The world’s leaders will descend on a secluded golf resort in Northern Ireland on Monday for the G8 summit. Minutes away sits Enniskillen, a small town with a painful past. Less than 10 miles from the border with Ireland, this town was one of the key flashpoints during the so-called Troubles, the sectarian violence that consumed Northern Ireland for more than three decades.
Enniskillen is so steeped in tragedy and violence that British Prime Minister David Cameron acknowledged it would have been “unthinkable” even a decade ago that it would be at the center of the world stage. - More
Say goodbye to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In a few weeks, he will hand over the mantle of presidency to Hassan Rouhani, who stood victorious Saturday after Iran tallied all its votes in the national election.
Rouhani, 65, a cleric and moderate politician, who enjoyed reformist backing, took more than 50% of the vote, according to the interior ministry. - More
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Sunday against arming Syrian rebels "who kill their enemies and eat their organs," referencing a widely circulated video that purports to show a rebel fighter eating the heart of a dead soldier.
Putin's comments signaled a clear disapproval of a U.S. plan to increase military support to Syrian rebels, and his warning came just one day before he was to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama for talks at the Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland where Syria is expected to top the agenda. - More
In the year since U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin last met face to face, tens of thousands of Syrians have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled that country’s raging civil war.
So Syria will likely monopolize what’s expected to be a short, one-hour bilateral meeting on the sidelines of next week’s G-8 summit in Northern Ireland.
There is some common ground – the U.S. and Russia both support peace talks in Geneva between Syrian strongman Bashar al Assad’s regime and the rebel coalition, though Russia has criticized the U.S. for insufficiently pressuring the rebels to commit. - More
North Korea proposed “high-level” talks with the U.S. to discuss a formal peace treaty to end the Korean War, less than a week after unilaterally scrapping a planned meeting with South Korea.
North Korea suggested discussing “a wide range of issues of mutual interest” including easing military tensions, denuclearization and replacing the Korean War armistice with a peace treaty, an unidentified spokesperson of North Korea’s National Defense Commission said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. - More
Republican Senator John McCain has been arguing for intervention in Syria almost since the civil war began.
Now that the White House has confirmed that Syrian forces used chemical weapons in the ongoing civil war, the administration is ready to step up military support for the opposition.
McCain has repeatedly pushed the administration to arm Syrian rebels, and the Arizona senator told CNN Friday he is comfortable giving the rebels whatever weapons they need. - More
Syria’s rebels on Friday criticized the U.S. decision to offer small-scale military assistance as late and inadequate, saying they will need heavy weapons to counter the growing challenge posed by a reinvigorated Syrian army that is already receiving foreign help.
But the real significance of the policy shift may lie in the signal it sends to the increasingly polarized region that America does not intend to remain on the sidelines and allow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to prevail over the outgunned rebels. - More
President Barack Obama's open-ended commitment to provide weapons to Syrian rebels will place the US and Russia on opposite sides of a Middle Eastern regional war, says Damien McElroy, the Telegraph's Foreign Affairs Correspondent.
President Barack Obama has authorised sending weapons to Syrian rebels for the first time.
The announcement comes after the White House disclosed that the US has conclusive evidence President Bashar Assad's government... - More
The Kremlin Friday dismissed as unconvincing evidence that U.S. officials provided of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons and criticized Washington’s decision to arm Syrian opposition fighters, but stopped short of threatening to deliver air-defense missiles to the Assad government in response.
A senior Kremlin official said Moscow is “not yet” discussing the delivery of the advanced air-defense system in the wake of the U.S. decision.
Last month, Russian officials threatened to fulfill the 2010 contract for the S-300 missiles as a way to deter potential outside military intervention in the two-year-old Syrian civil war. - More
At the President’s direction, the United States Government has been closely monitoring the potential use of chemical weapons within Syria.
Following the assessment made by our intelligence community in April, the President directed the intelligence community to seek credible and corroborated information to build on that assessment and establish the facts with some degree of certainty.
Today, we are providing an updated version of our assessment to Congress and to the public.
The Syrian government’s refusal to grant access to the United Nations to investigate any and all credible allegations of chemical weapons use has prevented a comprehensive investigation as called for by the international community. - More
Syria has crossed a "red line" with its use of chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin gas, against rebels, a move that is prompting the United States to increase the "scale and scope" of its support for the opposition, the White House said Thursday.
The acknowledgment is the first time President Barack Obama's administration has definitively said what it has long suspected -- that President Bashar al-Assad's forces have used chemical weapons in the ongoing civil war. - More
Four people were shot dead inside a building in St. Louis, a police source told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
According to the police, the shots were fired inside the Cherokee Place Business Incubator.
At least a dozen police cars and two ambulances responded to the scene, STLToday.com reported. At least one man and two women were reportedly taken into custody. - More
Jason Leffler, a versatile driver who won championships in open-wheel divisions and attempted at least one full season in each of NASCAR's three national series, died Wednesday night after a crash in a 410 sprint car race at Bridgeport Speedway in New Jersey.
Leffler, 37, was pronounced dead shortly after 9 p.m., the New Jersey State Police said. - More
As U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry is poised to return to the region, Israel is advancing a plan for a large-scale expansion of a West Bank settlement, according to Israeli media reports. Plans for more than 600 housing units in the settlement of Itamar were recently submitted to authorities, the reports say.
If completed, the new construction would significantly expand the settlement, which currently has about 1,200 residents. - More
The political and diplomatic worlds are buzzing Thursday over a report that former President Bill Clinton disagrees with President Obama on Syria.
Politico reports that Clinton agrees with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that Obama should be more forceful to support Syrian rebels who are fighting the government forces of President Bashar al-Assad. - More
Edward Snowden, in his first public comments since he dropped out of view in Hong Kong on Monday, said he did not travel to the former British colony to avoid punishment for leaking details of the surveillance program.
"I am not here to hide from justice. I am here to reveal criminality," Snowden told the South China Morning Post, an English-language newspaper in Hong Kong, in an interview published on Wednesday. - More
The head of the country’s National Security Agency testified Wednesday that surveillance has stopped “dozens” of potential terrorist attacks by looking at the phone records, emails and other Internet searches of people suspected of terrorism-related incidents.
Army Gen. Keith Alexander told a Senate panel that securing a “cyber arena” could be done without infringing upon the privacy rights of Americans. - More
Ariel Castro faced a total of 329 counts at his arraignment hearing in Cleveland on Wednesday morning, including 139 rape allegations and two of aggravated murder of a victim's unborn child.
Prosecutors are still deciding whether to seek the death penalty for the 52-year-old, who also faces 177 kidnapping charges.
Senior State Department and Diplomatic Security officials may have covered up or stopped investigations of inappropriate or even criminal misconduct by staff, according to an internal memo from the department's Office of the Inspector General.
The timeline surrounding the allegations places the incidents during former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's tenure, opening the possibility that a widening scandal might taint both her record and her possible political aspirations. - More
Attorneys grilled potential jurors for a second day Tuesday as the trial continued for George Zimmerman, the Florida neighborhood watch captain accused of murdering teen Trayvon Martin.
Jury selection is expected to take all week, if not longer, as prosecuting and defense attorneys quizzed dozens of potential jurors about their knowledge of the case.
Judge Debra Nelson has said she will keep the identities of selected jurors anonymous, but she rejected a defense request to sequester the initial jury pool of 500 residents. - More
The whereabouts of the man who revealed information about a highly classified U.S. surveillance program was unknown Tuesday, as calls continued among Washington officials for his immediate extradition and arrest.
Edward Snowden checked out of the Hong Kong hotel he was staying in Monday, a day after he revealed his identity to the world in the British newspaper The Guardian. - More
As U.S. federal agents build a case against the contractor who exposed controversial electronic surveillance programs by the National Security Agency, one of the journalists who has been working with him says more secrets are set to be revealed soon.
"There are extremely invasive spying programs that the public still does not know about that the NSA regularly engages in or other capabilities that they're developing," said Glenn Greenwald, a columnist for the Guardian, the British newspaper that broke the first story based on secret NSA documents. - More
President Obama will on Monday announce that he has chosen Jason Furman as his nominee to replace Alan Krueger as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, a White House official said.
Obama will make the announcement at 2:10 p.m. at the White House, joined by Furman, the current principal deputy director of the National Economic Council, and Krueger.
Furman’s nomination must be confirmed by the Senate. More
"On cyber security we pointed out that the Chinese government attaches great importance to it. And the government is against all forms of cyber and hacker attacks.
China itself is also a victim of cyber attacks and we are a staunch supporter of cyber security."
While cyber attacks may have caused some friction the two leaders found common ground on North Korea.
"They agreed that North Korea has to denuclearise, that neither country will accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state... - Move
South Africa and millions around the world on Sunday waited for news of anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela after he was rushed to the hospital with a lung infection on Saturday.
Officials described the 94-year-old's health as "serious," the first time the term has been used despite numerous health scares.
"His condition deteriorated to the point where it was found necessary to hospitalize him," said Mac Maharaj, South African presidential spokesman, on Saturday. - More
Jury selection begins on Monday in the murder trial of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012 and then famously walked free for 44 days, triggering nationwide protests and calls for his arrest.
Lawyers estimate the long-awaited trial will last four to eight weeks.
Much of that time is expected to be spent picking a six-person jury that can be open-minded despite extensive publicity about some of the explosive issues, including racial profiling and self-defense, surrounding the case. - More
The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.
Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell. - More
The suspect in a shooting spree that left four people dead in Santa Monica has been identified as John Zawahri, sources told CNN.
Authorities say he killed his father, Samir "Sam" Zawahri, and brother, Chris Zawahri, in a Santa Monica house before carjacking a woman and firing at a public bus on Friday. - More
Five people -- including the gunman -- are dead after a shooting rampage that ended at Santa Monica College, police said. Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks described a violent shooting rampage that appears to have begun in the 2000 block of Yorkshire Avenue just before noon.
Two people were found dead on Yorkshire Avenue and a home was on fire, authorities said. - More
President Obama defended National Security Agency surveillance programs Friday, saying they are designed to promote public safety and protect civil liberties.
"They help us prevent terrorist attacks," Obama said, despite what he calls "modest encroachments" on what some consider private activity. - More
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey on Thursday appointed Jeffrey S. Chiesa, the state’s attorney general, to temporarily fill the Senate seat left vacant by the death of Frank R. Lautenberg.
A special election to fill the seat for the remainder of Mr. Lautenberg’s term will be held in October, and Mr. Christie’s announcement came as Democrats and Republicans across the state scrambled to line up support, raise money and secure enough... - More
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who announced today that he is splitting with his wife Lyudmila after nearly 30 years of marriage, will be his country's first divorced leader since Peter the Great. Peter, in 1698, forced his first wife Yevdokia to take vows as a nun.
The Putins, who broke the news after attending a performance of the ballet "Esmeralda" in the Kremlin, say their parting is more amicable. - More
Esther Williams, whose success as a competitive swimmer propelled her to stardom on the silver screen in the 1940s and 1950s, died Thursday in California, her spokesman said Thursday.
She was 91.
Williams, who grew up in Southern California and was a U.S. swimming champion in freestyle and the breaststroke by her late teens, turned to acting after World War II canceled the 1940 Olympic Games, which she'd hoped to compete in, her official website says. - More
The first tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, Andrea, formed Wednesday over the Gulf of Mexico and was expected to bring wet weather to parts of Florida's west coast over the next few days.
Forecasters issued a tropical storm warning for a swath of Florida's west coast starting at Boca Grande, an island to the northwest of Fort Myers, and ending in the Big Bend area of the state.
In Alabama, authorities said that 13 people had to be rescued from rough surf kicked up by the storm on Wednesday at beaches in two coastal towns. - More
The former White House adviser and longtime Obama friend nominated Wednesday as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations has a history of controversial comments that could haunt her in confirmation -- including likening U.S. foreign policies to those of the Nazis.
In a March 2003 New Republic magazine essay, Samantha Power wrote that American foreign policy needs a "historical reckoning" which would entail "opening the files" and "acknowledging the force of a mantra we have spent the last decade promoting in Guatemala, South Africa, and Yugoslavia." - More
As many as 10 people are believed to be trapped in the rubble of a building that collapsed Wednesday morning in Philadelphia, city Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers said, according to CNN affiliate WPVI.
The four-story building collapsed at the corner of 22nd and Market streets in Philadelphia's Center City area, WPVI reported. - More
National security adviser Thomas E. Donilon will resign his post, White House officials said Wednesday, and be replaced by U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice, a close confidant of President Obama who has been strongly criticized by Republicans but was widely expected to move into the job.
White House officials said Donilon’s resignation will take effect in early July. Rice, one of Obama’s most trusted foreign policy advisers, does not need Senate confirmation to take his place. - More
David "Deacon" Jones, a hall of fame defensive lineman credited with coining the term "sack" for how he would tackle opposing teams' quarterbacks, has died. He was 74.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame says of Jones that, "blessed with speed, agility, and quickness, the 'Deacon' became one of the finest pass rushers in the business."
In the 1960s, he "teamed with tackle Merlin Olsen to give Los Angeles a perennial All-Pro left side of the defensive line." - More
Frank R. Lautenberg, who fought the alcohol and tobacco industries and promoted Amtrak as a five-term United States senator from New Jersey, died on Monday morning in Manhattan.
He was 89. The cause was complications of viral pneumonia, his office said.
In 2010 it announced he had stomach cancer. Though he and his doctors expected a complete recovery, Senator Lautenberg, a Democrat, decided not to seek re-election next year. - More
A sharply divided Supreme Court on Monday said police can routinely take DNA from people they arrest, equating a DNA cheek swab to other common jailhouse procedures like fingerprinting.
‘‘Taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment,’’ Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court’s five-justice majority. - More
Residents of Turkey's largest city awoke Sunday to scenes of rain-soaked municipal workers and volunteer activists cleaning up the garbage left after days of violent clashes and angry demonstrations against the government.
Demonstrators remained in control of Taksim Square after Turkish security forces abandoned the district Saturday following 36 hours of vicious clashes. - More
An Arizona woman held in a Mexico jail for a week on a drug-smuggling charge was freed and traveled back to the U.S. after a court reviewed her case, including key security footage, and dismissed the allegations.
Yanira Maldonado, 42, walked out of the prison on the outskirts of Nogales, Mexico and into her husband's arms late Thursday.
She and her family members could be seen crossing through the Nogales port of entry into Arizona in a small sedan shortly after midnight, The Arizona Republic reported. - More
Syrian state-run television reported Thursday that forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad killed three Westerners, including an American woman and a British citizen, who they claim were fighting with the rebels and were found with weapons and maps of government military facilities.
Syrian TV identified the woman, releasing what it claimed were images of her Michigan driver's license and U.S. passport. It also released what is said was the name and passport of a British citizen. It did not identify a third person who it claimed was a Westerner. - More
President Obama plans to nominate James B. Comey, a former senior Justice Department official who famously challenged a secret eavesdropping program during the George W. Bush administration, to replace Robert S. Mueller III as director of the FBI, officials said Wednesday.
Comey, 52, threatened to resign as deputy attorney general rather than give his consent to the secret interception of international calls routed through the United States.
Bush had authorized the domestic surveillance effort after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. - More
The Pakistan Taliban's No. 2 leader was killed in a drone strike Wednesday in the country's tribal region, a local tribal official and an intelligence official confirmed to CNN.
He was Wali-Ur Rahman -- second in command to Hakeemullah Mehsud, the militant group's leader.
The Pakistan Taliban's spokesman told CNN he could not confirm or deny the information. - More
Designs for many of the nation’s most sensitive advanced weapons systems have been compromised by Chinese hackers, according to a report prepared for the Pentagon and to officials from government and the defense industry.
