WASHINGTON: A major magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck off the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean and a tsunami warning was issued for South Pacific islands, US officials said.
The US Geological Survey said the quake struck at 0112 GMT near the Santa Cruz Islands, which are part of the Solomon Islands nation, with a depth of 3.6 miles (5.8 kilometers). The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center warned that the large quake could trigger a "destructive tsunami" near the epicenter.
- AFP/ck
Zillow Digs, the real estate aggregator's new app for home improvement information.
Online real estate listing aggregator Zillow launched an app today that aims to help home shoppers and home buyers with their home improvement projects.
Available for the
iPad and the Web, Zillow Digs is a free app designed to offer inspiration as well as information about remodeling projects. The free app lets users browse thousands of photos of bathroom, kitchen, and outdoor projects, as well as get estimates on the cost of the actual project based on the user's location.
The app also allows users to create, save, and share Pinterest-like boards containing their ideas and interact with other users who may have similar ideas. The app also offers connections to local industry professionals, such as architects, contractors, and designers.
"Tens of millions of home buyers shop for homes on Zillow each month, and home improvement is a natural next step for us in consumer empowerment and transparency of information to help people make smarter decisions," Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff said in a statement. This first-of-its-kind remodeling cost estimate algorithm was created by Zillow's industry-leading team of economists and data analysts who produce extensive housing data and research."
Founded in 2004 and launched as a Web site in 2006, Zillow has a sales and rental database on more than 110 million U.S. homes. The company's revenue comes from real estate professionals' subscription fees and advertising.
In 2008, the company launched Mortgage Marketplace, which lets prospective borrowers get quotes anonymously and lenders get leads for free.
(CBS News) HIRAM, Ga. -- When CBS News met Todd Love last year, he was learning how to kayak, and that's no small accomplishment, because Love is a triple amputee. As a U.S. Recon Marine in Afghanistan two years ago, he lost both legs and his left forearm to a landmine.
Love said then that kayaking didn't completely satisfy his need for adventure.
Watch: CBS News first met Todd Love when he was learning how to kayak, at left.
"I want to go skydiving soon," he said. "It shouldn't be a problem to do that."
He was right. Since then, he's done four tandem jumps and hopes to eventually dive solo.
And that wasn't the end of his wish list.
"I've always wanted to wrestle an alligator," he said.
Todd Love took on skydiving to satisfy his need for adventure.
Animal Planet got word of that and invited Love to appear on "Gator Boys."
"The whole time, I was kind of thinking, 'I hope this gator doesn't get tired of me being on top of him, 'cause I'm bite-sized,'" Love said.
Love also recently became a fully certified scuba diver.
"I feel like I can do anything I put my mind to," he said. "And for me, that's way more than having two legs. It's priceless."
He put his mind to surfing and was doing handstands within minutes.
Freeing disabled vets with kayaks
Quadruple amputee vet says new arms feel "amazing"
Iraq War veteran Keith Zeier survives avalanche
And he can't get enough of the demolition derby -- in a car he controls by hand. Love said that was the most intense of all his activities.
"I would say the adrenaline rush was probably the most significant," he said. "It's up there with combat."
Todd Love
His next adventure: going to college. It makes him more nervous, he said, than jumping out of a plane, but he's determined to succeed.
Love doesn't spend a lot of time feeling sorry for himself.
"I don't have a reason to feel sorry for myself," he said. "A lot of times, no conversation at all, people will come up to me and thank me for my service, and I see the tears in their eyes and there's not much that I can say. In my mind, I'm thinking I wish these people knew -- I wish they knew what I was thinking, how much I love my life."
Love said he's always on the lookout for a new adventure and predicted he'll still be doing "something crazy" when he's 90 years old.
Feb 5, 2013 3:54pm
The White House today defended the use of targeted drone strikes against U.S. citizens abroad suspected of high-level terrorist activity, but declined to detail the criteria for ordering such an attack.
“Sometimes we use remotely piloted aircraft to conduct targeted strikes against specific al Qaeda terrorists in order to prevent attacks on the United States and to save American lives,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters.
“We conduct those strikes because they are necessary to mitigate ongoing actual threats, to stop plots, to prevent future attacks and, again, save American lives. These strikes are legal, they are ethical, and they are wise,” he said.
U.S. Air Force
Administration lawyers found it is lawful to kill an American citizen if a “high-level” government official believes the target is an operational leader of al Qaeda who poses “an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States” and if capture is infeasible, according to a newly disclosed Justice Department document.
