Algerian army stages "final assault" on gas plant

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - The Algerian army carried out a dramatic final assault to end a siege by Islamic militants at a desert gas plant on Saturday, killing 11 al Qaeda-linked gunmen after they took the lives of seven more foreign hostages, the state news agency said. The state oil and gas company, Sonatrach, said the militants who attacked the plant on Wednesday and took...

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Obama's inauguration a boon for businesses

WASHINGTON: Tucked behind a tidy souvenir shop storefront on the ground floor of an office building one block from the White House, t-shirts, sweatshirts, buttons and a vast assortment of inauguration paraphernalia is staged for an onslaught of purchasing.Over the course of the weekend, which culminates on Monday on the grassy, park-like National Mall when US President Barack Obama will...

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Rahul is Congress VP, get set for 2014 showdown with Modi

JAIPUR: Rahul Gandhi has finally taken the big leap. On Saturday, amid high anticipation, the Congress formally anointed him as the party's vice president - in other words, the No. 2, which in light of Sonia Gandhi's indifferent health, means his imminent elevation as No. 1. It also means that Rahul Gandhi has agreed to be the party's candidate for PM in 2014 elections, thus setting the stage -...

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Lilly drug chosen for Alzheimer's prevention study

Researchers have chosen an experimental drug by Eli Lilly & Co. for a large federally funded study testing whether it's possible to prevent Alzheimer's disease in older people at high risk of developing it.The drug, called solanezumab (sol-ah-NAYZ-uh-mab), is designed to bind to and help clear the sticky deposits that clog patients' brains.Earlier studies found it did not help people with moderate...

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Inauguration to Cost Millions But Total Price Unclear

How much will all the inaugural events cost? It's hard to say.While most events that occur in the capital have a hard-and-fast budget, the inauguration's many moving parts, safety concerns and large geographic reach make it hard to quantify – especially before the main event.In 2009, ABC reported the total cost of Obama's first inauguration was $170 million. While incumbent...

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Foreigners still caught in Sahara hostage crisis

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - More than 20 foreigners were still either being held hostage or missing inside a gas plant on Friday after Algerian forces stormed the desert complex to free hundreds of captives taken by Islamist militants. More than a day after the Algerian army launched an assault to seize the remote desert compound, much was still unclear about the number and...

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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,"...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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 Macdona...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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Syria blasts kill 22 as students mourn campus dead

DAMASCUS: Twin car bombs killed at least 22 people in the Syrian city of Idlib on Wednesday as universities nationwide held a day of mourning for 87 people killed in explosions on the student campus in second city Aleppo.The bombings had the hallmarks of operations staged by the jihadist Al-Nusra Front, a rebel group with a strong presence on the ground in northwestern Syria and blacklisted...

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Maharashtra proposes to make sexual harassment non-bailable

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government will propose making the sexual harassment and molestation of women non-bailable offences in the state, it is reliably learnt. The "crucial" decision was taken at a meeting chaired by home minister R R Patil in Mantralaya on Wednesday, where ways to reduce crimes against women were discussed. Home officials said proposals to amend sections 354 (assaulting a...

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ER visits tied to energy drinks double since 2007

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A new government survey suggests the number of people seeking emergency treatment after consuming energy drinks has doubled nationwide during the past four years, the same period in which the supercharged drink industry has surged in popularity in convenience stores, bars and on college campuses.From 2007 to 2011, the government estimates the number of emergency room visits involving...

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Obama Unveils Sweeping Plan to Curb Gun Violence

Flanked by four children from across the country, President Obama today unveiled a sweeping plan to curb gun violence in America through an extensive package of legislation and executive actions not seen since the 1960s.Obama is asking Congress to implement mandatory background checks for all gun purchases, including private sales; reinstate a ban on some assault-style weapons;...

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France to stay in Mali until stability restored

BAMAKO/DUBAI (Reuters) - France will end its intervention in Mali only once stability has returned to the West African country, French President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday, raising the prospects of a costly, drawn-out operation against al Qaeda-linked rebels. Paris has poured hundreds of soldiers into Mali and carried out air raids since Friday in the northern half of the country,...

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Facebook launches search engine for friends' content

MENLO PARK: Facebook launched a search engine Tuesday for shared content as a way to find out more about friends on the huge social network in a potential challenge to Google and other Internet firms."We look at Facebook as a big social database," chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in announcing the so-called "graph search" function. "Just like any database, you should be able to query...

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