Earl Smith is the man behind a military patch that President Obama prizes

AUSTIN — That February morning in 2008 found Barack Obama decidedly out of sorts. He was locked in one battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination that showed no signs of ending — and another with a vicious cold that felt the same way. As he rode the service elevator in the backway of a convention hotel here, the snowy-haired African American operating it turned...

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Tennis: Federer ends Tomic campaign

MELBOURNE: Roger Federer fought off an aggressive challenge from rising Australian star Bernard Tomic to reach the fourth round at the Australian Open on Saturday.The 17-time Grand Slam king was stretched at times in a compelling match before coming out on top 6-4, 7-6 (7/5), 6-1 in one hour 58 minutes on Rod Laver Arena.Federer, who is chasing his fifth Australian crown, will now face...

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Chintan Shivir: Congress leaders pitch for Rahul Gandhi as PM candidate

JAIPUR: Amid talk that Rahul Gandhi will be given a larger responsibility, clamour for declaring him as the Congress prime ministerial candidate grew louder at the party's Chintan Shivir on Saturday. Union ministers Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajiv Shukla, Jitin Prasada, senior leader Manishankar Aiyar batted for larger responsibility for Rahul as the party recognised the need to respond to the demands...

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Attack at Algeria Gas Plant Heralds New Risks for Energy Development

The siege by Islamic militants at a remote Sahara desert natural gas plant in Algeria this week signaled heightened dangers in the region for international oil companies, at a time when they have been expanding operations in Africa as one of the world's last energy frontiers. (See related story: "Pictures: Four New Offshore Drilling Frontiers.")As BP, Norway's Statoil, Italy's Eni, and...

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Armstrong Tearful Over Telling Kids Truth

Lance Armstrong, 41, began to cry today as he described finding out his son Luke, 13, was publicly defending him from accusations that he doped during his cycling career.Armstrong said that he knew, at that moment, that he would have to publicly admit to taking performance-enhancing drugs and having oxygen-boosting blood transfusions when competing in the Tour de France. He...

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Earl Smith is the man behind a military patch that President Obama prizes

AUSTIN, Tex. — That February morning in 2008 found Barack Obama decidedly out of sorts. He was locked in one battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination that showed no signs of ending — and another with a vicious cold that felt the same way. As he rode the service elevator in the backway of a convention hotel here, the snowy-haired African American operating it...

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IDA to review adequacy of mobile operators' network resilience

SINGAPORE: The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) will review the adequacy of the network resilience, and back-up plans and arrangements of mobile operators.This follows the disruption in M1 mobile services this week.IDA said it takes serious view of M1's service disruption.It will investigate the service outage thoroughly under the Code of Practice for Telecommunication...

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Sonia Gandhi asks partymen to focus on unity

JAIPUR: Gearing up for the 2014 general elections, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday told partymen that unity should be their watchword as the party had floundered many an opportunity for want of discipline.Addressing the 'Chintan Shivir' here, Gandhi cautioned partymen of increased competition for Congress' political space among the people and noted that several inroads had been made in...

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Opinion: Lance One of Many Tour de France Cheaters

Editor's note: England-based writer and photographer Roff Smith rides around 10,000 miles a year through the lanes of Sussex and Kent and writes a cycling blog at: www.my-bicycle-and-I.co.ukAnd so, the television correspondent said to the former Tour de France champion, a man who had been lionised for years, feted as the greatest cyclist of his day, did you ever use drugs in the course...

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Armstrong Admits to Doping, 'One Big Lie'

Lance Armstrong, formerly cycling's most decorated champion and considered one of America's greatest athletes, confessed to cheating for at least a decade, admitting on Thursday that he owed all seven of his Tour de France titles and the millions of dollars in endorsements that followed to his use of illicit performance-enhancing drugs.After years of denying that he had taken...

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4 Pinocchios for a slashing NRA ad on security at Sidwell Friends School

“Are the president’s kids more important than yours? Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school? Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he’s just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security.” — voiceover of a new National Rifle Association television ad, released...

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Commuters welcome news of MRT line extension, new MRT lines

SINGAPORE: Many commuters welcomed news of two new lines and extension of three MRT lines.On Thursday morning, Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew announced two new MRT lines will be built, while three existing lines will be extended.The new lines are the Cross Island Line and Jurong Region Line.Those heading to the west, such as to the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), find it most...

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Assets case: CBI court extends Jaganmohan Reddy's remand till Jan 31

HYDERABAD: A special CBI court here on Thursday extended till January 31 the judicial remand of YSR Congress President Y S Jaganmohan Reddy and other accused in connection with the alleged disproportionate assets case.Jagan, along with other accused including former minister Mopidevi Venkata Ramana Rao, industrialist Nimmagadda Prasada and senior bureaucrat K V Brahmananda Reddy (all accused in...