The 16-page white paper, first obtained by NBC News, finds there “exists no appropriate judicial forum to evaluate these constitutional considerations” and that the administration does not need to present evidence to a court before or after ordering such an attack.
“The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,” the document reads.
Carney repeatedly declined to discuss the details of the white paper.
“I would point you to the ample judicial precedent for the idea that someone who takes up arms against the United States in a war against the United States is an enemy and therefore could be targeted accordingly,” he told ABC News’ Jon Karl.
“[The president] takes his responsibility as commander in chief to protect the United States and its citizens very seriously. He takes the absolute necessity to conduct our war against al Qaeda and its affiliates in a way that’s consistent with the Constitution and our laws very seriously,” he said.
The white paper is believed to be a summary of the reported classified memo that outlined the legal justification for the drone attack that killed American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in September 2011.
The American Civil Liberties Union has called the newly discovered document “profoundly disturbing.”
“It’s hard to believe that it was produced in a democracy built on a system of checks and balances. It summarizes in cold legal terms a stunning overreach of executive authority — the claimed power to declare Americans a threat and kill them far from a recognized battlefield and without any judicial involvement before or after the fact,” ACLU National Security Project director Hina Shamsi said in a written statement.
The Obama administration has carried out more than 300 CIA drown strikes in Pakistan, far more than his predecessor, President George W. Bush, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
Pressure is building from Capitol Hill for the White House to outline its legal authority to kill American citizens in counterterrorism operations.
“It is vitally important… for Congress and the American public to have a full understanding of how the executive branch interprets the limits and boundaries of this authority,” a group of eleven bipartisan Senators wrote in a letter to the president Monday, “so that Congress and the public can decide whether this authority has been properly defined, and whether the President’s power to deliberately kill American citizens is subject to appropriate limitations and safeguards.”
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib urged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government on Monday to start talks for its departure from power and save the country from greater ruin after almost two years of bloodshed.
Seeking to step up pressure on Assad to respond to his offer of talks - which dismayed some in his own opposition coalition, Alkhatib said he would be ready to meet the president's deputy.
"I ask the regime to send Farouq al-Shara - if it accepts the idea - and we can sit with him," he said, referring to Syria's vice president who has implicitly distanced himself from Assad's crackdown on mass unrest that became an armed revolt.
Speaking after meeting senior Russian, U.S. and Iranian officials, Alkhatib said none of them had an answer to the 22-month-old crisis and Syrians must solve it themselves.
"The issue is now in the state's court...to accept negotiations for departure, with fewer losses," the Syrian National Coalition leader told Al Arabiya television.
The moderate Islamist preacher announced last week he was prepared to talk to Assad's representatives. Although he set several conditions, the move broke a taboo on opposition contacts with Damascus and angered many in its ranks who insist on Assad's departure as a precondition for negotiation.
Alkhatib said it was not "treachery" to seek dialogue to end a conflict in which more than 60,000 people have been killed, 700,000 have been driven from their country and millions more are homeless and hungry.
"The regime must take a clear stand (on dialogue) and we say we will extend our hand for the interest of people and to help the regime leave peacefully," he said in separate comments to Al Jazeera television.
Assad announced last month what he said were plans for reconciliation talks to end the violence but - in a speech described by U.N. Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi as narrow and uncompromising - he said there would be no dialogue with people he called traitors or "puppets made by the West".
Syria's defense minister said the army had proved it would not be defeated in its confrontation with rebels but declined to say whether it would respond to an Israeli air strike last week.
Security sources said the Israelis bombed a convoy of arms destined for Assad's ally Hezbollah, a sworn enemy of Israel, in neighboring Lebanon. Syria said the attack struck vehicles and buildings at a military research center near Lebanon's border.
Syria's uprising erupted in March 2011 with largely peaceful protests, escalating into a civil war pitting mainly Sunni Muslim rebels against Assad, who is from Syria's Alawite minority. His family has ruled Syria for 42 years.
ANGER AT IRAN
The violence has divided major powers, with Russia and China blocking U.N. Security Council draft resolutions backed by the United States, European Union and Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states that could have led to U.N. sanctions isolating Assad. Shi'ite Iran has remained his strongest regional supporter.
Alkhatib met Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden at a security conference in Germany at the weekend.
"Iran's stance is unacceptable and I mentioned to the foreign minister that we are very angry with Iran's support for the regime," Alkhatib said.
He said he asked Salehi to pass on his offer of negotiations - based on the acceptance of the Assad government's departure - to Damascus. The two men also discussed the need to prevent Syria's crisis spreading into a regional conflict between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, he said.
