'Fiscal cliff' deal talk, Apple lift US stocks at year-end

WASHINGTON: US markets closed out the year on Monday with a sharp jump on news that Congress was close to a deal to avert the fiscal cliff - but also on a 4.4 percent gain by market giant Apple.The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 166.03 points (1.28 percent) at 13,104.14.The broad-market S&P 500 gained 23.79 points (1.69 percent) at 1,426.19, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite...

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Delhi gang-rape: Nirbhaya case rarest of rare, Krishna Tirath says

NEW DELHI: Favouring imprisonment till death for the six accused in the Nirbhaya gang rape, Union minister Krishna Tirath on Monday said that the case was an exceptional one and should be treated as "rarest of rare".Following hectic consultations last week with over 40 NGOs, social and women's rights activists, the ministry plans to consult with the ministries of home and law to recommend life term...

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Space Pictures This Week: Ice “Broccoli,” Solar Storm

Happy TrailsPhotograph by Alex Cherney, TWANAmateur astronomer Alex Cherney captured these star trails as they blazed above Lake Tyrrell, a salt lake in Victoria, Australia in...

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Fiscal Cliffhanger: Tax Deal 'Within Sight,' Not Done

President Obama said an 11th-hour agreement to avert year-end tax hikes on 98 percent of Americans is "within sight" but not yet complete with just hours to go before the nation reaches the so-called fiscal cliff."There are still issues left to resolve but we're hopeful Congress can get it done," Obama said at a midday White House news conference. "But it's not done."Congressional...

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Senate negotiators search for deal to avoid the ‘fiscal cliff’

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appealed directly to Vice President Biden Sunday to try to break an impasse in negotiations over a last-ditch deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff,” as Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid stepped back from talks. McConnell came to the Senate floor and announced he’d reached out directly to the White House for help shortly after Democratic aides said negotiations...

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E. Timor bids farewell to peacekeepers after 13 years

DILI: The UN ends its peacekeeping mission in East Timor Monday after 13 years of boots on the ground in Asia's youngest nation following a bloody transition to independence.The mission, which saw the presence of some 1,500 UN troops and police, will take down its flag and send home the last of its peacekeepers, including five Portuguese officers, while a "liquidation team" of 79 will...

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Tourists boom brings back smiles on hoteliers in Manali

MANALI: Quenching the thirst of tourism industry of Manali, which had been plagued by slowdown, large number of tourists have belatedly thronged here for New Year celebration and the town has been jammed with the crowd of visitors from all over the country.Most of the hotels are fully occupied, while others doing better than the average business. People involved in tourism business were shocked after...

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Cliffhanger: 'Major Setback' For Budget Talks

With less than two days remaining for Congress to reach a budget agreement that would avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff," ABC News has learned that negotiations have reached a "major setback."According to Democratic sources the row was sparked when the GOP offered a proposal that included a new method of calculating entitlement benefits with inflation. Called the "chained consumer...

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Obama, top lawmakers meet on cliff edge

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama Friday sought a late deal to stop the US economy tumbling off a "fiscal cliff" next week, gathering top congressional leaders for crunch White House talks.Obama is trying to broker a deal to avert huge tax increases and spending cuts due to come into force as the year turns on Tuesday, as dysfunctional Washington reluctantly works through a disrupted...

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Park Street case no rape, but ‘deal’ gone sour: MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar

KOLKATA: How many times must a rape victim be humiliated when she sticks to her complaint? In Bengal, it is as many times as it suits the politicians. Or, so it seems, given the way Trinamool Congress MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar hit out at the Park Street rape victim yet again on Friday. Not only did Ghosh Dastidar rubbish the rape complaint, in a crass attempt at character assassination she dubbed...

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Body Under British Parking Lot May Be King Richard III

For centuries, William Shakespeare seemed to have the last word. His Richard III glowered and leered from the stage, a monster in human form and a character so repugnant "that dogs bark at me as I halt by them." In Shakespeare's famous play, the hunchbacked king claws his way to the throne and methodically murders most of his immediate family—his wife, older brother, and two young nephews—until...

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Obama reaches out to congressional leaders on ‘fiscal cliff’ talks

With just five days left before the year-end “fiscal cliff” and pessimism mounting that a deal to avert it can be reached, President Obama returned to Washington on Thursday in an effort to jump-start talks after placing late-night calls to Congress’s four top leaders. Obama made calls from Hawaii late Wednesday to Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), Minority Leader Mitch McConnell...

