Michelle Obama mourns slain teenager at Chicago funeral

CHICAGO — First lady Michelle Obama attended the funeral here Saturday of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, who went to school only a mile from the Obama family home and was gunned down a few days after visiting Washington for President Obama’s second inauguration. Obama did not know Pendleton, nor did scores of other political dignitaries who filed into the Greater Harvest Baptist Church...

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Golf: Sterne, Fisher extend Joburg Open lead

JOHANNESBURG: South Africans Richard Sterne and Trevor Fisher stretched their lead to five shots on Saturday, after three rounds of the 1.3 million euros Joburg Open.They held a healthy advantage at the event being played at the Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club which is co-sanctioned by the European Tour and the local Sunshine Tour.Playing together, each fired a third-round...

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Afzal Guru's execution: Security agencies unfazed by likely spurt in J&K militancy

NEW DELHI: Terror outfits from across the border are likely to leverage the hanging of Md Afzal Guru and the resulting resentment against Indian state in the Valley to revive militancy in Jammu & Kashmir. Indian security establishment, however, is not perturbed as it believes the sentiment for militancy among the youth in the Valley is dead and even the emotional connect of the Afzal issue is...

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Space Pictures This Week: Sun Dragon, Celestial Seagull

Solar DragonImage courtesy SDO/NASAResembling a dragon's tail, remnants of a solar filament strain to escape the sun's gravity in an image released this week by NASA's Solar Dynamics...

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After Blizzard, Northeast Begins to Dig Out

The Northeast began the arduous process of cleaning up after a fierce storm swept through the region leaving behind up to three feet of snow in some areas.By early this morning, 650,000 homes and businesses were without power and at least five deaths were being blamed on the storm: three in Canada, one in New York and one in Connecticut, The Associated Press reported.The storm...

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US stocks end higher on sharply narrowed US trade deficit

  NEW YORK: The S&P 500 punched to a new five-year high on Friday and the Nasdaq to its best since 2000, as stocks regained footing helped by a sharply narrowed US trade deficit.The Dow Jones Industrial Average also reached a post-crisis high above 14,022 during trade, but slipped back to end up 48.92 points (0.35 percent) at 13,992.97.The S&P 500 index rose 8.54 points (0.57...

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Super Bowl Blackout: Was It Caused by Relay Device, or Human Error?

A device designed to bolster the Superdome electrical system instead caused it to shut down dramatically during Super Bowl XLVII, officials said Friday, but the equipment maker blames the settings keyed in by system operators in New Orleans.Amid the volley of competing conclusions today, there was only slightly more clarity on the cause of the partial blackout of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome...

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Blizzard of 2013 May Bring More Than 2 Feet of Snow

A blizzard of possibly historic proportions is set to strike the Northeast, starting today and could bring more than two feet of snow and strong winds that could shut down densely populated cities such as Boston and New York City.A storm from the west will join forces with one from the south to form a nor'easter that will sit and spin just off the East Coast, affecting more...

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Brennan defends drone strike policies

John O. Brennan, testifying at a confirmation hearing Thursday as President Obama’s nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency during his second term, defended drone strikes against terrorist targets but insisted that it was better to detain terrorists than kill them. Appearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Brennan also rebutted accusations that he did not follow...

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Tennis: Injured Li Na out of Qatar Open

DOHA: China's Li Na has pulled out of next week's $2.3 million Qatar Open after failing to recover from the ankle injury she suffered in her Australian Open final defeat to Victoria Azarenka."Li Na has withdrawn from QatarTennis due to her ankle injury from the Australian Open final. #WTA #tennis," the WTA said on its Twitter account.The Qatar Open starts on Monday.- AFP/de !-- Zone...

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Rahul Gandhi says Akhilesh has failed UP on development

LUCKNOW: On his first visit to his parliamentary constituency since becoming Congress vice-president, Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi blamed the Akhilesh Yadav government for failing to put Uttar Pradesh on the path of development and generating enough job opportunities for the youth. "There is a complete lack of employment opportunities here," he told a gathering on Thursday. "The development that should...

