Haiti quietly marks 3rd anniversary of quake

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti President Michel Martelly urged Haitians to recall the tens of thousands of people who lost their lives in a devastating earthquake three years ago, marking the disaster's anniversary Saturday with a simple ceremony.Martelly also thanked other countries and international organizations for their help after the Jan. 12, 2010 disaster."Haitian people, hand in hand, we remember...

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Poisoned Lottery Winner's Kin Were Suspicious

Urooj Khan had just brought home his $425,000 lottery check when he unexpectedly died the following day. Now, certain members of Khan's family are speaking publicly about the mystery -- and his nephew told ABC News they knew something was not right."He was a healthy guy, you know?" said the nephew, Minhaj Khan. "He worked so hard. He was always going about his business and,...

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Russia rejects Assad exit as precondition for Syria deal

MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Russia voiced support on Saturday for international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi but insisted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's exit cannot be a precondition for a deal to end the country's conflict. Some 60,000 Syrians have been killed during the 21-month-old revolt and world powers are divided over how to stop the escalating bloodshed. Government aircraft bombed...

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French air power stops Mali Islamist advance

BAMAKO: Mali's army took back a key town from Islamist rebels Saturday aided by French air power, opening a dramatic new phase in the conflict that France's leader declared is a battle against terrorism.International momentum to wrest northern Mali back from the control of Al-Qaeda-linked groups built after the French air raids helped reclaim the front-line town of Konna, with Burkina...

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Scientist: Hawking is 'brain in a vat'

The generally accepted form of wishing someone a happy birthday is to sing to the lucky person. Or perhaps buy him or her a gift.A less accepted form is to compare the birthday person to Darth Vader and suggest he or she is merely a "brain in a vat."Still, Helene Mialet, a UC Berkeley anthropologist of science, chose the path slightly less trodden.Writing in Wired, she offered that perhaps Hawking...

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CDC: Flu grips 47 states; vaccine found 62% effective

Flu activity continues to rise in the U.S., according to new surveillance statistics released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday. Forty-seven states have now reported widespread influenza activity, according to the CDC's latest FluView report, three more states than officials estimated Wednesday. Two more children have died since last week's report, raising the total to 20...

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Poisoned Lottery Winner's Exhumation Approved

A judge has approved the exhumation of the Chicago lottery winner who died of cyanide poisoning.Judge Susan Coleman of the Probate Division of the Cook County Circuit Court in Illinois today approved the county medical examiner's request to exhume the body of Urooj Khan at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago.Khan, 46, died July 20, 2012, from what was initially believed to be natural...

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Obama, Karzai agree to speed up Afghan military transition

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed on Friday to speed up the handover of combat operations in Afghanistan to Afghan forces this year, underscoring Obama's determination to move decisively to wind down the long, unpopular war. Signaling a narrowing of differences, Karzai appeared to give ground in White House talks on U.S. demands for...

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Oil prices slip on profit taking

NEW YORK: World oil prices fell Friday as investors booked profits from the previous day's rally amid sluggish global economic growth.New York's main West Texas Intermediate (WTI) contract, light sweet crude for February, settled 26 cents lower at $93.56 a barrel.In London, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in February closed at $110.64 a barrel, down $1.25 from Thursday's close."Today...

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New malware exploiting Java 7 in Windows and Unix systems

A new Trojan horse called Mal/JavaJar-B has been found that exploits a vulnerability in Oracle's Java 7 and affects even the latest version of the runtime (7u10).The exploit has been described by Sophos as a zero-day attack since it has been found being actively used in malware before developers have had a chance to investigate and patch it. The exploit is currently under review at the National Vulnerability...

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Student shot at Calif. high school by classmate

Updated at 4:14 p.m. ET TAFT, Calif. A 16-year-old student armed with a shotgun walked into class in a rural California high school on Thursday and shot one student, fired at another but missed, and then was talked into surrendering by a teacher and another staff member, officials said. The teen victim was in critical but stable condition, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood told a press conference....

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Jodi Arias' Lies Detailed at Murder Trial

Jodi Arias lied about her relationship with Travis Alexander, where she was when Alexander was killed, and even where she worked as a bartender, according to the case laid out by prosecutors in her murder trial.Prosecutors opened the fifth day of her trial by using Arias' receipts for food, gas and a car rental that essentially tracked her movements in the days before and after...

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String of bombings kill 101, injure 200 in Pakistan

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - At least 101 people were killed in bombings in two Pakistani cities on Thursday in one of the country's bloodiest days in recent years, officials said, with most casualties caused by sectarian attacks in Quetta. The bombings underscored the myriad threats Pakistani security forces face from homegrown Sunni extremist groups, the Taliban insurgency in the northwest...

