TORONTO – British explorers in northern Canada to measure the thickness of floating Arctic sea ice ended their expedition short of reaching the North Pole due to an early summer ice melt,…

Coup leader keeps iron grip on Fiji
By Zoe Murphy
BBC News
On the face of it, Fiji appears calm. The capital Suva is quiet as citizens go about their daily lives. There is no heavy military…

Tamils hunt for news of relatives
Many Sri Lankan Tamils around the world say they are unable to find out information about their loved ones in the war-torn north-east, reports Swaminathan Natarajan of the BBC Tamil service.Thomas…

Human noses too cold for bird flu
Bird flu may not have become the threat to humans that some predicted because our noses are too cold for the virus to thrive, say UK researchers.Tests in…

Why is Burma’s junta afraid of Suu Kyi?
By Jonathan Head
BBC News, Bangkok
Last year, as the world tried to persuade Burma’s military rulers to allow more foreign help for the victims of Cyclone…

WASHINGTON – Banks and investment firms trimmed their borrowing over the past week from the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending program, a hopeful sign that some credit problems are easing.
The Fed on Thursday said commercial…

LOS ANGELES, CaliforniaJay Leno plans “something really unusual and different” when he hands over “The Tonight Show” to Conan O’Brien on May 29, 17 years after Johnny Carson left…

Los Angeles (E! Online) –
Rob Pattinson made time to celebrate his 23rd birthday with his parents and film family last night.
Rob, his 'rents, Kristen Stewart and Twilight crew members, hit the Glowbal Grill & Satay…

STOCKHOLM – Actor Stellan Skarsgard says he’s no big fan of Dan Brown’s writing and accepted a role in “Angels & Demons” only after reading the script based on Brown’s book.
“I think…

DETROIT – In tiny Millerstown, Pa., the owner of the only car dealership in town found out Thursday he was on Chrysler’s hit list — one of 789 across the nation that the troubled automaker wants…

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) –
Comedian Jay Leno, America's top-rated TV host, will bow out of his 17-year stint on “The Tonight Show” on May 29 in the company of his successor Conan…

LA policeman ‘kicks man in head’

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A California police officer has been caught on camera apparently aiming a sharp kick at the head or neck of a suspect who has already surrendered.The incident came…

WASHINGTON – Despite Democrats’ rising anxiety about Afghanistan, the House on Thursday easily passed a 96.7 billion measure filling President Barack Obama’s request for war spending and foreign aid efforts there and…

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) –
Comedian Jay Leno, America's top-rated TV host, will bow out of his 17-year stint on “The Tonight Show” on May 29 in the company of his successor Conan…

WASHINGTON – Two people facing deportation from the United States have been taken into custody at the White House gate. They had arrived for a tour of the executive mansion.
The…

MILWAUKEE – Danny Gokey said he knew all day Wednesday that he would be voted off “American Idol” that night.
Predicted by many to make the Top 2, the church music director from…

LOS ANGELES – A man was convicted Thursday of carving up cadavers donated to UCLA’s medical school and selling the parts to unsuspecting medical research companies in a 1.5 million scheme.
Jurors found Ernest Nelson,…

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) –
Comedian Jay Leno, America's top-rated TV host, will bow out of his 17-year stint on “The Tonight Show” on May 29 in the company of his successor Conan…

Ice sheet melt threat reassessed
By Mark Kinver
Science and environment reporter, BBC News
The collapse of a major polar ice sheet will not raise global sea levels as much as previous projections suggest, a team of scientists has calculated.Writing in…

NEW YORK – The other night, after her 3-year-old son was in bed, confirmed Adam Lambert fanatic Sue Murrell was glued to her DVR, watching “American Idol.”
She was also glued to her computer, chatting…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
The top Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday got into a public dispute with the CIA over what she knew about harsh interrogation techniques in 2002…

DETROIT (Reuters) –
Chrysler LLC notified all U.S. dealers on Thursday about its plans to eliminate 25 percent of its retail showrooms while rival Ford Motor Co assured investors it is on…

Astronaut Mike Massimino has boldly gone where no man has
gone before: He sent the first Twitter message from space.
Massimino began using the microblogging
Web site a few months ago, updating his followers on the day-to-day life of
an…

It's a good thing monkeys can't gamble. New research shows these primates are capable of “woulda-coulda-shoulda” thoughts, like those that keep gamblers at the tables.
Monkeys' brains respond to rewards that they observe but do not experience…

Astronauts make Hubble repairs
Two shuttle astronauts have completed the first of five spacewalks to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.John Grunsfeld and Drew Feustel spent almost seven hours working on the observatory, and achieved all of their planned objectives….