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{ "text": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — With the 2018 primary season already underway, leaders of the Senate intelligence committee are launching an effort to protect U.S. elections from a repeat episode of foreign interference.\nSenate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the panel, will preview some of the committee's recommendations for improving the nation's election infrastructure at a news conference Tuesday. On Wednesday, the committee will hold a hearing examining attempted hacks on state elections systems in 2016 and the federal and state response to those efforts.\nThe committee has prepared a larger report on the issue, one of what could be several reports to come out of the committee's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Burr and Warner have said this report is the most urgent because of the threat that it could happen again in 2018. It's unclear when the full report will be released, but it is expected to include recommendations for elections officials around the country and also proposals for legislation to help ward off the hacking.\nOverall, experts say far too little has been done to shore up vulnerabilities in 10,000 U.S. voting jurisdictions that mostly run on obsolete and imperfectly secured technology. Russian agents targeted election systems in 21 states ahead of the 2016 general election, the Homeland Security Department has said, and separately launched a social media blitz aimed at inflaming social tensions and sowing confusion. Top U.S. intelligence officials have said they've seen indications Russian agents are preparing a new round of election subterfuge this year.\nThere's no evidence that any hack in the November 2016 election affected election results, but the attempts scared state election officials who sought answers about how their systems had been potentially compromised. DHS took nearly a year to inform the affected states of hacking attempts, blaming it in part on a lack of security clearances. Lawmakers in both parties have pressed the department on why it took so long.\nWarner has said he thinks the process to prevent such hacking needs to be more robust, especially since President Donald Trump has not addressed the matter as an urgent problem.\n\"We've got bipartisan agreement we have to do something on this,\" Warner said earlier this year.\nAt the hearing Wednesday, former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and current Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen will both testify.\nThe Senate intelligence panel has put off making any assessments about whether Trump's 2016 campaign in any way coordinated with Russia. Though that is one part of the panel's investigation, Burr and Warner have decided to focus on less controversial issues where all members agree." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- A total of 15 lucky receipts carry the winning number for the NT$10 million (US$333,000) special prize and 12 invoices for the NT$2 million grand prize in the March - April draw of the Taiwan receipt lottery, according to the Ministry of Finance (MOF).\nThe winning number for the NT$10 million special prize for the March - April round of the Taiwan receipt lottery, also known as the uniform invoice lottery, is 12342126.\nThe winning number for the NT$2 million grand prize is 80740977.\nThe winning numbers for the First Prize, are 36822639, 38786238, and 87204837. If all the digits on your receipt match any of the three numbers just mentioned in the right order, you have won NT$200,000.\nIf you have the last seven digits right, you can receive NT$40,000 (US$1,300), if you have the final six digits in the right order, you will receive NT$10,000 (US$329), and if the last five digits are the same, then the prize is NT$4,000\nWith the four final digits in the right order, the holder of the uniform invoice can receive NT$1,000 and with the three last numbers right, NT$200.\nAs for the additional prize, there are two numbers this time around: 991 and 715. The last three digits of receipts with one of these two numbers will garner a NT$200 prize.\nThe winning receipts for the March - April draw can be redeemed starting on June 6 and the deadline to receive the prizes for this period is Sept. 5.\nAs for the 15 winning invoices of the special prize for the January - February edition of the receipt lottery, five receipts have yet to be submitted. Winners of the January - February round of the lottery must hand in their winning receipts before July 5." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "NEW YORK (AP) — A judge in New York has ruled against the makers of \"Sesame Street\" in a dispute with the distributor of the upcoming Melissa McCarthy movie, \"The Happytime Murders.\"\nU.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick ruled Wednesday that distributor STX Productions can continue to use the tagline \"No sesame. All street\" in promoting the R-rated film, which features Muppet-like puppets in a comedic crime story.\nSesame Workshop sued last week, seeking to end the inclusion of the tagline in promotional materials ahead of the film's Aug. 17 release.\nThe company argued that the public would be confused and think the movie was supported by \"Sesame Street.\"\nBroderick heard oral arguments Wednesday before issuing his ruling.\nHe said Sesame Workshop hadn't demonstrated that moviegoers were confused or that sponsors or parents were complaining." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "NEW DELHI (AP) — India's foreign minister says the bodies have been found of 39 Indian workers who were abducted by militants in Iraq three years ago.\nThe abducted workers, mostly from northern India, had been employed by a construction company near Mosul when militants overran the Iraqi city and seized wide swaths of territory. Relatives said they received phone calls from some of the workers five days after Mosul was captured in 2015 saying they needed help.\nExternal Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj told lawmakers in Parliament on Tuesday that the bodies were recently found buried in a mound of earth.\nSwaraj said DNA tests confirmed that 38 of them were the kidnapped workers. The DNA test for the remaining body has yet to be fully confirmed." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "MOSCOW (AP) — The Latest on Russian President Vladimir Putin's live call-in show (all times local):\n12:35 p.m.\nRussian President Vladimir Putin says that the U.S. Senate move to tighten sanctions against Moscow is part of efforts to contain Russia.\nThe Republican-led Senate voted Wednesday to punish Moscow for interfering in the 2016 election by approving a wide-ranging sanctions package that targets key sectors of Russia's economy and individuals who carried out cyberattacks.\nPutin, speaking Thursday during a live call-in show televised nationwide, deplored the Senate's move but added that the Western sanctions against Moscow also have hurt the West itself.\nHe said that the sanctions have given Russia an incentive to shed its dependence on oil and gas exports and \"switch on our brains and talents\" to develop other industries.\nPutin noted that electronics, aerospace industries and agriculture have all received a boost.\n___\n12:25 p.m.\nRussian President Vladimir Putin says that Russia's economy has overcome a recession.\nPutin said during Thursday's live call-in show televised nationwide that the \"crisis is over,\" pointing at an economic growth over the past nine months. He also pointed at low inflation and rising hard currency reserves.\nThe Russian economy had plunged into recession under the impact of a drop in global oil prices and Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over its annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and support for pro-Russia insurgents in eastern Ukraine.\nPutin acknowledged that the Russian economy hasn't yet shed its dependence on exports of raw materials, but noted that non-energy exports have been growing." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "PARIS (AP) — French care workers are protesting at nursing homes around the country in anger over staff shortages and cost cuts.\nUnions say workers are under increasing pressure to cut corners on feeding, cleaning and hygiene care for elderly residents. Seven unions called on care workers, nursing home residents and frustrated families to protest Tuesday at 7,000 facilities around France.\nAccusing the government of \"abandoning the aged,\" the unions are also rallying in front of the Health Ministry in Paris to demand more staff and protest a government reform of elderly care.\nThe workers have long complained about conditions at semi-public nursing homes, and sent a letter in October to President Emmanuel Macron warning of an \"explosive situation.\"\nThe government has argued that the reform will improve and streamline care for the elderly." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "DETROIT (AP) — Justin Abdelkader scored in the seventh round of a shootout, and Petr Mrazek stopped Tomas Hertl at the other end to give the Detroit Red Wings a 2-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks on Wednesday night.\nTrevor Daley scored for the Red Wings in the third period before Kevin Labanc responded for San Jose. Gustav Nyquist, Andreas Athanasiou, Tomas Tatar and Abdelkader scored in the shootout for Detroit, while Joe Pavelski, Logan Couture and Chris Tierney scored for the Sharks.\nThe Red Wings had a season-high 44 shots, but San Jose salvaged a point thanks to goalie Martin Jones and Labanc's goal with 4:59 remaining. The Sharks spoiled Mrazek's bid for a third shutout in January after an extended period in Detroit's zone. Luke Glendening of the Red Wings was caught without a stick, and Labanc's wrist shot through traffic beat Mrazek high to the glove side.\nMrazek finished with 30 saves.\nDaley put Detroit up 1-0 with 13:12 remaining. Jones appeared to have stopped Daley's backhander from a tough angle, but the puck dropped over his left pad and ended up in the net for the defenseman's fourth goal of the season.\nThe goal came moments after Pavelski hit the post at the other end.\nDetroit was playing its first game after the All-Star break, while the Sharks lost the previous night at Pittsburgh. The Red Wings had their chances before Daley opened the scoring. Darren Helm was unable to convert a clean breakaway early in the second period, and Martin Frk had an open net on a third-period rebound, but the puck went wide.\nSan Jose defenseman Justin Braun, who was without a stick at the time, stuck out a skate and appeared to get a piece of Frk's shot.\nNOTES: San Jose's Brent Burns had six shots in the first period and nine for the game. ... Labanc played his 100th NHL game. The goal was his sixth of the season.\nUP NEXT\nSharks: Visit the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday night.\nRed Wings: Visit the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night.\n___\nFor more AP NHL coverage: https://apnews.com/tag/NHLhockey\n___\nFollow Noah Trister at www.Twitter.com/noahtrister" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "New York (AP) — Cotton No. 2 Futures on the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) Wednesday:\n(50,000 lbs.; cents per lb.)" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Connecticut's chief elections officer says her office will assist efforts to register hurricane-displaced Puerto Ricans to vote in upcoming elections.\nSecretary of the State Denise Merrill, a Democrat, said Wednesday her office will work with community groups and lawmakers to identify and sign up eligible voters.\nThousands of Puerto Ricans have relocated to the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Maria devastated the island in September. An estimated 4,000 have come to Connecticut. Advocacy groups have been working in states including Florida to register the new arrivals to vote.\nIslanders are U.S. citizens, but are barred from voting for president unless they live on the mainland.\nMerrill said registration is important for civic engagement and to give the newcomers a say in public affairs, including the federal government's relief work on the island." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple has bought Shazam, the maker of a song-recognition app that Apple's digital assistant Siri has already been using to help people identify the music playing on their iPhones.\nThe companies didn't disclose the price of the acquisition announced Monday. Technology news site Recode previously reported Apple is paying about $400 million for Shazam, citing three unidentified people familiar with the deal.\nApple issued a statement describing Shazam as \"natural fit\" with its services. The Cupertino, California, company declined to say whether Shazam's app will still be available after the deal closes.\nSiri began drawing upon Shazam's technology to answer questions about songs as part of a 2014 update to the iPhone's operating system.\nSince then, Apple has launched a music streaming service that has more than 27 million subscribers." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "NEW YORK (AP) — Jahlil Okafor finally got the fresh start he wanted.\nOkafor was the consensus No. 1 high school player in his class, won a national championship at Duke, and averaged 17.5 points and seven rebounds in his rookie campaign for the Philadelphia 76ers.\nThen things changed drastically.\nOkafor struggled with injuries and a logjam at his position in his second season.\n\"When I first got drafted there, we already had Nerlens (Noel) there, Joel (Embiid) was there, so we're trying to have three starting centers on the same team,\" Okafor said Monday at his introductory news conference with his new team, the Brooklyn Nets.\n\"It just never really was the right fit.\"\nThe 76ers traded Okafor along with seldom-used guard Nik Stauskas and two draft picks to the Nets on Thursday. Philadelphia got forward Trevor Booker from Brooklyn.\nOkafor also had off-court problems during his time in Philadelphia. He got a speeding ticket for driving 108 miles per hour and was suspended by the 76ers for two games after in an altercation outside of a Boston nightclub with a heckler.\n\"Speeding obviously is illegal,\" Okafor said. \"I know that's not what you're supposed to do. I guess you just learn how the page can turn on you and how everything can flip. I can't really say I learned anything, because you know going in that's not right. You just learn from your mistakes, but (it was) a tough thing that I went through, I got past, and I'm looking to better times now.\"\nOkafor, the third overall pick in the 2015 draft, joins D'Angelo Russell, the second overall pick in the same draft class, on the Nets.\n\"We're just very excited to get on the court together,\" Okafor said. \"You never would've thought the number two and number three picks would be playing on the same team a few years after, but like I said, everything happens for a reason and I'm really excited.\"\nRussell also had problems on and off the court with the team that drafted him. He was criticized for recording a video of former Lakers teammate Nick Young that aired sordid details about Young's private life. The Lakers gave up on Russell and drafted Lonzo Ball as his replacement.\n\"I feel like we're similar in that we have a lot to prove,\" Okafor said. \"I know he's working his (butt) off as well. Right now he's rehabbing, trying to get back on the court. I think we both have a chip on our shoulder and we have a lot to prove. We're definitely similar in that regard.\"\nOkafor understands he has areas to improve, mainly defense and rebounding.\n\"I'm not a perfect player,\" Okafor said. \"I'm 21. There are things that I need to work on, that I have worked on and that I'll continue to work on.\"\nHe's excited about fulfilling his potential with a new team.\n\"I feel really motivated right now, but I've always been motivated,\" Okafor said. \"This is the first time where people are against me in a sense because I've always been the hyped-up guy. It's something new for me to experience, so I'm glad that I am experiencing it.\"\n___\nMore NBA basketball: https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The United States government should tell China it is changing the status quo in relations with Taiwan, former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Chairman Richard Bush said Wednesday.\nEither the president of the U.S. or its secretary of state or its defense secretary should directly tell his Chinese counterpart that Washington had not been trying to change the status quo in cross-strait relations, Taiwan had not been trying either, but China had been, said Bush, who serves as director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy at the Brookings Institution.\nBeijing’s moves damaged U.S.-China relations and did not help the country reach its aims toward Taiwan, the Liberty Times quoted Bush as saying at a seminar Wednesday.\nU.S. administration officials should tell China it should reconsider its threats against Taiwan while Washington would be keeping a close watch, Bush said.\nThe former AIT chief and Asia expert was speaking at a seminar evaluating the first two years in power of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), where most participants agreed that Tsai had not been provoking China while she had mostly focused on domestic reform issues, the Liberty Times reported.\nAnother Taiwan expert, Bonnie Glaser of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the U.S. should join up with other countries in speaking up on the island’s behalf, especially now that Taiwan was facing pressure from China against its diplomatic allies and against companies listing Taiwan as a separate country on their websites.\nBush said that the U.S. should place its own interest first and not be afraid of Beijing’s reaction in defending interests shared with Taiwan, the Liberty Times reported." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "LAS VEGAS (AP) — Floyd Mayweather Jr. said Wednesday he will come out of retirement to face UFC star Conor McGregor in a boxing match on Aug. 26.\nMayweather, who retired in September 2015 after winning all 49 of his pro fights, will face a mixed martial arts fighter who has never been in a scheduled 12-round fight at the MGM Grand arena. The fight that will take place in a boxing ring and be governed by boxing rules.\n\"It's official,\" Mayweather said on his Instagram account next to a video poster of both fighters.\n\"THE FIGHT IS ON,\" McGregor tweeted several minutes earlier, posting a picture of himself next to one of Mayweather's father, Floyd Sr.\nMayweather will fight at the relatively advanced age of 41 in a bout that McGregor has been pushing for months. It finally came together over the last few days, and Nevada boxing officials on Wednesday approved the date for a Mayweather Promotions bout.\nThough Las Vegas oddsmakers have made Mayweather a heavy 10-1 favorite, the thought of the fight has excited many in the MMA world. It has also intrigued some in boxing, though most dismiss McGregor's chances under boxing rules against one of the greatest defensive fighters in history.\nEven if the actual bout may not shape up as a great matchup, the run-up to the fight will. Both fighters are noted for their ability to sell their fights, and both have exchanged in trash talking and more to promote their bouts.\nThe fight will be televised on pay-per-view on Showtime and would likely gross tens of millions of dollars. It comes less than a month before Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez meet in a highly anticipated fight that could rival it for pay-per-view buys." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "New York (AP) — Petroleum futures trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange Wednesday:\n(1,000 bbl; dollars per bbl.)" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 30, 2018--Unum (NYSE: UNM) and its employees in the U.S., U.K. and Ireland contributed more than $12.8 million in corporate and employee contributions and volunteered more than 77,000 hours to charitable organizations in 2017. Beyond giving back, the company’s commitment to social responsibility includes helping millions of people gain affordable access to financial protection benefits and creating a world-class workplace for its employees.\nThis press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180530006342/en/\nUnum customer David Connor never expected to be in a position where he couldn't work, but a routine task at work altered his life forever. His disability coverage helped provide financial stability while he took time away from work to recover. He's now working again and has returned to his passion - surfing. (Photo: Business Wire)\n“Unum has always been committed to helping people through difficult times, and that commitment to making a difference also guides our approach to social responsibility,” said Rick McKenney, Unum’s president and CEO. “We’ve been around for 170 years, and while a lot has changed in that time, one thing that hasn’t is the caring spirit at the heart of who we are.”\nUnum’s recently released 2017 Corporate Responsibility Report highlights the company’s focus on social responsibility and support of public education that provide students more opportunities to learn. Other areas of community support include health and wellness, and arts and culture.\nOver the years, Unum has been instrumental in creating business-education programs like the Principal Leadership Academy in Chattanooga, Tenn.; Maine Development Foundation’s Education Leaders Experience in Portland; South High Community School partnership in Worcester, Mass.; and the Midlands Education and Business Alliance in Columbia, S.C. Earlier this year, Unum announced it’s investing an additional $1 million in charitable contributions in support of local communities.\nAnother core component of its social responsibility is creating a world-class workplace for Unum’s 10,000 employees. Central to this work environment is an inclusive culture where unique talents, ideas and perspectives of all employees are valued and respected, which ultimately help the company better serve the diverse needs of its customers.\nOther workplace initiatives include a multi-year investment into modernizing home office locations to foster collaboration and spark creativity and innovation; minimizing its environmental impact to improve the quality of life for the surrounding communities; and a total rewards benefits package designed to promote wellness, support a healthy work-life balance, and encourage employees to live their best at work and outside of company walls.\n“We invest in our people because they’re the ones who deliver on our promises every day,” McKenney said. “Their dedication to serving others is a hallmark of our culture and will define our legacy for years to come.”\nABOUT UNUM\nUnum Group is a leading provider of financial protection benefits in the United States and the United Kingdom. Its primary businesses are Unum US, Colonial Life, and Unum UK. Unum’s portfolio includes disability, life, accident and critical illness, dental and vision coverage, which help protect millions of working people and their families in the event of an illness or injury. Unum also provides stop-loss coverage to help self-insured employers protect against unanticipated medical costs. The company reported revenues of $11.3 billion in 2017, and provided nearly $7 billion in benefits.\nFor more information, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.\nView source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180530006342/en/\nCONTACT: Unum Group\nKelly Spencer, 423-294-4508\[email protected]\nKEYWORD: UNITED KINGDOM UNITED STATES EUROPE NORTH AMERICA MIDDLE EAST TENNESSEE IRELAND\nINDUSTRY KEYWORD: PHILANTHROPY PROFESSIONAL SERVICES FINANCE HUMAN RESOURCES INSURANCE FUND RAISING\nSOURCE: Unum Group\nCopyright Business Wire 2018.\nPUB: 05/30/2018 03:45 PM/DISC: 05/30/2018 03:45 PM\nhttp://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180530006342/en" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "MILAN (AP) — Financial markets have calmed amid signs that Italy may avoid imminent elections after President Sergio Mattarella gave two populist parties time to figure out whether they can agree on an alternative to a euroskeptic economy minister.