Man-and-woman Mars trip by 2018? Can you say 'couples counseling'?

An artist's concept of a proposed Mars flyby spacecraft equipped with an inflatable habitat module.(Credit:Inspiration Mars)A wealthy space tourist announced plans today to launch a high-risk manned flight to Mars in 2018, sending a man and a woman on a bare-bones 501-day round-trip flyby, passing just 100 miles above the Red Planet before heading back to Earth.Dennis Tito, the first private citizen...

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Supreme Court divided on Voting Rights Act

(CBS News) WASHINGTON -- The Voting Rights Act has been the law of the land for nearly half a century, helping to ensure that minorities are not denied the right to vote. On Wednesday, Shelby County, Ala., challenged the law at the Supreme Court. The arguments sharply divided the justices: The court's conservative majority appeared poised to strike down at least part of the act and eliminate the...

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Holder Says Sequester Makes America Less Safe

The looming budget sequestration will make Americans less safe, Eric Holder says—and anyone who says otherwise isn't telling the truth."This is something that is going to have an impact on the safety of this country," the U.S. attorney general told ABC's Pierre Thomas on Wednesday in a wide-ranging, exclusive interview."And anybody that says otherwise is either lying or saying...

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Iran upbeat on nuclear talks, West still wary

ALMATY (Reuters) - Iran was upbeat on Wednesday after talks with world powers about its nuclear work ended with an agreement to meet again, but Western officials said it had yet to take concrete steps to ease their fears about its atomic ambitions. Rapid progress was unlikely with Iran's presidential election, due in June, raising domestic political tensions, diplomats and analysts had...

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Japan's factory output up 1.0% in January

TOKYO: Japan's factory output for January rose a smaller-than-expected 1.0 per cent from the previous month, official data showed on Thursday.The rise was weaker than a 1.5 per cent expansion expected by the market and a revised 2.4 per cent increase in December.But the ministry maintained a positive view, saying in a monthly report: "Industrial production has bottomed out and shows some...

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Yelp: We compete with print -- not Google or Facebook

Google, who? Facebook, huh? Yea, that's right. The Internet behemoths don't pose any threat to business reviews site Yelp and its still-blossoming local advertising business. Well, that's Yelp's attitude anyhow. "Today, we're really competing with print, radio, and television," Geoff Donaker, Yelp's chief operating officer, said Tuesday when speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, and Telecom...

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Debate over Voting Rights Act changes in Ala.

(CBS News) -- On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear a challenge to the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. Both sides agree the south have changed in the past half-century. At issue is, has it changed enough? In Shelby County, Alabama, the question is whether the state's racist past must forever define it. (Watch: Voting Rights Act challengers take aim at "Section 5", below) Fifty years ago,...

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Arias Liked Some Kinky Sex, She Admits

Though accused murderer Jodi Arias said she sometimes felt "like a prostitute" at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, she admitted today that she often enjoyed their sex life and even suggested sex acts they could try.Prosecutor Juan Martinez, after a day of aggressive questioning and bickering with Arias, asked her about her own suggestions for her sex life with...

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Italy parties seek way out of election stalemate

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's stunned political parties searched for a way forward on Tuesday after an inconclusive election gave none of them a parliamentary majority and threatened prolonged instability and a renewal of the European financial crisis. The results, notably the dramatic surge of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement of comic Beppe Grillo, left the center-left bloc with a majority...

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Batman to lose son Robin

NEW YORK: Batman may be able to save the world, but he'll lose his sidekick Robin -- who in his current incarnation as his son -- in the upcoming Batman Incorporated comic book series.DC Comics said the caped crusader's acrobatic young assistant, Batman alter ego Bruce Wayne's son Damian, will die in Wednesday's issue number eight."This master theme of damaged and ruined families was nowhere...

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