Among more than two dozen major weapons systems whose designs were breached were programs critical to U.S. missile defenses and combat aircraft and ships, according to a previously undisclosed section of a confidential report prepared for Pentagon leaders by the Defense Science Board. - More
One of the two men held on suspicion of killing a soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich was arrested in Kenya in 2010, the Foreign Office has confirmed.
It said it gave consular assistance to Michael Adebolajo "as normal" in the circumstances.
He was believed to have been preparing to fight with Somali militant group al-Shabab, a Kenyan government spokesman told the BBC, and was later deported. - More
Secretary of State John Kerry declared Sunday he believes a potential $4 billion plan is emerging that could expand the Palestinian economy by up to 50 percent in the next three years.
It could also cut unemployment by almost two-thirds, and average wages could jump 40 percent, he said. But Kerry said it all depends on parallel progress on peace between Israel and the Palestinians. - More
The United States is investigating "a string of malicious" cyber incidents that appear to be focused on probing energy infrastructure, a U.S. official familiar with the latest intelligence tells CNN.
The official, who spoke anonymously due to the sensitivity of the information, said the suspected hacking did not appear to be intended to steal trade secrets or exploit technology for commercial reasons. It appeared to be aimed at identifying weaknesses in fuel and electrical systems in the United States. - More
Jodi Arias will not be put to death -- at least not yet.
A judge declared a mistrial in the sentencing phase of her murder trial today, after the jury could not agree on whether to sentence Arias to death or to life in prison for murdering her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, in 2008. - More
Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, a law enforcement official told NBC News on Thursday.
The disclosure of the attorney general’s role came as President Barack Obama, in a major speech on his counterterrorism policy, said Holder had agreed to review Justice Department guidelines governing investigations that involve journalists. - More
President Barack Obama in a major counterterrorism speech Thursday defended the American drone program, saying that despite the controversies around it, the strikes are legal and save lives.
Obama said the use of lethal force extends to U.S. citizens as well.
On Wednesday, his administration disclosed for the first time that four Americans had been killed in counterterrorist drone strikes overseas, including one person who was targeted by the United States. - More
Heinrich Rohrer, who shared the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing a microscope that made it possible to see individual atoms and move them around, an achievement that led to vastly faster computing and greatly advanced molecular biology, died on Thursday night or early Friday morning in Wollerau, Switzerland.
He was 79.
His family said he had died of natural causes.
Dr. Rohrer and his colleague Gerd Binnig introduced the device, the scanning tunneling microscope... - More
Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, was questioned by a judge Thursday over her role in a $366-million payout to a businessman supporter of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Lagarde appeared in a Paris court to answer questions over her decision in 2007, when she was France's finance minister, to refer a long-running legal dispute between the state and businessman Bernard Tapie to arbitration, which led to the massive out-of-court settlement. - More
Lawmakers expressed both anger and bewilderment that IRS leaders had not told Congress sooner about indications that the tax agency had improperly singled out conservatives and Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status.
A highly anticipated hearing by the top investigative committee in the Republican-controlled House delivered on the drama that was expected. - More
The Senate committee debating a landmark immigration bill approved the bipartisan measure on Tuesday night, voting 13 to 5 to send the amended package to the floor.
Ten Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee joined with three Republicans, including two of the four GOP authors of the bill... - More
The man shot dead by an FBI agent in Orlando, Florida early today was "about to sign a statement" admitting to a role, along with Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, in an unsolved triple murder in Massachusetts in 2011, two people with direct knowledge of the case told ABC News.
Ibragim Todashev "just went crazy," and pulled a knife during his interview with the FBI, said state and federal law enforcement officials briefed on the latest strange twist in the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing. - More
Authorities on Wednesday were wrapping up the search for casualties and survivors and preparing to let residents return to their homes here, two days after a massive tornado tore through this city, destroying entire blocks.
The tornado killed 24 people, including 10 children, officials said Wednesday.
Two of the girls were just a few months old, according to a report from the Oklahoma Medical Examiner's Office. Most of the other children were 9 years old. - More
The jury in the Jodi Arias trial has one decision left to make: Should she live or die?
After months of dramatic testimony full of so many twists and turns that people lined up for seats in the Phoenix courtroom, jurors began deliberations Tuesday to decide whether Arias should get the death penalty or life in prison for murdering her ex-boyfriend. - More
More severe weather is in the forecast for parts of the central United States already reeling from powerful tornadoes this week.
The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., says golf ball-sized hail, powerful winds and isolated, strong tornadoes could strike areas of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma on Tuesday. - More
Syria's stepped-up targeting of Israeli forces along the border between the two countries will force Israel to take a stronger hand in the conflict if it does not cease, Israel's military warned Tuesday.
Israeli Defense Forces Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz issued his warning to Syria after an Israeli jeep was fired at during a patrol in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, a border plateau where both countries have had permanent forces since a 1967 war. - More
Even for a city toughened by disaster, Moore has never seen this kind of devastation.
A massive, howling tornado pulverized a vast swath of the Oklahoma City suburb Monday, chewing up homes and businesses, and severely damaging a hospital and two elementary schools.
The official death toll stood at 51 Tuesday morning, but it was sure to rise. A coroner's office official said some 40 bodies have yet to be processed by medical examiners... - More
The White House's chief lawyer learned weeks ago that an audit of the Internal Revenue Service likely would show that agency employees inappropriately targeted conservative groups, a senior White House official said Sunday. That disclosure has prompted a debate over whether the president should have been notified at that time. - More
President Barack Obama will leave on a first African tour next month, visiting Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa, but his itinerary bypasses Kenya, an ancestral homeland.
Obama disappointed many Africans by spending only a few hours in sub-Saharan Africa -- in Ghana -- during his first term, but is keen to implement a sweeping new regional strategy, prioritizing democracy and economic reform. - More
Another round of dangerous weather is expected to slam the Plains on Monday, after tornadoes that ripped through five states Sunday killed two and left more than 20 injured.
A tornado in Shawnee, Okla., severely damaged a mobile home park and killed a 79-year-old man whose body was found in an open area of the neighborhood. - More
North Korea fired a short-range missile into the Sea of Japan on Sunday, according to South Korea's semiofficial news agency Yonhap, citing a South Korean military official.
On Saturday, North Korea launched three short-range guided missiles into the sea, also known as the East Sea, off the Korean Peninsula's east coast, Yonhap reported. - More
It says the troops now control the main square and local council building in the town, a few kilometres from the border with Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.
The anti-government Observatory for Human Rights says at least 50 people were killed as the troops used planes and artillery to bomb the town, backed by fighters from the Lebanese Shiite militia movement Hezbollah. - More
Two FBI agents have been killed in a training accident in Virginia.
A spokeswoman for the FBI's Norfolk office, Vanessa Torres, said Sunday that the accident happened Friday afternoon off the Virginia Beach coast. - More
Arkansas Treasurer Martha Shoffner has been arrested for extortion by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is being held in Pulaski County Jail.
FBI spokeswoman Kimberly Brunell said Shoffner was arrested Saturday at her home in Newport and is scheduled for a federal court hearing Monday. - More
It's all about the odds, and one lone ticket in Florida has beaten them all by matching each of the numbers drawn for the highest Powerball jackpot in history at an estimated $590.5 million, lottery officials said Sunday.
The single winner was sold at a supermarket in Zephyrhills, Fla., according to Florida Lottery executive Cindy O'Connell. - More
Congressional Republicans, not resting with the Internal Revenue Service scandal, are moving to broaden the matter to an array of tax malfeasances and “intimidation tactics” they hope will ensnare the White House.
Republican charges range from clearly questionable actions to seemingly specious allegations, and they grow by the day. - More
Ken Venturi,rcame dehydration to win the 1964 U.S. Open and spent 35 years in the booth for CBS Sports, died Friday afternoon. He was 82.
His son, Matt Venturi, said he died in a hospital in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Venturi had been hospitalized the last two months for a spinal infection, pneumonia, and then an intestinal infection that he could no longer fight. - More
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, dogged by fresh allegations that he's the subject of a video in which he reportedly appears to be smoking crack cocaine, dismissed the reports Thursday as "ridiculous."
"Absolutely not true," he said outside his Etobicoke home on Friday morning.
"It's ridiculous. It's another Toronto Star whatever," he said before getting into his Cadillac Escalade.
Later in the day, Ford emerged from his office at city hall to give a brief statement to reporters. - More
A huge increase in workload, rather than deliberate targeting, led to "foolish mistakes" and the political discrimination in the Internal Revenue Service cited by an inspector general's report, the agency's outgoing commissioner said Friday.
The testimony by Steven Miller, who was forced to announce his resignation this week as acting IRS commissioner, came at the first congressional hearing on the matter that has put President Barack Obama's administration on the defensive. - More
Pope Francis has hit out at unbridled capitalism and the "cult of money", calling for ethical reform of the financial system to create a more humane society.
In an impassioned appeal, the Argentinian pontiff said politicians needed to be bold in tackling the root causes of the economic crisis, which he said lay in an acceptance of money's "power over ourselves and our society". - More
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has urged Japanese introspection of its own history to gain trust from neighboring countries and the international community following remarks by a Japanese politician that World War II "comfort women" were "necessary."
Ministry spokesman Hong Lei made the remarks at a daily press briefing on Thursday in response to a journalist's question about the controversy. On Monday, Toru Hashimoto, mayor of Osaka - More
Richard "Dick" Trickle -- who parlayed a legendary reputation as a short-track driver into a full-time career on stock car racing's biggest stages in the 1990s -- died Thursday of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, a North Carolina sheriff's office said.
He was 71. A Lincoln County dispatcher received a call -- believed to have been placed by Trickle -- that "there would be a dead body and it would be his," that county's sheriff's office said in a news release. - More
President Obama on Thursday appointed senior budget adviser Daniel Werfel as the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, as that agency manages a scandal stemming from its targeting of conservative groups.
The appointment is effective May 22. More changes in the IRS leadership team were announced Thursday as well, with Joseph Grant, Commissioner of Tax Exempt/Government Entities Division... - More
Beset by scandal and mired in criticism, President Obama now searches for a solution to salvage his ambitious second-term agenda and presidential legacy.
In what could be considered a silver lining, however, the 44th president has more than a few predecessors to look to for guidance. Veteran political strategist James Carville, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton, was oftentimes unmerciful and candid when lambasting critics over the 42nd president’s legacy. - More
North Texas residents began to take in the devastation on Thursday wreaked by a series of tornadoes that killed six and injured dozens more in what Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds described as a “nightmare” scenario.
Seven of 14 people who had previously been unaccounted for had checked in by Thursday morning, Deeds said at a press conference on Thursday. About 100 people were reported injured... - More
Boston Marathon bombing victims were collateral damage in a strike meant as payback for U.S. wars in Muslim lands, the surviving suspect wrote in a message scribbled on the boat where he was found hiding, a law enforcement source told CNN Thursday.
In the message, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev also proclaimed that an attack on one Muslim is an attack on all and said he would not miss older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev... - More
A judge warned Osama bin Laden's son-in-law Wednesday that a lawyer he hired to represent him on charges he conspired to kill Americans could end up in prison himself.
U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan told Sulaiman Abu Ghaith that he could cause himself problems by choosing attorney Stanley Cohen to defend him against charges that he conspired against Americans in his role as al-Qaida's chief spokesman. - More
President Barack Obama vowed Wednesday to hold accountable those at the Internal Revenue Service involved in the targeting of conservative groups applying for federal tax-exempt status, beginning with the resignation of the agency's acting commissioner who was aware of the practice.
In a brief statement delivered to reporters at the East Room of the White House, the president announced that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew had requested -- and accepted -- the resignation of acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller. - More
The White House released more than 100 pages of e-mails on Wednesday in a bid to quell critics who say President Barack Obama and his aides played politics with national security following the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.
The exchanges detailing discussions between top Obama administration officials from multiple agencies suggest the CIA took the lead in developing talking points to describe the attack last September 11 that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. - More
It’s been 17 years since Dolly the sheep was cloned from a mammary cell.
And now scientists applied the same technique to make the first embryonic stem cell lines from human skin cells. Ever since Ian Wilmut, an unassuming embryologist working at the Roslin Institute just outside of... - More
Back for a second day of his hearing in Las Vegas, former football great O.J. Simpson entered the courtroom shackled on Tuesday, hoping to prove to a judge that his former lawyer botched the 2008 case that landed him in prison.
The Heisman Trophy winner and one-time Hollywood actor, now graying and stocky at 65 years old, is expected to be in court through Friday for the hearing. - More
Ariel Castro's ex-daughter-in-law never felt comfortable around the man who police say kept three young women trapped in a Cleveland home for a decade.
Monica Stephens -- who was once married to Castro's son, Anthony -- said she never developed a close relationship with Castro, primarily because of the stories her ex-husband and ex-mother-in-law had shared with her about him. - More
Russia's FSB counterintelligence agency said Tuesday it had briefly detained a suspected member of the CIA who was trying to recruit a staff member of one of the Russian special services.
The man has been handed over to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, following formal protocol, the FSB said. A photograph of the man's ID card released by the FSB identifies him as Ryan Fogle, third secretary of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. - More
Long lost sisters Jordan Dickerson and Robin Jeter had lived in the same city for 17 years, but they never crossed paths until their high schools faced off at a Washington DC track meet.
The two teens began to suspect they had more than sports in common when Dickerson' teammates at Woodrow Wilson High School noticed that a rival runner from Friendship Collegiate Academy bore a striking resemblance to their friend. - More
An investigation into who leaked information to the AP in May 2012 about a CIA operative who helped prevent an al Qaeda plot has resulted in what the AP calls a “massive unprecedented intrusion” by the Justice Department. NBC’s Tom Costello reports.
In a letter to attorney general holder today the president and CEO of the AP writes there can be no possible justification for such an overboard collection of the telephone communicationses of the AP and its reporters.
"Obtaining a broad range of telephone records in order to ferret out a government leaker is an unacceptable abuse of power," Ben Wizner, the head of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said in a written statement.
"Freedom of the press is a pillar of our democracy, and that freedom often depends on confidential communications between reporters and their sources." - More
The Justice Department secretly collected two months of telephone records for reporters and editors at The Associated Press, the news service disclosed Monday in an outraged letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.
The records included calls from several AP bureaus and the personal phone lines of several staffers, AP President Gary Pruitt wrote. - More
Dr. Joyce Brothers -- once considered the most famous psychologist on the planet -- has died in NYC at the age of 85.
Brothers became famous after winning "The $64,000 Question" game show in 1955 -- the show that triggered the game show scandal in the '50s.
Brothers won by answering a series of questions on the subject of boxing -- and although there was a lot of talk that producers slipped her the answers, it was never proven and Brothers emerged unscathed. - More
For 17 years,two sisters lived in the same city, played the same sportsbut never crossed paths. Jordan Dickerson, a junior at Woodrow Wilson High School here, knew that she had been adopted shortly after her birth.
Robin Jeter, a senior at Friendship Collegiate Academy public charter school, bounced around from her biological mother to foster care to a legal guardian. - More
President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron opened wide-ranging talks at the White House Monday on Syria and trade, though brewing domestic controversies were competing for the White House's attention.
Cameron arrived at the White House Monday morning for an Oval Office meeting with Obama. The two leaders were then to hold a joint news conference in the East Room. - More
The Philippines goes to the polls on Monday to choose thousands of local leaders plus national legislators in what is seen as a referendum on the presidency of reformist Benigno Aquino.
Police and the military have been placed on heightened alert for expected poll-related violence that has already claimed about 60 lives since campaigning began in February. - More
Muguerza Raul Gutierrez, president of the Institute for Industrial Development and Economic Growth (IDIC), urged the federal government in Mexico lay new foundations for a third-generation industrial policy, in the context of a strong globalization.
In the Consultation Forum: "Mexico Prospero" in the context of the last tables intersecretarial for preparing the National Development Plan (NDP) 2013-2018, Gutierrez Muguerza handed the president, Enrique Peña Nieto, the proposal industrial policy. - More
When Ariel Castro was arrested last week on charges of kidnapping and raping three women for more than a decade in his Cleveland home, police also detained his two brothers, showing their mugshots to the world.
