The federal government on Tuesday ordered Citibank to pay $700 million to customers it said had been overcharged by the bank.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau also ordered the bank to pay $35 million in penalties associated to the overcharging and for the bank's use of "deceptive marketing" techniques.

The bureau said that 8.8 million customers will be compensated in the pay out, which includes 7 million people overcharged directly by Citibank and another 1.8 million customers of the bank's subsidiaries.


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ruled 5-4 on Friday that it is legal for all Americans, no matter their gender or sexual orientation, to marry the people they love.

The decision is a historic victory for gay rights activists who have fought for years in the lower courts. Thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia already recognize marriage equality. The remaining 13 states ban these unions, even as public support has reached record levels nationwide.

The justices found that under the 14th Amendment, states must issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and recognize same-sex unions that were legally performed in other states. Justice Anthony Kennedy delivered the majority opinion and was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. In a rare move, the four dissenting justices each wrote an opinion.




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(CNN)A stranger stabbed a pregnant woman who answered a Craigslist ad and cut her fetus from the womb, authorities said

Police say the woman who placed the ad offering baby clothes for sale, Dynel Lane, 34, attacked the victim in Longmont, Colorado, on Wednesday.

Lane is charged with attempted first-degree murder, first-degree assault, and child abuse knowingly/recklessly resulting in death,Longmont Police Cmdr. Jeff Satur said.


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Hong Kong (CNN)Paleontologists have discovered a 50-ft "dragon" dinosaur species in China that may have roamed the earth 160 million years ago in the Late Jurassic period.

The long skeleton was found in 2006 by some local farmers digging for a fishpond in Qijiang city in China's southwestern Chongqing province.

Lida Xing, a member of the research team from the University of Alberta who made the discovery, told CNN it was named Qijianglong, the "dragon of Qijiang" because farmers thought the bones resembled the shape of Chinese mythical dragons.


The reconstructed skeleton of Qijianglong in Qijiang Museum in China
"We found the dinosaur's huge vertebrae with the skull and the tail, but couldn't find any bones from the hands or the legs. So the locals began to say the long body looked just like a dragon from ancient Chinese stories," he said Xing.


Full Story CNN

CNN) -- In an empty, dusty house, a boy stumbled upon a classic horror movie scenario this week: A mummified corpse hanging by the neck from a rope.
And officials say it had been there for five years.
Until the boy made his way inside the ramshackle house in Dayton, Ohio, on Sunday, neighbors didn't think anyone lived there, said spokesman Ken Betz from the Montgomery County Coroner's office.
They thought the house was abandoned, and it looked that way.
The front door was papered with citations for the overgrown yard, and no one came and went from the address. The home was unfurnished.
Inside, however, was the body of Edward Brunton, hanging from a rope in the closet.
Betz estimated that Brunton had been hanging there since the fall of 2009, when he would have been in his late 40s, and while it appears to have been a suicide, he said the official cause and manner of his death has not yet been determined.
The closet shielded his body from rapid decomposition, animals and insects, resulting in the mummy-like condition the boy found it in.
"Because of the location where he was found, it was relatively protected, sunlight-protected, temperature-protected and low humidity," coroner Kent Harshbarger told CNN affiliate WDTN.
Brunton died before he could have much contact with his neighbors. He was also estranged from his family and friends, thus no one ever reported him missing, Betz said.
The boy's mother, Michelle McGrath, went into the house to investigate. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until she entered the room that housed the closet.
"When I crossed the threshold of the room, is when I smelled it," she said.
She called the police.
Authorities found identification documents on Brunton's body. His estranged brother, who still recognized him, confirmed it was him.

See Video
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/17/us/ohio-mummified-body/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

By Jamie Crawford, CNN National Security Producer


Washington (CNN) -- Never fear the night of the living dead -- the Pentagon has got you covered.

From responses to natural disasters to a catastrophic attack on the homeland, the U.S. military has a plan of action ready to go if either incident occurs.

It has also devised an elaborate plan should a zombie apocalypse befall the country, according to a Defense Department document obtained by CNN.

In an unclassified document titled "CONOP 8888," officials from U.S. Strategic Command used the specter of a planet-wide attack by the walking dead as a training template for how to plan for real-life, large-scale operations, emergencies and catastrophes.

And the Pentagon says there's a reasonable explanation.

"The document is identified as a training tool used in an in-house training exercise where students learn about the basic concepts of military plans and order development through a fictional training scenario," Navy Capt. Pamela Kunze, a spokeswoman for U.S. Strategic Command, told CNN. "This document is not a U.S. Strategic Command plan."

Nevertheless, the preparation and thoroughness exhibited by the Pentagon for how to prepare for a scenario in which Americans are about to be overrun by flesh-eating invaders is quite impressive.

Read the Pentagon's Zombie apocalypse plan

A wide variety of different zombies, each brandishing their own lethal threats, are possible to confront and should be planned for, according to the document.




Zombie life forms "created via some form of occult experimentation in what might otherwise be referred to as 'evil magic,' to vegetarian zombies that pose no threat to humans due to their exclusive consumption of vegetation, to zombie life forms created after an organism is infected with a high dose of radiation are among the invaders the document outlines."

Every phase of the operation from conducting general zombie awareness training, and recalling all military personnel to their duty stations, to deploying reconnaissance teams to ascertain the general safety of the environment to restoring civil authority after the zombie threat has been neutralized are discussed.

