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 ...
Sweden should take steps to increase security against attacks at its nuclear plants, including introducing armed guards, according to a new government-sponsored report, published on Thursday. “A terror attack against a nuclear power plant can have the same consequences for the surroundings as a nuclear power plant accident,” the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (Strålsäkerhetsmyndigheten) said in a statement. The authority,... [more]
Exxon Mobil Corp. would pay more than $2 million in penalties and cleanup costs toMontana for a pipeline rupture in July that spilled an estimated 1,500 barrels of oil into theYellowstone River, according to a proposed legal settlement unveiled on Thursday. Under the negotiated agreement between Exxon and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, the Texas-based oil company would pay a fine of $1.6 million, the largest penalty... [more]
As expected, the government is pressing ahead with plans to scrap grants for students starting a masters’ degree from the next academic year. The decision means students living away from home will no longer get a grant of some €260 a month towards the cost of their degree. Instead, they will be able to borrow the same amount of money from the student loan service, according to the draft legislation sent to parliament on Thursday. ‘They... [more]
Police have raided the home of President Christian Wulff’s former spokesman Olaf Glaeseker as well as the offices of an event manager who was closely connected to the president when he was state premier of Lower Saxony. Investigators looking at corruption allegations against the two men raided Glaeseker’s house near the Lower Saxony capital of Hannover as well as Manfred Schmidt’s offices in Berlin and Switzerland, removing computers... [more]
Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper companyhas agreed to pay actor Jude Law 130,000 pounds (about $200,000) to settle claims against the News of the World and The Sun tabloids. News Group Newspapers accepted that 16 articles about Law published in the now-defunct News of the World tabloid between 2003 and 2006 had been obtained by phone hacking, and that the actor had also been placed under “repeated and sustained physical... [more]
Romanian cities are gripped by the worst street violence in over a decade. Slovaks seem poised to re-elect a confrontational and divisive populist. Hungary alarms the European Union with laws that erode democratic rights. In former Soviet bloc nations now part of the EU, frustration is mounting due to economic stagnation and worrisome governance, encouraging street protests and unpredictability that could further jeopardize growth... [more]
The larger of the two parties in the minority coalition, the conservative VVD, has said that only people who speak Dutch should be eligible for social welfare assistance. MP Cora van Nieuwenhuizen hopes to adopt a proposal from the governing VVD into legislation from 1 January 2013, Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant reports. The VVD announced in 2010 that it intended reforming the social welfare system. It can rely on support from its smaller... [more]
A four-hour crisis jobs summit chaired by President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday ended with a series of measures as well as plenty of criticism. The summit, held as France’s unemployment remains stubbornly at twelve-year highs, brought together union leaders, business representatives and ministers. “The gravity of the crisis obliges us to make decisions,” Sarkozy told them, according to a text provided by his office. A... [more]
Francesco Schettino, the captain of sunken Costa Concordia cruise ship was at a restaurant enjoying a company of two women, when the vessel hit the rocks, one of the ship’s passengers told Italy’s RaiTre television channel. The Costa Concordia, carrying 4,200 passengers, capsized after hitting rocks off the coast of Isola del Giglio last Friday night. Eleven bodies have been recovered, and a search for 24 missing people is underway. Marco... [more]
The recent and upcoming anti-government protests are a sign of Russia’s irreversible political transformation and “will not be stifled,” First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said Wednesday. “When per capita GDP is approaching $15,000, a country crosses a certain line, it begins to perceive itself differently, and the political system becomes more flexible,” Shuvalov told journalists at the Gaidar forum in Moscow. “We’re... [more]
