Animals news

• Elon Musk's US security clearance under review after smoking cannabis

  07-03-2019 23:59 via news.yahoo.com
  Elon Musk's security clearance is under review by the US Department of Defence after he smoked marijuana on a podcast last year.  The Tesla and SpaceX founder is resubmitting a form which requires government employees or contractors with security clearance to disclose illegal drug use in recent years, Bloomberg reported. His security clearance is linked to his aerospace company SpaceX, which is launching intelligence satellites for the US government and is planning manned spaceflights for N
  
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• Cohen Sues Trump Organization for Legal Expenses

  07-03-2019 23:50 via news.yahoo.com
  Michael Cohen launched a lawsuit against the Trump Organization on Thursday demanding that it honor a contract promising to pay the legal fees incurred from his previous work for President Trump.“The Trump Organization agreed to indemnify Mr. Cohen and to pay attorneys’ fees and costs incurred by Mr. Cohen in connection with various matters arising from Mr. Cohen’s work with and on behalf of the Organization,” read the court filings. “These matters included multiple
  
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• Michael Cohen sues Trump Organization for unpaid legal fees

  07-03-2019 23:34 via news.yahoo.com
  In a complaint filed in the New York state supreme court in Manhattan, Cohen said the Trump Organization stopped paying him last May after it became clear he would cooperate with various probes into his work.Cohen said the Trump Organization owes him at least $3.8 million, and its failure to pay breached a reimbursement agreement that predated his cooperation.The Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment.
  
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• Cohen Fires New Shot at Trump With Suit for Millions in Fees

  07-03-2019 23:25 via news.yahoo.com
  The breach-of-contract suit, filed Thursday, is likely to prolong the bitter feud between President Donald Trump and his former lawyer and fixer, who heads to prison in May. Cohen just wrapped up a series of appearances before Congress, where he impugned his ex-boss as a “racist,” “con man” and “cheat,” and promised to help investigators probing the president’s company.“The Trump Organization agreed to indemnify Mr. Cohen and to pay attorneys&rsquo
  
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• Trump's Venezuela envoy vows sanctions on banks backing Maduro

  07-03-2019 23:15 via news.yahoo.com
  "There will be more sanctions on financial institutions that are carrying out the orders of the Maduro regime," the envoy, Elliott Abrams, told a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing.The United States and more than 50 other countries have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as oil-rich Venezuela's interim president and increased pressure on Maduro, a socialist, to step down.Washington this week revoked the visas of senior Venezuelan officials and said on Wednesday it had identified efforts by M
  
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• Russia doesn’t appear thrilled with SpaceX Crew Dragon’s success

  07-03-2019 23:02 via news.yahoo.com
  SpaceX made history earlier this week with a successful launch of its Crew Dragon capsule, sending it to the International Space Station where it successfully docked and allowed ISS crew members to explore its interior. It's a major step for both NASA and SpaceX, but Russia's space agency might not feel the same way.Roscosmos, the state-owned space corporation of Russia, and its Soyuz rockets have been the one and only ride available to NASA astronauts since the Space Shuttle program was shut do
  
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• Why Sherrod Brown Decided Not to Run For President

  07-03-2019 23:01 via news.yahoo.com
  Brown concluded his path to the nomination was too narrow to be viable.
  
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• R. Kelly girlfriends defend superstar, deny brainwashing

  07-03-2019 22:47 via news.yahoo.com
  Two women living with R. Kelly are defending the R&B superstar charged with sexual abuse, saying in an interview aired Thursday that their relationships with him are consensual.Azriel Clary, 21, and Joycelyn Savage, 23, told the US television network CBS that they "absolutely" are in love with Kelly, brushing off allegations that the 52-year-old artist brainwashes women he keeps in homes that operate as de facto sex cults."We live with him, and we're in a relationship with him," Clary said o
  
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• 'Tim Apple' goes viral on social media after Trump gaffe

  07-03-2019 22:41 via news.yahoo.com
  Apple chief executive Tim Cook turned into "Tim Apple" on social media Thursday after a slip-up by US President Donald Trump sparked a viral moment on Twitter.The Twittersphere reacted after a Wednesday White House meeting where the US president thanked "Tim Apple" for the tech giant's investments and job creations.Cook changed his Twitter display name the following morning, using his first name followed by the Apple icon to get in on the fun.
  
