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Republicans wouldn't elect Abraham Lincoln if he were alive today, President Barack Obama said during a campaign stop in Vermont on Friday. Bemoaning the fact that many Republicans these days are opposed to spending more on infrastructure or investing in new technologies, Obama told a crowd at the University of Vermont that it didn't used to be that way. He invoked the 16th president: "The first Republican president, President Lincoln, who, by the way, couldn't win the nomination for the Republican primary right now," Obama said, "in the middle of the Civil War helped to make the Transcontinental Railroad possible, the land grant colleges, the National Academy [of Sciences]." "This has not traditionally been a Democratic or a Republican idea," Obama noted about infrastructure spending. "It was a Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, who called for a progressive income tax. It was Dwight Eisenhower who built the interstate ...

WASHINGTON -- In the first half of 2011 alone, nearly 46,500 parents of U.S.-born children were forced to leave the country, according to a report released on Monday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Those parents were among the 396,906 immigrants removed from the United States in the 2011 fiscal year under President Barack Obama, which set the record for deportations in one year by any president. Between Jan. 1, 2011, and June 30, 2011, 46,486 men and women were removed from the country by the government. The Obama administration has said that undocumented immigrants with strong ties to the United States are a low priority for removals -- including parents of citizen children. There are a lot of them: At least four million citizen children of undocumented immigrants were living in the United States as of 2009, according to a 2010 report by Pew Hispanic Center.             Full Read

What separates a hard worker from someone who does the bare minimum? New research suggests they have different ways of approaching tasks: The hard worker thinks more about the reward at the end, while the slacker seems to focus more on the effort needed. However, the research, which was conducted on rats, also reveals a twist: Stimulants like amphetamines seem to flip those approaches. "The workers are choosing fewer of the hard trials, and the slackers are choosing more of the hard trials," said study researcher Jay Hosking, a graduate student at the University of British Columbia. Caffeine also turns hardworkers into slackers, but doesn't make lazy rats into productive superstars the way amphetamines do. The results of the study appear today (March 28) in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.         Read Here

GREAT FALLS, Mont. -- Authorities say former NFL quarterback Ryan Leaf has been arrested in his Montana hometown on burglary and drug possession charges. Great Falls Police Sgt. Dean Bennett says Leaf was arrested Friday afternoon. The circumstances surrounding Leaf's arrest are not immediately clear. Bennett says he hasn't seen a report detailing the allegations. Cascade County Detention Center Officer Robert Rivera says Leaf was booked on charges of burglary of a residence, theft and felony criminal possession of dangerous drugs.       Read More

(CNN) -- It was a Friday evening in February when Adrian Vasquez, an 18-year-old from the town of Rio Hato, Panama, accepted an invitation from two friends to accompany them on what was proposed as an overnight fishing expedition. Their plan, according to Vasquez's mother, Nilsa de la Cruz, "was to return the following morning. On February 24, they left from Ensenada Beach in the town of San Carlos aboard a small fishing boat." But the following morning came and went without their return, and the Vasquez family started looking for the 18-year-old and his friends. Arnaldo Vasquez, the teen's father and a hotel worker, asked fishermen to search for them along the shore from which they had departed, and his mother prayed at home with relatives and friends. Soon after, the Panamanian navy joined the search, sending ships and airplanes to look for Vasquez, Oropeces Betancourt, 24, and Fernando Osorio,16.        Read More

Hong Kong (CNN) -- China's major microblogging sites have suspended comments sections after being "punished for allowing rumors to spread" of a coup attempt in Beijing, state-run media reported Saturday. Sina's Weibo and Tencent's QQ -- Chinese versions of Twitter, which is banned in the mainland -- will stop use of comment function on the popular sites to "clean up rumors and other illegal information spread through microbloggings," according to Xinhua. The comments sections will be disabled until Tuesday. The microblog sites have been "criticized and punished accordingly" by officials in Beijing and Guangdong, state media reported. Authorities also closed 16 websites and detained six people, Xinhua reported, for allegedly spreading rumors of "military vehicles entering Beijing and something wrong going on in Beijing," a spokesperson for the State Internet Information Office told Xinhua. An unknown n...

