AFP - Sydney staged a spectacular curtainraiser to the new year Monday with a massive fireworks display watched by more than one million people lining the harbour of Australia’s largest city.
Rasmussen Reports - While the dynamics of the Republican race seem to change almost every day, the storyline in the Democratic nomination race has been the same almost all year. As noted two weeks ago and many times before that, Hillary Clinton is the frontrunner and Iowa is a must-win state for Barack Obama and John Edwards. Now, with just days to go until voters finally get a say in Election 2008, Iowa is way too close to call.
Reuters - Pakistani electoral officials will
decide on Tuesday whether to go ahead with a January 8 poll,
with expectations it will be delayed by up to two months after
Benazir Bhutto’s killing plunged the country into crisis.
AP - A former home of poet Robert Frost has been vandalized, with intruders destroying dozens of items and setting fire to furniture in what police say was an underage drinking party.
Reuters - As more banks report write-downs tied
to the global credit crunch, analysts say Wachovia Corp
may have losses lurking in an area that has garnered less
investor attention.
Reuters - There is an eerie quiet at Benazir
Bhutto’s Karachi home-cum-campaign headquarters where grief is
giving way to hope that her legacy will live on through her son
and heir.
Reuters - A “surge” of overused words and phrases
formed a “perfect storm” of “post-9/11″ cliches in 2007,
according to a U.S. university’s annual list of words and
phrases that deserve to be banned.
AP - Diane Grezenski grew up a city girl, but now she and her husband run a dairy farm where she has taken on more and more of the work over the years.
Reuters - International Business Machines Corp
is in advanced talks to buy Israeli start-up XIV
Information Systems for $300 million to $350 million, financial
daily Globes reported on Monday.
AP - Animal advocates around the nation hope that public outrage over dogfighting and puppy mill scandals in Virginia will force state and federal lawmakers to pass tougher animal abuse laws.
Reuters - Ralphie Parker’s quest
for a Red Ryder BB gun still captivates TV viewers.
AP - The loss or theft of personal data such as credit card and Social Security numbers soared to unprecedented levels in 2007, and the trend isn’t expected to turn around anytime soon as hackers stay a step ahead of security and laptops disappear with sensitive information.
AP - The crime scene a once-wooded landscape marked by tire tracks and tree stumps makes the victim, Verna Potter, feel physically violated.
Reuters - Explosives planted by suspected Muslim
militants went off at three locations in southern Narathiwat
Province near the Malaysian border early on Monday wounding 27
people, police said.
Reuters - Rock band Radiohead’s decision to
release its new album “In Rainbows” by itself — online,
without a record label’s help and at any price the user chose
– rocked the industry last fall.