And the rules of engagement with the zombies are clearly spelled out within the document.

"The only assumed way to effectively cause causalities to the zombie ranks by tactical force is the concentration of all firepower to the head, specifically the brain," the plan reads. "The only way to ensure a zombie is 'dead' is to burn the zombie corpse."

There are even contingency plans for how to deal with hospitals and other medical facilities infiltrated by zombies, and the possible deployment of remote controlled robots to man critical infrastructure points such as power stations if the zombie threat becomes too much.

A chain of command from the President on down along with the roles to be played by the State Department and the intelligence community for dealing with the zombie apocalypse are clearly spelled out in the document.

'Walking Dead' finale: The biggest reveals

The training document was first reported by Foreign Policy magazine.

This is also not the first time zombies have been used as the antagonist in U.S. government training operations. Both the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Homeland Security have used the creatures as a vehicle for training their personnel in the past.

Defense officials stress the report in no way signals an invasion of zombies is on the horizon. The only real purpose of the document was to practice how to execute a plan for handling something as large and serious a situation like flesh-eating beings trying to overrun the United States.

And why zombies?

Officials familiar with the planning of it say zombies were chosen precisely because of the outlandish nature of the attack premise.

"Training examples for plans must accommodate the political fallout that occurs if the general public mistakenly believes that a fictional training scenario is actually a real plan," the document says. "Rather than risk such an outcome by teaching our augmentees using the fictional 'Tunisia' or 'Nigeria' scenarios used at (Joint Combined Warfighting School), we elected to use a completely impossible scenario that could never be mistaken as a real plan."

So, practice for the when, where and how to plan for a more likely disaster scenario? Yes. But zombies of all stripes would be well advised to take note of this directive to Strategic Command personnel buried within the document.

"Maintain emergency plans to employ nuclear weapons within (the continental United States) to eradicate zombie hordes."

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/16/politics/pentagon-zombie-apocalypse/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
Now that our gadgets are plenty fast and powerful, and most software is easy enough for babies to use, everyone is searching for the Next Big Thing in tech.Based on the investments Big Tech companies are making, the next tech wave will likely be powered by contextual and predictive technologies.

In plain terms, contextual and predictive technologies are designed to get our devices to do exactly what we want without us having to ask over and over again.

Microsoft's (MSFT, Fortune 500) new Cortanafeature for Windows Phone can dive into a handful of apps and anticipate when and where you'll need certain bits of critical information. For example, Cortana can offer up your flight info and boarding pass as you travel to the airport. It can then prominently present that information to you without you doing anything. In some cases, it could even automatically relay information to another app.

What's particularly interesting about Cortana is how much attention Microsoft has given it. Cortana was the star of the show at this year's Microsoft Build developers conference, overshadowing substantial Windows and Windows Phone updates.

Microsoft is not alone, either.

Related: Meet Cortana, Microsoft's Siri

Google (GOOGL) offers a similar service called "Google Now" for Android devices. Earlier this year, Yahoo! (YHOO, Fortune 500)paid a cool $80 million for Aviate, an Android app that changes the look of users' homescreens based on where they are, what time of day it is, and what they're doing. Nest's thermostats learn your habits and the most efficient way to manage the temperature in your house.
The lack of contextual services is also what makes Apple's (AAPL, Fortune 500) Siri feature more of a gimmick than a digital assistant. Apple has spent years polishing its voice recognition technology, which works pretty well. But aside from things like dictating text messages, setting alarms, and checking the weather, there's not much to it that is actually useful.


READ MORE:
http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/28/technology/innovation/google-now-cortana-siri/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

From Schams Elwazer, CNN
updated 7:28 AM EDT, Mon March 24, 2014


(CNN) -- An Egyptian court sentenced at least 528 supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood to death Monday on charges related to violent riots in the southern Egyptian city of Minya last August, including the murder of a police officer, the country's official news agency said.

The riots took place after a deadly crackdown by security forces on two large sit-ins in Cairo, where demonstrators were supporting ousted President Mohammed Morsy.

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http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/24/world/africa/egypt-muslim-brotherhood-sentences/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

By Ben Brumfield and Melanie Whitley, CNN


(CNN) - It was supposed to be a fun family outing to the movies, but then Nair Rodriguez' 19-year-old daughter got under her skin. They fought, she said, and she slapped her daughter.


Moments later, police arrived on a domestic dispute call at the Moore, Oklahoma, theater and confronted -- not Nair Rodriguez -- but her husband Luis. They took him down, and after the encounter on February 15, he was dead.

Cell phone video taken by his wife and released this week shows the final minutes of the takedown.

See Footage: http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/26/justice/oklahoma-arrest-death-video/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

It may have been the least productive year for Congress in history, at least in terms of passing laws – fewer than 60 of which made it through the House and Senate and were signed by President Barack Obama.

Across the country, however, state lawmakers were busy getting more than 40,000 bills passed, ones that tackle everything from drones to food stamp benefits.

In Illinois for example, teenagers will no longer get to use tanning beds without a doctor’s note. If you live in Delaware, visit the shark fin buffet while you can, a new law will make it illegal to own, sale, or distribute the controversial delicacy. And in California, new laws take effect that will let students take part in school sports, or use bathrooms based on their gender identity, regardless of the gender noted in their birth certificates.

Source: http://www.infowars.com/40000-new-laws-take-effect-in-2014/