Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/260281
Comcast deal to buy Time Warner Cable poses quandary LOS ANGELES (AP) — With a single behe- moth purchase, Comcast is creating a dominant force in American enter- tainment and presenting federal regulators with an equally outsized quandary: How should they handle a conglomer- ate that promises to improve cable TV and Internet service to mil- lions of homes but also consolidates unprecedent- ed control of what view- ers watch and download? Comcast, which was already the nation's No. 1 pay TV and Internet provider, says its $45.2 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable will pro- vide faster, more reliable service to more customers and save money on TV programming costs. If the acquisition is approved, Comcast will serve some 30 million pay TV cus- tomers and 32 million Internet subscribers. But industry watch- dogs say the deal will give the company too much power and ultimately raise the price of high- speed connections. ''How much power over content do we want a single company to have?'' said Bert Foer, president of the American Antitrust Institute, a Washington- based consumer-interest group. The all-stock deal approved by the boards of both companies trumps a proposal from Charter Communications to buy Time Warner Cable for about $38 billion. It also represents another giant expansion following Comcast's $30 billion purchase of NBCUniver- sal, operator of networks like NBC, Bravo and USA, which was complet- ed last March. Facebook adds options for users to self-identify MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) — You don't have to be just male or female on Facebook any- more. The social media giant has added a cus- tomizable option with about 50 different terms people can use to identi- fy their gender as well as three preferred pronoun choices: him, her or them. Facebook said the changes, shared with The Associated Press before the launch on Thursday, initially cover the com- pany's 159 million monthly users in the U.S. and are aimed at giving people more choices in how they describe them- selves, such as androgy- nous, bi-gender, intersex, gender fluid or transsex- ual. ''There's going to be a lot of people for whom this is going to mean nothing, but for the few it does impact, it means the world,'' said Facebook software engineer Brielle Harrison, who worked on the project and is herself undergoing gender trans- formation, from male to female. On Thursday, while watchdogging the software for any prob- lems, she said she was also changing her Face- book identity from Female to TransWoman. ''All too often trans- gender people like myself and other gender noncon- forming people are given this binary option, do you want to be male or female? What is your gender? And it's kind of disheartening because none of those let us tell others who we really are,'' she said. ''This real- ly changes that, and for the first time I get to go to the site and specify to all the people I know what my gender is.'' Facebook, which has 1.23 billion active monthly users around the world, also allows them to keep their gender identity private and will continue to do so. Debt vote shrouded in secrecy WASHINGTON (AP) — Financial markets were watching, the retirement accounts of millions of Americans on the line. Nervous senators were watching too, well aware that political fortunes could be on the line. So on perhaps the most important vote of the year, the Senate did something extraordinary this week: It tried to keep the vote tally secret until the outcome was assured. As lawmakers voted Wednesday on must-pass legislation to increase the government's debt limit, they dropped the parliamen- tary equivalent of a curtain on the voting as it was in progress. Typically, roll-call votes in the Senate play out in a very public manner. People watching from the galleries or tracking action from afar via C-SPAN can watch democracy unfold in all its messy wonder. Syrian airstrikes kill 400 so far this month GENEVA (AP) — The United States and Russia promised to try to break the stalemate in Syria peace talks, a U.N. medi- ator said Thursday, as Syrian activists said gov- ernment shelling and airstrikes with makeshift barrel bombs killed about 400 people in the coun- try's largest city so far this month. A second round of peace talks in Geneva has offered a rare opportunity for conversation, but yielded little more than acrimony. The violence has escalated on the ground and delegates in Geneva have failed to even agree on an agenda for the talks. U.N.-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahi- mi said after meeting with senior U.S. and Russian officials that they pledged to try help. ''They have kindly reaffirmed their support to what we are trying to do and promised that they will help both here and in their capitals and else- where to unblock the situ- ation for us because until now we are not making much progress,'' he told reporters. He met with U.S. Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman and Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Gen- nady Gatilov to try to sal- vage the talks. Del. doctor convicted of waterboarding companion's daughter GEORGETOWN, Del. (AP) — A Delaware jury convicted a pediatrician Thursday of waterboard- ing his companion's daughter by holding the child's head under a faucet. The jury deliberated for about six hours before returning its verdict against Melvin Morse, 60. Morse was charged with three felonies, two for alleged waterboarding and one for alleged suffo- cation by hand. He was convicted of one felony — waterboarding in the bathtub — and five mis- demeanors. Morse did not show any immediate reaction after the verdict. He could face several years in prison. Sentencing was set for April 11. Defense attorneys argued that ''waterboard- ing'' was a term jokingly used to describe hair washing that the girl did not like. Talking to babies early really matters WASHINGTON (AP) — The sooner you start explaining the world to your baby, the better. That doesn't mean flash cards for tots, or merely pointing out objects: ''Here's an orange. That's a bowl.'' New research shows that both how much and how well parents talk with babies and toddlers help to tune the youngsters' brains in ways that build crucial language and vocabulary skills — a key to fighting the infamous word gap that puts poor children at a disadvantage at an even younger age than once thought. The idea is to connect words and meaning, so the brain becomes primed to learn through context: ''Let's put the orange in this bowl with the banana and the apple and the grapes.'' ''You're building intel- ligence through lan- guage,'' is how Stanford University psychology professor Anne Fernald explains it. ''It's making nets of meaning that then will help the child learn new words.'' Drake done with mag interviews NEW YORK (AP) — Drake says he won't do interviews with maga- zines following a recent story in Rolling Stone magazine. The rapper was sup- posed to be on the cover of the magazine's new issue, but was replaced with the late Philip Sey- mour Hoffman. Drake tweeted Thursday that he's ''done doing inter- views with magazines.'' ''I just want to give my music to the people,'' he wrote. ''That's the only way my message gets across accurately.'' Other Thursday tweets from the 27-year-old were deleted, including one about his discomfort with Hoffman gracing the cover of Rolling Stone. ''I'm disgusted with that. RIP to Phillip Sey- mour Hoffman. All respect due. But the press is evil,'' he tweeted. Chevrolet to oversee restoring sinkhole Corvettes WARREN, Mich. (AP) — What Mother Earth devoured, Chevrolet plans to resurrect. The carmaker said Thursday it will over- see restoration of the clas- sic cars swallowed by a huge sinkhole beneath the National Corvette Museum in Kentucky. General Motors Design in Warren, Mich., will manage the painstaking work to repair the eight prize vehicles, the automaker said Thursday. The cars were con- sumed when the earth opened up early Wednes- day beneath a display area when the museum in Bowl- ing Green, Ky., was closed. No injuries were reported. The museum was open Thursday except for the area where the sinkhole occurred. Mark Reuss, GM's head of global product develop- ment, said the damaged vehicles rank as ''some of the most significant in automotive history.'' 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