Fifteen people died in China after the fall of a bus off a cliff

Fifteen people died and another 20 were injured after a bus fell into a ravine in northern China, local authorities said.
The incident occurred Saturday on a road in Shanxi Province. At least 15 people have died on impact and another 19 were hospitalized.
China's roads are considered dangerous. According to official statistics, about 200 people die daily in road accidents in China.

The road to frenzied Black Friday

Pepper-sprayed customers, smash-and-grab looters, beatings and bloody scenes in the shopping aisles.
How did Black Friday devolve into this?
Experts say a volatile mix of desperate retailers and cutthroat marketing has hyped the traditional post-Thanksgiving sales to increasingly frenzied levels that resulted in shopping-related violence from Los Angeles to New York last weekend.

With stores opening earlier, bargain-obsessed shoppers often are sleep-deprived and short-tempered. Add in the online-coupon phenomenon, which feeds the psychological hunger for impossible bargains, and you've got a recipe for trouble, said Theresa Williams, a marketing professor at Indiana University.
"These are people who should know better and have enough stuff already," Williams said. "What's going to be next year, everybody getting Tasered?"
Across the country during the holiday weekend, there were signs that tensions had ratcheted up, with violence resulting in several instances.
A woman turned herself in to police Saturday after being accused of pepper-spraying 20 other customers at a Los Angeles-area Walmart on Thursday as they struggled to get to a crate of Xbox video game consoles.
In Kinston, N.C., a security guard pepper-sprayed unruly customers scrambling for electronics.
In New York, crowds looted a clothing store in Soho. A man was shot during an attempted robbery outside a store in San Leandro, Calif.; shots were fired at a mall in Fayetteville, N.C.; there was a stabbing outside a store in Sacramento, Calif., and a near riot broke out over $2 waffle irons in Little Rock, Ark.
"Instead of a nice sweater, you need a bulletproof vest and goggles," said Betty Thomas, 52, shopping Saturday with her family at a mall in Raleigh, N.C.
The wave of violence revived memories of the 2008 Black Friday stampede that killed a Walmart employee and put a pregnant woman in the hospital on New York's Long Island. Walmart spokesman Greg Rossiter said Saturday that Black Friday 2011 was safe at most of its nearly 4,000 U.S. stores despite "a few unfortunate incidents."
Black Friday -- named that because it puts retailers in the black -- has become more intense as companies compete for customers, said Jacob Jacoby, a consumer behavior expert at New York University.
The idea of luring in customers with a few doorbuster deals has long been a staple of the post-Thanksgiving sales. But now stores are opening earlier, and those deals are getting more extreme, he said.
There's also a new factor, Williams said: the rise of coupon websites like Groupon and LivingSocial, the online equivalents of doorbusters that usually deliver a single, one-day offer with savings of up to 80% on museum tickets, photo portraits, yoga classes and the like.
The services encourage impulse buying and an obsession with bargains, Williams said, and get businesses hooked on quick infusions of customers.
"The whole notion of getting a deal, that's all we've seen for the last two years," Williams said.
The violence has prompted some analysts to wonder whether the sales are worth it, and what solutions might work.
In a New York Times column last week, economist Robert Frank proposed slapping a 6% sales tax on purchases between 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving and 6 a.m. Friday in an attempt to stop the "arms race."
Small retailers, meanwhile, are pushing Small Business Saturday to woo customers turned off by the Black Friday crush.
Next up, today, is Cyber Monday, when online retailers put their wares on sale. But on Saturday, many shoppers said they still prefer buying at stores.
Thomas said she likes the time at the mall with her family too much to shop online.
To her, the more pressing problem was that the Thanksgiving weekend sales didn't seem very good.
"If I'm going to get shot, at least let me get a good deal," Thomas said.

Pakistan: NATO Attack Killed 24 Soldiers

A predawn attack by North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces Saturday killed at least 24 Pakistani soldiers and injured 13 others, the Pakistani military said, adding further stress to the U.S.'s troubled relationship with Pakistan and complicating efforts to push forward peace talks with the Taliban.

Pakistan's army reacted angrily, calling the "unprovoked" raid on two Pakistani border posts an "irresponsible act." The army said NATO helicopters and fighter aircraft, under the cover of darkness, had bombed the posts in Mohmand tribal region, a lawless border area that which abuts Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province.

"Pakistan's sovereignty was attacked early this morning," said Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. "This is our Pakistan and we have to defend it."

In retaliation, Pakistan's security forces began to turn back scores of Pakistani-owned trucks that carry NATO supplies into Afghanistan.

