| Romo throws late TD; Cowboys beat Redskins 24-23 Posted: 22 Dec 2013 01:10 PM PST  LANDOVER, Md. (AP) — Tony Romo threw a 10-yard touchdown pass to DeMarco Murray on fourth down with 1:08 remaining Sunday, giving the Dallas Cowboys a 24-23 win over the Washington Redskins and setting up a winner-take-all regular season finale against the Philadelphia Eagles next week for the NFC East title.
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| Manning set NFL TD passes record with 51 Posted: 22 Dec 2013 01:08 PM PST  HOUSTON (AP) — Peyton Manning has broken Tom Brady's NFL record for most touchdown passes in a season with 51.
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| Manning ties NFL TD passes record with 50 Posted: 22 Dec 2013 12:59 PM PST HOUSTON (AP) — Peyton Manning has tied Tom Brady's NFL record for most touchdown passes in a season with 50. |
| Special Report: In satellite tech race, China hitched a ride from Europe Posted: 22 Dec 2013 12:55 PM PST  By David Lague HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese leader Xi Jinping has exhorted the People's Liberation Army "to get ready to fight and win wars" and "to win regional warfare under information technology-oriented conditions." For now, China's sprawling defense industries and research laboratories are relying on a high-tech short cut. In a vast and carefully coordinated effort, China is scouring the globe for know-how that can be coupled with domestic innovation to produce strategic weapons and equipment. A year ago this month, technicians at a maker of satellite navigation gear in the Belgian town of Leuven worked over the year-end holidays to test one such breakthrough. China had help - and it came from European Union headquarters in Brussels, just down the road from Leuven.
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| Icons of Egypt's protest movement imprisoned Posted: 22 Dec 2013 12:53 PM PST  CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian court handed down prison sentences to three of the country's most prominent youth activists Sunday in the first use of a controversial new protest law, a harsh warning to the secular groups that supported the military's ouster of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi but have since grown critical of the army-backed government that replaced him.
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| Fears grow of civil war in South Sudan as rebels seize town Posted: 22 Dec 2013 12:32 PM PST  By Carl Odera and Ben Makori JUBA (Reuters) - South Sudan's government said on Sunday rebels had seized the capital of a key oil-producing region and fears grew of all-out ethnic civil war in the world's newest country. The U.N. announced it was trying to rush more peacekeeping forces to landlocked, impoverished South Sudan as foreign powers urged both sides to stop fighting, fearing for the stability of an already fragile region of Africa. The South Sudan government said on its Twitter account it was no longer in control of Bentiu, the capital of Unity State. Information Minister Michael Makuei said on Saturday an army divisional commander in Unity State, John Koang, had defected and joined rebel leader and former Vice President Riek Machar, who had named him the governor of the state.
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| Police blame Palestinian militants for bus blast Posted: 22 Dec 2013 12:32 PM PST  JERUSALEM (AP) — A pipe bomb believed to have been planted by Palestinian militants exploded Sunday on board a bus in central Israel just moments after it had been evacuated, police said, in the most serious attack inside Israel in more than a year.
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| Post-mortem due for UK doctor who died in Syria Posted: 22 Dec 2013 12:26 PM PST  LONDON (AP) — The body of a British doctor who died while in government custody in Syria was returned to the U.K. on Sunday for a post-mortem examination.
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| Pedro's eight-minute hat-trick rescues Barcelona Posted: 22 Dec 2013 12:26 PM PST  Madrid (AFP) - Barcelona ensured they will finish 2013 on top of La Liga as an eight-minute hat-trick from Pedro Rodriguez helped them come from 2-0 down to win 5-2 at Getafe on Sunday.
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| Swiss banks sign up to reveal hidden accounts Posted: 22 Dec 2013 12:21 PM PST  Swiss banks are scrambling ahead of a December 31 deadline to decide whether to join a US programme aimed at zooming in on lenders that helped Americans dodge taxes. Around 40 of Switzerland's some 300 banks have already said publicly they will take part in a US programme set up to allow Swiss financial institutions to avoid US prosecution in exchange for coming clean and possibly paying steep fines. That is the very big question," Swiss business lawyer Douglas Hornung told AFP. Washington alleges that Swiss banks have helped US citizens hide billions of dollars in assets from tax authorities, in a row that has soured relations between the two in recent years.
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| Swatch claims victory in dispute with Tiffany Posted: 22 Dec 2013 12:20 PM PST BERLIN (AP) — Swatch Group AG says it has won a contractual dispute with Tiffany & Co. |
| Rebels hold key oil capital in South Sudan Posted: 22 Dec 2013 12:18 PM PST  KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — South Sudan's central government lost control of the capital of a key oil-producing state on Sunday, the military said, as renegade forces loyal to a former deputy president seized more territory in fighting that has raised fears of full-blown civil war in the world's newest country.
