DC police look to stop shooting paybacks; 5 dead

A possible feud among neighborhood crews, three shootings and five fatalities have authorities in the nation's capital trying to stop more paybacks in an area known for drugs and violence just 7 miles from the White House. Tuesday night, a crowd sprayed with bullets in a drive-by shooting that killed four and wounded five had just returned from the funeral of man slain nearby. A 20-year-old man, who was wounded in a third shooting, is a suspect in the other two, authorities...

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Blast in Yemeni prison allows 40 prisoners to escape

A bomb exploded in a prison in the southern Yemeni province of Dalea on Thursday, injuring four inmates and allowing around 40 prisoners to escape, a government official said. Witnesses and southern media said all those who fled the police jail belonged to Yemen's southern secessionist movement, which opposes the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Recent months have seen increasingly violent clashes between separatists and security forces, and analysts say impoverished Yemen could face a sustained insurgency...

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Afghan opium seizures soar in 2009

Opium seizures in Afghanistan soared 924 percent last year because of better cooperation between Afghan and international forces, the top U.S. drug enforcement official said Thursday. The Taliban largely funds its insurgency by profits from the opium trade, making it a growing target of U.S. and Afghan anti-insurgency operations. Afghanistan produces the raw opium used to make 90 percent of the world's heroin. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration now...

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Calling All Celebrity Wannabees -- Aspiring Media Stars Can Now Trade Mark Their Names with the Intellectual Property Office

Trademark-Logo have announced that they are offering a special 30% discount for a limited number of applicants at the beginning of April for all UK Trade Mark registrations for the new Celebrity trademark classification announced recently by the IPO. (PRWeb UK) March 31, 2010 -- With the announcement that the IPO are introducing a new classification for Celebrities, Trademark-Logo have announced that they are offering a special 30% discount for a limited number of applicants...

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Fuel efficiency rules aimed at advanced vehicle

The Obama administration is setting tough gas mileage standards for new cars and trucks, spurring the next generation of fuel-sipping gas-electric hybrids, efficient engines and electric cars. The heads of the Transportation Department and the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday were signing final rules requiring 2016 model-year vehicles to meet fuel efficiency targets of 35.5 miles per gallon combined for cars and trucks, an increase of nearly 10 mpg over current...

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Custom may explain dumping of dead babies in China

Rural traditions of abandoning dead infants because they're considered bad luck may have played a role in the case of 21 babies' bodies found along a river in eastern China, apparently dumped by hospital mortuary workers. The little bodies — at least one stuffed in a yellow bag marked "medical waste" — were found floating and strewn along the bank of a river on the outskirts of Jining city in Shandong province last weekend. Police detained two mortuary workers...

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Japan to buy Electric Cars

Japan's first mass-market electric car went on sale in showrooms Thursday as the futuristic technology becomes more affordable amid a burgeoning price war. The four-seater bubble-shaped i-MiEV from Mitsubishi Motors Corp., Japan's fifth-biggest automaker, costs 2.8 million yen ($30,500) after government incentives are figured into the price of 4 million yen ($43,000). Proud i-MiEV buyer Chitoshi Okunuki, 72, placed an advance order at a higher price in...

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Six powers to start work on Iran sanctions: U.S. envoy

Six world powers, including China, agreed on Wednesday to start drawing up new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program in the next few days, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said. U.S. envoy Susan Rice was confirming what diplomats had told Reuters -- that senior foreign ministry officials from Britain, the United States, France, Russia and Germany had reached agreement with China during a conference call. "China has agreed to sit down and begin...

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Google: Online attacks aimed at Vietnam's critics

Google Inc. accused Vietnam on Wednesday of stifling political dissent with cyberattacks, the latest complaint by the Internet giant against a communist regime following a public dispute with China over online censorship. Like China, Vietnam tightly controls the flow of information and has said it reserves the right to take "appropriate action" against Web sites it deems harmful to national security. The cyberattacks targeted "potentially tens of thousands,"...

