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/ 14 November 2005
Amelie Mauresmo outlasted Mary Pierce 5-7, 7-6 (3), 6-4 in a marathon base-line slugfest to win the WTA Championships on Sunday for the biggest title of her career. ”I really think that’s a huge step for me,” she said. ”I don’t know where it’s going to take me, but it is a step. You know that it’s an important moment.”
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/ 13 November 2005
Novelist David Westheimer, who wrote My Sweet Charlie and Von Ryan’s Express that was turned into a movie starring Frank Sinatra, has died. He was 88. Westheimer died on Tuesday of heart failure at the UCLA Medical Centre, according to his son Fred.
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/ 13 November 2005
Mary Pierce beat world number one Lindsay Davenport, and Amelie Mauresmo ousted defending champion Maria Sharapova on Saturday to set up an all-French final at the WTA Tour Championships. Their semifinal victories insured the elite season-ending event will have a French champion for the first time.
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/ 13 November 2005
Cars usually hit wild animals on rural roads, but a motorist in California had a deer slam into him just as he was checking his car for signs of an animal collision, the highway patrol said. Robert Brooks was driving about 45km from San Francisco at dusk on Tuesday when he swerved to miss a deer.
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/ 12 November 2005
Mary Pierce defeated Amelie Mauresmo 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 in an all-French match at the WTA Championships on Friday to complete round-robin play with a 3-0 record. By winning, Pierce finished first in the Black group and will play top-ranked Lindsay Davenport in Saturday’s semifinals.
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/ 11 November 2005
Scolding herself to ”fight, fight, fight” in the third set, Maria Sharapova outlasted top-ranked Lindsay Davenport 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 at the WTA Championships on Thursday night, with both players advancing to the semifinals. Amelie Mauresmo of France defeated Russian Elena Dementieva 6-2, 6-3 to ensure a spot in the semifinals.
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/ 11 November 2005
World number one Lindsay Davenport looked to wrap up a perfect round-robin performance at the WTA Tour Championships on Thursday when she faced Russian glamour girl Maria Sharapova in her final group match. Davenport went into the clash with the security of knowing her semifinal berth was assured, thanks to her victories over Patty Schnyder of Switzerland and Russian Nadia Petrova.
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/ 11 November 2005
In the era when dinosaurs ruled the Jurassic earth, a 3,9m oceanic crocodile with a short snout and a mouthful of deadly teeth hunted large creatures in the sea, scientists reported on Thursday. Nicknamed ”Godzilla” by its discoverers, the new find was very different from other marine crocodiles, which had long snouts with many small teeth.
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/ 10 November 2005
The United States trade deficit exploded to a new record high of ,1-billion in September after hurricanes battered the world’s biggest economy, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. A strike at aviation giant Boeing in September also contributed to the gap between US imports and exports widening from August’s deficit of ,3-billion.
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/ 10 November 2005
A retired Elvis Presley impersonator helped police nab a man suspected of stealing more than 000-worth of memorabilia from the Elvis-a-Rama museum in Las Vegas, authorities said on Wednesday. Duke Adams said he was approached while in line at a pharmacy by a man offering to sell him items once owned by Presley.
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/ 10 November 2005
Muhammad Ali, his hands shaking and eyes reflecting the White House chandeliers, accepted the nation’s highest civilian award from President George Bush on Wednesday. Bush called him ”the greatest of all time” and ”a man of peace”, and tied the Presidential Medal of Freedom around the former heavyweight champion’s neck.
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/ 9 November 2005
Mary Pierce surprised Kim Clijsters 6-1, 4-6, 7-6 (2) at the WTA Championships on Tuesday in a wildly uneven rematch of their United States Open final. Top-ranked Lindsay Davenport improved to 7-0 lifetime against Nadia Petrova of Russia with a 6-2, 7-6 (1) victory in round-robin play.
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/ 9 November 2005
In a ruling reflecting the resurgence of religious conservatism, a key United States state has given Charles Darwin and his evolution theory a shove. The Kansas Board of Education on Tuesday adopted new science teaching guidelines, under which evolutionary concepts must be presented to students alongside theories that life could have had divine origins.
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/ 9 November 2005
Google’s plans for a virtual library of millions of digital books has sparked competing efforts by Microsoft, Yahoo! and Amazon, whose less ambitious plans could avoid infuriating copyright holders who have attacked Google. <i>Google Print</i>, which scans books and makes their texts available online for keyword searches, was launched this month with what the California company called only "a small fraction" of the 15-million titles it eventually hopes to digitally copy.
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/ 8 November 2005
Grokster, which came out on the losing end of a Supreme Court decision, has agreed to shut down its internet file-swapping service and pay $50-million to settle music and movie piracy claims. Grokster executives indicated they plan to launch a legal, fee-based "Grokster 3G" service before year’s end under a new parent company.
