Al Jazeera acquires Al Gore's Current TV

LOS ANGELES Al-Jazeera, the Pan-Arab news channel that struggled to win space on American cable television, has acquired Current TV, boosting its reach nearly ninefold to about 40 million homes. With a focus on U.S. news, it plans to rebrand the left-leaning news network that cofounder Al Gore couldn't make relevant. The former vice president confirmed the sale Wednesday, saying in a statement...

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Pa. gov. to sue NCAA over Penn State sanctions

HARRISBURG, Pa. Gov. Tom Corbett said Tuesday he plans to sue the NCAA in federal court over stiff sanctions imposed against Penn State University in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal. The Republican governor scheduled a Wednesday news conference on the Penn State campus in State College to announce the filing in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg. The sanctions, which...

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Clinton's blood clot: Was concussion to blame?

Update: 10:20 P.M. EST -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's physicians released more information about her condition in a statement Monday afternoon: "In the course of a routine follow-up MRI on Sunday, the scan revealed that a right transverse sinus venous thrombosis had formed. This is a clot in the vein that is situated in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear," Clinton's...

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Nine killed in Oregon tour bus crash

Updated 9:09 p.m. ETLA GRANDE, Ore. A tour bus careened through a guardrail along an icy Oregon highway and several hundred feet down a steep embankment Sunday, killing nine people and injuring more than 20 others, authorities said. The charter bus carrying about 40 people lost control around 10:30 a.m. on the snow- and ice-covered lanes of Interstate 84, according to the Oregon State Police. ...

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Woman charged with murder in NY subway shove

Last Updated 9:37 p.m. ET NEW YORK A woman who told police she shoved a man to his death off a subway platform into the path of a train because she has hated Muslims since Sept. 11 and thought he was one was charged Saturday with murder as a hate crime, prosecutors said. Erika Menendez was charged in the death of Sunando Sen, who was crushed by a 7 train in Queens on Thursday night, the second time...

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Police ID man pushed to death at NY subway station

Updated 10:27 PM ET NEW YORK New York City police have identified a man they say was shoved to his death in front of a subway train by a woman. Police said Friday that Sunando Sen was pushed from the platform the night before. The 46-year-old Sen was from India and lived alone in Queens. Investigators identified him through a smartphone and a prescription pill bottle he was carrying when he was...

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Classes delayed for Sandy Hook Elementary kids

NEWTOWN, Conn. The children at the Sandy Hook Elementary school won't be returning to classes for another week, but officials from the town, school district and local agencies are doing their best in the meantime to keep them occupied following a massacre at their school two weeks ago. The students have not attended school since a gunman killed 20 of their schoolmates and six adults on Dec. 14....

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Study: Cancer drug substitute linked to higher rate of relapse

(CBS News) Abby Alonzo was 10 when she was diagnosed in 2009 with Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system. With proper treatment, 90 percent of patients survive. "It wasn't as hard for me as I think it as it was on my mom and my brother and my dad," Abby says. Abby began a seven-drug regimen. But in 2010, doctors told Abby's mother, Katie, there was a nationwide shortage of one of the...

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Obama cuts Hawaii trip short to address "fiscal cliff"

KAILUA, Hawaii President Barack Obama is cutting short his traditional Christmas holiday in Hawaii to return to Washington as lawmakers consider how to prevent the economy from going over the so-called fiscal cliff, the White House said Tuesday. Obama will fly back to the nation's capital Wednesday night, just five days after arriving in Hawaii, White House officials said. In the past, the president's...

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Dueling trackers keeping tabs on Santa

Updated 7:58 p.m. Eastern PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. Volunteers at a U.S. Air Force base monitoring Santa Claus' progress around the world were on track to answer a record number of calls Monday from children wanting to know everything from Saint Nick's age to how reindeer fly. Oh, and when are the presents coming? Phones were ringing nonstop at Peterson Air Force Base, headquarters of the...

