President Obama has moved it to the front of his continuing push for stricter gun restrictions. “Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun,” he said in

While Democrats in Congress have been calling almost daily for a fix to the so-called watch list loophole, Republicans have succeeded in defeating measures that would prevent people on the lists from buying guns. Democrats say they intend to keep pushing the issue, and on Thursday the House Democratic leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, introduced a motion demanding a vote to restrict the sale of guns from anyone on a federal terrorism watch list. House Republicans swiftly shelved it.

What some critics have called a startling gap in the law has gnawed at counterterrorism officials for years. But it has now emerged as a flash point following the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif., in which a married couple who the authorities believe were inspired by foreign extremists killed 14 people using legally obtained firearms.

But the argument, gun rights advocates say, is a matter of due process. They say that the no-fly list — with tens of thousands of names on it — is unreliable, with innocent people like Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts senator who died in 2009, and other well-known Americans wrongly placed on the list.

While federal gun control legislation has gone nowhere in recent years, certain states have had more success. Connecticut has passed some of the strictest gun laws in the country, including measures enacted after the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, when a gunman killed 20 schoolchildren and six staff members before killing himself.

Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, said it was unclear what the practical implications of Connecticut’s proposed ban would be in stopping someone who is determined to carry out an act of terrorism. That person could simply travel to another state.

Merkel remained a captive for the first 35 years of her life, biding her time. As an adult, she lived in East Berlin, riding an elevated train beside the barricade whose 1961 construction she recalled as the first political memory of her life. When it fell in 1989, she gathered the qualities cultivated as a necessity in the East—patience, blandness, intellectual rigor and an inconspicuous but ferocious drive—and changed not only her life but the course of history.

The girl who would grow up to be called the most powerful woman in the world came of age in a glade dappled by the northern sun and shadowed by tall pines.

The first was thrust upon her—the slow-rolling crisis over the euro, the currency shared by 19 nations, all of which were endangered by the default of a single member, Greece. Its resolution came at the signature plodding pace that so tries the patience of Germans that they have made it a verb: Merkeling.

The second was a thunderclap. In late summer, Merkel’s government threw open Germany’s doors to a pressing throng of refugees and migrants; a total of 1 million asylum seekers are expected in the country by the end of December. It was an audacious act that, in a single motion, threatened both to redeem Europe and endanger it, testing the resilience of an alliance formed to avoid repeating the kind of violence tearing asunder the Middle East by working together. That arrangement had worked well enough that it raised an existential question of its own, now being asked by the richest country in Europe: What does it mean to live well?

Merkel had her answer: “In many regions war and terror prevail. States disintegrate. For many years we have read about this. We have heard about it. We have seen it on TV. But we had not yet sufficiently understood that what happens in Aleppo and Mosul can affect Essen or Stuttgart. We have to face that now.” For her, the refugee decision was a galvanizing moment in a career that was until then defined by caution and avoidance of anything resembling drama. Analysts called it a jarring departure from form. But it may also have been inevitable, given how Angela Merkel feels about walls.

More than 10 police personnel arrived at the house in the Sydney suburb of Gordon at about 1.30pm. Two police staff wearing white gloves could be seen from the street searching the cupboards and surfaces of the garage. At least three more were seen from the front door.

The Australian Federal police said in a statement that the raids were not related to the bitcoin claims. “The AFP can confirm it has conducted search warrants to assist the Australian Taxation Office at a residence in Gordon and a business premises in Ryde, Sydney. This matter is unrelated to recent media reporting regarding the digital currency bitcoin.”

Both Yahoo and Verizon have staked their future on mobile Internet and video growth. On paper, a deal would make sense. New York-based Verizon has already shown a willingness to buy Internet properties with its $4.4 billion acquisition of AOL in June. Yahoo’s Web business, which could fetch a price of $3 billion to $3.5 billion, based on analysts’ estimates, will be spun out as part of Yahoo’s tax-saving move to return the value of its $31 billion stake in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to shareholders.

Yahoo’s board has said that it’s not putting the company up for sale, and that the move is the best way to deal with the Alibaba holdings.

"Yahoo would help check several boxes in what Verizon is looking to build at the moment with a cross-platform ad strategy and new video offerings," said Jan Dawson, an analyst at Jackdaw Research LLC.