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| Weak US card security made Target a juicy target Posted: 22 Dec 2013 12:16 PM PST  NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. is the juiciest target for hackers hunting credit card information. And experts say incidents like the recent data theft at Target's stores will get worse before they get better.
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| 'The Hobbit' holds off 'Anchorman 2' with $31.5M Posted: 22 Dec 2013 12:16 PM PST  NEW YORK (AP) — On a busy pre-Christmas weekend at the box office, "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" held off a very different sequel, "Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues."
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| Bomb explodes on Israeli bus, no one hurt: police Posted: 22 Dec 2013 12:13 PM PST  A bomb that Israeli authorities suspect was planted by Palestinian militants exploded in a bus near Tel Aviv on Sunday after passengers were evacuated, and police said no one was hurt. But Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for the Islamist militant group Hamas, said in a statement the blast was a "heroic action" in response to what he termed the "continued crimes" of Israel's occupation of land Palestinians seek for a state. Photographs from the scene, in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bat Yam, showed the blast blew out the vehicle's windows. It was a bag on the back bench, and he immediately ordered everyone off," Eitan Fixman, a spokesman for the Dan bus company, was quoted as saying on the YNet news site.
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| Ice storm snarls travel across Eastern Canada Posted: 22 Dec 2013 12:11 PM PST TORONTO (AP) — A storm system is bringing freezing rain across much of Eastern Canada, cutting power to hundreds of thousands of people and wreaking havoc on holiday plans at one of the busiest travel times of the year. |
| Lt Gov: Duck Dynasty important to La. tourism Posted: 22 Dec 2013 12:04 PM PST  NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana's lieutenant governor says the "Duck Dynasty" reality TV show is important to state tourism — and he could help connect the Robertson family with new producers if they cannot reach agreement with the A&E network.
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| Suicide bomber kills seven outside Libya's Benghazi Posted: 22 Dec 2013 12:02 PM PST  By Ayman al-Warfalli BARSIS, Libya (Reuters) - A suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives at an army checkpoint outside the city of Benghazi on Sunday, killing 13 soldiers in the first such attack in Libya's deepening turmoil. Car bombs and assassinations of army and police officers are common in Benghazi, where troops have clashed regularly with militants from the hardline Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia. But a suicide bombing would mark a shift in tactics to fit a pattern common in other Islamist struggles in the Middle East, but not in Libya either during or since the uprising that brought down Muammar Gaddafi. The attacker blew himself up at a road checkpoint near a small military base in Barsis, some 50 km (30 miles) outside Benghazi, killing 13 people and wounding three, state news agency Lana said.
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| Khodorkovsky picks iconic Cold War crossing to meet press Posted: 22 Dec 2013 12:00 PM PST  Freed Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky chose a fabled Cold War venue for his first news conference in Berlin Sunday since his shock release from a Russian prison. In the city cleaved by the Berlin Wall into East and West for nearly three decades, Khodorkovsky, 50, met the media at the former border crossing Checkpoint Charlie, in a museum dedicated to successful escapes from the communist bloc. Fresh from his digs at the luxurious Adlon Hotel at the city's Brandenburg Gate where a suite can run nearly 3,000 euros ($4,100) per night, Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, appeared relaxed, rosy-cheeked and elegant in an impeccably tailored suit. However, Ukrainian-born Alexandra Hildebrandt, 46, the director of the privately owned museum, appeared overwhelmed by the crush of journalists.
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| Egypt jails key figures of 2011 uprising Posted: 22 Dec 2013 11:57 AM PST  By Tom Perry CAIRO (Reuters) - Three leading figures of Egypt's 2011 uprising were jailed for three years each on Sunday for their role in recent protests, as the army-backed authorities intensified a crackdown on dissent. Ahmed Maher, Ahmed Douma and Mohamed Adel are symbols of the protest movement that ignited the revolt that toppled President Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
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| U.S. citizens evacuated from Bor to Juba, South Sudan: State Department Posted: 22 Dec 2013 11:48 AM PST U.S. citizens were safely evacuated on Sunday from Bor, South Sudan, to Juba, the State Department said as fears grew of an all-out ethnic civil war in the landlocked African country. "This morning, the United States - in coordination with the United Nations and in consultation with the South Sudanese government - safely evacuated American citizens from Bor, South Sudan. U.S. citizens and citizens from our partner nations were flown from Bor to Juba on U.N. and U.S. civilian helicopters," the statement said. The department did not specify how many Americans were taken to Juba on Sunday, a day after three U.S. aircraft came under fire from unidentified forces while attempting an evacuation. |
| New air strikes on Syria's Aleppo kill dozens Posted: 22 Dec 2013 11:30 AM PST  Syrian regime helicopters bombarded residential areas of the divided city of Aleppo with crude explosive-filled barrels, killing dozens of people in a tactic widely condemned as unlawful. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said six children were among 56 people killed in so-called barrel bomb attacks and airstrikes in Aleppo and neighbouring villages. Hundreds have been killed during the past week as regime aircraft have dropped TNT-filled barrels on Aleppo, now largely reduced to rubble, activists, medics and other witnesses said. The Observatory said the raids killed at least 56 people, including seven rebel fighters and six children, in several opposition neighbourhoods of Aleppo city as well as nearby villages Atareb and Marea, adding the number was likely to rise.
