An 83-year-old steam pipe exploded underground in midtown Manhattan on Wednesday, shaking buildings, creating a towering geyser of debris and sending people fleeing in scenes reminiscent of the September 11 attacks. Officials in New York and Washington promptly ruled out terrorism.
The sponsors want it. The fans are waiting for it. But David Beckham’s debut for Los Angeles Galaxy remains in doubt. Although Beckham’s swollen ankle has responded well to treatment since he arrived in Los Angeles last week, Galaxy officials accept the longer-term picture is much more significant.
Scientists have discovered the underground remnants of an ancient lake in Sudan’s arid Darfur region, offering hope of tapping a precious resource and easing water scarcity, which experts say is the root of much of the unrest in the region.
With the recent release of reams of phone records from a woman accused of running a Washington prostitution ring, bloggers and others online have taken up the cause of hunting for links to elected officials and other prominent people. Bloggers, many of them liberal, are scouring the records and publishing what they find.
Al-Qaeda has dug a deeper foothold in North Africa than ever before with the merger in recent months of a number of terrorist cells there, the United States Defence Secretary said on Friday. Robert Gates told reporters that the terrorist groups in the Maghreb are closely affiliated to al-Qaeda.
Fallen media tycoon Conrad Black was convicted on Friday of mail fraud and concealing documents from an official proceeding, but a jury acquitted him of wire fraud, racketeering and several other counts. Black had been accused of swindling shareholders out of millions of dollars.
The old jokes may be the best, but according to a psychological study conducted in the United States, our ability even to spot a one-liner deteriorates as we age. Researchers asked one group of people aged from 65 to their late 80s and another in their early 20s to pick one of four endings to the opening lines of a series of jokes.
The United Nations Security Council is expected to authorise up to 26 000 troops and police for Darfur but implementation will take months providing the world body finds enough personnel and Sudan cooperates. On Wednesday, Britain, France and Ghana circulated a draft resolution for a joint African Union-UN force.
An 11-strong crew of mostly German explorers set out from New York on Wednesday on a reed boat bound for southern Spain in a bid to prove that Stone Age man conducted similar trans-Atlantic voyages. ”We want to rewrite history,” Dominique Goerlitz, a botanist and experimental archeologist leading the expedition said.
The new Harry Potter movie drew lukewarm reviews on Tuesday, but millions of ”muggles” are expected to ignore the critics and turn out in droves for the widest release for Warner Brothers studio. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix opened across South Africa, including at the Imax theatre in Pretoria, on Wednesday.
The White House hit back on Tuesday in a bid to stem a growing Republican revolt over Iraq strategy, as Democrats drove home a searing attack on President George Bush over the war. The president’s spokesperson, Tony Snow, pushed back against reports Iraq would meet no benchmarks on political and military progress in an interim assessment due later this week.
The Smart car on Tuesday visited the city built on massive motoring muscle as part of a 50-city road show designed to demonstrate why backers say the tiny two-seater is ”the right car at the right time” for the United States. The summer road show precedes the US launch of the Smart fortwo early next year.
Beverly Sills, one of the most popular American opera singers of the 1960s and 1970s, died on July 2 of cancer, New York’s Metropolitan Opera announced. She was 78. ”The soprano died in her home in Manhattan on July 2 after a brief battle with inoperable lung cancer,” the Met said in a statement, quoting her manager, Edgar Vincent.
The mysterious late-night calls began a few days after Los Angeles student Shira Barlow replaced a cellphone that she had dropped into a toilet in February. Suddenly Barlow began getting calls from strangers wishing "Paris" a happy birthday and requesting access to the most exclusive Hollywood nightclubs.
A 70-year-old woman was left bruised and bleeding following a clash with a police officer in western Utah state. The woman’s offence? Failing to water her front lawn properly. Violence flared when a police officer issued her a ticket for failing to maintain the garden of her home in Orem, 72km south of Salt Lake City.
Microsoft will not say what went wrong inside its Xbox 360 video-game consoles that could lead to -billion in repairs, but bloggers and their online readers seem to have their own answer: heat stroke. Frustrated gamers have been going to blogs and forums to swap horror stories and voodoo-like solutions for problems with the consoles.
