3-hour Canadian tornado likely one of world's longest

The massive tornado that roared across the Canadian province of Manitoba late Monday was on the ground for nearly 3 hours — likely one of the longest-lasting on record in Canada and perhaps the world. No injuries or deaths were reported.

The longest tornado recorded is the infamous Tri-State tornado that lasted for about 3.5 hours, ravaging the Midwest in March 1925 and leaving hundreds of people dead in its wake.

"The path length distance of the Manitoba tornado might be shorter, but the duration may be comparable," Randy Cerveny, rapporteur of climate and weather extremes for the World Meteorological Organization, said, referring to reports that the Canadian tornado may not have moved as far distance wise as the 1925 twister.

The tornado tore a path through rural southwest Manitoba, reported Environment Canada, the Canadian version of the USA's National Weather Service. While it damaged trees, power poles, farms and roads, it missed every town in its path.

"This was probably one of the longest on the ground tornadoes we have had in Manitoba or on the Prairies," Natalie Hasell, Environment Canada’s warning preparedness meteorologist, told the Winnipeg Free Press.

David Wills, an expert on tornadoes with Environment Canada, said if it is determined that the tornado was on the ground for three hours, "that would likely be among the longest tornado tracks in Canada ... Perhaps the longest," he told the Winnipeg newspaper.

Environment Canada meteorologist Mike Macdonald called it a "rare" event because tornadoes rarely stay on the ground longer than a few minutes in Canada.

"To be on the ground for 2½ to three hours is phenomenal ... and to miss everything is basically a miracle," he told the CBC.

The tornado was part of a wild weather system that brought also snow and cold to parts of the U.S. Rocky Mountains and ferocious winds and accumulating hail to the northern Plains.

“This pattern should not happen in July,” said the weather service forecast office in Billings, in a tweet.

Ferguson preps for anniversary of Michael Brown's death

FERGUSON, Mo. — Several new city leaders will beon the front lines in 10 days when the #BlackLivesMatter spotlight returns here Aug. 9, the one-year anniversary of Michael Brown's death.

Interim Police Chief Andre Anderson started work July 22, taking a six-month leave of absence from his job at the Glendale, Ariz., Police Department in suburban Phoenix. Interim City Manager Ed Beasley was hired June 9 after working in Glendale from 2002 to 2012.

Both are black, better reflecting the population of this St. Louis suburb of 21,000 residents, which is more than two-thirds African American. Two black City Council members were elected in April, joining one previously serving on the six-member council.

The Missouri Supreme Court also assigned Judge Roy Richter to Ferguson Municipal Court on March 9 after the U.S. Justice Department released a report describing a profit-driven municipal court system, expected to generate a quarter of the city budget through fines and fees, that heightened tensions between the city's primarily white police department and its mostly black residents.

And all of the city officials know that any missteps as protesters mark the anniversary of Brown's death will receive national attention.

"I've asked the police department to adopt four things as we start: We want to embrace professionalism, we want to embrace respect, we want to embrace community engagement and we want to make the community safer," Anderson said.

Just since the start of this year, at least 664 people have died at the hands of police, including at least 174 blacks, according to a Guardian database. The British newspaper has been gathering data through news reports to count deaths caused by law-enforcement officers across the USA.

Protesters say they plan to commemorate Brown's death all weekend.

“The racial disparities in police shootings have caused our community to take a stand for black lives,” Kayla Reed of Organization for Black Struggle said in a statement. “One year later we continue to grow and organize to transform a system that has for too long oppressed people of color.”

On Aug. 9, 2014, Officer Darren Wilson, who is white, saw saw two black men — Brown, 18, and his friend Dorian Johnson, 22 at the time — walking in the middle of a Ferguson street after hearing dispatchers describe suspects who stole packages of cigarillos from a convenience store several blocks away. Wilson and Brown, who was unarmed, got into an altercation a little after noon that day, and the officer fired 12 shots at Brown, fatally injuring him.

CVS, IBM partner for technology-based health care

CVS Health and IBM announced Thursday they will join forces to improve health care management services to patients with chronic diseases with the help of advanced technology.

