Tuscaloosa tornado survivors pick through rubble

Tuscaloosa tornado survivors pick through rubble The tornado that tore through Tuscaloosa on Wednesday was a capricious beast.It flattened some neighbourhoods entirely but spared others, razed dozens of houses on a street while leaving a couple standing and, in some homes, destroyed every room save that in which a family took shelter. As the city dug out from the wreckage on Friday, those fortunate enough to survive with their lives and their houses largely intact described a different kind of heartbreak from those forced to rebuild. "It's almost a survivor's guilt," said Donny Selman, 33, who cowered under a mattress in a hallway...

Read more »

Colombian 1985 Supreme Court raid commander sentenced

Colombian 1985 Supreme Court raid commander sentenced A Colombian general has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for his role in a military raid during a hostage crisis at the Supreme Court in 1985. General Jesus Armando Arias Cabrales was a military commander when left-wing rebels took a number of judges hostage. In the operation to retake the building, all of the rebels and eleven of the judges were killed, and eleven people disappeared. General Arias was found guilty of their forced disappearance. He was also banned from public office for 20 years. General Arias was the commander of the military in the capital, Bogota, when rebels...

Read more »

Prince William and Kate Middleton have kissed twice on the balcony of Buckingham Palace after their wedding service in Westminster Abbey.They were cheered by 500,000 well-wishers who gathered outside the palace, as RAF planes flew past in honour of the new royal couple. In the evening the pair returned to the Palace for a dinner and dance, expected to continue into the early hours. The couple will now be known as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Police estimate a million people lined the procession route from the abbey to the palace following the wedding. Prince William later drove his new bride back to Clarence House, following a buffet...

Read more »

Japan launches massive search for tsunami bodies

Japan launches massive search for tsunami bodiesSHICHIGAHAMAMACHI, Japan –  Soldiers prodded marshy ground with slender poles and cleared mounds of rubble by hand Monday as 25,000 troops mounted Japan's largest search yet for the bodies of nearly 12,000 people missing in last month's earthquake and tsunami.The operation was the third intensive military search since the March 11 disaster, which splintered buildings, flattened towns and killed up to 26,000 people along Japan's northeastern coast. With waters receding, officials hope the team, which also includes police, coast guard and U.S. troops, will make significant progress...

Read more »

Strike on Qaddafi Compound Badly Damages Buildings

TRIPOLI –  NATO airstrikes targeted the center of Muammar Qaddafi's seat of power early Monday, destroying a multi-story library and office and badly damaging a reception hall for visiting dignitaries.Qaddafi's whereabouts at the time of the attack on his sprawling Bab al-Azizya compound were unclear. A security official at the scene said four people were lightly hurt.Monday's strike came after Qaddafi's forces unleashed a barrage of shells and rockets at the besieged rebel city of Misrata, in an especially bloody weekend that left at least 32 dead and dozens wounded.The battle for Misrata, which has claimed hundreds of lives in...

Read more »

Iraq Fears Unrest Amid Talk of U.S. Troops Extending Stay

Iraq Fears Unrest Amid Talk of U.S. Troops Extending Stay WASHINGTON — Senior U.S. and Iraqi military officials have been in negotiations about keeping some 10,000 American troops in Iraq beyond the scheduled withdrawal of all U.S. forces at year's end, according to officials familiar with the talks.But the discussions face political obstacles in both countries, and have faltered in recent weeks because of Iraqi worries that a continued U.S. military presence could fuel sectarian tension and lead to protests similar to those sweeping other Arab countries, U.S. officials say.A separate drawdown deadline is looming in Afghanistan, where...

Read more »

At Least 75 Killed in Deadliest Day of Syrian Uprising

At Least 75 Killed in Deadliest Day of Syrian UprisingBEIRUT -- Syrian security forces fired bullets and tear gas Friday at tens of thousands of protesters across the country, killing at least 75 people in the bloodiest day of the monthlong uprising and signaling that the authoritarian regime was prepared to turn more ruthless to put down the revolt against President Bashar Assad.Among the dead were a 70-year-old man and two boys ages 7 and 10, Amnesty International said. In the southern town of Izraa, a man ran carrying the body of a young boy, whose hair was matted with blood from a gaping wound on his head, as another child wept ...

Read more »

Car Bomb Kills Nine in Baghdad

Car Bomb Kills Nine in BaghdadBAGHDAD -- Suicide bombers detonated two explosives-packed cars Monday outside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, killing at least nine people and wounding 23, officials said.The blasts marked the start of a violent day in the Iraqi capital, where a another bombing and a jewelry heist left two more dead and 13 wounded.The twin suicide car bombs rattled windows across Baghdad shortly after 8 a.m. The cars blew up just outside a security checkpoint on a heavily traveled road leading into the Green Zone from Baghdad's international airport.Pieces of charred flesh were still scattered at the scene hours...

