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The Pogues – Fairytale Of New York

Anthony Bourdain, the chef, writer and TV star famous for his travels around the world, has died at age 61.

The Emmy-awarding winning host is thought to have died by suicide.

Bourdain was found dead on Friday morning in his room at a luxury hotel in the tiny village of Kaysersberg in the Alsace region of northeast France. He appeared to have hanged himself, according to Christian de Rocquigny du Fayel, the prosecutor of Colmar in Alsace region, southeast of Kaysersberg.

What good can come out of the Ashley Madison Hack?

By Pam Martens: December 16, 2014

Citigroup is the Wall Street mega bank that forced the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999; blew itself up as a result of the repeal in 2008; was propped back up with the largest taxpayer bailout in the history of the world even though it was insolvent and didn’t qualify for a bailout; has now written its own legislation to de-regulate itself; got the President of the United States to lobby for its passage; and received an up vote from both houses of Congress in less than a week.

Wall Street On Parade

Memo to Fed: Interest Rates Are a Sideshow; the Problem is Income Inequality

Nov. 18, 2014 10:30 p.m. ET

The Justice Department is complaining that new encryption technology by Apple, Google and others makes it harder for police to gather evidence. Above, customers try Apple’s iPhone 6 in Beijing earlier this month.

The No. 2 official at the Justice Department delivered a blunt message last month to Apple Inc. executives: New encryption technology that renders locked iPhones impervious to law enforcement would lead to tragedy. A child would die, he said, because police wouldn’t be able to scour a suspect’s phone, according to people who attended the meeting.

At issue is new technology that Apple, Google Inc. and others have put in place recently to make their devices more secure. The companies say their aim is to satisfy consumer demands to protect private data.

But law-enforcement officials see it as a move in the wrong direction. The new encryption will make it much harder for the police, even with a court order, to look into a phone for messages, photos, appointments or contact lists, they say. Even Apple itself, if served with a court order, won’t have the key to decipher information encrypted on its iPhones.

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Keystone Supporters Fall One Vote Short in 59-41 Tally; 60 Votes Needed for Passage

A depot used to store pipes for TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline in Gascoyne, N.D.

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Philip Seymour Hoffman RIP

Philip Seymour Hoffman

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Unable to carry his beloved banjo, Pete Seeger used a different but equally formidable instrument, his voice, to instruct yet another generation of young people how to effect change through song and determination two years ago.

A surging crowd, two canes and seven decades as a history-sifting singer and rabble-rouser buoyed him as he led an Occupy Wall Street protest through Manhattan in 2011.

“Be wary of great leaders,” he told The Associated Press two days after the march. “Hope that there are many, many small leaders.”