Legendary pop singer Whitney Houston was found dead Saturday at a Beverly Hills, California, hotel, officials said. She was 48. The entertainer, whose incredible talent was discovered at an early age, was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m. (6:55 p.m. ET) at the Beverly Hilton hotel despite resuscitation efforts, a police spokesman said. Beverly Hills Police Lt. Mark Rosen said there were "no obvious signs of criminal intent" and that the cause of her death is being investigated. Houston's bodyguard found her body, said Courtney Barnes, publicist for hip-hop artist Ray J, who was dating the pop diva. According to her official website, Houston sold ...
Yahoo Inc Chairman Roy Bostock and three other directors will step down as the struggling company ploughs ahead with an internal overhaul, including discussions on dealing with its stakes in China's Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan. The corporation - once a Web powerhouse but now agonizing over a range of options to revive flagging growth - on Tuesday said it appointed former Rovi Corp CEO and International Business Machines Corp veteran Alfred Amoroso and ex-eBay COO Maynard Webb as independent directors. Yahoo's board has come under fire from investors impatient with the company's persistent inability to effect a turnaround, and frustrated with the apparent indecisiveness of stakeholders over ...
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has vowed to fight an "anti-business culture" in Britain, warning that a row overexecutive pay and bonuses threatens the country's fragile economic recovery. "Let me say something about the row over bonuses and pay," Osborne said in a speech to the Federation of Small Businesses. "Of course rewards for failure are unacceptable -- and those who believe in the free market are the first to say so. But a strong, free market economy must be built on rewards for success." The Labour Party has heaped pressure on the ruling coalition to curb excessive pay for top executives, using a House of Commons debate to demand the return ...
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said on Tuesday he is resolved to settle a longstanding territorial dispute with Russia at an annual rally calling for the return of all four Russian-held islands off Hokkaido in northern Japan, the Kyodo news agency reported. "We'll continue to make steady and determined efforts to move ahead with negotiations," Noda said, stressing the need to sign a peace treaty with Russia. The four islands - which Russia calls the Southern Kurils and Japan calls the Northern Territories - has been the subject of a territorial dispute between the two nations since the end of World War ...
Amanda Knox's Italian lawyer has filed an appeal of her slander conviction in Italy, a Knox family spokesman inSeattle said Monday. In October, an Italian appeals court overturned the young Seattle woman's murder conviction in the 2007 death of her British roommate in Perugia. But the same court upheld Knox's conviction for slander — for falsely accusing bar owner Diya "Patrick" Lumumba of involvement in the slaying. Lumumba was freed after two weeks in prison for lack of evidence. Knox later said she was "manipulated" during her lengthy police interrogation. An appeal of the slander conviction was filed Monday, Knox family spokesman Dave Marriott confirmed. He doesn't know when the Italian ...
The Dutch railway will remain 'vulnerable' during wintry weather but Dutch Rail (NS) and track operator ProRail did not help matters during the current cold snap by the late introduction of schedule adjustments to cope with the conditions, transport minister Melanie Schultz van Haegen told parliament in a briefing on Tuesday. The NS and ProRail assumed on Thursday of last week that there would be three to five centimetres of snow. When the forecast was increased on Friday morning to between 10 and 15 centimetres, it was too late to change the timetables automatically, Schultz van Haegen told parliament. Drivers and conductors ...
Greece can leave the eurozone without damaging monetary union, European digital affairs commissioner Neelie Kroes says in an interview with the Volkskrant on Tuesday. Kroes, a member of the Dutch ruling right-wing Liberal party VVD, is not a supporter of Greece exchanging the euro for the drachma, but says: 'It is absolutely not a case of man overboard if someone leaves the eurozone.' The commissioner is very critical of the new Greek government and says they are not fulfilling their promises. 'Too few spending cuts, too little restructuring,' she says. She says the Greeks should follow the example of Italy where the new ...
Mitt Romney hopes his presidential campaign hasn't ignored Rick Santorum's aggressive attacks for too long, as caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota on Tuesday could reshuffle the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Santorum largely bypassed Florida and Nevada to blanket the two caucus states with criticism of Romney and lay the groundwork among conservatives who have great sway in the process. RivalNewt Gingrich praised Santorum's strategy as shrewd even as he signaled he had no interest in exiting the four-way race, which also includes Ron Paul. "I think that Santorum's going to have a pretty good day," Gingrich told reporters on the eve of the caucuses. "He targeted differently than I ...