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• US created database of reporters covering migrant caravan: report

  07-03-2019 22:35 via news.yahoo.com
  US authorities created a secret database of journalists and activists linked to a caravan of Central Americans who tried to enter the US last year from Mexico, NBC reported.In some cases authorities flagged their passports for alerts, said the San Diego, California affiliate of NBC.It cited documents leaked to it by a source in the Department of Homeland Security who requested not to be named.
  
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• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez expertly shuts down conservatives calling for boycott after learning she was a Girl Scout

  07-03-2019 22:33 via news.yahoo.com
  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will happily buy all the cookies from the Girl Scouts of America.The freshman Democrat shot down calls to boycott the nationwide organisation after conservative columnist Jane Chastain wrote that the group has become “a far cry from those of my youth, which trained us to put God and country before everything else”.Sharing a headline that read “Conservative calls for cookie boycott because AOC used to be a Girl Scout,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez posted a ser
  
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• In developing nations, national parks could save endangered species

  07-03-2019 22:19
  A new study of animal populations inside and outside a protected area in Senegal, Niokolo-Koba National Park, shows that protecting such an area from human interaction and development preserves not only chimps but many other mammal species.
  
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• Huawei fights back against U.S. blackout with Texas lawsuit

  07-03-2019 22:18 via news.yahoo.com
  HONG KONG/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei Technologies sued the U.S. government on Thursday, saying a law limiting its American business was unconstitutional, ratcheting up its fight back against a government bent on closing it out of global markets.Huawei said it had filed a complaint in a federal court in Texas challenging Section 889 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), signed into law by U.S. President Donald Trump in August, which bars federal age
  
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• The right's revealing hypocrisy over Rep. Ilhan Omar's comments is painful to watch

  07-03-2019 22:15 via news.yahoo.com
  The right wing's response to Rep. Ilhan Omar's comments show it is the single greatest source of hypocrisy in modern American life.
  
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• American Airlines cancels 40 flights amid aircraft issue, takes planes out of service

  07-03-2019 22:13 via news.yahoo.com
  The airline is removing more than a dozen planes from service after discovering an overhead-bin issue that led to cancellation of nearly 40 flights.
  
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• Christopher Watts Has Admitted to Killing His Pregnant Wife and 2 Daughters

  07-03-2019 22:03 via news.yahoo.com
  A Colorado man convicted of killing his pregnant wife and two young daughters last year has admitted to investigators that he strangled his wife inside their home and drove her body to an oil work site where he smothered the girls using a blanket.
  
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• Chris Watts confesses to killing daughters for first time: 'I didn’t want to do this, but I did it'

  07-03-2019 21:57 via news.yahoo.com
  Christopher Watts drove his daughters to an oil site after killing wife, Shanann, in their Colorado home, Watts recently told investigators.
  
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• Mexico's 'hearts and minds' battle to loosen organized crime's grip

  07-03-2019 21:55 via news.yahoo.com
  The central town of Santa Rosa de Lima, a few miles east of Salamanca, home to one of the nation's main oil refineries, is close to a center of the nation's auto industry.It is also a microcosm of the lawlessness permeating swathes of Mexico where cartels have for years replaced the state as benefactors, providing jobs and handouts in return for residents' loyalty.Lopez Obrador said he was winning the battle for hearts and minds against a gang of fuel thieves in Santa Rosa.
  
