Biden: Dems will hold House, Senate

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- U.S. Vice President Joe Biden Wednesday predicted Democrats will hold the House and Senate in November but said Democratic voters need to "get in gear, man".

In an interview on MSNBC, Biden said the strong pull to the right the Tea Party movement has exerted on the Republican Party has caused problems for the GOP, causing it to "hang a shingle saying 'no moderates need apply'".

One day after Tea Party favorite Christine O'Donnell won the Delaware Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat Biden held before becoming vice president, several Republicans, Democrats and media pundits have suggested O'Donnell's far-right views will make her unelectable in November. Biden, however, said he "wouldn't sell short" the Tea Party-backed candidates who have won GOP primaries.

'We're going to take it very, very seriously," he said. "It's a big mistake not to take it seriously".

He predicted Democrats will "retain control of the House and we are going to retain control of the Senate because when the American people focus on the alternative it's going to be clear to them there is no alternative".

UPI

Guinea postponing upcoming presidential vote, acting president says

Conakry, Guinea (CNN) -- Guinea has postponed its presidential election for the second time, acting President General Sekouba Konate announced on state TV Wednesday evening.

The vote -- a runoff between two candidates -- had been scheduled for Sunday.

The delay has raised concerns about the West African country's ability to end military rule and could raise tensions between supporters of the two candidates -- longtime opposition leader Alpha Conde and former prime minister Cellou Dalein Diallo.

No new date was named.

Konate cited logistical and managerial problems at the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) as the main reasons for the delay.

"[The CENI] has just suggested a postponement of the date for the second round of the presidential election, initially planned for September 19th, for technical reasons related to the requirements of the candidates," Konate said.

No candidate won an outright majority in first-round elections held in late June. An initial runoff date of September 2 was delayed due to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and the rainy season.

Konate implored all sides to stay calm, and said that the CENI would meet to determine when the election will be, but he did not specify when the meeting would take place.

CNN

Somali militants protest Quran-burning plans

(CNN) -- In a show of force, Islamist militants gathered in the Somali capital of Mogadishu on Wednesday to protest an American pastor's now-scrubbed plans to burn the Quran.

Chanting "God is great" and "Down with America," crowds assembled at a stadium for a rally organized by Al-Shabaab militants.

Florida pastor Terry Jones cancelled his plans to burn the Quran last weekend, but his intentions have sparked protests across the globe, including Afghanistan and in Kashmir, where anti-India unrest was fueled this week by reports of the planned desecration of Islam's holy book.

Al-Shabaab has been accused by human rights groups of gross violations. The al Qaeda-inspired group has threatened African neighbors and Israel and recently claimed responsibility for bombing two locations in Uganda where fans were watching the final match of soccer's World Cup, killing at least 76 people.

It also intensified its attacks in Somalia during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, with more than 200 civilians killed in battles between the militants and government troops.

CNN

Lady Gaga to launch her first fragrance

(PEOPLE.com) -- With two Grammy Awards under her belt, not to mention a record-breaking 13 nominations at last night's MTV Video Music Awards -- eight of which she won -- it seems there is nothing that the iconic Lady Gaga cannot do.

And now the superstar is lending her golden touch to yet another project, inking a deal with Coty Inc., for her very own fragrance, reports WWD.

Set to launch sometime in spring 2012, the singer's debut scent will be released under her name, according to the publication.

And while we still have a while to wait before Gaga's newest project hits store shelves, we're sure that in true Gaga fashion it will be well worth the wait.

CNN

Texans lose Barwin for the season

HOUSTON, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- The Houston Texans announced Wednesday they had placed defensive end Connor Barwin on injured reserve because of a severely dislocated right ankle.

Barwin led all NFL rookies in quarterback sacks last year with 4.5. Houston chose Barwin in the second round out of the University of Cincinnati and although he did not start a game in 2009 he was used throughout the season in likely passing situations.

He was taken off the field on a cart Sunday during Houston's season-opening 34-24 victory over defending AFC champion Indianapolis.

With Barwin out for the year, the Texans also announced Wednesday they had signed two free-agent defensive ends -- Ryan Denney and Adewale Ogunleye.

Denney spent eight years with Buffalo. Ogunleye has been in the league for nine seasons, most recently in Chicago.

UPI

Marino upsets top seed Bartoli in Quebec

QUEBEC CITY, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- Rebecca Marino crushed top-seeded Marion Bartoli 6-3, 6-1, Wednesday to advance to the quarterfinals of the Bell Challenge in Quebec.

