Petra Diamonds has set a new record by selling a 507-carat diamond for $35.3 million today, the highest price ever paid for a rough diamond and $10 million over its estimated value.
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As weird and wonderful film director Tim Burton’s take on ‘Alice in Wonderland’ opens, he talks to The Independent about the origins of his demons and original outlook.
Coffee Party activism, which started on Facebook in furious protest against the Tea Party’s uprising, is spreading (and percolating) quickly in the months since Annabel Park instigated it.
NBC Universal plans to bring well-known big-screen characters including Bridget Jones, Billy Elliot, and Nanny McPhee to our television screens, with plans for drama adaptations.
“Forget the bipartisan photo-op” says The Huffington Post, referring to yesterday’s passage of a package of tax cuts, but instead “extend unemployment benefits now.”
How quickly the media caravan moves on. How painful it must be for those left behind, who for but a short while captured global attention, but who must continue to […]
Baltimore’s school system has long been plagued by chronic underachievement, dire dropout rates, severe crime, and countless other problems. Yet since becoming CEO of the City Public Schools in 2007, […]
I used to picture my neighbors, my bosses, my drinking buddies, all faithfully keeping thoughts of racial conflict out of their minds the same way the pop-up zapper software on […]
An inquiry will be launched into the handling of a complaint that Governor David Paterson violently assaulted a female aide, after questions were raised over a suspected “hush up”.
Silicon Valley startup Bloom Energy has unveiled new technology which can “harnesses chemical reactions to create energy” in the hope of revolutionizing the world’s fuel sources.
An apology has been demanded of a Montgomery County middle school after a pupil was escorted from the premises by police after refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance.
Hopes for bipartisanship faded long before today’s summit, writes Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown, who says Obama should offer some “key concessions” to win over Republicans.
Scientists have found that a particular area of the North Atlantic Ocean attracts plastic debris and other trash, leaving the region comparable to the Pacific’s “great garbage patch”.
A blizzard is expected to take aim at the Northeast of America, with what weather experts are predicting to be “immobilizing blizzard conditions” with wintry winds and destructive snow.
A whale in captivity at an Orlando, Florida SeaWorld amusement park killed an experienced marine animal trainer in front of a horrified audience.
Eight more army officers were jailed by a Turkish court pending charges of plotting a coup, in a move that has increased tension between the country’s government and the armed forces.
As Viktor Yanukovich was sworn in as president today there was one notable absence. Yulia Tymoshenko, who was defeated in a recent run-off, boycotted the inauguration.
Scientists are predicting the disintegration of tropical coral reefs by the end of this century as rising acidity in the World’s oceans threatens to mortally unbalance marine ecosystems.
On Monday, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) announced that although he strongly supports the so-called public option, he wouldn’t vote to add it to the health care bill by way of […]
If the Internet is understood as the democratization of information, then the print and TV news that preceded it was a fiefdom. In this fiefdom, feudal news producers condescended to […]
Still miffed about the 2000 election? Or even the 1992 election? Steven Brams feels your pain—and has developed a system that could prevent similar voter aggravation in the future. As the […]
The French public is in uproar over a poster campaign to discourage young people from smoking which shows teenagers kneeling in front of a man, as if simulating oral sex.
Procrastinating at work on Twitter and Facebook might actually make us more productive and have positive benefits on our work and boost creativity, according to new research.
The number of US fatalities in the Afghanistan war is nearing 1,000, “a grim milestone”, more than eight years after the Taliban was toppled from power.
The Salon’s Laura Miller gives a word to the to wannabe writers – summarising the rules for writing fiction and advice from the point of view of a consumer rather than a fellow scribe.
The fossilised jawbone, teeth and scales of an enormous 10-meter predatory shark, which would have roamed the seas around 89m years ago, have been dug up in Kansas, USA.
Three Google, Inc. executives have been convicted on privacy charges by a Milan court for transmitting a video showing the bullying of a youth with Down’s syndrome.
After winning the unanimous backing of Latin America and the Caribbean in its claim to sovereignty over the Falklands Islands, Argentina is seeking a UN ruling over the row.
Dissent and unrest is rife across Europe as workers and activists from different countries strike and riot in rejection of government plans to cut spending and impose austerity policies.
Amid fears that the new Obama administration will impose tighter strictures on guns, gun rights activists are pushing their State governments to loosen gun laws.