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Dogecoin is going to the moon again.

The canine-themed digital currency soared more than 25% Wednesday to about 40 cents. Investors cheered the news that crypto giant Coinbase (COIN) was planning to let users of its Coinbase Pro service buy and sell dogecoin.

By Wednesday night, Dogecoin had reached 42 cents, according to Coinbase.

Dustin Higgs, an inmate on death row in Indiana, has died in the final federal execution of the Trump presidency just days before he leaves office. Higgs was convicted in the killings of three women in a wildlife refuge in 1996, but until his death denied ordering their murder. He died by lethal injection at 01:23 local time (06:23 GMT) on Saturday.

His execution is the 13th carried out since July when the US government ended a 17-year hiatus on federal executions.It comes just days before President-elect Joe Biden, who is against the death penalty, is sworn in.There has been criticism of the Trump administration's rush to carry out the sentences - breaking with an 130-year-old precedent of pausing executions during a presidential transition.

The women had been on a date with Higgs and two other men at an apartment before one rebuffed his advances and an argument broke out between the group. Higgs and accomplice Willis Haynes offered to drive them home but instead took them to a wildlife refuge in Maryland, where prosecutors said Higgs gave Haynes a gun and told him to shoot the three women.Haynes, who confessed to being the shooter, was sentenced to life in prison in a separate trial.

Joe Biden is poised to name Antony Blinken as his secretary of state on Tuesday,

There's no set order to these things, of course, but it is absolutely purposeful and therefore noteworthy that Biden is not only leading his Cabinet announcements with the nation's top diplomat but also that he is doing it so early in his transition.

"You're going to see the first of the President-elect's cabinet appointments on Tuesday of this week. Meeting the pace -- beating, in fact, the pace that was set by the Obama/Biden transition, beating the pace set by the Trump transition."

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Washington (CNN)Ohio Gov. John Kasich says he won't "sit silent" and watch the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion get "ripped out" as Republicans work to repeal the law.

Kasich said 700,000 Ohio residents now receive care who did not before Obamacare became law, including "a third of whom have mental illness and need to be treated or drug treatment, which is a problem throughout the country."

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Britain could have lived with a German victory in the first world war, and should have stayed out of the conflict in 1914, according to the historian Niall Ferguson, who described the intervention as "the biggest error in modern history".

Britain could indeed have lived with a German victory. What's more, it would have been in Britain's interests to stay out in 1914,

It has been a busy week for Martin Shkreli, the flamboyant businessman at the center of the drug industry’s price-gouging scandals. From Our Advertisers quot;frameC

He said he would sharply increase the cost of a drug used to treat a potentially deadly parasitic infection. He called himself “the world’s most eligible bachelor” on Twitter and railed against critics in a live-streaming YouTube video. After reportedly paying $2 million for a rare Wu-Tang Clan album, he goaded a member of the hip-hop group to “show me some respect.”

Then, at 6 a.m. Thursday, F.B.I. agents arrested Mr. Shkreli, 32, at his Murray Hill apartment. He was arraigned in Federal District Court in Brooklyn on securities fraud and wire fraud charges.

California was praised for acting swiftly to contain the coronavirus last spring. Now more than 31,000 people have died of the virus in the state. What went wrong? California was the first to issue a state-wide stay-at-home order, and experts at the time predicted the pandemic would peak here in April with fewer than 2,000 lives lost.But since November, deaths have surged by more than 1,000%. In Los Angeles alone, nearly 2,000 people died this week

Makeshift morgues have been set up across the state, ICUs are full, oxygen is being rationed and ambulance teams have been told not to transport those unlikely to survive the night because hospitals are too full.Disneyland, which has been closed since March, is now being turned into a massive vaccination centre, along with Dodger Stadium, in the hopes of controlling what's become a super surge

Southern California and Los Angeles are the hardest hit regions in California and the United States right now.

Garrett Phillips, a popular and outgoing 12-year-old, was strangled in his home in fall 2011. The murder set off a mad, all-consuming pursuit for a killer in a region where such crimes are extraordinarily rare.

