Obama pays tribute to Leon Panetta at the Pentagon chief’s farewell ceremony

President Obama paid tribute Friday to outgoing Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, hailing him for presiding over victories against terrorists and the expansion of opportunity in the U.S. armed forces. In a speech at Fort Myer, Va., for the “Armed Forces Farewell Tribute” to Panetta, the president called the Pentagon chief “a man who hasn’t simply lived up to the American dream but has...

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Horsemeat 'contamination' could date back to August: Findus

LONDON: French frozen food supplier Comigel told the Findus brand that "the contamination" of processed beef products with horsemeat could date back to August 2012, Findus said in a statement Saturday."Findus want to be absolutely explicit that they were not aware of any issue of contamination with horsemeat last year," it said in a statement."They were only made aware of a possible August...

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Activists protest against Afzal's hanging

NEW DELHI: Several people today protested against the hanging of Afzal Guru, one of the convicts of Parliament attack, at Jantar Mantar here. Protesters included social activists, students from universities, mostly from JNU, and from different social organisations. "We are against capital punishment to any person and have gathered here to protest against Afzal's hanging," said Ruchika, one of...

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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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Storm Drops More Than 2 Feet of Snow on Northeast

A fierce winter storm brought blizzard conditions and hurricane force winds as the anticipated snowstorm descended across much of the Northeast overnight.By early Saturday 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...

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Probe launched over email hacking of Bush family

WASHINGTON: A criminal inquiry was launched Friday into how a hacker appeared to breach email accounts belonging to former presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, as well as other members of their family."There's a criminal investigation under way," Jim McGrath, a spokesman for the elder ex-president Bush, who is now aged 88 and was recently hospitalized, told AFP, following reports...

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No anger over 'Vishwaroopam' row, it made me feel sorry: Kamal

HYDERABAD: The controversy over his film " Vishwaroopam" did not make actor Kamal Haasan angry but he felt "sorrow" and like Socrates, he would "sip the cup of poison" to speak his "freedom". Speaking at a meeting, he said, "I am not angry (over the issue), only (felt) sorrow, that in a great country, free country like India, an artist would be insulted so. Because, very rarely have artistes been...

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Mexico's Robust Wind Energy Prospects Ruffle Nearby Villages

Photograph by Mark Stevenson, APWind turbines tower over indigenous villagers who turned out to see then-Mexican President Felipe Calderón inaugurate a $550 million wind project in the state of Oaxaca in 2009.It was the start of new cleaner energy drive for an oil-reliant nation, but one that has upended lives in the region's native farming and fishing villages. The battle between new energy and traditional...

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Monster Blizzard Takes Aim at Northeast

A blizzard of possibly historic proportions is set to strike the Northeast, starting today and bringing up to 2 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 than 43 million...

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'Light' sodas may hike diabetes risk: study

PARIS: Artificially sweetened sodas have been linked to a higher risk of Type 2 diabetes for women than sodas sweetened with ordinary sugar, a French study unveiled on Thursday found."Contrary to conventional thinking, the risk of diabetes is higher with 'light' beverages compared with 'regular' sweetened drinks," the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) said.The...

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SC pulls up CBI in Babri Masjid demolition case

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Thursday pulled up the CBI for its submission that BJP leader LK Advani and other party leaders present at Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, had committed a "national crime" in the conspiracy that led to demolition of the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid structure. Taking a dim view of the submission, a bench of Justice H.L. Dattu and Justice Ranjan Gogoi said that...

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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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Ex-LA Cop Sought in Shootings of 3 Cops, 2 Slayings

Police in Southern California say they suspect that a fired cop is connected to the shootings -- one fatal -- of three police officers this morning, as well as the weekend slayings of an assistant women's college basketball coach and her fiancé in what cops believe are acts of revenge against the LAPD, as suggested in the suspect's online manifesto.Former police officer Christopher...

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Royal Bank of Scotland fined US$612m to settle Libor probe

LONDON : State-rescued Royal Bank of Scotland will pay fines totalling US$612 million (453 million euros) to US and British regulators to settle allegations of Libor interest rate rigging, it announced on Wednesday.RBS is the third bank to admit its part in the Libor affair after British rival Barclays and Swiss lender UBS.The investigations uncovered "wrongdoing" by 21 employees, predominantly...

