NEW YORK: Thirty-four people were injured late Saturday when a charter bus traveling on a highway hit an overpass in Boston, Massachusetts, US media reported.
NBC News said the accident happened on Soldiers Field Road about 7:30 pm (0030 GMT Sunday).
The bus was returning to Pennsylvania from Harvard University with 42 people on board, the network said.
The injured have been taken to local hospitals. One them is reported to have life-threatening injuries.
-AFP/ac
#1157946: Twitter bird logo, social networking and microblogging service, graphic element on white / AP Graphics
Twitter said today that it recently detected a series of attempts to hack into user data, and that the attackers may have successfully absconded with some users' information.
In a blog post Friday afternoon, Twitter explained the situation, and the steps it has taken to fight off the hackers.
This week, we detected unusual access patterns that led to us identifying unauthorized access attempts to Twitter user data. We discovered one live attack and were able to shut it down in process moments later. However, our investigation has thus far indicated that the attackers may have had access to limited user information - usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords - for approximately 250,000 users. As a precautionary security measure, we have reset passwords and revoked session tokens for these accounts. If your account was one of them, you will have recently received (or will shortly) an email from us at the address associated with your Twitter account notifying you that you will need to create a new password. Your old password will not work when you try to log in to Twitter.
Twitter said in the post that a very small number of users were affected by the hacking, but it encouraged everyone who uses the service to ensure that they are practicing "good password hygiene, on Twitter and elsewhere on the Internet." Among its suggestions: using unique passwords of at least ten characters, including a mix of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols. Based on attacks on other high-profile tech and media companies, Twitter also said it is recommending the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's recent advisory on disabling Java, among other precautions.
This article originally appeared on CNET under the headline "Twitter says 250,000 users' data compromised in hacking attacks"
This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident. The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked. For that reason we felt that it was important to publicize this attack while we still gather information, and we are helping government and federal law enforcement in their effort to find and prosecute these attackers to make the Internet safer for all users.
The newly-elected attorney general of Pennsylvania is going after the state's governor, Tom Corbett, who was attorney general when child sex allegations against Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky were first brought forward.
Kathleen Kane, a Democrat who was sworn in as attorney general on Jan. 15, said that she will name a special prosecutor in the coming days to investigate Corbett's handling of the Sandusky case. Corbett is a Republican.
The investigation will look specifically at why it took the attorney general's office three years to bring criminal charges against Sandusky while he continued to have access to children.
"Attorney General Kane will appoint a special prosecutor to lead the office's internal investigation into how the Sandusky child abuse investigation was handled by the Office of the Attorney General," Kane's office said in a statement released today.
Corbett's attorney general's office was first notified of the allegations against Sandusky in 2008 when a high school student told his mother and school that Sandusky had molested him. The local district attorney passed the allegation on to the attorney general, then Corbett. Corbett convened a grand jury.
Mario Tama; Patrick Smith/Getty Images
It wasn't until 2011 that sex abuse charges were filed against Sandusky while Corbett had since become governor. Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of sex abuse in June 2012.
The charges sent shockwaves throughout Pennsylvania, as Penn State's president, two top officials, and legendary coach Joe Paterno all lost their jobs over the scandal.
"Why did it take 33 months to get Sandusky off the streets? Was the use of a grand jury the right decision? Why were there so few resources dedicated to the investigation? Were the best practices implemented?" the statement from Kane's office read.
"At the end of this investigation, we will know the answers to these questions and be able to tell the people of Pennsylvania the facts and give them answers that they deserve," the statement said.
Describing an interview Kane gave the New York Times, the Times said Kane suggested that Corbett did not want to upset voters or donors in the Penn State community before his gubernatorial run in 2009.
Corbett has denied those suggestions. His office did not immediately return calls for comment.
Kane's office preemptively fought back against the idea that the investigation is politically motivated. Kane, a Democrat, defeated the incumbent attorney general, Linda Kelly, a Republican in November 2011. Corbett is a Republican.
"The speculation that this is about politics is insane," a staff member in Kane's office told ABC News today. "You go anywhere in Pennsylvania and anywhere across the country and you'll find individuals asking, 'why did it take three years? Why was there a grand jury? Why make these kids talk to 30 different people about what happened?"
