WHO: Slight cancer risk after Japan nuke accident

LONDON (AP) — Two years after Japan's nuclear plant disaster, an international team of experts said Thursday that residents of areas hit by the highest doses of radiation face an increased cancer risk so small it probably won't be detectable.In fact, experts calculated that increase at about 1 extra percentage point added to a Japanese infant's lifetime cancer risk."The additional risk is quite small...

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Rescuers Search for Man as Fla. Sinkhole Grows

Rescuers early Saturday morning returned to the site where a sinkhole swallowed a Florida man in his bedroom after the home's foundation collapsed.Jeff Bush was in his bedroom when a sinkhole opened up and trapped him underneath his home at 11 p.m. Thursday night.While the sinkhole was initially estimated to be 15 feet deep on Thursday night, the chasm has continued to grow. Officials...

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Football: Ramos heads Real Madrid to Clasico victory

MADRID: Barcelona's recent slump continued as Sergio Ramos' header nine minutes from time handed Real Madrid a 2-1 success for their second win over the Catalans in five days Saturday.Karim Benzema had given the hosts the perfect start as he stabbed home Alvaro Morata's cross after just six minutes, but Barca were level just 12 minutes later when Lionel Messi equalled Alfredo di Stefano's...

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Rajnath accords 'special welcome' to Narendra Modi at BJP conclave

NEW DELHI: The three-day conclave of BJP kicked off on Friday with the spotlight on Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, projected by some as the party's prime ministerial face, amid voices in the party that his popularity has grown significantly to make a mark on the national polity. The conclave, convened mainly to ratify the presidentship of Rajnath Singh who took over in January, will see the...

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WHO: Slight cancer risk after Japan nuke accident

LONDON (AP) — Two years after Japan's nuclear plant disaster, an international team of experts said Thursday that residents of areas hit by the highest doses of radiation face an increased cancer risk so small it probably won't be detectable.In fact, experts calculated that increase at about 1 extra percentage point added to a Japanese infant's lifetime cancer risk."The additional risk is quite small...

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Obama, Congress Fail to Avert Sequester Cuts

President Obama and congressional leaders today failed to reach a breakthrough to avert a sweeping package of automatic spending cuts, setting into motion $85 billion of across-the-board belt-tightening that neither had wanted to see.Obama met for just over an hour at the White House today with Republican leaders House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell...

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Obama blames Republicans for "dumb" cuts

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama on Friday blamed Republican refusal to compromise on deficit cutting for "dumb" and "unnecessary" spending cuts about to slam into the fragile US economy.The arbitrary and automatic $85 billion dollar cuts, known as the "sequester" will begin later Friday, in a self-inflicted wound brought about by deep ideological polarization between the president and...

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Manik Sarkar, son of tailor, to be Tripura chief minister again

AGARTALA: Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar, set to assume office for a fourth time after leading the Left to a huge electoral win, is the son of a tailor who still washes his own clothes.An unassuming man, the 64-year-old got down to work no soon than he was declared the winner from Dhanpur constituency. He met CPM leaders and activists at Sonamura, 60km from here. On Thursday, the Communist...

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WHO: Small cancer risk after Fukushima accident

LONDON (AP) — People exposed to the highest doses of radiation during Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in 2011 may have a slightly higher risk of cancer but one so small it probably won't be detectable, the World Health Organization said in a report released Thursday.A group of experts convened by the agency assessed the risk of various cancers based on estimates of how much radiation people...

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Benedict Departs Vatican for the Last Time as Pope

Pope Benedict XVI bade his final farewell to the faithful today, lifting off from the Vatican in a white helicopter as the first pope to resign in six centuries.Just before 5 p.m. local time, Benedict, 85, walked out of the Vatican for the last time as pope, waving to a cheering crowd in the Courtyard of San Damaso as he entered a black Mercedes for the short drive to a nearby...

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WikiLeaks: Manning says he wanted "public debate" on war

WASHINGTON: US Army private Bradley Manning told a military tribunal on Thursday that he leaked incident logs from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to WikiLeaks in order to start a "public debate.""For me they represent the underground realities of the conflicts of Iraq and Afghanistan," Manning told the court, after his lawyer said he plans to plead guilty to some of the charges leveled...