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French troops clash with Islamists in 'real war' in Mali

GAO (MALI): French and Malian troops clashed with Islamist rebels near the large town of Gao, Paris said on Wednesday after reporting that hundreds of insurgents had been killed in a "real war" to reclaim northern Mali. French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the extremist rebels, who have been driven from key strongholds which they had controlled in northern Mali for 10 months, struck back...

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The Real Richard III

It's a question that actors from Laurence Olivier to Kevin Spacey have grappled with: What did Richard III, the villainous protagonist of Shakespeare's famous historical drama, really look and sound like?In the wake of this week's announcement by the University of Leicester that archaeologists have discovered the 15th-century British king's lost skeleton beneath a parking lot, news continues...

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US Postal Service to End Saturday Mail Delivery

Feb 6, 2013 8:28am                                               (Image Credit: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)Weekend mail delivery...

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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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Afghanistan's Karzai confirms to leave power in 2014

OSLO: Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai confirmed Tuesday in Oslo that he plans to step down next year when his mandate expires."The question of me staying as the president beyond 2014 is out of the question," Karzai said when reporters asked about recent speculation that he was keen to stay on."Neither am I seeking a third term, nor does the constitution allow it. There will be an election...

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VHP's PIL against Shinde's 'Hindu terror' remarks dismissed

ALLAHABAD: A petition filed by Vishwa Hindu Parishad against Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde's "Hindu terror" remarks was dismissed by the Allahabad high court today. A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Shiva Kirti Singh and Justice Dilip Gupta dismissed in limine the Public Interest Litigation which had sought to make Shinde, the Cabinet Secretary and the Union Home Secretary respondents....

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Space Pictures This Week: A Space Monkey, Printing a Moon Base

Illustration courtesy Foster and Partners/ESAThe European Space Agency (ESA) announced January 31 that it is looking into building a moon base (pictured in an artist's conception) using a technique called 3-D printing.It probably won't be as easy as whipping out a printer, hooking it to a computer, and pressing "print," but using lunar soils as the basis for actual building blocks could be a possibility."Terrestrial...

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Boy Rescued in Ala. Standoff 'Laughing, Joking'

The 5-year-old boy held hostage in a nearly week-long standoff in Alabama is in good spirits and apparently unharmed after being reunited with his family at a hospital, according to his family and law enforcement officials.The boy, identified only as Ethan, was rescued by the FBI Monday afternoon after they rushed the underground bunker where suspect Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, was...

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Aliwal Arts Centre to be launched in March 2013

SINGAPORE : The Aliwal Arts Centre will be launched in March 2013 as the next arts housing development under the Framework for Arts Spaces.The framework comes under the National Arts Council's (NAC) plan to create a stronger link between infrastructure support and the different needs of artists.The Goodman Arts Centre was rolled out in 2011 as a pilot project under the framework.Since...

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Akbaruddin Owaisi booked in one more 'hate speech' case

HYDERABAD: Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi, accused of sedition for his " hate speech", was today booked in a similar case, police said. Based on a complaint filed by city corporator Raja Singh, a local court had last month directed the Mangalhat police to investigate a speech made by Akbaruddin at Nanded in Maharashtra in 2012, which allegedly targeted a particular community....

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King Richard III Bones Found, Scientists Say

The search for the long-vilified English King Richard III, who died in battle in 1485 and whose image as a nasty tyrant was immortalized by William Shakespeare, appears to have ended.In a dramatic Monday morning press conference, researchers from England's University of Leicester announced they had identified "beyond all reasonable doubt" Richard III's skeletal remains. The remains had...

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Which Super Bowl Commercial Won the Night?

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Etch A Sketch creator dies

PARIS: Andre Cassagnes, the French inventor of the Etch A Sketch, a toy beloved of children around the world, has died at the age of 86.His death in France in mid-January was announced by the Ohio Art Company which has been making the Etch a Sketch since 1960, according to media reports.The Etch A Sketch, a grey screen with bold red frame, allows children to draw a picture using a stylus...

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