LOS ANGELES (AP) — The doctor convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Michael Jackson‘s death asked a judge Friday to release him from jail pending his appeal. Dr. Conrad Murray, who is serving a four-year jail sentence, said in a declaration that he should be released either on his own recognizance or on bail with...
Woman gets life sentence in Md. yoga shop murder
ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) — A woman convicted of killing her co-worker at an upscale yoga clothing shop in the Washington suburbs, then spinning an elaborate lie about being attacked by two masked men, was ordered Friday to spend the rest of her life behind bars. Brittany Norwood tearfully apologized to the family of her...
Arizona candidate appeals English ability court decision
PHOENIX (Reuters) – A woman barred from seeking elected office in an Arizona border town by a judge who ruled she did not have a sufficient grasp of English has decided to fight the controversial ruling, and filed an appeal on Friday, her lawyer said. A Yuma County judge disqualified Alejandrina Cabrera, a U.S....
Costa Cruises offers compensation to rescued passengers
ROME (Reuters) – Costa Cruises has offered 11,000 euros ($14,500) in compensation to each of the more than 3,000 passengers aboard its liner that ran aground and capsized two weeks ago, Italian consumer groups said on Friday. The offer is an attempt by Costa Cruises to limit the legal fallout of the accident off...
NYPD boss won’t take questions on probe of son
NEW YORK (AP) — The police commissioner’s TV show host son is accused of sexually assaulting and impregnating a woman. Some activists are calling for the commissioner’s resignation for appearing in a film they call anti-Muslim. And the CIA is pulling an operative out of his unusual assignment at the NYPD, a partnership he...
Iran hits back at EU with own oil embargo threat
TEHRAN (Reuters) – Fighting sanctions with sanctions in a test of strength with the West over its nuclear ambitions, Iran warned on Friday it may halt oil exports to Europe next week in a move calculated to hurt ailing European economies. The Tehran government grappling with its own economic crisis under Western trade and...
Ship carrying rocket parts hits Ky. bridge
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The voyage of a cargo boat that carries space rocket components to Florida‘s coast for NASA and the Air Force has stalled in a western Kentucky river after it slammed into an aging traffic bridge. The bow of the Delta Mariner was covered in twisted steel and chunks of asphalt...
Panetta cites key intelligence on bin Laden raid
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is acknowledging publicly for the first time that a Pakistani doctor provided key information to the U.S. in advance of the successful Navy SEAL assault on Osama bin Laden‘s compound last May. Panetta told CBS’s “60 Minutes,” in a profile to be broadcast on Sunday, that Shakil...
Israel proposes West Bank barrier as border
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Israel is proposing to essentially turn its West Bank separation barrier into the border with a future state of Palestine, two Palestinian officials said Friday, based on their interpretation of principles Israel presented in talks this week. The officials said Israeli envoy Yitzak Molcho told his Palestinian counterpart that...
Demi Moore "smoked something" before convulsions: 911 tape
Paul Plishka thought back to Sept. 21, 1967, when he made his Metropolitan Opera debut as the Monk in Ponchielli’s “La Gioconda” alongside Renata Tebaldi, Sherrill Milnes and Rosalind Elias. ... read more at article source
Fading Gingrich attacks Romney in ad
MIAMI (Reuters) – Newt Gingrich struggled to regain momentum in the Republican presidential race on Friday as two new polls showed him falling behind rival Mitt Romney, who was seen as the winner of the final debate before the Florida primary. The White House contenders courted Florida’s sizable Hispanic vote, many of them Cubans,...
Lego man in space moves the Web
Two teens from Toronto successfully launched a Lego figure into near space — and launched a storm of interest on the Web. Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad, 17-year-old classmates at Agincourt Collegiate Institute, took four months, many Saturdays, and $400 to carry a Lego figurine and four cameras miles above the earth, a project...
While others woo Florida, Ron Paul’s strategy is to rack up delegates in February
Paul (Stephan Savoia/AP) When asked in front of a national audience this week to defend his ability to win the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, Ron Paul responded by emphasizing the real contest: the race for delegates. “The delegates what counts,” Paul said at the NBC presidential debate in Tampa, Fla., after noting that the...
