Queen delivers 1st Christmas message in 3D

LONDON (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II has hailed the holidays in a new dimension, delivering her Christmas message for the first time in 3D.In the annual, prerecorded broadcast, the monarch paid tribute to the armed forces, “whose sense of duty takes them away from family and friends” over the holidays, and expressed gratitude for the outpouring of enthusiasm for her Diamond Jubilee celebrations.The queen...

Read More..

One in 12 in military has clogged heart arteries

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Just over one in 12 U.S. service members who died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars had plaque buildup in the arteries around their hearts – an early sign of heart disease, according to a new study.None of them had been diagnosed with heart disease before deployment, researchers said.“This is a young, healthy, fit group,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Bryant Webber,...

Read More..

Egypt constitution passes with 63.8 percent

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's disputed Islamist-backed constitution passed with a 63.8 percent "yes" in a referendum, the election commission announced Tuesday, rejecting opposition allegations of significant vote fraud.Turnout of 32.9 percent of Egypt's nearly 52 million registered voters was quite a bit lower than most other elections since the uprising nearly two years ago that ousted authoritarian leader...

Read More..

Bolivia’s Morales visits Cuba after Chavez surgery

HAVANA (AP) — Bolivian President Evo Morales has made a lightning trip to Havana where key ally Hugo Chavez is convalescing after cancer surgery.Morales did not speak to foreign journalists during his weekend visit. Cuban state-run media didn’t confirm that he visited Chavez, but said he came “to express his support” for the Venezuelan president. The Cuban government had invited media to cover Morales’...

Read More..

Sprint salesman refuses to sell iPhone to customer, says his ‘fingers are too fat’ to use it

We’ve known for a while now that some mobile carriers have been instructing their sales staff to start pushing their customers away from Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and toward Android or Windows Phone devices. The reason is simple: carriers pay a lot more to subsidize Apple’s popular smartphone than they do with other devices and they’d prefer to have higher gross margins at the end of each quarter....

Read More..

Thousands sign US petition to deport Piers Morgan

LONDON (AP) — Tens of thousands of people have signed a petition calling for British CNN host Piers Morgan to be deported from the U.S. over his gun control views.Morgan has taken an aggressive stand for tighter U.S. gun laws in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting. Last week, he called a gun advocate appearing on his “Piers Morgan Tonight” show an “unbelievably stupid man.”Now, gun...

Read More..

Little change in overtreatment at doctors’ offices

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Although some Americans are getting more of beneficial treatments that were underused in the past, including drugs for heart disease, others are still being overtested or overtreated for a range of conditions, according to a new study.Researchers found U.S. doctors’ offices made progress on six of nine “quality indicators” for recommended and underused therapies but only...

Read More..

Firefighters ambushed by gunman while responding to house fire

A man with a criminal history shot and killed two West Webster, N.Y. firefighters and seriously injured two others as they responded to a fire at his home, police say.William H. Spengler, Jr., 62, apparently started a 5:35 a.m. fire at his home on Lake Road  and then waited with an armament of weapons for first responders to arrive, Webster N.Y. Police Chief Gerald Pickering said at an afternoon...

Read More..

Syria jets kill tens as international envoy visits

BEIRUT (AP) — A government airstrike on a bakery in a rebel-held town in central Syria killed more than 60 people on Sunday, activists said, casting a pall over a visit by the international envoy charged with negotiating an end to the country’s civil war.The strike on the town of Halfaya left scattered bodies and debris up and down a street, and more than a dozen dead and wounded were trapped in tangled...

Read More..

Sri Lanka arrests 100 Chinese for cyber fraud, police say

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka on Saturday arrested at least 100 Chinese nationals accused of an internet fraud scheme targeting people in their home country, a police spokesman said.The accused, all in Sri Lanka on tourist visas, are suspected of hacking into computers in China and then demanding their owners transfer them money, police spokesman Prishantha Jayakodi told Reuters.Chinese police requested...

Read More..