South African leader says he is innocent

South Africa’s ruling party president Jacob Zuma declared his innocence Tuesday after a court formally dropped corruption charges against him. “My conscience is clear I have not committed any crime against the state or the people of South Africa,” Zuma said

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Scientist: My quake prediction was ignored

A researcher says he predicted Monday’s devastating earthquake that killed dozens of people and left tens of thousands homeless in central Italy, but authorities dismissed him as a scaremonger. Gioacchino Giuliani, an employee at a physics institute at Gran Sasso, near the badly-hit city of L’Aquila, has demanded an official apology for what he says was an unforgivable failure to act on his predictions. “There are people who must apologize to me, and they must have the weight of what occurred on their conscience,” Giuliani said after the quake hit, according to local news site Ilcapoluogo.com.

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Woman answers ad for bird by offering kids as payment

Trading two children for a bird landed three people in jail in Louisiana, authorities say. Laura Pendergest-Holt, the third-ranking executive of the Houston-based Stanford Financial Group, was taken into custody by FBI agents and charged with obstruction of a government proceeding. The Justice Department late Thursday said Pendergest-Holt will appear before a federal magistrate in Houston Friday.

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Ancient footprints: Earliest signs of modern feet

Ancient footprints discovered in northern Kenya are believed to be the oldest sign that early humans had feet like ours. CNN has been unable to authenticate the video, which lasts for less than 20 seconds, but CNN’s sister network CNN-IBN said it received the video from police

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