Police released Pedro and Onil Castro a few days later, saying neither man had anything to do with the alleged abductions and torture of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight. - More
Year after year, the clock ticked by and the calendar marched forward, carrying the three women further from the real world and pulling them deeper into an isolated nightmare.
Now, for the women freed from captivity inside a Cleveland house, the ordeal is not over. Next comes recovery - from sexual abuse and their sudden, jarring re-entry into a world much different from the one they were snatched from a decade ago. - More
Republican members of Congress raised no objections when they first saw internal emails detailing the evolution of the administration’s talking points on Benghazi almost two months ago, senior administration officials said in response to a question from Salon today, and House Speaker John Boehner declined to attend or send a representative to that briefing.
Lawyers with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence briefed House and Senate Intelligence Committee members in March about the emails, which ABC News released today to much hullabaloo, after officials said they would make them available to members of Congress in February. - More
By Friday evening, the agency seemed to have none at all. A steady stream of criticism directed at the IRS in recent weeks exploded with the disclosure that the agency targeted about 75 conservative groups for extra review because they included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their tax documents. - More
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's handling of the terrorist attack in Benghazi should "preclude her from holding higher office," according to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
Paul told a crowd of supporters in Iowa on Friday that any presidential ambitions Clinton might have in 2016 should be stymied by the administration's response to the Libya attack. - More
NBC News is on the verge of naming Deborah Turness, the head of ITV News in Britain, as its next president, according to several people with knowledge of the appointment.
Ms. Turness, if appointed, would be the first woman to become president of a network television news division in the United States, succeeding Steve Capus who stepped down from the position in February after nearly eight years.
A spokeswoman for NBC News, a unit of Comcast’s NBCUniversal, declined to comment. ... - More
Gina DeJesus' family is planning to 'adopt' Michelle Knight and look after her as their daughter after Michelle rejected a meeting with her own mother, a friend of Felix and Nancy DeJesus has revealed to MailOnline.
Lupe Collins, a neighbor who helped the DeJesus family look for Gina since she disappeared in 2004, said Nancy DeJesus told her in a phone call on Thursday that she and her husband are trying to convince Michelle, now 32, to stay with them. - More
Responding to a flurry of complaints from conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, the Internal Revenue Service admitted Friday it made "mistakes" in the last few years while trying to process those requests.
Multiple tea party groups reported significant delays and excessive questioning from IRS officials while trying to obtain 501(c)(4) status. - More
While the groups and conservative members of Congress cried foul, the agency strongly contests the notion that groups were targeted out of political bias.
Nearly a decade before being charged with kidnapping, raping and torturing three Cleveland women, Ariel Castro was himself the accuser in a sexual assault case involving his daughters.
The accusations, which resulted in the conviction of his ex-wife’s second husband, now offer a new window into Castro’s tangled family relationships.
The case against Fernando Colon also raises questions about whether FBI agents squandered an opportunity to question Castro about the disappearance of two of the women in the months after their abductions. - More
Two of the three women rescued from a Cleveland home where they'd been held for about a decade or more returned home Wednesday while police readied charges against the men accused of keeping them captive.
Well-wishers from the neighborhood cheered as a gray van carrying Amanda Berry and the 6-year-old daughter she gave birth to during her captivity pulled up. - More
Seventeen Air Force officers with control over nuclear missiles have had that authority suspended after receiving poor reviews on their mastery of launch operations, The Associated Press reports in an exclusive.
The suspensions at the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota... - More
According to the Associated Press on Wednesday, Air Force yanked 17 officers of their authority to control and launch nuclear missiles after a "remarkably dim" review of their unit's launch skills.
An Intercontinental ballistic missile control team at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., demonstrated a poor understanding of missile firing procedures during a March audit, prompting the Air Force to pull 17 personnel from their assignments. - More
In addition to the challenges of Syria and North Korea, President Obama on Tuesday also condemned a reported rise of sexual assaults within the military.
"Let's start with the principle that sexual assault is an outrage," Obama said at a brief White House news conference.
Unlike the brilliant thieves in "Ocean's Eleven," it appears that those behind the clockwork-precision, $50 million diamond heist at Brussels Airport may not get a Hollywood ending.
After three months of virtual silence on the matter, authorities struck this week, detaining at least 31 people in a three-nation sweep and recovering so many diamonds from the loot Antwerp traders lost that they are still figuring out the exact value. - More
Ropes and chains have been found inside the Cleveland home where police say three women spent close to a decade in captivity, city officials said Wednesday.
While Public Safety Director Martin Flask said investigators haven't confirmed how the ropes and chains were used, police Chief Michael McGrath told NBC's "Today" that they were used to restrain the missing women. - More
Charles Ramsey was eating some dinner Monday night at his home on Cleveland's West Side when he heard screaming.
Soon, he was knocking down a neighbor's door, freeing three women and a girl who police say were held hostage for years.
Within hours the unassuming man, who works as a dishwasher at a local restaurant, was a national hero, a viral video star and the top topic on Twitter. - More
Long-missing Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight have been found alive.
Berry called police Monday afternoon and frantically told a dispatcher that she was alive and free after being kidnapped 10 years ago and held captive in a house on Seymour Avenue on the city's West Side.
DeJesus was with her.
A third woman, Michelle Knight, who has been missing since 2002, was also found at the house. - More
A magistrate judge on Monday agreed to release a friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from federal custody while he awaits trial for allegedly lying to federal investigators probing the bombings.
Robel Phillipos, 19, was charged last week with lying to investigators about visiting Tsarnaev's college dorm room after the bombings. - More
Drones could soon be entering the airspace above you — and privacy-minded state lawmakers, banding together in an unusual left-right political alliance, are in a dogfight with law enforcement groups across the country as they move to put protections in place for those on the ground. - More
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the high court's only African American jurist, opened up recently about his thoughts on race and the White House.
Asked if he ever expected to see an African American president in his lifetime, the conservative justice said he always knew "it would have to be a black president who was approved by the elites and the media, because anybody that they didn't agree with, they would take apart." - More
The airstrike that Israeli warplanes carried out in Syria overnight on Thursday was directed at a shipment of advanced surface-to-surface missiles from Iran that Israel believed was intended for Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese organization, American officials said Saturday.
It was the second time in four months that Israel has carried out an attack in Syria intended to disrupt the pipeline of weapons that runs from there to Hezbollah. More
Former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin tells the NRA's annual convention in Texas that recent mass shootings have prompted US leaders to exploit tragedy in order to limit the freedoms of law-abiding people.
Palin made the comments at the National Rifle Association's convention in Houston on Friday afternoon. - More
Israeli forces have carried out an airstrike against a shipment of sophisticated missiles bound for the Lebanese political and military organization Hezbollah, officials in Washington and Israel told reporters Saturday.
Israeli officials described the missiles targeted in the Friday strike as “game-changing” weapons, according to the Associated Press.
They said they were not chemical weapons, but advanced, long-range, ground-to-ground missiles. - More
Israel aircraft bombed a target in Syria overnight Thursday, an Obama administration official said Friday night, as United States officials said they were considering military options, including carrying out their own airstrikes.
American officials did not provide details on the target of the Israeli strike. But in late January, Israel carried out airstrikes against SA-17 antiaircraft weapons, which the Israelis feared were about to be moved to the Hezbollah Shiite militia in Lebanon. - More
The Telegraph
7:58AM BST 04 May 2013
American officials confirmed the bombing to the Associated Press hours after reports of a bombing first surfaced.
However there was confusion over what had been attacked, with an American official suggesting the strike had actually hit a warehouse. The move will raise tensions in the Middle East and comes amid mounting pressure over the alleged use of chemical weapons by president Bashar Assad's regime. - More
Katherine Russell, the widow of Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, has stopped co-operating with authorities as it emerged female DNA found on one of the detonated bombs does not belong to her.
Tsarnaev, who was later killed in a gunfight with authorities, called his wife in the hours after the FBI released surveillance images of him and his younger brother, Dzhokhar.
But only Russell knows what was said in the conversation, as she has stopped cooperating with authorities over recent days, the New York Times reported. - More
Nigeria today joined the list of countries where journalists are routinely murdered and assaulted without any convictions for their attackers.
Amid Islamic militant activity in the North and politically inspired violence across the country, at least five journalists have been murdered due to their work since 2009.
None of the cases have been solved. Many more have been attacked. - More
You are about to hear, for the first time, from a man who got caught up in the terror in Boston two weeks ago and helped bring it to an end.
An immigrant from China, he was carjacked by the suspects, but escaped and tipped off the police.
This 26-year-old Chinese entrepreneur, who calls himself "Danny," had just pulled over in his new Mercedes on a Boston street to send a text message when a man jumped in. - More
Just hours before one of the Boston Marathon suspects and his brother allegedly gunned down a campus police officer, authorities say he exchanged a series of text messages with a friend who'd become suspicious after seeing what looked like a familiar face being flashed on television.
Dias Kadyrbayev, a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, texted his college buddy Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, saying he looked like one of the bombing suspects. - More
A laptop, some empty fireworks and a jar of Vaseline landed three friends of Boston Marathon bomb suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in jail Wednesday, charged with trying to throw investigators off their buddy's trail.
Those are the items federal prosecutors say Azamat Tazhayakov, Dias Kadyrbayev and Robel Phillipos took from Tsarnaev's dorm room at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth in the hours after the FBI released photos of Tsarnaev and his brother Tamerlan, the suspects in the marathon bombings. - More
President Barack Obama is warning his liberal base to not disrupt the strategy of Senate leaders who are expecting to win up to 70 votes for the immigration bill.
Critics argue the bill in its current framework makes the pathway to citizenship harder and excludes illegal immigrants.
President Obama has attempted to reassure groups at the White House that the current measure with a larger margin in the Senate would put pressure on the House leadership to accept the legislation.
Political consensus was evidently in short supply on Tuesday when a fight broke out in Venezuela’s parliament.
Punches were thrown when opposition members were denied the right to speak in the National Assembly until they recognised President Maduro’s recent election victory.
Seven opposition members were injured in the affray.One of them, Julio Borges said: “We will continue fighting millimetre by millimetre, advancing, and giving the Venezuela of the future an opportunity.
Precisely for this reason the government has turned to violence because we …are going to triumph.” - More
In a renewed push to close the US military prision in Guantanamo Bay President Obama called on Congress to reflect on "why exactly we are doing this," he said.
Republicans have strongly pushed to keep the facility open and that the detainees are too dangerous to hold in the US and a military tribunal is the proper proceedings for suspected terrorists. Obama's words: "I continue to believe we have to close Guantanamo.
I think it is critical for us to understand that Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe.
"It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruiting tool for extremists.
"It needs to be closed," he said. "I don't want these individuals to die.
"Obviously, the Pentagon is trying to manage the situation as best as they can, but I think all of us should reflect on why exactly are we doing this," he said.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is currently awaiting his fate and recovering from an action packed night with local, state and federal police agencies.
In the final analysis, many lives were suddenly altered permanently on that fateful day.
Spectators awaiting their family members at the finish line experienced the most horrific of nightmares that no one could have possibly imagined.
Surgeons describing patients coming in to the emergency room like soldiers from a merciless battlefield.
We're baffled with media analysts describing the size of the Dzhokhar cell and whether or not he'll face the death penalty.
Can they put another friend of Dzhokhar's in front of the camera to state how intelligent, thoughtful and articulate he was?
If Dzhokhar is convicted of the charges against him and he doesn't get the death penalty he could possibly be housed next to a nonviolent drug offender also serving life in prison; a very stark and twisted reality of our justice system.
Dzhokhar Tasarnaev is locked inside a 10-by-10-foot cell with no window.
A slot for food is the only window outside of his cell. Medical staff makes rounds to check on the bomb suspect periodically.
Tasarnaev gun wounds have healed significantly since he was first admitted to Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and transferred to the prison medical facility.
Tasarnaev new accommodations are a far cry from his significantly more spacious dorm room and apartment.
The mother of the two accused bomber suspects, Zubeidat Tasarnaev, is still asserting her son's innocence as reports have indicated that she had conversations with her elder son Tamerlan about Jihad.
Israeli Army Radio reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered his ministers to stay silent on the Syria question, but on Sunday Amir Peretz became the first Cabinent member to attack President Obama in public.
"We expect that whoever defines red lines will also do what is needed," Mr Peretz, the Environment Minister, said.
"First and foremost, the US and of course the entire international community." Deputy Foreign Minister Ze'ev Elkin also urged the international community "to take control of the Syrian chemical weapons arsenal".
"American hesitancy on the Syrian issue over the last few days is causing a great deal of worry in Israel," Israeli army radio said on Sunday.
"If Barack Obama does not respect the red lines that he himself set out, and does not intervene when Bashar al-Assad uses chemical weapons against civilians, it is showing weaknesses that will cost it dearly later in Syria, but also in the Iranian nuclear question."
The Iraq government revoked the operating license of Al Jazeera and nine other television channels. Iraqi authorities claim the stations are inciting sectarian conflict.
Riad Barazanji, the General Manager of Baghdad TV, reportedly instructed station workers, “This is a good chance for you to go home and see your wives and children after so much time covering the uprisings.”
The media commission released a statement alledging the television channels were broadcasting “misinformation, hype and exaggeration.” - More
Enrico Letta, a center-left leader will be sworn in as premier along with a new Cabinet at the presidential Quirinal Palace on Sunday Letta hails as a moderate with a reputation of working with dissenting factions.
Gianni Letta, his nephew, was also Berlusconi's longtime adviser. Berlusconi's top political aide, Angelino Alfano will serve as premier and interior minister.
The Wasington DC based site, LivingSocial was hacked and reports up to 50 million users' information was hacked.
A hacker has received access to emails, birthdates, and ecrypted passwords of users mainly in the United States. Compan divisions in the Philipines, South Korea, Indonesia and Thailand were unaffected since they're on different servers.
LivingSocial CEO Tim O'Shaughnessy wrote,
"We recently experienced a cyberattack on our computer systems that resulted in unauthorized access to some customer data from our servers.
We are actively working with law enforcement to investigate this issue."
A district attorney statement says Judge Lisa Lench ordered 43-year-old Patrick Harran to e tried on 3 felony counts of violating workplace safety standards.
Sheharbano "Sheri" Sangji was in Harran's organic chemistry lab where she was working with highly flammable material. that spilled and caught fire.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is at the Devens Federal Medical Center.
The location was likely chosen because of his medical needs.
This is Tsarnaev’s new home for the time being.
The younger Boston Marathon Bombing suspect was moved overnight from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where he was beating treated for the last week. - More
George Jones, whose supple Texas voice conveyed heartbreak so profound that he became perhaps the most imitated singer in country music, died Friday at Vanderbilt University Medical Center after being hospitalized April 18 with irregular blood pressure.
He was 81. Hank Williams may have set country music's mythology and Johnny Cash its attitude, but Jones gave the genre its ultimate voice. - More
At a time when everyone wants to talk about what Heather Abbott has lost, the 38-year-old Boston Marathon bombing victim is so upbeat she seems to surprise herself.
A doctor performed a below-the-knee amputation on her left leg Monday, but the Newport, R.I., woman said Thursday she’s been able to stay positive so far. - More
‘‘I really haven’t had a moment yet of being devastated,’’ she said.
Instead, Abbott said a wave of support from family, friends and others buoyed her as she made a decision that has changed her life.
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva was added to the Terrorist Identities datamart Environment (TIDE) database - a collection of more than half a million names kept by the National Counterterrorism Center, CNN reports.
Her son, Tamerlan Tsarnaev who was killed in a gun battle with police, was also on the terrorist list.
Russia raised concerns to US authorities about the mother in 2011 - at the same time they asked the US about Tamerlan, several sources told CNN. - More
The Kansas City Chiefs have decided on the left tackle they'll be taking with the No. 1 overall pick—it's just not the man most expected heading into NFL draft week.