\nThe leader of the 5-Star Movement, Luigi Di Maio, has proposed moving the contested ministerial candidate to a different Cabinet post. League leader Matteo Salvini, meanwhile, said he isn't closing the doors on any solution. But he's also showing some resistance to the change, saying \"if someone in Berlin or Paris wakes up in a bad mood that doesn't mean that an Italian minister gets kicked out.\"\nMattarella gave the leaders time to form a coalition government after markets plunged on news of an interim administration that would take Italy to new elections." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "TAIPEI, Taiwan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 30, 2018--Extech Electronics Co. (EEC), a leading innovator and producer of manufacturing and industrial-grade power sources has re-energized its line of premium power sources with the introduction of the 6300 and 6500 series. The 6300 series is a tri-phase power source capable of outputting up to 300kVA, while the new 6500 series is a single-phase power source that can produce up to 80kVA. Both series offer new features that include ramp-up and ramp-down functions, optional 350V or 600V voltage, and the ability to fully adjust frequencies that surpasses all previous models.\nThis press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180530006596/en/\nEEC 6300/6500 series AC power source capable of outputting up to 300kVA\nEEC designed its 6300 and 6500 lines of power sources to handle today’s most demanding industrial and manufacturing environments. Both lines are ideally suited to powering electrical motors, handling application in the aerospace and transportation sectors, and testing heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment. The broader control provided by the optional, fully adjustable 360-440Hz and 760 – 840 Hz makes these power source products particularly suitable to aerospace testing applications.\n“We see growth among many emerging industries utilizing high-power to test their new energy products and components, such as air-conditioning systems, large industrial electric motors, and electrical power charging stations, which demand high-power sources to simulate the real-world conditions and power-supply variations,” said Brian Chen, EEC General Manager. “The 6300 and 6500 series are our answer to this high demand. The 6300 series is the most powerful tri-phase AC source that EEC has ever built, with up to 300kVA output, which is suitable for a wide range of applications.”\nBoth the 6300 and 6500 series include BNC connectivity for universal control of PLC; automatic voltage adjustment via EEC proprietary Over Current Fold (OCF) for activating DUT; and LED frequency, voltage, current, and power status displays.\nEEC’s new 6300 and 6500 series power sources raise the bar on the company’s already exemplary catalog of premium power source and testing equipment, designed to assure the highest level of safety and quality assurance.\nTo learn more about EEC new 6300 and 6500 series, visit; https://www.eecextech.com/products/6300-high-power-programmable-3-phase-ac-power-source/ https://www.eecextech.com/products/6500-series-high-power-programmable-ac-power-source/\nAbout Extech Electronics Co.\nFor 40 years, Extech Electronics Co. (EEC) has been producing cutting-edge electrical safety testers and AC power sources for a variety of industries. We strive to earn our customers’ trust by consistently offering dependable products, services, and reliable support for all testing applications. For more information visit www.eecextech.com.\nView source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180530006596/en/\nCONTACT: Extech Electronics Co.\nSasha Wang, +886-2-21653066 #2201\nJason Hung, +886-2-21653066 #2217\[email protected]\nKEYWORD: ASIA PACIFIC TAIWAN\nINDUSTRY KEYWORD: ENERGY OTHER ENERGY TECHNOLOGY OTHER TECHNOLOGY MANUFACTURING OTHER MANUFACTURING AUTOMOTIVE GENERAL AUTOMOTIVE\nSOURCE: Extech Electronics Co.\nCopyright Business Wire 2018.\nPUB: 05/30/2018 10:00 PM/DISC: 05/30/2018 10:01 PM\nhttp://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180530006596/en" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — A winter storm expected to hit the Northeast is forcing at least one college basketball team to alter its travel plans for the third round of the NCAA Tournament.\nWest Virginia's athletic department announced Monday night the Mountaineers will leave a day early for Boston. WVU says it will depart Morgantown on Tuesday instead of Wednesday.\nFifth-seeded West Virginia meets top-seeded Villanova in the East Region semifinals at TD Garden on Friday night.\nThe National Weather Service says the bulk of the wind-driven snow and sleet is expected to hit New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and parts of eastern Pennsylvania before heading off to Massachusetts early Thursday.\nA winter storm in the East during the 2017 tournament also prompted teams to scramble their travel plans.\n____\nMore AP college basketball: https://collegebasketball.ap.org; https://twitter.com/AP_Top25 and https://www.podcastone.com/ap-sports-special-events" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WINNIPEG (AP) — The Winnipeg Hawks appointed controversial Australian opening batsman David Warner as captain of their Global T20 Canada team on Wednesday.\nThe 31-year-old cricketer replaces the injured West Indian Dwayne Bravo as skipper.\nHawks coach Waqar Younis told the BBC: \"He's going to be a good leader. He's a team man. He's up front and he likes to give whatever his knowledge is.\"\nEarlier this year, Warner was banned from international and domestic state cricket for 12 months by Cricket Australia following the ball-tampering row that blew up during the national team's tour of South Africa.\nThe former Australia vice-captain has made only six runs in three innings for the Hawks, his first competitive action for three months." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "SAO PAULO (AP) — A former Brazilian congressman imprisoned on corruption charges denies allegations he ever received hush money.\nEduardo Cunha was once speaker of the country's lower house and is now serving a 15-year sentence. He told Federal Police on Tuesday that he never received money to keep silent about the kickback-corruption scandal at state-owned oil company Petrobras. The scandal has ensnared dozens of high-level politicians and executives.\nThe O Globo newspaper last month reported the existence of a tape recording in which President Michel Temer appears to condone the payment of bribes to Cunha. Temer has denied wrongdoing.\nCunha led the impeachment proceedings against former President Dilma Rousseff on charges of manipulating the fiscal budget. Her ouster put Temer into office." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "CLEVELAND (AP) — Corey Kluber pitched six shutout innings and reached eight victories before any AL pitcher as the Cleveland Indians rolled to their fifth straight win, 9-1 Wednesday over the sagging Chicago White Sox.\nSpotted a nine-run cushion after four innings, Kluber (8-2) had little trouble with baseball's worst team.\nThe defending AL Cy Young Award winner allowed three hits, struck out 10 and improved to 4-0 with a 0.33 ERA in four starts against Central Division teams this season.\nMelky Cabrera drove in three runs off Reynaldo Lopez (1-4) and Michael Brantley extended his MLB-high hitting streak to 19 games for Cleveland, which used the series to gain some confidence and momentum. The Indians have scored 43 runs during their win streak.\nBREWERS 3, CARDINALS 2\nMILWAUKEE (AP) — Alex Reyes pitched four scoreless innings for St. Louis in his return from Tommy John surgery, but Orlando Arcia hit a tiebreaking RBI single in Milwaukee's two-run seventh\nMaking his first major league appearance since Sept. 29, 2016, Reyes allowed three hits, struck out two and walked two.\nWith two out and runners on first and second, Arcia stopped a 0-for-15 slide with a base hit against Sam Tuivailala (1-1).\nJeremy Jeffress (5-0) got the win despite allowing two runs in the top of the seventh. Corey Knebel struck out Jose Martinez for his fifth save.\nChristian Yelich homered for the Brewers, and Erik Kratz had two hits and scored a run.\nHarrison Bader homered for St. Louis, and Dexter Fowler had three singles.\nRED SOX 6, BLUE JAYS 4\nBOSTON (AP) — J.D. Martinez hit a tiebreaking two-run homer over the Green Monster, and the Red Sox completed a three-game series sweep.\nMartinez tied for the major league lead with his 18th homer, snapping a 2-2 tie in the sixth.\nEduardo Nunez hit a solo homer and an RBI double for Boston, which has won nine of 11 and has the best record in the major leagues at 39-17.\nTeoscar Hernandez hit a two-run homer for the Blue Jays, who have lost 13 of 17. Sam Gaviglio (2-1) gave up four runs in six innings.\nEduardo Rodriguez (6-1) struck out seven in 6 2/3 innings for Boston, and Craig Kimbrel got three outs for his 18th save.\nREDS 7, DIAMONDBACKS 4\nPHOENIX (AP) — Adam Duvall's grand slam erased an early four-run deficit, and Cincinnati rallied for the victory.\nScott Schebler added a tiebreaking two-run drive in the sixth, helping the last-place Reds salvage the finale of the three-game set. Joey Votto and Eugenio Suarez each had three hits.\nBoth of Cincinnati's homers came off Patrick Corbin (5-2), who gave up a season-high six runs and eight hits in six innings.\nPaul Goldschmidt and John Ryan Murphy went deep for the Diamondbacks, who have dropped 16 of 20 overall.\nSal Romano (3-6) pitched five innings in his first win since May 4, and Raisel Iglesias got four outs for his ninth save.\n___\nMore AP baseball: https://apnews.com/tag/MLBbaseball" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan official says Taliban insurgents have targeted military checkpoints in eastern Ghazni province in two separate attacks, killing three Afghan soldiers.\nArif Noori, spokesman for the provincial governor in Ghazni, says that five other soldiers were wounded in the attacks, which took place early on Tuesday\nHe also says the two districts were the attacks took place — Andar and Muqar — are now under the control of the Afghan security forces.\nTaliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attacks in Ghazni, saying the insurgents were able to overrun the checkpoints and seize weapons and ammunition.\nThe Taliban have stepped up attacks on Afghan security forces in recent years, capturing several districts across the country." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "HONG KONG (AP) — The China arm of Steve Wynn's casino empire said Tuesday it will comply with Macau regulators as they seek more information about sexual misconduct allegations against the Las Vegas billionaire.\nWynn Macau Ltd. said it will \"fully cooperate with any requests\" from authorities in Macau, the company said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange.\nMacau, a former Portuguese colony near Hong Kong, is the world's most lucrative casino market and the main source of profits for Wynn and other foreign gambling companies.\nThe statement came after Macau's gambling regulator said it was concerned about reports Wynn, 76, might have been \"involved in inappropriate behavior in the United States.\"\nOfficials from the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau met with Wynn Macau management on Monday to find out more about the situation, the bureau said.\nThe Wall Street Journal reported Friday that a number of women said they were harassed or assaulted by Wynn, and that one case led to a $7.5 million settlement with a manicurist. The company has denied the allegations.\nThe scandal has forced the tycoon to resign as the Republican Party's finance chairman, sent shares of Wynn Macau and its U.S.-listed parent company tumbling and drawn closer scrutiny from regulators in Massachusetts, where Wynn is building a casino.\nMacau's regulator said the government of the specially administered Chinese region was concerned the casino gaming concessionaires' major shareholders, directors and principal employees in casinos might not be qualified to operate there. \"Relevant regulations will be strictly enforced,\" it said.\nWynn operates two casinos in Macau, including a lavish $4.2 billion resort that opened in 2016. The more than three dozen casinos in the city last year raked in $34 billion in revenues." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "NEW YORK (AP) — John Oliver has trolled his way to the top.\nThe HBO host's spoof of a new picture book by the wife and daughter of Vice President Mike Pence was No. 1 on Amazon.com as of midday Monday.\n\"Marlon Bundo's Day in the Life of a Vice President\" is a tribute to the Pence family's beloved rabbit. It was written by the vice president's daughter, Charlotte Pence, and illustrated by his wife, Karen Pence.\nOliver's book, which he announced over the weekend, is called \"Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo.\" The story is the same, almost: This Marlon Bundo is in love with a male bunny.\nThe parody book was written by \"Last Week\" contributor Jill Twiss and illustrated by EG Keller." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Goran Dragic scored 19 points, and the Miami Heat pulled away from the lowly Memphis Grizzlies for a 107-82 victory on Monday night.\nMiami shot 56.1 percent from the field and had seven players score in double figures in its second straight win. Josh Richardson had 17 points, and reserves Tyler Johnson and Bam Adebayo finished with 14 apiece.\nMemphis lost for the 15th time in 16 games. Marc Gasol scored 19 points on 5-for-14 shooting and Andrew Harrison had 16.\nThe Heat carried a 70-60 lead into the fourth quarter and kept up the pressure in the final period. Johnson scored five straight points to run the advantage out to 18, and the lead ballooned to 27 in the closing minutes.\nMiami shot 65 percent in the second half.\nThe first half was a sloppy affair with 11 turnovers for the Grizzlies and 10 for the Heat. Miami led 45-42 at the break.\nTIP-INS\nHeat: C Hassan Whiteside missed his sixth straight game with a left knee injury. ... It was Miami's first trip to FedExForum since the firing of former Heat assistant David Fizdale as head coach of Memphis. Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said he had lunch with his former assistant earlier in the day. \"He's going to get another opportunity,\" Spoelstra said.\nGrizzlies: G Tyreke Evans had 11 points on 5-for-17 shooting in his 500th career game. ... Memphis is winless in nine games against the Eastern Conference. ... Memphis went 18 for 27 at the free-throw line. ... Memphis is 1-14 since starting PG Mike Conley was shelved by left Achilles problems.\nUP NEXT\nHeat: Host Portland on Wednesday night.\nGrizzlies: Visit Washington on Wednesday night.\n___\nFor more NBA coverage: https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Looking to strike a balance between ice-free roads and clean waterways, public works departments around the country are working to cut their salt use in winter by slathering the roadways with beet juice, molasses, and even beer waste to make them safer.\nRock salt for decades has provided the cheapest and most effective way to cut down on traffic accidents and pedestrian falls during winter storms. But researchers cite mounting evidence that those tons of sodium chloride crystals — more than 20 million nationwide each year — are increasing the salinity of hundreds of lakes, especially in the Northeast and Midwest. That is putting everything from fish and frogs to microscopic zooplankton at risk.\n\"There has been a sense of alarm on the impacts of road salt on organisms and ecosystems,\" said Victoria Kelly, a road salt expert at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York. \"We've seen increasing concentrations in river water, lakes, streams. Then, scientists started asking the question: What is going to happen to the organisms living in freshwater bodies and what will happen to the freshwater bodies as a whole?\"\nBelieved to be first used in the 1940s in New Hampshire, salt became the go-to de-icing agent as cities expanded, highways were built and motorists came to expect clear roads. More than a million truckloads a year are deployed in ice-prone climes, most heavily in the Northeast and Midwest.\nBut many state and local agencies are seeking ways to reduce salt use as its environmental impacts are becoming more apparent.\nThey have turned to high-tech equipment to spread salt more efficiently, better weather forecasting to time their salting, and liquefied organic additives that help salt stick to pavement. That reduces salt use by preventing it from washing away immediately.\nAgencies from New Jersey to North Dakota are using a mixture that includes beet juice; New Hampshire and Maine use one with molasses. Highway departments also have turned to beer waste, pickle brine and, in at least one Wisconsin county, cheese brine.\n\"Adding salt to the environment does have negative impacts, but for those of us in the Northeast, especially in rural states, where driving is the predominant way of getting around, we need mobility,\" said Jonathan Rubin, director of the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center and lead author on a 2010 report on the cost and benefits of salting Maine roads.\n\"In my opinion, we are always going to be using some degree of road salt,\" he said. \"The question is, can we use less?\"\nSalt corrosion already causes billions of dollars in damage each year to cars, roads and bridges — and now there are growing signs it's making freshwater ecosystems saltier. In the past 50 years, chloride concentrations in some lakes and rivers quadrupled and, in a few, increased a hundredfold.\nLast year, a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that more than 40 percent of 327 lakes examined had experienced long-term salinization, and that thousands more were at a risk. Researchers also estimated nearly 50 lakes in the study, including small ones in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Rhode Island, could surpass the Environmental Protection Agency's chloride threshold concentration by 2050, potentially harming aquatic life.\nEarlier this month, the University of Maryland's Sujay Kaushal led another PNAS study that showed how road salt also results in the release of other salts like potassium and magnesium along with toxic metals like lead and copper into the nation's waterways. Dubbed the freshwater salinization syndrome, Kaushal said this has caused a spike in salinity and alkaline levels at nearly 230 sites in the East and Midwest including the Hudson, Potomac, and Mississippi rivers.\nExperiments at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute aquatic lab in Troy, New York, have found that higher salt concentrations reduced growth rates in rainbow trout and decreased the abundance of zooplankton — tiny animals or larvae that are critical to the aquatic food chain and play a role in keeping lakes and streams clean.\nOther studies have shown that salinization of lakes and streams reduces the numbers of fish and amphibians, kills off plants, and alters the diversity of these freshwater ecosystems.\n\"At high road salt concentrations, you can see reductions in growth, reduction in the diversity of species within a system and you can also see effects on reproduction of certain species,\" said William Hintz, of Rensselaer Polytechnic.\nDespite such environmental concerns, Caleb Dobbins, New Hampshire's highway maintenance engineer, doesn't envision salt being replaced anytime soon by substitutes, such as magnesium acetate, which he says are 30 times more expensive and have their own environmental challenges.\n\"Everybody is looking throughout the world,\" he said. \"Nobody is finding that silver bullet.\"" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia has begun a campaign to immunize 8 million children and teenagers against diphtheria after the disease killed 38 people, mostly children, since January.\nChildren in school uniforms and toddlers clinging to their parents received shots at a high school in Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, on the first day of the campaign Monday.\nDiptheria can cause breathing difficulties, heart failure and paralysis. It was more or less eradicated in Indonesia in the 1990s but health officials say it has re-emerged in the past four years because immunization rates have dropped, partly reflecting unfounded fears about vaccines.\nThe $112 million campaign aims to vaccinate 8 million people under the age of 19 in Jakarta and the populous provinces of Banten and West Java." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — Pushing the Republican tax package through Congress was only half the battle for President Donald Trump. Now that it's the law, convincing Americans that it was a good idea is not just a political imperative but an economic one, too.\nTo boost GOP prospects in the midterm elections, Trump needs to show that Republicans are delivering on long-promised tax relief. And to meet the ambitious economic growth projections underpinning the law, the White House needs businesses and ordinary Americans to boost their spending in response to the tax changes.\nAiming to advance both goals, the administration is deploying Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Cabinet officials and staff throughout the country to anchor events publicizing the law and its benefits to workers and employers.\nAs part of that sales effort, Trump on Wednesday welcomed to the White House seven representatives of companies that have passed on the benefits of the tax law to their employees.\n\"It is not crumbs,\" Trump said after the employees described using the bonuses they've received to fund a wedding, a vacation, and retirement. It was a subtle brush-back to House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi's effort to use the word to minimize the scale of the bonuses.\nPence, at the same time, was talking up the tax cuts to workers at a manufacturing company in West Virginia.\nThe law provides steep tax cuts for corporations, with more modest breaks for most Americans — though some in the middle class from high-taxed states will pay more — and has suffered in the polls. But the White House hopes that is beginning to change as a parade of businesses announce additional investments in the U.S. or provide income boosts to their employers. The first benefits of the law are just beginning to be felt by everyday taxpayers.\nExpect a wide-ranging sales pitch.\n\"The best way to look at how we are going to promote, explain and highlight the benefits of tax reform is to look at how we worked to pass tax reform,\" said White House spokesman Josh Raffel.\nThe charm offensive already is underway: First daughter and White House senior adviser Ivanka Trump traveled to South Carolina on Jan. 26 with Republican Sen. Tim Scott to highlight the expansion of the child tax credit under the law to a predominantly female audience. An official said she would engage in more of those events going forward, as she did in the run-up to the law's passage.\nInside the West Wing, the White House political office is overlaying the list of companies that have announced new investments or bonuses for their employees on a map of target races in the 2018 midterms, providing an outline for travel in the coming months. The events will be timed to coincide with filing deadlines and other opportunities to highlight how the law is affecting people, officials said.\nIn the coming weeks, Trump is expected to mark increases in many employees' take-home pay as the IRS withholding tables reflecting the law's adjusted rates go into effect by Feb. 15.\nAccording to a tally of public announcements by Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative group that supported the tax law, about 3 million workers have gotten bonuses, raises or larger payments to their retirement accounts since the tax law was signed.\nThe nonpartisan Tax Foundation estimated that the $1.5 trillion law would increase gross domestic product by 1.7 percentage points over a decade. And fiscal hawks have expressed optimism that accelerating economic growth — and subsequent revenues — will cut into the legislation's cost.\nAt the White House Wednesday, Trump highlighted companies that have raised the minimum wage they pay workers or that have brought billions back to the U.S. from overseas. \"We also have massive investments coming in,\" he said.\nA White House tally shows at least 275 companies have increased wages, announced bonuses or promised new hires since the law's passage — a pace Trump said surprised him.\n\"We didn't know this was going to happen so much,\" he said Wednesday.