The US House of Representatives has passed a $1.1tn budget, hours before government was due to shut down at midnight on Thursday. The Republican measure was passed by 219 votes to 206 after President Barack Obama had urged Democrats to support the measure. It will fund most of the government until September 2015, but some areas will only receive emergency funding. Republicans won control of both House and Senate in elections last month.
See More
Australian PM Tony Abbott has vowed to "sweat blood" to secure constitutional recognition for indigenous people, saying he wants a referendum in 2017.
But Mr Abbott said he would not rush with the date until he was confident the referendum would succeed. To be passed, the change must be backed by a majority of people in a majority of Australia's six states. The constitution currently does not recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as the nation's first people. Unlike in other nations settled by Europeans, such as Canada and New Zealand, Australia's constitution does not mention indigenous people. In the past few years, there have been discussions about recognising them in a preamble to the constitution, and about changing the main part of the constitution to include a section that outlaws racial discrimination.
See More
Once upon a time the job of president of the United States seemed clear-cut: you knew who the enemy was, and you knew you had the economic and military measure of them.
You were seen as the most powerful man in the world. That isn't necessarily the case any more. True, no other political leader has the reach or resources of Barack Obama. Compared with him, China's Xi Jinping looks like a decidedly local political chieftain with a big chequebook, but with nothing very serious in the way of firepower. Russia's Vladimir Putin appears almost bankrupt. The naval ships he took to the G20 summit in Brisbane in order to flex his famous muscles were so old-fashioned they made people laugh.
See More
Russia will help India build at least 10 more nuclear reactors, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said following a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two countries signed a series of major energy agreements on Thursday. Russia will also remain India's top defence supplier, said Mr Modi. Mr Putin's visit to Delhi comes as India faces energy shortages and Russia seeks to expand its ties with Asia in the face of Western sanctions. Mr Modi said that the two countries had outlined an "ambitious vision" for nuclear energy during the talks and that the new reactors would be built over the next 20 years.
See More
Microsoft is preparing to fight a U.S. government search warrant that seeks its customer emails stored abroad. Microsoft's chief counsel Brad Smith and other tech attorneys will explain why the company should not have to comply with a warrant for data hosted at a facility in Dublin, Ireland, in a panel moderated by ABC's Charlie Gibson in New York next Monday. Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) has already argued in a June court filing that prosecutors had no right to execute the warrant because it is outside the country's jurisdiction.
See More
Facebook wants you to know it doesn't see customers as a mass of faceless moneymaking advertising targets. It understands that you, and the other billion individuals who log on to the social network, are flesh-and-blood humans with feelings.
That's why the company no longer refers to members as "users" internally. Instead it calls them "people." The switch in lingo has even trickled down to internal computer programs. Margaret Gould Stewart, the company's director of product design, explained Facebook's softened approach to humanizing its customers at the Atlantic Technology Conference in San Francisco on Wednesday.
See More
Bollywood heartthrob Hrithik Roshan has been voted the world's sexiest Asian man for the third time in four years. The 40-year-old actor reclaimed the crown, which he lost last year, in the 11th edition of the '50 Sexiest Asian Men In The World' list produced annually by Britain's weekly newspaper Eastern Eye.
Read More
As 2014 morphs into 2015, Bollywood gears up for award season, which has a crop of outstanding performances jostling for attention. These are the favourites in the trophy race. Deepika Padukone cleaned up the Best Actress awards last season, her own competition with multiple nominations for Chennai Express, Ram-Leela and Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani.
Read More
he last time Amitabh Bachchan and Ranbir Kapoor shared screen space was in Bhootnath Returns in which the latter made a cameo appearnace. Buzz is that Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani director Ayan Mukerji is now looking at casting Amitabh Bachchan in his next film starring Ranbir and Alia Bhatt.
Read More
The Washington Post On May 1, 2011, President Obama announced that U.S. forces had killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan. The killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011 was hailed by current and former CIA officials as the crowning justification for the use of harsh interrogation tactics. High-value detainees, when subjected to those methods, provided intelligence that the officials said helped lead the spy agency to a mysterious courier and, ultimately, to the terrorist leader himself.
The Senate Intelligence Committee report released Tuesday upends that version of history, providing an alternate case study that revives questions about the agency’s account. The report asserts that the role of harsh interrogation techniques was greatly exaggerated.
See More
Sen. Dianne Feinstein says CIA stonewalling—and not her committee—is to blame for the $40 million it cost to investigate the"enhanced interrogation techniques" used during the Bush administration. Feinstein's office says the report—released Tuesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee's Democrats—was "completed entirely with existing committee resources; only minor staff additions were needed at some early stages of the study." "The overwhelming majority of the $40 million cost was incurred by the CIA and was caused by the CIA's own unprecedented demands to keep documents away from the committee," the statement added.
See More
U.S. President Barack Obama, seen through a teleprompter, pauses while speaking at the White House Summit on Early Education at the White House in Washington, December 10, 2014. A report that President Obama hoped would end the debate over the CIA’s brutal interrogation program has instead brought into sharper focus the lingering obstacles the president faces as he tries to move the country beyond what he has described as the fearful excesses of the post-9/11 era.
See More
Dr. Christopher S. Driskill, who is accused of misconduct and faces the loss of his medical license, practiced at this office. HOBBS, N.M. — In this booming oil town hugging the Texas border, the doctor came highly recommended. Expecting mothers said they appreciated how Dr. Christopher S. Driskill, one of the few obstetricians and gynecologists here, would take his time with them. One patient of his, whose pregnancy proved so challenging that she needed to be sent to a bigger state hospital across the state line in Lubbock, Tex., recalled how the doctor kept checking in again and again, to make sure she was all right.
See More
