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The Israeli and Palestinian leaders were to open direct peace talks on Thursday after gathering at the White House for a moment of diplomatic theater on Wednesday night.

Powerful drugs are given to young children despite a lack of study on how they affect development.

Sarah Palin reveled in the primary upset of Senator Lisa Murkowski, but tensions began well before.

A London paper listened in on the private messages of the rich and famous, including Britain’s Prince Harry and Prince William.

For the second consecutive year, a popular highly ranked American player was ousted from the United States Open in a match marred by a foot-fault controversy.

After years of not getting sucked into the messy civil war on land, Somalia’s pirate gangs are taking sides — both sides.

A blast touched off clashes between local police forces and mourners and protesters infuriated by the attack.

Allergan agreed to pay $600 million to settle charges that it illegally promoted and sold Botox for unapproved uses.

On the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the approaching storm caused many to flee, and others to head for the waves.

A heated forum between Senator Barbara Boxer and her opponent, Carly Fiorina, in what might be their only debate.

Officials say a gunman with a history of protesting against the Discovery Channel was killed after a four-hour standoff at the company’s headquarters in Silver Spring, Md.

San Francisco has historically been an also-ran in fashion, but members of its varied style tribes sport an off-hand cool manner.

Top Breaking News Stories from CBSNews.com

Meteorologists Unsure Whether N.C. Will Get a Close Shave or a Direct Hit; President Declares State of Emergency   2010 Storm Tracker

Agency Backing Off Report of Mile-Long Sheen Spreading from Platform that Exploded off La. Coast; All 13 Aboard Rig Rescued

Montgomery County Police Safely Detonate 4 Additional Devices Discovered

Nyjer Morgan Charges Mound after Pitch Sails Behind Him, Triggering Huge Melee   Watch the Brawl

Researchers Seek Feedback from Technology Fair Visitors to Help Make Honda's Battery-Operated Robot More Communicative

Self-Identified Gang Members Hold Press Conference, Tout Need for "Jobs, Opportunities and Contracts" to Curb Violence

Feds Say Joe Arpaio withheld Records in Investigation of Discrimination against Hispanics

Arizona Governor Has Moment Showcasing Either "Lack of Preparation, or Sheer Panic" in Faceoff With Terry Goddard

Prosecutors Say 42-Year-Old Laced Treats with Dietary Supplement to Make Kids Sleep

Israeli, Palestinian leaders Will Meet Again Sept. 14-15 in the Middle East with Further Talks Likely

Officers Heard "Pop" Just Before SWAT Team Moved in on Suspect; Captives Looked Ready to Run, Authorities Say

Conservative Commentator Says "Nonsene" About Obama Being Muslim "Has Got to Stop" But then Adds that "All Liberals are Atheists"

By 2018, a Solar Probe Will Approach a Star for the First Time

Robert "Joe" Halderman, Who Tried to Blackmail Letterman over his Romantic Affairs, Served 4 Months

Msnbc.com is a leader in breaking news and original journalism.

The Coast Guard is backing off its earlier report that an oil sheen about a mile long was spreading following a platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

Hurricane Earl has weakened further but it's still a Category 3 storm with 115 mph winds bearing down on North Carolina's coast, the National Hurricane Center warned Thursday afternoon.



National Hurricane Center - Tropical cyclone - Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Scale - Meteorology - U.S. National Hurricane Center

Send your images and stories from breaking news scenes.

The Afghan president's brother confirms to NBC News that Kabul Bank funds were used to buy villas in Dubai but urges the U.S. to step in to prevent a financial panic.

Four more explosive devices tied to the suspect in the Discovery Channel standoff were found at a residence in Montgomery County, Md., authorities told NBC News on Thursday.



Discovery Channel - NBC - United States - Montgomery - Counties

Bethany Storro had just bought a pair of sunglasses and was celebrating a new job when a woman walked up to her with a cup and said: "Hey pretty girl, do you want to drink this?"