Yahoo’s mail, finance, sports and video sites attract more than 1 billion users, a prized asset that would add to AOL’s 2 million users. That kind of Web traffic, along with exclusive content, is just what Verizon, with more than 105 million wireless subscribers, needs to lure and retain a new smartphone-addicted generation.

A Yahoo deal would also give Verizon a new source of revenue, through online advertising, especially from Yahoo’s video-ad unit Brightroll. Verizon has introduced an ad-supported mobile-video service called go90 (named for tilting small screens 90 degrees to watch videos). By seeking users and marketers, Verizon is essentially bulking up to compete with the likes of Facebook Inc. and Google, which are starting to move into the Internet space as a way to drive more users to their online properties.

"Verizon is vying to get a larger share of advertisers’ wallets and adding Yahoo would help strengthen AOL as the No. 3 player," said Brian Wieser, an analyst at Pivotal Research Group. "Yahoo has a lot of users in a well defined environment. That is very valuable to advertisers."

On Wednesday, the board announced that Yahoo would pursue a spinoff of its core Internet business instead, leaving the Alibaba stock in the old company

Although Yahoo’s board said it still believed that the company would prevail in any tax dispute, too many people on Wall Street were worried that challenging Uncle Sam over a possible $10 billion tax bill was just too big a risk, and those fears were depressing Yahoo’s stock price.

Mr. Webb said that after a day and a half of meetings, the nine-member board concluded that it could minimize the tax bill and achieve the same goal — separating the Alibaba investment from the rest of Yahoo — by reversing the direction of the transaction.

The new Yahoo will be two companies: One will have a 15 percent stake in Alibaba, and the other will have everything else, including search, email, the Tumblr social media service, various sites like Yahoo Finance, and Yahoo’s $8.7 billion stake in Yahoo Japan.

Many details of the new spinoff plan remain to be worked out, including who will run the Alibaba shell company and whether the new transaction will incur taxes.

The change in approach comes at a cost: It will add at least a year and a host of complexities to what was already a difficult process.

Mr. Webb said the board determined that another alternative — selling the company — was not the right choice.

"The United States is prepared to assist the Iraqi Army with additional unique capabilities to help them finish the job, including attack helicopters and accompanying advisers, if requested by Prime Minister Abadi," Carter said.

The idea of providing additional assistance with American pilots flying Apache helicopters or moving American advisers closer to the fight has been described before by Defense Department officials, but this is the first time that Carter has disclosed it as a proposal that could be requested by the Iraqi government.

American Apache helicopters have been in Iraq since last summer but only in a force-protection capacity, though last fall Apache helicopters assisted Iraqi ground troops fighting west of Baghdad.

In July, Iraqi security forces began a military operation to retake Ramadi which had been seized by ISIS earlier this year.

Since then, American military officials have grown frustrated by the slow pace of the Iraqi operation as Iraqi troops faced a tougher than expected ISIS defenses. About 10,000 Iraqi troops have encircled the center portion of the city where it is believed hundreds of ISIS fighters remain.

The Senate on Wednesday approved the Every Student Succeeds Act, the bill that will reauthorize the nation’s 50-year-old omnibus education law and make the “pretty-much-universally despised” No Child Left Behind obsolete.

The legislation, which has already gotten the Obama administration’s tacit approval, is being touted by observers and policymakers from both the right and left as a product of rare bipartisan compromise.

The most conspicuous manifestation of that bipartisan give-and-take is what’s being highlighted by news outlets and pundits across the country: Schools will still be held accountable for student performance, but states can determine the nuances of how that will take place.

They’ll have to use “college-and-career ready” standards and intervene when those expectations aren’t met, but states will get to design their own standards and intervention protocol.

They’ll still be required to administer annual testing in certain grades, ensure at least 95 percent of students participate, and disaggregate data based on students’ race, income, and disability status, but they can use other factors on top of testing to assess student performance, and the details of how the testing happens and how the scores are interpreted are up to states.

