Новости за 18.03.2016

Uber said it saw a 28 percent increase in riders for UberX, its cheapest non-shared ride service, in the affected area on Thursday compared to the same day a week earlier. BART service between the Pittsburg-Bay Point and North Concord stations ceased on Wednesday and is halted indefinitely while the transit agency tries to diagnose and fix track issues there. Uber similarly expanded its UberPool coverage throughout the entire Washington metro area when the DC Metro was closed last week. Both Uber and Lyft have pitched their services... Читать дальше...

Cesar Gonzalez-Mugaburu, 59, of Ridge, New York, on Long Island, was ordered held on $1 million bond Friday after being charged in a 17-count indictment with child endangerment and sexual misconduct. Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota told The Associated Press that Gonzalez-Mugaburu earned as much as $18,000 a month as a foster parent for the children. Spota said it appears the boys were sheltered from the community, and were not permitted to participate in extracurricular activities at school, nor any athletics programs. Читать дальше...

J. Crew Group Inc. posted a smaller fourth-quarter loss after the preppy retailer streamlined operations and trimmed expenses, helping make up for sluggish sales. Same-store sales, a closely watched benchmark, fell 4 percent in the fourth quarter. The results signal that J. Crew is making progress in its comeback plan, even as sales continue to decline. TPG, one of the private-equity firms that led a 2011 leveraged buyout of J. Crew, cut the value of its stake in the clothing retailer by 84 percent at the end of 2015. Читать дальше...

Long a yardstick for advances in AI, the era of board game testing has come to an end, said Murray Campbell, an IBM research scientist who was part of the team that developed Deep Blue, the first computer program to beat a world chess champion. Computer algorithms beat world champion-level human players in checkers and chess in the 1990s. Board games, Campbell said, were perfect tests because they have clear rules and nothing is hidden from players. With AI having conquered what experts call “complete information” games ... Читать дальше...

The finished product is an acrylic-on-wood painting of the yellow-haired Republican front-runner giving the Nazi salute. What makes Knight’s work unique is the three-dimensional mouth that spews dried bull manure strung on a wire. “As an educator, I was feeling embarrassed and shocked by Trump’s comments during the debates,” he says from his classroom at Hayward High School, where he is in his 20th year as an art teacher. A working artist and muralist who grew up in Hayward, Knight worked for three months on the piece... Читать дальше...

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The chief executive of a Wisconsin company that came under fire from Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for planning to shift its corporate headquarters to Ireland said Friday that the tax savings didn't drive the deal. In it, she says she wants to charge an "exit fee" to companies that receive taxpayer assistance to grow and then shift their headquarters overseas to minimize their tax bills. Alex Molinaroli, CEO and chairman of Johnson Controls, told a gathering... Читать дальше...

The 5-year-old company helps transit agencies, delivery companies and taxi services make sense of all that data. The company employs about 50 people with engineering and data science backgrounds to develop an analytics tool that helps its clients process and understand the data they collect. “There’s a lot of low-cost sensors coming on board, and collecting movement data is now a big trend,” said Shiva Shivakumar, co-founder and CEO of Urban Engines. Many large technology companies, such as Uber... Читать дальше...

WASHINGTON — The security ring protecting Donald Trump includes Secret Service agents, his own private bodyguards, local police, sometimes even the Transportation Security Administration. Local law enforcement officers are there to keep the peace, along with private security hired either by the venues or Trump. Trump denies that he contributes to the violence at events around the country, even though on Tuesday night he predicted “riots” and “a tremendous problem” if Republican leaders try to maneuver the nomination away from him. Читать дальше...

BEIRUT — Russian warplanes on Friday flew in support of Syrian government troops in an offensive to recapture the historic town of Palmyra from the hands of the Islamic State group, which has damaged many of the town’s world-famous archaeological sites. Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial pullout of Russian aircraft and forces this week, in support of the Geneva peace talks that are currently under way in Switzerland between representatives of the Syrian government and the Western-backed opposition. Читать дальше...

The office will serve as the headquarters for Michael A. Strautmanis, a longtime aide to President Obama who is the foundation's head of community outreach. The foundation says seven architectural firms are finalists to design the Obama Presidential Center on Chicago's South Side.

LOS ANGELES — Authorities are investigating whether an electrician intentionally leaped to his death from the 53rd floor of Los Angeles’ tallest skyscraper onto an intersection humming with a normal weekday’s bustle, the coroner said Friday. The coroner is also investigating the possibility of Thursday’s death being a workplace accident, because it happened at a construction site, said Ed Winter, assistant chief Los Angeles County coroner. [...] police and officials for Turner Construction, the... Читать дальше...

SAO PAULO — A Brazilian appeals court on Friday slapped down a second attempt to block a Cabinet post for former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and supporters rallied to back an embattled government facing a host of crises. Da Silva was sworn in as chief aide to President Dilma Rousseff on Thursday, a post that will let the charismatic politician help the president battle an impeachment effort and one that also makes it harder to investigate any possible links to a corruption scandal at the state oil company. Читать дальше...

BRUSSELS — After months of acrimony, the European Union and Turkey reached a landmark deal on Friday to ease the refugee crisis and give Ankara concessions on better EU relations. In a final meeting high on smiles, handshakes and backslapping, the 28 EU leaders and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu sealed an agreement that will allow thousands of refugees to be sent back to Turkey as of Sunday, while Ankara will see fast-track procedures to get billions in aid to deal with Syrian refugees,... Читать дальше...

