American Airlines says it no longer faces a pilot crisis Christmas week

American Airlines has reached an agreement with pilots to fill 15,000 unmanned flights between Dec. 17 and 31.
A computer error had allowed pilots to opt out of some of the holiday flights, an option they usually don't have.
Rather than face mass cancellations and refunds, the airline has agreed to pay pilots double their normal rate for taking one of the previously unmanned flights.

A computer error threatened to ruin the holidays for American Airlines and its passengers, but the airline has reached an agreement with pilots to avoid a disaster.
Last week, pilots learned that a scheduling glitch had allowed them to opt out of some flights between Dec. 17 and 31. Pilots often don't have that option during the holidays.
The glitch left around 15,000 flights without a pilot. The airline first attempted to staff the flights with reserve pilots, but that would have been risky, as reserve pilots are typically meant to fill in for isolated incidents, rather than large, system-wide errors, according to Yahoo.

Almost 200 paedophiles arrested in one week in crackdown on live-streaming apps including Facebook and Instagram

Almost 200 paedophiles were arrested in just one week for grooming children online, according to reports.
It came during a crackdown on apps that offer live-streaming services including Facebook, Instagram and Live.me
Around 30 per cent of suspects worked in a position of trust, including teachers, civil servants, military personnel and police officer.

The swoop saved 245 children from exploitation.
Sick perverts pose as other children and convince targets to expose themselves or perform sex acts online.
Often they then use the pictures or video as blackmail to force children into even more degrading acts.

'The threat is very real': Millions in Tokyo to take part in North Korean nuclear attack exercise

Millions of residents of Tokyo are to take part in evacuation drills simulating a North Korean nuclear attack on the Japanese capital.

The national and city governments are to carry out a series of exercises between January and March to prepare for a potential attack on Tokyo, the Sankei Shimbun newspaper reported, the first time that a major Japanese city will have carried out responses to a simulated attack.

Towns facing the Korean Peninsula have in recent months conducted similar drills, with residents instructed to seek shelter in response to sirens warning of an imminent missile strike.
But the Japanese government has until now resisted calls for major cities to carry out similar exercises on the grounds that they would alarm the public.

How to Make The People You Love Feel Loved

When it comes to love, it seems there is some truth behind actions speaking louder than words.

Feeling loved can impact overall well-being, making it more important than we typically give it credit for. A team of researchers wanted to know if people mostly agree on what makes them feel loved, or if it’s a totally personal thing.

Not only do we agree, they found, it’s easier than you might think to make the people you love feel loved.

All the small things

The researchers, headed up by Penn State’s Saeideh Heshmati, asked nearly 500 U.S. adults how loved they’d feel in 60 different positive, negative and neutral scenarios—being greeted by a pet, feeling close to nature and interacting with a possessive partner, for example.

Ferrari 'thief' arrested after being caught begging for petrol money in supercar he didn't know how to fill up

A suspected Ferrari thief was arrested after he was found begging for money to buy petrol, police said.

Israel Perez Rangel denies stealing the $300,000 car, despite allegedly not knowing how to fill the vehicle up.

Police in Santa Ana arrested the 38-year-old after spotting him begging for money to put petrol in the 458 Spider.

Officers noticed the supercar was trashed, with cracked fins, a destroyed gearbox, emblems torn from the engine and body and missing paddle shifters.

Mystery over drowned hedge fund tycoon Michael Treichl's 'lost millions' after he left just £325,000 behind in his will following police quiz over the fire that destroyed his 500-year-old mansion

With the mystery surrounding the death of 69-year-old hedge fund tycoon Michael Treichl and the fire at his Grade I-listed family home still unsolved, a further enigma has now emerged – the whereabouts of his multi-million-pound fortune.

Lawyers for Treichl last week gained a grant of probate, and revealed he left less than £325,000, despite years of deal-making.
Treichl, who comes from one of the wealthiest families in Austria, was found drowned in Lake Geneva, Switzerland, in June – weeks after being arrested and questioned by police over the blaze which destroyed 500-year-old Parnham House.

He had spent a rumoured £10 million restoring the Dorset mansion, which he had bought for £4 million in 2001.
There have been suggestions that he dramatically burned down the house and then took his own life.

Germany's most famous women's rights activist Alice Schwarzer at 75

She has spent her life fighting for women's equal rights, writing and publishing the magazine "Emma." A look at the life of Alice Schwarzer, Germany's best known — and most controversial — feminist, as she turns 75.
"The engine driving everything I do is fairness. Anything else would have, for me, been a misuse of my life."
Taken from Alice Schwarzer's autobiography, "Lebenslauf" ("Curriculum Vitae"), published in 2011, that sentence could be viewed as something of a life motto for a woman who changed German society. Schwarzer writes further of herself, saying, "I am not a person who prefers to focus on myself, hunched over my sensitive predilections. I find the world much too exciting for that."
The worst insult at home: parochialism
It could be that Schwarzer's rebellious nature was already predetermined before she even hit the cradle. She was born out of wedlock on December 3, 1942. That normally would have been a scandal for the time, but it was overlooked at the height of a war that gave people other, more pressing worries.

Republicans may regret this tax bill

Josh Barro has an interesting piece laying out in words a thesis that so far I've only heard in whispers and tweets: In some ways, Democrats might be better off if the GOP tax bill passes.

The logic is this: After the Affordable Care Act's passage, one path forward (emblematized by Barack Obama's "pivot to deficits" and the search for a grand bargain) was to declare the American welfare state substantially complete. But the pivot failed, the grand bargain failed, and the energy in the party shifted strongly to the left. Now Democrats have a vision of continued welfare state expansion that's basically not going to work if polling-friendly tax hikes on the superrich are the only thing on the table. In the new Demutopia, rich people will pay more — but the middle class will need to pay more too.

