A security lapse made it possible for unwelcome strangers to peruse personal photos posted on Facebook’s popular online hangout, circumventing a recent upgrade to the website’s privacy controls. The Associated Press verified the loophole on Monday after receiving a tip from a Vancouver, Canada, computer technician.
One may wind up as the first woman to lead the United States Senate. Another is relatively young and could run again for president. The third may simply resume his role as a congressional maverick and retire in two years. These are among the options that await the losers in the three-way race for the White House.
Disgraced American cyclist Floyd Landis will have to wait until June at the earliest for a ruling on an appeal to overturn his positive doping test at the 2006 Tour de France after a five-day hearing ended on Monday. Landis, who has denied wrongdoing, made his final appeal in closed-door sessions before the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Australian Geoff Ogilvy parred his final nine holes on Monday, including a crucial chip-in at the 13th, to win the World Golf Championships CA Championship and end Tiger Woods’s seven-tournament win streak. Darkness halted Sunday’s storm-interrupted final round with Ogilvy needing to finish the back nine and Woods five off the pace with seven to play.
Hillary Clinton on Monday pitched a plan to stop a mortgage crisis degenerating into a full-blown recession as new vitriol spilled over in her Democratic White House struggle with Barack Obama. Obama’s camp said Clinton would do anything to win, while her aides accused him of stooping to gutter politics.
When David Pangelinan isn’t logging 14-hour days driving a fuel tanker, he’s at his computer indulging his latest hobby: building a succession of online stores in minutes. Pangelinan has built four online stores offering hundreds of products for sale, from Bulova watches to Betty Boop pillows, using the website Zlio.com.
A 114-year-old woman, considered the oldest person in Texas, has died at a Dallas retirement home. Arbella Perkins Ewings celebrated her birthday on March 13 with a proclamation from mayor Tom Leppert and speeches by friends and family. She blew out all 114 candles on her birthday cake.
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.
Some pundits are calling them the HillPublicans. They are hardcore Republicans who are going against their previous political beliefs and voting for Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. The emergence of the HillPublicans now has many political observers poring over poll data and wondering what is going on.
Spacewalking astronauts stashed an inspection boom to the outside of the International Space Station on Saturday to assure the next shuttle crew can scrutinise their ship for damage. Latching the boom to the outside of the station was the primary task of the fifth and final spacewalk conducted by the Endeavour crew.
When David Pangelinan isn’t logging 14-hour days driving a fuel tanker, he’s at his computer indulging his latest hobby: building a succession of online stores in minutes. Pangelinan has built four online stores offering hundreds of products for sale, from Bulova watches to Betty Boop pillows, using the website Zlio.com.
Money can buy happiness, but only if you spend it on someone else, researchers reported this week. Spending as little as a day on someone else could significantly boost happiness, the team at the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School found.
Take a second look at that signed Picasso print you bought on eBay. A ring of art counterfeiters has sold thousands of prints since 1999 bearing the forged signatures of Picasso, Miro, Dali and other famous artists to buyers around the world.
By crushing a widely used semiconductor into nanoparticles, researchers said this week they have created a compound that could lead to cleaner, more efficient refrigerators, solar power plants and other devices. The crushed material makes it possible to conduct electricity without conducting so much heat, solving a problem that has baffled engineers for 50 years.
”Nappy-headed hos,” the phrase that cost radio shock jock Don Imus his job and triggered a debate on how far free speech can go, was named on Thursday as the most egregious politically incorrect turn of phrase in 2007. Trailing behind that phrase in the annual survey by Global Language Monitor, a word usage group, were ”ho-ho-ho” and ”carbon-footprint stomping”.
A pair of astronauts ended a spacewalk late on Thursday in which they tested a repair procedure for the heat shields on the space-shuttle fleet — a technique Nasa hopes it never needs to use. During the over six-hour outing the pair also replaced a faulty circuit breaker and removed a thermal sock from the station’s new Canadian-built handyman robot.
