BlueStacks brings a boat-load of Android apps to the Surface Pro

Thanks to BlueStacks, Angry Birds can officially be found on almost every Surface.

(Credit:
BlueStacks)

Hunting around the Windows store for your favorite apps can sometimes be a sad and demoralizing experience, particularly if you just dropped about a grand for that slick new Surface Pro from Microsoft.

Enter the startup BlueStacks on its multi-colored digital steed prepared to liberate the Surface with its
Android app player, shouting "Freedom!" at the top of its lungs a la Mel Gibson in Braveheart.

Actually, you can just download a version of the BlueStacks App Player optimized for the
Surface Pro that was just released today, but I do recommend at least donning a bit of blue war paint before clicking to make for a more memorable experience.

BlueStacks' app player is a sort of emulator that allows the whole universe of more than 750,000 Android apps (malware and all) to run on a PC. The Windows and Mac versions were first released last year, and the new
Windows 8/Surface Pro download greatly expands the options for users who previously might have shed a tear when perusing the less than 40,000 apps currently offered on Microsoft's official Windows app market.

According to a release from the company, BlueStacks is officially supported Windows 8 software, which is perhaps the most interesting part of the tale, especially given jabs at Redmond like this one from BlueStacks CEO Rosen Sharma in the statement:

The number of mobile apps being written overall is expanding exponentially and Microsoft has not added apps to the handful it has. Our goal is to get people more value out of their Surface Pro and Win8 devices.

BlueStacks has struck a handful of deals with PC and component makers like AMD, Asus and Lenovo and says that BlueStacks will come pre-loaded on millions of PCs in the future.

Forget about zombies, folks, from here on out, it looks like we'll have to look for Angry Birds around every corner and on every, uh...Surface.

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Army Sgt. receives Medal of Honor

President Obama today awarded the Medal of Honor to Clinton Romesha, a former active duty Army staff sergeant, for his courageous actions during what Mr. Obama said has been described as "one of the most intense battles of the entire war of Afghanistan."

The Medal of Honor is the nation's highest military decoration and "reflects the gratitude of our entire country," Mr. Obama told Romesha from the East Room of the White House, where his entire troop was honored.

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Medal of Honor recipient on battle of Keating

As the section leader of his troop, at Combat Outpost Keating in Afghanistan's Nuristan Province, Romesha led a fight against a nearly overwhelming Taliban attack. On Oct. 3, 2009, nearly 300 insurgents armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades surrounded the outpost, where 53 Americans were stationed.

"To those Americans down below, the fire was coming from every single direction, they'd never seen anything like it," Mr. Obama remarked.

In an interview with CBS News correspondent David Martin, Romesha described the fighting that day as "unreal" and "up close and personal." After receiving the medal today, Romesha said, "I'm grateful that some of the heroes of Combat Outpost Keating are here with us. Any one of them will tell you were were not going to be beat that day."

Eight U.S. soldiers were killed, and more than 20 Afghan security troops were captured. Romesha suffered his own injuries but nevertheless tended to his comrades and called in air strikes to attack the enemy. The air strikes gave some soldiers cover to reach an aid station, while Romesha retrieved the bodies of fallen soldiers.

Romesha is the fourth living recipient to be awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq or Afghanistan. He specifically was serving as a Section Leader with Bravo Troop, 3d Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division. He now works in oil field safety and lives in Minot, N.D., with his wife and three children.

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Benedict's Legacy Marred by Sex Abuse Scandal

When Pope Benedict XVI resigns at the end of this month, he leaves behind a Church grappling with a global fallout from sex abuse and a personal legacy marred by allegations that he was instrumental in covering up that abuse.

As the sex abuse scandal spread from North America to Europe, Benedict became the first pope to meet personally with victims, and offered repeated public apologies for the Vatican's decades of inaction against priests who abused their congregants.

"No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse," the pope said in a 2008 homily in Washington, D.C., before meeting with victims of abuse for the first time. "It is important that those who have suffered be given loving pastoral attention." During the same trip to the U.S., he met with victims for the first time.