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• Waves of people still leaving Islamic State's last Syrian enclave

  07-03-2019 21:51 via news.yahoo.com
  DEIR AL-ZOR PROVINCE, Syria (Reuters) - Thousands of people could still be left inside Islamic State's last enclave in eastern Syria, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said, as the waves of evacuations from the tiny area continued on Thursday.The SDF has said it wants to ensure all civilians have been evacuated before launching a final assault on the besieged enclave of Baghouz.It is the last shred of populated territory held by Islamic State, which once controlled swathes of Iraq a
  
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• The Latest: Cardinal offers resignation after conviction

  07-03-2019 21:47 via news.yahoo.com
  LYON, France (AP) — The Latest on a church sex abuse trial in France (all times local):
  
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• Musk's SpaceX capsule set to splash down Friday after space station stop

  07-03-2019 21:33 via news.yahoo.com
  A SpaceX rocket had launched the 16-foot-tall capsule from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida Saturday morning.Officials at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration will scrutinize the performance of the SpaceX capsule's parachute deployment and its buoyancy after splash-down - two of the design and functionality concerns first reported by Reuters in February."I say hypersonic re-entry is probably my biggest concern," he told reporters after the launch, referring to the capsule re
  
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• Ilhan Omar: Pelosi joins Sanders and AOC in defence of Congresswoman, saying comments were not 'intended in any anti-semitic way'

  07-03-2019 21:15 via news.yahoo.com
  Prominent progressives including Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have come to the defence of Representative Ilhan Omar amid controversy following her criticism of pro-Israel groups and politicians, which some have deemed anti-semitic.Meanwhile, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has suggested that Ms Omar may not have understood the full weight of what she was saying at the time."I don't think that the congresswoman perhaps appreciates the full weight of how it
  
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• House Republican lays into Democrats' corruption probe of Trump

  07-03-2019 21:10 via news.yahoo.com
  The House Judiciary Committee's ranking Republican, Doug Collins, said the panel's investigation into obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power under Trump surpasses the scope of legitimate legislative inquiry and violates the U.S. Constitution.Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler launched the investigation on Monday by sending document requests to 81 government agencies, business entities and individuals associated with Trump, including his adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Er
  
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• Michael Cohen sues Trump Organization to pay his legal bills

  07-03-2019 20:55 via news.yahoo.com
  The president's former lawyer contends that the Trump Organization broke its promise to cover his legal bills.
  
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• Megaphones and more: Mueller details Russian U.S. election meddling

  07-03-2019 20:44 via news.yahoo.com
  While Mueller has yet to submit to U.S. Attorney General William Barr a final report on his investigation into Russia's role in the election, the former FBI director already has provided a sweeping account in a pair of indictments that charged 25 Russian individuals and three Russian companies.Key questions still to be answered are whether Mueller will conclude that Trump's campaign conspired with Moscow and whether Trump unlawfully sought to obstruct the probe.Russia has denied election interfe
  
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• French court convicts cardinal of not reporting child abuse

  07-03-2019 20:37 via news.yahoo.com
  LYON, France (AP) — In a surprise ruling, France's senior Catholic cleric, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, was convicted Thursday of failing to report a known pedophile priest to police, the latest high-ranking churchman to fall in the global reckoning over clergy sex abuse and cover-ups.
  
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• Huawei Sues to Challenge U.S. Law Banning Its Products

  07-03-2019 20:36 via news.yahoo.com
  Huawei's complaint was filed in the Eastern District of Texas, which includes its U.S. headquarters. It objects to Section 889 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) signed into law in August, which prohibits federal agencies and related contractors from doing business with the company.The State Department has expressed concerns that President Xi Jinping's government could use Huawei's smartphones to spy on Americans. Huawei has in turn brushed that worry aside, claiming that as a
  
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• A New Gargantuan Drone Is Ready To Beam Internet From the Sky

  07-03-2019 20:17 via news.yahoo.com
  AeroEnvironment's newest UAV is rumored to look at lot like the Helios Prototype, which crashed in 2007.
  
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• 'Jeopardy!' winner Ken Jennings recounts his 'perfect moment' with Alex Trebek

  07-03-2019 20:16 via news.yahoo.com
  Ken Jennings is sharing his "perfect moment" with "Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek after his cancer announcement.
  