NAIROBI, Kenya — A lion left Nairobi National Park, walked alongside a highway full of rush-hour traffic and mauled a 63-year-old pedestrian Friday before being captured, officials said. Nairobi National Park, which covers 45 square miles on the outskirts of Nairobi, is home to endangered black rhinos, lions, leopards, cheetahs, giraffes and diverse birdlife. In February, six lions walked out of the park and roamed through the city, scaring residents for a few hours before the big cats returned to the reserve.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — After weeks of blacks and whites squaring off at presidential rallies during this vitriolic campaign season, a bipartisan, multiracial group of civil rights leaders and members of Congress struck a conciliatory tone Friday, beginning a three-day history and racial understanding tour of South Carolina. The event, which culminates Sunday with a prayer service at a Charleston church where nine black parishioners were slain, was planned months ago and happened to fall smack in... Читать дальше...

HOUSTON — Officers opened fire on five robbery suspects accused of holding up a Houston furniture store and who had been under surveillance for hours, killing two suspects and injuring two others, police said. A police tactical team had the suspects under surveillance throughout the day, but Cannon declined to explain why they weren’t apprehended before the holdup and shooting at the Affordable Furniture store. Harry Cheng, the manager of a Lumber Liquidators store adjacent to the furniture shop... Читать дальше...

Origin Technologies Corp. has offered about $1.5 billion to buy medical technology company Affymetrix Inc., topping a bid from Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. A month later, Affymetrix said a competing suitor had raised its bid for the company twice, sending shares above the bid price. Origin Technologies is owned by a group of former Affymetrix executives, including Wei Zhou, who had been the vice president of intellectual property and advanced technology. The appetite for such technology is growing... Читать дальше...

IRBIL, Iraq — The American Islamic State group fighter who handed himself over to Kurdish forces in Iraq’s north earlier this week said he made “a bad decision” joining the Islamic State, according to a heavily edited interview he gave to an Iraqi Kurdish television station that aired late Thursday. Though such defections are rare, Syrian Kurdish fighters battling Islamic State have said that they are seeing an increase in the number of Islamic State members surrendering following recent territorial losses. Читать дальше...

WASHINGTON — The Air Force is investigating 14 members of a nuclear weapons security force for alleged illegal drug activity, in some cases including cocaine use, defense officials said Friday. Rand, speaking by telephone from his headquarters at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, said the 14 airmen range in rank from airman 1st class to senior airman and are members of the security group at F.E. Warren that is responsible for securing not only the base but also the missile fields and convoys that move nuclear weapons. Читать дальше...

Three Franciscan friars charged with allowing a suspected sexual predator to hold jobs where he molested more than 100 children surrendered Friday in Pennsylvania, where they were arraigned. The friars served successively as ministers provincial who headed a Franciscan religious order in western Pennsylvania from 1986 to 2010. Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represented dozens of the McCort victims that settled with church officials for millions of dollars, called on other states to charge Baker’s former superiors, too. Читать дальше...

Related Links Rainbow Grocery‘s short-lived outdoor cafe, located at the corner of 13th and Folsom street, shuttered earlier this winter, but happily the space won’t stay dark for long. Taking the cafe’s place will be Chicks and Love Pizza, a small East Bay pizza and catering company that sells handcrafted pizzas at farmers’ markets in Walnut Creek and Danville. The couple behind Chicks and Love are Vanda Chong and Kellie Joe. Photo By Chicks and Love PizzaVanda Chong (left) and Kellie Joe (right)... Читать дальше...

The 24-year-old from Nogales, Mexico, is now pursuing a degree in graphic design at one of New Mexico's smaller colleges thanks to an effort by the school to recruit students like her — high-achieving student immigrants who are living in the country illegally. Through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, the school works to convince the students they'd find a hospitable environment for immigrants and possible financial aid at the 3,700-student university located in the mining town of Silver City. The... Читать дальше...

[...] Coast Percussion, music of Steve Reich With each passing year, the work of the pioneering minimalist composers — Steve Reich chief among them — moves further from being the private domain of the creators and their performing associates to take a place in the standard repertoire. The ensemble, which comes to San Francisco for a recital on March 28, offers a full tour of Reich’s stylistic range, from the terse experimentalism of the early “Music for Pieces of Wood,” in a dry but evocative performance... Читать дальше...

BOSTON (AP) — After a mild winter, a weekend storm is bearing down on the Northeast just as residents are looking forward to Sunday's official start of spring. Over 6 inches of accumulation is possible, mostly in New England and along coastal parts of the region. The snow should start Sunday morning in mid-Atlantic cities like Washington, D.C, Philadelphia and New York, but higher temperatures should help mitigate snow accumulations, said Thomas Kines, a Pennsylvania-based meteorologist for AccuWeather. Читать дальше...

Meticulous landscaping and masterful design converge at this four-bedroom Contemporary that’s roughly a 10-minute drive from Muir Wood National Monument. Each of the bedrooms reside on the ground floor and the public rooms occupy the upper level. The dense canopy of trees dominating the .66-acre property offers privacy screening for the backyard’s inviting hot tub and shades its generously sized lawn. A terrace on the upper level wraps around the front of the home and ultimately joins a welcoming patio with fire pit. Читать дальше...