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Pakistani soldiers killed a top al-Qaida operative Saturday who was indicted in the U.S. for his alleged involvement in a plot to bomb New York's subway system, the military said in a statement. The death of Adnan Shukrijumah is the latest blow to the terror organization still reeling from the 2011 killing of leader Osama bin Laden and now largely eclipsed by the militant Islamic State group. It also marks a major achievement for the Pakistani military, which mounted a widespread military operation in the northwest this summer. The military announced Shukrijumah's death in a statement, saying that he was...

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has provided researchers strong evidence the moon’s volcanic activity slowed gradually instead of stopping abruptly a billion years ago. Scores of distinctive rock deposits observed by LRO are estimated to be less than 100 million years old. This time period corresponds to Earth’s Cretaceous period, the heyday of dinosaurs. Some areas may be less than 50 million years old. Details of the study are published online in Sunday’s edition of Nature Geoscience. “This finding is the kind of science that is literally going to make geologists rewrite the textbooks about the moon,” said John Keller,...

Cardinals outfielder Oscar Taveras and his girlfriend were killed in a car accident in the Dominican Republic, agent Brian Mejia has confirmed to Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com. Taveras was 22. GM John Mozeliak expressed his condolences to the family according to USA Today, but said the team was awaiting more details before making a formal announcement. MLB announced the news on Twitter. Taveras made his MLB debut with St. Louis this season and hit .239 in 80 games. Taveras hit a game-tying pinch-hit solo home run in the seventh inning of Game 2 of the NLCS against the Giants two...

Parliament Hill is in under lockdown after reports of shots being fired from inside the halls of the centre block. Nearby, at the National War Memorial, a man believed to be a soldier was shot by an unknown gunman. CTV News' Katie Simpson was at the War Memorial in Ottawa on Wednesday morning, and witnessed passersby attending to someone who had been shot. Police said a man believed to be a member of the Canadian Forces was shot at the memorial. Police said a man believed to be a member of the Canadian Forces was shot at the memorial. Jason...

The Spanish nurse who became the first person to contract Ebola outside West Africa has now tested negative for the virus, the Spanish government says, The result suggests Teresa Romero, 44, is no longer infected - although a second test is required before she can be declared free of Ebola. Ms Romero contracted the virus when treating two infected patients in a Madrid hospital earlier this month. The Ebola outbreak has killed more than 4,500 people across West Africa. Ms Romero tested positive for the virus on 6 October, after she treated two missionaries who had been repatriated from West...

Watauga Medical Center officials said late Thursday that they are monitoring a patient who showed up at the Boone hospital earlier in the day for a possible Ebola infection. The person had recently traveled to a foreign country and had a fever, officials said, adding that the patient presents no threat to the community. ... Boone also is home to Samaritan's Purse, a missionary group that employs Dr. Kent Brantly, one of the first Americans to contract Ebola in west Africa. Brantly has since recovered from his infection.

Reading his first hand account of this day is very chilling. Check it out. https://twitter.com/AriFleischer

British Botanists conducting a Summer survey of Scotland’s tallest mountain, Ben Nevis, have been stunned to find evidence of recently formed multi-year ice fields, areas of compacted snow, some of which weigh hundreds of tons. According to the BBC; “Hazards common in arctic and alpine areas but described as “extremely unusual” in the UK during the summer have been found on Ben Nevis. A team of climbers and scientists investigating the mountain’s North Face said snowfields remained in many gullies and upper scree slopes. On these fields, they have come across compacted, dense, ice hard snow call neve. Neve is...

RUTLAND, Vt. - He fended off a robber with a gun and lost his job because of it. Don Pitaniello said his employer said he violated company policy by having a gun on him at work. He says he is alive, because he did. Pitaniello carries a gun at all times and says he's fully in his legal right to do so. "I do, I always have," said Pitaniello, former Mac's employee. He had his Smith & Wesson .380 Bodyguard on him Sunday night, when he was working at a Mac's Convenience Store on 145 North Main Street in Rutland....

Science! Axing technology is as old as time, but thanks to physics and people with good ideas, it has just been vastly improved upon. Finnish inventor Heikki Kärnä “created an ax that works more as a splitter, lever and wedge all at once,” The Blaze writes. Though it looks a little funny, it splits wood in record time. Geek explains: It’s essentially acting as a lever instead of a wedge (Vipukirves translates as Leveraxe). A regular axe needs to be driven downward with enough force to separate wood along the grain. That’s a lot of force, and if a log...

An arrest Friday in the case of a Vermont state employee accused of shopping with taxpayer dollars. Lisa Peduzzi of Plainfield is charged with embezzlement. In a press conference, Gov. Peter Shumlin said there were 19 cases to date of possible fraud. Peduzzi is in state custody and police were searching her home Friday. The governor called Peduzzi's alleged actions "fairly sophisticated deception and long-term fraud." He said, "I mean it was a fairly crafty and involved a scheme. It was not simply putting your fingers in the till and gabbing a couple of bucks." Peduzzi worked for the Vermont...