"We will find a solution, there are many keys. If the regime wants to solve (the crisis), it can take part in it. If it wants to get out and get the people out of this crisis, we will all work together for the interest of the people and the departure of the regime."
One proposal under discussion was the formation of a transitional government, Alkhatib said, without specifying how he thought that could come about. World powers agreed a similar formula seven months ago but then disagreed over whether that could allow Assad to stay on as head of state.
Activists reported clashes between the army and rebel fighters to the east of Damascus on Monday and heavy shelling of rebel-held areas of the central city of Homs. The Jobar neighborhood, on the southwestern edge of Homs, was hit by more than 100 rockets on Monday morning, an opposition activist said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 90 people were killed by dusk on Monday.
It said 180 people were killed across the country on Sunday, including 114 rebel fighters and soldiers. Sunday's death toll included 28 people killed in the bombardment of a building in the Ansari district of the northern city of Aleppo.
Assad has described the rebels as foreign-backed Islamist terrorists and said a precondition for any solution is that Turkey and Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab states stop funding, sheltering and arming his foes.
The majority of the insurgents are Islamists but those affiliated with al Qaeda are smaller in number, although their influence is growing. For that reason, Western states have been loath to arm the rebels despite their calls for Assad's ouster.
Rebels and activists say that Iran and the Lebanese Shi'ite militant movement Hezbollah have sent fighters to reinforce Assad's army - an accusation that both deny.
ECONOMIC SUPPORT
"The army of Syria is big enough, they do not need fighters from outside," Iran's Salehi said in Berlin on Monday.
"We are giving them economic support, we are sending gasoline, we are sending wheat. We are trying to send electricity to them through Iraq; we have not been successful."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said later on Monday that Syria's crisis could not be solved by military means and he called for a national accord leading to elections.
"War is not the solution...A government that rules through war - its work will be very difficult. A sectarian war should not be launched in Syria," he told Al Mayadeen television.
"We believe that (deciding) whoever stays or goes is the right of the Syrian people. How can we interfere in that? We must strive to achieve national understanding, and free elections."
Another Iranian official, speaking in Damascus after talks with Assad, said Israel would regret an air strike against Syria last week, without spelling out whether Iran or its ally planned a military response.
Salehi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden all met Alkhatib in Munich at the weekend and portrayed his willingness to talk with Syrian authorities as a major step towards resolving the war.
But Alkhatib is under pressure from other members of the exiled leadership in Cairo for saying he would be willing to talk to Assad. Walid al-Bunni, a member of the Coalition's 12-member politburo, dismissed Alkhatib's meeting with Salehi.
"It was unsuccessful. The Iranians are unprepared to do anything that could help the causes of the Syrian Revolution," Bunni, a former political prisoner, told Reuters from Budapest.
(Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai and Stephen Brown in Berlin; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
LONDON: Reg Presley, lead singer of British 1960s rock band The Troggs, has died aged 71, a friend said late Monday.
Presley, best known for hits including "Wild Thing" and "Love Is All Around", had announced a year ago that he was battling cancer and would retire from the band.
Veteran music journalist Keith Altham, a close friend of Presley's, wrote on his Facebook page that the singer had died "surrounded by family and friends" on Monday at his home in Andover, southeast England.
"My dear old pal Reg Presley of The Troggs died today," he wrote.
"He was one very real person in a sometimes very unreal world. Our thoughts are with his wife Brenda and the the family and those legion of fans who loved his music and his band. I will miss him hugely."
He added that the singer had suffered a number of recent strokes as well as being diagnosed with cancer.
Presley's daughter Karen told the music website WENN: "He passed away peacefully at home and myself, my brother and our mother were with him. We're absolutely heartbroken."
The singer had announced his retirement in January 2012 after he was taken ill during a gig in Germany the previous month.
"During my stay in hospital tests showed that in fact I have lung cancer," he wrote in a letter posted on the band's website.
"I am receiving chemotherapy treatment and at the moment not feeling too bad.
"However I've had to call time on The Troggs and retire. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for the cards and calls and for your love, loyalty and support over the years."
The Troggs' manager did not immediately respond when contacted by AFP.
-AFP/fl
The U.S. Department of Energy said that hackers have stolen personal data of its employees and contractors.
The U.S. Department of Energy has confirmed that its computer systems were hacked into last month. According to The New York Times, the federal agency sent around an internal e-mail on Friday telling its employees about the cyberattack.
