Twitter Inc crashed on Tuesday for the second time in nine days when a software glitch stalled the popular messaging service for about one hour.
The company apologized to its 250 million users in a status blog, saying it had encountered “unexpected complications” during “a planned deploy in one of our core services.”
The outage began around 11 a.m. Pacific time and service had “fully recovered” by 11:47 a.m., the San Francisco-based company said. The stock rose as much as 3.7 percent before Twitter confirmed the glitch, but gave up most of the gains to end 0.25 percent higher.
The outage occurred just as Twitter co-founder Biz Stone took the stage in Austin, Texas, to speak at the South by Southwest Interactive festival, the annual gathering of tech enthusiasts that helped propel Twitter to national fame in 2007.
A new Bloomberg poll finds that President Barack Obama is rebounding from record-low approval ratings as he remedies the botched rollout of his health-care website and moves past the budget standoffs of the last several years.
Less than eight months before the November midterm elections, Americans are evenly split, with 48 percent approving of Obama’s job performance, up from 42 percent in December — the biggest positive change of his presidency, according to a Bloomberg National Poll. He’s also registering an improved favorability rating at 49 percent, the highest since last June.
Even so, majorities still disapprove of Obama’s performance across a broad spectrum of issues. They include the economy, a top issue for voters this year, which may threaten his party’s chances for retaining control of the U.S. Senate. Republicans need a net gain of six seats in November’s elections to retake control of the chamber.
“The six-point increase in Obama’s approval rating puts him back in the territory he typically occupies,” said Ann Selzer, founder of Des Moines, Iowa-based Selzer & Co., which conducted the March 7-10 poll of 1,001 U.S. adults that has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. “He had a post-election bump in December of 2012 and February 2013 and then a steady decline.”
As I’m sure you have heard, this will be Derek Jeter’s last season in professional baseball. If for some reason you haven’t heard, Derek Jeter announced his retirement via a Facebook post last month.
Jeter has said he will do something this year that he has admitted to being bad at in the past. He will enjoy every last moment of this season. As he does that, my plan is to try to share all those moments with you. My goal is to let you enjoy every last minute of this final season as much as Derek does. My other goal is to hopefully convey just how impressive Derek Jeter has been throughout his career to those of you who think he may be a bit overrated.
So I hope you enjoy the future installments of “The Final Season.”
President Obama made a special appearance at Funny or Die’s studios and was interviewed by non other than comedian Zach Galifianakis. You just know this was not going to turn out well or, maybe it did.
The no holds bar interview touched on all the hot topics of the day; where’s the birth certificate, being born in Kenya, why Michele Obama married a nerd, etc. Just all the normal things the American public is interested in.
Questions like, “Is it going to be hard in two years, when you’re no longer President and people will stop letting you win at basketball?” And, “so how does this work, do you send Ambassador Rodman to North Korea on your behalf? I read somewhere that you’d be sending Hulk Hogan to Syria or is that more of a job for Tonya Harding?”
But there was a point to all this. Coming up on the March deadline for enrolling in the Affordable Care Act, the president brought the attention back to healthcare.
“That’s the thing that doesn’t work?” Zach asked.
All in all, a very funny piece from Funny or Die, and definitely a must see.
Julie Boonstra, has been used by Republicans to try to prove that Obamacare will literally kill people. However, claims that she would lose coverage and risk her life as a result have been debunked.
Boonstra, 49, who suffers from leukemia, is featured prominently in the Koch-backed Americans For Prosperity ads. She told a heartbreaking tale of Obamacare canceling her insurance plan and lamenting that her new one was too expensive.
“If I do not receive my medication, I will die,” Boonstra says in the ad. “I feel lied to.”
When journalists looked into her claim, Boonstra identified the new plan she chose on the Obamacare exchanges: a so-called “gold” plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield, per the Detroit News.
Her old plan cost $1,100 per month, which adds up to $13,200 a year in premiums alone — before co-pays, out-of-pocket costs and drug expenses.
Her new plan costs $571 per month, which adds up to $6,852 per year. Her out-of-pocket costs are maxed at $5,100, which means a maximum cost of $11,952 per year. That means her new plan cannot cost her more for treatment than her new plan.
In other words, Boonstra would save at least $1,248 under Obamacare.
When the Detroit News told her this, Boonstra was in disbelief, saying it “can’t be true.”
“I personally do not believe that,” she told the paper.
An 8-year-old boy found a loaded 20-gauge shotgun and killed his 3-year-old cousin, who was visiting from Nacogdoches, Monday.
