Wikipedia will black out its Web site on Wednesday to protest SOPA, a version of anti-piracy legislation that’s being considered by Congress. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales made the announcement on Twitter on Monday, saying the site would shut down English versions of the crowd-sourced online encyclopedia at midnight Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday until midnight on Wednesday. Read full article > >

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Wikipedia blackout coming Jan. 18, says co-founder Jimmy Wales

Ukraine transfers former PM Yulia Tymoshenko from Kiev to a jail in the eastern city of Kharkiv.

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Ukraine’s Tymoshenko in new jail

This article, written by Hesham A. Hassaballa, appeared on the Washington Post on December 21,2011 She was alone, as she was wont to do, worshiping in the eastern section of the temple. Suddenly, she was startled by a strange presence: a man with whom she was not familiar. “I seek refuge from thee with the Most Gracious,” she said, “(Approach me not) if you are conscious of Him!” He sought to calm her by saying, “I am but a messenger of your Lord, (who says,) `I shall bestow upon thee the gift of a son endowed with purity.’”

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The Muslim Story of Christmas

KOLKATA, India — 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 (20 miles) south of Kolkata, according to district magistrate Narayan Swarup Nigam. Read full article > >

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Batch of bootleg liquor laced with toxic methanol kills 102 people in eastern India

At least 89 people are killed as a fire breaks out in a multi-storey hospital in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta, trapping patients in rooms.

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Dozens die in India hospital fire

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The latest U.S.-Pakistan crisis continued Tuesday to threaten the Obama administration’s strategy for gradually ending the war in Afghanistan, as the Islamabad government said it would boycott an upcoming international conference in Germany on Afghanistan’s future. The Pakistani cabinet, after a meeting in the eastern city of Lahore, said in a statement that it supports “stability and peace in Afghanistan and the importance of an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned process of reconciliation and expressed the hope that the international community will reaffirm its support for peace and development in Afghanistan at the forthcoming Bonn Conference.” Read full article > >

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Pakistan bows out of key conference, citing deadly U.S. raid

MIAMI — Forecasters say Hurricane Kenneth has strengthened even more into a Category 4 storm in the eastern Pacific, although there is no current threat to land. It is the strongest late-season hurricane in that area on record. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Tuesday that Kenneth has maximum sustained winds near 145 mph (230 kph). The storm was centered about 750 miles (1,210 kilometers) south-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California, Mexico, but was moving away from the coast. Read full article > >

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Kenneth strengthens into Category 4 hurricane in eastern Pacific; No threat to land

Four militants are killed as their attack on a US base in the eastern Afghan region of Panjshir is repulsed.

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Militants strike US Afghan base

SIRTE, Libya — Libyan provisional government forces backed by NATO warplanes raced through the eastern outskirts of Sirte on Monday, closing in on Moammar Gaddafi loyalists holed up in one of the last bastions of the deposed leader . Thick, black smoke billowed into the air as Transitional National Council fighters battled loyalist troops at a roundabout about one mile from the center of Gaddafi’s home town. Read full article > >

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Anti-Gaddafi forces close in on Sirte

Cyprus says it has begun exploratory drilling for oil and gas in the eastern Mediterranean in defiance of Turkish anger at the plans.

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Cyprus begins controversial drill

For a fruit that doesn’t fall far from the tree, the apple has sure gotten around. Thank the itinerant 19th-century orchardist John Chapman , known as Johnny Appleseed, for planting this import in much of the country and making it as American as Mom — at least in pie. But what about our delectable native fruit, the papaw ? Although it once thrived throughout the eastern United States, only a small percentage of Americans have ever tasted it, and those who have even heard of it tend to confuse it with the tropical papaya, which it definitely is not. Cold-hardy but tropical-tasting, it looks a bit like a mango, but with pale yellow, custardy, spoonable flesh and black, shiny, easy-to-remove seeds. Read full article > >

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Papaws: A fruit more forgotten than forbidden

BENGHAZI, Libya —Moammar Gaddafi’s wife and three of his children have apparently fled across the border into Algeria, underscoring how much of Libya has slipped out of the control of the former autocrat, who ruled the country for about 42 years. But there was still no indication where Gaddafi was hiding . Rebel leaders fear that violence will continue until Gaddafi is captured and Libyans can see that he is no longer in power. A businessmen’s club in the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi has offered a $2 million bounty for him. Read full article > >

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Gaddafi’s wife, three of his children apparently flee to Algeria

At least 500 people have been killed in ethnic clashes in the eastern state of Jonglei, according to the South Sudanese authorities.

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Hundreds die in South Sudan raids

An American man has been abducted by a group of gunmen from his house in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore

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American man abducted in Pakistan

The second-largest wildfire in Arizona history is forcing thousands of residents to leave their homes. The Wallow fire in the eastern part of the state has burned more than 300,000 acres since it began last month, and it now threatens to engulf some…

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Thousands Flee Arizona Fire