Utah girl credited with outing school bombing plot
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A 16-year-old Utah student who shared a suspicious text message with a school administrator foiled plans by two schoolmates who apparently were plotting to set off a bomb during a school assembly and run away in a stolen airplane, police said. Roy High School sophomore Bailey Gerhardt told The...
All Thoroughbreds Have Same Ancestor
The Bazzani Scully Brand Lawyers Handicap race, Melbourne, Australia, Jan. 26, 2012. Scott Barbour/Getty Images All the great names in thoroughbred horse racing – from Secretariat to Man O’War, from Seabiscuit to Seattle Slew – they’re all related, and a team of geneticists has now traced their talent for speed back to a single...
Video: Shetland pony on the loose in California suburb
In this video, a Shetland pony is found wandering the streets of suburban Modesto, California. About 30 seconds into the video, the pony makes a run for it, avoiding the growing crowd of residents. Eventually, some college students brought in a snack of hay for the pony, which helped settle him down for a...
Marco Rubio says some conservatives ‘harsh and intolerable’ on immigration
Rubio addresses the Hispanic Leadership Conference. (AP/Alan Diaz)Marco Rubio condemned unnamed members of his own party Friday for using “inexcusable” rhetoric about illegal immigrants. “For those of us who come from the conservative movement, we must admit that there are those among us who have used rhetoric that is harsh and intolerable, inexcusable,” Rubio said...
Airline worker dies when baggage cart hits shuttle
CHANTILLY, Va. (AP) — A Southwest Airlines employee has died from injuries in a crash between a baggage cart and a passenger shuttle on the airfield at Dulles International Airport. Dallas-based Southwest said Friday that the employee was flown to a hospital after the Thursday morning crash and died overnight. Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority...
Apollo 1: The Fire That Shocked NASA
GPN-2003-00057 The Apollo 1 Command Module after the fire that claimed the lives of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. Credit: NASA. NASA s Apollo program began with one of the worst disasters the organization has ever faced. A routine prelaunch test turned fatal when a fire ripped through the spacecraft s crew...
Hull House closes doors after more than 120 years
CHICAGO (AP) — Hull House, the Chicago social services organization founded more than 120 years ago by Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams, closed Friday after running out of money. The Jane Addams Hull House Association announced earlier this month plans to close in the spring, but the shutdown came unexpectedly. More than 300...
Golden Parachutes: 21 CEOs Landed $100M Plus
While TV viewers love to hear the words, “You’re Fired,” from Donald Trump, few would ever want to have that conversation with their own boss. That is, unless they are the boss and managed to negotiate a hefty separation package. So-called golden parachutes are contractual provisions that compensate executives, if they are terminated without...
Actress’ claim to be gay by choice riles activists
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Cynthia Nixon learned the hard way this week that when it comes to gay civil rights, the personal is always political. Very political. The actress best known for portraying fiery lawyer Miranda Hobbes on “Sex and the City” is up to her perfectly arched eyebrows in controversy since The New...
‘Barefoot Bandit’ sentenced to 6 1/2 years
SEATTLE (AP) — A federal judge on Friday sentenced “Barefoot Bandit” Colton Harris-Moore to 6 1/2 years in prison for his infamous two-year, international crime spree of break-ins, and boat and plane thefts that ended in 2010. Harris-Moore hopscotched his way across the United States, authorities said. He flew a plane stolen in northwestern...
Bribes, Chinese Mob Ties Alleged at Casino of Gingrich Money Man
The casino company run by the principal financial backer of Newt Gingrich’s presidential bid, Sheldon Adelson, has been under criminal investigation for the last year by the Department of Justice and the Securities Exchange Commission for alleged bribery of foreign officials, according to corporate documents. In a separate civil lawsuit, a former executive of...
Erin Brockovich investigating mystery illness affecting NY teens
Famed environmental activist Erin Brockovich has begun a private investigation into a mysterious illness affecting more than a dozen teens in Le Roy, New York. Le Roy was home to a dangerous chemical spill 40 years ago and the children’s symptoms–facial tics and verbal outbursts–may be connected, Brockovich tells USA Today. “We don’t have...