The Canadian crowd favorite needed only 75 minutes to down Bartoli, winning the first four games of the second set after prevailing in the initial set.

Bartoli was making her first appearance in Quebec since winning the event in 2006 while Marino, a Toronto native, is fresh off making her Grand Slam debut last week at the U.S. Open, where she suffered a second-round defeat to Venus Williams.

Meanwhile, Lucie Safarova posted an easy second-round win over Johanna Larsson of Sweden, 6-4, 6-2. Safarova, the No. 3 seed, was last year's runner-up at Quebec City, losing to Hungary's Melinda Czink.

American Bethanie Mattek-Sands also won Wednesday, defeating No. 6 seed Julia Goerges of Germany 6-1, 6-4.

UPI

Cuba complains restrictions unchanged under Obama

Havana, Cuba (CNN) -- Cuba accused U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday of failing to keep his promise of a new start with the communist island, saying that far from easing the U.S. trade embargo, his administration has tightened some restrictions.

"The president has fallen far short of the expectations created by his speeches," Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said at a news conference.

"The blockade has not changed a bit," he said, referring to the nearly 50-year-old embargo. "In fact, they have strengthened it when it comes to executing fines".

The comments came a day after a U.S. State Department official warned that Cuba¹s imprisonment of an American contractor is an "obstacle" to "certain measures" that Washington could take to improve bilateral relations.

Asked about the comment, Rodriguez declined to say anything on the case, but said the embargo is a unilateral action and "should be lifted unilaterally".

Alan Gross, a subcontractor working for the U.S. Agency for International Development, was arrested in December. Cuba says he was distributing illegal satellite equipment to dissidents. Washington says he was trying to help Jewish communities hook up to the internet.

CNN

Cricket plans Test league to crown world champion

(CNN) -- Cricket's ruling body has unveiled plans to boost the popularity of the sport's five-day format by introducing a Test match league and playoff system.

Under the proposals outlined by the International Cricket Council (ICC) on its website, results between Test-playing nations will all count towards a table, with the top four sides going forward into a head-to-head competition to decide the world champion.

Attendances at five-day Test matches have suffered in recent years as the popularity of 20-over cricket has soared, especially in Asia, where the Indian Premier League has attracted several of the world's top players on lucrative salaries.

Following a two-day meeting of its chief executives' committee, the ICC released a statement outlining proposals to hold a Test playoff every four years, starting in 2013.

At present, international sides follow a pattern of playing regular series against each other, with results determining world rankings, but with no trophy to decide an overall champion.

The ICC also outlined plans to create a one-day international league, running between April 2011 and April 2014, with the aim of crowning a league champion.

CNN

Microsoft launch Internet Explorer 9 web browser

Microsoft has launched its latest bid to be computer users' default window on to the web.

The software giant has released the latest version of its popular web browser, Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), which it will help revive its fortunes in an increasingly competitive market.

Since 2003 the company has seen a 97% lead dwindle to 60% today.

It will compete with new versions of other popular browsers such as Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome.

Mozilla, which has recently launched a test version of Firefox 4, has nearly a quarter of the market and in some countries is the dominant web browser.

Many browsers received a boost when the European Commission forced Microsoft to offer users of its Windows operating system a choice of browser, rather than internet Explorer as a default.

IE9 will initially be released as a beta, or test, product.

Ina Fried, who covers Microsoft for technology site CNet, said the new software brought Microsoft "back in serious browser contention".

"Internet Explorer still dominates in market share but they have been losing out for years to Firefox and more recently Chrome mainly because of where they were on the technology front," she told BBC News.

"This release gets them back in the game technologically and really takes advantage of Windows.

"The question now that they have a better browser technologically, is will they gain back some of that market share".

BBC News

Mexico bicentennial no cause for celebration for many citizens

(CNN) -- Mexico celebrates its bicentennial Wednesday, an event known as "El Grito," the shout for independence first credited to a Catholic priest who demanded freedom from Spain. For many Mexicans today, though, it's a quiet shout of despair.

The country is mired in a bloody drug war that has seen more than 28,000 people killed in less than four years. The economy has barely begun to rebound from the global downturn, which hit Mexico harder than most Latin American countries. Tourism, a major lifeblood for the nation, is drastically down because of the violence and a flu pandemic last year that began in Mexico. And oil revenues, long a rich sustenance for the nation's economy, also have suffered a major collapse.

Despite government efforts to hold a vast celebration that one leading newspaper called part Disney and part infomercial, many Mexicans are just not feeling it.

