Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 04 Januari 2014 | 20.24
2 January 2014Last updated at 15:54 ET
The Chinese consulate in San Francisco has been damaged after its main gate was set on fire on Wednesday night.
Consular officials said an unidentified person parked a van in front of the mission, then poured two cans of petrol on the main gate and set it ablaze.
The consulate condemned the "vicious, destructive act of arson" and urged police to solve the crime quickly.
While protests outside Chinese consulates are common in Western countries, acts of violence are rare.
No-one was injured by the fire, but Chinese officials said the building was "severely damaged" and the safety of personnel had been threatened.
The FBI, which is leading the investigation into the fire, confirmed to the Associated Press the blaze was ignited in front of the building.
FBI spokesman Peter Lee said the fire was caused by an "incendiary device" but said only that no bomb-making materials were found nor were there any traces of an explosion.
"The FBI takes any criminal offence directed toward a diplomatic establishment very seriously," he said.
Mr Lee said the agency did not know whether the consulate had received any recent threats.
San Francisco fire officials said they responded to the fire about 21:30 local time (05:30 GMT Thursday) on Wednesday evening and had the blaze under control within minutes.
The safety of Chinese diplomatic personnel and missions has been a sensitive issue since the US military accidentally bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during air strikes against Serbia in 1999.
The bombing set off a series of protests - many Chinese still believe it was intentional.
A world-renowned hacker, who died in San Francisco in July, overdosed on a mix of heroin, cocaine and other drugs, a coroner's report shows.
New Zealand-born Barnaby Jack was found dead in his bed a week before he was scheduled to give a talk at an event.
An autopsy revealed that "acute mixed drug intoxication" led to his death, San Francisco's medical examiner said.
Mr Jack rose to fame after a 2010 demonstration, in which he hacked a cash machine, making it give out money.
The technique was dubbed "Jackpotting".
He had also emerged as a leading expert in the weaknesses that could be found in medical technology.
'No visible trauma'
In July, the medical examiner had provided no further details into what may have caused the hacker's sudden death.
But the autopsy report has now been made available and says Mr Jack had shown "no visible or palpable evidence of trauma".
Instead, his physical symptoms indicated an accidental overdose of heroin, cocaine, and prescription drugs.
The report said Mr Jack's girlfriend had found him lying in bed unresponsive, with "multiple bottles of beer and champagne in the garbage can".
Mr Jack's death occurred shortly before he was due to demonstrate how heart implants could be hacked at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas.
He had said one technique could kill a man from 30 feet (nine metres) away.
Last year, he told the BBC about how he had discovered flaws in widely-used insulin pumps which allowed him to compromise the devices.
The hack made it possible to control them and administer a fatal level of insulin, Mr Jack said.
"My purpose was not to allow anyone to be harmed by this because it is not easy to reproduce," he told the BBC during an interview in April 2012.
"But hopefully it will promote some change in these companies and get some meaningful security in these devices."
Mr Jack's expertise and vivid demonstrations of his knowledge at events like Black Hat earned him the respect of many security professionals.
The US National Security Agency is building a quantum computer to break the encryption that keeps messages secure, reports the Washington Post.
The NSA project came to light in documents passed to the newspaper by whistle-blower Edward Snowden.
The spying agency hopes to harness the special qualities of quantum computers to speed up its code-cracking efforts.
The NSA is believed to have spent about $80m (£49m) on the project but it has yet to produce a working machine.
If the NSA managed to develop a working quantum computer it would be put to work breaking encryption systems used online and by foreign governments to keep official messages secure, suggest the documents excerpted in the Post.
The quantum computer is being developed under a research programme called Penetrating Hard Targets and is believed to be conducted out of a lab in Maryland.
Processing power
Many research groups around the world are pursuing the goal of creating a working quantum computer but those developed so far have not been able to run the algorithms required to break contemporary encryption systems.
Current computers attempt to crack encryption via many different means but they are limited to generating possible keys to unscramble data one at a time. Using big computers can speed this up but the huge numbers used as keys to lock away data limits the usefulness of this approach.
By contrast, quantum computers exploit properties of matter that, under certain conditions, mean the machine can carry out lots and lots of calculations simultaneously. This makes it practical to try all the possible keys protecting a particular message or stream of data.
The hard part of creating a working quantum computer is keeping enough of its constituent computational elements, called qubits, stable so they can interact and be put to useful work.
The NSA is not believed to have made significant breakthroughs in its work that would put it ahead of research efforts elsewhere in the US and Europe. However, the documents passed to the Post by Edward Snowden suggest the agency's researchers are having some success developing the basic building blocks for the machine.