Newly discovered color photos from inside Hitler’s private home
Newly released pictures show Adolf Hitler in his private apartment Several never-before-seen photographs have emerged from Adolf Hitler’s personal photographer, giving a first time look at Hitler’s Berlin apartment and Bavarian estate. The Mirror reports that photographer Hugo Jaeger was one of the few photographers working with color photography at the time and was...
Connecticut killer sentenced to die for "unimaginable horror"
NEW HAVEN, Conn (Reuters) – A judge formally sentenced Joshua Komisarjevsky to death for the murders of a mother and her two daughters during a brutal home invasion in Connecticut, saying he committed a crime of “unimaginable horror.” Judge Jon Blue on Friday told Komisarjevsky, 31, that he alone was to blame for his...
Friend says on 911 call Demi Moore was convulsing
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Demi Moore smoked something before she was rushed to the hospital on Monday night and was convulsing and “semi-conscious, barely,” according to a caller on a frantic 911 recording released Friday by Los Angeles fire officials. The woman tells emergency operators that Moore, 49, had been “having issues lately.” “Is...
Obama decries rising cost of college education
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — President Barack Obama called Friday for an overhaul of the higher education financial aid system, warning that colleges and universities that fail to control spiraling tuition costs could lose federal funds. The election year proposal was also a political appeal to young people and working families, two important voting...
Hit me: Gingrich spokesman calls the CNN debate a blackjack ‘push’
Newt Gingrich disembarks from his campaign plane in Miami, Fla. (Matt Rourke/AP) JACKSONVILLE, Fla.–Even Newt Gingrich’s top aides agree: Thursday’s debate wasn’t their boss’s hottest night. Mitt Romney showed up armed with the safety turned off. When the other candidates tried to return fire, Romney ducked, dodged and fired right back. Tensions were already...
President does schtick? Not a good idea
Calling the bad plays of the week on Politically Foul Politics is not a game exactly, but there are rules. And when you break them you’re running Poltically Foul. We see the plays and call the flags on the field as we see them. And this week in politics there was no shortage of...
Auschwitz survivor dies in same town on anniversay
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Kazimierz Smolen, a 91-year-old Auschwitz survivor who after World War II directed the memorial site, has died in the same town on the 67th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. A spokesman for Auschwitz, Pawel Sawicki, said Smolen died Friday in a hospital in Oswiecim, the southern Polish town where Nazi...
Picture of Snoozing Sub Gets Student Suspended
(Image Credit: ABC News) A ninth grader who snapped a picture of a snoozing substitute teacher with his cell phone camera and posted it on a social network is in hot water with his school district. The unnamed student, who attends Mustang Mid-High School in Mustang, Okla., was suspended, according to ABC affiliate KOCO....
Grandmother’s remains found inside storage unit
CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) — Police in Florida found a woman’s skeletal remains, which were being kept in a storage unit. The discovery Thursday came after the manager of the self-storage business in Clearwater called a woman because she was behind on her rent. The woman told him her grandmother was in the storage unit....
Police: 16 kilograms of cocaine seized at UN
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A shipment containing 16 kilograms of cocaine was seized last week at the U.N.‘s mail intake center, a New York Police Department spokesman said Thursday. Paul Browne, NYPD’s chief spokesman, said the drug was in a white bag evidently masquerading as a diplomatic pouch that raised suspicions when it was...
FACT CHECK: Debate over ‘ghetto language’ ad
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitt Romney accuses Newt Gingrich of calling Spanish a “ghetto language.” Close, but not quite. Gingrich denies doing so and said he merely promoted the use of English, “period.” That’s even more of a stretch. The last Republican presidential debate before the GOP Florida primary Thursday brought viewers a blitz of...
Greek village priest held over church treasure dig
THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — Police in northern Greece have arrested a village priest and a church elder for allegedly digging for treasure in the chancel of the church. A police statement Friday says villagers complained of loud drilling noises late Thursday from the church at Fyska near Kilkis, some 30 miles (50 kilometers) north...
Women, children killed in violence-torn Syria city
BEIRUT (AP) — Fresh violence erupted Friday in the besieged Syrian city of Homs, a day after armed forces loyal to President Bashar Assad barraged residential buildings with mortars and machine-gun fire, killing at least 30 people including a family of women and children, activists said Friday. The violence began Thursday, but important details...
