'Fiscal Cliff' Leaves Boehner a Wounded Speaker

John Boehner is a bloodied House speaker following the startling setback that his own fractious Republican troops dealt him in their "fiscal cliff" struggle against President Barack Obama.There's plenty of internal grumbling about the Ohio Republican, especially among conservatives, and lots of buzzing about whether his leadership post is in jeopardy. But it's uncertain whether...

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Egypt extends voting on Islamist-drafted charter

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt extended voting by four hours on Saturday in the second and decisive round of a referendum that was expected to approve the country's new Islamist-drafted constitution after weeks of protests and violence. Islamist supporters of President Mohamed Mursi, who was elected in June, say the charter is vital to move Egypt towards democracy, nearly two years after an...

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On truths, dreams, confessions -- and the iPhone

Oddly emotional.(Credit:Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)Sometimes I just wander into places. No reason I should. No reason I shouldn't.Tonight it was a fascinating North Vietnamese restaurant called Khong River House in Miami Beach. It's been open only four days and the staff have that staring-eye look that reminds you of exam day at college.Still, for reasons of sheer art, they have an installation near the...

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New details emerge on Newtown gunman

NEWTOWN, Conn. He was the awkward, peculiar kid who wore the same clothes to school every day.He rarely spoke and even gave a school presentation entirely by computer, never uttering a word.Play VideoNewtown residents react to the NRA's response to school shootingHe liked tinkering with computers and other gadgets, and seemed to enjoy playing a violent video game, choosing a military-style assault...

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Amid Protest, NRA Calls for Armed Guards in Schools

The National Rifle Association stood its ground today in arguing that the answer to gun violence in schools is an armed security force that can protect students, while blaming the media and violent entertainment and video games for recent deadly shootings."The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre...

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Syrian rebels fight for strategic town in Hama province

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Rebels began to push into a strategic town in Syria's central Hama province on Thursday and laid siege to at least one town dominated by President Bashar al-Assad's minority sect, activists said. The operation risks inflaming already raw sectarian tensions as the 21-month-old revolt against four decades of Assad family rule - during which the president's Alawite sect...

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N. Korea confirms arrest of US citizen

SEOUL: North Korea confirmed Friday that it had arrested a US citizen in November, saying legal action would be taken against him but giving no details of the charges.The man, identified as Pae Jun-Ho, entered North Korea on November 3 as a tourist, and "committed a crime" against the country, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said."He was put into custody by a relevant institution,"...

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Dish faces challenges ramping up its LTE network

Dish was recently given a thumbs up by the FCC to build its own LTE network, but the company is up against some stiff obstacles along the way.Last week, the Federal Communications Commission granted Dish's request to allow it to use 40 MHz of spectrum in the 2 GHz band to create a 4G LTE network. At the time, the FCC indicated that some restrictions would apply, though it didn't reveal the specifics...until...

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John Kerry tapped to be next Secretary of State

President Obama is nominating Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, CBS News has learned. An official announcement is forthcoming later today. Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, has widely been seen as the frontrunner for the position since U.N. ambassador Susan Rice withdrew her name from consideration. Rice came under heavy fire from Republican...

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Schools Threatened Nationwide After Sandy Hook

Schools across the country, already on edge following last week's massacre of 20 students and six adults at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school have been further unnerved following a series of copycat threats, sometimes yielding arrests and caches of deadly weapons.From California to Connecticut, police in the past five days have arrested more than a dozen individuals in Indiana,...

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Syrian rebels fight for strategic town in Hama province

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Rebels thrust into a strategic town in Syria's central Hama province on Thursday, activists said, pursuing a string of territorial gains to help cut army supply lines and cement a foothold in the capital Damascus to the south. They have made a series of advances across the country, seizing several military installations and more heavy weaponry, hardening the threat...

