The current West Nile outbreak is one of the largest in the U.S., with four times the usual number of cases for this time of year, federal health officials said Wednesday.It's still too early to say how bad the year will end up because most infections are reported in August and September. But never before have so many illnesses been reported this early, said Dr. Lyle Petersen, of the Centers for D

Researchers have identified a mysterious new disease that has left scores of people in Asia and some in the United States with AIDS-like symptoms even though they are not infected with HIV. The patients' immune systems become damaged, leaving them unable to fend off germs as healthy people do. What triggers this isn't known, but the disease does not seem to be contagious.This is another kind of ac

A man proposed to his girlfriend immediately after the couple was arrested for aggravated robbery, San Antonio, police said.Managers of a Family Dollar Store said they attempted to stop Treila Woods, 24, before she left the store Monday morning, suspecting her of shoplifting. The alleged driver of her getaway car, Sean Foxx, 24, watched her attempt to leave through a broken and unmoving door, and

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Brazilian President Dilma Roussef head this year's Forbes list of powerful women. The trio at the top of annual list of the 100 most powerful women in the world hold traditional positions of power of the kind that until recently were all-male preserves, the magazine said. Two others in the Top 10, Melinda Gates at No. 4 a

In a decision contrary to U.S. and Israeli positions, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will attend a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Iran next week, according to his office.Ban "takes seriously his responsibility and that of the United Nations to pursue diplomatic engagement with all of its member states," it said in a statement, announcing the closely watched decision.The summit of 120 mem

(123rf)People who are obese lose their memory and thinking ability faster than thinner people, British and French researchers say. Researchers at University College London said the study was based on data from 6,500 federal British civil servants, whose health was monitored from the ages of 50 to 60, The Daily Telegraph reported. The study participants were weighed, measured, blood pressure and ch

(MCT)The mother of one of three former medical students imprisoned for sexually harassing a female schoolmate received a jail term herself Wednesday for defaming the victim.The three, who were expelled from medical school at the prestigious Korea University, were convicted of repeatedly groping a long-time female friend while she was in a deep sleep after drinking alcohol during a trip they took i

Peter Thiel, one of Facebook's earliest investors and a member of its board, was among the insiders selling stock in the social network after a lockup expired last week.A regulatory filing on Monday said that Thiel, a former CEO at PayPal sold about 20 million shares of Facebook through affiliates such as his Founders Fund and other entities last week. The shares were sold on Thursday and Friday f

Digital illustration of the ebola virus. (123rf)A new outbreak of the Ebola virus has been reported in Africa, this time in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At least 10 people are reported to have died of the disease in Orientale province in eastern Congo, CNN reported. Two cases of the disease have been confirmed and 13 are suspected. Orientale borders the area in Uganda where 16 deaths have bee

A news report that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un plans to visit Iran next week to attend an international meeting seems to be misleading although Seoul is still working to verify it, a government official said Wednesday.German news agency DPA reported earlier that Kim would attend the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran from Aug. 26 to 31, citing local news media. "Findings through vario

Police said Tuesday they have arrested a man who went on a stabbing rampage in Suwon, just south of Seoul, killing one and seriously injuring four others.The 38-year-old suspect, identified only by his surname Kang, is suspected of stabbing a woman multiple times at a bar in a bustling area in Suwon around 1 a.m. Tuesday after attempting to rape her, police officers said. He also stabbed another c

This image provided by NASA shows an artist rendition of the proposed InSight (Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) Lander. (AP-Yonhap News)WASHINGTON (AP) ― After driving all around Mars with four rovers, NASA wants to look deep into the guts of the red planet. The space agency decided Monday to launch a relatively low-cost robotic lander in 2016 to check

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, a regional strongman in power for over two decades, has died in hospital abroad, the government said Tuesday."Prime Minister Meles Zenawi passed away yesterday evening at around midnight," Bereket Simon said, adding that the 57-year-old "was abroad" when he died, without giving further details.Meles had not been seen in public for two months, and had been rep

Myanmar abolished direct censorship of the media Monday in the most dramatic move yet toward allowing freedom of expression in the long-repressed nation. But related laws and practices that may lead to self-censorship raise doubt about how much will change.Under the new rules, journalists will no longer have to submit their work to state censors before publication as they for almost half a century

(Casey Reed/NASA)An international team of astronomers says they've seen the first evidence of a planet's destruction as its aging star became a red giant at the end of its life."A similar fate may await the inner planets in our solar system, when the sun becomes a red giant and expands all the way out to Earth's orbit some 5 billion years from now," team member Alex Wolszczan, a professor of astro

Investment by Samsung Electronics Co., the world's top smartphone and flat-screen TV maker, jumped 22 percent in the first half of the year compared with a year ago despite bleak economic circumstances, a report showed Tuesday.The tech behemoth spent a total of 19.7 trillion won (US$17.4 billion) on facility investment as well as research and development(R&D) in the January-June period, compared w

A security flaw in Apple's iOS operating system allows text messages to be spoofed, well-known hacker Pod2g says.If exploited, the flaw allows someone to send a text message with a different address on the "reply" line from what appears in the "from" field of the message, Pod2g said.Such a message could appear to be from someone a user trusts, such as a family member, with a message to asking for

An outbreak of cholera in West Africa has infected more than 13,000 people and killed at least 258 people in Sierra Leone and Guinea, authorities said as they appealed for international assistance.Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma has declared the outbreak there an ``emergency issue,'' and has set up a task force to prepare the budget that will be needed to stem the outbreak.``All of this

Apple is Wall Street's all-time MVP _that's Most Valuable Property.On Monday, Apple's surging stock propelled the company's value to $624 billion, the world's highest, ever. It beat the record for market capitalization set by Microsoft Corp. in the heady days of the Internet boom.After a four-month dip, Apple's stock has hit new highs recently because of optimism around what is believed to be the

The free online music video of "Gangnam Style," a new hit song by South Korean rapper Psy, broke the 40 million mark in YouTube views on Monday.The video had attracted 40,500,000 views by Monday morning, about a month after it was put on the free video-sharing service.Psy, whose real Korean name is Park Jae-sang, is not well known outside his country but rose to stardom on YouTube for the "Gangnam