Former First Lady Barbara Bush was released from Houston Methodist Hospital late Saturday morning, the family spokesman, Jim McGrath has announced.
Barbara Bush, the wife of former President George H.W. Bush, has been discharged from a Texas hospital where she spent nearly a week being treated for pneumonia.
Barbara Bush spent nearly a week in a Houston hospital being treated for pneumonia
Barbara Bush, 88, had been hospitalized since Monday.
Barbara and George H.W. Bush, the nation’s longest-married presidential first couple, will celebrate their 69th wedding anniversary Monday.
Michael Schumacher’s manager Sabine Kehm has warned about “invalid” health reports, after one was quoted as saying the F1 champion’s life was no longer at risk.
Michael Schumacher, 45, remains “critical but stable” in hospital in Grenoble after a skiing accident.
A statement from Sabine Kehm said reports not from managers or doctors “must be treated as pure speculation”.
The statement also rejected reports a camera fixed to Michael Schumacher’s ski helmet had not been handed over voluntarily.
Michael Schumacher, who retired in 2012, is in a medically induced coma after suffering head injuries during a fall in the resort of Meribel last Sunday.
His helmet cracked on impact when he hit a rock while skiing off-piste.
Sabine Kehm’s statement read: “Michael’s condition remains critical but stable. We would like to clearly stress that any information regarding Michael’s health not coming from the doctors treating him or from his management must be treated as invalid and pure speculation.”
Michael Schumacher remains critical but stable in Grenoble hospital after skiing accident
“The family cares only for Michael’s health.”
On Friday, some media quoted Michael Schumacher’s friend, former F1 driver Philippe Streiff, as saying that he had been told by the Schumacher family doctor, Gerard Saillant, that Michael’s life was no longer in danger.
Sabine Kehm’s statement continued: “Michael’s helmet camera was voluntarily given to the investigating authorities by the family. That this should have been done against the wishes of the family is untrue.”
Investigators in France are examining the camera.
The French authorities are hoping the device may reveal clues about the circumstances of the accident, although it remains unclear whether the camera was switched on at the time.
Police also interviewed Michael Schumacher’s teenage son, who witnessed the crash.
Michael Schumacher management’s statement concluded by saying: “In consultation with the doctors treating Michael, it is not expected that there will be any press conference before Monday.”
Nuns in a convent in southern Spain have been surprised by Pope Francis with a message left on an answer machine on New Year’s Eve.
Pope Francis was previously archbishop of Buenos Aires and knew some of the nuns at the convent as they also are from Argentina.
The nuns were at prayer when the Pope rang.
On hearing the message, they rang their bishop to try to get back in contact, but Pope Francis rang back in the evening.
Since taking up his post last year, Pope Francis has struck a more informal note than his predecessor, underlining his reputation for simplicity and humility
Sister Adriana, the prioress of the convent, told COPE radio “she wanted to die” on hearing the message.
“Our friendship goes back 15 years but I never thought the Pope would remember us,” she said.
A recording of the message has been played on Spanish media.
“What can the nuns be doing that they can’t answer?” the message begins.
“Pope Francis speaking, I wanted to say hello to you at the end of the year. I’ll see if I can call you again later. God bless you.”
Since taking up his post last year, Pope Francis has struck a more informal note than his predecessor, underlining his reputation for simplicity and humility.
A post-mortem examination has found that neither Paul Walker nor driver Roger Rodas were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of their deaths in the fatal car accident.
Their Porsche was travelling at an “unsafe speed” when it hit a pole and burst into flames in California on November 30, a coroner’s report stated.
Both deaths have since been ruled accidents, authorities say.
Paul Walker was best known for the car racing films Fast and Furious.
Authorities estimate the car was travelling at nearly 100 mph at the time of the fatal accident, according to the coroner’s report released on Friday.
Paul Walker was best known for the car racing films Fast and Furious
But sheriff’s officials say the investigation into the accident has yet to be completed.
A previous post-mortem examination determined Paul Walker, 40, was killed by impact and injuries related to a fire.
The Los Angeles County coroner found that the driver, Roger Rodas, died from impact injuries alone.
Both men are said to have died within seconds of the crash, according to media reports.
Paul Walker starred in the Fast & Furious blockbuster films that celebrated high-speed car chases.
