Using Twitter to track people's moods

There's a lot you can read about on Twitter — including, it now appears, the patterns of human moods. After analyzing two years' worth of tweets by 2.4 million people around the world, researchers at Cornell University have concluded that individuals wake up happy but that their mood deteriorates as the day progresses. That discovery, among others reported Thursday in the journal Science, will interest researchers who are trying to understand how circadian rhythms and other natural influences...

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California man is found alive by his children after wreck

David Lavau’s children drove slowly along the mountain road, stopping to peer over the dropoffs and call out for their missing father. Then finally a faint cry: “Help! Help!” The voice not only let Lavau’s children find him, it may have resolved another missing-person case. Six days after his car plunged 200 feet into a ravine, Lavau, 68, was rescued Thursday by his three adult children, who took matters into their own hands after a detective told them his last cellphone signal came from...

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Ceremony honors old, new Joint Chiefs chairmen

With full military fanfare -- gun salutes, fife and drum corps, brass bands, a flyover and presidential praise -- the nation bid farewell to its top military man and honored his successor Friday. Adm. Mike Mullen has been Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, the president's top military adviser, since October of 2007. Army Gen. Marty Dempsey takes his place. "As the new secretary of defense, I am confident of the future because we have the strongest military force in our history -- and it is strong...

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Bilal Sharif Birthday Party

لاہور کے معروف بزنس مین اور ہاٹی ناٹی ویب ساٹس کے مالک اور ریکارڈ یافتہ رکشہ چیکر ڈیز مسٹر بلال شریف عرف بلا ھوشاری آج اپنے پیارے اور خیر خواہ دوستوں کے ہمراہ اپنی سالگرہ منایں گے۔ جس میں تمام زند دلان لاہور کو دعوت عام دی جاتی ہے کہ وہ آج  پانچ بجے گلشن پارک کے وسیع و عریض گھاس والے پلاٹ  میں جمع ہو جایں۔اور اپنے ساتھ تحفے تحاف ضرور لے کر آیں۔ لنگر کا وسیع انتظام ہو گا۔ مہمان خصوصی لاہور کے معروف فنکارطاہر چمٹے والا شرکت فرمایں گے اور اپنے جوشیلے انداز سے فن کا مظاہرہ کریں گے۔...

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FBI's terrorism search goes undersea

They search the ocean depths hunting for evidence left by predators deadlier than great white sharks. They are members of the FBI's Technical Dive Team, an elite group of special agents tracking terrorism underwater. Starting next year, this 10-member team could be called on to search for evidence left behind by international terrorists in water contaminated by chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear waste. "There have been enough scenarios recently," says team member Supervisory Special...

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Two-faced cat claims Record

We all know cats have nine lives, but ... two faces? Meet Frank and Louie, a rare cat known as a Janus who has earned a place in the 2012 Guinness World Records book as the oldest-living two-faced feline.  Luckily for Frank and Louie's owner, who according to media reports lives in Worcester, Mass., the cat has only one stomach and one brain, so he doesn't require extra food to fill two bellies and has no split personality issues. He eats with just one of two mouths and does not have...

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China's space ambition soars

China on Thursday launched its first space laboratory module, marking another step upward for its space program. "We must soberly recognize that China's space-station technology is still in its initial stage, compared to those of the U.S. and Russia," said a commentary from the state-run Xinhua News Agency. "But the launch of Tiangong-1 is the beginning of China's efforts to narrow the gap." China-watchers agree. "The test reflects China's technological advances, funded by its rapid economic...

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Amazon unveils $199 Kindle Fire tablet and $79 e-ink Kindle

After months of speculation, it's here: Amazon's tablet, the $199 Kindle Fire, was unveiled Wednesday. Smaller and cheaper than Apple's dominant iPad, the Kindle Fire has a 7-inch display and runs on a heavily customized version of Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android operating system. The tablet offers Wi-Fi connectivity, but no 3G or other cellular connection. It also lacks a camera and microphone, two features found in most rival tablets. !-- Email --> Print Comment cnnad_createAd("53218","http://ads.cnn.com/html.ng/site=cnn_money&cnn_money_position=220x200_ctr&cnn_money_rollup=technology&cnn_money_section=quigo&page.allowcompete=no¶ms.styles=fs&page.allowcompete=yes","200","220"); But...

