Greek police has announced that more than 1,600 illegal immigrants will be deported following a major crackdown in Athens in recent days.
More than 6,000 people have been detained, though most were released.
Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias defended the crackdown. He said Greece’s economic plight meant it could not afford an “invasion of immigrants”.
He called the immigration issue a “bomb at the foundations of the society and of the state”.
“Unless we create the proper structure to handle immigration, then we will fall apart,” he said.
Greek police has announced that more than 1,600 illegal immigrants will be deported following a major crackdown in Athens in recent days
Some 88 illegal immigrants were sent back to Pakistan on Sunday.
The Greek authorities have increased the number of guards at the border with Turkey amid fears there may be a sudden influx of refugees entering Greek territory as the situation in Syria deteriorates.
More than 80% of migrants entering the European Union do so through Greece, which is in the grip of its worst recession in decades.
Some Greek politicians have called for the government to adopt a harder line on illegal immigration.
In the recent election, the far-right Golden Dawn party won enough votes to enter parliament.
Last week the party distributed free food to needy people outside the Greek parliament – but only if they proved they were Greek citizens and submitted important personal information including their blood type, the Greek newspaper Kathimerini reported.
Greece has frequently come under criticism for its handling of immigrants. Amnesty International accused it of treating asylum seekers like criminals and holding them in detention centres.
Greece has frequently called on other European nations to do more to help tackle illegal migration into the EU, arguing that it bears a disproportionate burden.
Standard Chartered bank illegally “schemed” with Iran to launder as much as $250 billion for nearly a decade, a US regulator says.
The New York State Department of Financial Services said that the bank hid 60,000 secret transactions for “Iranian financial institutions” that were subject to US economic sanctions.
Standard Chartered bank illegally "schemed" with Iran to launder as much as $250 billion for nearly a decade
Standard Chartered then covered up its transgressions, it said.
HSBC was recently accused by the US Senate of allowing money laundering.
HSBC has set aside $700 million to deal with those allegations.
The gunman suspected of shooting six people dead at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin on Sunday has been identified as Wade Michael Page, a former US serviceman.
Wade Michael Page, 40, was shot dead by police during the attack in a Milwaukee suburb, police said.
US officials said Wade Michael Page had been discharged from the military after being demoted.
Police will hold a press conference at 11:00 EDT.
A civil rights group, the Southern Poverty Law Center, has described Wade Michael Page as a “frustrated neo-Nazi”.
The gunman suspected of shooting six people dead at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin on Sunday has been identified as Wade Michael Page, a former US serviceman
The organization added that in 2010 Wade Michael Page said in an interview with a white supremacist website that he had been a member of the white-power music scene in 2000, and created a band called End Apathy, the Associated Press reports.
The gunman, described by witnesses as a bald, white man, entered the Wisconsin Sikh Temple in Oak Creek on Sunday morning and opened fire.
He killed six people and critically injured three people, including a policeman, before another officer shot the attacker dead.
The wounded police officer was shot eight or nine times in the face and extremities at close range with a handgun. But he was expected to make a full recovery, police said.
Authorities said the gunman had used a 9mm semi-automatic pistol, which was recovered at the scene.
Wade Michael Page reportedly served in the US Army between April 1992 and October 1998, ending his career at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
A federal official told the Associated Press news agency that Wade Michael Page was discharged after being reduced in rank from sergeant to specialist, although the official did not give a reason for the demotion.
According to US media, Wade Michael Page was a psychological operations specialist and a Hawk Missile System repairman.
He was reportedly disciplined in June 1998 for being drunk on duty, and discharged for “patterns of misconduct”.
Police said on Sunday they were treating the attack as an act of domestic terrorism.
But FBI Special Agent in Charge of the Milwaukee division, Teresa Carlson, said on Sunday night: “While the FBI is investigating whether this matter might be an act of domestic terrorism, no motive has been determined at this time.”
On Sunday night a warrant was issued allowing the authorities to search Wade Michael Page’s house in the town of Cudahy, a few miles from the temple.
Special Agent Thomas Ahern, of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, told ABC News that Wade Michael Page had tattoos which might suggest the attack was a hate crime.
But a member of the temple told CNN the attacker had a 9/11 tattoo on one arm.
The names of the victims have not yet been made public, although the president of the congregation and a priest were reportedly among the victims.
The temple in Oak Creek was founded in 1997 and is said to have a congregation of about 400 worshippers.
Wisconsin, which passed a law in 2011 allowing citizens to carry a concealed weapon, has some of the most permissive gun laws in the US.
A new study suggests that chemotherapy can undermine itself by causing a rogue response in healthy cells, which could explain why people become resistant.
The treatment loses effectiveness for a significant number of patients with secondary cancers.
Writing in Nature Medicine, US experts said chemo causes wound-healing cells around tumors to make a protein that helps the cancer resist treatment.
An UK expert said the next step would be to find a way to block this effect.
Around 90% of patients with solid cancers, such as breast, prostate, lung and colon, that spread – metastatic disease – develop resistance to chemotherapy.
