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Obama, Clinton to launch healthcare campaign push Tuesday

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<a href="http://www.newsupdate360.com/2013/09/obama-clinton-to-launch-healthcare.html">Obama, Clinton to launch healthcare campaign push Tuesday</a></h2>
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President Barack Obama will turn to his unofficial "secretary of explaining stuff," former President Bill Clinton, on Tuesday to help with a final push to extol the benefits of U.S. healthcare reform before new insurance exchanges go live on October 1.</div>
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Obama, who is in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, will meet with his most recent Democratic predecessor at the Clinton Global Initiative, a conference where the two men will talk about Obama's healthcare reform law, which Republicans continue to try to repeal.</div>
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A White House official noted that the conversation will take place one week before the new exchanges open, which the White House says will allow millions of Americans who do not have insurance to sign up for plans that fit their budgets.</div>
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The event also comes one day after the 20th anniversary of Clinton's call for healthcare reform in a speech to Congress.</div>
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Clinton's effort to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system while president, spearheaded by his wife, former first lady Hillary Clinton, failed in Congress, dealing them a major political blow. But it called attention to the plight of millions of Americans who did not have insurance.</div>
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That history will set the stage for Tuesday's event.</div>
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"The format of their conversation is designed to foster an enthusiastic and candid discussion between our current president and the last president to make tackling healthcare a priority, who share a deep passion for improving the quality and cost of care for American families and businesses," a White House official said.</div>
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Hillary Clinton, who is a potential presidential candidate in 2016 and served as secretary of state during Obama's first term, will introduce the two men.</div>
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Obama dubbed the former president his "secretary of explaining stuff" during the 2012 campaign. Clinton's aggressive outreach on behalf of Obama is credited with helping him vanquish Republican candidate Mitt Romney and win re-election.</div>
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Obama's attendance at the Clinton Global Initiative is also a boost for the Clintons. The couple could seek his backing if Hillary Clinton decides to run for president in three years.</div>
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HIGHLIGHTING BENEFITS</div>
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Republicans say the law will hurt the U.S. economy and give government too great a hand in its citizens' healthcare choices.</div>
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The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill last week that would fund the U.S. government only if the law is ransacked.</div>
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Democrats - including Clinton and Obama - are trying to refute that criticism.</div>
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"Their conversation is expected to highlight how the healthcare law is creating more choice, competition and affordability for American consumers, how partnerships with the private sector are helping make it work, and how and why access to quality, affordable healthcare is a global priority for citizens abroad, as well as here at home," the White House official said of the planned chat between Obama and Bill Clinton.</div>
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The White House has enlisted the former president already this month to help pitch the law to Americans, many of whom remain skeptical or confused by it.</div>
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During a speech earlier this month, Bill Clinton made the case that Americans would be better off with the law, dubbed Obamacare, and urged opponents to make the best of it.</div>
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The White House said the Clinton-Obama discussion on Tuesday would kick off a six-month public awareness campaign about the law, coinciding with the October-March period during which Americans can sign up for new healthcare options.</div>
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Obama, Clinton to launch healthcare campaign push Tuesday President Barack Obama will turn to his unofficial "secretary of exp...