ANKARA (Reuters) - A far-leftist suicide bomber killed a Turkish security guard at the U.S. embassy in Ankara on Friday, officials said, blowing open an entrance and sending debris flying through the air.
The attacker detonated explosives strapped to his body after entering an embassy gatehouse. The blast could be heard a mile away. A lower leg and other human remains lay on the street.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said the bomber was a member of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), a far-left group which is virulently anti-U.S. and anti-NATO and is listed as a terrorist organisation by Washington.
The White House said the suicide attack was an "act of terror" but that the motivation was unclear. U.S. officials said the DHKP-C were the main suspects but did not exclude other possibilities.
Islamist radicals, extreme left-wing groups, ultra-nationalists and Kurdish militants have all carried out attacks in Turkey in the past. There was no claim of responsibility.
"The suicide bomber was ripped apart and one or two citizens from the special security team passed away," said Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.
"This event shows that we need to fight together everywhere in the world against these terrorist elements," he said.
In New York, the U.N. Security Council strongly condemned the attack as a heinous act.
Turkish media reports identified the bomber as DHKP-C member Ecevit Sanli, who was involved in attacks on a police station and a military staff college in Istanbul in 1997.
KEY ALLY
Turkey is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East with common interests ranging from energy security to counter-terrorism and has been one of the leading advocates of foreign intervention to end the conflict in neighboring Syria.
Around 400 U.S. soldiers have arrived in Turkey over the past few weeks to operate Patriot anti-missile batteries meant to defend against any spillover of Syria's civil war, part of a NATO deployment due to be fully operational in the coming days.
The DHKP-C was responsible for the assassination of two U.S. military contractors in the early 1990s in protest against the first Gulf War and launched rockets at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul in 1992, according to the U.S. State Department.
Deemed a terrorist organisation by both the United States and Turkey, the DHKP-C has been blamed for suicide attacks in the past, including one in 2001 that killed two police officers and a tourist in Istanbul's central Taksim Square.
The group, formed in 1978, has carried out a series of deadly attacks on police stations in the last six months.
The attack may have come in retaliation for an operation against the DHKP-C last month in which Turkish police detained 85 people. A court subsequently remanded 38 of them in custody over links to the group.
"HUGE EXPLOSION"
U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone emerged through the main gate of the embassy shortly after the explosion to address reporters, flanked by a security detail as a Turkish police helicopter hovered overhead.
"We're very sad of course that we lost one of our Turkish guards at the gate," Ricciardone said, describing the victim as a "hero" and thanking Turkish authorities for a prompt response.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland condemned the attack on the checkpoint on the perimeter of the embassy and said several U.S. and Turkish staff were injured by debris.
"The level of security protection at our facility in Ankara ensured that there were not significantly more deaths and injuries than there could have been," she told reporters.
It was the second attack on a U.S. mission in four months. On September 11, 2012, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three American personnel were killed in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
The attack in Benghazi, blamed on al Qaeda-affiliated militants, sparked a political furore in Washington over accusations that U.S. missions were not adequately safeguarded.
A well-known Turkish journalist, Didem Tuncay, who was on her way in to the embassy to meet Ricciardone when the attack took place, was in a critical condition in hospital.
"It was a huge explosion. I was sitting in my shop when it happened. I saw what looked like a body part on the ground," said travel agent Kamiyar Barnos, whose shop window was shattered around 100 meters away from the blast.
CALL FOR VIGILANCE
The U.S. consulate in Istanbul warned its citizens to be vigilant and to avoid large gatherings, while the British mission in Istanbul called on British businesses to tighten security after what it called a "suspected terrorist attack".
In 2008, Turkish gunmen with suspected links to al Qaeda, opened fire on the U.S. consulate in Istanbul, killing three Turkish policemen. The gunmen died in the subsequent firefight.
The most serious bombings in Turkey occurred in November 2003, when car bombs shattered two synagogues, killing 30 people and wounding 146. Part of the HSBC Bank headquarters was destroyed and the British consulate was damaged in two more explosions that killed 32 people less than a week later. Authorities said those attacks bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda.
(Additional reporting by Daren Butler and Ayla Jean Yackley in Istanbul, Mohammed Arshad and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Stephen Powell and Sandra Maler)
WASHINGTON: The United States will have to keep up an open-ended drone war against Al-Qaeda militants in Pakistan and elsewhere to prevent another terror attack on America, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said.
