Football: Evergreen Totti cheers Romans

ROME: A double strike from Francesco Totti helped push AS Roma into the top four in Serie A on Saturday, proving instrumental in an entertaining 4-2 home win over Fiorentina, who missed the chance to leapfrog Inter Milan into third.Brazilian defender Leandro Castan gave Roma a seventh-minute lead but it was the sterling efforts of 36-year-old skipper Totti which had the home fans singing...

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India misguided, paranoid over China: Guha

MUMBAI: A good half-hour into the discussion on 'India, China and the World', historian Ramachandra Guha issued a disclaimer—all the three members on the panel had been to China only once. "We should learn their language, promote quality research, and have a panel on China driven by Chinese scholars," he said. And that was the general tenor of the debate—that the Indian attitude to China was influenced...

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Plants Grow Fine Without Gravity

When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative. Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment.Gravity is an important influence on root growth, but the scientists found that their space plants didn't...

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Dallas Cowboys Player Arrested in Teammate's Death

Dallas Cowboys nose tackle Joshua Price-Brent was arrested on an intoxication manslaughter charge today after a single vehicle roll-over killed his passenger, Jerry Brown Jr., who had been a linebacker on the team's practice squad and his former teammate at the University of Illinois.Price-Brent, 24, was allegedly speeding "well above" the posted 45 mph speed limit at about...

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US expects oil boom from oil shale extraction

WASHINGTON: The United States is set to become the largest producer of crude oil by 2030, according to a recent forecast by the United Nations (UN).The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts the US will overtake Saudi Arabia and Russia in production amid a boom in unconventional drilling.In Colorado, and other western US states, oil shale is one of the resources that could help make...

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Maldives must rein in quarters harming bilateral ties, India says

NEW DELHI: Amid a diplomatic row over cancellation of the GMR contract, India on Friday asked Maldives to control any quarters which may be trying to harm bilateral relations saying the issue should not put a "question mark" on the ties between the two sides. "If they have to take a decision in interest of their society and country and if that decision is taken properly as per laws there, what...

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Pictures: Timbuktu Under al Qaeda

TimbuktuPhotograph by Brent Stirton, Getty Images/National GeographicSince the 12th century, when Tuareg tribes founded Timbuktu as a seasonal camp on the southern edge of...

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Supreme Court to Take Up Gay Marriage Cases

The Supreme Court today decided to take up two major cases regarding gay marriage, one of which could ultimately lead the court to decide whether there is a fundamental right to same-sex marriage.The justices announced that the court would hear a challenge to Proposition 8, the controversial California ballot initiative that passed in 2008 that restricted marriage to opposite-sex...

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ECB forecast, rate hints send euro lower

NEW YORK: The euro only barely rebounded against the dollar in late trade Thursday, after plunging on the European Central Bank's sharp cut in its eurozone growth forecast for next year.The euro lost more than one cent after the ECB forecast that the euro area economy will shrink by 0.3 percent in 2013, instead of growing by 0.5 percent as previously estimated.Also pressing it lower were...

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'Time for India, Pak to stop blame game'

NEW DELHI: Pakistan senate chairman Syed Hussain Bokhari said here on Thursday that there was a wrong notion in India that relations with the neighbouring country improve only when a dictator is in power there. Bukhari is leading a delegation of seven Pakistani senators—three of them Hindus—to India at the invitation of vice president Hamid Ansari on a goodwill visit aimed to "create better understanding"...

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