Berlusconi slams Europe's 'lords of austerity'

ROME: Italy's Silvio Berlusconi on Saturday said Europe's "lords of austerity" had tried to get rid of him, speaking in apparent breach of rules for candidates to stay silent the day before elections."I contradicted the lords of austerity who are now trying to get rid of me," Berlusconi was quoted by the ANSA news agency as saying in Milan in an interview with Greek television.Leftist...

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Google laptop shows Apple a thing or two

The 3.3-pound Google Chromebook Pixel sports a 12.85-inch, 2,560x1,700-pixel display and an Intel Core i5 processor. (Credit:Stephen Shankland/CNET)Thank you, Google. For obsoleting my MacBook. Question: What two killer hardware features are missing on MacBooks? My answer: a touch screen and 4G. What a coincidence. Just what Google is offering on the Chromebook Pixel. And in a package that comes close...

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Sequester blame game continues days before deadline

Less than one week before the so-called sequester imposes $120 billion in automatic cuts to federal spending, GOP lawmakers and the president are still juggling blame, with each side slamming the other for the failure to secure a deal. In his weekly address Saturday, President Obama tried to back Republicans into a corner. "These cuts don't have to happen," he explained. "Congress can turn them off...

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Pistorius Family: 'Law Must Run Its Course'

South African Olympian Oscar Pistorius is spending time his family today after the athlete was freed on $113,000 bail Friday."We realise that the law must run its course, and we would not have it any other way," the Olympian's uncle, Arnold Pistorius said in a statement on Saturday.The Pistorius family expressed their gratitude that the former Olympian was allowed out of jail...

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Egypt parliament election start moved to April 22

Katherine Webb, girlfriend of Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron, made headlines when she was spotted by ESPN's Brent Musberger at the National Championship game earlier this year.Now, the 23-year-old model - recently featured in the pages of the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and a castmember on ABC's upcoming reality diving show, "Splash" -- explains how she's handling her sudden fa...

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Pope to quit Twitter after stepping down: Vatican Radio

VATICAN CITY: The pope's official Twitter account, which has more than two million followers in nine languages, will close next week when Benedict XVI leaves office, Vatican Radio said Friday.After a high-profile launch on December 12 under the name @pontifex, the pontiff's online musings quickly attracted over 1.5 million followers in English. Around a million other users of the site...

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Google talking with labels about streaming music service -- report

When your market cap is north of $263 billion and the company's stock price is hovering around the $800 level, the prevailing question du jour becomes "well, why not?" So it is that we learn, courtesy of the Financial Times, that Google has been talking with the major music labels about a possible streaming music service. The Times report said that "it is expected that the streaming service will...

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LaHood: Time for GOP to "wake up" to avoid "calamity" at airports

Updated at 3:10 p.m. ET Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today warned of the "enormous impact" the looming sequester budget cuts will have on air travel in America, given that his department will have to cut nearly $1 billion from its budget, with more than $600 million coming from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). As the one former Republican congressman in President Obama's cabinet,...

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Jodi Arias' Friends Believe in Her Innocence

Accused murderer Jodi Arias believes she should be punished, but hopes she will not be sentenced to death, two of her closest friends told ABC News in an exclusive interview.Ann Campbell and Donavan Bering have been a constant presence for Arias wth at least one of them sitting in the Phoenix, Ariz., courtroom along with Arias' family for almost every day of her murder trial....

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Football: Laudrup tells Swansea to take initiative in final

LONDON: Swansea City coach Michael Laudrup said his side should have no concerns about being branded favourites ahead of their meeting with fourth-tier Bradford City in Sunday's English League Cup final.Swansea will be appearing in their first major cup final, but their achievement pales in comparison to that of Bradford, who have eliminated three Premier League sides en route to Wembley...

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PS4 and the Vita: the multi-screen dream...again

Can the Vita be revitalized by the PS4? Sony hopes so.(Credit:Photo by Sarah Tew/CNET)The PlayStation 4 is Sony's last great hope in keeping control of the gaming industry. It's also the best chance at turning the PlayStation Vita into a more relevant piece of gaming hardware. At last night's PlayStation 4 event in New York, many hew tidbits of hardware magic were discussed, and a good handful of...

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Movement in budget cuts battle?

Play VideoSequestration poses threat to government agency budgetsFor the first time since the waning days of the "fiscal cliff" battle in late December, President Obama reached out to congressional Republican leaders to talk about next week's impending budget cuts known as the sequester. "He placed calls earlier today to [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell and [House] Speaker [John] Boehner,"...

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Las Vegas Strip Shooting Leads to 3 Dead

Police believe an altercation at a Las Vegas hotel led to a deadly drive-by shooting on the occupants of a Maserati sports car on the city's glitzy strip early this morning that left three people dead, including two who died when their taxi was struck by the careening sports car and exploded into flames.The occupants of a Range Rover SUV shot at two people in the Maserati, which...

