Biden’s gun task force met with all sides, but kept its eye on the target

Vice President Biden was curt, avoiding confrontation when he sat down with the National Rifle Association and other gun rights advocates. He looked across the table in his ornate conference room and asked the NRA official if his group could back a ban on assault weapons. “No,” was James J. Baker’s reply. There was little discussion, no real debate over whether a 1990s ban had worked....

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Scope to expand health screening programmes for elderly: Koh Poh Koon

SINGAPORE: The People's Action Party (PAP) candidate for the Punggol East by-election Dr Koh Poh Koon said he plans to set up a wellness centre for the elderly to help senior residents age actively.He said there is scope to expand health screening and preventive programmes for the elderly in the ward.Dr Koh told reporters that plans are still in early stages but the centre will be built...

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Congress calls on secular and progressive forces to unite

JAIPUR: The draft Jaipur declaration of Congress party has called on all secular and progressive forces to unite in ideological battle against those who polarize and divide society. The draft says that the party will go to the people on the basis of performance of UPA govt, the promise of stability and good governance and restatement of its core values. Addressing the party meeting on the last day...

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Attack at Algeria Gas Plant Heralds New Risks for Energy Development

The siege by Islamic militants at a remote Sahara desert natural gas plant in Algeria this week signaled heightened dangers in the region for international oil companies, at a time when they have been expanding operations in Africa as one of the world's last energy frontiers. (See related story: "Pictures: Four New Offshore Drilling Frontiers.")As BP, Norway's Statoil, Italy's Eni, and...

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Algeria Hostage Crisis Over, One American Dead

After the Algerian military's final assault on terrorists holding hostages at a gas complex, the four-day hostage crisis is over, but apparently with additional loss of life among the foreign hostages.One American, Fred Buttaccio of Texas, has been confirmed dead by the U.S. State Department. Two more U.S. hostages remain unaccounted for, with growing concern among U.S. officials...

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Earl Smith is the man behind a military patch that President Obama prizes

AUSTIN — That February morning in 2008 found Barack Obama decidedly out of sorts. He was locked in one battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination that showed no signs of ending — and another with a vicious cold that felt the same way. As he rode the service elevator in the backway of a convention hotel here, the snowy-haired African American operating it turned...

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SDA will "make use of new technology" to reach out to residents

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) will not be holding an on site rally for the Punggol East by-election on Sunday.The Party's candidate Desmond Lim said the party will "make use of new technology" to reach out to residents. This will likely to be in the form an online rally which will be streamed.Mr Lim was speaking to the media on the sidelines of a visit to the Arulmigu...

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Srinagar-Jammu highway closed for third day

SRINAGAR: Heavy snowfall continued to disrupt life for the third day on Saturday, a day after two Army troopers died of asphyxiation in their bunker near the Line of Control (LoC) in Nowgam sector in the valley."Over four feet snow accumulated on the highway in Bannihal and Patnitop sectors of the Srinagar-Jammu highway which remains closed for vehicular traffic for the third day today," traffic...

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Attack at Algeria Gas Plant Heralds New Risks for Energy Development

The siege by Islamic militants at a remote Sahara desert natural gas plant in Algeria this week signaled heightened dangers in the region for international oil companies, at a time when they have been expanding operations in Africa as one of the world's last energy frontiers. (See related story: "Pictures: Four New Offshore Drilling Frontiers.")As BP, Norway's Statoil, Italy's Eni, and...

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Armstrong Tearful Over Telling Kids Truth

Lance Armstrong, 41, began to cry today as he described finding out his son Luke, 13, was publicly defending him from accusations that he doped during his cycling career.Armstrong said that he knew, at that moment, that he would have to publicly admit to taking performance-enhancing drugs and having oxygen-boosting blood transfusions when competing in the Tour de France. He...

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Earl Smith is the man behind a military patch that President Obama prizes

AUSTIN, Tex. — That February morning in 2008 found Barack Obama decidedly out of sorts. He was locked in one battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination that showed no signs of ending — and another with a vicious cold that felt the same way. As he rode the service elevator in the backway of a convention hotel here, the snowy-haired African American operating it...