Production on the seventh installment of the Fast and Furious franchise was temporarily halted following his death.Universal Pictures later announced the film’s release date would be pushed back several months to April 2015.
Al-Qaeda’s chief in Lebanon, Majid al-Majid, has died in custody in a Beirut hospital, Lebanese army announces.
The Saudi, who led the Abdullah Azzam Brigades and was on Saudi Arabia’s most-wanted-terrorists list, was arrested in Lebanon recently.
An army general told Associated Press the militant died of kidney failure.
The group has carried out attacks across the Middle East and claimed a bomb attack on Iran’s Beirut embassy in November that killed 23 people.
The Iranian cultural attaché was among the dead.
A Lebanese army statement said Majid al-Majid died in a military hospital in Beirut on Saturday, as he was receiving medical treatment.
Security sources said he had gone into a coma suffering from kidney failure.
Majid al-Majid led the Abdullah Azzam Brigades and was on Saudi Arabia’s most-wanted-terrorists list
He was believed to have required dialysis for the condition.
It was only on Friday that the Lebanese authorities said that DNA tests had confirmed his identity.
Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn earlier confirmed the commander was being held by army intelligence in Beirut and was “being interrogated in secret”. He refused to say when and how the arrest took place.
However, a Lebanese security source told the Reuters news agency that he had been captured with another Saudi militant and had been living in the southern city of Sidon.
Majid al-Majid had led the Brigades since 2012.
Based in both Lebanon and the Arabian Peninsula, the group is named after a Palestinian jihadist ideologue who recruited mujahideen for the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The group has attracted hardline Islamist militants who fought in the Iraqi insurgency and has based itself in the Ein el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, near Sidon.
The US designated the group a terrorist organization in 2012, freezing its assets.
November’s Iranian embassy bombing was believed to be its first major attack.
Iran and the Hezbollah militant group are allied with the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Media reports said Majid al-Majid had pledged allegiance to the leader of the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.
Chinese ice-breaker Xue Long that helped rescue passengers stranded on the Akademik Shokalskiy vessel in Antarctica is now stuck itself.
An Australian ice-breaker carrying the rescued passengers is no longer on standby and is returning to shore.
On Thursday, a helicopter from the Xue Long transferred 52 passengers from the Akademik Shokalskiy to the Aurora Australis.
Russian scientific mission Akademik Shokalskiy has been trapped by thick floes of ice since 24 December.
“Xue Long’s attempt to manoeuvre through the ice… was unsuccessful. Xue Long has confirmed to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) [that] it is beset by ice,” AMSA said in a statement on Saturday.
“The master of Xue Long has confirmed to AMSA that the ship is safe, it is not in distress and does not require assistance at this time,” AMSA said, adding that there was no immediate danger to the ice-breaker’s crew.
Chinese ice-breaker Xue Long that helped rescue passengers stranded on the Akademik Shokalskiy vessel in Antarctica is now stuck itself
It is the latest twist in what has become a complicated rescue operation in the Antarctic.
The Australian Aurora Australis had been asked to remain in open water nearby in case the Xue Long needed help – but AMSA said this was no longer needed and it had been released from its search and rescue mission.
The authority added that the Australian vessel was travelling to the Casey research base on the Windmill Islands, just outside the Antarctic Circle, to complete a re-supply task before continuing to Hobart – the capital of the Australian state of Tasmania.
Andrew Peacock, an Australian doctor and photographer who was rescued from the Russian ship, spoke of his fellow passengers’ frustration aboard the Aurora over the latest delay in their journey home, according to the Associated Press.
“So our time down south is not over yet and we are going to be delayed in our return to friends and family by some time yet, which is frustrating,” Andrew Peacock said before the Aurora was given permission to continue.
The Akademik Shokalskiy became trapped by thick floes of ice driven by strong winds, about 1,500 nautical miles south of Hobart.
The Akademik Shokalskiy was being used by the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) 2013 to follow the route explorer Douglas Mawson travelled a century ago.
Russia has decided to set up a special zone for protest rallies at the Sochi Winter Olympics, where security will be tight.
A special security regime will be in place in and around the southern city from January 7 until March 21.
The Russian authorities announced last year that a ban on rallies would be imposed in the Games area.
But a decree now says protests during the Games in February can be held if agreed with the authorities.
Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said all public gatherings and demonstrations must be agreed in advance with the municipal authorities as well as regional divisions of the interior ministry and the Federal Security Service, the FSB.
“The president has issued an instruction to the organizers of the Olympic Games, together with the leadership of Krasnodar Territory and the Sochi mayor’s office, to select a venue in the city where rallies, demonstrations and other events, including, if necessary, protests, could be freely held,” Dmitry Peskov said.
Russia has decided to set up a special zone for protest rallies at the Sochi Winter Olympics
But limits can be placed on the number of people taking part in demonstrations, according to the presidential decree.
Protests groups, such as those campaigning for gay rights and political reform, had complained at the restrictions on the right to stage demonstrations at the Games.
Security has been a major concern in the run-up to the event, with fears of attack by militant groups.
Two suicide bomb attacks killed 34 people in the southern city of Volgograd on December 29 and 30. Russian investigators say the perpetrators are believed to be two men who arrived in the city from the restive North Caucasus region.
The bombings prompted President Vladimir Putin to order further security measures and personally inspect Olympic sites.
Security measures in Sochi are reported to include surveillance by drones and strict limits on road access to the city.
French investigators are examining a camera which had been fixed to Michael Schumacher’s ski helmet, media reports say.
Authorities were hoping the device may reveal clues about the circumstances of his skiing accident in the French Alps, a source told the AFP news agency.
Police also interviewed Michael Schumacher’s teenage son, who witnessed the crash.
Fans earlier held a vigil outside the French hospital treating the F1 legend, to mark his 45th birthday.
Ferrari supporters gathered at the clinic in the city of Grenoble and held a one-minute silence on Friday afternoon.
French investigators are examining a camera which had been fixed to Michael Schumacher’s ski helmet
Michael Schumacher’s family said in a statement they had been moved to tears and “utterly overwhelmed” by the “incredible sympathies” shown by the fans.
The seven-time F1 champion, who retired in 2012, is in a medically induced coma after suffering head injuries during a fall in the resort of Meribel last Sunday.
His helmet cracked on impact when he hit a rock while skiing off-piste.
Michael Schumacher remains in a stable but critical condition after two operations to remove blood and pressure from his brain.
News of the camera’s existence emerged late on Friday afternoon.
AFP said Michael Schumacher’s family had handed both the device and helmet to the authorities for investigation.
It remains unclear whether the camera was switched on at the time of the accident.
The news comes after members of Ferrari clubs in France and Italy travelled to Grenoble to mark Michael Schumacher’s birthday on January 3rd.
Phil Everly, one half of the Everly Brothers, has died, aged 74, in California, his family announces.
Phil Everly died in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank of complications from lung disease, his wife, Patti, told the Los Angeles Times.
“We are absolutely heartbroken,” Patti Everly said, adding that the disease was the result of a lifetime of smoking.
Phil Everly and his brother Don made up the Everly Brothers, one of the biggest pop acts of the 1950s and early 1960s.
They had a string of close-harmony hits including Wake Up Little Suzie, Cathy’s Clown, Bye Bye Love, and All I Have To Do Is Dream.
Phil Everly died on Friday of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his son Jason Everly told AP.
Phil Everly died in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank of complications from lung disease
The Washington Post quoted a woman at Don Everly’s home as saying he was too upset to talk about the death of his brother.
“He expected to go first,” she told the newspaper.
Rolling Stone magazine calls the Everly Brothers “the most important vocal duo in rock”.
In its biography of the pair, the magazine says Phil and his older brother Don were the children of Midwestern country music singers Ike and Margaret Everly and performed on the family radio show while growing up.
In their heyday between 1957 and 1962, the Everly Brothers had 19 Top 40 hits, according to the Associated Press. They influenced acts such as the Beatles and the Beach Boys.
Don and Phil Everly had an onstage breakup in 1973 that led to a decade-long estrangement, but Phil later told Time magazine the brothers’ relationship had survived this.
“Don and I are infamous for our split,” Phil Everly said, “but we’re closer than most brothers.”
[youtube XRP3M_2MHGw 650]
The Everly Brothers were elected to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in its first year, 1986, and they were given a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys in 1997.
Robert De Niro said he’s happy to play supporting roles as his time as a leading actor is over.