Stocks ended higher for the third consecutive session after reports on housing, manufacturing and jobs all indicated that the economy continues to grow.



Manufacturing - United States - Business - Investing - Stocks and Bonds

When the heiress was arrested in Las Vegas, she claimed the Chanel purse containing a bindle of cocaine wasn't hers, and a Twitpic she posted in July may be proof she's not telling the truth.

Israeli and Palestinian leaders opened direct peace talks under U.S. auspices on Thursday and agreed to meet every two weeks to try to forge a deal within a year.



Middle East - Israel - Palestinian people - Warfare and Conflict - Israel-Palestine

The first Army chaplain to be killed in action since Vietnam, died this week in Afghanistan, military officials said Thursday.



Afghanistan - Vietnam - Killed in action - Military - United States

Corals, big mammals and many tropical species could all go extinct in the not too distant future, predict scientists who are attempting to forecast the fate of today's animals by studying what happened to those in the distant past.

A new study suggests that at least one in seven home kitchens would flunk the kind of health inspection commonly administered to restaurants.

Two young goats that wandered onto the thin ledge of a railroad bridge and spent two days high above a highway were hungry but safe when they were plucked to safety with a towering cherry picker.

The plunge in interest rates has put the nation’s public and private pension funds badly underfunded, leaving pension fund managers with a giant hole to fill.



Pension - Business - Investing - Financial Services - Business and Economy

Linda Bruno called her Pennsylvania cat rescue the land of milk and tuna. It thrived for years as people sent pets they couldn't care for from hundreds of miles away — unaware it was a death camp for cats.

The transplant recipient made his first appearance on Thursday, about a week after he underwent a nearly 18-hour transplant procedure at a hospital.

Don't disconnect your printer just yet. While some tech-savvy passengers may be ready for it, experts say paperless boarding won’t be successful until it is both reliable and universal.

18-year-old Beatrice Capra, a wild-card entry ranked 371st, upset 18th-seeded Aravane Rezai of France 7-5, 2-6, 6-3 on Thursday to keep her Grand Slam debut on track.

Robert "Joe" Halderman admitted he demanded $2 million in hush money last fall to keep from revealing personal information about Letterman.

The exotic acai berry has been the superstar in the world of diet supplements. But the federal government is cracking down on false advertising claims and unlawful payment practices.

These days, you may leave your dentist's office with more than a toothbrush and dental floss in your bag. Thousands of dentists are offering patients health-care credit cards to cover the work that needs to be done, with seemingly hard-to-resist repayment terms. If you need care and don't have insurance to cover it or cash in hand, it's tempting to sign up.



Dentistry - Toothbrush - Dental floss - Health care - Insurance

In an atmosphere of tension between the federal government and Arizona, the Justice Department today dialed it up some more, filing a lawsuit against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio -- accusing him, the county, and his office with failing to cooperate with a civil rights investigation of his office.



Joe Arpaio - United States Department of Justice - Lawsuit - Civil and political rights - Sheriff

NYT: Ho-hum Oval Office? Arianna Huffington, Ann Coulter and top designers react to the makeover unveiled this week.



New York Times - Huffington Post - Politics - Ann Coulter - People

Grammy-winning rapper T.I. was arrested along with his wife on suspicion of possessing methamphetamines, five months after the hip-hop star finished a prison stint on weapons charges.

It seemed so reasonable at first—just a fee, no more than $40, for checking more than the standard two bags. But like a slowly expanding epidemic, the fees gradually started to creep. Here are the main fees to watch out for.



Business - Shopping - Recreation - Newsweek - Ratchet & Clank

Britain's government came under pressure Thursday amid allegations that a top prime ministerial aide was involved with a newspaper investigation into the royal family that involved illegally tapping cell phones.