In many ways, what most conservatives seem to be rejoicing about the Every Student Succeeds Act is that it’s replacing Obama’s waiver system. At a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing in early 2013, Alexander was quoted as saying: “This simple waiver authority has turned into a conditional waiver with the [Education] Secretary having more authority to make decisions that in my view should be made locally by state and local governments.”

It was also loathed for its one-size-fits-all approach to education reform, its promotion of teaching-to-the-test, and its harsh system of sanctions. Republicans grew to despise it for how much it allowed the Department of Education to micromanage states and school districts (especially when Obama rose into office).

And given how little power the Every Student Succeeds Act gives to the federal government, it may feel, particularly among those on the right, as if the nation’s schools are about to experience a major makeover—as if the next era of public education will mark a major, much-anticipated divergence from the status quo.

But in reality, schools may not see much on-the-ground change. Forty-two states and the District of Columbia already have waivers from No Child Left Behind’s “most troublesome and restrictive requirements”—flexibility granted several years ago by the Obama administration in exchange for states’ commitment to “setting their own higher, more honest standards for student success.”

This means that most of the country’s students have already been learning under a system that eschewed much of No Child Left Behind’s most obvious and onerous aspects—and looks a lot like the system envisioned in Every Student Succeeds.

States with waivers were essentially allowed to set their own goals for raising achievement, come up with their own strategies for turning around struggling schools, and design their own methods of measuring student progress.

The overthrow of No Child Left Behind, which has been up for reauthorization for years, is certainly cause for excitement. The George W. Bush-era law required schools to administer annual tests in certain grades in an effort to identify and elevate the achievement of underperforming youth.

Indeed, some of the most controversial elements being overturned or prohibited by the Every Student Succeeds Act were implemented not under No Child Left Behind but through the waiver system. It was through the waivers (and the Race to the Top grant program) that the Obama administration mandated test-score-based teacher evaluations. And it was through the waivers (and the Race to the Top grant program) that the administration all but required participating states to adopt the Common Core. (The Every Student Succeeds Act makes it clear that the federal government can’t mandate teacher evaluations or standards.)

The capture occurred as the spacecraft soared 250 miles above the Arabian sea, skirting the coast of Oman. Three hours later, the capsule was bolted into place. The door was to remain shut until Thursday, though, given the crew's busy schedule.

The supply ship, dubbed Cygnus after the swan constellation, rocketed into orbit Sunday from Cape Canaveral, Florida. NASA's commercial shipper, Orbital ATK, used another company's rocket for the launch. Orbital supply runs had been on hold ever since a launch explosion last year. The other U.S. supplier, SpaceX, meanwhile, has not made a delivery since April because of a launch accident.

Orbital flight controllers, based at company headquarters in Dulles, Virginia, applauded and shook hands once the Cygnus made contact with the space station Wednesday morning. They wore retro-style white shirts, black slacks and skinny black ties in honor of the Mercury astronaut for whom the capsule had been named, Deke Slayton, a commercial space pioneer before his death in 1993.

The previous Cygnus also bore Slayton's name, but ended up being destroyed seconds after liftoff in October 2014. Orbital christened this capsule the S.S. Deke Slayton II.

NASA is paying billions of dollars to Orbital and SpaceX to stock the space station. The pantry got a little too empty for NASA's taste over the past year; besides the two lost commercial shipments, Russia also endured a failed supply run. The Russian Space Agency didn't take long, however, to resume flights; another shipment is scheduled for just before Christmas.

Two of the six-man crew — space station commander Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko — are three-quarters of the way through a one-year mission. They're especially eager to see the Cygnus contents, since they won't be back on the planet until March.

The Cygnus will remain at the space station for a month, before being filled with trash and cut loose for a fiery re-entry.

there are key differences between the House bill and a measure from Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), which has not yet been scheduled for a vote.

House-passed measure received the backing of the U.S. Travel Association, despite initial concerns that Congress would go too far in tightening the waiver program’s security requirements following the Paris terror attacks.

The visa waiver program was launched in the 1980s as a way of boosting business travel and tourism to the United States and hundreds of millions of people have taken advantage of the initiative.

Democrats and Republicans have sparred over stepped-up security proposals made in the wake of the Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. terror attacks.

