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Reporting from Washington -- Another inauguration took place in Washington this week -- Google Inc. officially became a political power player.In October, Google was only hours from being sued by the Justice Department as a Web-search monopolist. Today, less than three years after it made its first Washington hire, the Internet giant is poised to capitalize on its backing of President Obama and pursue its agenda in the nation's capital....Link
There may be less than meets the eye to the executive orders President Obama issued yesterday to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay and prohibit the torture of prisoners in American custody. Those pronouncements may sound dramatic and unequivocal, but experts predict that American policy towards detainees could remain for months or even years pretty close to what it was as President Bush left office....Link
PARIS (AFP) – A few lucky people in the Indian Ocean will be treated to a rare event on Monday when an annular solar eclipse will transform the Sun into a dark disc with a blazing ring-shaped corona around its rim.In solar eclipses, the Moon moves between the Sun and Earth, casting its shadow on the terrestrial surface...Link
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California's unemployment rate jumped to 9.3 percent in December from 8.4 percent in November and 5.9 percent a year earlier as job cuts swept across most industries, with recession tightening its grip on the most populous U.S. state, state officials said on Friday.California's December jobless rate marked a 14-year high for the state and was significantly higher than the month's national average of 7.2 percent, underscoring a surge in job losses over the last three months of 2008, said Patti Roberts, a spokeswoman for the state's Employment Development Department...Link
Starbucks wants to make it easy to join Obama’s proposed paramilitary brown shirt volunteers. “Starbucks will honor each person who pledges with a free tall brewed coffee beginning Wednesday, Jan. 21 through Sunday, Jan. 25. The goal of the effort is to raise pledges in excess of one million hours of service from all over the country,” a Starbucks press releases states...Link