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A team of scientists, led by researcher Carles Lalueza-Fox from CSIC (Spanish National Research Council), has recovered -- for the first time in history -- part of the genome of two individuals living in the Mesolithic Period, 7000 years ago. Remains have been found at La Braña-Arintero site, located at Valdelugueros (León), Spain. The study results, published in the Current Biology magazine, indicate that current Iberian populations don't come from these groups genetically. The Mesolithic Period, framed between the Paleolithic and Neolithic Periods, is characterized by the advent of agriculture, coming from the Middle East. Therefore, the genome found is...

Attorney Larry Klayman told WND he had expected an “uneventful” hearing in the ongoing case, which returned before Judge Terry Lewis yesterday, but instead found a legal tangle that he believes means Lewis will “have to make a decision, have to put it on record.” “Lewis would have to reach a decision; he would have to put it on record,” Klayman said. “By amending for declaratory relief, we’re pulling the rug right out from Obama and the Florida secretary of state.” “This judge can’t get out from under his legal requirement,” Klayman said. “If he screws around, he’s violating law.”...

President Obama sounded weary and maybe a tad worried late Friday during a rambling conference call with campaign donors whom he repeatedly begged to send money—and send it now.

A main goal of the Affordable Care Act was to increase the rolls of insured Americans, with about HALF coming from Medicaid. But the Supreme Court made it easier for states to opt out of the expanded program. The president won a major enlargement of Medicaid funding as part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. As many as 17 million people, or about one-third of Americans who lack health insurance, stood to gain coverage under the law. But many states, which administer the Medicaid program and help to fund it alongside the federal government, joined a legal challenge to the...

PHOENIX (AP) — Several thousand critics of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio gathered outside "Tent City" Saturday night for a rally calling for the closure of the sheriff's complex of canvas jail tents. Organizers say conditions at "Tent City" complex are inhumane. The sheriff has said he doesn't see any problems with housing inmates in tents and often points out that some members of the U.S. military live in tents. "We are with you," protesters chanted in both English and Spanish, in hopes that inmates could hear them. Most protesters held candles and wore yellow T-shirts that read "Standing on...

If you qualify, and requirements vary from state to state, you will get an Assurance phone and 250 minutes of airtime with the Assurance Wireless program at absolutely no cost. If 250 minutes are not enough, you can get more minutes for a low monthly fee, or more minutes can be added as needed with Virgin Mobile Top-Up cards, ......you probably qualify for a phone from the company if you participate in Medicaid, Food Stamps/SNAP, General Assistance, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, Federal Public Housing Assistance (Section 8), Home Energy Assistance Programs (HEAP, LIHEAP & E-HEAP),...

PHOENIX (AP) — Some leaders in Arizona's homebuilding industry are concerned about a potential labor shortage following the Supreme Court's decision to uphold part of the state's controversial immigration law known as SB1070. The bill's passage two years ago led thousands of illegal immigrants to pack up and leave. That was when the housing market had crashed, but now the market is recovering. The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the provision in the law that allows police to try to determine the immigration status of people they stop or arrest if they have a reasonable suspicion that they're in the...

Full title: Palin: 'ObamaCare' a harbinger of things to come, if Obama is re-elected, you will no longer recognize the country you love. Palin quickly taking to Twitter. She tweets, "Obama lied to the American people again. He said it wasn't a tax. Obama lies, freedom dies." PALIN: Well, if Governor Romney is elected president -- and let's hope that the GOP does take over the White House and can secure the Senate and holds onto the House -- then obviously, first on the list of priorities must be repealing and replacing "ObamaCare" with something that makes more sense. Now,...

You couldn't make it up, but New York Mayor Bloomberg's latest contribution to a greener environment is to attach a full-sized room air conditioner unit to the side of his SUV. The low-tech solution to Mr Bloomerg's famous dislike of the heat in fact causes less pollution than running the vehicle's own air-condtioning while its engine is idle. And in full view of confused and amused tourists and passers-by, workers outside City Hall yesterday attached the familiar looking air-conditioning unit to a specially designed out-sized box on the passenger window of the New York Mayor's car.

(Reuters) - Hundreds of mourners remembered Rodney King, a symbol of racial tension in Los Angeles and catalyst for sweeping law-enforcement reforms after his 1991 beating by police officers, at a public memorial ahead of his burial on Saturday. "He tried to use his scars to heal a nation," the Reverend Al Sharpton told a news conference outside the Forest Lawn Hall of Liberty in the Hollywood Hills, where the remembrance service was held. Results of toxicology and tissue studies were still pending, authorities said, and there were questions about how King, who by all accounts was an avid swimmer,...