Sikh professor attacked by NYC mob in what may be hate crime

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<a href="http://www.newsupdate360.com/2013/09/sikh-professor-attacked-by-nyc-mob-in.html">Sikh professor attacked by NYC mob in what may be hate crime</a></h2>
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A group of more than 20 young men viciously attacked a Columbia University professor over the weekend, apparently because they believed he was a Muslim.</div>
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Prabhjot Singh, a medical doctor and an international relations professor at Columbia, had facial surgery to correct his jaw after the beating, which occurred near his home in Harlem, according to his friend.</div>
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Singh told the New York Daily News that one of the more than 20 men who attacked him while he walked in his Harlem neighborhood yelled, “Get him, Osama.”</div>
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Sikhs, who adhere to a monotheistic faith that originated in South Asia, are often mistaken for Muslims because they wear turbans and beards, and have been the victims of Muslim bias attacks. (A few days after the September 11 attacks, a Sikh gas-station worker was murdered by a man who was out for revenge against Muslims.)</div>
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A Sikh advocacy organization has counted more than 300 hate crimes against Sikhs like Singh in the years following the Sept. 11 attacks, including a 2012 attack by a white supremacist on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin that left six people dead.</div>
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“Frankly, they don’t know who we are, they don’t know we’re a distinct religion,” said Jasjit Singh, the executive director of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund. About half of Americans think Sikhism is a sect of Islam, the group’s research has found, and most Americans think of terrorism in association with the turban. “The figure they most commonly associate with a turban is Osama bin Laden,” he said.</div>
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Singh, the Columbia professor, was a leading advocate for the FBI to include Sikh Americans in its hate crime statistics, which the agency recently agreed to do. Attacks against Sikhs were formerly lumped together by the FBI with anti-Muslim crimes. But Singh argued that specific anti-Sikh bias also occurred, quoting portions of white supremacist websites that called for all Sikhs to “go home” to India.</div>
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“The government must begin tracking and counting anti-Sikh hate crimes, just as it must continue to vigorously combat bias and discrimination against all Americans, including Muslims,” Singh wrote in the New York Times last year.</div>
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Sikh professor attacked by NYC mob in what may be hate crime A group of more than 20 young men viciously attacked a Columbia Univer...

House GOP should stop acting like children

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<a href="http://www.newsupdate360.com/2013/09/house-gop-should-stop-acting-like.html">House GOP should stop acting like children</a></h2>
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House Republicans are behaving like children threatening to shut down the government, especially when they have better options to move their agenda.</div>
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The House has passed a bill to keep the government funded at current levels after Sept. 30, less any funds for Obamacare. Senate Democrats will send it back to the House stripped of that provision, where it will likely fail.</div>
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Theoretically the government will run out of money; however, Uncle Sam will continue withholding taxes from paychecks and businesses must continue quarterly payments.</div>
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The president has authority to continue mandatory spending programs—Social Security and other benefits checks should go out— and to respond to emergencies involving the safety of human life and property. The latter may embrace a pretty wide swath but if history is any guide, the president will engage in some juvenile behavior of his own.</div>
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During the early days of sequestration, he sullenly threatened public safety by not realigning funds to keep enough air traffic controllers and food inspectors on the job.</div>
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Draconian warnings that prison guards and cooks will not be paid reflect such conduct. Will he release the inmates at federal penitentiaries to avoid keeping and feeding them in their cells?</div>
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President Obama wants to run America like a banana republic—impose whatever laws he likes and reduce Congress to a compliant debating society.</div>
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The law has not gained legitimacy among the majority of Americans to the peril of Democrats. In states where Senate races will be highly contested this fall and in House districts leaning Republican or likely to be contested, a significant majority of independent voters oppose Obamacare.</div>
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Shutting down the government will spoil that potential GOP support—especially because the president is in a position to make such a shutdown as painful as possible.</div>
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Obamacare is already creating huge headaches. So much so that businesses have been exempted from the requirement to provide health insurance to employees for one year. The state and federal health insurance exchanges are simply not ready to provide accurate pricing and coverage information to individuals who must purchase coverage under the law. Labor unions that supported the law are asking for permanent exemptions, and employers like Starbucks are compelled by the law's rigid application to drop insurance coverage for part-time workers.</div>
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That would give Republicans a platform for next fall, but they cling to false notions that the health care system was just fine before Obamacare. Alas, it was not and remains much more expensive than the German and many other European systems that deliver universal coverage and better results.</div>
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Obstructionist threats and obstinance won't make the GOP a governing party again, and will result in the election of a more Democratic House, a continuing Democratic Senate and another Democratic president to succeed Obama.</div>
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House GOP should stop acting like children House Republicans are behaving like children threatening to shut down the government, espe...

