Karachi bus explosion kills five

KARACHI: An explosion on a bus in Pakistan's largest city Karachi on Saturday left at least five people dead and wounded 35 others, police said.It was not immediately clear what had caused the blast in Sadar, a congested shopping area of Karachi, officials said, adding that a bomb disposal team was trying to determine whether it was caused by a bomb or an exploding compressed natural gas...

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'Twas a very mobile Christmas (week in review)

Android and iOS devices were apparently popular gifts this Christmas -- more popular than ever before.Device activations soared from their daily December average of 4 million to 17.4 million on Christmas Day, a 332 percent increase, according to analytics firm Flurry. That's more than double the 6.8 million devices activated on Christmas last year, the previous single-day record holder. And in a first,...

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East, Gulf Coast port strike averted, for now

Last Updated 12:15 p.m. ET NEW YORK The union for longshoremen along the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico has agreed to extend its contract for 30 days, averting a possible strike that could have crippled operations at ports that handle about 40 percent of all U.S. container cargo, a federal mediator announced Friday.The extension came after the union and an alliance of port operators and shipping lines...

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Did the Exodus of Moses Really Happen?

In the Bible, he is called Moses. In the Koran, he is the prophet Musa.Religious scholars have long questioned whether of the story of a prophet leading God's chosen people in a great exodus out of Egypt and the freedom it brought them afterwards was real, but the similarities between a pharaoh's ancient hymn and a psalm of David might hold the link to his existence.Tune in...

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Syria opposition leader rejects Moscow invitation

ALEPPO PROVINCE, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's opposition leader has rejected an invitation from Russia for peace talks, dealing another blow to international hopes that diplomacy can be resurrected to end a 21-month civil war. Russia, President Bashar al-Assad's main international protector, said on Friday it had sent an invitation for a visit to Moaz Alkhatib, whose six-week-old...

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Skiing: Fenninger wins women's World Cup giant slalom

SEMMERING, Austria: Austria's Anna Fenninger won the women's World Cup giant slalom on Friday going fastest on both legs of the race.She was quickest on the first leg 00.56 seconds ahead of Tessa Worley of France and 00.90 second clear of overall World Cup leader Tina Maze of Slovenia.With gusting winds and poor visibility making the going tough for all the skiers, Maze, who had won four...

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Tablets more popular than e-readers among e-book crowd

More people are reading e-books, and more of them are usingtablets as their primary device.The percentage of Americans who now read e-books rose to 23 percent from 16 percent a year ago, says a report out today from Pew Internet. Over the same time, the percentage of those who read printed books dropped to 67 percent from 72 percent.From the poll conducted in October and November, the percentage of...

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Former President Bush stays in ICU, fever lingers

(CBS News) Former President George H.W. Bush remains in the intensive care unit of Houston's Methodist Hospital on Thursday, after battling a bronchitis-like cough and fever for over a month. Doctors say his condition is improving since he suffered a setback on Christmas Day but also say they are having trouble keeping the former president's fever under control. He was reportedly put on a liquid...

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Newtown Shooter's DNA to Be Studied

Geneticists have been asked to study the DNA of Adam Lanza, the Connecticut man whose shooting rampage killed 27 people, including an entire first grade class.The study, which experts believe may be the first of its kind, is expected to be looking for abnormalities or mutations in Lanza's DNA.Connecticut Medical Examiner H. Wayne Carver has reached out to University of Connecticut's...

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Syria envoy calls for political change to end conflict

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The international envoy seeking a solution to Syria's 21-month-old conflict said on Thursday political change was needed to end the violence which has killed 44,000 people, and called for a transitional government to rule until elections. Speaking in Damascus at the end of a five-day trip during which he met President Bashar al-Assad, Lakhdar Brahimi did not spell out...

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India to name and shame rapists: minister

NEW DELHI: The Indian government said on Thursday it will post the photos, names and addresses of convicted rapists on official websites to publicly shame them, in a new measure to combat growing crime against women.Ratanjit Pratap Narain Singh, India's junior home minister, said the campaign would begin first in New Delhi, where the brutal gang-rape of a student on December 16 by six...

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ZTE officially unveils high-end Nubia Z5

The ZTE Nubia Z5(Credit:ZTE)Though it isn't slated for the U.S. anytime soon, ZTE's ultra high-end device, the Nubia Z5, finally launched today.The handset comes in black or white, and has a 5-inch 1080p touchscreen with a 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution and 443ppi. The display itself is manufactured by Sharp.Its aluminum uni-body design measures 5.43-inches tall, 2.71-inches wide, and it has a thin,...

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World's longest high-speed rail line opens in China

BEIJING China on Wednesday opened the world's longest high-speed rail line that more than halves the time required to travel from the country's capital in the north to Guangzhou, an economic hub in southern China. The opening of the 1,428-mile line was commemorated by the 9 a.m. departure of a train from Beijing for Guangzhou. Another train left Guangzhou for Beijing an hour later. China has massive...

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Storms Spawn 34 Tornado Reports Across South

Severe Christmas day weather tore across the deep South, spinning off 34 possible tornadoes and killing at least three people in its path, while extreme weather is forecast throughout today for parts of the East Coast.The storm first pounded Texas, then touched down in Louisiana and blasted through homes in Mississippi. In Mobile, Ala., a wide funnel cloud was barreled across...

