Golf: Double eagle joy puts Gallacher in Dubai lead

DUBAI: Stephen Gallacher fired two eagles on the back nine in a remarkable bogey-free round of 10-under par 62 to take a three-shot lead into the final day of the $2.5 million Omega Dubai Desert Classic.Gallacher, nephew of the former European Ryder Cup captain Bernard, rattled the pin with his second shot on the par-5 13th and then holed his bunker shot on the 18th from 30 yards.That,...

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Modi has national appeal: Naqvi

ALLAHABAD: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and party spokesperson Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi created ripples at the Sangam on Saturday when he called Narendra Modi a "towering symbol of nationalism having countrywide appeal". He, however, hastened to add that "there were a number of capable leaders and any decision about the party's prime ministerial candidate would be taken at an appropriate...

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Pictures We Love: Best of January

Photograph by Dieu Nalio Chery, APThe magnitude 7 earthquake that struck near Port au Prince, Haiti, in January 2010 so devastated the country that recovery efforts are still ongoing.Professional dancer Georges Exantus, one of the many casualties of that day, was trapped in his flattened apartment for three days, according to news reports. After friends dug him out, doctors amputated his right leg...

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Obama Clings to Shotgun in WH Photo

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)After a week of speculation over the authenticity of claims by President Obama that he regularly participated in skeet shooting at Camp David, the White House released a photograph today showing him firing a shotgun.The photo shows Obama targeting clay pigeons at the presidential retreat last August, according to the White House. In an interview published...

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VA study finds more veterans committing suicide

Every day about 22 veterans in the United States kill themselves, a rate that is about 20 percent higher than the Department of Veterans Affairs’ 2007 estimate, according to a two-year study by a VA researcher. The VA study indicates that more than two-thirds of the veterans who commit suicide are 50 or older, suggesting that the increase in veterans’ suicides is not primarily driven by...

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Death toll in mystery Mexico oil firm blast rises to 32

MEXICO CITY: The death toll in a mystery explosion at the headquarters of Mexico's state-owned oil giant Pemex rose to 32 on Friday as rescuers dug through mounds of rubble for survivors.Hundreds of firefighters, police and soldiers toiled through the night after the blast ripped through an annex of the 54-floor tower, injuring 121 people and leaving concrete, computers and office furniture...

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Cabinet clears ordinance, makes anti-rape laws stricter

NEW DELHI: Rape that leads to death of the victim or leaving her in a vegetative state can now attract death penalty under an ordinance cleared by the Union Cabinet on Friday noght in a bid to fast-track stringent amendments to the criminal laws to check crime against women.The ordinance, based on the recommendations of the Justice J S Verma Committee and going beyond, proposes to replace the word...

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Will Deep-sea Mining Yield an Underwater Gold Rush?

A mile beneath the ocean's waves waits a buried cache beyond any treasure hunter's wildest dreams: gold, copper, zinc, and other valuable minerals.Scientists have known about the bounty for decades, but only recently has rising demand for such commodities sparked interest in actually surfacing it. The treasure doesn't lie in the holds of sunken ships, but in natural mineral deposits that...

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Ala. Hostage Suspect Had Court Date Scheduled

The retired Alabama trucker who shot a school bus driver and is now holding a kindergarten student in an underground bunker was scheduled to be in court Wednesday to answer for allegedly shooting at his neighbors in a dispute over a damaged speed bump.Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, has been holed up in a 6 by 8 foot bunker 4 feet underground with a 5-year-old autistic boy named Ethan...

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Staff 'live-tweet' sackings at UK retailer HMV

LONDON: Staff at collapsed British music retailer HMV hijacked the company's official Twitter account on Thursday to warn they were being sacked en masse.The tweets were swiftly deleted but within minutes, administrators Deloitte confirmed 190 redundancies had been made across HMV's head office and distribution network as a "necessary step in restructuring the business".On the official...

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Lokpal Bill: What it now entails

NEW DELHI: Salient points of the new Lokpal Bill that was cleared on Thursday by the Union Cabinet headed by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh:* The Lokpal at the centre has been delinked from Lokayukta in the states.* State government will have to enact a law for setting up Lokayukta within a year of the central government passing the Lokpal bill.* The prime minister's office will be under the...

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New Theory on How Homing Pigeons Find Home

Jane J. Lee Homing pigeons (Columba livia) have been prized for their navigational abilities for thousands of years. They've served as messengers during war, as a means of long-distance communication, and as prized athletes in international races.But there are places around the world that seem to confuse these birds—areas where they repeatedly vanish in the wrong direction or scatter on...

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Negotiations Drag Out for 5-Year-Old Hostage

An Alabama community is on edge today, praying for a 5-year-old boy being held hostage by a retired man who police say abducted him at gunpoint Tuesday afternoon.Nearly 40 hours have slowly passed since school bus driver Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, heroically tried to prevent the kidnapping, but was shot to death by suspect Jimmy Lee Dykes, a former truck driver, police said.Dykes...

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Thai tycoon takes majority control of Singapore's F&N

SINGAPORE: A Thai tycoon has clinched majority control of Singapore conglomerate Fraser and Neave (F&N), making his offer to fully takeover the company unconditional.TCC Assets, owned by Thai billionaire Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, said in a statement late Wednesday that its stake in F&N stands at 50.92 per cent after further purchases in the stock market and more shareholders accepting...