Robert De Niro, 70, admitted it is rare to land a big role at his age.
The actor told Britain’s Metro newspaper: “That’s just life. We can’t play certain parts any more. We’re playing the father or the grandfather or the great-grandfather, and that can be written in a funny way, so it’s fine. But you’re not carrying the movie as the young romantic lead – those days are gone.”
Robert De Niro said he’s happy to play supporting roles as his time as a leading actor is over
He credits the baby-boomer generation with keeping him in work as older movie fans continue to visit theaters.
Robert De Niro added: “I don’t go to see enough films. But I’m told that since baby-boomers will still actually go to see a movie in a theater – because it’s a communal experience that our generation is used to – there’s now a trend towards making some movies that those people could possibly identify themselves in.”
The White House has announced measures aimed at limiting access to firearms for the mentally ill.
The changes clarify ambiguous regulations and allow hospitals to provide more information for background checks, officials said.
The actions come more than one year after the Newtown school shooting, which sparked a national gun debate.
President Barack Obama’s push for stricter gun controls stalled after the incident.
In a statement released on Friday, the White House said the two new actions “will help strengthen the federal background check system and keep guns out of the wrong hands”.
The first proposed regulation, from the Department of Justice, aims to clarify who is prohibited under federal law from possessing a firearm for reasons related to mental health.
That change includes clarifying the term “committed to a mental institution” to include involuntary inpatient as well as outpatient commitments, the White House said.
Barack Obama’s push for stricter gun controls stalled after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting
The second proposed action, brought by the Department of Health and Human Services, lifts certain privacy provisions preventing states from forwarding relevant information to the background check system.
The change could give medical entities covered by federal health privacy law permission to disclose “limited information necessary to help keep guns out of potentially dangerous hands”, the White House said.
“The proposed rule will not change the fact that seeking help for mental health problems or getting treatment does not make someone legally prohibited from having a firearm,” the White House said.
The proposed changes follow the one-year anniversary of the December 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 20 children and six school staff members were killed.
The gunman, Adam Lanza, is believed to have had severe mental health issues at the time of the crime.
Barack Obama proposed several federal gun control measures in the wake of the shooting, including tightening the background check system to make it harder for convicted criminals to buy guns, but Congress declined to act under pressure from the powerful gun lobby.
The president has continued to press Congress for further restrictions, although skeptics note that if the murder of 20 children failed to goad Congress to action, it is unclear what could.
“Passing common-sense gun safety legislation – including expanding background checks and making gun trafficking a federal crime – remains the most important step we can take to reduce gun violence,” the White House statement concluded.
Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones reunited once again.
Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones spent the holidays skiing with their two children on New Year’s Day, just four months after announcing their separation.
Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones spent the holidays skiing with their two children on New Year’s Day
Author and economics broadcast commentator George Goodman, best known by his pseudonym Adam Smith, has died at the age of 83.
His son, Mark Goodman, says that he died Friday at his home in Miami after a long battle with the bone marrow disorder myelofibrosis.
George Goodman was best known by his pseudonym Adam Smith
For years, George Goodman was known to PBS viewers as the personable host of Adam Smith’s Money World, a multiple Emmy winner.
George Goodman’s books included the best-selling The Money Game, a children’s story and a novel, The Wheeler Dealers, later adapted into a movie of the same name starring James Garner and Lee Remick.
New York Magazine editor Clay Felker convinced George Goodman to call himself Adam Smith, after the 18th century economist.
American Hustle and Gravity are among the 10 movies up for the Producers Guild of America’s best picture prize.
12 Years a Slave and Nebraska are also nominated for its ‘outstanding producer of theatrical motion pictures’ award.
The Butler and Coen brothers’ movie Inside Llewyn Davis are notably absent from the 10 films, one of which will collect the prize on 19 January.
The guild’s decision comes six weeks before the Oscars on March 2nd.
In the last six years, the recipient of the PGA’s top award has gone on to be named best picture at the Academy Awards.
Argo, which took the main prize at last year’s ceremony, was also the top dog at the 2012 Oscars.
Eight of the 10 films nominated by the PGA Awards 2013 went on to be nominated in the Academy Awards’ best picture category.
Other cinematic releases in contention include Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street and Tom Hanks’ thriller Captain Phillips.