The partnership between the health care company and software company will provide the technology behind IBM’s Watson computing systems to CVS Health practitioners and pharmacists. The technology can analyze large amounts of data, interpret and evaluate information and build knowledge over time. The Watson computing system can access health records, pharmacy information and other resources to help CVS Health employees provide guidance to patients and work with primary care doctors.

Troyen Brennan, chief medical officer for CVS Health, told USA TODAY the new technology will be able to access more research and information than the organization can do now.

“This is going to be a new tool for disease prevention,” Brennan said.

The partnership focuses on improving services for patients with chronic diseases, including hypertension, heart disease, diabetes and obesity. The collaboration uses IBM Watson Health, an IBM business unit, which aims to better allow doctors, researchers and practitioners to use the data and technology collected by the computing system to provide better health care.

“The ultimate goal is the improvement in the outcomes, reduction of costs and an overall better experience for patients at the end of the day,” said Shahram Ebadollahi, vice president, innovation and chief science officer at IBM Watson Health.

The collaboration also uses IBM Watson Health Cloud, which gathers information on nutrition, medical history and lifestyle, among other factors, to present a personalized look at health. IBM already partners with Apple, Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic to provide access to this data.

CVS Health encompasses the CVS brands, including its pharmacy, MinuteClinic, Caremark and specialty programs.

This isn’t the first partnership for the two companies. In July 2014, CVS Caremark and IBM announced a $1.5 million grant program called “Technology Solutions for Smarter Health,” which supports the use of technology in health centers.

The use of the technology will begin at CVS at the beginning of 2016.

“Manning these two companies together, and doing it at a scale only these companies can do, will greatly affect the long term —and short term — for patients and do many of them good,” Ebadollahi said.

Court blocks release of NYPD chokehold death testimony

NEW YORK (AP) — The public can't see the testimony a grand jury weighed before declining to indict a white police officer in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man, an appeals court said Wednesday, citing longstanding reasons for grand jury confidentiality.

"The public interest in disclosure was outweighed by the dangers inherent in violating the secrecy of the grand jury proceeding," judges in the state Supreme Court Appellate Division's Second Department wrote.

Grand juries have operated for centuries behind closed doors, for reasons ranging from shielding witnesses to protecting the rights of targets who don't get charged. Transcripts are rarely disclosed — with some notable exceptions, as after an officer wasn't indicted last year in the killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Wednesday's ruling echoed a lower-court decision in the case of Eric Garner, whose fatal encounter with police was recorded on video.

But city Public Advocate Letitia James, the New York Civil Liberties Union and theLegal Aid Society said they would appeal. They're seeking the transcripts, detailed descriptions of evidence and other documentation in the Garner case, which was fueled by the online video and led to widespread protests about police treatment of minorities.

"The public deserves to know what happened with that grand jury and why what we saw with our eyes did not match the failure to indict those responsible for Eric Garner's death," James said in a statement.

Garner's relatives were disappointed in the decision, as they feel releasing the information is the only way to address their doubts about the fairness of the grand jury process, said one of their lawyers, Josh Moskovitz.

A bystander's video showed the unarmed Garner repeatedly pleading, "I can't breathe!" as Officer Daniel Pantaleo took him to the ground with an arm around his neck. Pantaleo was attempting to arrest Garner on suspicion of selling untaxed cigarettes on a Staten Island street.

The medical examiner ruled that Garner was killed by neck compressions from the chokehold and his positioning during police restraint. The New York Police Departmentbans chokeholds; Pantaleo said he instead used a permissible takedown maneuver.

Former Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan, who took the case to the grand jury before being elected to Congress this May, successfully asked a judge last winter to release such details as the number of witnesses. But his and other prosecutors' offices have argued against releasing the transcripts, noting that grand jurors and witnesses expect confidentiality to assure them they won't be subjected to public criticism for participation.

Acting Staten Island DA Daniel Master declined to comment.

The request came amid an ongoing debate over whether lawmakers should make grand juries more transparent, particularly in police killing cases. The NYCLU and others argued that releasing the Garner case transcripts would help lawmakers decide what to do.

But appeals judges said it wasn't clear how the information "would inform legislative debate beyond the facts that are already publicly known of the case."

Thursday's forecast: More scorching heat South, West, East

Late July heat will continue unabated for much of the country Thursday, though a few showers in portions of Florida, the Northeast and the Southwest might help ease the worst of it.