While an earlier vote to suspend Syrian and Iraqi refugee admissions “showed the country and this body at its worst,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, “Today’s bill makes sensible improvements to the security of the visa waiver program.”

The House and Senate bills would require countries participating in the waiver program to issue passports with embedded chips containing biometric data, report information about stolen passports to Interpol and share information about known or suspected terrorists with the United States.

The House measure also seeks to prevent Syrian and Iraqi nationals, as well as any passport holder of a waiver country who has traveled to Syria, Iraq, Iran or Sudan since March 1, 2011 – the start of the Syrian civil war – from taking advantage of the program. These individuals would instead be required to submit to the traditional visa approval process, which requires an in-person interview at a U.S. embassy or consulate.

The Senate bill would prevent individuals who traveled to Iraq or Syria from using the program for five years. Both bills give the Department of Homeland Security secretary the authority to take countries out of the waiver system.

The pressure on prices has been significant. Continue reading the main story Related Coverage China’s Slowdown Tarnishes Economic Boom in Copper-Rich ZambiaDEC. 2, 2015 A Global Chill in Commodity Demand Hits America’s HeartlandOCT. 23, 2015 Glencore Isn’t Out of the Woods YetOCT. 1, 2015 Prices for iron ore, the crucial steelmaking ingredient, have fallen by about 40 percent this year. The Brent crude oil benchmark is now hovering around $40 a barrel, down from more than a $110 since the summer of 2014.

Companies are caught in the downdraft.A number of commodity-related businesses have either declared bankruptcy or fallen behind in their debt payments

Even more common are the cutbacks. Nearly 1,200 oil rigs, or two-thirds of the American total, have been decommissioned since late last year. More than 250,000 workers in the oil and gas industry worldwide have been laid off, with more than a third coming in the United States.

The international mining company Anglo American is pulling back broadly, with a goal to reduce the company’s size by 60 percent. Along with the layoffs announced on Tuesday, the company is suspending its dividend, halving its business units, as well as unloading mines and smelters.

China looms large in the commodities equation.Between 2000 and last year, companies invested hundreds of billions of dollars to expand their production capacity to satisfy China in a period of rapid economic expansion. Much of the corporate growth was fueled by debt.

Riot police responded with tear gas.Hollande said authorities knew "troubling elements" would arrive in Paris for the talks, and said that was why "these sorts of assemblies were banned and some were ordered to stay home."

Despite those tensions, demonstrators were largely peaceful ahead of the crucial climate change session. In place of the big march, protesters lined up thousands of shoes representing climate change activists.

The talks will begin in earnest on Monday. Nearly 150 world leaders are expected attend the United Nations climate change summit, called with the aim of reaching a landmark global deal on limiting greenhouse gas emissions.The leaders of the United States, China and India -- the world's top three carbon-emitting countries -- are among those scheduled to attend the opening day of the event, known as COP21.

More than 180 countries have already submitted individual national plans, but a climate deal is by no means guaranteed.

Among several sticking points is money - how much rich countries should invest to help poor countries cope with climate change, how much should be invested in renewable energy, and how much traditional oil, gas and coal producers stand to lose if countries agree to forever reduce emissions.

Reviving the rich-poor differences that caused earlier climate talks to fail, Chinese President Xi Jinping said an eventual global deal must include aid for poor countries and acknowledge differences between developing and established economies.

Many of the leaders said the world must keep the average temperature within 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of current levels - and if possible to half that, to spare island nations threatened by rising seas.

The world has already warmed nearly 1 degree Celsius since the beginning of the industrial age, and factories and cars continue to belch pollution around the world.

Many of the leaders framed the problem as a generational issue, where current leaders owe future generations a livable Earth.

Leaders called their attendance in Paris an act of defiance after the Nov. 13 attacks, some of which occurred near the airfield north of the city where the conference is taking place.

Many of the leaders paid their respects at sites linked to the attacks. Obama, in a late-night visit, placed a single flower outside the concert hall where dozens were killed, and bowed his head in silence.

To that end, at least 19 governments and 28 leading world investors were announcing billions of dollars in investments to research and develop clean energy technology, with the goal of making it cheaper. Backers include Obama, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, billionaires George Soros and Saudi Prince Alaweed bin Talal, and Jack Ma of China's Alibaba.