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who admitted to once smoking crack cocaine while in a "drunken stupor", has filed re-election papers.
Putting his name on the ballot to run for another term, Mr Ford revealed his new campaign slogan: "Ford more years".
"I've got the strongest track record," he told journalists. "I've been the best mayor this city has ever had."
He is the sole candidate so far for the 27 October municipal election, but rivals are expected to challenge him.
The conservative mayor was first elected in 2010 to lead Canada's largest city on a pledge to tackle wasteful spending at city hall.
He said it was for the voters ultimately to deliver their verdict on his personal problems.
'Track record'
He told reporters on Thursday: "My track record speaks for itself. We've got the lowest taxes than any other major city in North America.
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Toronto Mayor Rob Ford: In his own words
"The city is absolutely booming... I've dealt with the issues that other mayors couldn't deal with."
Mr Ford put Toronto in the international spotlight in November when he admitted having once smoked crack cocaine "in a drunken stupor".
In the fallout from the drug scandal, political opponents stripped Mr Ford of most of his mayoral powers as he insisted he would run for office again.
He has brushed aside pressure to quit and remains popular in some of Toronto's more conservative suburban areas.
Allegations have also surfaced in police documents that Mr Ford used racially abusive language, threatened staff, sexually propositioned a female colleague and snorted cocaine in a restaurant.
The supreme court of California has granted a law licence to an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who has lived for years in the US.
Sergio Garcia, 36, arrived in the US nearly two decades ago without papers.
He attended law school and passed the California bar exam, but has not yet been granted a visa.
Mr Garcia challenged a 1996 law barring illegal immigrants from receiving professional licences, a rule later changed by Governor Jerry Brown.
The new lawyer was born in Mexico in 1977 and brought to California less than two years later, according to a statement from the California supreme court.
He returned to Mexico with his family at age nine, but illegally re-entered the US when he was 17.
'Good moral character'
Mr Garcia's father, who had legally obtained resident status, filed for a visa on his son's behalf soon after.
Continue reading the main story
I feel incredible, this is the best gift 2014 could bring for me"
End QuoteSergio Garcia
But because of a long backlog of applicants, Mr Garcia has not yet been granted a visa.
He picked almonds and worked in a grocery store to pay his way through university and Cal Northern School of Law, later passing the California bar examination on his first attempt.
Mr Garcia subsequently challenged a 1996 federal law barring people living in the US illegally from receiving professional licences from government agencies or with the use of public funds.
The federal government argued the California courts were funded by public money, thus precluding him from being granted a licence.
Meanwhile, Mr Brown signed a series of immigrant rights bills in October, including one allowing undocumented people to obtain law licences. That law took effect on 1 January.
On Thursday, the state's supreme court unanimously ruled in favour of Mr Garcia, determining he "possesses the requisite good moral character to qualify for a law licence".
Speaking to the BBC's Newsday programme, Mr Garcia called the ruling a "landmark historic decision".
"I feel incredible, this is the best gift 2014 could bring for me," he said.
General Motors (GM) has reported a fall in car sales in December in what was a disappointing month for US car makers.
GM shares fell 2.4% after it reported a 6.3% fall in sales compared with December 2012.
Ford and Chrysler both reported rising sales, but not the increases that industry analysts were expecting.
Chrysler sold 161,000 cars and trucks in December, up 5.7% on the same period in 2012 and Ford reported a 1.8% rise in December sales.
Slow December
Analysts said that poor weather in parts of the US kept customers away from dealerships in December.
"At the very beginning of the month the pace of buying was slow because there were so many storms around the country," said Edmunds.com senior analyst Michelle Krebs.
Continue reading the main story
Trucks on the road are even older than cars on the road"
End QuoteMichelle KrebsEdmunds.com
"Now what we're seeing is some of the automakers are stretching their December deals into January."
Kurt McNeil, vice president, of US sales for GM, said: "December started a little slow but sales were stronger later in the month, especially in the week between Christmas and New Year."
Meanwhile Ford said that a four-day weekend for Thanksgiving late in November may have brought forward sales that would have fallen in December.
For Chrysler the Jeep brand continued to be a strong performer with a 34% rise in sales last month.
With a 9% rise in annual sales, 2013 was the strongest year for Chrysler since 2007.
"Our Jeep and Ram truck brands had a strong finish led by the all new 2014 Jeep Cherokee and the Ram pickup truck," said Reid Bigland, head of US sales.