When an unsuspecting office worker crossed the path of a fearless Canada goose, the makers of this video just sat back... and watched the feathers fly. Shot in Mississauga, in the south-western Canadian province of Ontario, the YouTube clip shows the lengths which the birds will go to protect their partners and young. And it also shows the bumbling rage which can be unleashed by a regular guy who just wants a nice quiet lunch break.0         Read More

For years, kopeck-pinching Soviets sat down in a cheap restaurant in a former mansion of the nobility for plain meals, unaware of the treasure secreted nearby. Workers restoring the building, in St Petersburg, this week finally found it, unexpectedly, in a storage space hidden between two floors - more than 1,000 pieces of jewellery, silver service sets stamped with the name of one of Russia’s most prominent noble families, mirrors and brushes in silver frames.  Many of them were wrapped in newspapers dated from the early months of 1917, as Russia careened toward the Bolshevik Revolution that ended life as the nobles had known it.         Full Read

All he wanted was a tidy garden. But when Stanley Lee decided to burn some pine needles to clear his lawn, this was the disastrous result.  After starting an incinerator to burn the waste, the 88-year-old checked twice that it was ‘smoking nicely’ before heading indoors, believing the fire was under control. Just moments later, a spark shot from the burner on to a wooden fence, turning his small garden fire into a huge blaze which caused thousands of pounds worth of damage.        Read Here

With a school playground just feet from his garden, Graham Purches says he can hardly hear himself speak. But despite the squeals and screams of scores of primary pupils, the former BBC presenter found a way to get his views on the noise across loud and clear. The 68-year-old put up a giant sign demanding that youngsters pipe down. Hanging on the side of his £600,000 house in full view of anyone in the playground, it read: 'Please do not allow the children to scream or shout near our home. Thank you.'         More Read

A British skier has fallen to his death in France - the third to die in the past 11 days. Paul Benning, who was in his mid-50s, slipped on ice and plunged 100ft down a ridge in the resort of Chamonix. The married father-of-four was ski touring, a demanding form of cross-country skiing, on the Crochues-Berard traverse when the accident happened on Thursday morning.        Full Read

Extraordinary claims that the Queen Mother’s real mother was her family’s French cook are to be made in a sensational new book. Aristocratic author Lady Colin Campbell says the domestic help may have been ‘an early version of surrogacy’ for both Elizabeth Bowes Lyon and her younger brother David. The cook, an ‘attractive and pleasant Frenchwoman’ called Marguerite Rodiere, gave birth to the future Queen Elizabeth because her own mother Cecilia, who already had eight children, was unable to have any more.       Read More

PROUD Rosie Kennedy held a housewarming party at her new home — and fell into a 6ft HOLE as the kitchen floor collapsed. Rosie, 25, and partner Chris Brennan, 30, forked out £163,000 to move into the three-bed 1930s semi. But as they celebrated with pals the next day, the kitchen floor caved in under their feet. Both were treated in hospital for minor injuries — and face a £24,000 repair bill, which their insurance company will not pay.        Full Read

A RARE black fox was yesterday run over and killed days after being caught on camera by an amateur photographer. The animal, described as a "mythical" creature, was spotted by John Moore, 58. When he told pals what he had seen, they said he must be mistaken. So John went out and took photos to prove it. The animal was run down on a busy road in Bassingbourn, Cambridgeshire, near where it was first seen by John.          Read Here

Lady Gaga may have told Oprah Winfrey that she didn't "intend to speak to anyone for a very long time," but she's certainly commanding attention in other ways. Her latest "look at me" moment occurred on Wednesday (her 26th birthday) — a mere 10 days after her comment to Winfrey — when the pop star stepped out in West Hollywood in a rhinestone-covered crown, studded motorcycle jacket … and no pants. Instead, Gaga, who also carried around a little dog in a white T-shirt, opted for a pair of black sheer tights over her brief-style panties. She even posted a photo of her kooky getup on Twitter, with a message to her more than 21 million followers: "I can be, the Queen that's inside of me. You guys are the best." Whatever Gaga does, her Little Monsters revel in it. Although wearing a crown could be considered a bit vain (even for a celebrity), countless fans re-tweeted her photo, and even more left her loving comments telling th...

