Tax fight sends GOP into chaos

The main thing that has held Republicans together philosophically is the belief in holding down taxes. Not one of them in Congress has voted for a significant increase in more than two decades. Now that very issue is tearing the GOP apart and making it an all-but-ungovernable majority for Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) to lead in the House. Disarray is a word much overused in politics....

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Rent in Orchard Rd prime areas down 0.28% in Q4

SINGAPORE: Prime area rent for shopping malls and retailers in Orchard Road inched down 0.28 per cent this quarter, compared to the previous quarter. In a report by Savills World Research, average monthly rent in prime areas in Orchard Road were S$35.1 per square foot in the fourth quarter. This is a slight drop from the S$35.2 per square foot in Q3. Analysts felt that this is due to adjustments...

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Cold wave grips north India

NEW DELHI: Cold wave conditions gripped north India as mercury dipped in most parts of the region on Saturday, with Kashmir Valley shivering under sub-zero temperature. In Delhi, the minimum temperature settled two notches below normal at 6.2 degrees Celsius, Met office said, predicting a foggy morning for tomorrow. In Jammu and Kashmir, temperature remained below freezing point in most parts...

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Pictures: Fungi Get Into the Holiday Spirit

Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter InstituteMounaud combined different fungi to create a Santa hat and spell out a holiday message.Different fungal grow at different rates, so Mounaud's artwork rarely lasts for long. There's only a short window of time when they actually look like what they're suppose to."You do have to keep that in perspective when you're making these creations,"...

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'Cliff' Deniers Put Faith in No Deal

Not everyone thinks the "fiscal cliff" is so bad.If the Dec. 31 deadline passes, income taxes will go up and across-the-board spending cuts will hit government programs. But while most of the political world frets as if a major disaster is looming, others have treated it more like the Y2K bug: a fiscal canard ginning up a lot of unnecessary panic.The cliff is a "fantasy," former...

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ASEAN will continue to push for open skies agreement with India: PM Lee

SINGAPORE: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the issue of an open skies agreement between ASEAN and India is something which Singapore will continue to push for.Speaking to the Singapore media at the end of his visit to New Delhi for the ASEAN-India commemorative summit, Mr Lee said passenger traffic keeps on growing, and hence the need for more capacity."I keep on making the point to...

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Rail attendant lodges FIR against UP minister Azam Khan

LUCKNOW: Dirty linen in air-conditioned coaches of Indian Railways is something which many passengers have experienced and complained about. But, senior Samajwadi Party leader and cabinet minister Mohd Azam Khan could be an exception. Khan allegedly slapped and pinched the coach attendant for not making a 'perfect' bedding for him. And, later the minister denied the allegation.As per records, Khan...

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Hollies Get Prickly for a Reason

With shiny evergreen leaves and bright red berries, holly trees are a naturally festive decoration seen throughout the Christmas season.They're famously sharp. But not all holly leaves are prickly, even on the same tree. And scientists now think they know how the plants are able to make sharper leaves, seemingly at will. (Watch a video about how Christmas trees are made.)A new study...

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NRA to Speak on Stopping Newtown Repeat

For the past week, leadership at the National Rifle Association has largely stayed away from the media, but this morning the group may weigh in on how to keep a deadly shooting massacre like last week's at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school from happening again.The NRA will hold a news conference in Washington, D.C., just before 11 a.m.Its leadership has held off on interviews...

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SGX consults markets on proposed rule changes

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Exchange (SGX) is consulting the securities and derivatives markets on proposed rule changes to provide market participants with more clarity of their rights and responsibilities. The proposed rule changes are meant to clarify when settlement and other payments between the clearing house and clearing members become final. SGX is proposing rule refinements to remove...

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CWG case: Order on framing of charges against Kalmadi tomorrow

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court will pronounce tomorrow its order on framing of charges against former Commonwealth Games Organising Committee (OC) Chairman Suresh Kalmadi and 10 others in a games-related graft case. Special CBI Judge Talwant Singh had on November 21 slated for tomorrow the pronouncement of order on charges in the case also involving former CWG OC Secretary General Lalit Bhanot as an accused...

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Detecting Rabid Bats Before They Bite

A picture is worth a thousand words—or in the case of bats, a rabies diagnosis. A new study reveals that rabid bats have cooler faces compared to uninfected colony-mates. And researchers are hopeful that thermal scans of bat faces could improve rabies surveillance in wild colonies, preventing outbreaks that introduce infections into other animals—including humans.Bats are a major reservoir...

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Virginia Tech Survivor Fights Back Against Guns

Colin Goddard knows what it's like to be in a classroom when an armed man bursts through the door and starts randomly shooting people. Goddard was a student at Virginia Tech when a gunman shot him and killed 32 people in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history."It was the most terrifying nine minutes of my life," Goddard told Terry Moran of "Nightline" Wednesday. "One moment...

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TIME magazine names Obama 2012 person of the year

NEW YORK: Time magazine on Wednesday named the recently re-elected US President Barack Obama as its person of the year for 2012 -- the second time it has accorded him this honor.The venerable American news magazine said the United States is in the midst of huge cultural and demographic changes and Obama is "both the symbol and in some ways the architect of this new America."The magazine...

