Atkinson, Neb., rancher Bruce Boettcher, who opposes the Keystone XL pipeline, kicks up sand on his land, to demonstrate the fragility of the sandhills near the planned route of the pipeline.
Originally published on Wed January 18, 2012 4:20 pm
Saying it did not have sufficient time to properly vet the proposal, the State Department said it would recommend rejecting a proposal by TransCanada to build a 1,700 mile pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada to refineries in Texas.
The Shroom With A View: Mushrooms are fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting bodies found all over the world. They can grow in practically any environment with moisture.
Credit Jorg Hempel/Wikipedia
The Phallus impudicus is also called the common stinkhorn. It smells like a dead animal, but is not poisonous.
In the past year, actor Michael Fassbender has played a mutant villain in X-Men: First Class, psychoanalyst Carl Jung in A Dangerous Method, Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre and a sex addict in Shame.
It was his role in Shame that recently earned Fassbender a string of accolades, including Best Actor nominations at the Golden Globes and a variety of critics associations.
Food can be transformative, especially if you're a character in a video game. When Mario ate mushrooms, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ate pizza and CJ from Grand Theft Auto ate fast food, they became better, stronger, sometimes even bigger.
But now one gamer has made that food even more enticing by putting the virtual food of video games onto her very real dinner table. That's right: Daniella Zelli, a 23-year-old gamer in Edinburgh, Scotland, cooks up dishes inspired by games and shares them on her blog.
FBI agents arrested three hedge fund executives early Wednesday in connection with a massive ongoing insider trading investigation that has involved some of Wall Street's most prominent money managers.
Todd Newman, who formerly oversaw technology investments at Diamondback Capital Management, was arrested at about 6 a.m. in the Boston suburb of Needham on charges "related to stock fraud," according to a spokesman for the FBI's Boston office.
"Life is back to normal for two towns deeply buried in snow along Alaska's Prince William Sound," The Associated Press says. "The National Weather Service said Tuesday the weather is supposed to remain clear in both Valdez and Cordova this week."
Originally published on Wed January 18, 2012 11:06 am
SOPA and PIPA (no, they're not the Duchess of Cambridge's sisters) will be on the minds of a lot more people Wednesday because of the online protests by Wikipedia, Google and other popular websites over the anti-piracy legislation with the catchy acronyms currently under consideration in Congress.
Originally published on Wed January 18, 2012 9:04 am
As we learned last year with our posts about the Decorah "eagle cam," there's a lot of interest in watching animals in the wild. Especially when there are babies involved.
So here's some important information for nature lovers:
Brian Unger is the host of the History Channel show How The States Got Their Shapes.
When we talk about our moms, many of us end up crying. Barbra Walters made her career exploiting this universal weakness. Newt Gingrich proved it recently, very publicly, in Iowa talking about his mom.
I'm going to try to control my emotions as I discuss my mom.
Because I'm not ashamed to say — lately, there have been a few tears.
Originally published on Wed January 18, 2012 12:01 pm
While Seattle may not get hit quite as hard as previously thought by a winter storm that's moving across the Northwest, the National Weather Service has issued some ominous sounding updates about how large that storm is turning out to be.
Lancaster is not social networking, but it is fighting crime with real tweets by birds. The city's mayor tells The Wall Street Journal that birds put residents in a "better place." And though police say the causes are many, crime in the city is down.
Originally published on Wed January 18, 2012 8:57 am
Just to be clear:
Wikipedia's English pages have indeed "gone black" until midnight ET tonight — part of an organized protest by it and many other websites over pending anti-online piracy legislation in Congress.
A political ad airs on a TV at Tommy's Country Ham House in Greenville, S.C., where Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum was preparing to hold a campaign event.
Credit Eric Thayer / Reuters/Landov
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is seen on a TV screen at a restaurant in Florence, S.C., on Sunday.
Scott Sanders will be eating lunch at his desk again. Sanders is the general sales manager for the NBC affiliate in Columbia — South Carolina's capital — so all his time is devoted these days to handling ad traffic ahead of Saturday's Republican primary.
"It's been crazy this week," Sanders says. "It will be hard to watch TV, because there are so many ads."
All five major GOP candidates have ads running during the station's nightly news programs. Their messages are also being amplified and augmented by supportive superPACs.
Gary Locke is Washington's ambassador to Beijing. He took over the post after Jon Huntsman left. Locke is the first U.S. ambassador to China to have roots in that country — his ancestors hail from a village in southern China. He serves at a time of enormous change, a time when many Americans see China as a threat. Ambassador Locke talks to Steve Inskeep about his impressions of China and its government.
The economy may be improving but state governments are still working to repair the damage to their books. We're keeping track with a series of reports, and we go this morning to the nation's most populous state, which has some of the nation's largest problems.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
Here in California today, Governor Jerry Brown gives the State of the State address. He'll outline more cuts to government programs while asking voters to approve a measure to raise taxes. Here's NPR's Richard Gonzales.
