While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, March 25 edition

US President Donald Trump, with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price (left), speaks from the Oval Office of the White House, March 24, 2017. PHOTO: AFP

Republicans pull health-care legislation plan in blow for Donald Trump

President Donald Trump suffered a stunning political setback in a Congress controlled by his own party when Republican leaders pulled legislation to overhaul the US health care system, a major 2016 election campaign promise of the President and his allies.

Republican leaders of the House of Representatives pulled the legislation due to a shortage of votes despite desperate lobbying by the White House and its allies in Congress, ensuring that Trump's first major legislative initiative since taking office on Jan 20 ended in failure.

House Republicans had planned a vote on the measure after Trump late on Thursday cut off negotiations with Republicans who had baulked at the plan and issued an ultimatum to vote on Friday, win or lose.

Republican moderates as well as the most conservative lawmakers had objected to the legislation. The White House and House leaders were unable to come up with a plan that satisfied both moderates and conservatives, despite Trump's vaunted image as a deal maker.

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Naked people slaughter a sheep at Auschwitz death camp

Eleven men and women in their twenties slaughtered a sheep and took their clothes off at the former Nazi German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, according to police and the museum at the site in southern Poland.

The individuals aged 20 to 27, whose identities and motives are unknown, then chained themselves together in front of the camp's infamous "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work makes you free") gate, the museum said in a statement.

Regional police spokesman Sebastian Glen said the seven men and four women draped a white banner with the red text "love" over the infamous gate. They included six Poles, four Belarusians and one German.

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Dogs detect breast cancer from bandage, say researchers

Dogs can sniff out cancer from a piece of cloth which has touched the breast of a woman with a tumour, researchers said, announcing the results of an unusual, but promising, diagnostic trial.

With just six months of training, a pair of German Shepherds became 100 per cent accurate in their new role as breast cancer spotters, the team said.

The technique is simple, non-invasive and cheap, and may revolutionise cancer detection in countries where mammograms are hard to come by.

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Robots seen taking 30 per cent of UK jobs with women at lower risk - study

Up to a third of British jobs could be taken over by robots by the early 2030s, impacting 10 million Britons but with women less likely to face redundancy, a UK study showed.

The research, by accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), found 30 per cent of UK jobs could face automation compared to 38 per cent in the United States, 35 per cent in Germany, and 21 per cent in Japan.

Researchers, however, said this wouldn't necessarily lead to less employment as jobs may change rather than disappear.

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No 'Love Actually' when Donald Trump asked actress Emma Thompson for a date

British actress Emma Thompson says President Donald Trump once called her out of the blue years ago and asked her for a date.

The Love Actually star turned him down.

Thompson told a Swedish television talk show that the bizarre incident happened while she was filming the 1998 movie Primary Colours in California, as she and actor Kenneth Branagh were finalising their divorce.

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