Mexico Soldiers Kill 25 in Gun Fight Near Border President Felipe Calderon tried to rally frustrated Mexicans behind his increasingly bloody drug war Thursday, saying he knows violence has surged under his watch, but arguing that it is the price of confronting powerful and brutal cartels. 9/3/2010 7:19:36 AM
Mideast Peace Talks "Productive"; 2nd Round Set (Video) Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed Thursday to produce a framework for a permanent peace deal and to hold a second round of direct talks this month, a modest achievement reached amid deep skepticism about success at their first such session in two years. 9/2/2010 5:39:25 PM
Run on Afghan bank's deposits reported About $155 million in deposits have been withdrawn from Afghanistan’s largest bank in just the last two days, spurring fresh concerns among U.S. and Afghan officials that a financial panic could spread through the country and derail the U.S. war effort, according to bank insiders and U.S. officials. 9/2/2010 4:33:45 PM
Another Oil Rig Explosion in Gulf of Mexico The Coast Guard is backing off its earlier report that an oil sheen about a mile long was spreading following a platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. Coast Guard Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesau said Thursday afternoon that crews were unable to confirm the oil sheen. (Ed: Oil Rig's crew pictured in survival suits.) 9/2/2010 4:10:06 PM
Sorry, no cigarettes or alcohol, trapped miners told Requests for alcohol and cigarettes by the trapped Chilean miners have been refused. They have been given nicotine patches instead. The 33 men asked for wine and cigarettes to help them cope with their ordeal, but were told they would have to endure several months underground without strong drink or a smoke. 9/2/2010 7:59:35 AM
World's Biggest Banking Black Hole in Ireland It's the world's biggest banking black hole - and it's in Ireland, one of Europe's most troubled economies. The debt disaster at Anglo Irish Bank means that Ireland is tasked with carrying out the continent's most ambitious bank-bailout program at a time of surging deficits and welfare lines. 9/1/2010 5:32:55 PM
Obama says Mideast peace moment 'must be seized' Struggling to break decades of hostility, President Barack Obama convened a new round of ambitious Mideast peace talks Wednesday and told Israeli and Palestinian leaders they faced a fleeting chance to settle deep differences. 9/1/2010 4:02:00 PM
Police shoot and kill Discovery Channel gunman Police shot and killed a gunman who held three hostages for several hours Wednesday at the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring, Md., authorities said. They said the hostages were safe. At least one explosive device went off when he was shot, and other explosive devices could still be in the building. 9/1/2010 3:53:44 PM
Teenage girl throws puppies into a river in online video (Video) The images were originally uploaded via a YouTube account on a site called Liveleak. It appears to show a young girl with long blonde hair in a red hooded top picking up newborn puppies by the scruff of the neck and hurling them into a fast-flowing river. 9/1/2010 2:08:20 PM
Ferrari recalls 458 Italias after a spate of fires Ferrari recalled more than 400 luxury Italia cars today after reports that a design fault could cause them to catch fire. The first incident occurred in July, when the driver noticed the rear panel of his 458 Italia was on fire while driving in Paris. A few days later an Italia driving caught fire in Switzerland. 9/1/2010 1:56:41 PM
Gunman Holds Hostages at Discovery Channel HQ A gunman who had what police described as "concerns" with the Discovery Channel networks took at least one person hostage in the company's suburban Washington headquarters Wednesday. The man is wearing metallic canisters on his front and back that appear to explosives, though police could not confirm that. 9/1/2010 1:45:59 PM
Hurricane Earl churning toward U.S., Maritimes (Video) Hurricane warnings and watches are in effect along a large stretch of the U.S. east coast as Hurricane Earl churns toward North Carolina, where it is forecasted to make landfall late Thursday or early Friday. Earl, or its remnants, is expected to hit the Canadian coast on Saturday morning, most likely near Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. 9/1/2010 1:34:31 PM
World leaders called to act on poverty at Melbourne UN conference THE world's aid and charity organisations have resolved to again urge governments to pump billions of dollars into the global fight against poverty. Any suggestion that they lacked the resources to do so was a "nonsense", the final day of the United Nations DPI/NGO Conference was told today. 9/1/2010 12:47:03 PM
West Bank/Gaza: 4 Israelis murdered just before peace talks Israeli forces on Wednesday sealed off parts of the West Bank while Palestinian security forces arrested scores of Hamas supporters after four settlers were gunned down just ahead of Middle East peace talks. The attack was claimed by the armed wing of Hamas. (Leader pictured) 9/1/2010 12:09:15 PM
Russians urged to smoke, drink more RUSSIA'S finance minister Alexei Kudrin has urged his fellow citizens to smoke and drink more, explaining that higher consumption would help lift tax revenues for spending on social services. "People should understand: Those who drink, those who smoke are doing more to help the state," he said. 9/1/2010 11:22:33 AM
Government games: Wikileaks rape inquiry reopened A senior Swedish prosecutor has ordered the reopening of a rape investigation into Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. It is the second time a Swedish prosecutor has been overruled by a prosecutor of higher rank in relation to the claims against Mr Assange. 9/1/2010 8:40:37 AM
India to ask Google, Skype for data access India on Wednesday launched a clampdown on major Internet communications firms, including Google and Skype, and began accessing some BlackBerry traffic in a campaign driven by security fears. Home Secretary G.K. Pillai said notices were being sent to Google and Skype 9/1/2010 8:33:45 AM
U.S. appeals order blocking stem cell research The Obama administration asked a federal judge to lift a restraining order that it says could undercut U.S. government funded embryonic stem cell research. The Justice Department filed its request with U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth only days after he blocked government funding of embryonic stem cell research. 9/1/2010 8:05:03 AM
65-Carat Emerald Pulled from N.C. Farm The nearly 65-carat emerald its finders are marketing by the name Carolina Emperor was pulled from a farm once so well known among treasure hunters that the owners charged $3 a day to shovel for small samples of the green stones. The emerald compares in size and quality to one surrounded by diamonds in a brooch once owned by Catherine the Great. 8/31/2010 8:14:42 PM
Ethics Rules Imposed after Sex-for-Oil Scandal Scandalized by U.S. regulators who had sex with oil company executives and negotiated with them for jobs, the agency that oversees offshore drilling is imposing a first-ever ethics policy that bars inspectors from dealing with a company that employs a family member or personal friend. 8/31/2010 8:11:54 PM
"La Barbie" All Smiles as Cops Describe Savagery A Texas-born fugitive known as "the Barbie" grinned Tuesday as police paraded him in handcuffs and described his alleged life of luxury and savagery - cut short when he became the third suspected drug lord to fall in Mexico in the past 10 months in a coup for President Felipe Calderon's war on cartels. 8/31/2010 8:07:29 PM
Tony Blair: Gordon Brown tried to blackmail me The former prime minister’s memoir discloses that a “maddening” Mr Brown effectively blackmailed him while he was in No 10. He suspects the then chancellor of orchestrating the investigation into the cash-for-honours scandal. 8/31/2010 6:47:57 PM
Outrage over drowning puppies video A VIDEO of a girl tossing half-a-dozen puppies into a river has sparked outrage online with chat forums and Facebook pages calling for her to be tracked down and punished. The video, which was originally posted on YouTube, shows a blonde girl casually taking the puppies and tossing them into the fast-moving river one by one. 8/31/2010 6:22:53 PM
Scandal shuts Australian Work Camp prison AUTHORITIES have shut down a controversial prison work camp south of Cairns and launched an investigation into claims by a former inmate that prisoners are living a life of luxury. The former inmate yesterday broke ranks with his fellow prisoners to talk about his sentence of fun and freedom. 8/31/2010 6:19:35 PM
Australia's Election is still not over, maneuvering continues INDEPENDENT MP Andrew Wilkie says an offer made to him by Prime Minister Julia Gillard to gain her support in forming the next government is "unsatisfactory". Mr Wilkie, who pulled off a shock result in the August 21 election, said he had hoped to have a decision but now expects it to take another day or two. 8/31/2010 5:52:52 PM
Chile mine owner asks for forgiveness after collapse The owner of the Chile mine which collapsed, leaving 33 workers trapped, has apologised to miners and their families. CEO Alejandro Bohn, said he "must ask forgiveness" for the "pain" caused. Drilling work to rescue the miners has begun, but it could take three to four months. 8/31/2010 5:34:38 PM
Gaddafi wants EU cash to stop African migrants Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi says the EU should pay Libya at least $6.3 Billion a year to stop illegal African immigration and avoid a "black Europe". Speaking on a visit to Italy, Col Gaddafi said Europe "could turn into Africa" as "there are millions of Africans who want to come in". 8/31/2010 5:32:36 PM
Obama hails end to US combat operations in Iraq President Obama has hailed the end of US combat operations in Iraq, saying the US has paid a "a huge price" to "put Iraq's future in its peoples' hands". In excerpts of a speech, he said he was "awed" by the sacrifice of the US military 8/31/2010 5:24:56 PM
Mexico Violence: At least eight killed in attack on Cancun bar At least eight people were killed when Molotov cocktails were thrown into a bar in the Mexican town of Cancun, a resort area popular with Canadian tourists, officials said Tuesday. "The death of eight people is confirmed. Six on site — including four women — and two others in hospital, also women." 8/31/2010 5:17:23 PM
Spain: Gang Plied Gigolos with Cocaine, Viagra Spanish police say that for the first time they have broken up a human-trafficking gang that brought men to the country to work as prostitutes, providing them with Viagra, cocaine and other stimulant drugs to be available for sex with other men 24 hours a day. 8/31/2010 5:08:06 PM
Iran seeks distance from paper's insult of France's Carla Bruni-Sarkozy Iran on Tuesday sought to distance itself from harsh remarks by a hard-line newspaper, which called France's first lady a “prostitute” for condemning the stoning sentence against an Iranian woman convicted of adultery. The French Foreign Ministry said it found the comments unacceptable. 8/31/2010 4:23:25 PM
Oxfam workers killed in Afghanistan Three aid workers with British humanitarian group Oxfam have been killed by a roadside bomb in northern Afghanistan, the charity said on Tuesday. Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst since Afghan armed groups helped by US-led forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001. 8/31/2010 4:20:15 PM
Five U.S. troops killed by bomb in Afghanistan Five U.S. troops were killed by roadside bombs and insurgent fire in southern and eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, the latest casualties in a particularly bloody spell that has left 19 service members dead since Saturday. 8/31/2010 8:11:07 AM
Earl batters Caribbean, threatens East Coast Hurricane Earl, now a powerful Category 4 storm, barreled toward the U.S. coast early Tuesday after battering tiny islands across the northeastern Caribbean. Earl is forecast to potentially brush the U.S. East Coast late Thursday, before possibly swiping New England or far-eastern Canada. 8/31/2010 8:09:16 AM
Taliban using mosque flap to recruit Taliban officials know it’s sacrilegious to hope a mosque will not be built, but that’s exactly what they’re wishing for: the success of the fiery campaign to block the proposed Islamic cultural center and prayer room near the site of the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan. 8/30/2010 9:56:07 AM
War and peace: Obama nears pivotal Mideast moment Straddling war and peace, President Barack Obama is about to formally end the divisive U.S. combat role in Iraq and restart talks between Israelis and Palestinians, a moment defined more by relief and hope than triumph. On Tuesday night, Obama will tell the nation from the Oval Office that the U.S. role in Iraq has changed for good. 8/30/2010 8:05:34 AM
Belgian Church Leader Urged Victim to Be Silent The former leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium urged a victim of serial sexual abuse by a bishop to keep silent for a year, until the bishop — the victim’s own uncle — could retire, according to tapes made by the victim and published over the weekend in two Belgian newspapers. 8/30/2010 8:01:48 AM
Good news, winter haters: After record snowfall in the mid-Atlantic and unusually cold weather down South, the Farmers' Almanac is predicting a "kinder and gentler" winter.: Kinder, gentler winter ahead Good news, winter haters: After record snowfall in the mid-Atlantic and unusually cold weather down South, the Farmers' Almanac is predicting a "kinder and gentler" winter. After eyeing the skies, tidal action and sunspots, the folks at the 194-year-old publication say it'll be cold but nothing like last winter. 8/30/2010 7:56:58 AM
Saudi maid verdict 'outrageous' Human Rights Watch has called on Saudi judges to overturn a decision to drop charges against a Saudi couple accused of severely abusing an Indonesian maid. A judge awarded $670 damages to the maid but dropped all charges against her employers. 8/29/2010 11:04:11 PM
The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party Three heavy hitters rule. You’ve heard of one of them, Rupert Murdoch (who owns Fox News among other things). The other two, the brothers David and Charles Koch, are even richer, with a combined wealth exceeded only by that of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett among Americans. 8/29/2010 10:25:48 PM
New Dissent in Japan Is Loudly Anti-Foreign The demonstrators appeared one day in December, just as children at an elementary school for ethnic Koreans were cleaning up for lunch. The group of about a dozen Japanese men gathered in front of the school gate, using bullhorns to call the students cockroaches and Korean spies. 8/29/2010 10:01:00 PM
For Notorious Arms Sales Suspect, Secrets Are Bargaining Chips Accused of a 15-year run as one of the world’s biggest arms traffickers, Viktor Bout is thought to be a consummate deal maker. Now his future may hang on whether he can strike one last bargain: trading his vast insider’s knowledge of global criminal networks in exchange for not spending the rest of his life in prison. 8/29/2010 9:15:53 PM
Two police officers killed in Alaska Two Hoonah police officers were ambushed, shot and killed Saturday night by a suspect who on Sunday afternoon was still barricaded in his home on Front Street in the Southeast Alaska community of about 800 people, according to Alaska State Troopers. 8/29/2010 9:11:06 PM
Hong Kongers denounce Philippine government over bus shooting An estimated 80,000 Hong Kongers marched Sunday in honour of eight locals killed in a bus hijacking in Manila, denouncing the Philippine government for botching the rescue operation and demanding justice for the dead. 8/29/2010 8:51:54 PM
Russian skinheads attack concert-goers, killing girl, reports say Russian news agencies say scores of skinheads have attacked about 3,000 people at a rock concert in central Russia, beating them with clubs. TV news channel Rossiya-24 cited witnesses as saying a 14-year-old girl was killed and possibly dozens of people wounded on Sunday. 8/29/2010 8:50:28 PM
Mexico violence claims lives of young boys; soldiers accused of abuses It was Easter weekend, and the Almanza family was heading to the beach the day little Martin and Brayan died in a hail of gunfire and grenade explosions. The family's Chevrolet Tahoe was stuffed with relatives. The eight adults in the front laughed at a DVD of stand-up comedy. The five kids giggled in the back. 8/29/2010 1:24:01 PM
