Earl Smith is the man behind a military patch that President Obama prizes

AUSTIN — That February morning in 2008 found Barack Obama decidedly out of sorts. He was locked in one battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination that showed no signs of ending — and another with a vicious cold that felt the same way. As he rode the service elevator in the backway of a convention hotel here, the snowy-haired African American operating it turned...

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Migrant Workers' Centre urges flexibility in Change of Employer policy

SINGAPORE: The Migrant Workers' Centre has urged the government to be more flexible in allowing foreign workers to change employers. The centre's Chairman Yeo Guat Kwang told Channel NewsAsia that he is working with the Manpower Ministry to try and amend the policy.The Migrant Workers' Centre said last year it received about 1,500 complaints from foreign workers, mostly for salary arrears...

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Chintan Shivir: Congress leaders pitch for Rahul Gandhi as PM candidate

JAIPUR: Amid talk that Rahul Gandhi will be given a larger responsibility, clamour for declaring him as the Congress prime ministerial candidate grew louder at the party's Chintan Shivir on Saturday. Union ministers Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajiv Shukla, Jitin Prasada, senior leader Manishankar Aiyar batted for larger responsibility for Rahul as the party recognised the need to respond to the demands...

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Attack at Algeria Gas Plant Heralds New Risks for Energy Development

The siege by Islamic militants at a remote Sahara desert natural gas plant in Algeria this week signaled heightened dangers in the region for international oil companies, at a time when they have been expanding operations in Africa as one of the world's last energy frontiers. (See related story: "Pictures: Four New Offshore Drilling Frontiers.")As BP, Norway's Statoil, Italy's Eni, and...

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Te'o Denies Involvement in Girlfriend Hoax

Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te'o told ESPN that he "never, not ever" was involved in creating the hoax that had him touting what turned out to be a fictional girlfriend, "Lennay Kekua.""When they hear the facts, they'll know," Te'o told ESPN's Jeremy Schaap in his first interview since the story broke. "They'll know that there is no way that I could be a part of this.""I...

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Earl Smith is the man behind a military patch that President Obama prizes

AUSTIN, Tex. — That February morning in 2008 found Barack Obama decidedly out of sorts. He was locked in one battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination that showed no signs of ending — and another with a vicious cold that felt the same way. As he rode the service elevator in the backway of a convention hotel here, the snowy-haired African American operating it...

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China working age population falls

BEIJING: China's working-age population declined for the first time in recent decades in 2012, the government said on Friday, detailing the extent of a demographic time bomb experts say is one of Beijing's biggest challenges.China introduced its controversial one-child policy in the late 1970s to control population growth, but its people are now ageing, moving to the cities, and increasingly...

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Can't disclose information on Kasab: Maharastra

MUMBAI: Disclosing any information on Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab, who was hanged on November 21, 2012 in Pune's Yerwada Central Jail, could affect India's sovereignty and strategic interests, the Maharashtra government has told a Right to Information (RTI) activist. Leading RTI activist Anil Gangali was informed that disclosure of any information on Kasab, including his mercy petition...

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Opinion: Lance One of Many Tour de France Cheaters

Editor's note: England-based writer and photographer Roff Smith rides around 10,000 miles a year through the lanes of Sussex and Kent and writes a cycling blog at: www.my-bicycle-and-I.co.ukAnd so, the television correspondent said to the former Tour de France champion, a man who had been lionised for years, feted as the greatest cyclist of his day, did you ever use drugs in the course...

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Armstrong Admits to Doping, 'One Big Lie'

Lance Armstrong, formerly cycling's most decorated champion and considered one of America's greatest athletes, confessed to cheating for at least a decade, admitting on Thursday that he owed all seven of his Tour de France titles and the millions of dollars in endorsements that followed to his use of illicit performance-enhancing drugs.After years of denying that he had taken...

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Floods swamp Indonesia capital, 19,000 homeless

JAKARTA: Floods which have made more than 19,000 people homeless and killed three brought parts of the Indonesian capital to a standstill Thursday, with even the president forced to roll up his trousers.The waist-deep muddy waters paralysed much of the centre of Jakarta, home to 20 million people and already notorious for its chaotic traffic.Drivers were stuck in snaking queues for hours...