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/ 7 November 2005
World-record-holder Paul Tergat of Kenya sprinted to victory ahead of defending champion Hendrick Ramaala of South Africa in the New York men’s marathon on Sunday. The 36-year-old Tergat crossed the line in two hours, nine minutes and 30 seconds, just ahead of Ramaala.
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/ 6 November 2005
Vitali Klitschko’s heavyweight title defence next Saturday against Hasim Rahman is still on despite an injury to the champion that will force him to fight wearing a knee brace. Klitschko was fitted with the brace on his right knee on Saturday in Los Angeles and plans to go ahead with a bout that already has been delayed once.
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/ 4 November 2005
One of the world’s most famous landmarks, the 82-year-old Hollywood sign perched high above Los Angeles, is to follow Tinseltown tradition and get a facelift, officials said on Thursday. The giant letters spelling out the word that is synonymous with movie production will undergo a little restoration and some cleaning.
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/ 3 November 2005
Callous thieves broke into the home of a teenage amputee and made off with the girl’s artificial leg, her family said on Wednesday. California schoolgirl Melissa Huff (16) was horrified to find that the heartless burglars had not only stolen a haul of loot including cash and valuables, but had also helped themselves to her leg.
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/ 2 November 2005
United States President George Bush may be burdened with many problems, but his pockets are pretty light. Bush revealed the contents of his pockets on Tuesday to an Argentine newspaper reporter who was interviewing him in advance of a presidential trip to Latin America later this week.
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/ 2 November 2005
Microsoft on Tuesday announced online versions of its Windows operating system and other popular software programs, hoping to defuse a growing threat from Google and other fast-moving challengers. With Windows Live, Microsoft hopes to create a new platform that will unfasten some of its applications from a computer hard drive.
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/ 2 November 2005
A woman accused of helping her husband kill their eight-year-old daughter in an Atlanta motel because they believed she was demonic has pleaded guilty to murder. The woman and her husband were found walking down a busy street naked in freezing temperatures with their two other children on their shoulders.
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/ 1 November 2005
The United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday passed a resolution designating January 27 as an annual day to commemorate the Jewish and other victims of the Holocaust. The resolution, first proposed by Australia, Canada, Israel, the Russian Federation and the United States, was co-sponsored by more than 90 countries.
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/ 1 November 2005
Pluto has three moons, not one, new images from the Hubble space telescope suggest. Pluto, discovered as the ninth planet in 1930, was thought to be alone until its moon Charon was spotted in 1978. The new moons, more than twice as far away as Charon and many times fainter, were spotted by Hubble in May.
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/ 1 November 2005
Microsoft is widely expected to announce on Tuesday further forays into software and services that can be accessed over the internet — a growing competitive arena that some say could eventually threaten Microsoft’s biggest cash cows. The software behemoth is facing increasing competition from companies such as Google and Yahoo!.
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/ 31 October 2005
Embattled United States President George Bush on Monday nominated a conservative Appeals Court Judge, Samuel Alito, to the Supreme Court in a move expected to heal a rift in his Republican party. Bush called Alito ”one of the most accomplished and respected judges in America”.
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/ 30 October 2005
Wal-Mart, which has cultivated an image for brutal cost-cutting at the expense of employees and suppliers, is trying to reshape itself as a kinder, gentler company, but its legion of critics is not buying it. Views are mixed on whether there is a change at Wal-Mart, which is the world’s largest private employer.
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/ 30 October 2005
Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong poked fun at French critics and their accusations of doping in New York on Saturday, playing the controversy for laughs while hosting Saturday Night Live. The French newspaper L’Equipe reported 1999 urine samples from Armstrong tested positive for a banned substance.
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/ 28 October 2005
An embattled White House braced on Friday for criminal charges against Vice-President Dick Cheney’s top aide in an investigation of the leak of an undercover CIA officer’s identity. Meanwhile, President George Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, remains under investigation.
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/ 28 October 2005
New York City has many odours, but when the city began to smell a little too good, New Yorkers became alarmed. Residents from the southern tip of Manhattan to the Upper West Side nearly 16km north called a city hotline to report a strong odour on Thursday night that most compared to maple syrup.
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/ 28 October 2005
George Takei, best known for his role as Mr Sulu in Star Trek, came out as a homosexual in the current issue of a magazine covering the Los Angeles gay and lesbian community. Takei said on Thursday that his role as psychologist Martin Dysart in the play Equus inspired him to publicly discuss his sexuality.
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/ 28 October 2005
It’s one of the stranger consequences of globalisation: in India, salesmen are going door to door selling satellite radios that receive, among other things, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. The company behind this combination of 1930s-style marketing and space-age technology is WorldSpace, a Washington, DC-based outfit that is trying to make satellite radio a global phenomenon.