Polls opened Wednesday for the Seoul mayoral vote and other local by-elections seen as a significant test for the rival parties and presidential hopefuls before South Korea elects a new parliament and a new president next year.At stake are the Seoul mayoralty and 11 other posts in smaller local muni

SEOUL, Oct. 25 (Yonhap) -- A new visa reserved for foreigners living in the country after marrying South Koreans will be introduced as part of efforts to guarantee their stable stay and better deal with their growing numbers, the Justice Ministry said Tuesday.Under the legal revisions to the immigra

NEW YORK (AP) _ Although tablet owners spend more time consuming news than poking around on Facebook, they're reluctant to pay for news content.That's according to a study from the Pew Research Center's Project for the Excellence in Journalism, due out on Tuesday. It found that 11 percent of America

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) _ A Malaysian court has sentenced a Japanese nurse to death by hanging for drug trafficking.The High Court in central Selangor state found 37-year-old Mariko Takeuchi guilty of transporting 7.7 pounds (3.5 kilograms) of methamphetamine in a suitcase when she flew from Dub

NEW YORK (AP) _ When Ralph Lauren sat down for a little chat Monday night with Oprah Winfrey, they picked up a discussion they started on TV back in the spring, when the fashion designer helped close out Winfrey's long-running talk show with an exclusive peek inside his Colorado estate.But this time

LAS VEGAS (AP) _ President Barack Obama offered mortgage relief on Monday to hundreds of thousands of Americans, his latest attempt to ease the economic and political fallout of a housing crisis that has bedeviled him as he seeks a second term.Under Obama's proposal, homeowners who are still current

SEOUL, Oct. 25 (Yonhap) -- Lawmakers on Tuesday moved to raise penalties for rapes of children and disabled people in a bid to curb sex crimes against the most vulnerable.A sub-committee of the National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee passed a revision bill lifting the statute of limita

SEOUL, Oct. 25 (Yonhap) -- The number of babies born in South Korea grew for the 18th straight month in August amid the government's efforts to boost the nation's relatively low birthrate, a report showed Tuesday.According to the report by Statistics Korea, the number of babies born in August came t

MISRATA, Libya (AP) — A spokesman for the fighters holding Moammar Gadhafi's body says the slain dictator will probably be buried on Tuesday in an unmarked grave in a secret location.Ibrahim Beit al-Mal, a spokesman for the Misrata military council, told The Associated Press Monday that he's "

As if you didn't have enough to worry about during those sleepless nights, a Norwegian study out Monday suggests that people with insomnia face a 27 to 45 percent higher risk of heart attack.About one-third of people report having trouble sleeping and should see a doctor for help, urged the authors

SEOUL, Oct. 25 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's financial regulator is expected to order Lone Star Funds to sell the bulk of its stake in Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) after the U.S. buyout firm said it cannot meet the requirements as the major shareholder of the fifth-largest lender, watchers said Tuesday.Lon

SEOUL, Oct. 25 (Yonhap) -- International crude oil prices are expected to fall up to 8 percent in 2012 from this year's levels as demand for oil products decline in line with the global economic slump, a report showed Tuesday.The price of Dubai crude, South Korea's benchmark, would trade at a range

CHICAGO (AP) — Exposure to BPA before birth could affect girls' behavior at age 3, according to the latest study on potential health effects of the widespread chemical.Preschool-aged girls whose mothers had relatively high urine levels of bisphenol-A during pregnancy scored worse but still wit

NEW YORK (AP) — Lady Liberty is getting high-tech gifts for her 125th birthday: webcams on her torch that will let viewers gaze out at New York Harbor and read the tablet in her hands or see visitors on the grounds of the island below in real time.The five torch cams are to be switched on Frid

Andre Bamberski, father of Kalinka Bamberski, who died mysteriously in 1982, talks to journalists outside court in Paris. (AFP)PARIS (AP) — A Paris criminal court on Saturday convicted a retired German doctor in the 1982 death of his 15-year-old stepdaughter in a decades-long cross-border batt

US researchers have uncovered the genetic mechanism that bed bugs use to resist powerful insecticides, according to a study, leading to the hope of more effective ways to combat the pests.Bed bugs, which have been largely absent from the United States since the 1950s, have returned in force in the l

RED BANK, New Jersey (AP) _ In three decades as one of the world's biggest rock stars, Jon Bon Jovi has eaten in some of the world's best restaurants, savoring the best food the planet has to offer.Yet there's no place he'd rather have dinner than The Soul Kitchen, a ``pay-what-you-can'' restaurant

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A fourth person was arrested Wednesday in a scheme in which authorities said mentally disabled adults were locked up in a fetid basement while their captors cashed their Social Security checks. The latest suspect was the daughter of the alleged ringleader, officials said.Th

The Korean Alpine Federation announced Thursday it was searching for three missing Korean climbers last seen heading for a summit in the Himalayas in north-central Nepal.Korean veteran mountaineer Park Young-seok, Gang Gi-seok and Shin Dong-min were on the south face of Annapurna, aiming to push for

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 19, 2011 (AFP) - Up to 200,000 political prisoners are languishing in North Korean prison camps, a sharp increase from 10 years ago, a United Nations envoy said Wednesday.Compared to 2001, the latest satellite pictures of the country indicate a "significant increase in the scale