Bradley Manning, the US army private accused of leaking thousands of classified documents, has been found guilty of espionage but not guilty of aiding the enemy. Pte Manning has been found guilty of 20 charges in total.

 

Read more on BBC

Welcoming the decision of the UPA to create separate state of Telangana, BJP leader Prakash Javadekar said many people have sacrificed their lives for the cause.

BJP will look at the decision and then give its reaction, he added.

The Congress Working Committee today unanimously endorsed creation of a separate Telangana state from out of Andhra Pradesh.

Read the full text of the CWC resolution on Telangana HERE

The decision to carve out Telangana was not taken due to political expediency, says Digvijaya Singh, adding that this has no connection with the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections

"We have kept in mind security, water issues, liabilities, etc. All this will be considered while drafting the Bill. Modalities will be worked out for division of assets, liabilities and water resources."

"The formation of Telangana cannot be compared to demand from states. Telangana will have 10 districts. In Hyderabad, there is adequate arrangement for both states to run their affairs for next 10 years," Congress party's Andhra Pradesh in charge Digvijay Singh said.

Just In: Hyderabad has been made common capital of Andhra Pradesh and the new Telangana states for a period of 10 years. 

Also, the new Telangana state will have 10 districts of Andhra Pradesh

The actual creation of a Telangana state could take almost 4-5 months.

Congress general secretary Ajay Maken and party's Andhra Pradesh in charge Digivjaya Singh made these announcements shortly after the Congress Working Committee's meeting concluded.

Sources tell Rediff.com that finance minister P Chidambaram dominated the proceedings at the Congress Working Committee.

So, next up is the Special Cabinet meeting tomorrow, which will take up the issue. 

OK, so the Congress Working Committee meet on Telangana has ended. The CWC, as expected, unanimously passes a resolution endorsing the formation of the state of Telangana. 

Even as the UPA government has endorsed the creation of a Telangana state dividing up the present state of Andhra Pradesh, it should also gear up to tackle a spell of intensive agitation by the Bodo tribe to press for their long-standing demand for a separate Bodoland state. Read K Anurag's report on Rediff.com shortly.

There will be a special cabinet meeting on Telangana tomorrow.  After the UPA coordination committee and the CWC endorses it, the Prime Minister will refer it to the President.

The first visuals of the CWC which is underway at 10 Janpath doesn't display any celebratory mood. Congress sources claim that the issue of the division of Andhra Pradesh has split the Congress high command, but somehow the disagreements in the top leadership have not come in the way of extending support to the creation of Telanagana. 

With the announcement of Telangana, India enters into the election phase. A cabinet minister told rediff.com, "Ambiguity on Telangana was hurting us so clarity was needed. The only issue now is to see that people understand that it's not done for electoral gains, but for the devolution of power to the people of Telenagana."

The UPA's unanimous nod to the issue is no surprise because Sharad Pawar, most powerful presence amongst Congress allies has been supporting the division since the last 10 years.
-- Sheela Bhatt in New Delhi 

OK, so while an announcement on the formation of Telangana is expected after the CWC meeting, on right now, it is only after the cabinet meet on Thursday, that a formal announcement can be made. The UPA has already endorsed the formation of Telangana and the CWC is expected to state exactly that. 

The Congress Working Committee meeting is on. The formal announcement on the statehood will be made once the meeting ends. 

Keshav Rao, leader Telangana Rashtriya Samhiti, welcomes the decision for the creation of the news state, but says it will not be in Andhra's interest for Hydearabad to be a shared capital. The future of Hyderabad has not been discussed at the UPA meeting. Rao says that he is not sure about Telangana till the bill is passed. "It's still a wait and watch situation," says Rao. "We are happy with the UPA decision but wary about the Congress," he said.

The impetus for the big Telangana announcement comes from the fact that the national elections, in which the Congress will seek a third term in power, are just months away. Nearly half of the 42 parliamentary seats from Andhra Pradesh are housed in Telangana.

The CWC to meet on Telangana shortly, but since the UPA allies have unanimously endorsed the statehood, the CWC meet is probably just a formality. No clarity yet on whether Rayalaseema will be split or whether Hyderabad becomes the shared capital for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. 