"The Department of Energy has just confirmed a recent cyber incident that occurred in mid-January which targeted the Headquarters' network and resulted in the unauthorized disclosure of employee and contractor Personally Identifiable Information," the e-mail said.
The agency said that it is working to figure out the "nature and scope of the incident" but that so far it believes "no classified data was compromised." It's unclear which divisions within the Department of Energy were attacked or who was behind the hack.
The Department of Energy is in charge of much of the country's vital infrastructure, such as energy production, nuclear reactor production, and radioactive waste disposal. It has troves of classified and sensitive data that if leaked could be detrimental to the country's security. According to Reuters, the most highly classified information is stored on networks that aren't connected to the Internet.
The head of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano recently announced that she believes a wave of cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure is a serious possibility. Dubbing such an event a "cyber 9/11," Napolitano warned that cyberterrorists could take down the nation's power grid, water infrastructure, transportation networks, and financial networks.
While it doesn't seem like the January cyberattack on the Department of Energy compromised any data or infrastructure, it does show that hackers were able to breach the government's computer systems. In the e-mail, the agency said it is working to fortify itself against future attacks."Once the full nature and extent of this incident is known, the Department will implement a full remediation plan," the e-mail said. "The Department is also leading an aggressive effort to reduce the likelihood of these events occurring again. These efforts include leveraging the combined expertise and capabilities of the Department's Joint Cybersecurity Coordination Center to address this incident, increasing monitoring across all of the Department's networks and deploying specialized defense tools to protect sensitive assets."
CNET contacted the Department of Energy for comment. We'll update the story when we get more information.
YUCAIPA, Calif. The company linked to a tour bus involved in a deadly crash in Southern California failed more than a third of federal vehicle safety inspections in the last two years.
U.S. government records show that buses operated by the firm Scapadas Magicas of National City, Calif., flunked 36 percent of random inspections on their vehicles — in some cases for brake and tire problems.
That's higher than the national average for similar companies — a 21 percent failure rate.
Records also show the company had no crashes in the past two years.
The California company had an overall "satisfactory" rating from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, but records show three-quarters of similar companies had better safety records.
Lettering on the 1996 bus indicates it was operated by Scapadas Magicas.
At least seven people were killed in Sunday night's crash. More than three dozen people were injured, and at least 17 were still hospitalized, including at least five in critical condition. One is a girl.
Authorities lowered the death count from 8 to 7 on Monday.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation. The National Transportation Safety Board was sending a team to the scene.
CBS Station KCBS reports that the bus, carrying dozens of men, women and children from Tijuana, was on its way back to Mexico Sunday evening after a day in Big Bear when the driver lost control just after 6:30 p.m., about 60 miles east of Los Angeles.
Investigators say the bus flipped and landed on a pickup truck towing a trailer. A black Saturn was also rear-ended.
The crash left State Route 38 littered with body parts and debris, and the bus sideways across both lanes with its windows blown out, front end crushed and part of the roof peeled back like a tin can.
One person in the pickup truck was injured. The fate of the passengers in the car was not clear, but at least two people were in the Saturn, said California Highway Patrol spokesman Mario Lopez.
Investigators will determine if mechanical failure or driver error was to blame. The bus driver, who survived but was injured, told investigators the vehicle had brake problems.
"It appears speed was a factor in this collision," said Lopez.
Crews worked through the night to recover the dead, but one body remained aboard the bus early Monday, said Rocky Shaw, a San Bernardino County coroner's investigator.
Officials hadn't been able to retrieve the body because the front end of the bus was dangling over the edge of the roadside.
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A week-long standoff in Alabama, where a retired trucker held a 5-year-old boy hostage in an underground bunker, has ended with the kidnapper dead and the child safe, according to law enforcement.
Officials had been able to insert a high-tech camera into the bunker to monitor the movements of the suspect, Richard Lee Dykes, and they had become increasingly concerned that he might act out, according to a law enforcement source with direct knowledge.
"FBI agents safely recovered the child who's been held hostage for nearly a week," FBI Special Agent Steve Richardson said at a news conference.
The agent said negotiations with Dykes "deteriorated" in the past 24 hours.
"Mr. Dykes was observed holding a gun," Richardson said. "At this point, the FBI agents, fearing the child was in imminent danger, entered the bunker and rescued the child."
The boy, identified only as Ethan, "appears physically unharmed" and is being treated at a hospital, authorities said.
Joe Songer/AL.com/AP Photo
Dykes, 65, is dead, but officials have not yet provided details on how he died.