Glenn Beck Rally Attracts Estimated 87,000 An estimated 87,000 people attended a rally organized by talk-radio host and Fox News commentator Glenn Beck Saturday in Washington, according to a crowd estimate commissioned by CBS News. 8/29/2010 11:28:23 AM
Hurricane Earl barrels towards Caribbean Tropical Storm Earl became a hurricane on Sunday, following behind Hurricane Danielle. Earl, located 365 miles east of the Northern Leeward Islands, had top sustained winds of 75 mph as it pushed across the mid-Atlantic behind Danielle. Danielle is the first major hurricane of the 2010 season. 8/29/2010 9:29:30 AM
Chile seeks to speed rescue of trapped miners Chile is looking at ways to speed the rescue of 33 miners trapped deep underground, hoping to cut in half the time to bring them to the surface. Mining Minister Laurence Golborne said rescuers were considering other options, including digging a second escape shaft. 8/29/2010 9:27:13 AM
Titanic expedition provides first wreck images in five years An expedition that surveying the wreck of the Titanic is showing off some crisp images of the doomed ocean liner. It has used a pair of robots to take thousands of photographs and hours of video of the wreck, which lies roughly four kilometres below the surface. 8/29/2010 8:11:50 AM
Five years on, Louisiana looks to the future Hundreds of mourners dropped notes, cards and letters — many of them stained with tears — into a steel-grey casket on Saturday in a symbolic burial of Hurricane Katrina. One letter written by a child in red crayon said: “Go away from us.” Another note remembered one of the 1,800 victims of Katrina: “R.I.P. Gloria, I will always love you.” 8/29/2010 7:32:16 AM
Thousands flee as long-sleepy Sumatra volcano erupts Thousands of Indonesians were evacuated from the slopes of a volcano on Sunday after it erupted for the first time in more than 400 years. Mount Sinabung, in the north of the island of Sumatra, began erupting around midnight after rumbling for several days. 8/29/2010 7:18:57 AM
Glenn Beck Washington rally at Martin Luther King speech site causes stir The planned large rally by Fox News host Glenn Beck on Saturday on the National Mall is causing controversy because of its location and timing. Saturday is the 47th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, and Beck's rally will be where King delivered his historic address. 8/28/2010 9:14:25 AM
US Court allows agents to secretly put GPS trackers on cars (Video) Law enforcement officers may secretly place a GPS device on a person's car without seeking a warrant from a judge. The man appealed on the grounds that sneaking onto a person's driveway and secretly tracking their car violates a person's reasonable expectation of privacy. 8/28/2010 9:07:15 AM
Omar Khadr: U.S. wary over example of first military tribunal case After working for a year to redeem the international reputation of military commissions, Obama administration officials are alarmed by the first case to go to trial under revamped rules: the prosecution of a former child soldier whom an American interrogator implicitly threatened with gang rape. 8/28/2010 7:45:11 AM
Mexicana Airlines stops flying Debt-ridden airline Mexicana de Aviacion is halting all operations, Mexico's transportation secretary said Friday. Juan Francisco Molinar Horcasitas told reporters in Mexico City the struggling carrier will cease all flights and other activity as of midnight Friday night. 8/28/2010 7:30:04 AM
'We're about to crash . . . no we're not,' air passengers told Terrified passengers flying from London to Hong Kong braced for a possible crash into the sea after a pilot mistakenly played an emergency message. 275 British Airways passengers heard: "This is an emergency. We may shortly need to make an emergency landing on water." 8/27/2010 8:59:30 PM
Hurricane Danielle to skirt Bermuda as Atlantic storms rage Hurricane Danielle, the strongest storm of the Atlantic season, strengthened Friday on a course that was expected to steer away from Bermuda as two more storms brewed in its wake. Danielle strengthened to a Category Four hurricane with sustained winds of 215 kilometers (135 miles) per hour. 8/27/2010 8:50:00 PM
Human foot found on Washington state beach A human foot has been found washed up on a beach in Washington state, police say. The foot was found Friday by a person walking on Whidbey Island, about 100 kilometres south of Vancouver, according to a release from Det. Ed Wallace of the Island County Sheriff's Office. 8/27/2010 8:17:19 PM
Fumes sicken 100 at MGM Grand pool in Vegas High concentrations of a chemical similar to bleach seeped into a pool at the MGM Grand on the Las Vegas Strip on Friday, causing hotel officials to evacuate some 1,500 guests and sending at least 26 people to local hospitals with breathing problems. 8/27/2010 7:04:32 PM
Mexican official probing massacre missing; blasts hit TV and police stations A law enforcement official investigating this week's massacre of 72 migrants in northern Mexico was missing Friday, while possible car-bomb explosions rocked a television station and police station in the same violence-torn state. 8/27/2010 7:00:50 PM
U.N.: Pakistan floods displace another 1 million Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis were fleeing a southern district Friday after the bloated Indus River crushed a levee and flooded new areas, officials said. The U.N. said as many as 1 million people have been displaced in the south since mid-week. 8/27/2010 7:56:24 AM
Former Bush aide accused of hypocrisy after declaring his homosexuality The Republican campaign manager who helped win a second term for President George W Bush on a platform that included measures against gay marriages has been accused of hypocrisy after he announced that he was homosexual.
8/26/2010 6:00:47 PM
NYT: Karzai aide in corruption probe on CIA payroll The aide to President Hamid Karzai is being paid by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to Afghan and American officials. Mohammed Zia Salehi’s relationship with the C.I.A. underscores deep contradictions at the heart of the Obama administration’s policy in Afghanistan. 8/26/2010 8:30:06 AM
Forensic experts to examine site of Mexico migrant massacre A dozen forensic experts were traveling to northeast Mexico Thursday to examine the bodies of 72 Central and South American migrants, in what may be the biggest massacre so far in Mexico's bloody drug war. A wounded Ecuadorian migrant led marines to the gruesome scene on Tuesday. 8/26/2010 8:25:25 AM
German girl band singer walks free on HIV conviction A singer in a German girl band broke down into tears Thursday after a court convicted her but sentenced her to no jail time for causing bodily harm to her ex-boyfriend by having unprotected sex with him despite knowing she was infected with HIV. 8/26/2010 7:50:21 AM
UN peacekeepers unaware of Congo mass rape for two weeks The top UN envoy in Congo said Wednesday that two peacekeeping patrols were not informed by villagers that mass rapes were taking place and the United Nations is now working to improve communications and prevent any recurrence. 8/26/2010 7:37:19 AM
Recovery hopes slip as U.S. home sales tumble The U.S. housing market has taken a sharp turn for the worse, threatening to undermine an increasingly fragile economic recovery. In July, the number of existing single-family homes that changed hands slowed to a pace not seen in 15 years, plunging a record 27 per cent from a month earlier. 8/25/2010 7:48:12 AM
To Catch Cairo Spill, Megacities Rise in Sand The highway west out of Cairo used to promise relief from the city’s chaos. Past the great pyramids of Giza and a final spasm of traffic, the open desert beckoned, 100 barren miles to the northwest to reach the Mediterranean. That, at least, was the case until recently. 8/24/2010 9:29:28 PM
BP was warned of gas danger, contractor says A contractor to BP testified Tuesday that he warned BP that it risked gas leaks in the Macondo well if it cut back on stabilizers for the pipe going down the hole. The warning, he told the Coast Guard-led inquiry, was sent via e-mails to BP engineers, including one who refused to testify on Tuesday. 8/24/2010 9:00:34 PM
Seattle: Burglars leave sex tape, cops recognize them A sex video identified the suspects in a break-in at a rural home at Elma. The Grays Harbor County sheriff's office says a neighbor who had come to collect the mail while the owner was away Monday surprised a man and woman were having sex on the floor. 8/24/2010 8:47:52 PM
Australia picks a ‘none-of-the-above’ government Imagine there’s a federal election in the fall, and the Liberals and Conservatives emerge from it absolutely deadlocked, each with 152 of the 308 seats (I know, this means the NDP and Bloc get zero seats, but we’re imagining.) 8/24/2010 6:06:08 PM
U.S. drug agency admits it can't understand its own wiretaps American authorities are seeking to hire nine people fluent in Ebonics in order to interpret wiretapped conversations between suspected drug dealers. Ebonics, also known as African American Vernacular English, is an offshoot of American English. 8/24/2010 5:46:03 PM
Drug war sends stray bullets across the border The first bullets struck El Paso's city hall at the end of a work day. The next ones hit a university building and closed a major highway. Shootouts in the drug war along the U.S.-Mexico border are sending bullets whizzing across the Rio Grande into one of the nation's safest cities. 8/24/2010 4:57:24 PM
43 die, dozens injured as jet misses runway in China Nearly half of the 96 passengers and crew aboard a Chinese passenger jet died Tuesday, after the aircraft overshot a runway and caught fire in the northwest part of the country. There was heavy fog in the area at the time. 8/24/2010 4:53:55 PM
Six MPs among 30 killed in Somali hotel slaughter Two extremist insurgents disguised as government soldiers went on a shooting rampage in a Mogadishu hotel Tuesday, killing 30 people, including six MPS, before blowing themselves up. Witnesses and hotel staff said the attackers were wearing government security uniforms. 8/24/2010 4:44:48 PM
Report suggests microbes have gobbled up Gulf spill The mystery of what is happening to oil in the Gulf of Mexico deepened Tuesday with scientists now suggesting that microbes have gobbled it up. That's a much different picture than the one painted by a team at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution last week. 8/24/2010 4:34:18 PM
Space age technology could help Chilean miners survive NASA has been asked to help the 33 miners trapped more than 2,300 ft underground. Rescuers are using plastic supply tubes, called "doves", to deliver supplies to the miners, who were trapped in a 500 sq ft passage by a rock collapse in the San Jose gold and copper mine in Chile. 8/24/2010 4:32:07 PM
Pakistan asks U.S. military for help, but not Canada The Canadian military’s Disaster Assistance Response Team has no immediate plans to travel to Pakistan to help with flood recovery efforts because it hasn’t been asked to go. (Ed: The last time Pakistan asked, Canada made a big flap about it. More in story.) 8/24/2010 7:55:11 AM
Washington State: U.S. Army woman pleads guilty to murdering fellow soldiers, stealing baby An Army Specialist accused of killing two fellow soldiers and taking their baby has changed her plea to guilty. Ivette Davila allegedly confessed to another soldier that she went to Randi Miller's home to kill her because she thought the woman was having an affair with Davila's ex-boyfriend. 8/24/2010 7:35:02 AM
Five hostages on Manila bus held Canadian passports A Hong Kong travel agency says five of the passengers who were held hostage on a tour bus in Manila, Philippines, were Canadian -- and three of them were killed in the melee. The 12-hour hostage drama that ended Monday night left eight tourists dead along with their Filipino captor. 8/24/2010 6:51:49 AM
Alcohol abuse costs Australia $36 Billion a year A MAJOR study of the impact of alcohol misuse in Australia has put the annual cost of excessive drinking at $36 billion, along with a massive human toll. More than 70 per cent of the nation's adult population would be "negatively affected" by someone else's drinking in a year.Foundation. 8/23/2010 7:55:25 PM
Seattle: Has America Lost its Self-respect? I love the United States of America. At the same time, for all of our greatness, America is not the country it once was. If America were a man today, he would have lost respect for himself. America was once built on compassion, yet our country now demonstrates a shameful disregard for its most vulnerable citizens. 8/23/2010 7:13:28 PM
Wikileaks says Australia warned of 'dirty tricks' Australian intelligence services had warned WikiLeaks of "dirty tricks" before Swedish authorities issued a short-lived arrest warrant for founder Julian Assange over a rape claim, he said Monday. "We were warned on the 11th (of August) by Australian intelligence that we should expect this sort of thing," Assange said. 8/23/2010 6:31:05 PM
Germany looks into Facebook hiring ban THE German government has drafted a law preventing employers from using Facebook and other social networking sites as a means to evaluate job applicants. The proposed data privacy law for will radically limit what employers can gather from the web, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported. 8/23/2010 4:21:33 PM
U.S. Housing Fades as a Means to Build Wealth, Analysts Say Housing will eventually recover from its great swoon. But many real estate experts now believe that home ownership will never again yield rewards like those enjoyed in the second half of the 20th century, when houses not only provided shelter but also a plump nest egg. 8/23/2010 11:42:11 AM
Pakistanis Tell of Motive in Taliban Leader’s Arrest When American and Pakistani agents captured Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s operational commander, in the chaotic port city of Karachi last January, both countries hailed the arrest as a breakthrough in their often difficult partnership in fighting terrorism. 8/23/2010 11:28:23 AM
SeaWorld Blamed for Trainer’s Death Remember when a killer whale killed a SeaWorld trainer in February? Linda Simons, the former head of safety for SeaWorld, says that gross negligence led to the drowning. She also says she was fired for talking to federal investigators about the case, when Dawn Brancheau died. 8/23/2010 10:55:44 AM
Drivers trapped for nine days in Chinese traffic jam The end may now be in sight for frustrated drivers who have endured a nine-day, 100 kilometre- long traffic jam on a highway leading into Beijing, state media said on Monday. The snarl-up has been caused by roadworks, which are not expected to finish for another month. 8/23/2010 9:45:07 AM
Ex-Policeman, tourists killed in Manila hostage drama Philippine police stormed a bus on Monday on which a sacked former police officer was holding 15 Hong Kong tourists and local media reported the hostage-taker had been killed. At least four hostages left the bus alive, but TV images also showed more bodies being removed. 8/23/2010 8:18:42 AM
Pakistan floods: Senior UN figure criticises response A senior United Nations official has called on the global community to urgently step up its response to the floods that have struck Pakistan. Louis-George Arsenault, director of emergency operations for Unicef in New York, described the lack of support as "quite extraordinary". 8/23/2010 7:58:46 AM
Some 200 women gang-raped near Congo UN base An aid worker says rebels in eastern Congo gang-raped nearly 200 women over four days within miles of a U.N. peacekeepers' base. He said international and local health workers have treated 179 women but that the number raped could be much higher. 8/23/2010 7:37:42 AM
Afghan capital removing its protective blast walls Even as conflict rages in Afghanistan, authorities are trying to make life in the capital a little more normal by removing or repositioning Kabul's ubiquitous concrete blast walls. Removal of the walls makes Kabul look less like the capital of a country at war. 8/23/2010 7:35:12 AM
Tropical Storms Form in Atlantic, Pacific Tropical Storm Danielle has formed in the Atlantic, but the system is still far from land. Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Sunday that Danielle had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph) and the storm is expected to strengthen over the next couple of days. 8/23/2010 6:29:52 AM
Bodies hung from bridge in Cuernavaca, Mexico Police in Mexico say they have found four bodies hung from a bridge in an affluent town south of Mexico City. The four men had been decapitated and mutilated before being hung by their ankles. A message left with their heads warned that anyone supporting Edgar Valdez (pictured) would risk a similar fate. 8/22/2010 8:52:10 PM