UPA allies have endorsed the creation of the state of Telangana. Before the UPA coordination committee meet began, the PM took the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj into confidence and discussed the issue with her. Now, all that's left is for the Congress Working to meet, (approximately at 5.30 pm) and for Sonia Gandhi to announce the formation of India's 29th state. 

The UPA coordination meet to discuss Telangana statehood with allies ends in Delhi. The CWC meeting will be held around 5.30 pm, after which the announcement will be made.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi held talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh earlier in the day.

Sonia met Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, AICC general secretary in charge of Andhra Pradesh Digvijay Singh, former in-charge Ghulam Nabi Azad and Sonias political secretary Ahmad Patel after her meeting with the PM.

Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress swept the three-tier panchayat polls in West Bengal capturing 13 out of 17 Zilla Parishads, while the Congress put up a poor show with just one in Murshidabad.

TMC's clean sweep in the zilla parishads in 11 of 12 south Bengal districts and two out of five north Bengal districts, demonstrated that the two-and-a-half-years of incumbency and controversies, including the Saradha chit fund scam, by and large, failed to sway the rural people's trust on the Mamata Banerjee government.

Just in: The Delhi Police today named underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel in its chargesheet filed in the IPL spot-fixing and betting scandal.

In the 6000-page long chargesheet, Delhi Police has also named S Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan among 39 others as accused in the scandal unearthed during IPL 6.

The investigators have named Dawood as the kingpin of the racket who decided the betting rates.

Twenty-one accused in the case, including Sreesanth and Chavan, have been granted bail by a court, while the others, including Chandila are in judicial custody. -- Zee News

Meanwhile, Congress President Sonia Gandhi has had to massage bruised egos apart from spearhead meetings on Telangana. She assured a delegation of party MPs opposed to creation of Telangana that their concerns would be taken care of when a decision on separate statehood is taken.  

Gandhi's assurance to the leaders came hours before crucial meetings of UPA and Congress Working Committee to take a final decision on the issue, as Union Ministers and MPs from Seemandhra region of Andhra Pradesh met her.   

Next on the agenda is a meeting between Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy with the PM and Sonia Gandhi. Remember, Reddy had threatened to resign in protest over the Congress's decision, but has reportedly been persuaded not to do so.

Read: Explained: How the new state of Telangana will be created

And the formation of the Telangana state inches closer. Congress president Sonia Gandhi and top UPA ministers -- Sushil Kumar Shinde, P Chidambaram and Kamal Nath arrive at 7 RCR, along with Farooq Abdullah, NCP's Sharad Pawar, RLD's Ajit Singh arrive. Up ahead now is the UPA coordination committee meeting.

The historic announcement on Telangana is expected on Tuesday. Ahead of a big decision, all ministers and members of Parliament favouring a separate state have left for New Delhi. The Congress working committee is expected to make a formal announcement of the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh and will set a road map ahead.

All ministers and Congresss leaders from Andhra Pradesh have been summoned to New Delhi. The Congress will meet with its allies in the United Progressive Alliance and then hold the CWC meeting around 5.30 pm, after which the announcement will be made.

An American academic, who argues for gender equality in Islam, was prevented from addressing students at a university in India after an intervention by police, according to the organizer of the event.  Read

Intimate portraits show the indomitable spirit of smiling icon who reduced photographer's team to tears just by his presence. The Nelson Mandela you haven't seen. Here you go    

US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden has been advised to stay in Moscow's Sheremtyevo airport's transit area or places within the jurisdiction of Russia's imigration bureau, where his security is guaranteed. Read

From one writer to another -- Pankaj Mishra interviews Orhan Pahmuk. Read

Delhi Police today said it will move court for cancellation of the bail granted to cricketers S Sreesanth and Ankit Chavan and 19 others in the IPL spot-fixing case.

A court had granted bail to the two players and several other bookies on June 10, saying there is no reason that they should be booked under Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).

The court had said prima facie there was "no sufficient material" against the accused to establish their "nexus" with organised crime syndicate.