It took more than 30 months for prosecutors to charge him with second-degree murder, in May 2014 — and months more to secure a second indictment after the first was thrown out for prosecutorial misconduct. Despite the long pursuit, the case that a jury will hear this summer is far from perfect: There is a distinct lack of hard evidence, according to police testimony — no fingerprints, no witnesses, no hair or tissue samples, seemingly no conclusive forensic evidence at all connecting Mr. Hillary to the crime.In the long lead-up to the prosecution of Mr. Hillary, his supporters have highlighted not only the absence of physical evidence but the lack of any plausible motive or history that would suggest he was capable of murdering a child. They have also said that another man, a local sheriff’s deputy who once dated Garrett’s mother, was removed from suspicion too quickly.

“I can’t think of any other person who would want to hurt Garrett,” Ms. Cyrus said in a statement to the police after her son died.Like the Raquette River, which splits Potsdam in two, the case has divided opinion and tested residents’ patience in St. Lawrence County, a rural and job-challenged region where 94 percent of the population is white. But the emotional impact on Potsdam is raw and evident: Garrett’s former teachers and family friends cry at his memory, while the village’s elders echo one another, saying such terrible crimes simply do not happen in places like this.“It was like a meteor hitting,” said Ron Tischler, the mayor of Potsdam, home to around 9,600 residents that is about 25 miles south of Ontario.

Meanwhile, the Republican-run Senate Intelligence Committee released a nearly 1,000 page long report documenting the extent of the Trump campaign's connections with Russia. It is remarkable because it is a bipartisan report and many of the details are new.

The report strongly suggests that Trump lied to the special prosecutors about his Wikileaks conversations with Roger Stone, and lays out "an extensive web of contacts between Trump campaign advisers and Kremlin officials and other Russians, including at least one intelligence officer and others tied to the country’s spy services."&nbsp; The report&nbsp;includes this dazzling detail:

Kremlin-directed operatives opened champagne when Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016... “We uncorked a tiny bottle of champagne ... took one gulp each and looked into each other’s eyes .... We uttered almost in unison: ‘We made America great,’” one operative at the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency said in the message obtained by the Republican-led committee.

Rand Paul was forthright and forceful, saying:“I think really there’s a sophomoric quality that is entertaining about Mr. Trump, but I am worried. I’m very concerned about him, having him in charge of the nuclear weapons, because I think his response, his visceral response to attack people on their appearance — short, tall, fat, ugly — my goodness, that happened in junior high. Are we not way above that? Would we not all be worried to have someone like that in charge of the nuclear arsenal?”

Senator Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, as saying, “We do not trust him with our nuclear weapons arsenal” and “We do not want him to use nuclear weapons first in the North Korean standoff — not just there in Korea, but all across the planet.”The article also quotes Markey as saying of Trump, “As his comments become more erratic and inconsistent on the use of nuclear weapons, we think it’s imperative for the United States Congress to reclaim its constitutional authority to have the power to determine whether or not these nuclear weapons are used first against any country.”

As my colleague Nicholas Kristof, who recently visited North Korea, said of the possibility of a war between our country and theirs, “War is preventable, but I’m not sure it will be prevented.”

The scale of a hack on Microsoft Exchange is beginning to emerge, with tens of thousands of organisations potentially compromised.The attack used previously unknown flaws in the email software - and sometimes stolen passwords - to steal data from targets' networks.Microsoft says the attackers are "state-sponsored and operating out of China".

the two attacks put the new Biden administration under pressure to respond.And weary cyber-defenders say events are not just escalating but spiralling out of control.

rhetoric about cyber-campaigns is escalating, heightening pressure for tough action.Although, it is unclear what effective options the president has.And there are concerns his administration has boxed itself in with tough talk when it is unclear if it can actually deter adversaries.

With more than 2 million Syrians already living outside their war-torn country and 1 million more expected to flee in the coming months, there is a growing protection gap. Indeed, a report (PDF) released in November by Harvard University shows that even Canada, which prides itself on being hospitable to refugees, has been systematically closing its borders to asylum seekers. Without a doubt, development-related aid is an important incentive to host countries, and providing sanctuary for vulnerable populations is just as vital, but what refugees need most is a legal status, which can be achieved only through a regional framework of protection and national asylum policies. The Bangkok Principles are a good start because they highlight the commitment among these states to develop a regional framework and national solutions to protect refugees, with the support of the international community. The U.S. must do its part and encourage the Middle East to build on these principles. Syrians deserve an organized and effective framework, and the risk of turning our backs is that Syrians, along with the Palestinians, will be wandering without a homeland. Galya Benarieh Ruffer is the founding director of the Center for Forced Migration Studies at the Buffett Center for International and Area Studies at Northwestern University and a public voices faculty fellow with the OpEd Project.&nbsp; The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera America's editorial policy. 180401 Join the Conversation Post a new commentLogin&nbsp;&nbsp; c

