7 hostages reported dead in 'final assault' on Algerian refinery









CAIRO — Algerian troops raided a remote natural gas refinery Saturday, killing 11 Islamic militants but not before extremists executed seven hostages who for days had been trapped in a deepening international crisis, according to media reports.


Algerian state media described the army mission as the “final assault” to end a hostage ordeal that began in the predawn Wednesday at a gas compound on the Algerian-Libyan border. It was not clear if the hostages killed were Algerians or foreigners.


"It is over now, the assault is over, and the military are inside the plant clearing it of mines," a local source familiar with the operation told Reuters.





The fate of as many as 30 foreign hostages, including an estimated seven Americans, remained unknown. Algerian forces discovered 15 burned bodies as they swept through the compound Saturday to rout heavily armed militants. The militants threatened to blow up the facility and a number of hostages were reported earlier to have been forced to wear explosive belts.  


The Algerian government had refused to negotiate with the extremists, who were linked to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and appear to include Algerians, Libyans, Egyptians and at least one commander from Niger.


Algeria’s state-run media earlier reported that 12 refinery workers, including Algerians and foreigners, had been killed since a government operation to retake the plant began Thursday. Unconfirmed media reports suggested that as many as 35 foreign captives may have been killed, including some struck by gunfire from the Algerian military.


The militants, some dressed in fatigues, were armed with machine guns and rocket launchers. The compound is encircled by army tanks, troops and special forces. A Mauritanian news agency that has been in contact with the extremists said the captors were holding two American, three Belgians, one Japanese and one Briton.


The Algerian government on Friday said 573 Algerians and nearly 100 of an estimated 132 foreign hostages had been freed or had escaped. But the chaotic scene at the gas compound at In Amenas has frustrated international officials who complained they were not consulted about the Algerian military’s operations at the plant.   


The natural gas refinery at In Amenas is also jointly operated by BP; Statoil, a Norwegian firm; and Sonatrach, the Algerian national oil company.


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jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com





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Wired Science Space Photo of the Day: Sunset on Mars


On May 19th, 2005, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit captured this stunning view as the Sun sank below the rim of Gusev crater on Mars. This Panoramic Camera (Pancam) mosaic was taken around 6:07 in the evening of the rover's 489th martian day, or sol. Spirit was commanded to stay awake briefly after sending that sol's data to the Mars Odyssey orbiter just before sunset. This small panorama of the western sky was obtained using Pancam's 750-nanometer, 530-nanometer and 430-nanometer color filters. This filter combination allows false color images to be generated that are similar to what a human would see, but with the colors slightly exaggerated. In this image, the bluish glow in the sky above the Sun would be visible to us if we were there, but an artifact of the Pancam's infrared imaging capabilities is that with this filter combination the redness of the sky farther from the sunset is exaggerated compared to the daytime colors of the martian sky. Because Mars is farther from the Sun than the Earth is, the Sun appears only about two-thirds the size that it appears in a sunset seen from the Earth. The terrain in the foreground is the rock outcrop "Jibsheet", a feature that Spirit has been investigating for several weeks (rover tracks are dimly visible leading up to Jibsheet). The floor of Gusev crater is visible in the distance, and the Sun is setting behind the wall of Gusev some 80 km (50 miles) in the distance.


This mosaic is yet another example from MER of a beautiful, sublime martian scene that also captures some important scientific information. Specifically, sunset and twilight images are occasionally acquired by the science team to determine how high into the atmosphere the martian dust extends, and to look for dust or ice clouds. Other images have shown that the twilight glow remains visible, but increasingly fainter, for up to two hours before sunrise or after sunset. The long martian twilight (compared to Earth's) is caused by sunlight scattered around to the night side of the planet by abundant high altitude dust. Similar long twilights or extra-colorful sunrises and sunsets sometimes occur on Earth when tiny dust grains that are erupted from powerful volcanoes scatter light high in the atmosphere.