Mobile phone - Newspaper - Government - Science and Technology - Cell Phones

Oh, Diana. Will you ever be allowed to rest in peace? Apparently not. On the 13th anniversary of the Princess of Wales’ death, a Chinese lingerie company launched a new line of ... wait for it ... “Diana underwear.�

It was a glass-half-full day for economic data on Thursday ... sort of.  The upbeat news was tempered by worries about what Friday's unemployment report will say about the state of the labor market.



Labour economics - Jobless claims - United States - Work - Labor Movement

Montgomery County police department sources say the hostage-taker at the Discover Channel building had only starter guns that make noise but can't cause serious injury.



Hostage - Discovery Channel - NBC - Discovery - Maryland

The man who held three hostages at the Discovery Communications building in Maryland told NBC News in a brief telephone conversation that he had explosives.



Discovery Communications - Maryland - NBC - United States - Police

Fed chief Bernanke told a panel investigating the financial crisis Thursday that regulators must be ready to shut large institutions if they threaten to bring down the financial system.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon will deliver a major speech Thursday, and ahead of that he released video clips touting his priorities — yet none refer to his war on drug cartels.

FOX News Channel - We Report. You Decide.

URGENT: Earl weakens to a Category 3 storm as it bears down on North Carolina and hurricane warnings are expanded to include Rhode Island, Cape Cod and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. |

FULL COVERAGE: Hurricane Earl | VIDEO

| WEATHER CENTER | TRACKER

Wind Scale | Following Earl

Dr. Manny: Preparing for the Storm

Mideast peace talks get under way for the first time in nearly two years with a violent reminder sent by Palestinian terror group that it will try to torpedo any agreement struck in Washington

U.S. Coast Guard is backing off its earlier claims and says they are unable to confirm if there was a mile long oil sheen in the Gulf following an oil rig explosion

Gulf Rig Explosion

Coast Guard Responds to Gulf Oil Rig Explosion

Controversial Ariz. sheriff slams the department over lawsuit filed against him claiming he refused to turn over records in an investigation into allegations his office discriminates against Hispanics

We can all learn valuable lessons from these classic celeb sex scandals

Friends of troubled actress Lindsay Lohan tell Pop Tarts that she is 'no different' after jail, rehab stint and is still up to her old ways

Are names like Kal El, Zuma Nesta, and Sparrow really creative, or borderline child abuse? You decide!

Actor says his charmed life marred by his inability to make impact on Darfur civil war
Elisabetta Canalis Pics

You swallow these invisible shrimp with every gulp of New York City tap water -- yet that's nothing to worry about, say experts

In his latest book, author David Richo uncovers and shares the key to maintaining healthy, fulfilling relationships to help lead balanced, thoughtful lives

President Obama's office is sporting a new look. Here's how YOU would redecorate it

News for nerds, stuff that matters

devjj writes "For the past year or so I have been trying (and failing) to figure out a reasonable solution for bringing my large media library to my living room. All of my media lives on an Ubuntu server that sits on my network. It's been very reliable and it's fast enough for streaming purposes. My content is exposed via SMB. It's the living room side where I keep running into problems. I am currently using Windows 7 and XBMC, but the case is too big and noisy, I don't particularly care for Windows, and the whole thing just seems overkill. What I want is a device that can present a decent UI that the non-Slashdot crowd would be able to use, but that is still powerful enough to stream full-fidelity 1080p. I dream of a small box that can transcode video over a network, but that's probably a pipe dream. The new Apple TV would be great if it could connect to network shares. What say you, Slashdot? Is what I'm looking for possible, or should I just give in to the iTunes/Amazon/whatever juggernauts?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

