Romney wins Maryland Republican primary: US media

Mitt Romney won Tuesday's Republican presidential primary in Maryland, US media projected, as he hoped for a clean sweep in three contests aiming to consolidate his frontrunner status.CNN, MSNBC and Fox television channels all called the vote for Romney just as the Maryland polls closed. Results from the US capital Washington and Wisconsin were not yet known as Romney bids for his party's nod to t

April 4, 2012

In group lottery wins splitting the spoils tough

Every once in a while a lottery jackpot becomes so huge that people can't help but band together in the hope of increasing their odds, pooling their money for a wad of tickets and promising to evenly split the spoils. Seems like a good idea until lightning strikes and the group wins.Then the future involves not only luxury, but also lawsuits. Numerous group winners have been sued by people claimin

April 4, 2012

Small plane crashes into shopping center

DELAND, Florida (AP) ― A small plane crashed into a central Florida shopping center Monday evening, authorities said, and reports indicated at least five people had been injured.Several people at the shopping center called emergency services around 7:20 p.m. to report the crash, sheriffs said. The callers described seeing the plane sputter, then hit the building and burst into flames at the shopping center located not far from Deland’s municipal airport.The sheriff’s office reports a pilot and a

April 3, 2012

Egypt Brotherhood candidate stirs unease

CAIRO (AP) ― The Muslim Brotherhood’s surprise decision to field a presidential candidate is stirring fears that the two biggest powers to emerge from the ouster of Hosni Mubarak ― the Islamists and the military ― are maneuvering to put in place a new rule in Egypt not much different from the old, authoritarian one.If they succeed in divvying up the most important positions in government, the new leadership could be a blow to the hopes for an inclusive democracy that drove last year’s uprising a

April 3, 2012

School aide fighting Facebook suspension

A Michigan teacher's aide says she was suspended for refusing to allow school administrators access to her Facebook account to examine a picture she posted.Kimberly Hester, an aide at Frank Squires Elementary School in Cassopolis, Mich., found herself in trouble with the Lewis Cass Intermediate School District after posting a picture in April 2011 of a co-worker's pants around her ankles and a pai

April 3, 2012

Senegal’s new president inherits economic woes

DAKAR (AP) ― Senegal’s former leader took office in 2000 before thousands gathered at a sports stadium. New President Macky Sall, by comparison, held his short inauguration ceremony Monday in a tent on a hotel lawn.As Senegal faces rising unemployment and frustration with government spending, Sall said he wanted to hold his event “in the simplicity that is called for by the situation in the country.’’Sall has promised that his administration will mark a “new era’’ in Senegal, and Monday’s festiv

April 3, 2012

Sixth-graders find sunken treasure

A group of sixth-graders scooping trash out of a California lake discovered sunken treasure, including rings, coins and brooches.Richard Bailey, executive director of the Lake Merritt Institute, said the students from the St. Paul's Episcopal School in Oakland were pulling trash out of Lake Merritt Thursday when a girl discovered two bags that were too heavy for her pull out with her net, the San

April 3, 2012

Syria agrees to April 10 troop pullout from cities

Syria told international envoy Kofi Annan that its military will withdraw troops and heavy weapons from populated areas by April 10, in what could be a first step toward ending the bloody yearlong conflict, U.N. diplomats said Monday.The announcement came as Syrian troops hunted down activists and destroyed their homes in the country's rebellious areas, and the United States remained skeptical of

April 3, 2012

$45 tablet: Made in Singapore, snapped up in India

Thousands of young schoolchildren in southern Andhra Pradesh state will get to use a low-cost electronic educational tablet developed in Singapore when school reopens in June.Called the I-slate, the tablet took the Rice-NTU Institute for Sustainable and Applied Infodynamics (Isaid) in Singapore about two years to develop. The institute is jointly set up by Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University and Houston’s Rice University.Some 50,000 of these devices, each costing about $45, will be used

April 2, 2012

Plane carrying 43 people crashes in Siberia

A passenger plane carrying 43 people crashed in Siberia shortly after taking off Monday morning, and Russian emergency officials said at least 32 were confirmed dead..The ATR-72, a French-Italian-made twin-engine turboprop, operated by UTair was flying from Tyumen to the oil town of Surgut with 39 passengers and four crew.The aircraft went down outside Tyumen, a major regional center in Siberia. T

April 2, 2012

Thousands march against H.K.’s next leader

HONG KONG (AFP) ― Thousands of people in Hong Kong noisily protested on Sunday against the city’s incoming leader and decried Beijing’s alleged interference in the election that propelled him to office.Holding banners and chanting slogans such as “One person, one vote” and “Leung step down,” demonstrators marched through the busy city centre to the office of Beijing’s representative in the semi-autonomous territory.There were chaotic scenes outside the tightly guarded office as police used peppe

April 2, 2012

Tokyo braces for next big quake

Experts say there is a high probability that a big earthquake will shake Tokyo in the next four years but is Japan’s capital ready for such a disaster?When the magnitude-9 undersea Great East Japan earthquake occurred on March 11 last year, professor Hirata Naoshi was on the 16th floor of a building in Tokyo’s government district, Kasumigaseki, attending a meeting with bureaucrats. The agenda: earthquakes.“Everyone attending the meeting received an early warning system. We watched the television

April 2, 2012

Clinton to Iran: Prove nuclear arms not sought

ISTANBUL (AP) ― U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday urged Iran to back up its declaration that Islam bars weapons of mass destruction by agreeing to a plan that would prove it does not intend to develop nuclear arms.Ahead of international talks April 13 in Istanbul on Iran’s uranium enrichment program, Clinton talked strategy with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who visited Tehran last week with other government officials.“They were told that the supreme leader

April 2, 2012

Most women leave cooking to their partner

Most U.S. women say the reason they don't cook frequently was having a partner who does most of the cooking, a survey indicated. The survey of 2,806 U.S. women, commissioned by Asia Food Recipe, indicated 58 percent of the respondents said their husbands are better cooks, but 36 percent said they didn't have sufficient time to cook and 12 percent said they didn't want to clean up afterwards. Almos

April 2, 2012

‘Friends of Syria’ tighten screws on regime

Clinton accuses Assad of breaking cease-fire promise; Annan due to brief Security CouncilISTANBUL (AFP) ― Western and Arab nations called Sunday for Syria’s Bashar al-Assad to be given a deadline to meet the terms of a peace plan as fresh clashes in a year-long uprising claimed another 40 lives.An international conference in Istanbul by “Friends of Syria” countries also urged the United Nations to act to stop the violence, but steered clear of backing opposition appeals for arms to fight the reg

April 2, 2012