"There is no reason for believing that the accused are guilty under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) at this stage," Additional Sessions Judge Vinay Kumar Khanna had said in his judgement on June 10.

Just a month ago, Uttarakhand made the headlines with the tragic deaths of at least 10,000 people in flash floods. Here's what's happening in the state.

Relief operations in disaster-hit Uttarakhand picked up today as the weather remained clear for the second consecutive day with choppers, loaded with foodgrains and other essentials flying to affected villages in the worst hit Rudraprayag, Chamoli and Uttarkashi districts.

However, low visibility conditions induced by overcast skies at places posed a hurdle in flight of choppers forcing Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna to cancel his visit to Deval, Tharali and Narayanbagad areas of the flood-hit Chamoli district.

Lack of connectivity remains the main issue in Chamoli district with major roads still blocked and restoration work often hampered by bad weather. Adequate relief has been supplied to 84 villages by choppers and efforts are on to cover about 50 more disconnected villages by transporting foodstuff to them on mules and horses. 

In a brazen attack, heavily-armed Taliban terrorists, donning police uniforms, attacked a high-security prison in northwest Pakistan, freeing nearly 250 prisoners, many of them hard-core militants, and killing 14 people including six Shia inmates.

The gunmen launched their attack around midnight with a series of heavy explosions before firing rocket propelled grenades and machine guns, a senior police official said.

During the attack on Central Prison in Dera Ismail Khan of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering the restive South Waziristan agency, the militants killed six policemen, six Shia prisoners and two private security guards, he said.

As the Telangana pot continues to brew, a quick read on what the Constitution says about demand for new states. Read

South Africa's former President Nelson Mandela, who has been in hospital since 8 June with a recurring lung infection, "continues to show improvement", a government statement says. But the 95-year-old remains in a critical if stable condition, it said. Read

The Delhi court has also ordered Ahmed to pay an amount of Rs 50,000. The prosecution which wanted the death penalty for Ahmed had argued that the ordeal Mohan Chand Sharma's family had to go through had to be taken into account while pronouncing the order in the case. However, the court ruled in favour of a life term and not the death sentence.

The encounter had taken place at flat number L-18, Batla House at Jamia Nagar locality on September 19, 2008, six days after serial bomb blasts had rocked Delhi, killing 26 people and injuring 133.

The police had reached Batla House on a tip off that some suspected militants involved in the blasts were holed up in the building.

Of the five, who were residing in the flat, Atif Ameen and Mohd Sajid were killed during the encounter in which Inspector Sharma had succumbed to the bullet injuries sustained during the gun fight while head constable Balwant was injured.

Apart from these two, one Ariz Khan alias Junaid had been declared a proclaimed offender while Mohd Saif was not made an accused in this case as according to the prosecution, he had surrendered peacefully and had not played any part in the entire incident.

Batla House encounter convict Shahzad Ahmed has been handed a life term Arguing that there were no mitigating circumstances favouring the accused, the prosecution had demanded Shahzad be sentenced to death. Shahzad is the only man arrested in the case.

He was found guilty last Thursday of killing inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, who led a Delhi Police team that stormed an apartment building in Batla House in Delhi's Jamia Nagar on September 19, 2008. Ahmed is a suspected Indian Mujahideen terrorist.

As it becomes certain that the announcement on Telangana statehood will be made after the UPA coordination committee and the Congress Working Committee meet this evening, last ditch efforts are being mounted by leaders who do not want the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.

Rediff.com's Anita Katyal reporting from New Delhi says that union Ministers from the Rayalseema and coastal regions of Andhra Pradesh including M Pallam Raju, D Purandeshwari, K Chiranjeevi, KS Rao and Panabalakshmi are presently closeted with Congress President Sonia Gandhi to plead their case for a united state.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy is also slated to meet Digvijaya Singh, AICC general secretary incharge of Andhra Pradesh, later this afternoon to press against the creation of Telangana. Jammu and Kashmir CM Omar Abdullah has said he will not support the formation of Telangana.

Meanwhile, preparations for the new state are on full swing. Digivijaya Singh along with Union Ministers Sushil Kumar Shinde, P Chidambaram and Ghulam Nabi Azad met Congress president Sonia Gandhi to  prepare for this evening's meetings.  