Suspected burglar falls through roof while fleeing cops

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<a href="http://www.newsupdate360.com/2013/09/suspected-burglar-falls-through-roof.html">Suspected burglar falls through roof while fleeing cops</a></h2>
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Not every criminal is a criminal genius. </div>
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Case in point: The alleged burglar who fell through a roof while fleeing police in San Francisco.</div>
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Hey, they can't all be Butch Cassidy. </div>
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According to KPIX, the man had attempted to break into an ATM inside the bank. He crawled through an air ventilation shaft early on Friday morning, before the bank was open for business.</div>
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The would-be thief set off the bank's silent alarm, and police promptly responded. Cops saw him fleeing, running and jumping from one roof to another. </div>
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But then, like something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon, the thief fell through a hole in the rooftop just as he was preparing to surrender, KPIX reports. </div>
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Media Information Officer Gordon Shyy of the San Francisco Police Department told Yahoo News that the suspect, John Franklin, 33, landed in the attic of an apartment. No money was taken from the ATM, Shyy said.</div>
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Police Sgt. Wilfred Williams told reporters, "I've responded to several different silent alarm calls at banks, but this is the first time when someone fell through a roof."</div>
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The suspect wasn't seriously injured during the tumble, according to KPIX. </div>
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And thus ends the sad, sad saga of the hapless bandit of San Francisco.</div>
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Suspected burglar falls through roof while fleeing cops Not every criminal is a criminal genius. Case in point: The alleged bu...

At Navy Yard service, Obama rails against 'routine' of gun violence

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<a href="http://www.newsupdate360.com/2013/09/at-navy-yard-service-obama-rails.html">At Navy Yard service, Obama rails against 'routine' of gun violence</a></h2>
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President Barack Obama made an impassioned plea on Sunday for Americans to overcome their "creeping resignation" about gun violence and demand tougher gun laws following the country's latest mass shooting.</div>
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"I'm here today to say there's nothing routine about this tragedy. There's nothing routine about your loss," Obama told families at a memorial service for 12 people killed by a gunman last week at the Washington Navy Yard.</div>
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"Sometimes I fear there is a creeping resignation that these tragedies are just somehow the way it is," he said at the outdoor service at Marine Barracks Washington, less than three blocks from the base where three women and nine men died in the attack.</div>
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"We must insist here today there is nothing normal about innocent men and women being gunned down where they work," Obama said.</div>
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Authorities have identified the shooter as Aaron Alexis, 34, a former U.S. Navy reservist working as an information technology contractor. He was killed in a gun battle with police.</div>
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There were signs that Alexis had untreated mental health issues. Rhode Island police had warned the Navy in August that Alexis had reported "hearing voices" and said he believed people were following him and "sending vibrations into his body."</div>
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Obama said the U.S. military needs to do more to secure its facilities, and he said the country must also make mental health treatment more available.</div>
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But he also railed against lax gun laws that he blamed for murder rates in the United States that are three times higher than in other developed nations.</div>
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"No other advanced nation endures this kind of violence. None," he said.</div>
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"What's different in America is it's easy to get your hands on a gun," he said.</div>
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<a href="http://www.newsupdate360.com/2013/09/at-navy-yard-service-obama-rails.html">At Navy Yard service, Obama rails against 'routine' of gun violence</a></h3>
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But to honor the lives of the victims, Obama said Americans must do more than extend thoughts and prayers to their families.</div>
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"It ought to obsess us. It ought to lead us to some sort of transformation," he said, noting this was the fifth time in his presidency he had spoken at a memorial service after a mass shooting.</div>
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Obama proposed new gun laws early this year after a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in December.</div>
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But Congress rejected his proposals to restrict sales of certain types of guns and require background checks for more types of gun sales.</div>
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"This is a tragedy that should not have happened, a memorial service that should not be taking place, and victims that should not be victims," Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice president, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" program.</div>
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Obama on Saturday told supporters that the fight for tougher gun laws is not over and "we've got to get back up and go back at it.</div>
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But that fight, like Obama's other policy priorities, is likely to be sidelined by a battle with Congress over the budget that threatens to shut down the government.</div>
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Obama told the memorial service that he "cannot accept" that politics are too "frozen" to change gun laws, and urged Americans to demand change.</div>
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"By now, though, it should be clear that the change we need will not come from Washington, even when tragedy strikes Washington," he said.</div>
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Surveillance critics face Obama in Oval Office