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ISI fomented BTAD trouble to destabilize country: Gogoi

GUWAHATI: Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi today blamed both external forces, including Pakistan's ISI, and internal elements for fomenting trouble in BTAD area in the state to destabilise the country. "The trouble in BTAD area last year was a part of a greater design by both internal and external forces like the ISI to not only to destabilise Assam but the country as well," Gogoi told reporters...

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6 Ways Climate Change Will Affect You

Photograph by AP Photo/Marcio Jose SanchezThe planet keeps getting hotter, new data showed this week. Especially in America, where 2012 was the warmest year ever recorded, by far. Every few years, the U.S. federal government engages hundreds of experts to assess the impacts of climate change, now and in the future. From agriculture (pictured) to infrastructure to how humans consume energy, the National...

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Notre Dame: Football Star Was 'Catfished' in Hoax

Notre Dame's athletic director and the star of its near-championship football team said the widely-reported death of the star's girlfriend from leukemia during the 2012 football season was apparently a hoax, and the player said he was duped by it as well.Manti Te'o, who led the Fighting Irish to the BCS championship game this year and finished second for the Heisman Trophy,...

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Tennis: Djokovic dazzles in straight-sets win over Harrison

MELBOURNE: Novak Djokovic was in the zone with a dazzling demolition of Ryan Harrison as he stormed into the third round of the Australian Open on Wednesday.The world number one was in irresistible form, outclassing the young American 6-1, 6-2, 6-3 in just one hour 31 minutes of high-class tennis on Rod Laver Arena.Djokovic, a three-time winner and going for three straight Australian titles,...

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Puri shankaracharya blames western influence for rapes

KOLKATA: Western influence was one of the main reasons behind the rise in incidents of rape in the country, sankaracharya of Puri Swami Sri Nischalananda Saraswati said here on Wednesday. The western influence — films, club culture and drugs has destroyed the age old values and principles of the country. "There is need to change this. Before Independence we were able to maintain our culture and...

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Mars Rover Finds Intriguing New Evidence of Water

The first drill sample ever collected on Mars will come from a rockbed shot through with unexpected veins of what appears to be the mineral gypsum.Delighted members of the Curiosity science team announced Tuesday that the rover was now in a virtual "candy store" of scientific targets—the lowest point of Gale crater, called Yellowknife Bay, is filled with many different materials that could...

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NRA Ad Calls Obama 'Elitist Hypocrite'

Jan 16, 2013 12:04am Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP PhotoAs the White House prepares to unveil a sweeping plan aimed at curbing gun violence, the National Rifle Association has launched a preemptive, personal attack on President Obama, calling him an “elitist hypocrite” who, the group claims, is putting American children at risk.In 35-second video posted online Tuesday...

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M'sia mall launches women-only parking areas

SINGAPORE: Authorities in Kuala Lumpur are making it compulsory for all shopping malls and commercial buildings to set aside seven per cent of carpark space for women only.Women driving alone or with young childen unaccompanied by men can opt to park in sections of carparks that are specially allocated to women.The women-only carpark is an initiative undertaken by the Kuala Lumpur city...

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Tripura governor DY Patil suffers heart attack, hospitalised

AMRAVATI(MAHARASHTRA): Tripura governor DY Patil was hospitalised here on Tuesday after he suffered a heart attack and his condition is stated to be "serious," doctors said. Deputy collector Sachin Kalantre told mediapersons that Patil "has developed blockages" and doctors were attending to him. Patil, who inaugurated the centenary celebrations of Hanuman Vyayam Prasarak Mandal (HVPM) here on Tuesday...

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"Fantastic" New Flying Frog Found—Has Flappy Forearms

Scientists have stumbled across a new species of flying frog—on the ground.While hiking a lowland forest in 2009, not far from Ho Chi Minh City (map), Vietnam, "we came across a huge green frog, sitting on a log," said Jodi Rowley, an amphibian biologist at the Australian Museum in Sydney and lead author of a new study on the frog.Rowley later discovered that the 3.5-inch-long (9-centimeter-long)...

