Cardinals manager La Russa retires

Tony La Russa announced his retirement Monday, just three days after managing the St. Louis Cardinals to the World Series title. La Russa, 67, had managed in the major leagues for 33 years, 16 of them with the Cardinals, who defeated the Texas Rangers in seven games for his third World Series crown."We went through the season and I felt that this just feels like it's time to end it and I think it's going to be great for the Cardinals to refresh what's going on here," La Russa told a St. Louis news conference.He said no one factor led to his decision."They all just come together telling you your time is over," he said.La Russa compiled a 2,728-2,365...

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Steve Jobs’ Final Words Shared in Sister’s Eulogy

Steve Jobs’ sister Mona Simpson shared in the eulogy she delivered at the late Apple CEO‘s memorial service that his surprising final words from his deathbed were, “Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow.” In the eulogy, which was printed in The New York Times on Sunday, Simpson describes Jobs’ final days and moments in a Palo Alto hospital, which was spent surrounded by family as his breathing gradually became shorter. His breath, she said, “indicated an arduous journey, some steep path, altitude.” Delivered at the October 16 service for Jobs at Stanford Memorial Church, Simpson, an accomplished novelist, began by describing her initial meeting of...

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FBI Russian Spy Videos Released

The FBI video is remarkable: Russian spies digging up payoff money in New Jersey, handing off a bag in a New York train station and passing information in furtive meetings and “brush bys.”  It’s all part of the surveillance video released today of a decade-long FBI undercover operation that brought down Anna Chapman and the Russian spy ring operating in the United States. The videos were released as part of a Freedom of Information Act request by ABC News and other news outlets . In conjunction with the release of the videos, the FBI has also released more than 1,000 pages of highly redacted documents from the case that was...

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Palestine wins UNESCO seat

Palestine won full admission into UNESCO, the United Nations science, education and cultural heritage organization, in a closely watched vote in Paris Monday. Global diplomacy hands view the 107-14 vote as a benchmark carrying larger implications for the Palestinians' bid for state recognition before the UN Security Council. Both the United States and Israel have strongly opposed both initiatives. The United States, Israel, Canada, Germany, Sweden and Australia were among the 14 nations voting against the Palestinians' UNESCO bid, while 107 countries--including France, Spain, Ireland, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, India, Russia, China, South...

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Herman Cain Denies Sexual Harassment Allegation: ‘Bring Me The Accuser’

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain’s campaign is staunchly denying reports that the former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza was involved in a sexual harassment case, saying the allegations are “questionable.” Cain’s chief of staff, Mark Block, said on MSNBC today that the GOP candidate “has never sexually harassed anyone. Period. End of story.” “Every negative word and accusation in the article is sourced to a series of unnamed or anonymous sources. Questionable at best,” Block said of the Politico report, which found that Cain was accused of inappropriate behavior by two women during his tenure as National Restaurant...

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Man opens fire outside US Embassy in Bosnia

A man opened fire with an automatic weapon outside the U.S. Embassy in Bosnia on Friday, and authorities said he was targeting the building in a terrorist attack. The man injured at least one police officer guarding the embassy before police surrounded him. After a 30-minute standoff, the sound of a single shot echoed and AP Video showed the shooter — brandishing a Kalyshinkov on a street corner outside of the embassy — slump to the ground.Police arrested the wounded man and took him away in an ambulance as pedestrians watched from behind buildings and vehicles. Sarajevo police spokesman Irfan Nefic said the man was being treated at a hospital.Hospital...

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Gaddafi son eyes safety, talks to Hague

From deep in the Sahara, fearing that he will share his father's bloody fate at the hands of vengeful Libyans and calling in old favors bought with oil from desert tribes and African strongmen, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi may be bartering a future. The International Criminal Court at The Hague confirmed on Friday that the 39-year-old heir-apparent to Libya's slain former leader had been in touch. It urged him to turn himself in, warning it could order a mid-air interception if he and his mercenary guards tried to flee by plane for safe haven abroad.Though details remain sketchy of the whereabouts and state of mind of Saif al-Islam, the London-educated...

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Police arrest 29 Occupy Nashville protesters at capitol plaza

Occupy Nashville protesters were returning to the Tennessee Legislative Plaza in front of the state capitol on Friday after being rousted from their campsite by state troopers earlier this morning. Twenty-nine protesters were taken into custody at shortly after three Friday morning. Some were dragged from the campsite they've occupied for about three weeks.Those arrested were taken to Davidson County Night Court for booking, but were freed by Night Court Commissioner Thomas Nelson."You have no lawful basis to arrest and charge those people," Nelson said to state troopers."For three weeks they've sat up there and protested under no admonition...

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Bernie Madoff Exclusive: Barbara Walters' Firsthand Account

It is a 90-minute flight from New York to Raleigh, N.C., and then it takes about 40 minutes by car to get to the Butner Federal Correction Complex. As you drive east from Raleigh all you can see for miles is farmland scattered with a few small buildings. Butner is a beautiful, rural community, despite being home to several prisons. The Butner complex itself has four prisons: two medium security facilities, a hospital and a low-security prison as well. Bernard Madoff is in Medium I. All the buildings are white and low to the ground, and from a distance look like an attractive office complex. The area was quiet and extremely well-kept...

