Archive for the “Current Events” Category

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Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida (CNN) — In a tightly controlled televised statement, golfer Tiger Woods gave an apology Friday for his “irresponsible and selfish” behavior, which he said included infidelity.

“I know I have bitterly disappointed all of you,” said the golfer, dressed in a blue shirt and a blazer. “For all that I have done, I am so sorry. …

“I had affairs, I cheated. What I did was not acceptable, and I am the only person to blame.”

Read the text and watch the full apology

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(CNN) — The mid-Atlantic region continued digging out Monday from the weekend’s record blizzard, but snow-weary residents learned of a new winter storm due in the area on Tuesday.

The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning, with predictions of another 10 to 20 inches of snow, for northern Virginia and eastern Maryland, including the District of Columbia, beginning Tuesday afternoon and continuing through Wednesday.

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Washington (CNN) — When the father of suspected terrorist Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab visited the U.S. embassy in Nigeria in November, he told officials he believed his son was under the influence of religious extremists and had traveled from London, England, to Yemen, a senior administration official said Monday.

Revealing new details, the official also denied the father told officials his son might be on a suicide mission:

“There was no suggestion he was about to carry out a terrorist act,” the official said.

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(CNN) — Hurricane Ida moved into the southern Gulf of Mexico Sunday, prompting a declaration of emergency in Louisiana and concern along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The storm regained hurricane intensity overnight Saturday, becoming a Category 2 hurricane, but forecasters said it is expected to weaken as it moves north. Ida drenched Nicaragua after making landfall last week as a Category 1 hurricane, then weakened to a tropical storm before resuming strength.

In El Salvador, at least 91 people died in flooding and mudslides, according to the government, but a low-pressure system out of the Pacific — not Hurricane Ida — triggered the disaster, forecaster Robby Berg of the National Hurricane Center said Sunday.

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Full Story at CNN.com

The ring’s orbit is tilted 27 degrees from the planet’s main ring plane. The bulk of it starts about 3.7 million miles (6 million km) away from the planet and extends outward another 7.4 million miles (12 million km).

Its diameter is equivalent to 300 Saturns lined up side to side. And its entire volume can hold one billion Earths, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory said late Tuesday.

“This is one supersized ring,” said Anne Verbiscer, an astronomer at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Verbiscer and two others are authors of a paper about the discovery published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The obvious question: Why did it take scientists so long to discover something so massive?

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Full Story at msnbc.com

The recently launched Herschel Space Telescope has just returned glowing pictures of our own Milky Way galaxy in infrared light.

The European Space Agency mission (with contributions from NASA) lifted off in May on a quest to observe the universe in long-wavelength infrared light. The telescope used two instruments simultaneously to snap the new Milky Way photos in five different ranges, or “colors,” of infrared light, which is invisible to human eyes.

“Herschel’s infrared vision lets us sense the feeble heat from some of the coldest objects in the cosmos,” said Paul Goldsmith, the project scientist for the mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

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Full Story at msnbc.com

GOHEUNG, South Korea – South Korea’s first rocket blasted off into space Tuesday following an aborted attempt last week and just months after its rival North Korea drew international ire for its own launch.

The launch of the two-stage Naro rocket could boost the country’s space ambition but the North warned it would keep a close eye on the international response to Seoul’s launch.

South Korea initially planned to launch the rocket in late July but delayed it several times due to technical glitches. Last Wednesday, the country aborted the launch plan just minutes before the scheduled blast off.

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Full Story At msnbc.com

SACRAMENTO – Federal water managers said Friday that they plan to cut off water, at least temporarily, to thousands of California farms as a result of the deepening drought gripping the state.

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials said parched reservoirs and patchy rainfall this year were forcing them to completely stop surface water deliveries for at least a two-week period beginning March 1. Authorities said they haven’t had to take such a drastic move for more than 15 years.

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HEALESVILLE, Australia – Towering flames razed entire towns in southeastern Australia and burned fleeing residents in their cars as the death toll rose to 84 on Sunday, making it the country’s deadliest fire disaster.

At least 700 homes were destroyed in Saturday’s inferno when searing temperatures and wind blasts produced a firestorm that swept across a swath of the country’s Victoria state, where all the deaths occurred.

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Full Story At  CBS News

(CBS/AP) In the first real test of the Obama administration’s ability to respond to a disaster, senior Kentucky officials are giving the federal government good marks for its response to a deadly ice storm.

Yet more than 300,000 residents remained without power Monday and some areas had yet to see aid workers nearly a week after the storm, a fact not lost on some local authorities.

The winter blast turned out to be the worst natural disaster in Kentucky’s history, reported CBS News correspondent Hari Sreenivasan. More than 5,000 utility workers were working around the clock to get people back online.

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Full Story At CNN.com

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Western governments stepped up efforts to rescue their citizens from Gaza Wednesday as violence swept the area for the 12th day in a row.
The International Committee of the Red Cross was unable to rescue foreigners due to security concerns.

The International Committee of the Red Cross was unable to rescue foreigners due to security concerns.
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More than 100 Western nationals remained trapped Wednesday night inside Gaza, the consulate general of Sweden based in Jerusalem, told CNN.

Among them were 34 Swedes as well as several Norwegian, Canadian, French and Polish nationals, the consulate general said

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UNITED NATIONS – The United States has blocked approval of a U.N. Security Council statement calling for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers, diplomats said.

French U.N. Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert, the council president, said the 15 council members could not agree on a statement in closed discussions held after Israel launched a ground invasion into the Gaza Strip on Saturday. But he said there were “strong convergences” among the members to express concern about the deteriorating situation in Gaza and the need for “an immediate, permanent and fully respected cease-fire.”

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