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French hostages probably separated, Hollande says

PARIS/MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Seven French hostages abducted by suspected Nigerian Islamist militants have probably been separated into two groups and efforts are continuing to locate them, French President Francois Hollande said on Thursday. French, Nigerian and Cameroonian officials earlier denied French media reports that the seven family members, who were seized in Cameroon...

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US stocks dive after Fed minutes

NEW YORK: US stocks piled up losses Wednesday after Federal Reserve minutes showed divisions over asset purchases, with some officials suggesting to wind them down before the jobs market picks up.The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 108.13 points (0.77 percent) at 13,927.54.The S&P 500-stock index fell 18.99 points (1.24 percent) to 1,511.95 and the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite...

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FCC takes first step toward allocating more Wi-Fi spectrum

FCC Commissioners L to R: Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, Commissioner Robert M. McDowell, Chairman Julius Genachowski, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Commissioner Ajit Pai.(Credit:FCC)The Federal Communications Commission took the first steps today toward freeing up more wireless spectrum to boost Wi-Fi data speeds and ease congestion on Wi-Fi networks in hotels, airports, and homes.During its...

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Pistorius prosecution: Error in "testosterone" testimony

PRETORIA, South AfricaThe investigating officer in the Oscar Pistorius murder case made an error in his court testimony Wednesday when he identified a substance found in the athlete's bedroom as testosterone, the national prosecutor said. Medupe Simasiku, the spokesman for South Africa's National Prosecution Agency, told The Associated Press that it was too early to identify the substance as it was...

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Arias Can't Remember Gory Death of Ex-Boyfriend

Accused murderer Jodi Arias told an Arizona jury today that her ex-boyfriend became enraged when she dropped his new camera, body slammed her to a tile floor and threatened to kill her, and in the frantic struggle that followed she remembers a gun being fired accidentally but does not remember stabbing him.Her version of Travis Alexander's death was the culmination of more than...

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Bulgarian government resigns amid growing protests

SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria's government resigned on Wednesday after mass protests against high power prices and falling living standards, joining a long list of European administrations felled by austerity during four years of debt crisis. Prime Minister Boiko Borisov, an ex-bodyguard who took power in 2009 on pledges to root out graft and raise incomes in the European Union's poorest member,...

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Google shares top $800 despite Microsoft challenge

NEW YORK: Internet search king Google's shares pushed past $800 for the first time Tuesday despite a tough new challenge from Microsoft and looming European Union action over alleged privacy violations.Google's closed at $806.85 on the Nasdaq exchange, up 1.8 percent from Friday's close, after having hit $807 during the day.That pushed the company's market valuation to $266 billion. The...

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Apple issues Java update after security breach

Following recent security breaches that led to computers at Apple and other companies being compromised, Apple has issued an update for Java on OS X to close the hole.The update went live this afternoon through Apple's Software Update service, which can be accessed from the Apple menu, and also available as a standalone update for OS X Snow Leopard or later from the following locations:According to...

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Pistorius' account of shooting, in his own words

Oscar Pistorius, the famed double amputee South African Olympian, has been charged by prosecutors with intentionally murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in his Pretoria home. Play VideoPistorius: I thought girlfriend was a burglarHe has said it was an accident, that he mistook her for a burglar when he fired several rounds through a locked bathroom door with a 9mm pistol. When a judge ruled...

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'Celebrity Rehab' in Spotlight After McCready's Death

Dr. Drew Pinsky defended his show "Celebrity Rehab" on "The View" today, saying that he received messages of support from former participants after the death of Mindy McCready. . She was the fifth person who has appeared on the show to die in the past two years.Dr. Drew was defending his show in the face of fresh criticism from the public and recovery advocates who say the process...

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Venezuela's Maduro would win vote if Chavez goes: poll

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro would win a presidential vote should his boss Hugo Chavez's cancer force him out, according to the first survey this year on such a scenario in the South American OPEC nation. Local pollster Hinterlaces gave Maduro 50 percent of potential votes, compared to 36 percent for opposition leader Henrique Capriles. Chavez...

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Greater US military role in Mali likely after polls: senator

BAMAKO: The United States is likely to play a more active military role in Mali, where French-led forces are battling Islamist rebels, after the country holds elections, the chair of a key Senate sub-committee said Monday.Washington has been providing intelligence, transport and mid-air refuelling to France, which launched its intervention last month, but cannot work directly with the...

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EU regulators threaten privacy crackdown against Google

Google may face a coordinated crackdown by privacy regulators in Europe before this summer unless the Web giant makes dramatic changes to how it manages user data.France's privacy watchdog said today that Google had yet to respond with "precise and effective" answers to a dozen recommendations unanimously adopted by 27 national regulators last October and as a result could face a coordinated "repressive...

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Jerry Buss, longtime Lakers owner, dead at 80

LOS ANGELES Jerry Buss, the Los Angeles Lakers' playboy owner who shepherded the NBA team to 10 championships from the Showtime dynasty of the 1980s to the Kobe Bryant era, died Monday. He was 80. He died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said Bob Steiner, his assistant. 23 PhotosJerry Buss: 1933-2013 Buss had been hospitalized for most of the past 18 months while undergoing cancer...

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