Lone Star College Evacuated After Shots Fired

A shooting on the campus of Lone Star College in Houston, Texas, this afternoon caused the school to be locked down and evacuated while police searched for suspects.The college said today that shots were fired on the campus and at least two people were shot. Two individuals with multiple gunshot wounds are in serious condition at Ben Taub Hospital, according to ABC News affiliate...

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Algeria says 37 foreigners died in siege led by Canadian

ALGIERS (Reuters) - A total of 37 foreigners and an Algerian died at a desert gas plant and five are still missing after a four-day hostage-taking coordinated by a Canadian gunman, Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said on Monday. Sellal also told a news conference that 29 Islamists had been killed in the siege, which Algerian forces ended by storming the plant on Saturday, and...

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Pakistan suspends PM graft probe after investigator's death

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's anti-corruption watchdog Monday said it had suspended a probe into a graft scandal involving the prime minister pending an inquiry into the death of an officer investigating the case.Kamran Faisal was found dead on Friday in the government hostel where he lived in Islamabad with colleagues from anti-corruption watchdog the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).According...

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Over 40 lakh pending cheque bouncing cases very serious: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday sought suggestions from the Centre and state governments to resolve the grave problem of over 40 lakh pending cheque bouncing cases, which slowed down the justice delivery system already over burdened by more than 2.7 crore cases.Entertaining a PIL filed by Indian Banks' Association (IBA), a bench of Justices K S Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra said: "It is a...

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Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home...

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President Obama Calls for 'Collective Action'

Invoking the nation's founding values, President Obama marked the start of his second term today with a sweeping call for "collective action" to confront the economic and social challenges of America's present and future."That is our generation's task, to make these words, these rights, these values -- of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- real for every American,"...

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Veteran jihadist claims bloody Algeria siege for al Qaeda

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - A veteran Islamist fighter claimed responsibility on behalf of al Qaeda for the Algerian hostage crisis, a regional website reported on Sunday, tying the bloody desert siege to France's intervention across the Sahara in Mali. Algeria said it expected to raise its preliminary death tolls of 23 hostages and 32 militants killed in the four-day siege...

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Cliffhanger result in state test run for German election

BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party was in the lead Sunday after the first state poll in a general election year, initial results showed, but the race for a ruling coalition rested on a knife-edge.Preliminary results from Lower Saxony on public television showed Merkel's Christian Democrats ahead with around 36 percent and their coalition partners for the last decade, the Free...

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Muslim groups warn Jaipur Literature Festival against 4 authors

JAIPUR: Muslims groups have warned the organizers of Jaipur Literature Festival against allowing four authors - who read out passages from the banned book 'Satanic Verses' by Salman Rushdie - to participate in this year's Jaipur Lit Fest. The statement was released by a panel of Islamic clerics and scholars during a national conference on "Azmat -E-Namoos -E-Rasool" (Respect and Honour of Prophet...

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Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home...

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