Dallas Buyers Club, Spike Jonze’s oddball romance Her and Saving Mr. Banks, in which Tom Hanks also appears, round out the PGA shortlist.
But there is no place for August: Orange County, a darkly comic family drama starring Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep, or Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom biopic starring Idris Elba as Nelson Mandela.
The 25th annual PGA Awards winners will be announced during a ceremony on January 19 at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles
Despite this, producer Harvey Weinstein – whose company is distributing both films as well as Judi Dench’s drama Philomena – remained upbeat about their Oscar chances.
BAFTA – the British Academy of Film and Television Arts – announce the nominations for their 2014 film awards on Wednesday.
Five more titles make the cut for the PGA’s animated film producer prize, among them The Croods, Frozen and Monsters University.
Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, the producers of the James Bond films, will receive a special award at this year’s ceremony, to be held at Los Angeles’ Beverly Hilton Hotel.
So far in the awards season, critics’ groups have bestowed their honors upon American Hustle, Gravity and Her.
Steve McQueen’s historical drama 12 Years a Slave has also figured highly, collecting seven nominations for this year’s Golden Globe awards.
The Golden Globes, a key Los Angeles awards ceremony for both cinema and television, will be held on January 12, one week before the PGA event.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Directors Guild of America (DGA) are also set to announce the nominees for their own film awards.
GM has reported a fall in car sales in December in what was a disappointing month for US car makers.
GM stocks fell 2.4% after it reported a 6.3% fall in sales compared with December 2012.
Ford and Chrysler both reported rising sales, but not the increases that industry analysts were expecting.
Chrysler sold 161,000 cars and trucks in December, up 5.7% on the same period in 2012 and Ford reported a 1.8% rise in December sales.
Analysts said that poor weather in parts of the US kept customers away from dealerships in December.
“At the very beginning of the month the pace of buying was slow because there were so many storms around the country,” said Edmunds.com senior analyst Michelle Krebs.
“Now what we’re seeing is some of the automakers are stretching their December deals into January.”
2013 is expected to be the best year for US auto market since 2007, with total annual sales of about 15.6 million
Kurt McNeil, vice president, of US sales for GM, said: “December started a little slow but sales were stronger later in the month, especially in the week between Christmas and New Year.”
Meanwhile Ford said that a four-day weekend for Thanksgiving late in November may have brought forward sales that would have fallen in December.
For Chrysler the Jeep brand continued to be a strong performer with a 34% rise in sales last month.
With a 9% rise in annual sales, 2013 was the strongest year for Chrysler since 2007.
“Our Jeep and Ram truck brands had a strong finish led by the all new 2014 Jeep Cherokee and the Ram pickup truck,” said Reid Bigland, head of US sales.
Overall, sales in 2013 were strong for the big three Detroit car manufacturers, who were helped along by strong sales of their truck offerings.
Truck sales tend to increase in relation to home sales, which were strong for much of the year as the US economic recovery spurred long-delayed housing activity.
“Trucks on the road are even older than cars on the road,” said Michelle Krebs.
However, Toyota, the third biggest player in the US market, didn’t do as well as the US manufacturers.
Toyota saw sales in December decline by 1.7% from a year ago to 190,843.
Analysts had been expecting Toyota to report rising sales.
However, 2013 is expected to be the best year for US auto market since 2007, with total annual sales of about 15.6 million.
That would be a strong recovery from 2009 when sales fell to 10.4 million during the depths of the recession.
A new virtual currency inspired by Kanye West is set to be launched, and has been dubbed Coinye West.
The rapper is not involved and has yet to comment on Coinye West’s inception.
Coinye West will follow in the footsteps of Dogecoin, another virtual currency based on the popular Doge meme.
The value of Bitcoin, the most famous virtual currency, peaked at over $1000 at the end of 2013, but is currently worth around $850.
Various alternatives to Bitcoin have sprung up, such as Litecoin, Namecoin and PPCoin.
Virtual currencies are often linked to the purchase of illegal items, namely drugs, thanks to transactions being extremely difficult to trace.
However, more humorous currencies like Dogecoin are used for more tongue-in-cheek transactions.
One user, posting on Dogemarket, a section on popular link sharing site Reddit, offered Dogecoins in exchange for ideas to name a company.
