They hail from New York, the Silicon Valley, Arkansas, Los Angeles and elsewhere. They are a rich and diverse lot, including Republicans, liberals, Hollywood notables and international corporate executives.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, L.A. philanthropist Eli Broad, Netflix founder Reed Hastings, pomegranate juice titan Lynda Resnick, anti-Obama mega-donor A. Jerrold Perenchio and the widow of Steve Jobs.

Together, they smashed records for spending by outside groups in last month’s L.A. Board of Education elections. These major …

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In gushes, drips, and spills. With leaks, derailments, and ruptures. Oil companies from North and South America have littered the world with more than 1,185,000 gallons of crude oil, tar sands, and other fossil fuel waste in the last month. Tcktcktck has a new infographic that tells the toxic tale…

Click here for the graphic …

Fazil Say, one of Turkey’s most famous classical musicians, has been convicted of blasphemy for posting a series of tweets that prosecutors say insulted Islam.

A court in Istanbul today gave the internationally acclaimed pianist a 10-month suspended jail term for “insulting religious values of a part of the population.” He will not be sent to prison unless he is convicted of reoffending within five years.

Say, who was not present in court, has denied the charges …

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“I’ve got more interest in good quality long underwear than I have in birth control pills,” the unfamiliar voice on the phone said to me.

It was Michael Potter, the Eden Foods founder and CEO. He was calling to respond to my Salon report from last week, which revealed that his organic food company — which markets itself to a crunchy, liberal crowd — was quietly suing the Obama administration over its requirement that his company’s …

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Now more than seven years since the last execution in California, the state this week will try again to revive its dormant death penalty system in an appeals court considering the latest legal tangle over San Quentin’s lethal injection procedures.

In a hearing Tuesday, the 1st District Court of Appeal will review a Marin County judge’s 2011 order stopping executions because prison officials failed to comply with administrative rules in revising California’s three-drug execution method. The …

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(Reuters) – As the Senate prepares to debate a gun-control bill for the first time in two decades on Monday, Republicans in the House of Representatives are devising ways to delay and weaken gun legislation they see as limiting Americans’ right to bear arms, congressional sources say.

Some Republican lawmakers and strategists are urging House Speaker John Boehner to kill any gun-control bill passed by the Senate by refusing to take action on it.

But the Republican …

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A BP executive who oversaw the company’s Gulf of Mexico operations testified Tuesday that he he led a push to improve safety when he started the job more than two years before an April 2010 rig explosion killed 11 workers and led to the nation’s worst offshore oil spill.

Neil Shaw, a witness for BP at a trial over the deadly Deepwater Horizon disaster, said safety was his team’s top priority when …

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Campaigners reacted angrily last night after Scotland Yard suggested protesters should consider avoiding Baroness Thatcher’s cortège – because they face arrest under a controversial public order law.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman told The Independent yesterday that demonstrators were more likely than usual to be held under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, because mourners are considered particularly vulnerable to suffering distress.

The law allows police to detain those who cause “alarm, harass or distress”, and officers …

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Hugo Chavez’s former vice-president Nicholas Madura has won a closer-than-expected victory over his opponent in Sunday’s presidential election in Venezuela.

According to the country’s National Electoral Council, Maduro won took 50.66 percent of the vote and his rival, Henrique Capriles, came closer than most expected with 49.07 percent.

The difference amounts to less than 300,000 votes, but as Capriles refused to acknowledge his defeat, Maduro said he would welcome any recounts or audits requested in order to …

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Washington (CNN) — A video from 2011 has resurfaced showing American-born al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn discussing how easy it is to buy guns in the United States and urging fellow radicals to do so.

In the video, the California-raised Gadahn said militants should arm themselves for attacks on Western governments.

“America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms,” said Gadahn, “You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away …

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