Fresh exchange of fire along LoC in Poonch sector

JAMMU: Indian and Pakistani troops traded heavy gunfire along the line of control in Poonch sector after the movement of a group of suspected infiltrators was detected on Saturday night. "There was a movement of 6 to 7 persons close to LoC opposite Krishagati sub-sector in Poonch sector at around 9.45pm", defence spokesman Col R K Palta said. There was no immediate report of casualty or injury on...

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Hospitals crack down on workers refusing flu shots

CHICAGO (AP) — Patients can refuse a flu shot. Should doctors and nurses have that right, too? That is the thorny question surfacing as U.S. hospitals increasingly crack down on employees who won't get flu shots, with some workers losing their jobs over their refusal."Where does it say that I am no longer a patient if I'm a nurse," wondered Carrie Calhoun, a longtime critical care nurse in suburban...

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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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Russia rejects Assad exit as precondition for Syria deal

MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Russia voiced support on Saturday for international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi but insisted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's exit cannot be a precondition for a deal to end the country's conflict. Some 60,000 Syrians have been killed during the 21-month-old revolt and world powers are divided over how to stop the escalating bloodshed. Government aircraft bombed...

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White House uses humor to kill 'Death Star' petition

WASHINGTON: With the US national debt standing at more than $16 trillion, the White House says it absolutely cannot spend $850 quadrillion on a "Star Wars"-inspired "Death Star" super-weapon.Sensing a chance to show off its lighter side, the Obama administration paid tribute to legions of "Star Wars" fans with its playful rejection of the "Death Star" proposal submitted on its "We the...

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NSA Shiv Shankar Menon briefs PM Manmohan Singh on LoC situation

NEW DELHI: National security advisor Shiv Shankar Menon on Friday briefed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the latest situation on the Line of Control as Pakistani troops again targeted Indian posts in Jammu and Kashmir, leading to exchange of fire."NSA briefed the Prime Minister as he is doing regularly since the situation began," an official said.Informed sources said before meeting the Prime...

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Flu more widespread in US; eases off in some areas

NEW YORK (AP) — Flu is more widespread across the nation, but the number of hard-hit states has declined, health officials said Friday.Flu season started early this winter, and includes a strain that tends to make people sicker. Health officials have forecast a potentially bad flu season, following last year's unusually mild one. The latest numbers, however, hint that the flu season may already have...

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James Holmes Told to 'Rot in Hell' By Victim's Dad

The father of a young woman allegedly slain by James Holmes in the Aurora movie theater massacre yelled "Rot in hell, Holmes" during a court hearing today.The outburst by Steve Hernandez prompted judge William Sylvester to have an off-the-record conference with prosecutors and defense attorneys. Sylvester then reconvened court to address the issue while armed court deputies...

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France launches air strike in Mali

PARIS/BAMAKO (Reuters) - The French air force carried out an air strike in Mali on Friday in support of government forces trying to push back Islamist rebels, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said. The raid came as France launched a military intervention in the west African state to help the government resist a push south by rebel forces. Western powers fear the alliance...

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Football: Sahin ends Liverpool loan spell to rejoin Dortmund

LONDON: Real Madrid midfielder Nuri Sahin cut short his loan spell with Liverpool on Friday to rejoin German champions Borussia Dortmund, also on loan, until the end of the season.Sahin endured a disappointing time at Anfield following his pre-season switch from Madrid and made just 12 appearances for Brendan Rodgers' side.With his first-team prospects limited on Merseyside, Turkey international...

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Bomb drama at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences: Reds plant IED inside dead jawan

RANCHI: Doctors and security forces were taken aback on Thursday when they found a powerful can bomb with a small solar plate to charge the battery of the improvised explosive device (IED) inside the stomach of a CRPF jawan killed in Monday's Maoists ambush in the jungles of Latehar, 250km from the state capital.Bomb squads were called when doctors conducting the autopsy at Rajendra Institute of...

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Retooling Pap test to spot more kinds of cancer

WASHINGTON (AP) — For years, doctors have lamented that there's no Pap test for deadly ovarian cancer. Wednesday, scientists reported encouraging signs that one day, there might be.Researchers are trying to retool the Pap, a test for cervical cancer that millions of women get, so that it could spot early signs of other gynecologic cancers, too.How? It turns out that cells can flake off of tumors in...

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Whales Trapped Under Sea Ice Free Themselves

The killer whales trapped under ice near a remote Quebec village reached safety today after the floes shifted on Hudson Bay, according to the mayor's office in Inukjuak.Water opened up around the area where the orcas had been coming up for air and the winds seemed to have shifted overnight, creating a passageway to the open water six miles away."Two men were sent to check on...

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Syria denounces peace envoy who hinted Assad must go

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria denounced international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi as "flagrantly biased" on Thursday, casting doubt on how long the U.N.-Arab League mediator can pursue his peace mission. The Syrian Foreign Ministry was responding to remarks by Brahimi a day earlier in which he ruled out a role for President Bashar al-Assad in a transitional government and effectively called for...