\nThe White House is not actively organizing the highly publicized announcements from the likes of Apple and Walmart. Instead, the administration casts them as a \"free-market response\" to the law. Tony Sayegh, the assistant treasury secretary for public affairs, said the announcements are \"helping shift so much of the misinformation that was put out there.\"\n\"We knew all along that this is exactly what you would see happening if we got the policy right, and we got the policy right,\" said Sayegh.\nOutside groups that promoted the law are lining up to help the White House sell it. Jay Timmons, the president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, said \"now it's up to business to deliver\" on the promises they made as they advocated for their tax breaks.\nHis group has asked its 14,000 members for data on how the legislation has improved their businesses and the lives of their employees, and is preparing to share it with the White House and congressional leadership. \"Our manufacturers are feeling optimistic,\" Timmons said, adding that the White House effort would only help their efforts." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "NEW YORK (AP) — Judging by the ratings, NBC will be happy to invite old friend Will Ferrell back to \"Saturday Night Live\" whenever he wants.\nThe Nielsen company said that the late-night comedy show reached 7.47 million viewers for this past weekend's show with Ferrell as host. It was the most-watched episode of \"Saturday Night Live\" this season. Chris Stapleton was the musical guest on the night before he won three Grammy Awards.\nThe news wasn't so good for the Grammys, which saw its audience slip to 19.8 million viewers for CBS on Sunday. Bruno Mars was the night's headliner, taking home six Grammys." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "INDIAN WELLS, Calif. (AP) — Victoria Azarenka has been awarded a wild card into the main draw of the BNP Paribas Open after being off the tour for months because of a custody dispute involving her son.\nShe will return to the California desert after missing last year's tournament following the birth of her son. The former top-ranked player won at Indian Wells in 2012 and 2016.\nAzarenka had requested wild cards into Auckland and the Australian Open to start the year, but she withdrew from both events. The custody dispute had limited her travel. She will have a protected ranking when she returns.\nAzarenka has reunited with coach Slava Konikov, who resigned last week as Sacramento State men's coach to work with her. He coached Azarenka from 1998-02, when she was the world's top-ranked junior player.\nFive more men's and women's wild cards will be awarded in the coming weeks for the tournament that runs March 5-18." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey's main opposition party has started a 400-km (250-mile) march from the capital to an Istanbul prison to protest the imprisonment of one of its lawmakers.\nThe leader of the pro-secular Republican People's Party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, said Thursday he is seeking justice. He called the march after parliamentarian Enis Berberoglu was convicted to 25 years in prison for revealing state secrets.\nWith thousands gathered in protest, Kilicdaroglu said: \"Everyone needs to defend the independence of the judiciary and justice in this country.\"\nThe guilty verdict for Berberoglu is part of a case that stems from a 2015 story by the Cumhuriyet newspaper suggesting Turkey's intelligence service had smuggled weapons to Islamist rebels in Syria." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Donald Trump's U.N. ambassador recently urged the world to sever diplomatic ties with North Korea, she was sketchy on the details: Should all embassies close? How about those providing the U.S. intelligence from the largely inscrutable country? And what of Sweden, which helps with imprisoned Americans?\nNikki Haley's recent call to action underscores the challenge for the United States as it tries to advance a nonmilitary strategy for resolving the nuclear standoff with North Korea. Isolating the totalitarian state has been a central component of the U.S. plan, even though Washington says it remains open to talks.\nLike international economic penalties, the Trump administration believes diplomatic isolation serves a purpose. It's designed to punish North Korea leader Kim Jong Un for developing an atomic arsenal of bombs." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on the war in Syria, Turkey's offensive against the Syrian Kurdish militia in the enclave of Afrin and (all times local):\n11:20 a.m.\nA Russian diplomat says the opening of a Russia-sponsored peace conference for Syria is being delayed.\nRussia's Black Sea resort of Sochi is hosting the conference that Moscow describes as an effort to speed up political settlement for the war-torn country.\nRussia, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, says it invited 1,600 representatives to the Syrian Congress of National Dialogue, but so far only the government and opposition representatives tolerated by it have shown up. The main Syrian opposition body has boycotted the talks.\nRussian Foreign Ministry spokesman Artyom Kozhin told Russian news agencies on Tuesday that the conference is being delayed but \"will start soon.\"\nHe confirmed earlier reports of some members of the rebel groups returning to the airport in protest. Kozhin says the Turkish foreign minister assured the Russian foreign minister on the phone earlier this morning that the \"matter will be settled.\"\nThe Sochi gathering has been overshadowed by reports of intense clashes that erupted on Monday on a strategic hilltop in northwestern Syria as Kurdish forces tried to enter the area a day after it was captured by Turkish troops.\n___\n10:15 a.m.\nTurkey's state-run news agency says senior members of a medical association who spoke out against Ankara's military offensive in a Syrian Kurdish enclave have been detained.\nAnadolu Agency says the chief of the Turkish Medical Association and seven others were detained in Tuesday's police operations for breach of Turkey's anti-terror laws. It says prosecutors issued warrants for 11 members of the association.\nPresident Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused association members of being \"terrorist lovers\" and his government has cracked down on criticism of the offensive. Turkey considers the Kurdish militia it is fighting in Syria an extension of the outlawed Kurdish rebels inside Turkey.\nAs many as 311 people were detained in the past week for allegedly engaging in \"terrorist propaganda\" through social media postings critical of the military operation." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia police think they've found something better than Crisco to keep Philadelphia fans from climbing light poles if the Eagles win the Super Bowl.\nBut they are keeping their playbook secret.\nA contingent of workers who jokingly called themselves the \"Crisco Cops\" applied shortening to light poles before the NFC championship game, but it failed to stop some fans after the Eagles victory.\nAsked Tuesday whether police have found something slicker, Commissioner Richard Ross said, \"We think so.\"\nHe promised that whatever police do, \"it will be safe ... but it will be effective.\" He says climbing poles this Sunday \"will be far more difficult\" than when they used a vegetable oil product, which weather can affect.\nRoss says police are working to assure the safety of fans \"as well as the people who they could fall down on.\"" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "Today in History\nToday is Tuesday, Dec. 12, the 346th day of 2017. There are 19 days left in the year. Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, begins at sunset.\nToday's Highlights in History:\nOn Dec. 12, 1917, during World War I, a train carrying some 1,000 French troops from the Italian front derailed while descending a steep hill in Modane (moh-DAN'); at least half of the soldiers were killed in France's greatest rail disaster. Father Edward Flanagan founded Boys Town outside Omaha, Nebraska.\nOn this date:\nIn 1787, Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.\nIn 1897, \"The Katzenjammer Kids,\" the pioneering comic strip created by Rudolph Dirks, made its debut in the New York Journal.\nIn 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt nominated Oscar Straus to be Secretary of Commerce and Labor; Straus became the first Jewish Cabinet member.\nIn 1925, the first motel — the Motel Inn — opened in San Luis Obispo, California.\nIn 1937, Japanese aircraft sank the U.S. gunboat Panay on China's Yangtze River. (Japan apologized, and paid $2.2 million in reparations.)\nIn 1946, a United Nations committee voted to accept a six-block tract of Manhattan real estate offered as a gift by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to be the site of the U.N.'s headquarters.\nIn 1947, the United Mine Workers union disaffiliated from the American Federation of Labor.\nIn 1963, Kenya became independent of Britain.\nIn 1977, the dance movie \"Saturday Night Fever,\" a Paramount Pictures release starring John Travolta, premiered in New York.\nIn 1985, 248 American soldiers and eight crew members were killed when an Arrow Air charter crashed after takeoff from Gander, Newfoundland.\nIn 1997, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the international terrorist known as \"Carlos the Jackal,\" went on trial in Paris on charges of killing two French investigators and a Lebanese national. (Ramirez was convicted, and is serving a life prison sentence.)\nIn 2000, George W. Bush became president-elect as a divided U.S. Supreme Court reversed a state court decision for recounts in Florida's contested election.\nTen years ago: Republican presidential rivals gathered in Johnston, Iowa, called for deep cuts in federal spending in a debate remarkably free of acrimony. President George W. Bush vetoed a second bill that would have expanded government-provided health insurance for children. Ike Turner, the rock pioneer and ex-husband of Tina Turner, died in San Marcos, California, at age 76.\nFive years ago: North Koreans danced in the streets of their capital, Pyongyang, after the regime of Kim Jong Un succeeded in firing a long-range rocket in defiance of international warnings. Pope Benedict XVI sent his first tweet from his new account; it read, \"Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart.\"\nOne year ago: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan endorsed investigations into the CIA's belief that Russia had meddled in the November election to help Donald Trump win, a claim the president-elect called \"ridiculous.\"\nToday's Birthdays: Former TV host Bob Barker is 94. Basketball Hall of Famer Bob Pettit is 85. Singer Connie Francis is 80. Singer Dionne Warwick is 77. Rock singer-musician Dickey Betts is 74. Hall of Fame race car driver Emerson Fittipaldi is 71. Actor Wings Hauser is 70. Actor Bill Nighy (ny) is 68. Actor Duane Chase (Film: \"The Sound of Music\") is 67. Country singer LaCosta is 67. Gymnast-turned-actress Cathy Rigby is 65. Author Lorna Landvik is 63. Singer-musician Sheila E. is 60. Actress Sheree J. Wilson is 59. Pop singer Daniel O'Donnell is 56. International Tennis Hall of Famer Tracy Austin is 55. Rock musician Eric Schenkman (Spin Doctors) is 54. Rock musician Nicholas Dimichino (Nine Days) is 50. Author Sophie Kinsella is 48. News anchor Maggie Rodriguez is 48. Actress Jennifer Connelly is 47. Actress Madchen Amick is 47. Actress Regina Hall is 47. Country singer Hank Williams III is 45. Actress Mayim Bialik is 42. Model Bridget Hall is 40. Actor Lucas Hedges (Film: \"Manchester by the Sea\") is 21. Actress Sky Katz (TV: \"Raven's Home\") is 13.\nThought for Today: \"Experience has taught me that the only cruelties people condemn are those with which they do not happen to be familiar.\" — Ellen Glasgow, American author (1874-1945)." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "Melania Trump has chosen a cream-colored Christian Dior pantsuit for her first State of the Union address as first lady.\nThe former fashion model paired the cropped-trouser suit with a white D&G blouse and Christian Louboutin pumps. She wore her hair loose, and flashed a bright smile.\nWhile her husband has put forth a mantra of \"America First,\" Mrs. Trump has mostly opted for pieces from high-end European design houses during her first year as first lady. The brands she wore Tuesday are in keeping with that custom.\nMrs. Trump has not enjoyed the support from fashion designers that her predecessor did. Where Michelle Obama frequently collaborated with designers, most of Mrs. Trump's attire is bought off-the-rack without the designer knowing the garment is destined for the first lady." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "BEIJING (AP) — Most Asian stock markets rose Tuesday after U.S. benchmarks hit new highs and Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen said the U.S. central bank could raise interest rates as soon as next month.\nKEEPING SCORE: Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index rose 1 percent to 19,437.98 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped 1.1 percent to 24,961.29. Sydney's S&P-ASX 200 gained 0.9 percent to 5,809.10. Seoul's Kospi added 0.5 percent to 2,083.86. The Shanghai Composite Index slipped 0.2 percent to 3,208.31. Benchmarks in New Zealand and Taiwan rose, while Southeast Asian markets declined.\nWALL STREET: U.S. stock indexes hit new highs, boosted by bank stocks on hopes of bigger profits ahead. General Motors jumped 4.8 percent following news that France's PSA Group, maker of Peugeot and Citroen cars, is exploring a deal to buy Opel, GM's money-losing European business. Cynosure, which makes devices used in laser body contouring, hair removal and skin care, soared after agreeing to be bought by medical device maker Hologic for $1.57 billion. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 0.4 percent to 2,337.58 for its sixth straight day of gains. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.5 percent to 20,504.41. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.3 percent to 5,782.57.\nFED WATCH: Yellen told a Senate committee the central bank could raise interest rates as soon as next month. Bond yields jumped and fed through to shares of banks, which can benefit from higher rates by charging more for loans. Yellen said little to alter most investors' expectations. The Fed raised interest rates in December for just the second time in a decade, and Yellen said the strengthening job market and a modest move higher in inflation should warrant continued, gradual increases.\nANALYST'S TAKE: Yellen's comments were \"the main catalyst for overnight markets, evidently surprising on the hawkish side,\" said Jingyi Pan of IG in a report. \"While the market had expected a strong rhetoric on improving economic conditions, the push to hasten the next rate hike had been unexpected.\" Based on history, markets put the likelihood of a policy change out of the Fed's March meeting at 34 percent, Pan said, \"but that had not stopped the U.S. dollar and equity markets from ticking up.\"\nCHINA INFLATION: Chinese consumer and wholesale inflation ticked higher, fueling concern the central bank might hike rates or tighten access to credit. Analysts said they saw no sign the People's Bank of China would change course but money market rates should be elevated this year. Policymakers have indicated a \"tightening bias\" for policy since late last year but December and January data on credit \"clearly show that there has been no meaningful monetary and credit tightening at the macro level,\" said UBS economists in a report.\nCURRENCY: The dollar gained to 114.38 yen from Tuesday's 114.31 yen. The euro edged up to $1.0577 from $1.0571.\nENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude sank 35 cents to $52.85 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract gained 27 cents on Tuesday to $53.20. Brent crude, used to price international oils, lost 27 cents to $55.70 in London. It advanced 38 cents the previous session to $55.97." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "BOSTON (AP) — The government of Bermuda has sued a Massachusetts hospital, saying it bribed the island's former leader in order to secure business there.\nThe Boston Globe (http://bit.ly/2l7GYrA ) reports that the federal suit filed Tuesday alleges that Lahey Hospital and Medical Center and Ewart Brown, a doctor who was Bermuda's premier from 2006 to 2010, were part of a racketeering conspiracy that spanned 20 years.\nThe suit alleges that in return for bribes disguised as consulting fees, Brown directed a large share of the island's health care business to Lahey, including lucrative contracts to interpret unnecessary MRIs and CT scans performed at two clinics owned by Brown.\nLahey said in a statement that the allegations are \"baseless and without merit.\"\nBermuda, a British territory, is seeking unspecified damages from Burlington-based Lahey.\n___\nInformation from: The Boston Globe, http://www.bostonglobe.com" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of House Oversight Committee, says he will not seek re-election." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is planning to impose tariffs on European steel and aluminum imports after failing to win concessions from the European Union.\nThat's according to two people familiar with the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The people say the administration's plans could change if the two sides are able to reach a last-minute agreement, but an announcement is expected before Friday's deadline.\nPresident Donald Trump announced in March he would slap a 25 percent tariff on imported steel, and a 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum, citing national security interests.\nBut he delayed the implementation for several countries, including the European Union, giving them time to negotiate a deal.\nThe EU has said it will retaliate if the exemptions lapse." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers spend their careers eying coveted committee chairmanships, angling for the chance at the perks and power that came with the top spot.\nRep. Rodney Frelinghuysen is bowing out after one term.\nFrelinghuysen's announcement Monday that he would not seek re-election, giving up the chairmanship of the House Appropriations Committee, punctuated the dwindling prestige and influence of the positions once consider an apex of power on Capitol Hill. Term limits, legislative dysfunction and gridlock-inducing polarization have gradually tarnished the very chairmanships that are so prized.\n\"Before the farm bill and my tenure as chairman, I had neither grey hair nor did I take hypertension medicine. I now have both for the rest of my life,\" said former House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla. \"Right now you have to deal with a situation where you have the extreme demands of the left on one side of the room and the extreme demands of the right on the other side.\"\nFrelinghuysen is the eighth House committee chair to head for the exits, and a striking case study for the dynamics at play.\nThe New Jersey Republican became chairman of the Appropriations Committee last year after serving for several years as chairman of its defense subcommittee.\nBut Frelinghuysen's year in charge of the panel has been frustrating. In theory, he manages the process of doling out one-third the federal budget. But he's had scant success on that front. Although he helped successfully negotiate a catchall spending bill last spring, the appropriations process for the ongoing budget year has been hamstrung by delays in the Senate and faces the very real danger of running aground completely amid an unrelated months-long battle over immigration.\n\"Serving as chairman of the Appropriations Committee is a difficult and sometimes thankless job,\" said Rep. Nita Lowey of New York, the panel's top Democrat.\nThere have been fewer thank-yous since a series of GOP reforms changed the rules. In a push to curb corruption in 2010, Republicans officially banned \"earmarks,\" severally limiting lawmakers' capacity to direct tens or even hundreds of millions to one's district or state for \"earmarked\" pet projects. The earmarks were a prerogative of the chairman, both to bolster his political standing at home and to court votes with fellow lawmakers of either party.\nHouse GOP rules mean chairmen cycle through six-year terms, which also counts time as ranking minority member. Chairmen are selected by a leadership panel that takes factors such as fundraising and conservative litmus tests into consideration.\nOld-timers such as former Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., say the system centralizes legislative authority with party leaders, who are often less versed in the nuts and bolts of legislation and have little appreciation for the committee's bipartisan traditions.\n\"I often would laugh, express frustration together with Rosa DeLauro, who's as liberal as she can be,\" Kingston recalled of one of his Democratic counterparts on Appropriations until he left Congress in 2015. \"We said if leadership of both parties would get the heck out of the way, we could get something done.\"\nOther chairmen, such as Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, of Financial Services and Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., of Judiciary are leaving after being forced to yield their gavels next year under term limit rules. They were denied signature wins under President Barack Obama — but they have not managed such wins under President Donald Trump, at least so far. They'd rather leave Congress than return to the rank and file.\nA moderate Republican in both his politics and temperament, Frelinghuysen was first elected in the 1994 GOP wave that put Republicans in control of both chambers. He hails from a New Jersey political dynasty that dates to the late 1700s. His father, Peter Frelinghuysen, served in the House for two decades.\nUnlike several other GOP chairmen to announce their retirements after running up against GOP term limit rules for panel heads, Frelinghuysen had years to go as Appropriations chair — assuming Republicans retain control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections. But he angered some conservative lawmakers over votes against the GOP tax overhaul measure last year and his opposition to an initial version of the party's effort to repeal Obama's health care law.\nTrump's sagging popularity is weighing on once-safe Republicans in educated, wealthier suburban districts such as Frelinghuysen's, where some residents could be negatively affected by provisions in the new tax law that went into effect this year.\nStill, Frelinghuysen's vote against the GOP's tax law was highly unusual and was seen as a signal of his political vulnerability. And it was unheard of for such a high-ranking chairman to buck the leadership line on such a major vote.\nAmong the leading Democrats for Frelinghuysen's seat is former federal prosecutor and former Navy helicopter pilot Mikie Sherrill. She raised more than $1.2 million through Dec. 31 and has the backing of local party leaders.\nRepublican insiders say Frelinghuysen's decision wasn't entirely a surprise. They say several potential candidates could build viable campaigns quickly.\nAmong the possible GOP candidates are three state lawmakers: Assemblyman Jay Webber, Assemblyman Anthony M. Bucco and Sen. Joe Pennacchio. Another prominent name mentioned is attorney Rosemary Becchi.\nFrelinghuysen's district had long leaned Republican but was carried only narrowly by Trump in 2016. Nonpartisan analysts say Democrats have a good chance to grab it in this year's midterms.\nFrelinghuysen took the lead in the House in a difficult 2013 effort to provide about $60 billion to help New Jersey and other northeastern states recovery from Superstorm Sandy.\n\"Public service is an incredible way to turn your convictions into something that serves the greater good and to do it alongside people from every walk of life and background,\" Frelinghuysen said.\n___\nAssociated Press reporter Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "NEW YORK (AP) — New York City's deadly helicopter crash has prompted the National Transportation Safety Board to call on federal regulators to prohibit commercial flights that use passenger harness systems that do not allow for easy release.\nThe NTSB's recommendation on Monday comes after last week's helicopter crash in the East River. Five passengers who couldn't free themselves from their harnesses drowned. The pilot escaped.