AURORA, Colorado — Batman actor Christian Bale paid a low-key visit Tuesday to Aurora, Colorado to comfort victims of last week’s shooting massacre, which occurred during a screening of his latest film. Pictures posted on Twitter showed the Welsh-born actor at the Medical Center of Aurora, where 20 of the…
PARIS — Sunbed users run a 20 percent higher risk than non-users of developing skin cancer, according to a report that blamed some 800 melanoma deaths in Europe every year on indoor tanning. About 3,400 of some 64,000 new cases of cutaneous melanoma diagnosed in 18 European countries every year…
MIAMI — Florida has appealed in a Miami federal court last month’s ruling blocking the entry into force of a state law prohibiting state agencies from awarding contracts to companies doing business with Cuba and Syria. Florida Governor Rick Scott announced the appeal of the June 26 ruling by US…
VIENNA — A furore over circumcision in Germany reached neighbouring Austria on Tuesday as a state governor advised doctors against performing the procedure, even when it is on religious grounds. Markus Wallner, centre-right state premier of Vorarlberg, said the instructions followed a controversial June ruling by a court in the…
NEW YORK — Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, called on merchants Tuesday to reject a multi-billion-dollar settlement deal over credit-card fees, saying it was not in their or consumers’ interest. The proposed settlement, announced this month as a resolution of a class-action suit by merchants over so-called “swipe” fees, would…
WASHINGTON — Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, which Damascus has acknowledged for the first time, is decades old and among the biggest in the Middle East, but experts are divided over its exact nature. President Bashar al-Assad’s regime caused a global uproar Monday when it vowed to use its chemical weapons…
NEW YORK — New Yorkers gave a big sendoff to “Queen of Soul Food” Sylvia Woods, whose famed Harlem restaurant served everybody from Muhammad Ali to Bill Clinton, ahead of her burial Wednesday. Mourners flocked to a historic African American church in Harlem where Woods, who died last week at…
WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged greater political will to stop “the evil” of genocide Tuesday, as a poll found most Americans think global bodies are ineffective in halting atrocities. Speaking at an event organized by the Holocaust Memorial Museum, Clinton told the audience that “despite all…
Legislation introduced to the Illinois House of Representatives last week would amend the state’s constitution to prohibit same sex marriages. The bill was introduced by Republicans state Rep. David Reis, who told the Quad City Times that the issue “should not be decided in the courts.” If passed by the…
Mitt Romney will arrive in London on Wednesday pursued by calls from the Obama administration to use his first overseas tour as the Republican presidential candidate to define a foreign policy that amounts to more than criticising the president. Mocked for his description of Russia as the US’s leading geopolitical foe…