The World's New Architectural Wonders

Texture is the defining element in 2010 Form plus function is Architecture 101. But a building that not only is a bright spark on the landscape but also has a surface as idiosyncratic as its structure, well, that's Architecture 2010. The year that film embraced a third dimension, architecture found a fourth: texture. From the screen-printed filigree of Calais's Fashion and Lace Museum to the latticework of Guangzhou's TV Tower to Johannesburg's serpentine Soccer City...

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2 more glaciers gone from Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park has lost two more of its namesake moving icefields to climate change, which is shrinking the rivers of ice until they grind to a halt, the U.S. Geological Survey said Wednesday. Warmer temperatures have reduced the number of named glaciers in the northwestern Montana park to 25, said Dan Fagre, an ecologist with the agency. He warned the rest of the glaciers may be gone by the end of the decade. "When we're measuring...

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Nike airs Tiger Woods TV ad on eve of Masters

Nike Inc aired a television commercial on Wednesday featuring disgraced golf superstar Tiger Woods, his first new TV spot since a sex scandal prompted some sponsors to distance themselves from the tour legend. The ad will run Wednesday and Thursday on the Golf Channel and Walt Disney Co's ESPN. It will be Woods's first new TV commercial following startling revelations he had had a string of extramarital affairs. Woods took nearly five...

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US author says China media can't cover Google book

A writer for The New Yorker will not promote his new book about Google during a China visit after being warned the media are restricted from writing about the company, which angered the government by moving its search engine off the mainland to avoid censorship. In a phone interview late Wednesday, Ken Auletta said the book's China-based publisher told him his visit next month no longer made sense, because even if Chinese media show up for his events, they won't be able to report anything. E-mails from Auletta's...

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Megan Fox protests school budget cuts with comedy

Megan Fox and her sometime boyfriend, actor Brian Austin Green, are protesting California school budget cuts in a new video online. In a video posted Wednesday on the comic Web site FunnyorDie.com, Fox urges viewers to "call, write and annoy the governor until he cries for his mommy." She says more than $17 billion has been cut from state educational programs over the past two years, and Green says the "terminators in Sacramento" plan to cut another $2.5...

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Cibulkova advances at Florida tennis

Third-seeded Dominika Cibulkova defeated Alla Kudryavtseva 6-3, 6-3 to reach the quarter-finals of the 200,000 dollar WTA MPS Group Championships on Wednesday. It was the first time in four career meetings that Slovakia's Cibulkova had beat Kudryavtseva. Fifth-seeded Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova held off American Bethanie Mattek-Sands 6-7 (4/7), 6-4, 6-2. Mattek-Sands fought off five match points before losing. Sixth-seeded Canadian Aleksandra Wozniak...

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NBA: Officials missed last-second foul at Utah

The NBA announced Wednesday officials missed a foul in the final seconds of Utah's overtime victory over Oklahoma City the previous night. "On the final play of last night's Oklahoma City-Utah game, the officials missed a foul committed by the Jazz's C.J. Miles on the Thunder's Kevin Durant during a 3-point shot attempt," NBA president of league and basketball operations Joel Litvin said in a statement. Deron Williams' jumper with 1.1 seconds left in the...

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U.S. panel sifts subprime wreckage, blames Greenspan

The wreckage of Wall Street's subprime mortgage machine was laid bare on Wednesday by a U.S. congressional panel that pointed the finger at Alan Greenspan for not stopping it from running out of control. The former Federal Reserve chairman -- once revered as the oracle of economic wisdom -- defended his legacy before the panel, which also heard a former Citigroup (C.N) executive say he had warned of the subprime danger. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission...

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GM posts $4.3 billion loss, says 2010 profit possible

General Motors Co posted a net loss for 2009, but said it was possible to make a profit this year and that it was laying the foundation to return to public ownership. GM reported a $4.3 billion 2009 net loss covering the period from its emergence from bankruptcy in July through the end of the year in the automaker's first full account of its new balance sheet as a restructured company. The automaker said it had repaid $2.8 billion of its loans from the...

