Ken Venturi,rcame dehydration to win the 1964 U.S. Open and spent 35 years in the booth for CBS Sports, died Friday afternoon. He was 82.
His son, Matt Venturi, said he died in a hospital in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Venturi had been hospitalized the last two months for a spinal infection, pneumonia, and then an intestinal infection that he could no longer fight. - More
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, dogged by fresh allegations that he's the subject of a video in which he reportedly appears to be smoking crack cocaine, dismissed the reports Thursday as "ridiculous."
"Absolutely not true," he said outside his Etobicoke home on Friday morning.
"It's ridiculous. It's another Toronto Star whatever," he said before getting into his Cadillac Escalade.
Later in the day, Ford emerged from his office at city hall to give a brief statement to reporters. - More
A huge increase in workload, rather than deliberate targeting, led to "foolish mistakes" and the political discrimination in the Internal Revenue Service cited by an inspector general's report, the agency's outgoing commissioner said Friday.
The testimony by Steven Miller, who was forced to announce his resignation this week as acting IRS commissioner, came at the first congressional hearing on the matter that has put President Barack Obama's administration on the defensive. - More
Pope Francis has hit out at unbridled capitalism and the "cult of money", calling for ethical reform of the financial system to create a more humane society.
In an impassioned appeal, the Argentinian pontiff said politicians needed to be bold in tackling the root causes of the economic crisis, which he said lay in an acceptance of money's "power over ourselves and our society". - More
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has urged Japanese introspection of its own history to gain trust from neighboring countries and the international community following remarks by a Japanese politician that World War II "comfort women" were "necessary."
Ministry spokesman Hong Lei made the remarks at a daily press briefing on Thursday in response to a journalist's question about the controversy. On Monday, Toru Hashimoto, mayor of Osaka - More
Richard "Dick" Trickle -- who parlayed a legendary reputation as a short-track driver into a full-time career on stock car racing's biggest stages in the 1990s -- died Thursday of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, a North Carolina sheriff's office said.
He was 71. A Lincoln County dispatcher received a call -- believed to have been placed by Trickle -- that "there would be a dead body and it would be his," that county's sheriff's office said in a news release. - More
President Obama on Thursday appointed senior budget adviser Daniel Werfel as the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, as that agency manages a scandal stemming from its targeting of conservative groups.
The appointment is effective May 22. More changes in the IRS leadership team were announced Thursday as well, with Joseph Grant, Commissioner of Tax Exempt/Government Entities Division... - More
Beset by scandal and mired in criticism, President Obama now searches for a solution to salvage his ambitious second-term agenda and presidential legacy.
In what could be considered a silver lining, however, the 44th president has more than a few predecessors to look to for guidance. Veteran political strategist James Carville, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton, was oftentimes unmerciful and candid when lambasting critics over the 42nd president’s legacy. - More
North Texas residents began to take in the devastation on Thursday wreaked by a series of tornadoes that killed six and injured dozens more in what Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds described as a “nightmare” scenario.
Seven of 14 people who had previously been unaccounted for had checked in by Thursday morning, Deeds said at a press conference on Thursday. About 100 people were reported injured... - More
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