An Asian buyer purchased a rare Leica camera, one of only four of its kind in the world, for $620,000 at a Hong Kong auction, auctioneers said Saturday. The 1932 Leica Luxus II fetched HK$4.84 million ($620,000) late Friday in an auction where about 80 cameras and accessories went under the hammer...
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Rare Leica camera sells for $620,000 in Hong Kong auction
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Philippines typhoon aftermath: ’1.5 million children are at risk of acute malnutrition and close to 800,000 pregnant and nursing mothers need nutritional help’
The number of people dead or missing after one of the world’s strongest typhoons struck the Philippines climbed towards 7,000 on Saturday, as the United Nations warned much more needed to be done to help desperate survivors. The government’s confirmed death toll rose to 5,235, with...
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Queen’s representative in Australia expresses support for cutting ties with the British monarchy
The queen’s representative in Australia, Governor-General Quentin Bryce, has reignited debate over cutting ties with the British monarchy after she expressed support for the country becoming a republic. Bryce made the comments at a speech in Sydney on Friday evening in which she outlined a...
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NSA deputy director John Inglis suggests turf war with FBI, other agencies over data trove
John Inglis appears at University of Pennsylvania to argue legality of bulk surveillance and indicates stance on Feinstein bill The deputy director of the National Security Agency on Friday sounded skeptical about permitting the FBI, DEA or other law enforcement agencies to directly search through...
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Maher: Reagan was a ‘square in a cowboy hat who had sex with a woman he called Mommy’
Friday night in his weekly “New Rules” segment, Bill Maher contrasted the legacies of Democratic icon President John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Republican demigod, President Ronald W. Reagan, saying that Republicans have gotten the losing end of the deal. Kennedy, he said, was Don Draper,...
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Lifelong secret of Mount Everest pioneer Frank Smythe revealed: I discovered George Mallory’s body in 1936
George Mallory’s disappearance in 1924 was unsolved for 75 years. But now the son of mountaineer Frank Smythe tells how his father spotted the remains – but decided he had to keep quiet Tony Smythe knew he might find secrets when he came to write a book about his father, the 1930s Everest...
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Slate’s ‘minutes to read’ feature dumbs down journalism
Slate thinks readers aren’t interested in unfamiliar stories that will burden them, but journalism’s about discovery This article will take you 3 minutes 45 seconds to read. (2 minutes 30 seconds celsius.) You will expend 60 calories and learn two new vocabulary words, including a...
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Singapore-sized chunk of ice breaks away from Antarctica and is now adrift
A chunk of ice the size of the island nation of Singapore broke off of the continent of Antarctica late last month and is currently adrift at sea. NASA satellite images taken on Oct. 28 and Nov. 13 show the before and after images of the break. A crack was first detected in the pine island glacier...
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Albert Camus will always be ‘L’Étranger’ – and I’m proud of that, says writer’s daughter
There is no national French celebration of the Nobel winner’s centenary. But he wouldn’t want one, Catherine Camus says It is a century since French Nobel prize-winning author Albert Camus was born – and more than 50 years since he died in an accident on an icy road – yet the polemics...
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Pistol-packing Texas Republican hit with felony charges for airport incident
A Republican lawmaker was charged with a felony on Friday for attempting to carry a .38 caliber pistol and ammunition through airport security earlier this month. Talking Points Memo reported that Texas state Rep. Drew Darby had the Ruger pistol and six rounds of ammunition in his carry-on bag at...
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Electric carmaker Fisker files for bankruptcy
Fisker Automotive, whose high-end electric cars caught the eye of Justin Bieber and other celebrities, has filed for bankruptcy protection. The California-based company also announced it had entered an asset purchase agreement with Hybrid Tech Holdings, LLC. “After having evaluated and...
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Thousands rally against U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan
Thousands of right-wing Pakistani activists led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan on Saturday staged a protest against US drone strikes, threatening to block NATO supply routes if strikes continue. The activists burned US flags as a mark of protest, said an AFP reporter at the scene in...
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Bug-hunter gets $5,000 for ‘high-impact’ Gmail exploit
Google is reporting it has fixed a bug in its password-reset system that would have allowed anyone able to spoof a reminder from Gmail to take over all a user’s Google accounts and threaten any to which they’re connected. The “high impact” security…
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Aliens, the KGB and killer gays: JFK assassination theory mashup has all that and more
The animators at TOMO News released a video this week to mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy Jr. that features a list of the many theories related to the former president’s death. In the animation company’s usual irreverent style, the video...
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Willie Nelson tour bus crash leaves three band members hurt
Stormy weather led to a serious crash early Saturday morning when country and western music legend Willie Nelson’s tour bus plowed into a bridge support. According to CNN, three band members were injured and rushed to local hospitals when high winds and heavy rain swept the bus off the road...
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Kremlin says Greenpeace crew may be allowed to leave Russia
The Kremlin said Saturday that 30 Greenpeace crew members held after a protest in Arctic waters could be allowed to leave Russia, but the international activist group greeted the statement warily. “As soon as the issue of how they can leave Russia is resolved they will leave,” Kremlin...
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New mass graves in Mexico dredge up plight of missing
Amid Mexico’s continuous drug conflict, the recent discovery of dozens of bodies in mass graves has led some to describe the plight of the country’s disappeared as a national emergency. At least 54 corpses have been recovered in clandestine pits in three states this month alone,...
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Massachusetts state chemist jailed for forging drug evidence
One chapter in a Massachusetts police lab scandal closed Friday with the sentencing of disgraced former state chemist Annie Dookhan to three to five years in prison after pleading guilty to 27 counts of obstruction of justice, perjury, tampering with evidence and other charges. But the state...
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Obama acknowledges ‘rough’ start for ACA in weekly address; Republican calls it ‘a trainwreck’ in response
On Saturday, for the first time since October 26, Barack Obama’s weekly address acknowledged the continuing controversy over the rollout of his signature healthcare reform, the Affordable Care Act. In the Republican response, the Texas representative Michael Burgess, a doctor and health...
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Egypt, Syria throw out each other’s diplomats
Egypt and Turkey dismissed each other’s ambassadors and downgraded their diplomatic relations on Saturday after months of tensions over the removal of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi. Egypt’s foreign Ministry Spokesman Badr Abdelatty said he had asked Turkish ambassador Avni Botsali to leave the...
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