Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is considering mounting a proxy campaign to replace Yahoo! board members after the company failed to reach a deal to merge with Microsoft. The veteran investor has built up a stake in Yahoo! in the last week and would run a slate in an effort to force the company back to the negotiating table.
Barack Obama moved closer to sewing up the Democratic presidential nomination on Friday with more superdelegates rallying to his side, as rival Hillary Clinton fought on despite mounting odds against her. Clinton has vowed no surrender and plunged straight back into campaigning before the May 13 primary in West Virginia.
The Pentagon is considering sending up to 7 000 more United States troops to Afghanistan next year to make up for a shortfall in contributions from Nato allies, the New York Times reported on Saturday. The paper said the push could drive US forces in Afghanistan to about 40 000.
Barack Obama was showing signs of campaign fatigue. Sitting on a picnic bench in a park on Pagoda Street, Indianapolis, in discussion with a group of 30 supporters, he told a story about the ”modest” background of himself and his wife, Michelle. And 10 minutes later, seemingly having forgotten, he told them it all again.
The exploitation of the private lives of celebrities, even dead ones, by the United States entertainment industry is again under the spotlight after a Los Angeles company released a 45-minute video purporting to show a sexual encounter with Jimi Hendrix.
Manhattan is a famously elitist place when it comes to fine dining. Who you know is often the key to securing a table at one of the hot new restaurants. Imagine the horror then, when the latest hyper-chic establishment of New York’s most happening chef opted for an egalitarian alternative.
Microsoft plans on Thursday to unveil a web-based service for driving directions that uses sophisticated software to help its users avoid traffic jams, the New York Times reported. The software technology system, called Clearflow, will provide drivers with alternative information for routes that takes into account prevailing traffic patterns.
A Zimbabwe court postponed a legal bid by the opposition to force the release of presidential election results on Saturday, after the electoral commission asked for more time to prepare its response. Earlier, armed police briefly prevented lawyers from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change from entering the High Court, although they were later allowed in.
Zimbabwe state media predicted on Friday a crushing victory for President Robert Mugabe in weekend elections as his two main challengers made fresh allegations that the result may be rigged. Citing an eve of poll survey by university researchers, the Herald said Mugabe was set to win 57% of the votes.
The internet has profoundly changed journalism, but not necessarily in ways that were predicted even a few years ago, a study on the United States media industry has found. It was believed at one point that the net would democratise the media, offering many new voices, stories and perspectives.
When the Dalai Lama sat down on Saturday with Richard Gere and Robert Thurman, father of actor Uma and a United States professor of Buddhism, it was supposed to be for a few hours contemplating sacred art and silent meditation. But like almost everything the 72-year-old does, who he meets and what he says are picked over and pulled apart.
The highest and oldest wall is that which separates ”us” from ”them”. This is described today as a great divide of religions or ”a clash of civilisations”, which are false concepts, propagated to provide ”the other” — a target for fear and hatred that justifies invasion and plunder, writes John Pilger.
The sex worker at the centre of the scandal that brought down the governor of New York state, Eliot Spitzer, has become the most sought after person in the United States, with camera crews camped outside her Manhattan apartment and her MySpace page inundated with traffic.
Resigning over reports he paid for a 000-an-hour prostitute, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer leaves behind his political post but could face legal trouble from the stunning sex scandal. Spitzer now faces the possibility of federal criminal charges over how he may have paid for prostitution services.
New York Governor Eliot Spitzer faces pressure to resign on Tuesday as well as questions about whether he will be prosecuted for any crime after a report linked him to a high-class prostitution ring. A New York Times report said the man who made his name fighting corruption hired a 000-an-hour sex worker
The prospect of recession is looming over the American presidential election campaign, amid a wave of job losses and collapsing home prices that could see the political battle being fought in the middle of an economy in crisis. Last week was marked by rising oil prices, tens of thousands of lost jobs and plummeting share prices.
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/ 23 February 2008
Hillary Clinton on Friday denied she was contemplating defeat for her White House bid, after her wistful tribute to Barack Obama in a debate was seen by some observers as an admission of looming failure. Clinton is reeling from her Democratic rival’s 11 straight wins in nominating contests.