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Saudi king revokes flogging of female driver

Saudi King Abdullah has revoked a flogging sentence for a woman who allegedly flouted the conservative kingdom's strict rules that prohibit women from driving a car, two sources with knowledge of the case said Wednesday. Amnesty International said a Saudi woman was sentenced to 10 lashes for getting behind the wheel, and had urged the dismantling of the "whole system of women's subordination." Authorities are not expected to release an official statement, but the woman will not be sentenced,...

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Why would anyone want to be president?

I'm struck by one big question as I watch the Republican presidential candidates battle each other while President Obama tries to win re-election: Why does anyone want to be president? It's like auditioning to be bandleader on the Titanic. And yes, I said bandleader and not captain because the captain of a ship has more of an impact on the direction of a voyage than President Obama, or any president who might follow him, can have in our hyperpolarized political climate. With the onslaught...

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Jennifer Lopez 'rising above' divorce, Randy Jackson says

Jennifer Lopez is back to work on "American Idol" -- and she's not letting personal drama get in the way. "We've been doing auditions and she's rising above," Lopez's fellow judge Randy Jackson, 55, told PEOPLE Saturday at Las Vegas's iHeartRadio Music Festival, where both he and Lopez performed. "She's strong, she's a trooper, she's a great girl. She's amazing." Since announcing her split with husband Marc Anthony, Lopez appears to be in good spirits, even recently joining Anthony poolside...

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More than 2,900 convicted criminal immigrants arrested, ICE says

In a huge, seven-day operation covering all 50 states and four U.S. territories, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested 2,901 convicted criminal immigrants as part of the "Cross Check" enforcement operation, ICE officials announced Wednesday. ICE officials trumpeted the arrests at a news conference designed to highlight "the Obama administration's ongoing commitment to prioritizing the removal of criminal aliens and egregious immigration law violators." ICE Director John...

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Michael Jackson killed himself with drugs

Los Angeles: Jurors in the involuntary manslaughter trial of Michael Jackson's doctor Tuesday heard dramatic opening statements and a startling recording of the pop singer, his words slow and slurred as he talks about his planned comeback concerts. Prosecutors portrayed Dr. Conrad Murray as motivated by money, while the defense contended Murray's superstar client self-administered a fatal mix of drugs. Witnesses gave varying accounts of Jackson's condition as he prepared for the shows in...

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Health Insurance Costs Rising Sharply This Year in U.S.A.

The cost of health insurance for many Americans this year climbed more sharply than in previous years, outstripping any growth in workers’ wages and adding more uncertainty about the pace of rising medical costs. A new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group that tracks employer-sponsored health insurance on a yearly basis, shows that the average annual premium for family coverage through an employer reached $15,073 in 2011, an increase of 9 percent over the previous...

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Jury to get overview of case against Michael Jackson doc

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The trial of the doctor charged in Michael Jackson's death opens Tuesday with a bit of star power and the one thing the King of Pop enjoyed throughout his life — a worldwide audience. The case will enter a crucial final act in a packed Los Angeles courtroom with opening statements and the start of testimony. Jackson's family, including his parents and many of his siblings, are expected to be present as dozens of reports cover the case. Proceedings also will be televised...

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Bus Crash in Pakistan kills 36

At least 36 people have been killed in a bus crash in Pakistan. The bus was returning from a school trip to a salt mine popular with tourists when it went into a ravine. Forty other people on the bus were injured. The incident happened in Kalar Kahar, east of the capital Islamabad. Pakistan has one of the world’s worst records for fatal traffic crashes, blamed on poor roads, badly maintained vehicles and reckless driving. Speaking from the scene in Chakwal district, Punjab province, about...

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Particles faster than light: Revolution or mistake?

In science, revolutions take time Eu­reka moments can stretch into noggin-scratching years. So, the day after news broke of a possible revolution in physics — particles moving faster than light — a scientist leading the European experiment that made the discovery calmly explained it to a standing-room- ­only crowd at CERN the giant particle accelerator straddling the Swiss-French border. The physicist, Dario Auterio, made no sweeping claims. He did not try to explain what the results might...