\nThe Federal Aviation Administration on Friday temporarily grounded open-door flights involving restraints that cannot be quickly released. It also said it was conducting a review of its rules governing such flights.\nNTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt applauds the agency's move, but says \"definitive action needs to be taken.\"\nFAA spokesman Greg Martin says the grounding was a first step and that more formal action is expected." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Stocks in Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's investment firm surged 10 percent on Sunday, the day after the billionaire investor was released from nearly three months in detention in connection with an anti-corruption campaign.\nThe prince, 62, is one of the world's wealthiest people, with investments in several major firms, including Citigroup, Lyft, Twitter and international hotel chains. He is chairman of Kingdom Holding Company, which closed 9.97 percent higher on the opening day of this week's trading on the Saudi Tadawul stock exchange.\nThe prince's associates told The Associated Press he was freed Saturday after more than 80 days in detention at the luxurious Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh. Dozens of high-profile detainees were held there in connection with the anti-corruption sweep that began in early November. Prince Alwaleed was among at least 11 princes detained in the probe, in addition to dozens of businessmen, officials and military officers.\nMost detainees have since been released after agreeing to hand over substantial financial assets to the government. It was not immediately known if the prince had to relinquish financial assets in exchange for his release, as other princes, ministers and businessmen have reportedly had to do.\nThe government has declined to officially name those arrested in the sweep or disclose the specific allegations against them. Saudi officials could not be reached for comment on Prince Alwaleed's release.\nWhile he was never seen as politically influential, the prince's penchant for fame and his holdings in Western firms made him one of the most talked about Saudi royals abroad.\nHe told Reuters hours before his release from his luxurious suite at the Ritz-Carlton that no charges were brought against him, saying his detention had nothing to do with politics, economics or corruption. He said he would remain chairman of Kingdom Holding and retain all his stakes in the investment firm.\nThe purported anti-corruption sweep is spearheaded by Prince Alwaleed's much younger cousin, 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.\nCritics say the crown prince has used the purge against high-level individuals to wrangle control of key Saudi companies, sideline potential rivals and silence critics alarmed by his rapid rise to power as he prepares to inherit the throne from his father, King Salman.\nSaudi authorities say the campaign is aimed at improving the kingdom's business environment and that sums recovered will be used to fund a cash assistance program for middle and lower-income citizens estimated to cost $8.5 billion this year." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "TOKYO (AP) — Japanese video-game maker Nintendo's net profit jumped 31 percent to 135.2 billion yen ($1.2 billion) in April-December, helped by the popularity of its Switch hybrid game machine, the company said Wednesday.\nKyoto-based Nintendo, which makes Super Mario and Pokemon games, said its sales in the first nine months of 2017 more than doubled from a year earlier to 857 billion yen ($7.9 billion).\nProfit in October-December was 83.7 billion yen ($771 million), up 29 percent year-on-year, it said.\nThe company revised its full-year profit upward by 41 percent to 120 billion yen ($1.1 billion).\nNintendo, which also makes the 3DS portable console, has scored success in offering games for smartphones and other devices that aren't Nintendo machines — a move the company had resisted for years, but an area that is yielding strong results.\nIts Super Nintendo Entertainment System Classic Edition, launched in September and October, proved to be a hit, the company said.\nThe Switch is a new kind of machine for Nintendo, which allows for playing both at home and on-the-go. The challenge for the company has been to keep the sales momentum going for new consoles, as they are snatched up in the initial years, but then interest tends to wane.\nNintendo said its Switch game software sales have been solid, with strong demand for \"Super Mario Odyssey,\" ''Mario Kart 8 Deluxe\" and \"Splatoon 2.\" A slew of new games are due to be launched in coming months, including \"Dragon Quest Builders\" and \"Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.\"" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union countries are complicit in the abuse of migrants held in Libya, Amnesty International said in a report released Tuesday that accused the EU of turning a blind eye to allegedly brutal tactics of the Libyan coast guard and dangerous detention facilities.\nThe human rights group also alleged that the Libyan coast guard accepted kickbacks from smugglers to let migrant boats leave for Europe. Amnesty said it had video and other documentary evidence that a boat donated by Italy was involved in an interception operation in which up to 50 people drowned.\n\"European governments have not just been fully aware of these abuses,\" Amnesty Europe Director John Dalhuisen said. \"By actively supporting the Libyan authorities in stopping sea crossings and containing people in Libya, they are complicit in these crimes.\"\nOverwhelmed by the arrival of more than 1 million migrants in 2015, the EU has worked with Libya and its neighbors to cut off the main migration route from Africa to Europe. Its strategy has including training and equipping Libya's coast guard to stop boats trying to make the dangerous Mediterranean Sea crossing.\nThe moves have trapped an estimated 20,000 migrants in Libya, where detention facilities are overcrowded and unsanitary, Amnesty International said.\nEU officials have rejected criticism of Europe's approach to curbing immigration and say the bloc's money has been channeled into Libya through United Nations agencies. Only about 150 of Libya's 3,000 coast guard members have received training sponsored by the bloc, the EU said.\nThe EU's border agency, Frontex, reported Monday that the number of migrants making it to Europe through the central Mediterranean route from Libya to Italy dropped by one-third during the first 11 months of the year, to around 116,400, compared to the same period in 2016. Most were Nigerians, Frontex said.\nAmnesty said the report was based on interviews with dozens of migrants and officials.\nThe group said it also reviewed video, photographs and documents showing that in at least one incident, the crew of a boat Italy donated to Libya's coast guard failed to deploy lifeboats for migrants it encountered.\nWhile trying to climb up the high sides of the vessel, the Ras Jadir, many passengers fell into the water and about 50 drowned, Amnesty said. Recordings also showed rescued migrants being whipped on the coast guard ship, the rights group alleged.\nIt said some migrants onboard jumped into the water to try to reach rafts deployed by a non-governmental organization's rescue boat.\n\"European governments have shown where their true priorities lie: namely, the closure of the central Mediterranean route, with scant regard to the suffering caused,\" Dalhuisen said." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans continued to feel confident about the economy this month, a good sign for consumer spending and economic growth.\nThe Conference Board, a business research group, says its consumer confidence index rose to 125.4 in January from a revised 123.1 in December.\nThe business research group's index measures consumers' assessment of current conditions and their outlook for the next six months. Their view of today's conditions slipped slightly, but their expectations for the future rose.\nEconomists watch the Conference Board report closely because consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic output.\n\"Consumers remain quite confident that the solid pace of growth seen in late 2017 will continue into 2018,\" said Lynn Franco, the Conference Board's director of economic indicators.\nConsumer spending rose at a 3.8 percent annual pace from October through December last year, fastest pace since the spring of 2016. But Americans haven't been getting big pay raises, so they've had to dip into savings. The Commerce Department reported Monday that the savings rate dropped to 2.4 percent of after-tax income in December, lowest since September 2005.\n\"They're spending a lot more, but they are going into debt and saving less to do so,\" said Robert Frick, economist with the Navy Federal Credit Union. \"There has to be a reckoning at some point.\" Either wages will rise faster, he said, or consumers will curb spending and put more money into savings or investments." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "MONTCLAIR, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 23, 2018--Mountainside Medical Group announced today the addition of three new physicians, Pulmonologist Juhayna Davis, M.D., Endocrinologist Anjali Grover, M.D., and OB/GYN specialist Vanessa Parisi, D.O., expanding the group to 18 physicians.\nThis press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180423005099/en/\nMountainside Medical Group Adds Pulmonologist Juhayna Davis, M.D. (Photo: Business Wire)\nDr. Juhayna Davis is located at 799 Bloomfield Avenue, Suite 301, in Verona. Her practice focuses on evaluating and treating patients with a variety of lung and respiratory symptoms including asthma, cancer, cough, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD, chronic bronchitis and emphysema), interstitial lung diseases, sarcoidosis, shortness of breath and more.\nDr. Anjali Grover is located at 123 Highland Avenue, Suite 301, in Glen Ridge. Her approach to care empowers patients and eases access to improved health and quality of life. Her practice specializes in the treatment of diabetes, metabolic disorders, and other hormonal disorders and deficiencies.\nDr. Vanessa Parisi is located at 181 Franklin Ave, Suite 303, in Nutley. Dr. Parisi works with each patient to ensure a high-level of open communication between patient and doctor. Her team is dedicated to supporting their obstetrical patients’ birth plans, understanding each is special, unique and personalized.\n“As we grow our medical group, it’s important that we add physicians from different disciplines to treat the ‘whole patient’ and provide total care in our communities,” John Fromhold, Chief Executive Officer. “We know that people who establish a personal relationship with their primary doctors experience better health and quality of life.”\nTo request an appointment with a Mountainside Medical Group physician, please click here.\nAbout Hackensack Meridian Health Mountainside Medical Group\nThe Mountainside Medical Group is a network of primary care physicians specializing in internal medicine, family medicine, breast care, OB/GYN, pulmonology and endocrinology created by Mountainside Medical Center, now part of Hackensack Meridian Health. We believe people who establish a personal relationship with their doctors experience better health and quality of life. Start well and stay well with Mountainside Medical Group. Offices are located in Montclair, Bloomfield, Caldwell, Glen Ridge, Nutley, Union, Verona, West Caldwell, and Woodland Park. For more information, visit: www.mountainsidedocs.com.\nView source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180423005099/en/\nCONTACT: Mountainside Medical Group\nChiara Marababol, 973-259-3415\[email protected]\nKEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA NEW JERSEY\nINDUSTRY KEYWORD: WOMEN HEALTH INFECTIOUS DISEASES OTHER HEALTH BABY/MATERNITY DIABETES CONSUMER MANAGED CARE\nSOURCE: Hackensack Meridian Health Mountainside Medical Group\nCopyright Business Wire 2018.\nPUB: 04/23/2018 09:00 AM/DISC: 04/23/2018 09:01 AM\nhttp://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180423005099/en" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "CAIRO (AP) — Madiha Yousri, an Egyptian actress known for her iconic film roles, has died. She was 97.\nThe state MENA news agency says Yousri suffered age-related health problems and died late on Tuesday.\nHundreds of mourners, including prominent film figures, attended Yousri's funeral, which was held Wednesday at a historic mosque in Cairo's Sayedah Nafeesa district.\nPrime Minister Sherif Ismail mourned Yousri's passing and offered his condolences.\nYousri had more than 90 films to her name, dating back to the 1940s. She also starred in musicals featuring iconic Egyptian singers of the 20th century: Mohamed Abdel-Wahab, Abdel-Halim Hafez, Farid Al-Atrash and Mohamed Fawzy.\nBorn in 1921, Yousri was married three times. Two of her marriages were to film stars Mohamed Amin and Fawzy, with whom she co-starred in several movies." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam is urging China to take responsible and constructive actions in the disputed South China Sea following a Pentagon report that highlighted Beijing military's buildup in the strategic waters.\nVietnamese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang told reporters that her government has legal basis and historical evidence to affirm its sovereignty over the Spratly and Paracel islands in the South China Sea and that acts by foreign countries on the islands without Vietnam's permission were illegal.\nVietnam, along with China and the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan claims parts of or all the Spratly islands, which are believed to sit on rich natural resources and occupy one of the world's busiest sea lanes." ], "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 48 29 11 8 66 157 119 Washington 49 29 15 5 63 150 138 Toronto 51 28 18 5 61 162 146 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 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 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 Anaheim 51 25 17 9 59 144 142 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 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.\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": [ "ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — First came the ping of bats, a familiar sound of the leafy neighborhood's morning. Then the crack of gunfire, which isn't.\nIt started with a single pop, which for a split second was not alarming to the Republican members of Congress who had gathered for a final practice before a charity baseball game with Democrats this week. As one lawmaker would later note, it could have been a car backfiring.\nThen, after a pause, the gunshots came in quick succession and the horror unfolded in the Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria, home to many federal workers, lawyers and lobbyists who commute across the river to Washington.\nA congressman, two Capitol police officers, a lobbyist and a legislative aide were wounded as lawmakers, some fighting back tears, sought to understand what had happened and why. In a hail of bullets, police killed the gunman.\n\"You never expect a baseball field in America to feel like being back in a combat zone in Iraq,\" said Ohio Rep. Brad Wenstrup, an Army reservist who served as a combat surgeon in Iraq and was on the field Wednesday when the shooting began. \"But this morning it did.\"\nThey had gathered on this muggy morning, trading suits and ties for sneakers and baseball caps, to practice for Thursday's annual left-right match-up, a friendly Democratic-Republican rivalry for charity in a capital otherwise poisonous in its partisanship. Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks had bicycled nine miles to make the 6:30 a.m. start.\nThe baseball park, home to the T.C. Williams High School Titans, sits in a lively part of Alexandria. On weekdays, locals head off to work and school. People come and go at the nearby YMCA. Homeowners stroll the sidewalks, walking their dogs.\nSo it hardly seemed unusual when a man approached Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina in the baseball field parking lot.\nHis question was pointed: \"'Excuse me sir, who's practicing today? Democrats or Republicans?'\" Duncan recalled. \"And I said it's the Republican team. He said, 'OK, thanks' and turned around.\" Duncan then left, saying later, \"It was the guy they've identified as the shooter.\"\nRep. Steve Pearce of New Mexico was taking swings in the batting cage along the first base side when he noticed a bystander near the third base dugout. Within seconds, as Pearce left the batting cage and headed toward the dugout, the shooting started. \"I saw the shooter clearly with his rifle, aimed and shooting around one corner of a building,\" he said in a video statement.\nChaos ensued. Lawmakers dove for cover. Gravel bounced as shots hit the ground.\nFrom inside Swing's coffee shop directly across from the field, manager Jon \"Scott\" Mosel described the popping of gunfire. \"Then a wave of players frantically running. It was absolutely frantic. We didn't know if they were being chased.\" The players ran from the first base side of the field across a basketball court and either jumped a fence into a nearby dog park or ran up the hill and crossed the street toward the coffee shop, he said.\nBrooks hit the ground with a few others behind the batting cage, but quickly realized that didn't provide much cover. The gunman wasn't spraying bullets but rather taking aim, so there was a \"little bit of time between shots.\"\nRep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the third-ranking Republican in the House, was fielding balls on second base when a gunshot crumpled him, Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake said. The 51-year-old Scalise, serving his fifth congressional term, dragged himself 10 to 15 yards into the outfield to try to get away, Flake said, leaving a bloody trail.\nMarty LaVor, a retired Capitol Hill worker, was taking pictures by first base when he saw a man holding a rifle behind a chain-link fence by third base. LaVor saw Scalise go down, then a Capitol police officer.\n\"Almost within an instant, and I don't remember the time, somebody saidm 'Get in the dugout.' And they said it with such authority. You remember when you were a kid, and your parents said something? This was that sound.\"\nLaVor got in the dugout.\nThe 911 call went out at 7:09 a.m. To those in the line of fire, it seemed an eternity before city police arrived, but in reality it took just three minutes. Brooks said the Capitol officers were armed only with pistols, and \"taking on a guy with a rifle from 90-120 feet away. It wasn't a fair fight.\"\nWhen Capitol police began firing, Brooks said, they were so close that he initially feared a second shooter was involved. Congress members helped apply a tourniquet to the injured leg of Zachary Barth, legislative correspondent for Rep. Roger Williams of Texas, as the shooting continued. Scalise, too, was attended to by his colleagues on the field.\nKatie Filous, an attorney who was walking her dogs near the field, dropped to the ground when she heard \"a lot of shots.\" A uniformed officer got out of a car, drew a handgun and shouted something to the assailant, she said. She saw the officer get hit with a bullet, and later evacuated by helicopter.\nThree hours after the attack, Brooks still wore a batting glove, with dirt from lying face first in the dugout still smeared across his navy blue T-shirt, as he and other lawmakers at the scene described the attack to the AP.\nFalisa Peoples, who teaches an exercise class at the YMCA, was walking to her car when she saw a man in shorts and a T-shirt firing. She thought, at first, it was a drill or a paintball game.\n\"He was very calm,\" she said. \"He was just walking and shooting as if it was just like he was practicing.\" She recalled no other noise until she heard a police officer command, \"Get down!\" Peoples dropped her belongings and ran back to the Y, banging on the side door until someone let her in.\nRep. Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee passed the shooter on his way into the dugout to hide. \"He decided not to shoot me,\" he would later tell CNN. \"The fear factor was horrific. There was blood all over, it was horrible.\" He said if the gunman had come after them in the dugout, \"we would have been sitting ducks.\"\nIt was over in a matter of minutes. Members of Congress credited the Capitol police officers with shooting the gunman, though authorities did not immediately confirm who shot him. He died in the hospital.\nScalise underwent surgery for a wound to the hip, and was in critical condition. Matt Mika, the lobbyist and a former congressional aide, was also in critical condition, with multiple wounds. Special Agents David Bailey and Crystal Griner of the U.S. Capitol Police, as well as Barth, were expected to recover fully.\nThe attacker was identified as James T. Hodgkinson of Illinois. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said on the Senate floor that Hodgkinson apparently was a volunteer for his campaign last year. Police are investigating the attacker's motive, his associates and his social media posts.\nHours later, surrounded by crime scene tape, the field was still set for batting practice. A mobile backstop curved behind home plate, near metal bats. A crate full of baseballs sat near the pitcher's mound, and balls were scattered on the field among medical bags and supplies. Behind first base, next to a large medical bag, sat a single baseball shoe.\nOff the field on the first base side, a medical gurney.\n___\nAssociated Press writers Chad Day, Matthew Barakat, Kevin Freking, Michael Biesecker, Ben Finley and Erica Werner contributed to this report. Woodward reported from Washington." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "NEW YORK (AP) — The latest on developments in financial markets (All times local):\n9:35 a.m.\nBig gains in consumer prices and retail sales are sending bond prices lower and yields higher in early trading. Bank stocks rose along with bond yields, but most other stocks fell.\nThe yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.51 percent Wednesday, up from 2.47 percent late Tuesday.\nThe higher bond yields sent high-dividend stocks broadly lower for the second day running. Utilities, real estate companies and phone companies fell more than the rest of the market.\nThe Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 1 point to 2,336.\nThe Dow Jones industrial average rose 20 points, or 0.1 percent, to 20,525. The Nasdaq composite increased 1 point to 5,784.\nMore stocks fell than rose on the New York Stock Exchange." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — The national security adviser is the president's policy whisperer and confidant on military matters, diplomacy, intelligence, terrorism — even the odd hurricane. The adviser usually enjoys unmatched trust with the chief executive and lots of behind-the-scenes clout.\nA man-made hurricane consumed the latest one.\nA look at the job:\nOUT LIKE FLYNN\nNo other national security adviser has gone out quite like Michael Flynn, who lasted less than a month, a record low. Before Flynn was forced out as President Donald Trump's national security adviser, the Obama administration fired him for insubordination in 2014, when he was defense intelligence chief.\nAt issue this time: Flynn's contact with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. late last year, which raised questions about whether he was freelancing on policy about Russian sanctions while President Barack Obama was still in office and how he misled Trump officials about the calls. Trump wanted him to step down because of an \"eroding level of trust,\" said White House spokesman Sean Spicer.\n___\nAT THE CENTER\nIn his brief tenure, Flynn was at the heart of deliberations over provocative missile tests by North Korea and Iran, close to the president's side in his meetings and calls with world leaders and privy to all manner of secrets by virtue of his position straddling the military, diplomatic and intelligence components of national security.\nDemocrats want to find out when Trump knew of the circumstances that eventually got Flynn fired and why he was allowed to maintain his access when it emerged that he had not given an accurate account of his communications with the ambassador.