Image: NASA/JPL/Texas A&M/Cornell [high-resolution]


Caption: NASA/JPL/Texas A&M/Cornell

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Lance Armstrong biopic in the works from Paramount, J.J. Abrams






LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Paramount Pictures and “Star Trek” producer J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot company have purchased the film rights to a forthcoming book about cyclist Lance Armstrong’s fall from grace, according to a person with knowledge of the transaction.


Armstrong, whose name and celebrity status helped build a multimillion dollar cancer foundation, admitted on Thursday that he used performance-enhancing drugs to win a record seven consecutive Tour de France championships after denying doping allegations for years.






The forthcoming book, “Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong” by New York Times reporter Juliet Macur, traces his recovery from cancer, inspirational return to cycling, and his fall to disgraced ex-champion.


The book is set for a June publication by HarperCollins.


Neither Paramount nor Bad Robot would comment on the deal, which was first reported on the Deadline Hollywood entertainment site.


Abrams, the producer and director of the forthcoming science-fiction thriller film “Star Trek into Darkness,” co-founded Bad Robot with producer Bryan Burk.


Paramount will distribute the big-budget “Star Trek,” which is scheduled for release in May. Paramount has distributed other Abrams-produced films, including 2011′s “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” starring Tom Cruise.


Paramount Pictures is a subsidiary of Viacom Inc and HarperCollins is owned by News Corp.


(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)


Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Business Briefing | Medicine: F.D.A. Clears Botox to Help Bladder Control



Botox, the wrinkle treatment made by Allergan, has been approved to treat adults with overactive bladders who cannot tolerate or were not helped by other drugs, the Food and Drug Administration said on Friday. Botox injected into the bladder muscle causes the bladder to relax, increasing its storage capacity. “Clinical studies have demonstrated Botox’s ability to significantly reduce the frequency of urinary incontinence,” Dr. Hylton V. Joffe, director of the F.D.A.’s reproductive and urologic products division, said in a statement. “Today’s approval provides an important additional treatment option for patients with overactive bladder, a condition that affects an estimated 33 million men and women in the United States.”


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Boeing Closer to Answer on 787s, but Not to Getting Them Back in Air


Issei Kato/Reuters


Safety inspectors looked over a 787 on Friday in Japan. The plane made an emergency landing after receiving a smoke alarm.







With 787 Dreamliners grounded around the world, Boeing is scrambling to devise a technical fix that would allow the planes to fly again soon, even as investigators in the United States and Japan are trying to figure out what caused the plane’s lithium-ion batteries to overheat.




Ray LaHood, the transportation secretary, made it clear on Friday that a rapid outcome was unlikely, saying that 787s would not be allowed to fly until the authorities were “1,000 percent sure” they were safe.


“Those planes aren’t flying now until we have a chance to examine the batteries,” Mr. LaHood told reporters. “That seems to be where the problem is.”


The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday took the rare step of grounding Boeing’s technologically advanced 787s after a plane in Japan made an emergency landing when one of its two lithium-ion batteries set off a smoke alarm in the cockpit. Last week at Boston’s Logan Airport, a battery ignited in a parked 787.


The last time the government grounded an entire fleet of airplanes was in 1979, after the crash of a McDonnell Douglas DC-10.


The grounding comes as the United States is going through a record stretch of safe commercial jet flying: It has been nearly four years since a fatal airline crash, with nearly three billion passengers flying in that period. The last airliner crash, near Buffalo, came after a quiet period of two and a half years, which suggests a declining crash rate.


Investigators in Japan said Friday that a possible explanation for the problems with the 787’s batteries was that they were overcharged — a hazard that has long been a concern for lithium-ion batteries. But how that could have happened to a plane that Boeing says has multiple systems to prevent such an event is still unclear.


Given the uncertainty, it will be hard for federal regulators to approve any corrective measures proposed by Boeing. To lift the grounding order, Boeing must demonstrate that any fix it puts in place would prevent similar episodes from happening.


The government’s approach, while prudent, worries industry officials who fear it does not provide a rapid exit for Boeing.