West: Parts of the Southwest and Four Corners will see some afternoon thunderstorms. Temperatures will soar into the 90s and 100s in much of the Far West, except for right along the coast.

Central U.S.: Blistering heat and humidity will roast the central and southern Plains on Thursday. Some showers and storms are also possible in the central Plains.

East: Heat and humidity will be the rule for most of the East Coast and Southeast. A cold front will trigger some thunderstorms in the afternoon in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. Florida's ongoing soggy pattern continues Thursday.

Weather history for July 30: In 1965, the temperature rose to 107 degrees in Portland, Ore., tying an all-time record high. In 1999, the dew point in Chicago rose to a record high of 83 degrees.

Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry starred in an old Windows 95 instructional video

In the mid ’90s, Friends was the biggest thing on TV, and Windows 95 was a breakthrough operating system that introduced millions of users to Microsoft.

And this unbelievable Microsoft video, unearthed by a brilliant YouTube user, brings the two together for “the world’s first cyber sitcom” — also known as an instructional video — starringJennifer Aniston (sporting “the Rachel”) and Matthew Perry.

The video is an amazing relic of the ’90s, a time when “personal computing” was a brand new thing, fax machines were all the rage, and saxophone interludes still punctuated every joke people made on TV.

Watch the video below — trust us, it’s worth your time.

In the mid ’90s, Friends was the biggest thing on TV, and Windows 95 was a breakthrough operating system that introduced millions of users to Microsoft.

And this unbelievable Microsoft video, unearthed by a brilliant YouTube user, brings the two together for “the world’s first cyber sitcom” — also known as an instructional video — starringJennifer Aniston (sporting “the Rachel”) and Matthew Perry.

The video is an amazing relic of the ’90s, a time when “personal computing” was a brand new thing, fax machines were all the rage, and saxophone interludes still punctuated every joke people made on TV.

Watch the video below — trust us, it’s worth your time.

Judy's sweat-stained 'Wizard' dress to sell

A sweat-stained dress worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz could become one of the world's most expensive costume dresses if it sells at auction later this year for more than an expected $1 million.

Who could ever forget Dorothy Gale's blue-and-white gingham dress? It's one the most memorable dresses in film history, one as unmistakably American as a Kansas cornfield.

Even better is the tell-tale imprint of the iconic American actress/singer who wore it in the 1939 classic.

"What is great about this is it has signs of use: There are sweat stains around the neck, but it is still in fine condition,” Catherine Williamson, director of entertainment memorabilia at Bonhams, told the SWNS news service.

Bonhams is set to auction the dress, at a starting price of $1.2 million, at its "Treasures from the Dream Factory" sale on November 23 in New York.

If the dress hits this price tag, it will become one of the most expensive dresses in history — as much thanks to Garland's star quality as its prominence in a beloved film.

"Judy Garland is in the top tier for collectability alongside Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn, and this costume is in the top ten of dresses," Williamson says. "I think the market will be international."

Although Garland was a 17-year-old starlet at the time, the dress was designed to make her look closer in age to her 12-year-old orphan character. Wizard helped make her a global star, as famous for her troubles as her talent.

Williamson believes the universal appeal of Wizard will mean high levels of interest for this sale.

"The dress is one of those costumes which are instantly identifiable," she says. "You immediately know it was Judy Garland who wore it as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz. It is the costume she wears throughout the film, which is a great movie and the definition of a classic... It is a privilege to be selling it."

Demand for props and costumes from Wizard is at a high. Even a "test dress," which wasn't used on screen, sold for $245,265 last year at Bonhams, Williamson says.

The Lion costume, however, sold for a staggering $2.9 million.

And Dorothy's ruby slippers?  Researchers say four pairs of the sparkly shoes were made for the film; one pair is in the Smithsonian in Washington. In 2011, a pair used for close-up shots failed to sell at auction for $2 million, but they were acquired for an unknown price by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2012 for its planned museum.

Garland's life of celebrity and tribulation is by now well documented and contributes to the reverence with which she is held by many of her fans. As a child star she became addicted to drugs. She married five times, had three children, including eldest Liza Minnelli, but she struggled with mental health problems and addictions throughout her life.

The actress died in 1969 at age 47 after taking an accidental overdose of barbiturates in London.