A new study suggests that chemotherapy can undermine itself by causing a rogue response in healthy cells, which could explain why people become resistant
Treatment is usually given at intervals, so that the body is not overwhelmed by its toxicity.
But that allows time for tumor cells to recover and develop resistance.
In this study, by researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle looked at fibroblast cells, which normally play a critical role in wound healing and the production of collagen, the main component of connective tissue such as tendons.
But chemotherapy causes DNA damage that causes the fibroblasts to produce up to 30 times more of a protein called WNT16B than they should.
The protein fuels cancer cells to grow and invade surrounding tissue – and to resist chemotherapy.
It was already known that the protein was involved in the development of cancers – but not in treatment resistance.
The researchers hope their findings will help find a way to stop this response, and improve the effectiveness of therapy.
Peter Nelson, who led the research, said: “Cancer therapies are increasingly evolving to be very specific, targeting key molecular engines that drive the cancer rather than more generic vulnerabilities, such as damaging DNA.
“Our findings indicate that the tumor microenvironment also can influence the success or failure of these more precise therapies.”
Knight Capital is reported to be close to reaching a $400 million rescue deal with a group of investors, which would allow it to open its doors on Monday.
An IT glitch on Wednesday caused its trading to go haywire, losing it $440 million.
Knight Capital is a major market-maker on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), which means it helps make sure there is a market for particular shares if investors want to buy or sell.
The rescuers are reported to include Blackstone Group and TD Ameritrade.
Knight Capital is reported to be close to reaching a $400 million rescue deal with a group of investors, which would allow it to open its doors on Monday
The Chicago-based market-maker Getco and financial services companies Stifel Nicolas, Jefferies Group and Stephens Inc are also reported to be involved.
The consortium is expected to end up owning between 70% and 75% of Knight Capital.
TD Ameritrade is the biggest volume brokerage in the US, carrying out much of its futures, foreign exchange and bond trading through Knight Capital’s systems, which means it would be very inconvenient for it if Knight were to stop trading.
But even if the trader manages to resume operations on Monday, it will still have to persuade clients to return to it.
TD Ameritrade and Scottrade said they would be returning their business to Knight, but others such as Vanguard said they were not yet ready to trade with Knight again.
The market-maker may also face legislation from its shareholders, who have seen the value of their holdings plummet since Wednesday and will probably have to put up with further dilution if the rescue goes ahead.
Knight Capital said that a faulty upgrade to its trading software had caused numerous erroneous trades to be sent.
It is thought that the firm racked up its loss, equivalent to half of the value of its equity, in the space of just a few minutes.
The software glitch is thought to have affected Knight’s trading algorithms, which are computer programmes that automatically and speedily send out buy and sell orders based on market data and client requests.
Syrian television reports that a bomb has exploded on the third floor of the state TV and radio building in the capital, Damascus.
Three people were reported wounded and the explosion caused some damage but state TV continued broadcasting.
Rebel forces took over several areas of Damascus in recent weeks, but the army has since regained control of the city.
More than 20,000 troops are now aiming to wrest control of the country’s second city, Aleppo, from the rebels.
A bomb has exploded on the third floor of Syrian state TV and radio building in the capital, Damascus
The explosion in Umawiyeen Square in central Damascus had “ripped the floor” but had left the transmission of the three Syrian channels unaffected.
Pro-government TV channel al-Ikhbariya showed pictures of staff looking after an injured colleague. In June, gunmen attacked its offices, south of Damascus, killing seven people, including journalists and security guards.
Information Minister Omran al-Zoabi told Syrian TV that national media had been targeted in the “desperate and cowardly” attack. An investigation was under way to find out who planted the bomb inside the building, he added.
State TV’s buildings have also been attacked in many provincial cities, most recently in Aleppo.
The army has surrounded Aleppo, Syria’s commercial capital, and tanks have tried to push into two key rebel-held areas, Salah al-Din and Saif al-Dawla, which lie on the main road into the city.
A rebel commander was one of nine people killed in Salah al-Din on Monday, according to British-based group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The one-ton vehicle was reported to have landed in a deep crater near the planet’s equator at 06:32 BST (05:32 GMT).
It will now embark on a mission of at least two years to look for evidence that Mars may once have supported life.
A signal confirming the rover was on the ground safely was relayed to Earth via NASA’s Odyssey satellite, which is in orbit around the Red Planet.
The success was greeted with a roar of approval here at mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The mission has even already sent its first low-resolution images – showing the rover’s wheel and its shadow, through a dust-covered lens cap that has yet to be removed.
A first color image of Curiosity’s surroundings should be returned in the next couple of days.
NASA’s Curiosity rover has just landed on Mars
Engineers and scientists who have worked on this project for the best part of 10 years punched the air and hugged each other.
The descent through the atmosphere after a 570-million-km journey from Earth had been billed as the “seven minutes of terror” – the time it would take to complete a series of high-risk, automated manoeuvres that would slow the rover from an entry speed of 20,000 km/h to allow its wheels to set down softly.
The Curiosity team had to wait 13 tense minutes for the signals from Odyssey and the lander to make their way back to Earth.