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Syria to discuss Brahimi proposals with Russia

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad dispatched a senior diplomat to Moscow on Wednesday to discuss proposals made by envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to end the conflict convulsing his country, Syrian and Lebanese sources said. Brahimi, who met Assad on Monday as part of a series of planned talks with Syrian officials and dissidents in Damascus this week, is trying to arrange a peaceful...

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Woman conscious after motorcycle accident in Woodlands

SINGAPORE: The 46-year-old woman knocked down by a motorcycle on Saturday is alert and conscious.A spokesperson from the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital says she is currently stable and is recovering.The accident happened between the junction of Woodlands Avenue 6 and Avenue 7.The motorcyclist beat the red light and collided into the woman.The woman was flung some distance on impact. She was admitted...

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Netflix outage mars Christmas Eve

Netflix's video streaming service suffered a Christmas Eve outage on "many but not all devices" across the Americas, according to the company.The outage continued into Christmas morning for some customers. The company tweeted at 8:45 a.m. PT that the service was "back to normal streaming levels."Netflix first started responding to tweets about disrupted service before 1 p.m. PT yesterday. About three...

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Pope decries slaughter of "defenseless" in Syria

VATICAN CITY Pope Benedict XVI wished Christmas peace to the world Tuesday, decrying the slaughter of the "defenseless" in Syria and urging Israelis and Palestinians to find the courage to negotiate. Delivering the Vatican's traditional Christmas day message from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, Benedict also encouraged Arab spring nations, especially Egypt, to build just and respectful...

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Winter Storms, Tornado Threats for Christmas in US

Forecasts of snow, sleet and freezing rain threatened to complicate Christmas Day travel around the nation's midsection Tuesday as several Gulf Coast states braced for a chance of twisters and powerful thunderstorms.A blizzard watch was posted for parts of Indiana and western Kentucky for storms expected to develop Tuesday amid predictions of up to 4 to 7 inches of snow in coming...

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Syria envoy seeks peace as clashes rage

BEIRUT (Reuters) - International envoy Lakhdar Brahimi pursued mediation efforts in Damascus on Tuesday, but there was no pause in the bloodletting as Syrian Christians marked a bleak Christmas Day with prayers for peace. "We are here in a cave that symbolizes Syria right now," said a priest standing beside a nativity scene in a grotto. "It is cold here but the door is open...

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Thai court jails ex-trader over royal health web rumours

BANGKOK: A Thai court jailed a former equity trader for four years on Tuesday for posting false Internet messages about the king's health that sent stocks plunging in 2009, an official said.Katha Pajariyapong, 39, was found guilty of three counts of breaching the kingdom's controversial computer crime laws in messages posted under his username on the Sameskybooks.org Internet forum.The...

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Why startups shouldn't be afraid of Facebook cloning them

It'll take more than a Poke to knock out Snapchat.(Credit:Screenshot by Ben Parr/CNET)How long does it take a multibillion-dollar technology juggernaut to clone a popular social networking app? The answer: less than two weeks.I am, of course, talking about Poke, Facebook's clone of Snapchat, the app whose messages self-destruct after 1 to 10 seconds. As many people like to point out, it's perfect...

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Police in India clamp down on protests over gang rape

Even as Indian Prime Minster Manmohan Singh appealed for calm after violent weekend protests over the brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old woman in New Delhi, police in the nation's capital were enforcing a complete clampdown. Prime Minister Singh urged calm and vowed to protect women as police struggled Monday to quell increasing outrage over sex crimes, following the gang-rape of a student on a bus...

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4 Firefighters Shot, 2 Killed Responding to NY Blaze

Two firefighters were shot and killed and two others taken to a nearby hospital after a gunman opened fire on them as they responded to a house fire in Webster, N.Y., this morning, according to authorities and local media.Officials at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.Y., told ABCNews.com that two men were taken there this morning and were in "guarded condition" after...

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Afghan policewoman kills coalition contractor in Kabul: NATO

KABUL (Reuters) - An Afghan woman wearing a police uniform shot dead on Monday a civilian contractor working for Western forces in the police chief's compound in Kabul, NATO said. The incident is likely to raise troubling questions about the direction of an unpopular war. It appeared to be the first time that a woman member of Afghanistan's security forces carried out such...

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New industries revitalising China's north eastern region

BEIJING: Once a thriving industrial base, China's north eastern region slipped into depression when several state-owned enterprises shut down in the 1990s as part of economic restructuring. Still, growth is now slowly but surely returning to the region.A currency exchange built by the Japanese during World War Two is still in use today in China's northeastern city of Changchun in Jilin...

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Revealed: NSA targeting domestic computer systems in secret test

Newly released files show a secret National Security Agency program is targeting the computerized systems that control utilities to discover security vulnerabilities, which can be used to defend the United States or disrupt the infrastructure of other nations.The NSA's so-called Perfect Citizen program conducts "vulnerability exploration and research" against the computerized controllers that control...

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Reliving the holiday favorite "A Christmas Story"

(CBS News) 'Tis the Season for "A Christmas Story," the 1983 film whose memorable story is being re-told on Broadway. Mo Rocca sets the stage: If "Miracle on 34th Street" and "It's a Wonderful Life" are the frankinscense and myrrh of Christmas movies, then the gold may very well be 1983's "A Christmas Story." If you haven't seen "A Christmas Story," well, it's the tale of 12-year-old Ralphie Parker....

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