| Ukraine rebels vow to push offensive if talks fail Posted: 30 Jan 2015 10:14 AM PST  Pro-Russian separatists say they will push their latest offensive in eastern Ukraine further.
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| Qaeda group launches assault on Western-backed Syria rebels Posted: 30 Jan 2015 08:46 AM PST  Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria battled Western-backed rebels Friday as the jihadists pressed their bid to seize control of northern areas, a monitoring group and rebels said. The fighting comes nearly three months after Al-Nusra Front expelled another group of Western-backed opposition fighters from Idlib province. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the jihadists launched their offensive against the Western-armed Hazem movement on Thursday in Aleppo province. "The jihadists expelled the rebels from Regiment 111, once a regime army base that Hazem had taken over," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
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| Mitt Romney says he will not make 2016 White House bid Posted: 30 Jan 2015 07:48 AM PST  The 2012 GOP nominee announced he won't make a third bid for the presidency.
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| Dartmouth College bans hard liquor Posted: 29 Jan 2015 12:54 PM PST On Thursday, school President Philip Hanlon announced that starting March 30, all students, regardless of age, will be prohibited from possessing hard alcohol on campus. The school's Greek societies have also been warned that they need to improve their behavior or risk being banned. The White House says the behavior has led to an "epidemic" of sexual assault on school campuses. According to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 1,825 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die each year from alcohol-related unintentional injuries and 97,000 students are victims of alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape. |
| Florida prosecutor drops case against Zimmerman Posted: 30 Jan 2015 09:05 AM PST  By Barbara Liston ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) - A Florida prosecutor announced on Friday he will not pursue an aggravated assault charge against former neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman stemming from a domestic incident earlier this month after the alleged victim recanted. Zimmerman, who was acquitted in 2013 in a fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager, has had several brushes with the law since his trial. His latest arrest on Jan. 9 in central Florida was in connection with a domestic disturbance involving his then-girlfriend who had accused him of throwing a wine bottle at her and smashing her cell phone during an argument. Zimmerman claimed he acted in self-defense when he shot and killed Trayvon Martin, 17, in February 2012, when he was patrolling as a neighborhood watch volunteer.
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| 'Suge' Knight arrested for murder Posted:  'Suge' Knight faces murder charges
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| Jordan awaits proof hostage is alive after swap deadline Posted: 30 Jan 2015 05:53 AM PST  Families of a Japanese journalist and Jordanian military pilot remained in limbo.
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| Is Mitt Romney running for president? Posted: 30 Jan 2015 10:22 AM PST Romney will update supporters today about his plans for 2016. |
| Obama calls for spending surge, buoyed by rising economy Posted: 29 Jan 2015 07:28 PM PST  WASHINGTON (AP) — Declaring an end to "mindless austerity," President Barack Obama called for a surge in government spending Thursday, and asked Congress to throw out the sweeping budget cuts both parties agreed to four years ago when deficits were spiraling out of control.
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| Suge Knight arrested on murder charge Posted: 30 Jan 2015 10:47 AM PST  WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (AP) — Marion "Suge" Knight, the former music mogul who created one of hip-hop's leading labels and became the impresario of gangster rap, was arrested early Friday on suspicion of hitting and killing a man with his truck and fleeing the scene of the crash near Los Angeles.
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| U.S. government releases draft plan for electronic health data Posted: 30 Jan 2015 08:23 AM PST  The Obama administration on Friday proposed a plan to move most doctors, hospitals and their patients to national standards for handling electronic clinical data by the end of 2017. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as part of an effort to propel the $2.9 trillion U.S. healthcare system away from a costly fee-for-service system, released a report draft aimed at establishing an inter operable health information technology system that can be accessed by patients and their healthcare providers. Policy experts say that national health IT standards would lead to transparency in medical data, prices and provider performance, while helping support hospitals and medical practices in pursuing care-delivery models that emphasize care quality and savings over quantity. Earlier this week, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced the goal of moving 50 percent of fee-for-service Medicare payments to quality-care focused providers by the end of 2018.
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| Mother of NYC boy who vanished in 1979 to testify at murder trial Posted: 30 Jan 2015 09:03 AM PST  By Natasja Sheriff NEW YORK (Reuters) - The mother of Etan Patz, a boy whose disappearance from a New York City street in 1979 ignited a national movement to find missing children, will tell jurors at his accused killer's trial about the "nightmare that never ended," a prosecutor said on Friday. In opening statements in the kidnapping and murder trial of Pedro Hernandez, Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon said the former deli worker who confessed to the crime had upended an average American family's life and sent it spiraling into unthinkable tragedy. "You will hear from Julie Patz... about her quite ordinary life, a regular American tale, interrupted by a nightmare that never ended," Illuzzi-Orbon told jurors seated before Judge Maxwell Wiley in state Supreme Court in Manhattan. During jury selection, Illuzzi-Orbon said the case would not feature "high tech forensic evidence," but would take them back 35 years "to a time when the Brady Bunch was still on TV." Patz' disappearance prompted President Ronald Reagan to sign into law the Missing Children's Assistance Act, and Patz was one of the first missing children whose picture appeared on a milk carton. In 2012, investigators received a tip from Hernandez's brother-in-law, who told police Hernandez allegedly confessed to the crime to a church prayer group in the 1980s. Hernandez, in a videotaped confession to police, said he lured Patz to the basement of the deli where he worked near the child's home, strangled him and dumped him in an alley.
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| Keystone XL bill passes in Senate, faces Obama veto Posted: 29 Jan 2015 01:29 PM PST  The U.S. Senate passed a bill on Thursday to approve the long-pending Keystone XL oil pipeline, despite the White House saying earlier in the day that President Barack Obama would veto the measure. The Republican-led Senate passed the bill that would approve TransCanada Corp's project to carry 800,000 barrels per day of heavy Canadian crude to Nebraska on the way to Gulf Coast refineries and ports. The House has passed its own pipeline bill and will work with the Senate to send the bill to the Obama's desk. After the potential veto, Obama is expected to make his own decision on the pipeline after the State Department finishes a review in coming weeks.
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| 'Peace between us,' Raul Castro says of U.S. ties Posted: 29 Jan 2015 06:05 PM PST  Cuban President Raul Castro gave an endorsement to peace between the United States and his communist country, with the two nations in talks to restore ties after decades of animosity. Asked by a journalist at a summit of Latin American and Caribbean states what he would most like to see after the US economic embargo of Cuba is lifted, Castro barked: "Peace, peace between us, peace between the United States and us. Castro first said he would have to consider the question because the end of the economic embargo may be a long way away. US and Cuban diplomats met last week in Havana in landmark talks aimed at renewing ties that broke off in 1961.
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| Texas lawmaker under fire for divisive Facebook post Posted: 29 Jan 2015 12:11 PM PST  A newly-elected Texas state lawmaker is under fire for a divisive Facebook post asking Muslim visitors to an event at the state capitol in Austin to pledge allegiance to the United States.
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| Senate panel approves Iran sanctions bill Posted: 29 Jan 2015 11:39 AM PST  The measure would levy a tougher penalty on Tehran if it fails to curb its nuclear program.
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