According to Charean Williams of Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Chiefs will be taking Central Michigan's Eric Fisher when the draft gets underway at Radio City Music Hall - More
Andy Reid sat relaxed in his Hawaian shirt. The Chief's Coach will have the first round draft pick in the 2013 Draft. Coming from the Philadelphia Eagles, with limited success over the last several years, the secret might be to relax with the Chief's gig. More
US Intelligence has found a small scale use of chemical weapons on the part of the Syrian government.
The administration laid out its position in a letter to congress, saying it had "varying amounts of confidence" in its determination.
In a letter addressed to Senators Carl Levin and John McCain the administration stated, "Our intelligence community does assess with varying degrees of confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically the chemical agent sarin." - More
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Thursday the U.S. intelligence community believes the Syrian regime used the chemical weapon sarin, a revelation that immediately raised
the question of whether a "red line" had been crossed in the country's civil war.
Hagel confirmed the intelligence assessment, which was detailed in a letter to select members of Congress, while speaking to reporters on a visit to Abu Dhabi. - More
Israel shot down an unmanned Hezbollah aircraft that was approaching its Mediterranean coast, the second drone launched by the militant Lebanese group in less than a year.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that he views the attempt to breach Israel’s borders “with the utmost gravity” and “will do whatever it takes” to insure the nation’s safety. - More
The Rhode Island medical examiner’s office says a body found in Providence is that of a Brown University student missing since last month.
Health Department spokeswoman Dara Chadwick says the body of 22-year-old Sunil Tripathi was identified Thursday morning through a forensic dental exam.
The cause of death has not been determined. - More
The CIA pushed to have the suspected mastermind of the marathon bombings on a terror watch list 18 months before the deadly blasts rocked Boylston Street, according to multiple reports yesterday that raised serious questions about how closely Tamerlan Tsarnaev was probed before the attack.
The request by the CIA came six months after Russian officials had asked the FBI to look into the 26-year-old, but agents said they found nothing to suggest he had terrorism ties. The Associated Press reported that the two agencies received nearly identical information, which came to the CIA in September 2011. - More
The CIA pushed to have one of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers placed on a U.S. counterterrorism watch list more than a year before the attacks, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
Russian authorities contacted the CIA in the fall of 2011 and raised concerns that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed last week in a confrontation with police, was seen as an increasingly radical Islamist who could be planning to travel overseas. - More
Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev sent text messages to his mother as early as 2011 suggesting he was willing to die for Islam, the FBI told lawmakers this week according to two officials with knowledge of the Capitol Hill briefing.
Tsarnaev, who was killed days after the April 15 bombing in a shootout with police, is said to have embraced radical Islam in recent years and recruited his younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, to carry out the attack that killed three and wounded more than 180 near the finish line of the world's most prestigious road race. - More
President Obama has left little mystery about how he views his predecessor.
“The failed policies of George W. Bush” wiped away a budget surplus and “squandered the legacy” of bipartisan foreign policy. Mr. Bush put two wars “on a credit card,” led the country away “from our values” and “crashed the economy.” - More
Steve Benen of the Rachel Maddow Blog couldnt let the 'confluence of events' that has inspired several GOP pundits and writers attempt to 'improve Bush's Reputation' go unnoticed.
He brings up something that probably will not be on display at The Bush 43 Museum:
"Bush received an intelligence briefing on Aug. 6, 2001, at which he was handed a memo with an important headline: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.
He goes on to write, Bush, however, was on a month-long vacation at the time. He heard the briefer out and replied, 'All right. You've covered your ass, now.' A month later, al Qaeda killed 3,000 people."
Benen alleges GW Bush's responsibility for the greatest attack on Americans since Pearl Harbor. - More
In what appeared to be a new phase in an intensifying conflict that has raised fears of greater bloodshed and a wider sectarian war, Iraqi soldiers opened fire from helicopters on Sunni gunmen hiding in a northern village on Wednesday, officials said.
The air attacks were among clashes throughout the country between forces of the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government and Sunni gunmen that left at least 27 people dead and dozens wounded. - More
Vice President Joe Biden has told the parents of slain Massachusetts Institute of Technology police Officer Sean Collier that he hopes they find some solace in their extreme grief through a large memorial service in their son's honor.
Biden told thousands of students, faculty and staff, law enforcement officials from across the nation who had gathered Wednesday to pay respects at Briggs Field on campus that no child should predecease their parents. - More
The older of the two Boston bombing suspects bought two mortar kits from a New Hampshire fireworks store in February, although the amount of gunpowder the kits would have supplied wouldn’t have been enough on its own to detonate the bombs, company officials said Tuesday.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev bought two “Lock and Load” reloadable mortar kits containing 24 shells each on the evening of Feb. 6, said April Walton, the manager of Phantom Fireworks in Seabrook. - More
Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev walked into a New Hampshire fireworks store two months before his deadly attack and asked for the “biggest and loudest” kit in the store — then got another set free, the Daily News has learned.
In a chilling twist, the company that sold Tamerlan the fireworks is the same company that sold Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad the firecrackers he used to build his failed car bomb. - More
Israel’s senior military intelligence analyst said Tuesday there was evidence the Syrian government had repeatedly used chemical weapons in the last month, and he criticized the international community for failing to respond, intensifying pressure on the Obama administration to intervene.
“The regime has increasingly used chemical weapons,” said Brig. Gen. Itai Brun... - More
Lawmakers of both parties questioned Sunday whether law-enforcement officials did enough to monitor the activities of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev before last week's terrorist attack, given his apparent extremist beliefs.
Speaking on talk shows, Democrats and Republicans raised doubts about the Federal Bureau of Investigation's handling of the case, especially given that Mr. Tsarnaev traveled to Russia in 2012 for six months. - More
The FBI has flatly rejected an assertion by the mother of the two suspected Boston bombers that the bureau had been tracking her oldest son and had spoken with him last week after the deadly marathon bombing.
The chief spokesman for the FBI, Mike Kortan, said he continues to stand by an FBI statement issued Friday that said that the only communication the FBI ever had with Tamerlan Tsarnaev was an interview agents conducted with him in 2011... - More
The surviving suspect in last week's Boston Marathon bombings began responding to investigators' questions Sunday evening, marking a dramatic turn for law enforcement officials trying to piece together why two brothers born near war-torn Chechnya allegedly carried out an attack on their adopted country.
Investigators had been unable to question Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was badly wounded and unable to talk since he was captured Friday night. - More
Rescuers struggled to reach a remote corner of southwestern China on Sunday as the toll of the dead and missing from the country's worst earthquake in three years climbed to 203 with more than 11,000 injured.
The 6.6 magnitude quake struck in Lushan county, near the city of Ya'an in the southwestern province of Sichuan, close to where a devastating 7.9 temblor hit in May 2008 killing some 70,000. - More
It will be weeks, at least, before Celeste Corcoran is anywhere near ready to think about artificial limbs.
The 47-year-old Lowell, Mass., hairdresser lost both her legs below the knee in Monday’s deadly bomb blasts in Boston, which also severely injured her 17-year-old daughter, Sydney.
But when Celeste and the 16 others who reportedly lost limbs in the attack are ready, experts say they will find that the options for returning to full and active lives have never been better.
“Without question,” said Dr. Paul Tornetta, a Boston Medical Center orthopedic trauma surgeon... - More
The suspect in Boston's marathon bombing lies in hospital in what the Governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick describes as a "stable, but serious condition".
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was shot in the throat and has not yet been able to speak, according to a source close to the investigation Meanwhile, calm has been restored to the streets of Watertown - the Boston suburb where Tsarnaev, 19, was captured on Friday night. - More
I'm he was not about either he was a very nice guy -- -- that kind of talk about what any other high -- talk about he never mentioned any sort of religion any sort of politics.
He was just a very you know normally easygoing funny kind of guy just. It seems like something must have happened after after we knew him because this just seems like an absolute. 180.
Switch and a personality it's it's actually shocking.
You know I wish I could say that there were some sort of warning sign and we knew our son wade you know had -- seen -- but they're absolutely -- so it's it's very hard. -- talk a little bit about his behavior in high school for those who are joining us now.
And talk a little bit about he was a team player he was on -- sports yet you say he was an honor classes give us a sense of what he was like and who was involved within. And who his friends work. - More
Tamerlan Tsarnaev the 26-year-old Boston Marathon bomber who was killed in a shoot out with police, had an American wife and daughter.
Now RadarOnline.com is taking a look at Katherine Russell, the 24-year-old who was raised a Christian, and converted to Islam after marrying Tsarnaev when she was a student. - More
On the heels of Friday evening's dramatic capture of the second suspect wanted in connection with Monday's bombings at the Boston Marathon, Piers Morgan spoke on the phone with Robert Duffy, who supplied vidid detail as to the way in which 19-year-old Dzhokar Tsarnaev was discovered, and how authorities were ultimately alerted.
Duffy's mother and stepfather live in Watertown, Mass., - More
The bombers' mom has spoken for the first time to media outlets.
"Impossible for both of them to do that... its set up.
He would never hide it from me.
My youngest son was raised in America and my old son never told me he was on the side of jihad." Zubeidat K. Tsarnaeva has been named as the mother of Boston Marathon Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev. - More
In an interview with Russia Today Friday, Tsarnaeva said that Tamerlan Tsarnaev got involved in "religious politics" five years ago, and that the FBI had previously contacted her about her son's activities.
"He was controlled by the FBI, like for three, five years," she said.
"They knew what my son was doing, they knew what actions and what sites on the Internet he was going [to], they used to come...and talk to me...they were telling me that he was really a serious leader and they were afraid of him."
"How could this happen?...They were controlling every step of him, and they are telling today that this is a terrorist attack," she added...
The Massachusetts college student wanted in the Boston Marathon bombing was captured wounded, but alive after hiding out in a boat parked in a backyard on Friday evening.
Boston police confirmed that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been apprehended, taking to social media to announce, 'Suspect in custody. Officers sweeping the area.
President Barack Obama said at the conclusion of the Boston Marathon bombing manhunt on Friday night that "we've closed an important chapter in this tragedy," adding that those who carried out the "vicious attack" failed because Americans "refuse to be terrorized." - More
One of the men believed to be responsible for placing the bombs that struck the Boston Marathon on Monday, killing 3 and injuring more than 170, has been taken into custody after a standoff lasting nearly two hours in Watertown.
Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, of Cambridge was apprehended shortly before 8:45 p.m.
“They got him. He’s in custody,” a state trooper told the media gathered in the neighborhood.
The father of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing described his fugitive son as a smart and accomplished "angel" in an anguished interview in which he claimed they were set up.
Anzor Tsarnaev spoke with The Associated Press by telephone in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan after police said one of his sons, 26-year-old Tamerlan, had been killed in a shootout and the other, Dzhokhar, was being intensely pursued.
One became an American citizen last year on Sept. 11. The other was a boxer who once said: “I like the USA.”
The two known suspects in the attack on the Boston Marathon — one killed, one on the loose — are brothers with a background in the separatist Russian republic of Chechnya, law enforcement officials told NBC News. - More
One of two suspects in the shooting of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer has died and a massive manhunt is underway for another, who is believed to be tied to the Boston Marathon bombing.
Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said early Friday on Twitter that one of the two suspects in that officer's shooting was killed. - More
Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney praised President Barack Obama's remarks on Thursday at an interfaith service remembering victims of the Boston Marathon bombing.
In an interview on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer," Romney also stressed the importance of learning from such terror attacks and opened up about how his faith plays a role in times of crisis. - More
Just a few minutes ago, the FBI released images of two suspects for Monday's Boston Marathon bombing.
It hopes the community will be able to help identify the two men, who were both wearing baseball caps.
The Reddit community has already gotten to work identifying the suspects. They've identified what looks to be the black cap the first suspect is wearing.
It looks like a black, Bridgestone Golf hat. - More
The FBI has identified two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, releasing photos and video showing them and asking the public to help locate them.
The suspects, both of whom wore a backwards white ballcap and the other who wore a dark cap,were captured on footage near where one of two explosions killed three and injured 176.
"Through the last day or so, we developed a single person of interest," said FBI Special Agent Rick Deslauriers.
"Indeed though that process we have identified a second suspect. We believe they are associated." More
"Every one of us stands with you," the president said at an interfaith service inside the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. "Boston may be your hometown -- but we claim it, too. ... For millions of us what happened on Monday is personal."
"Your resolve is the greatest rebuke to whoever committed this heinous act," the president told those at the service. "If they sought to intimidate us, to terrorize us, to shake us from those values that (Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick) described, the values that make us who we are as Americans, well, it should be pretty clear by now that they picked the wrong city to do it." - More
Police say between five to fifteen people were killed and over 160 were injured in a massive explosion at a fertilizer plant near Waco, Texas on Wednesday night.
The explosion at West Fertilizer in downtown West, a community about 20 miles north of Waco, happened around 7 p.m. and could be heard as far away as Waxahachie, 45 miles to the north. - More
North Korea on Thursday demanded the lifting of United Nations sanctions and an end to joint American-South Korean military exercises as preconditions for starting dialogue to defuse tension on the Korean Peninsula.
By making demands that both Washington and Seoul had no intention of accepting, North Korea signaled that it would not stand down anytime soon from a weeks-long military standoff. - More
President Obama plans to visit Boston on Thursday to attend an interfaith service in honor of the three people killed and 170 injured when twin bombs ripped through the crowd Monday at the Boston Marathon.
The president is scheduled to speak at the "Healing Our City" service.
He may also meet with some of those injured, as well as the first responders who rushed toward the blast to help the scores of runners and spectators. - More
A massive explosion at a fertilizer plant in the small Texas town of West left at least two people dead, sent dozens more seeking medical attention and prompted a widescale evacuation in the community of 2,600 people.
Fire officials fear that the number of casualties could rise much higher. - More
Despite an impassioned push by President Barack Obama and an emotional lobbying effort by the families of mass shooting victims, proponents of a compromise measure to expand gun background checks on Wednesday fell six votes short of passage in the Senate. The vote on the amendment was 54 to 46. Sixty votes were needed for the amendment to be adopted. - More
Boston authorities have identified the prime suspect in the marathon bombing that killed three people and sent terror shockwaves through one of America’s highest-profile sporting events.
CNN reported that investigators spotted the suspect after scouring surveillance footage taken from a department store near the finish line of the tragic race. - More
An intelligence bulletin issued to law enforcement includes a picture of a mangled pressure cooker and a torn black bag that the FBI says were part of a bomb that exploded during the Boston marathon.
The bulletin was obtained by The Associated Press. - More
Experts say the two bombs used near the Boston Marathon finish line were built using pressure cookers, and contained black powder or gunpowder as the explosive and ball bearings as shrapnel.
Experts say instructions on how to design such bombs are available on the Internet. - More
Authorities including bomb experts searched an apartment in Revere, Massachusetts, and removed items, after two deadly bombs struck the Boston Marathon.
But investigators remained mum about just how the search may be linked to the bombing investigation.
A law enforcement official said the search was not a suggestion that police may have a suspect. - More
"This is something I've never seen in my 25 years here ... this amount of carnage in the civilian population," said Dr. Alisdair Conn, chief of emergency services at Massachusetts General Hospital.
"This is what we expect from war".
"The worst ones were traumatic amputations.
To use the vernacular, people coming in by ambulance with their legs blown off," he said. - More
Two people were killed and 23 injured by a pair of bombs that exploded at the Boston Marathon this afternoon.
The blasts occurred shortly before 3 p.m. near the finish line of the annual race, on Boylston Street, which was crowded with runners and spectators, according to police. - More
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Penn., is "confident," he said Sunday on "Face the Nation," that he and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., will be able to muster enough Republican support in the Senate to pass an amendment that would expand background checks for gun purchases.
"We're close," said Toomey said, appearing with Manchin.