After the landing, the flight director reported that Curiosity had hit the surface of Mars at a gentle 0.6 metres per second.
“We’re on Mars again, and it’s absolutely incredible,” said NASA administrator Charles Bolden.
“It doesn’t get any better than this.”
The mission team will now spend the next few hours assessing the health of the vehicle (also referred to as the Mars Science Laboratory, MSL).
This is the fourth rover NASA has put on Mars, but its scale and sophistication dwarf all previous projects.
Its biggest instrument alone is nearly four times the mass of the very first robot rover deployed on the planet back in 1997.
Curiosity has been sent to investigate the central mountain inside Gale Crater that is more than 5 km high.
It will climb the rise, and, as it does so, study rocks that were laid down billions of years ago in the presence of liquid water.
The vehicle will be looking for evidence that past environments could have favored microbial life.
Scientists warn, however, that this will be a slow mission – Curiosity is in no hurry.
For one thing, the rover has a plutonium battery that should give it far greater longevity than the solar-panelled power systems fitted to previous vehicles.
“People have got to realize this mission will be different,” commented Steve Squyres, the lead scientist of the Opportunity and Spirit rovers landed in 2004.
“When we landed we only thought we’d get 30 sols (Martian days) on the surface, so we had to hit the ground running. Curiosity has plenty of time,” he said.
Initially, the rover is funded for two years of operations. But many expect this mission to roll and roll for perhaps a decade or more.
Natalie Portman married Benjamin Millepied in a nighttime ceremony at Big Sur.
Natalie Portman wed the father of her child in the grounds of a private home in the dramatic cliffside California coastal town of Big Sur.
The two exchanged vows in a Jewish ceremony under a chuppah at 8:00 p.m., according to Us Weekly.
Running alongside the Pacific Coast Highway, Big Sur, famous for its links to the Beat poets, is a sparsely populated town where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise dramatically from the Pacific Ocean.
Natalie Portman married Benjamin Millepied in a nighttime ceremony at Big Sur
Earlier this year a friend told America’s In Touch magazine: “It’s one of Natalie’s favourite places – whenever she needs a break from LA she goes there.”
Just 60 guests were invited to the ceremony as the couple wanted the event to be as laid-back as possible.
The friend added: “This wedding is for their closest friends and family. It will be a very relaxed affair. They’re not sending out invites. Natalie may not even buy a new dress!”
Natalie Portman, 31, met choreographer Benjamin Millepied, 35, on the set of Black Swan in 2009 and they got engaged in December 2010.
When Natalie Portman won the Best Actress Oscar for the film, she paid tribute to Benjamin Millepied, calling him her “beautiful love” and thanked him for giving her the “most important role of my life”.
Natalie Portman gave birth to their son Aleph in June 2011 and at this year’s Academy Awards there was speculation they had already tied the knot as they both wore bands on their wedding ring fingers.
The Curiosity rover remains perfectly on course to make its Monday (GMT) landing on the Red Planet, NASA says.
The NASA robot’s flight trajectory is so good engineers cancelled the latest course correction they had planned.
To be sure of touching down in the right place on the surface, the vehicle must hit a box at the top of the atmosphere that is just 3 km by 12 km.
“Our inbound trajectory is right down the pipe,” said Arthur Amador, Curiosity’s mission manager.
“The team is confident and thrilled to finally be arriving at Mars, and we’re reminding ourselves to breathe every so often. We’re ready to go.”
Curiosity’s power and communications systems are in excellent shape.
The one major task left for the mission team is to prime the back-up computer that will take command if the main unit fails during the entry, descent and landing (EDL) manoeuvres.
The Curiosity rover remains perfectly on course to make its Monday (GMT) landing on the Red Planet
Curiosity – also known as the Mars Science Laboratory – has spent the past eight months travelling from Earth to Mars, covering more than 560 million km.
The robot was approaching Mars at about 13,000 km/h on Saturday. By the time the spacecraft hits the top of Mars’ atmosphere, about seven minutes before touch-down, gravity will have accelerated it to about 21,000 km/h.
The vehicle is being aimed at Gale Crater, a deep depression just south of the planet’s equator.
It is equipped with the most sophisticated science payload ever sent to another world.
Its mission, when it gets on the ground, is to characterize the geology in Gale and examine its rocks for signs that ancient environments on Mars could have supported microbial life.
Touch-down is expected at 05:31 GMT (06:31 BST) Monday 6 August; 22:31 PDT, Sunday 5 August.
It is a fully automated procedure. NASA will be following the descent here at mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The rover will broadcast X-band and UHF signals on its way down to the surface.
These will be picked up by a mix of satellites at Mars and radio antennas on Earth.
The key communication route will be through the Odyssey orbiter. It alone will see the rover all the way to the ground and have the ability to relay UHF telemetry straight to Earth.
And mission team members remain hopeful that this data will also include some images that Curiosity plans to take of itself just minutes after touching the ground.
These would be low-resolution, wide-angle, black and white images of the rear wheels.
They may not be great to look at, but the pictures will give engineers important information about the exact nature of the terrain under the rover.