Braison Howard, 3, was killed instantly, neighbors said, at a home in Eureka near Richland Chambers Reservoir. It’s about 15 miles southeast of Corsicana.
Braison had just finished breakfast, his mother told News 8, and went outside to play with his 8-year-old cousin when the adults heard the gun blast.
Just before going out, the 8-year-old had asked to play with a BB gun, but the adults refused to give it to him, the victim’s mother said.
Braison, his two siblings, and his parents drove to Eureka from Nacogdoches last week to visit his father’s relatives. They had planned to return home later Monday.
“By all accounts, this is just a tragic accident,” said Navarro County Sheriff Elmer Tanner.
Investigators are still talking to witnesses and recounting what happened, the sheriff said, so it’s too early to know whether anyone will face charges.
At least three adults were home when the boy was shot.
It has been four days now since a Malaysian airline vanished in the middle of a 2,700-mile trip to China. Multiple nations have since joined in the search for any possible details to help figure out what happened to the plane and the 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board. But for the good ole nuts over at Fox “News” have already figured it all out.
Sean Hannity brought his guest on air to discuss the strange events surrounding the plane’s disappearance and the fact that there appeared to be two Iranian passengers on board with fake or stolen passports. One of Hannity’s guest, Angela McGlowan, couldn’t resist the urge to mention president Obama and his foreign policy on Iran, as if that had anything to do with the plane’s disappearance.
Another guest on the program took issue to the way Angela tried to bring the President into the whole Malaysian/Iran discussion and called her out on the show. But Hannity couldn’t let the President be defended, so he continued Angela’s argument that because of the President’s foreign policy with Iran, that the two passengers with fake or stolen passports would not have been on that Malaysian flight.
Of course he was quick to say that he wasn’t blaming the President, but… talk about the President and his foreign policy anyway. You know, mention the president in the same paragraph or sentence with the plane’s disappearance and hope that some in the audience put it all together.
Crazy, yea, I know. But we are talking about nuts at Fox!
The head of Interpol has said he does not believe the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines plane was a terrorist incident as he revealed the identity of both of the men who used stolen passports to board the plane.
Interpol secretary general Ronald Noble said Iranian nationals Pouria Nour Mohammah Mehrdad, 19, and Delavar Seyed Mohammadreza, 29, travelled to Malaysia on their Iranian passports before switching to the stolen Austrian and Italian documents.
He said the recent information about the men made terrorism a less likely cause of the plane’s disappearance. He said: ‘The more information we get, the more we are inclined to conclude it is not a terrorist incident.’
Malaysian police released images of the two men after they revealed the identity of the 19-year-old,
who was believed to have been planning to enter Germany to seek asylum and was not thought to be a member of a terrorist group.
SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO
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Interpol secretary general Ronald Noble said Iranian nationals Pouria Nour Mohammah Mehrdad, 19, and Delavar Seyed Mohammadreza, 29, travelled to Malaysia on their Iranian passports before switching to the stolen Austrian and Italian documents
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The announcement came as authorities expanded their search for the Boeing 777 on the opposite side of the country from where it disappeared nearly four days ago with 239 people on board
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Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said the possibility the plane had been attacked by terrorists was ‘fading’, adding his detectives were now looking into four main areas: sabotage, hijacking or psychological problems among either the crew or the passengers
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Police have identified one of the men as a 19-year-old Iranian who was believed to have been planning to enter Germany to seek asylum
Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said the possibility the plane had been attacked by terrorists was ‘fading’, adding his detectives were now looking into four main areas: sabotage, hijacking or psychological problems among either the crew or the passengers.
The announcement came as authorities expanded their search for the Boeing 777 on the opposite side of the country from where it disappeared nearly four days ago with 239 people on board.
In the absence of any sign that the plane was in trouble before it vanished, speculation has ranged widely, including pilot error, plane malfunction, hijacking and terrorism.
The terrorism theory has weakened after Malaysian authorities determined that one of the two men was an Iranian asylum seeker.
Khalid said his team of investigators did not believe Pouria was part of a terrorist group but was using a stolen passport to fly to Germany.
Asked how he had established this, he said: ‘We’ve spoken to his mother. She has been waiting for him to arrive in Frankfurt.
‘When he did not arrive she realised something had gone wrong and then she heard about the plane disappearing.’
Khalid said the possibility that the plane had been attacked by a terrorist group was ‘fading’ – adding that ‘terrorism is less likely’ – but then he revealed that an illegal act could not be ruled out.
