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PALO ALTO (CBS SF) – Members of Palo Alto’s Architectural Review Board are saying no to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckeberg’s plan to tear down neighboring homes he spent $30 million on. Zuckerberg wanted to bulldoze the four homes around his residence in the Crescent Park neighborhood, replacing them with smaller properties.

MUNICH -- Heavy rain and stricter security did little to dampen the spirits of beer lovers at the start of this year's Oktoberfest, which opened Saturday in the Bavarian city of Munich. Mayor Dieter Reiter tapped the first keg at noon with a respectable two strikes, to the approval of thousands of thirsty visitors gathered in one of 14 vast tents on Munich's Theresienwiese fairground. Responding to a series of attacks in recent months, authorities decided to erect a metal fence, ban large bags, install more surveillance cameras and make visitors go through security checks to enter the festival grounds...

Austrian energy drink maker Red Bull said it posted record profits of €501 million ($559 million) in 2015, an increase of 35 percent, according to the economics magazine Trend. The unlisted firm, which does not directly publish its figures, saw drink sales nudge up 6.1 percent to 5.96 billion cans, its turnover rise 20 percent to €3.2 billion, and operating income soar by 90 percent to €633.3 million, according to Trend. Red Bull’s bottom line was boosted by a cost-cutting program and a weaker euro, the magazine reported. …

WASHINGTON — Two North Carolina lawmakers are pressuring the Government Accountability Office to review the authorities of a U.S. Treasury Department interagency committee that decides how much control a foreign individual can have over a U.S. business. Rep. Robert Pittenger of Charlotte and Rep. Walter Jones of Farmville are two of 16 Republican lawmakers who sent a letter to the government watchdog about their concern over whether the statutory and administrative authorities of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States are insufficient. Half the lawmakers who signed the letter are chairmen and vice chairmen of subcommittees with vested...

When John Williams found out his wife Angela was pregnant with a boy, he dreamed that the child would one day grow to be 7-feet tall. But he had no idea the boy would become the largest high school football prospect in the country – taller and heavier than any player currently on a NFL roster. Enter Brave Williams, a real life giant. The 7-foot-1, 400-pound senior football and basketball player from Lake Shore (Angola, N.Y.) wears a size 21 shoe and has always stood out ... literally.

Although we are still a month away from an official announcement about the size of the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security benefits in 2017, the latest Social Security Trustees report projects a 0.2% increase in benefits next year. That would boost the average Social Security retirement benefit of $1,341 per month by about $2.70 and increase the maximum benefit of $2,663 per month in 2016 by about $5.30 next year. While that would be an improvement over this year when there was no inflation adjustment over 2015 benefit levels, a small COLA will do little to shield seniors'...

Fishermen in New England say President Barack Obama needlessly dealt a big blow to their industry when he created the Atlantic Ocean’s first marine national monument and circumvented the existing process for protecting fisheries. The new Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument consists of nearly 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains off the New England coast. The designation will close the area to commercial fishermen, who go there primarily for lobster, red crab, squid, whiting, butterfish, swordfish and tuna. After Thursday’s announcement, fishermen pondered their next move: sue, lobby Congress to change the plan or relocate. It’s...

Researchers are scaling up successful trial methods of producing safe fertilizer from urine to reduce water pollution and to replace synthetic fertilizer, whose manufacture is energy intensive and expensive. But removing bacteria, residual pharmaceuticals and viruses from urine - which urban legend wrongly maintains is sterile - is the simpler part of the problem. More difficult is persuading people to eat the food.

Donald-Are you listening? So suited for all of our Inner-Cities, this song, theme for the Brit Police Drama ironically named "Happy Valley", in my opinion, is one of the most brilliantly composed set of lyrics, capturing the anguish of hopelessness for Youth that are tethered to welfare benefits,, drugs and violence. Two links to the singer/songwriter, Jake Bugg, performing his song are below. Here are the lyrics: Trouble Town by Jake Bugg Stuck in speed bump city Where the only thing that's pretty Is the thought of getting out There's a tower block overhead All you've got's your benefits And...

Ideas to fix the nation 1. Term limits. No elected representative will serve more than 12 years in office. 2. Sovereign immunity protections will be repealed, so that government officials can be liable for damages. 3. Any law that applies to the American people will also apply to Congress Thus, they will be subject to Obamacare, social security, medicare (no gold plated benefits that the rest of us pay for but can’t afford for ourselves) and numerous regulations that now only apply to the little people. 4. In the event of US military operations overseas, the children of federal office...

