Khaled Meshal, Hamas Leader, Delivers Defiant Speech at Anniversary Celebration

Wissam Nassar for The New York TimesTens of thousands of Hamas supporters gathered in Gaza City near a large replica of an M-75, a Hamas rocket, that bore the words “Made in Gaza.” More Photos »GAZA CITY — Khaled Meshal, the political leader of Hamas, gave a defiant speech on Saturday, vowing to build an Islamic Palestinian state on all the land of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. ...

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Jason Aldean's Holiday Plans: Visiting Santa with His Kids

By Eileen Finan 12/08/2012 at 06:30 PM EST Jessica Ussery and Jason Aldean Bauer-Griffin After a year of professional highs – and personal lows – Jason Aldean is looking forward to a quiet holiday with family."I'm on the road so much during the year, so what I...

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Smokers celebrate as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — The crowds of happy people lighting joints under Seattle's Space Needle early Thursday morning with nary a police officer in sight bespoke the new reality: Marijuana is legal under Washington state law.Hundreds gathered at Seattle Center for a New Year's Eve-style countdown to 12 a.m., when the legalization measure passed by voters last month took effect. When the clock struck, they...

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Lavish new church, meeting center to serve USC Catholics

The schedule of Sunday Masses for Catholic students at USC accommodates their studying, partying and sleeping habits. Services...

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Khaled Meshal, Hamas Leader, Makes First Visit to Gaza

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — The long exiled leader of the militant group Hamas, Khaled Meshal, entered Gaza for the first time on Friday, a symbolically powerful visit that sought to reinforce Hamas’s contention that it was victorious in its eight-day violent clash with Israel. For Mr. Meshal, 56, whom the Israelis tried to assassinate in Jordan in 1997, it was a triumphant day as Hamas fighters,...

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The Era of Twitter Without Instagram Has Now Begun

We know everyone is a little bummed about all those filtered photos disappearing from your Twitter streams this weekend, but let’s not get all worked up about it: They are disappearing, and there is no scandal.RELATED: Why You Can’t See Instagram Photos on Twitter AnymoreTechCrunch’s  Drew Olanoff got a little too excited on Friday and thought a single in-stream photo meant that Instagram...

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Susan Powell's Father-in-Law Secretly Took 4,500 Pictures of Her

12/07/2012 at 07:30 PM EST Wrapping up a year that has brought unimaginable frustration and heartbreak, Susan Powell's family marked the three-year anniversary of her disappearance at a ceremony this week near where her two sons are buried."It's a hard time of year," Susan's father, Chuck Cox, tells PEOPLE....

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Smokers celebrate as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — The crowds of happy people lighting joints under Seattle's Space Needle early Thursday morning with nary a police officer in sight bespoke the new reality: Marijuana is legal under Washington state law.Hundreds gathered at Seattle Center for a New Year's Eve-style countdown to 12 a.m., when the legalization measure passed by voters last month took effect. When the clock struck, they...

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Priest abuse files may be released without church officials' names

In its landmark $660-million settlement with victims of sexual abuse five years ago, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to...

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Wider Chaos Feared as Syrian Rebels and Kurds Clash

Lynsey Addario for The New York TimesSyrian Kurds in Ras al-Ain are seeking refuge across the border in Ceylanpinar, Turkey. CEYLANPINAR, Turkey — In plain view of the patrons at an outdoor cafe here in this border town, the convoy of gun trucks waving the flag of the Syrian rebels whizzed through the Syrian village of Ras al-Ain. They had not come to fight their primary enemy, the soldiers of Bashar...

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Snake on a Plane - For Real - Forces Emergency Landing

People Pets By Alison Schwartz 12/06/2012 at 07:55 PM EST An Egyptian cobra, similar to the reptile pictured, made its way on-board a Kuwait-bound flight Annie Katz/Getty In a scene that played out like the plotline of a Samuel L. Jackson movie, some not-so-precious...

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Celebrations planned as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — Legal marijuana possession becomes a reality under Washington state law on Thursday, and some people planned to celebrate the new law by breaking it.Voters in Washington and Colorado last month made those the first states to decriminalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana. Washington's law takes effect Thursday and allows adults to have up to an ounce of pot — but it bans...

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A good meal at LAX is no longer a flight of fancy

Airport food in L.A. has been so bad for so long it's no longer brought up in polite society. Only at LAX could the 2010 arrival...

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Typhoon Bopha Kills Hundreds in Philippines

Bullit Marquez/Associated PressA resident hung clothing amid fallen trees and debris on Wednesday, a day after Typhoon Bopha made landfall in the village of Andap, in southern Philippines. More Photos »MANILA — With many roads and bridges washed away, rescue teams struggled Wednesday to reach isolated villages in the southern Philippines after a powerful out-of-season typhoon tore through the region,...

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Microsoft #DroidRage Tweet Shows How Malware Has Moved Past Windows

“Do you have an Android malware horror story?” Microsoft asks through its @windowsphone Twitter account, in what may be one of the most ironic tweets of the year.After all, it wasn’t that long ago that “virus” and “worm” stories made headlines on a regular basis, all of them about “computer viruses” which were really Windows viruses. Just a few years ago, Apple advertised the fact that a Mac “Doesn’t...

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Kate Receives Hospital Visit from Pippa and James

12/05/2012 at 07:30 PM EST James and Pippa Middleton Alpha /Landov; Inset:Allpix/ plash News Online The Duchess of Cambridge had more hospital visitors on Wednesday.Just two days after husband Prince William, 30, was photographed leaving the King Edward VII Hospital in Central London where...

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Study could spur wider use of prenatal gene tests

A new study sets the stage for wider use of gene testing in early pregnancy. Scanning the genes of a fetus reveals far more about potential health risks than current prenatal testing does, say researchers who compared both methods in thousands of pregnancies nationwide.A surprisingly high number — 6 percent — of certain fetuses declared normal by conventional testing were found to have genetic abnormalities...

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Occupy protests' ironic legacy: more restrictions on protesters

Life was upended briefly in affluent San Marino last year when a hundred or so Occupy-style protesters staged a demonstration...

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32% of Young People Use Social Media in the Bathroom

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How Adriana Lima Got Her Body Back for the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show

Jennifer Graylock/JPIWith just eight weeks between the birth of daughter Sienna and the annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, Adriana Lima wasted no time hitting the ring.Taking three weeks off to recover from the delivery, Lima had the five remaining weeks to prepare — and she did, following an intense workout plan designed by her trainer of six years, Michael Olajide,...

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Study: Drug coverage to vary under health law

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study says basic prescription drug coverage could vary dramatically from state to state under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.That's because states get to set benefits for private health plans that will be offered starting in 2014 through new insurance exchanges.The study out Tuesday from the market analysis firm Avalere Health found that some states will require...

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L.A. police seek owners of 11,000 pieces of stolen jewelry

Gold earrings, diamond studs, wedding rings and designer watches sparkled like a jeweler's cabinet at a shopping mall — and...

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