\n___\n'DE-HOT' THE WORLD:\nThat's how banker Robert Cutler described the nature of his counsel to President Dwight D. Eisenhower when he served as the first national security adviser, starting in 1953.\nCutler set the template in terms of discretion. Said his New York Times obituary in 1974: \"No man in the Government, except the President, knew more of the nation's strategic secrets; yet no other man so high in the Administration was so little known outside the President's inner circle.\"\n___\nTHAT'S NOT TO SAY THEY'RE PEACENIKS\nHardly. There have been hawks aplenty. McGeorge Bundy, for one, pushed an expansion of U.S. fighting in Vietnam while working as national security adviser to presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.\n___\nNOT HOUSEHOLD NAMES\nMany aren't well-known to the public when they come into the job or all that famous when they leave. Dillon Anderson, anyone? He served in 1955-56.\nAmong the very well known: the two women, among 20 men, who have been national security adviser: Condoleezza Rice, who served George W. Bush in his first term before becoming secretary of state; and Susan Rice, Obama's second-term national security adviser. Rice was ambassador to the U.N. in his first term.\nTrump on Tuesday appointed retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg on an acting basis.\n___\nOH HENRY\nIt's hard to overstate the influence Henry Kissinger wielded on Richard Nixon from the dawn of his presidency to its bitter final days.\nKissinger was such a driver of foreign policy and more that Nixon had him multitask as national security adviser and secretary of state during his second term, abbreviated by Nixon's 1974 resignation. Kissinger, the longest-serving national security adviser, kept both jobs for more than a year under President Gerald Ford, then finished Ford's term as secretary of state only.\nColin Powell was national security adviser under Ronald Reagan and later chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and secretary of state under George W. Bush.\n___\nWHAT COUNTS AS NATIONAL SECURITY?\nNational security advisers have not been limited to traditional threats to the U.S. Stephen Hadley, for example, was involved in the federal emergency response to Hurricane Katrina during George W. Bush's administration and Susan Rice took up climate change as a matter of national security during Obama's second term." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "All Times EST EASTERN CONFERENCE Atlantic Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA Tampa Bay 29 21 6 2 44 110 74 Toronto 31 20 10 1 41 106 88 Boston 27 14 9 4 32 78 75 Montreal 31 13 14 4 30 85 99 Detroit 29 11 13 5 27 80 97 Florida 29 11 14 4 26 88 104 Ottawa 28 9 12 7 25 77 98 Buffalo 30 7 17 6 20 64 102 Metropolitan Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA Columbus 30 19 10 1 39 86 73 N.Y. Islanders 30 17 10 3 37 108 100 Washington 31 18 12 1 37 95 91 New Jersey 29 16 9 4 36 89 91 Pittsburgh 32 16 13 3 35 94 104 N.Y. Rangers 29 16 11 2 34 98 87 Carolina 28 11 10 7 29 78 88 Philadelphia 29 11 11 7 29 83 86 WESTERN CONFERENCE Central Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA St. Louis 31 21 8 2 44 104 78 Nashville 29 18 7 4 40 95 84 Winnipeg 30 17 8 5 39 102 86 Minnesota 29 15 11 3 33 87 87 Dallas 30 16 13 1 33 89 89 Chicago 30 14 11 5 33 90 82 Colorado 29 14 13 2 30 92 95 Pacific Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA Los Angeles 31 20 8 3 43 97 68 Vegas 29 19 9 1 39 103 91 San Jose 29 16 10 3 35 79 69 Calgary 30 16 12 2 34 88 94 Vancouver 30 14 12 4 32 81 85 Anaheim 30 12 11 7 31 80 89 Edmonton 30 12 16 2 26 86 99 Arizona 33 7 21 5 19 75 114\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\nChicago 3, Arizona 1\nSt. Louis 3, Buffalo 2, OT\nToronto 1, Edmonton 0\nMinnesota 4, San Jose 3, OT\nMonday's Games\nColorado 2, Pittsburgh 1\nN.Y. Islanders 3, Washington 1\nDallas at N.Y. Rangers, 7 p.m.\nFlorida at Detroit, 7:30 p.m.\nVancouver at Winnipeg, 8 p.m.\nCarolina at Anaheim, 10 p.m.\nTuesday's Games\nEdmonton at Columbus, 7 p.m.\nOttawa at Buffalo, 7 p.m.\nToronto at Philadelphia, 7 p.m.\nColorado at Washington, 7 p.m.\nLos Angeles at New Jersey, 7 p.m.\nCalgary at Minnesota, 8 p.m.\nTampa Bay at St. Louis, 8 p.m.\nFlorida at Chicago, 8:30 p.m.\nCarolina at Vegas, 10 p.m.\nWednesday's Games\nDallas at N.Y. Islanders, 7 p.m.\nN.Y. Rangers at Ottawa, 7 p.m.\nBoston at Detroit, 8 p.m.\nNashville at Vancouver, 10 p.m.\nThursday's Games\nBuffalo at Philadelphia, 7 p.m.\nWashington at Boston, 7 p.m.\nN.Y. Islanders at Columbus, 7 p.m.\nNew Jersey at Montreal, 7:30 p.m.\nChicago at Winnipeg, 8 p.m.\nAnaheim at St. Louis, 8 p.m.\nToronto at Minnesota, 8 p.m.\nFlorida at Colorado, 9 p.m.\nTampa Bay at Arizona, 9 p.m.\nNashville at Edmonton, 9 p.m.\nSan Jose at Calgary, 9 p.m.\nPittsburgh at Vegas, 10 p.m." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "GENEVA (AP) — The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, hit by U.S. funding cuts, is seeking $800 million for emergency operations in Syria, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.\nThe U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which serves some 5 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants, had a budget of over $1 billion last year. This covered long-running programs, including education, as well as emergency funds for crises such as the war in Syria.\nThe U.S. has been the largest donor, giving one-third of the total budget. The Trump administration withheld half of the first installment of payments this year, demanding reforms as a condition for future aid.\nOn Tuesday, UNRWA sought $400 million each for Syria and the Palestinian territories. In an appeal last week, the agency sought an additional $500 million." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Royals activated All-Star catcher Salvador Perez and outfielder Alex Gordon from the disabled list and put them in the lineup for Tuesday night's series opener against the Brewers.\nPerez has been out all season after straining a ligament in his left knee while carrying bags up a flight of stairs in his home. He was behind the plate and batting cleanup against Milwaukee.\nGordon tore the labrum in his left hip on April 9. He was in left field and batting seventh.\nThe Royals also recalled left-hander Eric Stout from Triple-A Omaha to provide bullpen help. They cleared roster space by putting right-hander Justin Grimm on the DL with lower back stiffness and sending catcher Cam Gallagher and outfielder Paulo Orlando to the Storm Chasers.\n___\nMore AP baseball: https://apnews.com/tag/MLBbaseball" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "SALEM, Mass. (AP) — A Salem, Massachusetts-based organization called The Satanic Temple is accusing Twitter of discriminating against it on religious grounds.\nSatanic Temple founder Lucien Greaves filed a complaint in March with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, saying Twitter wrongly suspended its accounts after someone tweeted a threat to the organization. The Boston Globe reports Twitter has restored the accounts but without the \"verified\" status Greaves wants.\nAn attorney for Greaves says the standards used by Twitter to determine its suspensions and verifications of users is colored by its favoritism toward groups that share the social network's views.\nTwitter says an account is verified if it's determined to be of public interest.\nThe Satanic Temple's building is zoned as an art gallery and is open to the public with art installations, lectures and film screenings.\n___\nInformation from: The Boston Globe, http://www.bostonglobe.com" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Latest on a former Oklahoma City mayor and member of the University of Oklahoma Board of Regents who is being criticized for comparing gay people to pedophiles (all times local):\n5:15 p.m.\nThe chair of the board that governs the University of Oklahoma system says the panel disagrees with one of its members saying that gay people are like pedophiles.\nChairman Clay Bennett, who also is chairman of the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder, said in statement Monday that the OU board of regents values students' diverse perspectives, backgrounds and experiences. Bennett said the board is reiterating its commitment to fairness and inclusion at OU system universities.\nHumphreys made the comments on KFOR-TV's public affairs show over the weekend. The former Oklahoma City mayor also compared gay people to politicians who've recently resigned after allegations of sexual misconduct.\nHumphreys has not responded to requests from The Associated Press for comment.\n___\n2:25 p.m.\nThe University of Oklahoma's student body president is chastising a Board of Regents member who compared gay people to pedophiles.\nStudent government President J.D. Baker released an open letter Sunday urging the campus to voice its opinion about comments Kirk Humphreys made on a local TV public affairs show over the weekend.\nBaker says the comments were \"outright disrespectful, out of line and ignorant.\"\nThe president of the university's LGBTQ Alumni Society went a step further Monday, calling on Humphreys to resign. Joe Sangirardi says Humphreys serves as a regent to support students, not attack them.\nHumphreys made the comments during KFOR-TV's public affairs show. The former Oklahoma City mayor also compared gay people to politicians who've recently resigned after allegations of sexual misconduct.\nHumphreys has not responded to requests from The Associated Press for comment.\n___\n12:15 p.m.\nThe president of the University of Oklahoma is distancing himself from comments made by a Board of Regents member who compared gay people to pedophiles.\nUniversity President David Boren said in a statement Monday that board member and former Oklahoma City Mayor Kirk Humphreys wasn't speaking on behalf of the university.\nBoren also says he doesn't share Humphreys' views and that the university is a diverse and inclusive family.\nHumphreys made the comments during a local TV public affairs show that aired over weekend on KFOR-TV. He also compared gay people to politicians who've recently resigned after allegations of sexual misconduct.\nA staffer at Humphreys' office says he was out of town Monday and unavailable to comment. Humphreys also didn't immediately reply to an email seeking comment from The Associated Press.\n___\n10:55 a.m.\nA former Oklahoma City mayor and member of the University of Oklahoma Board of Regents is being criticized for comparing gay people to pedophiles.\nKirk Humphreys made the comments over the weekend on KFOR-TV's public affairs show. He also compared gay people to politicians who've recently resigned after allegations of sexual misconduct.\nLGBTQ advocacy group Freedom Oklahoma has called for his removal from the board if he doesn't apologize. Executive Director Troy Stevenson says Humphreys' comments were disheartening and dangerous for LGBTQ youth who are already harassed and bullied.\nA staffer at Humphreys' office said he was out of town Monday and unavailable to comment.\nStevenson said Monday his group will protest an Oklahoma City real estate project that belongs to Humphreys' family business if he doesn't apologize." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 23, 2018-- market research analysts forecast the to grow at a CAGR of over 4% during the period 2018-2022, according to their latest report.\nThis press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180423006231/en/\nTechnavio has published a new market research report on the global iron oxide pigments market from 2018-2022. (Graphic: Business Wire)\nIncreasing demand for nano-iron oxide pigments is a key trend which is expected to impact the market outlook over the forecast period. Leading vendors are increasingly investing in R&D to capture a large proportion of market shares through new product introductions. The incorporation of potential materials such as nanoparticles in coatings and other technologies is a relatively new concept in the market. The demand for nano-sized iron oxide pigments is increasing in the construction, coating, and cosmetics end-user industries.\nThis report is available at a USD 1,000 discount for a limited time only:\nSave more with Technavio. Buy2 reports and get the third for FREE:\nIn this report, Technavio analysts highlight increasing offshore exploration and production investments as a key factor contributing to the growth of the global iron oxide pigments market:\nIncreasing offshore exploration and production investments\nThe increase in the demand for energy and the depletion of onshore reserves have made oil and gas companies invest significantly in offshore oil and gas reserves. The rising drilling activities and the high demand from the offshore rigs and floating production storage and offloading are likely to foster the demand for iron oxide pigments. These pigments are used as lubricants in oil drilling rigs and as catalysts in the petroleum industry.\nIncreasing offshore activities and construction projects are fueling the consumption of oil and gas, thereby driving the demand for iron oxide pigments. Moreover, these iron-based automotive coatings are widely used in OEM components such as cylinder heads, crankcases, transmission housings, engine blocks, pumps, bearings, suspension systems, bodywork parts, and wheels (with both exterior and interior furnishings).\n“Also, the increased demand for automotive coatings is expected to drive the global iron oxide pigments market during the forecast period. Different types of iron oxide pigments (based on the particle size) are used, including micaceous, opaque, and transparent pigments. These transparent iron oxide pigments are widely used, owing to their various benefits such as the reduction in the coloring cost, improved transparency, UV absorption, and color consistency,” says a senior analyst at Technavio for research.\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.\nGlobal iron oxide pigments market segmentation\nThis market research report segments the by product (synthetic iron oxide pigments and natural iron oxide pigments), by end-user (construction, paints and coatings, foundry, industrial chemicals, and others) and key regions (APAC, Europe, North America, and ROW).\nOf the four major end-user segments, the construction segment held the largest market share in 2017, accounting for over 53% of the market, followed by the paints and coatings segment.\nIn terms of geography, APAC held the largest market share accounting for close to 45%, followed by Europe, North America, and ROW. Also, APAC is expected to emerge as the only region that will witness a growth in its market share over the forecast period. The market share of all the other three regions is expected to dip by 2022.\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/20180423006231/en/\nCONTACT: Technavio Research\nJesse Maida\nMedia & Marketing Executive\nUS: +1 844 364 1100\nUK: +44 203 893 3200\nwww.technavio.com\nKEYWORD:\nINDUSTRY KEYWORD: ENERGY OIL/GAS MANUFACTURING CHEMICALS/PLASTICS CONSTRUCTION & PROPERTY OTHER CONSTRUCTION & PROPERTY\nSOURCE: Technavio Research\nCopyright Business Wire 2018.\nPUB: 04/23/2018 01:52 PM/DISC: 04/23/2018 01:52 PM\nhttp://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180423006231/en" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — Al Holcomb followed his boss Steve Wilks from Carolina to Arizona and takes over a Cardinals defense that could be the team's biggest strength next season.\nAnd it will be the coordinator Holcomb that runs the defense, the new head coach says.\n\"Al is going to call the defense,\" Wilks said at Holcomb's introductory news conference on Tuesday. \"I believe in hiring coaches and allowing those guys to do their job.\"\nBut don't expect Holcomb to stray much from the Panthers' blueprint, which he and Wilks called \"our DNA.\"\n\"Playing with balance and effort,\" Holcomb said. \"Playing smart. Taking the ball away and finishing.\"\nHolcomb was linebackers coach this season at Carolina, with Wilks the defensive coordinator. For four years before that, the two were together on the Panthers' staff, with Wilks serving as secondary coach. Holcomb was at the top of the list for the defensive coordinator job once Wilks was hired as Cardinals head coach.\n\"Al was one of the first guys I wanted to bring with me,\" Wilks said.\nThe Cardinals finished sixth in the NFL overall in defense this season. Their coordinator for the past four seasons, James Bettcher, has been hired as defensive coordinator by new New York Giants coach Pat Shurmur.\nHolcomb inherits a defense that includes All-Pro outside linebacker Chandler Jones, who led the NFL with a franchise-record 17 sacks, and one of the game's best cornerbacks in Patrick Peterson, who had two interceptions in Sunday's Pro Bowl.\nThe Cardinals were known to blitz a lot, but the Panthers did it even more. So don't expect that to change, although the exact strategy will depend on the opponent.\n\"We're going to try and create negative plays,\" Holcomb said. \"We're going to be aggressive. We're going to do things based on what we need to do to win the game and if it's by pressuring, we'll pressure. If it's by playing front coverage, we'll play front coverage. It's just going to come down to who the opponent is.\"\nArizona is expected to have two of the NFL's best edge rushers in Jones and Markus Golden, who led the Cardinals in sacks with 12½ in 2016 but tore an ACL against San Francisco on Oct. 1 and missed the rest of 2017.\n\"Philosophically, we're going to line up and stop the run every week and that's going to be the main objective,\" Holcomb said, \"but we know that this league has some great quarterbacks in it. You have to have the element of being able to rush the passer, which those guys do. We're going to put them in position and try to continue to allow them to have success, more than anything. I think it's a great starting point for us. ... Those guys are pretty special.\"\nAt Carolina, Holcomb helped develop the talented linebacker tandem of Luke Kuechly and Thomas Davis.\nAlthough the Panthers played a base 4-3 defense and the Cardinals were a 3-4, there won't be that much difference in technique and scheme under the new regime, with defenses regularly using their \"nickel\" package to bring in an extra defensive back, the new coaches said.\n\"We have to evaluate what the personnel does best and obviously, there will be some subtleties and some subtle differences in some of the things that we do,\" Holcomb said, \"most importantly probably the terminology more than anything.\"\nWilks said his familiarity with Holcomb probably will allow him to spend more time with the offense and its coordinator, Mike McCoy.\n\"Al and I know one another,\" Wilks said. \"I know exactly, pretty much, what he's thinking because he's been under me this past year. We worked together the last five years. So he understands the expectations of the defense, what it should look like, our philosophy. I don't feel like I need to really to spend a lot of time in that room.\"\nWilks also introduced new special teams coordinator Jeff Rodgers. Rodgers was special teams coordinator the past three seasons in Chicago.\nThere were special teams breakdowns in Arizona periodically over the past few seasons, but coach Bruce Arians stayed loyal to his coordinator, Amos Jones.\nWilks promised to keep a close eye on the special teams aspect of the game.\n\"We're going to make sure that we put the emphasis on special teams,\" he said. \"You asked a question earlier about the history of special teams around here. It's not going to take a backseat to what we're trying to do.\"\n___\nMore AP NFL: http://pro32.ap.org and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. & SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 23, 2018--Silver Airways and Seaborne Airlines today announced that Silver’s acquisition of Seaborne’s business and assets has successfully closed, creating a leading independent airline to serve the Caribbean, Bahamas, Florida, and beyond.\nThis press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180423005900/en/\nThe acquisition brings together two strong independent airlines with similar Saab 340B fleets, complementary route networks, and common codeshare/interline partners. With the upcoming deployment of Silver’s recently announced new fleet of state-of-the-art ATR-600s across both networks, the combined airline will have an expanded range, allowing it to better serve passengers and markets while creating more opportunities for employees and greater value for its business partners.\n“I am thrilled to welcome the Seaborne team members to the Silver family as together we create one of the nation’s leading independent airlines in a transaction that will benefit our guests, team members, and the communities we serve, as well as both airlines’ valued codeshare and interline partnerships with most major U.S. carriers,” said Silver Airways CEO Steve Rossum. “This transaction brings together two strong and historic independent airlines with amazing employees, an excellent track record of operational safety, respect for our people and our communities, and great service for our passengers.”\n“We at Seaborne are excited about this partnership with Silver Airways and the opportunities that it can provide,” said Seaborne CEO Ben Munson. “Despite the devastating impact of Hurricanes Irma and Maria, our resilient and dedicated employees at Seaborne have successfully restructured our company with the support of our loyal passengers. We are well positioned to grow with an airline that shares our common goals of success, and are very pleased that San Juan and the U.S. Virgin Islands will continue to be significant for Silver and Seaborne.”\nThe combined airline will continue operating Silver’s route network in the Bahamas, Florida, and beyond under the Silver Airways banner and Seaborne’s route network throughout Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the Caribbean under the Seaborne name. The total fleet now consists of 31 aircraft, including Saab 340 and de Havilland Twin Otter seaplane aircraft. Silver is also the North American launch customer for the eco-friendly ATR-600 aircraft in the U.S. Silver took delivery of the first 46-seat ATR-42 earlier this month and has a firm order for 19 additional ATR-600s and up to 30 additional purchase rights.\nTickets for Silver Airways will continue to be available on SilverAirways.com and bookings for Seaborne will continue on SeaborneAirlines.com. Seaborne passengers will be able to earn and redeem frequent traveler miles under Seaborne’s SeaMiles program. Initially, Seaborne will continue to operate under its own certificate as a standalone operating subsidiary of Silver. The merger of the two airlines’ operating functions, joint branding, and streamlining of the guest experience is expected to occur during the next year.\nSteve Rossum of Silver Airways will serve as CEO of the combined airline. Ben Munson will resume his role as president of aviation consulting firm Embark Aviation, and continue as a valued advisor to the company. The combined airline will employ nearly 1,000 aviation professionals and will be headquartered at Silver Airways’ offices in Fort Lauderdale under the leadership of executives from both Silver and Seaborne. Corporate and operations support functions will continue at locations in Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa, San Juan, and St. Croix, U.S.V.I.\nAbout Silver Airways\nSilver Airways is proud to be Florida’s First Airline. As the first commercial carrier founded in Florida and still operating today, Silver has the most routes within Florida and between Florida and the Bahamas from its hubs in Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, and Tampa. Silver is a codeshare partner with United, JetBlue, and Avianca, and has interline agreements with American, Delta, Air Canada, Alaska Airlines, All Nippon Airways, Bahamasair, Hahn Air, and Azul. Silver operates a fleet of highly-reliable Saab 340 aircraft, and starting in 2018, Silver is renewing and expanding its fleet with up to 50 new eco-friendly ATR-600s. Silver is honored to be the North American launch customer for the all new, redesigned ATR-600 offering best-in-class quiet cabins, premium leather seats with more legroom, and spacious overhead bins that accommodate full-size, carry-on roller bags. Silver is owned by affiliates of Philadelphia-based investment firm Versa Capital Management, LLC. To learn more about the refined passenger experience coming soon to Silver, visit www.silverairways.com/destinations/atr42.