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Kim Dotcom poised for return with Megaupload successor

WELLINGTON: Internet tycoon Kim Dotcom will launch a new file-sharing site at his Auckland mansion on Sunday, exactly a year after armed police arrested him at the same venue in the world's largest online piracy case.Dotcom's new venture, mega.co.nz, aims to recreate the success of his Megaupload empire, which boasted 50 million daily visitors and accounted for four percent of all Internet...

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Opinion: Lance One of Many Tour de France Cheaters

Editor's note: England-based writer and photographer Roff Smith rides around 10,000 miles a year through the lanes of Sussex and Kent and writes a cycling blog at: www.my-bicycle-and-I.co.ukAnd so, the television correspondent said to the former Tour de France champion, a man who had been lionised for years, feted as the greatest cyclist of his day, did you ever use drugs in the course...

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Lance Armstrong Admits to Doping

Lance Armstrong, formerly cycling's most decorated champion and considered one of America's greatest athletes, confessed to cheating for at least a decade, admitting on Thursday that he owed all seven of his Tour de France titles and the millions of dollars in endorsements that followed to his use of illicit performance-enhancing drugs.After years of denying that he had taken...

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Uncle of young Newtown shooting victim turning tragedy into action

On Dec. 14, Alexis Haller was on the phone working on a legal brief for the Vatican when his mother texted him to say that there had been a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. His nephew was missing. Haller, a litigator in Washington state, monitored the news and felt his stomach drop when reports emerged that an entire classroom of children had been killed. Confirmation...

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Punggol East 5-year plan won't cost much: RP's Jeyaretnam

SINGAPORE: The Reform Party's candidate for Punggol East, Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam, said the five-year plan he has in mind for residents of the ward will not cost a lot of money.He said this in response to questions from reporters on Thursday on how he intends to fund the plan, which will include a legal clinic to help those in debt, as well as a tuition club.Mr Jeyaretnam, who is Secretary-General...

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Coast Guard identifies vessel which rammed fishing boat off Kozhikode coast

KOCHI: The Coast Guard on Thursday identified the Panama flag merchant vessel which rammed a fishing boat off Kozhikode coast injuring three fishermen. According to Coast Guard officials, the vessel has been identified as M V Isumo. ''We have directed the vessel to come to Kochi for further inquiry in connection with the incident," the Coast Guard officials said. Officials said that the vessel...

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6 Ways Climate Change Will Affect You

Photograph by AP Photo/Marcio Jose SanchezThe planet keeps getting hotter, new data showed this week. Especially in America, where 2012 was the warmest year ever recorded, by far. Every few years, the U.S. federal government engages hundreds of experts to assess the impacts of climate change, now and in the future. From agriculture (pictured) to infrastructure to how humans consume energy, the National...

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Notre Dame: Football Star Was 'Catfished' in Hoax

Notre Dame's athletic director and the star of its near-championship football team said the widely-reported death of the star's girlfriend from leukemia during the 2012 football season was apparently a hoax, and the player said he was duped by it as well.Manti Te'o, who led the Fighting Irish to the BCS championship game this year and finished second for the Heisman Trophy,...

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Punggol East ward saw 3-way fight in 2011 GE

SINGAPORE: In the 2011 General Election, the Punggol East Single Member Constituency (SMC) saw a three-way fight among political parties that contested.The People's Action Party's (PAP) Michael Palmer won over half of the votes. The Punggol East SMC had over 30,000 voters in the 2011 General Election and it was the only constituency that saw a three-cornered fight.Then, the PAP's Michael...

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Army Chief to meet martyred soldier's family in Mathura

MATHURA: Army Chief General Bikram Singh, will meet the family members of Lance Naik Hemraj here on Wednesday amid demands that the severed head of the martyred soldier be brought back. General Singh had earlier on Monday said he would visit Hemraj's home. "I will go. They are my people. Tomorrow is Army Day, I will send my senior officer there. I will definitely go. Let this event, the Army Day,...

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Mars Rover Finds Intriguing New Evidence of Water

The first drill sample ever collected on Mars will come from a rockbed shot through with unexpected veins of what appears to be the mineral gypsum.Delighted members of the Curiosity science team announced Tuesday that the rover was now in a virtual "candy store" of scientific targets—the lowest point of Gale crater, called Yellowknife Bay, is filled with many different materials that could...