"We're discussing with colleagues on both sides. We've got bipartisan support, but there is bipartisan opposition." - More
Easter vacation was over, but there wasn't a teacher in sight at the boarding school for indigenous children on the edge of this sunbaked southern Mexico hill town.
A 37-year-old cook who hadn't finished high school sat between two little girls on a cement stoop outside the kitchen, peering at their dog-eared notebooks as they struggled with the alphabet and basic multiplication. - More
Tiger Woods awoke Saturday morning at 7:30 a.m. to a phone call from his agent, Mark Steinberg, informing him he faced a possible penalty for a drop he took the previous day in the second round of the Masters.
Disqualification from the tournament was also a possibility.
It was anything but a normal day thereafter - get coffee, don't get DQ'd, eat, get to course and play in the Masters. - More
The plane crashed into the water as it came in to land at the airport about 3.50pm local time (5.50pm AEST) today.
Early reports said that all passengers and crew were safe. An Indonesian Transport Ministry official was quoted as saying that there were more than 130 people on the flight. - More
A judge presiding over the retrial of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on charges related to the 2011 deaths of protesters withdrew from the case as it started Saturday citing “uneasiness.”
Judge Mustafa Hassan said as the new trial started that he was feeling “uneasiness” about hearing the case and would refer the case back to the Appeals Court so it could name a new judge. - More
The International Monetary Fund announced Friday that it is recognizing Somalia's new government after a 22-year break in relations with the once-chaotic country, part of a general push by the United States, United Nations and the West toward encouraging rehabilitation there. - More
Secretary of State John Kerry said a North Korean missile launch would be a “huge mistake" and reiterated that the United States would defend its allies if necessary after arriving in the South Korean capital on Friday.
Kerry also warned Pyongyang that firing a medium-range missile would be a "provocative and unwanted act." - More
President Obama has asked the mother of a six-year-old killed in last December’s massacre in Newtown, Conn., to stand in for him in addressing the nation this weekend.
Francine Wheeler, whose son, Ben, was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, will deliver the president’s weekly address that is aired on television and radio, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters on Friday. - More
A new assessment by the Pentagon’s intelligence arm has concluded for the first time, with “moderate confidence,” that North Korea has learned how to make a nuclear weapon small enough to be delivered by a ballistic missile.
The assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has been distributed to senior administration... - More
Over steaks and greens, President Obama spent 2½ hours Wednesday night with 12 Republican senators talking guns, immigration and deficit reduction.
The dinner at the White House, which was organized by Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson at Obama's request, was Obama's second in as many months in his latest effort to reach across the aisle. - More
The Obama administration believes North Korea has most likely completed launch preparations and could test fire mobile ballistic missiles at any time based on the most recent intelligence, a U.S. official said.
A test launch of one or both of missiles thought to be loaded into mobile launchers could happen without North Korea issuing a standard warning to commercial aviation and maritime shipping, according to the official. - More
Kenya's new president, Uhuru Kenyatta, the wealthy son of the nation's independence hero, brushed off international charges of crimes against humanity to present himself as a statesman with the economic skills to help ordinary citizens.
Backed by voters from Kenya's biggest tribe, the Kikuyu, in a nation where ethnic loyalties trump ideology at the ballot box, the 51-year-old listed as Kenya's richest man took the oath of office on Tuesday. - More
A prototype shipboard laser will be deployed on a converted amphibious transport and docking ship in the Persian Gulf, where Iranian fast-attack boats have harassed American warships and where the government in Tehran is building remotely piloted aircraft carrying surveillance pods and, someday potentially, rockets. - More
A judge in New York says he finds it "stunning" that federal budget woes could delay the start of a terrorism trial for Osama bin Laden's son-in-law.
Judge Lewis Kaplan made the comment Monday as he set deadlines for defense lawyers to submit pre-trial arguments on behalf of Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (SOO'-lay-mahn AH'-boo GAYTH). - More
Margaret Thatcher goaded him continually first from the back benches, and then after 1992 from the Lords, until his own defeat in 1997. She spent her first 10 years out of office touring the world and giving speeches, and raising funds for her Thatcher Foundation, which was designed to spread the gospel of freedom and enterprise. - More
The youngest son of Pastor Rick Warren, a world-famous Orange County evangelical pastor, has committed suicide, according to a statement sent by Warren and his wife to his congregation.
Matthew Warren, 27, the son of the leader of Saddleback Valley Community Church in Lake Forest, died after battling depression for much of his life, the statement said. - More
The Philippines will ask the United States to pay 58 million pesos ($1.4 million) in compensation for damage caused by a U.S. warship to a protected coral reef.
The amount is based on studies by Philippine agencies, including the coast guard, that found the USS Guardian damaged at least 2,345 sq. - More
A Taliban assassination attempt on the governor of Afghanistan's southern Zabul province Saturday failed to kill its target but caused several American and Afghan casualties, Afghan and U.S. officials said.
The U.S.-led military coalition said three service members and two coalition civilians died in the attack. - More
As defense budgets are slashed in dire financial times, governments increasingly rely on alliances and cooperation with their partners. Instead of going solo, militaries pool resources to increase efficiency. - More
Trayvon Martin's parents settled a wrongful-death claim Friday against the homeowners association of the Sanford subdivision where their teenage son was killed.
Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin's attorney, Benjamin Crump, filed the suit against the Retreat at Twin Lakes subdivision. - More
An official in eastern Kasur district made the decision after objections were filed, including charges of violating the constitution and his oath as army chief.
Gen Musharraf has the right to appeal and has also filed nomination papers in three other constituencies. - More
The U.S. and Japan unveiled plans Friday for gradually returning some land on Okinawa now used by the American military, but still intend to relocate a U.S. Marine base elsewhere on the island, an idea fervently opposed by Okinawans.
The island hosts the bulk of U.S. military facilities in Japan, fueling longtime protests among residents who lament worsened noise, pollution and crime. - More
North Korea is moving a medium-range missile to a site in the east of the country, a U.S. intelligence official said Thursday as tensions with the nuclear-armed state continued to escalate. The official declined to say where the Musudan missile was headed, but the North has used a site near the Russian border on the coast for its missile tests in the past. - More
North Korea said on Tuesday that it would put all its nuclear facilities — including its operational uranium-enrichment program and its reactors mothballed or under construction — to use in expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal, sharply raising the stakes in the escalating standoff with the United States and its allies. - More
The White House says that despite bellicose rhetoric from North Korea the Obama administration has not seen changes in the regime's military posture.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said Mondays the U.S. has not detected any military mobilization or repositioning of forces from Pyongyang to back up the threats from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. - More
U.S. officials and independent experts say North Korea appears to have taken unusual steps to conceal details about the nuclear weapon it tested in February, fueling suspicions that its scientists shifted to a bomb design that uses highly enriched uranium as the core.
At least two separate analyses of the Feb. 12 detonation confirmed that the effects of the blast were remarkably well contained, with few radioactive traces escaping into the atmosphere — where they could be detected — according to U.S. officials and weapons experts who have studied the data. - More
Three people were killed and more that 20 injured in a massive series of pile-ups involving 95 cars on Interstate 77 near the Virginia and North Carolina state line Sunday afternoon, according to authorities.
The crashes began around 1 p.m. in the southbound lanes in Carroll County, Virginia, according to Virginia State Police.
Excessive fog in the Fancy Gap Mountain area is being blamed for the massive accident. - More
The killing of a second Kaufman County, Texas, prosecutor in the past two months has prompted authorities in Colorado to renew their investigation into possible links between those murders and the execution-style slaying of Colorado's state prisons chief.
Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were found shot to death in their Forney, Texas, home Saturday, Sheriff David Byrnes said today. - More
President Barack Obama attended Easter services at an Episcopal church near the White House where past presidents frequently have worshipped.
The President, First Lady Michelle Obama and daughters Sasha and Malia took the short walk across Lafayette Park to St. John’s Church Sunday morning. - More
North Korea put its rocket units on standby Friday to attack U.S. military bases in South Korea and the Pacific, after repeated threats one day after two American stealth bombers flew over the Korean Peninsula in a military exercise.
A U.S. official warned that the isolated communist state is “not a paper tiger” and its reaction should not be dismissed as “pure bluster.” - More
North Korea's leader has approved a plan to prepare rockets to be on standby for firing at U.S. targets, including the U.S. mainland and military bases in the Pacific and in South Korea, state media reported.
In a meeting with military leaders early Friday, Kim Jong Un "said he has judged the time has come to settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists in view of the prevailing situation," the state-run KCNA news agency reported. - More
Midway into a second day of tackling the gay marriage issue, conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court said on Wednesday they were troubled by President Barack Obama's decision in 2011 not to defend in court a ban Congress had approved.
The decision by Obama to abandon the legal defense of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) called into question his willingness to defend other laws passed by Congress and challenged in court, several conservative justices said. - More
A group of U.S. senators who will be influential in shaping and negotiating details of an immigration reform package is traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona to get a firsthand look at issues affecting the region.
John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona were expected to tour the border Wednesday with Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Michael Bennet of Colorado. - More
After a 4-1/2 month silence, following his very public fall from grace, retired Gen. David Petraeus has signaled he’s ready to come back to public life.
But are we ready? Chances are, yes.
The storied general, who resigned as director of the CIA on Nov. 9 after revealing an extramarital affair with biographer Paula Broadwell, spoke Tuesday night at a dinner at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles for veterans and ROTC students. - More
There's mounting evidence that over the last two years the Assad regime has used "at least a small quantity" of chemical weapons against rebel forces in Syria's raging civil war, House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said today on "Face the Nation," adding that the time is now for U.S. intervention.
Amid debate over an alleged chemical weapons attack out of Syria last week, President Obama during a visit to Israel doubled down on his claim that such an attack would be considered a "game changer"... - More
The U.S. has made clear to Iraq that it shouldn't allow Iran to use its airspace to ship weapons and fighters to Syria, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters Sunday during an unannounced trip to Baghdad.
Kerry's comments come as U.S. lawmakers are calling for President Barack Obama to do more to stop the bloodshed in Syria, including possible airstrikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad's aircraft fleet. - More
Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, a literary icon whose 1958 novel "Things Fall Apart" captured the world's attention, has died, his publisher said. He was 82. An author of more than 20 books, he was celebrated worldwide for telling African stories to a captivated world audience. - More
No one had come forward by midday Sunday to say they were the buyer of the winning ticket in Ads by Google Saturday night's drawing for the $338.3 million Powerball jackpot, lottery officials said.
The single ticket, matching all six numbers in the drawing, was sold in New Jersey, but nothing was known about the winner of the sixth-largest jackpot in history, the officials said. - More
Boris Berezovsky, a self-exiled and outspoken former Russian oligarch who had a bitter falling out with Russian President Vladimir Putin, was found dead Saturday in southeast England.
He was 67. Thames Valley police said his death was being treated as unexplained.
They would not directly identify him, but when asked about him by name they read a statement saying they were investigating the death of a 67-year-old man at a property in Ascot, a town 40 kilometres west of London. - More
A two-day alert ended on Saturday when police confirmed that a viable explosive was inside the car near the County Fermanagh village of Derrylin 6 kilometres from the Irish border.
No group claimed responsibility.
Police said they believed an Irish Republican Army splinter group was trying to attack a police station in the nearby town of Lisnaskea but abandoned the bomb short of its target. - More
The White House is praising the $3.7 trillion budget Democrats squeezed through the Senate early Saturday.
But spokesman Jay Carney isn't raising too much hope for compromise with the GOP-led House, which previously passed a competing budget that makes deep cuts to social programs.
Carney says in a statement issued Saturday morning that the House budget — quote— "refuses to ask for a single dime of deficit reduction from closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and well-connected." - More
At least 41 other people were killed alongside Sheikh Mohammed al-Buti at the Iman mosque, said the Sana news agency, calling it "a terrorist" blast. State TV broadcast footage of bodies and injured people at the scene.
The Free Syrian Army, the umbrella group for the rebel forces, said it was not responsible for the attack. - More
President Obama urged Israelis to see the world through the eyes of Palestinians and to “create the change” they want, in order to bring about peace in the region.
In a 45-minute address to a hall packed with university students, Obama challenged the crowd to take risks to resolve the conflict with Palestinians.
“It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of her own, and lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements of her parents every single day,” he said. - More
U.S. President Barack Obama is meeting Palestinian officials on the second day of his Mideast tour to emphasize the importance of reaching an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, a message underscored Thursday when Palestinian militants in Gaza launched rockets into southern Israel.
After a visit to Israel's national museum — where he inspected the Dead Sea Scrolls, which highlight the Jewish people's ancient connection to the land that is now Israel — Obama headed to the West Bank to tell the Palestinians that the creation of a Palestinian state remains a priority for his administration. - More
U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed an unusual degree of solidarity Wednesday on a set of shared national security concerns that have divided them in the past, signalling either a turn in their vital, if volatile, relationship or a cool tactical display of diplomatic theatre.
The leaders’ joint appearance concluded a tone-setting first day of Obama’s first presidential trip to Israel, a visit celebrated with military ceremony, children’s serenades and a rare personal chemistry with a hard-line Israeli leader with whom he has often bickered publicly. - More
A French court said in August 2011 that it was investigating Lagarde's role in intervening in a long-running dispute between businessman Bernard Tapie and a French bank, Credit Lyonnais.
Lagarde was accused of giving Tapie preferential treatment because of his support for former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. She has always denied any wrongdoing. - More
A boat travelling from Oron in Akwa Ibom State to Gabon yesterday capsized at the Calabar Waterways with no fewer than 166 passengers feared dead.
Eyewitnesses told cross river watch that the passengers were travelling in a "giant-sized wooden boat" when it capsized 40 nautical miles along the coast of Calabar, off Gabon waterways". - More
The U.S. Senate approved a $984 billion spending bill Wednesday, ensuring the federal government will not shut down next week but also cementing in place $1.2 trillion in unpopular across-the-board spending cuts affecting most reaches of the federal government.
"We didn't want brinkmanship politics, we didn't want ultimatum politics," said Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., who negotiated the bipartisan bill with GOP Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama. - More
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid on Tuesday declared politically dead the effort to ban military-style assault weapons, a setback for President Obama and gun-control advocates who are pushing the Senate to move quickly on bills to limit gun violence.
Reid (D-Nev.) is preparing to move ahead with debate on a series of gun-control proposals when the Senate returns from a two-week Easter recess in early April. - More
The Philippine Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily halted a landmark law that would provide free contraception to poor women.
In a 10-to-5 ruling, the court froze for 120 days when the law could take effect.
It was passed in December after a ferocious national debate that pitted the Roman Catholic Church against the country’s president, Benigno S. Aquino III. - More
The president of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, Francisco confirmed that the Pope considered his visit to Mexico after the invitation extended to him, but did not specify a date in particular, and said they both agree on the principles of defending and helping the poor, the needy and children.
In the brief meeting held during the ceremony that the start of his pontificate, the Mexican president said that after convey the congratulations and warm greetings from Mexico, presented the invitation to visit the country, to which the head of the Vatican State responded it would in any consideration. - More
Mexico's top tourism official says the country may be dropped from the list of the world's top 10 tourist destinations, a spot it has held for years.
Tourism Secretary Claudia Ruiz Massieu hasn't said why the drop has occurred, but there were declines in 2012 in two areas that have been affected by violence - border tourism and cruise ship stopovers. - More
Seven Marines were killed and eight wounded late Monday when a 60mm mortar round exploded during a training exercise at the Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada, according to military and defense officials.
The Marines were part of the 2nd Marine Division, a ground combat force based at Camp Lejeune, N.C. - More
Palestinians in Bethlehem on Monday set fire to pictures of US President Barack Obama, saying he was not welcome in their city.