Although the cause of Syrians fleeing their homeland today differs fundamentally from the flight of Palestinians in 1948, one crucial similarity is the harsh reception they are experiencing in neighboring countries. The tragedy of the Syrian refugee crisis is palpable in news stories and in the images of those risking their lives in rickety boats on Europe’s shores. More than one-third of Syria’s population has been displaced, and its effects are rippling across the Middle East. For months, more than 1,500 Syrians (including 250 children) have been detained in Egypt. Hundreds of adults are protesting grotesque conditions there with a hunger strike. Lebanon absorbed the most refugees but now charges toward economic collapse, while Turkey will house 1 million Syrians by the year’s end.

The surge of Syrians arriving in urban centers has brought sectarian violence, economic pressure and social tensions. As a result, these bordering countries, having already spent billions of dollars, are feeling less hospitable and are starting to close their borders to Syrians.

What appeared to be a turning point was in fact the start of a downward spiral for Mr. Foley, a 40-year-old journalist, that ended in August when he was forced to his knees somewhere in the bald hills of Syria and beheaded as a camera rolled.

Mr. Foley converted to Islam soon after his capture and adopted the name Abu Hamza, Mr. Bontinck said. (His conversion was confirmed by three other recently released hostages, as well as by his former employer.)“I recited the Quran with him,” Mr. Bontinck said. “Most people would say, ‘Let’s convert so that we can get better treatment.’ But in his case, I think it was sincere.”

More than an hour later, they flagged a taxi for the 25-mile drive to Turkey. They never reached the border.The gunmen who sped up behind their taxi did not call themselves the Islamic State because the group did not yet exist on Nov. 22, 2012, the day the two men were grabbed.

Marco Rubio attacked Donald Trump at Thursday’s debate for expressing admiration for Vladimir Putin. “Wrong, wrong, wrong!” Trump said, before explaining that it had been the other way around.

First of all, Trump has most certainly spoken glowingly about Putin. In December 2015, on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, he said, “I've always felt fine about Putin. He's a strong leader, he's a powerful leader. ... He's actually got popularity within his country.”

Why was Trump talking about Putin on Morning Joe anyway? Because Putin had indeed discussed him at his year-end press conferences the day before, when a reporter asked him his opinion of the Republican candidate. Putin’s response immediately made news in the United States, with media outlets reporting that the Russian president had praised Trump effusively and planted the seeds for some kind of transatlantic authoritarian “bromance.”

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Paradoxically, what I find more and more is that the Internet is a place for people to affirm and support each other. It's as if the understanding of the fundamental weakness of these electronic proxies to represent human connection causes people to push for it more and more. And this could be beautiful. But it can also be dangerous. Because of the depth of the loneliness, I blame no one for how they interact and connect with others online. I just worry. I worry about the urge towards conformity. I worry about Twitter. I worry that all of those retweets and all of those "right on"s contribute to a kind of coarse postmodernism, where what the truth becomes what is most agreed on. I worry that dissent is confused with a lack of etiquette. And I particularly worry about the echo chamber effect, and the way that small groups of people who are just like each other can come to think of themselves as representing the opinions of everyone. On the Internet, we all make the world in our own image.

The pressure, online, will always be to tack towards the crowd, and people will look endlessly towards their peers-- not intending to undermine the individual voice, but getting there, often, anyway. Don't get judgmental about it, but keep saying your piece. In the tenor of the single voice, you can find strength, and if you keep saying what you think is true, in spite of it all, you will find what is incorruptible in yourself.

In a city where “sunny day floods” increased 400% in a decade, rising seas are changing the old real estate mantra of “location, location, location.” In Miami these days, it’s all about elevation, elevation, elevation.

While some scientific models predict enough polar ice melt to bring at least 10 feet of sea level rise to South Florida by 2100, just a modest 12 inches would make 15% of Miami uninhabitable, and much of that beachside property is among America’s most valuable.

They found out when developers started calling, from everywhere.