A NEW invention lets coffee addicts get a morning cuppa without leaving their car. The Handpresso Auto provides tired motorists with a single cup of espresso, and is powered by a car's cigarette lighter. After filling the device with water, a packet of coffee can be placed inside before it is turned on to deliver a pick-me-up. Shaped like a flask, the time-saving gadget can be easily stored inside the car for morning emergencies.        Full Read

A SIX-YEAR-OLD girl was given bread and jam instead of a hot school dinner - because her mum was £4 in arrears. Hazel Lebby, 37, says she was shocked to discover her daughter Hannah had been denied a school lunch after she fell behind in her dinner payments to St Thomas's School in Mitcham, south London. Now she has threatened to take her child out of school. The school said it needed to take drastic action after parents racked up £1,730 in unpaid dinner meals last year. Hazel said: "I was supposed to pay it on Monday but my car broke down so I totally forgot about having to sort it out. "Then the next morning I woke up with a leak. My carpet was soaking wet. I managed to get Hannah to school on time but had to come back home and sort out the leak.          Read More  

THE unusually warm spring has made Britain's felines frisky — leading to a boom in the number of kittens being born. And the sharp rise in the cat population means a looming crisis for animal rescue charities. Experts from the RSPCA say the mild winter and spring weather has played havoc with pets' hormones. Gill Lewis, who manages the animal welfare charity's kennels in Rayleigh, Essex, said: "The warm weather is putting a spring in the step of our feline friends. "We are always looking for new homes for cats and kittens but this year the number of adult cats being given up and kittens being handed in is steadily increasing week on week. "We really are at bursting point and desperately need people who can offer a cat or kitten a home to get in touch."         More Read

A DAD is being hunted by cops — for chaining his teenage son to an electricity pole by the NECK. The irate Cambodian father wanted to punish his 13-year-old lad after he skipped school to play computer games online. The boy was finally released two hours after his ordeal began when neighbours spotted him and called the police. The cops brought in a locksmith to undo the padlock holding the chain around his neck. Police spokesman Cheth Vanny said: "The father was so angry that he found his son at an internet cafe instead of at school that he chained him up in public for people to see, to teach him a lesson. "He is still on the run. This kind of torture is not acceptable." The boy's father, Sok Thoeun, fled the scene after the incident in the northern town of Battambang.           Read Here

A well-heeled fashion collector forked out more than 43,225 euros (£36,000) to own a pair of Marie Antoinette's dainty slip-on shoes. The heels, a size 3.5, were sold at an auction of French Revolution Era artefacts in Toulan, France last weekend, and fetched around 14 times their asking price. While their ribbon detail has faded over the centuries, it is believed the French queen may have worn the glamorous shoes with a white gown and a headpiece covered with matching tricolour ribbon and feathers.      Read Full

For more than 50 years, this classic car languished, daubed with graffiti and vandalised, locked and forgotten in a garage. But it is now back on the road for the first time since 1956 after being lovingly restored and passing its first ever MOT certificate. The 1934 Austin ‘Heavy’ 12/4 belongs to Ken Wyatt and his father-in-law, Alan Pepper from Swinton, near Rotherham. The pair have affectionately named the vehicle ‘Constance Bertha’ after its only previous owner, Constance Bertha Bower. The car was first bought in March 1934 in Sheffield, for the princely sum of £295 by a local Swinton councillor, builder and architect Joseph Aquilla Bower for his daughter-in-law, Constance.     More Read

It is wrong to idealize the Chinese success, let alone fear Chinese economic dominance in the future. It is not coming, Chairman of Glencore International corp., Simon Murray, told RT. ­ “China on a comparison basis is certainly doing better than anywhere else but whether it is going to lead the world forever and ever I do not think so,” said Murray, who spent most of his career in China. Secret of China’s success is nothing unique: the country is just coming through the cycles Europe has long passed in the previous eras, he noted. “China is a manufacturing country … Manufacturing is what really leads the prosperity and the western world has swung away from manufacturing into service industries,” Murray said. He added that after China passes its equivalent of industrial revolution it might move its factories offshore just like the West now. There is also nothing unique in the so-called Asian values of hard labor, the British businessman noted. They ar...