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Football: Adebayor included as Africa Cup squads named

JOHANNESBURG: Emmanuel Adebayor will play at the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations after he was included in Togo's squad as the 16 sides finalised their 23-man squads.Mahamadou Diarra will meanwhile miss the tournament, and a late-minute change left Brown Ideye thrilled and Nigeria team-mate Raheem Lawal devastated.It was all part of the drama ahead of the January 19-February 10 tournament that...

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Visa-on-arrival for Pak nationals above 65 years from January 15

ATTARI: The visa-on-arrival facility at the Attari-Wagah check post to Pakistani nationals over 65 years of age will begin from January 15, but they would not be able to stay in Punjab, Kerala and Jammu & Kashmir."From January 15, people from Pakistan above 65 years of age can avail the visa-on-arrival on reaching the Attari Integrated Check Post (ICP)," a government official said."It has been...

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Flu season has Boston declaring health emergency

BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts public health officials are reporting 18 flu-related deaths in the state already this season, and Boston has declared a public health emergency.A spokeswoman for Mayor Thomas Menino says the city is working with health care centers to offer free flu vaccines and also hopes to set up public locations where people can go for vaccinations. The city is reporting four flu-related...

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Holmes Took Disturbing Photos Before Massacre

Hours before James Holmes allegedly carried out a massacre at a Colorado movie theater he took a series of menacing self-portraits with his dyed orange hair curling out of from under a black skull cap and his eyes covered with black contacts.A prosecutor told the court after the photographs were shown that Holmes had a "depravity of human heart."Those haunting photographs,...

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Venezuela court endorses Chavez inauguration delay

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's top court endorsed the postponement of Hugo Chavez's inauguration this week and ruled on Wednesday that the cancer-stricken president remained the South American OPEC nation's leader. The 58-year-old socialist has not been seen in public nor heard from in almost a month following surgery in Cuba. The government says he is in a delicate condition and cannot...

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Hong Kong leader survives impeachment bid

HONG KONG: Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmakers failed in an unprecedented bid on Wednesday to impeach the city's embattled Beijing-backed leader, after they accused him of breaking housing laws and urged him to quit.The city's first impeachment motion, which accused Leung Chun-ying of lying, dereliction of duty and serious breaches of the law in a row stemming from illegal structures at...

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India to respond to 'ghastly' attack on troops: Salman Khurshid

NEW DELHI: Foreign minister Salman Khurshid said on Tuesday that New Delhi would give a "proportionate" response to the "ghastly" death of two soldiers at the hands of Pakistani troops along the Line of Control."We need to do something about this and we will, but it has to be done after careful consideration of all the details in consultation with the defence ministry," Salman Khurshid said in an...

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Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down

WASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer."There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer...

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Jodi Arias: Who Is the Admitted Killer?

Jodi Arias is a woman that many can't keep their eyes off of--a soft-spoken, small-framed 32-year-old who last year won a jailhouse Christmas caroling contest. But she is also an admitted killer who is now on trial in Arizona for the 2008 murder of her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander.Sitting in a Maricopa County court, Arias, whose trial resumes today, cries every time prosecutors...

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Tunisia frees man held over attack on U.S. consulate in Libya

Tunis (Reuters) - Tunisia has freed, for lack of evidence, a Tunisian man who had been suspected of involvement in an Islamist militant attack in Libya last year in which the U.S. ambassador was killed, his lawyer said on Tuesday. Ali Harzi was one of two Tunisians named in October by the Daily Beast website as having been detained in Turkey over the violence in which Christopher Stevens,...

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Football: Gerrard says best yet to come in landmark season

LIVERPOOL: Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard believes he has yet to find his best form in a season already littered with statistical highlights for the star midfielder. Gerrard has been on the field for every minute of Liverpool's 21 Premier League games so far this season, scoring four goals. Three of those goals have come in the 32-year-old England captain's last five league appearances,...

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CJI asks all high courts to fast-track cases of crimes against women

NEW DELHI: Citing the spontaneous outburst of outrage over the brutal gang-rape and death of a woman in Delhi, Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir has urged the chief justices of all high courts to take immediate steps for prioritizing trial in the case of crimes against women. In a letter addressed to all the chief justices, Chief Justice Kabir asked them to "ensure that cases relating to offences...

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Your medical chart could include exercise minutes

CHICAGO (AP) — Roll up a sleeve for the blood pressure cuff. Stick out a wrist for the pulse-taking. Lift your tongue for the thermometer. Report how many minutes you are active or getting exercise.Wait, what?If the last item isn't part of the usual drill at your doctor's office, a movement is afoot to change that. One recent national survey indicated only a third of Americans said their doctors asked...

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Accused Shooter Was 'Relaxed' After Massacre

Accused movie theater gunman James Holmes was "relaxed" and "detached" when police confronted him just moments after he had allegedly killed 12 people and wounded dozens more in the Aurora, Colo., massacre, a police officer testified today.A preliminary hearing for Holmes began today in Colorado, with victims and families present. One family member likened attending the hearing...

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