The University of Southern California just broke ground on a $650 million retail and housing complex for students, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The complex will replace the university's current University Village with a 15-acre complex near the north side of campus.

The new Village will be designed in a "Collegiate Gothic" style by Harley Ellis Devereaux, and will consist of a central plaza with outdoor dining, shops, cafes, a market, and residence halls.

The university held a groundbreaking ceremony yesterday, and construction is expected to be completed in fall 2017. 

SEE ALSO: The 50 Best Colleges In America

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Being a war photographer is dangerous, grueling, and emotionally taxing work. It puts you on the front line with the soldiers, witnessing pain and violence while documenting it all, making the horror of war that much more difficult to shake off. But many war photographers hope that their work will help people to confront and understand the gravity of conflict.

After covering the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars for years, Ashley Gilbertson, one of journalism's most respected war photographers, started to think that maybe that understanding wasn't happening as he'd hoped. "I realized people in the United States weren’t really engaging with what was taking place there," he tells Slate. After returning to the United States, Gilbertson began looking for a new, potentially more effective way to depict the losses sustained during war.It was Gilbertson's wife who came up with the idea to photograph fallen soldier's bedrooms, many of which had been preserved by the soldiers' grieving families. "I felt I was in some historic memorial. I would never touch anything. I would rarely even touch the light switch. I felt bad putting my tripod on the carpet because I felt I was disturbing something," Gilbertson says.

Gilbertson photographed 40 rooms — the same number of soldiers in a platoon —  in the US, Canada, and Europe, creating a body of work which later became the book "Bedrooms of the Fallen," published this year.The soldiers whose rooms Gilbertson photographed ranged in age from 18 to 27. Many Gilbertson had never met, though some he did. He dedicated the book to Marine Lance Corporal Billy Miller, a soldier who was escorting Gilbertson in Fallujah when he was shot at close range by an enemy. "I came home…Billy Miller didn’t. I needed to photograph his absence,” Gilbertson said to Time.

Gilbertson decided to document the rooms in black and white to minimize distraction created by color, allowing the viewer to notice all the details, like the posters and teddy bears, signs of the soldier's age at the time of deployment. "That is who we send to fight our wars for us, our children," says Gilbertson.All photos courtesy of Ashley Gilbertson, all rights reserved, from "Bedrooms of the Fallen", published 2014 by the University of Chicago Press.

SEE ALSO: Awesome Interactive Panoramas Give A Glimpse At Everyday Life In North Korea

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Some of the most influential business books are available for next to nothing (or even nothing) in the Amazon Kindle store.

For less than $5, you can gather timeless wisdom from classics like Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People," build your economic background with world-changing texts like John Maynard Keynes' "The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money," and get insight from ancient texts like Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations."

A few modern classics, like Susan Cain's "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" are also available.

If you've got a Kindle and a few bucks to spare, it's time to get reading.

"The Art of War" (c. 6th century BC)

Price: $0.99

Sun Tzu's ancient Chinese military classic has become required reading for executives around the world.

Rick Wartzman, executive director of the Drucker Institute, writes in Forbes that the book's influence outside the battlefield is due to the focus on the fundamentals of management and competition. It explains how you can outlast an enemy that is more powerful through patience and a focus of energy.

Buy it here >>

"Meditations" (c. 170 - 180)

Price: $0.99

Marcus Aurelius was the great Roman emperor known as the "Philosopher King." His personal writings from the end of his life have been collected as "Meditations," and have remained relevant for almost two millennia.

Marcus' reflections offer timeless wisdom into the nature of human beings, as well as advice on how to maintain self-control and determination in the face of adversity.

Buy it here >>

"The Prince" (1532)

Price: $0.99

The Italian political theorist Machiavelli's most well-known work has inspired a wildly diverse group that includes Thomas Jefferson, Napoleon, and mobster John Gotti.

Machiavelli's outline for being a ruthless and manipulative leader has been interpreted in many different ways and remains controversial.

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Birds are dinosaurs. Predatory dinosaurs — or the direct descendants of them anyway.

Want more evidence? You could read what the Museum of Natural History has to say, or you could watch this blue heron hunt and devour a gopher whole.

This particular bird had been wandering around neighborhood backyards for a few days, and Jessie Garza, curious about what it was doing, was shooting video of the creature when he captured this moment.

The bird seemed to be stalking something, moving towards a particular spot in the lawn with a menacing, predatory aspect.

It wasn't long before Garza got a chance to see what the heron was hunting — a gopher.

The bird let the creature wear itself out for a while before taking the next step.

Swallowing the gopher whole.

And even though it looks like the bird had some trouble getting the gopher down its gullet, a quick shake of the head finishes the job.

