Congressional Budget Office says massive spending cuts and tax hikes due in 2013 could lead to fiscal crisis.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has said that the US economy can fall into recession, if the Congress fails to take action to stave off tax increases and automatic budget cuts scheduled for January 1.

The nonpartisan analysis, released on Wednesday, said massive spending cuts and tax hikes due next year would cause even worse economic damage than previously thought if Washington failed to come up with a solution.

Failure to avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff" of expiring tax cuts and automatic spending reductions would cause US gross domestic product to shrink 0.5 per cent in 2013.

Previously, CBO forecast full-year GDP growth of 0.5 per cent.

Cockeysville, Maryland - A Cockeysville woman has been charged with manslaughter after police say she left her 91-year-old mother on the toilet for two days.

A grand jury returned an indictment against 65-year-old Sharon Caslow last week after the death of 91-year-old Audrey Caslow was ruled a homicide. Sharon Caslow had previously been charged with abuse of a vulnerable adult.

Baltimore County medical workers found Audrey Caslow on a toilet on Jan. 17 at the home she shared with her daughter. Police say Sharon Caslow told officers she knew her mother had been in the bathroom for two days, but didn't ask for help. Audrey Caslow died 10 days later.

Medical examiners ruled that Audrey Caslow died of renal failure. Sharon Caslow's public defender did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Source: The Associated Press

Indianapolis - A prison inmate coordinated a methamphetamine ring that involved at least two Indiana prisons using cellphones and drugs smuggled in by guards, according to a federal indictment unsealed Wednesday that charges 40 people in connection to the scheme.

At least three inmates are among those charged, including the alleged ringleader, Oscar Perez, who's serving time for murder and attempted murder. At least 17 people appeared in court Wednesday in Indianapolis after about 300 FBI agents fanned out across the state and made arrests.

Prosecutors said the defendants were flight risks, and the judge ordered them to remain in custody.

The activity, which also included heroin trafficking, occurred at the Westville Correction Facility in northern Indiana and the Wabash Valley Correction Facility in southwestern Indiana, according to the indictment.

Lois Goodman, 70, who has served as a line judge for several years at tennis' U.S. Open, was arrested in New York on Tuesday in connection with the alleged April 17 beating death of her husband at their Woodland Hills home. Goodman was in New York preparing for this year's U.S. Open, which begins there next week.

She initially told police that her husband, Alan Goodman, 80, had fallen down the steps, had a heart attack and managed to get back upstairs to his bed, but prosecutors said Tuesday that they believe otherwise.

"She bludgeoned him to death with a coffee mug," said Jane Robison, a district attorney's spokeswoman.

"It was a homicide. He had multiple sharp-force injuries," said Ed Winter, assistant chief of investigations for the Los Angeles County coroner's office.

Lois Goodman was profiled in a Times article in 1994 and described herself as a lifelong tennis fan.

The hacking group Anonymous claims to have brought down British government websites in protest at the handling of Julian Assange's bid to avoid extradition to Sweden.

The self-styled hacktivist group targeted the websites of No 10 and the Home Office early on Tuesday under what it called "Operation Free Assange".

Hackers said they had also brought down websites belonging to the justice department and Department for Work and Pensions in the attack.

Anonymous vowed to continue targeting government websites as the diplomatic temperature around the WikiLeaks founder continued to rise.

The online DDOS (distributed denial of service) attacks, which also hit sites in Sweden, came as the Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa warned Britain that attempting to enter his country's embassy in London would be an act of diplomatic suicide.

Baton Rouge, Louisiana - A Miami, Florida man is in police custody after an undercover operation caught him trying to meet a 14-year-old East Baton Rouge Parish teen for sex. Officials say he bought a bus ticket for the teen to go to Miami to meet him.

According the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office, Samuel Woodside, 45, was arrested at the Greyhound Bus Station in Miami, Florida on Saturday, August 18.

EBRSO says Woodside is accused of communicating with who he believed was a 14-year-old girl over the internet in July and August. An undercover EBRSO detective was actually posing as the child as part of a Sheriff's Office Internet Crimes Against Children Unit initiative.

Woodside is accused of sending sexually explicit photos to the girl, along with an invitation to come to Miami to participate in sex acts with himself and others.

According to EBRSO, he discussed with the girl on multiple occasions that she would be used to make money for him by performing sex acts with others. Woodside allegedly purchased a bus ticket for the child to travel from Baton Rouge to Miami. Woodside was arrested when he arrived at the bus station in Miami to pick up the child.

The man had a ticket and had made it through airport security

US, Louisiana - A 37-year-old man was taken into custody after rushing on to an empty plane parked at a gate at Baton Rouge's Metropolitan airport and barricading himself in the cockpit.

The American Eagle commuter jet had landed in Baton Rouge Tuesday afternoon when Andrew Aleffi, who was inside the gate, rushed past attendants and boarded the aircraft, NBC station WVLA reported. Passengers and crew had already exited and the plane was being refueled and prepped for its next flight when Aleffi boarded.