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Brad Pitt's 'Moneyball' Aims to Join Other Great Baseball Films

'Moneyball'  the big screen's latest baseball offering, opens today and, by many accounts, it's a home run. Starring Brad Pitt  and Jonah Hill, the film is based on Michael Lewis' book about how Oakland Athletics' general manager, Billy Beane, played by Pitt, took a roster of rejects and the second-lowest payroll in the majors all the way to the playoffs. Hill plays a Yale numbers cruncher who convinces Beane that the best way to evaluate players is not by how many runs they drive...

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Pakistan’s Spy Agency Is Tied to Attack on U.S. Embassy

WASHINGTON — The nation’s top military official said Thursday that Pakistan’s spy agency played a direct role in supporting the insurgents who carried out the deadly attack on the American Embassy in Kabul last week. It was the most serious charge that the United States has leveled against Pakistan in the decade that America has been at war in Afghanistan In comments that were the first to directly link the spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence with an assault on the United...

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Denmark's centre-left bloc narrowly wins national elections

Denmark's centre-left has won the country's general election, ending nearly a decade in opposition.With all votes counted, the bloc led by Social Democrat leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt had won a narrow majority in parliament. She is set to become Denmark's first woman prime minister. Incumbent Lars Lokke Rasmussen has admitted defeat. Ms Thorning-Schmidt had campaigned on a platform of tax rises and increased public spending. She also promised to roll back tough immigration laws proposed by...

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Nasa's Kepler telescope finds planet orbiting two suns

A planet orbiting two suns - the first confirmed alien world of its kind - has been found by Nasa's Kepler telescope, the US agency announced.  It may resemble the planet Tatooine from the film Star Wars, but scientists say Luke Skywalker, or anyone at all, is unlikely to be living there. Named Kepler-16b, it is thought to be an uninhabitable cold gas giant, like Saturn. The newly detected body lies some 200 light years from Earth. Though there have been hints in the past that planets...

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US claims killing of Qaeda's operational chief in Pakistan

Islamabad—Talking to a private tv channel on conditions of anonymity, a highly-placed senior US administration official confirmed the death of Abu Hafs al-Shahri in an attack last week. “It has been confirmed that al Qaeda’s chief of Pakistan operations, Abu Hafs al-Shahri, was killed earlier this week in Waziristan, Pakistan,” the official said. The official observed that Abu Hafs’ death would further degrade al Qaeda’s ability to recover from the death last month of Al-Qaeda’s number two, Atiyah...

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Microsoft reveals Windows 8

Microsoft has given its most extensive preview of the forthcoming release of Windows. Speaking at the company’s ‘Build’ conference, Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division at Microsoft, said that “We reimagined Windows. From the chipset to the user experience, Windows 8 brings a new range of capabilities without compromise.” The new operating system borrows some features from the increasingly popular Windows Phone operating system, using tiles and apps on an interface...

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Poverty in the US reaches a 52-year peak

WASHINGTON: Another 2.6 million people slipped into poverty in the United States last year, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, and the number of Americans living below the official poverty line, 46.2 million people, was the highest number in the 52 years the bureau has been publishing figures on it. And in new signs of distress among the middle class median household incomes fell last year to levels last seen in 1997. Economists seized on a telling statistic: It was the first time since the...

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Tennis | Novak Djokovic beats Rafael Nadal in U.S. Open men's final

NEW YORK — For most of Monday's 4-hour, 10-minute U.S. Open men's final, it felt more like a heavyweight fight than a tennis match, with Novak Djokovic of Serbia and Rafael Nadal of Spain trading full-body blows with their rackets. But the top-seeded Djokovic landed the more punishing hits, pummeling Nadal, the tournament's defending champion, 6-2, 6-4, 6-7 (3-7), 6-1 to win his first U.S. Open championship after finishing as the tournament's runner-up in 2007 and 2010. With the victory, Djokovic...

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"Kill or capture" unit in Gaddafi manhunt

A TEAM of “kill or capture” troops have been deployed to hunt down Colonel Gaddafi. The 200-strong Libyan special forces group – trained by NATO forces – was unleashed as Interpol issued a warrant for his arrest. Interpol’s “red notice” also names his son Seif al-Islam and Libya’s ex-head of ­military intelligence as wanted for war crimes. The notice was yesterday sent to 188 countries. It is believed the fugitive leader is in one of three remaining strongholds of loyalist support – his home town...