Herons frequently hunt small mammals along with fish, frogs, reptiles, and other birds, according to the New York City Parks Department. But as Garza and the folks at Discover, where we first saw the video, note, we had no idea how terrifying it could look.

Watch the video and listen for Garza's reaction:

SEE ALSO: Watch A Terrifying Giant Fish Swallow A Shark Whole

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Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - A trio of thieves got less than they might have bargained for after robbing a man who turned out to be the archbishop of Rio de Janeiro.

The robbers realized their victim was Archbishop Orani Tempesta after they stopped his car and demanded he and his fellow passengers hand over their valuables.

The three took Tempesta's episcopal ring and chain, replete with crucifix, during the theft in Rio's tropical but isolated Sumare district.

But they left both items in the road on fleeing the scene -- either moved to repent on seeing who they had attacked or else upon finding Tempesta's symbols of office were metal and not made of gold, his spokesman told AFP.

Tempesta had just come from giving mass at the secluded Sumare residence where Pope Francis stayed during a visit in July last year.

"He did not come to any harm. There were just some items stolen and police have recovered most from the roadside where the robbers threw them as they fled," Tempesta's spokesman said.

Had the armed thieves hoped for a golden windfall they would have been disappointed, he added.

"The items were not gold, they are made of metal and are of no value."

The spokesman said Tempesta, 64,did not wish to comment as "what happened could have happened to anyone."

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For the second-straight week Microsoft's Cortana — the virtual assistant that correctly predicted 15 of 16 World Cup knockout stage games — went 10-6 in its NFL picks.

Cortana now has a 20-12 record on the year.

For comparison, Las Vegas favorites are 18-14 overall and Nate Silver's ELO model is 19-13. Considering that the engine is just predicting winners and not results against the spread, 20-12 is just an okay record. 

In the Week 2 games in which Cortana and Vegas disagreed (Baltimore-Pittsburgh, Miami-Buffalo, New York-Arizona), Cortana went 2-1 and Vegas went 1-2. The Microsoft engine had the Bills as a 62.9% favorite while Vegas initially had the Dolphins as the favorite. Buffalo won 29-10.

Here are Cortana's picks for Week 3 (with the Vegas betting lines as of Tuesday afternoon in parentheses):

• Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Atlanta Falcons — Falcons win, 71.6% chance (Falcons -6.5)
• San Diego Chargers vs. Buffalo Bills — Chargers win, 51.5% chance (Bills -2.5)
• Dallas Cowboys vs. St. Louis Rams — Cowboys win, 55% chance (Cowboys -1)
• Washington Redskin vs. Philadelphia Eagles — Eagles win, 72.9% chance (Eagles -6.5)
• Houston Texans vs. New York Giants — Texans win, 58.2% chance (Texans -2.5)
• Minnesota Vikings vs. New Orleans Saints — Saints win, 74.2% chance (Saints -9.5)
• Tennessee Titans vs. Cincinnati Bengals — Bengals win, 71.6% chance (Bengals -7)
• Baltimore Ravens vs. Cleveland Browns — Browns win, 58.2% chance (Ravens -1.5)
• Green Bay Packers vs. Detroit Lions — Lions win, 58.2% chance (Lions -1.5)
• Indianapolis Colts vs. Jacksonville Jaguars — Colts win, 64.4% chance (Colts -6.5)
• Oakland Raiders vs. New England Patriots — Patriots win, 82% chance (Patriots -14)
• San Francisco 49ers vs. Arizona Cardinals — 49ers win, 58.2% chance (49ers -2.5)
• Denver Broncos vs. Seattle Seahawks — Seahawks win, 58.2% chance (Seahawks -5)
• Kansas City Chiefs vs. Miami Dolphins — Dolphins win, 53.3% chance (Dolphins -4.5)
• Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Carolina Panthers — Panthers win, 67.4% chance (Panthers -3.5)
• Chicago Bears vs. New York Jets — Jets win, 58.2% chance (Jets -2.5)

Vegas and Cortana disagree on two games, Baltimore-Cleveland and San Diego-Buffalo.

SEE ALSO: NFL Power Rankings, Where Every Team Stands Going Into Week 3

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On Tuesday  afternoon, NASA administrator Charlie Bolden announced that SpaceX and Boeing would be testing a manned spacecraft by the end of the year, a vehicle capable of delivering humans to the International Space Station or any other point within low-earth orbit. SpaceX's Dragon 2, or Boeing's CST-100, would be the first American-developed manned space vehicle since the space shuttle, which had its first test-flight in 1977 and was retired in 2011.

