| Tillerson says he never planned to quit, won’t discuss report he called Trump a 'moron' Posted: 04 Oct 2017 08:45 AM PDT  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he has never considered leaving his position and affirmed his commitment to President Trump's agenda in a statement Wednesday morning. Tillerson was responding to an NBC News report that Vice President Pence had to talk him out of resigning following Trump's rambling, highly politicized speech to a gathering of Boy Scouts this summer. Tillerson is a former national president of the organization.
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| Steve Scalise On Las Vegas Shooting: It Has 'Fortified' My Support For Gun Rights Posted: 03 Oct 2017 07:46 PM PDT  Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), who is recovering from being shot in the hip by a gunman during a congressional baseball practice in June, said Tuesday that the massacre in Las Vegas has "fortified" his stance on gun rights.
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| The 'Monopoly Man' Just Owned The Senate's Equifax Hearing Posted: 04 Oct 2017 10:08 AM PDT  Rich Uncle Pennybags apparently likes to spend his free time at Senate hearings.
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| Senate intel leaders won't release Russian-linked Facebook ads Posted: 04 Oct 2017 12:22 PM PDT  "We don't release documents provided to our committee, period," said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., the chair of the committee.
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| Florida set to execute man for 2 decades-old murders Posted: 05 Oct 2017 01:27 AM PDT  STARKE, Fla. (AP) — Florida is scheduled to execute a man Thursday who was convicted of murdering two people decades ago after a long night of drinking.
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| Mexico offers aid to Puerto Rico after Donald Trump's 'terrible and abominable' visit Posted: 05 Oct 2017 12:35 AM PDT  Earthquake-hit Mexico has itself offered aid to Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria's destructive passage through the Caribbean. The offer came on Wednesday, a day after President Donald Trump visited Puerto Rico. Mexico's offer comes in the context of strained relations with the US in the months since Mr Trump took office.
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| Unarmed Hotel Security Guard Who Found Las Vegas Shooter Hailed As Hero Posted: 05 Oct 2017 05:38 AM PDT  An unarmed security guard at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino was hailed as a hero for pinpointing the Las Vegas shooter's location, despite a withering barrage of gunfire that wounded him in the leg.
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| Interior Whistleblower Quits, Lambastes Ryan Zinke's 'Resume Of Failure' Posted: 04 Oct 2017 02:50 PM PDT  Joel Clement — a federal scientist who blew the whistle on the Trump administration, claiming he was reassigned for warning about the dangers of climate change to Alaska natives — has resigned from his post at the Interior Department.
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| Former prison guard admits sexually assaulting inmates Posted: 04 Oct 2017 02:16 PM PDT  ATLANTA (AP) — A former Georgia prison guard has pleaded guilty in federal court to sexually assaulting three female inmates and then coercing them into helping him cover up the assaults.
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| Russia, Saudi Arabia cement new friendship with king's visit Posted: 05 Oct 2017 10:55 AM PDT  By Vladimir Soldatkin and Katya Golubkova MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Saudi Arabia's King Salman for talks at the Kremlin on Thursday, cementing a relationship that is pivotal for world oil prices and could decide the outcome of the conflict in Syria. King Salman, the first sitting Saudi monarch ever to visit Russia, led a delegation to Moscow that agreed joint investment deals worth several billion dollars, providing much-needed investment for a Russian economy battered by low oil prices and Western sanctions.
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| Virginia Republican Goes Full Willie Horton In New Ad About MS-13 ‘Sex Slaves’ Posted: 04 Oct 2017 03:11 PM PDT  Ed Gillespie, the Republican gubernatorial nominee in Virginia, is airing a misleading new radio advertisement that ties Democrat Ralph Northam to murders and heinous sex crimes committed by the notorious gang MS-13.
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| EU pauses inquiry into Bayer-Monsanto takeover Posted: 05 Oct 2017 07:41 AM PDT  The EU said Thursday it had "stopped the clock" on its probe into German chemical firm Bayer's proposed mega-takeover of US agri-giant Monsanto while it waits for the companies to provide information. Brussels launched an in-depth investigation in August into the $66 billion (56-billion-euro) deal, which would create the world's largest integrated pesticides and seeds company. The European Commission, which serves as the powerful anti-trust regulator for the 28-nation European Union, cited concerns it could reduce competition in key products for farmers.
