Meyers: Liam Neeson said he believes America has too many guns.  And nearly all of them were used by Liam Neeson in ‘Taken 3.’

Meyers: “American Sniper” made $90 million last weekend.  But director Michael Moore says snipers aren’t heroes.  I don’t know, Michael Moore.  But if you’re that easy to spot, do you really want to make an enemy out of snipers?
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Meyers: A Seattle dog knows how to ride the bus to take itself to the dog park without its owner.  It sounds cute until you find out the dog’s only taking the bus because he has four DUIs.
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Conan: After his State of the Union speech Obama talked with three YouTube celebrities.  Right, the president met with a cat, a bear and a water-skiing squirrel.

More of the consulting work done by Gov. John Kitzhaber's fiancée is coming to light.

Cylvia Hayes confirmed in an email to the East Oregonian that she was paid $118,000 over two years to work with a clean energy organization.   At the time, she was advising the governor on similar topics.

Neither Hayes nor the organization, the Clean Economy Development Center of Washington, D.C., would provide details about the work she did during a paid fellowship.

Public records also yield few details about the Clean Economy Development Center, which functioned largely under the radar of the IRS, state attorneys general and other regulators.  As a nonprofit it filed just one federal tax return — in 2010, when it reported more than $900,000 in revenue.  In May 2014, the IRS revoked the group’s tax-exempt status due to its failure to file returns for three consecutive years.

California and most other states require charities to register, often with the attorney general’s office, if they solicit contributions.  But despite receiving grants from at least one California nonprofit, the Clean Economy Development Center did not register in California.

The dockers are not angry about wages—which are relatively high for blue-collar workers at $25-$35 an hour—but about outsourcing.  They want shippers and terminal operators to stop hiring non-union labour to maintain and repair the chassis, or truck beds, that carry cargo from dockside yards to warehouses.  On January 26th the two sides reportedly reached a tentative agreement on this issue, but it may take weeks or months until they formally approve a new contract—and the ports run properly again.

Measles is an airborne disease that is spread through respiration (contact with fluids from an infected person's nose and mouth, either directly or through aerosol transmission via coughing or sneezing).  The virus is highly contagious—90% of people without immunity sharing living space with an infected person will catch it.^[4]
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Complications with measles are relatively common, ranging from mild complications such as diarrhea to serious complications such as pneumonia (either direct viral pneumonia or secondary bacterial pneumonia),^[10] otitis media,^[11] acute brain inflammation^[12] (and very rarely SSPE—subacute sclerosing panencephalitis),^[13] and corneal ulceration (leading to corneal scarring).^[14]  Complications are usually more severe in adults who catch the virus.^[15]  The death rate in the 1920s was around 30% for measles pneumonia^.[16]

Between 1987 and 2000, the case fatality rate across the United States was three measles-attributable deaths per 1000 cases, or 0.3%.^[17]  In underdeveloped nations with high rates of malnutrition and poor healthcare, fatality rates have been as high as 28%.^[17] In immunocompromised persons (e.g., people with AIDS) the fatality rate is approximately 30%.^[18]

A shadowy Bermudan company that has funneled tens of millions of dollars to anti-fracking environmentalist groups in the United States is run by executives with deep ties to Russian oil interests and offshore money laundering schemes involving members of President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.

One of those executives, Nicholas Hoskins, is a director at a hedge fund management firm that has invested heavily in Russian oil and gas.  He is also senior counsel at the Bermudan law firm Wakefield Quin and the vice president of a London-based investment firm whose president until recently chaired the board of the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft.

In addition to those roles, Hoskins is a director at a company called Klein Ltd.  No one knows where that firm’s money comes from.  Its only publicly documented activities have been transfers of $23 million to U.S. environmentalist groups that push policies that would hamstring surging American oil and gas production, which has hurt Russia’s energy-reliant economy.

It took OliveShop.com 10 months to get all the right stamps, certificates and signoffs.  The problem with the bank was resolved only when Mr. Antonopoulos opted for PayPal instead.   Registering with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, by contrast, took him all of 24 hours and one five-minute digital form.

When I interviewed Syriza leader (now Prime Minister) Alexis Tsipras in New York two years ago, his first question to me was: “Here in the United States, why do you not have this phenomenon of passing money under the table?”

President Obama, in India for a state visit, was chided by local press after he was spotted chewing gum during Monday’s Republic Day parade, which celebrates the day that India’s 1950 constitution went into effect.

Calling the incident “an ungainly sight,” the Times of India reported: “In the picture captured by cameras and posted on Twitter by some users, Mr. Obama was spotted removing his chewing gum while [Indian Prime Minister Narendra] Modi was seen trying to explain something to the US president.”

One New York governor visited high-priced hookers.  A congressman accidentally tweeted a picture of his penis to his followers.  The state’s top financial officer was sent to prison.  The Senate majority leader was convicted of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes from a businessman.  A senator was charged with diverting state aid from a Little League to his own cigar business.  Another was charged with slashing his girlfriend’s face with a broken glass.  A state lawmaker took bribes to pay for his legal counsel while on trial for bribery.  State government ground to a halt for a month when Republicans and Democrats couldn’t settle who was in charge of the Senate.  At least three lawmakers were busted for inappropriate relations with young staffers.

Over the last 20 years of New York state political scandals, each seemingly more baroque than the last, Sheldon Silver has remained, Sphinx-like, seemingly untouched by chaos, with his power as speaker of the state Assembly and one of the “three men in a room” who rule New York uninterrupted.

That is, until midnight Wednesday, when the 70-year-old Silver was arrested for allegedly collecting millions of dollars in bribes from real-estate and medical interests with business before the state of New York.

Europe is being swept by a wave of popular disenchantment and revolt against mainstream political parties and the European Union. In 2007, a majority of Europeans - 52 per cent - trusted the EU.  That level of trust has now fallen to a third.

Once, Britain's Euroscepticism was the exception, and was seen as the biggest threat to the future of the EU.

The new Republican-controlled Senate has already voted on more amendments in one week than the Democratic-controlled Senate considered in all of 2014.

Republican senators applauded the feat when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced it on the Senate floor.

“We’ve actually reached a milestone here that I think is noteworthy for the Senate.  We just cast our 15th roll-call vote on an amendment on this bill, which is more votes — more roll-call votes on amendments than the entire United States Senate [did] in all of 2014,” he said.

For 75 years, Finland's expectant mothers have been given a box by the state.  It's like a starter kit of clothes, sheets and toys that can even be used as a bed.  And some say it helped Finland achieve one of the world's lowest infant mortality rates.

It's a tradition that dates back to the 1930s and it's designed to give all children in Finland, no matter what background they're from, an equal start in life.
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Mothers have a choice between taking the box, or a cash grant, currently set at 140 euros, but 95% opt for the box as it's worth much more.

The tradition dates back to 1938.  To begin with, the scheme was only available to families on low incomes, but that changed in 1949.

The far-left Syriza party, the winner of Greece's election, has formed an anti-austerity coalition with a right-wing party, the Greek Independents.

The coalition will have a comfortable majority in the new parliament.

Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras has vowed to renegotiate Greece's bailouts, worth €240bn (£179bn; $268bn).

European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker congratulated Mr Tsipras while reminding him of the challenge of "ensuring fiscal responsibility".