Israel's Lieberman says Palestinian peace accord impossible

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has no chance of signing a permanent peace accord with the Palestinians and should instead seek a long-term interim deal, the most powerful political partner of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday. The remarks by Avigdor Lieberman, an ultranationalist whose joint party list with Netanyahu narrowly won a January 22 election while centrist challengers...

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US S&P suit points to ratings industry's role in crisis

NEW YORK: The US government's $5 billion lawsuit against Standard & Poor's for exaggerating mortgage bond ratings in 2007 has cast a pall over the ratings industry and exposed its role in the financial crisis.S&P competitors Moody's and Fitch find themselves potentially facing penalties after the Justice Department alleged S&P knowingly kept ratings on high-risk mortgage securities...

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LA Microsoft Store not mobbed, but Surface has a following

The Surface Pro(Credit:Brooke Crothers)LOS ANGELES -- The launch of the Surface Pro at the Microsoft Store in LA's Century City was a relatively low-key affair compared with the debut of the Surface RT. When I arrived just after 10 a.m. there was a small line (see photo). That said, both versions -- 64GB and 128GB -- of the Surface Pro had sold out immediately. Of course, no one would say how many...

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Mass. boy dies of carbon monoxide in running car

BOSTON An 11-year-old Massachusetts boy died of carbon monoxide poisoning Saturday after being overcome as he sat in a running car to keep warm, while his father was shoveling snow to get the car out of a snow bank. Boston Fire Department spokesman Steve MacDonald said the boy was helping his father shovel the snow in the Dorchester neighborhood but got cold, so his father started the car and the...

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LAPD Reopens Case of Suspected Cop-Killer's Firing

The Los Angeles Police Department announced today it will reopen the case of the firing of Christopher Dorner, but said the decision was not made to "appease" the fugitive former cop suspected of killing three people.Dorner, a fired and disgruntled former Los Angeles police officer, said in the so-called "manifesto" he released that he was targeting LAPD officials and their...

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Japan may release data proving Chinese radar incident: media

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan may release data it says will prove a Chinese naval vessel directed its fire control radar at a Japanese destroyer near disputed islands in the East China Sea, local media reported. Japan has said a Chinese frigate on January 30 locked its targeting radar on a Japanese destroyer - a step that usually precedes the firing of weapons - but China insists that its vessel...

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Japan mulls disclosing evidence on China radar lock

TOKYO: Japan said on Saturday it was considering disclosing evidence to bolster its claim that a Chinese frigate locked its weapon-targeting radar on a Japanese ship, after Beijing rejected the charge.The incident, which Japan said happened last week, marked the first time the two nations' navies have locked horns in a territorial dispute that has some commentators warning about possible...

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Apple and the iWatch conundrum

Will Apple ever make an iWatch?(Credit:Sarah Tew/CNET)Ever since the sixth-generation iPod Nano, lots of people have thought that Apple making its own branded watch is not merely a smart potential move but simply a matter of time. No matter what some have recently argued, I doubt, however, that today's Apple is hungry enough to create the fabled iWatch device.I've been covering the technology beat...

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Family of victim in gun range death defends outing

MIDLOTHIAN, Texas The man killed alongside a former Navy SEAL sniper at a Texas shooting range was helping his friend work with a troubled war veteran, and the outing was intended to be a "therapeutic situation," his relatives said Friday following his funeral. Hundreds of people attended the service for Chad Littlefield, who along with his friend, "American Sniper" author Chris Kyle, was fatally...

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Northeast Shuts Down as Blizzard Batters Millions

A blizzard of possibly historic proportions began battering the Northeast today, and could bring more than two feet of snow and strong winds that could shut down densely populated cities such as Boston and New York City.A storm from the west joined forces with one from the south to form a nor'easter that will sit and spin just off the East Coast, affecting more than 43 million...

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Opposition leader's funeral brings day of reckoning for Tunisia

TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia's political crisis looked likely to deepen on Friday with strikes and protests planned around the funeral of assassinated opposition politician Chokri Belaid. Belaid's killing on Wednesday has brought thousands of people onto the streets of the capital Tunis and other cities in violence-marred protests. Unions have called a general strike for Friday,...

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S Korean activists jailed for unauthorised visit to North

SEOUL: A South Korean court jailed an elderly left-wing activist for four years on Friday for making an unauthorised trip across the border to North Korea.Ro Su-Hui, 69, was convicted of violating a strict security law that penalises pro-Pyongyang activity and bans citizens from going to the North without prior permission.Another activist, Won Jin-Wook, received a three-year prison sentence...

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NASA astronauts aboard ISS to host live Google+ Hangout

Chris Hadfield plays guitar in the ISS cupola. (Credit:Canadian Space Agency)Astronauts in the International Space Station have already explained how to clip fingernails and play guitar while orbiting 240 miles above the Earth. But what about all those other questions people may have about life in space? They can be answered in an upcoming Google+ Hangout with three of the astronauts aboard the ISS...