Globalfoundries Inc. has emerged as the lead candidate to buy International Business Machines Corp.'s semiconductor manufacturing operations, people familiar with the matter said. IBM has also held talks with chip makers Intel Corp. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., these people said. TSMC has dropped out of the talks, the people said. Intel is still involved, but Globalfoundries appears to have a stronger interest, these people said. Talks between IBM and Globalfoundries are ongoing and a deal isn't imminent, these people said. The transaction involves thorny issues, including control of intellectual property and terms under which the ultimate buyer of the...

A new type of quasiparticle dubbed the quantum droplet, or "dropleton", has been identified by researchers in the US and Germany. Created in semiconductor quantum wells using ultrashort laser pulses, the dropleton comprises a small number of electrons and holes that are bound together in a liquid-like drop. A quasiparticle is a collective excitation within a material that behaves like a fundamental particle. Recently, physicists have identified quasiparticles called levitons, orbitons, phonitons and even wrinklons – which occur in wrinkled fabrics such as curtains. Bound electrons and holes The dropleton is related to a well-known quasiparticle called an exciton, which...

Dozens of parents and concerned citizens gathered outside the office of the Vermont Department for Children and Families in Rutland Monday. They want answers from the child protection agency after two-year-old Dezirae Sheldon was allegedly murdered by her stepfather, 31-year-old Dennis Duby. "The signs were there. Pay attention to them. This little one could have been alive," said Lindsay Miller, who took part in the protest. Those signs include a child abuse investigation last year into Dezirae's mother -- Sandra Eastman. In July she was convicted of breaking the baby's leg and then waiting at least a week to seek...

A British woman returned from a trip to Peru hearing scratching noises inside her head. Thinking she had an ear infection, she went to the hospital, where a consultant found something much worse: Maggots were digging through a small hole in her ear-canal, eating her flesh. “I was very scared,” said Rochelle Harris, “Were they in my brain?” Probably, Mrs. Harris. The maggots have you now. Before she got her ear checked, she had more than a few clues that there was something more serious than an ear infection happening. During her trip, she remembered dislodging a fly from her...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (MarketWatch) — There are eerie parallels between the stock market’s recent behavior and how it behaved right before the 1929 crash. That at least is the conclusion reached by a frightening chart that has been making the rounds on Wall Street. The chart superimposes the market’s recent performance on top of a plot of its gyrations in 1928 and 1929. The picture isn’t pretty. And it’s not as easy as you might think to wriggle out from underneath the bearish significance of this chart. I should know, because I quoted a number of this chart’s skeptics in...

The HBO Go app is coming to PlayStation 3 soon, with the PlayStation 4 app to follow, according to Sony. As with other HBO Go apps, you will still need an HBO cable TV subscription. The app grants you much of HBO’s content on demand, including its original series including the recently debuted True Detective, older series’ like Deadwood, and current hits like Game of Thrones. The service also includes sports, documentaries, movies, and more. HBO Go is currently available on several platforms, including the Xbox 360 and soon the Xbox One. An exact date wasn’t given for when the...

MONTPELIER, Vt. -In a rare move, a Democratic senator held the floor for much of the Senate Republicans' caucus Thursday. "I know that I'm in a forum of skeptics and I want to emphasize that I am a supporter. I introduced a financing bill because I believe in it but I also think it's important to have an honest discussion about what this is going to cost and how to do it," said Sen. Peter Galbraith, D-Windham County. Act 48 required Gov. Peter Shumlin to explain how to pay for a single-payer system last January. He cited implementation delay for...

Vt. Health Access Commissioner Mark Larson announced Tuesday that the state's $80-million dollar insurance website won't be ready to handle small businesses in time. Insurance company officials told legislators the system would need to be tested by late-January to guarantee coverage for April. Vermont Health Connect isn't willing to bet on its contractors, who have missed every deadline so far. Officials told businesses the only option to buy exchange-approved coverage is to skip the website and buy directly through Blue Cross or MVP. "We believe that it is -- at this point -- a proven pathway. Many Vermonters have already...

MONTPELIER, Vt. - Betsy Bishop and staff at the Vermont Chamber of Commerce spent much of the year on the phone, convincing business operators to bring their insurance business to the state's online marketplace. But now, they're calling back to let them know the plans they picked won't be available Jan. 1 because of bugs and delays. "And we're having a bit of trouble convincing people to come off their decision. They're saying to us now we want to stay with Vermont Health Connect, which is great but there's no way for that payment mechanism to work," Bishop said. Bishop...