Under the initiative, 19 countries pledge to double their spending on low- or no-carbon energy over the next five years. They currently spend about $10 billion a year, about half of that from the U.S.

Gates said he and other investors, including the University of California, are pitching in $7 billion so far and hope to raise more this week.

In another announcement, the United States, Canada and nine European countries pledged nearly $250 million to help the most vulnerable countries adapt to rising seas, droughts and other consequences of climate change. Germany pledged $53 million, the U.S. $51 million and Britain $45 million.

The money will be made available to a fund for the least developed countries. Other countries that contributed include Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland.

But gene drive technology is so powerful that leading researchers have urged scientists in the field to be cautious. A warning published in August in the prestigious journal Science, by teams in the UK, US, Australia and Japan, said that while gene drives have the potential to save lives and bring other benefits, the accidental release of modified organisms “could have unpredictable ecological consequences.”

They call on scientists to ensure that experimental organisms cannot escape from their labs, be released on purpose, or even find their way out accidentally in the event of a natural disaster. Researchers should also be open about the precautions they take to prevent an unintended release, they said.

In the latest study, mosquitoes were engineered to carry genes for antibodies that target the human malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. When released into the wild, researchers believe the modified insects will breed with normal mosquitoes and pass the anti-malarial genes on to their young, making an ever-increasing proportion of future generations resistant to the malaria parasite.

In lab tests, the modified mosquitoes passed on their anti-malarial genes to 99.5% of their offspring, suggesting that the procedure was incredibly effective and efficient. To track which insects inherited the antibody genes, the scientists added a tracer gene that gave carriers red fluorescent eyes.

The North Atlantic Council, NATO's governing body, called a meeting requested by Turkey, an alliance member. "The aim of this extraordinary NAC meeting is for Turkey to inform allies about the downing of a Russian airplane," said Carmen Romero, NATO's deputy spokesperson. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said nothing about the incident at a ceremony approving the list a new cabinet members.

For Fernandez, who's slated to leave office in December after eight years at the helm, Sunday's closely watched vote was a test of whether her populist political legacy would endure.For a region where leftist movements have played a growing role, it's an election that could shift the balance of power.

And for the finance world, it's a long-awaited moment that could change how the South American country handles its debt problems and interacts with Wall Street.The election of Macri, a center-right candidate who's mayor of Buenos Aires and the former president of the Boca Juniors football club, could signal a conservative shift for Argentina. Macri has said he wants to rewrite the playbook on Argentina's economy -- a campaign promise that made him popular on Wall Street and drew sharp criticism from his opponents.

In his victory speech Sunday night, Macri promised he'd work to eliminate poverty in Argentina and change the way business is done.

AquaBounty developed the salmon by altering its genes so that it would grow faster than farmed salmon, and expects it will take about two more years to reach consumers' plates as it works out distribution.

AquaBounty says its salmon can grow to market size in half the time of conventional salmon, saving time and resources. The fish is essentially Atlantic salmon with a Pacific salmon gene for faster growth and a gene from the eel-like ocean pout that promotes year-round growth.

Activist groups have expressed concerns that genetically modified foods may pose risks to the environment or public health.

Kroger Co, the nation’s largest traditional grocery chain, has “no intention of sourcing or selling genetically engineered salmon,” spokesman Keith Dailey said. Trader Joe's and Whole Foods Market Inc also confirmed that they do not intend to carry the product.

Target Corp eliminated farm-raised salmon in favor of wild-caught salmon in 2010, which spokeswoman Molly Snyder said was the first step in a long-term commitment to improving the sustainability of our seafood assortment. "

The assault began around 7 a.m., when two or three attackers with AK-47 rifles exited at least one vehicle with diplomatic plates and entered the hotel with guns firing, said Olivier Saldago, a spokesman for the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali.The attack, Saldago said, came as the hotel hosted diplomatic delegations working on a peace process in the landlocked country, a former French colony that has been battling Islamist extremists with the help of U.N. and French forces.The Radisson chain said that as many as 170 people -- 140 guests and 30 employees -- had been there as the attack began.