Truck boost
Overall, sales in 2013 were strong for the big three Detroit car manufacturers, who were helped along by strong sales of their truck offerings.
Truck sales tend to increase in relation to home sales, which were strong for much of the year as the US economic recovery spurred long-delayed housing activity.
"Trucks on the road are even older than cars on the road," said Ms Krebs.
She added: "There are lots of new products: Chrysler came out with a new Ram pick-up truck, GM introduced its new trucks this fall and Toyota had a new Tundra model" which further enticed consumers.
Toyota reverses
However, Toyota, the third biggest player in the US market, didn't do as well as the US manufacturers.
It saw sales in December decline by 1.7% from a year ago to 190,843.
Analysts had been expecting Toyota to report rising sales.
But 2013 is expected to be the best year for US auto market since 2007, with total annual sales of about 15.6 million.
That would be a strong recovery from 2009 when sales fell to 10.4 million during the depths of the recession.
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Some schools and offices were shut ahead of the storm, with people urged to stay at home
A winter storm has blanketed parts of Canada and the north-eastern US with up to 2ft (61cm) of snow.
The storm has been blamed for 11 deaths and forced the cancellation of more than 4,000 flights since Wednesday.
With the wind chill, the temperature dropped as low as -29C (-20F) in Toronto and -38C in Quebec City, the lowest seen in two decades.
Authorities warned residents to remain indoors, both for their own safety and to keep roads clear for snow removal.
Coastal warnings
Continue reading the main story
Nada TawfikBBC News, New York
You can hear the wind howling from indoors. It makes the already freezing temperatures that much harder to bear.
But New Yorkers and those from the US east coast are used to snow. So despite officials warning people to stay indoors, some have grabbed their gloves and sleds for a bit of winter fun.
Tourists in Times Square were even spotted having a snowball fight. But these conditions are harsh. The temperatures are cold enough to cause frostbite in 30 minutes or less.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was sworn into office on 1 January, said most of the city's main roads had been cleared of snow thanks to an "extraordinary job" by the city's sanitation workers.
"We can help them by getting out of their way," he said late on Friday morning. "If you do not need to travel today, please stay home."
Some commuter trains around New York City were on a reduced schedule, while some key roads were shut at least temporarily.
In the neighbouring states of Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey, non-essential state workers were ordered to remain at home.
Even as the snow slowed in the eastern US, a coastal flooding alert was in effect for Nantucket in southern Massachusetts through southern Maine, especially for high tide at 12:00 local (17:00 GMT).
The New York to Boston Amtrak passenger rail service was placed on a reduced schedule.
On Friday, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick said flights at Boston's Logan International Airport had resumed.
But he warned locals to remain indoors due to "dangerously" low temperatures expected in the region through Saturday.
Crushed by salt
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New York Mayor de Blasio: "If you don't need to travel today, please stay home"
The New York Times said 6in of snow had fallen on Central Park by 07:00 and the temperature was the same as in Fairbanks, Alaska. Friday is forecast to be bitterly cold across much of the region.
Boston too was badly affected, with schools shut.
Eleven deaths have been blamed on the wide-ranging storm, according to the Associated Press news agency.
A salt storage worker was killed in Philadelphia when a 100-ft (30-metre) pile of road salt fell and crushed him. A woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease in New York state froze to death after she wandered away from her rural home.
A man was reported to be in critical condition after being pulled from Lake Michigan by firefighters.
In Canada, parts of Newfoundland and Labrador are expected to see up to 40cm (16in) of snow on Friday, while Nova Scotia is forecast to see as much as 20cm (8in).
The eastern half of the country has been plunged into bitterly cold temperatures over the past several days, making it feel as low as -35C (-31F) with wind chill in the Atlantic Provinces.
David Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment Canada, told the BBC the temperature in Toronto on Friday morning, -24C, was the coldest the city had seen in nine years. On Thursday, Montreal and Quebec City saw their coldest temperatures in 10 and 21 years respectively.
The storm's path over 24 hours
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US President Barack Obama's administration has announced measures aimed at limiting access to firearms for the mentally ill.
The changes clarify ambiguous regulations and allow hospitals to provide more information for background checks, officials said.
The actions come more than one year after the Newtown school shooting, which sparked a national gun debate.
Mr Obama's push for stricter gun controls stalled after the incident.
'Dangerous hands'
Continue reading the main story
Passing common-sense gun safety legislation - including expanding background checks and making gun trafficking a federal crime - remains the most important step we can take to reduce gun violence"
End QuoteThe White House
In a statement released on Friday, the White House said the two new actions "will help strengthen the federal background check system and keep guns out of the wrong hands".