Scores of protesters gathered near Manger Square and threw shoes at a US diplomatic vehicle as it arrived at the scene in the context of preparations for Obama’s visit to the city later this week. - More
Five explosions at a bus park in northern Nigeria's main city of Kano killed at least 25 people today in an area where Islamist sect Boko Haram is waging an insurgency against the government, a Reuters reporter who counted the bodies said.
The blasts destroyed several buses in the Sabon Gari area of Kano, an area mostly inhabited by immigrants from Nigeria's largely Christian south, the Reuters witness said.
Military and police cordoned off the area after the blasts. - More
Even by the standards of over excitement and speculation normally associated with life in the Westminster Village – think Eastenders but with fewer murders - the announcement by the Prime Minister last week that he was pulling the plug on cross party talks about how to respond to Leveson, speculation about the motives of all concerned went into overdrive.
The deal that has now apparently been agreed on implementing a Royal Charter - agreed late into Sunday night - only adds to the intrigue of who has "won" and who “backed down". - More
A city already reeling from the conviction of two high school football players in the rape of a 16-year-old girl will back a wide-ranging probe that could target adults, including coaches, who failed to report the allegation initially, the city's top official said Monday.
Residents of Steubenville want to see justice done and the city will be better off going forward because of the investigation, city manager Cathy Davison said. - More
Authorities found a body and a bag of improvised explosive devices in a dormitory tower at the University of Central Florida early Monday, prompting officials to cancel classes at the Orlando school until at least noon, a school spokesman said.
Police went to the dorm after getting a call about a person with a gun sometime after midnight. - More
Hundreds of students have been evacuated from a dorm on the University of Central Florida campus in Orlando after explosive devices were found while authorities were investigating a death.
UCF spokesman Grant Heston said a body was found in a bedroom in a dorm. - More
With the Tony Abbott-led coalition unchanged on 47 per cent, it represents electoral oblivion for the government at the September 14 election.
The two-party-preferred split has the government on 44 per cent and the opposition at 56 per cent - a six per cent swing to the coalition from the 50/50 result in 2010 and a landslide victory if carried through to the election. - More
China's newly-installed President Xi Jinping said on Sunday he would fight for a "great renaissance of the Chinese nation", in his first speech as head of state of the world's most populous country.
Xi called for "arduous efforts for the continued realisation of the great renaissance of the Chinese nation and the Chinese dream", in a speech to delegates at the National People's Congress (NPC) parliament meeting in Beijing. - More
Thought lotting on US President Barack Obama's regional visit to roust up their stalled peace talks with Israel, the Palestinians do not over-raise the ceiling of expectations on America's role to help them achieve their cause this time.
Obama is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Wednesday and visit the West Bank the following day.
He will hold separate meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders and officials during his three-day stay. - More
It's amazing what an election can achieve over the course of five months or so. Newt Gingrich has gone on record characterizing President Obama as the 'most effective food stamp President in American history and continuously launched a verbal assault on the President's initiatives during the GOP debates all over the country. Today at CPAC Gingrich pleaded with the Republican Party to not be 'the anti-Obama movement.'
This is a monumental shift in tactics from a former Presidential candidate who called the President of the United States "pathetically dishonest over and over" and he also said, Obama is "denigrating the work ethic."
Now with a lame duck President and increasingly negative polls directed at GOP policy initiatives, Republicans are suggesting a shift in tactics or as Gingrich called for today by saying, “You’re going to hear a false attack that we don’t need new ideas,” Gingrich said. “I’d like to draw a distinction. We don’t need new principles.”
Obama has spent the last weeks on the phone with leading republicans and even enjoying dinner and lunch with a few. This is indeed a thawing between the two sides on policy differences to find common ground, a welcome change for Americans who want to see government work in Washington, DC.
The Pentagon announced Friday that it would strengthen the country's defenses against a possible attack by nuclear-equipped North Korea, fielding additional missile systems to protect the West Coast at a time of growing concern about the Stalinist regime.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said he would add 14 missile interceptors in Alaska, a roughly 50 percent increase over the current number there and in California.
The estimated $1 billion expansion represents a policy shift for the Obama administration, which had shelved earlier plans to expand the mainland defense system. - More
A 750 to 1,000-acre wildfire driven by erratic winds was threatening more than 50 homes in northern Colorado on Friday and had prompted hundreds of evacuation orders.
The Galena Fire is five percent contained as of Friday evening.
Firefighters saved two homes and a state park visitors center from flames, authorities said. They said no homes had been destroyed. - More
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday threw out the convictions of an Arizona woman sentenced to death in the notorious 1989 killing of her 4-year-old son, ruling that the case was tainted by a detective with a history of lying under oath and other misconduct.
Even under the deferential standard of review required by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote, the failure of the prosecutors to turn over evidence of repeated misconduct by then-Detective Armando Saldate Jr. of the Phoenix Police Department violated Debra Jean Milke’s right to a fair trial. - More
Local Time (conversion only below land) : 2013-03-16 03:25:47
GMT/UTC Time : 2013-03-15 17:25:47
Depth (Hypocenter) : 56.4 km
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Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney sought to pass the torch of leadership in the GOP to a new generation of conservatives in his first major public speech since losing last year's election.
Romney, the failed candidate who challenged President Barack Obama in 2012, heralded a handful of Republican governors and his former running mate — Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan — as the next generation of GOP leadership.
And he counseled party activists gathered here at the Conservative Political Action Conference to learn from his campaign's missteps. - More
Farmers are on their way to tend their crops when a missile slams into their midst, thrusting shrapnel in all directions.
A CIA drone, flying so high that the farmers can't see it, has killed most of them. None of them were militants.
Such attacks by U.S. drones are common, the United Nations' special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights said Friday in a statement on strikes in Pakistan's tribal region of North Waziristan. - More
Pope Francis, who's name honours the simplicity and humility of St Francis of Assisi, began his reign by sharing a bus with cardinals after his election, mingling with worshippers in a church next morning and making an unscheduled stop to pay his hotel bill because ''bishops should set a good example''.
Vatican spokesman Tom Rosica said the new Pope's ''spontaneity indicated a new way of doing things that we will have to get used to'' - as would his security guards.
Zimbabwe's biggest problem is President Robert Mugabe and not the Constitution, former Finance minister and ex-Zanu PF politburo member Simba Makoni has said.
Makoni, once tipped to succeed Mugabe but now a fringe opposition leader, said this at a media briefing in Harare ahead of Saturday’s constitutional referendum.
The Mavambo/Dawn/Kusile leader said Mugabe thinks he is bigger than Zimbabwe, hence the need to boot out the 89-year-old at the next election. - More
Speaking after talks with Hague, however, Lavrov said the supply of lethal weapons to the rebels would be illegal.
"International law doesn't allow, doesn't permit, the supplies of arms to non-governmental actors.
It's a violation of international law," he claimed. Lavrov also raised the spectre of western arms falling into the hands of radical Islamist groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra, placed on a terrorist list by the US. Hammond responded:
"We can't rule out anything in future. You can be sure that any action will be legal with a strong basis in international law." - More
Sen. Rob Portman says he now supports same-sex marriage because one of his sons is gay.
The Ohio Republican informed reporters from several newspapers in his home state of his reversal, which The Columbus Dispatch calls "stunning."
Portman told The Cincinnati Enquirer his evolution on the subject began in 2011 when his son, Will, then a freshman at Yale University, told his parents he was gay. - More
An FBI tactical team forced its way into the abandoned, debris-strewn shell of the Glory Days tavern in Herkimer, New York, early Thursday and killed the man who police say fatally shot four people a day earlier.
An FBI dog died, but no officers were wounded in the firefight that left Kurt R. Myers, 64, dead, police said. - More
The first non-European Pope in more than 1,200 years will put a renewed focus on social and environmental issues and could prove a thorn in the side of powerful world leaders, a religious commentator says.
Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was named as Pope Francis this morning, taking his name from St Francis of Assisi, famous for turning his back on worldly wealth and communing with nature.
The 76-year-old becomes the first Jesuit to hold the office and the first non-European Pope since the Syrian-born Gregory III in the eighth century. - More
White smoke poured out of the Sistine Chapel chimney Wednesday to roars of joy from the throngs jamming St. Peter's Square.
The new pope, his name not yet revealed, is expected to greet the masses from the balcony of St. Peter's Basillica shortly.
The 115 voting cardinals took four or five votes over two days to reach their decision, which required a two-thirds majority and came after a week of intense meetings. - More
Four people have been killed and at least two others wounded in shootings in Herkimer County, New York, state police trooper Jack Keller said Wednesday.
The shootings were reported Wednesday morning in two separate upstate New York communities, Herkimer and Mohawk, CNN affiliate WKTV reported.
Authorities are looking for the shooter, Keller said. - More
Before meetings with GOP lawmakers in the House and Senate today and Thursday, President Obama signaled pessimism about the prospect of reaching a grand bargain in the ongoing budget negotiations.
He said there is not an “immediate debt” crisis and that, ultimately, there might just be too much space between the two parties to reach a deal.
“Ultimately, it may be that the differences are just too wide. - More
Black smoke billowed from the Vatican's Sistine Chapel Wednesday, indicating the cardinals had not selected a new pope after their second and third rounds of voting.
Cardinals voted twice Wednesday after failing on their first attempt to elect a Pope Tuesday in a conclave to elect a successor to Benedict XVI, who stunned the Catholic world last month by becoming the first pope in 600 years to resign. - More
The House Budget Committee on Tuesday unveiled a federal budget blueprint that Chairman Paul Ryan says would balance the federal budget within 10 years and slow the growth of federal spending by $4.6 trillion over that time.
The 96-page proposal serves as a political document that outlines the tax and spending vision of House Republicans. Lawmakers hope it can be used as a starting point for negotiations with Democrats over a plan to balance the federal budget. - More
The cardinals who will elect the next pope ended deliberations Monday and are set to begin their conclave Tuesday.
So far, there are no clear frontrunners, but an American cardinal is getting some special attention. Cardinals from around the world gathered for the last congregation meeting ahead of the conclave.
It was the last chance to hear speeches and discuss issues before the cardinals enter the Sistine Chapel to choose the next leader of the Roman Catholic Church in secrecy. - More
A jury has convicted former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick on corruption charges after a five-month trial that portrayed him as a greedy politician who took bribes, fixed contracts and lived far beyond his salary.
The verdict is another defeat for the man who left office in 2008 amid an unrelated scandal involving sexually explicit text messages and an affair with an aide.
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II is set to back a pledge to protect gay rights and gender equality Monday “in one of the most controversial acts of her reign,” the Daily Mail reports.
The queen will sign the new Commonwealth Charter and make a speech on live television announcing a pledge to stamp out discrimination against homosexuals and promote the “empowerment” of women. - More
South Korea's military is preparing against unexpected military provocations by North Korea, a Seoul official said, as the communist country ratcheted up threats of a nuclear war ahead of a joint South Korea-U.S military drill.
"North Korea may possibly provoke at a time in a place we can never expect," like guerrilla attacks in cyberspace, at the sea border or even at the military demarcation line, the military official said. - More
A news conference between Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Afghan President Hamid Karzai was canceled Sunday on the heels of the Afghan leader's accusation that the Taliban and the U.S. are working together to convince Afghans that violence in the country will worsen if foreign troops leave as planned by the end of next year.
U.S. officials say the news conference was canceled due to a security threat, but the two men plan to meet privately. - More
Administrators at Harvard University secretly searched the e-mail accounts of 16 resident deans last fall, looking for the source of a leak to the news media about a cheating scandal that was making national headlines at the time, according to reports by The Boston Globe and The New York Times.
Only one of the deans was told of the search shortly after it occurred.
The other 15 deans were left unaware their e-mail accounts had been searched by administrators until the Globe questioned Harvard officials about the incident late last week. - More
Thousands of members of a Cairo- based soccer fans group broke into a police club and set it on fire, following a court verdict issued Saturday on the 2012 Port Said soccer riots, Egyptian state TV reported.
Members of the group called Utras Ahlawy stormed the police officers' club near the Ahly soccer club in Cairo, and set the complex on fire, the TV said.
State-run al-Ahram Online quoted a security officer as saying that several premises in the club complex were in flames. - More
Vision of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, has returned to port after more than 100 people were sickened with a stomach virus believed to be norovirus.
Vision of the Seas reportedly returned to Port Everglades in South Florida on Friday.
The cruise line told ABC News that 105 passengers and three crew members came down with a stomach virus during the 11-night Caribbean cruise. There were a total of 1,991 guests and 772 crew members on board. - More
Published in the Journal of Pain, a new study is the first to examine cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as treatment for people with type II diabetes mellitus, the most common form of the disease that affects more than 20 million people in the US.
The onset of type II diabetes mellitus is often gradual, occurring when a person is unable to make or use insulin efficiently. As a result, abnormally high levels of sugar accumulate in the blood, resulting in a condition called hyperglycemia. - More
Uhuru Kenyatta, who is preparing for trial at the International Criminal Court, won Kenya’s presidential election as his main rival rejected the vote as flawed and said he would dispute the outcome in court.
The son of Kenya’s first post-independence president, Jomo Kenyatta, took 50.07 percent of votes cast in the March 4 election, Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission Chairman Issack Hassan told reporters today in the capital, Nairobi. - More
Nine South African police officers pleaded not guilty Friday to charges of killing a man who died after being dragged behind their van, according to news reports.
The police officer driving the vehicle said he was unaware of what was happening to the man when he began pulling away from an agitated crowd, according to Agence France-Presse. - More
More than a decade after he warned Muslims not to fly or live in high rises following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a son-in-law of Osama bin Laden appeared before a federal judge in New York on Friday and pleaded not guilty to plotting to kill Americans.
Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, described by U.S. officials as a 47-year-old former teacher and preacher, was charged in a one-count indictment made public late Thursday - More
It's not every day you see an ex-president ask the Supreme Court to strike down a law he signed.
That's what Bill Clinton is doing with the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman -- and which the high court will rule on this year in a landmark moment for the gay marriage movement. - More
Scientists from Victoria have undertaken a project under which they will be modifying chickens genetically to make them resistant to bird flu.
The project is aiming at eliminating the disease from the birds.
The project, dubbed the CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) project, is making the application of latest science and technology to make the genetic modification. - More
North Korea has announced it is voiding non-aggression pacts with South Korea and severing its hotline with Seoul, hours after threatening the US with a pre-emptive nuclear strike.
The statement came just hours after the UN Security Council unanimously voted to impose tough sanctions against the rogue nation, mainly aimed at further isolating and financially destabilising the regime.
China's Foreign Ministry has since called for everyone involved to stay calm. - More
Following an epic, old-school,13-hour filibuster of John Brennan's confirmation to helm the CIA, the Senate nevertheless approved the nominee today by a vote of 63-34, with a number of Republicans breaking ranks to vote in his favor.
Three senators who caucus with Democrats -- Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. -- voted against Brennan's confirmation, and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., did not vote. - More
The United Nations security council has voted unanimously to punish North Korea for last month's nuclear test with a toughened sanctions regime, hours after Pyongyang threatened to unleash a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the United States.
Secretary general Ban Ki-moon, a former South Korean foreign minister, said the resolution "sent an unequivocal message to [the North] that the international community will not tolerate its pursuit of nuclear weapons" - More
Accusing the U.S. of starting a nuclear war against the North, an unidentified spokesman for Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry said it has every right for pre-emptive nuclear strike against its enemies.
"Since the United States is about to ignite a nuclear war, we will be exercising our right to pre-emptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor in order to protect our supreme interest," the North's foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency, Reuters reported. - More
As part of his effort to improve relations between the White House and Capitol Hill, President Obama dined with a small group of Republican senators this evening and, according to the White House, he paid for the dinner out of his own pocket.
Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H.; Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.; John Hoeven, R-N.D.; John McCain, R-Ariz.; Bob Corker, R-Tenn.; Mike Johanns, R-Neb.; Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Richard Burr, R-N.C.; Dan Coats, R-Ind., Ron Johnson, R-Wis.; and Pat Toomey, R-Pa.; are among the senators who joined the president for dinner tonight.
