By BY KJETIL MALKENES HOVLAND OSLO--The sentencing of mass killer Anders Behring Breivik to 21 years in prison was a significant milestone in what was the worst terror attack on Norwegian soil, but it did little to stitch up the emotional wounds of … Anders Breivik declared sane: live - Telegraph.co.uk
o Anders Behring Breivik declared sane o Faces maximum 21 years in prison o Prosecution may appeal o Secure unit awaits Breivik o Follow @RichardAlleyne for courtroom updates Latest 1.04pm If anyone was in doubt that this verdict is a long one, … Lance Armstrong subject to lifetime ban and fan fallout - CBS News
(CBS News) In a statement released late Thursday night, celebrated cyclist Lance Armstrong announced he would no longer fight charges that he used performance enhancing drugs throughout his esteemed career. "There comes a point in every man's life when … Friday's letters: Tough questions - BlueRidgeNow.com
To the editor: We keep hearing Barack Obama ask Mitt Romney for tax records. Here are some questions to ask Obama: Our national debt increased almost 50 percent during your term. Will the next four years be different, or will it increase another 50 …
TSX may open lower after Merkel's comments
(Reuters) – Canadian stock futures pointed to a slightly lower on Friday after cautious comments by German Chancellor Angela Merkel on ending the euro zone debt crisis. TOP STORIES Angela Merkel said on Friday after meeting Greek premier Antonis Samaras that Germany would not judge his country's performance on its reform targets prematurely but would await a report by the "troika" of international lenders due next month. The U.S. … Chrysler's Ram 1500 pickup truck relying on fuel economy, price
(Reuters) – Chrysler Group LLC is betting that better fuel economy and a moderate 1 percent increase in price from last year’s models will help its line of 2013 Ram 1500 pickup trucks gain ground on industry leaders from Ford and Chevrolet. The first redesign since 2009 for the biggest-selling vehicle in the Chrysler lineup has led to a pickup truck with more technology and less weight to go along with the usual pickup truck marketing features of power and towing ability, analysts who have driven the new Ram 1500 said. The Ram 1500 goes on sale in the United States in October. …
Israel accuses Iran of accelerating work towards atomic weapons
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran on Friday of making “accelerated progress towards achieving nuclear weapons”, adding that it was “totally ignoring” Western demands to rein in its atomic program. Netanyahu made the remarks to a visiting U.S. congressman the day after diplomatic sources told Reuters that Iran had installed more uranium enrichment machines in an underground bunker, potentially paving the way for a significant expansion of its nuclear work. …
Vandals damage monument to late Russian leader Yeltsin
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vandals defaced one of Russia’s few monuments to its first post-Soviet president Boris Yeltsin on Friday, covering it with blue paint and chipping the letters of his name on the pedestal, police in his home region in the Ural Mountains said. Yeltsin gained popularity by challenging the Soviet Union’s Communist bosses with calls for faster reform, but he is reviled by many Russians who accuse him of hastening the Soviet collapse and have dark memories of his rule in the chaotic 1990s. …
Imam turned in Pakistan 'blasphemy' girl 'to protect her'
The Pakistani cleric who handed over a young Christian girl to police on blasphemy charges in a poor suburb of Islamabad claimed Friday he did so to protect her from mob violence. DR. Congo rebels accuse army of recruiting children
The M23 rebel movement which is fighting the regular army in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo accused the army Friday of forcibly recruiting civilians, notably children. Three killed in Baghdad prayer twin blasts
Two explosions in the Sadr City neighbourhood of north Baghdad ahead of Friday prayers killed three people and wounded at least eight, security and medical officials said. Armstrong facing loss of 7 Tour de France titles after giving up fight against doping charges
AUSTIN, Texas – Never one to back away from a fight, Lance Armstrong is finally giving in and the cost of quitting is steep: His seven Tour de France titles could be gone as soon as Friday.
Camorra crime boss shot down leaving beach
Authorities were searching Friday for a gunman who shot and killed an organized crime boss clad in a swimsuit as he walked from a beach to join his family in a hotel in Terracina, a resort town south of Rome.