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Oil prices decline on 'fiscal cliff' deal doubts

NEW YORK: Oil prices declined Thursday amid doubts that an 11th-hour deal on the "fiscal cliff" crisis could be reached by a rapidly approaching end-of-year deadline.New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for February delivery, slipped 11 cents to settle at $90.87 a barrel.Brent North Sea crude for February delivery dipped 27 cents to $110.80 a barrel in London trade.With...

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Oriya author Prathiba Ray to get 47th Jnanpith award

NEW DELHI: The Jnanpith Selection Board (JSB) on Thursday announced Oriya author Prathiba Ray's name for the 47th Jnanpith award for 2011. The decision was announced after a JSB meeting that noted scholar, writer and Jnanpith award winner Sitakant Mahapatra chaired. Born in 1943, Ray is one of the widely-read Oriya novelists and short story writers, a JSB communique said. "Her novels and stories...

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Utah Teachers Flock to Gun Training

The perception of schools as sanctuaries from violence has been "blown up" by recent events and some believe it's time for educators to literally take the situation into their own hands and carry guns."We've had this unwritten code, even among criminals, that schools are off limits. Those are our kids. You don't mess with that," Utah Shooting Sports Council (USSC) Chairman Clark...

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How to Live to a Ripe Old Age

Cento di questi giorni. May you have a hundred birthdays, the Italians say, and some of them do. So do other people in various spots around the world—in Blue Zones, so named by National Geographic Fellow Dan Buettner for the blue ink that outlines these special areas on maps developed over more than a decade. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.)In his...

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U.S. will hit debt limit on Dec. 31, Treasury Department says

The U.S. government will hit the $16.4 trillion federal debt limit on Monday and turn to “extraordinary measures” to continue borrowing, the Treasury Department said Wednesday, beginning a countdown until Congress either passes legislation to allow for more borrowing or the government defaults on its debt. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said in a letter to senior lawmakers that...

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Pakistan to mark five years since Bhutto murder

LARKANA, Pakistan: Pakistan Thursday marks the fifth anniversary of the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, with her son expected to launch his political career with a speech in the family's ancestral home town.Bhutto, twice elected prime minister, was killed in a gun and suicide attack after an election rally in Rawalpindi, the headquarters of Pakistan's army, on December...

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Manmohan congratulates Japan's new PM Shinzo Abe

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday congratulated Shinzo Abe, the new PM of Japan, on the victory of his Liberal Democratic Party in the general elections recently held in Japan. The PM underlined the importance of the strategic and global partnership between India and Japan and noted that Abe has been a key architect of this partnership, sources said. He emphasized that the bilateral...

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Space Pictures This Week: Green Lantern, Supersonic Star

Green LanternImage courtesy Caltech/SSI/NASAAnother glorious, backlit view of the planet Saturn and its rings has been captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, as seen in a picture...

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Weather Death Toll Up to 6 as Storm Churns North

A killer Christmas storm is churning its way north leaving hundreds of thousands without power and snarling travel plans for people trying to get home after the holiday.Six people have died, mostly in weather related car crashes, as the South was hammered by as many as 34 tornadoes and a lethal coating of sleet and snow that spread from the South into the Midwest.Over 280,000...

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Federal workers feel unease over potential layoffs, furloughs unleashed by ‘fiscal cliff’

Federal employees have been skeptical for months that the biggest cuts to government spending in history could really happen. But with the “fiscal cliff” a week away, workers are now growing increasingly alarmed that their jobs and their missions could be on the line. President Obama and members of Congress headed out of town late last week for a Christmas break without reaching a deal...

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Russia's brutal early winter claims 123 lives

MOSCOW: A bitter cold snap in Russia has claimed 123 lives in the past 10 days, an official said Tuesday, with the early freeze testing authorities in a country used to notoriously tough winters.Temperatures have plunged as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Moscow region and minus 60 degrees Celsius (minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit) in Eastern Siberia."Since...

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i-age protests rob govt comfort zone

NEW DELHI: Frequent street mobilization with participation of politically non-aligned public has left parties and governments bereft of the comfort of not being seriously questioned or held to account in between elections when voters express their anger through the ballot. Activists and opposition leaders argue that the response of the government to a swiftly developing situation like the one that...

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Photos: Humboldt Squid Have a Bad Day at the Beach

Photograph by Chris Elmenhurst, Surf the Spot Photography“Strandings have been taking place with increased frequency along the west coast over the past ten years,” noted NOAA’s Field, “as this population of squid seems to be expanding its range—likely a consequence of climate change—and can be very abundant at times.” (Learn about other jumbo squid strandings.)Humboldt squid are typically found in...

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