"The climate in which we're living in this country does not lend itself to a real celebration," said Adrian Jesus Garrido Gomez, who owns a car rental company and chauffeur service in Villahermosa, the capital of southeastern Mexico's Tabasco state.

Garrido sounds leery of the nearly $232 million (about 2.97 billion pesos) the government says it has spent on celebrations in Mexico City. The lavish events Wednesday night will feature a parade, fireworks and a show that has merited visits by five Latin American presidents and dignitaries from 50 nations.

CNN

Global warming may end 'polar' storms

READING, England, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- Climate change, expected to increase extreme weather events around the world, will make one particular kind of event rarer, U.K. researchers say.

Scientists at the University of Reading say climate simulations show severe North Atlantic storms known as "polar lows" and resembling arctic hurricanes may decrease by as much as 50 percent by the end of this century, a report in the journal Nature says.

Polar lows are small-scale but severe winter storms that threaten offshore human activities in the North Atlantic region.

Reading researchers Matthias Zahn and Hans von Storch studied the formation of polar lows in a series of regional climate simulations corresponding to different possible future climates.

Assuming a range of elevated atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, they found a significantly lower frequency of polar lows, compared with a late-20th-century simulation.

UPI

New Zawahiri message released

KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- A 44-minute message purportedly from Ayman al-Zawahiri,Osama bin Laden's second-in-command, has been posted on several radical Web sites.

In the audiotape, Zawahiri accuses the government of Pakistan of being an "agent" of Western countries, ABC News reports. He calls U.S. forces in the region "crusaders".

Zawahiri also says the United States is losing in Afghanistan and says the "crusade" is "broken".

Ben Venzke of the Intel Center told ABC the audio appears to be a genuine message from the No. 2 man in al-Qaida. Zawahiri, like bin Laden, is believed to have been living in the tribal areas of Pakistan since being driven from Afghanistan in 2001.

UPI

Gay Saudi diplomat seeks U.S. asylum

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- A gay Saudi diplomat seeking asylum in the United States says he faces death if he goes home.

Ali Ahmad Asseri was stationed at Saudi Arabia's consulate in Los Angeles when he made a bid for asylum last month. He took his case public recently, sending a letter to news outlet, ABC News reported Wednesday.

"My life is in a great danger here and if I go back to Saudi Arabia, they will kill me openly in broad daylight," Asseri was reported to have written in the letter. "I want my voice to be heard, and I want them to know that I am not alone".

Asseri, who remains in the Los Angeles area, said his diplomatic passport was not renewed and he has lost his position at the consulate.

His lawyer, Ally Balour, told ABC News Asseri has been interviewed by Department of Homeland Security officials and expects a positive decision on his asylum request before long. Balour declined to say more for fear of jeopardizing the application.

UPI

Boeing to offer flights to space station

CHICAGO, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- U.S. industrial giant Boeing said Wednesday passenger flights to the International Space Station could be up for sale soon.

"We're ready now to start talking to prospective customers," said Eric Anderson, chairman of Space Adventures, which would handle sales for a seat on the capsule that Boeing is currently developing for NASA, The New York Times reported.

Boeing said any seats NASA does not use would be available for passengers.

The price has not been determined, nor has the question of who gets a window seat, but there could be room for three commercial passengers above and beyond the four professional astronauts scheduled on each flight in the CST-100 capsule.

Several commercial passengers have made flights into space in Russian Soyuz capsules, with one seat sold to Cirque Soleil founder Guy Laliberte costing a reported $40 million.

UPI

Calif. pipeline was OK'd for replacement

SAN BRUNO, Calif., Sept. 15 (UPI) -- The natural gas pipeline that exploded in California had been approved for replacement three years ago but the work never got done, documents show.

The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday state regulators had given Pacific Gas and Electric Co. clearance in 2007 to spend $5 million to upgrade the 62-year-old section of pipeline near San Bruno. The work was scheduled to be done last year but the project languished and the newspaper said documents submitted by PG&E to the California Utility Commission reveal the utility sought another $5 million this year to get the job done by 2013.

"There's no excuse for deferring maintenance of potentially compromised pipelines that run under customers' homes, businesses and schools," Mark Toney, executive director of the Utility Reform Network, which released the documents, said.

The Times said neither PG&E nor the commission responded to requests for an immediate comment on the rate increase request documents.

At least four people died and 58 homes were damaged when the pipeline exploded and set off a massive fire last week. Three people remain missing.

UPI

Rangers sign defenseman Marc Staal

NEW YORK, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- The New York Rangers agreed to terms with defenseman Marc Staal on a new contract Wednesday, the team said.

