Honda recalls some vehicles in US over airbag flaw






WASHINGTON: Honda is recalling about 748,000 Pilot and Odyssey vehicles in the United States because of a potential flaw in the driver's side airbag, the Japanese automaker said on Friday.

Honda said the airbags may have been made without some of the rivets that secure its plastic cover.

"If the rivets are missing, the airbag may not deploy properly, increasing the risk of injury in a crash," the company said.

No crashes or injuries have been reported related to the problem, it said.

The recall affects Pilot sport-utility vehicles made for the 2009-2013 model years and 2011-2013 Odyssey minivans.

The vehicles will be inspected and the driver's side airbag will be replaced if necessary, the company said.

- AFP/de



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Infighting may hurt our chances, Sonia says

JAIPUR: Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday described infighting and indiscipline as pressing organizational concerns. She said the party had "squandered away many opportunities" because of its inability to function as a disciplined and united team in her inaugural speech at the Congress `Chintan Shivir' here.

The Congress leader suggested that people were willing to vote the party back to power but it was losing out due to its internal fights. She blamed personal ambitions and egos for making it difficult to secure power in states like Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha and Tamil Nadu. "Why do we forget the simple truth that in the party's victory lays the victory of each one of us?" Sonia said while urging party leaders to work cohesively.

The party formed five groups, including the one on organization, during the two-day brainstorming conclave to discuss key challenges concerning it. Health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad would head the group to deliberate on issues responsible for the party's failure in states where it is in opposition. It would strive for consensus on measures required to strengthen the party and help it to return to power.

"Performance, not patronage, must be the ladder to advancement in the party," Sonia said. "Unity will come not from pious declarations of intent. It has to come from within," Sonia said, while emphasizing that the party has to build leadership at all levels.

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Flu season 'bad one for the elderly,' CDC says


The number of older people hospitalized with the flu has risen sharply, prompting federal officials to take unusual steps to make more flu medicines available and to urge wider use of them as soon as symptoms appear.


The U.S. is about halfway through this flu season, and "it's shaping up to be a worse-than-average season" and a bad one for the elderly, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


It's not too late to get a flu shot, and "if you have symptoms, please stay home from work, keep your children home from school" and don't spread the virus, he said.


New figures from the CDC show widespread flu activity in all states but Tennessee and Hawaii. Some parts of the country are seeing an increase in flu activity "while overall activity is beginning to go down," Frieden said. Flu activity is high in 30 states and New York City, up from 24 the previous week.


Nine more children or teens have died of the flu, bringing the nation's total this flu season to 29. That's close to the 34 pediatric deaths reported during all of the last flu season, although that one was unusually light. In a typical season, about 100 children die of the flu and officials said there is no way to know whether deaths this season will be higher or lower than usual.


The government doesn't keep a running tally of adult deaths from the flu, but estimates that it kills about 24,000 people most years.


So far, half of confirmed flu cases are in people 65 and older. Lab-confirmed flu hospitalizations totaled 19 for every 100,000 in the population, but 82 per 100,000 among those 65 and older, "which is really quite a high rate," Frieden said.


"We expect to see both the number and the rates of both hospitalizations and deaths rise further in the next week or so as the flu epidemic progresses,'" so prompt treatment is key to preventing deaths, he said.


About 90 percent of flu deaths are in the elderly; the very young and people with other health problems such as diabetes are also at higher risk.


If you're worried about how sick you are and are in one of these risk groups, see a doctor, Frieden urged. One third to one half of people are not getting prompt treatment with antiviral medicines, he said.


Two drugs — Tamiflu and Relenza — can cut the severity and risk of death from the flu but must be started within 48 hours of first symptoms to do much good. Tamiflu is available in a liquid form for use in children under 1, and pharmacists can reformulate capsules into a liquid if supplies are short in an area, said Dr. Margaret Hamburg, head of the Food and Drug Administration.