The assassination of Al-Qaeda figures in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia with unmanned, robotic aircraft has provoked widespread criticism from human rights groups and some US allies, but Panetta said the US campaign has been effective.
Asked if the CIA "targeted killings" should be curtailed in coming years, Panetta told AFP in an interview Friday that there was still a need to continue the drone strikes more than a decade since the attacks of September 11, 2001.
"I think it depends on the nature of the threat that we're confronting. We are in a war. We're in a war on terrorism and we've been in that war since 9/11.
"The whole purpose of our operations were aimed at those who attacked this country and killed 3,000 innocent people in New York as well as 200 people here at the Pentagon," said Panetta, who is days away from retiring as Pentagon chief.
Before taking over as defense secretary, Panetta oversaw a dramatic increase in drone raids in Pakistan as head of the CIA from 2009-2011.
"I think we had a responsibility to use whatever technology we could to be able to go after those who not only conducted that attack but were planning to continue to attack this country," he said.
"It's been an important part of our operations against Al-Qaeda, not just in Pakistan, but also in Yemen, in Somalia and I think it ought to continue to be a tool we ought to use where necessary," he said.
"And also where we can use it in conjunction with other countries that are pursuing the same goal," said Panetta, citing Yemen's strong support for drone strikes.
The CIA drone bombing raids, by Predator and Reaper aircraft armed with Hellfire missiles, have caused an unknown number of civilian casualties and prompted accusations that Washington is carrying out extrajudicial killings in the shadows with no genuine oversight by courts or lawmakers.
Panetta, who as CIA director presided over the successful raid that killed Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, said the campaign still needed to be regularly reviewed but did not say he favored turning over the spy agency's drone war to the military.
Some critics have called for giving the US military authority over the drone air strikes, which would require openly reporting every operation.
"Having said that, we always need to continue to look at it, to make sure we develop the right standards, that we're abiding by the laws of this country, that we're doing it in a way that hopefully can be a little more transparent with the American people."
But he said "to protect this country" it was not enough to have operations carried out openly by the military.
Secret action led by the CIA was also needed "when you got those kind of operations where, because of the nature of the country you're in or the nature of the situation you're dealing with, it's got to be covert."
According to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, between 2,627 and 3,457 people have been reportedly killed by US drones in Pakistan since 2004, including between 475 and nearly 900 civilians.
-AFP/ac
Along with a fuel cell puck, the PowerTrekk gives your iPhone a bit of juice. Just add water.
While it's been circulating around at trade shows for a while, including Mobile World Congress 2011 and CES 2012, the PowerTrekk phone charger is slated to finally come to the U.S. at the end of this quarter.
Although the $229 device is peddled as a charger that can simply juice up your phone on water alone, it's not quite that simple.
To use the PowerTrekk, you also have to purchase a $4 PowerTrekk Pukk. Once you add a small amount of water (about half a shot), and add a one-time-use Pukk, the latter will immediately begin separating the hydrogen from the water, using it as fuel to charge your handset.
Each Pukk will produces 2.5 watts at 5 volts, which is good for about one full iPhone charge. If there is electricity available, however, you can also charge the separate internal battery in the PowerTrekk so it can power your phone later on.
When I handled the unit at iWorld in San Francisco, it was indeed very lightweight despite its industrial look, and in a situation where there is no sun, I can see it coming in handy.
However, there is much debate about how useful a product like this can be. Not only is it rather cumbersome in shape, but you'll need to continually buy more Pukks in order to use the device multiple times. Compared to solar chargers and chargers that run on kinetic energy, this can become wasteful and pricey.
PORTLAND, Ore. An Alaska Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Seattle was diverted to Portland, Ore. Thursday night after the pilot lost consciousness, and the co-pilot landed the plane safely, reports CBS Portland affiliate KOIN-TV.
Flight 473 had 116 passengers and 5 crew members on board, the station says.
Once on the ground, medical personnel boarded the plane to treat the captain.
Alaska Airlines spokesperson Paul McElroy tells KOIN the plane had to be towed to the gate, rather than taxiing, because the captain usually performs that duty.