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Surveillance critics face Obama in Oval Office</td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.newsupdate360.com/2013/08/surveillance-critics-face-obama-in-oval.html">Surveillance critics face Obama in Oval Office</a></h2>
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Struggling to salvage a massive surveillance program, President Barack Obama faced congressional critics of the National Security Agency's collection of Americ<br />
ans' telephone records Thursday as snowballing concerns made new limitations on the intelligence effort appear increasingly likely.<br />
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Obama and Vice President Joe Biden joined lawmakers on both sides of the issue for an Oval Office meeting designed to stem the bleeding of public support and show Obama was serious about engaging. Among the participants were the NSA's most vigorous congressional supporters — the top Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate intelligence panels — alongside its most stern critics, including Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado.<br />
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The lawmakers departed the rainy White House grounds without speaking to reporters. But in interviews later, they said there was a consensus that the surveillance efforts are suffering from perception problems that have undercut trust among the American people.<br />
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"There is openness to making changes," said Rep. C.A. "Dutch" Ruppersberger of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.<br />
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Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, top Republican on the Senate's intelligence panel and a strong NSA defender, said Obama and the lawmakers didn't agree to take specific steps but brought up a number of proposals that will be fleshed out over the August congressional recess.<br />
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"A lot of ideas were thrown out," Chambliss told The Associated Press. "Nothing was concluded."<br />
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Wyden, in an interview, said he and Udall had sought to convince Obama of the urgency of addressing rising concerns. He said he proposed strengthening the government's ability to get emergency authorization to collect an individual's phone records, so that pre-emptive collection of everyone's records would no longer be necessary.<br />
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"I felt that the president was open to ideas — and we're going to make sure he has some," Wyden said after returning to Capitol Hill.<br />
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Wyden and two Senate colleagues also unveiled legislation Thursday to overhaul the secret federal court that oversees the programs, which critics decry as largely a rubber stamp. The senators aim to make the court created under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, more adversarial by creating a special advocate who could argue for privacy during closed-door proceedings and appeal decisions. A companion bill would diversify the court's bench by ending the chief justice's sole authority to pick its judges.<br />
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"These bills do not compromise national security, but they put a necessary opposing view in the FISA court and assure ideological diversity of judges," said Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M. Another of the bill's sponsors, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said the Obama administration was receptive to the ideas, although White House officials declined to comment.<br />
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Debate over the line between counterterrorism and invasion of privacy has been heating up since former government contract systems analyst Edward Snowden leaked classified documents exposing the NSA's monumental capability to sweep up data about phone and Internet use, including programs that store years of phone records on virtually every American. Snowden's revelations have prompted a national rethinking over government surveillance powers that have grown since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.newsupdate360.com/2013/08/surveillance-critics-face-obama-in-oval.html">Surveillance critics face Obama in Oval Office</a></b></h3>
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Debate over the line between counterterrorism and invasion of privacy has been heating up since former government contract systems analyst Edward Snowden leaked classified documents exposing the NSA's monumental capability to sweep up data about phone and Internet use, including programs that store years of phone records on virtually every American. Snowden's revelations have prompted a national rethinking over government surveillance powers that have grown since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.<br />
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The more information about the programs the government has released, the more it has fed even greater concerns about the scope of the surveillance and whether Obama's national security team has been truthful in describing it publicly in the past.<br />
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After the administration on Wednesday declassified more documents about an email mining program, Wyden said they showed the government had "repeatedly made inaccurate statements to Congress" about the effectiveness in countering terrorism. And new details released about the phone records program created new fodder for critics by confirming for the first time that, when investigating one suspected terrorist, the government can also examine records of people who called people who called the targeted individual — netting millions of people's records in a single request.<br />
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Meanwhile, the head of the NSA openly clashed with lawmakers including Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., over the agency's statements that telephone and email data collection helped foil 54 terror plots.<br />
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Rising tensions have stoked concern at the White House that surveillance programs Obama considers crucial will soon be undermined or even dismantled — despite the fact that many Democrats and Republicans in Congress have come to the NSA's defense.<br />
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Leahy, the Judiciary Committee chairman, has threatened to seek to end the phone records program if it's not proven effective. And Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., signaled Thursday that unless an agreement is reached on releasing more of the secret court's opinions, he would push Congress to use its "power of the purse" to compel their disclosure by withholding funding for certain programs.</div>
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Surveillance critics face Obama in Oval Office Surveillance critics face Obama in Oval Office Struggling to salvage a massive surv...