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'Erin Brockovich' toxin found at Japan plant

TOKYO: The toxic chemical made infamous by campaigning single mother Erin Brockovich has been found at up to 15,800 times safety limits in groundwater at a Japanese iron plant, the factory's operator said Thursday.Excessive amounts of hexavalent chromium were discovered at Nippon Denko's plant in Tokushima in the country's west as it prepared to halt production of chromium salts at the...

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Start-Ups: Silicon Valley Ep. 8 -- the grand delusion

Sarah. Who is working. On herself.(Credit:BravoTV Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)Last night saw some history in "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley."Yes, given its rather tawdry ratings -- 20 percent of those of "Real Housewives," so rumor has it -- this could be the last episode ever. So the excitement was more palpable than that for the discovery of the tomb of a hitherto unknown ancient Egyptian king.We...

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New York Stock Exchange to be sold

NEW YORK The New York Stock Exchange (NYX) is being sold to a rival exchange for about $8 billion, ending more than two centuries of independence for the iconic Big Board. The buyer, IntercontinentalExchange Inc. (ICE), an upstart exchange based in Atlanta, made clear Thursday that little would change for the iconic trading floor in Manhattan's financial district if regulators approve the deal....

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Inside One School's Extraordinary Security Measures

While schools across America reassess their security measures in the wake of the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., one school outside of Chicago takes safety to a whole new level.The security measures at Middleton Elementary School start the moment you set foot on campus, with a camera-equipped doorbell. When you ring the doorbell, school employees inside are...

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Park wins South Korea presidency, to be first woman leader

SEOUL (Reuters) - The daughter of a former military ruler won South Korea's presidential election on Wednesday and will become the country's first female leader, saying she would work to heal a divided society. The 60-year old conservative, Park Geun-hye, will return to the presidential palace in Seoul where she served as her father's first lady in the 1970s, after her mother was assassinated...

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Bank of England votes 8-1 to maintain stimulus

LONDON: Bank of England policymakers voted 8-1 to maintain their quantitative easing stimulus programme at their December meeting, repeating the voting pattern from the previous month, minutes showed on Wednesday.The BoE's nine-member monetary policy committee (MPC) had voted earlier this month to keep the QE stimulus amount at 375 billion pounds ($611 billion, 460 billion euros).Polcymakers...

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FTC, EU to postpone Google antitrust decisions, report says

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission's final decision on its 20-month long antitrust probe of the search giant will be delayed until next year, Bloomberg reported late yesterday after speaking with unnamed sources.The results of the probe were expected to be announced this week.The Mountain View, Calif.-based company has been in talks with the FTC over the past two weeks, and according to Bloomberg,...

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Robert Bork, failed high court nominee, dies at 85

Updated at 11:11 a.m. ET MCLEAN, Va. Robert H. Bork, who stepped in to fire the Watergate prosecutor at Richard Nixon's behest and whose failed 1980s nomination to the Supreme Court helped draw the modern boundaries of cultural fights over abortion, civil rights and other issues, has died. He was 85. Son Robert H. Bork Jr. confirmed to The Associated Press his father died Wednesday at Virginia...

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Assault Weapons Ban: What Was It and Did It Work?

Editor's Note: This post is part of a larger series by ABC News examining the complex legal, political and social issues in the gun control debate. The series is part of ABC's special coverage of the search for solutions in the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.When the 113th Congress is sworn in in January, expect the debate over gun control...

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Egyptian prosecutor's resignation angers Brotherhood

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's public prosecutor resigned under pressure from his opponents in the judiciary, dealing a blow to President Mohamed Mursi and drawing an angry response on Tuesday from the Islamist leader's supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood. Seeking to keep pressure on Mursi, the main opposition coalition staged protests against an Islamist-backed draft constitution that has...

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Coal use set to surpass oil in a decade: IEA

PARIS: Coal is set to surpass oil as the world's top fuel within a decade, driven by growth in emerging market giants China and India, with even Europe finding it hard to cut use despite pollution concerns, according to a report published Tuesday."Thanks to abundant supplies and insatiable demand for power from emerging markets, coal met nearly half of the rise in global energy demand...

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