The group dined at the Jefferson Hotel a few blocks from the White House. - More
Members of the U.S. Senate engage in a debate over the nomination of John Brennan as CIA director. Sen. Rand Paul has already called for the filibuster of Brennan's nomination.
Syria’s ongoing civil conflict has officially displaced 1 million people, according to United Nations numbers released today.
The U.N.’s refugee agency, UNHCR, reports that there are 1,000,669 refugees either registered or awaiting registration at camps throughout the region, primarily in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq. More than 400,000 people have fled Syria since January alone. - More
The U.S. and China have reached a deal on a new set of sanctions against North Korea in response to its test of a nuclear weapon last month, United Nations diplomats said.
The resolution, which will enforce some existing sanctions and include new ones, will be introduced at a U.N. Security Council meeting on Tuesday, a diplomat said.
China has already voted for three sets of sanctions against its reclusive neighbor for its past nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches, both banned by the Security Council. - More
Malaysian police on Tuesday morning raided the northern Borneo village stormed by a band of Filipino rebels in a bid to end a three-week standoff that had already claimed at least 26 lives.
Two Malaysian commandos and a dozen members of the Royal Army of Sulu died in a previous police crackdown on the insurgent-held territory on Friday evening, with a further five Malaysian policemen ambushed and killed nearby the next day. - More
The Israeli government will on Monday begin operating a "Palestinians-only" bus service to ferry Palestinian workers from the West Bank to Israel, encouraging them to use it instead of travelling with Israeli settlers on a similar route.
Officially anyone can use them, but the ministry of transport said that the new lines are meant to improve services for Palestinians. - More
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Cardinals from around the world gathered Monday inside the Vatican for their first round of meetings before the conclave to elect the next pope, amid scandals inside and out of the Vatican and the continued reverberations of Benedict XVI's decision to retire.
Cardinals were treated like rock stars as they entered the Vatican on Monday morning, with television crews swarming around the red-capped churchmen and their handlers pushing their way through the crowds.
THE Queen was today admitted to hospital, where she is being treated for a stomach infection, the first time in a decade that she was been hospitalised.
“As a precaution”, the 86-year-old was taken to King Edward VII Hospital in London, where she is being assessed for symptoms of gastroenteritis, a Buckingham Palace spokesman said.
He said the Queen had been forced to cancel all her engagements for the coming week as she continued to recover from a debilitating bout of illness. - More
Doctors say they have cured an infant born with HIV for the first time by giving her a cocktail of drugs shortly after birth, a result that could point the way toward saving the lives of thousands more infected children.
The baby, whose identity has been kept anonymous, began taking a regimen of AIDS drugs about 30 hours after she was born at a rural Mississippi hospital, doctors said today at a medical meeting in Atlanta.
At 18 months, the mother took the child off the medication. - More
Doctors say they have cured an infant born with HIV for the first time by giving her a cocktail of drugs shortly after birth, a result that could point the way toward saving the lives of thousands more infected children. The baby, whose identity has been kept anonymous, began taking a regimen of AIDS drugs about 30 hours after she was born at a rural Mississippi hospital, doctors said today at a medical meeting in Atlanta. At 18 months, the mother took the child off the medication.
ANN ROMNEY: The thing that was frustrating to me is that people didn't really get to know Mitt for who he was.
CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: Well, I want to pick up on that because there were reports that you and your oldest son, Tagg, were frustrated with the Romney campaign, that they didn't quote let Mitt be Mitt. That they didn't let him show his more open, compassionate side. True?
ROMNEY: Well, of course. It was, partly, it’s true, but it was not just the campaign's fault. I believe it was the media's fault as well - is that he was not giving, being given a fair shake, that people weren’t allowed to really see him for who he was.
WALLACE: Alright, what about the media?
ROMNEY: [Laughs] I’m happy to blame the media. [Laughter]
WALLACE: Do you think the media was in the tank for Barack Obama?
ROMNEY: [Laughs] I think that it’s, any time you’re running for office, you always think that you’re being portrayed unfairly. And, you know, we of course on our side believe that there’s more bias in favor of the other side. I think that, you know, that’s a pretty universal, universally felt opinion.
The U.S.-led coalition says its forces accidentally killed two Afghan boys during an operation in southern Afghanistan.
Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, offered his "personal apology and condolences to the family of the boys who were killed" and said the coalition takes full responsibility for the deaths. - More
The World Health Organization has said in a report that it has found rises in cancer risks in areas most affected by radiation leaked from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
In the report released Thursday, the WHO assessed health risks associated with the nuclear disaster triggered by the massive earthquake and tsunami that devastated the nation's northeast in March 2011, while referring to maximum estimated radiation doses.
In the most contaminated area, the lifetime risk of breast cancer for female infants is estimated to be around 6 percent higher than normal levels. - More
The United States is expressing its disapproval with the comments of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who this week said Zionism should be viewed as a crime against humanity.
U.S. officials say Secretary of State John Kerry plans to personally raise the issue with Turkish officials during his visit to the country, which begins Friday.
The officials, speaking anonymously, said the comments were "particularly offensive" and have a "corrosive effect" on relations.- More
Sitting before a military judge, the slightly built 25-year-old soldier read from a 35-page statement through his wire-rimmed glasses for more than an hour. He spoke quickly and evenly, showing little emotion even when he described how troubled he was by what he had seen.
"I believed that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information ... this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general," Manning said.
As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments over California's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage, a new poll reports that Californians now favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry by nearly 2 to 1.
The Field Poll, published Thursday, found that 61 percent of a sample of registered voters approved of allowing same-sex couples to wed, 32 percent disapproved and the rest had no opinion. - More
The Obama administration said Thursday that it will provide the Syrian opposition with an additional $60 million in assistance and — in a significant policy shift — will for the first time provide nonlethal aid like food and medical supplies to rebels battling to oust President Bashar Assad.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced the new support and the decision to back the rebel fighters on the sidelines of an international conference on Syria in Rome, where European nations were also expected to signal their intention to provide fresh assistance to the opposition, possibly including defensive military hardware. - More
In his final hours as head of the Roman Catholic church, Pope Benedict XVI met on Thursday with the cardinals who will elect his successor, urging them to be “like an orchestra” that harmonizes for the good of the Church and pledging that he would behave with “unconditional reverence and obedience” toward his successor. - More
Unveiling a statue of Rosa Parks in the Capitol's Statuary Hall, President Obama paid tribute to the civil rights pioneer and the movement that she started:
"It is because of these men and women that I stand here today; it is because of them that our children grow up in a land more free and more fair, a land truer to its founding creed."
Conservative justices who hold a slim majority on the Supreme Court expressed grave doubts Wednesday that the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 -- the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement -- remains constitutional nearly a half century later.
The justices who could be the swing votes in an eventual ruling - More
Even before his sudden death at the hands of a gunman Tuesday, Santa Cruz police Sgt. Loran "Butch" Baker had left a legacy.
In addition to being one of the most veteran and respected officers in town, Baker, a 28-year member of the force who was nearing retirement, passed on the love of policing to his son Adam.
The young man was just out of Harbor High School when he started serving as community service officer, a position he still holds.
In 2010, the Sentinel reported Adam Baker had grown up hearing stories from his well-respected father. - More
President Obama understands Republican concerns about the need to link improved border security to changes in immigration law, two key Republicans involved in the effort said Tuesday after a White House meeting with Obama.
Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) said they covered a variety of topics in the unusual meeting with Obama, including a robust discussion of how to reshape the nation’s immigration laws. - More
Secretary of State John Kerry said in an ominously worded warning that there could be "terrible consequences" if international negotiations aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear program don't show progress in the coming months.
The talks, which resume Tuesday in Kazakhstan, aren't expected to achieve a decisive breakthrough in the decadelong stalemate between the West and Tehran over its nuclear ambitions, U.S. and European officials involved in the diplomacy said. - More
Chuck Hagel's rocky and inauspicious path to leadership of the Pentagon could haunt him if he doesn't watch his step.
"If people feel Hagel makes a mistake in the future, they will come after him even harder than if this ugly process of recent weeks hadn't happened," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a co-author of "Bending History: Barack Obama's Foreign Policy." - More
Italian stocks plunged and borrowing rates jumped after centre-left Democratic Party leader Pier Luigi Bersani scraped a razor-thin victory in the lower house of parliament and the Senate ended up with no political force winning a majority.
Bersani warned Italy was in "a very delicate situation" as the political gridlock became clear late on Monday and he was due to address the growing sense of crisis later on Tuesday. - More
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) would lose his speakership if he agrees to new tax revenues to avert the looming budget sequester.
"I don't quite honestly think that Speaker Boehner would be speaker if that happens," Johnson told Fox News of Boehner caving on taxes.
"North Korea's recent nuclear test is a challenge to the survival and future of the Korean people," Park said outside the national assembly building in the South Korean capital.
"Make no mistake, the biggest victim will be North Korea itself."
"I will not tolerate any action that threatens the lives of our people and the security of our nation," she said. "I urge North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions without delay and embark on the path to peace and shared development."- More
House Republican leaders on Monday urged President Obama to "stop campaigning" and hunker down with Congress to find an alternative to the bludgeon of spending cuts set to hit Friday, saying now is not the time "for a road-show president."
The plea came as the president prepared to head Tuesday to Newport News, a major military community, to highlight the impact of Pentagon cuts on a shipbuilding facility. - More
Masked Palestinian gunmen fired in the air on Monday as thousands marched at the West Bank funeral of a prisoner whose death in an Israeli jail has raised fears in Israel of a new uprising.
Arafat Jaradat’s death on Saturday and a hunger strike by four other Palestinian inmates have raised tension in the occupied territory after repeated clashes between stone-throwers and Israeli soldiers in recent days.
Israeli troops, on high alert, took up positions outside Jaradat’s home village of Se’eer, in likely earshot of the bursts of automatic fire from the half-dozen masked Palestinians in full battle dress. - More
The BBC is reporting that Britain's most senior Roman Catholic cleric, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, is stepping down as leader of the Scottish Catholic Church following allegations of inappropriate behavior towards priests dating from the 1980s.
"In a statement, he apologized to those he had offended during his ministry.
The cardinal confirmed he would not take part in the election for a successor to the Pope - leaving Britain unrepresented in the election," said the report. - More
Congressional leaders are quietly considering a deal to avert a government shutdown next month—but at the cost of prolonging across-the-board spending cuts.
Attention is beginning to shift from Friday, when the broad cuts known as the sequester kick in, to the next budget deadline:
Congress must pass a so-called continuing resolution by the end of March to keep funding government operations. - More
“Once these cuts take effect, thousands of teachers and educators will be laid off, and tens of thousands of parents will have to scramble to find child care for their kids,” Obama said in his weekly address.
“Air-traffic controllers and airport security will see cutbacks, causing delays across the country.
Even President Bush’s director of the National Institutes of Health [Elias Zerhouni] says these cuts will set back medical science for a generation,” Obama said. - More
The Afghan government says a group of armed people who may be U.S. special forces is carrying out acts of torture and murder.
The U.S. military says it is investigating.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force must stop all special force operations out of Wardak province, where such horrors have been taking place, and all U.S. special forces must be gone from the province within two weeks, Afghanistan's National Security Council demanded. - More
With the ink barely dry on the record-breaking $4-billion check BP wrote to settle criminal charges stemming from its Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, the energy giant now faces a protracted court battle that could cost it billions more.
The civil trial scheduled to begin next week could expose BP to about $17 billion in fines for violating the Clean Water Act. If imposed, the fine would be the largest environmental penalty in U.S. history. - More
The United States Government condemns in the strongest possible terms the series of rocket attacks against Aleppo, most recently the attack using Scud missiles on an eastern district of the city late on Friday, February 22, that killed several dozen people.
The Friday attack follows the assault on Aleppo of Tuesday, February 19, that destroyed several city blocks in the Jabal Badr district of Aleppo and injured hundreds of innocent civilians.
These attacks, as well as other atrocities such as the strike against a field hospital earlier in the week, are only the latest demonstrations of the Syrian regime's ruthlessness and its lack of compassion for the Syrian people it claims to represent. - More
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, the Republican Party’s leading voice on immigration, says he and his colleagues will consider allowing some of the 11.1 million undocumented workers living in the U.S. to apply for green cards.
But first, President Obama has to get serious about stopping the influx of new illegal immigrants. - More
The Vatican lashed out Saturday at the media for what it said has been a run of defamatory and false reports before the conclave to elect Pope Benedict XVI’s successor,
saying they were an attempt to influence the election.
Italian newspapers have been rife with unsourced reports in recent days about the contents of a secret dossier prepared for the pope by three cardinals who investigated the origins of the
2012 scandal over leaked Vatican documents. - More
The Vatican sought Saturday to tamp down rumors involving sex, money and gay priests that have been swirling in the Italian media and have been linked by some to Pope Benedict XVI's decision to resign.
The strongly-worded denial came on the eve of the pope's last Angelus blessing, expected to draw huge crowds of the faithful, before he stands down on Thursday.
Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone said it was "deplorable" that as the time for the Roman Catholic cardinals to elect a new pope approaches, a rash of "often unverified, unverifiable or completely false news stories" has appeared. - More
What safe conclusions can be drawn from the latest report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran’s nuclear programme?
The new fact that has gained most attention is that Iran has finally begun installing more advanced centrifuges inside its enrichment facility at Natanz.
I say ‘finally’ because the Iranian leadership has been promising to do this for years.
Now, the IAEA’s inspectors have reported that 180 “IR-2” centrifuges have actually appeared. It should be noted, however, that none is actually operational. - More
Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Director Fereydoun Abbasi has emphasized that the scheduled talks between Tehran and the major powers (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany) should focus on “cooperation.”
The fresh round of talks between Iran and the 5+1 group will take place in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on February 26. - More
US President Barack Obama sent 40 additional soldiers to Niger to help with intelligence efforts as French and African troops battle an Islamist insurgency in neighboring Mali, the White House said in a letter to Congress Friday.
The US troops join another 60 or so already in the West African country, and are tasked with providing "support for intelligence collection and will also facilitate intelligence sharing with French forces conducting operations in Mali, and with other partners in the region," the president said. - More
Oscar Pistorius was granted bail Friday pending his trial for the alleged murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.
Olympic and Paralympic star Pistorius, dubbed the “Blade Runner,” maintains he did not realize Steenkamp was in the locked bathroom of his home in a suburb of Pretoria, South Africa, and fired through the door in a panic over a possible prowler early on Valentine's Day.
However, prosecutors say the 26-year-old committed the “premeditated murder” of Steenkamp, 29, a model and trained lawyer, who was staying overnight at his house. - More
The Philippines says it will continue to pursue international arbitration in its territorial dispute in the South China Sea with China, despite Beijing's rejection.
Philippine authorities say they do not need China's consent to take the issue to the United Nations.
Officials with the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs say the 1982 U.N. treaty that both countries signed allows Manila to go into arbitration alone.
DFA Ocean Concerns Assistant Secretary Gilberto Asuque says international arbitration under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), is compulsory. - More
Police are searching for a black Range Rover SUV from which gunshots rang out along the city’s famed Strip early Thursday morning, sending a Maserati crashing into a taxi and leaving three dead.
The incident shut down traffic along some of the most famous real estate in the resort city, at Flamingo and Las Vegas boulevards, an intersection surrounded by top casino hotels including the Bellagio, Caesars Palace and Bally's. - More
Former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and his wife, Sandi, lived the high life by funnelling campaign funds to pay for more than 3,000 personal purchases, including flat-screen televisions, pricey memorabilia, appliances for their Chicago home, stuffed toys, mounted elk heads, health club dues and luxury vacations, including a five-day holistic retreat on Martha’s Vineyard.
Prosecutors released the new details as Jackson Jr. pleaded guilty Wednesday morning in federal court in Washington, D.C., to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud and false statements. - More
Ties between China and the U.S., strained by military rivalries and maritime disputes, may face an even greater test from the newest front in global conflict: cyberspace.