(Reuters) - In a 2011 season in which the New Orleans Saints rewarded players for injuring opponents in a "pay-for-pain" bounty scheme, the team was among the most violent in the National Football League, a Reuters analysis shows. The Saints were second in the NFL with 17 regular-season defensive flags for violating rules intended to protect players from being hurt, just behind the Oakland Raiders' 18. The league averaged nine per team. The Raiders have a long, proud tradition of aggressive rule-breaking. "The Oakland Raiders have always been a very physical team," said Jim Tunney, a 31-year veteran NFL referee. "I think it has a lot to do with team discipline and the way the coach wants to approach the game," he said.        More Read

British health officials are investigating cases of narcolepsy in children amid concerns that pandemic flu vaccinations lie behind a rise in the sleep disorder seen in other countries. The Health Protection Agency is gathering vaccination histories and medical data on children aged four to 18 who have been assessed for narcolepsy at sleep centres in England in the past few years. The investigation centres on the GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) vaccine Pandemrix, which was given extensively in 2009/10 during the H1N1 " swine flu " pandemic that spread around the world. The vaccine was used very little in 2010/11 and was unavailable during the 2011/12 influenza season. Pandemrix is only used to combat pandemics and differs from the more familiar seasonal flu vaccine. The HPA said: "There is no evidence of any association between seasonal influenza vaccines and narcolepsy."      Full Read

When a piece of theatre leaves its audience feeling little but sympathy for its performers, the cause is lost. Every Breath is the first play written by Benedict Andrews to receive a main stage production. A number of “how” and “why” questions arise from the decision to program a play by a novice playwright in Belvoir’s subscription season. In it we learn that a wealthy, artistic family has been exposed to some kind of threat. A security firm has been hired, and for six night a week, armed guard Chris patrols the grounds. “Don’t you get lonely out here?” coos the lady of the house, Lydia, in an opening exchange echoing a porn flick “pool guy” set up. “I’d get lonely. Out here with my thoughts. All that time to fill.” Lydia invites Chris in for dinner with the family. “C’mon,” she says. “We won’t bite.”      More Read

Web giant Google has already changed the way we search the internet, watch video and navigate. But the firm's latest breakthrough could be its biggest innovation yet. The company promises that its self-driving car will enable blind people to drive, as the vehicle takes over nearly all the functions of the car currently controlled by humans. The project has been several years in the making, and was officially unveiled in October 2010. But recently it has taken a further step forward, after putting blind people in the driving seat and inviting them to test the technology which could revolutionise their lives.      More Read  

They look friendly and gentle enough. But dolphins also have a dark side, a study has revealed. When they want to get their way, they resort to ‘rape’. An international team of researchers spent six years studying the behaviour of 120 bluenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Western Australia. They observed males asserting their authority by forcefully mounting other males. These were short-term shows of strength, used to dominate males from other groups. The study also showed a complex ‘open society’ where dolphins exhibited periods of homosexuality and bisexuality. So complicated are the bonds between dolphins that one of  the researchers has described them as ‘mentally and physically exhausting’ – and declared he  was glad he wasn’t a dolphin.        More

With a glossy green-purple plume and a noisy song, the starling is a familiar visitor to our gardens. But figures show a dramatic decline in their numbers of almost 80 per cent over the past 25 years. The RSPB has now launched a study into the decline, believing a possible cause to be changes in soil affecting the insects they feed on.  In the first RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch survey in 1979, the average number of starlings seen in gardens was 15.      Read Here