Heated Rallies Face Off over Islamic Center The proposed mosque near ground zero drew hundreds of fever-pitch demonstrators Sunday, with opponents carrying signs associating Islam with blood, supporters shouting, "Say no to racist fear!" and American flags waving on both sides. The two leaders of the construction project, meanwhile, defended their plans 8/22/2010 7:46:13 PM
Australian parties race to stitch together minority governments Leaders of Australia's two major political parties lobbied for support from independent lawmakers to stitch together the nation's first minority government since World War II after the closest elections in almost 50 years. 8/22/2010 7:33:09 PM
Chile: All 33 miners trapped for 17 days are alive All 33 Chilean miners trapped deep underground for 17 days were found alive Sunday, Chile's president confirmed. A probe sent some 688 metres deep into the collapsed mine early in the morning came back with a handwritten note: “All 33 of us are fine in the shelter.” 8/22/2010 7:32:11 PM
Iran unveils 'ambassador of death' bomber Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Sunday inaugurated the country's first domestically-built, long-range, unmanned bomber aircraft, calling it an "ambassador of death" to Iran's enemies. "The jet, as well as being an ambassador of death for the enemies of humanity, has a main message of peace and friendship." 8/22/2010 9:51:43 AM
Cops swarm Ariz. town after biker shootout Police locked down a northern Arizona community Saturday after a shooting involving rival motorcycle gangs. Four or five people were shot, and one was flown to a Phoenix-area hospital, Yavapai County sheriff's spokesman Dwight D'Evelyn said. No deaths were reported. 8/22/2010 7:53:07 AM
Russian police detain opposition leader Police prevented about 100 opposition activists from marching through Moscow on Sunday with a giant Russian flag and detained two of their leaders, including prominent politician Boris Nemtsov. The opposition activists were celebrating Flag Day, a holiday honoring the tricolor. 8/22/2010 7:50:05 AM
UN calls for calm in Haiti after Jean candidacy rejected UN peacekeepers in Haiti appealed for calm Saturday after electoral officials rejected international hip-hop star Wyclef Jean’s candidacy in Haiti’s November 28 presidential election. Jean, who has a strong following among Haiti’s youth, was the best known of the 15 candidates disqualified. 8/22/2010 7:14:23 AM
Afghan civillians, police killed in NATO strikes Air strikes by the NATO-led force in Afghanistan accidentally killed at least three Afghan police in the country's north and a woman and two children in the west. Sensitivities about civilian casualties and "friendly fire" incidents have been running high as violence spreads across Afghanistan. 8/21/2010 8:03:04 PM
Australia's Election 80,000 uncounted votes to reveal winner UP to 80,000 uncounted votes in four seats will determine who forms a minority government in Australia's first hung parliament in 60 years. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's Coalition had 71 of the 150 seats in the lower house, PM Julia Gillard's Labor had 70, four Independents and a Green. 8/21/2010 5:47:30 PM
Just When Can a President Take a Vacation? President Barack Obama spent the first full day of his 10-day stay in Martha's Vineyard browsing at a bookstore and playing golf - a relaxing escape from Washington, but has generated criticism. The White House, however, stresses that this is a working vacation. (Ed: And there's an election this fall, so no surprise.) 8/21/2010 5:32:43 PM
Dutch Teen Sets Sail on Solo World Trip A 14-year-old Dutch sailor departed in secrecy from Portugal Saturday avoiding the media because her manager said she didn't want the attention. She is sailing her 38-foot (11.5-meter) ship "Guppy" on a trip expected to last a year or more. 8/21/2010 5:26:03 PM
'Enhanced patdown' at airports questioned The ACLU of Massachusetts is questioning the propriety of stepped-up security checkpoint procedures at airports in Boston and Las Vegas. Screeners are testing what one official called an "enhanced patdown." It lets screeners use a palms-forward, slide-down search procedure on passengers' bodies. 8/21/2010 5:15:50 PM
U.S. Egg Recall: More than half a Billion, 1,000+ sickened A half-billion eggs have been recalled in the nationwide investigation of a salmonella outbreak that Friday expanded to include a second Iowa farm. More than 1,000 people have already been sickened and the toll of illnesses is expected to increase. 8/21/2010 5:09:46 PM
Egyptian police recover stolen Van Gogh painting Police recovered a painting by Vincent van Gogh at Cairo airport Saturday, hours after it was stolen from a museum in the Egyptian capital, the country's culture minister said. Farouk Hosni said security officers at the airport confiscated the painting from an Italian couple as they were trying to leave the country. 8/21/2010 4:41:39 PM
Israel: Fueling up Iran reactor 'totally unacceptable' Israel on Saturday denounced Iran's fueling up of its first nuclear power plant as "totally unacceptable" and called for more international pressure to force Tehran to ceasee. Israel, widely assumed to be the only Middle East country to have nuclear weapons, has said a nuclear-armed Iran would be a threat to its existence. 8/21/2010 4:33:42 PM
Gang killed one guest, took 35 hostage in Rio hotel shootout Heavily armed criminals briefly took 35 people hostage at an upscale hotel Saturday after a street battle with police that left one person dead and dramatized the security challenges for the host of the 2016 Olympic Games. The hostages were released unharmed when police cornered the criminals inside the hotel kitchen. 8/21/2010 4:16:25 PM
Government dirty tricks: Sweden drops arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Swedish authorities issued an arrest warrant for the founder of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks on Saturday on suspicion of rape, but then swiftly withdrew it. Assange, who is Australian by birth, told WikiLeaks' Twitter page the charges were "without basis" and that their timing was "deeply disturbing." 8/21/2010 3:46:07 PM
Taliban kill 30 security guards in day-long clash AFGHAN police say 30 security guards have been killed in a day-long clash with Taliban fighters in one of the most volatile regions of the war-ravaged country. The deaths come just days after President Hamid Karzai ordered all private security firms in the country to disband by the end of the year. 8/20/2010 6:24:40 PM
Police arrested in northern Mexico mayor's killing Six city police officers were arrested Friday in the killing of a mayor in northern Mexico, as the country's escalating drug violence targets more public officials. The suspects included the officer who guarded the house where Santiago Mayor Edelmiro Cavazos was seized on Sunday. 8/20/2010 4:22:30 PM
Pakistan accepts Indian aid for flood relief Islamabad has accepted $5 million in aid for flood victims from India, a rare expression of goodwill between the feuding neighbors at a time when Pakistan is reeling from one of its worst ever natural disasters. The floods have affected 20 million people and about one-fifth of Pakistan's territory. 8/20/2010 8:09:08 AM
Japanese man 'kept dead mother in a backpack' The remains of a Japanese woman have been found in a backpack, in the latest gruesome discovery by investigators searching for missing old people. The woman's son told police his mother died in 2001 but he had not been able to pay for a burial. 8/20/2010 8:02:19 AM
Fugitive Pair Captured in Ariz. after Manhunt After nearly three weeks on the run, an escaped U.S. prison inmate and his fiancee who were targets of an intense nationwide manhunt were captured Thursday at an Arizona campground after an alert forest ranger spotted the couple, along with their stolen vehicle hidden in the trees. 8/20/2010 7:53:46 AM
Huge U.S. Salmonella in eggs outbreak not going away A salmonella outbreak that sickened hundreds and led to the recall of hundreds of millions of eggs from one Iowa firm will likely grow, federal health officials said Thursday. That's because illnesses occurring after mid-July may not be reported yet, said Dr. Christopher Braden. 8/20/2010 7:43:56 AM
Australian PM faces voter backlash at election Julia Gillard became Australia's first female prime minister by seizing control of her party from her former boss less than two months ago and called elections weeks later -- hoping to save the left-leaning government from rising voter grumbling with fresh, straight-talking leadership. It hasn't quite worked out that way. 8/20/2010 6:30:50 AM
Space tourism jet’s landing gear collapses during test The left main landing gear on Virgin Galactic's space tourism jet collapsed as it landed after a test flight in the Mojave Desert Thursday. No injuries were reported. WhiteKnightTwo is designed to carry Virgin's spaceship to high altitude and then release the rocket carrying passengers. 8/19/2010 7:29:27 PM
Ground Zero mosque 'may take Iran cash' THE developers of the Ground Zero mosque are refusing to rule out donations for the project from Iran. “I can’t comment on that” was the reply of mosque spokesman Oz Sultan said when asked specifically if the fundraising would extend to Iran and Saudi Arabia. 8/19/2010 7:13:06 PM
Climbers saved after text message home TWO British climbers were rescued from the slopes of western Europe's highest mountain Thursday after they sent a text message to a friend in London raising the alarm. The climbers became caught in a storm about 3,500 meters up Mont Blanc on Wednesday, Britain's The Daily Telegraph reported. 8/19/2010 7:08:52 PM
Dumb or What? Unguarded border bridges for Mexico to U.S. On each side of a towering West Texas stretch of the $2.4 billion border fence designed to block people from illegally entering the country, there are two metal footbridges, clear paths into the United States from Mexico. While just about anyone would call them bridges, the U.S.-Mexico group that owns them calls them something else. 8/19/2010 4:52:26 PM
London woman fractures spine in honeymoon balcony fall A London woman fractured her spine in three places when she fell up to 30ft (9m) from a hotel balcony while on honeymoon in Corfu. Mr Dudbridge had been trying to raise the $25,000 needed to fly his wife home as they did not have travel insurance. A woman has now come forward offering to pay for the air ambulance flight. 8/19/2010 1:20:59 PM
Germany: 'Google Knows More about Us than the KGB, Stasi or Gestapo' With just weeks to go before Google launches its Street View service in Germany, the government in Berlin has finally begun to take notice. But Chancellor Merkel's cabinet is wary of specifically targeting the company. German commentators wonder if the private sphere is being redefined. 8/19/2010 1:15:43 PM
22-mile-long oily plume found near BP well site A giant plume of oily water — at least 22 miles long, more than a mile wide and 650 feet tall — was found near the blown-out BP well and some 3,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. The study adds to the controversy over how much oil is still in the Gulf ecosystem from the spill. 8/19/2010 12:36:09 PM
Kenyan jailed for trying to sell albino man A Kenyan man has been sentenced to nine years in prison for trying to sell an albino man to witchdoctors in Tanzania, local media reported Thursday. At least 53 albinos have been killed since 2007 in the east African nation and their body parts sold for use in witchcraft. 8/19/2010 12:21:17 PM
Poll: 1 in 5 Americans thinks Obama is a Muslim Many Americans increasingly are convinced — incorrectly — that President Barack Obama is a Muslim. 18-percent said they think Obama is Muslim, up from the 11 percent in March 2009. The proportion who correctly say he is a Christian is down to just 34 percent. 43 percent said they don't know. 8/19/2010 12:10:01 PM
UN raises estimate of homeless in Pakistan floods to 4 million More than four million Pakistanis have been made homeless by nearly three weeks of floods. Villages were totally submerged and in many places people were stranded either on rooftops or high ground. Some waved empty pots and pans at a military helicopter, wondering when food supplies will arrive. 8/19/2010 6:55:29 AM
Thirteen-year-old, 12-year-old face murder charges in Dallas shootings A 13-year-old boy and 12-year-old girl face murder charges after allegedly carrying out a double shooting in Texas. Forty-six-year-old Darlene Nevil was killed in the shootings in Garland, northeast of Dallas, yesterday, while her husband was injured. 8/18/2010 8:18:32 PM
Boy, girl face murder charges in shootings 8/18/2010 8:14:22 PM
'Three days to attack Iran' ISRAEL has just three days to launch a military strike against Iran's Bushehr nuclear facility, a former US envoy to the UN said yesterday. This would stop Tehran from acquiring a functioning atomic plant, he said. Iran is to bring online its first nuclear power reactor, built with Russia's help, on Saturday. 8/18/2010 8:12:38 PM
Terror as raging bull charges into spectators (Video) A BULL leapt out of the arena at a bullring in northern Spain overnight and charged into a crowd of terrified spectators, injuring 30 people. Spanish television showed dramatic images of screaming spectators, including children, frantically trying to avoid the animal after it hurdled a security barrier. 8/18/2010 7:22:17 PM
Why many Pakistani-Americans aren't sending flood donations home Many of the Pakistani-Americans who live in ethnically diverse Jackson Heights, Queens, are saddened by the flooding in their homeland and even have relatives among the displaced. But, despite family ties, many aren't giving to the relief effort because they simply don't trust the Pakistani government. 8/18/2010 6:50:31 PM
Mandela charity official resigns amid 'blood diamond' outcry A trustee of a Nelson Mandela charity who received diamonds allegedly given to supermodel Naomi Campbell by former Liberian leader Charles Taylor resigned Wednesday, the charity said. Jeremy Ractliffe stepped down 12 days after acknowledging he had kept the diamonds for more than a decade. 8/18/2010 6:32:26 PM
Decriminalize heroin and cocaine, says top U.K. doctor A debate over the decriminalization of heroin and cocaine has erupted again in Great Britain after a private statement by the one-time head of the Royal College of Physicians. He called for a change in tactics, decriminalizing illicit drug use and treating addiction as a health problem not a criminal problem. 8/18/2010 1:37:15 PM
Seattle: Grandma sexually assaulted kids, forced them to drink urine, feces A South King County grandmother is facing child sex charges following allegations that she systematically abused at least six children staying at her home. King County prosecutors contend Rose Marie Johnson forced the children to have incestuous sexual contact while also making them drink excrement as punishment. 8/18/2010 1:33:25 PM
Kidnapped Mexican mayor is found dead Security forces in Mexico have found the body of the kidnapped mayor of the northern city of Santiago. State governor Rodrigo Medina said he believed Mayor Edelmiro Cavazos may have been targeted because of his efforts to tackle corruption in the local police force. 8/18/2010 1:18:41 PM
Philippines police suspended over 'torture' video The authorities in the Philippines are investigating mobile phone footage that appears to show police torturing a man. In the video, the suspected thief is seen lying naked on the floor, while a plain-clothed policeman pulls sharply on a rope tied to his genitals. 8/18/2010 1:13:01 PM
Lone Blagojevich juror 'held out' (Video) A single juror prevented former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich being convicted of selling Barack Obama's Senate seat, the jury foreman has said. The juror, a female retiree, believed there wasn't sufficient evidence - "a smoking gun" - to warrant a conviction for corruption, James Matsumoto said. 8/18/2010 1:09:12 PM
Karzai Blindsided U.S. Embassy With Contractor-Ban Announcement Afghan President Hamid Karzai failed to give the American Embassy in Kabul advance notice that he was about to issue an edict ordering private security companies operating in Afghanistan to fold up shop within four months. 8/18/2010 1:06:48 PM
Latest China landslide leaves at least 67 missing Fresh landslides rocked another area of China on Wednesday, sweeping through a mountain town in the southwest of the country after days of heavy rains and leaving at least 67 people missing and cutting off access to the area. Roads, power and telecommunications were severed. 8/18/2010 7:27:17 AM