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| Government airstrikes kill at least 32 in Syria Posted: 22 Dec 2013 11:14 AM PST BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian aircraft pummeled opposition areas in the northern city of Aleppo on Sunday, killing at least 32 people and extending the government's furious aerial bombardment of the rebel-held half of the divided city to an eighth consecutive day. |
| A wild winter weather mix includes record warmth Posted: 22 Dec 2013 10:59 AM PST  CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — The first full day of winter is delivering a wild mix of weather across the U.S., from ice and power outages in Michigan, New York and parts of northern New England, to snow in sections of the Midwest, to fatal flooding in southern states and even record-setting warm temperatures in the Mid-Atlantic.
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| Egypt court jails anti-Mubarak activists for 3 years Posted: 22 Dec 2013 10:56 AM PST  An Egyptian court on Sunday sentenced three activists who spearheaded the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak to three years in jail for organising an unlicensed protest, judicial sources said. It was the first such verdict against non-Islamist protesters since the overthrow of president Mohamed Morsi on July 3 and was seen by rights groups as part of a widening crackdown on demonstrations by military-installed authorities. Ahmed Maher, Ahmed Douma and Mohamed Adel were also convicted of rioting and assaulting security forces during an unauthorised protest last month, and were fined 50,000 Egyptian pounds ($7,100, 5,200 euros) each, the sources said. Maher is the founder of the April 6 youth movement that led the revolt against Mubarak.
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| Tributes flow following Swann's shock exit Posted: 22 Dec 2013 10:47 AM PST  Tributes flowed for England spinner Graeme Swann after his bombshell retirement from international cricket Sunday midway through the Ashes series. Swann explained his shock decision in press conference in Melbourne on Sunday, telling reporters England's 150-run defeat in last week's Perth Test -- which gave Australia a 3-0 series lead and the Ashes for the first time since 2009 -- had sealed his decision. His retirement, effective immediately, comes days before the fourth Test as a rattled England side try to stave off a 5-0 clean sweep in the series. Australia and England players, plus former greats, said they were stunned by Swann's decision.
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| Insight: U.S. early warning system for financial crises gets low marks Posted: 22 Dec 2013 10:45 AM PST  By Sarah N. Lynch and Emily Stephenson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In June 2009, a small group of academics sent an envoy to a Washington, D.C., think tank to pitch their vision for a research office to help the nation avoid the next financial crisis. The idea was to create a premier U.S. data powerhouse that would be a National Weather Service for financial storms, with up-to-the-minute information on transactions and the analytical juice to anticipate where systemic risks were quietly growing. The Office of Financial Research was created within the Treasury Department, part of sweeping reforms in response to the worst financial crisis in decades. The office must compete for top minds on a lower pay scale than some other agencies.
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| Khodorkovsky will work to free political inmates Posted: 22 Dec 2013 10:39 AM PST  BERLIN (AP) — Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian oligarch who crossed President Vladimir Putin and ended up in jail for a decade, says he plans to devote his life to securing the freedom of the country's political prisoners.
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| Spurs back on track, Everton go fourth Posted: 22 Dec 2013 10:36 AM PST  Tim Sherwood claimed his first victory as interim Tottenham Hotspur coach on Sunday as his side came from behind to win 3-2 at Southampton in the Premier League. Tottenham lost at home to West Ham United in the League Cup in mid-week, following the sacking of manager Andre Villas-Boas, and Sherwood saw his side fall behind against Southampton to an early goal from Adam Lallana. Emmanuel Adebayor equalised for Spurs and a Jos Hooiveld own goal put the visitors in front, only for Rickie Lambert to draw Southampton level, but Adebayor struck again to seal the first win of the post-Villas-Boas era.
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| Kiev anti-government protest draws 100,000 Posted: 22 Dec 2013 10:34 AM PST KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — About 100,000 people rallied in Ukraine's capital Sunday to demand the ouster of the president and his Cabinet as mass anti-government protests entered their second month. |
| Venezuela car owners unfazed by planned fuel hike Posted: 22 Dec 2013 10:29 AM PST  CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Owners of the 1970s-era gas guzzling trucks and sedans that have long reigned over Caracas' smog-filled roadways will soon have to pay a bit more to keep flaunting their energy-inefficient monsters.