To help avoid a shortage, the FDA is letting Tamiflu's maker, Genentech, distribute 2 million additional doses of capsules that have an older version of package insert.


"It is fully approved, it is not outdated," just lacks information for pharmacists on how to mix it into a liquid if needed for young children, she said.


This year's flu season started about a month earlier than normal and the dominant flu strain is one that tends to make people sicker. Vaccinations are recommended for anyone 6 months or older. There's still plenty of vaccine — an update shows that 145 million doses have been produced, "twice the supply that was available only several years ago," Hamburg said.


About 129 million doses have been distributed already, and a million doses are given each day, Frieden said. The vaccine is not perfect but "it's by far the best tool we have to prevent influenza," he said.


Carlos Maisonet, 73, got a flu shot this week at New York's Brooklyn Hospital Center at the urging of his wife, who was vaccinated in August.


"This is his first time getting the flu shot," said his wife, Zulma Ramos.


Last week, the CDC said the flu again surpassed an "epidemic" threshold, based on monitoring of deaths from flu and a frequent complication, pneumonia. The flu epidemic happens every year and officials say this year's vaccine is a good match for strains that are going around.


___


Online:


Flu vaccine finder: http://www.flu.gov


CDC flu info: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm


___


AP Photographer Bebeto Matthews in New York contributed to this report.


___


Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at —http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


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Manti Te'o Hoax Incredibly Detailed and Complex













The hoax that is Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te'o's fake girlfriend "Lennay Kekua" has revealed layers of lies carried out by a complex web of characters.


Te'o received phone calls, text messages and letters before every football game from his "girlfriend." He was in contact with her family, including a twin brother, a second brother, sister and parents. He called often to check in with them, just as he did with his own family. And "Kekua" kept in contact with Te'o's friends and family.


"There are a remarkable number of characters involved. We don't know how many people they represent," Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick said at a news conference this week. "There are male and female characters, brothers, cousins, mother, and we don't know if it's two people playing multiple characters or multiple people."


"It goes to the sophistication of this, that there are all these sort of independent pieces that reinforce elements of the story all the way through," he said.


Click here for a who's who in the Manti Te'o case


The newly released transcript of "Sports Illustrated" writer Pete Thamel's Sept. 23 interview with Te'o gives a hint at the staggering depth of the deception.








Manti Te'o Hoax: Was He Duped or Did He Know? Watch Video









Manti Te'o Hoax: Notre Dame Star Allegedly Scammed Watch Video









Tale of Notre Dame Football Star's Girlfriend and Her Death an Alleged Hoax Watch Video





Te'o told Thamel that Lennay Kekua's real name was Melelengei, but since no one could pronounce it properly it was shortened to Lennay. But her family nicknamed her Lala, he said.


Te'o's knowledge about the details of his girlfriend's life was often murky, including her majors in school, occupation and extent of her injuries after an alleged April 28 car accident with a drunk driver.


What he was absolutely clear about was how much time he spent in contact with her, especially while she was in the hospital recovering from the car accident, which led to the discovery of her leukemia.


"I talked to my girlfriend every single day," Te'o told Themel. "I slept on the phone with her every single day. When she was going through chemo, she would have all these pains and the doctors were saying they were trying to give her medicine to make her sleep. She still couldn't sleep. She would say, 'Just call my boyfriend and have him on the phone with me, and I can sleep.' I slept on the phone with her every single night."


He would spend eight hours a night with someone, somewhere, breathing on the other end, he told Thamel.


Te'o recounted how his girlfriend who was "on a machine" after being in a coma.


"We lost her, actually, twice. She flatlined twice. They revived her twice," he said. "It was just a trippy situation."


For a while Kekua was unable to talk and he described the nurse-deemed "miracle" of how Kekua's breathing would pick up when she heard his voice on the phone.


"There were lengthy, long telephone conversations. There was sleeping with the phone on connected to each other," Swarbrick said. "The issue of who it is, who's playing what role, what's real and what's not here is a more complex question than I can get into."