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• Manning faces possible contempt charges in WikiLeaks probe

  07-03-2019 20:11 via news.yahoo.com
  WikiLeaks leaker Chelsea Manning said Thursday she could return to prison on contempt charges after she refused to testify to a secret grand jury believed to be investigating the anti-secrecy group's founder Julian Assange.Manning said she asserted her consitutional rights to refuse to answer questions on Wednesday -- even as she was offered immunity -- and that a federal judge will review whether her actions amounted to contempt, which could send her back to jail."On Friday I will return to fed
  
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• Ecologists find a 'landscape of fearlessness' in a war-torn savannah

  07-03-2019 20:10
  Using a series of well-designed experiments in Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park, a research team confirmed each step in a trophic cascade between the elimination of predators (including leopards, African wild dogs, and hyenas) and growth of local plants. They demonstrated that the fear of predators alone can drive change in herbivore behaviors in large-mammal ecosystems.
  
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• Chimpanzees lose their behavioral and cultural diversity

  07-03-2019 20:10
  Chimpanzees are well known for their extraordinary diversity of behaviors, with some behaviors also exhibiting cultural variation. An international research team has investigated whether chimpanzee behavioral diversity is reduced under high human impact. By comparing sets of chimpanzee behaviors across a large number of social groups exposed to different levels of human disturbance, the scientists found a reduction in behavioral diversity when human impact was high.
  
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• R. Kelly says he has $350K in the bank: 'People have been stealin' my money'

  07-03-2019 20:05 via news.yahoo.com
  R. Kelly told Gayle King he has approximately $350,000 in a bank account. Wednesday he was jailed for failure to pay child support.
  
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• Heads bowed to the ground, suspected IS members surrender

  07-03-2019 19:53 via news.yahoo.com
  OUTSIDE BAGHOUZ, Syria (AP) — Suspected Islamic State group members, including foreign fighters, sat in a long line in a field of bright yellow flowers, exhausted and hunched over as they were questioned and searched Thursday by U.S.-led coalition members and Kurdish fighters. They were the latest group to surrender from the besieged final pocket of Syrian territory held by the militant group.
  
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• Jared Kushner goes rogue in Saudi Arabia, prompting national security concerns

  07-03-2019 19:50 via news.yahoo.com
  Jared Kushner has gone rogue.The 38-year-old adviser also discussed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the US’ economic investment in the Middle East with Saudi royalty, including King Salman, according to a White House readout from the trip that was released just as the president’s former lawyer Michael Cohen began his explosive public testimony on Capitol Hill last week.Mr Kushner’s quiet undertaking of such high-profile meetings has raised national security concerns from m
  
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• Democrats Plan Anti-Hate Resolution Amid Furor Over Omar Remark

  07-03-2019 19:47 via news.yahoo.com
  The resolution doesn’t mention Omar by name and condemns white supremacists and discrimination against Jews, Muslims and other groups."It’s not about her, it’s about these forms of hatred," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters at her weekly news conference.
  
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• In Mexican heartland, 'bad guys' still hold sway

  07-03-2019 19:34 via news.yahoo.com
  Burned-out autos littered empty streets this week in the town where Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador faces a first major test of his ability to take control of territory absorbed by organized crime during years of mounting violence. Havovi Cooper reports
  
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• Green New Deal too ambitious for some Democrats, even those who say Congress must 'do something'

  07-03-2019 19:24 via news.yahoo.com
  The Green New Deal has generally been embraced by Democrats but some in the party say its calls for free housing and higher education go too far.
  
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• Scientists find mystery killer whales off Cape Horn, Chile

  07-03-2019 19:15
  In January 2019, scientists working off the tip of southern Chile got their first live look at what might be a new species of killer whale. Genetic samples will help determine whether this animal, with its distinctly different color pattern and body shape, is indeed new to science.
  
