Court considers limits on class-action suits

The Supreme Court on Monday considered what limitations could be placed on class-action lawsuits, an increasingly active battleground for consumer advocates and corporate interests. The issue is whether plaintiff lawyers offer low-ball estimates of the damages they seek or take advantage of procedural loopholes to keep their cases in state courts, where Justice Antonin Scalia said “generous...

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AIM deal begs questions: Tan Cheng Bock

SINGAPORE: Former long-time PAP backbencher Tan Cheng Bock has weighed in on the controversy surrounding the sale of computer systems used by town councils, raising several questions in a post on his Facebook page on Monday, including whether it was right and beneficial to give up ownership of software developed using public funds.Dr Tan, who was chairman of West Coast-Ayer Rajah Town...

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Abu Jundal's bail plea dismissed

NEW DELHI: A trial court has dismissed the bail plea of LeT terrorist and 26/11 Mumbai attack key handler Abu Jundal, arrested for his alleged role in conspiring to launch terror strikes across the country. It also gave NIA up to 180 days time to complete its probe into the case. In an in court proceeding, District Judge (DJ) I S Mehta allowed the application of National Investigation Agency (NIA),...

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Billions of Earthlike Planets Found in Milky Way

Tens of billions of Earthlike worlds are strewn across the Milky Way, many of them circling stars very much like our own sun, astronomers said today.Earlier research suggested that rocky planets might be much more abundant around small stars than sunlike ones. (Also see "New 'Super Earth' Found at Right Distance for Life.")But a fresh analysis of data from NASA's Kepler mission, which...

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Cops Break Down as They Describe Aurora Horror

Two veteran police officers broke down on the stand today during a preliminary hearing for accused movie theater gunman James Holmes, with one officer choking up when he described finding the body of a 6-year-old girl inside the theater.Sgt. Gerald Jonsgaard needed a moment to compose himself as he described finding the little girl, Veronica Moser Sullivan, in the blood splattered...

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Lines drawn in gun-control debate

Lawmakers kept up the renewed debate over the nation’s gun laws Sunday, with the Senate’s leading Republican arguing that the matter must wait until pressing fiscal issues are addressed in Congress and one Senate Democrat warning against “extreme” restrictions on guns. “The biggest problem we have at the moment is spending and debt,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said...

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New highs for SGX's derivatives & commodities markets in 2012

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Exchange's derivatives and commodities markets achieved record highs in 2012.However as in most global markets, trading activities declined. Turnover dropped 12 per cent in 2012 to S$321.5 billion.However securities market performance, as measured by the Straits Times Index, was up 20 per cent last year. In December, turnover was up 39 per cent from a year earlier...

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Aadhaar must deliver all subsidy perks: Montek

NEW DELHI: Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, wants to deliver all welfare and subsidy benefits through Aadhaar-based cash transfer scheme, which is touted as UPA's "game-changer" for 2014 parliamentary polls. Ahluwalia said that it would be left to the discretion of state governments to implement it as was done for FDI in multi-brand retail. However, he maintained...

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Best Pictures: 2012 Nat Geo Photo Contest Winners

Winner: PlacesPhotograph by Nenad SaljicA full moon illuminates the Matterhorn peak near Zermatt, Switzerland, in the winning image...

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Hagel to Be Obama's Defense Secretary Nominee

Jan 6, 2013 4:52pm (Junko Kimura/Getty Images)WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Obama will nominate former senator Chuck Hagel to be his next Secretary of Defense tomorrow.Senior officials within the administration and Capitol Hill confirmed the pick to ABC News today after the Nebraska Republican had emerged as a frontrunner among potential candidates several weeks ago.Hagel,...

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