Gangs are sexually abusing and raping thousands of young girls every year, it emerged last night. Up to 6,000 may be victims at any one time, according to the expert in charge of a major inquiry. Sue Berelowitz, the deputy Children’s Commissioner for England, said victims are often ‘kidnapped, held at gunpoint and threatened with gang rape’. She is leading a major, two-year investigation into the problem of street gangs and their attacks on young women.         Read More

It’s a great thing when you feel that you recognize yourself, deeply and movingly, in a work of literature. It’s kind of unnerving when that work of literature is a graphic novel called My Friend Dahmer. I should explain. The guy who wrote and drew My Friend Dahmer, Derf Backderf, grew up in a small, rural town in Ohio called Bath in the 1970s. One of his high school classmates was Jeffrey Dahmer, who went on to kill 17 people. (According to Wikipedia, Bath has one other famous son: Lebron James. What are the odds?) After Dahmer was arrested in 1991, Backderf began working on a comic about him, which he eventually self-published in 2002. It became a cult classic: fans include R. Crumb, Alison Bechdel, James Ellroy and Chuck Klosterman. It’s now being re-published in expanded form, and I’m here to tell you, it’s astounding.                 Read Here

This post is in partnership with  Consequence of Sound , an online music publication devoted to the ever growing and always thriving worldwide music scene.   There’s something depressing about  Madonna’s  latest video for “Girl Gone Wild.” For one, it’s the exact same concept as “Vogue,” which is now 22 years old, and for some reason Americans consider it provocative. How is that even possible? Not only did she perform at this year’s Super Bowl halftime show (a night which charted the highest ratings in American television history), but in the age of  Jersey Shore ,  1000 Ways to Die ,  16 and Pregnant ,  Toddlers & Tiaras , and  TMZ , the Queen of Pop — ahem, the same royalty who’s even published children’s books — is hardly  “too raunchy.”  Let’s not even get started on the half a billion videos processed through YouTube on a daily basis. Perhaps that explains why Madge feels the need to hammer in the i...

“You really want to know how to stay alive?” Haymitch Abernathy tells Katniss Everdeen, the heroine of The Hunger Games . “Get people to like you.” Well, Katniss not only survived, she thrived. The movie based on Suzanne Collins’ teen-fave best seller smashed nearly every record in the box-office annals with $155 million in its first three days of release in North American theaters, according to Lionsgate, its delirious distributor. That number is the third highest ever for an opening weekend, behind the $169.2 million for the Harry Potter finale and $158.4 million for The Dark Knight and ahead of Spider-Man 3 . It is the all-time tops for a nonsequel and the best for a film released between December and April. As Haymitch or Sally Field might say about Katniss, they like her, they really like her!         Full Read

Is email evil? That may seem like a stark, strange question - but consider what our inboxes ask of us. Through remote mail, smartphones, Blackberries and tablets, email insists that there should be no place or time where the discreet buzz of an arriving message cannot be felt. And, regardless of time and place, it wants these messages to be replied to as soon as possible – in the form of more emails, feeding others’ inboxes. Email is free and instant, so there’s no reason not to send it in vast quantities – and, just to be on the safe side, to copy everyone into every message, and to cover your own back by double-checking every step of a process in written electronic form. Email doesn’t want you to make autonomous decisions, to delegate, or to switch off: it wants you to turn everything into typed words and queries, copied to everyone. It doesn’t want you to make phone calls or attend meetings, either: the preference is for endlessly reduplicated words and attachme...