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/ 21 February 2008
John McCain denied a romantic relationship with a female American telecommunications lobbyist on Thursday and said a report by the New York Times suggesting favouritism for her clients is ”not true”. The likely Republican presidential nominee described the woman in question, lobbyist Vicki Iseman, as a friend.
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/ 21 February 2008
Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton criticised rival Barack Obama as a big dreamer with little substance on Wednesday as she sought to slow his momentum from 10 straight victories in the race for the party’s United States presidential nomination.
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/ 17 February 2008
Al Gore, who lost to George Bush in the 2000 presidential election, is becoming a key potential power broker in the increasingly bitter battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to win the Democrat nomination. Gore emerged on Saturday as a possible mediator who could negotiate a resolution if the primary campaign ends in a stalemate.
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/ 13 February 2008
Negotiators have struck a deal to release two CBS News journalists missing, believed kidnapped, in Iraq and they could be free in hours, a leading Shi’ite militia group and the United States military said on Wednesday. Police in Basra said the men, a British journalist and an interpreter, were seized from a city centre hotel.
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/ 6 February 2008
Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton battled to a draw on Super Tuesday and John McCain took charge of the Republican race in coast-to-coast presidential nominating battles in 24 US states. In their Democratic duel, Obama won 13 states and Clinton took eight, ensuring a protracted battle for the nomination.
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/ 5 February 2008
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama spent the final, tension-filled hours before Tuesday’s Super Tuesday primaries squeezing out votes in the East Coast battlefield states where opinion polls place the contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination almost neck and neck.
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/ 31 January 2008
Margaret Truman Daniel, the only child of former United States president Harry S Truman who was known for her mystery novels and singing career, died on January 29 after a brief illness. Truman was in college when her father, who was serving as vice-president, became the president following the death of Franklin D Roosevelt in 1945.
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/ 28 January 2008
Gunmen took hostage up to 250 Pakistani schoolchildren in the north-western town of Bannu on Monday after taking refuge in the school following a clash with police, officials said. Violence has spread across Pakistan in recent months, seeping out of remote tribal regions that are sanctuaries for al-Qaeda and Taliban militants and into cities and towns.
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/ 26 January 2008
Sixteen years ago, South Carolina and the United States were wowed by a new candidate who seemed less politician than force of nature. He packed halls and school gyms till they were bursting, promising that a new day was coming. Aged just 46, his arrival seemed to presage a generational shift.
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/ 25 January 2008
The Clinton strategy of marginalising Barack Obama as an African-American candidate showed signs of success on the eve of Saturday’s Democratic primary in South Carolina. Polls suggest Obama is in line to add South Carolina to his win in Iowa, but they also show a sharp drop in his support from white voters.
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/ 23 January 2008
Actor Heath Ledger was found dead at a Manhattan apartment, naked in bed with sleeping pills nearby, police said. He was 28. Ledger, who moved to the United States at age 19, quickly turned away from typical teen films and instead started to build a career on more challenging roles.
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/ 22 January 2008
Heath Ledger, the Australian actor nominated for an Oscar in 2006 for his depiction of a brooding gay cowboy, was found dead in his Manhattan apartment on Tuesday. He was 28. He was discovered in his bedroom in the apartment in the SoHo neighbourhood of Manhattan at 3.30pm by a housekeeper and a masseuse.
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/ 22 January 2008
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on Tuesday heightened the rancour of their Monday debate by attacking each other’s record and style, bringing what has become a mean-spirited and negative campaign to a new low. At a hastily arranged press conference in Washington, Clinton accused Obama of desperation.
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/ 22 January 2008
Battered by slow revenue growth and the popularity of social-networking websites, Yahoo! is poised to lay off hundreds of workers, according to published reports. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal have both reported on the slumping internet icon’s cost-cutting plans, citing people familiar with the matter.
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/ 11 January 2008
Doubts intensified on Thursday night over the nature of an alleged aggressive confrontation by Iranian patrol boats and American warships in the Persian Gulf on Sunday, after Pentagon officials admitted that they could not confirm that a threat to blow up the US ships had been made directly by the Iranian crews involved in the incident.