This scam tricks you into buying fake tech support software

Scammers are tricking victims into paying $25 for fake security software, ZDNet reports.

The tech-support scammers use fake blue screen of death (BSOD) messages and a phony "Troubleshooter for Windows" application to try to sell a supposed Microsoft security product called "Windows Defender Essentials." The name sounds like two real Windows anti-malware applications: Windows Defender and Security Essentials.

Malwarebytes researcher Pieter Arntz said the Troubleshooter app is being distributed through a cracked software installer.

11-year-old girl wins $25,000 science prize for creating a cheap device to test drinking water for poison

Gitanjali Rao, a seventh grader from Colorado, has been awarded the title of "America's top young scientist" for designing a compact device to detect lead in drinking water, which she believes can be faster and cheaper than other current methods.

The 11-year-old's invention was inspired by the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, where cost-cutting measures led to tainted drinking water that contained lead and other toxins. It also won her a $25,000 prize, for which Rao already has plans: "I plan to use most of it in developing my device further so that it can be commercially available soon," she said

“It’s been complete hell”: how police used a traffic stop to take $91,800 from an innocent man

ust hours after this story was published, a judge, with the backing of state legislators who read Vox’s reporting, ruled in favor of Phil Parhamovich — and he will get his $91,800 back.

“My gut has been clenched for a long time. I feel like it is still going to take some time to unwind and unclench,” Parhamovich said. “But I feel incredible. It hasn’t even sunk in yet.” He thanked the Institute for Justice, an advocacy group, for taking his case and Vox for reporting on it.

What follows is the original story.

Phil Parhamovich had been waiting for this moment for a long time. The 50-year-old had spent years restoring and selling houses, cars, and musical instruments, often clocking 12-hour workdays, to save up more than $91,000. And now it was all going to pay off: He would buy a music studio in Madison, Wisconsin, where Nirvana and the Smashing Pumpkins recorded songs — not just fulfilling a dream of owning a monument to grunge rock, but also giving him a space to work on his own career as a musician.

Then came the police stop this past March. By the time it was over, police in Wyoming would take all of Parhamovich’s money — the full $91,800. Parhamovich, who has no criminal record, was not accused of or charged with a serious crime; he only got a $25 ticket for improperly wearing his seat belt and a warning for “lane use.”

But Wyoming law enforcement officers found and eventually seized the $91,800 in cash, as it was hidden in a speaker cabinet — by getting Parhamovich, under what he claims was duress, to sign away his interest in the money through a waiver.

Driver slams truck into toll booth on San Francisco's Bay Bridge, killing attendant

OAKLAND -- A toll collector on California's Bay Bridge was killed and the driver of a box truck was arrested after his truck slammed into a line of vehicles and crashed into the toll plaza, CBS San Francisco reports.

Shortly after 5 a.m., a line of vehicles was waiting at the toll booth and the box truck hit the last vehicle in line, causing a chain reaction, Williams said.

The truck continued westbound and hit the toll booth, demolishing it. The attendant inside the booth was killed, and the truck driver and a passenger were ejected from the vehicle.

The toll booth attendant was later identified as Si Si Han, age 46.

Gov. Jerry Brown expressed his condolences in a statement released Saturday.

Balanced groups drawn for Russia 2018

Following a long road of qualifying joy and heartache, the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™ has finally snapped into focus after the Final Draw on 1 December in Moscow’s Kremlin State Palace.

Hosts Russia will open the event against Saudi Arabia at Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium on 14 June in Group A, while defending champions Germany were drawn into a tough Group F along with Mexico, Sweden and Korea Republic. According to the November FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking, the toughest group is Group D which has France, Australia, Peru and Denmark.

The Final Draw ceremony took place inside the walls of the Kremlin with Gary Lineker hosting and an array of high-profile names on hand to assist with the draw. Legends representing the eight previous World Cup-winning nations and the hosts – France’s Laurent Blanc, England’s Gordon Banks, Brazil’s Cafu, Italy’s Fabio Cannavaro, Uruguay’s Diego Forlan, Germany’s Miroslav Klose, Argentina’s Diego Maradona, Spain’s Carles Puyol and Russia’s Nikita Simonyan – joined Lineker on stage.

In the audience watching were dignitaries such as FIFA President Gianni Infantino, Lothar Matthaeus, Pele, Samuel Eto’o, Ronaldo and many more.

Thirty one days after the opening contest, the new champion will lift the Trophy after the Final in Moscow, again at the famed Luzhniki.

Police arrest leader of a gang of women who marry and kill their husbands for insurance

A woman who leads a gang that recruits women to marry and murder men to claim their life insurance has been arrested.

Esmeralda Aravel Flores Acosta, 39, has been dubbed the Black Widow. She was arrested in El Salvador, Central America following the deaths of several victims. Police said the gang led by Esmeralda recruited attractive girls in shopping centres and universities with the promise of taking them to the US.

The young female recruits were made to marry men who are well off and then encouraged to get their husbands to get life insurance. Two or three weeks after, gang members were sent to murder the husbands. After the deaths of their new husbands, the young women were instead taken to Mexico where they were forced into prostitution.

Surviving cold and flu season: How to stay safe

The National Institutes of Health predict this year's flu season could be a rough one.

Last year, Americans reportedly spent nearly $6 billion on remedies for runny noses and sore throats, but some over-the-counter medications carry their own risks. High doses of acetaminophen send nearly 60,000 people to the emergency room each year.

In its January issue, Consumer Reports looks at how to survive this cold and flu season more easily.

Lisa Gill, deputy content editor for the magazine, joined "CBS This Morning" to discuss some of the treatment options you'll find at the pharmacy, common home remedies, and which ones you need to be careful when using.