Efforts to move planned New York mosque further from Ground Zero make progress A bid to shift the location of the proposed "Ground Zero" mosque to a less emotional site made progress Tuesday as the office of New York Gov. David Paterson — who opposes the project as it stands — said he will meet with the mosque's imam and developer "later this week." 8/17/2010 5:31:20 PM
Mexico City mayor demands Cardinal apologize Mexico City's leftist mayor said Tuesday he will take legal action if a Roman Catholic cardinal doesn't apologize for suggesting he bribed the Supreme Court to uphold a city law allowing adoptions by same-sex couples. Mayor Marcelo Ebrard says that if Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez does not apologize by midnight, he is going to file a slander complaint. 8/17/2010 5:18:29 PM
Cancer is world's costliest disease, report shows Cancer is the world's top "economic killer" as well as its likely leading cause of death, the American Cancer Society contends at a global cancer conference in China. Cancer costs more in productivity and lost life than AIDS, malaria, the flu and other diseases that spread person-to-person. 8/17/2010 2:18:58 PM
CIA interrogation (torture) tapes found under desk The CIA has tapes of 9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh being interrogated in a secret overseas prison. The recordings could provide an unparalleled look at how foreign governments aided the U.S. CIA officials believed they had wiped away all of the agency's interrogation footage. 8/17/2010 9:08:08 AM
China unlikely to satisfy U.S. on military openness Beijing is unlikely to ever satisfy Washington's hopes for greater military transparency, and tensions between their armed forces will remain, Chinese scholars said Tuesday. They spoke after the publication of an annual Pentagon report this week that said China is pursuing its goal of becoming a major military power in a secretive manner. 8/17/2010 7:50:41 AM
Man killed by shark while surfing in Australia An Australian man died Tuesday after being attacked by a shark while surfing off the southwestern coast, police said. The 31-year-old was attacked while surfing alone early in the morning at a beach near Gracetown. Great white sharks are common off that part of the coast. 8/17/2010 7:49:27 AM
Sri Lanka seeks deal to share intelligence on migrants Sri Lanka is urging Canada to share more of its intelligence if it is serious about tackling what both countries have warned could be a human smuggling operation with ties to the Tamil Tigers. The arrangement would be similar to a deal Sri Lanka reached with Australia last November. 8/17/2010 7:45:25 AM
Iraq suicide bomber kills 59 A suicide bomber blew himself up at a crowded army recruitment centre in Baghdad killing 59 people Tuesday, officials said, as violence coinciding with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan raged across Iraq. The attack, the deadliest this year, wounded at least another 100 people. 8/17/2010 7:18:40 AM
Technology needed to feed world in 2050: scientists Artificial meat, nanotechnology and genetic tools are among the "tools of science" that may be needed in the coming decades to help supply food to the world's population. "The tools of science will be critical for bringing about food security and well-being for a global population of more than nine billion people." 8/16/2010 7:30:59 PM
Man shot 21 times in shootout with Police not charged A MAN who miraculously survived 21 bullet wounds in a deadly shootout with the New York Police Department will only, for now, be prosecuted for weapons possession charges - and not attempted murder of police officers, as was originally announced. "He didn't shoot at the cop," lawyer, Matthew Galluzzo said. 8/16/2010 7:19:04 PM
US judge orders Guantanamo Bay detainee's release A US federal judge has ordered the release of a Guantanamo Bay detainee imprisoned at the island facility for more than eight-and-a-half years. In a previously secret ruling Judge Henry Kennedy said the Obama administration failed to show that the Yemeni man was part of al-Qaeda or an associated force. 8/16/2010 7:16:04 PM
Islamic nations snub UN plea for Pakistan flood aid ISLAMIC nations are shunning a United Nations appeal for the worsening Pakistan floods, amid tensions with President Zardari. Western countries have rallied to Pakistan's aid, with the US and Britain the leading donors in the drive to raise $US460 million in the first 90 days. 8/16/2010 7:11:30 PM
130 survive after jet crashes, breaks apart on Colombian island A Boeing 737 jetliner carrying 131 people crashed in a thunderstorm and broke apart as it slid onto the runway Monday. The region's governor said it was a miracle that only one person died. Colonel David Barrero said officials were investigating reports the plane had been hit by lightning. 8/16/2010 1:19:14 PM
Taliban 'kill adulterous Afghan couple' in marketplace A man and a woman who allegedly had an adulterous affair have been stoned and killed in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz. The punishment happened in a crowded bazaar on Sunday in the Taliban-controlled village of Mullah Quli. The Taliban have not commented on the public killing. 8/16/2010 7:13:30 AM
Pakistan: 20 Million are homeless, flood children at risk (Video) U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he has never seen anything like the flood disaster in Pakistan, and urged foreign donors to speed up assistance to the 20 million people affected. Ban's comments after surveying the devastation over the weekend. 8/16/2010 7:06:13 AM
Accused 'Craigslist killer' found dead in jail A former medical student accused of killing a masseuse he met through Craigslist committed suicide in the Boston jail where he was awaiting trial. Philip Markoff, 24, was found unresponsive in his cell Sunday morning, and he was pronounced dead at about 10:15 a.m. 8/16/2010 6:36:01 AM
KFC owners wonder what happened to the 'F' Marilynn Pankratz fondly recalls the time Colonel Sanders donned an apron at her Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and taught the staff how to fry chicken according to his Original Recipe. Ask her if KFC's current president, Roger Eaton, would do the same. 8/16/2010 6:34:10 AM
Poisonous smog returns to Moscow The poisonous smog that contributed to a higher death rate in Moscow last week returned to Russia's capital Sunday, officials said. The concentration of carbon monoxide in Moscow air early Sunday was more than five times what is considered normal. This summer is the hottest since records began in Russia 130 years ago. 8/15/2010 1:43:04 PM
Bomb hoax hits Lourdes pilgrims (Video) Thousands of Roman Catholic pilgrims were evacuated from the Sanctuary of Lourdes in France after a bomb scare which turned out to be a hoax. The threat came as 30,000 worshippers gathered for the annual Feast of the Assumption, one of the pilgrimage site's busiest days of the year. 8/15/2010 1:34:56 PM
World experiences second hottest July on record, hottest first 7 months of year The Earth continues to feel the heat. Last month was the second warmest July on record, and so far 2010 remains on track to be the hottest year. Worldwide, the average temperature in July was 16.5 Celsius. Only July 1998 was hotter since recordkeeping began more than a century ago. 8/15/2010 1:16:15 PM
"California 200" Off-Road Race Crash Kills 8 An off-road truck plowed into a crowd and scattered "bodies everywhere" moments after sailing off a jump at a California race Saturday, killing eight people and leaving 12 injured, authorities and witnesses said. Officials said the driver wasn't hurt but had to flee the scene to escape angry spectators. 8/15/2010 7:21:55 AM
Rex Murphy: Testing America’s tolerance On the matter of the Islamic centre set to be built near the site of the downed Twin Towers, I dismiss utterly what New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg seems to fear — that Americans will carry the mark of intolerance unless they permit the building to go forward. 8/15/2010 7:02:42 AM
UN urges speedy aid for Pakistan (Video) UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged the world to speed up aid to Pakistan after devastating floods which the government says have affected 20 million people. "I'm here also to urge the world community to speed up their assistance to the Pakistani people," Mr Ban told reporters. 8/15/2010 6:45:40 AM
China calls national day of mourning for mudslide victims Flags will be lowered to half-mast Sunday across China and at the nation's embassies and consulates around the world to mourn the victims of deadly mudslides in northwestern Gansu provice. Officially the mudslides killed 1,156 people. But residents told CNN they believe the toll is much higher. 8/14/2010 8:41:47 AM
Dead heat Down Under: Australia’s election like a bad soap opera Australia, the “lucky country,” loves nothing more than a good horse race and a high-stakes bet. Next Saturday, when they go to the polls, Australians will be treated to a photo finish in a general election that could produce the first hung parliament in 70 years. It has rapidly degenerated into a battle of personalities. 8/14/2010 8:18:26 AM
Musicians will battle it out in Haiti Haitian hip-hop star Wyclef Jean, who has jumped into politics to run for president, said on Thursday he could be an international spokesman seeking aid and allies for his poor, earthquake-shattered homeland. Sitting beside his 74-year-old aunt, Jean rejected doubts voiced by some critics. 8/14/2010 8:08:13 AM
Four shot dead, four wounded after U.S. wedding reception Eight people were shot Saturday, four fatally, at a private party held in a downtown restaurant in Buffalo, New York, police said. The dead -- three males and one female -- included a Texas man who was to be married Saturday. 8/14/2010 7:43:13 AM
Paris becoming a city of bicycles Three years after launching a widely copied bike rental scheme, Paris is stepping up efforts to turn itself into a bicycle-friendly capital on a par with cycling havens like Amsterdam and Berlin. "Five years ago people were scandalized when bike lanes were introduced, as if they were nuclear power plants." 8/14/2010 7:34:51 AM
Pat Tillman's father to Army investigator: 'F--- you ... and yours' No story in recent years has been as baffling, disheartening and frustrating as that surrounding the death of former NFL star Pat Tillman, who was killed in a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan in April of 2004 as a member of the Army Rangers. 8/13/2010 6:13:09 PM
Pakistan Leader Faces Fury Over Floods With Pakistanis bracing for more rain and floods, President Zardari struggled to confront a barrage of criticism over his recent visit to Europe, undertaken while rivers gorged by monsoon rains ravaged large swaths of the country — a trip that critics have derided as “insensitive” and a “joyride.” 8/13/2010 5:00:52 PM
Switzerland: Swede faces world-record $1,000,000. speeding fine A Swedish motorist caught driving at 290km/h (180mph) in Switzerland could be given a world-record speeding fine of $1 million prosecutors say. The 37-year-old was clocked driving his Mercedes at 170km/h over the limit. Under Swiss law, the level of fine is determined by the wealth of the driver. 8/13/2010 4:34:19 PM
Peru battles rabid vampire bats after 500 people bitten Peru's health ministry has sent emergency teams to a remote Amazon region to battle an outbreak of rabies spread by vampire bats. Four children in the Awajun indigenous tribe died after being bitten by the bloodsucking mammals. 8/13/2010 11:12:48 AM
Behind the Tamil crisis: Sri Lanka court martial convicts Fonseka A court martial has found the former Sri Lankan armed forces chief, Gen Sarath Fonseka, guilty of engaging in politics while on active service. He has been allowed to leave jail under military escort to attend parliament since April, when he was elected an MP for the opposition. 8/13/2010 11:03:34 AM
California Judge puts one-week hold on same-sex weddings The federal judge who struck down California’s gay marriage ban said Thursday that same-sex weddings can resume next week unless an appeals court intervenes before then. The news raised hopes among gay couples that they soon could tie the knot after years of agonizing delays. 8/13/2010 10:11:18 AM
Man who plotted to kill Obama to be sentenced A man accused of planning a "killing spree" against African-Americans in a 2008 plot that also targeted then-presidential candidate Barack Obama will be sentenced Friday in a federal courtroom in Tennessee. Daniel Cowart, of Bells, Tennessee, faces up to 75 years in prison. 8/13/2010 10:01:22 AM
Century-old Scotch whisky found in Antarctic won't be tasted A crate of Scotch whisky that was trapped in Antarctic ice for a century was finally opened Friday — but the heritage dram won't be tasted by whisky lovers because it's being preserved for its historic significance. 8/13/2010 8:11:02 AM
Fed-up flight attendant wants job back (Video) The flight attendant whose dramatic departure from a JetBlue plane at a New York City airport has transformed him into a folk hero to some wants his job back, his lawyer told reporters Thursday. "His father was a pilot; his mother was a flight attendant. That's in his blood. That's what he likes to do." 8/13/2010 7:57:37 AM
India steps up demands for BlackBerry snooping, Google, Skype may be next Indian demands are giving a new headache to BlackBerry maker Research in Motion after New Delhi threatened a shutdown that could affect one million of the smartphone's 41 million users. The country's government is also considering widening its crackdown by shutting down Google and Skype's messaging services. 8/13/2010 7:53:41 AM
WikiLeaks set to release more files WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said his organization is preparing to release the rest of the secret Afghan war documents it has on file. The Pentagon warned that would be more damaging to security and risk more lives than the organization's initial release of some 76,000 war documents. 8/13/2010 7:49:54 AM
B.C. man had 9 duffel bags of pot in car: Wyoming cops The Wyoming Highway Patrol says the arrest of a British Columbia man has resulted in one of its largest seizures of marijuana in one traffic stop. State troopers allege they found nine duffel bags of marijuana in a rental truck after stopping 33-year-old Andrew Klassen of Victoria Thursday. 8/13/2010 7:48:50 AM
Iran's first nuclear power plant to start next week Russia's nuclear agency said Friday that it will load fuel into Iran's first nuclear power plant next week, defying U.S. calls to hold off the start of the launch. Rosatom spokesman Sergei Novikov said Friday that uranium fuel shipped by Russia will be loaded into the Bushehr reactor on Aug. 21. 8/13/2010 6:21:30 AM
Claims Chinese milk powder makes babies grow breasts A panel of nine experts will investigate claims that a milk powder fed to babies in China was causing the girls to grow breasts. China’s Health Ministry announced Thursday that endocrine, pediatric and food-safety experts will study the cases and make the results public as soon as possible. 8/12/2010 5:39:11 PM
Islam's 'public enemy No. 1' in Langley to share his gospel A controversial Christian cleric with a $60-million bounty on his head is in Vancouver. Sources have told The Province that Father Zakaria Botros, a retired Coptic priest from Egypt, arrived at Vancouver International Airport Wednesday afternoon to little public fanfare — but an RCMP presence. 8/12/2010 5:15:04 PM
Brazil air force to record UFO sightings Brazil's government has ordered its air force to officially record any sighting of unidentified flying objects. A government decree said all military and civilian pilots as well as air traffic controllers should register any UFO sightings with the national aerospace defence command. 8/12/2010 5:07:13 PM
Pakistan President Zardari tries to ease flood anger Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has tried to fend off public anger at his handling of the country's floods crisis by visiting affected areas for the first time. However some politicians said this was too little, too late, with critics still angry he did not cut short his tour of Europe to deal with the crisis. 8/12/2010 5:05:21 PM
Israeli man held at airport over US serial stabbings US police have arrested a man in connection with a series of stabbings that left five dead in three states. Police say Elias Abuelazam has ties to the towns of Flint, Michigan and Leesburg, Virginia, where nearly 20 attacks have taken place. 8/12/2010 5:03:03 PM
U.S. Mortgage rates plunge to lowest level in decades Growing pessimism over the weak economic recovery pushed mortgage rates to the lowest level in decades for the seventh time in eight weeks.