The House action also served as another blow to Mr. Obama on an area that has repeatedly bedeviled him over the last two years of his presidency — how to articulate and put in place a policy in Syria, where there are no clear paths or partners to end the conflict.The fact that lawmakers in both parties have refused Mr. Obama’s request for an explicit authorization of force against the Islamic State, even as they vote to curb refugees, further highlights the vexing politics in the era of terror.

Explosives experts said it was feasible the device shown in the photo could bring down a plane, depending on where it was located and the density of explosives in the soft drink can. The most vulnerable locations include the fuel line, the cockpit or anywhere close to the fuselage skin.

Experts added that the photo could also provide a key clue in tracking Islamic State as the detonator pictured was a commercial one, which could be traced back to its manufacturer.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday the U.S. government was not in a position to confirm "the veracity" of the magazine's claim.

activity is likely the reason," he said, referring to the crash.

"We do believe that terrorist

also published a photo of what it said were passports belonging to dead Russians "obtained by the mujahideen". It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the published photos.The group, which has seized large swathes of Syria and Iraq, said it had exploited a loophole at Sharm al-Sheikh airport, where the plane originated, in order to smuggle a bomb on board.

The airport is widely used by budget and charter airlines to fly tourists to the nearby resorts on the Sinai coast.

said it had initially planned to bring down a plane belonging to a country participating in the U.S.-led coalition bombing it in Syria and Iraq, but it changed course after Moscow started its own air strikes campaign in Syria.

Islamic State's Egyptian branch, Sinai Province, claimed responsibility for the attack the day it happened but Egyptian officials were quick to dismiss talk of a bomb as premature.

Closely related is a divergence in expectations. In January, Matt Schiavenza argued perceptively in The Atlantic that one striking difference between the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris and a roughly contemporary suicide bombing by a 10-year-old in Nigeria was that France is not a country with a failing government or chronic conflict. As a result, attacks there are more shocking.

Many Americans hear “Paris” and think of the Eiffel Tower; they hear “Beirut” and immediately associate it with war. Yet that’s an outdated impression, as

Nor is Paris quite as calm as Americans might imagine. For example: Riots of considerable size are roughly a yearly event, especially in the banlieues; in 2005, during some of the largest riots in recent memory, three people were killed in violence triggered by police chasing three boys, but clearly emblematic of deeper tensions. This may not be the Paris that many Americans think of, but it is Paris just the same. (Both Paris and Beirut even suffered serious garbage-collection strikes this year.)

Beirut, in fact, was once known as the Paris of the Middle East. And while that name is no longer in common usage, there are still similarities between the cities. In the centers, prosperous neighborhoods offer fine dining and glamorous shopping. Farther out, less wealthy residents—many of them immigrants or children of immigrants—live in working-class districts. Paris’s suburban districts, known as banlieues, are heavily populated by Muslim immigrants.

Or should the empathy gap be attributed to an American and European press that focuses too heavily on attacks in the “West”? It’s far easier to get reporters to Paris than, say, Nairobi, though the critique is unfair to the brave reporters who report from dangerous parts of the globe year-round, not just when violence erupts. It’s a good bet that if American news organizations had devoted every resource that they dedicated to the Paris attacks to the bloodshed in Beirut instead, readers, watchers, and listeners wouldn’t have paid nearly the same amount of attention.

In an article for The Atlantic last year, Jacoba Urist reported on the findings of a study of natural disasters around the world, which found that the level of American media attention correlated with geographic proximity to the U.S. and the number of American tourists who had visited the country in question. (Urist noted that a 1976 Guatemalan earthquake with 4,000 fatalities accrued a third of the media coverage of an Italian earthquake with 1,000 deaths.) And as Faine Greenwood suggested after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, journalists and their audience alike suffer from a novelty bias. If it isn’t new—a new attack, a new place—it won’t garner the same buzz.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg has said the only reason there was no safety check-in for Beirut was that Facebook decided only after the Paris attack to deploy the feature for non-natural disasters. That aside, it makes sense that Facebook would move faster on Paris. After all, there are twice as many people in the Paris urban area as there are in all of Lebanon. Even assuming 100-percent Facebook penetration in Lebanon (not far off, probably), there are simply more Facebook users in Paris for the company to respond to.