Perhaps one of the most touching displays of love from Kekua to Te'o was the one-page letter she would write him on her iPad before each game. One of her siblings, often her twin brother Noa, would then read him the letter over the phone before sending it to him.


"She and I, man, we had this relationship where it was just amazing," Te'o told Thamel. "With all of that time on her hands in the hospital, she was never thinking about herself and what was hurting her. She was just always thinking about others. She went on and wrote a letter to me before every game. Things that she would want me to know."


Kekua and her family were also in frequent contact with Te'o's family and friends.






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Algerian official news agency says hostage operation over


ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algeria's state news agency APS said on Thursday that the military operation to free hostages at a remote desert gas facility had ended, quoting an unnamed official source who gave no further details.


(Reporting by Lamine Chikhi; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)



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Football: Bayern back Guardiola to be German hit






BERLIN: Bayern Munich expect Pep Guardiola to adapt well to life in Germany, as players and managers alike hailed the former Barcelona manager's return to top-flight football.

The Bavarian giants announced on Wednesday that Guardiola would take over from Jupp Heynckes at the end of the current campaign, ending months of speculation that linked him to managerial posts from South America to the English Premier League.

Bayern chairman Karl Heinz Rummenigge denied that Guardiola would be in Munich on Friday, telling a news conference on Thursday: "He is going to stay in New York for the moment and work intensively on his German.

"He does not want to interfere in any way in the current season and the work of Jupp Heynckes."

Rummenigge said he had no doubts about Guardiola's ability to master German between now and when he is officially unveiled, which was likely to take place on July 1 when he takes up his new job.

"I think that when he arrives it (German) will not be a problem for him," Rummenigge said, pointing out that the coach already spoke fluent English.

Even during his self-imposed sabbatical year in New York, the man who guided Barca to 14 trophies between 2008 and 2012 was well-informed about his future club, he added.

Rummenigge told reporters that Heynckes let it be known before Christmas that he did not wish to stay on beyond the second year of his contract at the club, prompting them to increase their contact with Guardiola.

Bayern players Manuel Neuer and Philipp Lahm were among the many who welcomed Guardiola's appointment, with Germany captain Lahm saying his decision was a reflection of the quality of the team.

"He's a young coach who still has his future ahead of him," he added.

Guardiola had earlier on Wednesday sent a video message for the 150th anniversary celebrations of England's Football Association, revealing his desire to one day take charge of a Premier League club.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said Guardiola -- who had been linked to coaching jobs at European champions Chelsea and Premier League champions Manchester City -- had told him on several occasions that he wanted to come to England.

The Frenchman admitted that he was surprised that he instead opted for the Bundesliga.

But he added: "Bayern are an interesting club, Germany is an interesting league, well-managed, so it is defendable what he has done."

Wenger has been a Premier League manager for 16 years and described the league as "the most interesting" in the world. But he insisted Guardiola had not taken a backward step because of the proliferation of young talent in Germany.

"In Germany, maybe along with Spain, they are a country with the best young players. If you look at the results of Germany in the under-17s, under-18s and under-19s, in the last three seasons, they beat everybody," he added.

"It is the football of tomorrow. Tomorrow's football will be played in Germany, certainly."

Former Barcelona star and German international Bernd Schuster also hailed Guardiola's appointment, believing it will herald the arrival of more big names.

"The superstars of the industry will have certainly noted that such a top man has gone to the Bundesliga," Schuster, 53, told German daily Die Welt.

"He will strengthen the Bundesliga's attraction."

But Schuster, who also played for Real Madrid in the 1980s and managed them from 2007-2008, also believes that Guardiola will inherit a good Bayern side.

"Guardiola must not forget that his predecessor at Barcelona Frank Rijkaard left him a strong team. Players such as Messi, Puyol, Iniesta, Eto'o and Xavi were already there.