The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage hit 4.44 percent this week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. 8/12/2010 3:14:32 PM
Sierra Leone wants Naomi Campbell's blood diamonds back Blood diamonds allegedly given to the model Naomi Campbell should be returned to Sierra Leone to help victims of the civil war. Sierra Leone's Human Rights Commission has also written to the 40-year-old Briton to ask her to make a personal donation to the country's War Victims' Fund. 8/12/2010 3:02:03 PM
Behind the battle over BlackBerry Q: Why are governments in Saudi Arabia, India, the United Arab Emirates and other countries threatening to ban BlackBerry services?
A: They’re concerned because they have no way to monitor the flow of email and text messages transmitted via BlackBerry because the data is encrypted. 8/12/2010 7:53:29 AM
Passengers tell another side of the JetBlue flight attendant story Fans of Steven Slater (there are legions of you, according to Facebook), the economy-class hero who told off pesky passengers, then chuted from a grounded plane (and his job as a flight attendant) onto the tarmac of New York’s JFK airport, read no further if you don’t want to learn The Other Side of Story. 8/12/2010 7:44:12 AM
Woman sentenced to stoning death ‘tortured’ before TV ‘confession’: lawyer A lawyer for an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning has told a British newspaper she was tortured for two days before confessing on state TV to being an accomplice to her husband’s death. The lawyer said he feared the Iranian authorities would act quickly to carry out the death sentence. 8/12/2010 7:29:49 AM
Pakistan's ailing flood survivors begin Ramadan Millions of Pakistani flood survivors already short on food and water began the fasting month of Ramadan on Thursday, a normally festive, social time marked this year by misery and fears of an uncertain future. Food prices have tripled adding to the pain of the 14 million people affected. 8/12/2010 6:51:06 AM
Gitmo jury recommends 14 years for bin Laden's cook A Guantanamo jury recommended a 14-year sentence Wednesday for an al-Qaida cook, though its decision may be overruled by a plea bargain that will limit the time he spends in prison. Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi of Sudan pleaded guilty last month making him only the fourth Guantanamo detainee to be convicted. 8/11/2010 7:34:22 PM
Flight attendants vent about passengers It's safe to say air travelers are paying more attention -- and maybe giving a little more respect -- to flight attendants after the incident on a JetBlue flight that has mesmerized the country and put a new spotlight on the once-glamorous profession. 8/11/2010 5:17:55 PM
Australia: Mentally ill man Tasered 8 times by police, dies later THE Northern Territory coroner has found that an Alice Springs police officer inappropriately used a Taser on a mentally ill man who later died. The 39-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was behaving erratically at his mother's home when she called police to take him to the hospital. 8/11/2010 5:15:32 PM
Missing French chef's body found stuffed in freezer The body of a retired restaurateur who's been missing for two years has been found in a freezer in the French city of Lyon, police there told CNN Wednesday. The corpse of Jean-Francois Poinard, 71, was discovered Tuesday in the apartment he had shared with a girlfriend. 8/11/2010 5:08:27 PM
New superbug spreading from India, U.K. A new superbug could spread around the world after reaching Britain from India — in part because of medical tourism — and scientists say there are almost no drugs to treat it. 8/11/2010 9:55:47 AM
Quiet? Use cash? You could be a terror threat, British ad warns Britain's advertising watchdog on Wednesday banned an anti-terrorism commercial that asked people to watch out for suspicious behavior by their neighbors, including keeping curtains closed and paying for things in cash. The ad was part of a campaign for a police anti-terrorist hotline. 8/11/2010 6:46:13 AM
15 kayakers missing in Greenland after storm Rescuers have launched a search for 15 adventure tourists missing after being hit by a storm while kayaking in the icy waters off eastern Greenland. In western Greenland, meanwhile, one Norwegian tourist was found dead and two others are still missing from a fishing trip. 8/11/2010 6:33:44 AM
Ex-NASA chief critical after Alaska crash Former NASA chief Sean O'Keefe was in critical condition and his son was being treated for serious injuries, an Alaskan hospital official said Wednesday, after they survived a plane crash that killed former senator Ted Stevens and four others. 8/11/2010 6:31:16 AM
Being a flight attendant is like a game of 'Survivor' Being a flight attendant, says Katherine Thompson, “is like an eight-hour episode of Survivor in a pressurized tube. With no ability to vote anyone off.” A minority of passengers can be difficult, though not nearly as difficult as the passenger that turned JetBlue attendant Steven Slater into a folk hero. 8/11/2010 6:03:31 AM
Hope fading for survivors of China floods Heavy rains on Wednesday lashed a remote section of northwestern China where weekend flooding killed at least 702 people, as hopes of finding more survivors faded and crews worked to stave off outbreaks of disease. More than 1,000 people were still listed as missing. 8/11/2010 5:22:13 AM
Former Mexican president Vicente Fox proposes legalizing drugs A former Mexican president's proposal to legalize drugs as a way of breaking the economic power of drug cartels is stoking debate inside his country and bringing opposition in Washington. Most experts agree that the idea is unlikely to prosper without similar moves in the United States, the main consumer. 8/10/2010 6:04:54 PM
Stephen Hawking urges humans to leave Earth to avoid disaster Stephen Hawking is suggesting the survival of the human race will likely depend on moving to another planet. The famed physicist says in the centuries ahead, it will be hard for Earthlings to avoid a disaster of biblical proportion, and he recommends they avoid putting all their eggs in one basket – or planet. 8/10/2010 5:07:15 PM
Flashy departures not smartest way to quit job: Experts His tirade is generating massive buzz online. But, just in case you were thinking about following in the footsteps of disgruntled American flight attendant Steven Slater — who's accused of stealing beer and using his plane's emergency slide to call it a day — workplace experts have some advice: don't. 8/10/2010 5:04:43 PM
New York buses to carry ads against "Ground Zero" mosque Some New York city buses will carry ads protesting plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero, where the Twin Towers were destroyed by al-Qaida on September 11, 2001. The ad asks "Why there?" and features the picture of a jet airliner about to crash into the World Trade Center. 8/10/2010 4:25:43 PM
Third World America: Chronicling the Assault on America's Middle Class learly, we're not in the middle of a normal recovery. Wall Street may have its casino up and running again, but Main Street shows no signs of bouncing back anytime soon. From foreclosures to unemployment to household debt to bankruptcies, the American middle class is under assault -- and America is in danger of becoming a Third World nation. 8/10/2010 10:43:58 AM
Faking it: Sarah Palin confronts Teacher, gets told off (Video) Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is once again berating what she calls the "LSM" ("lamestream media") for the reaction to an Internet video. "You swore on your precious Bible that you would uphold the interests of this state, and then when cash was waved in front of your face, you quit," teacher Kathleen Gustafson told Palin. 8/10/2010 10:29:30 AM
Idaho: 4 men drown, kids left on boat call 911 (Video) Four men died after horsing around in a boat on a southern Idaho reservoir, authorities said late Monday. The bodies of four men were found Monday evening. The search began Sunday for the four boaters after authorities received a 911 call from a child on their boat 8/10/2010 10:20:22 AM
Search for Fugitive Turns to Glacier Nat'l Park U.S. Marshalls have tracked a fugitive and his suspected female accomplice across the western United States and are now focusing near Montana's Glacier National Park. U.S. Marshals Service said late Monday it has received tips from the area east of Glacier National Park near the Canadian border. 8/10/2010 10:00:54 AM
Pakistan's flood victims find little help from government Hungry, bewildered and bedraggled villagers are arriving by the thousands in Sukkur, a town in Pakistan's southern Sindh province that so far has escaped the country's devastating flooding, only to find that little or no help is available, victims of the disaster said. 8/10/2010 8:41:39 AM
5 believed dead in crash of plane carrying Stevens, O'Keefe A plane carrying nine people -- including former Sen. Ted Stevens (pictured) and former NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe -- crashed Monday in Southwest Alaska, killing five people on board. It was unclear whether Stevens and O'Keefe were among the dead. 8/10/2010 8:28:55 AM
Google raided by police in South Korea South Korean police said they raided Google's Seoul office on Tuesday on suspicion that the Internet search leader had illegally collected data on users. Google has been preparing since late last year to launch its “Street View” service in South Korea and the data collection was related to the launch, police said. 8/10/2010 8:24:33 AM
Why the US keeps minting coins people hate and won't use In hidden vaults across the country, the US government is building a stockpile of $1 coins. The hoard has topped $1.1bn - imagine a stack of coins reaching almost seven times higher than the International Space Station - and the US Federal Reserve is running out of storage space. 8/10/2010 6:53:25 AM
Spain’s traffic cops take a ticketing holiday over pay cut As Spain's highways hum with vacationing motorists, relief from fears of being stopped and fined is coming from an odd quarter: the country's economic and debt woes. Traffic cops angry over a pay cut and other slights are slapping wrists rather than writing tickets. 8/10/2010 6:51:06 AM
Naomi Campbell agent denies court lies The former agent of supermodel Naomi Campbell has denied lying in her testimony at the war crimes trial of ex-Liberian President Charles Taylor. Under cross examination, Carole White repeated allegations that Ms Campbell received diamonds from Mr Taylor after a dinner in South Africa in 1997. 8/10/2010 5:50:45 AM
Top U.N. official denounces trial of Gitmo 'child soldier' A top United Nations official on Tuesday denounced the Pentagon's trial of so-called "child soldier" Omar Khadr at Guantanamo Bay, saying the proceeding was a violation of international legal norms and "may endanger the status of child soldiers all over the world." 8/10/2010 5:44:58 AM
Toyota Struggling To Rebuild Reputation It's been a tough and trying year for Toyota, and Toyota owners. There already had been a few isolated claims of accelerators sticking. But it was the news of an incident last August – a family, who sped out of control to a fiery death – that punted Toyota's apparent issue with unintended acceleration into the national spotlight. 8/9/2010 9:17:09 PM
Verizon, Google outline vision on Internet traffic Phone and cable TV companies that provide Internet services should be barred from slowing, blocking or charging to prioritize Internet traffic flowing over their regular broadband lines, Verizon Communications and Google said in a policy statement released Monday. 8/9/2010 8:23:05 PM
Ship Collision: Indian coast guard tries to contain oil slick Indian coast guard vessels and helicopters worked Monday to contain an oil spill from a stricken container ship that collided with another vessel in the Arabian Sea, a spokesman for India's defense ministry said. Helicopters sprayed chemicals on the oil spill to prevent it from spreading. 8/9/2010 9:25:14 AM
Germany closes 9/11 plot mosque German police have shut down the Hamburg mosque where the 9/11 hijackers met before their suicide attacks on the US in 2001. A German intelligence report last year said radical Muslims had travelled to military training camps in Uzbekistan after associating at the mosque. 8/9/2010 9:15:21 AM
Naomi Campbell spoke of receiving 'huge diamond,' says Farrow Actress Mia Farrow told the Sierra Leone war crimes court Monday that she had heard supermodel Naomi Campbell say that she had been given a "huge diamond" by Charles Taylor when he was Liberia's president. Farrow's testimony contradicts evidence given by British fashion model Naomi Campbell last week. 8/9/2010 5:55:51 AM
Afghan civilian deaths rise The number of Afghan civilians killed in the ongoing war rose to 1,325 in the first seven months of this year, according to an Afghan group that monitors the conflict's toll. That was an increase of six per cent over the same period last year. The Taliban were responsible for 68 per cent of the deaths. 8/8/2010 10:59:04 AM
Moscow smog forces Canadian Embassy staff to move The choking smog blanketing Moscow from wildfires burning through the countryside has prompted the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs to withdraw some diplomats and their families from the Russian capital. Emergency officials said 49 wildfires were raging near Moscow on Sunday. 8/8/2010 10:50:39 AM
Protesting Mexican cops detain own commander at gunpoint Some 200 federal police officers assigned to fighting organized crime detained one of their superiors at gunpoint Saturday to protest alleged corruption. They accused Inspector Salomon Alarcon Alarcon of having links to drug cartels and participating in kidnappings, killings and extortion. 8/8/2010 6:50:31 AM
Scottish Cardinal attacks US over Lockerbie bomber reaction The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland has attacked the US over the release of the Lockerbie bomber. US lawmakers want Scots politicians to explain their decision to a committee, but the cardinal said ministers should not go "crawling like lapdogs". 8/8/2010 6:45:48 AM
North Korea 'detains fishing boat from South' A South Korean fishing boat missing in the Sea of Japan has been detained by the North, coastguard officials say. The officials said the crew of the Daeseung was being investigated by North Korean authorities. 8/8/2010 6:42:46 AM
Dozens killed in China landslides (Video) Landslides and floods triggered by torrential rain have engulfed a town in north-west China, killing at least 127 people and leaving 2,000 missing. Nearly 3,000 soldiers and 100 medics have been sent to assist local rescue teams in Zhouqu, in an isolated, mainly Tibetan region of Gansu province. 8/8/2010 6:40:18 AM
Spacewalk fails to remove broken pump A pair of space station astronauts had to hammer loose a stuck connector Saturday during an urgent spacewalk to restore a crucial cooling system, and ran out of time before they could remove a broken pump. The ammonia pump shut down last weekend and knocked out half of the space station's cooling system. 8/8/2010 6:22:42 AM