A lot has been made of the difficulty of getting to Mars, and historically there have been far more failures than successes (24 versus 15), but the Americans’ recent record at the Red Planet is actually very good – six successful landings versus two failures.
Even so, NASA continues to downplay expectations.
“If we’re not successful, we’re going to learn,” said Doug McCuistion, the head of the US space agency’s Mars programme.
“We’ve learned in the past, we’ve recovered from it. We’ll pick ourselves up, we’ll dust ourselves off, we’ll do something again; this will not be the end.
“The human spirit gets driven by these kinds of challenges, and these are challenges that drive us to explore our surroundings and understand what’s out there.”
The mission team warned reporters on Saturday not to jump to conclusions if there was no immediate confirmation of landing through Odyssey.
There were “credible reasons”, engineers said, why the UHF signal to Odyssey could be lost during the descent, such as a failure on the satellite or a failure of the transmitter on the rover.
Continued efforts would be made to contact Curiosity in subsequent hours as satellites passed overhead and when Gale Crater came into view of radio antennas on Earth.
“There are situations that might come up where we will not get communications all the way through [to the surface], and it doesn’t necessarily mean that something bad has happened; it just means we’ll have to wait and hear from the vehicle later,” explained Richard Cook, the deputy project manager.
This was emphasized by Allen Chen, the EDL operations lead. His is the voice from mission control that will be broadcast to the world during the descent. He will call out specific milestones on the way down. He said there would be no rush to judgement if the Odyssey link was interrupted or contained information that was “off nominal”.
“I think we proceed under any situation as though the spacecraft is there, and there for us to recover – to find out what happened,” he said.
“That’s the most sensible thing to do. There are only a few instances I think where you could know pretty quickly that we’d be in trouble.”
At least seven people, including a gunman, have died in a shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, police says.
A police officer had been shot multiple times but was expected to survive, Greenfield Police Chief Bradley Wentlandt.
He said a “civilian” was also being treated for gunshot wounds.
Police cannot confirm reports that more gunmen are inside the building.
They say the situation remains “very fluid”.
At least seven people, including a gunman, have died in a shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin
Chief Bradley Wentlandt said that multiple calls had been made to the 911 emergency services number at about 10:25 local time.
He said a police officer had been sent to the scene and had “engaged an active shooter”, during which he had been shot multiple times.
Police have corralled journalists outside the temple and urged them not to broadcast aerial footage that could compromise the operation.
Oak Creek is a town of about 30,000 people in the south-east corner of the state.
Chief Bradley Wentlandt said police had identified four people dead inside the temple and three outside, including the gunman shot by police.
But he cautioned that he was giving the “best information we have now – it may change”.
He said security services were trying to co-ordinate the response and secure the scene, and said another briefing would be held at 15:30 local time.
Parminder Kaleka, who was waiting outside the temple, told the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel that she had phoned her brother-in-law – who she said was the priest of the temple – who was inside “at that time [the] shooting happened”.
“He told me 25 or more people got shot, at that time they don’t even know if they are dead or alive, so a lot of people got injured.”
She said she had heard her brother-in-law had also been shot, and said desperate families were gathered outside the temple waiting for news.
“This is a big tragedy for our church,” she said, saying everyone had always assumed it would be a place of safety.
Other relatives of people inside the temple at the time of the shooting said they had heard reports of children being held hostage inside the basement, but there has been no confirmation of this.
More than 20,000 Syrian troops are deployed around Aleppo, military sources say, as fighting rages for control of the country’s second city.
Fighter jets, helicopters and artillery have pounded rebel positions ahead of a feared full-scale assault within days.
Tanks are trying to push into two key rebel-held areas, the opposition says.
In Damascus, another vital battleground in the war, army sources said rebels had been pushed from a last stronghold. The rebels said they had withdrawn.
Meanwhile, Iran is seeking the release of 48 Iranians kidnapped on Saturday.
Iranian diplomats and Syrian state television blamed the abduction, which took place near the shrine of Sayyida Zainab in a suburb of Damascus, on “armed groups”.
Iran has now asked Turkey and Qatar, both of whom have good relations with the Syrian opposition, to help win the release of the Iranians who it says are pilgrims.
More than 20,000 Syrian troops are deployed around Aleppo as fighting rages for control of the country's second city
Rebels claimed on Sunday that some of those taken were members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, according to al-Arabiya television.
Separately, Syria’s first astronaut is reported to have joined the opposition and fled to Turkey, the latest in a series of high-profile defections.
Muhammed Faris met Free Syrian Army (FSA) commanders in Aleppo and gave them his support before crossing the border, the Turkish news agency Anatolia reported.
Meanwhile, a British photojournalist who was kidnapped and wounded by Islamist militants in northern Syria has said up to 15 of his captors were from the UK.
John Cantlie and Dutch photographer Jeroen Oerlemans were held at a camp for a week in July.
The Syrian military has been steadily building up its forces around Aleppo, massing large numbers of tanks and other armoured vehicles as well as troops, in preparation for a much more intense attack.
There is already fierce fighting in and around the city as troops try to push rebel forces out from southern and eastern districts.