\nAbout Seaborne\nSeaborne Airlines, the largest Caribbean based regional airline for over 25 years, operates iconic de Haviland DHC-Twin Otter seaplanes and an airport-based Saab 340B fleet that services the beautiful islands throughout the Caribbean. Seaborne is a codeshare partner with American, Delta, JetBlue, and Vieques Airlink, and has interline agreements with United and Hahn Air. With over 1,500 monthly departures to 12 airports, Seaborne serves San Juan’s Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport, St. Thomas airport and seaplane base, St. Croix airport and seaplane base, Anguilla, Antigua, Dominica, Saint Maarten, St. Kitts, Tortola, and Nevis. Find information on Seaborne at: www.seaborneairlines.com.\nView source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180423005900/en/\nCONTACT: Silver Airways\nMedia Contact:\nMisty Stoller, 954-292-8169\[email protected]\nKEYWORD: UNITED STATES BAHAMAS NORTH AMERICA CARIBBEAN FLORIDA PUERTO RICO\nINDUSTRY KEYWORD: TRANSPORT AIR TRAVEL VACATION TRANSPORTATION OTHER TRAVEL\nSOURCE: Silver Airways\nCopyright Business Wire 2018.\nPUB: 04/23/2018 10:45 AM/DISC: 04/23/2018 10:45 AM\nhttp://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180423005900/en" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union's foreign policy chief says the EU is reluctant to change the landmark nuclear agreement with Iran even as U.S. President Donald Trump threatens to walk away from the pact.\nFederica Mogherini said Monday after chairing talks among the foreign ministers of EU countries that Europeans \"attach strategic importance to the full implementation of the agreement by all parties.\"\nMogherini said: \"It is for us a matter of security, for Europe and for the rest of the world.\"\nThe EU's representative for foreign affairs and security policy says the pact, \"if disrupted, would create an additional security threat and concern in the region.\"\nMogherini says the EU hopes to dissuade Iran from developing missiles or undermining regional security, but that work must happen \"outside the scope of the nuclear agreement.\"" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Asian markets were mixed on Thursday with Tokyo stocks higher as the yen weakened against the U.S. dollar. Chinese markets declined after the U.S. Federal Reserve left its benchmark interest rate unchanged.\nKEEPING SCORE: Japan's Nikkei 225 jumped 1.7 percent to 23,486.11 and South Korea's Kospi added 0.1 percent to 2,568.54. But Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 0.4 percent to 32,750.18 and China's Shanghai Composite Index lost 1 percent to 3,445.73. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.9 percent to 6,090/10. Stocks in Southeast Asia were higher.\nANALYST'S TAKE: \"Fed Chair Janet Yellen's last meeting prior to stepping down saw the Fed reinforcing their positive outlook over both the economy and inflation while unanimously voting to keep rates unchanged,\" Jingyi Pan, a market strategist at IG in Singapore, said in a daily commentary.\nFED RATE: The Fed kept its key rate in a still-low range of 1.25 percent to 1.5 percent and said in a statement that it expects inflation to finally pick up this year, stabilizing around the Fed's target level of 2 percent. The Fed also indicated that it thinks the job market and the overall economy are continuing to improve.\nWALL STREET: On Wednesday, U.S. stocks finished with marginal gains, ending a two-day losing streak. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 0.1 percent to 2,823.81. The Dow Jones industrial average added 0.3 percent to 26,149.39. The Nasdaq composite climbed 0.1 percent to 7,411.48. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks gave up 0.5 percent, to 1,574.98.\nOIL: Benchmark U.S. crude rose 1 cent to $64.74 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract gained 23 cents to settle at $64.73 per barrel on Wednesday. Brent crude, used to price international oils, added 6 cents to $68.95 per barrel in London.\nCURRENCIES: The dollar rose to 109.58 yen from 109.20 yen. The euro fell to $1.239 from $1.2411." ], "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 Minnesota 50 27 18 5 59 147 142 Los Angeles 50 27 18 5 59 142 121 Anaheim 51 25 17 9 59 144 142 Calgary 50 25 17 8 58 139 139 Colorado 48 27 18 3 57 157 139 Chicago 50 24 19 7 55 148 137 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\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\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": [ "JERUSALEM (AP) — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has received a lifetime achievement award from a prominent Jewish organization.\nGinsburg cited Holocaust diarist Anne Frank among others in a speech at Wednesday's ceremony in Tel Aviv that touched on her fight for women's rights and quoted from Jewish traditions and history.\nGinsburg, 85, has served on the Supreme Court since 1993. She is just the second female justice and often cites her Jewish heritage as a source for her love of learning and sensitivity to the plight of oppressed minorities.\nThe Genesis Prize Foundation noted Ginsburg's \"groundbreaking legal work in the field of civil liberties and women's rights\" when it announced the winner in November. The foundation sponsors the annual Genesis Prize — an award informally known as the Jewish Nobel." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "LONDON (AP) — James DeGale announced Wednesday that he has vacated his IBF super middleweight title.\n\"I have relinquished my IBF title as I look to secure big fights in the final chapter of my career,\" the 32-year-old DeGale wrote on Twitter.\n\"This is the final phase of my career where I want to be involved in the biggest fights possible. My team have been working very hard behind the scenes and we've got some exciting news to announce soon.\"\nDeGale became the first British Olympic gold medalist to win a professional world title when in 2015 he outpointed Andre Dirrell in Boston.\nHe has since defended it largely on American soil, including drawing a unification fight with Badou Jack and reclaiming his title following an unexpected defeat by Caleb Truax in London, but is expected to conclude his career in Britain." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "U.S. homebuilders are feeling a bit less confident this month, reflecting a dimmer outlook on sales in the months ahead and fewer would-be buyers dropping by builders' sales offices.\nThe National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index released Wednesday fell to 65 this month. That's down two points from a revised reading of 67 in January.\nReadings above 50 indicate more builders view sales conditions as good rather than poor. The index has been above 60 since September and reached the highest level in 11 years in December.\nThe February number falls shy of analyst predictions. They expected the index to hit 68, according to FactSet.\nBuilders' view of sales now and over the next six months also fell, as did a gauge of traffic by prospective buyers." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "AMES, Iowa (AP) — Donovan Jackson scored 25 points, Lindell Wigginton added 22 and Iowa State upset 15th-ranked West Virginia 93-77 on Wednesday night, sending the short-handed Mountaineers to their fifth loss in six games.\nCameron Lard scored 18 points with 13 rebounds for the Cyclones (12-9, 3-6 Big 12). They took advantage of the absence of West Virginia's Daxter Miles Jr. (illness) by handing the Mountaineers (16-6, 5-4) their biggest defeat since a 23-point blowout at the hands of Texas A&M in the opener.\nThe Cyclones had West Virginia playing catch-up from the opening tip.\nThe Mountaineers caught them just once — but were never able to overtake them.\nWest Virginia fell behind 25-11 after allowing Iowa State to hit 10 of its first 13 shots. The Mountaineers rallied with an 18-4 run, but the Cyclones answered with a 24-11 spurt and went back ahead 53-40.\nIowa State continued its torrid shooting in the second half. Jackson's fifth 3 gave it a 74-60 lead, and Wigginton's drive at the end of the shot clock made it 84-70 with 4:38 left.\nThe Cyclones committed just eight turnovers against the league's leader in turnover margin despite missing point guard Nick Weiler-Babb to knee tendinitis.\nJevon Carter scored 18 points and Esa Ahmad and Sagaba Konate each had 17 for West Virginia.\nTHE BIG PICTURE\nWest Virginia: The Mountaineers aren't exactly in a tailspin, considering its previous four losses came against No. 10 Texas Tech, No. 7 Kansas, TCU and No. 21 Kentucky. But the fact that the Cyclones had no problem breaking their vaunted press without Weiler-Babb in the lineup is a bad sign heading into February. West Virginia clearly missed Miles, who is second on the team with 12.8 points a game.\nIowa State: Coach Steve Prohm had to be encouraged by his team's effort after a 68-45 home loss to Tennessee that left he and his players calling the Cyclones \"soft\" more than once. Iowa State showed resolve against a team that had won four of the previous five meetings in the series.\nPOLL IMPLICATIONS\nIf West Virginia can't beat Kansas State on Saturday, it might find itself on the outside looking in on Monday.\nUP NEXT\nWest Virginia: hosts the Wildcats on Saturday.\nIowa State: plays at Baylor on Saturday.\n___\nMore AP college basketball: http://collegebasketball.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP_Top25" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — Central Bank employees will count about 30 tons of Venezuelan currency seized in a private house in Paraguay, while officials try to figure out why the vast quantity of 50- and 100-bolivar bills was brought into the country.\nThe cash was discovered in Salto del Guaira, a city about 370 kilometers (230 miles) northeast of the capital of Asuncion, on the border with Brazil in a region known for the contraband trade.\nParaguayan officials said they are trying to determine whether the money was brought into the country legally. The only person detained so far is Leandro Da Costa, owner of the house where the money was found.\nProsecutor Julio Yegros told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the quantity of bills was too big for the people in his office to count it manually, so he asked for help from the Central Bank, which has the \"respective machinery.\"\n\"The counting should begin in the coming days,\" he said.\nYegros said Da Costa has told authorities the money was bought to his house by a friend of his son.\n\"There are many rumors in Salto del Guaira,\" Yegros said. \"One is that the bills have no value as money because, supposedly, they were pulled from circulation by the Venezuelan government in January.\"\nAnother rumor is that the bills' paper is of high quality, meaning it could be reused for legal or illegal purposes.\nCurrency-quality paper is needed for counterfeiting, though authorities did not specifically mention this as a possible use for the bills.\nIn December, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced that his country's popular 100-bolivar banknote would be pulled from circulation and replaced with a higher-denomination bill. But he later extended use of the denomination when the replacement note wasn't ready and people left without currency looted stores.\nIn January, the new bills ranging from 500 to 20,000 bolivars were put in circulation and there is Feb. 20 deadline for the 100-bolivar notes to remain legal tender." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The fourth nor'easter in three weeks is set to smack the East Coast on the first day of spring.\nThe National Weather Service says the bulk of the dangerous, wind-driven snow and sleet is expected to wallop New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and parts of eastern Pennsylvania before heading off to Nantucket early Thursday.\nSleet and freezing rain are expected on Tuesday afternoon, the first day of spring. On Wednesday, about 6 to 9 inches of snow is expected, with some areas getting nearly a foot.\nBrian Hurley is the senior forecaster at the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center. He says four nor'easters in three weeks is highly unusual, but it happens when a weather pattern locks in." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "FREMONT, Neb. (AP) — Welina Tong tried wrestling for the first time six years ago and loved the sport so much she was willing to move 4,000 miles from her home in Hawaii to the snowy plains of Nebraska to compete.\nShe's not alone. She and two other women from the Aloha State are competing this season for Midland University, a 1,400-student private school that is among three dozen small four-year or junior colleges sponsoring varsity women's wrestling programs.\nTong got into the sport quite by accident. She was late for the first day of varsity basketball tryouts her junior year in high school and afraid of facing repercussions from the coach. On her way to the gym she bumped into a friend who persuaded her to try out for wrestling instead. The next year Tong won the state championship at 175 pounds, and Midland assistant coach Antonio Barber was on the phone trying to recruit her.\nNow a senior, Tong was one of the first in a line of wrestlers to go to Midland from the private Kamehameha Schools system, which has high school campuses on three Hawaiian islands. Call it the \"Wahine Wrestling Pipeline.\"\nA self-described homebody, Tong was hesitant to leave Hilo. But Barber's pitch was convincing, and she was comforted knowing there was a close-knit group of about a dozen athletes from Hawaii already at Midland.\nBack home, her friends were a bit confused. For her high school graduation, they made a banner that said, \"Good Luck Wrestling in Alaska!\"\n\"An iffy part for me was coming to the mainland for school. That's a big culture shock,\" Tong said. \"I talked to my high school coach, and he said it doesn't matter where you go to college on the mainland. The fact you cross the Pacific Ocean is a huge separation, so what's the difference if you wrestle in Nebraska or just go to school in California?\"\nThere has been a world championship in women's wrestling since 1989, and it became an Olympic sport in 2004. Participation in girls high school wrestling nationally has nearly doubled in the last five years, to more than 14,500. Hawaii in 1998 became the first state to have a sanctioned girls high school championship, and five other states have followed suit. The advocacy organization Wrestle Like A Girl is campaigning for the remaining 44 states to sanction championships.\nWomen's wrestling is also on track to gain greater recognition at the college level.\nA proposal, supported by coach Tom Brands of men's wrestling powerhouse Iowa, was submitted in August to give women's wrestling \"emerging sport\" status in the NCAA. A vote could be taken in January 2019, NCAA spokeswoman Gail Dent said. If approved, at least 40 schools would have to sponsor women's wrestling within 10 years for it to become an NCAA championship sport.\nWomen's wrestling already is an emerging sport in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, where Midland is among 19 schools offering it. Once that number hits 25 and certain benchmarks regarding rules and athlete eligibility are met, the NAIA would sponsor a national invitational competition. That would be a precursor to championship status once there are 40 schools.\nThis year, two NAIA conferences held championships for the first time, and the Women's Collegiate Wrestling Association will host its national tournament Feb. 9-10 in Oklahoma City.\nLeilani Camargo-Naone represents Midland's best chance for a national title. The sophomore from Wai'anae, on the west side of Oahu, is ranked No. 4 in the nation at 191 pounds and was the only Midland wrestler to win a conference championship. She's 61-9 with 40 pins in her career.\nCamargo-Naone said she initially thought softball was going to be her ticket to college. She lost interest in that sport just as she was starting to excel at wrestling. She was offered a scholarship by women's wrestling power Menlo College in California after she won the 184-pound state title in 2016, but she accepted a Midland offer because high school teammate Erin Scheidt and other wrestlers she knows were at the campus some 30 miles west of Omaha.\n\"They had corn and cold winters,\" she said. \"That's all I knew.\"\nBarber is the connection between Midland and the Kamehameha Schools. He previously coached men's wrestling at the now-closed Dana College in Nebraska. A number of Dana wrestlers were from Hawaii, and when those wrestlers returned to Hawaii and started coaching, they maintained ties with Barber.\nBarber works under Dana Vote, the head coach for both the men's and women's programs, but has been in charge of the day-to-day operation of the women's team since 2013. Barber said about 15 women from Hawaii have wrestled at Midland since the program started in 2011, with as many as six on the team at one time. This year's team has 15 wrestlers in all.\nScheidt, who was Camargo-Naone's Kamehameha teammate, ended up at Midland after taking a year off from wrestling. She attended a community college and helped coach at her high school before realizing she missed the competition.\nShe called Barber, who found a spot on the team for her. Friends wondered why she would want to leave Hawaii to go to Nebraska.\n\"When you're stuck on an island so long, it's kind of claustrophobic, and you want to get out and explore stuff,\" she said.\nScheidt, a junior, is 57-28 at Midland with one of her 19 pins coming last year against current U.S. national team member Brittany Marshall of Wayland Baptist. She was ranked as high as No. 7 nationally at 155 pounds this season and hopes to earn All-America status at the WCWA tournament.\n\"I love this sport, but it's more of a tool to do better in life,\" Scheidt said. \"I'm in the nursing program here, so without wrestling I wouldn't be able to go to school. Without wrestling I wouldn't be who I am.\"" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia set to expand Medicaid after state Senate gives approval, ending yearslong partisan battle." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "NEW YORK (AP) — Giancarlo Stanton hit a three-run homer, CC Sabathia pitched six effective innings, and the New York Yankees beat the Atlanta Braves 6-2 on Wednesday.\nAaron Judge added his 24th homer of the season in the seventh inning. He's now homered in three of his past four games.\nRookie second baseman Gleyber Torres left the game in the top of the fifth inning because of tightness in his right hip and will be placed on the 10-day disabled list with a right hip strain.\nCatcher Kyle Higashioka also homered for the Yankees, becoming the ninth player since 1920 whose first three hits were home runs. Colorado's Trevor Story homered for his first four big league hits on April 4-6, 2016.\nSabathia (6-3) worked out of a couple of jams for the Yankees, who have won six of their past eight after getting swept in three games at Tampa last weekend.\nNational League East-leading Atlanta loaded the bases with two outs in the first, but the 37-year-old struck out 20-year-old phenom Ronald Acuna Jr. on an 88 mph cutter.\nThe Braves have lost their past two games.\nNew York took a 1-0 lead in the second inning on Greg Bird's RBI single off Atlanta starter Julio Teheran (6-6), who lasted just five innings, allowing five hits and five runs. He walked four and struck out 10.\nThe Yankees got to Teheran again in the third.\nWith a runner on first and two outs, Aaron Hicks walked. Stanton then fell behind 0-2 before hitting a line drive to the right field bleachers for his 21st homer of the season to make it 4-0.\nAfter retiring the first two batters in the fourth, Teheran fell behind 2-0 against Higashioka before the 30-year-old rookie connected to the left field stands, extending the lead to 5-0.\nThe Braves cut the deficit to 5-1 on an RBI grounder from Danny Santana with one out in the fifth. Johan Camargo hit his ninth home run of the season with two outs in the sixth that made it 5-2. But Sabathia limited the damage by retiring Dansby Swanson on a grounder to second with a runner aboard.\nAtlanta failed to take advantage in the seventh inning against reliever Chad Green when its first two batters reached on a pair of singles. Green then got three fly outs to end the threat.\nPUT ME IN COACH\nWith New York set to play 11 games in 10 days, beginning Friday at Toronto, Yankees manager Aaron Boone said he wanted to be \"greedy\" with Thursday being their only day off, and held Austin Romine out of the starting lineup for the fourth consecutive day. Higashioka started for the fourth straight time behind the plate.\nThe Yankees have been short-handed at catcher since Romine left the game on June 29 against Boston in the seventh inning because of a tight left hamstring. Gary Sanchez has been on the 10-day disabled list since June 25 because of a strained right groin.\nGET OUT AND VOTE\nNew York has one of the best records in baseball but it only has one player, Aaron Judge, among the eight leading vote getters on the American League squad for the All-Star Game that will be played July 17 at Washington. The starters for the Midsummer Classic will be revealed on Sunday.\nBoone believes that Judge, the 2017 Home Run Derby champion, will have company to make the trip to the nation's capital.\n\"I mean you look around the league — and I haven't looked at the voting lately — but we were actually talking about guys that might make off our team or guys that are certainly on that conversation and we have a number of those players,\" Boone said. \"Hopefully we'll be well represented. We certainly have deserving guys.\"\nTRAINER'S ROOM\nBraves: 1B Freddie Freeman, who was hit by a pitch in the third inning, left the game after the fourth because of a contusion in his right upper arm.\nWELCOME BACK\nLHP Luiz Gohara, the No. 3 prospect in the Atlanta organization, arrived about 90 minutes before the first pitch after he was called up from Triple-A Gwinnett for the second time this season. RHP Evan Phillips, who threw 2 1/3 innings Tuesday night, was sent down to Triple-A.\nUP NEXT\nBraves: Max Fried (1-2, 2.55 ERA) starts the opener of a four-game series at NL Central-leading Milwaukee on Thursday. Fried struck out 11 over 6 2/3 scoreless innings in his previous start against St. Louis.\nYankees: Sonny Gray (5-6, 5.44) gets the nod for the first of three games at Toronto as New York heads out on an 11-game, three city trip. Gray has lost his past two starts, giving up 10 runs and 13 hits in nine innings.\n___\nMore AP baseball: https://apnews.com/tag/MLBbaseball" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (AP) — Fox and the NFL have agreed to a five-year deal for Thursday night football games.\nThose games previously were televised by CBS and NBC, two of the league's other network partners. But Fox announced Wednesday that it will televise 11 games between Weeks 4 and 15, with simulcasts on NFL Network and Fox Deportes.\nFox, which has the Sunday afternoon NFC package, will produce all of the games.\n___\nFor more NFL coverage: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — As Alabama votes to fill the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the choice between Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones has taken on outsized significance. Moore has faced allegations of sexual misconduct with teenagers, dividing the GOP and giving Democrats hope of picking up a seat in a reliably red state. Here is what to look for in Tuesday night's results:\nWHAT IS THE TRUMP DRAW?\nAlabama has once already proven the bounds of President Donald Trump's political influence. He endorsed Moore's GOP rival, Sen. Luther Strange, in the September primary, campaigning for him in Alabama hours before he was trounced by the state's conservative voters. Now Trump has wagered a greater sum on Moore's candidacy. The president resisted calls from his party's senior leadership to abandon Moore after the sexual misconduct allegations surfaced. He directed the Republican National Committee to re-enter the race on Moore's behalf, repeatedly attacked Jones, and recorded last-minute robo-calls on the Republican's behalf. A GOP defeat in the deep-red state would speak to the limits of Trump's ability to sway and motivate Republican voters.\nWILL DEMOCRATIC TURNOUT EFFORTS PAY OFF?\nIn recent days, Democrats have pulled out the stops for Jones, including recorded calls from former President Barack Obama and visits from high-profile surrogates. They're trying to boost turnout among those most likely to be aggravated by Moore's controversial past, including black voters, and make inroads with suburban women_who proved to be pivotal to Democratic victories last month. Strong turnout and Democratic gains on both those fronts could point to trouble for Moore, and for the GOP going into next year.