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 recession ruined Linda Ruggles’ business and she has been selling plasma twice a week since to make ends meet. The blood bank couldn’t bail her out from behind bars though, which is where she ended up after she couldn’t pay a $480 fine. That fine, say cops in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, came about because Linda Ruggles had a messy yard. Barely getting by in recent years, Ruggles, 53, has been stockpiling scraps to pawn off... [more]
North Korea angrily hit back at allegations citizens who failed to appear sincere in the mourning of leader Kim Jong-Il were being rounded up and sentenced to hard labour. Some media outlets in the South have claimed North Koreans who did not participate in organised public mourning, failed to cry, or did not appear genuine, have been sentenced to at least six months in labour camps. But Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News... [more]
A Japanese banker who is a key figure in the Olympus accounting fraud came into public view for the first time since the scandal broke, appearing on Friday at his divorce hearing in a Florida court. Hajime “Jim” Sagawa ran a U.S. investment firm that earned a massive $687 million fee for advising Olympus in a 2008 acquisition deal that ranks as the largest advisory payment in history. Olympus has admitted the deal along with... [more]
An Oslo court on Friday ordered a new psychiatric evaluation of Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in twin attacks in July, after an earlier and widely contested test found him criminally insane. “Due to the gravity of this case, the criminal responsibility (of Behring Breivik) must be examined again,” Oslo District Court judge Wenche Elizabeth Arntzen told a news conference. Two new experts, Agnar Aspaas and Terje... [more]
Joran van der Sloot has been given a 28 year sentence in prison in Lima for the aggrevated murder of 21 year-old Stephany Flores in May 2010. This means with a sentence reduction for the amount of time he has spent on remand, he will released in 2038. After which he will be deported from Peru. Earlier this week the Dutchman pleaded guilty to all charges hoping to be given a reduced sentence. The Public Prosecution had demanded 30 years in... [more]
The economy risks contraction in the first half of 2012 and better-than-expected retail sales over Christmas are unlikely to offer much respite, as shoppers were only lured by margin-eroding discounts, business leaders warned on Tuesday. A survey from the British Chambers of Commerce showed Britain’s economy was “very likely” to contract in the first half of 2012 after stagnating in last year’s final quarter... [more]
Swedish furniture giant IKEA has recalled 169,000 baby high chairs sold in the United States and Canada over reports that the safety belts can open unexpectedly. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission and Health Canada announced the recall on Thursday and IKEA posted a warning on its website over the ANTILOP high chair, sold from August 2006 through January 2010 for around $20. The safety regulators said IKEA had received eight complaints... [more]
PROSECUTORS have called for Hosni Mubarak to be hanged, saying he bears full responsibility for the killing of protesters during the uprising against him, in a courtroom moment unthinkable only a year ago when Egypt’s longtime leader held unquestioned power. The demand for the death penalty at the 83-year-old former president’s trial played to the widespread resentment of Mubarak among Egyptians who hoped that punishment for... [more]
Eleven employees of a Neo-Nazi internet radio station were handed suspended sentences in the western German town of Koblenz Thursday. A twelfth worker was imprisoned for two years because he carried previous offences. The judge found all twelve accused guilty of supporting a criminal organization and inciting racial hatred. The station was found to have called on listeners to commit criminal acts. All of the accused admitted to working as... [more]
The Öresund bridge, connecting Sweden and Denmark, has long been known to be an important route for weapons smugglers to get their wares into Sweden. Despite this only seven illegal weapons were seized there over the course of 2011. “We have been mainly focusing on drugs,” said Anders Trägårdh, head of operations at customs in Malmö, to daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN). The debate about the illegal smuggling of weapons... [more]
