February 6, 2012
WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama said on Sunday that he did not think Israel had made a decision on whether to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear installations, a threat that has rattled the region.
Obama – seeking to reassure Americans over the danger posed by Tehran’s suspect nuclear program, and any negative side-effects for the United States – said Washington was working “in lockstep” with Israel to bring Iran to heel.
“I don’t think Israel has made a decision” to strike Iranian facilities, Obama said in a pre-Super Bowl interview with NBC.
National
February 6, 2012
NEW YORK: Goldman Sachs Group Inc Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein, one of Wall Street's most powerful figures, has become the first major business leader to join a national media campaign in support of same-sex marriage.
Gay rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign published a video on Sunday in which 57-year-old Blankfein, who has headed investment bank Goldman Sachs since 2006, asks viewers to join a "majority of Americans who support marriage equality."
National
February 6, 2012
HONOLULU: A second Marine is going to trial for allegedly hazing a fellow Marine who later fatally shot himself in Afghanistan.
Sgt. Benjamin Johns has been charged with a wrongfully humiliating and demeaning Lance Cpl. Harry Lew, who killed himself on April 3.
Johns, a squad leader, also has been charged with dereliction for failing to supervise and ensure the welfare of Marines under his care.
National
February 6, 2012
Kenneth Robinson has finally been kicked out of the $340,000 home that he had lived in since June for $16.
Robinson, 51, lived on Waterford Drive in Flower Mound, Texas, but he did not own or rent the home he claimed he had a right to live in. After the owner abandoned the property, which had been in foreclosure for over a year, and the mortgage company reportedly went out of business, he submitted a $16 filing fee at the local courthouse, claiming the law of "adverse possession" gave him the right to occupy the home.
National
February 6, 2012
ATLANTA: Georgia's top court struck down a state law that restricted assisted suicides, siding on Monday with four members of a suicide group who said the law violated their free speech rights.
The Georgia Supreme Court's unanimous ruling found that the law violates the free speech clauses of the U.S. and Georgia constitution. It means that four members of the Final Exit Network who were charged in February 2009 with helping a 58-year-old cancer-stricken man die won't have to stand trial, defense attorneys said.
National
February 6, 2012
WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama said the US has a ”very good estimate” of when Iran could complete work on a nuclear weapon, but cautioned Monday that there are still many unanswered questions about Tehran’s inner workings.
”Do we know all of the dynamics inside of Iran? Absolutely not,” Obama said. ”Iran itself is a lot more divided now than it was. Knowing who is making decisions at any given time inside of Iran is tough.”
National
February 6, 2012
LAKE GEORGE: For decades, tourists visiting this popular Adirondack village could gape at the skeletons of soldiers from nearby French and Indian War sites. Then in 1993, a somber reburial ceremony was held to finally put the remains to rest.
Only that never happened.
National
February 6, 2012
HARRISBURG:State Representative H. William DeWeese, one of Pennsylvania's longest-serving and most influential lawmakers, was found guilty on Monday of theft and criminal conspiracy stemming from his use of state employees to campaign for him for free.
DeWeese, 61, faces the possibility of 38 years in prison when he is sentenced on April 24.
His case stems from a larger scandal in 2006 called "Bonusgate" that has led to 20 convictions or guilty pleas of Republican and Democratic lawmakers and staff who paid and received taxpayer-funded bonuses for campaign work.
National
February 6, 2012
NAIROBI - President Obama's grandmother, Sarah Obama, is home recovering at her home in western Kenya after an accident that, judging by the condition of the vehicle, could have been much worse.
"God is with me, because if you could have seen the wreckage that we came out of safe, one would wonder," Sarah Obama said Monday.
Police in the town of Kisumu say the 91-year-old was traveling to her home in the village of Kogelo Saturday night when the driver lost control, and the vehicle rolled into a ditch.
National
February 6, 2012
WASHINGTON: The Obama administration has closed the US Embassy in Damascus and pulled all American diplomats out of Syria.
Officials say Ambassador Robert Ford and other diplomats left Syria on Monday. It is the most dramatic US move so far after 11 months of a violent crackdown on dissent by President Bashar Assad’s regime.
The State Department warned last month it would close the embassy unless Assad’s government stepped up its protection. It cited concerns about the safety of personnel and recent car bombs.
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