UNITED NATIONS (AP) ― Russia surprised fellow U.N. Security Council members on Thursday with a proposed new resolution to address the rising violence in Syria.Western members of the council who have been pressing for tough measures against President Bashar Assad’s regime welcomed the move, but said it didn’t go far enough because it didn’t include an arms embargo or other sanctions.Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said the text calls for an end to the violence that the U.N. estimates has killed

WASHINGTON (AP) ― The job market is healthier than at any time since the end of the Great Recession.The number of people filing for unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest since May 2008, a sign that the waves of corporate layoffs that have defined the past few years are all but over.“This is unexpectedly great news,” said Ian Shepherdson, an economist at High Frequency Economics.It will take an additional step ― robust hiring, not just the end of layoffs ― to bring the 8.6 percent un

WASHINGTON (AP) _ When someone is talking to you, your brain is listening, processing and thinking about what is being said _ even if you are in the driver's seat trying to concentrate on traffic.That is why drivers get distracted during cellphone conversations, even when using hands-free phones, re

LOS ANGELES, Dec 15, 2011 (AFP) - Shots were fired at or near the Chinese consulate in Los Angeles on Thursday, but no one was injured, police said, adding that an Asian suspect was being sought."It was a shooting at the building" housing the consulate general, which is between downtown LA and Holly

Small private airline PC Air says it will begin operating charter flights this month with Bangkok-Vientiane service and will start serving China next month.Originally the charter service was to take off around the middle of this year or in the third quarter, but factors such as the flood disaster fo

Iran is to insert its first domestically produced high enriched uranium into its Tehran reactor by mid-February, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in comments published by the state IRNA news agency on Thursday.The announced deadline could sharpen international tensions over Iran's controversia

SYDNEY (AFP) -- Bill Gates on Thursday ruled out ever returning to the helm of Microsoft while dismissing criticism by late Apple founder Steve Jobs, who he called “brilliant.”Gates, in Sydney for a family holiday, said recent rumors that he was considering a full-time comeback to the U.S. software giant he founded, but stepped back from in 2006, were untrue.In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, he said he was busy working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ”and that will be what

TOKYO (AP) ― A key central bank survey showed Thursday that confidence at major Japanese manufacturers fell over the last quarter, as the export-reliant country battled a strong yen and an increasingly precarious global economy.In the Bank of Japan’s “tankan” survey of business sentiment, the main index for big manufacturers fell to minus 4, in the first deterioration in two quarters. Three months ago, it stood at 2.The figure represents the percentage of companies saying business conditions are

KOLKATA, India (AP) ― A tainted batch of bootleg liquor killed 102 people and sent dozens more to the hospital in villages outside the eastern Indian city of Kolkata, officials said.Day laborers and other poor workers began falling ill late Tuesday after drinking the brew that was laced with the toxic methanol around the village of Sangrampur, about 30 kilometers south of Kolkata, according to district magistrate Narayan Swarup Nigam.“It’s a very sad thing that this has happened. Why don’t the p

BEIJING (AP) ― China’s government has vowed to crack down on the leaders of a revolt in a southern village and investigate local officials over land seizures at the heart of the residents’ unhappiness.China News Agency says the acting mayor of Shanwei city told reporters Wednesday that strong measures would be taken against villagers in Wukan who instigated others to create trouble and damage public property.Thursday’s report also says the mayor promised to investigate village officials for wron