The F.A.A. typically sets a course of corrective action for airlines when it issues a safety directive. But in the case of the 787, the government’s order, called an emergency airworthiness directive, required that Boeing demonstrate that the batteries were safe but did not specify how.


While the government and the plane maker are cooperating, there are few precedents for the situation.


“Everyone wants the airplane back in the air quickly and safely,” said Mark V. Rosenker, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. “But I don’t believe there will be a corner cut to accomplish that. It will happen when all are confident they have a good solution that will contain a fire or a leak.”


Boeing engineers, Mr. Rosenker said, are working around the clock. “I bet they have cots and food for the engineers who are working on this,” he said. “They have produced a reliable and safe aircraft and as advanced as it is, they don’t want to put airplanes in the air with the problems we have seen.”


The government approved Boeing’s use of lithium-ion batteries to power some of the plane’s systems in 2007, but special conditions were imposed on the plane maker to ensure the batteries would not overheat or ignite. Government inspectors also approved Boeing’s testing plans for the batteries and were present when they were performed.


Even so, after the episode in Boston, the federal agency said it would review the 787’s design and manufacturing with a focus on the electrical systems and batteries. The agency also said it would review the certification process.


The 787 has more electrical systems than previous generations of airplanes. These systems operate hydraulic pumps, de-ice the wings, pressurize the cabin and handle other tasks. The plane also has electric brakes instead of hydraulic ones. To run these systems, the 787 has six generators with a capacity equivalent to the power needed by 400 homes.


Nicola Clark and Christopher Drew contributed reporting.



This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 19, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the response of regulators after small cracks were found in the wings of the Airbus A380, and the year those cracks were found. Regulators required inspections, followed by fixes; they did not order the plane grounded. And the discovery was made in 2012, not two years ago.



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California unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.8% last month









California’s labor market slowed last month as employers shed 17,500 jobs in December and the unemployment rate remained unchanged.


The state’s jobless rate, which fell below 10% in November for the first time in nearly four years, stands at 9.8%, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.


In addition, job figures for November were revised upward to show a net gain of 6,100 jobs that month.





The last survey of employers in 2012 showed job losses in several industries.


The steepest losses were notched in the trade, transportation and utilities sector, which shed 11,200 jobs. Professional and business services, which include white-collar jobs such as accountants and lawyers, lost 8,800 jobs.


Two sectors expanded payrolls last month. The construction industry, seeing new demand in multi-unit residential housing, added 4,100 jobs. Education and health services added 9,200 jobs.


California continues to have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Only two states have higher jobless rates: Nevada and Rhode Island. Both recorded an unemployment rate of 10.2% last month.


For most of last year California had been steadily adding jobs at nearly twice the rate of the U.S. Last month, however, yearly growth slowed from almost 2% to 1.6%. Still, California has added 225,900 net jobs since December 2011.  


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ricardo.lopez2@latimes.com


Follow Ricardo Lopez on Twitter.





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Leprosy Reprograms the Body



By Gisela Telis, ScienceNOW


Leprosy has plagued humans for thousands of years, but that doesn’t mean it has revealed all of its secrets. A new study in mice suggests the disfiguring disease employs a bit of biological trickery to do its damage: It reprograms certain nerve cells to become like stem cells and uses them to infiltrate the body’s muscle and nervous systems. This is the first time that scientists have seen bacteria reprogram cells in this way, and experts say the find could lead to the development of new treatments for leprosy and other neurodegenerative diseases.


More than 200,000 people worldwide are diagnosed with leprosy (also known as Hansen’s disease) each year. Despite its ancient origins and almost mythic status, however, leprosy remains mysterious. Researchers know that it’s caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae, and that it leaves sufferers with deforming lesions and a debilitating loss of sensation in their hands and feet. But they don’t know how the infection spreads throughout the body or why it damages nerves so extensively. In part, that’s because it’s hard to investigate: the bacterium that causes leprosy can’t be grown in a lab, so it can only be studied in infected humans, armadillos, and genetically engineered mice.