A Tibetan protester who set himself on fire in India during a demo against a visit by the Chinese president has died from his injuries in hospital. Jamphel Yeshi sustained burns to 98 per cent of his body when he sprinted for 50m outside the Indian Parliament building engulfed in flames in New Delhi on Monday. The 27-year-old had been protesting against China's continued rule over Tibet and collapsed in flames as other protesters tried to put him out.        Read More

Adorable Harry the hippopotamus is no stick-in-the-mud when it comes to making friends with humans. The six-day-old pygmy hippo calf is filling the time of his doting carers after being rejected by his mother at birth. The 11lb baby was born last Thursday at a wildlife sanctuary in South Africa and requires round-the-clock care. But the regal little Harry - named after the Prince - has brought joy to the whole centre, according to Rob Hall , the reserve's manager.  Handler Toni Inggs looks after the mud-loving creature at the privately-run Cango Wildlife Ranch.       Full Read

It's taken a while, but Maverick the morbidly obese moggy has finally decided to tackle his weight problem - by taking part in the pet version of The Biggest Loser. The long-haired cat from Edinburgh tips the scales at 22.5lb (10.5kg) - more than twice his ideal weight - but is now fighting the flab in a dieting contest. He faces heavy competition from 9.3kg feline Fifi Bottomley, a roast dinner-loving Labrador from Staffordshire, who was too heavy to have an X-ray, a border collie from the Wirral whose excess pounds exacerbate his arthritis and a Wakefield rabbit named Samantha who weighs more than an average cat.           Read More

The Government faced a barrage of anger tonight after a minister's advice to start stockpiling petrol ahead of a possible tanker driver strike prompted forecourts to close following a rush to the pumps. Stations began running dry after Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude suggested motorists fill up any spare jerry cans - even though the walkout may not begin for two weeks. Brian Madderson, chairman of RMI Petrol which represents petrol station retailers, said the government's message was 'totally, totally irresponsible, inept'.         More Read

More people are now using their Microsoft Xbox 360 consoles to watch television and films, than to play games with their friends in the US.  The new figures, released by Microsoft, show that Xbox Live Gold members in the US are now spending an average of 84 hours per month accessing content through apps on Xbox Live. Entertainment app usage has more than doubled year-on-year and there has been a 30 per cent increase in the total number of hours spend on the platform around the world. For the first time Microsoft says that Xbox Live members are now spending more time watching TV, music and films on the Live platform, that playing multiplayer games.        More Read  

Twitter users are being affected by a bug which is causing them to ‘unfollow’ fellow tweeters without their permission.  The microblogging company has now admitted that there is a problem. A Twitter spokesman said: “This is a bug, and our team is working to fix it.” The bug is causing Twitter users to randomly unfollow people without account holders’ prior consent or knowledge. Twitter has advised affected people to visit its support page and go to fellow tweeters’ profile pages to check whether they are still following them or not. Labour MP and fanatic tweeter, Tom Watson, has been affected by the bug and tweeted : “I thought I was doing something wrong,” and then linked to an advice column on the topic , published by Jeremiah Owyang, a technology industry analyst writing for TechCrunch. Owyang wrote: “I wonder how many businesses, personal, and casual relationships are strained by the bug haphazardly unfollowing. It causes us ...

THIS Chinese student didn't choose the smartest place to take a nap in the afternoon sun. Yan Yan Ch'eng, 28, dozed off on a narrow concrete strip FIVE floors up as she decided to rest in Yiwu, in east China's Zhejiang province. But after snoozing she rolled over and suddenly found herself falling. Amazingly she managed to reach out and grab the ledge but was unable to pull herself back to safety, and had to scream for help — which alerted people below who called in police and firemen.        More Read

LITTLE braveheart Louie Jenkins is beating a devastating bout of meningitis with smiles and giggles - despite losing both feet and the fingers of one hand to the illness. The seven-month-old tot had to have the limbs amputated to save his life when he suddenly developed the deadly disease in January this year. Now two months on, Louie is moving his family and friends to tears by using laughter to fight an amazing battle against the effects of the illness. Today his mother Julie and father Warren, 31, released a shocking picture of the tot fighting for life in hospital to encourage parents to be aware of the symptoms of meningitis. Julie, 29, a teaching assistant from Colne, Lancs said: "Louis has been a real little fighter and despite what happened we are overjoyed that he has pulled through.          Read Here