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Abuse scandal means tough checks for future pope

The sex abuse crisis engulfing the Catholic Church will mean more vigorous background checks when it comes to appointing cardinals, and future popes. Among the requirements: no taint of scandal and the ability to speak comfortably to the world and the media. While leading Catholic conservatives have vigorously defended Benedict XVI from accusations that he was complicit in covering up sex abusers, they have also pointed to management failures. As a model...

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Pain from torrent in Rio falls heavily on slums

Rodrigo de Almeira had dug for 15 hours through mud and debris, and he looked like it. Auburn mud covered his head, his ripped shirt, his torn jeans and his rubber sandals. When asked Wednesday if he had been able to save anyone from the massive landslide in the slum where he lives, he silently shook his head. Of the 138 people confirmed dead from Rio's heaviest rains on record, at least 18 died in his shantytown, Pleasure Hill. "Right there at least 15...

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U.S. Air, United in merger talks

UAL Corp's United Airlines (UAUA.O) is in merger talks with US Airways (LCC.N) in a deal that could create the second-largest carrier in the United States, a source familiar with the matter said. The discussions, aimed at cutting costs and competing with a combined Delta-Northwest, have been going on for "a couple" of weeks, and could fizzle or lead to talks with other carriers, the source said. This would not be the first time the two airlines have tried...

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US woman silently pleads not guilty in terror case

With a shake of the head, a pregnant Colorado woman pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a charge of helping foreign terrorists who authorities say were plotting to kill a Swedish artist. Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31, entered the silent plea to avoid giving prosecutors a sample of her voice. The government evidence includes hard drives and other computer files that may contain voice recordings, and her lawyer did not want to provide a sample for comparison. "If there's...

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Taliban release video of captured US soldier

The Taliban released a video Wednesday of a man identified as an American soldier captured in Afghanistan last June, showing him pleading for his freedom and to be returned home. In the video, Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl says he wants to return to his family in Idaho and that the war in Afghanistan is not worth the number of lives that have been lost or wasted in prison. It is the first he has been seen since the Taliban released a video of him on Christmas Day. ...

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Bangkok under state of emergency

Bangkok was under a state of emergency on Thursday after anti-government protesters stormed the Thai parliament, but the demonstrators remained defiant and said they were ready for "war". Lawmakers fled and several senior government figures were rescued by military helicopter after the red-shirted supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra forced their way into the parliamentary compound briefly on Wednesday. The protesters idolise ousted former premier Thaksin...

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FBI arrests Calif man for alleged Pelosi threats

A California man angry about health care reform allegedly made threatening and harassing phone calls to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, including at least one call in which he got through and spoke to her directly, law enforcement officials said. Gregory Lee Giusti, 48, was arrested Wednesday at his San Francisco home, said Joseph Schadler, spokesman for the FBI's San Francisco office. Schadler would not disclose the charges against Giusti, saying they were under seal until...

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Arkansas teen accuses mom of Facebook harassment

The mother of a 16-year-old boy said she was only being a good mom when she locked him out of his Facebook account after reading he had driven home at 95 mph one night because he was mad at a girl. His response: a harassment complaint at the local courthouse. "If I'm found guilty on this it is going to be open season" on parents, Denise New said Wednesday. New, of Arkadelphia, a small college town an hour southwest of Little Rock, said many of her son's postings ...

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Crews close to rescue attempt of 4 W.Va. miners

A federal official says he is confident that two safety citations issued on the day of the West Virginia mine explosion didn't factor into the blast. Kevin Stricklin, an administrator from the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, said the citations occurred in an area away from the site of the explosion. Stricklin says crews are getting close to entering the mine to search for four missing miners. He says there is a possibility that rescue crews...

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Crusading Chinese lawyer gives up activism

A crusading Chinese rights lawyer whose disappearance more than a year ago caused an international outcry said Wednesday that he is abandoning his once prominent role as a government critic in hopes he'll be allowed to reunite with his family. In an exclusive interview, his first since he resurfaced two weeks ago, Gao Zhisheng said he did not wish to discuss his disappearance and whether he had been held and mistreated by the authorities. He appeared thinner and more subdued...

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