U.S. military and homeland security officials quietly have long blamed the Chinese military for the most egregious assaults on U.S. computer networks.
Continued hacking and data theft, however, are being met by an increasing willingness by Washington to publicly point the finger at Beijing. - More
South African police say they found two boxes of testosterone and needles in the bedroom of Oscar Pistorius, who has been charged with premeditated murder in the shooting death of his girlfriend.
In the second day of a bail hearing in Pretoria, prosecutors began detailing Wednesday why they are charging Pistorius with premeditated murder in the death of model Reeva Steenkamp. - More
Police on Tuersday were looking for eight men who made a hole in a security fence of Brussels' international airport, drove onto the tarmac and robbed tens of millions of dollars worth of diamonds from the hold of a Swiss-bound plane.
Brussels prosecutor's spokeswoman Anja Bijnens said Tuesday the armed and masked men used two vehicles in their daring Monday raid and within minutes made their way to the plane, took the cache of stones and drove off into the darkness.
Police found a burnt-out vehicle close to the airport later Monday night but said it was still looking for clues. - More
According to President Barack Obama the gun problem on the streets of Chicago is different than rural America and even downstate Illinois. The NRA's response would be the best weapon on the streets of Illinois is more guns in the hands of good people. This epidemic needs a renewed emphasis on solutions. The most rowdy time during the State of the Union address was when parents stood up after the President mentioned the violence being acted out all across America, on campuses, city streets, places of worship and even movies theaters.
One gun violence activist brought up a great analogy about the emphasis we placed on public cigarette smoking and driving while intoxicated. We've seen a rapid decrease in DUI fatalities and trends will show a decrease in lung cancers attributed to cigarette smoking because of education. Can we use the same methods to combat gun violence? President Obama's trip to Chicago was out of growing chatter about Chicago's unique Newtown problem appearing on city streets on a monthly basis. Too many people are terrified about this crisis.
Obama staked his claim to the Presidency from his work on the streets of Chicago and now the question is can he put the might of his office around easing America's concern about violence? During the fight to enact the Affordable Care Act, when Republicans and Healthcare Exec were rallying against the cause, an adviser pointedly stated the legislation wouldn't happen without a great deal of luck.
Obama turned from looking out the window in the Oval Office and asked, What is my name? And where are we? to send the message that his entire Presidency emerged with a great deal of luck. It will probably take more than luck to end this domestic cruelty. The irony is it seems easier to take out violent foreign terrorists with drones as far away as Pakistan than it is to get rid of guns in our city neighborhoods.
The nation's most prominent intellectual, who has been very outspoken about President Obama's policies for the poor, has gone even further on the Tavis Smiley Show.
Professor Cornel West likened the President of the United States to a "war criminal". West stated, " We've been talking about this for a good while, the immorality of drones, dropping bombs on innocent people.
It's been over 200 children so far. These are war crimes."
West also threw both the Nixon and Bush Administrations in the mix as well saying, "Let us not be deceived — Nixon, Bush, Obama, they're war criminals," adding that "They have killed innocent people in the name of the struggle for freedom, but they're suspending the law, very much like Wall Street criminals.
The law is suspended for them, but the law applies for the rest of us."
Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky is claiming the meteor shower was actually a man-made new weapons test by the Americans.
"You're like some primitive tribe.
What meteorite?" he said, adding that space is a "universe that has its own laws." Zhirinovsky is a politician well-known for making similar eccentric statements.
"When something falls – it's man-made. People are warmongers and provocateurs," he explained.
A huge meteorite flared through the skies over Russia's Chelyabinsk region early Friday, triggering a powerful shock wave that injured hundreds of people, blew out windows and reportedly caused the roof of a factory to collapse.
Multiple amateur videos posted online showed the meteor’s flaring arc – called a bolide by scientists – across the western Siberia sky.
Others from the scene included the sound of a loud boom, followed by a cacophony of car alarms.
One video showed the hurried evacuation of an office building in Chelyabinsk. - More
President Obama’s proposed commission on electoral reform, which seeks to improve voting efficiency and reduce long wait times for voters, is producing heated criticism from advocates on both the right and the left.
Some conservatives view the initiative as federal overreaching on an issue that is rightly the province of states, while some voting rights advocates say that the president’s proposed commission is a too-timid response to what they see as a huge problem. - More
Olympic Sprinter Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee revered in South Africa for overcoming his disability to compete in the London Games last year, wept in court Friday as he faced a murder charge in connection with the fatal shooting of his girlfriend.
During the proceedings in Pretoria, Gerrie Nel, one of the National Prosecuting Authority’s most senior advocates, said he would argue the killing of model and law graduate Reeva Steenkamp was premeditated murder, the most serious category of offense under South African law. - More
It was removed on Thursday following a shooting at his home in Pretoria.
The advert shows Pistorius dressed in a green lycra body suit coming off the starting blocks wearing his distinctive blades.
The Nike "Swoosh" and its slogan "Just Do It" are shown on the advert. Earlier, the international sportswear brand declined to comment on its future relationship with Pistorius.
"This is a police matter and is under investigation," Nike South Africa spokesperson Seruscka Naidoo said. - More
"I don't wanna hurt you just get out and start walking up the road and take your dog with you," as Rick Heltebrake tells it; this was the last conversation Christopher Dorner had with anyone before he met his fate in the log cabin. Heltebrake also said he immediately heard a volley of gun shots as Dorner met the deputies that were on his trail.
Los Angeles police say they will reopen the disciplinary proceedings that led to the firing of a former officer who's wanted in three killings over the past several days.
Cmdr. Andrew Smith said Saturday that the department will reopen the investigation that apparently has led Christopher Dorner to seek revenge against former LAPD colleagues who he believed cost him his law enforcement career.
Dorner alleged in an online manifesto that he was wrongly fired for reporting that his training officer used excessive force. - More
Police Chief Charlie Beck tells KCBS-TV the department will thoroughly re-examine Dorner's allegation to ensure the public that the LAPD is fair and transparent.
He says if Dorner wants to surrender, the LAPD will "be happy to hear what he has to say."
Meanwhile, a scaled-back search party took advantage of a break from stormy weather Saturday to hunt for Dorner, using heat-sensing helicopters and fanning out in fresh snow as vacationing families and weekend skiers frolicked nearby. - More
President Obama's State of the Union address will sound a lot more like his re-election stump speech and less like his second inaugural address, aides familiar with the process said.
While Mr. Obama will mention the three biggest early areas of emphasis in his second term - gun control, immigration reform and climate change - the references will be condensed and relatively minor next to an emphasis on economic themes such as job creation, wage growth and mobility into the middle class. - More
PRESIDENT Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, goes before a Senate committee today to answer questions about whether he has the qualifications and the nerve needed to be the nation's next director of the CIA.
What awaits Brennan over the course of the hearings, however, may be pointed questions about other issues, such as the escalation of the government's drone defense program and a leaked memo spelling out the administration's logic for killing Americans allegedly among the top ranks of al-Qaida or its "associated forces." - More
A truck found abandoned and burning near a Southern California ski area belonged to a fugitive former Los Angeles police officer suspected in three murders, authorities confirmed Thursday afternoon, as thousands of officers searched for the suspect across three states and into Mexico.
The suspect has been identified as Christopher Jordan Dorner, 33, and he is considered extremely dangerous and armed with multiple weapons, authorities say.
He is accused of killing a college basketball coach and her fiance last weekend, then following through on a vow to kill police by opening fire Wednesday night on three officers, killing one. - More
President Obama's choice to head the CIA told lawmakers Thursday that the administration's drone strike program is legal and essential to national security.
"The president has insisted that any actions we take will be legally grounded," John Brennan told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Brennan's confirmation hearing was delayed by protesters against drone strikes and other counter-terrorism polices.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who chairs intelligence committee, ordered the hearing room cleared before the nominee could complete his opening statement. - More
President Obama's choice to be the next CIA director will face tough questions at his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday, but it appears unlikely that lawmakers' concerns will derail his nomination.
Some Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, including Mark Udall of Colorado and Ron Wyden of Oregon, were miffed that John Brennan had not read the 300-page executive summary of a Senate report on the CIA's interrogation program before meeting with them recently. - More
Back in his inauguration speech in December 2012, incoming Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) (a socialist party that has increasingly governed as centrist), said that he planned to restore national passenger rail service to Mexico, over a decade after his own party discontinued it, despite passanger rail being an integral part of Mexico's history up until then. - More
President Obama on Wednesday will nominate Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI) chief executive Sally Jewell to head the Interior Department, according to a White House official who asked not to be identified because the public announcement has not yet been made.
The choice of Jewell, who began her career as an engineer for Mobil Oil and worked as a commercial banker before heading a nearly $2 billion outdoors equipment company, represents an unconventional choice for a post usually reserved for career politicians from the West. - More
The U.S. Postal Service will stop delivering mail on Saturdays but continue to deliver packages six days a week under a plan aimed at saving about $2 billion annually, the financially struggling agency says.
In an announcement scheduled for today, the service is expected to say the Saturday mail cutback would begin in August.
The move accentuates one of the agency's strong points — package delivery has increased by 14 percent since 2010, officials say, while the delivery of letters and other mail has declined with the increasing use of e-mail and other Internet services. - More
President Barack Obama urged Congress to pass a small package of spending cuts and tax increases to delay the major spending cuts set to kick in next month, saying thousands of jobs and the nation's economic recovery hang in the balance.
"There is no reason that the jobs of thousands of Americans...not to mention the growth of the entire economy, should be put in jeopardy just because folks in Washington couldn't come together," Mr. Obama said in televised remarks Tuesday afternoon.
A short-term measure, he said, would give Congress the room to continue work on a way to avoid permanently the cuts scheduled to begin March 1.
CHICAGO - Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and relatives of victims of fatal shootings in Chicago urged President Barack Obama on Saturday to come back to his hometown and address the gun violence plaguing the city.
Before a march on the city's South Side, Jackson, a former Democratic presidential candidate, said America's third most populous city needed more help than Mayor Rahm Emanuel and police superintendent Garry McCarthy could offer. - More
The 25-year-old Iraq war veteran and Marine who allegedly shot former SEAL sniper and American hero Chris Kyle and another person during a Saturday charity event is reportedly on suicide watch in his Erath County, Texas, jail.
Eddie Ray Routh is being held on a $3 million bond for two counts of capital murder, according to reports from the Dallas Morning News. On Sunday, he became aggressive with guards and had to be Tasered, the Dallas paper reports. - More
Capt. Jason Upshaw, Dallas Morning News, Chris Kyle, American Sniper, Erath County Sheriff’s Office
At least eight people were killed and 38 injured Sunday when a tour bus careened out of control while traveling down a Southern California mountain road, struck a car, flipped and plowed into a pickup truck, authorities said.
The accident occurred around 6:30 p.m. about 80 miles east of Los Angeles and left State Route 38 littered with debris, the bus sideways across the two lanes and its front end crushed. - More
Former Massachusetts Republican senator Scott Brown will not run in the special election for outgoing Democratic Sen. John Kerry’s seat, according to a Republican source familiar with his plans.
Brown’s decision means Kerry’s seat is very likely to remain in Democratic hands. Republicans are now without a top candidate for the seat held by Kerry, who was confirmed by the Senate to be the next secretary of state earlier this week.
On the Democratic side, longtime Rep. Ed Markey is the frontrunner, but he faces a challenge from fellow Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch, who is much more conservative. - More
Ed Koch, the brash former New York City mayor who typically greeted constituents with a "How'm I doin'?" died Friday at the age of 88, his spokesman said. Koch died of congestive heart failure, spokesman George Arzt said.
The lawyer-turned-public servant was a U.S. congressman from 1968 until he ran for mayor of the city in 1977 He served three terms until David Dinkins defeated him in a Democratic primary. - More
Immigration reform is in the air. A bipartisan Senate group unveiled its proposals on Monday, and the president is scheduled to announce his own package on Tuesday.
Both contain provisions for legalizing some 11 million undocumented immigrants now in the US. But, just as there promises to be no easy consensus on a final deal, there is little agreement about how much the overall reforms will actually stem the flow of illegal immigration across America’s borders.
Critics of the proposals say a path to citizenship invites more undocumented migrants, while supporters of the move to legalize many who have lived and worked in the US for years say it is not an open invitation to new illegal immigration. - More
The Pentagon on Thursday will announce it is rescinding a rule that excludes women from combat, a move that may allow women to serve for the first time alongside infantry
troops as battlefield medics, pilots and in other dangerous roles. The announcement will mark the largest expansion yet of women in combat roles. But defense officials said
they don't expect the change to result in women being allowed to serve as infantry troops. - More
U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Jonathan Snyde(WASHINGTON) -- Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will lift a long-standing ban on women serving in combat, according to senior
defense officials. The move was not expected this week, although there has been a concerted effort by the Obama administration to further open up the Armed Forces to women. - More
The majority of the electorate recognized the congressional retardation of most of the President's initiatives in the first term simply on the basis of defeating
the President without any coherent reasoning on its impact on America. An interesting quote from Senator McCain was shot out there from
The Hill: "Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he 'would have liked to have seen some outreach' in Obama's speech. 'This is the eighth [inauguration] that I've
been to and always there's been a portion of the speech where [the president says], 'I reach out my hand because we need to work together.' That wasn't in
Both suspects in a shooting at Lone Star College in North Harris County are now in custody, according to a law enforcement source. Three people were shot during an
argument between the two suspects. The source said both men pulled out guns during the argument and shot at each other. Two bystanders and at least one of the
President Barack Obama urged Americans today to reject political "absolutism" and partisan rancor as he kicked off his second term with a call for national unity, setting a pragmatic tone for the daunting challenges he faces over the next four years. - More
As mandated by the U.S. Constitution, President Obama was sworn in at 11:55 a.m. ET by Chief Justice John Roberts for his second term as president. The president
took the oath during a small, private ceremony in the White House Blue Room, with his hand on a Bible from First Lady Michelle Obama's family, which was
Bulgarian police have detained a man after he pointed a gas pistol at an ethnic Turkish party leader delivering a speech at a party caucus in the capital. No shots were fired from the self-defence device, which is not lethal but can cause serious injuries if fired at close range. - More
Despite critics that brand him as anti-business and anti-Wall Street, President Obama's first term in the White House has been bullish for stocks. The Standard &
Poor's 500-stock index has risen 85% since Obama was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009, says S&P Capital IQ. - More
Algeria's special forces stormed a natural gas complex in the middle of the Sahara desert in a final assault Saturday, killing 11 militants, but not before they in turn killed seven
hostages, the state news agency reported. The report, quoting a security source, didn't specify if any hostages or militants remained alive or give the nationalities of the dead. - More
An American worker at a natural gas complex in Algeria has been found dead, U.S. officials said Friday, as the U.S. sought to secure the release of Americans still being
held by Al Qaeda-linked terrorists on the third day of a hostage standoff. - More
The United States confirmed Friday that Americans are still being held hostage by Islamist militants who stormed a natural gas production complex in the Algerian desert,
as military forces from the oil-rich North African nation engaged in talks to secure their release and searched for stray captives and extremists in the sprawling facility. - More
Republicans will act to push the deadline at which the U.S. government would default on the national debt to mid-April, demanding that Democrats pass a budget in exchange
for a long-term extension in borrowing authority. House Republicans said they will take up legislation next week to temporarily extend the debt limit for three months,
past the mid-February deadline when the government, according to the Treasury, would reach its legal limit on borrowing to finance the government's obligations. - More
Facebook fired a direct shot at Google and its vast search-engine empire on Tuesday with a new search tool for users to sift through piles of pictures, posts and places.
The new Graph Search feature, which will be slowly rolled out over weeks, is designed to keep Facebook's 1 billion users on the site, lure data-obsessed advertisers and
make a dent in Google's multibillion-dollar search machine. - More
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