might seem a stretch. Maybe even teetering on the edge of exploitative. Read full article » |
| How Saudi Arabia’s harsh legal punishments compare to the Islamic State’s |
| Following the lashing of blogger Raif Badawi and leaked footage that showed the public execution of a woman accused of beating her daughter, Saudi Arabia's harsh interpretation of sharia law and its use of capital punishment have come under international scrutiny. Read full article » |
| Chairman of the intelligence panel calls for return of full torture report |
| The new Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee has demanded that the Obama administration return copies of the Senate panel’s recently completed report on the CIA’s brutal interrogations of terrorism suspects, a move apparently aimed at keeping the full version of the report from being released to the public, U.S. officials said. Read full article » |
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| BUSINESS |
| No, cheap oil prices probably won’t crash your 401(k) |
| The oil price revolution continues. West Texas Intermediate crude oil, a U.S. benchmark, is around $47 a barrel this morning, compared with over $107 per barrel in summer 2014. It has literally lost more than half its value in under a year. Read full article » |
| Wal-Mart will cash your tax refund — in hopes that you’ll spend it there |
| For the majority of taxpayers, the tax refund is a bonus that seamlessly shows up in their bank account each spring.But Wal-Mart is giving another option to the minority of taxpayers who might otherwise wait for a check to hit their mailbox: pick up the refund, in cash, at any Wal-Mart store. Read full article » |
| Shake Shack plans to raise up to $80M from IPO |
| NEW YORK — Burger chain Shake Shack, which got its start as a hot dog cart in New York City, plans to raise up to $80 million from an initial public offering of its common stock.The company said Tuesday that it anticipates its IPO of 5 million shares pricing between $14 and $16 per share. Read full article » |
| TECHNOLOGY |
| The biggest risk in Google’s $1 billion bet on SpaceX |
| Google is pinning its hopes for cheap, space-based Internet on Elon Musk. But can he deliver?SpaceX confirmed Tuesday that it had raised $1 billion from Google and Fidelity — part of a larger effort by Google to spread the Internet to developing countries and crack open those markets. SpaceX is a natural choice for a partnership: Both it and Google share a fondness for "moonshot" projects and have explored how to provide Internet access to poor and rural areas. In November, Musk suggested that SpaceX was working on the idea; last week, the billionaire investor hosted a private event in Seattle to launch an office dedicated to satellite Internet. Read full article » |
| The women who ‘make it’ in tech |
| Several years ago, I was working at a major software company. One day, in a meeting about a new mobile app, the product manager used a phrase that comes up a lot in software reviews: "Will it work for your mom?" Read full article » |
| Why the world’s most intelligent people shouldn’t be so afraid of artificial intelligence |
| Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and a number of other tech luminaries from MIT, IBM and Harvard recently signed off on an open letter from the nonprofit Future of Life Institute warning about the perils of artificial intelligence. Without the appropriate safety measures built in, they argue, the rapid growth of artificial intelligence could end in disaster for humanity. Read full article » |
| The time a major financial institution was hacked in under 15 minutes |
| Online attacks against such prominent targets as Sony, Target and Home Depot have brought cybersecurity and digital privacy to the forefront of the national consciousness. But as the technologies we use grow more sophisticated, so will criminals' attempts to defeat them, according to Chris Doggett, North American managing director of Kaspersky Lab, a Moscow-based international information security firm. In an interview this month in Washington, Doggett said financial fraud and identity theft pose far more danger to Americans than shadowy hacking groups such as Lizard Squad, which has taken partial credit for breaching Sony's systems. He added that no network is ever completely secure — as one major Wall Street client found out when Doggett was working as a private security consultant. The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity. Read full article » |
| LIFESTYLE |
| Master breadmaker Mark Furstenberg now content to change his tiny slice of the world |
| Mark Furstenberg pads around Bread Furst, the Connecticut Avenue bakery he opened in May, like an aging Papa Bear. At 76, he’s alternately gruff and solicitous, carrying on conversations of equal vigor with 3-year-olds, his Amish produce man and longtime friends like Michel Richard of Citronelle fame, who drop by for coffee and a large, jagged slice of a buttered, toasted baguette. Read full article » |
| Fifty years later, spotlight shines on civil rights icon Amelia Boynton Robinson |
| The living icon of the civil rights movement arrived in gold glitter shoes. She was in a wheelchair pushed by Rep. John Lewis, her friend and fellow Selma marcher. She wouldn’t be able to stand and clap as a guest at the State of the Union speech Tuesday night, but she could give interviews before it began. Her voice was soft, but her presence resonated. Read full article » |
| ‘The Interview’ lands on Netflix Saturday |
| Maybe you already trekked to one of a select group of theaters to see “The Interview” on Christmas day because you wanted to support free speech, or maybe you already rented it online because you just really like Seth Rogen. But if you haven’t yet caught the pot-stirring comedy, there will soon be another way to watch the movie that landed Sony in hot water with North Korea. Read full article » |
| Carolyn Hax: My boyfriend’s been waxing nostalgic for an ex — for months. |
| Dear Carolyn:I’ve been dating this guy for several months. A couple of months ago he starts talking about his first love all the time, date after date. He has told me every moment and detail of their 16-month relationship. How much he loved her and what is going on in her life now. Read full article » |
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