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NRA Ad Calls Obama 'Elitist Hypocrite'

Jan 16, 2013 12:04am Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP PhotoAs the White House prepares to unveil a sweeping plan aimed at curbing gun violence, the National Rifle Association has launched a preemptive, personal attack on President Obama, calling him an “elitist hypocrite” who, the group claims, is putting American children at risk.In 35-second video posted online Tuesday...

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On inaugural eve, Obama’s most virulent foes want the celebration stopped

Eldon Bell, a retired Air Force officer and physician, is making no plans to see Barack Obama’s second inauguration, in part because Bell considers the president arrogant and dishonest, but more so because Bell is not yet persuaded that the swearing-in will occur at all. “Whether I watch depends on who’s being inaugurated,” says Bell, 78. “If it’s this guy, probably not, because I don’t...

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New Holocaust museum opens at gruesome WW2 site

BRUSSELS: Belgium's newly-opened Holocaust and human rights museum stands symbolically on the site of barracks commandeered by the Nazis as a wartime transit centre for Jews and Gypsies being sent to the death camps.The new "Kazerne Dossin" in the Flemish town of Mechelen, comprising a museum, memorial and documentation centre, is located at the site of an 18th century barracks that officials...

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"Fantastic" New Flying Frog Found—Has Flappy Forearms

Scientists have stumbled across a new species of flying frog—on the ground.While hiking a lowland forest in 2009, not far from Ho Chi Minh City (map), Vietnam, "we came across a huge green frog, sitting on a log," said Jodi Rowley, an amphibian biologist at the Australian Museum in Sydney and lead author of a new study on the frog.Rowley later discovered that the 3.5-inch-long (9-centimeter-long)...

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Armstrong Admits Doping in Tour, Sources Say

Lance Armstrong today admitted to Oprah Winfrey that he used performance enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France, sources told ABC News.A goverment source tells ABC News that Armstrong is now talking with authorities about paying back some of the US Postal Service money from sponsoring his team. He is also talking to authorities about confessing and naming names, giving up...

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Bloomberg wants to change the GOP

NEW YORK — Michael Bloomberg, America’s most prominent and deep-pocketed advocate for gun control, would rather rehabilitate Republicans than oust them. “Somebody got them the way they are now,” the mayor of New York said in a recent interview as he sat in the bullpen offices of City Hall, surrounded by a buzzing staff, blinking Bloomberg terminals and clocks telling the same time in each...

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Halimah Yacob is first female Speaker

SINGAPORE: Madam Halimah Yacob is Singapore's first woman Speaker of Parliament.She took the Speaker's seat at the start of the sitting of the House on Monday afternoon.Madam Halimah, who resigned on Sunday as Minister for State, fills the position vacated by former People's Action Party Member of Parliament, Mr Michael Palmer, who stepped down on 12 December 2012 due to an extramarital...

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Fog disrupts schedule of over 40 flights at IGI airport

NEW DELHI: Dense fog on Monday returned to the Indira Gandhi International Airport here, badly affecting the schedule of over 40 flights, including diversions of eight to other cities.Flight operations at the airport came to a standstill for around one-and-half hours, between 5am and 6.30am, as the runway visibility was less than 50 metres on both the runways, main (28/10) and third (29/11), airport...

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Pictures: Civil War Shipwreck Revealed by Sonar

Photograph by Jesse CancelmoA fishing net, likely only decades old, drapes over machinery that once connected the Hatteras' pistons to its paddle wheels, said Delgado.From archived documents, the NOAA archaeologist learned that Blake, the ship's commander, surrendered as his ship was sinking. "It was listing to port, [or the left]," Delgado said. The Alabama took the wounded and the rest of the crew...

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'Argo' Wins the Golden Globe for Best Movie Drama

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler: The women of the night. Credit: Paul Drinkwater/NBC/AP Photo.11:06 p.m. ET: And finally, the Globes by the numbers: “Les Miserables” was the top winner, with three major trophies, followed by “Argo” and “Django Unchained, which each got two. On the TV side, “The Game Change” and “Homeland” scored three major awards, “Girls” got two.11:00 p.m. ET: Fey and Poehler...

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