I t’s easy to frame the fight over SOPA and PIPA as Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley — two huge industries clashing over whose voice should dictate the future of Internet policy — but it’s absolutely wrong. The bills are dead , thanks to widespread protest. But the real architects of the bills’ defeat don’t have a catchy label or a recognized lobbying group. They don’t have the glamour or the deep pockets of the studios. Yet they are the largest, most powerful and most important voice in the debate — and, until recently, they’ve been all but invisible to Congress. Read full article > >

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We are the media, and so are you

The amount of non-mortgage borrowing held by consumers fell in December by the largest amount on record, £377m, the Bank of England says.

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Record fall in personal borrowing

The amount of non-mortgage borrowing held by consumers fell in December by the largest amount on record, £377m, the Bank of England says.

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Record fall in personal borrowing

Goldman Sachs, which manages Mitt Romney’s family’s fortune, is also his largest source of campaign contributions.

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Close Ties to Goldman Enrich Romney’s Public and Private Lives

And the largest in 13 years.

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Ford Posts Profit for Third Year

The automaker’s earnings for 2011 were the largest in 13 years after a one-time gain in the fourth quarter.

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Ford Posts Third-Straight Annual Profit

Police officers opened fire on Tibetan protesters in western China on Monday in the largest violent confrontation in ethnic Tibetan areas of China since 2008.

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Tibetans Fired Upon in Protest in China

A Marine accused of killing unarmed Iraqi women and children pleaded guilty Monday to dereliction of duty in a deal that will mean a maximum of three months confinement and end the largest and longest-running criminal case against U.S. troops to emerge from the Iraq War.

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Marine Accepts Plea Deal in Iraqi Civilian Deaths

Spanish bank BBVA tells the BBC it is switching its 110,000 staff to use Google’s cloud-computing software in the largest deal of its kind.

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Bank signs up for cloud computing

Astronomers have found the largest known galaxy cluster in the ancient Universe, calling it “El Gordo” – Spanish for “the Fat One”.

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Galaxy cluster is named ‘fat one’

President Obama is scheduled to make a rare visit to the Pentagon on Thursday to unveil details of a strategic review for the U.S. military that will consolidate missions and downsize the ambitions of the armed forces as they adjust to a new era of austerity, officials said. Obama, who will be joined by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will place his personal imprint on a new military strategy that Pentagon officials have been preparing for months in anticipation of the largest cuts to the defense budget since the end of the Cold War. Read full article > >

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Obama to unveil austere Pentagon strategy

Pfc. Bradley Manning, in a military courtroom Tuesday, faced for the first time the man he apparently thought was a kindred spirit but who instead told authorities that the soldier had carried off one of the largest intelligence leaks in U.S. history. Manning, who has been detained for 19 months, stared intently at Adrian Lamo, a convicted hacker who alerted investigators about Manning in May 2010 shortly after the intelligence analyst reached out to Lamo over the Internet seeking “moral and emotional support.” Read full article > >

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Manning faces hacker who told authorities of leak suspicions

The attack was one of the largest attacks yet on Syrian security forces by a growing armed insurgency.

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Syria Army Defectors Said to Kill 27 Soldiers in Coordinated Assault

MOSCOW — Tens of thousands of Muscovites thronged to a city square to protest against alleged electoral fraud and against Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his party on Saturday, and demonstrators gathered in other rallies across the vast country, the largest public show of discontent in post-Soviet Russia. Read full article > >

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Moscow protest against Putin attracts at least 25,000; other demonstrations throughout Russia

The owner of the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia, where 29 men died in an explosion last year, has agreed to pay $209 million in civil and criminal penalties and promised to make major safety improvements to its mines, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday. The deal between the federal government and Alpha Natural Resources, which acquired the Upper Big Branch coal field when it bought out Massey Energy in June, is the largest settlement in a criminal investigation of a mine disaster in U.S. history, the U.S. attorney’s office said. Read full article > >

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W.Va. coal mine to pay historic $209M settlement in blast that killed 29 miners