dh003i writes "Canon has developed a 8 x 8 inch CMOS digital sensor. It will be able to capture an image with 1/100th the light intensity required by a DSLR and will be able to record video at 60 fps in lighting half the intensity of moonlight. There are already many excellent quality lenses designed to cover 8 x 10 inches, although Canon may develop some of their own designed specifically for their requirements."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hugh Pickens writes "Ryan Lawler writes on GigaOm that although many have touted the availability of Flash on Android devices as a competitive advantage over Apple's mobile devices, while trying to watch videos from ABC.com, Fox.com and Metacafe using Flash 10.1 on a Nexus One over a local Wi-Fi network connected to a 25-Mbps Verizon FiOS broadband connection, mobile expert Kevin Tofel found that videos were slow to load, if they loaded at all, leading to an overall very inconsistent experience while using his Android device for video. "While in theory Flash video might be a competitive advantage for Android users, in practice it's difficult to imagine anyone actually trying to watch non-optimized web video on an Android handset," writes Lawler. "All of which makes one believe that maybe Steve Jobs was right to eschew Flash in lieu of HTML5 on the iPhone and iPad.""

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

donniebaseball23 writes "EA's Medal of Honor reboot doesn't ship until October 12, but it's already seen a fair amount of controversy thanks to the publisher's decision to allow people to play as Taliban in multiplayer. The controversy just got escalated another notch, reports IndustryGamers, as the world's biggest games retailer GameStop has decided it won't sell the title at its stores located on US military bases. The new Medal of Honor won't be advertised at these stores either. GameStop noted that they came to this decision 'out of respect for our past and present men and women in uniform.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

eldavojohn writes "A new paper up for prepublication from the controversial solid-state physicist Godfrey Louis claims that the cells Louis collected from a Keralan red rain incident divide and produce daughter cells at 121 degrees Celsius. While unusual, this is not unheard of as the paper recalls cells cultivated from hydrothermal vents are known to reproduce at 121 C as well. Of course, caution is exercised when dealing with the possible explanation surrounding the theory of panspermia but the MIT Technology Review says researchers 'examined the way these fluoresce when bombarded with light and say it is remarkably similar to various unexplained emission spectra seen in various parts of the galaxy. One such place is the Red Rectangle, a cloud of dust and gas around a young star in the Monocerous constellation.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

crimeandpunishment writes "The top man in telecommunications at the United Nations is weighing in on the Blackberry battle ... and he says share the data. The UN's telecom chief says governments have legitimate security concerns, and Research in Motion should give them access to its customer data. In an interview with the Associated Press, Hamadoun Toure said 'There is a need for cooperation between governments and the private sector on security issues.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

pickens writes "David Pogue writes in the NY Times that when you buy a new Windows PC, it comes festooned with stickers on the palm rests: one for Windows, one for Skype, one for Intel, one for the laptop company, maybe an Energy Star sticker and so on. 'It's like buying a new, luxury car — and discovering that it comes with non-removable bumper stickers that promote the motor oil, the floor mat maker, the windshield-fluid company and the pine tree air freshener you have no intention of ever using,' writes Pogue. But the worst thing is that when you peel them off, they shred, leaving adhesive crud behind. 'When you've just spent big bucks on a laptop, should you really be obligated to spend the first 20 minutes trying to dissolve away the sticker goop with WD40?' But AMD has a solution. Starting next year, AMD will switch to new stickers that peel off easily, leaving no residue; after that, it's considering eliminating the sticker program altogether."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

wiedzmin writes "Public broadcaster ARD's show 'Plusminus' teamed up with the known hacker organization 'Chaos Computer Club' (CCC) to find out how secure the controversial new radio-frequency (RFID) chips were. The report shows how they used the basic new home scanners that will go along with the cards (for use with home computers to process the personal data for official government business) to demonstrate that scammers would have few problems extracting personal information. This includes two fingerprint scans and a new six-digit PIN meant to be used as a digital signature for official government business and beyond." That was quick. Earlier this year, CCC hackers demonstrated vulnerabilities in German airport IDs, too.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

rexjoec writes "Cisco is making a bid for Skype. The deal, if successful, would derail a planned initial public offering from Skype and redraw the battle lines in the lucrative market of video communications." The rumored price is $5B.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A few readers have noted that another gulf oil rig has exploded. This one is off the coast of Lousiana. So far all the workers are accounted for, but they are in immersion suits waiting for rescue.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