This apparently twice-a-century event of a new American spacecraft has an important political context to it. Since the shuttle fleet's retirement, American astronauts have had to depend on Russian Soyuz capsules launched from Kazakhstan's Baikanour Cosmodrome in order to reach the International Space Station.

There have been two such Russian launches of American astronauts since the Ukraine crisis escalated in February 2014, most recently in May. Since then, both Congress and SpaceX have made issue of NASA and the Air Force's dependence on Russian rocket components, trade that has been threatened by recent US and EU sanctions against Moscow. SpaceX even won an injunction against the Air Force's use of Russian rocket components in May.

If this year's crisis in US-Russian relations has frozen trade in hardware, manned flights have gone on as normal. But these are low-hanging diplomatic fruit: Russian and US spacecraft rendezvoused in orbit in 1975, during the Cold War. US repairs helped keep the Russian Soviet-era space station Mir afloat towards the end of its operational life in the late-1990s. Manned space cooperation was never politically sensitive enough to become a victim of US-Russian power politics. If anything, shared missions allowed both to maintain a veneer of partnership amidst a larger context of mutual suspicion and hostility.

Not anymore. In today's press conference, NASA administrator Charlie Bolden reminded viewers of the Obama administration's longstanding commitment to "ending the U.S.'s sole reliance on Russia by 2017." He emphasized that NASA wasn't wasting much time in building new facilities, creating a timetable for test-flights, and certifying SpaceX and Boeing's hardware for manned space missions.

The US is dispensing with the diplomatic niceties of the Soyuz flights. Manned space travel is a matter of national prestige again. And if Russian president Vladimir Putin really is girding himself for a long-term struggle over the future of the European periphery — one that brings him into constant indirect conflict with the US and the NATO states — then at least US policymakers will have one less reason to want to mollify him when a manned Dragon 2 capsule flies for the first time this December.

SEE ALSO: The mysterious US-Russian joint venture at the heart of Elon Musk's latest complaint against the Air Force

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Shares of specialty biopharmaceutical company Auxilium were up more than 42% in after the company received a takeover bid from Irish drug company Endo Pharmaceuticals worth $2.2 billion.

The offer values Auxilium at $28.10 per share and is comprised of an equal mix of cash and Endo stock. 

Endo's offer represents a 31% premium to Auxilium's closing price on Tuesday, and a 40% premium to the closing price of Auxilium over the last 30 days. In after hours trade on Tuesday Auxilium shares were trading as high as $30.70. 

Following the announcement, Endo shares were also higher, up more than 4%.

The offer also follows an announcement from Auxilium last week that the company would cut 30% of its staff as part of cost-saving measures aimed as saving $75 million per year. 

Auxilium's portfolio of drugs includes: edex®, an injectable treatment for erectile dysfunction, Osbon® ErecAid®, a device for aiding erectile dysfunction, STENDRA®, an oral erectile dysfunction therapy, TESTOPEL®, a long-acting implantable testosterone replacement therapy, XIAFLEX®, for the treatment of Peyronie's disease and XIAFLEX for the treatment of Dupuytren's contracture, among other drugs. 

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Major League Baseball games are longer than ever and Monday night's win by the Tampa Bay Rays over the New York Yankees is the perfect example of how this has become an epidemic.

The 1-0 win by the Rays took 3 hours and 28 minutes, the longest 9-inning, 1-0 game in MLB history according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

In 1943, the Washington Senators and Chicago White Sox completed a 1-0 game in just 1 hour and 29 minutes, the fastest known 9-inning, 1-0 game in MLB history. The Rays and Yankees took two hours longer to accomplish the same feat.

If the two games had started at the same time, the Rays and Yankees would have still been in the bottom of the fourth inning as the Senators and White Sox were recording their final out.

What is absurd about the Yankees-Rays game is that there was that nothing out of the ordinary happened. There were eight pitchers used, but only three of the pitching changes occurred in the middle of the inning.

There were no replay challenges. In fact the only substantial delay was the ejection of Yankees third baseman Chase Headley during his at bat in the seventh inning.

However, there was a lot of this, which we had to speed up to fit into a GIF. In this particular sequence, it took Carlos Beltran 12 seconds to adjust his batting gloves and get back into the batter's box while everybody else waited.

Many believe the biggest task for commissioner-in-waiting Rob Manfred will be dealing with the pace of the play in MLB games. Maybe he needs to start with the Yankees and the Rays.

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Apple is anticipating that Android users will be persuaded to buy one of its new larger-screened iPhones when they launch later this week. The company posted a comprehensive guide on its website Tuesday meant to help Android users making the switch.