Sales were almost broadly weak, rising in only four categories, including clothing stores and restaurants and bars. Receipts at auto dealerships fell 0.9 percent and online sales, whose share has grown in recent years, dropped 0.3 percent. The Fed will hold its policy meeting next Tuesday and Wednesday. Fed Governor Lael Brainard said on Monday she wanted to see stronger consumer spending data and signs of rising inflation before hiking rates. The U.S. central bank raised its benchmark overnight interest rate at the end of last year for the first time in nearly a decade, but has held it steady...

SPARTANBURG, SC (WSPA) – The Atlantic Coast Conderence (ACC) has announced they will be moving championship games out of North Carolina, because of House Bill 2. All 15 university will continue to host ACC Championships at campus sites. Clemson University President James Clements says, “The decision to move the neutral site championships out of North Carolina while HB 2 remains the law was not an easy one but it is consistent with the shared values of inclusion and non-discrimination at all of our institutions.” They say the locations will be announced in the future. The NCAA said on Monday that...

A research team led by the University of Bristol has found magma build-up beneath Japan's Aira caldera and Sakurajima volcano may indicate a growing threat to Kagoshima city and its 600,000 inhabitants. Sakurajima is one of Japan's most active volcanoes with small, localised eruptions nearly every day, but the history of the volcano is even more ferocious. In 1914, a large explosive eruption killed 58 people and caused widespread flooding in the adjacent city of Kagoshima as the ground subsided due to the withdrawal of magma from the subsurface. Continued measurements of the ground movement since that eruption show that...

Under the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, which has been amended several times over the years, already give the executive branch essential control over the movement of weapons in and out of the United States, Bromund said. The Arms Trade Treaty went into effect on Christmas Eve 2014, but the administration has never submitted the treaty to the Senate for ratification, where it would require 67 senators voting for it to pass. After Kerry signed on in 2013, 50 senators–including three Democrats–signed a letter to Obama expressing concern the treaty was overly...

It's a moment Johnnie Flores won't soon forget. "I looked down and I saw sparks flying out of my pocket," the 22-year-old from Arlington said. "It felt like an explosion in my hand." The scars on her body keep the memory fresh. "This one actually pushed the skin back," she said as she showed her wounds. "This is the skin graft here." Flores said she was hospitalized in June with severe burns after a spare lithium ion battery for her e-cigarette exploded in her pocket.

Photography by James Bareham The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are deeply unusual devices. They are full of aggressive breaks from convention while wrapped in cases that look almost exactly like their two direct predecessors. Even that continuity of design is a break from convention; after almost a decade of Apple’s steady two-year iPhone update pattern, merely retaining the same design for a third straight year plays against expectations. Inside that case, everything else about the iPhone 7 is a decisive statement about the future. The dual cameras on the iPhone 7 Plus promise to usher in a new...

iOS 10 is here. Even though it looks just like iOS 9, a lot -- and we mean a lot -- of features are radically different. Messages is a lot more like Facebook Messenger, the lock screen packs a lot more info, and you can finally delete Apple's default apps. There's a lot more to know, so bookmark this page as you get started with iOS 10. Wait -- read this first! No seriously, wait. The iOS 10 update was freezing some people's phones. Apple has just issued a fix, but if you already ran into this issue, here's how...

Welcome to the land of the giant hustle... I saw my first exhibition of three-card Monte on Manhattan's Upper West Side, a dozen blocks from Columbia's Teachers College. There's a connection. A young man shuffled three cards side to side on a cardboard box. Red queen, red king, black ace, something like that. Pick the ace and win $20 for a $10 bet. A half-dozen people clustered around, betting, figuring out the game. New people walked up, others left. Some happy tourist won $20. Easy money. Sometimes the dealer bent one of the cards on the corner. You knew you...

Bodily fluids such as tears, saliva, vomit, urine or stool may have the potential to transmit Zika, suggest the findings of an investigation into a highly irregular Zika case in Utah which produced the first death from the Zika virus in the United States.

Samsung plans to issue a software update for its recalled Galaxy Note 7 smartphones that will prevent them from overheating by limiting battery recharges to 60 percent. The front page of the Seoul Shinmun, a South Korean newspaper, carried a Samsung advertisement on Tuesday announcing the software update for any users of the Note 7 who may be disregarding its recall notice and continuing to use the smartphone. "It is a measure to put consumer safety first but we apologize for causing inconvenience," the advertisement by Samsung Electronics said. The update for South Korean users will start Sept. 20, it...