Seven Filipinos have been arrested on suspicion of smuggling the equivalent of 16 billion won (US$13.7 million) from South Korea, police said Wednesday.The suspects include a 58-year-old group leader detained under formal arrest and six others who were booked without detention for allegedly smuggling the remittances of Filipino workers in South Korea, according to the international crime investiga

Social Affairs May 23, 2012

Chile declared a health alert at a site where 500,000 pigs, abandoned by a slaughtering company, were dying in large numbers until authorities stepped in Tuesday.Health Minister Jaime Manalich visited the plant in Freirina, 800 kilometers (500 miles) north of Santiago in the parched Atacama region, and said that without food, water, cleaning or care the pigs had started to die.The incident began w

Travel May 23, 2012

California's Senate passed a bill to create guidelines for autonomous vehicles' -- self-driving cars -- to be tested and operated in the state, officials said.The bill will now go to the state Assembly for consideration next month, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.The passage in the Senate comes as Google Inc., Caltech and other groups are busy developing vehicles that use radar, video camera

Mobility May 23, 2012

South Korea's economy is expected to grow at a slower pace than previously anticipated this year largely due to a weak global recovery and sluggish trade conditions, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said Tuesday.In its annual outlook report on South Korea, the Paris-based club of industrialized economies said Asia's fourth-largest economy will likely pull off 3.3 pe

May 22, 2012

VIENNA (AP) _ The chief of the U.N. nuclear agency says he has reached a deal with Iran on probing suspected work on nuclear weapons and adds that the agreement will ``be signed quite soon. ``Yukiya Amano says some details still need to be worked out. But he tells reporters that Iranian officials say that those will not stand in the way of signing the deal.Amano spoke Tuesday on return from Tehran

World News May 22, 2012

A former Boston University student who was ordered to pay $675,000 for illegally downloading and sharing 30 songs on the Internet says he will continue fighting the penalty, despite the Supreme Court's refusal Monday to hear his appeal.Joel Tenenbaum, 28, of Providence, Rhode Island, said he's hoping a federal judge will reduce the amount.``I can't believe the system would uphold a six-figure dama

World News May 22, 2012

The ruling party's leading presidential hopeful Park Geun-hye has sued the floor leader of the main opposition party for libel over allegations of Park's possible involvement in a massive bribery scandal related to a suspended savings bank, officials said Tuesday.The suit came after Rep. Park Jie-won of the Democratic United Party (DUP) claimed last week Park Geun-hye met with a key lobbyist for t

Politics May 22, 2012

Apple chief executive Tim Cook topped the list of the best-paid CEOs in the US in 2011 thanks to stock options that put him more than $300 million above his next rival, a Wall Street Journal survey showed Monday.Cook, who took the helm of the iPhone and iPad maker in August last year, two months before the death of founder Steve Jobs, clocked in total compensation of $378 million.Cook earned $900,

Industry May 22, 2012

Parents of special education students at Mesquite High School in Mesquite, Texas, are outraged by a yearbook section that called their kids "mentally retarded."The Mesquite Independent School District wanted to honor students in the special education program with their own section of the yearbook. Spokeswoman Laura Jobe said the section read:"Some of the disabilities the students in the Special Ed

Social Affairs May 21, 2012

A four-term lawmaker close to leading presidential hopeful Park Geun-hye was selected Monday as the secretary general of the ruling Saenuri Party in a move expected to further consolidate Park's grip over the party seven months ahead of the presidential vote.As secretary general, Rep. Suh Byung-soo will take care of the budget and other general affairs of the party. Suh's appointment completes a s

Politics May 21, 2012

An Anderson, S.C., cocker spaniel emerged unhurt after falling down a 30-foot-deep well, its owner said.Amanda Schronce and her family were working Friday to repair a home well when the 4-year-old dog, Reese, jumped on top of the well around 6:30 p.m. to get a look into the well house. Schronce told The Independent Mail the dog did it all the time.But the well cover had been removed earlier, so Re

Social Affairs May 21, 2012

NEW YORK (AP) _ A prominent retired psychiatrist is apologizing to the gay community for a decade-old study that concluded some gay people can go straight through what's called reparative therapy.Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, formerly of Columbia University, now says he no longer believes his work showed that.For the study, Spitzer had interviewed 200 people who'd claimed some degree of change. The ``fat

Technology May 20, 2012