To answer some of those lingering questions, biologist Anura Rambukkana of the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom and his colleagues seized on another known detail of the disease: its predilection for infecting Schwann cells, specialized cells that sheathe the nerves and help transmit nervous system signals. The researchers isolated Schwann cells from mice and infected them with M. leprae—and were soon surprised by what they saw.



The bacteria transformed the cells, turning off genes that were expressed in mature Schwann cells and turning on genes associated with earlier stages of cell development. The cells became immature and, like certain kinds of stem cells found in bone marrow and other tissues, could now turn into bone and muscle cells. “We thought, ‘Oh, my God, this is a vehicle for going anywhere in the body,’ ” Rambukkana recalls.


When the team reintroduced the altered cells into the mice, some of the cells migrated to muscle tissues and spread the bacteria wherever they went. The results suggest that M. leprae hijacks Schwann cells, destroying their ability to insulate and support the nervous system, so it can use them to infiltrate other tissues in the body, the team reports online today in Cell.


Rambukkana hopes that future studies will shed more light on how the leprosy bacterium transforms Schwann cells. Understanding the process could help doctors diagnose leprosy at earlier stages and possibly stop it in its tracks, he says. “It can also help us find new ways to generate stem cells for therapeutic approaches, so we can treat other neurodegenerative diseases,” such as multiple sclerosis.


There’s one caveat, says developmental neurobiologist Michael Wegner of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany who was not involved in the study. The study doesn’t prove that M. leprae co-opts human Schwann cells in the same way, he notes. But it does offer a plausible mechanism in “a fascinating study that uses state-of-the-art methodology.”


Dermatologist and leprosy researcher Robert Modlin of the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, agrees. “I was amazedthis is a really creative, out-of-the-box study,” Modlin says. “It raises mind-provoking questions about how it could relate to humans. It has real potential.”


This story provided by ScienceNOW, the daily online news service of the journal Science.


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“Breaking Bad” star Betsy Brandt is Michael J. Fox’s new TV wife






NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – “Breaking Bad” star Betsy Brandt has been cast as Michael J. Fox’s TV wife.


NBC is eyeing the series, which has already been ordered for a full season, for fall. Brandt will play the wife of Fox’s character, a New York news anchor coping – like Fox – with Parkinson’s disease. He’ll also have the usual sitcom troubles, like juggling family and his career.






Brandt’s “Breaking Bad” husband, Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) also struggled with health problems: Brandt’s character nursed him back to health after he was shot and had to re-learn to walk.


She joins a cast that also includes Connor Romero and Jack Gore as the couple’s children, Katie Finneran as the sister of Fox’s character, and “The Wire” star Wendell Pierce as his boss.


The second half of the fifth and final season of “Breaking Bad” will air this summer. Both “Breaking Bad” and the Fox show come from Sony Pictures Television.


The as-yet-untitled series, is written by “Cougar Town” scribe Sam Laybourne and helmed by “Easy A” director Will Gluck.


TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Well: Your Twitter Tips for Going Vegan

In this week’s Well column, “How to Go Vegan,”, we asked you to send in your favorite tips and tricks for adopting a solely plant-based diet on Twitter. We received a range of responses, from quirky ingredient combinations that replicate a nonvegan dish to simple mantras to get you in a vegan frame of mind. Here are some of our favorites. To see the entire list of submissions, visit the hashtag, #vegantips.

Let’s start with some simple recipes that may satisfy your vegan craving:


Add some of your favorite ingredients:


Don’t forget to love your legumes:


And what about some tips to keep you on the vegan path?


And don’t forget to serve a healthy side of humor with that vegan dish:

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The Lede: Live Blog: Inside the Fed's 2007 Deliberations

On Friday the Federal Reserve released the transcripts of its discussions in 2007, the year the housing market, the financial markets, and the broader economy began to unravel. Reporters from The Times are sharing their findings on what the transcripts reveal in the blog entries and tweets below.
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