Princess Diana was ‘madly in love' with Hasnat Khan

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<a href="http://www.newsupdate360.com/2013/08/princess-diana-was-madly-in-love-with.html">Princess Diana was ‘madly in love' with Hasnat Khan </a></h2>
On the heels of the celebrated birth of Prince William's first child, Vanity Fair is remembering his mother, Princess Diana, who died in a tragic car crash in 1997 at the age of 36.<br />
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Britain's young new Prince George of Cambridge may never meet his paternal grandmother, but as her story prepares to go to the big screen in "Diana" this fall, the magazine presents a new account of the princess' love affair with Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan in the last years before her death.<br />
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"Diana was madly in love with Hasnat Khan and wanted to marry him, even if that meant living in Pakistan," said Jemima Khan, a friend to the princess, of no relation to the surgeon.<br />
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"And that's one of the reasons why we became friends."<br />
The Princess of Wales reportedly spent a lot of time trying to get to know members of the Khan family with the intent to quietly marry into it, which was not entirely acceptable.<br />
For a "son to marry an English girl is every conservative Pashtun mother's worst nightmare," said Jemima Khan.<br />
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Even for Hasnat Khan, discussions of a secret wedding were thought to be "ridiculous."<br />
"I thought it was a ridiculous idea," Khan was quoted as saying in his official interview with police after Princess Diana's death, adding that he "told her that the only way I could see us having a vaguely normal life together would be if we went to Pakistan, as the press don't bother you there."<br />
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She saw he was "horrified by the secret wedding plan," Daily Mail reporter Richard Kay, who was close to Princess Diana, told Vanity Fair. "Suddenly she saw all these pitfalls looming.<br />
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Frustrated, their relationship spiraled downwards, and that was when she met Dodi Al Fayed — the new boyfriend that was with her in the car when she died in Paris.<br />
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Many friends interviewed by Vanity Fair believed the relationship with Al Fayed may have been only to make Khan jealous. He promised her a ring one day, according to Rosa Monckton, the former managing director of Tiffany & Co.<br />
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"Hasnat was a decent, intensely private man from a traditional, conservative Pakistani family, and he was worried about how it would work," Jemima Khan added.<br />
"And he hated the thought of being in the glare of publicity for the rest of his life."<br />
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Princess Diana was ‘madly in love' with Hasnat Khan On the heels of the celebrated birth of Prince William's first child, Vani...