A LETTER on headed-notepaper from the Titanic - in which the Captain's steward said he feared the doomed ship was cursed by 'bad luck' - is to be actioned. In a hand-written note which was sent days before the doomed liner sank, shipsman Arthur Paintin confided that he was worried a near-collision the Titanic had when it left port was a bad omen. Chillingly, he also told his parents in England that he expected to be away at sea all summer 'bar accidents'. Mr Paintin was last seen on the bridge of the Titanic stood next to Captain Edward Smith, moments before the liner sank after hitting an iceberg in 1912. Three days before the disaster, when the ship had docked at Queenstown, Mr Paintin took the opportunity to post the letter to his parents in Oxford. The letter is tipped to raise £36,000 when it is auctioned at the weekend.         Full Read

THE owner of a stolen parrot hopes thieves will be forced to hand back his bird — as she won't stop singing the hits of Queen. The African Grey, named Chico, was taken from her cage during a burglary in Hattersley, Greater Manchester last weekend. But owner Malcolm Booth says the raiders will get an unpleasant surprise when they discover the bird likes nothing better than screaming along to Bohemian Rhapsody. Malcolm, 44, explained: "I'm just hoping the thieves will give Chico back because I think they will have their hands full. "I'm a great fan of Queen and am used to Chico squawking and whistling their tunes but I'm not sure its everyone's cup of tea.         Read More

ALIEN life could exist on 100 habitable "super-Earths" in our galactic neighbourhood, it was claimed today.   Scientists say billions of potentially habitable planets may exist in the Milky Way. And a study says around 100 worlds similar to Earth could exist relatively nearby — less than 30 light years from the Sun. Astronomers have been surveying red dwarf stars in a bid to predict how many celestial bodies like our own could support life. They account for 80 per cent of the Milky Way's 200 to 400 billion stars. An incredible two in five are rocky like Earth and located in the "Goldilocks zone" — where liquid water essential for life can exist because it is not too hot and not too cold. Boffins have already found nine super-Earths — planets with masses between one and ten times that of Earth. Two are in habitable zones of stars Gliese 581 and Gliese 667 C.        Read Full

TWO cops have been demoted after this photo of them messing around with a SHOTGUN emerged following the tragic death of a colleague during a training exercise.  One officer is seen pointing the weapon at the rear of his colleague, who poses provocatively on the bonnet of an armoured Land Rover Defender. Both are dressed in full body armour and carrying Glock handguns. The snap came after the death of PC Ian Terry during a training exercise in June 2008 which led a coroner to conclude there were systematic failings in the planning of the drill. An instructor in the force's elite gun unit is thought to have taken the photograph. The image was discovered on a computer during an unrelated raid on another officer's home in June last year. All three officers were disciplined and removed from the Tactical Firearms Unit. Deputy Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said: "Greater Manchester Police expects the highest professional standards from all office...

Western powers have reacted sceptically to Syria's acceptance of the peace plan put forward by UN envoy Kofi Annan. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said President Bashar al-Assad would be judged by events. "Given Assad's history of over-promising and under-delivering, that commitment must now be matched by immediate actions," she said. Earlier the UN said more than 9,000 people have now died since the Syria uprising started a year ago. "If he is ready to bring this dark chapter in Syria's history to a close he can prove it by immediately ordering regime forces to stop firing and begin withdrawing from populated areas," Mrs Clinton said. Other Western powers have made similar comments. Mrs Clinton also said President Assad must allow in humanitarian aid and start preparing for a democratic transition.        Read Here

An influential group of UK lawmakers has called on Google to introduce an algorithm to remove search links found to be in breach of privacy - or face legislation to force it to do so. It follows complaints from ex-Formula One boss Max Mosley about the difficulty he faced in getting a video removed from the internet. The search giant argued it was not its job to monitor net content. The cross-party committee said this argument was "totally unconvincing". The report by a committee of MPs and peers was commissioned by the government to look into privacy and free speech issues after a series of high profile super-injunctions were made public last year. Celebrities including Ryan Giggs found that gagging orders against newspapers were routinely flouted online. In Mr Giggs' case, the details of his super-injuction were mentioned at least 75,000 times on Twitter, the committee said.        ...