Malaysian police say Iranian asylum seeker had stolen passport
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Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar today said the 19-year-old was not believed to be a member of a terrorist group
He said: ‘We are looking into four areas – one hi-jacking, two sabotage, three a psychotic problem of passengers or crew, four personal problem among the passengers and crew.
‘We have been going through passenger manifests and we have communicated with our counterparts in at least 14 countries and also from other parts of the world and we have been exchanging information and intelligence.’
Asked if it was still possible that a bomb could have been loaded onto the aircraft through a passenger’s luggage, he said that ‘we are looking into all areas of possibilities.’
He pointed out that even though there were four areas of the investigation, he had no confirmed information that would lead to his detectives specifically targeting any of those areas.
The plane took off from Kuala Lumpur, on the western coast of Malaysia, early Saturday en route to Beijing. It flew overland across Malaysia and crossed the eastern coast into the Gulf of Thailand at 35,000 feet (11,000 meters).
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In a statement, Malaysia Airlines said search and rescue teams ‘have expanded the scope beyond the flight path to the West Peninsula of Malaysia at the Straits of Malacca
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Authorities have expanded their search for the Boeing 777 on the opposite side of the country from where it disappeared nearly four days ago with 239 people on board
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The new statement said authorities are looking at a possibility that MH370 attempted to turn back toward Kuala Lumpur
A judge in Jacksonville is postponing until Friday a decision on whether he will sentence a Florida man convicted of attempted murder during a confrontation over loud music ahead of the 47-year-old software developer’s retrial on first-degree murder.
Jurors deadlocked last month on a first-degree murder charge for Michael Dunn in the shooting of 17-year-old Jordan Davis outside a Jacksonville convenience store. Prosecutors have vowed to retry him on the count.
Dunn’s attorney on Monday asked that sentencing be postponed until after the second trial. Defense attorney Cory Strolla says he is concerned that statements Dunn makes at a sentencing hearing could be used against him in his second trial.
Strolla says he is stepping down as Dunn’s attorney and asked Judge Russell Healey to appoint public defenders.
Given that blacks represent the majority of players in the NBA, it is easy to see the racism in this Republican’s statement.
A Minnesota legislator’s tweet about the NBA has prompted hundreds of responses, with many on social media calling it racist.
State Rep. Pat Garofalo sent a tweet Sunday that read: “Let’s be honest, 70% of teams in NBA could fold tomorrow + nobody would notice a difference w/ possible exception of increase in streetcrime.”
The Star Tribune reports that when asked about the tweet, the Farmington Republican said he was “talking about NBA’s high arrest rate and that they are the only major pro league that testing positive for marijuana is not a substance abuse violation.”
Garofalo added: “No intent beyond that.”
Within two hours of his tweet, more than 600 people retweeted it and hundreds more responded. Many called the comment he made in the tweet racist.
The Hill is reporting that Democrats and Republicans alike say the 113th Congress is shaping up to be the worst ever.
Veteran lawmakers are used to partisanship and stalemate, but they say Capitol Hill has sunk to a new dysfunctional low.
Congress has in some ways already closed for business until after the mid-term election. Any laws made between now and November will be minor.
President Obama’s “year of action” has started slowly and could end up as a punchline. Congressional approval ratings have hit all-time lows.
The relationships between congressional Republicans and Obama as well as between Democratic and GOP leaders on Capitol Hill lack the indispensable element of trust.
The most memorable action taken by this Congress was last year’s shutdown.
What is Mitt Romney up to? The Washington Post is reporting that the former Republican presidential loser has scheduled a meeting with his former campaign aides. They’re calling the meeting a “ski trip.”
The 2012 Republican presidential nominee has invited his debate prep advisers and senior campaign aides to his mountaintop chalet in Park City, Utah, for a weekend of skiing later this month, according to two people close to Romney.
The reunion of Romney’s political brain trust comes amid a burst of positive buzz about the former Massachusetts governor — from favorable reviews of “MITT,” the Netflix documentary about his campaigns, to chatter among some powerful GOP donors about another Romney presidential campaign in 2016.
But Romney has been adamant in saying he will not run for president a third time. And his aides insisted this month’s reunion in Park City is not a 2016 strategy session.
“It’s really informal,” said a Romney aide, who requested anonymity to discuss the reunion. “The Romneys invited a few campaign friends out to Utah to ski for the weekend.”
Asked if there would be any political strategizing, the aide wrote in an e-mail, “Purely recreational. No ‘strategizing.'”
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