Gingrich under fire from conservative media
NEW YORK (AP) — Forget the so-called liberal media. Right now Newt Gingrich‘s most ardent critics are conservative pundits and columnists, many of whom have launched aggressive campaigns to discredit him and trip up his run for the Republican nomination. This crew has largely been lukewarm about Gingrich’s chief rival, Mitt Romney, considering him...
Paterno’s son: ‘Dad, you won. You can go home now’
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — Jay Paterno leaned over his dying father, gave him a kiss, and whispered in his ear. “Dad, you won,” he said. “You did all you could do. You’ve done enough. We all love you. We won. You can go home now.” Joe Paterno died Sunday of lung cancer at...
Israel says Iran ‘drifting’ toward nuke goal line
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Friday the world must quickly stop Iran from reaching the point where even a “surgical” military strike could not block it from obtaining nuclear weapons. Amid fears that Israel is nearing a decision to attack Iran’s nuclear program, Barak said tougher international sanctions are...
Tired and broke, Santorum heads home to do taxes
PUNTA GORDA, Fla. (AP) — Rick Santorum is tired, almost broke — and going home. The former Pennsylvania senator is taking a pause from Florida campaigning just days before the Tuesday primary that even he expects to deal him a third consecutive loss. Santorum says he would rather spend his Saturday sitting at his...
Lawyer withdraws $7.5 million dollar lottery claim
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A New York attorney’s decision to withdraw his claim on a multimillion dollar Iowa Lottery prize doesn’t put to rest officials’ questions about how he obtained the ticket. Crawford Shaw, of Bedford, N.Y., withdrew his claim Thursday on a multimillion dollar Iowa Lottery prize just as mysteriously as he...
Costa to offer 11,000 euros to passengers on Concordia
SEOUL (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics Co posted a record $4.7 billion quarterly operating profit, driven by booming smartphone sales, and will spend $22 billion this year to boost production of chips and flat screens to pull further ahead of smaller rivals. The South Korean firm, the world’s top technology firm by revenue, … ... read...
Kids try to bury big family secret, in ‘Yosemite’
NEW YORK (AP) — Some family secrets are too big to bury. Playwright Daniel Talbott has written a searing drama of a family trapped in a downward spiral, both emotionally and financially, in his dark new play “Yosemite,” which opened Thursday night off-Broadway in a compelling production at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. In this disturbing...
Jennifer Aniston Trashes Chelsea Handler
All those rumors about Jennifer Aniston being smack-talking diva are true. When she’s playing one, anyway. Aniston mocks herself in a new clip from Chelsea Handler’s “After Lately,” in which she slams the E! comic to her staff for having bad hygiene and not being funny. In real life, Aniston and Handler are tight. At Glamour’s Women...
Police: Teens Planned to Bomb School, Steal Plane
Police: Teens Planned to Bomb School, Steal Plane (Image Credit: Weber County Sheriff’s Office)School resumed as normal today at Roy High School in Roy, Utah, only one day after police arrested two students who were allegedly planning to bomb their school assembly and make their getaway in a stolen plane. Dallin Morgan, 18, and...
Italian Cruise Ship Search for Bodies Done by Touch in Complete Darkness
Divers scouring the toppled Italian cruise ship are working in darkness so complete that they search for bodies by touch. The description of the laborious search came today from Sara and John Heil, who are at the site awaiting word that the bodies of their parents have been found. “As the days come and...
Video: Dormouse snores while sleeping in zookeeper’s hand
In this truly adorable video, you can watch a cute little dormouse snoring in a zookeeper’s hand: The dormouse hibernates for long periods, spending up to one third of its entire life asleep. This particular rodent is a resident of the Surrey Wildlife Trust. Surrey mammal project officer Dave Williams shot the video and...
Twitter shoots for the moon with tweets about Newt’s space base
At Thursday’s Republican debate in Jacksonville, FL (the last for nearly a month, for those of you following closely!) Newt Gingrich’s proposed moon colony briefly took center stage. Unsurprisingly, members of the Twitterverse were ready with the punchlines. We’ve included the five funniest (that we saw) below. Did you spot something better? Leave it...