Massive Arctic ice island drifting toward shipping lanes The biggest Arctic “ice island” to form in nearly 50 years — a 250-square-kilometre behemoth described as four times the size of Manhattan — has been discovered after a Canadian scientist scanning satellite images of northwest Greenland spotted a giant break in the famed Petermann Glacier. 8/7/2010 11:43:45 AM
WikiLeaks posts huge encrypted 'Insurance' file to Web, sparking rumours Online whistle-blower WikiLeaks has posted a huge encrypted file named "Insurance" to its website, sparking speculation that those behind the organization may be prepared to release more classified information if authorities interfere with them. 8/7/2010 6:52:10 AM
Schwarzenegger urges gay weddings revival California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown filed motions Friday calling for resumption of same-sex weddings following a judge's ruling to overturn the state's gay marriage ban. Brown also said it's time for gays to begin marrying again. 8/7/2010 6:32:02 AM
Pakistan's President Zardari 'hurt' by UK PM David PAKISTAN'S president says David Cameron hurt him personally by implying he supported the terrorism that killed Benazir Bhutto, his wife. “Everybody is sensitive, as we have lost so many people, including my late wife,” said President Asif ali Zardari, in an interview with The Times 8/7/2010 6:19:43 AM
Kagan to be sworn in as justice on Saturday A beaming Elena Kagan and President Barack Obama on Friday celebrated her imminent ascension to the Supreme Court with jokes and references to the irreverent sense of humor she put on display during her Senate confirmation hearing. 8/7/2010 6:06:35 AM
Saudis strike deal to spy on BlackBerrys A Saudi official said the agreement, which would involve placing a BlackBerry server inside Saudi Arabia, would allow the government to monitor users' messages and allay official fears the service could be used for criminal purposes. The deal could have wide-ranging implications for several other countries. 8/7/2010 6:05:42 AM
Spacewalkers start emergency repair job at space station Astronauts aboard the International Space Station began a major cooling system repair job Saturday, one that has forced NASA mission planners on Earth to dramatically alter their plans. Saturday's scheduled seven-hour operation is the first of two spacewalks devoted to the effort. 8/7/2010 5:38:05 AM
Six Americans on medical mission killed in Afghanistan Six Americans and two other foreigners on a medical mission were shot and killed by the Taliban in a remote part of northern Afghanistan. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press in Pakistan that they killed the foreigners because they were "spying for the Americans" and "preaching Christianity." 8/7/2010 5:25:20 AM
14 killed in Mexico prison clash At least 14 inmates have died in a clash between rival groups in a prison in Matamoros in north-east Mexico. Jose Ives Soberon, secretary of public security, says the inmates were beaten and attacked with sharp instruments in a clash early in the day before troops were sent in to restore order. 8/7/2010 5:23:17 AM
Churchill ordered cover up of encounter between spy plane and ‘unknown object’ A bizarre encounter between a British reconnaissance plane and a metallic “unknown object” over wartime England so rattled then prime minister Winston Churchill that he ordered the incident covered up for a half century in order to prevent “panic.” 8/6/2010 9:19:29 PM
Gulf BlackBerry row lifts veil on state cyberspies The arguments over whether several emerging nations can effectively hack BlackBerry devices gives a rare glimpse of the shadowy world of state electronic surveillance already changing everything. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are both in dispute with Canadian smart phone maker Blackberry. 8/6/2010 7:48:58 PM
HP CEO Mark Hurd resigns, sexual harassment accusations After taking the helm five years ago, he was credited with cutting costs and turning around the listing ship that was Hewlett-Packard Co. But late Friday afternoon, Mark Hurd’s career as captain of the world’s largest technology company came to a sudden end. 8/6/2010 5:49:30 PM
Smoke cloud — 1,850 miles long — blankets Russia Planes were diverted from Moscow airports on Friday after huge peat and forest fires blanketed the capital in acrid smoke, forcing some businesses to close and office workers to wear surgical masks at their desks. 8/6/2010 6:37:25 AM
Britain's Bully Cops: Police probed after 'pensioner's car smashed' (Video) Two police officers have been taken off operational duty while the Independent Police Complaints Commission investigates how they dealt with a pensioner who was stopped for not wearing his seat belt. The 70-year-old complained they smashed his car and kicked his windscreen. 8/6/2010 6:24:54 AM
War Crimes Trial: Mandela aide 'got Naomi Campbell gems' (Video) The former head of Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, Jeremy Ractliffe, has said he did receive uncut diamonds from the model Naomi Campbell.
Charles Taylor. He issued a statement after her testimony at the war crimes trial of ex-Liberian leader Charles Taylor. 8/6/2010 6:20:47 AM
Pakistan's flooding sweeps south (Video) The worst monsoon rains in 80 years are continuing to sweep from the north-west to south and central Pakistan. Rivers in Sindh province, home to Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city and business hub, are bursting their banks. Flooding has submerged whole villages in the past week, killing about 1,600 people. 8/6/2010 6:17:47 AM
Exposed: CIA's 'shell game' to hide terrorists Four of the nation's most highly valued terrorist prisoners were secretly moved to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2003, years earlier than has been disclosed, then whisked back into overseas prisons before the Supreme Court could give them access to lawyers, The Associated Press has learned. 8/6/2010 6:14:41 AM
Mexico: Pregnant, elderly women killed in attack PREGNANT woman, a teenage girl and an 86-year-old were among seven females killed overnight in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua amid a wave of drug-related attacks. Four of the killings were in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's deadliest city, including a woman who was eight months pregnant. 8/4/2010 4:23:43 PM
California's gay-marriage ban overturned A federal judge on Wednesday struck down a California ban on same-sex marriages as unconstitutional, according to court documents, handing a key victory to gay-rights advocates in a politically charged decision almost certain to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. 8/4/2010 4:11:58 PM
RIM will not let India monitor Blackberry messages The maker of BlackBerry insisted on Wednesday it would not allow the Indian government to monitor encrypted emails but hoped for a rapid solution. BlackBerry is not the only company to feel heat from the Indian government. And, Saudi Arabia announced a suspension of BlackBerry operations starting Friday. 8/4/2010 12:53:52 PM
‘Static Kill’ Appears to Be Working in Well, BP Says BP said Wednesday that it had brought pressure under control in its stricken well in the Gulf of Mexico after pumping heavy drilling mud into it, calling the development a “significant milestone” in its efforts to permanently seal the well. 8/4/2010 11:27:08 AM
FDA declares Gulf seafood safe to eat Seafood from some parts of the oil-fouled Gulf of Mexico has been declared safe to eat by the government, based in part on human smell tests. But even some Gulf fishermen are questioning whether the fish and shrimp are OK to feed to their own families. 8/4/2010 11:09:32 AM
China to build huge buses that can drive over cars Developers in China have come up with a paradoxical, environmentally-sound solution to speed up traffic: add more buses. According to Engadget, the Shenzhen Huashi Future Parking Equipment company is developing a 3D Express Coach that will allow smaller cars to drive underneath it. 8/4/2010 10:26:30 AM
Obama condemns African despots Barack Obama has urged young African leaders to bolster democracy on the continent. He has slammed Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and other independence-era leaders who were elected but clung to power. The US President said he hoped "some of you will end up being leaders of your countries". 8/4/2010 10:08:19 AM
Berlusconi wins censure motion Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has survived his first test in parliament since the breakup with a powerful ally. Berlusconi's conservative lawmakers defeated an opposition censure motion against a government official implicated in a corruption scandal. 8/4/2010 10:04:12 AM
More U.S. billionaires pledge fortune to charity Thirty-four U.S. billionaires pledged Wednesday to give away at least 50 per cent of their wealth to charity as part of a campaign by investor Warren Buffett and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Gates and Buffett launched “The Giving Pledge” in June to convince hundreds of U.S. billionaires to give away most of their fortune. 8/4/2010 7:56:18 AM
Devastating Pakistan floods now threaten food crisis Pakistanis facing life-threatening shortages scoured towns for belongings and food in several areas on Wednesday after floods killed 1,400 people and threw the spotlight President Asif Ali Zardari's fragile leadership. It's too early to gauge the economic cost of the floods but they are likely to be staggering. 8/4/2010 7:28:47 AM
Economic odds stacked against mothers The last three men nominated to the Supreme Court have all been married and, among them, have seven children. The last three women — Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Harriet Miers (who withdrew) — have all been single and without children. 8/4/2010 7:04:39 AM
Record migrant deaths on Arizona desert border The bodies of 59 suspected illegal migrants have been found in the Arizona desert on the border with Mexico in July, the highest number in five years, officials say. High temperatures last month are likely to have contributed to the death rate. 8/4/2010 6:52:35 AM
Dutch teenager Laura Dekker sets sail for record bid A Dutch teenager hoping to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world has set sail for Portugal, where she will begin her effort. Laura Dekker, 14, was granted permission by a court ruling last week. Ms Dekker is planning to spend about two years aboard Guppy, her 8m (26ft) boat, to break the record. 8/4/2010 6:49:47 AM
Disney theme parks to raise prices Thursday Getting into a Disney theme park will take a little more magic beginning Thursday. Ticket prices are going up at Walt Disney World in Florida and Disneyland Resort in California. The company announced the changes Tuesday on its blog. 8/4/2010 6:37:21 AM
Iran denies reports of http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38552300/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/attack Iran denied reports that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's convoy sustained a grenade attack on Wednesday, according to state-run Press TV. Citing a source within the president's office, the broadcaster said "no such attack took place." Earlier reports suggested that several people were wounded and that authorities had arrested one person. 8/4/2010 6:18:26 AM
Enbridge offers to buy Michigan homes near pipeline spill For a small number of homeowners in western Michigan, where property values have sunk amid the U.S. real estate bust, Pat Daniel has just made an offer they can’t refuse. The CEO of Calgary’s Enbridge Inc. said Tuesday the company will buy homes from people who are worried the oil spill will reduce their property values. 8/4/2010 6:17:05 AM
UN: Tree in Lebanon-Israel clash was in Israel The Israeli military said it would cut more trees Wednesday in the tense border area where Israel and Lebanon fought the most serious battle between the countries in four years, touched off by a dispute over a cypress tree. The UN confirmed Wednesday that Israel was cutting down trees only on the Israeli side 8/4/2010 5:59:04 AM
BP says 'static kill' working, mud holds well shut In a significant step toward stopping the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, BP said Wednesday mud that was forced down its blown-out well was holding back the flow of crude in the Gulf of Mexico and it was in a "static condition." Workers stopped pumping mud and were monitoring the well. 8/4/2010 5:45:34 AM
Gwynne Dyer: There's no way for the U.S. to win a non-nuclear war with Iran When Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the highest-ranking American officer, was asked recently on NBC’s Meet The Press whether the United States has a military plan for an attack on Iran, he replied simply: “We do.” General staffs are supposed to plan for even the most unlikely future contingencies. 8/3/2010 9:02:47 PM
'Just Say Now': Left-Right Coalition Launches Campaign To Legalize Pot A transpartisan coalition of prosecutors, judges, cops, students, bloggers and political operatives on both sides of the aisle launched a campaign Tuesday to bring an end to marijuana prohibition, focusing on ballot initiatives in 2010 and 2012. 8/3/2010 7:19:12 PM
Fires still spreading in parched Russia (Video) Moscow is mobilising more forces to fight hundreds of wildfires raging across a vast area of central Russia amid a record heatwave. At least 40 people have died in fires in the past week, and seven regions are under a state of emergency. 8/3/2010 6:56:19 PM
U.S. Supreme Court asked to halt Khadr trial The war-crimes trial of Omar Khadr in Guantanamo Bay should be put on hold until the courts rule on the legality of the hearings, his Pentagon-appointed lawyer says. Mr. Khadr's war-crimes trial is slated to start next week, more than eight years after the crimes he is alleged to have committed as a 15 year old. 8/3/2010 6:21:07 PM
FBI tells Wikipedia to take down its seal The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has threatened Wikipedia with legal action if the online encyclopedia doesn't remove the FBI's seal from its site. The seal is featured in an encyclopedia entry about the FBI. Wikipedia isn't backing down, however. (Ed: FBI acting like big-brother, surprised?) 8/3/2010 5:38:32 PM
Employee asked to resign kills 9 at Connetticut warehouse A warehouse driver who was caught on videotape stealing beer from the distributorship where he worked went on a shooting rampage there Tuesday, killing eight people before committing suicide, authorities said. At least two people were wounded, one critically, Manchester police said. They were expected to survive. 8/3/2010 5:08:04 PM
New York Panel clears way for mosque near ground zero A city commission on Tuesday denied landmark status to a building near the World Trade Center site, freeing a group to convert the property into an Islamic community center and mosque that has drawn national opposition. Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin are among the opposition. 8/3/2010 10:08:39 AM
Dead zone in Gulf of Mexico one of largest ever Scientists say this year that the "dead zone" area that forms every summer in the Gulf of Mexico is one of the largest ever measured. The large area of low oxygen that chokes marine life comes in addition to the massive BP oil spill. 8/3/2010 6:51:47 AM