Experts' concerns currently focus on a small number of new variants of coronavirus:A UK variant that has become dominant in much of Britain and has spread to more than 50 other countriesA South Africa variant that has also been found in at least 20 other countries, including the UKA variant from BrazilIt's not unexpected that new variants have developed - all viruses mutate as they make new copies of themselves to spread and thrive.

Most of these differences are inconsequential. A few can even be harmful to the virus's survival.

It's suspected that the UK, South Africa and Brazil variants could be much more contagious or easy to catch than earlier versions. All three have undergone changes to their spike protein - this is the part of the virus which attaches to human cells.

n his first interview since fleeing to Russia, Ukraine's ousted president said Wednesday that he was "wrong" to have invited Russian troops into Crimea and vowed to try to persuade Russia to return the coveted Black Sea peninsula.

Yanukovych denied the allegations of corruption, saying he built his palatial residence outside of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, with his own money. He also denied responsibility for the sniper deaths of about 80 protesters in Kiev in February, for which he has been charged by Ukraine's interim government.

While Russia can hardly be expected to roll back its annexation, Yanukovych's statement could widen Putin's options in the talks on settling the Ukrainian crisis by creating an impression that Moscow could be open for discussions on Crimea's status in the future.

For two weeks, the mysteriously well-armed, professional gunmen known as “green men” have seized Ukrainian government sites in town after town, igniting a brush fire of separatist unrest across eastern Ukraine. Strenuous denials from the Kremlin have closely followed each accusation by Ukrainian officials that the world was witnessing a stealthy invasion by Russian forces.Now, photographs and descriptions from eastern Ukraine endorsed by the Obama administration on Sunday suggest that many of the green men are indeed Russian military and intelligence forces — equipped in the same fashion as Russian special operations troops involved in annexing the Crimea region in February.

The question of Russia’s role in eastern Ukraine has a critical bearing on the agreement reached Thursday in Geneva among Russian, Ukrainian, American and European diplomats to ease the crisis. American officials have said that Russia would be held responsible for ensuring that the Ukrainian government buildings were vacated, and that it could face new sanctions if the terms were not met.

The Kremlin insists that Russian forces are in no way involved, and that Mr. Strelkov does not even exist, at least not as a Russian operative sent to Ukraine with orders to stir up trouble. “It’s all nonsense,” President Vladimir V. Putin said Thursday during a four-hour question-and-answer session on Russian television. “There are no Russian units, special services or instructors in the east of Ukraine.” Pro-Russian activists who have seized government buildings in at least 10 towns across eastern Ukraine also deny getting help from professional Russian soldiers or intelligence agents.But masking the identity of its forces, and clouding the possibilities for international denunciation, is a central part of the Russian strategy, developed over years of conflict in the former Soviet sphere, Ukrainian and American officials say.

Thousands of people are fleeing Puerto Rico as the island&nbsp;remains without power&nbsp;and the death toll continues to climb&nbsp;more than a month after Hurricane Maria. Even for those who can afford plane tickets and get to the airport, there’s another hurdle: evacuating with pets.&nbsp; Leaving the island with animals in tow has become a huge challenge, said Sarah Barnett of the&nbsp;Humane Society of the United States, which has workers on the ground in Puerto Rico. The pet owners Barnett has spoken with have been “hysterical” with worry, she said.

Some pet owners stayed, remaining in dire conditions to care for animals. Others had to make gut-wrenching decisions. Claudia, a single mother who left for North Carolina with her baby and two dogs, left her other three dogs with a friend. She’s now desperately trying to bring those dogs to the mainland, too.

“They’re inundated with people wanting to fly their animals out in cargo,”&nbsp;Barnett said. American Airlines is accepting a limited number of pets per flight&nbsp;as checked baggage,&nbsp;and United is transporting animals through its&nbsp;PetSafe program.&nbsp; Delta did not reply to a query about whether it is flying pets in cargo, though it previously&nbsp;waived fees&nbsp;for pets flying in the cabin from Puerto Rico. JetBlue and Southwest never transport pets in the cargo hold, though they both fly a limited number of small pets in the main cabin. A JetBlue spokesperson told HuffPost the airline has waived all in-cabin pet fees&nbsp;for flights out of Puerto Rico through Nov. 15, and doubled the number of pets per flight from four to eight.