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Africa
12:46 am
Sun February 19, 2012

'Enough Is Enough' Say Sengalese Rappers

Credit AFP/Getty Images
Police arrest Kilifa, center, one of two leaders of Senegal's rapper-led youth movement on Thursday in Dakar.

Senegal's capital of Dakar remains jittery, with the youth and the riot police locked in running street battles.

The police are using teargas, rubber bullets and water cannon spray to chase away angry opposition demonstrators, including rappers from the Y'en a Marre movement. Their name means "We're Fed Up, Enough is Enough."

This past week, a planned overnight sleep-in protest was broken up by the security forces. Founding member and rapper, Djily Baghdad, blames Abdoulaye Wade for the ban, the crackdown and for overstaying his welcome as president of Senegal.

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Arts & Life
11:38 pm
Sat February 18, 2012

E-Books Flipping The Page On Publishing Standards

The publishing business is not known as a hot bed of experimentation and has been slow to embrace the transition from print to e-books. But this past week in New York, the Tools of Change digital publishing conference attracted entrepreneurs and innovators who are more excited by, rather than afraid, of the future.

It was the kind of crowd where some were more inclined to say "steal my book" than to argue over what an e-book should cost. These are people who see digital publishing not as a threat, but as an opportunity.

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Technology
10:00 pm
Sat February 18, 2012

Building A Village, One Home-Brewed Tool At A Time

Do-It-Yourselfers have made everything from bamboo bicycles to 3-D printers, but nothing as ambitious as what's happening on a farm in northwest Missouri where tractors and other industrial machines are being made from scratch.

Marcin Jakubowski earned a Ph.D. in physics and his doctoral thesis deals with velocity turbulence and zonal flow detection, whatever that is. But when Jakubowski graduated in 2004, he wanted nothing to do with physics or academia.

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Music News
3:40 pm
Sat February 18, 2012

Fans Flock To Newark For Whitney Houston Memorial Service

Credit Michael Nagle / Getty Images
Fans mourn outside the funeral service for singer Whitney Houston in Newark, N.J., on Saturday. The pop superstar was found dead in a California hotel room a week ago. The cause of death has yet to be determined.

Originally published on Sat February 18, 2012 4:20 pm

It was at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, N.J., where Whitney Houston first learned to sing, and it was there that friends and family gathered on Saturday to say goodbye to the pop superstar.

The star-studded service lasted more than three hours. Among those in attendance were Dionne Warwick, Kevin Costner and Alicia Keys.

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Middle East
2:35 pm
Sat February 18, 2012

'On The Table:' Options For Ending The Iran Standoff

Credit AFP/Getty Images
Iran's state-run Press TV showed images of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad touring Tehran's research reactor on Wednesday.

It was one of the more surreal photo ops this week: Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, live on Iranian TV, visiting a nuclear reactor. Ahmadinejad trumpeted his country's nuclear progress, but denied, once again, that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.

In Washington, officials weren't buying it.

They rushed to repeat the official U.S. line — a line President Obama himself is fond of delivering.

"Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal," he said.

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