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• Florida teen accused of allegedly setting caged cat on fire and feeding it to dogs

  07-03-2019 19:15 via news.yahoo.com
  Alarming alleged case of animal abuse caught on surveillance camera in Miami. Prosecutors accuse Roberto Hernandez of dousing a cat with a flammable liquid, setting it on fire and then feeding it to his dogs.
  
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• Iran's leader names hardline cleric Raisi as judiciary chief: IRNA

  07-03-2019 19:10 via news.yahoo.com
  Iran's Supreme Leader appointed hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi as the new head of the judiciary on Thursday, the state news agency IRNA said.The appointment of Raisi, 58, a protégé of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, positions him to undermine the influence of moderates under President Hassan Rouhani in Iran's complicated multi-tiered power structure."I am appointing you as the head of the judiciary..., as a person who is familiar with the judiciary after years of serving insi
  
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• Utah teacher forces boy to wipe Ash Wednesday cross off his forehead

  07-03-2019 19:09 via news.yahoo.com
  An elementary school teacher may face disciplinary action after she allegedlymade a young student wipe a religious symbol off his head in front of hisclass
  
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• House passes broad anti-hate resolution after pressure from Omar allies

  07-03-2019 18:56 via news.yahoo.com
  The House passed a broad resolution condemning hate after backlash from a number of factions across the Democratic Party forced changes to a bill that originally focused on anti-Semitism.
  
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• Smart LED bulbs can cost as much as $60 each, but this one is just as good for $17

  07-03-2019 18:54 via news.yahoo.com
  I recently was at a friend's house, and they were talking about how much they loved their new LIFX smart LED bulbs. Yeah, it took all of my willpower to bite my tongue and keep my mouth shut. Spending $60 a bulb is absolutely crazy when you can get MagicLight WiFi Smart Light Bulbs for just $17 each. You can do everything with these bulbs that you can do with LIFX bulbs, but you can get seven MagicLight bulbs for the price of just two LIFX bulbs. It's definitely a no-brainer.Here are the bullet
  
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• House votes to condemn antisemitism following Ilhan Omar controversy

  07-03-2019 18:40 via news.yahoo.com
  The House of Representatives has passed a resolution condemning antisemitism and other forms of hate amid a row involving a Muslim congresswoman that exposed a sharp division between the Democratic Party’s establishment and its younger, more progressive members.The measure passed by the House 407-23, condemned antisemitism as “hateful expressions of intolerance that are contradictory to the values and aspirations that define the people of the United States”.The passing of the r
  
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• Scientists solve weighty matter of Milky Way mass

  07-03-2019 18:32 via news.yahoo.com
  Astronomers said Thursday they had accurately calculated the mass of the Milky Way for the first time, using new data sets that include the weight of dark matter.In a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency's Gaia observation craft, a team of experts calculated our galaxy to be around 1.5 trillion solar masses.Pervious estimates put the mass of the Milky Way ranging between 500 billion and 3 trillion times the mass of the Sun.
  
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• Religious school that India says it bombed looks undamaged and deserted

  07-03-2019 18:30 via news.yahoo.com
  A Reuters team saw the madrasa, or religious school, on Thursday from 100 meters away at the site of a crater where two Indian missiles struck.High-resolution satellite images reviewed by Reuters on Wednesday also showed that the madrasa, said to be run by militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad, appears to be still standing and virtually unchanged from an April 2018 satellite photo of the facility.Local residents told Reuters the school, near Jaba village and the town of Balakot in Pakistan's Khyber Pa
  
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• Video shows cargo plane nosedive before crash

  07-03-2019 18:26 via news.yahoo.com
  A video captured the moment a cargo plane dove toward the ground just before it crashed into a Texas bay in February. (March 7)
  
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• Meghan Markle Raised Her Voice Against Inequality. Here's Where She Fits Into the Royal Family's Long Politically Neutral History

  07-03-2019 18:19 via news.yahoo.com
  They tend to support humanitarian causes, not political issues
  
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• What the India-Pakistan Crisis Taught China

  07-03-2019 17:57 via news.yahoo.com
  Beijing also shares a disputed border with New Delhi.
  
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