The guide, which was first spotted by 9to5Mac, shows you how to move content over from your Android device to your new iPhone. The support page details the process of how to add a new email account to your iPhone, and also suggets a few apps that help you directly transfer data. For example, the Copy My Data app allows you to duplicate photos, videos, calendars, and contacts to another phone.

Apple also shows you how to move your music library into iTunes so that you can transfer it to your new iPhone. The case is the same for documents and e-books — Apple walks you through the process of how to transfer these files to a PC or Mac computer so that you can easily put them on your iPhone.

Throughout the guide, Apple emphasizes that many of the apps and email clients people frequently use on Android are probably available in its App Store.

The support page went live just days before Apple's new iPhones hit stores on Sept. 19. Apple is calling the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus the "biggest advancements in iPhone history." Preorders kicked off last week on Sept. 12, and Apple reported that it received 4 million preorders within the forst 24 hours of availability. 

SEE ALSO: What To Expect At The Apple Store When You Pick Up Your New iPhone This Friday

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Warsaw (AFP) - The Soviets rode in on horseback, rifles dangling on rope. Boguslaw Kamola watched in horror from the woods as they occupied his city in eastern Poland. Then the shots rang out.

"This dog was dashing across the field, and one of the soldiers reached for his rifle and fired at him," he recalls. 

"They didn't kill him, just wounded him in the rear. And the poor thing dragged his hind legs across the field, howling with fear as he tried to evade the bullets," he told AFP.

Kamola was nine years old when the Soviets invaded in 1939, just weeks after Nazi Germany attacked the country from the west.

It was the onset of World War II, history's bloodiest conflict, and Poland was being crushed by two powerful forces.

"We were horrified by the barbarity of these people. They shot at everything that moved," the now 84-year-old says in Warsaw ahead of the 75th anniversary of the invasion.

- Russian behind every bush -

It had taken the Soviet forces several days to make it over to Kamola's city of Brzesc -- now Brest in Belarus -- after invading Poland on September 17, 1939. 

The surprise assault had been agreed in a secret accord between Germany and the Soviet Union, under which they would divvy up Poland between them.

"It was an agreement between two gangsters," Kamola said of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, dubbing it "the famous knife in the back".

His family fled in panic, grabbing random items: a pillow here, some valuables there, a framed picture of the Virgin Mary that has survived until this day -- and an alarm clock. 

"It was within reach, so Mom stuffed it in my pocket," he said in an interview alongside his 85-year-old brother Zbigniew.

"And the damn alarm clock started ringing right out there in the open in the middle of the night." 

The brothers chuckle as Boguslaw mimes how he frantically tried to silence the alarm.

"This is something you can recount now as an adventure and laugh about 75 years later. But I remember it was a night when every juniper bush looked like a Russian," Zbigniew says. 

"The horror, the fear was huge. The stress," the retired geologist told AFP. 

The family eventually made their way to Warsaw after a gruelling journey marked by bone-chilling cold and a couple of close calls with the enemy. 

- Not this time -

Not wanting to open up a second front, the Polish government had given its forces the order against engaging in battle with the Red Army. Instead, the Polish government and part of the army retreated south, crossing into neutral Romania.

By October 6, Poland ceased to exist, carved up between Berlin and Moscow.

More than 200,000 Polish soldiers were taken as prisoners of war, deported into the depths of the USSR or sent on to areas already occupied by Nazi Germany. 

Nearly 22,000 Polish officers, including top brass, were executed on Stalin's orders, notably in the Katyn forest -- a war crime that Moscow falsely blamed on the Nazis for decades.

This year's anniversary of the invasion comes amid renewed tension between Poland and Russia over the bloody crisis in neighbouring Ukraine, where government forces are battling pro-Moscow separatists. 

A staunch supporter of the Kiev government, Warsaw has kept close tabs on Russia's actions in the region -- including its annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula in March.

But the Kamola brothers do not fear a repeat of 1939. 

"We have support of the West now," Zbigniew says, alluding to the iron-clad security guarantees Poland enjoys as a member of NATO. 

In the 21st-century it would be "impossible" for someone to annex Poland, adds Boguslaw, a retired foreign trade manager.

"It would spark an international brawl."

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A 23,000-square-foot mansion in Beverly Hills with views of Malibu Beach and downtown Los Angeles has been listed for a staggering $85 million.

The real estate listing warns: “be prepared for an overwhelming sensory experience unlike any you've felt before." It’s not exaggerating.

The two-level home, which was completed by the firm’s creative team this month, has eight bedrooms, 15 bathrooms, an underground garage, wine cellar, and even a movie theater.

Located in the elite neighborhood of Trousdale Estates, the home looks like a showroom with two fully stocked bars, a gym, game room, and infinity edge pool.