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| Julianne Hough's secret to her amazing body is right on her wrist Posted: 04 Oct 2017 09:21 AM PDT  We finally know the secret to Julianne Hough's incredible body -- and it's right on her wrist.
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| Warren Buffett condemns Donald Trump tax plan that would make the rich even richer Posted: 04 Oct 2017 04:34 AM PDT  Warren Buffett has attacked US President Donald Trump's plan to slash taxes for companies as well America's richest individuals. "We have a lot of businesses... I don't think any of them are non-competitive in the world because of the corporate tax rate," billionaire investor Mr Buffett told CNBC, on Tuesday. The estate tax affects only the richest 0.2 per cent of families.
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| Gun Stores Selling Out Of Bump Stocks After Shooter Used Them In Las Vegas Massacre Posted: 05 Oct 2017 08:39 AM PDT  Gun stores nationwide are selling out of bump stocks, a device used by the Las Vegas shooter that allows a semiautomatic gun to fire as quickly as a machine gun.
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| North Korean workers prepare seafood going to US stores Posted: 04 Oct 2017 05:45 PM PDT  HUNCHUN, China (AP) — Americans buying seafood for dinner may inadvertently have subsidized the North Korean government as it builds its nuclear weapons program, an Associated Press investigation has found. Their purchases may also have supported forced labor.
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| Islamic State driven out of last stronghold in northern Iraq Posted: 05 Oct 2017 06:55 AM PDT  By Maher Chmaytelli BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi forces announced on Thursday they had captured Islamic State's last stronghold in northern Iraq, leaving the militant group holed up near the Syrian border as its self-proclaimed "caliphate" shrinks further. The town of Hawija and the surrounding areas fell in an offensive by U.S.-backed Iraqi government troops and Iranian-trained and armed Shi'ite paramilitary groups known as Popular Mobilisation. Some fighting took place to the north and east of the town where the militants were surrounded.
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| US Rejects UN Resolution Condemning Death Penalty For LGBTQ People, Other Groups Posted: 03 Oct 2017 05:43 PM PDT  The United States joined countries like Iraq and Botswana in voting against a United Nations resolution that, among other things, condemns the use of the death penalty against LGBTQ people.
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| Ivanka Trump Gets Schooled After Trying To Make A Point About Education Posted: 05 Oct 2017 12:44 AM PDT  Ivanka Trump, daughter of President Donald Trump and a White House adviser, wrote an op-ed for the New York Post about introducing tech education as early as kindergarten.
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| Ford Reveals Its Electrification Plans Posted: 03 Oct 2017 07:09 PM PDT  Ford became the latest automaker to announce a big push toward electrifying its lineup, announcing Tuesday that it would bring 13 new electrified models to market globally over the next five year...
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| Trump to request $29 bln for storm-hit Puerto Rico Posted: 04 Oct 2017 03:31 PM PDT  US President Donald Trump on Wednesday asked Congress for a bumper $29 billion package of emergency relief after Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico. According to a White House letter, Trump asked for a package that includes $12.77 billion in disaster relief and a $16 billion bailout to keep a critical flood insurance program running. The call for more money comes after Trump visited the US island on Tuesday.