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Rural tradition eyed after China dead babies

Rural traditions of abandoning dead infants because they're considered bad luck may have played a role in the case of 21 babies' bodies found along a river in eastern China, apparently dumped by hospital mortuary workers. The little bodies — at least one stuffed in a yellow bag marked "medical waste" — were found floating and strewn along the bank of a river on the outskirts of Jining city in Shandong province last weekend. Police detained two mortuary workers...

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Moscow Bombings Weren't Breaking News

The news of the subway suicide bombings in Moscow on Monday - Russia's worst terrorist attack in five years - led news broadcasts around the world almost immediately after the event unfolded. But in Russia, viewers who tuned in to the country's three main television networks that morning had little reason to suspect anything was amiss - they were watching shows about cooking and makeovers. The networks, all of which are controlled by the government or state-owned companies,...

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Dad of a fallen Marine perseveres against protests at military funerals

A father of a Marine killed in Iraq says he won't pay the legal fees of a protest group who picketed at his son's funeral in 2006 – at least not until he hears from the US Supreme Court on the matter. Albert Snyder, whose son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, was killed in Iraq, learned Friday that a federal appeals court is requiring him to pay more than $16,000 in legal fees to the Westboro Baptist Church, a Christian fundamentalist group that demonstrates during military funerals...

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Obama agreed for oil drilling off coasts

Reversing a ban on oil drilling off most U.S. shores, President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced an expansive new policy that could put oil and natural gas platforms in waters along the southern Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and part of Alaska. Speaking at Andrews air base outside Washington, Obama said, "This is not a decision that I've made lightly." He addressed the expected outcry from disappointed environmentalists by saying he had studied the issue...

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Hutchison ends back and forth on her career plans

Texas Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison said Wednesday she is staying in the U.S. Senate, ending a series of back and forth announcements during the last year about her career plans. The state's senior senator, flanked by Republican leader Mitch McConnell and junior Texas Sen. John Cornyn, told reporters in San Antonio that she will serve out her third term, which ends in 2012. She had previously said she would resign her seat in 2010 regardless of the outcome of the March ...

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Apple may unlock iPhone from AT&T

Sure, devotees of Apple's revolutionary iPhone are known for their zeal — that's why the device has been dubbed "the Jesus phone" in geek circles. But iPhone users have had their faith tested at times — chiefly by the spotty service coverage that comes via the iPhone's exclusive contract for AT&T wireless service. As a result, the iPhone has bypassed a sizable chunk of the wireless market. Some would-be users don't want to leave their non-AT&T provider; others would have faced hefty...

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Palin vs LL Cool J

Here's a chapter in the culture wars that no one saw coming: Sarah Palin and Fox News facing off against '80s rap star and actor LL Cool J. Palin makes her hosting debut Thursday night on Fox, as captain of an interview special in Greta Von Susteren's 10 p.m. slot. The show is called "Real American Stories," and the New York Daily News explains that it chronicles "people who have overcome adversity and more." Among the success stories Palin plans to highlight are those of country music star Toby Keith, ...

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Flooding the New England

Flooding on a scale rarely seen in New England forced hundreds of people from their homes and businesses Wednesday, overwhelmed sewage systems and isolated communities as it washed out bridges and rippled across thoroughfares from Maine to Connecticut. Three days of record-breaking rains tapered to a drizzle, then stopped before the waters in hard-hit Rhode Island finally crested. But authorities across New England warned that the flooding — far worse than an indundation...

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Christian Militia in US (update)

Not guilty pleas have been entered in Michigan on behalf of eight of nine members of a Christian militia that prosecutors claim plotted to kill police officers and kick-start a violent revolution. The eight were arraigned Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Detroit, including the alleged ringleader, 44-year-old David Brian Stone. Stone was among nine members of the Hutaree militia arrested after a series of raids in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. A court document...

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Chechen Rebels, Responsible in latest Attack

A Chechen militant claimed responsibility Wednesday for this week's deadly subway bombings in Moscow, as two new suicide bomb attacks targeting police officers in southern Russia left 12 people dead. Doku Umarov, who leads Islamic militants in Chechnya and other regions in Russia's North Caucasus, said in a video posted Wednesday on a pro-rebel Web site that Monday's twin suicide attacks were an act of revenge for the killing of civilians by Russian security forces. He...

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