Prominent gun-rights advocates in Congress are now calling for a national discussion about restrictions to curb gun violence, signaling that the horrific shooting at a Connecticut elementary school could be a tipping point in a debate that has been dormant for years.White House officials said President Barack Obama would make preventing gun violence a second-term policy priority. But it was unclear what Obama would pursue or how, and aides said stricter gun laws would be only part of any effort.

Four Korean and one Nigerian employee of Hyundai Heavy Industries, the nation’s top shipbuilder, were kidnapped by an unidentified armed group at Brass Island in the state of Bayelsa, Nigeria, on Monday (local time), an official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed on Tuesday.“No contact has been made with the kidnappers yet. The ministry has launched an emergency team with the related governmental agencies in Seoul and Nigeria, including the Ministry of Land, Transport and M

Retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro has been nominated for a seat in the country's parliament, authorities said Sunday.The afternoon TV news announced “the leader of the Cuban Revolution Fidel Castro Ruz heads the list of 25 candidates to the Cuban parliament from the municipality of Santiago de Cuba, approved by the delegates of this state body.”Castro was also named as a delegate in 2008, when he officially retired as president. It's unclear whether he has played an active role in legislative du

Top-ranking pharmaceutical companies in Korea are expected to prune their workforces in the face of challenges both at home and abroad including sluggish economic conditions and a number of deep-seated shortcomings that are finally being addressed. GlaxoSmithKline, the largest pharmaceutical company in Korea in terms of sales, is planning to hand out early retirement packages to up to 100 employees — more than 10 percent of its workforce of 750 — before the year is over. The firm is currently re

President Barack Obama, speaking alone on a spare stage for a nation in sorrow, declared Sunday that he will use “whatever power” he has to prevent shootings like the Connecticut school massacre.“What choice do we have?” Obama said at an evening vigil in the shattered community of Newtown, Connecticut. “Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year a

Four policemen were shot dead in Libya's troubled eastern city of Benghazi on Sunday when gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades on a security compound there, according to the Interior Ministry. Police spokesman Ezzedine al-Fazani said that the attack was linked to the recent detention of a man allegedly involved in last month's assassination of the head of one of the city's security agencies, National Security chief Col. Farag el-Dersi. The unknown assailants attacked the security compound, in

A Florida woman convicted of arranging the killings of her millionaire husband and mother-in-law will hear her sentence Monday _ if she's in the courtroom.A disgusted Narcy Novack, apparently certain she'd be found guilty, decided not to attend in June when a federal jury's verdict was read.“We all wondered, `Where's Narcy?”' one juror said.She and her brother, Cristobal Veliz, were convicted of hiring hit men to carry out the 2009 beating deaths of Ben Novack Jr. in a suburban New York hotel ro

Gerard Depardieu, one of France's best-known actors, has chastised his country's Socialist prime minister for insulting remarks over his decision to move to tax-friendly Belgium and said in an open letter published Sunday that he's turning in his passport.The letter, which the weekly Le Journal du Dimanche said was penned by Depardieu, quickly propelled him into the spotlight, not for his acclaimed acting skills but for raising the sensitive issue of tax exiles as France looks to fill state coff

The gunman in the Connecticut shooting rampage shot his mother four times in the head before going to an elementary school and gunning down 26 people, authorities said Sunday as details emerged suggesting that Adam Lanza planned an even more gruesome massacre but was stopped short.Lanza blasted his way into the building and used a high-powered rifle to kill 20 children and six adults, including the principal and school psychologist who tried to stop him, authorities said. The unthinkable bloodsh

Democratic lawmakers and an independent senator said Sunday that military-style assault weapons should be banned and that a national commission should be established to examine mass shootings in the United States.The proposals were among the first to come from Congress in the wake of Friday's school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Gun rights activists remained largely quiet on the issue, all but one declining to appear on the Sunday talk shows. Meanwhile, Democrats vowed action and said it was