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18-month-old stuck in US for 7 months finally returns home

KOLKATA: Indrashis Saha, the 18-month old baby who spent seven months in custody of the US child protection agency in New Jersey returned to Kolkata on Wednesday. Initially zapped by the reception after a 10-hour flight, he clung onto his grandmother's arms as if he had missed all that attention for months. Indrashis' software engineer father Debasish Saha had gone there to work on a project in...

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Vt. lye victim gets new face at Boston hospital

BOSTON (AP) — A Vermont nurse disfigured in a 2007 lye attack has received a new face at a Boston hospital.Carmen Blandin Tarleton's full facial transplant at Brigham & Women's Hospital included transplanting a female donor's facial skin to Tarleton's neck, nose and lips, along with facial muscles, arteries and nerves.Hospital officials say the 44-year-old Thetford, Vt., woman suffered burns on...

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Bring on the Cuts: Some Want the Sequester

Mark Lucas wouldn't mind seeing America's defense budget cut by billions."There's quite a bit of waste within the military," Lucas, who serves as Iowa state director for the conservative group Americans for Prosperity (AFP), told ABC News. "Being in there for 10 years, I've seen quite a bit of it."With the budget sequester set to kick in on Friday, the former Army ranger is among...

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Iran upbeat on nuclear talks, West still wary

ALMATY (Reuters) - Iran was upbeat on Wednesday after talks with world powers about its nuclear work ended with an agreement to meet again, but Western officials said it had yet to take concrete steps to ease their fears of a secret weapons program. The United States, China, France, Russia, Britain and Germany offered to ease sanctions slightly in return for Iran curbing its most sensitive...

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US "can't dictate" to the world: Pentagon's new chief

WASHINGTON: America cannot "dictate to the world" and must work with allies and build relationships with other nations, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said shortly after being sworn in Wednesday as the new Pentagon chief.On his first day at the job, Hagel reinforced his reputation as a reluctant warrior as he told an auditorium of civilian officials and military officers that America...

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Thomas’s remark can erode faith in judiciary, say jurists

NEW DELHI: More than 12 years after he presided over a 3-judge Supreme Court bench that unanimously upheld death penalty to Rajiv Gandhi assassination case convicts Murugan, Perarivalan and Santhan, Justice K T Thomas raised many eyebrows by advocating a review of capital punishment awarded to them. Former Chief Justice of India V N Khare said it was not open for a retired judge to comment on...

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C. Everett Koop, 'rock star' surgeon general, dies

NEW YORK (AP) — Dr. C. Everett Koop has long been regarded as the nation's doctor— even though it has been nearly a quarter-century since he was surgeon general.Koop, who died Monday at his home in Hanover, N.H., at age 96, was by far the best known and most influential person to carry that title. Koop, a 6-foot-1 evangelical Presbyterian with a biblical prophet's beard, donned a public health uniform...

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Boehner Pressures Dems to Get 'Off Their...'

Feb 26, 2013 12:48pm House Speaker John Boehner used some choice words to pressure Senate Democrats to avert the looming sequester — $85 billion of arbitrary across-the-board cuts — insisting that “the House has done its job” and the burden to offer an alternative before the cuts strike Friday is on the president’s party.“We have moved the bill in the House twice,”...

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World powers, Iran exchange offers at "useful" talks

ALMATY, Kazakhstan: World powers and Iran on Tuesday exchanged offers at "useful" talks in Kazakhstan aimed at breaking a decade of deadlock over Tehran's disputed nuclear drive.The meeting in the Kazakh city of Almaty comes as sanctions bite against the Islamic republic and Israel still refuses to rule out air strikes to knock out Iran's suspected nuclear weapons drive.There was no hint...

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CBI names former Air chief Shashi P Tyagi in Agusta kickbacks scandal

NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday launched formal investigations into alleged bribes in the Rs 3,546-crore AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter deal, naming 11 people including former Air Chief Marshal Shashi P Tyagi, three of his cousins and a former top official of Italian firm Finmeccanica. The preliminary inquiry registered by the CBI into the alleged payment of Rs 362...

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