"It's a similar situation to what he will find in Munich, where Heynckes will leave a top team with an excellent base."

- AFP/jc



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Building 20 km of highway a day not sustainable: NHAI chief

NEW DELHI: UPA's claim to build 20 km highways per day to counter NDA's record of highways construction seems to be falling flat. NHAI, the country's highway development body, admitted that awarding 20 km highways per day was "unsustainable" and that construction of 10-11 km highways per day would meet the requirement for the next few years.

NHAI chairman R P Singh made this observation at an industry summit organized by Ficci on Thursday amid signs of private concessionaires showing no interest to bid for projects. Singh added that there was a need to balance between the "expectation" that has been set and what is "realistic and sustainable", though in 2011-12, NHAI had awarded over 7,000 km. The 20-km target was first announced in 2009 by the then highway minister Kamal Nath to increase the construction from 4 km a day then. NDA had a record of about 15 km highway construction per day during its regime.

Singh said NHAI had at least posted 25% increase in highway construction during 2012-13 against the previous year, meaning completion of between 2,500 and 3,000 km.

He cited falling commercial traffic, non-availability of equity and debt in the market, escalation in construction cost and increasing reports of locals protesting against toll collection as reasons behind the slowdown in highway awarding. He said if NHAI has to award 7,000 km on toll mode and another 3,000 km by highways ministry and state agencies annually, there would be a need of Rs 30,000 crore as equity and another Rs 60,000 crore as debt from financial institutions. Singh asked the industry players whether this was sustainable.

Singh also said the plan to build roads on Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) model completely was not sustainable. "With elections approaching, we might see more instances of local leaders and political parties opposing toll collection."

He added that government has a responsibility to provide highways for free to the public. "States must increase their capital expenditure," he said while stressing on the need for states to build highways where the cost would not be recovered from toll collection.

Raising the issue of annual revision of toll charges on all BOT stretches, Singh said toll fees should be sustainable and not linked to inflation.

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Study: NYC better than LA at cutting kids' obesity


NEW YORK (AP) — A new study shows New York City is doing better than Los Angeles in the battle against childhood obesity, at least for low-income children.


From 2003 to 2011, obesity rates for poor children dropped in New York to around 16 percent. But they rose in Los Angeles and ended at about 20 percent.


The researchers focused on children ages 3 and 4 enrolled in a government program that provides food and other services to women and their young children.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the study Thursday.


The authors noted that the Los Angeles program has many more Mexican-American kids. Obesity is more common in Mexican-American boys than in white or black kids.


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'Catfish' Star Reaches Out to Manti Te'o













Nev Schulman, the star and creator of the MTV show "Catfish" that follows Internet dating hoaxes, has reached out to Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o and offered to help solve his girlfriend hoax.


Te'o and Notre Dame claim he was a "catfish" victim when it was revealed that the woman he said was his girlfriend and died of leukemia never existed.


The "Catfish" television show was spawned by a movie of the same name in which Schulman tracked down a person who pretended to be a young woman he had met online.


".@MTeo_5 I know how you feel. It happened 2 me. I want 2 help tell ur story & prevent this from happening to others in the future. Lets talk," Schulman tweeted to Te'o.


Schulman says in his tweets that he has information about the baffling hoax. "I am working on finding out more about this @MTeo_5 #Catfish story. I have been in contact with the woman involved and will get the truth," Schulman tweeted on Wednesday night. It is unclear which woman Schulman has been in contact with.


However, in a statment released to ABC News, Schulman said "I have been in touch with Donna Tei. She reached out to me back in December asking for help regarding the person who had been using her photos to create a fake profile."


It's not clear whether Donna Tei was the woman whose photo was used as "girlfriend" Lennay Kekua or another person in the complicated hoax.


He also tweeted, "However his #Manti story ends, it doesn't change that we are all the victims of a #Catfish."


