Flu season hits early and, in some places, hard

NEW YORK (AP) — From the Rocky Mountains to New England, hospitals are swamped with people with flu symptoms. Some medical centers have limited visitors, and one Pennsylvania hospital set up a tent outside its ER to handle the feverish patients.Flu season in the U.S. has hit early and, in some places, hard. But whether this will be considered a bad season by the time it has run its course in the spring...

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Holmes Took Disturbing Photos Before Massacre

Hours before James Holmes allegedly carried out a massacre at a Colorado movie theater he took a series of menacing self-portraits with his dyed orange hair curling out of from under a black skull cap and his eyes covered with black contacts.A prosecutor told the court after the photographs were shown that Holmes had a "depravity of human heart."Those haunting photographs,...

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Venezuela court endorses Chavez inauguration delay

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's top court endorsed the postponement of Hugo Chavez's inauguration this week and ruled on Wednesday that the cancer-stricken president and his deputy would continue in their roles, despite a cacophony of opposition complaints. Critics had argued the 58-year-old's absence from his own swearing-in ceremony on January 10 meant a caretaker president must be...

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Oil prices weaken after US energy report

NEW YORK: Crude oil prices retreated Wednesday after a US oil inventory report pointed to large increases in refined petroleum products.Oil prices for US benchmark West Texas Intermediate settled five cents lower at US$93.10 a barrel.In London, the Brent contract for February finished at US$111.76 a barrel, losing 18 cents from Tuesday.The decline came after a weekly report by the US Energy...

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Maharashtra plans water trains for drought areas

MUMBAI: With the state witnessing an acute drought, the state government has decided to adopt unprecedented measures. Anticipating that certain parts of Marathwada will go completely dry by March, the state government has drawn up a plan to transport water for drinking in railway wagons. At the state cabinet meeting on Wednesday, chief minister Prithviraj Chavan informed colleagues that initial...

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Retooling Pap test to spot more kinds of cancer

WASHINGTON (AP) — For years, doctors have lamented that there's no Pap test for deadly ovarian cancer. Wednesday, scientists reported a tantalizing hint that one day, there might be.Researchers are trying to retool the Pap, a test for cervical cancer that millions of women get, so that it could spot early signs of other gynecologic cancers, too.How? It turns out that cells can flake off of tumors...

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James Holmes' Elaborate Booby Trap Plan Revealed

A gasoline-soaked carpet, loud music and a remote control car were part of an elaborate plan by accused Aurora gunman James Holmes' to trick someone into triggering a blast that would destroy his apartment and lure police to the explosion while he shot up a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., according to court testimony today.FBI agent Garrett Gumbinner told a Colorado court about...

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Insight: Aleppo misery eats at Syrian rebel support

ALEPPO, Syria (Reuters) - At a crowded market stall in Syria, a middle-aged couple, well dressed, shuffle over to press a folded note, furtively, into the hand of a foreign reporter. It is the kind of silent cry for help against a reign of fear that has been familiar to journalists visiting Syria over the past two years. Only this is not the Damascus of President Bashar al-Assad but rebel-held...

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Clinton to testify on Benghazi on January 22

WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will appear before US lawmakers on January 22 to be quizzed about a damning inquiry into a deadly militant attack on a US mission in Libya, a senator said Tuesday.Clinton had initially been due to testify to US lawmakers in late December after the scathing probe blamed "grossly inadequate" security at the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, eastern...

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SC to examine Radia tapes for criminality

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that it would run a random check on Radia tapes to look for any instance of suspected criminality which needed to be probed by the CBI. A bench of Justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya said that they would pass the order on January 22 — a timeframe during which it would randomly pick up two-three of the several 48 envelopes containing the transcript...

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