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Sen. Michael Crapo arrested on DUI in Virginia

Sen. Michael Crapo, R.-Idaho, was arrested in Virginia early Sunday morning and charged with driving under the influence, Alexandria police say. Police spokesman Craig T. Fifer said an officer was on routine patrol when he saw Sen. Crapo's vehicle run a red light. It was stopped at Hume Avenue and Mount Vernon at 12:45 a.m. Crapo then underwent several field sobriety tests, which he failed, Fifer...

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Newtown parents reject NRA plan

NEWTOWN, Conn. When Adam Lanza started his lethal attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School, Andrei Nikitchyuk's eight year-old son and another third grader were on their way to the principal's office. It was their turn to bring the daily attendance sheet to the front office, near where principal Dawn Hochsprung and psychologist Mary Sherlach would become the first casualties inside the school. Play...

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NRA: Guns in schools would protect students

Updated: 6:44 p.m. ETIn a press conference reflecting on last week's massacre in Newtown, Conn., the National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre today called on Congress to put armed law enforcement agents in every American school, insisting that guns in schools -- not tougher gun laws -- would most effectively protect children from school shootings. Play VideoA "good guy with a gun" in every school?...

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It's already Dec. 21 in Europe, so where's doomsday?

MERIDA, Mexico Doomsday hour is here, at least in much of the world, and so still are we. According to legend, the ancient Mayans' long-count calendar ends at midnight Thursday, ushering in the end of the world. Didn't happen. "This is not the end of the world. This is the beginning of the new world," Star Johnsen-Moser, an American seer, said at a gathering of hundreds of spiritualists at a...

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Like many other tragedies, scammers stalk Newtown

NEWTOWN, Conn. The family of Noah Pozner was mourning the 6-year-old, killed in the Newtown school massacre, when outrage compounded their sorrow. Someone they didn't know was soliciting donations in Noah's memory, claiming that they'd send any cards, packages and money collected to his parents and siblings. An official-looking website had been set up, with Noah's name as the address, even including...

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Texas school district encourages armed teachers for protection

HARROLD, Texas -- There's at least one school that welcome firearms to class. It believes nothing makes a school safer than teachers who are armed, The Harrold Independent School District is one building with 103 students. It's 20 minutes away from the nearest sheriff's station. Superintendent David Thweatt created what he calls a "guardian plan" after the attack at Virginia Tech. "These people...

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Obama moves on taxes in latest "cliff" counter-proposal

President Obama gave up Monday on his demand for higher taxes on households earning $250,000 and upped it to $400,000 while embracing smaller cost-of-living Social Security raises in a counter-proposal to House Speaker John Boehner meant to narrow differences and forge a pre-Christmas "fiscal cliff" deal. Mr. Obama and Boehner met for nearly an hour in the Oval Office on Monday and sources familiar...

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Newtown church evacuated after phone threat

NEWTOWN, Conn. Police say there's no danger at a Connecticut church following a phoned-in threat days after 20 children and six adults were massacred at a school.Deborah Metz, a Trumbull police officer on the scene, gave the all-clear after an hour in which armed police in SWAT gear searched the St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church and adjacent buildings.The evacuation unnerved worshipers in the...

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Conn. dad recalls loving, creative 6-year-old

NEWTOWN, Conn. Fighting back tears and struggling to catch his breath, the father of a 6-year-old gunned down in Friday's school shooting in Connecticut told the world about a little girl who loved to draw and was always smiling, and he also reserved surprising words of sympathy for the gunman. Robbie Parker's daughter Emilie was among the 20 children who died in the one of the worst attacks on...

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Hundreds pack Conn. church for vigil after rampage

Updated 9:13 PM ET NEWTOWN, Conn. A vigil Friday night for the victims of a school massacre in western Connecticut brought out hundreds of community members, including some parents who were struggling with mixed emotions after their own children survived the massacre. With the church filled to capacity, hundreds spilled outside, some of them holding hands in circles and saying prayers. Others lit...

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