The property last sold in August of 2012 for $12.65 million, according to Zillow. The over-the-top house is listed by Ben Bacal Realty.

Welcome to 1181 North Hillcrest. The home was listed this month for $85 million.

It's located in the elite Beverly Hills neighborhood of Trousdale Estates.

The home received a complete overhaul after being purchased back in 2012. The new design is stunning.

Atlanta (AFP) - President Barack Obama issued a global call to action to fight West Africa's Ebola epidemic on Tuesday, warning the deadly outbreak was unprecedented and "spiraling out of control," threatening hundreds of thousands of people.

Speaking as he unveiled a major new US initiative which will see 3,000 US military personnel deployed to West Africa to combat the growing health crisis, Obama said the outbreak was spreading "exponentially."

"Here's the hard truth. In West Africa, Ebola is now an epidemic of the likes that we have not seen before," Obama said.

"It's spiraling out of control. It is getting worse. It's spreading faster and exponentially. Today, thousands of people in West Africa are infected. That number could rapidly grow to tens of thousands.

"And if the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people infected with profound political and economic and security implications for all of us."

As well as the military deployment, the US will also set up a command and control center in the capital of Liberia, the hardest-hit country, build new treatment centers and train health workers.

The Ebola epidemic has killed more than 2,400 people in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone this year.

The virus can fell its victims within days, causing severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhea -- in some cases shutting down organs and causing unstoppable bleeding.

No licenced vaccine or treatment exists.

- Security Council action -

The United Nations Security Council is poised to adopt a resolution on Thursday exhorting countries to provide more field hospitals and urgent aid to the crisis-stricken region.

Likely passage of the resolution marks only the third time that the Security Council will vote on a public health crisis after resolutions on AIDS in 2000 and 2011.

"This has gone beyond health issues," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said.

"It has gone to areas affecting social and economic situations. It may even affect political stability if not properly contained and treated."

The United Nations said nearly one billion dollars would be needed to beat back the worst-ever outbreak of the disease, which is on track to infect 20,000 people by the end of the year.

The world body has set a goal of stopping the spread of Ebola within six to nine months but aid agencies are complaining that help has been too slow.

Ban is planning a "high-level event" on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly next week to draw attention to the crisis.

UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos told reporters in Geneva the Ebola crisis faced a "huge funding challenge."

The capacity of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia to provide even the most basic necessities is "on the brink of collapse," she warned.

The United Nations said the response to the crisis would require $987.8 million (763 million euros), with about half needed for Liberia.

- World 'needs to do more' -

The World Bank meanwhile approved a $105 million grant, part of a $200 million pledge made in early August aimed at helping people cope with the economic impact of the crisis and strengthening public health systems.

"The world needs to do much, much more to respond to the Ebola crisis in these three countries," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.

The UN said if the international community and affected countries respond swiftly and energetically, transmission should begin to slow by the end of the year and halt by mid-2015.

"The level of surge we need to do is unprecedented. It is massive," the United Nations' Ebola coordinator David Nabarro told reporters.

China will send a 59-person mobile laboratory team from its Centre for Disease Control to Sierra Leone, including epidemiologists, clinicians and nurses -- bringing the number of Chinese medics in the country to 174, the WHO said.

The EU, Britain, France and Cuba have also pledged to send medical teams and other aid to the region.

But this is far from enough, warned Joanne Liu, head of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) charity.

Noting that the known Ebola toll "represents only a fraction of the real number," she stressed that "the ground response remains totally and lethally inadequate."

"The window of opportunity to contain this outbreak is closing," she warned.

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PayPal began attacking Apple Pay on social media on Monday, and an early investor in the payment platform is firing back.

PayPal's ad is pointed. The "safer than our selfies" bit is a direct reference to the recent iCloud hacking scandal.

Keith Rabois — a member of the so-called "PayPal Mafia" — took to Twitter to shame PayPal over its new ads:

The Quick Quiz continued:

 By this point the "tweetstorm" was in full effect:

Rabois decried PayPal's scare tactics:

He's essentially saying that PayPal attacking Apple Pay is like the pot calling the kettle black:

To illustrate Rabois' point with a topical example:

And a final nail-in-the-coffin remark about eBay, PayPal's parent company:

Rabois also suggested that Visa should consider disabling PayPal transactions in light of the ads.

Talk about passion, though. 

SEE ALSO: iCloud Now Has The Important Security Feature Apple Promised Would Help Protect Your Data

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A startling number of recruits for ISIS come from neighboring Turkey, according to a report by Ceylan Yengisu of The New York Times.