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| Las Vegas gunman pictured dead on hotel room floor alongside weapons, camera and final note Posted: 03 Oct 2017 10:20 PM PDT  High-powered guns, shell casings and two tripod-mounted weapons litter the room that Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock used as a sniper's nest. Inside room 32135 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel, and near Paddock's lifeless body, officers also found a paper and a pen on a table, suggesting he may have left a note. The first pictures from the scene also reveal that Paddock, 64, had mounted a camera inside the room, possibly to film the slaughter, and at least one outside it on an abandoned room service trolley. Another camera was in the peep hole of the door. Sheriff Joe Lombardo said: "I anticipate he was looking for anyone coming to arrest him." The pictures showed the door battered in with seven bullet holes near the base, where he had fired and hit an officer in the leg. Weapons on the ground inside the hotel room where the Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock stayed Credit: @MikeTokes/Twitter Paddock was already dead when armed police blasted their way into his 32nd floor suite at the hotel at 10.24pm on Sunday night, ending a nine to 11-minute killing spree that left 59 dead and more than 500 injured. Police said he had shot himself. One photograph from the scene shows Paddock lying in a pool of blood from a head wound among dozens of spent cartridge casings. A revolver lies near the body. Fresh details about the massacre and the arsenal Paddock amassed emerged on Tuesday. A photo from inside the Mandalay Bay hotel room shows one of Paddock's guns Credit: @Boston25/Twitter A total of 47 firearms were recovered from three locations searched by investigators - Paddock's hotel suite, his home in Mesquite, and another property associated with him in Reno, Nevada, according to Jill Snyder, special agent for the US Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). Ms Snyder said 12 of the guns found in the hotel room were fitted with so-called bump-stock devices that allow the guns to be fired virtually as automatic weapons. The devices are legal under US law, even though fully automatic weapons are for the most part banned. Haunting video from 2016 shows the exact same room used by the Las Vegas shooter 01:10 The rifles, shotguns and pistols were purchased in four states - Nevada, Utah, California and Texas - Snyder told reporters at an evening news conference. Investigators sweeping the room found no fewer than 23 guns, including a Kalashnikov and AR-15 assault rifles, and a vast stockpile of of military grade .223 calibre ammunition. Graphic: How 'Bump-stock' devices work At least two of the weapons had been set up on tripods at windows overlooking the concert site. Police said they believed he had used 10 suitcases to smuggle the weapons up to the room, which he had checked into using an ID belonging to his girlfriend, Marliou Dandy, four days earlier. Officers also found Ms Danley's slot machine card, which he had apparently been using to gamble with. Marilou Danley, who has returned to the US Credit: REUTERS "Danley arrived in the Philippines last month, and then there was a wire transfer to her account for $100,000 from Stephen," Nick Suarez, spokesman for the Philippines' National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), said. Relatives said Paddock, a former accountant, was worth at least $2million and obsessively gambled tens of thousands of dollars. The gunman's brother, Eric Paddock, said he recently received a text message showing his brother had won $40,000. "He'd grouse when he'd lost. But he never said he'd lost $4million or something. I think he would have told me," he said. Las Vegas gunman's brother: 'It's like an asteroid fell out of the sky' 01:03 But Paddock appears to have been gambling particularly heavily in the weeks ahead of the massacre, with records kept by Las Vegas casinos showing he engaged in 16 transactions of more than $10,000 in recent weeks. It was not clear if they represented wins or losses. Police were still trying to find a motive to explain why Paddock fired hundreds of bullets into crowds who gathered for an open-air concert on Sunday night. Unlike other mass shooters in recent history, Paddock appears to have left no manifesto to justify his actions. Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock Credit: REUTERS FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt said usually after a mass shooting "people two or three days later say 'Ah, now I understand, I know what was going on in this guy's life'." But with Paddock "we don't know," he said. "He knew what he wanted to do. He knew how he was going to do it, and it doesn't seem like he had any kind of escape plan at all." Early on Monday, police found another arms cache including 19 weapons, several pounds of a commercially available explosive, and thousands of rounds of ammunition at his home in Mesquite, 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas. They found traces of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which can be used to make homemade bombs, in his car. Paddock's arsenal of high-powered weapons appears to have been assembled over several days in preparation for the massacre. Inside a Mandalay Bay Hotel suite similar to the one used by Paddock Paddock began his killing spree at 10.08pm on Sunday night, opening fire from his hotel room windows on concert goers at the the Route 91 country music festival below. Craig Herman, 57, a contractor, told the Telegraph: "I was right in front of the stage. I heard 'pop, pop, pop' over and over again. When he was reloading I ran. I stepped over a guy with blood pouring out of his head. He was dead. Gone. I saw