The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan said it was looking into the latest Pakistani claim. The incident took place hours after Gen. John R. Allen, the coalition commander, met with government officials and army officers in Pakistan to discuss border issues.

"This incident has my highest personal attention and my commitment to thoroughly investigate it to determine the facts," said Gen. Allen. "My most sincere and personal heartfelt condolences go out to the families and loved ones of any members of Pakistan Security Forces who may have been killed or injured."

The U.S. claims Pakistan, while waging a three-year-old war against militants in the tribal regions, has continued to shelter some factions of the Taliban as a way to maintain influence inside Afghanistan after most international troops leave in 2014. U.S. military officials say NATO troops have repeatedly come under attack from Taliban forces based over the border and have urged Pakistan to do more about militants in its tribal regions.

But President Barack Obama's administration is also nudging Pakistan to use its influence over the Taliban, which Pakistan's military helped create in the 1990s, to bring them to the negotiating table to end the 10-year war in Afghanistan. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brought this dual message to Pakistan during a visit to Islamabad, the capital, in October, asking for stepped-up military action on Pakistan's side of the border but promising to keep Pakistan fully abreast of developments in Afghanistan, including nascent peace talks.

Pakistan's army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, faced with growing anti-U.S. sentiment, deepened by incidents like the one on Saturday, faces limited room to accede to any U.S. demands at the moment, said Talat Masood, a retired general and defense analyst.

"Those who have been more moderate, even those people are asking is it worth having a relationship with the U.S.," Mr. Masood said. "It will be very difficult for Gen. Kayani to defend the alliance."

Mr. Masood said he had taped a television chat show Saturday after the attack on the border posts during which he was the only participant arguing the U.S. wouldn't have targeted Pakistani soldiers in Mohmand as a deliberate act of aggression.

Western diplomats in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, said Saturday the raid is likely to hurt efforts to get Pakistan to play a significant role in forging peace talks, which are expected to take center stage at an international conference on Afghanistan to be held in Bonn, Germany, next month.

U.S. and Afghan officials say Pakistan continues to hold sway over the Taliban group controlled by Mullah Mohammed Omar, believed to be based in the western Pakistani city of Quetta, and the Haqqani faction, which shelters in North Waziristan, a Pakistani tribal region on the Afghan border. Pakistan denies this and blames the U.S.'s war in Afghanistan for sparking a war on its side of the border in which more than 3,000 Pakistani soldiers have died.

Few observers, though, expect a complete breakdown in relations. Pakistan might close its borders for a few days, temporarily hurting NATO's supply chain, but the country will continue to rely on billions of dollars in military and civilian aid from the U.S. Washington, likewise, needs Pakistan to keep up pressure on Taliban militants in the tribal region, and as a supply route, as it tries to work out an exit strategy from Afghanistan.

"This is a need-based relationship. It will have its temporary hiccup, probably in the form of the suspension of NATO cargo," said Imtiaz Gul, director of the Center for Research and Security Studies, an Islamabad-based think-tank.

In September 2010, a NATO helicopter attack on a Pakistani border post in the tribal regions killed two soldiers. Pakistan closed traffic for NATO convoys for a few days but later reopened the route. The U.S., wary of its part-time ally, begun moving more supplies for Afghanistan through Central Asia. The Pakistan land route, from the port city of Karachi across country to two major borders with Afghanistan, still accounts for roughly half of NATO supplies coming in to Afghanistan.

Since that incident, which blew over, the U.S.-Pakistan relationship has deteriorated. Pakistan' army was embarrassed and angered by the covert raid by U.S. Navy SEALs in May that killed Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani army garrison town. That came after a Central Intelligence Agency contractor shot dead two armed men in Lahore in January and was briefly jailed.

Just last week, Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. was forced to resign amid allegations he had sought Washington's help to reduce the power of Pakistan's army, which plays a large role in domestic politics.

Pakistan's army, in response to growing anti-U.S. feeling, has began to more forcibly challenge the U.S. in public, including attacking Washington's policy of stepped-up unmanned drone strikes against Taliban targets in the tribal regions.

5.6-mag Okla. quake rattle nerves

Oklahomans more accustomed to tornadoes than earthquakes suffered through a weekend of temblors that cracked buildings, buckled a highway and rattled nerves. One jolting quake late Saturday was the state's strongest ever and shook a college football stadium 50 miles away while another of lesser intensity struck

before dawn Sunday.

"That shook up the place, had a lot of people nervous," Oklahoma State wide receiver Justin Blackmon said of the late Saturday quake, the strongest of a series of quakes that began hours earlier. "Yeah, it was pretty strong."