Powerball jackpot climbs to $290M as no one wins top prize

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<h2>
<a href="http://www.newsupdate360.com/2013/08/powerball-jackpot-climbs-to-290m-as-no.html">Powerball jackpot climbs to $290M as no one wins top prize</a></h2>
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It's now up to $290 million with a cash option of $168.4 million after no tickets sold for Wednesday's drawing matched all the winning numbers, according to the Powerball website.</div>
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The winning numbers are: 8, 24, 39, 49 and 59. The Powerball drawn was 5.</div>
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Tickets that matched five numbers but not the Powerball were bought in each of California, Connecticut, Florida, New York, Oregon, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.</div>
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The tickets purchased in Oregon and Oklahoma are worth $2 million apiece since the lucky player in each of those states paid an extra $1 and chose the Powerplay option. The others won $1 million each before taxes.</div>
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The best anyone in New Jersey did was four numbers and the Powerball — a $10,000 prize.</div>
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Wednesday marked the 11th consecutive drawing without a jackpot winner.</div>
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The next drawing is 11 p.m. Saturday.</div>
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Powerball jackpot climbs to $290M as no one wins top prize It's now up to $290 million with a cash option of $168.4 million after...

UConn basketball player gives Obama bunny ears

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<a href="http://www.newsupdate360.com/2013/08/uconn-basketball-player-gives-obama.html">UConn basketball player gives Obama bunny ears</a></h2>
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President Barack Obama welcomed the University of Connecticut women's basketball team to the White House on Wednesday, commending the team on its record-tying eighth NCAA national championship and calling its players role models for women both on and off the court.</div>
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"As the father of two young, beautiful, athletic and tall daughters, it just always puts a smile on my face whenever I see such class acts represent their school and their country so well," Obama said.</div>
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In return, Huskies center Stefanie Dolson gave the president "bunny ears" as he posed for photos with the team.</div>
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It wasn't the only lighthearted moment at the ceremony.</div>
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Obama joked that Coach Geno Auriemma "spends more time than some presidents" at the White House. And when the president, who picked Baylor to win the national championship, admitted his bracketology "needs some work," a player behind Obama responded, "Mm-hmm."</div>
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"Mm-hmm," the president said. "Somebody back there is like, 'Mm-hmm.'"</div>
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UConn basketball player gives Obama bunny ears President Barack Obama welcomed the University of Connecticut women's basketbal...

Chinese supercomputer named as world's fastest

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<span class="entry-title">Chinese supercomputer named as world's fastest</span></h1>
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<span class="entry-title">Chinese supercomputer named as world's fastest</span></h3>
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<span class="entry-title">Chinese supercomputer named as world's fastest</span></div>
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BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese university has built the world's fastest supercomputer, almost doubling the speed of the U.S. machine that previously claimed the top spot and underlining China's rise as a science and technology powerhouse.<br />
The semiannual TOP500 listing of the world's fastest supercomputers released Monday says the Tianhe-2 developed by the National University of Defense Technology in central China's Changsha city is capable of sustained computing of 33.86 petaflops per second. That's the equivalent of 33,860 trillion calculations per second.<br />
The Tianhe-2, which means Milky Way-2, knocks the U.S. Energy Department's Titan machine off the No. 1 spot. It achieved 17.59 petaflops per second.<br />
Supercomputers are used for complex work such as modeling weather systems, simulating nuclear explosions and designing jetliners.<br />
It's the second time a Chinese computer has been named the world's fastest. In November 2010, the Tianhe-2's predecessor, Tianhe-1A, had that honor before Japan's K computer overtook it a few months later on the TOP500 list, a ranking curated by three computer scientists at universities in the U.S. and Germany.<br />
The Tianhe-2 shows how China is leveraging rapid economic growth and sharp increases in research spending to join the United States, Europe and Japan in the global technology elite.<br />
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"Most of the features of the system were developed in China, and they are only using Intel for the main compute part," TOP500 editor Jack Dongarra, who toured the Tianhe-2 facility in May, said in a news release. "That is, the interconnect, operating system, front-end processors and software are mainly Chinese."</div>
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Chinese supercomputer named as world's fastest Chinese supercomputer named as world's fastest Chinese supercomputer named as...

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