Mandela undergoes successful gallstone surgery

JOHANNESBURG South Africa's former President Nelson Mandela underwent a successful surgery to remove gallstones Saturday, the nation's presidency said, as the 94-year-old anti-apartheid icon is still recovering from a lung infection. Doctors treating Mandela waited to perform the endoscopic surgery as they wanted to first attend to his lung ailment, presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said in a statement....

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School Shooting Victims Were Shot Multiple Times

The gunman who massacred 20 children in a Connecticut elementary school riddled them with bullets, shooting some of them as many as 11 times, the medical examiner said today."I've been at this for a third of a century so my sensibilities may not be the that of the average man, but it's probably the worst I've ever seen," said Chief Medical Examiner H. Wayne Carver II, who has...

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Violence flares in Cairo as Egyptians vote

CAIRO (Reuters) - Islamists attacked the offices of an Egyptian opposition party newspaper on Saturday, security sources said, as people voted on a new constitution intended to pull the country out of a growing political crisis. The newspaper of the Wafd party in Cairo was targeted with petrol bombs and birdshot, the sources said, in the latest of a series of violent incidents surrounding...

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Counting under way in Egyptian referendum

CAIRO: Counting was under way early Sunday after a first-round referendum on a divisive new constitution pushed through by President Mohamed Morsi and his Islamist allies despite weeks of opposition protests.Polling stations in half the country, including the biggest cities of Cairo and Alexandria, were tallying the results from Saturday's voting.The second round of the referendum is to...

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Apple rumors never cease

The iPad Mini will be a magnet for lots of rumors in the coming months.(Credit:Apple)Apple rumors are a fact of life. And it's silly to think that tech sites will begin writing fewer stories about the latestiPad/iPhone chatter. It's like asking the Washington press corps to stop writing about Beltway scuttlebutt or Hollywood reporters to cease scribbling about la la land -- however frivolous. Ain't...

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A look at the world's worst mass shootings

A gunman at a Connecticut elementary school killed 27 people, including 20 children on Friday. It is among the world's worst mass shootings. Here is a look at some others: Play VideoOfficers display heroism during Wis. Sikh temple shootingAug. 5, 2012: Army veteran Wade Michael Page kills five men and one woman and wounds three other people, including a police officer, before taking his own life...

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20 Children Killed at Conn. Grade School, 7 Adults

Twenty children died today when a heavily armed man invaded a Newtown, Conn., elementary school and sprayed staff and students with bullets.The gunman, identified as Adam Lanza, 20, was found dead in the school.Lt. Paul Vance said 18 children died in the school and two more died later in a hospital. Six adults were also slain, bringing the total to 26.In addition to the casualties...

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NATO says Syrian Scuds hit "near" Turkey

BEIRUT (Reuters) - NATO accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces of firing Scud missiles that landed near to the Turkish border, in explaining why it was sending anti-missile batteries and troops to the bloc's frontier. The Syrian government, which finds itself under attack from rebels in the capital Damascus and by a diplomatic alliance of Arab and Western powers, denies firing...

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Football: Beaten but not outclassed

SINGAPORE: Aide Iskandar told his boys that when they pull on the national jersey and wear the national flag on their chests, they needed to play like there was no tomorrow.On Friday night at the Jalan Besar Stadium, his Singapore Youth Selection matched the Liverpool under-19s stride for stride and, despite going down 1-0 in the semi-final of the four-team NexLions Cup, the future Lions...

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Dropbox for iOS updated with focus on photos

Forget spring cleaning. The winter holidays seem to be inspiring the impulse to tidy, with everyone sprucing up their mobile apps. Dropbox is the latest to release an update.The cloud storage provider announced that it has revamped its iOS app, and the big focus here is on the photos experience.Based on the new design and features, it looks like Dropbox is diving deeper into the photo-sharing side...

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Donation-based hospital rescues Afghanistan's wounded

(CBS News) KABUL - In Afghanistan, an American soldier and two Afghans were killed by a car bomb Thursday. It happened near the U.S. airbase in Kandahar, a few hours after Defense Secretary Leon Panetta left there to meet with Afghan President Karzai. Taliban attacks have grown more frequent, causing a sharp rise in civilian casualties. There's one place where many of those lives are saved or lost....