Could England's King Richard III lie under a car park?
LONDON (Reuters) – A 500-year-old mystery of where England’s King Richard III was buried after his death in battle may finally be about to be solved as archaeologists prepare to search for his bones beneath a city centre parking lot. A team from the University of Leicester starts excavation work on Saturday at the car park, where a Franciscan friary known as Greyfriars housed the monarch’s remains after he died at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 – the last English king to die in battle. “The chances of getting the Greyfriars are about 80 percent. …
Egypt editor freed after president issues new law
The editor of an independent Egyptian daily has been released from jail just hours after the country's Islamist president issued a new law that bans imprisoning journalists on charges related to their articles. S. Africa revives talks with miners after bloodshed
South Africa on Friday revived mediation efforts in its platinum belt, aiming to contain labour discontent among mineworkers following the nation's deadliest police action since apartheid. Sectarian clashes kill three more in Lebanon's Tripoli
BEIRUT (Reuters) – At least three people including an Sunni Islamist commander were killed on Friday in a fifth day of sporadic sectarian fighting in Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli triggered by the conflict in neighboring Syria. A Lebanese security source said the situation in Tripoli, where clashes between Sunni Muslims and Alawites have killed 16 people since Monday, was "alarming and dangerous .. It is very likely that it will escalate this time". … FDI in India slumps 78% in June
Foreign direct investment in India slid by 78 percent in June, official figures showed on Friday, amid mounting worries about corruption, bureaucratic delays and lack of economic reforms. Two Thai lese majeste convicts given royal pardon
Two men were released from jail Friday after receiving pardons for insulting Thailand's revered monarchy, according to the kingdom's prison authorities. 
Greece's prime minister is telling Germany that his country needs "time to breathe" as it carries through painful reforms and spending cuts. 
Archaelogists are hoping to find the lost remains of King Richard III — by digging up a Leicester car park believed to be his burial site. 
EDINBURGH (Reuters) – Elisabeth Murdoch said on Friday she had no ambition to succeed her father Rupert as head of his News Corp global media empire, but had intervened to limit her brother's ambitions. "I really harbour absolutely no ambition for a top job (as head of News Corp)," she told a question and answer session at the annual Edinburgh Television Festival. She was speaking the day after she used a keynote speech to attack James, previously seen as the most likely Murdoch to take over as head of News Corp, and to praise the values of her father. … 
Japan hinted Friday it could freeze its plan to buy South Korean government bonds as a deepening diplomatic rift over disputed islands threatened to spill over into economic ties. 
LONDON (Reuters) – Rupert Murdoch's Sun tabloid on Friday became the first British newspaper to defy the royal family by printing pictures of Prince Harry cavorting naked in Las Vegas, stoking a debate about what papers can print in the name of press freedom. While newspapers across the globe have published the images of Queen Elizabeth's grandson naked with an unnamed woman after they appeared on a U.S. gossip website on Wednesday, the British media had decided not to do so until this point. … 
South Africa captain AB de Villiers won the toss and elected to field in the first of five one-day internationals against England at Cardiff on Friday. 
A ceremonial cauldron was lit in London on Friday with five days to go to the opening of the Games which Prime Minister David Cameron promised Britons would "make us proud". 
By Balazs Koranyi | OSLO (Reuters) – Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik was jailed for a maximum term on Friday when judges declared him sane enough to answer for the murder of 77 people last year, drawing a smirk of triumph from the … 
By Dan Whitcomb | LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong said he would no longer fight doping charges by the US Anti-Doping Agency, which quickly said it would strip him of his titles and ban him from competitive … 
By LAURA D'ANDREA TYSON When formulating public policy, evidence should be accorded more weight than ideology, and facts should matter more than shibboleths. The Romney-Ryan plan for Medicare reform depends on assertions that are ideologically … 
When Anders Behring Breivik announced in the spring of 2011 that he was moving out of Oslo to become a farmer, his friends were pleased. After five years dossing about unemployed at his mum's flat, including a whole 12 months playing video games day … 
US drone strikes targeting three militant compounds on Friday killed at least 15 people in Pakistan's restive tribal region near the Afghan border, security officials said. 
