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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Briefcase

GE plans to purchase 25,000 electric vehicles

Fairfield, Conn. – General Electric Co., saying it wants to help spark the electric vehicle industry, said Thursday it would purchase 25,000 electric vehicles for its fleet by 2015.

The Fairfield, Conn., company said its strategy represented the largest-ever electric-vehicle commitment by a company or organization. The plan includes buying 12,000 Chevrolet Volts, which General Motors Co. will start selling by year-end.

Michelle Krebs, an analyst with auto information firm Edmunds.com, said that a company with such a large fleet of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles “could certainly become an important driver behind the build-out of car-charging infrastructure.”

The Volt uses a gasoline engine to create electricity and power the car when its battery charge runs down. That extends the range of the Volt to hundreds of miles and beyond that of pure battery electric vehicles but also classifies the car as a plug-in hybrid.

Los Angeles Times

Amazon drops listing for pedophile’s guide

Seattle – Amazon is no longer selling a self-published guide for pedophiles.

It wasn’t clear whether Amazon.com Inc. had pulled the item, or whether the author withdrew it.

The book, “The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover’s Code of Conduct,” offers advice to pedophiles on how to make a sexual encounter with a child as safe as possible. It includes first-person descriptions of such encounters, purportedly written from a child’s point of view.

The title was an electronic book available for Amazon’s Kindle e-reader and the company’s software for reading Kindle books on mobile phones and computers. Amazon allows authors to submit their own works and shares revenue with them.

Amazon issues guidelines banning certain materials, including those deemed offensive. However, the company doesn’t elaborate on what constitutes offensive content.

Associated Press

New ‘Call of Duty’ breaks sales record

New York – The latest “Call of Duty” video game pulled in $360 million in its first 24 hours on sale in a record showing for the entertainment industry.

Activision Blizzard Inc. said Thursday that “Call of Duty: Black Ops” topped the first-day sales of $310 million by its record-setting predecessor, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.”

“Black Ops” went on sale Tuesday in North America and the U.K. Activision said its latest military shooter sold 5.6 million units the day it went on sale. Its predecessor, meanwhile, sold 4.7 million copies.

Associated Press