The army is using tanks to try to break its way into the districts of Salah al-Din and Saif al-Dawla, which lie on the main road into the city, opposition sources say.
Areas where rebels are entrenched have been bombarded by government forces and clashes have been reported in several areas, including in the heart of the old city.
A spokesman for the rebels said they were continuing to push into the centre, moving towards the historic castle in the old city. Opposition sources said there was now fighting around the castle itself – but this has not been confirmed by independent sources.
The rebels, who have also increased their numbers, are well dug in and continue to try to extend the territory under their control, our correspondent says.
The biggest advantage for the government is the use of helicopters and fighter jets; but more troops will also have to fight their way into the city if they are to stand any chance of retaking it, and that will make it a much more even battle, he adds.
Abdel Jabar Oqaida, a commander of the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo, told the AFP news agency that the restive Salah al-Din district had “come under the heaviest bombardment since the battle began” on 20 July.
A senior government security official told the agency: “The battle for Aleppo has not yet begun, and what is happening now is just the appetizer… the main course will come later.”
The fight for the key strategic city has been intensifying over the last few days, with Syrian state television reporting that troops had inflicted huge losses on what it called “terrorist mercenaries” in Salah al-Din and in other nearby areas.
In the capital, government forces claimed to have pushed out rebel fighters from their final stronghold in the city, the southern neighborhood of Tadamon. Free Syrian Army forces withdrew, an opposition activist told AFP from Beirut.
State media has reported that the whole of Damascus is now in government hands, almost three weeks after opposition forces launched a series of attacks there. Such reports are impossible to verify and the situation on the ground is changing fast.
Activists say more than 20,000 people – mostly civilians – have died in 17 months of unrest.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will travel to Turkey on 11 August for talks on the conflict in Syria, the US State Department said.
Hillary Clinton is adding the stop in Turkey to her lengthy tour of Africa.
Reuters photographer Luke MacGregor’s perfectly timed snap captured the full moon forming a sixth ring in the Olympic display on London’s Tower Bridge.
The masterpiece quickly made the rounds online, with “Tower Bridge” becoming a top trending item on Twitter.
The perfectly aligned composition graced London’s skyline Friday night, on the bridge over the River Thames.
Reuters photographer Luke MacGregor’s perfectly timed snap captured the full moon forming a sixth ring in the Olympic display on London's Tower Bridge
Many praised the magnificent picture on Twitter, calling it “epic” and a “must see”.
But others couldn’t resist joking about the unsanctioned modification by nature of the logo, after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) went to painstaking efforts to prevent the unlicensed use of its brand by local retailers.
“Moon taken to court by IOC for violating Olympic brand ban,” one Twitter user quipped.
The official Twitter account for the IOC did not tweet in response to the lunar insertion into the organization’s trademarked logo.
The five interlocking rings represent the five parts of the world involved in the global games.
The symbol was designed in 1912 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games.
Danish actress and former model Brigitte Nielsen cut a lonely and worrying figure as she stumbled around an LA park yesterday, sparking fresh concerns over the state of her health.
Brigitte Nielsen, 49, looked disorientated and appeared to be drunk as she smoked cigarettes and drank from what looked like a vodka bottle in a public park in Studio City.
Dressed casually in trainers, skin-tight blue jeans with a purple sweater and a matching baseball cap covering her shock of bleached blonde hair, the star appeared haggard as she wondered around the park alone, before eventually falling asleep.
Brigitte Nielsen looked disorientated and appeared to be drunk as she smoked cigarettes and drank from what looked like a vodka bottle in a public park in Studio City
The mother-of-four appeared lost in thought as she stared into space, and puffed on numerous cigarettes.
Brigitte Nielsen was previously thought to have beaten her well-documented battle with alcohol after she entered rehab in 2007, so these latest pictures must be worrying for her four sons and husband, Mattia Dessi, who is 16 years her junior.
After taking a nap on the grass, Brigitte Nielsen is thought to have walked back to her home in Hollywood Hills.
The leggy 6’1″ actress found fame in the 80s as bombshell, Karla Fry in Beverly Hills Cop II. She then went on to have a high-profile relationship with Sylvester Stallone but they split just two years later in a very public divorce.
Lollapalooza music festival was halted on Saturday as Chicago was hit by a powerful thunderstorm.
Tens of thousands of concert-goers took shelter in parking garages that had been designated evacuation centres for the sold-out three-day event.
Crowds were let back into the Chicago lakefront venue three hours later after the worst of the storm had passed.
An extended curfew allowed Red Hot Chili Peppers, Saturday’s headline act, to perform as scheduled.
Australian band the Temper Trap and US rock group Alabama Shakes were among the acts whose sets were cancelled due to the interruption.
Lollapalooza music festival was halted on Saturday as Chicago was hit by a powerful thunderstorm
According to a statement on the Lollapalooza website, organizers “made the decision to evacuate Grant Park [at 15:30 CST] in response to warnings from the National Weather Service”.
“In all, more than 60,000 festival-goers and nearly 3,000 staff, artists and vendors were safely evacuated in 38 minutes.”