\nWILL DEMOCRATS END THEIR SPECIAL ELECTION BAD LUCK?\nDespite a ripe political climate, high-profile coverage, and huge injections of cash, Democrats are winless in five contests for vacant Republican congressional seats this year. All have been held in reliably Republican strongholds, but the defeats have still taken their toll on a party in a struggle for its identity. Wins in Virginia, New Jersey, and Maine in the November off-year election have provided some sorely-needed optimism for the 2018 midterms, and a Senate seat pick-up in Alabama would add pep to the party's step.\nHOW WILL IT AFFECT RETIREMENTS?\nSensing a difficult midterm election looming, 16 Republican members of the House and two in the Senate have already announced they will not run again next year. The retirement gap_only six Democrats in the House and one in the Senate have said they won't run_can be an early indicator of what's to come in a midterm election. (A more even split of retirements exists for lawmakers retiring from Congress to seek other office.) Republican leaders are anticipating more retirements on their side from lawmakers in competitive seats where members are facing challenging and expensive contests. A Democratic victory statewide in Alabama could foretell a dire year ahead for Republicans, which could send more Republicans to announce their departures on their own terms.\nWAS MOORE WORTH IT?\nThe Republican Party's decision to maintain support for Roy Moore stands to be a defining choice for years to come. The party chose to embrace a one-time pariah for reasons of political expediency, and then doubled-down in the face of troubling allegations of sexual assault and harassment. For the president, it's a matter of practicality_a loss would narrow the GOP's thin majority in the Senate even further at a time when his agenda faces critical tests. But other Republicans worry it's a short-term ploy that has sacrificed their moral authority and that may come back to haunt them in the coming year. Republican lawmakers have spent the past months struggling to answer questions about Moore and his long history of divisive comments, and should he win, his presence will loom large in the Capitol and on the campaign trail. If Moore keeps the Senate seat in Republican hands, it may justify the backlash for some GOP officials. If he loses, the GOP has stuck by a candidate despite accusations of sexual impropriety, and who has alienated vast swaths of the electorate, with nothing to show for it." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Concrete barriers and chain-link fencing are going up around the site of the Super Bowl in downtown Minneapolis, where a contingent of local, state and national agencies is working to ensure that the game and dozens of related events are safe.\nThe downtown location of the Feb. 4 title game has presented challenges for authorities, who have had to get creative as they carved a secure perimeter around businesses and a major hospital near U.S. Bank Stadium. But it's not the first time the Super Bowl has dealt with the challenges of a city center, and authorities who have spent roughly two years thinking about every possible scenario say they are prepared.\n\"We're ready for anything that may come our way,\" Minneapolis Police Commander Scott Gerlicher said. \"It's about not just feeling safe, but making sure people are in fact safe.\"\nGerlicher, whose department is overseeing security, said this Super Bowl will have the largest deployment of federal resources yet. That's because Minneapolis has a relatively small department — less than 900 officers compared with the roughly 5,000 in Houston, where last year's game was held — and needed more personnel.\nDozens of other cities are sending officers too, and the Minnesota National Guard has been activated. An additional 10,000 volunteers are being trained to spot suspicious activity.\nVisitors can expect to see increased police patrols, bomb-sniffing dogs, helicopters, officers in tactical gear, and that chain-link and concrete fence around U.S. Bank Stadium.\nPlenty of technology such as motion detectors, closed-circuit cameras and air particle sensors will be operating behind the scenes. Giant machines are being used to scan shipments to the stadium. Extra security cameras will be sprinkled around the city, and NFL-sanctioned events will have metal detectors. Teams will be in place to react to whatever comes up.\n\"Our efforts are to make sure that it's a warm and inviting atmosphere. But make no mistake about it — there are tons of watchful eyes from the law enforcement and public safety sectors,\" said Alex Khu, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Minnesota and the federal coordinator for this year's Super Bowl.\nBecause of the dense area around the stadium, some security screening will be happening off-site. They also had to figure out how to secure Super Bowl Live, a largely free-flowing, 10-day outdoor event that's open to the public. Meanwhile, some events are being held in nearby St. Paul and at the Mall of America in Bloomington, while team hotels, practice facilities — and transportation to and from — also must be secured.\nJeffrey Miller, former senior vice president and chief security officer for the NFL, said each host city faces different challenges. In Minneapolis, perhaps the biggest is the weather. He said security staff may need to be doubled or tripled to keep people from being exposed to dangerous elements for a prolonged time.\n\"That's a challenge, and it's a costly one you don't have if playing in San Diego,\" he said.\nMiller said setting up a perimeter around a downtown venue is more difficult than setting one up around a stadium surrounded by parking lots. Architects, engineers and other experts are part of the planning. For fans, he said, there are advantages to being downtown and close to the action.\n\"The NFL is really good at trying to balance security needs with the fan engagement part of the equation,\" he said.\nMiller said officials also have to take into account recent world events — meaning the possibility of a terror attack.\nJoe Rivers, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI in Minneapolis, said a threat assessment for the game has included analyzing attacks around the world. He cited the May bombing of an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, the Oct. 1 shooting at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas and the Oct. 31 vehicle attack on a New York City bike path. Without providing detail, Rivers said authorities used those attacks to shape their plans.\nLocal history must also be considered. Minneapolis has seen dozens of young men travel to Somalia or Syria to join extremist groups over the past decade. There also has been a stabbing attack at a central Minnesota mall and a more recent bombing of a local mosque.\n\"It's impossible for us to ignore the historical cases that we've had here and the type of threats ... that we've addressed,\" Rivers said.\nHe said there is no credible threat to the Super Bowl, and authorities are continuing to gather intelligence. Rivers said his main concerns are low-tech threats, such as someone driving a vehicle into or firing a weapon at a crowd.\n\"Not to alarm anyone, but it's not hard to come by weapons in this country and with where our venues are located and things like that, there's no way we can possibly secure every single floor of every single building that can see a venue or can overlook a crowd, so those are concerns, yes,\" he said.\nFans attending Super Bowl events can help by staying vigilant. In addition to calling 911, people who see something suspicious can call 1-800-CALL-FBI. In the event of something like the Boston Marathon bombing, the FBI has created a website where witnesses can upload videos and photos so the FBI can gather evidence quickly.\n\"Obviously, the best case scenario is that we hope that we do all of this ... and no one never even realizes all the legwork that went into it on the front end,\" Rivers said. \"They just show up, have a good time, and leave and go home.\"\n___\nFollow Amy Forliti at http://twitter.com/amyforliti More of her work at: https://apnews.com/search/amy%20forliti" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "LOS ANGELES (AP) — In another newsroom shake-up at the Los Angeles Times, veteran Chicago journalist Jim Kirk was named editor in chief Monday to replace Lewis D'Vorkin, whose short tenure was marked by clashes with staff.\nKirk, 52, became the third top editor at the Times in less than six months. He had briefly served in the job on an interim basis during a management overhaul from August until November, when D'Vorkin joined the paper.\nKirk previously worked at the Chicago Tribune, Bloomberg News and Adweek.\nHe became publisher and editor of the Chicago Sun-Times after it was purchased in 2012 by Michael Ferro, who is now chairman of Tronc, Inc., the Los Angeles Times' parent company.\nKirk took the job at the Los Angeles Times just two weeks after being named interim editor of the New York Daily News. That job has now gone to Jim Rich, who will return to the paper after a stint with the Huffington Post.\nReporters at the Times have become alarmed by recent hiring of several news executives who reported to business executives — not to editors in the newsroom.\nThose hires sparked fears that the business side would wield undue influence in editorial matters. Traditionally, the editorial and business sides of a paper work separately to maintain journalistic credibility.\nEarlier this month, journalists at the Times voted to unionize for the first time in the paper's 136-year history.\nD'Vorkin, 65, will move into a new job as chief content officer for Tronc, developing content for digital and mobile consumers, according to company spokeswoman Marisa Kollias. He was chief product officer at Forbes until October.\n\"We are continuing to invest in high-quality journalism, which will always be the company's top priority,\" Justin Dearborn, Tronc's chief executive, said in a statement,\nKirk will report to Tronc President Tim Knight.\nThe Times has seen years of staff cutbacks and management changes. D'Vorkin's nearly three-month tenure as editor was marked by two combative newsroom-wide staff meetings.\nReporters and editors expressed concern that Tronc was building a shadow newsroom to blur the lines between news and advertising and boost revenue. Editors and reporters asked questions about the business-side operation, but D'Vorkin and other Tronc executives declined to discuss their plans.\n\"The Los Angeles Times Guild would like to congratulate Jim Kirk on being named the next editor in chief of the Los Angeles Times,\" the steering committee said in a statement. \"We also look forward to working together in the future as one team — and we look forward to hearing his plans for the paper.\"\nJust 10 days ago, Times' publisher Ross Levinsohn was placed on unpaid leave following revelations that he had been a defendant in two sexual harassment lawsuits while he worked at other media companies.\nTronc has hired a law firm to investigate the allegations against Levinsohn made in a detailed report by National Public Radio. The probe is ongoing." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "All Times EST EASTERN CONFERENCE GP W L OT Pts GF GA Home Away Div Tampa Bay 50 34 13 3 71 176 128 17-5-1 17-8-2 9-3-1 Boston 48 29 11 8 66 157 119 16-6-4 13-5-4 10-1-2 Washington 49 29 15 5 63 150 138 18-7-1 11-8-4 8-4-3 Toronto 51 28 18 5 61 162 146 13-8-2 15-10-3 6-4-1 Pittsburgh 52 28 21 3 59 156 155 18-7-1 10-14-2 10-4-0 New Jersey 49 25 16 8 58 147 147 13-8-3 12-8-5 5-6-1 Columbus 50 27 19 4 58 133 140 16-8-1 11-11-3 8-5-2 Philadelphia 49 24 17 8 56 141 141 13-9-4 11-8-4 5-2-4 N.Y. Rangers 50 25 20 5 55 153 151 17-8-3 8-12-2 7-6-3 N.Y. Islanders 51 25 21 5 55 173 184 13-8-3 12-13-2 7-7-1 Carolina 50 23 19 8 54 139 155 11-7-4 12-12-4 6-5-3 Florida 48 20 22 6 46 136 159 11-8-3 9-14-3 6-4-1 Detroit 48 19 21 8 46 126 146 10-10-7 9-11-1 6-9-2 Montreal 50 20 24 6 46 130 159 12-10-5 8-14-1 9-6-2 Ottawa 48 15 24 9 39 125 168 9-11-5 6-13-4 5-8-3 Buffalo 50 14 27 9 37 115 166 6-13-3 8-14-6 3-5-2 WESTERN CONFERENCE GP W L OT Pts GF GA Home Away Div Vegas 49 33 12 4 70 168 130 19-3-2 14-9-2 12-1-1 Winnipeg 51 30 13 8 68 167 137 18-3-1 12-10-7 7-5-2 Nashville 48 29 12 7 65 146 125 16-5-3 13-7-4 10-4-2 St. Louis 52 31 18 3 65 151 131 18-10-0 13-8-3 7-4-1 Dallas 51 28 19 4 60 155 137 17-8-1 11-11-3 7-10-0 San Jose 49 26 16 7 59 145 138 14-7-3 12-9-4 12-2-3 Los Angeles 50 27 18 5 59 142 121 12-9-3 15-9-2 6-9-3 Minnesota 50 27 18 5 59 147 142 17-4-4 10-14-1 8-8-0 Anaheim 51 25 17 9 59 144 142 14-9-3 11-8-6 8-5-5 Calgary 50 25 17 8 58 139 139 12-12-3 13-5-5 8-6-3 Colorado 48 27 18 3 57 157 139 18-7-1 9-11-2 7-6-1 Chicago 50 24 19 7 55 148 137 12-10-3 12-9-4 6-7-2 Edmonton 49 22 24 3 47 135 157 11-13-1 11-11-2 10-2-0 Vancouver 49 19 24 6 44 127 159 8-13-3 11-11-3 5-9-1 Arizona 50 12 29 9 33 118 172 6-15-3 6-14-6 1-7-5\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\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": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI says it has \"grave concerns\" about accuracy of classified memo from Republicans on House intel committee." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 24, 2018--Global procurement intelligence advisory firm, , has announced the release of their ‘ . ’ The insights and data in this report provide a strategic analysis of the supply markets, factors influencing purchasing decisions, procurement best practices, pricing models, supplier landscape, and an analysis of the supplier capability matrix for the . This report breaks down the data and analysis behind the procurement of PET packaging and acts as an all-inclusive guide for making smart purchasing decisions.\nThis press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180424006191/en/\nPET Packaging Procurement Report (Graphic: Business Wire)\n“The global PET packaging market is experiencing a promising growth, owing to the demand from end-user industries such as F&B,” says SpendEdge procurement analyst Bhuvaneshwari Udayakumar. “Also, APAC has some of the most populated countries which creates a growing demand for packaged products,” added Bhuvaneshwari.\nLooking for more insights from this report?\nSpendEdge sample reports are free of charge and provide insights that focus on cost-saving aspects of procurement and optimization of category spend.\nProcurement analysts at SpendEdge highlight the following top three market trends that are contributing to the growth of the Global PET Packaging Market:\nReduction in weight of PET containers Advent of small- volume SKUs Impact of circular economy on PET industry\nThis report is available at USD 1000 discount for a limited time only:\nReduction in weight of PET containers\nIn the PET packaging category, the suppliers are planning to reduce the materials in the packaging techniques to achieve material efficiency and further minimize the weight of PET containers. This provides the room for a large shipment as the weight of the packaging reduces.\nAdvent of small- volume SKUs\nIn the recent years, there is a growing trend of miniaturization of the liquid PET packaging segment. This helps the suppliers provide larger customer reach for buyers, as they can target individual customers.\nImpact of circular economy on PET industry\nPET packaging is completely recyclable and provides the room for reducing environmental impacts. The suppliers also provide sustainability in the supply of raw materials and reduces production costs.\nto gain detailed insights into the current market trends.\nGet unlimited access to all our reports. Our Insights platform provides ready-to-use procurement research reports, latest supplier news, innovation landscape, markets insights, supplier tracking, and much more at the click of a button.\nWe also reports to meet clients’ requirements.\nRelated Reports:\nAbout SpendEdge\nSpendEdge shares your passion for driving sourcing and procurement excellence. We are a preferred procurement market intelligence partner for Fortune 500 firms and other leading companies across numerous industries. Our strength lies in delivering robust, real-time procurement market intelligence that helps sourcing and procurement professionals make informed decisions. These innovative procurement solutions help enterprises transform structural capabilities, improve execution efficiency, and fast-track time to savings.\nView source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180424006191/en/\nCONTACT: SpendEdge\nAnirban Choudhury\nMarketing Consultant\nUS: +1 630 984 7340\[email protected]\nKEYWORD:\nINDUSTRY KEYWORD: MANUFACTURING CHEMICALS/PLASTICS PACKAGING\nSOURCE: SpendEdge\nCopyright Business Wire 2018.\nPUB: 04/24/2018 03:15 PM/DISC: 04/24/2018 03:15 PM\nhttp://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180424006191/en" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — The creditors of Croatian retail and food company Agrokor have voted to approve a settlement deal that includes giving two Russian banks a more than 46-percent share in the country's biggest firm.\nThe vote by some 450 creditor representatives in favor of the deal was held Wednesday in a sports hall in Zagreb. Some 80 percent voted in favor of the deal that avoids bankruptcy for Agrokor, the largest company in the Balkans with 60,000 employees.\nThe company, which accounts for 15 percent of EU-member Croatia's GDP, collapsed under the weight of 8 billion euros ($9 billion) in debt, including a disputed sum owed to two Russian state-run banks, Sberbank and VTB." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "LOS ANGELES (AP) — Republic Records has put its president on leave after a former employee accused him of sexual harassment in an open letter posted on her website.\nThe company released a statement Wednesday saying Charlie Walk is on leave pending an investigation into recent allegations.\nTristan Coopersmith says Walk regularly made lewd comments to her during the year she worked for him. She also says he put his hand on her thigh and once pushed her onto a bed.\nRepublic Records says it has hired an independent law firm to investigate the matter and encouraged any affected employees to meet with them.\nWalk's status as a cast member on Fox's \"The Four\" remains unclear. The show debuted earlier this month.\nA representative for Walk did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Union official: Gunman in San Francisco UPS warehouse shooting had filed overtime grievance." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "AZRAQ REFUGEE CAMP, Jordan (AP) — International aid groups say about 8,500 Syrians are still locked up behind barbed wire in a no-go section of Jordan's second-largest refugee camp, despite initial assurances in 2016 the arrangement is temporary.\nThe Jordan INGO Forum, an alliance of 60 groups, asked Jordan to expedite security screenings of those held in Azraq camp's \"Village 5,\" saying that at the current pace this would take until October 2020.\nThe alliance asked Jordan in a recent report to lift movement restrictions on Syrians in camps.\nCoordinator Yannick Martin said on Tuesday that Jordan has done much to host Syrian refugees, but that \"a frank dialogue needs to take place\" on movement restrictions.\nJordan says its security is paramount, that it shoulders a heavy refugee burden and that its security vetting is exemplary." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian speedskater says she's refusing her place at the Winter Olympics after several teammates weren't invited.\nOlga Graf, a double bronze medalist from the 2014 Games in Sochi, had targeted a medal in the team pursuit race in Pyeongchang next month, but says that's no longer possible after teammates were excluded. She now says she won't race in any events.\nIn a statement on social media, Graf says \"all my hopes to compete for the Olympic podium are fated not to be realized because sport has become a bargaining chip in filthy political games.\"\nGraf is the first Russian to refuse an IOC invitation. That means there are now 168 \"Olympic Athletes from Russia,\" who must compete under a neutral flag due to IOC sanctions for doping at the Sochi Olympics." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — Greece's prime minister has hosted a regional summit of four Balkan countries in the northern city of Thessaloniki, amid peaceful protests against a deal for neighboring Macedonia to change its name.\nAlexis Tsipras met Wednesday with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, and the prime ministers of Romania and Bulgaria, Viorica Dancila and Boyko Borissov.\nTalks focused on energy and local road and rail transport networks, which, Tsipras said, together with harbor projects in the Aegean and the Black Sea, would help sea-borne trade bypass the congested Bosporus Straits in Turkey.\nSeveral hundred Greeks who oppose the country's deal for Macedonia to be renamed \"North Macedonia,\" which is set to end a 27-year dispute, tried to reach the meeting venue but were prevented by robust police forces.\nNo clashes were reported." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "NEW YORK (AP) — A reputed Philadelphia mob boss known for beating murder raps, surviving attempts on his life and reinventing himself as a restaurateur is back in court facing federal fraud charges.\nOpening statements in the trial of Joseph \"Skinny Joey\" Merlino are set for Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan.\nMerlino, 55, was among nearly four dozen defendants arrested in a 2016 crackdown on an East Coast syndicate that prosecutors say committed crimes including extortion, loan-sharking, casino-style gambling, sports gambling, credit card fraud and health care fraud. It operated in New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Florida and New Jersey.\nMost of the defendants pleaded guilty to lesser charges, with Merlino the only one so far to go to trial. He has pleaded not guilty to charges that he conspired to bill insurers for unnecessary and excessive prescriptions for expensive compound creams in exchange for kickbacks.\nThe government plans to call mob turncoats as witnesses, including an associate with the New York-based Genovese crime family who made secret recordings of conversations with Merlino. The recordings captured him \"supervising a number of individuals, questioning whether certain associates were 'rats,' collecting illegal gambling debt, engaging in a fraud against health insurers and conducting at least one sit-down to resolve a debt,\" court papers say.\nAnother witness is a government agent who served a five-day suspension after being accused of mishandling cooperators and investigative reports in the case, a topic the judge ruled the defense could cover in cross-examination.\nThe trial had originally been scheduled to begin in mid-January but was postponed for two weeks after Merlino, who has been free on $5 million bond and living in Florida, sought treatment for chest pains and shortness of breath.\nThe sharp-dressing Merlino once controlled the remnants of a Philadelphia-south Jersey organized crime family that was decimated by a bloody civil war in the 1980s and 1990s. Federal authorities say he was frequently targeted by murder plots after rivals put a $500,000 murder contract on his head.\nHe became a main suspect in a failed hit on another mob figure on Halloween 1989, but was never charged. He also served time for a $350,000 armored truck heist that same year.\nIn 2001, a jury acquitted Merlino and six co-defendants of three counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder that could have put him in prison for life. He was convicted of lesser racketeering charges and served 12 years in prison before being released in 2011.\nMerlino claimed that he retired from the mob for good by running an upscale Italian restaurant in Boca Raton. The since-closed restaurant was called Merlino's. In a 2013 interview, he said that life in the Mafia wasn't worth the stress of being double-crossed.\n\"Too many rats,\" he said. \"I want no part of that.\"" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WASHINGTON (AP) — White House says President Trump has signed an executive order to keep Guantanamo Bay prison open." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Prosecutors say a former CIA case officer betrayed his country by giving a Chinese spy information about human assets and other top-secret information.