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| Jewish philanthropist, Seagram exec Edgar Bronfman dies Posted: 22 Dec 2013 10:21 AM PST  Edgar Bronfman Sr., the former Seagram liquor company executive and ex-World Jewish Congress head who helped obtain restitution for Holocaust victims from Swiss banks, has died, the family foundation said. The 84-year-old, a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, died of natural causes at his home in New York on Saturday, the Samuel Bronfman Foundation said. As the head of the WJC between 1979 and 2007, Bronfman obtained more than $1.0 billion for Holocaust victims and their heirs. For decades "Edgar was Diaspora Jewry's undisputed leader.
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| Iceland's hidden elves delay road projects Posted: 22 Dec 2013 10:18 AM PST REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — In this land of fire and ice, where the fog-shrouded lava fields offer a spooky landscape in which anything might lurk, stories abound of the "hidden folk" — thousands of elves, making their homes in Iceland's wilderness. |
| Freed Khodorkovsky challenges Putin over 'political prisoners' Posted: 22 Dec 2013 09:56 AM PST  By Michelle Martin and Steve Gutterman BERLIN/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky said on Sunday he would not seek power in Russia but fight for the freedom of political prisoners, challenging Vladimir Putin two days after the president freed him from jail. After more than a decade in prison that made him a symbol of what Putin's critics say is his intolerance of dissent, Khodorkovsky, 50, told reporters in Berlin that "the struggle for power is not for me". But he made clear he would put pressure on Putin and urged world leaders and "we who are free" to do the same. "We need to work further so that there would be no more political prisoners left in Russia and other countries," he told a news conference at a museum near the site of the Berlin Wall.
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| South Africa just fall short in record run chase Posted: 22 Dec 2013 09:53 AM PST  Faf du Plessis and AB de Villiers played what captain Graeme Smith described as "two of the greatest Test innings in recent times" as South Africa and India fought out an epic draw in the first Test at the Wanderers Stadium on Sunday. Set a world record victory target of 458, South Africa finished eight runs short on 450 for seven after a day of tension and drama. Du Plessis (134) and De Villiers (103) shared a fifth wicket partnership of 205 -– a world record for a fifth wicket stand in the fourth innings of a Test match. For much of the day, a draw seemed to be the best result that South Africa could hope for, but with De Villiers in particular batting with positive intent, the required run rate was always below five runs an over.
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| Recession-hit Spain holds huge Christmas lottery Posted: 22 Dec 2013 09:36 AM PST  MADRID (AP) — Champagne corks popped around Spain on Sunday as jubilant winners celebrated scooping up prizes in the country's famed Christmas lottery, the world's richest.
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| Democratic senator says Obamacare could have 'meltdown,' hurt party Posted: 22 Dec 2013 09:21 AM PST  President Barack Obama's healthcare law could have a "meltdown" and make it difficult for his Democratic Party to keep control of the U.S. Senate next year if ongoing problems with the program are not resolved, a Democratic senator said on Sunday. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who has urged delaying a penalty for people who do not enroll for health insurance in 2014 under the law, told CNN that a transitional year was needed for the complex healthcare program, commonly known as Obamacare, to work. "It falls of its own weight, if basically the cost becomes more than we can absorb, absolutely." The White House has been scrambling for months to control the damage from the botched October 1 launch of the law, formally called the Affordable Care Act, which aimed at making sure that millions of Americans without health insurance are able to receive medical coverage. There have been complaints from consumers about higher premiums than they previously had to pay for health insurance after their old plans were canceled because of new standards under the law, as well as lingering problems with the main web portal used to sign up for insurance, HealthCare.gov.
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| Spain's 'Fat One' jackpot brings Christmas cheer Posted: 22 Dec 2013 09:20 AM PST  Champagne corks popped across Spain on Sunday as the annual "Fat One" Christmas lottery, which has the world's biggest total payout, spread 2.24 billion euros ($3.1 billion) in prizes around the country, where one in four is out of work. Unlike other big lotteries that generate just a few big winners, Spain's Christmas lottery aims for a share-the-wealth system rather than a single jackpot, and thousands of numbers yield at least some kind of return. A total of 1,600 tickets with that number were sold -- just over half of them in Leganes, a working-class suburb south of Madrid that is home to around 200,000. "I was in bed and my heart started racing when I heard that the top prize fell in Leganes," Alfonso Martinez, 53, who has been out of work for eight months, told reporters outside the state lottery office where he bought his winning ticket.
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| Philanthropy and drinking a good mix at Texas bar Posted: 22 Dec 2013 09:12 AM PST  HOUSTON (AP) — It's become a place where you can eat, drink and be merry — but also give to charity.
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| Same-sex ceremony held at Fort Bragg's chapel Posted: 22 Dec 2013 09:00 AM PST FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — The North Carolina home of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division and the Green Berets is opening the base chapel to same-sex ceremonies. |
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