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...

Read More..

Football: Barcelona lose first La Liga game of season

MADRID: An injury-time strike from substitute Imanol Agirretxe condemned 10-man Barcelona to a 3-2 defeat at Real Sociedad on Saturday, their first of a record-breaking La Liga season.Lionel Messi scored in a 10th consecutive game for a landmark second time, putting Barca ahead after six minutes with Pedro Rodriguez doubling lead.But Chory Castro pulled a goal back before the break and...

Read More..

Elevation no surprise, no challenge: BJP

NEW DELHI: BJP on Saturday claimed the elevation of Rahul Gandhi to the number two position in Congress poses no challenges to it. The party also said that the move is not going to make any difference as far the prospects of Congress is concerned. With Congress elevating Rahul Gandhi formaly to the second position in the party by declaring him vice president under party president Sonia Gandhi,...

Read More..

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...

Read More..

Manti Te'o Hoax Incredibly Detailed and Complex

Fresh details have emerged about how complex and layered was the hoax involving Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te'o and his fake girlfriend, "Lennay Kekua."According to ABC News interviews and published reports, 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,...

Read More..

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...

Read More..

Snooker: Dott dumps Trump out of Masters tournament

LONDON: Judd Trump produced one of his worst displays in a 6-1 quarter-final loss to Graeme Dott at the Masters on Friday.Several times Trump, taking on the role of fans' favourite in the ongoing self-imposed exile of crowd pleaser Ronnie O'Sullivan, missed pots by inches or left routine balls in the jaws of the pocket.Former world champion Dott was not in the best of form himself, with...

Read More..

Obscene MMS clip of wife drives man to suicide

PATIALA: An obscene MMS of his wife drove a young man to suicide on Thursday night. Although police have not recovered the MMS clip so far, they have registered a case against three neighbours of the deceased on the basis of suicide note recovered from his pocket.Jaswinder Singh, 30, of Dholan Majra village worked on a wood works shop. Some days back his neighbour Dharinder Kaur allegedly showed...

Read More..

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...

Read More..

'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...

Read More..