Russian rapper jailed for mocking police One of Russia’s most prominent rappers has been given a 10-day jail sentence for disorderly conduct, and his spokesman blamed police for taking offence at a performance that mocked them. Rapper Ivan Alexeyev, 25, who is known as Noize MC, taunted policemen as “animals” at the July 31 concert. 8/3/2010 5:47:55 AM
BlackBerry dispute widens control debate Research In Motion appears unwilling to weaken its BlackBerry security features to appease the government of the United Arab Emirates, even as a dispute between local authorities and the Waterloo, Ont.. smart-phone maker quickly turns into a geopolitical struggle over who controls wireless communication. 8/3/2010 5:44:43 AM
Revenge attacks for political killing leave 45 dead in Pakistan city Gunmen killed at least 45 people in Pakistan's largest city after the assassination of a prominent lawmaker set off a cycle of revenge attacks, officials said Tuesday. Dozens of vehicles and shops were set ablaze as security forces struggled to regain control of Karachi. 8/3/2010 5:41:24 AM
Targeted killing is new U.S. focus in Afghanistan When President Obama announced his new war plan for Afghanistan last year, the centerpiece of the strategy — and a big part of the rationale for sending 30,000 additional troops — was to safeguard the Afghan people, provide them with a competent government and win their allegiance. 8/2/2010 7:03:05 AM
Aunt accused of stabbing young nieces Authorities are accusing a woman of stabbing her nieces while baby-sitting them at their home across the street from Martha Stewart's residence in an upscale New York community. Police said the girls were found with multiple stab wounds on the kitchen floor of their Katonah home Saturday. 8/2/2010 7:00:49 AM
Drunken man kills 11 in China tractor rampage A drunken man went on a rampage while driving a shovel loader in northern China, smashing into shops and vehicles and killing 11 people, a government spokesman said Monday. Photos posted to online news websites showed blankets covering the dead, vehicles smashed or flattened after being run over. 8/2/2010 6:48:00 AM
A million Pakistanis displaced by deadly flooding The worst flooding in a generation has claimed more than 1,000 lives and displaced a million in Pakistan, with predictions for another wave of monsoons Monday potentially making it worse. The scale of the disaster remains unknown, as rescuers in boats and helicopters are only beginning to reach people stranded. 8/2/2010 6:25:47 AM
Dutch troops end Afghanistan deployment The Netherlands has ended its military mission in Afghanistan, after four years in which its 1,950 troops have won praise for their effectiveness. Nato has played down its significance, but analysts say this is a sensitive time for the alliance, with growing casualties and doubts about strategy. 8/1/2010 11:32:22 AM
The dangers of Moscow's heatwave Temperatures in Russia this summer have been the highest since records began more than 100 years ago. Since the beginning of July, temperatures in Moscow have regularly been reaching 35 degrees Celsius. That is plus 35, not minus 35 - a temperature not unknown during the Moscow winter. 8/1/2010 11:29:49 AM
3 killers break out of Arizona prison Three convicted murderers who broke out of a Kingman, Arizona, prison got some help from a female accomplice who was on a visitation list for one of them, authorities said Saturday. The three, described as armed and dangerous, may well be out of state or on their way to Mexico. 8/1/2010 11:13:24 AM
Brazilians Switched at Birth Work, Live Together Two years back, Dimas Aliprandi and Elton Plaster didn't know of each other's existence. Then they learned they had been accidentally switched at birth more than 20 years ago. The discovery didn't bring bitterness or recrimination. Rather, it led to the creation of a bigger family. 8/1/2010 10:38:13 AM
Traders Aren't Economists, They're Gamblers A word of warning: There are serious troublemakers out there and they are the real powers in the universe today. They are called "traders." They lurk in board rooms and offices and homes and sometimes nowadays, they are not even human. They lurk in software programs and infinitely small circuits on infinitely small chips. 8/1/2010 10:36:51 AM
Investigators blast BP for liberal dispersant use As BP inched closer to permanently sealing the blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, congressional investigators railed against the company and Coast Guard for part of the cleanup effort, saying too much toxic chemical dispersant was used. 8/1/2010 10:15:28 AM
Sarah Palin: Next-door author changes way family lives Sarah Palin says the best-selling author who moved into the house next door to her family while writing a book about her needs to get a life. Author Joe McGinniss has said that he rented the house next door to the Palin family because the price was right, not to spy on them. 8/1/2010 9:45:08 AM
It’s official: Chelsea and Marc tie the knot Chelsea Clinton wed her longtime boyfriend under extraordinary security in an interfaith ceremony at an elegant Hudson River estate late Saturday. Chelsea wed investment banker Marc Mezvinsky after weeks of secrecy and buildup that had celebrity watchers flocking to the small village of Rhinebeck. 8/1/2010 7:21:40 AM
Afghan conflict: The huge scale of Pakistan's complicity When 91,000 classified military documents are leaked about a continuing war, there is bound to be controversy. But as one who spent six years in Afghanistan – first as Canada's ambassador, then as deputy head of the United Nations mission there – my first reaction was how true to life it all was. 8/1/2010 7:07:28 AM
Calif. wildfire threatens 2,3000 buildings Firefighters were battling a huge wildfire in the high desert wilderness north of Los Angeles Saturday, after it jumped an aqueduct and rushed toward hundreds of houses. About 2,300 structures were threatened and there was also concern for power lines that bring electricity to Southern California. 7/31/2010 7:04:50 AM
The big day: Chelsea Clinton to wed in upstate NY Chelsea Clinton was poised to marry her longtime boyfriend Saturday at an exclusive estate along New York's Hudson River after weeks of intrigue, secrecy and buzz that caused hundreds to crowd into this small village hoping to catch of a glimpse of a former president, a secretary of state or their publicity-shy daughter. 7/31/2010 7:01:48 AM
Black box found at Pakistan plane crash site: officials Investigators searching the site of an airliner crash near Pakistan’s capital in which 152 people died have found the plane’s black box, a minister and a civil aviation official said Saturday. The 10-year-old Airbus 321, operated by Airblue, slammed into the hills overlooking Islamabad in heavy rain and poor visibility. 7/31/2010 6:32:56 AM
China passes Japan as world's No. 2 economy China has overtaken Japan to become the second-largest economy in the world, a senior Chinese official said Friday. "China, in fact, is now already the world's second-largest economy," China's currency regulator, Yi Gang, said. 7/30/2010 5:19:26 PM
'Person of interest' in Missouri abduction shoots self (Video) A man police wanted to question in the abduction of a 4-year-old Missouri girl shot himself as investigators approached him, authorities in St. Louis reported Wednesday. The girl, Alisa Maier, was found alive. She was snatched from the front yard of her home Monday evening as she played with her 6-year-old brother. 7/30/2010 5:10:29 PM
Smear Job: No charges for Al Gore over 'alleged' sex assault The Portland Police Bureau did not recommend prosecution "due to a lack of credible evidence." "Ms. Hagerty's detailed statement ... is insufficient to support a criminal charge given other contradictory evidence, conflicting witness statements, credibility issues, lack of forensic evidence and denials by Mr. Gore." 7/30/2010 5:04:00 PM
Washington: Reversing Bush, EPA Toughens Smog Rules The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed replacing a Bush-era limit that ran counter to scientific recommendations. The tighter standards will cost tens of billions of dollars to implement, but will ultimately save billions in avoided emergency room visits, premature deaths, and missed work and school days, the EPA said. 7/30/2010 4:54:05 PM
Pentagon, Spy Child Porn Viewers Called Idiots A major federal investigation has found that dozens of military officials and defense contractors, including some with top-level security clearances, allegedly bought and downloaded child pornography on private or government computers. 7/30/2010 4:21:55 PM
4th Bear caught after deadly attack targeting Campers The fourth grizzly bear believed involved in a triple mauling at a Montana campground has been captured. DNA tests could confirm the family of grizzlies killed a Michigan man and injured two other people. Authorities said the bear family, under the tutelage of the mother, specifically targeted campers. 7/30/2010 1:36:03 PM
Scientists: Dispersants making spill more toxic Amid growing concern about the use of dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico, a group of scientists working for law firms suing BP says their testing indicates that the dispersants being used to break up the oil are making this spill even more toxic to marine life. 7/30/2010 1:28:17 PM
Three days of floods kill 430 people in Pakistan The death toll from three days of flooding in Pakistan reached at least 430 on Friday, as rains bloated rivers, submerged villages, and triggered landslides. Pakistani TV showed striking images of people clinging to fences and other stationary items as water gushed over their heads. 7/30/2010 8:02:18 AM
False Murder Conviction: Cop charged in case, man now free The accuser will stand accused Friday as a Colorado detective answers charges he lied in the case that wrongfully sent Tim Masters to prison. Masters, who served nine years of a life sentence said he hopes Fort Collins, Colorado, and Larimer County will finally acknowledge he was railroaded. 7/30/2010 7:52:17 AM
Brazil's sex tourism boom Young children are supplying an increasing demand from foreign tourists who travel to Brazil for sex holidays, according to a BBC investigation. Chris Rogers reports on how the country is overtaking Thailand as a destination for sex tourism and on attempts to curb the problem. 7/30/2010 7:03:30 AM
US has deadliest Afghan war month American forces have experienced their deadliest month in the nine-year-old Afghan war, with 63 US service members killed in July. June's record of 60 was surpassed after it was confirmed three soldiers killed Thursday were Americans. Meanwhile, hundreds of UK and Afghan troops launched a major offensive. 7/30/2010 7:01:03 AM
Chinese influence on Canada runs deep: Conservative MP says China's influence over Western politicians runs deeper than controversial claims made by the head of Canada's spy agency, Tory MP Rob Anders is alleging. Politicians and government officials are being wooed with extravagant gifts, beautiful young women and too-good-to-be-true business deals. 7/30/2010 6:57:34 AM
Wildfires sweeping Russia kill at least 23 Forest fires sweeping across parts of Russia on Friday killed at least 23 people and forced the evacuation of thousands in the hottest summer weather since records began 130 years ago. Fanned by strong winds, raging fires ripped through woods and fields incinerating hundreds of wooden houses. 7/30/2010 6:31:10 AM
Saudi, Syrian leaders arrive in Lebanon for unprecedented summit The leaders of Syria and Saudi Arabia have arrived in Beirut for an unprecedented effort to avert a simmering crisis in Lebanon. Tensions are mounting over expected indictments in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. 7/30/2010 6:02:50 AM
Police seize $1.7 Billion worth of marijuana in California Police in California say they have seized $1.7bn worth of marijuana plants in the Sierra Nevada mountains. They have also arrested 97 people over the past three weeks, most of them Mexican nationals believed to have ties with Mexican drug cartels. 7/29/2010 8:37:02 PM
Woman charged in France over babies' bodies (Video) French prosecutors said Thursday they charged a woman with murder after she admitted giving birth to and smothering eight babies over a 17-year period in northern France. The woman, Dominique Cottrez, said she hid the pregnancies and deaths from her husband, who said he had no idea what she had done. 7/29/2010 6:27:58 PM
Mexican army kills top drug lord: Media Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel, a leading Mexican drug trafficker, was killed in a clash with state security forces, local media reported on Thursday. The reports, if true, would mark a major coup for Mexican President Felipe Calderon's war against increasingly bold drug cartels that have parts of Mexico under siege. 7/29/2010 6:12:07 PM
Abbas risks Palestinian fury over direct talks with Israel Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, is expected to bow to intense U.S. pressure by agreeing to hold direct peace talks with Israel within weeks, according to western officials. Despite publicly insisting that he has no interest in face-to-face talks, Mr Abbas is preparing for what could be the gamble of his career, they said. 7/29/2010 3:35:09 PM
Congo boat sinking 'kills 140' Up to 140 people are feared dead after a boat carrying passengers and goods capsized on a river in the Democratic Republic of Congo, officials say. The accident happened on the Kasai river - a tributary of the Congo River - in the western province of Bandundu. 7/29/2010 1:49:32 PM
Russia grants more powers to KGB successor agency Russians may now face jail time for crimes they have not yet committed under a new security law signed Thursday by President Dmitry Medvedev. The law restores Soviet-era powers to the Federal Security Service, a move that rights advocates fear could intimidate the Kremlin's political opponents. 7/29/2010 1:01:29 PM
Obama defends his record on The View U.S. President Barack Obama mounted a spirited defence of his first 20 months in office Thursday on the popular daytime talk show The View. He effortlessly charmed the show's five female hosts, saying he came on the program because he was "trying to find a show that [his wife] Michelle actually watched." 7/29/2010 12:24:23 PM
'Suckers!' 100 million Facebook users' details published on 'Net The personal details of 100 million Facebook users have been collected and published online in a downloadable file, meaning they will now be unable to make their publicly available information private. However, Facebook downplayed the issue, saying that no private data had been compromised. 7/29/2010 6:17:20 AM
Former B.C. resident one of nine killed in Philippines robbery spree Police in the Philippines have arrested a man accused of murdering nine people, including a Canadian man with ties to Vancouver Island. Filipino Mark Dizon, a 28-year-old computer technician, is alleged to have gone on a killing spree in the last two weeks during robberies in three gated communities. 7/29/2010 6:07:10 AM
Global warming 'undeniable,' report says Scientists from around the world are providing even more evidence of global warming. "A comprehensive review of key climate indicators confirms the world is warming and the past decade was the warmest on record," the annual State of the Climate report declares. (Ed: Expect another barrage from the Oil Company PR machines.) 7/29/2010 5:47:06 AM