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Wanting dhoti-clad PM may have caused 'Vishwaroopam' ban: Karunanidhi

CHENNAI: Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (DMK) president M Karunanidhi on Wednesday wondered whether the Tamil Nadu government's ban on Kamal Haasan's movie "Vishwaroopam" was because the actor wanted a dhoti-clad Tamilian as prime minister. In a letter to party cadres, Karunanidhi said some sections of people are of the view that the actor earned the ire of the state government after he said that a...

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Hello Kitty! Please Don’t Kill Me!

Maybe the butler didn't do it. But the cat probably did.A new study, published January 29 in Nature Communications, estimates that cats are responsible for killing billions of birds and mammals in the continental U.S. every year. The estimate: 1.4 billion to 3.7 billion bird victims and 6.9 billion to 20.7 billion mammals. Peter Marra, the senior author of the study, called the results...

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Giffords to Senate: 'Americans Are Counting on You'

Former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, whose congressional career was ended by a bullet wound to her head, opened a Senate hearing on gun violence today by telling the panel, "Speaking is difficult, but I need to say something important."In a determined and forceful voice, she told the Senators to be "courageous" because "Americans are counting on you."Giffords sat alongside...

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Pitfalls ahead for senators’ immigration plan

The release of a new bipartisan Senate plan to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws and a policy address expected Tuesday from President Obama have launched dramatic new momentum on a long-stalled issue. Now the hard part begins. The blueprint unveiled by senators Monday amid warm bipartisan unity settled some of the most difficult questions that have bedeviled efforts to change...

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Israeli vote doesn't nail shut door to peace: Clinton

WASHINGTON: The outcome of Israel's elections did not torpedo hopes for peace with the Palestinians, but instead opened up a new chance for dialogue, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton argued Tuesday."I actually think this election opens doors, not nails them shut," she said, during a so-called "global townhall" meeting, in which she took questions from Internet-users and broadcasters...

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BSY loyalists resign, Shettar in trouble

BANGALORE: The resignations of former CM B S Yeddyurappa's loyalists on Tuesday seems to have left chief minister Jagadish Shettar with only two options -- dissolve the assembly or prove majority. Yeddyurappa's 13 supporters resigned from their assembly membership on Tuesday, after a high drama. The resignations of 12 MLAs was accepted, while that of Vittal Katakadhonda was kept pending due to technical...

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Space Pictures This Week: Martian Gas, Cloud Trails

Image courtesy SDO/NASAThe sun is more than meets the eye, and researchers should know. They've equipped telescopes on Earth and in space with instruments that view the sun in at least ten different wavelengths of light, some of which are represented in this collage compiled by NASA and released January 22. (See more pictures of the sun.)By viewing the different wavelengths of light given off by the...

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Obama's Immigration Plan to Have More Direct Path

President Barack Obama is expected to lay out his principles for immigration reform in a speech in Las Vegas today that will include a potentially quicker path to citizenship than the bipartisan plan a group of senators unveiled earlier this week.The president will offer some new details about the White House's immigration reform plan, which expands on a blueprint it released...

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Bipartisan group of senators to unveil framework for immigration overhaul

A key group of senators from both parties will unveil on Monday the framework of a broad overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws, including a pathway to citizenship for more than 11 million illegal immigrants. The detailed, four-page statement of principles will carry the signatures of four Republicans and four Democrats, a bipartisan push that would have been unimaginable just...

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Iran sends monkey into space

TEHRAN: Iran on Monday successfully sent a monkey into orbit, paving the way for a manned space flight, Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi told state television.Arabic-language channel Al-Alam and other Iranian news agencies said the monkey returned alive after travelling in a capsule to an altitude of 120 kilometres (75 miles) for a sub-orbital flight."This success is the first step towards...

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BJP seeks disqualification of rebel MLAs in Karnataka

BANGALORE: Two BJP MLAs submitted a memorandum to assembly Speaker's office on Monday seeking the disqualification of former CM B S Yeddyurappa's 13 supporters. The complainants — Belur Gopalakrishna and Sarvabhouma Bagli — want 13 MLAs disqualified for their 'anti-party activities.' Along with the memorandum, they also submitted some evidence, both documentary and visual to prove the association...

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Doomed Dolphin Speaks to New York's Vibrant Wildlife

By the time New Yorkers spied a dolphin swimming through the superfund sludge of the Gowanus Canal last Friday, it was too late. The marine mammal didn't even survive long enough for a rescue plan to come together. First sighted on Friday afternoon, the dolphin perished at 6:00 p.m.The reason the marine mammal died, and why the dolphin swam up the...

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Grand Jury Wanted to Indict JonBenet's Parents

A grand jury believed there was enough evidence in 1999 to indict John and Patsy Ramsey on charges relating to the still-unsolved killing of their beauty queen daughter JonBenet Ramsey, ABC News sources say.Six-year-old JonBenet was found dead in the basement of her family's upscale Boulder, Colo., home Christmas Day 1996. Suspicion fell on her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey,...

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As GOP looks to pick up Senate seats, caution is the watchword

When Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) announced Saturday that he wouldn’t seek a sixth term, Republicans rejoiced at the possibility of picking up the seat in 2014. But, that joy soon gave way to political reality — the likelihood of a primary between conservative, tea-party-aligned Rep. Steve King and a more establishment GOP figure such as Rep. Tom Latham or Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds. And, just...

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