In a statement on MTV.com, Schulman defended the possibility that Te'o had been duped.


"When you read an article all at once where it reveals all these stories and all these details, it seems crazy, but in the process of it, as it happens very slowly, things don't seem so crazy," Schulman wrote. "And then, of course, when you look at it all in one snapshot, it does sort of seem kind of unbelievable."






ABC News; David J. Phillip/AP Photo











Manti Te'o Hoax: Notre Dame Star Allegedly Scammed Watch Video









'Catfish' Star Nev Schulman's Red Flags for Spotting Online Fakers Watch Video









Tale of Notre Dame Football Star's Girlfriend and Her Death an Alleged Hoax Watch Video





Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick cited the documentary "Catfish" in trying to explain how the star linebacker became a hoax victim.


"I would refer all of you, if you're not already familiar with it, with both the documentary called 'Catfish,' the MTV show which is a derivative of that documentary, and the sort of associated things you'll find online and otherwise about catfish, or catfishing," Swarbrick told reporters Wednesday.


The 2010 film stars Schulman, who was the real-life victim of a "catfish" scam. Schulman wanted to make the documentary to show how he was sucked in by an Internet pretender -- or a "catfish" -- who built an elaborate fake life.


Schulman made the documentary as he was falling for someone named "Megan," a gorgeous 20-something from Michigan. Their online relationship blossomed until Schulman confronted "Megan."


"Megan" turned out to be a middle-aged mom of two named Angela Wesselman, who later said she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.


Inside 'Catfish': A Tale of Twisted Cyber-Romance


"It was different. It was something new. It was a little mysterious," Schulman told ABC News in an earlier interview, describing his reaction before he discovered Megan's true identity.


Now, a much wiser Schulman is helping others catch the "catfish" in his new hit series on MTV inspired by the real-life documentary, "Catfish: The TV Show."


'Catfish' Stars Nev Schulman's Advice for Online Dating


In one episode, Schulman meets Sunny, who says she has been dating a medical student online named "Jameson" for eight months.


"He's going to be an anesthesiologist. He does online classes," Sunny says of "Jameson" in the episode.


Schulman convinces Sunny to take a road trip to meet "Jameson" face to face and and Sunny later finds out "Jameson" was really a woman who was pretending to be a man online for at least four years.


"I mean who does that?" Sunny said in the episode.


As more become connected through various social media outlets, Schulman says these "catfish" hoaxes will continue.


"So long as we're not looking people in the eye face-to-face, there's always going be room, a lot of room for deception," he said.


WATCH: Deadspin Writer Who Uncovered Hoax Explains the Story



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Dozens held after Islamists attack Algerian gas field


ALGIERS (Reuters) - Islamist militants attacked a gas field in Algeria on Wednesday, claiming to have kidnapped up to 41 foreigners including seven Americans in a dawn raid in retaliation for France's intervention in Mali, according to regional media reports.


The raiders were also reported to have killed three people, including a Briton and a French national.


An al Qaeda affiliated group said the raid had been carried out because of Algeria's decision to allow France to use its air space for attacks against Islamists in Mali, where French forces have been in action against al Qaeda-linked militants since last week.


The attack in southern Algeria also raised fears that the French action in Mali could prompt further Islamist revenge attacks on Western targets in Africa, where al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) operates across borders in the Sahara desert, and in Europe.


AQIM said it had carried out Wednesday's raid on the In Amenas gas facility in OPEC member Algeria, Mauritania's ANI news agency reported.


The Algerian interior ministry said: "A terrorist group, heavily armed and using three vehicles, launched an attack this Wednesday at 5 a.m. against a Sonatrach base in Tigantourine, near In Amenas, about 100 km (60 miles) from the Algerian and Libyan border."


"The Algerian authorities will not respond to the demands of the terrorists and will not negotiate," Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia was quoted as saying by official news agency APS.


The gas field is operated by a joint venture including BP, Norwegian oil firm Statoil and Algerian state company Sonatrach.