President Obama: I Wasn't Invited to Chelsea Clinton's Wedding Here's one less thing the Secret Service will need to worry about when Chelsea Clinton gets married this weekend. "I was not invited to the wedding," President Barack Obama said on ABC's The View, airing Thursday, "because I think Hillary and Bill, properly, want to keep this thing for Chelsea and her soon-to-be husband." 7/28/2010 6:05:48 PM
French police find eight dead newborn babies French police have arrested a couple after finding the bodies of eight newborn babies in a village. Police were continuing to search with sniffer dogs in Villers-au-Tertre, near Lille in northern France, the officials said. The two in custody are said to be the parents of the children. 7/28/2010 5:32:42 PM
Bear attacks leave one dead, two injured at Montana campgrounds Ron Aasheim, a spokesman for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, told CNN that authorities are still trying to determine what type of bear attacked the campers at the remote Soda Butte campgrounds outside Yellowstone National Park, and whether multiple bears were involved. 7/28/2010 5:30:42 PM
Details of 100 Million Facebook users collected and published Personal details of 100 Million Facebook users have been collected and published on the net by a security consultant. Ron Bowles used a piece of code to scan Facebook profiles, collecting data not hidden by the user's privacy settings. The file has spread rapidly across the net. 7/28/2010 5:28:10 PM
Key base of ocean food web dropping dramatically Despite their tiny size, plant plankton found in the world's oceans are crucial to much of life on Earth. They are the foundation of the bountiful marine food web, produce half the world's oxygen and suck up harmful carbon dioxide. They also are declining sharply. 7/28/2010 3:21:27 PM
Australian Aboriginals livid at French stripper who danced on sacred rock A French stripper is in trouble with Australian Aboriginals after climbing the country's famed Uluru rock, one of its most sacred aboriginal sites, and dancing topless, cnews is reporting. Aboriginal leaders want Alizee Sery deported for disrespecting Uluru, once known by European settlers as Ayers Rock. 7/28/2010 6:54:55 AM
Michigan declares pipeline spill a disaster area Governor Jennifer Granholm declared a state of disaster on Tuesday for an area along the Kalamazoo River in south-central Michigan where an oil pipeline leaked 19,500 barrels of oil. The spill came in a 30-inch, 190,000 barrels per day line transporting crude oil from Griffith, Indiana, to Sarnia, Ontario. 7/28/2010 6:44:18 AM
FBI says mastermind of botnet nabbed International authorities have arrested a computer hacker believed responsible for creating the malicious computer code that infected as many as 12 million computers, invading major banks and corporations around the world, FBI officials told The Associated Press. 7/28/2010 6:33:25 AM
New flood surge hits China's Three Gorges Dam (Video) Vast amounts of water have been released from behind the Three Gorges Dam in recent days. China's Three Gorges Dam has faced a second test as floods pushed the water in its reservoir to near its capacity, state media said. Heavy rain on the Yangtze River created a surge that neared last week's record. 7/28/2010 6:30:17 AM
Spain: Catalonia bans bullfighting in landmark Spain vote The parliament of Catalonia has voted to ban bullfighting - the first region of mainland Spain to do so. The vote took place as the result of a petition brought to parliament, signed by 180,000 people who say the practice is barbaric and outdated. 7/28/2010 6:14:45 AM
All 152 Passengers killed in Pakistan jet crash (Video) A plane has crashed in hills north of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, killing all 152 people on board. Officials said the plane lost contact with the control tower minutes before landing. Pakistani TV showed images of smouldering wreckage on a foggy hillside, with helicopters overhead. 7/28/2010 5:57:34 AM
U.S. Feds Charge New Russian Bombshell Good-bye, Anna Chapman; hello, Anna Fermanova. Fermanova, 24, is the newest bombshell targeted by federal authorities. She is accused of attempting to smuggle high-tech night vision scopes from the United States to Russia. 7/27/2010 4:46:49 PM
Garage sale negatives verified as $200 Million Ansel Adams trove How’s this for art appreciation: A Fresno, Calif., man who spent $45 on two boxes of negatives at a garage sale 10 years ago has had them authenticated as lost works of the iconic American photographer Ansel Adams worth an estimated $200 million. 7/27/2010 4:37:47 PM
Japanese women have longest life expectancy Japanese women are expected to live almost 86 ½ years, topping the world longevity ratings for the 25th straight year. The statistics for 2009 showed both Japanese women and men extended their average life expectancy to new records — 86.44 years for women and 79.59 years for men. 7/27/2010 4:18:36 PM
Pentagon: Leaked Afghan reports are not top-secret American officials from the president down tried Tuesday to downplay the leak of tens of thousands of documents about the war in Afghanistan, a disclosure experts are calling the biggest leak since the Pentagon Papers about Vietnam. 7/27/2010 4:06:08 PM
Dutch Sailor, 14, Gets OK for Solo World Trip A 14-year-old Dutch sailor will be allowed to launch a risky attempt to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world, a court said Tuesday, clearing her for an adventure that could begin within two weeks. Laura Dekker said she was thrilled to hear of the decision to lift a guardianship order. 7/27/2010 4:00:57 PM
China Landslide Adds to Flooding Death Toll A landslide caused by rains in southern China left 21 people missing Tuesday, adding to a growing death toll from China's worst flood season in a decade, which is expected to worsen with heavy rains forecast across the country. 7/27/2010 3:57:51 PM
Blix accuses Bush, Blair of 'poor judgment' Ex-UN weapons inspector Hans Blix questioned Tuesday the judgment of Britain and the United States in invading Iraq on the basis of evidence of weapons of mass destruction that was clearly "poor". Blix was executive chairman of the United Nations weapons inspection team in Iraq from March 2000 to June 2003. 7/27/2010 3:26:16 PM
Autistic man dies in hot van in US suburb An autistic young man who didn't speak was left in a scorching van at a residential treatment home, where his lifeless, overheated body was found more than five hours after his small group returned from an amusement park. 7/27/2010 3:22:36 PM
Audit: U.S. can't account for $8.7b in Iraqi funds The U.S. Defense Department is unable to properly account for over 95 per cent of $9.1-billion in Iraqi oil money tapped by the U.S. for rebuilding the war ravaged nation, according to an audit. People complain basic services like electricity and clean water are sharply lacking seven years after the U.S.-led invasion. 7/27/2010 10:15:09 AM
BP's Dudley: Spill a "Wake-Up Call" for Oil Industry The American who will take over as head of British oil giant BP says he's not underestimating the nature and complexity of what the company must do to restore its reputation and financial strength. Robert Dudley told reporters the spill has been a "wake-up call, not only for BP, but the oil and gas industry overall." 7/27/2010 9:59:19 AM
Polygamist Warren Jeffs' Convictions Overturned The Utah Supreme Court on Tuesday reversed the convictions of polygamist leader Warren Jeffs and ordered a new trial. Jeffs, 54, was convicted by a southern Utah jury in 2007 of two counts of first-degree felony rape as an accomplice for his role in the 2001 nuptials of Elissa Wall, then 14. 7/27/2010 9:51:34 AM
BP: Hayward to quit as CEO — with a payoff of $1.6 million BP's embattled Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward will be replaced by American Robert Dudley on Oct. 1, the company said Tuesday, as it reported a record quarterly loss and set aside $32.2 billion to cover the costs of the devastating Gulf of Mexico oil spill. 7/27/2010 5:52:13 AM
Public must know the awful truth, said analyst 'behind leak' The investigation into the biggest leak in American military history centres on a U.S. army intelligence analyst who allegedly boasted online that he was going to reveal "the truth" about the war in Afghanistan. Bradley Manning, 22, was arrested after a computer hacker turned him in. 7/26/2010 8:20:11 PM
South Korea, US stage anti-submarine drill in warning to North Korea US and South Korean warships staged anti-submarine drills Monday as part of a major naval exercise intended to send a warning to North Korea despite its threats of nuclear retaliation. The two allies, who accuse the North of sending a submarine to torpedo a South Korean warship, have assembled about 20 ships. 7/26/2010 8:02:39 PM
Pakistan rejects US intelligence reports of ISI links to Taliban Pakistan dismissed as "baseless" and "skewed" the leaked US intelligence reports that accused its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency of supporting Taliban fighters. Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit told the media that leaked reports were "far-fetched and skewed" and inconsistent with ground realities. 7/26/2010 7:57:02 PM
50 Afghan civilians killed in rocket strike KABUL: A rocket attack on an Afghan village killed at least 45 civilians, a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai said on Monday, as leaked documents laid bare the civilian toll of the US-led war. Women and children were among the dead. An investigation is underway to determine who was responsibl 7/26/2010 7:10:50 PM
Boat made from plastic bottle completes Pacific voyage (Video) A boat made from thousands of plastic bottles has sailed into Sydney Harbour, completing a four-month voyage that began in San Francisco. The boat, called the Plastiki, was built using 12,500 plastic bottles. 7/26/2010 6:07:18 PM
BP boss Hayward to get immediate $930,000 pension BP chief executive Tony Hayward will get an immediate annual pension worth about $930,000 when he leaves in October, the BBC has learned. Mr Hayward is to stand down after sustained criticism of his handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil leak. 7/26/2010 5:46:39 PM
Review of leaked docs finds no danger to security, troops An ongoing Pentagon review of the massive flood of secret documents made public by the WikiLeaks website has so far found no evidence that the disclosure harmed U.S. national security or endangered American troops in the field. (Ed: Strange that Canada's Foreign Minister is saying the opposite.) 7/26/2010 4:40:57 PM
Leak indicates Western Governments are lying to citizens about Afghanistan The United States asked Canada in 2007 to apply diplomatic pressure to Saudi Arabia and South Africa over alleged Taliban fundraising in the countries. And, secret material released over the weekend has triggered a fierce debate over how truthful Western governments are being in their public accounts of the conflict. 7/26/2010 3:56:54 PM
Khmer Rouge jailer faces 19 years for 16,000 dead A U.N.-backed tribunal sentenced the Khmer Rouge's chief jailer to 35 years for overseeing the deaths of up to 16,000 people - the first verdict involving a senior member of the "killing fields" regime that devastated a generation of Cambodians. 7/26/2010 9:40:23 AM
'Barefoot Bandit' not interested in movie deal Colton Harris-Moore, the infamous "Barefoot Bandit" who allegedly stole planes, yachts and more during a cross-country crime spree, doesn't like the attention he's getting and doesn't want his story told, his lawyer told ABC News on Sunday. 7/26/2010 9:22:12 AM
Google Translate tangles with computer learning Google Translate is a free Google service that translates between scores of languages almost as quickly as Google returns search results. Give it a Web page from a Spanish newspaper and in about a second the text is converted to English. 7/25/2010 6:04:29 AM
Bonnie fizzles, cleanup fleet heads back to well The fleet of cleanup vessels tending the blown-out BP well in the Gulf of Mexico was ordered back to the spill site Saturday morning after a tropical storm system fizzled. The weather system was barely mustering maximum winds of 35 mph and was not expected to generate a fierce storm surge. 7/24/2010 7:12:44 PM
U.S. Veterans Affairs easing medical marijuana rules The Department of Veterans Affairs will formally allow patients treated at its hospitals and clinics to use medical marijuana in states where it is legal, a policy clarification that veterans have sought for several years. Veterans can be denied pain medications if they are found to be using illegal drugs. 7/24/2010 1:18:49 PM
China’s top philanthropist gives it all away Yu Pengnian’s journey from poor street hawker to Hong Kong real-estate magnate was already a remarkable one. Then the 88-year-old did something even rarer that shocked many in increasingly materialistic China: He gave it all away. 7/24/2010 6:48:11 AM
Missouri: State took Blind Parents baby after birth (Video) A blind couple who had a baby two months ago say that the State of Missouri violated their constitutional rights by taking their newborn away. Erika Johnson and Blake Sinnett say they were not able to bond or care for their baby girl for 57 days because social workers were blinded by ignorance. 7/24/2010 5:53:25 AM
Oil Rig Alarm Was Not Fully Turned On, Worker Says The emergency alarm on the Deepwater Horizon was not fully activated on the day the oil rig caught fire and exploded, triggering the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a rig worker on Friday told a government panel investigating the accident. 7/23/2010 1:21:31 PM
BP admits altering oil spill response centre image Oil firm BP has admitted posting an altered image of its Gulf of Mexico oil spill response centre on its website. BP spokesman Scott Dean said the photographer who took the photo was displaying his skills with Photoshop software and there was no ill intent. (Ed: Baloney!). 7/21/2010 5:25:41 PM
BP allowed to keep cap closed for 24 hours The U.S. government Monday allowed BP to keep the cap shut tight on its busted Gulf of Mexico oil well for another day after the company promised to watch closely for any signs of new leaks breaking through the sea floor. The decision settled for the moment a rift between BP and the government. 7/19/2010 6:53:17 AM
Comparative photos of Mount Everest 'confirm ice loss' "The photographs reveal a startling truth: the ice of the Himalaya is disappearing." "The melt waters of these high altitude glaciers supply crucial seasonal flows to the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Salween, Irrawaddy, Mekong, Yangtze and Yellow rivers, which hundreds of millions of people downstream depend on for their livelihoods." 7/18/2010 5:20:31 PM
U.S. Senate stalls on climate change The U.S. Senate spent this week searching for ways to water down the modest greenhouse gas emissions targets in the House-passed energy bill, which opponents claim will injure the economy. (Ed: It's become apparent during the BP Fiasco, the oil/coal companies have many, many U.S. politicians in their pockets.) 7/18/2010 4:42:50 PM
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