Coinye West will be launched on January 11
“I thought the whole Dogecoin thing was interesting,” said Jeremy Bonney, from virtual currency news site Coindesk.
“It grew into something somewhat legitimate. There are people that genuinely believe in it out there.”
The makers of Coinye West have lofty ambitions for the currency which they described as a “cryptocurrency for the masses”.
Speaking anonymously to music site Noisey, they said: “I can picture a future where Coinye is used to buy concert tickets, with cryptographically verified virtual tickets, and other ideas I can’t give away just yet.”
They said they planned to give away a number of Coinye to early users when the currency launches on January 11.
“It will get people who are on the fence interested and help them to start using the currency, and we hope they’ll share it with their friends, too.”
However, one Bitcoin expert urged caution in investing in new virtual currencies that were as yet untested in public use.
“There’s been a number of people who have put out ‘joke’ currencies in the past,” said Johnathan Turrall, chief technology officer at Metalair, a cryptocurrency start-up based at the University of Sussex.
“There were some coins in the past that seemed to be a <<pump and dump>> operation.
“In one case, the original developers launched on obscure websites, but when they took it mainstream, and the price spiked, they sold up and disappeared. Estimated earnings in one instance were $800,000.”
A massive winter storm has blanketed the Northeast with up to 2 ft snow and ushered in dangerously cold temperatures Friday, leaving travelers stranded and a cutting a deadly path across several states.
The storm has been blamed for 11 deaths and forced the cancellation of more than 4,000 flights since Wednesday.
Authorities warned residents to remain indoors, both for their own safety and to keep roads clear for snow removal.
Fatal traffic accidents occurred in New York, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. Authorities said a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease froze to death after she wandered away from her rural western New York home.
And in suburban Philadelphia, as the storm approached, a worker at a salt storage facility was killed when a 100-foot-tall pile of road salt fell and crushed him. Falls Township police said the man was trapped while operating a backhoe.
The big storm followed closely the blueprint meteorologists drew up, slamming the Northeast overnight Thursday with as much as two feet of snow and sub-zero wind chills through Friday. The biting wind and blowing snow shut down interstates and airports alike and gave millions of school children a snow day.
John F. Kennedy Airport in New York was officially closed at 6:12 a.m. Friday and reopened four hours later, while Boston’s Logan International was effectively shut down, as well.
Interstate 84 in New York and the Long Island Expressway, closed at midnight as the storm roared in, remained so until 8 a.m.
The Northeast snowstorm has been blamed for 11 deaths and forced the cancellation of more than 4,000 flights since Wednesday
Snowfall reports varied widely, with New York City receiving 7 inches in some areas, Baltimore seeing 3 to 6 inches, Philadelphia closing in on 9 inches, Hartford 6 to 10 inches and Boston as much as 15 inches.
Some 20 inches fell on other parts of Massachusetts. Boxford, northwest of Boston, reported 23 inches.
The brutal storm blasted at least 22 states – stretching from Chicago through the New York tri-state region into New England – and affected an area home to more than 100 million people.
The high temperature in New York City reached the 20s on Friday during the day and was expected to drop to the single digits in the evening, with the wind chill making it feel well below zero.
“It’s deceptively cold outside. If you stay outside too long it could be dangerous,” New York City’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, said at a news conference Friday morning, while hundreds of plows and salt spreaders continued to clear the roads.
Temperatures from upstate New York to Maine were below zero, and wind chills — the “feels like” effect — were minus-30 in some spots.
Across the Northeast, residents were fretting about the blast of bitter cold.
The weather was affecting air travel, with more than 2,600 flights cancelled Friday and another 8,800 delayed, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.
The delays and cancellations in storm-socked parts of the country created a logjam in other areas, including causing flights in Los Angeles to be delayed or scrapped Friday.
According to new reports, the NSA is building a quantum computer to break the encryption that keeps messages secure.
The NSA project came to light in documents passed to the Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
The agency hopes to harness the special qualities of quantum computers to speed up its code-cracking efforts.
The NSA is believed to have spent about $80 million on the project but it has yet to produce a working machine.
If the NSA managed to develop a working quantum computer it would be put to work breaking encryption systems used online and by foreign governments to keep official messages secure, suggest the documents excerpted in the Post.
The quantum computer is being developed under a research program called Penetrating Hard Targets and is believed to be conducted out of a lab in Maryland.