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Suspect Tried to Flee Country Before Cop Shooting

The fired California cop who set off a region-wide manhunt after allegedly shooting three police officers this morning -- one fatally -- had initially gone to a yacht club near San Diego where police say he attempted to steal a boat and flee to Mexico.Police say that former police officer Christopher Jordan Dorner, 33, who officials believe posted an online manifesto outlining...

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Severed Heads Were Sacrifices in Ancient Mexico

Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of more than 150 skulls from an ancient shrine in central Mexico—evidence of one of the largest mass sacrifices of humans in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica.The skulls, many facing east, lay beneath a crude, slightly elevated mound of crushed stone on what was once an artificial island in a vast shallow lake, now completely dry."The site is barely a bump...

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US stocks mixed in choppy trade

NEW YORK: US stocks closed fairly flat on Wednesday after a choppy day of trading, with some positive earnings reports providing support.At the closing bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 7.22 points (0.05 percent) at 13,986.52.The S&P 500 rose 0.83 (0.05 percent) to 1,512.12, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index fell 3.10 (0.10 percent) to 3,168.48.- AFP/de !--...

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Congressmen resigned to slow pace of change in party affairs

NEW DELHI: Congress is waking up to the reality that Rahul Gandhi would prefer gradual change to a massive overhaul, leading to mixed emotions after his Jaipur speech raised hopes of a sharp makeover in party management. The three-day interaction with central office-bearers has left little doubt about Rahul's plans - he would rather focus on states and lower levels of AICC. It has put paid to hopes...

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Confirmed: Couch Potatoes Have Lower Sperm Counts

Men, here's another reason to work up a sweat: It boosts your sperm count. According to new research, couch potatoes who watch lots of TV have fewer sperm than men who exercise moderately or vigorously each week.Sperm count is a measure of semen quality, which has mysteriously declined in U.S. men in recent decades. Low sperm count is linked to infertility as well as testicular cancer,...

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Strengthening security at the nation’s airports

Most people think of airport security as their walk through the metal detector and the eyeballing by transportation security officers (TSOs). Dan Liddell, whose job it is to protect the flying public at seven airports in central New York, instead sees 17 zones of worker responsibility and hundreds of different tasks. In pursuit of safeguarding the public, Liddell, a federal security director...

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Cycling: US attorney says no plan to prosecute Armstrong

WASHINGTON: US prosecutors said Tuesday they have no plans to press criminal charges against cycling cheat Lance Armstrong, despite his confession that he owes his Tour de France victories to illegal doping.US Attorney Andre Birotte, who led a federal investigation into the disgraced rider, did not definitively rule out action, but said Armstrong's public admission had not yet changed...

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Hate speech plaint against Togadia

HYDERABAD/BHOPAL: While the Hyderabad police received a complaint against VHP's international working president Praveen Togadia in connection with an alleged "hate speech" he made in Indore last month, a chief judicial magistrate's court in Damoh, Madhya Pradesh, took notice of a private complaint filed by a local Youth Congress leader against Togadia for "creating hatred between two communities...

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Jodi Arias Tried Wicca, Buddhism With Boyfriends

Accused murderer Jodi Arias testified over the last two days about a flurry of boyfriends and how she followed them into exploring a string of religions including witchcraft, Buddhism, Hinduism and eventually Mormonism.Arias, 32, has yet to tell the jury about meeting Travis Alexander, the ex-boyfriend who baptized her into the Mormon religion and who she is charged with killling...

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Meow! Claws out on Facebook Over Killer Cat Stats

"Good for them, go cats!""Sorry cats but you've gotta go.""Do you get paid to write this?"Well, nobody ever said cat lovers were mellow. But I was taken by surprise to see the number (and intensity) of comments on National Geographic's Facebook page and Daily News website after I wrote a story about a new study on the hunting habits of the domestic cat.To recap: Cats stand accused of killing...

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Fidel Castro makes surprise appearance in Cuba

HAVANA: Stooped and using a cane, Cuba's revolutionary leader Fidel Castro has taken the country by surprise by turning out to vote in legislative elections, after a three-month absence from public view.The 86-year-old Castro cast his ballot at a school in Havana's El Vedado neighborhood on Sunday, engaging in an animated give-and-take with reporters at the polling station and voters for...

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