For some of the victims, however, Benedict's actions were "lip service and a public relations campaign," said Jeff Anderson, a Minnesota lawyer who represents victims of sex abuse. For 25 years, Benedict, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, headed the Vatican office responsible for investigating claims of sex abuse, but he did not act until he received an explicit order from Pope John Paul II.

In 1980, as Archbishop of Munich, Ratzinger approved plans for a priest to move to a different German parish and return to pastoral work only days after the priest began therapy for pedophilia. The priest was later convicted of sexually abusing boys.

Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images

PHOTOS: Church Sex Scandals

In 1981, Cardinal Ratzinger became head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the office once known as the Inquisition -- making him responsible for upholding church doctrine, and for investigating claims of sexual abuse against clergy. Thousands of letters detailing allegations of abuse were forwarded to Ratzinger's office.

A lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of the Survivors' Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), a victims' rights group, charges that as head of the church body Ratzinger participated in a cover-up of abuse. In an 84-page complaint, the suit alleges that investigators of sex abuse cases in several countries found "intentional cover-ups and affirmative steps taken that serve to perpetuate the violence and exacerbate the harm."

"Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, either knew and/or some cases consciously disregarded information that showed subordinates were committing or about to commit such crimes," the complaint says.

Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's lawyer in the U.S., told the AP the complaint was a "ludicrous publicity stunt and a misuse of international judicial processes."

In the 1990s, former members of the Legion of Christ sent a letter to Ratzinger alleging that the founder and head of the Catholic order, Father Marcial Maciel, had molested them while they were teen seminarians. Maciel was allowed to continue as head of the order.

In 1996, Ratzinger didn't respond to letters from Milwaukee's archbishop about a priest accused of abusing students at a Wisconsin school for the deaf. An assistant to Ratzinger began a secret trial of the priest, Father Lawrence Murphy, but halted the process after Murphy wrote a personal appeal to Ratzinger complaining of ill health.

In 2001, Pope John Paul II issued a letter urging the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith to pursue allegations of child abuse in response to calls from bishops around the world.

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Pope's sudden resignation sends shockwaves through Church

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict stunned the Roman Catholic Church on Monday when he announced he would stand down, the first pope to do so in 700 years, saying he no longer had the mental and physical strength to carry on.

Church officials tried to relay a climate of calm confidence in the running of a 2,000-year-old institution, but the decision could lead to uncertainty in a Church already besieged by scandal for covering up sexual abuse of children by priests.

The soft-spoken German, who always maintained that he never wanted to be pope, was an uncompromising conservative on social and theological issues, fighting what he regarded as the increasing secularization of society.

It remains to be seen whether his successor will continue such battles or do more to bend with the times.

Despite his firm opposition to tolerance of homosexual acts, his eight year reign saw gay marriage accepted in many countries. He has staunchly resisted allowing women to be ordained as priests, and opposed embryonic stem cell research, although he retreated slightly from the position that condoms could never be used to fight AIDS.

He repeatedly apologized for the Church's failure to root out child abuse by priests, but critics said he did too little and the efforts failed to stop a rapid decline in Church attendance in the West, especially in his native Europe.

In addition to child sexual abuse crises, his papacy saw the Church rocked by Muslim anger after he compared Islam to violence. Jews were upset over rehabilitation of a Holocaust denier. During a scandal over the Church's business dealings, his butler was accused of leaking his private papers.

In an announcement read to cardinals in Latin, the universal language of the Church, the 85-year-old said: "Well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of St Peter ...

"As from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours (1900 GMT) the See of Rome, the See of St. Peter will be vacant and a conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is."

POPE DOESN'T FEAR SCHISM

Benedict is expected to go into isolation for at least a while after his resignation. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said Benedict did not intend to influence the decision of the cardinals in a secret conclave to elect a successor.

A new leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics could be elected as soon as Palm Sunday, on March 24, and be ready to take over by Easter a week later, Lombardi said.

Several popes in the past, including Benedict's predecessor John Paul, have refrained from stepping down over their health, because of the division that could be caused by having an "ex-pope" and a reigning pope alive at the same time.