The NSA is building a quantum computer to break the encryption that keeps messages secure
Many research groups around the world are pursuing the goal of creating a working quantum computer but those developed so far have not been able to run the algorithms required to break contemporary encryption systems.
Current computers attempt to crack encryption via many different means but they are limited to generating possible keys to unscramble data one at a time. Using big computers can speed this up but the huge numbers used as keys to lock away data limits the usefulness of this approach.
By contrast, quantum computers exploit properties of matter that, under certain conditions, mean the machine can carry out lots and lots of calculations simultaneously. This makes it practical to try all the possible keys protecting a particular message or stream of data.
The hard part of creating a working quantum computer is keeping enough of its constituent computational elements, called qubits, stable so they can interact and be put to useful work.
The NSA is not believed to have made significant breakthroughs in its work that would put it ahead of research efforts elsewhere in the US and Europe. However, the documents passed to the Post by Edward Snowden suggest the NSA’s researchers are having some success developing the basic building blocks for the machine.
India’s PM Manmohan Singh has announced that he will not stay in the post if his Congress party wins the next election, due in the summer.
Manmohan Singh, 81, has been India’s prime minister for almost a decade.
He said a Congress candidate would be named at the appropriate time, but that deputy leader Rahul Gandhi had “outstanding credentials”.
Manmohan Singh said it would be “disastrous for the country” if opposition leader Narendra Modi were elected PM.
Narendra Modi leads the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which recently beat Congress in assembly elections in four politically crucial states.
“Someone who presided over the massacre of innocent people should not be the prime minister,” Manmohan Singh said in uncharacteristically harsh words for Narendra Modi.
India’s PM Manmohan Singh has announced that he will not stay in the post if his Congress party wins the next election
Narendra Modi is the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat and has been accused of doing little to stop the 2002 anti-Muslim riots there which left more than 1,000 people dead. Narendra Modi has always denied any wrongdoing.
The BJP condemned Manmohan Singh’s remark, saying Narendra Modi had made Gujarat “a model of development for the country”.
For the past decade, Manmohan Singh has headed a coalition government led by Congress.
He has often been criticized for not speaking out more forcefully. Friday’s press conference was only the third such briefing during his whole term of office.
Manmohan Singh spoke on a wide range of issues, including the economy, inflation and corruption.
“In a few months’ time, after the general election, I will hand the baton over to a new prime minister,” Manmohan Singh said in his opening remarks.
Manmohan Singh has been one of India’s longest serving prime ministers and is widely regarded as the architect of India’s economic reforms program.
Italian and Greek coast guards saved more than 300 migrants from rough waters in two separate incidents.
The Italian navy said it picked up 233 people, mostly from African countries, who had been stuck in an “overcrowded” vessel south of Sicily.
Meanwhile Greek coast guards rescued 85 migrants off the island of Astypalaia.
Every year thousands of African and Arab migrants fleeing war and poverty risk their lives trying to reach the Europe.
Greece and Italy are both main entry points for those who attempt to make the dangerous sea crossing.
In October more than 400 people drowned in two shipwrecks near the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Many of them were from Eritrea and Somalia, but the civil war in Syria has also resulted in an increased flow of migrants trying to reach Europe.
Italian and Greek coast guards saved more than 300 migrants from rough waters in two separate incidents
Italian officials said on Thursday that the migrants were rescued from a 33ft-long boat about 80 miles from Lampedusa.
“Considering the rough seas, the overcrowded boat and the precarious conditions, a situation of emergency was declared,” the Italian navy said in a statement.
It added that the migrants were in good health and had been ferried to Sicily.
They are reported to have come from Eritrea, Nigeria, Somalia, Zambia, Mali and Pakistan.
Greek authorities said they picked up migrants near Astypalaia after receiving a distress signal from the vessel’s captain because of bad weather.
Women and children were among those rescued.
In the past, human rights organizations, including the UN refugee agency UNHCR, have strongly criticized Italy and Greece countries for “push-backs” – a policy of sending migrants back to their point of departure.
In the aftermath of the Lampedusa shipwrecks, the Italian government launched an operation called “Mare Nostrum”, mobilizing warships and aircraft to prevent further tragedies.
Italy has also called for help from other EU states to deal with the migrant influx.