“We want to thank the tens of thousands of festival-goers, staff and artists who calmly and safely exited,” said a spokesperson for Lollapalooza promoter C3 Presents.
Jack White, Sweden’s Miike Snow and Britain’s Florence and the Machine are among the acts scheduled to perform on Sunday as this year’s festival draws to a close.
Organizers announced on Saturday that a Lollapalooza festival would be held in Tel Aviv, Israel in August 2013.
Versions of the event will also take place next year in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in March and Santiago, Chile, in April.
It appears that all US presidents, excepting Martin Van Buren, are cousins and descendants of medieval King John of England.
The remarkable discovery was made by 12-year-old BridgeAnne d’Avignon, of Salinas, California, who created a ground-breaking family tree that connected 42 of 43 U.S. presidents to one common, and rather unexpected, ancestor: King John of England.
“They all have the trait of wanting power,” BridgeAnne d’Avignon told the station WFMY.
King John, also known as John “Lackland”, is renowned for signing the Magna Carta in 1215, which limited the monarch’s power and helped form the British Parliament.
King John’s other claim to fame, or infamy, is that he was depicted as the villain in the Robin Hood tales.
It appears that all US presidents, excepting Martin Van Buren, are cousins and descendants of medieval King John of England
BridgeAnne d’Avignon, a seventh-grader at Monte Vista Christian School in Watsonville, started the project in hopes of tracing back her own bloodline in France, but somewhere along the way she decided to take her genealogical quest to the highest level.
In order to create the family tree, the 12-year-old spent months scouring through over 500,000 names in search of the “presidential Adam”.
Her 80-year-old grandfather, who has been tracing roots for nearly six decades, helped her make the presidential links.
BridgeAnne d’Avignon started with the first U.S. president, George Washington, she traced both the male and female family lines to make the connection.
Prior to her discovery, genealogists were only able to link 22 families of presidents, likely because they only focused on male bloodlines.
The only former US president not linked to King John is the eighth president, Martin Van Buren, who had Dutch roots.
The teen also found out that she is the 18th cousin of President Barack Obama. She even wrote to her new-found relative a letter to share her findings with him.
So far, however, BridgeAnne d’Avignon said she received only a generic response from the White House.
BridgeAnne d’Avignon created a poster of the presidential family tree and is selling signed copies of it in hopes of raising enough money to make a trip to Washington DC. The middle-school student says her goal is to hand-deliver a replica of her family tree to the president.
“I think we just all go back somewhere; it’s just a matter of proving it,” she said.
At least 19 people have died in southeast Turkey after Kurdish rebels launched an attack on a Turkish border post, according to local media.
Rebels fired rocket launchers on an army post in Hakkari province just after midnight, NTV in Turkey said.
Turkish military jets are pursuing them and bombing their escape routes, NTV said.
Several thousand Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels are believed to be based in hideouts in northern Iraq.
At least 19 people have died in southeast Turkey after Kurdish rebels launched an attack on a Turkish border post
According to the governor for Hakkari province, Orhan Alimoglu, six soldiers, two village guards and 11 Kurdish rebels were killed in the attack near the village of Gecimili.
He said 15 soldiers were injured in the incident.
The number of clashes between the PKK and the Turkish armed forces has risen in southeast Turkey over the past year.
A series of clashes in June left dozens dead.
The PKK is classified as a terrorist organization by the EU and the US.
It launched a guerrilla campaign in 1984 for an ethnic homeland in the Kurdish heartland in the south-east of Turkey.
It has now dropped its claim to an independent Kurdish state, but says it is fighting for autonomy and the cultural rights of the Kurdish people.
Stella McCartney designed the Team GB Olympics kit so it’s no surprise to see the fashion designer at the London Games.
Stella McCartney enjoyed a family day out at Olympic Park with her father Sir Paul, his wife Nancy Shevell and her husband Alasdhair Willis.
The foursome showed their support for the cycling in the velodrome and saw Laura Trott, Joanna Rowsell and Dani King scoop gold in the women’s team pursuit event.
Paul McCartney, 70, was seen with his arm around Nancy Shevell and as the British team pedalled to victory the singer was seen punching his arm in the air.
Stella McCartney enjoyed a family day out at Olympic Park with her father Sir Paul, his wife Nancy Shevell and her husband Alasdhair Willis
After the girls flew across the finish line Paul McCartney leaned over to kiss his daughter in celebration which made for a touching scene.
The Beatles singer was in such a jubilant mood he even decided to lead the crowd in a spot of singing and was seen enthusiastically belting out a tune.
Nancy Shevell was seen showing her support for Team GB and Stella McCartney’s designs in a grey 2012 T-shirt while Alasdhair Willis had a jacket in the kit’s colors.
Stella McCartney opted for a houndstooth jacket over a plain white T-shirt while Paul opted for a crisp white shirt and a pair of jeans.
Sir Paul MCartney was certainly getting into the spirit of the arena and waved a flag with gusto as well as taking part in a Mexican wave with plenty of passion.
His daughter has been supporting Team GB throughout the Games and is more than familiar with the Olympic park having visited every day.