ARMED MEN


BP said armed men were still occupying facilities at the gas field, which produces 9 billion cubic meters of gas a year(160,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day), more than a tenth of the country's overall gas output, and 60,000 barrels a day of condensate.


"The site was attacked and occupied by a group of unidentified armed people at about 0500 UK time. Contact with the site is extremely difficult, but we understand that armed individuals are still occupying the In Amenas operations site," it said.


A spokesman for BP said it usually had fewer than 20 people working at the site but would not be drawn on whether there were any talks with the hostage takers. He said: "Obviously we are doing everything we can to make sure our people are okay."


APS said a Briton and an Algerian security guard had been killed and seven people were injured. A French national was also killed in the attack, a local source said.


Also among those reported kidnapped by various sources were five Japanese nationals working for the Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp, a French national, an Austrian, an Irishman, and a number of Britons.


The U.S. State Department said it believed some U.S. citizens were also among the hostages, while Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said 13 employees of Statoil, a minority shareholder in the gas venture, were being held.


A member of an Islamist group styling itself the "Blood Battalion" was quoted by Mauritanian media as saying that five of the hostages were being held at the gas facility and 36 were in a housing area. APS said the Islamist raiders had freed Algerians working at the gas facility, though Regis Arnoux, head of French company CIS Catering, told JDD weekly newspaper that 150 Algerian employees of his company were being held at the site.


"The operation was in response to the blatant interference by Algeria and the opening of its air space to French aircraft to bomb northern Mali," the Islamist spokesman told Mauritania's ANI news agency.


ANI, which has regular direct contact with Islamists, said that fighters under the command of Mokhtar Belmokhtar were holding the foreigners.


Interior Minister Kablia also told APS that Belmokhtar was leading the group of about 20 individuals, whom he said were not from Mali, Libya or "any other neighboring state".


Belmokhtar, dubbed by French intelligence as "the uncatchable", for years commanded al Qaeda fighters in the Sahara before setting up his own armed Islamist group late last year after an apparent fallout with other militant leaders.


The Algerian army was in the area of the gas facility, according to French and Algerian sources.


ANI reported that the Islamists said they were surrounded by Algerian forces and warned that any attempt to free the hostages would lead to a "tragic end". One of the hostage takers told ANI that the perimeter of the site had been mined.


SECURITY IMPLICATIONS


The attack was the first time in years that Islamist militants are known to have launched an attack on an Algerian energy facility.


The attack could have implications for security across the whole of Algeria's energy sector, which supplies about a quarter of Europe's natural gas imports and exports millions of barrels of crude oil each year.


Such an attack would require a large and heavily armed insurgent force with a degree of freedom to move around, all elements that al Qaeda has not previously had.


However, the conflict in neighboring Libya in 2011 changed the balance of force. Security experts say al Qaeda was able to obtain arms, including heavy weapons, from the looted arsenals of former leader Muammar Gaddafi.


The five Japanese work for the engineering firm JGC Corporation, Jiji news agency reported, quoting company officials. JGC has a deal with Sonatrach-BP-Statoil Association for work in gas production at In Amenas.


A reporter for Japan's NHK television managed to call a JGC worker in Algeria.


The worker said he got a phone call from a colleague at the gas field. "It was around 6 a.m. this morning. He said that he had been hearing gunshots for about 20 minutes. I wasn't able to get through to him since."


French troops launched their first ground operation against Islamist rebels in Mali on Wednesday in an action to dislodge from a strategic town al Qaeda-linked fighters who have resisted six days of air strikes.


(Additional reporting by Catherine Bremer and John Irish in Paris, Laurent Prieur in Nouakchott, Andrew Osborn in London, Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Antoni Slodkowski in Tokyo, Raissa Kasolowsky in Abu Dhabi and Christian Lowe in Warsaw; Editing by Giles Elgood and Will Waterman)



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