Actor-politician and senior BJP MP, Shatrughan Sinha has nosedived into controversy with his statement today that Bihar CM and former BJP ally was PM material. The JD-U and the BJP parted ways after the BJP elevated Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as its 2014 campaign incharge.

Sinha had earlier courted controversy when he said senior leaders in the BJP were not being given their due respect or positions, thereby suggesting that the deep chasm between the top rung of the BJP leadership remains unbridged.

Sinha was also one of the notable absentees, along with Advani, at the Goa conclave of the BJP in June, where Modi was chosen to head BJP's national campaign.

With a decision on the Telangana issue imminent, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde today said the situation in Andhra Pradesh is peaceful.

"Law and order situation in Andhra Pradesh is absolutely fine," he said after a meeting with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and other senior Congress leaders and Union Ministers.

The meeting is understood to have discussed the Telangana issue. Yesterday, the Centre had rushed additional 1,000 paramilitary personnel to Andhra Pradesh to deal with any situation arising out of a decision on Telangana.

Here's what Congress leader and Union Human Resource Development Minister M Pallam Raju says after his meeting with Digvijaya Singh this morning.

Raju has termed the possibility of a separate Telangana state as a matter of 'worry', and added that it would have a long-term impact on Andhra Pradesh.

He also said that he had expressed these views to party general secretary Digvijay Singh, who looks after Congress matters in Andhra Pradesh.

"I think the core committee has discussed the matter at length and we are all worried about it that whatever decision that they may make is going to have a long-term implication in Andhra Pradesh. We are worried about it and that's exactly what we've come to express to the general secretary' Raju said here today.

"The Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party's highest policy making body, is likely to take a decision on the formation of a separate state of Telangana today.

"According to television reports, the UPA Coordination Committee will first meet at around 4 pm. This will be followed by a meeting of the CWC at 5.30 pm. These meetings come a time when the Congress high command is said to be inclined towards bifurcating Andhra Pradesh notwithstanding the opposition from within the party and its state leadership.

Kapil Sibal's piece for the Hindu: Great leaders, it is said, are dealers in hope. The leaders of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) are dealers in despair. While in opposition, their leadership is constantly in despair about India. The objective is essentially political: they hope to receive public approbation in 2014. Read

The Planning Commission has once again embarrassed us with its claims of decline in poverty by 2011-12 to grossly unrealistic levels of 13.7 per cent of population in urban areas and 25.7 per cent in rural areas, using monthly poverty lines of Rs. 1000 and Rs. 816 respectively, or Rs. 33.3 and Rs. 27.2 per day. Read

India is still reeling from the deaths of 23 schoolchildren in the village of Dharmasati Gandawa in Bihar on July 17 after they ate a free school lunch that was made with cooking oil tainted with the pesticide monocrotophos. The police say that the cooking oil might have been kept in a container that once held the pesticide. Read

There are few better places to advertise products of mass appeal than the back of an auto-rickshaw. In the recent past, we have seen the gainful surface being used to sell, among other things, CDs of the self-help superstar Shiv Khera and books of the popular fiction phenomenon Chetan Bhagat.
Read

Election candidates convicted of or facing charges of crimes such as rape, murder and attempted murder are almost twice as likely to be elected in India as those with clean records, according to data released Monday by the Association of Democratic Reforms and National Election Watch.  Read

The court's ruling means that N Srinivasan may not be able to attend the Friday meeting of the BCCI working committee, its top decision making body. The BCCI had said the probe panel's clean chit means Srinivasan can resume charge.

The Bombay High Court has questioned the appointment of the BCCI panel to probe the spot-fixing scandal. The HC has ruled that the panel is illegal and and has directed the BCCI to form a new panel.

The two-member probe panel, which was investigating the spot-fixing and betting scandal in the Indian Premier League, submitted its report to the Board of Control for Cricket in India. The report says that no evidence of spot-fixing has been found against Rajasthan Royals' co-owner Raj Kundra and Gurunath Meiyappan, son-in-law of N Srinivasan, who stepped aside as the BCCI president till the time the probe by the two-member team is completed.

