| Scottish holiday marred by police helicopter crash Posted: 30 Nov 2013 12:47 PM PST GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — Scotland's official holiday was transformed into a grim day of mourning Saturday as emergency crews searched the wreckage of a riverside pub smashed by a falling police helicopter. At least eight people died and more than a dozen remained hospitalized with serious injuries. |
| Unclear yet if crucial overhaul of Obamacare website a success Posted: 30 Nov 2013 12:40 PM PST  Americans got their first look on Saturday at an overhaul of the troubled enrollment website at the heart of President Barack Obama's healthcare law, but it was unclear yet if the White House had made good on its pledge to fix the glitches. The Obama administration promised five weeks ago that by this weekend it would fix HealthCare.gov, the site designed to help people sign up for medical coverage but which has been plagued by errors, outages, and slow speeds since a disastrous October 1 launch. HealthCare.gov is a key portal for Obama's signature domestic achievement, the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, which aims to extend coverage to millions of people and reduce healthcare costs. Making Obamacare work has enormous political stakes for the administration and its Democratic allies who are heading into congressional elections next year.
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| Chemical watchdog says US to destroy Syria stockpile at sea Posted: 30 Nov 2013 10:31 AM PST  The United States will destroy the most dangerous of Syria's chemical weapon stockpile on a ship at sea, the world's chemical watchdog said on Saturday. "The neutralisation operations will be conducted on a US vessel at sea using hydrolysis," the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said in a statement. "Currently a suitable naval vessel is undergoing modifications to support the operations and to accommodate verification activities by the OPCW," The Hague-based watchdog added. The ship operation will destroy what is known as "priority chemical weapons", the most dangerous of Syria's total arsenal and ones that have to be out of the country by December 31 under an international deal agreed to avert military strikes on Damascus.
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| Egypt panel begins voting on draft constitution Posted: 30 Nov 2013 01:03 PM PST  CAIRO (AP) — The panel amending Egypt's suspended constitution began voting Saturday on some 250 changes, the first step toward democratic rule following the July military coup that ousted the country's president.
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| White House: On track for health care website goal Posted: 30 Nov 2013 02:56 PM PST  WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration says it will meet its self-imposed deadline of fixing the troubled health care website so that 50,000 people can log in at the same time starting late Saturday. Yet questions remain about the stability of the site, the volume of traffic it can handle and the quality of the data it is delivering to insurers.
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| NKorea says American apologizes for 'hostile acts' Posted: 30 Nov 2013 01:39 PM PST  SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea state media claimed Saturday that an elderly U.S. tourist detained for more than a month has apologized for alleged crimes during the Korean War and for "hostile acts" against the state during a recent trip.
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| US to destroy Syrian chemical weapons Posted: 30 Nov 2013 12:30 PM PST  DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria's government will try to move the most lethal components of its chemical weapons program to a port city by the end of the year, and the U.S. has offered to pick up and destroy the hazardous material at an offshore facility, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and Syrian officials said Saturday.
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| US: American fighters in Syria a security risk Posted: 30 Nov 2013 10:32 AM PST  RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Federal officials say Americans are joining the bloody civil war in Syria, raising the chances they could become radicalized by al-Qaida-linked militant groups and return to the U.S. as battle-hardened security risks.
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| Bulger belongings could land on auction block Posted: 30 Nov 2013 03:35 PM PST  BOSTON (AP) — Former Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger could soon see some of his jewelry, clothes and other belongings on the auction block.
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| Mother on crashed plane led searchers to wreckage Posted: 30 Nov 2013 03:55 PM PST  ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A mother on board a plane that crashed in remote southwest Alaska made a frantic phone call for help resuscitating her 5-month-old baby, then left the fatally injured boy to lead searchers hampered by cold and fog to the crash site.
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| Villagers rush to aid rural Alaska crash survivors Posted: 30 Nov 2013 03:46 PM PST ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A passenger on a crashed airplane in rural Alaska unsuccessfully tried to revive her baby and then walked nearly a mile to lead searchers to the wreckage near the village of Saint Marys. |
| Ukrainian demonstrators converge outside monastery Posted: 30 Nov 2013 12:45 PM PST  KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — About 10,000 anti-government demonstrators angry about Ukraine's refusal to sign a pro-European Union agreement converged Saturday on a square outside a monastery where protesters driven away in a pre-dawn clash with police were taking shelter.
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| Sectarian tensions mount in C. African Rep. town Posted: 30 Nov 2013 08:07 AM PST  BOUCA, Central African Republic (AP) — About a dozen Muslim armed fighters rolled up to the Catholic mission in their pickup truck and delivered an ominous message to the hundreds seeking refuge on church grounds: Leave the premises by morning or face death.
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| Troopers: 4 dead in southwest Alaska plane crash Posted: 30 Nov 2013 11:31 AM PST ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The head of the National Transportation Safety Board in Alaska says searchers from a village reached the site of a fatal commuter airplane crash two hours after the plane went down Friday night. |
| US offers to destroy Syrian chemical weapons Posted: 30 Nov 2013 05:03 AM PST DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — The U.S. has offered to help destroy some of the most lethal parts of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile at an offshore facility, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical weapons said Saturday. |
| Americans kick off first holiday shopping weekend Posted: 30 Nov 2013 07:44 AM PST  Millions of Americans turned out as the holiday buying season started earlier this year on Thanksgiving Day. But there's still a lot of shopping left.
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| China claims victory in scrubbing Internet clean Posted: 30 Nov 2013 01:35 AM PST  BEIJING (AP) — The Chinese government has declared victory in cleaning up what it considers rumors, negativity and unruliness from online discourse, while critics say the moves have suppressed criticism of the government and ruling Communist Party.
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