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Navy official: Drones will only get more advanced

(CBS News) The technology behind drones is developing rapidly. Today, drones used to attack targets are flown by remote control by pilots on the ground. But a new generation has no pilot at all. They can be completely guided by computer. A new type of vehicle being developed by the Navy looks like stealth bomber and could probably carry 4,000 pounds of weapons, but there's no pilot in the cockpit....

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Tunisian government dissolved after critic's killing causes fury

TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia's ruling Islamists dissolved the government and promised rapid elections in a bid to restore calm after the killing of an opposition leader sparked the biggest street protests since the revolution two years ago. The prime minister's announcement late on Wednesday that an interim cabinet of technocrats would replace his Islamist-led coalition came at the end of...

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Boeing Dreamliner to make special one-time flight

WASHINGTON: A Boeing 787 Dreamliner will fly for the first time in three weeks in a so-called ferry flight after the company won permission on Wednesday from US regulators.In the special one-time flight, the plane -- with no passengers and just the minimum crew needed to fly it -- will travel on Thursday from Forth Worth, Texas, where it was being painted, back to Boeing's assembly plant...

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Samsung cell phone battery explodes in man's pocket

The battery of a 2011 Samsung Galaxy Note was said to have caught fire in a man's pants pocket.(Credit:CNET)Lithium-ion batteries are notorious for overheating, catching on fire, or exploding. Yet, they're in most electronics that people use daily. One such battery set ablaze over the weekend while in a man's pants pocket, according to the Associated Press. The man was walking around with his Samsung...

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Celebrities call on Congress to back gun control measures

Tony Bennett, Chris Rock, Adam Scott, Amanda Peet and other celebrities today joined joined a coalition of elected officials, law enforcement officers, physicians and others on Capitol Hill in support of President Obama's plan to reduce gun violence. Play VideoCelebrities team up for gun control action"I still haven't gotten over Connecticut," Bennett said, referring to the mass shooting at Sandy...

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Armstrong May Testify Under Oath on Doping

Facing a federal criminal investigation and a deadline that originally was tonight to tell all under oath to anti-doping authorities or lose his last chance at reducing his lifetime sporting ban, Lance Armstrong now may cooperate.His apparent 11th-hour about-face, according to the U.S. Anti Doping Agency (USADA), suggests he might testify under oath and give full details to...

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Stabbing at Ecuador campaign rally not politically motivated: Correa

QUITO (Reuters) - A knife attack in Ecuador that killed two government supporters was perpetrated by a man under the influence of drugs and alcohol and was not politically motivated, President Rafael Correa said on Tuesday. The man killed two Correa supporters and injured five more at a campaign rally on Monday, about two weeks before a presidential election that the leftist leader is...

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China radar-lock on Japan ship 'dangerous': PM Abe

TOKYO: The radar-lock that a Chinese frigate put on a Japanese warship was "dangerous" and "provocative", Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Wednesday, as tensions in a territorial row ratcheted up."It was a dangerous act that could have led to an unpredictable situation," Abe told parliament. "It is extremely regrettable. We strongly ask for their self-restraint in order to avoid...

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Google wins landmark AdWords case in Australia

Google has won a landmark advertising case in Australia with a ruling that the Web giant was not responsible for misleading advertising that ran on its site.The five judges of Australia's High Court unanimously ruled Wednesday that Google did not violate the trade laws by allowing companies to purchase AdWords related to competitors' names. The decision overturned a Federal Court's ruling last April...

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Sandy storm victims react to proposed home buyout

(CBS News) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - One hundred days ago, the Northeast was hit by a left hook from superstorm Sandy. This week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed spending $400 million to buy up and demolish thousands of those homes, so the property can be turned back into wetlands. Homeowners have mixed feelings about the proposal. For 11 years, Joe Monte worked two jobs and spent weekends renovating...

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Lance Armstrong Under Criminal Investigation

Federal investigators are in the midst of an active criminal investigation of disgraced Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, ABC News has learned.The revelation comes in stark contrast to statements made by the U.S. Attorney for Southern California, Andre Birotte, who addressed his own criminal inquiry of Armstrong for the first time publicly on Tuesday. Birotte's office...

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Syrian opposition chief says offers Assad peaceful exit

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib urged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government on Monday to start talks for its departure from power and save the country from greater ruin after almost two years of bloodshed. Seeking to step up pressure on Assad to respond to his offer of talks - which dismayed some in his own opposition coalition, Alkhatib said he would...

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Mexico oil firm blast caused by gas build-up: official

MEXICO CITY: The explosion that killed 37 people at the headquarters of Mexico's state-owned oil firm was caused by a gas build-up, officials said Monday, ruling out a bomb attack.The announcement ended a four-day-long mystery that had sparked a wave of speculation about the cause of the blast at the complex that houses the offices of Pemex in the heart of Mexico City.The explosion tore...

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Pinterest rolls out revamped iPhone and iPad app

Pinterest updates its iOS app to make pin management easier.(Credit:Pinterest)Pinterest spruced up its iOS app today to make scrolling, pin management, and deleting comments easier. "We've made a few tweaks behind the scenes so scrolling is smoother when you're going through pins," the pinning social network wrote in a blog post today. "We also added some features to make it easier to manage your...

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