But Stella McCartney will no doubt have enjoyed spending time with her father and Nancy Shevell, who unlike Paul’s previous wife Heather Mills, she gets on well with.
Kris Jenner was out with daughter Khloe Kardashian and her friend of 18 years, Nicole Richie, last night.
The group was at a Mexican restaurant and they were clearly in good spirits as they donned festive sombrero hats.
At what appeared to be the beginning of the night, the trio had chips and dip at their table plus a huge cocktail glass accompanied the snacks.
While Nicole Richie and Khloe Kardashian displayed large grins on their faces, 56-year-old Kris Jenner‘s relaxed facial expressed seemed to indicate she was getting a little worse for wear.
In one shot posted afterwards, Kris Jenner flaunted her ample chest for her over two million Twitter followers.
Kris Jenner flaunted her ample chest for her over two million Twitter followers
Opening up her black blazer and low-cut top she posted the caption on Twitter, via her Instagram account: “TWITTER OR TITTER??”
While some fans found the stunt funny and other issued insults Kris Jenner hit back: “Obviously hacked!!!!!!!!! Duh!!!!!”
But her daughter quashed her get-out clause and replied: “How are you hacked when you are posing for your own pictures???? LOL @KrisJenner drunkie.”
In other images the mother-of-six children could be seen screaming at the camera and gesturing the peace sign with a smile on her face.
As the designated driver for the night, a sober Khloe appeared to be having fun through her tipsy parent, judging by her series of tweets.
Last night she shared on the micro-blogging website: “Is it wrong to take advantage of your drunk mother???? Hummmmm.”
This morning Khloe Kardashian added: “I wonder if my mom has a hangover today?”
It seems Kris Jenner isn’t so coy after all despite suggesting she can’t watch her behavior back on showing of her E! show.
Kris Jenner admitted her own marital dust-ups with husband Bruce Jenner have made it particularly hard for her to watch this season of Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
The Kardashian matriarch told Us Weekly: “I watch it back and I’m like, <<Oh my God, I can’t watch>>. It’s so crazy painful that I can’t watch it.”
“Bruce and I are okay and that’s all that matters,” Kris Jenner said.
“The kids understand. It’s just hard to watch. I just can’t wait until Season 8!”
The periods of eating very little or nothing may be the key to controlling chemicals produced by the body linked to the development of disease and the ageing process.
This backs up recent studies on animals fed very low-calorie diets which found the thinnest (without being medically underweight or malnourished) are the healthiest and live the longest.
The key, say researchers at the University of Southern California’s Longevity Institute, is the hormone Insulin-Like Growth Factor 1 (IGF-1).
IGF-1 and other growth factors keep our cells constantly active. It’s like driving with your foot on the accelerator pedal, which is fine when your body is shiny and new, but keep doing this all the time and it will break down.
According to Professor Valter Longo, director of the Longevity Institute, one way to take the foot off the accelerator, and reduce IGF-1 levels dramatically – as well as cholesterol, and blood pressure – is by fasting.
“You need adequate levels of IGF-1 and other growth factors when you are growing, but high levels later in life appear to lead to accelerated ageing,” he says.
“The evidence comes from animals such as the Laron mice we have bred which have been genetically engineered so they don’t respond to IGF-1. They are small but extraordinarily long-lived.”
The periods of eating very little or nothing may be the key to controlling chemicals produced by the body linked to the development of disease and the ageing process
The average mouse has a life span of two years – but the Laron typically live 40% longer. The oldest has lived to the human equivalent of 160. They are immune to heart disease and cancer and when they die, as Prof. Valter Longo puts it: “They simply drop dead.”
Trying various fasts, for three days straight, and for two days a week, for six weeks, you can see dramatic results. Not only weight loss, but your cholesterol levels and blood pressure improve. These findings chime with recent reports that reaching a “healthy” Body Mass Index (BMI) may not be enough – we need to be as slim as possible to reduce our risk of illness.
The reason experts haven’t emphasized this is that they don’t want to trigger eating disorders or demotivate the overweight trying to get into the healthy weight range. There is only so long, however, we can shy away from this because the evidence keeps mounting.
Matthew Piper, of the Institute of Healthy Ageing, University College London, says: “Studies on monkeys show if we restrict the diet there is a delay in the onset of cancer, coronary heart disease and diabetes in later life as well as staving off dementia.”
Reducing our food intake over months or years could boost lifespan by 15 to 30%, experts believe.
Although the Scarsdale Medical Diet was a hit for the Seventies audience relatively new to slimming, it is brutal physically and mentally. But Dr. Rachel Thompson, of the World Cancer Research Fund, says: “Whatever your BMI, if it goes up so does your cancer risk. It’s better to be at the lower end of the healthy BMI range if possible.”
For every two points you jump up the scale, your risk of postmenopausal breast cancer goes up 3%.
The Scarsdale Diet is a high-protein, low-carbohydrate mix with a fixation on grapefruit.
Unlike other high-protein diets that allow you to stuff yourself with fatty bacon and cheese, this diet imposes strict limits.
Breakfast is always half a grapefruit and a piece of toast with no butter or jam. Lunch on day one is cold cuts of meat with all fat removed and a tomato.