Lombardi said the pope did not fear a possible "schism", with Catholics owing allegiances to a past and present pope in case of differences on Church teachings.

He indicated the complex machinery of the process to elect a new pope would move quickly because the Vatican would not have to wait until after the elaborate funeral services for a pope.

It is not clear if Benedict will have a public life after he resigns. Lombardi said Benedict would first go to the papal summer residence south of Rome and then move into a cloistered convent inside the Vatican walls.

The resignation means that cardinals from around the world will begin arriving in Rome in March and after preliminary meetings, lock themselves in a secret conclave and elect the new pope from among themselves in votes in the Sistine Chapel.

There has been growing pressure on the Church for it to choose a pope from the developing world to better reflect where most Catholics live and where the Church is growing.

"It could be time for a black pope, or a yellow one, or a red one, or a Latin American," said Guatemala's Archbishop Oscar Julio Vian Morales.

The cardinals may also want a younger man. John Paul was 58 when he was elected in 1978. Benedict was 20 years older.

"We have had two intellectuals in a row, two academics, perhaps it is time for a diplomat," said Father Tom Reese, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. "Rather than electing the smartest man in the room, they should elect the man who will listen to all the other smart people in the Church."

Liberals have already begun calling for a pope that would be more open to reform.

"The current system remains an 'old boy's club' and does not allow for women's voices to participate in the decision of the next leader of our Church," said the Women's Ordination Conference, a group that wants women to be able to be priests.

"GREAT COURAGE"

The last pope to resign willingly was Celestine V in 1294 after reigning for only five months, his resignation was known as "the great refusal" and was condemned by the poet Dante in the "Divine Comedy". Gregory XII reluctantly abdicated in 1415 to end a dispute with a rival claimant to the papacy.

Lombardi said Benedict's stepping aside showed "great courage". He ruled out any specific illness or depression and said the decision was made in the last few months "without outside pressure". But the decision was not without controversy.

"This is disconcerting, he is leaving his flock," said Alessandra Mussolini, a parliamentarian who is granddaughter of Italy's wartime dictator. "The pope is not any man. He is the vicar of Christ. He should stay on to the end, go ahead and bear his cross to the end. This is a huge sign of world destabilization that will weaken the Church."

Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, secretary to the late Pope John Paul, said the former pope had stayed on despite failing health for the last decade of his life as he believed "you cannot come down from the cross."

While the pope had slowed down recently - he started using a cane and a wheeled platform to take him up the long aisle in St Peter's Square - he had given no hint recently that he was considering such a dramatic decision.

Elected in 2005 to succeed the enormously popular John Paul, Benedict never appeared to feel comfortable in the job.

"MIND AND BODY"

In his announcement, the pope told the cardinals that in order to govern "... both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me."

Before he was elected pope, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was known as "God's rottweiler" for his stern stand on theological issues. After a few months, he showed a milder side but he never drew the kind of adulation that had marked the 27-year papacy of his predecessor John Paul.

U.S. President Barack Obama extended prayers to Benedict and best wishes to those who would choose his successor.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the pope's decision must be respected if he feels he is too weak to carry out his duties. British Prime Minister David Cameron said: "He will be missed as a spiritual leader to millions."

The Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the worldwide Anglican communion, said he had learned of the pope's decision with a heavy heart but complete understanding.

CHEERS AND SCANDAL

Elected to the papacy on April 19, 2005, Benedict ruled over a slower-paced, more cerebral and less impulsive Vatican.

But while conservatives cheered him for trying to reaffirm traditional Catholic identity, his critics accused him of turning back the clock on reforms by nearly half a century and hurting dialogue with Muslims, Jews and other Christians.

After appearing uncomfortable in the limelight at the start, he began feeling at home with his new job and showed that he intended to be pope in his way.

Despite great reverence for his charismatic, globe-trotting predecessor -- whom he put on the fast track to sainthood and whom he beatified in 2011 -- aides said he was determined not to change his quiet manner to imitate John Paul's style.