Fans mobbed American basketball star Jeremy Lin on Friday as he celebrated his birthday with his family in Hong Kong. 
EDINBURGH (Reuters) – Elisabeth Murdoch urged the media industry on Thursday to embrace morality and reject her brother James's mantra of profit at all costs, in a speech seen as an attempt to distance herself from the scandal that has tarnished the family name. Addressing television executives, she said profit without purpose was a recipe for disaster and the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World tabloid – which has badly hurt her father Rupert Murdoch's News Corp empire – showed the need for a rigorous set of values. … 
A Swiss radiology lab said Friday it has received the go-ahead from the widow of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to test his remains for poisoning by polonium, a highly radioactive element. 
Security officials say fresh clashes have broken out in northern Lebanon between supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime. 
A Norwegian court sentenced Anders Behring Breivik to prison on Friday, denying prosecutors the insanity ruling they hoped would show that his massacre of 77 people was the work of a madman, not part of an anti-Muslim crusade. 
CAIRO (Reuters) – Dozens of Egyptians protested against President Mohamed Mursi in Cairo on Friday, seeking to challenge the Islamist president and his Muslim Brotherhood group on the street less than two months into his rule with a first test of his popularity. Activists behind Friday's call to protest accuse Mursi of seeking to monopolize power after he wrested back prerogatives in August that the military council, which had ruled Egypt for a year and a half, had sought to retain for itself. "Wake up Egyptian people. … 
OSLO, Norway (AP) - Anders Behring Breivik got what he wanted -- a prison term instead of an insanity ruling -- as he received his sentence Friday for bomb and gun attacks that killed 77 people last year. Breivik, a self-styled anti-Muslim militant, … 
A chapter of a terror case that has haunted Norway for 13 months ended Friday as confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik was declared sane and sent to prison for bomb and gun attacks that killed 77 people and injured 200 others last year. 
Political preparations in Ethiopia for the handover of power to expected new leader Hailemariam Desalegn gathered pace Friday, following the death of the longtime ruler Meles Zenawi this week. 
Three people were killed and five injured when an eight-lane bridge in northeast China collapsed early on Friday, only nine months after it opened, state media said. 
A hippo that had wandered into a swimming pool at a game reserve in South Africa has died as a game capture team tried to extract it. 
A luxury apartment in Hong Kong has sold for a record HK$470 million ($61 million), making it the priciest condominium in the Chinese city and possibly the second most expensive in the world, reports said Friday. 
Britain's economic output fell by 0.5 percent in the second quarter, which was better than previously thought but still left the country mired in recession, official data showed on Friday. 
ALEPPO, Syria (Reuters) – Troops and tanks swept into a town near Damascus on Thursday in an assault aimed at crushing opposition to President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's increasingly bloody civil war. Artillery and helicopters hammered the Sunni Muslim town of Daraya, killing 25 people and wounding 200 over the last 48 hours, opposition sources said. Soldiers moved in and raided houses. "Artillery is firing from Qasioun Mountain in regular bursts of heavy barrages. I wonder what is left of the town," said one woman watching the shelling from Damascus. … 
China has pushed thousands of refugees from Myanmar's Kachin minority back across the border into a province wracked by fighting between government troops and ethnic guerillas, the rebels said Friday. 
(AP) OSLO, Norway -- Anders Behring Breivik got what he wanted -- a prison term instead of an insanity ruling -- as he received his sentence Friday for bomb and gun attacks that killed 77 people last year. Breivik, a self-styled anti-Muslim militant, … 
A South Korean footballer will be excused military service despite controversially displaying a sign on a territorial dispute at the Olympic Games, the head of conscription said on Friday. 
