USS Enterprise nuclear-powered aircraft carrier The US Navy has cut short home leave for crew of aircraft carrier USS Stennis by four months to send the warship back to the Middle East and Persian Gulf next week. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta notified the USS Stennis crew in Seattle on Wednesday that they are needed in the Middle East region, following the requests forwarded by the US Central Command. The... 

New Zealanders are moving to Australia in their tens of thousands. Australia is facing a flood of economic refugees. But the big numbers aren’t from the north, they are from the across the Tasman, where Statistics New Zealand yesterday announced the biggest exodus to Australia on record. An extraordinary 53,900 New Zealanders moved to Australia in the year to July – around the entire population... 

Mark of the Beast: A Louisiana public school’s decision to purchase palm scanners to speed up lunch lines and payments has been met with religious opposition A Louisiana public school’s decision to purchase palm scanners to speed up lunch lines and payments has been met with religious opposition. Mother Mamie Sonnier said that she will not allow her children to participate in the scanner... 

New Somali members of parliament during the swearing in ceremony at Aden Ade international airport in Mogadishu, Somalia, on August 20, 2012 Somalia’s new parliament has been sworn in for the first time after over 20 years as the war-torn country tries to end decades of conflict. Late on Monday, some 250 lawmakers were sworn in by the chief justice on copies of the Holy Qur’an in front... 

Thirty-six universities in Iran have announced that 77 courses in their curriculum will be “single-sex,” prompting an outcry at home and worldwide over women’s rights in the Islamic state. ­The subjects now only available for men include accounting, engineering, pure chemistry, English literature and translation, hotel management, and many others, Iranian news website Rooz Online reports. For... 

Exodus to homeland for celebrating Islamic festivity, Eid al-Fitr, has already killed 529 people in 3,452 traffic accidents in Indonesia, media quoting official reported here on Wednesday. Data from Transport Ministry said that 837 people suffered from serious injury and 2,829 others got mild wounds. “We recorded a total of 3,452 traffic accidents from eight days before to two days after the... 

US General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Today, General Dempsey, Chairman of America’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, the man who flew to Tel Aviv and informed Netanyahu that America wanted no part of his scheming against Iran was the subject of an assassination attempt in Afghanistan. This wasn’t an act of terrorism or Taliban militants. It was a “mob hit” against someone who... 

A German Rabbi has become the first person to face criminal charges after performing a circumcision. The charges come less than two months after a Cologne court ruled that the religious act causes bodily harm to newborn babies. Rabbi David Goldberg was sued by a German doctor on Tuesday, for inflicting “physical harm” by circumcising an infant. Chief prosecutor Gerhard Schmitt confirmed that the... 

Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi Iran’s defense minister says the country’s Defence Ministry plans to produce a variety of fighter aircraft, missiles, drones, submarines and military vehicles by the end of the Iranian calendar year (started March 20, 2012). Referring to the 190 defense achievements that were unveiled during the last Iranian calendar year, Brigadier... 

The computer generated image shows how the Hiriko Fold is able to fold up to fit into tiny spaces. Researchers have designed a new car that can fold up to fit itself into small spaces, making it much easier for the driver to find a parking space. Developed by MIT’s Changing Places group and the Spanish Basque region’s development agency DENOKINN, the Hiriko Fold, is an ultra-compact electric... 

Researchers at the Pentagon’s DARPA lab are always on the lookout for new, exciting scientific marvels to creep out everyone on Earth. In their latest effort to do as much, they’ve succeeded with a small, color-shifting soft-shell robotic snail. Researchers at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon’s state-of-the-art science lab, have already brought us bite-sized drones... 

Dr. Erin Giudice, a pediatrician at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, proposed a new way to coerce parents into giving their children vaccinations: a clear, dissolvable patch that will elevate fears associated with needles. Pharmaceutical corporations, the US government and researchers at state-sponsored universities are focused on more sophisticated ways of ensuring the general population... 

Brandon J. Raub has been ordered to stay in a mental health institution for a month without charge – and contrary to the American constitution, his defense says. His supporters are concerned any American could end up in Raub’s shoes. ­US police detained Raub, 26, a Marine Corps veteran, on Thursday, without presenting any charges and even without reading to Raub his Miranda rights, and took... 

A young American man who has wrongly spent 13 years in a US prison is still incarcerated despite being declared innocent by a federal judge two years ago. Daniel Larsen was sent to prison for 27 years to life under California’s controversial three strikes law, after he was found guilty of possessing a concealed weapon in 1999. However, a federal judge overturned the ruling and declared that... 

Several major financial institutions under inquiry in the Libor case are going to push for introducing account fees for their customers. They blame ‘free’ accounts as one of the reasons behind interest rate rigging. The major banks including Britain’s Barclays and Spain’s Santander are expected to argue in favor of introducing account fees at a meeting of the UK Parliamentary Commission...