With the new HC order, there will be a fresh panel to probe Meiyappan and Kundra. The HC says that the entire episode needs to be re investigated. The BCCI is likely to appeal to the Supreme Court over the HC ruling.

Shares of Jet Airways today surged 8 per cent in early trade after the Rs 2,058 crore-deal under which Abu Dhabi based Etihad will hold 24 per cent stake in the domestic carrier got the approval of FIPB with major riders to maintain effective Indian control over the airline.

Cheering the move that was announced after the market hours yesterday, shares of Jet Airways opened the day on a positive note and as the trade progressed, it further gained 7.95 per cent to Rs 445 on the BSE.

Haven't a clue what this is about? Read

There is increasing disquiet within the Congress party over the manner in which Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi is railroading the Telangana decision disregarding the assessment of a large section of the party. The security apparatus of the country too feels that creating Telangana could be one of the bigger mistakes of this government. Read Vicky Nanjappa's report on Rediff.com.

The CWC is likely to pass a resolution, which may endorse creating a separate state of Telangana. The CWC resolution may address other demands for separate states and is likely to suggest setting of a state reorganisation committee.

Allies are expected to agree with the government's proposal. Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde is likely to explain the security repercussions of the proposal.

With the UPA government likely to concede the demand for creation of Telangana state, the call for carving out a separate Vidarbha state out of Maharashtra has started gaining heat.

The Congress' top three leaders - Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi - will attend a series of meetings between 4 pm and 5.30 pm today at the PM's 7 Race Course Road residence in Delhi. At the end of those deliberations, the ruling party is expected to announce a new Telangana state -- the 29th state in India.

Right now, a meeting is on at Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh's house. The UPA coordination committee to consult allies on the issue.

At 1:30 pm, Andhra Pradesh CM Kiran Kumar Reddy is expected to meet Digvijaya Singh. Pallam Raju, Chiranjeevi and 10 other AP Congress leaders are meeting Digvijaya right now.

Nation writes a letter to Arnab Goswami, says it never demanded any answers. Hilarious piece on The Unreal Times. Read

While on food, US President Barack Obama had a private lunch with his former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the White House, raising speculation about her much-rumoured run in the 2016 presidential elections.

Though the lunch was initially scheduled in the private dining room right off the Oval Office, the two decided to dine together outside during a pleasant summertime afternoon yesterday.

"It is largely friendship that's on the agenda for the lunch today. So it's not a working lunch as much as it is an opportunity for the two who saw each other on a pretty frequent basis over the course of the last four years to get a chance to catch up," White House Press Secretary said.

It is Obama who had invited Clinton for lunch; the first since February when she left her position as the Secretary of State, which she served successfully for four years in the first term of the Obama Administration.

Something's cooking in the White House and the President of India has a hand in it.A singularly special "envoy' from Rashtrapati Bhavan will call on US President Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday. Later today the unusual envoy, Machindra Kasture, is scheduled to be received in his Turtle Bay office by UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon. Read

Just over a month after Rupert Murdoch surprised his wife of 14 years with divorce papers, Wendi Murdoch has switched lawyers, a move signaling that the separation could take an acrimonious turn. Read

Two months after the arrest of three cricketers for spot-fixing in the Indian Premier League (IPL), the Delhi Police are all set to file a chargesheet on Tuesday naming underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his aide Chhota Shakeel as the fountainheads of the fixing and betting racket in India. Read

A series of major explosions at a Florida gas plant has injured several workers and left others missing.

The Orlando Sentinel reported today that Tavares City Administrator John Drury said 10 of 24 people working at Blue Rhino, a propane gas plant, have not been accounted for after the blasts. The blasts occurred inside the plant and blew the roof off and continued for an hour. 

Former RSS activist Naba Kumar Sarkar alias Aseemanand, whose confession in December 2010 led to the unraveling of a saffron terror conspiracy behind the 2006 Malegaon blasts apart from several other attacks, may himself be never charged in the case.

