Libyans will determine how their story unfolds, Gates says

The United States will not target Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, but the pounding from coalition air strikes could create opportunities for rebel forces to fight back against him, the U.S. secretary of defense said Wednesday.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived next door to Libya Wednesday morning on a one-day visit to Egypt. He told Egyptian and American journalists in Cairo that the U.S. mission in Libya is strictly defined and does not include going afer Gadhafi directly.

There are "a number of possible outcomes" for the Libyan story, he said, and the ending will be up to Libyans themselves, specifically mentioning those closest to the Libyan ruler.

"Whether there are ... further major defections within his own ruling circle, whether there are divisions within his family, there are a variety of possibilities, it seems to me."

Gates suggested the political calculus inside Libya might change thanks to American and coalition airstrikes that have grounded government planes and destroyed some of Gadhafi's tanks and other heavy military equipment.

"A lot of people who were in opposition and who played a role in the early days have hunkered down and it may be the changed circumstances where he (Gadhafi) can't use his aircraft and where he is more challenged using his armor they may return to the fight." Gates said at the question-and-answer session in Cairo. "We just don't know that now."

Gates comments echoed those of President Barack Obama who, in an interview with CNN en Español reporter Juan Carlos Lopez, said the United States is "examining all our options" in answer to a question about giving military support to the rebels.

"Our hope is that the first thing that happens once we've cleared the space is that the rebels are able to start discussing how they organize themselves, how they articulate their aspirations for the Libyan people and create a legitimate government," Obama told CNN.

Gates said the United States is communicating with rebel forces, referring indirectly to how U.S. diplomat Chris Stevens is one link, reaching out by telephone.

18-wheeler hangs off Fort Worth highway

An 18-wheeler truck pulling an empty water tank is hanging precariously off an interstate ramp in Fort Worth after a pre-dawn crash, and three people have been rescued from the wreck.

Fire Department spokesman Tim Hardeman says emergency crews rescued the truck driver from his cab that is dangling off the elevated stretch of the I-20 Thursday. He was treated at the scene for minor injuries.

Hardeman says two people inside a car that was wedged beneath the giant semitrailer were cut free after about three hours. Details on their conditions are not immediately available.

It is not clear what caused the wreck.

4 suspected militants set to go on trial in Spain

Four suspected militants are due to go on trial Thursday afternoon in Madrid for allegedly aiding fugitives from the Madrid train bombings of 2004, a National Court spokesman told CNN.

Prosecutor Miguel Angel Carballo, at Spain's National Court, seeks sentences of eight to 13 years in prison against the four male suspects, who include a Moroccan, an Algerian, a Tunisian, and a fourth man whose nationality was not immediately disclosed, said the spokesman, who by custom is not identified.

The prosecutor alleges the suspects provided clandestine lodging in Madrid and in a Barcelona suburb, as well as other aid to various fugitives who "were directly implicated" in the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800, the spokesman said.

Spanish courts already have convicted 14 Islamic militants for their roles in the train bombings, along with four Spaniards, the latter for trafficking in explosives used in the attacks.

Additionally, seven other prime Islamic suspects in the attacks blew themselves up three weeks after the train bombings as police closed in on their hideout in a Madrid suburb. That explosion also killed a police officer and wounded various others.

The seventh anniversary of the train bombings was two weeks ago on March 11.

Lady Gaga criticizes Malaysia gay lyric censorship

Lady Gaga has urged young Malaysians to protest the censorship of lyrics in her hit song that encourage acceptance of gays.

The Associated Press reported last week that radio stations in Muslim-majority Malaysia were playing edited versions of "Born This Way" that use garble to replace the lyrics: "No matter gay, straight or bi, lesbian, transgendered life, I'm on the right track, baby."

Lady Gaga criticized the censorship during a visit Tuesday to Google company headquarters in Mountain View, California.

"What I would say is for all the young people in Malaysia that want those words to be played on the radio, it is your job and it is your duty as young people to have your voices heard," the pop star said in an interview that was posted on YouTube.

"You must do everything that you can if you want to be liberated by your society. You must call, you must not stop, you must protest peaceably," she added.

Broadcasters have said they are being cautious with Lady Gaga's song because Malaysia's government forbids offensive content. They risk fines of up to 50,000 ringgit ($16,000) and other penalties for breaking the rules.

Malaysian gay rights advocates complain that the censorship is part of discrimination they face in everyday life.

Yahoo debuts 'future of search'

Yahoo is looking to one-up Google and its own search partner Bing, offering a new search experience it describes as the "fastest thing you have ever seen."

The new product called Search Direct combines instant search -- showing results as you type -- with instant answers, so that typing in "amzn" instantly shows a full box with stock quotes about Amazon.com. For searches it has no answer to, it shows search links immediately in an easy-to-navigate box above a typical search-results page.

Yahoo, which looked to have abandoned the search game when it outsourced its search backend to Microsoft, says Search Direct -- and its emphasis on user experience -- is the future of search.

"I want you to remember three words: 'answers, not links,'" Shashi Seth, Yahoo's vice president for search told a room of tech reporters in San Francisco as he demo'd the product.

Search Direct is live on search.yahoo.com and other U.S. Yahoo search properties, but not the homepage yet. The same experience will soon come to all search boxes on Yahoo, Seth said, and it will find its way to non-Yahoo properties as well.

The product has "answers" for 15 categories of entities, including movies, professional athletes, music, celebrities, weather info, news, shopping, local and stocks.

The new search builds on Yahoo's attempt to stay relevant in the lucrative search market by focusing on user experience, now that it has farmed out the expensive infrastructure to Microsoft, in exchange for ad-revenue sharing.

"People still come to Yahoo and search on Yahoo," said Yahoo chief product officer Blake Irving.

Yahoo compared the new experience favorably to Google's own Instant Search, saying that Google's feature merely shows search-result pages faster, while this brings people answers incredibly quickly.

WIRED: Yahoo and Microsoft join search forces

Search Direct doesn't require a fast net connection, the company said, and the system is built using infrastructure that Yahoo owns. That could put the feature in conflict with its search partner Bing.

For instance, Yahoo says it can come up with new ad formats that fit in the Search Direct box, but it hasn't yet figured out how or if it would share that revenue with Microsoft, as it currently does with search ads.

Yahoo emphasized that it had built instant search first (though it never released it) and that it owns patents on both that technology and the new technology.

Neither Irving or Seth would say what Yahoo would do with those patents.

Irving tried to be diplomatic.

"Licensing is something we have done in the past and continue to do in the future," Irving said.

Yahoo expects to license the service to others around the web and seems confident it's built the future of search -- even as the tech world has written the firm off as a third-place player destined to keep falling behind.

It's not clear if Yahoo's figured out search's future, but Direct Search is incredibly fast and could prove to be so useful that we'll all soon forget when we had to type a full word and hit Enter to figure something out.

And combined with Yahoo's promising new tablet-publishing platform Livestand, we may just be seeing a revitalized Yahoo that is actually a tech company once again, despite its recent financial woes and layoffs.