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China's billionaires double

The number of billionaires in China has doubled in the past two years, according to the latest rich list by Hurun Report magazine, giving China the second-largest number of billionaires in the world. Liang Wengen, chairman of construction company Sany topped this year’s list with a fortune worth about $11 billion. He is now one of 271 US dollar billionaires on the list – up from 130 in 2009 – meaning China is now second only to the United States by this measure. ‘Given the...

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Dozens killed as Russian plane carrying hockey team crashes

A plane carrying a hockey team with international players, including some NHL veterans, crashed as it took off Wednesday afternoon from Russia's Yaroslavl airport, killing at least 43 people, Russian emergency officials said. The Yak-42 aircraft was taking players for Lokomotiv Yaroslavl -- one of Russia's leading ice hockey teams -- to Minsk, the Belarusian capital, the Russian aviation authority told CNN. Two of the 45 people aboard the plane, which included eight crew members, survived, a Russian...

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Bombers target home of Pakistani paramilitary official, kill 23

Two suicide bombers targeted the home of a senior officer with Pakistan's paramilitary force Wednesday, killing at least 23 people and wounding 52. The attacks took place in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta. Brigadier Farrukh Shehzad, believed to be the target of the attacks, was injured in the blasts, said Tariq Manzoor, a senior Quetta police officials. Shehzad is a senior official in the Frontier Corps paramilitary force. Among the dead were Shehzad's wife and six security personnel,...

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Nevada restaurant shooting leaves five people dead

A gunman wielding an AK-47 opened fire on a table of uniformed troops at a restaurant in Carson City, Nevada, killing four people and wounding seven others before he turned the gun on himself. Five Nevada national guard troops sitting together at the back of an International House of Pancakes restaurant were shot – three of them fatally – and a woman was also killed. The gunman, 32-year-old Eduardo Sencion of Carson City, died at a hospital. The shooter's motive was unclear. He had never been in...

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Central Texas fires cause a handful of high school sporting delays

As the raging wildfires neared, Bastrop High football coach Gerald Perry rushed from his home Sunday with his wife, Michelle, and their three children. On Tuesday, he and his family had settled into an uneasy existence at a shelter for evacuees at Bastrop Middle School. Perry, who left home with "a pair of shorts and two T-shirts," said he had no idea whether his house was among the roughly 577 homes destroyed by two fires in Bastrop County that had burned 34,800 acres by Tuesday night. He did know...

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Obama Times are tough "but we're tougher"

President Barack Obama called for an end to "Washington games" and for Congressional Republicans to support initiatives to promote job creation benefiting the middle class. Speaking to a Labor Day rally in Detroit, a city he said had been "to heck and back," Mr. Obama challenged Congressional Republicans to put the country ahead of party. In a preview of his speech Thursday to a joint session of Congress, Mr. Obama proposed boosting construction and infrastructure projects - and included some...

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Al Qaeda’s ‘foreign minister’ captured

ISLAMABAD, Sept 5: The military on Monday announced the arrest of senior Al Qaeda operative Sheikh Younis Al Mauritani, a confidant of Osama bin Laden and the central character in the terror group’s ‘Europe plot’ last year, in a joint operation with CIA. Sheikh Al Mauritani, described by a website as Al Qaeda’s ‘foreign minister’, was arrested from a compound on the suburbs of Quetta on an unspecified date along with two of his accomplices — Abdul Ghaffar Al Shami (Bachar Chama) and Messara Al Shami...

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Wind-driven fires kill woman, child in East Texas

A longtime Texas sheriff says it was the fastest-moving fire he has ever seen. Six homes were toppled within minutes, including one trailer where a woman and her 18-month-old daughter were killed because they couldn't escape in time.Authorities said the fires, including the one that killed the two people Sunday near the East Texas community of Gladewater, were propelled partly by the high winds caused by Tropical Storm Lee. Neighborhoods across eastern and central parts of the state were reporting...

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World's heaviest woman?

A 32-year-old woman is attempting to become the heaviest woman ever, but her nearest competitor, a woman who holds the record of "World's Fattest Mom," is having a hard time letting go of her heavyweight claim to fame, even as she says she's going on a diet.Susanne Eman, a 728-pound woman in Casa Grande, Ariz., is attempting to get into Guinness World Records as the "World's Heaviest Woman." The 2012 edition of the book will be released later this month.The last woman to hold the title, 1,200-pound...

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