tlhIngan writes "Despite all the lawsuits and injunctions by Sony to keep the PS3 Jailbreak out of modder's hands, it appears that a third party has made a clone. The best part is, it only requires a cheap (approximately $40) development board by Atmel, and the requisite software is open-source. Get the Atmel code from GitHub and apply a small patch which will enable backup play (the code by itself only lets you run unsigned code, the patch allows for BD backups). The code is GPLv3. It would be highly ironic if someone ported this to Linux USB Gadgets, then you could use a Linux device to jailbreak your PS3, to which Sony removed Linux functionality. An Android phone would be suitable."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

eldavojohn writes "A Michigan judge removed a juror after a Facebook comment and also fined her $250 and required her to write a five-page paper about the constitutional right to a fair trial. The juror was 'very sorry' and the judge chastised her, saying, 'You violated your oath. You had decided she was already guilty without hearing the other side.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

rsmiller510 writes "Could Apple's announcement about Ping, a music-based social network be Apple's social networking trojan horse? Facebook might want to be concerned." Of course it is. Update: 09/02 19:26 GMT by T : Jamie points out this post on Daring Fireball, according to which Steve Jobs blames the non-integration on "onerous terms" suggested by Facebook.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

cgriffin21 writes "Samsung is making no bones about it: Google Android is its future. And with the revealing of the Samsung Galaxy Tab, the company is showing that it's all in when it comes to Android. At the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, Samsung finally pulled the curtain of the long rumored and teased Galaxy Tab, the electronics maker's touch-screen tablet and answer to the Apple iPad."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "It appears that Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader Sarah Jones and her lawyer were so upset by a comment on the site TheDirty.com that they missed the 'y' at the end of the name. Instead, they sued the owner of TheDirt.com, whose owner didn't respond to the lawsuit. The end result was a judge awarding $11 million, in part because of the failure to respond. Now, both the owners of TheDirty.com and TheDirt.com are complaining that they're being wrongfully written about in the press — one for not having had any content about Sarah Jones but being told it needs to pay $11 million, and the other for having the content and having the press say it lost a lawsuit, even though no lawsuit was ever actually filed against it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Top Stories

A phone-hacking scheme involving British royals and reporters working for one of Rupert Murdoch's tabloid newspapers went far beyond what was previously disclosed and prosecuted. The British Prime Minister's current media adviser is accused of having encouraged the hacking.

If it's September, it's football season — which also means it's time for millions of fantasy football drafts around the world to commence. Maximize your in-season points while dealing with the setbacks that are bound to occur by following our guide.

The video site's ever-evolving terms of service drive an observer mad in this arty clip by Carlo Zanni. No charge for the 1984 references.

This week’s big Apple announcement featured one big disappointment: Apple TV’s relative lack of, well, TV. Out of all of the hundreds of channels available on cable and satellite, only ABC and Fox agreed to offer their programs for rent on Apple TV. The fact that Steve Jobs is the largest single shareholder in, and on the board of, Disney — owner of ABC — perfectly illustrates this digital divide.

Unlike infectious disease and information, behavior change spreads faster through online networks that have many close connections instead of many distant ties. Redundancy is key, as people are more likely to engage in a behavior if they see many others doing it. "There has been a lot of theory about the difference between information and behavior spreading," said economic sociologist Damon Centola of MIT and author of the study published Sept. 3 in Science. "We've assumed that they are the same, but you can imagine that behavior is not really like that, that you need to be convinced."

A new batch of sharp Martian close-ups from NASA's HiRISE camera were released, and we've gathered some of the best in the gallery.

The atmosphere of a young exoplanet didn't fit any of our existing models for what gas giants should look like. But when astronomers added huge dust clouds, it was a perfect fit, perhaps revealing a larger truth about gas giants.

