And then, milling inconspicuously around the South Lawn, sipping cocktails, nibbling canapés and by all accounts getting gently sozzled, were Tareq and Michaele Salahi.

The couple had travelled up from Virginia, dressed to the nines, for a big night out. At precisely 9.08pm, they used the website Facebook to tell friends they were "honoured to be at the White House for the state dinner in honour of India with President Obama and our First Lady!" Shortly afterwards, the Salahis posted a ( Read more... )
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The picture, widely described as the world's worst photo-fit, was drawn by a woman who witnessed the violent murder of Rafael Vargas, a taxi driver from the city of Santa Cruz who was stabbed to death before being set on fire in the street last March. After Bolivian TV showed the image, accompanied by dramatic music, the case became a cause célèbre.

Clips of news reports describing crime were uploaded to YouTube, and went viral, sparking comparisons between the suspect and, among other ( Read more... )
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Michaele and Tareq Salahi were not on the guest list for Tuesday's dinner, agency spokesman Ed Donovan said.

President Barack Obama was never in any danger because the party crashers went through the same security screening for weapons as the 300-plus people actually invited to the dinner honouring Indian premier Manmohan Singh, Mr Donovan said.

The Washington Post, which first reported on the Salahis' evening out, said the couple were well-known ( Read more... )
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But if the state's top legal officer is to be believed, the charity is nothing but a scam, whose sole beneficiaries are the two people that run it and their workers. In a lawsuit filed this week, Attorney-General Andrew Cuomo claimed their programmes to help the homeless simply do not exist.

Instead, the UHO "exploits the good intentions of people who thought they were helping fund the homeless" to channel money to its principals and workers, who then use the group's non-profit, tax-exempt ( Read more... )
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The search engine apologised for providing an "upsetting experience" to users of Google Images after searches for America's First Lady brought up a shot in which Mrs Obama's face had been crudely altered to look like that of a monkey.

The offensive picture had initially been posted last October on an obscure blog called Hot Girls. For months, it went largely ignored. But after a handful of angry rival bloggers linked their site to the image, it began slowly creeping up Google's rankings. ( Read more... )
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The White House statement, that President Barack Obama was prepared to offer a US emissions reduction target "in the range of 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020", means a multilateral treaty to fight global warming is now a possibility.

The US ? the world's biggest carbon emitter until it was overtaken by China ? was the last developed country without a formal climate target, and it had become clear in recent weeks that without a "US number" for the negotiations, the developing countries, ( Read more... )
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An archive containing the contents of more than half a million pager messages sent on 11 September 2001 was published yesterday by the internet site Wikileaks. It provided an uncensored and sometimes deeply moving first-hand account of the attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

The messages were sent by a mixture of frantic emergency personnel, security officials, and people trapped inside the Twin Towers, many of whom used now-obsolete pagers to contact loved ones after the local mobile ( Read more... )
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However, nobody was seriously hurt and no arrests were made.

A 12-year-old boy reported being kicked and hit by classmates Friday at a middle school in Calabasas.

A sixth-grade girl told KABC-TV that some fellow students kicked her in the legs from behind.

Los Angeles County sheriff's Sgt. Fray Lupian says there were at least five victims.

Investigators say the Facebook message may have been inspired by a South Park TV episode that satirised racial ( Read more... )
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The history of the window is as tortured as the competing conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination. Thankfully, District Judge Gena Slaughter takes it as given that Oswald fired the three shots that rang out at 12.30pm on 22 November 1963 and killed the president. What she must decide is which of two windows ? removed at separate times from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository ? is the sniper?s perch. Once ownership is established, the window is expected to be worth more ( Read more... )
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Business ? in particular, the war in Afghanistan, turmoil in Pakistan and climate change ? mixed with pomp as the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh paid a state visit to the White House. An evening gala for 320 guests in a marquee on the South Lawn was to be the first state dinner hosted by Mr Obama.