BERLIN (Reuters) – Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande presented a united front towards Greece on Thursday, telling Athens it should not expect leeway on its bailout agreement unless it sticks to tough reform targets. The German and French leaders met in Berlin to fine-tune their message to Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who begins a charm offensive in Berlin and Paris this week in the hope of persuading Europe's big powers that Greece deserves patience. … 
Syrian forces blitzed areas in and around the city of Aleppo Friday, destroying a number of homes, activists said, as Western powers sought to tighten the screws on strongman Bashar al-Assad. 
OSLO (Reuters) – A Norwegian court found Anders Behring Breivik sane on Friday and gave him a maximum jail term for murdering 77 people in a shooting and bombing last year, offering closure to a Nordic nation devastated by its worst attack since World War Two. Breivik, who has admitted blowing up the Oslo government headquarters with a fertilizer bomb, killing eight, before gunning down 69 at the ruling party's summer youth camp, was sentenced to 21 years in prison, the maximum penalty in Norway. … 
Iran's envoy to the UN atomic watchdog said that he expected "progress" in talks Friday with the agency aimed at clarifying suspicions of covert nuclear weapons research work. 
By P. SOLOMON BANDA, AP - 1 minute ago CENTENNIAL, Colorado (AP) -- James Holmes was a promising neuroscience doctoral candidate, but by the end of the program's first year, he had fallen out of favor with professors and failed a key exam, … 
By Rob Gloster on August 24, 2012 Cyclist Lance Armstrong will be stripped of his record seven Tour de France titles and banned from the sport for life after refusing to fight drug allegations by the US Anti-Doping Agency. "He will be banned for life … 
AP AP/file James Holmes, shown in court in July, appeared more engaged in Thursday's hearing than previously. CENTENNIAL, Colo. -- The former student accused in a mass shooting at a Colorado movie theater was banned from his college after making threats … 
By Nick Carey | ST CHARLES, Missouri (Reuters) – Missouri conservatives say they are rallying around US Senate candidate Todd Akin despite his controversial comments about rape because they are outraged that "establishment" Republican Party leaders … 
By JPOST.COM STAFF Egyptian defense minister telephones Israeli counter-part Ehud Barak to affirm commitment to Camp David Accords, discuss Israel-Egypt coordination on Sinai military operations, reports 'Al-Hayat.' Defense Minister Ehud Barak spoke by … 
MSNBC political commentator Melissa Harris-Perry, in a piece at the Nation, tackles GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan's record on women's reproductive rights, determining that he has worked consistently to restrict women's access to health care … 
MIAMI (AP) -- Tropical Storm Joyce has formed over the open water of the eastern Atlantic and does not pose an immediate threat to land. The US National Hurricane Center in Miami said Thursday the storm has maximum sustained winds of 40 miles per hour … 
VIENNA (Reuters) – A senior Iranian envoy said he expected progress at talks on Friday with the U.N. nuclear watchdog about the Islamic state's atomic activities. "We are determined to go to a … positive conclusion," Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told reporters. "Both sides are trying to bridge the gap." He was speaking outside's Iran's diplomatic mission in Vienna shortly before the start of his talks with U.N. inspectors seeking to unblock an agency probe into suspicions that Iran has been conducting atom bomb research. … 
Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik will receive his judgment for Norway's worst peacetime attacks, a bomb and gun rampage that left 77 people dead in July last year. 
London equities held steady at the start of trade on Friday, with the benchmark FTSE 100 index of leading shares down 0.17 percent to 5,766.73 points. 
Yani Tseng, who is trying to shake off a mid-season slump, fired a six-under par 66 to grab a one-stroke lead after the opening round of the LPGA Tour's Canadian Women's Open. 
Just a few months ago, Israel was in the midst of a nationwide uproar over the tens of thousands of African migrants who have poured into the Jewish state. Today, that influx has slowed dramatically, following a series of measures meant to halt the new arrivals. 
Cheteshwar Pujara and Mahendra Singh Dhoni strengthened India's dominant position against New Zealand on Friday in the opening Test in Hyderabad.