Indian to go solo on second lunar mission

AHMEDABAD: India has decided on its second journey to the moon—Chandrayaan-2—without Russian participation. The tentative date for lift-off is 2015 from the Sriharikota facility. This was announced by space scientist S V S Murty of the Ahmedabad-based Physical Research Laboratory's (PRL) planetary exploration group during a conference on Monday.The original mission envisaged the nearly Rs 425-crore...

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Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home...

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Live Updates: Obamas Watch Inaugural Parade

Four years and one day after President Obama first took his first oath of office, America is once again celebrating his Inauguration. This time the schedule includes performances by Beyonce and Katy Perry, a parade with more than 2,000 members of the military and two Inaugural balls.Refresh here for updates throughout the day.Tune in to the ABC News.com Live page on Monday morning starting at...

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Colombia's FARC rebels end ceasefire

HAVANA: Colombia's FARC rebels announced Sunday the end of a two-month unilateral ceasefire declared in November at the outset of talks in Cuba aimed at ending Latin America's longest-running insurgency.The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) had said they were willing to extend the ceasefire, due to expire at midnight on Sunday (0500 GMT Monday), if the Colombian government...

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Every CAG report has a basis: Vinod Rai

BHUBANESWAR: Brushing aside criticism of the national auditor's method of calculating losses in coalgate and 2G spectrum scams, Comptroller & Auditor General Vinod Rai on Sunday said every CAG report has a certain 'basis'. The country is faced with corruption of unprecedented proportion, Rai said, while defending his reports, saying these were unique and extraordinary. "Every report is unique...

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Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home...

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President Obama Sworn In for Second Term

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden today officially embarked on their second term, taking the Constitutionally mandated oath of office in two separate private ceremonies inside their homes.Shortly before noon in the Blue Room of the White House, Obama raised his right hand, with his left on a family Bible, reciting the oath administrated by Chief Justice John...

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Veteran jihadist claims bloody Algeria siege for al Qaeda

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - A veteran Islamist fighter claimed responsibility on behalf of al Qaeda for the Algerian hostage crisis, a regional website reported on Sunday, tying the bloody desert siege to France's intervention across the Sahara in Mali. Algeria said it expected to raise its preliminary death tolls of 23 hostages and 32 militants killed in the four-day siege...

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Algeria hostage crisis ends in bloodshed

IN AMENAS, Algeria: Algerian troops stormed a remote gas plant on Saturday to end a hostage crisis that killed 23 foreigners and Algerians, seven of them executed by their Islamist captors in a final military assault.Twenty-one hostages died during the siege that began when the Al-Qaeda-linked gunmen attacked the In Amenas facility deep in the Sahara desert at dawn on Wednesday, the interior...

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JBT scam: Convicted retired staff & kin in a shock

NEW DELHI: Four days after the CBI court gave its verdict in the junior basic trained (JBT) teachers' recruitment scam, 50 retired Haryana primary education department employees, who were convicted by the court, and their families are in a state of shock.Having lost the legal battle following the CBI court's conviction, the former government employees of the education department on Saturday pleaded...

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