Indian leaders have become accustomed to a high level of attention on state visits to the US, dating back to a formal feast for India's first prime minster, Jawaharlal Nehru, with Harry ( Read more... )
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The charges stem from a long-running investigation by the FBI in Minneapolis, the largest city in the state of Minnesota, which is home to a thriving Somali-American community. Officials believe that as many as 20 men may have been sent to Somalia in this way. In 2008, a naturalised US citizen, Shirwa Ahed, blew himself up in northern Somalia. It was believed to be the first time that an American citizen had carried out a terrorist suicide bombing.

While the alleged recruitment drive appears ( Read more... )
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Uniquely, though, Avery, who wrote the films Pulp Fiction and Beowulf, is tweeting from behind bars. In September, he was sentenced to a year inside after being convicted of manslaughter for his role in a fatal drink-driving accident. Since then, the Oscar-winning screenwriter's 140-character observations have slowly gained what passes for a cult following, providing a vivid and grimly amusing take on life inside Ventura County Prison in California.

"The inmates stage mock trials to solve ( Read more... )
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Speaking during a joint press conference with the visiting Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, the President demurred when asked for specifics by reporters, saying only that the country would know his intentions after Thanksgiving, the national holiday that is celebrated tomorrow.

With most Americans still in a festive mood on Friday, it seemed likely that the announcement would come on Monday or Tuesday, possibly in the form of Mr Obama's first television address to the nation from ( Read more... )
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ABC was taken by surprise when one of Adam Lambert's dancers stuck his face in the singer's crotch during the performance in New York of For Your Entertainment - a moment that was cut out when the awards show was broadcast on a tape-delayed basis on the US West Coast on Sunday.

During a rehearsal last week the openly gay former American Idol star thrust a male dancer's face toward his crotch, though the dancer did not get as close to Lambert in the rehearsal as he did ( Read more... )
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Sir Peter Ricketts, who was chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee in 2001, said there was concern in both London and Washington that the strategy of "containment" of Saddam Hussain was "failing".

Giving evidence at the first public hearings of the inquiry, he said a review of the Iraq policy was already under way in Whitehall in anticipation of the arrival of the new Bush administration.

He said that, in discussions with Secretary of State ( Read more... )
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Clearing that symbolic hurdle had been tricky. The Democratic leadership secured a majority of 60-39, entirely along party lines. Just one vote less would have allowed opponents of reform to mount a filibuster, wrecking the proposed Bill by talking it off the agenda.

Now the real challenge begins, preserving a fragile, filibuster-proof coalition while senators debate highly-divisive issues in the 2,000-page Bill. These include abortion rights and the so-called "public option", in which ( Read more... )
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The 60-39 vote yesterday cleared the way for a bruising, full-scale debate on the bill after lawmakers return from their break for Thursday's Thanksgiving holiday.

The legislation is designed to extend coverage to roughly 31 million of the nearly 50 million Americans who lack it, crack down on insurance company practices that deny or dilute benefits and curtail the growth of spending on medical care nationally.

The United States, with a population exceeding ( Read more... )
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Palin's extraordinary debut-day sales place her only marginally behind the reception afforded Bill Clinton's My Life, but then that did have the advantage of being written by a former two-term president who had some sexual, as well as political, skeletons in his photocopying closet. But, with the ever-smiling former Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate now embarked on a nationwide promotional tour, heaven alone knows how many books she will finally shift.

Something ( Read more... )
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The colourful tale is by one Robert Eringer, an American novelist and former private investigator, who a few years back was hired by Prince Albert II, the absolute monarch of Monaco, to help root out corruption and organised crime in the moneyed Riviera micro-state.

Now Mr Eringer has gone rogue. In a lawsuit filed last month, swiftly withdrawn, and last week filed all over again, he has gone public with details about the selection of dubious courtiers and foreign crooks who, he claims, ( Read more... )
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The new US push is part of an effort to counter the loss of influence it has suffered recently at the hands of a new generation of Latin American leaders no longer willing to accept Washington's political and economic tutelage. President Rafael Correa, for instance, has refused to prolong the US armed presence in Ecuador, and US forces have to quit their base at the port of Manta by the end of next month.

So Washington turned to Colombia, which has not gone down well in the region. The country ( Read more... )
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