MARICOPA COUNTY, Ariz. -- Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has raised a lot of money for his re-election this year. But then again, he spent a lot of money to do it. The county's top law man announced late Thursday that he's raked in more than $1 million over the past five months as he runs for an unprecedented sixth-term in office. But campaign finance records also show Arpaio doled out about $264,000 on fundraising, with most of the money going to his campaign consultants. In total, Arpaio spent about $290,000 from the beginning of January to the end of...

A Downstate pro-gun group says it turned payouts from Chicago’s firearm buyback program last weekend into a fund-raiser for a youth summer camp — a National Rifle Association shooting camp, that is. The city collected 5,500 guns last Saturday in the annual buyback. The city gave out $100 MasterCard gift cards for each gun and $10 cards for BB guns and replicas. Sixty of the guns and several BB guns were turned in by the Champaign-based Guns Save Life. In return, the group received $6,240 in gift cards, said John Boch, president of the group. Guns Save Life is known...

McConnell: I'll repeal Obamacare as majority leaderBy SEUNG MIN KIM | 6/29/12 3:12 PM EDT Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declared Friday that repealing the health care law would top his priority list if he controls the chamber come 2013. “If [Mitt] Romney is in the White House and I am the majority leader of the Senate, I assure you repeal of Obamacare is the first item on the agenda,” McConnell on Laura Ingraham’s radio show Friday. By using a budget process called reconciliation, a theoretical Senate GOP majority could successfully vote to repeal the law with just 51...

        EXAMINING THE FOUNDATION It was back in 1962, I'm told, when cracks began to appear in the 42nd story of a very expensive high-rise in Hong Kong. It had already withstood numerous typhoons. And there was no ready explanation for the cracks' sudden appearance. Yet there they were. Obviously, there had to be a problem somewhere. So a team of architects and structural engineers was called in to ferret out the cause. Finally, one determined engineer stumbled upon the reason as he was prowling around the foundations deep in the basement. When he tapped the...

A group of Russia’s Pacific Fleet warships has arrived at the U.S. Pearl Harbor naval base to take part in the Rim of the Pacific international drills, a fleet spokesman said on Saturday. “During their long voyage from Vladivostok to Pearl Harbor, the warships’ crews held several firing drills, successfully destroying all the targets,” First-Rank Captain Roman Martov said. The naval task group comprising the Admiral Panteleyev destroyer, the tanker Boris Butoma and the Fotiy Krylov salvage tug sailed off Vladivostok in the Russian Far East on June 13 to head for the U.S. Hawaiian Islands where the RIMPAC-2012 large-scale...

You think the term groovy originated in the 1960's? The 70's? Nope. Believe it or not, it's from the 40's- and associated with a very famous Santa Claus movie!

The New York Times has updated their electoral map, moving Wisconsin and Pennsylvania into the toss-up category.Unlike the Huffington Post which shows Obama has 254 electoral votes locked down, the Times shows him with just 185 plus 32 leaning for a total of 217. He needs 53 among the toss-up states to put him over 270, still less than Romney, who needs 64 with solid states and leaners included.I've therefore listed the 9 states and electoral votes of each in the toss-up category in order of likelihood to vote GOP: Virginia - 13 Florida - 29 Ohio - 18 New...

Gov. Chris Christie called a reporter an "idiot" this afternoon during a press conference to discuss the water emergency in Monmouth County. Although reporters were told that Christie would only be answering questions about Friday's collapse of three large water pipes at NJ American Water’s treatment plant at Swimming River Reservoir and the subsequent boil water alert in 22 towns, one journalist tried to ask about the special joint session of the Legislature that the governor has called for Monday. When the reporter said, "Governor, on Monday are you going to be addressing the legislature," Christie interrupted and replied, "Did...

Video is beginning to surface online of the moments after that car bomb that went off in Nuevo Laredo Friday morning a little after 11AM. The video was taken by an eyewitness only moments after, what officials say, was a grenade that went off in a pick-up truck at around 11:15 Friday morning outside the main municipal building in Nuevo Laredo. Seven victims were hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries. The outside of the building was damaged, along with nearby vehicles. Residents on both sides of the border were alarmed after hearing an explosion Friday morning. Smoke could be seen for...

The Center for Health Transformation (CHT) released a new chart revealing the nearly 2,000 new and expanded powers given to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius under the healthcare law. The chart, titled “The New and Expanded Secretarial Powers in the Health Reform Law,” shows the exact legislative language from the 2,409-page law and the 1,968 grants of new and expanded powers to the secretaries of Departments of Labor, Treasury and Health and Human Services. The overwhelming majority of which will fall under HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, from powers over access to drugs and insurance coverage to care...