A quiet, professorial type who relaxed by playing the piano, he showed the gentle side of a man who was the Vatican's chief doctrinal enforcer for nearly a quarter of a century.

The first German pope for some 1,000 years and the second non-Italian in a row, he traveled regularly, making about four foreign trips a year, but never managed to draw the oceanic crowds of his predecessor.

The child abuse scandals hounded most of his papacy. He ordered an official inquiry into abuse in Ireland, which led to the resignation of several bishops.

Scandal from a source much closer to home hit in 2012 when the pontiff's butler, responsible for dressing him and bringing him meals, was found to be the source of leaked documents alleging corruption in the Vatican's business dealings.

Benedict confronted his own country's past when he visited the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. Calling himself "a son of Germany", he prayed and asked why God was silent when 1.5 million victims, most of them Jews, were killed there.

Ratzinger served in the Hitler Youth during World War Two when membership was compulsory. He was never a member of the Nazi party and his family opposed Adolf Hitler's regime.

(Additional reporting by James Mackenzie, Barry Moody, Cristiano Corvino, Alexandra Hudson in Berlin, and Dagamara Leszkowixa in Poland; Editing by Peter Graff)

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US urges G20 to avoid competitive devaluation

WASHINGTON: The United States on Monday urged the Group of 20 economic powers, which holds a meeting later this week, to avoid competitive currency devaluation that would threaten economic growth.

"To ensure growth strategies in the world's largest economies are mutually compatible and promote global growth, the G20 needs to deliver on the commitment to move to market-determined exchange rates and refrain from competitive devaluation," said Lael Brainard, the Treasury official who will lead the US delegation to the meeting.

Japan's recent monetary easing has stoked fears, especially in Europe, of a currency war between the major economies as policymakers seek to devalue their currencies to make exports more competitive.

Brainard, the Treasury under secretary for international affairs, notably called on China to do more to let the yuan float more freely in the market.

"It will be important that China... reinvigorate the move to a market-determined exchange rate and interest rates," she said.

Brainard was speaking at a news conference focused on the G20 finance chiefs meeting that opens Friday in Moscow.

She underscored that some emerging-market economies have tightly run exchange-rate regimes with extensive capital controls.

"The asymmetry in exchange rate policy creates the potential for conflict" and "generates protectionist measures," she noted.

She also called on Beijing to improve its adherence to international trade rules.

The United States regularly accuses China, which had a record US$315 billion trade surplus with the US in 2012, of favouring its state-controlled businesses and subsidizing exports.

Saying that global growth was still weak after the 2007-2009 financial crisis, Brainard warned against complacency and recommended avoiding any severe budget adjustments.

"We must avoid jeopardising the recovery with a premature shift to restraint," she said.

One-third of the G20 advanced and emerging-market economies, which represent almost 90 per cent of the global economy, were in recession, she said.

Brainard said that the International Monetary Fund's recent admission that it had underestimated the impact of austerity plans on growth should raise a red flag when policymakers look at making budget cuts.

"The G20 has to do a better job balancing medium-term fiscal consolidation with the imperative of supporting near-term growth," she said.

"We need to do more to get people back to work."

As for the United States, Brainard said that big across-the-board spending cuts due to take effect March 1, known as sequestration, pose a serious threat to the country. Without an agreement in Congress to avert the cuts, the Defense Department budget will be cut by up to 10 per cent.

"It's important to avoid sequestration, which is a blunt and indiscriminate instrument that poses a serious threat to national security, domestic priorities and the economy, she said.

- AFP/jc

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How the humble light projector supercharges your tech

Here's one good, quick, easy way to find a vein: flash some light on it.

(Credit:
Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

With the flick of a switch and a flash of green light, a network of veins springs to the fore, mapped out below the surface of the skin. This is no medical lab -- it's a darkened suite inside San Francisco's designer Clift Hotel -- but I already see how the recent sting of a donation nurse thumping the inside of both elbows in search of a vein could, and should, be a time-consuming thing of the past.