National Investigation Agency (NIA), which left him out in its recently filed chargesheet in the case, believes that Aseemanand was actually not involved in the blasts that killed 37 people. Read

At least 10 children are feared dead in a collision between a school bus and a truck on a national highway in Rajasthan this morning. The driver of the truck is absconding.  Twenty children are in hospital.  Early reports said the children, from Saraswati School, a private school in Ganganagar, were traveling to Hanumangarh, when their bus was hit by the truck. There were about 45 children in the school bus. -- NDTV

Picture used for representation only

Fox News reports: Ten to 24 workers are reportedly missing after series of large explosions rocked a gas plant in Lake County, Florida.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that the explosions began a little before 11 p.m. at Blue Rhino, a propane tank-exchange company in Tavares, Florida.

Read the full report here

Nine children have been killed and 10 injured as a bus collided into a tempo at Hanumangarh in Rajasthan.

More details are awaited.   

Taliban insurgents disguised as police attacked a prison holding hundreds of militants in northwest Pakistan with rockets and mortars and have reportedly escaped with 300 prisoners after a gunfight with security forces.

The attack around midnight, targeted the Central Prison in Dera Ismail Khan of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering the restive South Waziristan agency, hours before Pakistani lawmakers are expected to vote for the country's new president.

Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congressis just short of a clean sweep in the West Bengal panchayat polls. The party ousted the Left in south Bengal, but met with hurdles in the north, where the Congress and the Left were ahead of the ruling party in Jalpaiguri, Uttar Dinajpur, Malda and Murshidabad, reports The Times of India.

Read the full report here

The Indian Army is by far the most influential in the Asia Pacific region, a top American General said as he stressed on the importance of building military-to-military relationship between the two countries.

"As is in many of the Asia-Pacific countries, the army is the dominant service in those countries. India is a prime example. It is by far the largest service. It is by far the most influential," US Army Chief of Staff General Raymond T Odierno said.

"It is important for us to build army-to-army relations as we continue to re-balance the Asia- Pacific region," he told a Washington audience. Odierno recently returned from a trip to India during which he met his Indian counterpart and held a wide range of discussions with the top Indian military leadership. He also travelled to the Northern Command.

Fears of a new round of violent confrontations in Egypt loomed on Monday as the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies organized protest marches on Interior Ministry buildings nationwide in defiance of warnings by the military-led government, even as the European Union's top foreign policy official was visiting Cairo and talking to both sides in an attempt to mediate an easing of the crisis.

Hawaii was bracing for tropical storm Flossie Monday, even as the storm began to weaken. 

Militants have attacked a prison in northwestern Pakistan, in an apparent attempt to free jailed Taliban and Al Qaida terrorists.

Authorities say five people have died, including three German citizens, after a helicopter crashed into a lake in northwest Romania shortly after takeoff. 

Swiss television, citing local police, reports that 44 people have been injured, four of them seriously, in a head-on train collision in the west of the country. Public TV station SRF quotes Vaud canton (state) police spokesman Pierre-Olivier Gaudard as saying one person has yet to be recovered from the wreckage. 

Militants attacked a prison in northwest Pakistan today with bombs, rockets and hand grenade, sparking an intense fighting between the attackers and law enforcers. 

A Mass has been held in north-western Spain for the 79 people who died in a train crash.

A Saudi court sentenced today a rights activist to seven years in jail and 600 lashes for setting up a "liberal" network and alleged insults to Islam, activists said. 

The Israeli and Palestinian delegations to renewed peace talks have agreed in principle to continue negotiations for at least nine months, the US State Department said today. 

More than a dozen explosions, mainly from car bombs, ripped through marketplaces, parking lots, a cafe and rush-hour crowds in Iraq on Monday, killing at least 58 people and pushing the country's death toll for the month of July toward the 700 mark, officials said.

Egypt must brace itself for many more days, if not weeks, of political turmoil and violence. But there are no signs at this stage that a Syria-style conflict will engulf the country.

An Italian tour bus plowed through several cars before it crushed through a sidewall of a highway bridge and plunged into a ravine, killing at least 38 people, authorities said Monday.

Wearing a scarf to mask his face, the gunman held up at least three security guards and then fled the luxury Cannes hotel roughly a minute later with $136 million in diamond jewelry, more than twice the initial estimated worth of the loot.