Thousands of Australians were Saturday ordered to evacuate their homes in Sydney's northwest and elsewhere in New South Wales state as heavy rainfall flooded rivers and waterways.State Emergency Service Commissioner Murray Kear said that 3,500 people were subject to evacuation orders as 75 percent…

A stolen US space agency laptop containing codes that control the International Space Station did not put the orbiting lab in peril, a NASA spokesman said on Friday.The unencrypted notebook computer went missing in March 2011 and "resulted in the loss of the algorithms…

Thirty-eight Syrians were killed on Friday, including 10 shot dead in Baba Amr after regime forces overran the rebel district of the central city of Homs, a watchdog said.Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told that 10 Syrians were…

Australian researchers Thursday revealed they had filmed a pod of extremely rare Shepherd's beaked whales for the first time ever.The Australian Antarctic Division team was tracking blue whales off the coast of Victoria state last month when they spotted the reclusive mammals, which are…

Could "green" be the new black? Perhaps only if you can imagine wearing stilettos made from pistachio nuts and coffee beans and clothes from orange peel, fungi and mould.While the fashion pack are hitting the catwalks at Paris Fashion Week, students at London's Kingston…

China's top leader in Tibet has ordered increased controls over the Internet and mobile phones, state press said Thursday, ahead of upcoming sensitive anniversaries in the restive region.Chen Quanguo, Communist Party head of Tibet, said maintaining stability in the Himalayan region was of utmost…

A deadly string of tornadoes cut a swath of destruction across the US midwest, killing at least nine people and threatening scores more as a massive storm pushed eastward Wednesday.Homes were smashed to bits, cars were tossed into lakes, huge trees were torn from…

Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri hailed what he said is the "shrinking influence" of the United States across the world due to attacks it has sustained from extremist groups, in an audio message Wednesday."I congratulate you all as the US influence on the world is…

High levels of pollution may be turning the planet's oceans acidic at a faster rate than at any time in the past 300 million years, with unknown consequences for future sea life, researchers said Thursday.The acidification may be worse than during four major mass…

Home to Mount Everest, the world's highest peak, the scenic country of Nepal on Sunday added another height-related superlative - of having the world's shortest man.A Guinness World Records team measured Chandra Bahadur Dangi at 54.60 centimeters (21.5 inches), declaring the 72-year-old even shorter…