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Bank official gets three years in jail for Rs 20,000 bribe

NEW DELHI: An official of Indian Overseas Bank was sentenced to three years in jail by a Visakhaptnam court for demanding a bribe of Rs 20,000 from another employee to help him get a transfer. The Special Judge for CBI cases in Visakhaptnam sentenced V M M V Nagendra Rao, Special Cadre Assistant with the bank's Seetharampuram Branch in Vijayawada, to three years of simple imprisonment and also...

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Race Is On to Find Life Under Antarctic Ice

A hundred years ago, two teams of explorers set out to be the first people ever to reach the South Pole. The race between Roald Amundsen of Norway and Robert Falcon Scott of Britain became the stuff of triumph, tragedy, and legend. (See rare pictures of Scott's expedition.)Today, another Antarctic drama is underway that has a similar daring and intensity—but very different stakes.Three...

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Australia a Model for Successful Gun Control?

If there is one country that best represents the possibility of cutting gun crime by increasing gun control, it is Australia.In 1996, 28-year-old Martin Bryant finished his lunch in a café in the seaside resort of Port Arthur and pulled out a semi-automatic rifle. In the first 15 seconds of his attack, he killed 12 and wounded 10. In all, he shot more than 50 people in six locations,...

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SMRT Alpha appointed to operate retail space at S'pore Sports Hub

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Sports Hub has appointed SMRT Alpha to lease and operate 41,000 square metres of commercial retail space at the Singapore Sports Hub.This new joint venture is a partnership between subsidiaries of SMRT and NTUC FairPrice.The retail mall and waterfront area will feature a variety of indoor and alfresco food and beverage outlets.For shoppers, the mall will offer...

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General Bikram Singh headed for Sri Lanka to bolster bilateral military ties

NEW DELHI: Continuing with the upward trajectory in bilateral military ties with Sri Lanka, General Bikram Singh will be leaving for Colombo on Wednesday. Apart from top political and defence officials, the Army chief will also meet Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa during his four-day visit. Gen Singh will also be the chief guest at the passing out parade of the Sri Lankan Military Academy...

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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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Siblings of Sandy Hook Victims Face Survivor's Guilt

Six-year-old Arielle Pozner was in a classroom at Sandy Hook school when Adam Lanza burst into the school with his rifle and handguns. Her twin brother, Noah, was in a classroom down the hall.Noah Pozner was killed by Lanza, along with 19 other children at the school, and six adults. Arielle and other students' siblings survived."That's going to be incredibly difficult to cope...

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Federal judges go to court over pay

With the nation teetering on the “fiscal cliff,” federal judges may soon force Congress to dedicate possibly millions in judicial back pay. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in October ordered Congress to pay six federal judges years of back pay. Now, a group of federal judges is pushing a class-action lawsuit to ensure that all the other federal judges who missed out on...

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Delhi rape highlights chronic women's safety issues in India

NEW DELHI: A weekend trip to the movies for a medical student in her twenties and her male friend ended in horrifying brutality on Sunday night.She was harassed and then gang raped on a moving bus. Her friend tried to intervene but was beaten up with an iron rod. The two were later thrown from the vehicle, semi naked. The woman is now in critical condition in a New Delhi hospital suffering...

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NDA's PM candidate should be from BJP: Nitish Kumar

PATNA: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar Monday said only a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader will be the National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. "A BJP leader will be the NDA's prime ministerial candidate," Nitish Kumar said here. A day after the BJP ruled out the possibility of Nitish Kumar becoming the NDA's prime ministerial candidate,...

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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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Newtown Victims: 'Hero' Teacher, Principal, 20 Kids

Twenty bright first graders with their entire lives ahead of them were gunned down on Dec. 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Along with the students, the lives of six school staffers, including a devoted teacher and a proud principal, were lost. Click through to see the victims at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Noah Pozner and his twin sister celebrated their sixth...

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Russia police say anti-Putin protesters freed

MOSCOW: Russian police said on Sunday they had released some 40 people detained during a banned protest against Vladimir Putin, including opposition leader Alexei Navalny.Braving freezing cold and the threat of heavy fines, hundreds of people defied the authorities on Saturday to gather at Moscow's Lubyanka Square, the seat of the FSB security services, to mark one year since the start...

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Akhilesh sticks to opposition to quota in job reservations

BULANDSHAHR (UP): Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav today stuck to Samajwadi Party's stand opposing quota in job promotions for SC/STs and also FDI in multi-brand retail. On the issue of extending support to Government on FDI in insurance and other planned economic reforms, Yadav said the party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and its national leadership will take a decision when they are...

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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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School Safety Questioned After Conn. Shooting

Along with fire drills, schools have been conducting lockdown drills -- often known as active shooter drills -- since the Columbine massacre in 1999.But safety officials do not agree yet on what teachers and students should do when a homicidal gunman invades their school.At Sandy Hook Elementary School, teachers, staff and students had been drilled on how to handle such a situation."We...

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