News

America’s largest city got a scare early Monday when the smell associated with natural gas covered a large swath of Manhattan. Sirens blared, emergency vehicles raced through streets, people poured out of buildings, and some train stations were evacuated.
But nothing dangerous was discovered, and there was no immediate explanation for the odor. New York City [...]

Filed under: USA by lrenz
No Comments »

TV talk host Oprah Winfrey was the target of an alleged extortion plot involving potentially damaging audio tapes, federal officials in Chicago say.
Keifer Bonvillain of Atlanta was charged with illegally taping telephone conversations he had with a Winfrey employee he had met at a party in an effort to extort $1.5 million from the star, [...]

Filed under: Entertainment, USA by lrenz
No Comments »

In Somalia, an alleged message from Osama bin Laden’s deputy urging Somalis to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla war against Ethiopian forces there is being taken seriously by a now mostly-disbanded group of militant Somali youths known as the Shaabab. In an interview with VOA Correspondent Alisha Ryu in Mogadishu, one former Shaabab member warns that [...]

Filed under: World by lrenz
No Comments »

Millions of Romanians and Bulgarians revelled in their first day as citizens of the European Union on Monday, after a night of fireworks and street parties celebrating their countries’ entry into the bloc.
Deemed too politically and economically backward for membership during the EU’s first eastward expansion in 2004, the Black Sea neighbours were relieved to [...]

Filed under: World by lrenz
No Comments »