Magnetic minerals in 15-million-year-old rocks appear to preserve a moment when the magnetic north pole was rapidly on its way to becoming the south pole, and vice versa.

Development Seed is engineering tools to create custom maps that work in a wider variety of situations such as natural disasters and in the developing world.

A reinterpretation of the fossil record suggests a new answer to one of evolution's existential questions: whether global mass extinctions are just short-term diversions in life's preordained course, or send life careening down wholly new paths.

The official Twitter app for iPad is finally here, and star developer Loren Brichter has polished yet another gem. Twitter for iPad sports a really elegant interface that's significantly faster and more intuitive than competing Twitter clients we've tested (such as Twitterific and Tweetdeck).

Fujitsu's scanner is your new (albeit bulky) buddy if you want high-quality images. The sturdy document feeder gets pages in straight, so you get them out right.

Google is celebrating the second birthday of its Chrome web browser with the release of Chrome 6. Among the new features are an updated user interface, auto-fill for web forms, extension syncing, increased speed and numerous bug fixes.

People in Silicon Valley have focused on the set-top box as the lever to attack the cable industry. Cable boxes blow, but that's a losing battle. So why is Apple TV different? Because Steve Jobs has not just created a new set top box. He's actually created a whole new media ecosystem built around the mobile phone.

It looks like a motorcycle, it performs like a Lotus and it's racing around the world.

String theory has finally made a prediction that can be tested with experiments — but in a completely unexpected realm of physics: quantum entanglement.

Chemical analysis of the bones of an ancient Sudanese Nubians who lived nearly 2,000 years ago shows they were ingesting the antibiotic tetracycline on a regular basis — likely from a special brew of beer. The find is the strongest yet to support that antibiotics were previously discovered by humans before Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928.

Samsung has announced the launch of a tablet that could become the first major Android-powered challenger to the Apple iPad.

The uncharacteristically snowy weather that hit Northern Europe and North America in the winter of 2009 to 2010 was caused by a rare combination of two separate weather oscillations in the Atlantic and Pacific, claim meteorologists.

Superman is a surly noob searching for reality in the digital age in J. Michael Straczynski and Shane Davis' update of the superhero's origin story. Who knew the Man of Steel would miss the musty Daily Planet more than the rest of us?

Two psychiatric experts think the way to treat troops returning home with PTSD: Have them undergo intensive psychotherapy while they're rolling on ecstasy.

Six weeks after landing men on the moon, Americans take another giant leap for mankind with the nation’s first cash-spewing, automated teller machine.

Video calls aren't for people to see you — they're for people to see what you see.

Blazing fast (four minutes and nine seconds!), streamlined and full of highlights, Cuisinart's PerfecTemp puts its kettle competition to shame.

A Q&A with Jeff Ma, the former leader of the infamous MIT Blackjack Team that took Vegas for millions in the mid-'90s. Now a successful entrepreneur and author, Ma talks about his love of fantasy sports, selling his company Citizen Sports to Yahoo (and why he didn't join them), and how young statgeeks can make their way in a sports industry dominated by traditionalists.

In 1983 Nintendo released the Famicon console. Now 26 years later we tear it apart to see what makes it tick.

There's a sign of hope for frustrated Google Apps users who feel left out of getting all the cool toys regular Google users get: Google is inviting select users this week to test out Apps with all the bells and whistles.

Want to start reading some science fiction, but aren't sure where to begin? This introductory sci-fi literature syllabus is just for you.

A furor has broken out among biologists over ant specialist E.O. Wilson's latest attack on a concept used to explain the origins of self-sacrifice in the dog-eat-dog world of evolution.

We know — the new Apple TV is really small, and cheap and easy-to-use. That's all good, but still not knocking our socks off despite being the ripest area for expansion by a company that has already firmly established itself on the computer, phone, portable media player and tablet. Here are five reasons Apple TV is still boring.