Gun-control legislation: The difference between 1994 and today

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg may be the most outspoken elected official advocating for enhanced gun safety laws, but the New York public servant who has hands-on experience in Washington getting such legislation passed is promoting the use of smart phones to hail cabs in Manhattan. In a prior life, New York’s taxi and limousine commissioner, David Yassky, played a major role in writing the...

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S. Korea presidential rivals in final push for votes

SEOUL: The two rivals for South Korea's presidency made a final pitch to voters Tuesday -- the eve of an election that looks set to go down to the wire and could produce the country's first female leader.The eventual winner of Wednesday's ballot will face numerous foreign and domestic challenges, including a pugnacious North Korea, a slowing economy and soaring welfare costs in one of...

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India lost $123 billion in black money in a decade

WASHINGTON: The Indian economy suffered $1.6 billion in illicit financial outflows in 2010, capping-off a decade in which it experienced black money losses of $123 billion, according to a new report. India is ranked as the decade's 8th largest victim of illicit capital flight behind China, Mexico, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the Philippines, and Nigeria, respectively in the report by Global...

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GRAIL Mission Goes Out With a Bang

Jane J. Lee On Friday, December 14, NASA sent their latest moon mission into a death spiral. Rocket burns nudged GRAIL probes Ebb and Flow into a new orbit designed to crash them into the side of a mountain near the moon's north pole today at around 2:28 p.m. Pacific standard time. NASA named the crash site after late astronaut Sally Ride, America's first woman in space.Although the mountain...

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Conn. Kids Laid to Rest: 'Our Hearts Are With You'

Visibly shaken attendees exiting the funeral today for 6-year-old Noah Pozner, one of 20 children killed in the Connecticut school massacre last week, said they were touched by a story that summed up the first-grader best.His mother, Veronique, would often tell him how much she loved him and he'd respond: "Not as much as I [love] you," said a New York man who attended the funeral...

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Obama in Newtown, Conn.: ‘You’re not alone in your grief’ over school massacre

NEWTOWN, Conn. — President Obama offered words of solace to a heartbroken and inconsolable community Sunday, meeting with loved ones of the dead from Sandy Hook Elementary School and lamenting at a nationally televised memorial service that the United States has failed in its duty “to keep our children, all of them,” safe from harm. “Whatever measure of comfort we can provide, we will...

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Incoming Japan PM pledges no compromise on islands

TOKYO - Incoming Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe came out fighting Monday after his sweeping election victory, saying there can be no compromise on the sovereignty of islands at the centre of a dispute with China.Abe, whose conservative Liberal Democratic Party secured a comfortable win in national polls Sunday, acknowledged Japan's relationship with China was important but stuck to...

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Parliament disrupted over quota bill, Muslim reservation

NEW DELHI: Both Houses of Parliament were disrupted on Monday as Samajwadi Party (SP) members voiced their protest over the bill on reservations in government job promotions for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and implementation of the Sachar Committee report on minorities.Ahead of the Rajya Sabha vote on the controversial quota bill, SP member Ram Gopal Yadav in the Upper House called for...

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Space Pictures This Week: Frosty Mars, Mini Nile, More

Photograph by Mike Theiss, National GeographicThe aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, illuminates the Arctic sky in a recent picture by National Geographic photographer Mike Theiss.A storm chaser by trade, Theiss is in the Arctic Circle on an expedition to photograph auroras, which result from collisions between charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere and gaseous particles...

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Obama: Nation Faces 'Hard Questions' After Shooting

President Barack Obama said at an interfaith prayer service in this mourning community this evening that the country is "left with some hard questions" if it is to curb a rising trend in gun violence, such as the shooting spree Friday at Newtown's Sandy Hook Elementary School.After consoling victims' families in classrooms at Newtown High School, the president said he would...

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