The Sacramento Kings were sold to a group led by software billionaire Vivek Ranadive, who will become the first Indian-born owner in National Basketball Association history. A Sacramento-based group led by Ranadive signed an agreement to purchase the team from the Maloof family, Mayor Kevin Johnson said May 17 in a news conference.

An Indian payment card processing company acknowledged on Monday that hackers breached its security to increase the limits on some pre-paid card accounts in a global ATM heist in December. ElectraCard Services said no customer data was stolen from it and any tampering of ATM cards occurred elsewhere. "To withdraw money from a pre-paid card, one needs an ATM card that has a magnetic strip, which has encoded data.

A Sterling man has been arrested by the FBI and charged with the federal felony of abusive sexual contact for allegedly fondling a fellow passenger on a flight last month into Reagan National Airport. Now, this was not a passing touch, as alleged in a federal affidavit by FBI Special Agent David Wiegand, and unwanted sexual contact is a serious matter.

Democrat Swati Dandekar, former Iowa state Assemblywoman and state Senator, is exploring a run for the U.S. Congress. Dandekar announced May 9 she has formed an exploratory committee to run for Congressional District 1 in Iowa in 2014. She told News India Times she would be announcing her decision sometime this summer and that her biggest challenge would be the Democratic primaries were she to decide to run.

Rep. Ami Bera, D-Calif., has become the latest lawmaker to join the American Sikh Congressional Caucus in the United States Congress. The establishment of the caucus April 24 has raised the ire of the government of India, which warned Washington that leaders of the Khalistan movement for a separate state of Punjab in India were involved in pushing for it in a bid to revive the movement.

Comments by a Democratic state official targeting South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who is up for re-election in 2014, have created an uproar in the community with some groups demanding an apology for the remarks, which are deemed racist.Richard Harpootlian, chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, told party faithfuls at a May 3 fundraising dinner in Columbus, S.C., that they need to send Haley “back to wherever the hell she came from.

A review of William Dalrymple's, Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, 1839-42. This is a book that we should have had ten years ago, and which will still be read in fifty years' time. It is a history of the first war fought by Westerners in Afghanistan in modern times, and is clearly designed to cast a light on our present conflict there.