The European Commission has asked for more resources for joint sea patrols, and more co-ordination with countries that migrants embark from, such as Libya.
Zoe Averianov, from Hebden Bridge, UK, who threw a message in a bottle into the North Sea 23 years ago, has received a reply after it was discovered in the Netherlands.
Zoe Averianov was 10 when she threw the note as she went on holiday on a ferry from Hull to Belgium on September 12, 1990.
Over Christmas the woman was given a letter sent from Europe which had been posted to her parents’ address.
Zoe Averianov threw a message in a bottle into the North Sea 23 years ago
Zoe Averianov said she was surprised at how far the message had travelled.
The envelope, addressed to Zoe Averianov’s maiden name, contained her original letter and a reply from a couple in the Netherlands.
Zoe Averianov’s letter had read: “Dear finder, my name is Zoe Lemon. Please would you write to me, I would like it a lot.
“I am 10 years old and I like ballet, playing the flute and the piano. I have a hamster called Sparkle and fish called Speckle.”
The reply read: “Dear Zoe, yesterday on one of my many walks with my wife along the dikes of Oosterschelde looking among the debris thrown by the sea of embankment I found a little plastic bottle containing your message.”
The interview with Duck Dynasty’s Willie and Korie Robertson on Fox News Channel appears to have given a welcome jolt to the network’s New Year’s Eve coverage.
All-American New Year’s Eve on Tuesday put Fox News ahead of CNN’s rival New Year’s Eve Live in total viewers, in the period from 11 p.m. to 12:00 a.m.
This included Bill Hemmer and Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s interview with Willie and Korie Robertson, which helped FNC gain considerable boosts over the previous year.
The special aired from 9 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. and averaged 1.7 million total viewers, compared to the 1.4 million that the CNN offering, co-hosted by Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin, averaged.
In the key news demo, however, CNN’s New Year’s Eve offering still came out on top, averaging 584,000 viewers to the 329,000 that Fox’s offering averaged.
The interview with Willie and Korie Robertson on Fox News Channel appears to have given a welcome jolt to the network’s New Year’s Eve coverage
The 11 p.m. to midnight period that included Willie and Korie Robertson’s interview, meanwhile, averaged 1.97 million total viewers, compared to CNN’s 1.73 million.
Again, CNN won the demo in that time period, averaging 742,000 viewers 25-54 compared to 401,000 for Fox.
In the demo, All-American New Year’s Eve averaged 413,000 total viewers during that time period, a 19% boost over the previous year.
Even so, CNN bested Fox in that time period, averaging 2.095 million total viewers and 906,000 in the demo – though those numbers were down 11% and 4%, respectively, from the previous year.
According to the figures released by the Vatican, more than 6.6 million people attended the papal events presided by Pope Francis from his election in March to the end of 2013, compared to 2.3 million for former Pope Benedict in all of 2012.
The figures were based on the number of tickets issued for papal events where they are needed, such as general audiences, Masses and private audiences.
They were also based on estimates of the number of people at events where tickets are not needed, such as his weekly appearance from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square.
The Vatican did not issue comparative figures on Thursday but figures released on January 4, 2013 showed that some 2.3 million people attended all events presided by Benedict in 2012.
Figures released last month which were limited to the number of people who attended weekly general audiences showed that Pope Francis had drawn around four times as many people in about 9 and a half months of 2013 than Pope Benedict had in all of 2012. Pope Francis was elected on March 13, 2013, after Pope Benedict’s resignation in February.
More than 6.6 million people attended the papal events presided by Pope Francis from his election in March to the end of 2013
Pope Francis, who last month was named Person of the Year by Time Magazine, has drawn people to the Vatican because of his outgoing, simple and friendly style. Pope Benedict was more reserved and far less spontaneous.
The Vatican said the figures released on Thursday did not include the crowds that turned out to see the pope during his trips to Brazil, and to Assisi and Lampedusa in Italy.
More than 3 million people attended the pope’s final event of the Brazil trip on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro on July 28, 2013.
The crowds at Pope Francis’ general audiences and Sunday addresses have often topped 100,000, forcing police to close off the boulevard leading to the Vatican to accommodate more people.
Tickets to audiences and Masses are issued for free by the Vatican’s Prefecture of the Pontifical Household and usually distributed through parishes and Church institutions.
