City Answers Gang-Rape Cover-Up Allegations

As Steubenville, Ohio, prepares for the high-profile rape trial of two high school football players, officials, battling allegations of a cover-up, announced the creation of a new website today to debunk rumors and create what they said would be a transparent resource for the community."This site is not designed to be a forum for how the Juvenile Court ought to rule in this matter,"...

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Graphic in-car crash warnings to slow speeding drivers

Paul Marks, chief technology correspondent(Image: Cityscape/a.collection/Getty)"You would die if you crashed right now." Would such a warning make you take your foot off the accelerator? That's the idea behind a scheme to warn drivers of the consequences of speeding developed by engineers at Japan's Fukuoka Institute of Technology and heavy goods vehicle maker UD Trucks, also in Japan. They are...

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Chavez suffers lung woes as aides allege 'psychological war'

CARACAS: Hugo Chavez's top aides have gone on the offensive, accusing the opposition and media of waging a "psychological war," as Venezuela's cancer-stricken president battles a serious lung infection.The closing of ranks followed a high-level gathering of top Venezuelan officials in Havana with Chavez, amid growing demands to know whether he will be fit on January 10 to take the oath...

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Taste test: Does hot cocoa taste better from an orange cup?

Guess which hot chocolate is most delicious?(Credit:Amanda Kooser/CNET)I've always heard that smell plays an important role in how food tastes. I didn't expect that color could also sway the taste buds. A study published in the Journal of Sensory Studies found that the color of a cup can influence the way people taste hot chocolate.Betina Piqueras-Fiszman, a researcher at the Polytechnic University...

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Scientists Seek Foolproof Signal to Predict Earthquakes

Twenty-three hundred years ago, hordes of mice, snakes, and insects fled the Greek city of Helike on the Gulf of Corinth (map). "After these creatures departed, an earthquake occurred in the night," wrote the ancient Roman writer Claudius Aelianus. "The city subsided; an immense wave flooded and Helike disappeared."Since then, generations of scientists and folklorists have used a dizzying...

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Obama Poised to Name New Defense, Treasury Chiefs

With the "fiscal cliff" crisis behind him, President Obama is poised to name two new key players to his cabinet, with at least one announcement expected early next week.The announcement of who will replace outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta could come as soon as Monday, sources told ABC News.Meanwhile, the president is also eyeing a replacement for outgoing Treasury Secretary...

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Unique meteorite hints Mars stayed moist for longer

A scorched rock bought in Morocco turned out to be a diamond in the rough. The unusual meteorite may be the first sample of the Red Planet's crust ever to hit Earth, and it suggests that Mars held on to its water for longer than we thought. ...

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New US Congress faces broader fiscal battles

WASHINGTON: The 113th US Congress, featuring dozens of new faces in the House and Senate, convened Thursday fresh from the year-end "fiscal cliff" fiasco, as lawmakers cast a wary eye towards the tough budget battles ahead.Twelve freshman senators and 82 newly-elected congressmen took the oath of office, with President Barack Obama's Democrats enjoying modest gains in both chambers.But...

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Watch CNET's The British Are Coming panel at CES

From left: Colin Crawford (Pure), Ian Drew (ARM) and Ambarish Mitra (Blippar) I am the Editor of CNET UK and I have been going to CES for over a decade now, but there's one country's tech that I almost never see reported on at the show -- my own. I've always wondered why that is. Brits have been involved in so many important tech inventions over the years, from television to the World Wide Web --...

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Pictures We Love: Best of December

Photograph by Paula Bronstein, Getty ImagesElephants are likely one of the last things jittery coffee junkies think about while waiting for their latest shot of caffeine.But these ponderous pachyderms are essential in the production of the latest brew from Black Ivory Coffee, a Thai company. The elephants, pictured above going for an early morning bath in northern Thailand on December 10, ingest Thai...

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