Some passengers were rebooked on a Horizon Air flight to Seattle, while others wait for a later Alaska Airlines departure, the station says.
Accused murderer Jodi Arias was kept away from the Mormon friends of her lover Travis Alexander and their torrid sex affair was kept secret by Alexander, even as he sent lewd photos of himself to her online, according to court testimony today.
The testimony in Arias' trial for killing Alexander in 2008 was intended to bolster the defense's argument that she killed him in self defense, that Alexander was a sexual deviant who treated Arias as his "dirty little secret."
Arias' attorneys introduced as evidence photos that Alexander took of his penis and sent to Arias, part of a string of graphic messages and sexual phone calls the two engaged in while Alexander, an elder in the Mormon church, was supposed to be chaste.
Today's witness was the latest in a string called by the defense, including Alexander's former girlfriend Lisa Daidone, who told the court that Alexander had professed to be a virgin.
Daniel Freeman continued his testimony today, describing how he was a friend of both Arias and Alexander but that Alexander kept Arias distanced from his Mormon pals.
"Travis had made more friends at (the Mormon) ward, and had (Ultimate Fighting Championship) fight nights at his house many times, and Jodi was in town, but she wasn't there," Freeman said.
"There was that group of friends, them and Jodi, two different groups, and so Lisa [Daidone] and friends from church were there, but Jodi wasn't there," Freeman said.
Alexander's behavior, the defense hopes to prove, shows that he mistreated Arias.
Arias, 32, is on trial for murdering Alexander, whom she dated for a year and continued to have a sexual relationship for a year after that. Her attorneys claim that Alexander was abusive and controlling toward Arias, and that she was forced to kill him.
Freeman described how he took a trip with his sister, Alexander, and Arias, and how Alexander had asked him to come along so that he and Arias "would not get physical."
"I don't know that I can say he didn't want to be alone with her, but he liked that when I was there, and my sister was there. They weren't as physical," Freeman said.
Freeman admitted that he had no idea Alexander and Arias had been having a sexual relationship the entire time they were together. He said Alexander never mentioned that to his friends.
In fact, Freeman noted that Alexander was considered to be a church elder when he baptized Arias into the Church of Latter-Day Saints. Both a church elder and a convert were expected to abide by the church's strict law of chastity, which banned any sexual relations outside of marriage.
"One thing people give up in this baptism process was sex," prosecutor Juan Martinez said. "Did you know she was having oral sex with Mr. Alexander at the time of her baptism? Would that be an insincere baptism?"
"She would not be ready to be baptized in that case," Freeman said.
"You were asked about Miss Arias, whether she was worthy of baptism if she was performing oral sex, but what about the elder receiving oral sex?" defense attorney Kirk Nurmi said.
"They would not be worthy of performing that ordinance at that time until they had gone through repentance," Freeman said. "They would go to a discipline council and could face excommunication or a probation period or have their priesthood removed."
Freeman said that Alexander never confessed to having a sexual relationship with Arias.
Freeman's testimony came on the third day of the defense's attempt to paint Alexander as a controlling, sex-obsessed liar who was cruel to Arias. Other witnesses have said that Alexander cheated on other women he dated with Arias, and lied to his friends and family about their relationship.
The defense also had Freeman point out that Alexander was strong and fit. They are expected to conclude that Alexander was physically threatening Arias when she killed him.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Rescuers searched the rubble for survivors and authorities promised a thorough investigation after an office building blast killed 25 people and injured 101 at the headquarters of Mexico's state-owned oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos.
The cause of the basement explosion in an administrative building next to the iconic, 51-story Pemex tower in Mexico City remained a mystery early Friday, with President Enrique Pena Nieto urging people not to speculate. Theories ranged from an electrical fire to an air conditioning problem to a possible attack.
"We have no conclusive report on the reason," Pena Nieto told reporters. "We will work to get to the bottom of the investigation to find out, first, what happened work, and if there are people responsible in this case, that we apply the full weight of the law against them."
Some 46 people remained hospitalized after the Thursday afternoon blast, some gravely injured and others with cuts, fractures and burns. Authorities said the dead were 17 women and eight men.
More than 500 firefighters, soldiers and rescue workers dug through chunks of concrete with dogs, trucks and a Pemex crane.