Read more »

Taliban Militant Kills 2 at Afghan Defense Ministry

Taliban Militant Kills 2 at Afghan Defense Ministry KABUL, Afghanistan -- A Taliban militant opened fire inside the Afghan Defense Ministry on Monday, killing two Afghan soldiers in the latest daring attack inside a government or military installation.The Taliban said one of their agents who was also an army officer planned the attack to coincide with a visit of the French defense minister. French officials said the minister, Gerard Longuet, was not in the ministry at the time.Despite the Taliban claim, Afghan military officials said it was not immediately clear whether the assailant -- who was wearing a vest rigged with explosives --...

Read more »

Robot Detects High Radiation in Japanese Nuclear Plant

Robot Detects High Radiation in Japanese Nuclear PlantTOKYO –  Readings Monday from a robot that entered two crippled buildings at Japan's tsunami-flooded nuclear plant for the first time in more than a month displayed a harsh environment still too radioactive for workers to enter.Nuclear officials said the radiation readings for Unit 1 and Unit 3 at the tsunami-flooded Fukushima Dai-ichi plant do not alter plans for stabilizing the complex by year's end under a "road map" released by the plant operator Sunday.Workers have not gone inside the two reactor buildings since the first days after the plant's cooling systems were wrecked...

Read more »

World's Most Powerful Rocket Ready in 2012, SpaceX Says

World's Most Powerful Rocket Ready in 2012, SpaceX SaysThe era of the Space Shuttle is ending. And SpaceX plans to take over.Elon Musk, the millionaire founder of private space company Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX for short) said the long planned Falcon Heavy vehicle would be ready for liftoff at the end of 2012. The rocket, which he called the most powerful in the world, would be capable of taking men to the International Space Station, dropping vehicles and astronauts on the moon -- and maybe even cruising to Mars and back."This is a rocket of truly huge scale," Musk said at a press conference unveiling the rocket. "With...

Read more »

Gates to discuss Arab upheaval with Saudi king

Gates to discuss Arab upheaval with Saudi kingDefense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in the Saudi capital Wednesday for talks with King Abdullah on coping with the political upheaval sweeping the Arab world, blunting Iranian efforts to exploit the unrest, and upgrading the kingdom's defenses against Iranian missiles. In a sign of the depth of the Obama administration's concern about the political earthquake that has shaken the region, including the island of Bahrain off Saudi Arabia's Persian Gulf coast, this was Gates' third trip to the area in the past month. He has echoed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's cautioning...

Read more »

Japanese Nuclear Plant Starts Pumping Millions of Gallons of Radioactive Water Into Pacific

Japanese Nuclear Plant Starts Pumping Millions of Gallons of Radioactive Water Into Pacific TOKYO -- Workers were pumping more than 3 million gallons of contaminated water from Japan's tsunami-ravaged nuclear power complex into the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, freeing storage space for even more highly radioactive water that has hampered efforts to stabilize the plant's reactors.The government has also asked Russia for a ship that is used to dispose of liquid nuclear waste as it tries to decontaminate the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex, whose cooling systems were knocked out by the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11. The...

Read more »

Holder Blames Congress for Forcing Hand on Military Commissions for 9/11 Detainees

Holder Blames Congress for Forcing Hand on Military Commissions for 9/11 Detainees Congress tied the Obama administration's hands in trying the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and his accomplices, Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday, announcing that he was left without a choice and has referred the cases to the Defense Department for trial. In stark language, Holder lambasted Congress for imposing restrictions blocking any detainees from being tried in the U.S., saying that the "unwise and unwarranted restrictions" undermine the U.S. in counter-intelligence and counter-terror efforts.Expressing his disappointment...

Read more »

NATO Asks U.S. Military to Extend Libya Mission As Qaddafi Holds On

NATO Asks U.S. Military to Extend Libya Mission As Qaddafi Holds OnNATO has asked the U.S. military to continue flying airstrike missions over Libya through Monday, extending the previously announced timeline for U.S. participation in that mission by two days, NATO and Pentagon officials tell Fox News. During testimony on Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen announced the U.S. would hand off all strike missions to partner nations by the end of Saturday.Two weeks after mostly U.S. missiles and bombs opened an international air assault on Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi, America's naval and air forces were expected...

Read more »