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1. During the first public hearings of the impeachment probe Wednesday, U.S. diplomat William Taylor provided new information that could further corroborate President Trump's alleged attempts to pressure Ukraine’s president to investigate the Bidens. Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, told the House Intelligence Committee that a member of his staff overhead a phone conversation between Trump and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, that allegedly occurred in July. The staffer apparently heard the president ask Sondland about the "investigations," and Sondland told Trump that "the Ukrainians were ready to move forward," Taylor said. After the call, the staffer asked Sondland what Trump thought about Ukraine. The ambassador responded that Trump "cares more about the investigations of Biden.” George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary at the State Department, also testified on Wednesday. This story is developing. - NYTIMES
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2. Regulators officially approved the world's first Ebola vaccine, which they called "a major step forward in saving lives in Africa and beyond." Five years ago, no Ebola vaccine existed. But thanks to one-dose vaccine manufactured by Merck and another from Johnson & Johnson, the virus is "now preventable and treatable," said Vytenis Andriukaitis, a European Commission official in charge of health and food safety. On Tuesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it pre-qualified Merck's vaccine, meaning that it meets the agency's quality, safety and efficacy standards. Two days before that, the European Commission approved marketing of the vaccine known as Ervebo, which is already in use in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where an ongoing Ebola outbreak has killed more than 2,000 people. - NATURE.COM
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3. Facebook says it removed 3.2 billion fake accounts between April and September, which is more than double the number it removed in the same period last year. Facebook's latest Community Standards Enforcement Report shows an ongoing, staggering amount of child abuse, suicide-related, terrorist, and illicit-goods content that continues to be shared. There were 11.6 million pieces of content on Facebook and 754,000 on Instagram depicting child nudity during the third quarter, which were removed. And there were 2.5 million posts removed that "depicted or encouraged suicide or self-injury." Facebook boasts that it now detects and automatically removes 98.5 percent of terrorist propaganda from Facebook using AI, and 92.2 percent in the case of Instagram. - REUTERS
A version of this story first appeared in Inside Social.
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10. Apple opened pre-order sales of its 16-inch MacBook Pro, which replaces the previous 15-inch version. The notebook, which starts at $2,399, is available for pre-order as of today and will begin selling in authorized stores later this week, according to the company. Besides having a bigger screen, the laptop comes with better speakers and new processors, according to The Verge, which praised its improved stability over the predecessor and keyboard as being "blissfully quiet." Also on Wednesday, Apple announced that its Mac Pro, its most powerful computer ever, will be available to buy in December, at a starting price of $5,999. - ENGADGET
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Written and curated by Beth Duckett in Orange County. Beth is a former reporter for The Arizona Republic who has written for USA Today, Get Out magazine and other publications. Follow her tweets about breaking news and other topics in southern California here.
Editor: Kim Lyons (Pittsburgh-based journalist and managing editor at Inside).
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