The world's largest research databank for cleft lip and palate is being set up in the UK to determine what causes these common conditions. These congenital abnormalities affect 1,200 babies born in the UK each year, yet why they occur is unknown. Parents of babies with these conditions are being encouraged to enrol in the £11m, five-year programme. The Cleft Collective team will gather and analyse the DNA of these children to see if they can pin down a cause. And by following these 3,000 or more children throughout their childhood, the researchers hope to ascertain what the best course of treatment is, including which surgery offers the best cosmetic and functional results. A cleft occurs when separate areas of the face do not join together properly when a baby is developing in the womb.          More Read

Police in Thailand and Australia have arrested six people believed to be part of a human trafficking network, following a year-long investigation. An Iraqi man and a Thai woman, reportedly his wife, were detained in Thailand on passport forgery charges. In Australia, four people were arrested for allegedly smuggling people to the country through South East Asia. Authorities in Malaysia and Indonesia were also involved in the operation, but made no arrests. The arrests on Tuesday were part of "Operation Arapaima" - a cross-border effort to crackdown on a trafficking network spanning the region, said a Thai police spokesman.          Read More

Pope Benedict has met Cuban President Raul Castro on the second day of his visit to the communist-run island.  There have been suggestions that he could also meet Raul's brother, former President Fidel Castro. After arriving in Havana, the pope prayed before a statue of the country's patron saint, and told a crowd he prayed for a Cuba "advancing along the ways of renewal and hope". Cuban officials have insisted that political reform is not on the agenda. Marino Murillo, one of Castro's vice-presidents and the "economics czar" in charge of liberalisation, told journalists the government was updating the Cuban economic model to make socialism sustainable. "There will be no political reform in Cuba," he said.         Read Here

The security services in Germany are scrambling to track down and arrest far-right fugitives and Germany's federal and state interior ministers have announced they are taking concrete steps towards banning the country's far right National Democratic Party, the NPD. This comes after a public outcry following revelations in November that a neo-Nazi cell had apparently been able to go on a nationwide spree of racially motivated murders over several years, under the noses of the German intelligence services. The group of three are being held responsible for the deaths of eight Turkish and one Greek immigrant between 2000 and 2006, as well as a German policewoman in 2007. Yet the existence of the group, dubbed the Zwickau cell after the name of the town where they spent most of their time in hiding, only came to light in November when two of its members died in an apparent joint suicide or murder-suicide and the third handed herself in to the ...

It's every woman's dream: could chocolate, the substance that cures everything from PMS to heartbreak,  also make you skinnier? If true, there's got to be a catch, right? Here's the skinny: Dr. Beatrice Golomb, associate professor of medicine at University of California, San Diego, has published a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine linking regular chocolate consumption with a lower body mass index, or BMI. Golomb and her team surveyed 1,018 men and women aged 20 to 85 years old about their weekly food intake. Those who reported that they ate chocolate more frequently had lower BMIs. Even more surprisingly, the lower BMI group did not report eating fewer calories or exercising more than their heavier counterparts in the study. "That does not mean that you can eat unbounded amounts of chocolate," Golomb says.          More Read

Havana, Cuba (CNN) - Pope Benedict XVI traveled to Cuba this week, forging inroads with the Castro government and ultimately helping to bring about the release of a jailed American contractor. At least, that's how Judy Gross would like to see this week's papal visit play out. "I hope it's very likely," she told CNN's Erin Burnett on Friday. Her husband, Alan Gross, is in prison outside the Cuban capital on subversion charges. He was arrested on December 3, 2009, for distributing what officials described as sensitive communications equipment to the island's small Jewish community. "We haven't been told anything, but we've been working with the highest authorities of the church for quite a while now and we're very hopeful that (Pope Benedict) will intervene on Alan's behalf," Judy Gross said.        Full Read