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Armstrong Admits Doping in Tour, Sources Say

Lance Armstrong today admitted to Oprah Winfrey that he used performance enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France, sources told ABC News.A government source tells ABC News that Armstrong is now talking with authorities about paying back some of the US Postal Service money from sponsoring his team. He is also talking to authorities about confessing and naming names, giving up...

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Football: Ronaldo wants to see out contract at Real

MADRID: Cristiano Ronaldo says he wants to stay with Real Madrid until the end of his contract with the club.The 27-year-old Portuguese striker's contract with Real runs out in June 2015 but Spanish media have reported that he is unhappy at the club and may leave at the end of the season.The player has been linked to a move to Paris Saint-Germain or back to Manchester United."I want to...

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Telangana state soon; Congress leaders get "signals" from Centre

HYDERABAD: Congress leaders from Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh today claimed that they have received "signals" from the Centre on creation of a separate state. Two ministers and an MP came out with the claim today even as the deadline set by Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde for a decision on the statehood demand is just a fortnight away. "We have indications from the Centre that AP is...

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Pictures: Civil War Shipwreck Revealed by Sonar

Photograph by Jesse CancelmoA fishing net, likely only decades old, drapes over machinery that once connected the Hatteras' pistons to its paddle wheels, said Delgado.From archived documents, the NOAA archaeologist learned that Blake, the ship's commander, surrendered as his ship was sinking. "It was listing to port, [or the left]," Delgado said. The Alabama took the wounded and the rest of the crew...

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Big Winners, Best Golden Globe Moments

Let's finally bury this idea that women can't be funny once and for all. Fey and Poehler were undeniably hilarious throughout the Globes, so much so that many fans on Twitter demanded more of them during the ceremony. From their opening bit -- Poehler: "Meryl Streep is not here tonight, she has the flu. And I hear she's amazing in it." -- to their pseudo drunk heckling of best TV comedy actress...

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How NRA’s true believers converted a marksmanship group into a mighty gun lobby

In gun lore it’s known as the Revolt at Cincinnati. On May 21, 1977, and into the morning of May 22, a rump caucus of gun rights radicals took over the annual meeting of the National Rifle Association. The rebels wore orange-blaze hunting caps. They spoke on walkie-talkies as they worked the floor of the sweltering convention hall. They suspected that the NRA leaders had turned off the...

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Lions Befrienders charity race raises S$215,000 for senior activity centres

SINGAPORE: Call it a race to make a difference.About 250 people took part in a car race organised by the Lions Befrienders to raise awareness about vulnerable seniors.Acting Minister for Social and Family Development Chan Chun Sing flagged them off at the former Tanjong Pagar Railway StationParticipants were required to make pit stops at 12 islandwide checkpoints.These included four activity...

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BJP slams PM's 'silence' on LoC killings

NEW DELHI: The BJP has attacked the Prime Minister for his "silence" on the issue of killing of Indian soldiers on the line of control and said there was no clarity in the government's response. "This country has never been insulted in such a manner," leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said at a rally here on Sunday referring to last week's brutal killing of soldiers by Pakistani...

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Pictures: Civil War Shipwreck Revealed by Sonar

Photograph by Jesse CancelmoA fishing net, likely only decades old, drapes over machinery that once connected the Hatteras' pistons to its paddle wheels, said Delgado.From archived documents, the NOAA archaeologist learned that Blake, the ship's commander, surrendered as his ship was sinking. "It was listing to port, [or the left]," Delgado said. The Alabama took the wounded and the rest of the crew...

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Poisoned Lottery Winner's Kin Were Suspicious

Urooj Khan had just brought home his $425,000 lottery check when he unexpectedly died the following day. Now, certain members of Khan's family are speaking publicly about the mystery -- and his nephew told ABC News they knew something was not right."He was a healthy guy, you know?" said the nephew, Minhaj Khan. "He worked so hard. He was always going about his business and,...

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