\nBut defense lawyers say their client is a loyal American who was merely stringing the Chinese along to try to get them to expose details of their own intelligence operation.\nA jury heard opening statements Wednesday in the trial of Kevin Mallory of Leesburg, who was working as a consultant when he returned from Shanghai with more than $16,000 in undeclared cash.\nDefense attorney Geremy Kamens said Mallory had grown suspicious about a Chinese think tank's job offer and hatched a plan to feed them phony documents. He told people at the CIA, but prosecutors said that was just to cover his tracks." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Latest on a shooting at Tennessee restaurant that left four dead (all times local):\n10:50 a.m.\nA Nashville judge has revoked the bond of a man accused of killing four people at a Waffle House restaurant.\nCourt records show that a judge struck the $2 million bond for Travis Reinking until a hearing can be held Wednesday. The records did not give a reason why General Sessions Judge Michael Mondelli revoked the bond.\nReinking has been charged with four counts of criminal homicide. Police say the 29-year-old man opened fire outside the restaurant with an AR-15 rifle and then stormed the restaurant, wearing only a green jacket. Four other people were injured in the shooting.\nAn attorney listed as Reinking's lawyer did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.\n__\nWithout knowing who he was or what he might do, police briefly had Travis Reinking in their sights days before the deadly assault on a Waffle House restaurant.\nAlerted to the theft of a BMW from a car dealer last week, officers decided against a risky police chase, knowing the car had a GPS device and could soon be located.\nSure enough, the car was recovered the same day, outside Reinking's apartment. But police didn't figure out who stole it until Sunday, after the Waffle House attack. By then, police say, the 29-year-old with a troubled past used an assault weapon — the same AR-15 once taken from him at the FBI's request — to kill four people and wound four others.\nReinking escaped on foot from the restaurant after a quick-thinking customer wrestled the gun from his grasp, and he shed the only item of clothing he was wearing, a green jacket. By the time he was captured in the woods nearby, police had searched his apartment, and found the key fob to the stolen BMW.\nNashville Police Department Lt. Carlos Lara told reporters that a detective was tipped to the suspect's presence by some construction workers, and confronted Reinking, who lay down on the ground to be handcuffed. He carried a black backpack, with a silver semi-automatic weapon and .45-caliber ammunition.\nReinking then asked for a lawyer and was taken to a hospital before being booked. He was formally charged late Monday with four counts of criminal homicide and held on a $2 million bond, court records show.\nThe arrest ended a 24-hour manhunt involving more than 160 law enforcement officers, but it left troubling unanswered questions about official responses to months of bizarre behavior before the restaurant attack, including encounters with police in Illinois and Colorado and an arrest at the White House that raised red flags.\nIn May 2016, Reinking told deputies from Tazewell County, Illinois, that music superstar Taylor Swift was stalking him and hacking his phone. Reinking agreed to go to a local hospital for an evaluation after repeatedly resisting the request, the sheriff's report said.\nHe would make a similar claim about Swift in Salida, Colorado, nearly a year later, in March 2017, authorities there said.\nAnother Illinois sheriff's report said Reinking barged into a community pool in Tremont last June and jumped into the water wearing a pink woman's coat over his underwear. Investigators believed he had an AR-15 rifle in his car trunk, but it was never displayed. No charges were filed.\nLast July, Reinking was arrested by the U.S. Secret Service after he entered a restricted area near the White House and refused to leave, saying he wanted to meet President Donald Trump. Reinking was not armed, but at the FBI's request, Illinois police revoked his state firearms card. Four guns, including the AR-15 used in the shootings, were transferred to his father, a procedure allowed under Illinois law.\nSigns of paranoid delusions continued: In August, Reinking told police he wanted to file a report about 20 to 30 people tapping into his computer and phone and people \"barking like dogs\" outside his residence, according to a report.\n\"There's certainly evidence that there's some sort of mental health issues involved,\" Tazewell County Sheriff Robert Huston said.\nHuston said Jeffrey Reinking pledged he would \"keep the weapons secure and out of the possession of Travis.\" And Don Aaron, a Nashville Police spokesman, said Reinking's father \"has now acknowledged giving them back\" to his son.\nBureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives special Agent Marcus Watson said Monday that his father's action is \"potentially a violation of federal law.\"\nPhone calls to a number listed for the father went unanswered.\nIt is not clear why Reinking moved recently from Morton, Illinois, and if it had anything to do with being near Swift. She has a home in Nashville, though it is not her only residence. Police say he worked in construction for a while.\nPolice said about 20 customers were in the restaurant when Reinking opened fire. The first victims were Taurean Sanderlin, 29, of Goodlettsville, and Joe Perez, 20, of Nashville, shot down in the parking lot.\nSanderlin was an employee at the restaurant. Perez's mother, Trisha Perez, told the Tennessean newspaper after traveling from Texas to collect his body that she pinged her son's cellphone and was horrified to see the locator saying it was at the Waffle House.\nDeEbony Groves, 21, a student at Nashville's Belmont University; and Akilah Dasilva, 23, a rap artist and music video producer, were killed inside the restaurant before customer James Shaw Jr. grabbed the hot muzzle of the assault weapon and wrestled it away.\nShaw, 29, a Nashville native who works as a wireless technician for AT&T, has been hailed as a hero.\n___\nAssociated Press writers John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia; Ed White in Detroit; and Justin Pritchard in Los Angeles contributed to this report." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "All Times EST EASTERN CONFERENCE Atlantic Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA Tampa Bay 50 34 13 3 71 176 128 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 50 20 24 6 46 130 159 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 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 WESTERN CONFERENCE Central Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA 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 Minnesota 50 27 18 5 59 147 142 Colorado 49 27 18 4 58 160 143 Chicago 50 24 19 7 55 148 137 Pacific Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA Vegas 49 33 12 4 70 168 130 San Jose 49 26 16 7 59 145 138 Los Angeles 50 27 18 5 59 142 121 Anaheim 51 25 17 9 59 144 142 Calgary 50 25 17 8 58 139 139 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.\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.\nSaturday's Games\nOttawa at Philadelphia, 1 p.m.\nAnaheim at Montreal, 1 p.m.\nDetroit at Florida, 7 p.m.\nPittsburgh at New Jersey, 7 p.m.\nSt. Louis at Buffalo, 7 p.m.\nColumbus at N.Y. Islanders, 7 p.m.\nColorado at Winnipeg, 7 p.m.\nToronto at Boston, 7 p.m.\nN.Y. Rangers at Nashville, 8 p.m.\nMinnesota at Dallas, 8 p.m.\nTampa Bay at Vancouver, 10 p.m.\nChicago at Calgary, 10 p.m.\nArizona at Los Angeles, 10:30 p.m." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — The Cyprus Cooperative Bank says it's looking for investors to buy up the lender either in whole or in part.\nThe bank said Monday it has appointed Citigroup Global Markets to look for investors as part of its strategic plan.\nThe deadline for expressions of interest is March 29.\nThe bank is 77-percent state-owned and is the leader in the amount of deposits held by Cypriots.\nBut it's weighed down by bad loans — more than 58 percent of the total.\nThat was a consequence of a 2013 banking crisis that forced Cyprus to accept a rescue deal that included a seizure of unsecured deposits in the country's two largest lenders.\nFinance Minister Harris Georgiades said the move would help rebuild confidence and credibility in the bank." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "SAN DIEGO (AP) — One of the world's oldest gorillas has died at San Diego Zoo Safari Park.\nThe park says Vila, who turned 60 in October, died Thursday surrounded by members of her family troop.\nAuthorities say she was the matriarch of five generations of gorillas and during her life served as a surrogate mother for several western lowland gorillas.\nGorillas typically live to be 35 or 40. They are considered critically endangered because of disease, hunting, war and habitat loss.\nVila had arthritis and other health conditions related to her age and had been under veterinary care.\nShe was born in the African Congo in 1957. She came to the zoo in 1959 and was moved to Safari Park in 1975." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (AP) — Vandals have damaged a statue honoring Little League in the Pennsylvania town that hosts the annual Little League's World Series.\nWilliamsport Police say someone bent the bat in the Bases Loaded statue early in the morning on Jan. 21.\nSurveillance cameras captured images of a male and a female who police believe are responsible for the damage. Police are seeking the suspects." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Victor Oladipo sparked a decisive run and finished with 20 points, Myles Turner had 21 points and the Indiana Pacers recovered from a poor start for a 110-100 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday night.\nThe victory snapped Indiana's two-game losing streak.\nLos Angeles was led by Kyle Kuzma with 27 points and Brook Lopez with 23, but the Lakers still lost their third straight.\nOladipo and Darren Collison got Indiana going with back-to-back 3-pointers midway through the third quarter for a 77-70 lead. After a layup from Julius Randle, Collison made a 20-footer and Lance Stephenson hit a 10-footer. When the 14-4 flurry ended, Indiana led 85-74 with 3:04 left in the third.\nThe Lakers never seriously challenged after that.\nIt was a stark contrast to the Lakers' fast start. Efficient shooting helped them take a 28-19 lead in the first quarter, but when the shooters cooled off, the Pacers charged back and used a 15-6 second-quarter run to make it 51-50 late in the period.\nThe Pacers still trailed 59-57 at the half — before Oladipo helped flip things in the second half.\nTIP-INS\nLakers: Have lost five straight at Indiana but wound up with a split in the season series. ... Kuzma was 3 of 10 on 3s, extending the franchise record for a rookie to 135. He also had eight rebounds. ... The Lakers lead the league with 52.7 points in the paint per game but only managed to match the Pacers 46-46 in that category. ... Randle finished with 21 points and nine rebounds. ... Lonzo Ball had eight assists.\nPacers: After giving up 37 points in the first quarter, Indiana allowed only 63 the rest of the game. ... Collison made his first start since having foot surgery. ... Backup center Domantas Sabonis missed his third straight game with a sprained left ankle and will miss the Pacers next game as well, coach Nate McMillan said before the game. ... Oladipo extended his streak of consecutive games with a steal to 54, breaking a tie with Ron Harper for No. 8 in league history. ... Thaddeus Young had 18 points, nine rebounds and four assists while Stephenson had 16 points and five rebounds.\nUP NEXT\nLakers: Visit New Orleans on Thursday night, the second stop on a five-game road trip.\nPacers: Will try to earn a series split at New Orleans on Wednesday night.\n___\nMore NBA basketball: https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball" ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on developments in Syria (all times local):\n1:10 p.m.\nTurkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim says the French president has a \"flawed understanding\" of Turkey's cross-border offensive in northwestern Syria.\nYildrim's remarks came in response to comments by French President Emmanuel Macron who warned Turkey against invading the northern Syrian enclave of Afrin.\nYildirim says that \"the whole world knows and should know that Turkey does not operate with the mentality of an invader.\" The Turkish premier spoke on Wednesday during a joint news conference with visiting Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri.\nTurkey launched the military offensive against Afrin on Jan. 20 to drive out the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, a militia it says is an extension of the outlawed Kurdish rebels fighting inside Turkey.\nMacron earlier told French newspaper Le Figaro that Turkey must coordinate with allies and that its operation must be limited to fighting terror.\n___\n12:10 p.m.\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron is warning Turkey against invading a northern Syrian enclave where Ankara is battling Syrian Kurdish fighters whom it considers to be terrorists, and to respect Syria's sovereignty.\nMacron says in an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro that Turkey must coordinate with allies, and that its operation must be limited to fighting terror.\nMacron says he will have a discussion with Turkish president, Tayyip Recep Erdogan, in the coming days to tell him that the military offensive against Afrin should involve talks \"between Europeans, and more widely between allies, because it changes the nature of this Turkish incursion.\"\nTurkey launched a military offensive against Afrin on Jan. 20 to drive out the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, which is says are an extension of the outlawed Kurdish rebels inside Turkey.\nMacron says that \"if it turned out that this operation had to take another turn than an action to fight against a potential terror threat at the Turkish border, and that it was an invasion operation, at that moment, this operation would pose a real problem for us.\"\n___\n11:30 a.m.\nRockets fired from northern Syria into a Turkish border town on Wednesday killed a teenage girl and wounded another person, Turkey's state-run news agency reported.\nAnadolu Agency said two rockets were fired by Syrian Kurdish fighters in the enclave of Afrin and struck a house and a garden wall in the town of Reyhanli.\nTwo people were hospitalized after the attack. One of them, 17-year-old Fatma Avlar, died from her wounds, the agency said.\nIt was the latest in a string of rocket attacks on Reyhanli and the border town of Kilis since Jan. 20, when Turkey's military launched a cross-border operation to drive out the Syrian Kurdish militia from Afrin.\nThe attacks have so far killed four people, including Avlar. Two of the victims were Syrian refugees." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli police are scuffling with activists protesting the planned demolition of a Bedouin hamlet in the West Bank.\nPolice spokesman Micky Rosenfeld says two people were arrested for throwing stones at officers in Khan al-Ahmar on Wednesday. Police could be seen dragging a handcuffed woman and pushing a Bedouin man. A construction vehicle flattened earth near the site.\nThe village is set to be demolished on an unknown date. Israel agreed to resettle the 180 or so residents in an area 12 kilometers (seven miles) away.\nIsrael says the structures were illegally built and pose a threat to residents because of their proximity to a highway.\nCritics say it is nearly impossible to get building permits, and that the residents are being removed to clear the way for Jewish settlements." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Portugal's government has proved its critics wrong, slashing the debt-heavy country's budget deficit to its lowest level in more than 40 years despite warnings that its anti-austerity policies could spell financial disaster.\nFinance Minister Mario Centeno said Wednesday the deficit last year was no higher than 2.1 percent — well within the 2.5 percent ceiling stipulated by European authorities.\nSome other eurozone countries expressed alarm when the center-left Socialist government, with the support of the Communist Party and Left Bloc, took power in 2015 on an anti-austerity platform.\nPortugal needed a 78-billion euro ($82 billion) bailout in 2011, after recording a deficit of more than 11 percent the previous year, and eurozone officials feared it could go into another debt spiral under the Socialists." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- In another challenge match allegedly meant to test the effectiveness of traditional martial arts versus modern mixed martial arts (MMA), gym owner Xu Xiaodong (徐曉冬) on Sunday (March 18) easily pummeled an obscure martial artist who claimed to be a \"4th generation descendant of Yip Man,\" Bruce Lee's master.\nAt the opening of the 3-minute bout, the alleged \"Wing Chun\" practitioner, identified as Ding Hao (丁浩), launched a flurry of rapid Wing-Chun-like punches, however Xu simply shrugged them off and quickly hurled Ding to the turf. The referee then separated the two fighters as ground fighting was apparently not allowed this time around.\nFor the rest of the fight, Xu easily punched and tossed Ding to the ground for a total of six times, each time with the referee leaping in dramatic fashion to protect him. Despite the fact that Ding was dazed, bloodied and confused at the end, the referee bizarrely declared the lopsided affair a \"tie.\"\nThe match was a sequel to a bout which took place between Xu and an equally obscure \"Tai Chi master\" (who is a massage therapist by day) in April of last year, during which Xu made even quicker work of the timid \"Tai Chi\" practitioner and quickly triggered a nationwide backlash by Chinese who felt that he was disrespecting traditional Chinese culture.\nXu's blanket claims that all traditional Chinese martial arts are fake and his gloating over his swift dispatch of the massage therapist angered millions of netizens and countless Chinese martial artists, who rapidly began lining up to challenge him, well before any cash prize was announced.\nSuch outcomes are to be expected as the fighting applications of many traditional martial arts have been lost since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seized power in 1949 and began to systematically eradicate Chinese traditional culture. A large number of martial artists were imprisoned or even executed, a process which was accelerated during the Cultural Revolution.\nAfter eliminating most traditional martial arts, the CCP introduced modernized wushu (武術, martial arts) and simplified tai chi, removing the spiritual and martial aspects of the arts, while adding gymnastic skills to more closely resemble Olympic gymnastic floor routines or acrobat performances.\nContrary to Xu's statements, kung fu practitioners who have kept the fighting tradition alive outside of China have actually excelled in MMA, including notable fighters such as Cung Le (who has already called Xu out), Peter Davis, Pat Barry, and Roy Nelson, all of whom have winning records in the cage. UFC fighter Roy Nelson started his martial arts training with the Lohan School of Shaolin in Las Vegas and still trains in kung fu on a daily basis." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }

{ "text": [ "MOSCOW (AP) — The Trump administration has released a list of 114 Russian politicians and 96 \"oligarchs\" it says are linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but it's decided not to issue any extra sanctions for now.\nHere is a look at some of the politically connected Russians on the so-called \"Putin list\":\nDMITRY MEDVEDEV\nThe Russian prime minister since 2012, Medvedev was previously Russian president from 2008 through 2012. That was in a \"tandem\" arrangement with Putin, who left the presidency to become prime minister, and still wielded considerable power while avoiding presidential term limits.\nMedvedev has been accused by Russian opposition activists of large-scale corruption, claims he denies.\nAlso on the \"Putin list\" is Medvedev's entire cabinet, including influential Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Energy Minister Alexander Novak, who oversees the Russian oil and gas industries. Putin's personal spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, makes the list as one of 33 officials from the presidential administration.\nALEXEI MILLER\nMiller has been loyal to Putin throughout his 17 years as chief executive of state gas company Gazprom. During that time, Gazprom has often been accused by European political leaders of using energy supplies as a geopolitical weapon. On some occasions, Eastern Europe's gas supply has been cut off due to disputes between Russia and neighboring Ukraine over energy pricing, often seen as proxies for wider political arguments.\nThere is also a place on the \"Putin list\" for Igor Sechin, head of state oil company Rosneft — though he's been under U.S. sanctions since 2014 over Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis — plus the CEOs of state-run rail, power and aircraft companies.\nROMAN ABRAMOVICH\nPerhaps best known internationally as the owner of Chelsea soccer club in London, billionaire businessman Abramovich made his fortune in oil and aluminum during the chaotic years that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. He's since embraced a glamorous lifestyle, with vast private yachts, art deals and his ownership of Chelsea, which he bought in 2003 and turned into title contenders in England and Europe.\nARAS AGALAROV\nThe Azerbaijan-born property developer hosted Donald Trump at the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013, and Trump later featured in a music video made by Agalarov's son, Emin. The elder Agalarov has told the AP that Trump \"was thinking of building\" a Trump Tower in Moscow, but it didn't work out.\nThe Agalarovs were mentioned in emails ahead of a meeting between Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and others in June 2016. Ahead of the meeting, Trump Jr. was promised dirt on his father's election rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton. He has since denied such material ever materialized.\nMIKHAIL PROKHOROV\nThe billionaire owner of the NBA's Brooklyn Nets, Prokhorov has at times had an uneasy relationship with the Kremlin. A key investor in metals, Prokhorov ran against Putin in the 2012 Russian presidential election, finishing a distant third. A Russian media outlet he owned was raided by law enforcement in 2016 after publishing articles critical of people close to Putin. Prokhorov sold the company months later.\nHe has long been involved with sports and was a key figure in the former New Jersey Nets' 2012 move to Brooklyn. Prokhorov also ran Russia's federation for the winter sport of biathlon ahead of the 2014 Olympics, when Russian athletes were accused of being part of a doping program. He has denied any wrongdoing.\nDMITRY RYBOLOVLEV\nThe fertilizer magnate bought a Palm Beach mansion from Trump for around $95 million in 2008, a deal that Trump called in 2016 \"the closest I came to Russia\" when pressed on his ties to the country. Rybolovlev has a keen interest in soccer as the owner of the Monaco club, a regular in the Champions League.\nHis lengthy divorce from ex-wife Elena ended with an undisclosed settlement in 2015 after a legal battle in which his former spouse laid claim to billions of dollars in assets. Rybolovlev was also an investor in Alevo, a U.S. battery manufacturer that filed for bankruptcy protection in August.\nALISHER USMANOV\nBorn in what is now Uzbekistan, Usmanov has interests in metals and mining as well as some of Russia's biggest telecoms and internet businesses. He's also a part-owner of Arsenal soccer club in the English Premier League and president of the International Fencing Federation.\nLast year, he won a libel case against Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny over a video regarding Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's alleged secret wealth. Navalny had alleged that Usmanov transferred assets to a charity foundation run by a former classmate of Medvedev. Usmanov insisted it was a bona fide business deal." ], "answer_start": [ 0 ] }