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Rice Withdraws From Sec. of State Consideration

Image Credit: Evan Vucci/AP PhotoUN Ambassador Susan Rice has withdrawn her name from consideration for Secretary of State, saying the criticism surrounding her comments on Benghazi had become an “irresponsible distraction.”“I am fully confident that I could serve our country ably and effectively in that role,” Rice wrote in a letter to President Obama today. “However, if nominated, I am now...

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U.S., rebels urge gloomy Moscow to help oust Assad

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's rebel leadership and the United States seized on Russian pessimism over President Bashar al-Assad's future to urge Moscow to help push its ally into ceding power and end the battles closing in around his capital. "We want to commend the Russian government for finally waking up to the reality and acknowledging that the regime's days are numbered," the U.S. State...

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McAfee says he's broke after fleeing Belize

MIAMI: Anti-virus software pioneer John McAfee said Thursday he is flat broke after leaving behind what remains of his fortune in Belize, where he is wanted for questioning over his neighbor's murder.McAfee and 20-year-old girlfriend Sam Vanegas spent more than three weeks on the run in Belize after Gregory Faull's November 11 murder before slipping across the border into Guatemala, where...

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Facebook launches new iOS app

Click for larger image.(Credit:Facebook)In its ongoing attempts to cash in on mobile, Facebook releases yet another iOS update today, just hours after releasing its Android app.The new iOS app boasts a faster loading times for news feed and Timeline, and the ability to choose which album to upload photos to. Facebook has been releasing these app updates at lighting speed over the last few months as...

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U.S. failed to predict North Korea rocket launch

(CBS News) North Korea, a hermit dictatorship that cannot always feed its people, has become the 13th nation to orbit a satellite. The success of Wednesday night means the nuclear armed nation has a rocket capable of reaching as far as the United States. U.S. intelligence failed to detect signs the North Korean launch was imminent. Officials insist that made no difference in the ability of the...

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Mall Shooter Quit Job, Was Going to Hawaii

In the days before he stole a semiautomatic weapon and stormed into an Oregon shopping mall, killing two people in a shooting spree, Jacob Roberts quit his job, sold his belongings and began to seem "numb" to those closest to him.Roberts' ex-girlfriend, Hannah Patricia Sansburn, 20, told ABC News today that the man who donned a hockey mask and opened fire on Christmas shoppers...

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North Korea rocket launch raises nuclear stakes

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) - North Korea successfully launched a rocket on Wednesday, boosting the credentials of its new leader and stepping up the threat the isolated and impoverished state poses to opponents. The rocket, which North Korea says put a weather satellite into orbit, has been labeled by the United States, South Korea and Japan as a test of technology that could one day deliver...

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New Fed QE sends dollar lower; yen falls ahead of vote

NEW YORK: The Federal Reserve's expected expansion of its quantitative easing bond-buying Wednesday sent the dollar lower for the third straight day, with the euro almost touching $1.31 before easing back.The yen meanwhile continued to sag ahead of the December 16 general election, with the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, which wants the Bank of Japan to further ease monetary policy,...

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ReCycle bicycles made from all-recycled aluminum

That's one mean green machine.(Credit:ReCycle)Bike riding is already a more environmentally conscious pursuit than driving around in acar, but you can really take it to the green extreme with a bike made from 100-percent-recycled aluminum. ReCycle is working at raising funds on Kickstarter to put its first full run of bikes into production.There are some nice design tweaks that make the ReCycle bikes...

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Right-to-work signed into law in Michigan

Updated 6:04 p.m. Eastern TimeAgainst a backdrop of raucous protests in the Michigan capitol, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder signed into law controversial right-to-work legislation after final passage in the GOP-led state legislature. Play VideoTens of thousands protest right-to-work in Mich. The Michigan house passed two right-to-work laws earlier in the day - one focused on public sector workers,...

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Obama Recognizes Syrian Opposition Group

In a diplomatic shift, President Obama said today his administration now formally recognizes the newly-formed, leading coalition of Syrian rebels who are fighting to topple Syria's embattled President Bashar Assad."We've made a decision that the Syrian Opposition Coalition is now inclusive enough, is reflective and representative enough of the Syrian population that we consider...

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