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AP Twitter account hacked

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Hackers compromised the Associated Press's Twitter account Tuesday, news sources reported, falsely reporting an attack on the White House.

The Tweet, which claimed two explosions had occurred in the White House and that Barack Obama had been injured, caused the Dow Jones industrial average to drop about 1 percent before bouncing back, NPR reported.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the president was unharmed, the AP reported. All of the news organization's official Twitter accounts have been suspended in light of the incident.

Both the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating the hacking, Reuters reported.

Hunt for Faribault stabbing suspect ends

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(Note: this story was also reported for the Minnesota Daily.)

The hunt for a man suspected of stabbing his girlfriend ended Sunday in southern Minnesota, news sources reported.

Shane Alan Wilson, 27, was picked up by police in Steele County, where authorities found him suffering from hypothermia, the Star Tribune reported.

Wilson was wanted in connection with the stabbing of his unidentified 26-year-old girlfriend, who police found unresponsive in a stalled vehicle Saturday, the Pioneer Press reported.

Authorities said Wilson was taken to a hospital after his arrest, Minnesota Public Radio reported.

Palestinian Prime Minister resigns

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(Note: this story was also reported for the Minnesota Daily.)

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad resigned Saturday, news sources reported.

The announcement comes after public disagreements between Fayyad and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Al Jazeera reported. Fayyad was seen by some Palestinians as too close to the United States and Israel.

The Palestinian parliament criticized Fayyad's policies earlier this month, the New York Times reported, calling them "improvised and confused." Fayyad, who was appointed in 2007, resigned in 2009 but was reinstated only a few months later.

Abbas is expected to name a new Prime Minister within days, the Associated Press reported.

Film critic Roger Ebert dies

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Roger Ebert, the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for his work, died Thursday, news sources reported.

Ebert, 70, reviewed films for the Chicago Sun-Times for more than 45 years, His reviews were syndicated in newspapers worldwide.

He had battled cancer since 2002, the Washington Post reported, and announced he was undergoing radiation treatment Wednesday. Along with Gene Siskel, he popularized the "thumbs-up" rating system that many believed could make or break a film's box-office success.

Ebert is survived by his wife, Chaz Hammelsmith, the New York Times reported.

(Note: this post was originally reported for the Minnesota Daily.)

American books became more emotional than British ones starting in the 1960s, a new study claimed Monday.

The study, published in the journal PLOS One, also found that certain "mood words" were used more than others in various periods of the 20th century.

"We were initially surprised to see how well periods of positive and negative moods correlated with historical events," Dr. Alberto Acerbi, one of the researchers, said in a statement.

"The second world war, for example, is marked by a distinct increase in words related to sadness, and a correspondent decrease in words related to joy."

The researchers used Ngram, a database managed by Google, to search for certain words, according to MinnPost.

They found an overall decrease in the use of mood words across the English-language books archived on Ngram.

American authors, the researchers noted, began to use more emotional words than British ones in the 1960s.

"In the USA, baby boomers grew up in the greatest period of economic prosperity of the century," said co-author Alex Bentley.

"Whereas the British baby boomers grew up in a post-war recovery period, so perhaps 'emotionalism' was a luxury of economic growth."

Jorge Bergoglio elected as new pope

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Cardinals elected Argentine Jorge Bergoglio as the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church Wednesday, news sources reported.

Bergoglio is the first Latin American and the first Jesuit to be chosen by his peers for the office, the BBC reported. He will call himself Francis I.

The pope, 76 years old, previously served as the archbishop of Buenos Aires, the New York Times reported. He is replacing Pope Benedict XVI, the first pontiff in 598 years to resign.

There are 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide, according to the Star Tribune. Brazil, another Latin American country, has 124 million Catholics, more than any other nation.

Rand Paul filibusters Obama's CIA nomination

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Republican Sen. Rand Paul began speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday in an attempt to filibuster President Barack Obama's nomination for the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, news sources reported.

Paul said he would oppose the nomination of John Brennan to lead the CIA after receiving a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder that did not rule out using drone strikes on American soil, the New York Times reported.

"No American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime," Paul said.

Filibustering is the act of speaking on the floor as long as possible to delay a vote. Paul is the first senator to use the tactic in more than two years, the Washington Post reported.

Paul said he would filibuster the nomination until he could no longer speak.

Feds join suit against Lance Armstrong

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The Department of Justice joined a lawsuit Friday against disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, news sources reported.

The suit, filed by one of Armstrong's former teammates, alleges the former seven-time Tour de France winner defrauded the government, CNN reported.

Armstrong's team was sponsored by the U.S. Postal Service. They allegedly did nothing when they knew Armstrong and others were breaking contract regulations by doping.

Armstrong offered to pay $5 million to settle the case, the New York Times reported. His lawyers say the Postal Service made more than $100 million in profits by sponsoring the team.

The two sides of the suit are tens of millions of dollars apart on a settlement agreement, the Associated Press reported. By joining the suit, the Justice Department will effectively take the case out of Armstrong's former teammate's hands.

Former Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. and his wife Sandi will plea guilty to federal charges, news sources reported.

Sandi Jackson's attorneys issued a statement saying she will plead guilty to tax fraud, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The Congressman was charged in a criminal information, which typically means that the defendant will plead guilty.

Court papers filed Friday in the U.S. District Court in Washington charged Jesse Jackson Jr. with misusing approximately $750,000 in campaign funds, the Washington Post reported.

He spent the money on everything from children's furniture to a $40,000 Rolex watch, prosecutors alleged.

The conspiracy charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and $250,000 in fines, the Associated Press reported.

A study released Monday said both Israeli and Palestinian textbooks fail to adequately portray each others' people, news sources reported.

Most books ignored the other peoples' existence in maps and charts, Reuters reported. They also presented narratives that enticed readers to become part of the decades-old conflict.

Palestinian authorities welcomed the study, which was funded by the U.S. State Department, the Washington Post reported. Israeli officials called the study biased.

The study was conducted by Israeli and Palestinian researchers and used peer-review methods to assure accuracy, the Los Angeles Times reported. A Yale professor also contributed to the study.

Extreme occurrences of hatred and dehumanization were uncommon on both sides, the New York Times reported.

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