A law enforcement official told NBC News that the man, who had a ticket and made it through security without incident, tried to communicate with the tower but apparently did not know how to use the radio nor fly the plane.

Power to the plane had been cut off and the aircraft was inoperable.

The man did not have any weapons when he was taken into custody by the Baton Rouge Police and he was not on any no-fly lists.

Johannesburg - A new breed of moneyed Vietnamese are fuelling the involvement of criminal networks to secure South African rhino horn.

Traffic, a wildlife trade-monitoring network, has released a comprehensive report on SA's rhino-poaching crisis. It points to an increased demand for horn in Vietnam, contributing to the deaths of almost two rhinos a day in SA.

"Vietnam, since 2003, has rapidly grown to become the world's largest recipient of both legal and illegal sources of horn from South Africa," reads the report, entitled "The South Africa-Vietnam Rhino Horn Trade Nexus".

"Vietnam in the 1980s and 1990s was on no one's radar. Now, with double-digit economic growth, there is suddenly growth in the trade," said Tom Milliken, one of the authors of the report. Speaking at the launch of the report last night in Rosebank, Milliken said increased personal wealth in Vietnam was driving the horn trade.

His report identifies four types of rhino-horn consumers in the south-east Asian country. These include not only the terminally ill, but also users who take the horn as a detoxifying agent for alcohol and rich food.

To the surprise of right-wing commentators, it is possible to be too lefty for the BBC.

The British public broadcaster, which is often criticized by conservatives for its political slant, will not allow a statue of George Orwell to grace the entrance of its new headquarters, reportedly because the idea is too partisan.

Orwell, who worked briefly at the BBC, earned international renown through his writing, aiming his pen at imperialism,unbridled capitalism, the Spanish civil war,revolutionary excess, and totalitarianism. In 2008 he was named the second-best British writer since the war, trailing only Philip Larkin in a list compiled by the Times of London.

But in spite of his fame -- and a range of targets that has seen him claimed by both the right and the left -- outgoing BBC Director-General Mark Thompson was apparently quick to dismiss the idea of Orwell's statue at the broadcaster's entrance.

"I met Mark Thompson at a BBC reception and mentioned the project," Baroness Joan Bakewell, a supporter of the George Orwell Memorial Trust, told the Daily Telegraph. "He said, 'Oh no, Joan, we can't possibly. It's far too left-wing an idea'."

Horrifying undercover footage from inside a Californian slaughterhouse shows incompetent workers standing on the mouth and nostrils of a cow to suffocate it after failing to kill the animal with a bolt-gun.

The shocking video, which allegedly demonstrates rampant animal abuse and suffering from inside Central Valley Meat Co., has led the the U.S. Department of Agriculture to shut down the slaughterhouse which was a major supplier of their National School Lunch Program and In-N-Out Burger.

The sad film produced by animal rights group Compassion Over Killing reveals how already sick cows are stunned when they are unable to walk to their deaths and shows how they are hoisted up by their legs onto conveyor-belts even if the bolt-gun has failed to kill the animal.

Most of the animals slaughtered by CVM are 'spent' dairy cows who are no longer economically viable as milk-producers to the dairy industry.

And now USDA regulators who shut down the slaughterhouse after viewing the animal welfare video are investigating whether beef from sick cows reached the human food supply.

The investigation will determine whether sick cows were slaughtered and whether meat products from the company should be recalled, said Justin DeJong, a spokesman for the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service.

There is no indication any of the cows slaughtered at the Central Valley Meat plant were diseased and the USDA did not order a recall of beef coming from the plant.

A spokesman for In-N-Out Burger said that CVM provided between 20 to 30 percent of the meat used by their restaurants and that it canceled its contract immediately.

The west cost burger chain has a loyal following and is regulalry patronised by Hollywood celebrities such as the soccer player David Beckham.

On the firm's website the chain claims to make its own hamburger patties 'using premium cattle selected especially for In-N-Out Burger', and says it pays 'a premium' for this.

In a statement to ABC News, the company's chief operating officer, Mark Taylor said, 'In-N-Out Burger would never condone the inhumane treatment of animals, and, in fact, all of our suppliers must agree to abide by our strict standards for the humane treatment of cattle.'

The agency suspended operations Monday at Central Valley Meat Co. in Hanford after receiving the video Friday from the animal welfare group Compassion Over Killing (COK).

The footage shows animals bleeding and thrashing after being repeatedly shot in the head with a pneumatic gun in unsuccessful efforts to kill them for slaughter.

Federal regulations say that to avoid unnecessary suffering during slaughter, animals must be rendered unconscious by a single shot to the head from a pneumatic gun that fires a bolt through the skull to pierce the brain.

The USDA said investigators are trying to determine whether the cows in the video were just lame or sick, which would render them unfit for human consumption.

'That's the main issue right now,' said DeJong of the USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service.

Central Valley Meat Co., owned by Brian and Lawrence Coelho, declined to comment on the video, saying company officials had not seen it.