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LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Al-Jazeera, the Pan-Arab news channel that has struggled to win space on American cable television, is negotiating to buy Al Gore's Current TV and with it, access to 60 million U.S. homes, according to a person familiar with the matter.

President Barack Obama will go for immigration reform and gun control this month, the White House tells the left-leaning Huffington Post. Obama's actions will reportedly be done "quickly." Obama glowing "An Obama administration official said the president plans to push for immigration reform this January. The official, who spoke about legislative plans only on condition of anonymity, said that coming standoffs over deficit reduction are unlikely to drain momentum from other priorities. The White House plans to push forward quickly, not just on immigration reform but gun control laws as well," reports the Huffington Post. "The timeframe is likely to...

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) -- The Army psychiatrist charged in the deadly Fort Hood shooting rampage will be allowed to keep his beard during his military trial. The new judge overseeing Maj. Nidal Hasan's case told Hasan during a Tuesday hearing that the beard is a violation of Army regulations.

BEIJING (AP) -- A knife-wielding man injured 22 children and one adult outside a primary school in central China as students were arriving for classes Friday, police said, the latest in a series of periodic rampage attacks at Chinese schools and kindergartens. The attack in the Henan province village of Chengping happened shortly before 8 a.m., said a police officer from Guangshan county, where the village is located.

The Connecticut school shooting that left 27 people dead — including as many as 20 children — has prompted Hollywood celebrities to demand stricter gun control because they believe it will prevent similar tragedies from occurring in the future. “Too soon to speak out about a gun-crazy nation? No, too late,” far-left filmmaker Michael Moore tweeted. “At least THIRTY-ONE school shootings since Columbine.” “The way to honor these dead children is to demand strict gun control, free mental health care, and an end to violence as public policy,” he added. Screenwriter Kevin Williamson agreed. “We need gun control. Stop defending...

CBS News has learned Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has signed the order to send two U.S. Patriot missile batteries to Turkey. He delivered the news to CBS News correspondent Cami McCormick in an exclusive interview. Panetta spokesman George Little says Panetta is also sending 400 members of the military to operate the missile batteries. The deployment is part of a NATO effort to help build a shield to protect Turkey from chemical weapons attacks or any incoming missiles from its neighbor, Syria. Under NATO agreement, the U.S., Germany and Netherlands will deploy the batteries and set them up inside...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A Danish historian says he has discovered what he believes is a previously unknown fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen. Retired historian Esben Brage said Thursday he found the six-page text in early October while searching in the National Archives through boxes that had belonged to wealthy families from Andersen's home-town of Odense in central Denmark.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Susan Rice, the embattled U.N. ambassador, abruptly withdrew from consideration to be the next secretary of state on Thursday after a bitter, weekslong standoff with Republican senators who declared they would fight to defeat her nomination. The reluctant announcement makes Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry the likely choice to be the nation's next top diplomat when Hillary Rodham Clinton departs soon.

BUENOS AIRES -- Actor Sean Penn made a surprise appearance yesterday in Bolivia as he attended a candlelight vigil for the health of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is currently in Cuba undergoing his fourth cancer surgery. The event attracted Chavez supporters as well as Bolivian officials, and took place in a diplomatic location in La Paz. Penn joined Venezuelan ambassador Crisbeylee Gonzalez and took the stage wearing a Venezuelan flag jacket, according to a report by EFE. “Thank you, Sean,” said Gonzalez, “for joining us and for wanting to be here. We know President Chavez is a good friend...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Kevin Youkilis and the Yankees reached a deal Tuesday, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press, returning the hard-nosed All-Star to the AL East and filling New York's immediate need for a third baseman. The one-year contract for $12 million is pending a physical. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because there was no official announcement.