"As many as 1,000 Turks have joined ISIS, according to Turkish news media reports and government officials here," Yengisu writes.

Turkey, a secular Muslim country led by a moderate Islamist party, faces a problem of disgruntled Islamists hoping for a more purely Islamic society.

"Recruits cite the group’s ideological appeal to disaffected youths as well as the money it pays fighters from its flush coffers," Yengisu notes.

ISIS pays its members $150 a day, a potentially significant financial incentive to join the radical organization. Unemployment in Turkey was an estimated 9.3% in 2013, and almost 17% of the population lived below the poverty line in 2010, according to the CIA World Factbook.  

By fighting for ISIS, youth with limited opportunities would be able to earn more than three times Turkey's average per capita GDP. 

Turkey is a NATO member, but it's allegedly turned a blind-eye towards jihadist recruitment in its own territory. The Republic's policy of regime change within Syria, supported by what could generously be called a lax attitude towards anti-Assad Islamist extremists recruiting and operating inside of Turkish territory, has largely been credited with facilitating the rise of ISIS. Rebel fighters could retreat into Turkish territory and sneak recruits and supplies into and out of Syria. 

“There are clearly recruitment centers being set up in Ankara and elsewhere in Turkey, but the government doesn’t seem to care,” Aaron Stein, a fellow at the Lond-based Royal United Services Institute think tank, told The New York Times. “It seems their hatred for Bashar al-Assad and their overly nuanced view of what radical Islam is has led to a very short- and narrow-sighted policy that has serious implications.”

This estimate of about 1,000 Turks fighting alongside ISIS disagrees with other attempts at determining the number of foreign fighters in Syria. AFP, citing numbers from the London-based Centre for the Study of Radicalization, placed 400 Turks fighting in Syria for ISIS.  

So far the Turkish government has resisted calls for it to join a US-led coalition against ISIS, and it has failed to fully secure its border with Iraq and Syria. But Turkey also has its hands tied: ISIS is holding 49 Turks hostage.

The hostages include diplomats, along with their wives and children. ISIS's recent spate of beheading Western hostages could be a message for Turkey not to become involved, lest the 49 Turks face a similar fate. 

SEE ALSO: Here's how the world's richest terrorist group makes millions every day

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Moscow (AFP) - Russia hailed Wednesday Ukraine's offer of self-rule for separatist rebels in the east under a peace plan seen as the best chance yet of halting five months of bloody warfare.

Insurgent leaders had initially given a mixed response to the legislation adopted by Ukrainian MPs on Tuesday, describing it as a positive move but at the same time insisting they would not be dictated to by Kiev.

The autonomy offer was drawn up under a peace plan backed by both Kiev and Moscow 12 days ago that has eased -- but not halted -- deadly violence around insurgent strongholds in eastern Ukraine.

Moscow, echoing comments by both Washington and the European Union, said it was a "step in the right direction" towards ending a conflict that has killed almost 2,900 people and sent East-West tensions spiralling.

"All of this lays the foundation for the launch of a substantial constitutional process in Ukraine including the start of dialogue with a view to facilitating national reconciliation and agreement in the country," the Russian foreign ministry said.

Lawmakers unanimously approved the "special status" law just moments before ratifying a landmark EU pact that steers Ukraine away from Russia's sphere of influence.

- Capitulating to Moscow? -

But the peace overture to the rebels appears to fit with what analysts see as President Vladimir Putin's strategy of splintering the country to create a Russian-speaking zone that would depend more on Moscow than Kiev.

Nationalist leaders have already accused President Petro Poroshenko of capitulating in the face of Russian "aggression" that suddenly turned the tide against Ukrainian forces last month.

Deadly fighting erupted again on Wednesday around the flashpoint city of Donetsk, scene of almost daily shelling despite the ceasefire deal signed on September 5.

Donetsk city hall said two civilians were killed near a market that lies just a few kilometres (miles) away from the airport frontline and was left in ruins by another bout of deadly shelling earlier this week.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking during a visit to Addis Ababa, said "the ceasefire is holding" despite some violations he blamed on the Ukrainian army, Russia's RIA Novosti news agency reported.

- 'Child of war' -

Many residents of the war-battered region remain deeply pessimistic that any political deals will bring an end to the bloodletting.

"I was born in 1941, a child of war, and now I will die during war. What's it all for?" said 73-year-old Tatiana Semenchenko after a rocket smashed into a building in the working class district of Kievsky. 

Since the truce, around 30 civilians and Ukrainian servicemen have been killed, mostly around Donetsk, with both sides accusing the other of repeated truce violations.

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk -- who has accused Putin of seeking to eliminate Ukraine -- declared that the armed forces would remain on "full combat readiness".