When internet consultant Giovanni Gallucci first joined the professional networking site LinkedIn two years ago, he felt like a pioneer. Now he’s one of millions. The 10 biggest social networking sites had more than 200-million visitors in March. Together, their users blogged, tagged, uploaded, messaged and viewed a staggering 34-billion web pages.
Internet search giant Google said on Monday it has agreed to buy web security firm Postini for $625-million in cash, expanding its business software applications. Google plans to operate the company as a subsidiary in its Google Apps (applications) unit, which includes its email, calendar and documents applications.
A debate is intensifying inside the White House over whether President George Bush should try to prevent more Republican defections by announcing intentions for a gradual withdrawal of troops from high-casualty Iraqi areas, the New York Times said on Monday.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Israel and the West Bank this month to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace, making her first trip to the region since the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. An official said Rice hoped to ”move forward” on Israeli-Palestinian peace.
The video-game industry’s annual showcase is saying goodbye to scantily clad booth babes, extravagant, multimillion-dollar exhibits, blaring lights and pounding music. Celebrity appearances from the likes of Paris Hilton or Snoop Dogg are a thing of the past, too.
Microsoft announced on Thursday it will extend the warranty on Xbox 360 video-game consoles to three years, and said too many of the machines have succumbed to ”general hardware failure”. ”We don’t think we’ve been getting the job done,” said Robbie Bach, president of the entertainment and devices division.
A combination of two experimental Aids drugs can help control the deadly virus in people who are infected with highly resistant forms, an international team of researchers reported on Thursday. The two drugs — called etravirine, or TMC125, and darunavir, or TMC114 — are both made by Tibotec Pharmaceuticals.
David Beckham expects to make his debut for the Los Angeles Galaxy on July 21 in an exhibition match with FA Cup holders Chelsea after recovering from an ankle injury. The 32-year-old midfielder twisted his ankle while playing for England against Estonia in a Euro 2008 qualifying match a month ago.
Amazon.com will begin selling high-definition independent films in the HD DVD format through its on-demand DVD-printing service, the company said. The web retailer said it will waive processing fees for the first 1 000 films it accepts for production by its CustomFlix Labs subsidiary.
Pete Sampras is cheering for Roger Federer to win his fifth Wimbledon title in a row and the retired United States tennis legend says he expects the Swiss superstar will shatter his all-time Grand Slam mark. Sampras, speaking in a conference call with reporters, said on Tuesday that he thinks Federer will capture 18 Major singles titles before his career is over.
From New York to the Antarctic, from Shanghai to Rio de Janeiro, the world is getting ready to rock on Saturday as organisers of the Live Earth events seek to raise awareness of global warming. We publish a selection of the acts to look out for at the eight Live Earth concerts being promoted by former US vice-president Al Gore.
Seasoned travellers know that the key to a great vacation is great preparation. The means taking care of many details beforehand: where to go, what to pack, where to stay and how to afford it all. Thankfully, the internet makes the chore of vacation planning easier than ever before. Never has there been so much information available so readily.
Days after his departure from the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz has joined the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) as a visiting scholar, the conservative think tank announced on Monday. The AEI said Wolfowitz will focus on development issues, particularly in Africa, and on public-private partnerships.
Apple and AT&T sold about 500 000 iPhones over the weekend, according to a report from research firm Piper Jaffray. The phones, which include a fully integrated web browser and digital media player, went on sale on Friday night following months of excitement. The iPhone has been hailed as the future of cellphones.
A deal between Starbucks and Ethiopia that ends their trademark dispute and offers more benefits to Ethiopian coffee farmers has been hailed as a potential model for other poor nations seeking to better use the modern trading system, especially the often-controversial intellectual property rights provisions.
A mechanical monster grabs the F-14 fighter jet and chews through one wing and then another, ripping off the Tomcat’s appendages before moving on to its guts. Finally, all that is left is a pile of shredded rubble. The Pentagon is paying a contractor to destroy old F-14s rather than sell the spares at the risk of their falling into the wrong hands.