The first proposed regulation, from the Department of Justice, aims to clarify who is prohibited under federal law from possessing a firearm for reasons related to mental health.
That change includes clarifying the term "committed to a mental institution" to include involuntary inpatient as well as outpatient commitments, the White House said.
The second proposed action, brought by the Department of Health and Human Services, lifts certain privacy provisions preventing states from forwarding relevant information to the background check system.
The change could give medical entities covered by federal health privacy law permission to disclose "limited information necessary to help keep guns out of potentially dangerous hands", the White House said.
"The proposed rule will not change the fact that seeking help for mental health problems or getting treatment does not make someone legally prohibited from having a firearm," the White House said.
'Most important step'
The proposed changes follow the one-year anniversary of the December 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 20 children and six school staff members were killed.
The perpetrator is believed to have had severe mental health issues at the time of the crime.
Mr Obama proposed several federal gun control measures in the wake of the shooting, including tightening the background check system to make it harder for convicted criminals to buy guns, but Congress declined to act under pressure from the powerful gun lobby.
He has continued to press Congress for further restrictions, although sceptics note that if the murder of 20 children failed to goad Congress to action, it is unclear what could.
"Passing common-sense gun safety legislation - including expanding background checks and making gun trafficking a federal crime - remains the most important step we can take to reduce gun violence," the White House statement concluded.
Neither US actor Paul Walker or the driver in their fatal car accident were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of their deaths, a post-mortem examination has found.
Their Porsche was travelling at an "unsafe speed" when it hit a pole and burst into flames in California on 30 November, a coroner's report stated.
Both deaths have since been ruled accidents, authorities say.
Paul Walker was best known for the car racing films Fast and Furious.
Ongoing investigation
Authorities estimate the car was travelling at nearly 100mph (160km/h) at the time of the fatal accident, according to the coroner's report released on Friday.
But sheriff's officials say the investigation into the accident has yet to be completed.
A previous post-mortem examination determined Walker, 40, was killed by impact and injuries related to a fire.
The Los Angeles County coroner found that the driver, Roger Rodas, died from impact injuries alone.
Both men are said to have died within seconds of the crash, according to media reports.
Walker starred in the Fast & Furious blockbuster films that celebrated high-speed car chases.
Production on the seventh instalment of the Fast and Furious franchise was temporarily halted following his death.
Universal Pictures later announced the film's release date would be pushed back several months to April 2015.
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Phil (left) and Don's hits included Bye Bye Love, Wake Up Little Suzie and All I Have To Do Is Dream
US musician Phil Everly, one half of the Everly Brothers, has died, aged 74, in California, his family says.
Everly died in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank of complications from lung disease, his wife, Patti, told the Los Angeles Times.
"We are absolutely heartbroken," she said, adding that the disease was the result of a lifetime of smoking.
Phil Everly and his brother Don made up the Everly Brothers, one of the biggest pop acts of the 1950s and early 1960s.
They had a string of close-harmony hits including Wake Up Little Suzie, Cathy's Clown, Bye Bye Love, and All I Have To Do Is Dream.
"It's a terrible, terrible loss - for me, for everybody," US rock pioneer Duane Eddy, a friend of Everly, told BBC Radio 5live.
Infamous
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Guitarist and friend Duane Eddy: Death of Phil Everly is "a huge blow"
Everly died on Friday of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his son Jason Everly told AP.
The Washington Post quoted a woman at Don Everly's home as saying he was too upset to talk about the death of his brother. "He expected to go first," she told the newspaper.
Rolling Stone magazine calls the Everly Brothers "the most important vocal duo in rock".
In its biography of the pair, the magazine says Phil and his older brother Don were the children of Midwestern country music singers Ike and Margaret Everly and performed on the family radio show while growing up.
In their heyday between 1957 and 1962, the Everly Brothers had 19 Top 40 hits, according to the Associated Press. They influenced acts such as the Beatles and the Beach Boys.
The pair had an onstage breakup in 1973 that led to a decade-long estrangement, but Phil later told Time magazine the brothers' relationship had survived this.
"Don and I are infamous for our split," Phil said, "but we're closer than most brothers."
The Everly Brothers were elected to the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in its first year, 1986, and they were given a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys in 1997.
Among the musicians paying tribute to the singer and guitarist, was singer-songwriter Charlie Daniels, who tweeted: "Rest in peace Phil Everly. You guys brought us a lot of pleasure back in the day."
