China village defies officials to demand democracy

SHANGPU, China: Villagers in southern China were locked in a stand-off with authorities on Sunday and were demanding democratic polls after a violent clash with thugs linked to a local official over a land transfer. Just over a week ago, residents of Shangpu in Guangdong province fought with scores of attackers whom they claimed were sent by the village communist party chief and a business...

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LG notches 10M worldwide sales of LTE-enabled smartphones

LG Electronics announced today it has sold more than 10 million LTE-capable smartphones worldwide as the company grapples with dwindling market share.The milestone comes a little more than six months after the company announced it had surpassed 5 million sales of LTE-enabled phones."Aggressive pushing forward with 4G LTE technology allows LG satisfy the needs of consumers and is a huge factor in our...

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Body in Fla. sinkhole "not possible to recover"

Updated at 7:20 p.m. ET SEFFNER, Fla. The effort to find the body of a Florida man who was swallowed by a sinkhole under his Florida home was called off Saturday and crews planned to begin demolishing the four-bedroom house. The 20-foot-wide opening of the sinkhole is almost completely covered by the house and rescuers feared it would collapse on them if they tried to search for Jeff Bush, 37....

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Man's Body Recovery Effort Ends; Sinkhole 'Unstable'

Authorities have discontinued the rescue effort for a Florida man who was swallowed by a sinkhole when his home's foundation collapsed and said it is unlikely his body will ever be recovered."We feel we have done everything we can," Hillsborough County administrator Mike Merrell said at a news conference this afternoon. "At this point, it's not possible to recover the body."Merell...

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3 dead in new Bangladesh war crimes protests: police

CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh: Bangladesh police on Saturday opened fire at Islamists protesting the conviction for war crimes of one of their leaders, killing three people outside the port city of Chittagong.The deaths brought the total number killed since a war crimes tribunal delivered its first verdict on January 21 to at least 56, according to police figures.The number includes 40 who have...

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Crave Ep. 111: Man vs. jetpack

Man vs. jetpack, Ep: 111Subscribe to Crave:iTunes (HD) | iTunes (SD) | iTunes (HQ)RSS (HD) | RSS (SD) | RSS (HQ)A German inventor has built a DIY jetpack, so we hop onboard. Also, we get a first look at "Star Wars" pinball for iOS and Android, and "Star Trek" fans win a major space battle when they vote to name a Pluto moon "Vulcan." All that and more on this week's episode of...

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Fla. man presumed dead after sinkhole opens under his bed

SEFFNER, Fla. A man was missing and feared dead early Friday after a large sinkhole opened under the bedroom of a house near Tampa. Jeff Bush is presumed dead after a sinkhole opened under his bed./CBS His brother says Jeff Bush screamed for help before he disappeared. The 36-year-old man's brother, Jeremy Bush, told rescue crews he heard a loud crash around 11 p.m. Thursday, then heard his brother...

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Obama Signs Order to Begin Sequester Cuts

President Obama and congressional leaders today failed to reach a breakthrough to avert a sweeping package of automatic spending cuts, setting into motion $85 billion of across-the-board belt-tightening that neither had wanted to see.President Obama officially initiated the cuts with an order to agencies Friday evening.He had met for just over an hour at the White House Friday...

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Bertelsmann buys out KKR in music rights business BMG

FRANKFURT: German media giant Bertelsmann said Friday it has agreed to buy out the US investment fund KKR in their jointly-owned music rights management company BMG for an undisclosed sum.Bertelsmann said in a statement it will acquire the 51-percent stake that KKR has held in BMG since 2009, finally bringing the unit back under full ownership.BMG was originally set up in 2008 and KKR...

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Crave giveaway: Two leather iPad cases from Kavaj

Congrats to Gene W. of Highlands, Texas, for winning a Kanex Sydnee four-port recharging station in last week's giveaway. Is your iPad in need of a new outfit? This week's prize is for you. We're giving away two sleek iPad cases from Kavaj, a purveyor of leather gadget jackets started by two former employees of Amazon in Germany. The winner gets one Berlin case in black that fits the iPad 2, iPad...

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Fierce wildfire outside L.A. approached homes

Wildfire approaches homes in Riverside County, Calif., outside Los Angeles, Feb. 28, 2013. / KCBS-TV/CBS RIVERSIDE, Calif. Flames from a ferocious wildfire burned palm trees along residential streets and came very close to homes in Riverside County, but dying winds helped firefighters stop its progress. County Fire spokeswoman Jody Hageman said residents from two streets were told to evacuate...

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Sequestration: Surrender is in the Air

The budget ax is about to fall, and there's little lawmakers in Washington are doing to stop it.Despite a parade of dire warnings from the White House, an $85 billion package of deep automatic spending cuts appears poised to take effect at the stroke of midnight on Friday.The cuts – known in Washington-speak as the sequester – will hit every federal budget, from defense to education,...

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Low-key departure as pope steps down and hides away

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict slips quietly from the world stage on Thursday after a private last goodbye to his cardinals and a short flight to a country palace to enter the final phase of his life "hidden from the world". In keeping with his shy and modest ways, there will be no public ceremony to mark the first papal resignation in six centuries and no solemn declaration ending...