Interior Minister Miguel Osorio Chong said it was uncertain if any of the roughly 10,000 people who work in the five-building headquarters were still trapped, but that the search would continue. The explosion occurred at about 3:45 p.m., just as the administrative shift was about to end. It hit the basement and first two floors, which rescuers said all collapsed onto each other.
"There is a lot of risk," rescuer German Vazquez Garcia said of working on the site.
Pemex first said it had evacuated the tower and 14-story administrative building because of a problem with the electrical system. The company later tweeted that the Attorney General's Office was investigating the explosion.
Ana Vargas Palacio was distraught as she searched for her missing husband, Daniel Garcia Garcia, 36, who works in the building where the explosion occurred. She said she last talked to him a couple hours earlier.
"I called his phone many times, but a young man answered and told me he found the phone in the debris," Vargas said. The two have an 11-year-old daughter. His mother, Gloria Garcia Castaneda, collapsed on a friend's arm, crying "My son. My son."
Gabriela Espinoza, 50, a Pemex secretary for 29 years, was on the second floor of the tower when she said she heard two loud explosions and a third smaller one.
"There was a very loud roar. It was very ugly," she said.
Espinoza's co-worker, Tomas Rivera, 32, worked on the ground floor where the explosion occurred and said the force knocked him to the basement, fracturing his wrist and jaw. The injured were taken to two Pemex hospitals and other facilities, including the Red Cross hospital in the Polanco neighborhood near the oil company's office headquarters, where relatives huddled in the waiting room for news of their loved ones. Some walked out of meetings with the hospital social worker joyous, while others came out crying.
"We were talking and all of sudden we heard an explosion with white smoke and glass falling from the windows," said Maria Concepcion Andrade, 42, who lives on the same block as the Pemex building. "People started running from the building covered in dust. A lot of pieces were flying."
Streets surrounding the building were closed as evacuees wandered around, and rescue crews loaded the injured into ambulances.
Pemex, created as a state-owned company in 1938, has nearly 150,000 employees and in 2011 produced about 2.5 million barrels of crude oil a day, according to its website, with $111 billion in sales. Pena Nieto, who took office in December, has made Pemex reform the center of his platform, with a plan to pump new investment into a company whose profits feed much of Mexico's federal budget, but which has fallen behind other oil companies in production, technology and exploration.
Shortly before the explosion, Operations Director Carlos Murrieta reported via Twitter that the company had reduced its accident rate in recent years. Most Pemex accidents have occurred at pipeline and refinery installations.
A fire at a pipeline metering center in northeast Mexico near the Texas border killed 30 workers in September, the largest-single toll in at least a decade for the company.
______
Associated Press writers Adriana Gomez Licon and Katherine Corcoran contributed to this report.
SINGAPORE: MediaCorp's personal entertainment service, Toggle, is now available on multiple devices to offer an uninterrupted and engaging viewing experience.
Its over-the-top service offers entertainment, information and news to viewers online, on smartphones, tablets and smart TV.
Users can subscribe to their favourite channels and movies.
They can also register - at no cost - to watch free local content which MediaCorp has rights to, such as programmes from the free-to-air channels in the form of Catch-up, as well as the linear streaming of Channel NewsAsia.
For its Catch-Up service, viewers can subscribe to Toggle-It-First to watch the next five episodes of their Channel 8 dramas before they are shown on TV.
Toggle viewers can choose to buy content on an a la carte basis, without having to subscribe to a basic bundle of programmes beforehand.
They can access content via any internet service provider.
Viewers can now enjoy 21 days of free preview when they register before 17 February.
Viewers can visit www.toggle.sg or download the app on their iPhone or iPad from the App Store.
Toggle will soon be made available on smart TV and Android devices.
For information on subscription plans, log on to www.toggle.sg or call 6388-3888.
By mid-2013, Toggle plans to offer local content to Singaporeans overseas.
Mr Philip Koh, managing director of MediaCorp's Convergent Media Division, said: "Toggle offers this experience by allowing you to choose the content you want, plus where and how you want to consume it.
"It is that personal. This means Toggle's content goes where you go, allowing you to switch from watching on your PC to your mobile phone when you leave home. And with the wide range of content offered from different channels and movies to original productions, viewers will have a lot to keep them toggling."
- CNA/ir
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