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6 Ways Climate Change Will Affect You

Photograph by AP Photo/Marcio Jose SanchezThe planet keeps getting hotter, new data showed this week. Especially in America, where 2012 was the warmest year ever recorded, by far. Every few years, the U.S. federal government engages hundreds of experts to assess the impacts of climate change, now and in the future. From agriculture (pictured) to infrastructure to how humans consume energy, the National...

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Notre Dame: Football Star Was 'Catfished' in Hoax

Notre Dame's athletic director and the star of its near-championship football team said the widely-reported death of the star's girlfriend from leukemia during the 2012 football season was apparently a hoax, and the player said he was duped by it as well.Manti Te'o, who led the Fighting Irish to the BCS championship game this year and finished second for the Heisman Trophy,...

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A misguided Tea Party claim on the debt ceiling

A Tea Party rally in Chicago. (Scott Olson/GETTY IMAGES) “It is pure baloney to say we have to pay the bills for things Congress has already approved. We are drawing the line on future spending, not the debt or obligations to Social Security, Medicare and the military, which can all be met without an immediate rise in the debt ceiling.”--Amy Kremer, chairman of the Tea Party Express,...

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Candidates to campaign hard for Punggol East seat

SINGAPORE: The four candidates vying for the Punggol East parliamentary seat will be campaigning hard over the next nine days to capture votes from some 31,600 residents.The four candidates are: Dr Koh Poh Koon from the People's Action Party (PAP), Mr Kenneth Andrew Jeyaretnam from the Reform Party (RP), Mr Desmond Lim Bak Chuan from the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) and Ms Lee Li...

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Showrooming is a growing trend in India: Study

BANGALORE: A new IBM study of 26,000 global consumers released today at the 2013 National Retail Federation convention found they are diversifying the way they shop for and acquire goods, becoming increasingly open to buying both online and in-store depending on their needs at time of purchase. While more than 80% of shoppers chose the store to make their last non-grocery purchase, only half are...

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Mars Rover Finds Intriguing New Evidence of Water

The first drill sample ever collected on Mars will come from a rockbed shot through with unexpected veins of what appears to be the mineral gypsum.Delighted members of the Curiosity science team announced Tuesday that the rover was now in a virtual "candy store" of scientific targets—the lowest point of Gale crater, called Yellowknife Bay, is filled with many different materials that could...

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NRA Ad Calls Obama 'Elitist Hypocrite'

Jan 16, 2013 12:04am Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP PhotoAs the White House prepares to unveil a sweeping plan aimed at curbing gun violence, the National Rifle Association has launched a preemptive, personal attack on President Obama, calling him an “elitist hypocrite” who, the group claims, is putting American children at risk.In 35-second video posted online Tuesday...

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Annotating Obama’s 2006 speech against boosting the debt limit

(Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP) “I think if you look at the history, getting votes for the debt ceiling is always difficult, and budgets in this town are always difficult.” — President Obama, news conference, Jan. 14, 2013 “The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. government can’t pay its own...

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S'pore scientists identify genes for central corneal thickness

SINGAPORE: Singapore scientists have identified genes for central corneal thickness (CCT) that may cause potentially blinding eye conditions. These eye conditions include glaucoma, as well as the progressive thinning of the cornea, which may eventually lead to a need for corneal transplantation.The team is from the Singapore Eye Research Institute and the Genome Institute of Singapore,...

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Left, Right join hands against FDI in retail

NEW DELHI: BJP, CPI and JD(U) on Tuesday come together to launch a national campaign against FDI in retail and sought support from the people to make the movement against the government's "anti-people" policy a success. "This is a fight against UPA's FDI decision and it is the anti-people policy of the government that we are opposing," JD(U) leader and NDA convenor Sharad Yadav said here. Blaming...

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"Fantastic" New Flying Frog Found—Has Flappy Forearms

Scientists have stumbled across a new species of flying frog—on the ground.While hiking a lowland forest in 2009, not far from Ho Chi Minh City (map), Vietnam, "we came across a huge green frog, sitting on a log," said Jodi Rowley, an amphibian biologist at the Australian Museum in Sydney and lead author of a new study on the frog.Rowley later discovered that the 3.5-inch-long (9-centimeter-long)...

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Armstrong Admits Doping in Tour, Sources Say

Lance Armstrong today admitted to Oprah Winfrey that he used performance enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France, sources told ABC News.A government source tells ABC News that Armstrong is now talking with authorities about paying back some of the US Postal Service money from sponsoring his team. He is also talking to authorities about confessing and naming names, giving up...

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