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Wall St. climbs 3 percent on Europe deal, financials soar

Stocks surged 3 percent in a broad rally on Thursday as a long-awaited agreement by European leaders to boost the region's bailout fund promised to remove a major headwind for the market. The agreement also strikes a deal for write-downs on Greek bonds, a source of global equity weakness over the past several months. However, optimism that a deal would be struck that would contain the crisis has led to a recent rebound.Up more than 13 percent so far in October, the S&P 500 is on pace for its best monthly percentage gain since January 1987. The gain follows five negative months on the index.Financials were the best performers, with...

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US government seeks $70M from African official

The son of Equatorial Guinea's president plundered his country's natural resources through corruption, spending more than $70 million in looted profits on a Malibu mansion, a Gulfstream jet and Michael Jackson memorabilia, the U.S. government said. In what appeared to be a concerted action, France last month seized 11 luxury sports cars belonging to Teodorin Nguema Obiang Mangue, a government minister in the West African country and heir-apparent to the presidency. And a Spanish investigative judge has been asked to seize properties in Madrid and Las Palmas in the Canary Islands owned by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, his sons and some ministers, acting on a case brought by the Pro-Human Rights Association of Spain.Teodorin Obiang, who is in his early 40s, used his position to siphon...

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AP IMPACT: NYPD shadows Muslims who change names

Muslims who change their names to sound more traditionally American, as immigrants have done for generations, or who adopt Arabic names as a sign of their faith are often investigated and catalogued in secret New York Police Department intelligence files, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. The NYPD monitors everyone in the city who changes his or her name, according to internal police documents and interviews. For those whose names sound Arabic or might be from Muslim countries, police run comprehensive background checks that include reviewing travel records, criminal histories, business licenses and immigration documents....

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Oakland tense after police, protesters clash

The scene was calm but tense early Wednesday as a crowd of hundreds of protesters dwindled to just a few dozen at the site of several clashes between authorities and supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement a night earlier. Police in riot gear stood watch only a few yards away from a group of stalwart demonstrators in the aftermath of skirmishes in front of City Hall that resulted in five volleys of tear gas from police, in blasts that seemed to intensify with each round, over a roughly three-hour stretch of evening scuffles.The conflict began much earlier in the day when police dismantled an encampment of Occupy Wall Street protesters...

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Turkish PM faults shoddy construction

Turkey's leader said Wednesday that shoddy construction contributed to the high casualty toll in Turkey's earthquake, and he compared the alleged negligence of some officials and builders to murder. Three days after the devastating quake in eastern Turkey, a teacher and a university student were rescued from ruined buildings, but searchers said hopes of finding anyone else alive were diminishing. Excavators began clearing debris from some collapsed buildings in Ercis after searchers removed bodies and determined there were no other survivors.In the capital, Ankara, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey had not learned enough...

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Attacks on Baghdad traffic police kill 5

Iraqi officials say two separate attacks against traffic policemen have left five people dead in Baghdad. Police said gunmen in a speeding car attacked a traffic police checkpoint in the center of the Iraqi capital early Monday, killing two policemen and two civilians.A half-hour later, a roadside bomb targeting a traffic police patrol wounded three policemen and four passers-by in western Baghdad. As people rushed to the scene to help, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives belt, killing a civilian.Two health officials in two hospitals confirmed the casualties. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized...

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Demise of Obama long-term care plan leaves gap

The Obama administration's decision to pull the plug on a financially flawed long-term care insurance plan is likely to worsen a dilemma most middle-class families are totally unprepared for. A nursing home can cost more than $200 a day and a home health aide averages $450 a week, usually part-time. Yet long-term care is one major health expense for which nearly all Americans are uninsured. Only about 3 percent of adults have their own policy, and Medicare doesn't cover it.Families confront their financial exposure when a frail elder takes a turn for the worse, a teen is calamitously injured in a car crash or a middle-aged worker suffers...

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Libya declared free, but Gadhafi death questioned

Libya's interim rulers have declared the country liberated after an 8-month civil war, launching the oil-rich nation on what is meant to be a two-year transition to democracy. But they laid out plans with an Islamist tone that could rattle their Western backers. The joyful Sunday ceremony formally marking the end of Moammar Gadhafi's 42-year tyranny was also clouded by mounting pressure from the leaders of the NATO campaign that helped secure victory to investigate whether Gadhafi, dragged wounded but alive out of a drainage ditch last week, was then executed by his captors.The circumstances of Gadhafi's death remain unclear. In separate...

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7.2 quake in Turkey kills 217, collapses buildings

Rescue teams on Monday sifted through hills of rubble from flattened multistory buildings trying to reach dozens of people believed trapped after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Turkey. The Interior Minister put the death toll so far at 217. Hundreds of rescue teams dug through the night in search of survivors among dozens of pancaked buildings. Residents also searched for their missing as aid groups scrambled to set up tents, field hospitals and kitchens to assist thousands left homeless.Officials said hundreds of mud-brick homes in villages and concrete buildings in cities tumbled down in the earthquake that struck the province...

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