"Russia is definitely not going to grant us peace or stability," he said.

The new legislation gives three years of limited self-rule to the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk known collectively as Donbass, calls for local polls in December, and grants amnesty to rebel fighters.

It also guarantees the right for Russian to be used in all state institutions and for the regions to establish closer ties with local authorities across the border -- two clauses that won Moscow's particular approval.

Both the United States and Europe hailed the legislation as a sign of Kiev's commitment to peace but demanded that Russia and the rebels live up to their side of the bargain.

Moscow has been hit by waves of punishing EU and US sanctions since its annexation of Crimea in March.

But further unnerved its neighbours Tuesday when it said it would boost troop numbers in the Black Sea peninsula because of the "worsening" crisis in Ukraine and the buildup of foreign troops on its border -- an apparent reference to US-led war games in western Ukraine.

Pro-Moscow rebels gave it a cautious welcome but also defiantly insisted it would not stop their fight for full independence as part of "Novorossiya" ("New Russia").

Donetsk "deputy prime minister" Andrei Purgin told AFP the self-rule offer was "a positive signal" that deserved "careful study", a stance echoed by Lugansk rebel leader Alexei Karyakin.

But Donetsk "prime minister" Alexander Zakharchenko bluntly said it was up to the local authorities not Kiev to "decide what elections to hold and when". 

Meanwhile, Poroshenko heads to Washington for a meeting with US President Obama on Thursday, pushing for closer ties between his former Soviet state and the West.

The visit comes just two days after the European and Ukrainian parliaments held simultaneous votes to ratify a political and economic pact whose rejection by the former government last year set in train the current crisis.

Poroshenko said the adoption of the deal was Ukraine's first step towards EU membership, declaring: "Tell me, who will now dare to shut Ukraine's doors to Europe?"

EU leaders hailed it as a "blueprint for Ukraine's transformation into a modern and prosperous European democracy", although the two sides have agreed to delay a free trade deal in a move that appears to make concessions to both Kiev and Moscow.

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Jennifer L. Eberhardt, a psychology professor at Stanford University, was named a MacArthur genius on Wednesday for her investigations into how we visually process race. 

The insights that come from her work are staggering.

Her research has found that people are more likely to spot guns, knives, and other objects associated with crime after seeing black faces. 

"When you expose people briefly to black faces before they see these crime objects, they're able to tell what those crime objects are with a blurrier picture,"she said an interview with the MacArthur Foundation. 

For example, people saw this sequence of images of black faces: 

And this sequence of images of many races:  

The result? People who saw the black-only images were quicker to spot this blurry gun (among other images of crime objects):

"It's almost as though blackness is so associated with crime that you're ready to pick out these crime objects out of the environment than if you're exposed to a white face," she said. 

Her work has carried over to criminal justice. She found that death row defendants were twice as likely to receive a death sentence if they looked "stereotypically black" than if they did not. 

In light of her discoveries, Eberhardt is working with police forces "to design interventions to improve policing and to help them build and maintain trust with the communities they serve," the MacArthur Foundation says. 

"We want to use the work to help people understand how race can influence us in ways that are beyond our control and beyond our awareness," Eberhardt says. 

Her reaction to winning the $625,000 Genius grant? 

"Pretty overwhelming," she says.

Watch her video profile with MacArthur below.

SEE ALSO: Meet The 21 MacArthur 'Geniuses' Who Each Got $625,000 To Change The World

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With about 24 hours to go before polls close in Scotland, the final YouGov poll measuring sentiment ahead of the referendum found the "No" campaign with a 52-48 lead over the "Yes" campaign.

YouGov's final poll came just less than a week after YouGov found the "No" campaign regaining some momentum, regaining a 52-48 lead over the "Yes" campaign.

Two more opinion polls released Tuesday found the same results. In all three polls, the "Yes" campaign has clearly gathered steam over the past month — but it's unclear if the momentum is enough to get it over the hump. 

A mid-September YouGov poll showed the "Yes" vote taking the lead in Scotland, causing the British pound to collapse that weekend and early last week. The poll released last weekend found 51% of respondents choosing to vote "Yes" for independence, while 49% said they would vote "No." But last week brought a 6-point swing for the "No" campaign, the first time it had gained ground in the survey since early August.

Here's a chart from YouGov showing the swings:

A vote for independence could cause massive ramifications throughout Europe, and it would lead to a host of immediate questions for Scotland: Would it be able to still use the British pound, which fell to its lowest level in 10 months on news of the polls? Would it be able to stay a member of NATO? And would it be able to gain re-entry into the EU?

A "Yes" vote would also likely embolden other secessionist movements throughout Europe — what geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group, called the "contagion" effect. 