A magnitude 5.6 earthquake Saturday night was centered near Sparks, 44 miles northeast of Oklahoma City, and could be felt as far away as Tennessee and Wisconsin, according to reports received by the U.S. Geological Survey. A magnitude 4.7 quake early Saturday was felt from Texas to Missouri.

The Survey said the latest quake hit at 3:39 a.m. Sunday, measuring 4.0 in magnitude and centered 36 miles east of Oklahoma City. Like Saturday night's quake, it said, the quake Sunday took place a little more than 3 miles underground.

There were no immediate reports of serious injuries or major damage from the quakes or many small aftershocks, but a number of homeowners and businesses reported cracked walls or fallen knickknacks. At Shawnee, the fire department said one spire on the administration building at St. Gregory University had been damaged and another one was leaning, according to KWTV in Oklahoma City.

"Earthquake damage in Oklahoma. That's an anomaly right there," Todd McKinsey of Moore told The Oklahoman newspaper after a magnitude 5.6 temblor centered 50 miles away left him with cracked drywall.

Oklahoma typically has about 50 earthquakes a year, and 57 tornadoes, but a swarm of quakes east of Oklahoma City contributed to a sharp increase in the number of temblors. Researchers said 1,047 quakes occurred last year, prompting them to install seismographs in the area. A cause of the uptick wasn't known.

Saturday night's earthquake jolted Oklahoma State University's stadium shortly after the No. 3 Cowboys defeated No. 17 Kansas State. The crowd of 58,895 was still leaving when it hit, and players were in the locker rooms beneath the stands at Boone Pickens Stadium.

The temblor seemed to last the better part of a minute, rippling upward to the stadium press box.

"Everybody was looking around and no one had any idea," Oklahoma State quarterback Brandon Weeden said. "We thought the people above us were doing something. I've never felt one, so that was a first."

An emergency manager in Lincoln County near the epicenter said U.S. 62, a two-lane highway that meanders through the gently rolling landscape between Oklahoma City and the Arkansas state line, crumbled in places when the stronger quake struck Saturday night. Other reports in the early hours Sunday were sketchy and mentioned cracks in some buildings and a chimney toppled.

The magnitude 4.7 earthquake that struck the area early Saturday — and a number of aftershocks following both large quakes — rattled homes and businesses, but emergency officials said no injuries were reported and that there had been no immediate reports of major damages.

"Nothing is destroyed or anything like that," Prague City Police Department dispatcher Claudie Morton told the Tulsa World after the Saturday morning quakes.

But authorities said they would need to await daybreak for better light to assess any damages from the later, more powerful quake.

Hours before dawn on Sunday, the latest quake set nerves on edge anew.

At the Prague Community Hospital in the region, registered nurse Jessie Plumb said no injured people had come into the emergency room after the late Saturday quake. But she said she and other hospital staffers felt the 4.0 magnitude quake early Sunday while on the second floor of the building.

"It kind of gave a little bit of a shake, a little bit of rock `n roll," she told The Associated Press by phone. "I would say it was 20 or 25 seconds." She said she worried because of the number of quakes and the intensity.

Saturday's late-night quake was slightly less in intensity than a temblor that rattled the East Coast on Aug. 23. That 5.8 magnitude earthquake was centered in Virginia and was felt from Georgia to Canada. No major damage was reported, although cracks appeared in the Washington Monument, the National Cathedral suffered costly damage to sculpted stonework, and a number of federal buildings were evacuated.

If the 5.6 magnitude from Saturday's late quake is confirmed, it would be Oklahoma's strongest. USGS records show that a 5.5 magnitude earthquake struck El Reno, just west of Oklahoma City, in 1952 and, before Oklahoma became a state in 1907, a quake of similar magnitude 5.5 struck in northeastern Indian Territory in 1882.

"Oh, man. I've never felt anything like that in my life," Morton told the Tulsa newspaper. "It was the scariest thing. I had a police officer just come in and sit down and all the sudden the walls started shaking and the windows were rattling. It felt like the roof was going to come off the police department."

Morton said the office was flooded with calls, but no one reported any severe injuries or damage. She said residents told her that picture frames and mirrors fell from walls and broke, drawers worked loose from dressers and objects tumbled out of cabinets.

"We do have several damaged buildings downtown, but it's just cracks and things like that," Morton said.

Oklahoma Geological Survey researcher Austin Holland told Oklahoma City television station KOTV that the earthquake and aftershocks occurred on a known fault line.

Residents in Prague and Sparks felt an intense shaking, but for those farther away the quake was more of a dull rumble, he said.

"It shakes much more rapidly when you're closer to it," he said. "Because it's a large earthquake, it's going to rumble for a while."