"Right now, FBI special agent bomb technicians are in the process of clearing the property for improvised explosive devices," the FBI said in a written statement. "When it is safe to do so, our evidence response teams, paired with state and local crime scene technicians, will process the scene."
PHOTOS: Worst Hostage Situations
Dykes allegedly shot and killed a school bus driver last week and threatened to kill all the children on the bus before taking the boy, one of the students on the bus said.
"He said he was going to kill us, going to kill us all," Tarrica Singletary, 14, told ABC News.
Dykes had been holed up in his underground bunker near Midland City, Ala., with the abducted boy for a week as police tried to negotiate with him through a PVC pipe. Police had used the talks to send the child comfort items, including a red Hot Wheels car, coloring books, cheese crackers, potato chips and medicine.
Dykes was a decorated Vietnam vet who grew up in the area. He lived in Florida until two years ago, the AP reported, and has an adult daughter, but the two lost touch years ago, neighbor Michael Creel said. When he returned to Alabama, neighbors say he once beat a dog with a lead pipe and had threatened to shoot children who set foot on his property.
MUNICH (Reuters) - Iran said on Sunday it was open to a U.S. offer of direct talks on its nuclear program and that six world powers had suggested a new round of nuclear negotiations this month, but without committing itself to either proposal.
Diplomatic efforts to resolve a dispute over Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran says is peaceful but the West suspects is intended to give Iran the capability to build a nuclear bomb, have been all but deadlocked for years, while Iran has continued to announce advances in the program.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said a suggestion on Saturday by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that Washington was ready for direct talks with Iran if Tehran was serious about negotiations was a "step forward".
"We take these statements with positive consideration. I think this is a step forward but ... each time we have come and negotiated it was the other side unfortunately who did not heed ... its commitment," Salehi said at the Munich Security Conference where Biden made his overture a day earlier.
He also complained to Iran's English-language Press TV of "other contradictory signals", pointing to the rhetoric of "keeping all options on the table" used by U.S. officials to indicate they are willing to use force to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
"This does not go along with this gesture (of talks) so we will have to wait a little bit longer and see if they are really faithful this time," Salehi said.
Iran is under a tightening web of sanctions. Israel has also hinted it may strike if diplomacy and international sanctions fail to curb Iran's nuclear drive.
In Washington, Army General Martin Dempsey, the top U.S. military officer, said in an interview broadcast on Sunday that the United States has the capability to stop any Iranian effort to build nuclear weapons, but Iranian "intentions have to be influenced through other means."
Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made his comments on NBC's program "Meet the Press," speaking alongside outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
Panetta said current U.S. intelligence indicated that Iranian leaders have not made a decision to proceed with the development of a nuclear weapon.
"But every indication is they want to continue to increase their nuclear capability," he said. "And that's a concern. And that's what we're asking them to stop doing."
The new U.S. secretary of state, John Kerry, has said he will give diplomacy every chance of solving the Iran standoff.
THE BEST CHANCE
With six-power talks making little progress, some experts say talks between Tehran and Washington could be the best chance, perhaps after Iran has elected a new president in June.
Negotiations between Iran and the six powers - Russia, China, the United States, Britain, France and Germany - have been deadlocked since a meeting last June.
EU officials have accused Iran of dragging its feet in weeks of haggling over the date and venue for new talks.
Salehi said he had "good news", having heard that the six powers would meet in Kazakhstan on February 25.
A spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who coordinates the efforts of the six powers, confirmed that she had proposed talks in the week of February 25 but noted that Iran had not yet accepted.
Kazakhstan said it was ready to host the talks in either Astana or Almaty.
Salehi said Iran had "never pulled back" from the stuttering negotiations with the six powers. "We still are very hopeful. There are two packages, one package from Iran with five steps and the other package from the (six powers) with three steps."
Iran raised international concern last week by announcing plans to install and operate advanced uranium enrichment machines. The EU said the move, potentially shortening the path to weapons-grade material, could deepen doubts about the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel's mission to stop its arch-enemy from acquiring nuclear weapons was "becoming more complex, since the Iranians are equipping themselves with cutting-edge centrifuges that shorten the time of (uranium) enrichment".
"We must not accept this process," said Netanyahu, who is trying to form a new government after winning an election last month. Israel is generally believed to be the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons.
(Additional reporting by Myra MacDonald and Stephen Brown in Munich, Dmitry Solovyov in Almaty, Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai and Jim Wolf in Washington; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Will Dunham)
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