Police said Sunday that they have failed to find evidence of alleged anti-opposition online comments by a female agent of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), who has come under fire over allegations that she repeatedly made negative comments in cyberspace about main opposition presidential candidate Moon Jae-in over the past three months from her home in southern Seoul to influence the race.The police investigation began at the request of Moon's Democratic United Party (DUP) and the NIS age

Bringing a last-minute change to the election dynamics, Lee Jung-hee of the minor Unified Progressive Party quit the race Sunday, vowing to help the opposition forces win Wednesday’s presidential election.“I withdraw my presidential candidacy in order to gather together progressive, pro-democracy and reform forces in order to realize the people’s desire for an administration change,” Lee said at a press conference at the National Assembly, flanked by her party members.“Administration of the Saen

Working mothers who earn more tend to have more babies than those with lower pay, a report showed Sunday. Women working in the public sector, including civil servants, also had more children than their private-sector counterparts, it added.The Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs said the average fertility rate of women with a monthly salary of more than 2 million won ($1,860) was higher than of those who earn less than 1 million won, in an analysis of the correlation between birthrates

A local tribunal is mulling over whether a couple of French nudists should have to pay $50 fines for not covering up in public two years ago.Lawyers for Berthy Vaillant, co-owner of a bazaar in Heliopolis, and a client of the shop were slapped with fines for indecent exposure in August 2010, the newspaper Le Parisien said. The pair contend the punishment is overboard for showing a bit too much skin at the shop."This is an unjust and absurd fine; it's ridiculous that in the birthplace of French n

The 15 first graders cowered in a dark, barricaded bathroom as gunfire boomed outside, shot after shot after shot killing their classmates and teachers.Terrified as they were, their teacher played loving mother hen, even as she feared they -- ages 6 and 7 -- and she were next and would die any minute.Sandy Hook Elementary School teacher Kaitlin Roig cried, sniffled and fidgeted as she recounted her harrowing and heartbreaking chapter of the Connecticut school shooting to ABC News.When gunfire ra

Some described him as weird, others said he was smart, but none of the Connecticut gunman Adam Lanza’s acquaintances saw a potential killer in the 20-year-old.On Friday, Lanza opened fire at a U.S. elementary school and slaughtered 20 children and six adults before killing himself. He also murdered his mother by shooting her in the face before embarking upon the atrocious rampage.The tragic incident -- the second deadliest only to the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, which left 33 people dead -- lef

A U.S. researcher says a swarm of tiny robots could be a better solution to accomplishing tasks than one big one and has made "ping-pong" ball-sized examples.University of Colorado at Boulder computer scientist Nikolaus Correll and his research team have developed a basic robotic "building block" which they hope to reproduce in large quantities to develop increasingly complex systems, the university reported Friday.They've created a swarm of 20 robots, each the size of a Ping Pong ball, which th

With South Korea's presidential election only three days away, Lee Jung-hee, a left-leaning candidate from a minor party, decided to quit the race on Sunday.Lee from the Unified Progressive Party made the decision in an emergency camp meeting earlier on Sunday and she will not attend the televised debate scheduled for 8:00 p.m., her aides said."I step down as a presidential candidate in accordance with the people's hope for integrating (opposition) progressive, democratic and reform-minded force

President Barack Obama has chosen Senator John Kerry to succeed Hillary Clinton as U.S. secretary of state, news networks CNN and ABC reported Saturday.CNN cited a Democratic source who had spoken to Kerry, while ABC mentioned unnamed sources. Asked for comment by AFP, the White House did not immediately confirm the reports, but Kerry is seen as a frontrunner for the role.The defeated 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, Kerry is currently head of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations committ

Japan's conservative Liberal Democratic Party looked to have secured a convincing majority in Sunday's general election, broadcasters said.NHK, citing forecasts based on its own exit polls, said hawkish Shinzo Abe's LDP was likely to win 275 to 310 seats in the 480-seat lower house against 55 to 77 seats to be secured by Yoshihiko Noda's Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).New Komeito, LDP's coalition partner, is likely to win 27 to 35 seats, NHK said.That could give the pair a more than two-thirds