National News

A computer-simulated woman named Ellie is designed to talk to people who are struggling emotionally and take their measure — 30 times per second. Researchers hope their technology, which reads a person's body language and inflections, will yield diagnostic clues for clinical therapists.

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When several states passed laws banning same-sex marriages, researchers found that the mental health of gay residents seemed to suffer. Conversely, stress-related disorders dropped after the legalization of gay marriage in one state. Researchers say negative media portrayals and loss of safety were contributing factors.

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Inspired by a TED talk, Winston Chen quit his software job and moved from Boston to a tiny Norwegian island with his wife and kids. He spent the year enjoying the outdoors with his family and writing an iPhone app, something he would never have done without his self-imposed sabbatical.

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Tornadoes ravaged portions of central Oklahoma on Sunday, reducing portions of a mobile home park to rubble and killing a 79-year-old man whose body was found out in the open. Twisters, hail and high winds also struck Iowa and Kansas as part of a massive, northeastward-moving storm system that stretched from Texas to Minnesota.

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Qusair is a strategically important town that lies between Homs, where the Syrian uprising began two years ago, and the Lebanese border. If President Bashar Assad's troops – reportedly backed by Hezbollah fighters — regain the town, they would control an important route from the coast to the capital, Damascus.

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College students and recent graduates crammed the top floor of a tech hub in Nairobi for a competition built around the theme "Solutions for the Next Billion Mobile Users." Africa has more than 600 million mobile phone users (approximately 11 percent of the global total) – and the number is growing.

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President Obama delivered a rare, very personal speech during the commencement ceremony at the historically black college.

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The iconic Industrial Trust Tower in downtown Providence is empty for the first time in 85 years. Developers want to turn it into luxury apartments — and want the state and city to pay for it. But Providence — like the rest of Rhode Island — faces its own economic problems, as well as a recent failed investment.

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Like the missiles on Saturday, the projectile missed neighboring countries. The U.S. called the launch "provocations."

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The deal for the blogging site is designed to attract younger users to the ailing Web portal. The Wall Street Journal is basing its report on unnamed sources close to the situation.

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White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said Republicans are trying to make political hay with the scandals.

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Police shot Andrea Rebello, 21, while they were trying to free her from a man holding her hostage.

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The storied midfielder walked off the pitch as fans — and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy — chanted his name.

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Giuseppe Arcimboldo was a 16th-century artist who liked to play with his food, transforming it into the building blocks of many of his fantastical portraits. Artist Philip Haas has taken those portraits out of museums, reinterpreting them as colossal statues that interact with the natural environment.

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If you bought a Poweball ticket in Zephyrhills, Fla., sit down and check these numbers: 10, 13, 14, 22, 52 and 11. Lottery officials say only one ticket matched all six numbers to win Saturday's record jackpot.

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Don't mess with Soviet history, especially when it comes to World War II. That's the message coming from some hard-line Russian legislators who are angry with an opposition lawmaker who criticized Josef Stalin's World War II counterintelligence agency, SMERSH, and likened it to Adolf Hitler's Gestapo.

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Thousands of prisoners are held in detention camps throughout Eritrea, according to Amnesty International. Here's the story of one man who made it out.

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Their country isn't an easy place for anyone to make a living, but it's a downright hostile environment for those with disabilities. Support has mostly come from nonprofits, but activists are pressing the government to take action.

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The IRS has admitted it flagged tax-exemption requests from groups with "Tea Party" or "Patriot" in their names starting in 2010. But some liberal groups and journalism organizations say their applications also faced long delays during the same period.

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The Model S from electric car manufacturer Tesla has been named Motor Trend Car of the Year. But the company's business model is under attack by a formidable foe: the National Automobile Dealers Association, one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington.

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