Glencore and Xstrata agreed an all-share merger worth $90 billion (56 billion pounds) on Tuesday in the industry's largest ever deal, creating a commodities powerhouse spanning mining, agriculture and trading. Glencore, the world's largest diversified commodities tradinghouse, will issue 2.8 new shares for each Xstrata share in a deal they said was a "merger of equals." The ratio is a 15.2 percent premium to Xstrata shareholders compared with its share price last Wednesday before word leaked out about the merger talks, a joint statement said. "A merger between Glencore and Xstrata offers a unique opportunity to create a new business model in our industry to respond to ...
US White House hopeful Mitt Romney aims for another big caucus win in Colorado on Tuesday, as his well-oiled campaign machine works to cement his position as the Republican front runner in the US presidential race. Polls suggest he should triumph easily in the western US state -- where he scored 60 percent in 2008 -- although there is a tighter race in Minnesota, where last-placed Rick Santorum is hoping to snatch a win. Romney's main rival, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, is battling to stay in the race after two heavy losses in a row to the former Massachusetts governor, who ...
The BBC has postponed plans to release free iPhone news applications after concerns about an unfair market advantage. A report on BBC News said that the BBC Trust had decided to halt the planned April release of news and sports applications for the Apple handsets, after newspaper publishers claimed that the BBC would unfairly influence the market for news apps. The BBC Trust will review the plans, and decide whether the apps would violate... [more]
The tax break which couples can claim if one partner does not work should be scrapped and replaced by a legal entitlement to flexible working hours, a government commission recommended on Tuesday. The part time work commission was set up two years ago to look at ways to stimulate more women to work. Seven out of 10 Dutch women have some sort of paid employment, but half of them work fewer than 25 hours a week. ‘There is a lot of talk... [more]
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il is highly likely to visit China soon, South Korea’s presidential office said Wednesday, a move that could signal his country’s return to nuclear disarmament talks. “There is a high level of possibility that Kim Jong-Il will pay a visit to China. We are closely monitoring the situation,” presidential spokeswoman Kim Eun-Hye told a briefing, declining to elaborate. Yonhap news agency... [more]
Two blasts, one set off by a suicide bomber, rocked Kizlyar in Russia’s Dagestan region on Wednesday, killing at least 11 people just two days after twin bombs hit Moscow, officials told. Investigators said a suicide bomber dressed in a police uniform set off the second of the blasts in Dagestan, which followed the two bombings in Moscow that killed 39 people and which authorities blamed on female suicide attackers with links to insurgents... [more]
Leftist FARC rebels have released one of their longest held captives, a soldier kidnapped 12 years ago, the Red Cross said after receiving the hostage in the Colombian jungle. It was a “successful operation,” a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross said Tuesday after sergeant Pablo Emilio Moncayo was turned over by rebels at a jungle clearing and flown by helicopter to his awaiting family in Florencia. “You... [more]
Google said that a deeper look at trouble with results at its Chinese-language search engine indicated the cause was “The Great Firewall of China” erected by censors there. The US Internet giant had initially thought that recent changes to its search software had misled China censors into thinking queries were for Radio Free Asia. Google backed off that conclusion after it realized that it had upgraded its search parameters... [more]
EU fisheries subsidies have encouraged overfishing over the years and helped maintain an over-capacity in the industry, according to a study published Wednesday. The study was carried out in 10 European countries — including Britain, Denmark, France and Spain — which accounted for almost all of the 4.9 billion euros of fishing subsidies handed out by Brussels from 2000-2006. “EU fisheries subsidies and the overfishing... [more]
Today is Wednesday, March 31, the 90th day of 2010. There are 275 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On March 31, 1968, at the conclusion of a nationally broadcast address on Vietnam, President Lyndon B. Johnson stunned his audience by declaring, “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.” On this date: In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen... [more]
Vandals in Germany have sabotaged a Google ”Street View” car, police said Tuesday, an apparent act of protest against the navigation servicethat is controversial in the country amid privacy concerns. A Google employee left his specially-modified black Opel with eight mounted cameras parked overnight in the northern city of Oldenburg, but returned to find the tyres let down and the camera cables slashed, police told the... [more]
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble called for greater integration among European Union member states eventually leading to an “economic government” following the Greek debt-crisis. In the wake of the EU’s conflicted response to Greece’s precarious fiscal situation that has pressured the euro, Schäuble said Europe must develop a political counterpart to monetary union. “We need better instruments to enforce the stability... [more]