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Sony sells Tokyo office building for US$1.2b

TOKYO: Sony said on Thursday it has sold one of its main buildings in Tokyo for US$1.2 billion as the embattled Japanese electronics giant offloads assets to help repair its tattered balance sheet.The news comes after the company in January announced the sale of its US headquarters in Manhattan for more than US$1.0 billion while this month it also sold part of its online medical services...

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Viddy doubles length of clips, adds video enhancement tools

Viddy's new iOS app interface.(Credit:Viddy)Social video startup video has released a new iOS app with a bevy of new features to help users enhance the videos they produce and stave off Twitter's upstart video-sharing app Vine.Debuting this evening in Apple's App Store, the new app doubles the size of videos users can upload from 15 seconds to 30 seconds, as well as adding the Vine-like ability to...

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Medicare paid billions to sub-par nursing homes: HHS

SAN FRANCISCO Medicare paid billions in taxpayer dollars to nursing homes nationwide that were not meeting basic requirements to look after their residents, government investigators have found. The report, released Thursday by the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general, said Medicare paid about $5.1 billion for patients to stay in skilled nursing facilities that failed to meet...

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Arias Prosecutor Too Combative, Experts Say

He has barked, yelled, been sarcastic and demanded answers from accused murderer Jodi Arias this week.And in doing so, prosecutor Juan Martinez and his aggressive antics may be turning off the jury he is hoping to convince that Arias killed her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in June 2008, experts told ABCNews.com today."Martinez is his own worst enemy," Mel McDonald, a prominent...

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Australian cyclone crossing Western Australian coast

SYDNEY: A tropical cyclone hit Australia's resource-rich northwest coast Wednesday, bringing winds of up to 165 kilometres (102 miles) an hour as it crossed the shore near the tiny community of Pardoo.Severe tropical cyclone Rusty had been sitting offshore for several days, slowly intensifying as it edged towards the Pilbara coast and bringing heavy rain and gale-force winds to the iron...

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Why you should wait for the Samsung Galaxy S4

It was only about nine months ago that Samsung introduced its flagship Galaxy S3 to the world. There's no question the device set a new standard for the high-end Android smartphone. It has also been one of Samsung's hottest selling smartphones. And now it looks like Samsung is about to do it again with the Galaxy S4, set for introduction March 14.So what is a smartphone shopper to do? In this edition...

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Two cops, suspect dead in Calif. shootings

Updated 1:50 a.m. EST SANTA CRUZ, Calif. Two police officers were shot and killed Tuesday while investigating a sexual assault, and a suspect was also fatally shot, authorities said. Santa Cruz police Chief Kevin Vogel says Sgt. Loren Butch Baker and Detective Elizabeth Butler were gunned down in mid-afternoon Tuesday as they followed up on a sexual assault investigation. He says Baker was a 28-year...

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Inside Organized Retail Crime Raids

We used to call it shoplifting, but these days the foot soldiers of retail crime rings are known as boosters. Police even have an acronym for these operations: ORC, which stands for Organized Retail Crime."It's just like a Fortune 500 company," said Sergeant Eric Lee of the Gardena Police Department in Gardena, Calif. "All of this is just organized."Watch the full story on "Nightline"...

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Asian markets mostly slip on Italy uncertainty

HONG KONG: Asian markets mostly fell on Tuesday, with dealers spooked by an election in Italy that left no clear winner, leading to political uncertainty and fresh fears about eurozone stability.The dollar and euro extended the losses suffered in US trade as investors absorbed the Italian results, while there was also concern about the lack of progress in Washington to avoid spending cuts...

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Trendnet's first 802.11ac router now shipping

Trendnet AC1750 Dual Band Wireless Router, model TEW-812DRU(Credit:Dong Ngo/CNET)Power users now have another option for their home Wi-Fi networks.Trendnet announced today the availability of the AC1750 Dual Band Wireless Router (model TEW-812DRU). This router was first showcased at CES 2013 and is the first from Trendnet to support the new 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard.The TEW-812DRU router is a true dual-band...

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At least 19 tourists die in hot air balloon crash in Egypt

Updated 2:30 a.m. EST LUXOR, Egypt A hot air balloon flying over Egypt's famed ancient city of Luxor caught fire and crashed into a sugar cane field on Tuesday, killing at least 19 foreign tourists, a security official said. It was one of the worst crashes involving tourists in the country already struggling with a decimated tourism industry, two years after the 2011 uprising that ousted former...

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Americans Targeted for Allegedly Running Underage Prostitution in Philippines

Arthur Benjamin is sitting at the edge of a small stage, wearing a lavender Hawaiian shirt and nursing a bottle of San Miguel Light beer. The 6-foot-6 mustachioed Texan lazily watches the half dozen or so girls dancing rather unenergetically around the stage's pole."I forgot your gift again, it's in the car," Benjamin says to one of the girls on stage, shouting above the pop music...

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Cuban leader Raul Castro says he will retire in 2018

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban President Raul Castro announced on Sunday he will step down from power after his second term ends in 2018, and the new parliament named a 52-year-old rising star to become his first vice president and most visible successor. "This will be my last term," Castro, 81, said shortly after the National Assembly elected him to a second five-year tenure. ...

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