maybe 15 others like that before I got out. "There were people screaming, lying on the ground. I've never seen so much blood. I kept thinking what type of person would do this, who would be that kind of stupid? Was it the Taliban? Mexican cartels? Gang related? But it was someone a bit like me." Videos filmed by concert goers show that Paddock's first volley lasted only about ten seconds - a time scale consistent with emptying the magazine on an automatic assault rifle. He fired several similar volleys over a period of about ten minutes. Mandalay Bay hotel shooting As casualties mounted, dozens of bystanders, including off duty soldiers, policemen, and nurses, but also ordinary civilians scrambled to attend to the wounded. They included Ross Woodward, a trooper with 1st Queens Dragoon Guards who had just completed a training deployment in the Nevada desert. Recognising the sound of automatic fire, Woodward and two other off duty soldiers from the Welsh regiment ran towards the scene to tend to the wounded and shepherd people to safely. "He just said that he helped the injured and to get people to safety and that was it really," Curtis Dyer, his brother, told the Press Association. "I'm dead proud of what he's done, that he was able to do it." A woman leaves flowers at a makeshift memorial on the Las Vegas Strip Credit: Reuters Julian Ness, 31, one of the first paramedics on the scene, told the Telegraph: "I started treating someone who'd been shot in the leg. Then someone ran up telling me about someone shot in the head, then there was someone shot three times in the chest. "There was blood everywhere. I never imagined seeing anything like this. We wanted to help everyone but we just had to make difficult decisions based the ones we could save. It breaks your heart." Taylor Winston, a 29 year old former US marine who was attending the concert with his friend, Jenn Lewis, also used skills learnt on the battlefield to save lives. "Jenn and I luckily found a truck with keys in it and started transporting priority victims to the hospital and made a couple trips and tried to help out the best we could until more ambulances could arrive," the Iraq war veteran, from San Diego, told the Daily Beast. 50 dead in Las Vegas shooting, in pictures He and an off duty trauma nurse then set up a makeshift triage point, prioritizing casualties and telling victims to apply pressure to their wounds to stop the bleeding. Officers had identified the source of the shooting and arrived outside room 32135 by 10.24pm, 16 minutes after the massacre began. Paddock shot through the door as they approached, wounding a hotel security guard in the leg. Sonny Morgan, who was on the 32nd floor at the time of the shooting, said: "I could smell the gun powder. It just kept going and going. I honestly thought it was like a terrorist attack, that someone was trying to blow up the hotel." In brief | Worst US mass shootings
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| 5-Year-Old Reunites With Family After Vegas Shooting Thanks To Help From Kind Strangers Posted: 04 Oct 2017 06:02 PM PDT  In the aftermath of the horrific shooting in Las Vegas on Sunday, many survivors have shared stories of kind and heroic strangers who stepped up to help people in need.
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| Luann de Lesseps Finalizes Divorce from Tom D'Agostino: 'Even Though We Decided That, It's Sad' Posted: 04 Oct 2017 10:32 AM PDT  According to documents obtained by The Blast, de Lesseps and D'Agostino settled their divorce out of court, finalizing it on Sept 18
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| Illinois investigator attacked while trying to rescue child Posted: 04 Oct 2017 03:55 PM PDT ![Illinois investigator attacked while trying to rescue child]( "Illinois investigator attacked while trying to rescue child") STERLING, Ill. (AP) — An investigator for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services is hospitalized in a coma after being assaulted while trying to take protective custody of a child.
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| Johnson & Johnson unit exits insulin pump business amid rising competition Posted: 05 Oct 2017 07:54 AM PDT  (Reuters) - Johnson & Johnson's diabetes care unit, which makes insulin pumps, said on Thursday it would shut its business in United States and Canada amid increased competition and after failing to find a buyer. Animas Corp has selected rival Medtronic Plc as its partner for the device and nearly 90,000 patients using its pumps will be offered the option to transfer to pumps made by Medtronic. J&J has been reviewing strategic options, including a potential sale of its diabetes care division, which includes LifeScan Inc, Animas Corp and Calibra Medical Inc. The division reported sales of $421 million in the second quarter, down 10.6 percent from a year earlier.
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| US votes against UN motion to condemn gay sex death penalty ‘over fears executions could be banned in the States’ Posted: 04 Oct 2017 01:31 AM PDT  The US failed to back a United Nations resolution to condemn death penalty sentences against gay people for having sex, because it feared it could lead to executions being banned in America. The Donald Trump administration failed to support the motion along with countries where the practice is legal, including in Saudi Arabia. Extremists in Isis-held territory in Iraq and Syria also hand down the death penalty for same-sex relations.
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| Chip Gaines's Mom Sheds Light On Why 'Fixer Upper' Is Ending Posted: 04 Oct 2017 01:01 PM PDT  Chip and Joanna Gaines offered their own reasons why "Fixer Upper" is ending after five seasons, and now Chip's mom Gayle Gaines has some more intel.