As the clock ticks toward a tax hike on all Americans in 20 days, President Obama predicted Republicans would join Democrats to extend current rates for 98 percent of earners before the end of the year. "I'm pretty confident that Republicans would not hold middle class taxes hostage to trying to protect tax cuts for high-income individuals," Obama said today in an exclusive interview with ABC News' Barbara Walters. "I don't think they'll do that," he said of Republicans forcing tax-rate increases for families earning $250,000 a year or less. The sign of optimism follows weeks of tense negotiations and...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama declared Syria's main opposition group the sole "legitimate representative" of its country's people Tuesday, deeming the move "a big step" in the international diplomatic efforts to end Syrian President Bashar Assad's embattled regime. Obama said the newly formed Syrian Opposition Council "is now inclusive enough" to be granted the elevated status, which paves the way for the greater U.S. support for the organization.

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -A man with a record of 39 arrests was shot and killed by police detectives in Queens overnight, after pulling what police thought was a gun, but turned out to be a compressed air pistol. Police on Sunday afternoon continued to investigate the shooting that left the 42-year-old man dead. The suspect killed by police had not been identified as of 3 p.m., pending family notification. Around 10:45 p.m. Saturday at Gates and Seneca avenues in the Ridgewood section of Queens, two male plainclothes NYPD detectives – ages 48 and 42 and both nine-year department veterans –...

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Juan Manuel Marquez knocked Manny Pacquiao out cold with a vicious right hand at the end of the sixth round Saturday night, putting a ferocious end to the fourth fight between the two boxers. Pacquiao had been down in the third round but knocked Marquez down in the fifth and the two were exchanging heavy blows in the sixth round before Marquez threw a right hand that flattened Pacquiao face down on the canvas at 2:59 of the sixth round.

Al-Masry Al-Youm spent three hours in total in the torture chambers established by the Muslim Brotherhood at the gates of the Ittihadiya Palace in the suburb of Heliopolis. The central torture chamber, which is located in front of the gate facing the Omar Ibn Abdel Aziz Mosque on al-Merghany Street, is secured with a cordon and iron barriers, where the Central Security Forces (CSF) prevent the access of any persons without the authorization of the Brotherhood. We entered the chamber with a great difficulty, after a fellow journalist from the Misr 25 TV channel facilitated. The channel is owned by...

(Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday he would undergo another cancer operation in coming days after doctors found malignant cells during tests in Cuba. "It is necessary for me to have a new intervention in the coming days," Chavez said in a televised broadcast, adding he would return to Havana on Sunday. The socialist leader had flown back to Venezuela on Friday after the tests in Cuba.

Because next year's inauguration falls on a Sunday, President Obama will hold only a small, private swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 20, and will hold a big public redo the next day. The Inaugural Committee announced Thursday that activities will last three days: a day of service on Saturday, the small private ceremony on Sunday, and the public swearing-in, parade and balls on Monday.

(Reuters) - Santiago Ortiz was deeply in love and, he believed, near death when he when asked Pablo Garcia to leave his native Venezuela and join him in New York. There was no time to bother with a visa. Ortiz was HIV positive and he wanted Garcia with him. That was 26 years ago. Ortiz, an American, is still alive. He and Garcia were married in Connecticut last year. And Garcia still does not have a visa. The Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, blocks federal recognition of same-sex relationships. "I told him, 'I might die tomorrow, I might die...

(Reuters) - An actress who said she was duped into appearing in an anti-Islam film that stoked violent protests against the United States across the Muslim world on Friday lost her second legal bid to force the video off of YouTube. Denying a request by actress Cindy Lee Garcia for a court order requiring the popular online video site to remove the crudely made 13-minute clip, a federal judge found she was unlikely to prevail on her claims of copyright infringement. U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald of Santa Clara, California, also canceled a December 3 hearing he had previously set...

WASHINGTON—House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will try to force a vote on the House floor to extend current tax rates for the middle class next week if Republicans do not act, the California Democrat announced on Friday. During a press conference on Capitol Hill, Pelosi called on House Republicans, who control the chamber, to hold another floor vote on whether to extend current tax rates for individuals who earn $200,000 or less and families making $250,000 or less. If they don't, Pelosi vowed to file a "discharge petition" that would force a vote if 218 House members sign it, which...