LONDON (AFP) ― Manchester United started their defense of the Premier League title with a hard-fought 2-1 win over West Brom on Sunday, while new Chelsea boss Andre Villas-Boas had to settle for a 0-0 draw at Stoke. Sir Alex Ferguson sent out a youthful United team including Tom Cleverley, Danny Welbeck, Chris Smalling and Fabio da Silva, as well as debutants David De Gea and Ashley Young, and t...

On teacher numbers ... Even if non-native speakers of English are relatively good at teaching conversational English, it’s very difficult to teach culture, slang, idioms, customs, etc. When I taught at a public middle school, the non-native conversation teacher taught mostly in Korean. The only difference was that she spent a few years in LA. Melissa Shaffer, Wonju, via Facebook We actually do...

Thanks to recent green initiatives, the air of Seoul and its adjacent areas have become cleaner than ever, the Ministry of Environment said Monday. According to authorities, the fine dust density of Seoul was 49 micrograms per cubic meter last year, passing the domestic air quality standard of 50 micrograms. It is about a 10 percent reduction from a year earlier and the lowest since the measurem...

83-year-old woman gets breast implants An 83-year-old American woman had a breast implant surgery last month to improve her appearance, the New York Times reported. Marie Kolstad, from California, has four children, 13 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. “Physically, I’m in a good health, and I just feel like, why not take advantage of it?” Kolstad was quoted as saying. “My mother lived...

A Korean-made powerful anti-submarine missile is expected to be deployed on one of the Navy’s Aegis-equipped destroyers later this month in a move to bolster its maritime defense capabilities. Dubbed a “submarine killer,” the Hongsangeo missile with a range of 30 kilometers is regarded as one of South Korea’s key strategic weapons that could effectively deter North Korean submarine infiltrations...

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Los Angeles County prosecutors will decide this week whether to press charges against The Game, after a tweet from the rapper's account incited a telephone flash mob that overwhelmed the emergency phone system at a sheriff's station. Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said Sunday that agency officials will send the results of their criminal investigation to the district attor...

A South Korean court ordered on Sunday the operator of the country's third most-visited Internet portal to pay out compensation to a user whose information was leaked during last month's massive hacking attack. Two popular Web sites operated by SK Communications Co. were hacked in late July, causing the private information of 35 million users to be leaked. The cyber attack was the worst online b...