Astronomers measure the precise distance to over a quarter of a million galaxies to gain new insights into the influence of dark energy on the Universe.

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Survey gets a grip on dark energy

Mr. Scruggs was a banjo player whose hard-driving picking style influenced a generation of players and helped shape the sound of 20th-century country music.

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Earl Scruggs, 1924-2012: Earl Scruggs, Bluegrass Banjo Player, Dies at 88;

Pope Benedict XVI’s comments about violence in Mexico and Communism in Cuba suggest that the pope does not intend to ignore his potential political influence.

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News Analysis: In Pope Benedict XVI’s Mexico Visit, Pastoral is Political

Fallout from the Planned Parenthood controversy continues at the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, with several executives at headquarters and affiliates departing, questions arising about fundraising ability, and structural changes underway to give affiliates more influence, officials said Wednesday. Read full article > >

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Komen foundation continues to see fallout from Planned Parenthood controversy

Despite the influence of “Soul Train” on pop-culture memory, friends and supporters lament what little serious recognition and respect Don Cornelius got when he was alive.

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Don Cornelius, Host of ‘Soul Train,’ and His Muted Legacy

The billionaire Koch brothers, whose outsized political spending has become an issue in the 2012 elections, are attempting to take control of a prominent Washington think tank in a move that would expand their influence in conservative politics, according to court records and interviews. Read full article > >

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In suit, Koch brothers seek bigger control over D.C. think tank

The two television ads are almost indistinguishable . In both, former Bain Capital executive Robert C. Gay tells the tale of Mitt Romney’s role in leading a search for Gay’s missing daughter, interspersed with footage of New York and flashes of Romney. Read full article > >

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Two ads aired 5 years apart spark fight over election rules

Harry C. McPherson Jr., a Texas-born lawyer who as a principal adviser, speechwriter and confidant to President Lyndon B. Johnson influenced a range of policies, from civil rights to the curtailing of bombing in Vietnam, died Feb. 16 at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. He was 82. Read full article > >

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Harry McPherson Jr., presidential adviser and D.C. lobbyist, dead at 82

The prison, the pub and other landmarks that influenced author

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VIDEO: Dickens’s London: Prison to the pub

The United States Constitution was once a model for charters around the world, but its influence is waning, according to a new study.

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Sidebar: ‘We the People’ Loses Appeal With People Around the World

We have seen the world created by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, and it doesn’t work. Oh, yes, it works nicely for the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country, especially if they want to shroud their efforts to influence politics behind shell corporations. It just doesn’t happen to work if you think we are a democracy and not a plutocracy. Read full article > >

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The Citizens United catastrophe

The U.S. military launched an airstrike against Yemen’s al-Qaeda affiliate on Tuesday, targeting an area of the country where the group is increasingly asserting its influence. At least a dozen people were killed in the strike, including insurgents from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and local militants, according to some reports. Other accounts put the death toll at about half that number. Read full article > >

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U.S. launches airstrike against al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen

Romney says he was “influence peddling.”

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Gingrich Pounded on Freddie Mac

The growing literary influence of WG Sebald

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Film remembers ‘exceptional’ Sebald

First, the title. “America’s Most Hated Family” is a bit of a misnomer, since it gives too much credit to Fred Phelps’s nuclear family of wingdings, whose numbers are minimal but whose influence is magnified by the fact that we — the media, the counterprotesters, the sane people — keep upturning the rock they live under to examine them, again, and again, and again. Read full article > >

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‘America’s Most Hated Family’ doesn’t delve deep enough into Phelps clan