Contract workers for the United States State Department improperly viewed Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama’s passport records three times this year in what his campaign called ”an outrageous breach” of his privacy. The incidents, which occurred on January 9, February 21 and March 14, were quickly reported to lower-level State Department officials.
More than 60 teams from nine countries have lined up to chase a -million prize for making a green supercar that smashes records for fuel efficiency, organisers of the competition said on Thursday. ”We’re not talking about concept cars,” said Peter Diamandis, chief executive of the X Prize Foundation.
The international community must overcome its reluctance to get involved in Somalia and help put an end to abuses there, a special United Nations envoy said on Thursday. ”While more people are talking about Somalia, there is still little action to stop the violence,” Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah told the Security Council during a debate on whether to send UN peacekeepers to the East African country.
A San Diego judge on Thursday ordered coffee giant Starbucks to pay more than $100-million in tips and interest owed to staff across outlets in California. It was not immediately clear how the money might be divided up between the estimated 100 000 current and former baristas.
JPMorgan Chase is offering bankers at Bear Stearns bonuses to stay and support the controversial takeover, a person familiar with the situation said on Thursday. Those employees who stay at the close of the deal would receive a bonus that will include JPMorgan shares.
Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama on Wednesday admitted to being ”shaken” by a controversy over racial politics ignited by his pastor’s incendiary sermons. Obama, who gave a landmark speech about race in America on Tuesday, admitted in an interview with CNN that the matter had affected him personally.
Neither man has secured his party’s nomination, but Barack Obama and John McCain have begun to lay down the battle lines for a possible confrontation in November’s presidential election. McCain, all but certain to lead the Republican ticket, is starting to plot election strategy, aides say.
Some words suffer horribly in translation; others change shape radically when they travel, and there are a few (emotional shortcuts to my home and my past) that have acquired an unnerving timbre and resonance through their Atlantic crossing. One of these words, madrasa, seems especially charged in New York, writes Nadia Davids.
United States President George Bush said on Wednesday he had no regrets about the unpopular war in Iraq despite the ”high cost in lives and treasure” and declared that the US was on track for victory. With less than 11 months left in office and his approval ratings near the lows of his presidency, Bush is trying to shore up support for the Iraq campaign.
Microsoft and Intel said on Tuesday they are teaming with United States universities to unleash the mighty potential of multicore computer chips. A recent trend is to increase computing power but reduce electricity use and heat production by crafting multiple processors, or computer brains, into each chip.
British internet start-up Songkick launched on Wednesday with a vow to inspire digital-age music lovers to reclaim the joy of hearing bands play live in real-world venues. The London-based website debuts with a free online service that matches people’s tastes in music with the schedules of bands performing in the United States or Britain.
Microsoft has posted a major package of updates and security fixes for Windows Vista. It said that "Service Pack 1" will improve Vista’s reliability, security and performance, though many components already have been released during monthly updates since the operating system went on sale just more than a year ago.
President George Bush will acknowledge on Wednesday the Iraq war has been fought at a high cost but will insist a United States troop build-up has opened the door to a ”major strategic victory” against Islamic militants. ”The successes we are seeing in Iraq are undeniable,” Bush will say in an upbeat assessment.
Morocco and Western Sahara’s Polisario independence movement ended a fourth round of talks near New York City on Tuesday without narrowing differences on Africa’s longest-running territorial dispute. Morocco took control of most of Western Sahara in 1975 when colonial power Spain withdrew, prompting a guerrilla war for independence.
Democratic front-runner Barack Obama battled to defuse the most serious threat yet to his presidential hopes after incendiary, racially tinged sermons by his former pastor triggered an uproar. The Illinois Senator on Tuesday condemned the sermons while standing by his black spiritual mentor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
The United States Supreme Court considers on Tuesday a landmark legal battle over gun rights, taking up for the first time in nearly 70 years whether Americans have the right to keep and bear arms. The court’s ruling, expected by the end of June, could have a far-reaching impact on gun control laws in the US.