Despite the overall tightening polls over the last month, most analysts still expect Scots to vote "No" on the referendum.

This post was updated at 5:07 p.m. ET.

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The Republican Party thinks Vice President Joe Biden is embarrassing the US and they would like him to stop.

Shortly after he apologized for using the term "Shylocks" on Wednesday, Biden stumbled into another controversy when he referred to former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew as "the wisest man in the Orient."

The Republican National Committee subsequently released a statement claiming Biden had projected "unacceptable imperialist undertones" and should understand such comments "embarrass our country."

"Vice President Joe Biden’s insensitive remarks are offensive to both Asian-Americans and our Asian allies abroad. His comment is not only disrespectful but also uses unacceptable imperialist undertones. It's time for the Vice President to apologize and to understand that his comments embarrass our country," said an RNC spokesman, Ninio Fetalvo.

Biden's office did not respond to a request for comment on the reaction to his remark about Lee.

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Milan (AFP) - Gucci took an audience sprinkled with fashion royalty on a mind-expanding trip back to the early 1970s on Wednesday as the global style powerhouse unveiled its 2015 spring/summer womenswear collection.

Skirts were cut above the knee, or shorter: always an encouraging sign if you believe the old maxim about global stock markets tending to rise in tandem with hemlines.

Prints had a slight psychedelic edge to them and there was a bit of a nautical/pirate theme running through a set that included plenty of embroidery and gilt-edged, oversized buttons on short-cut jackets featuring a range of exotic materials including python and Mongolian lamb. 

There was also a range of three-quarter length, flared trousers and tight-waisted trench coats in an eclectic mix the company itself dubbed "kaleidoscopic glamour".

Gucci's creative director Frida Giannini has long been a fan of the hippy era and she gave full vent to that particular enthusiasm, to the apparent approval of a front-row featuring Kate Moss, US Vogue editor Anna Wintour and glamorous Monaco royal Charlotte Casiraghi.

Casiraghi, who is a top-level showjumper, has long been an ambassador for the company's equestrian line of clothing and she has now become the face of its cosmetics collection, which was making its catwalk debut here.

Elsewhere, there was much interest in the collection presented by Angelos Bratis, the latest young designer to be taken under the fatherly wing of Giorgio Armani.

The 36-year-old Greek's mastery of dresswear is seen by some to be sufficiently impressive for him to be considered a potential successor to the 80-year-old Armani, should the dean of Italian fashion decide to hand over the creative leadership of his global style empire.

Anxious to make the most of the additional interest generated by Armani's sponsorship, Bratis restricted his show to a small selection of sensual evening dresses in featherweight textiles including crepe de Chine and silk twill.

Many of them featured bold geometric patterns and vivid splashes of colour, offsetting the generally understated palate of the materials.

- Singular style -

Bratis said he had deliberately opted for a pared-down collection to make the most of his moment in the spotlight to promote his own singular style.

"There has been a lot of pressure and it has been a lot of hard work," the designer told AFP. "But Mr. Armani chose me because I have my own style and that is what I wanted to show.

"With all this attention from the press and buyers, I wanted to show to the people who don't know Bratis, what Bratis is.

"In one show they get all the codes -- that is why I limited everything to only dresses, only technique."

With Milan's position as the undisputed centrepoint of global high-fashion perceived to be under threat, it badly needs the world to embrace the likes of Bratis and other young designers seeking to make their mark in a landscape dominated by designers well past the age of retirement.

The competition is getting stronger all the time. New York is punching harder than ever on the back of a Stateside economic recovery that so far has eluded Italy and the rest of the eurozone. 

London has ditched quirky-bizarre in favour of quirky-commercial and Paris is, well, Paris.

In what has been seen as a sign of the times, this fashion week will not, as had become traditional, be brought to a close by Armani.

Instead the master of sartorial understatement has opted to show his eponymous collection on Saturday, apparently out of concern that the most influential opinion makers in fashion may slip away early, before the week officially wraps up on Monday.

According to media reports, Armani's decision to pull out of the final day prompted some other leading houses to stamp their stilettos and insist on following suit, a state of affairs which has given the week a lop-sided look with the sixth and final day dedicated to new talent and devoid of a marquee name.

Bratis, who was born and raised in Greece but studied and then honed his craft in the Netherlands, is the latest in a series of young designers who have benefited from Armani's sponsorship, following in the footsteps of other promising emerging talents including Stella Jean and Julian Zigerli.

Stella Jean's latest collection was well received with the upcoming star -- who is half Haitian - going even further than Gucci did in her blending of materials in a bold Caribbean-influenced range of colours.

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