World

NEW ORLEANS,  (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Isaac closed in on the U.S.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Imagine it’s Nov. 7, President Barack Obama has won a second term and he now looks abroad, ready to pursue his foreign policy vision essentially free of electoral constraints.

KEY WEST, Fla., (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Isaac lashed south Florida with winds and heavy rain yesterday after battering the Caribbean, threatening to interrupt most U.S.

MEXICO CITY, (Reuters) – Armed gangs blocked highways throughout Guadalajara, Mexico’s second biggest city, on Saturday and vehicles were set on fire amid a surge in drug-war violence.

(Reuters) – US astronaut Neil Armstrong, who took a giant leap for mankind when he became the first person to walk on the moon, has died at the age of 82, his family said yesterday.

AMMAN (Reuters) – The bodies of at least 200 people were found in a town close to Damascus yesterday, according to activists who said most appeared to have been killed by Syrian troops “execution style.“

NEW YORK,  (Reuters) – An out-of-work fashion designer fatally shot a former co-worker near the Empire State Building yesterday and was then killed in a blaze of gunshots by police, stunning tourists and commuters outside of one of New York’s most popular landmarks.

OSLO, (Reuters) – Norway’s environment minister yesterday urged Brazil and Indonesia to avoid backtracking on policies to protect tropical forests, saying up to $2 billion in aid promised by Oslo hinged on proof of slower rates of forest clearance.

OSLO,  (Reuters) – Norwe-gian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik was jailed for a maximum term yesterday when judges declared him sane enough to answer for the murder of 77 people last year, drawing a smirk of triumph from the self-styled warrior against Islam.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (Reuters) – Apple Inc. scored a sweeping legal victory over Samsung yesterday as a U.S.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court yesterday struck down a law that requires tobacco companies to use graphic health warnings, such as of a man exhaling smoke through a hole in his throat.

PORT-AU-PRINCE,  (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Isaac strengthened yesterday as its lashing rains took aim at flood-prone Haiti, but it was not expected to become a hurricane until it barreled into the Gulf of Mexico early next week.

UNITED NATIONS,  (Reuters) – Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday that he was “honoured, flattered, humbled and scared” at the prospect of leading international efforts to broker peace in Syria’s worsening 17-month conflict.

DUBAI,  (Reuters) – Iran hopes to earn diplomatic kudos over the coming week as it hosts a summit of 120 developing nations, but any jubilation could turn sour over starkly different views on the bloody conflict in Syria.

MIAMI,  (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Isaac unleashed heavy rain and winds off Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands as it moved across the Caribbean yesterday and could strengthen into a hurricane before tearing across the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

EDINBURGH,  (Reuters) – Elisabeth Murdoch urged the media industry yesterday to embrace morality and reject her brother James’s mantra of profit at all costs, in a speech seen as an attempt to distance herself from the scandal that has tarnished the family name.

NEW DELHI, (Reuters) – The Indian government faced an angry backlash from Twitter users yesterday after ordering Internet service providers to block about 20 accounts that officials said had spread scare-mongering material that threatened national security.

NEW DELHI,  (Reuters) – India’s Central Bureau of Investigation is probing possible corruption in the sale of coal concessions to private companies, it said yesterday, as the affair dubbed “coalgate” caused uproar in parliament, paralysing it for a second day in a row.

MIAMI, (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Isaac swirled over the Caribbean yesterday and was forecast to become a hurricane as it moved on a track that would put it off the coast of Florida on Monday, the opening day of the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

AMMAN/ALEPPO, Syria  (Reuters) – The Syrian army shelled southern Damascus yesterday and helicopters fired rockets and machineguns during an assault meant to shore up President Bashar al-Assad’s grip on the capital 17 months into an uprising, opposition activists said.