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| 60 Years Ago, Russia Launched Sputnik (And It Can Teach Us A lot about North Korea) Posted: 04 Oct 2017 07:04 AM PDT  While Sputnik itself was a rudimentary satellite that was by no means a weapon, it represented an uncomfortable truth—that the Soviet Union could reach out and potentially threaten the American homeland. While the situations are not identical, the current standoff between the United States and North Korea bears some resemblance to the early days of the Cold War. Indeed, the current crisis—which was sparked by North Korea test launching an ICBM—bears some resemblance to the developments of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
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| San Juan Mayor Slams Donald Trump For 'Terrible And Abominable' Puerto Rico Stunt Posted: 04 Oct 2017 02:03 AM PDT  The mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico blasted President Donald Trump's meeting with local leaders on the island Tuesday as a public relations stunt.
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| Once an obscure device, 'bump stocks' are in the spotlight Posted: 04 Oct 2017 01:23 PM PDT  ATLANTA (AP) — The Las Vegas gunman possessed a little-known device called a "bump stock" that was not widely sold — until now.
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| Some Poor Sap Just Got Totally Owned On Twitter... By Hamburger Helper Posted: 05 Oct 2017 02:28 AM PDT  The Helper glove has no love for misogynistic tweets.
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| Thai mourners pay last-minute respects to late king Posted: 05 Oct 2017 03:19 AM PDT  BANGKOK (AP) — Tens of thousands of mourners have been rushing to Bangkok's Grand Palace to pay their respects to the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, as a period of nearly a year for his body to lie in state ends ahead of his cremation on Oct. 26.
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| Amnesty condemns 'forced' returns of Afghan asylum seekers Posted: 04 Oct 2017 05:16 PM PDT  A surge of failed Afghan asylum seekers "forcibly" returned from Europe are at risk of torture, kidnapping and death in war-torn Afghanistan, Amnesty International said Thursday. Almost 9,500 Afghans went back to their homeland in 2016 after their applications for asylum in Europe were rejected, compared with nearly 3,300 a year earlier, the human rights group said. The figure covers asylum seekers who were detained and then deported from European countries, and those who "ostensibly voluntarily" returned with financial assistance, Amnesty said.
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| The U.S. Air Force Is Giving the F-22 a New Job: Sniper Posted: 04 Oct 2017 04:44 PM PDT  Three years ago, four F-22 Raptors taking part in the second-wave of the U.S.-led coalition's opening airstrikes on Islamic State in Syria dropped their bombs. Fast forward to today, and F-22 Raptors are still flying over Iraq and Syria and have shifted almost fully into that latter role, according to Air Force Magazine. Air superiority is what Lockheed Martin and the Air Force designed the F-22 to do.
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| Putin Welcomes Saudi Arabia Into His Middle East Sphere of Influence Posted: 05 Oct 2017 05:18 AM PDT  Saudi Arabia's King Salman arrived in Moscow on Wednesday in the first-ever official visit by a Saudi monarch to Russia
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| Watch The Moment When Woman Wounded In Las Vegas Is Reunited With Man Who Saved Her Posted: 05 Oct 2017 06:05 AM PDT  WATCH: We captured the moment when a woman injured in Las Vegas massacre reunited with the man who saved her life: https://t.co/mj37IPsQ51
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| Yes, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz's 'Nasty' Shirt Was Aimed At Trump Posted: 04 Oct 2017 07:52 PM PDT  As the mayor of Puerto Rico's largest city rallies for more help for the victims of Hurricane Maria, she has also positioned herself at the forefront of a different movement: the opposition to President Donald Trump.
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| Bain hoping to settle with Western Digital on Toshiba deal Posted: 05 Oct 2017 01:31 AM PDT  TOKYO (AP) — The investment fund heading the consortium that plans to buy Toshiba Corp.'s memory chip business said Thursday it will try to reach a speedy settlement with Western Digital, the U.S. joint venture partner of Toshiba that is opposing the sale.
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| Range Rover launches its first ever hybrid Posted: 04 Oct 2017 03:05 AM PDT  True to its word, Land Rover has started electrifying its range with the launch of the heavily updated and overhauled Range Rover Sport. The first ever Range Rover to come with a hybrid powertrain, it uses a four-cylinder 300hp engine and a 104hp eclectic motor. While that figure may be off the pace compared with the hybrid setups that litter the current Porsche Cayenne range, the Range Rover Sport serves up a huge 640Nm of toque, crucial for real off-road prowess.
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