Supper is fish with salad and a piece of bread followed by more grapefruit. You must also drink lots of water and, thankfully, black tea and coffee are allowed.
The first days are a blur of dry toast, fruit and sliced tomatoes and meat.
More than 30 people have been killed in Yemen after a suspected suicide bomber has struck a village in the southern province of Abyan.
Dozens more were wounded in the attack on a funeral service in the city of Jaar, Yemeni officials said.
Military officials told Associated Press the funeral was for a man linked to militias which had helped the army in their fight against al-Qaeda.
They said five suspected al-Qaeda militants had been killed earlier in the day.
The men were killed in a suspected US drone strike on their vehicle in Hadramawt province.
More than 30 people have been killed in Yemen after a suspected suicide bomber has struck a village in the southern province of Abyan
Local governor Jamal al-Aqal said in a statement that an investigation had been opened into the “criminal and cowardly” attack on the funeral service.
A witness told the AFP news agency that “the suicide bomber belonged to the al-Qaeda network”.
The Yemeni army carried out a major offensive against Islamist militants in Abyan earlier this year, taking control of the region in June with the help of civilian militias comprised of local tribesmen.
Separatist unrest and al-Qaeda-linked militants such as Ansar al-Sharia have plagued the south for years.
An era of unprecedented sporting domination came to an end at the London Olympics today, with a stunning victory for Michael Phelps in his last competitive race.
Swimming the butterfly leg of the 4X100 medley relay, Michael Phelps, 27, displayed his characteristic power to close down the leading Japanese team and claim a record 18th gold medal and pull clear as the most successful Olympian of all time.
Cheered on by an appreciative crowd at the London Olympic Park Acquatic Centre, the U.S team romped home and Michael Phelps punched the sky with delight as he pulled down the curtain on his stunning career competing in the pool.
It was almost unthinkable for the Phelps era to end with anything less than a performance that puts him atop the podium one last time, with yet another gold medal around his neck, his 22 in all.
An era of unprecedented sporting domination came to an end at the London Olympics today, with a stunning victory for Michael Phelps in his last competitive race
Michael Phelps picked up his 17th gold on Friday in his final individual race, the 100-meter butterfly, making the turn in seventh but rallying for a victory that was actually much more comfortable than his margin in the last two Olympics – a combined five-hundredths of a second.
He slammed the wall in 51.21 seconds for payback against the guy who edged him in the 200 fly, Chad le Clos of South Africa. No gliding into this finish, the move that cost Michael Phelps the gold in their first meeting.
“Once I’m done, I think there’s going to be a lot more emotion that really comes out.”
Don’t fret about American swimming after he’s gone. Led by a pair of high schoolers, the post-Phelps era will be in very good hands.
In what amounted to a symbolic changing of the guard, Michael Phelps’ victory in the 100 fly was sandwiched between 17-year-old Missy Franklin breaking a world record in the backstroke and 15-year-old Katie Ledecky taking down a hallowed American mark that was set nearly eight years before she was born.
“This has sort of turned into the youth Olympics,” Missy Franklin said.
“There’s so many members of the team that are coming up this year that are going to carry on this incredible generation.”
No one is more incredible than Michael Phelps.
It always takes him a while to get up to speed, but he brought it home like a champion. That, in a sense, sums up his Olympics farewell.
He got off to a sluggish start but has three victories in the past four days, giving him 21 medals overall.
“He has made a world of difference for swimming,” said Missy Franklin, who captured her third gold of the London Games.
“It’s helped people rethink the impossible.”
In Michael Phelps’ victory, Chad le Clos tied with Russia’s Evgeny Korotyshkin for the silver in 51.44. Milorad Cavic, who lost to Phelps by one-hundredth of a second in Beijing, tied for fourth in 51.81, not even close in their final meeting.
“I cannot be compared to Michael Phelps,” said Milorad Cavic, who also plans to retire after the London Games.
Drake has made no secret of his persistent respect for the late singer Aaliyah and he revealed a second tattoo that he has had done in honour of the Grammy nominated artist.
Drake’s new ink, which sits on his rib cage, is also a homage to his home town area of Toronto, Canada, too.
The picture shows a large 416, which is the area code of his home city, down his side but it is only partially shaded in so that the four also looks like a one.
Aaliyah’s birthday is January 16th or 1-16, which the tattoo clearly shows.
Drake revealed a second tattoo that he has had done in honour of Aaliyah
It is the second permanent ink tribute that Drake has on his body after he had the singers face plastered on his back.
The black and white photo came shortly after Drake announced that he is planning to release a posthumous album with Aaliyah.
As well as performing some duets on the album he will also be the executive producer behind it.
The surprising move has not been well received by Missy Elliot and Timbaland, who have publicly said that they should be approached if he intends to go ahead with the project.
Timbaland told Power 105.1: “I know they’re trying to drop some Aaliyah records, but if he do it, it should be with me and him and Missy.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but the proper to do that would be for me, him and Missy to be all on the record. I produce it.
”But to put it on his album or to put it on his record or whatever, however it be, it would just not be right.”
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