Associated Press
Latest stories
Taiwan Minister Draws Ire on iPhone Posting

Galaxy S3, iPhone 5 or HTC One? That's a tough question for Taiwan's Cabinet ministers.

Senior Taiwanese officials have been under scrutiny for the smartphones they use — specifically whether they support Taiwan's HTC Corp., which plays a big role the island's high-tech economy.

W140 Full Story
Iran Unblocks Access to Gmail

Iran on Monday removed online blocks on Gmail but a government Internet filtering committee official said other, additional censorship was being prepared against YouTube, according to reports.

Internet users in Iran found themselves able to freely access their Gmail accounts for the first time since the blocks were suddenly established on September 24.

W140 Full Story
Sony-Olympus Alliance Aims for High-Tech Surgery

Sony's new alliance with scandal-tarnished Olympus will focus on producing endoscopes and other surgical tools packed with the Japanese electronic maker's three-dimensional imaging and super-clear "4K" display technologies.

Sony Corp. President Kazuo Hirai said it's not clear when the alliance's first products will become available. He acknowledged that medical equipment requires special regulatory approval that will take longer and be a learning curve for Sony whose expertise is in gadgets and movies.

W140 Full Story
Comeback Complete, Europe Wins Ryder Cup

Jose Maria Olazabal squeezed his eyes shut as they filled with tears, overwhelmed and overjoyed that the Ryder Cup still belongs to Europe.

His players wore the image of Seve Ballesteros on their sleeves and played their hearts out Sunday at Medinah, filling the scoreboard with European blue as they chipped away at a four-point deficit until completing a comeback even more remarkable than what the Americans did to them at Brookline in 1999.

W140 Full Story
Kodak Plans to End Consumer Inkjet Printer Sales

Kodak said Friday that it plans to stop selling consumer inkjet printers and will eliminate 200 more jobs than previously projected as it requested more time to submit its framework for emerging from bankruptcy protection.

The Rochester, N.Y.-based company, which filed for bankruptcy protection in January, wants the court to extend the exclusivity period for the filing of its plan until Feb. 28. After the exclusivity period expires, creditors may file competing plans.

W140 Full Story
Who's Watching? 3-D TV is No Hit With Viewers

Phil Orlins knows everything about producing TV in three dimensions. The ESPN producer has captured the undulating greens of Augusta National and the flying motor bikes of the X-Games for ESPN's 3-D channel. But he can only guess how well his shows resonate with viewers. That's because 3-D audiences are so small they can't be measured by Nielsen's rating system.

"The feedback on The Masters was fast and furious. You could go on Twitter at any moment, and there'd be comments coming in every minute about 3-D coverage," said Orlins while giving a tour of a production truck at this summer's X-Games. "But then you go to some other events where it's pretty quiet."

W140 Full Story
Scientist Who Saw Drowned Polar Bears Reprimanded

An Alaska scientist whose observations of drowned polar bears helped galvanize the global warming movement has been reprimanded for improper release of government documents.

An Interior Department official said emails released by Charles Monnett were cited by a federal appeals court in decisions to vacate approval by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management of an oil and gas company's Arctic exploration plan.

W140 Full Story
Ginseng Poachers Take to U.S. Woods a Prices Soar

They slink through the woods in camouflage and face paint, armed with tire irons, screwdrivers and hoes. They're the new breed of U.S. ginseng diggers, hoping to feed rising Asian demand for the increasingly rare — and expensive — plant's roots.

Police say more diggers are pushing into the back country in search of wild ginseng, ripping up even the smallest plants and ignoring property lines.

W140 Full Story
No Tax, No Blessing: German Church Insists on Levy

The road to heaven is paved with more than good intentions for Germany's 24 million Catholics. If they don't pay their religious taxes, they will be denied sacraments, including weddings, baptisms and funerals.

A decree issued last week by the country's bishops cast a spotlight on the longstanding practice in Germany and a handful of other European countries in which governments tax registered believers and then hand over the money to the religious institutions.

W140 Full Story
Iranian News Agency Picks Up Onion Article as Fact

A joke by the satirical newspaper The Onion appears to have gotten lost in translation.

An Iranian news agency picked up — as fact — a story from the paper about a supposed survey showing an overwhelming majority of rural white Americans would rather vote for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than President Barack Obama. But it was made up, like everything in the just-for-laughs newspaper, which is headquartered in Chicago.

W140 Full Story