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Bombs kill 92 in Pakistan's Quetta: police

QUETTA: Bomb attacks killed 92 people in Pakistan's city of Quetta on Thursday, as twin suicide bombers targeted a snooker hall frequented by Shiites in the deadliest single attack in the country for nearly two years.At least 81 people were killed and 121 wounded when two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the crowded club in an area of the southwestern city dominated by members of...

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ZTE gets more love from the carriers

The Grand S may mark ZTE's coming-out party in the U.S.(Credit:Lynn La/CNET)LAS VEGAS -- When the head of ZTE's North American business, Lixin Cheng, approached the U.S. carriers about building smartphones more than two years ago, he was met with skepticism.During Cheng's meetings here at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, the carrier executives have told him: "Show me more."It's indicative of...

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Hilda Solis stepping down as labor secretary

Hilda Solis announced that she is stepping down from her post as labor secretary, CBS News has confirmed. She sent a letter to President Obama today notifying him of her retirement. Solis was nominated to the position the same day the president was inaugurated in 2009, serving through the president's entire first term. She ran the Labor Department during the worst economic recession since the Great...

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Arias Kissed New Beau Day After Killing Boyfriend

Jodi Arias drove to the home of her new romantic interest, kissed him, and laughed with his friends just 24 hours after she stabbed and shot her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander to death, according to court testimony today.Ryan Burns, whom Arias met in the spring of 2008, took the stand today at the start of the fourth day of testimony in the trial.Arias, 32, is accused of murdering...

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Venezuela court endorses Chavez inauguration delay

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's top court endorsed the postponement of Hugo Chavez's inauguration this week and ruled on Wednesday that the cancer-stricken president and his deputy would continue in their roles, despite a cacophony of opposition complaints. Critics had argued the 58-year-old's absence from his own swearing-in ceremony on January 10 meant a caretaker president must be...

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US urges India, Pakistan to cool Kashmir tensions

WASHINGTON: The United States on Wednesday called on India and Pakistan to seek to cool tensions after Delhi accused the Pakistani army of beheading one of two Indian soldiers killed in Kashmir."Violence is not the answer for either country," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland insisted."We've been counselling both governments to de-escalate, to work through this issue, to continue...

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Troubleshooting HTTPS timeouts in OS X Mountain Lion

After upgrading to Mountain Lion, some OS X users have run into what appears at first glance to be a DNS-related problem in which they can't access certain Web pages. While most Web connectivity seems to work just fine, when accessing special pages like HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) connections the connection times out, resulting in programs like Safari claiming the server could not be...

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Father of slain Tulsa twins: "My life's gone"

TULSA, Okla. Four women were found shot dead inside an apartment in south Tulsa on Monday afternoon, with a three-year-old boy as the only survivor, CBS affiliate KOTV Tulsa reported. Now a father is coming to grips with losing his twin daughters, whom police identified as Rebeika Powell, 23, and Kayetie Melchor, 23, as among the four victims. "My life's gone. My kids are gone," said Larry Powell....

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James Holmes' Elaborate Booby Trap Plan Revealed

A gasoline-soaked carpet, loud music and a remote control car were part of an elaborate plan by accused Aurora gunman James Holmes' to trick someone into triggering a blast that would destroy his apartment and lure police to the explosion while he shot up a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., according to court testimony today.FBI agent Garrett Gumbinner told a Colorado court about...

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U.S. does not rule out complete pullout from Afghanistan after 2014

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration does not rule out a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan after 2014, the White House said on Tuesday, just days before President Barack Obama is due to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The comments by U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes were the first signal that, despite initial recommendations by the top...

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Yemen says US drone strikes to continue

SANAA: Yemen's national security chief said on Tuesday that US drone strikes against Al-Qaeda targets will continue as the two governments keep up their counter-terrorism cooperation."The Yemeni-American cooperation, including the use of friendly aircraft, will continue," Ali Hassan al-Ahmadi told reporters in Sanaa."Yemen is one of the countries that joined the international alliance...

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Fewer booth bikinis at CES? Is that possible?

Is full-body Lycra the new booth garb?(Credit:Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)LAS VEGAS -- The readership here bathes in its sophistication.It doesn't stoop to sexism. It believes the gratuitous use of the female body should be outlawed.However, every year, it needs to be informed as to whether some company has decided to present scantily clad dancing girls in order to attract attendees to its wares.Just, you...

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Newtown seen as factor in Ala. teen's bomb plot

PHENIX CITY, Ala. An Alabama teenager teen who described himself as a white supremacist made journal entries about a plot to bomb classmates three days after the Newtown school massacre and began building small homemade explosives, a sheriff said Monday. Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor told The Associated Press that he believed the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary was a factor because the first...

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