Terms were not disclosed, but the New York Daily News reported the contract is a five-year deal worth $19.9 million.

The 23-year-old Staal had a career-best season last year, notching eight goals and 19 assists in 82 games with the Rangers.

The defenseman proved his dependability by playing in 202 consecutive games, including the playoffs. He has appeared in at least 80 games in each of his three seasons in the league.

Staal was the 12th overall selection in the 2005 draft, recording 13 goals, 39 assists and 150 penalty minutes in 244 career games.

UPI

Chase apologizes for online outage

NEW YORK, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- U.S. banking giant Chase said it would work with customers who had trouble paying bills when the company's online service failed this week.

Accessing accounts through the Internet failed for more than 24 hours, ending Wednesday morning, but customers after that still reported on-again, off-again success logging in, The Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday.

In the digital world, seconds are all but tangible. Celent industry analyst Jacob Jegher said Chase's outage was "an eternity in the online world".

At Chase, 16.5 million customers use their online services, the newspaper said. Bank spokesman Tom Kelly said, "Whatever the issue is, we're happy to talk with them".

The bank said automatic payments were not affected by the problem, but Jegher said the largest issue was the inability of customers to pay bills over the Internet.

UPI

Parents check on son's body at Arlington

ARLINGTON, Va., Sept. 15 (UPI) -- The body of a Marine killed in Iraq was exhumed Wednesday at Arlington National Cemetery, his parents said, so they could confirm he was in the right grave.

Scott Warner of Canton, Ohio, identified a tattoo on his son's arm, The Washington Post reported. The same tattoo was used to identify Pfc. Heath Warner after he was killed in 2006.

"I can breathe," Heath's mother, Melissa Warner, said. "I feel like a ton of bricks have been lifted off my chest".

Arlington has been caught up in a scandal about bodies buried under the wrong headstones, in the wrong locations and with no headstones. The Warners asked for details about their son's grave as the scandal exploded and became even more concerned when paperwork they received gave incorrect information about the transfer of their son's body to Arlington.

UPI

Pillaged ancient Egyptian artefacts discovered in Spain

Pieces of an ancient Egyptian necropolis which were pillaged from Egypt in 1999 have been discovered in an antiques shop in Spain.

A Middle Eastern expert spotted the eight fragments of limestone after recognising the inscriptions, Barcelona police said.

The pieces are inscribed with hieroglyphics dating from the 3rd Century BC.

They will now be returned to the Egyptian government.

The artefacts were looted from the Saqqara burial ground in the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis, south of Cairo, in 1999.

A statement said they were found by an expert from the University of Barcelona who noticed that the pieces "bore inscriptions that made him suspect they came from" Saqqara.

They had been on sale priced between 2,000 and 10,000 euros ($2,600; £1,700 and $13,000; £8,400).

BBC News

Real overcome Ajax in Europe; Arsenal put six past Braga

(CNN) -- Jose Mourinho's quest to become the first coach to win Europe's Champions League with three different clubs got off to a winning start as Real Madrid beat Ajax 2-0 in their opening group game on Wednesday, while Arsenal thrashed Braga 6-0.

Charismatic Portuguese coach Mourinho inspired Porto to Champions League glory in 2004 and repeated the feat with Inter Milan last season, delivering the Italian club's first triumph in the competition since 1965.

He was hired by Real in June with the brief of breaking Barcelona's grip on the Spanish league title and landing the club's first Champions League trophy since 2002, and 10th in total.

Opening their campaign at home in the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, Real took the lead against four-time winners Ajax when Vurnon Anita bundled a corner into his own net under pressure from Gonzalo Higuain.

The Spaniards struggled to make their dominance tell until the 73rd minute when Higuain followed up Mesut Ozil's shot and turned the ball into an empty net.

CNN

Israel says mortars fired from Gaza contain white phosphorous

Jerusalem (CNN) -- Two of nine mortars fired from Gaza into Israel on Wednesday contained white phosphorous, Israeli police told CNN.

Bomb disposal experts examined the mortars and confirmed that two contained white phosphorous, a police spokesman said.

It was not the first time that Hamas has attempted to target Israel using mortars containing white phosphorous, the spokesman said.

White phosphorus ignites and burns, creating white smoke when it is exposed to oxygen. Militaries use it as a smoke screen to protect troops during combat. If it comes in contact with skin, however, white phosphorus creates an intense and persistent burn.

Israel itself has been roundly criticized for firing white phosphorus shells over densely populated areas during the Gaza offensive that began in late 2008.

CNN