The Vein Viewer Flex isn't new. In fact, the first generation of VeinViewer debuted in 2006. But its use of infrared light to illuminate a hidden network within the body is seldom appreciated outside of medical circles.

Light, it turns out, and the projectors that channel it, can do quite a bit.

Let's go back to why I'm here in this dimly-lit hotel room in the first place, staring at squiggly lines under infrared light. It's because DLP, a subsidiary of Texas Instruments (which also makes smartphone and
tablet processors), is showing off the various ways its partners use its chips.

There are the cinema-grade chips you encounter in every IMAX theater and even in home projectors like this one. Then there are the much tinier pico projectors show up in everything from phone-charging sleeves and specialty toys to tablets and smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy Beam.

The demo table also holds a 3D printer that uses UV light produced from the DLP chipset to help cure the resin, a technique that DLP claims will create more accurate printables with higher-resolution details.

Beckoning me to a second room within the suite, the TI team reveals a tall, thick bust of a
car console, illuminated from behind by -- you guessed it -- a DLP projector chipset.

The console idea, which CNET car tech writers saw in a concept Bentley this past January, features a long touch screen and dials that are devoid of any circuitry.

Although you twist the volume and jog wheels as you would in any other car, it's an infrared camera and infrared light that track your motions and respond with shifting 1080p HD imagery. The result of the demo was a responsive display that supports taps, gestures, and logic to determine if it's the driver or passenger calling the shots.

Since the car console uses no traditional capacitive film, it you won't have to worry if you're wearing gloves. DLP thinks

Samsung Galaxy Beam's cool, built-in projector

DLP is also working on an even more involved heads-up display that inserts some augmented reality into the mix. Sometime starting in 2016, look for your navigation assistant to project a turn signal in your sight line so it looks like it's in the middle of the road, marking out exactly where you want to turn, rather than as a vague suggestion that prompts you to careen down an alley. Expect German car-makers to lead the way.

DLP isn't the only maker of projection chipsets by a long shot, and its partners and developers have long hacked its components for commercial and home-grown use.

Now, though, the company is taking a more proactive approach in supplying drivers and software to developers, so its projectors show up in more places, maybe even in your tablet or living room.

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Graham threatens to hold up Hagel, Brennan votes

(CBS News) Until President Obama details his actions on the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, Sen. Lindsey Graham will block votes on his nominees to head the Department of Defense and the CIA, the South Carolina Republican vowed today on "Face the Nation."

Graham said he'll heed advice floated by fellow Armed Services Committee member Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., not to filibuster Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., as defense secretary and John Brennan as CIA director. But, citing a recently unearthed letter that then-Sen. Joe Biden sent in 2005 pressing for further information before a vote on former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, Graham said he's going to urge the message among his colleagues, "No confirmation without information," and will place a hold on the confirmation votes - an action any Senate member reserves the right to take - until the White House explains its garbled talking points following the Libya attack.

Five days after what would come to be deemed an attack by extremists with "linkages" to al Qaeda, Amb. Susan Rice appeared on "Face the Nation" and said the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was "spontaneous," prompted by an inflammatory anti-Muslim video that had led to protests in Egypt and elsewhere. Graham, who led the protest that resulted in Rice removing her name from the secretary of state shortlist, issued the charge of "stonewalling" by the administration.

"I'm not going to stop until we get to the bottom of it," Graham said. "We know nothing about what the president did on the night of September 11, during a time of national crisis, and the American people need to know what their commander-in-chief did, if anything, during the eight-hour attack.

"...I don't know what the president did that evening," he continued. "I don't know if he ever called anyone. I know he never talked to the secretary of defense. I know that he never talked to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. ...I know the secretary of state never talked to the secretary of defense. This was incredibly mismanaged. And what we know now, it seems to be a very disengaged president."

Appearing in the same segment, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., called Graham's threat to stall the nominations "unprecedented and unwarranted," and said he hopes the Senate gets a chance to vote on Hagel and Brennan. House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., later in the show said he agreed with Graham that there was a "catastrophic failure in the decisions, from a security perspective, from the State Department" that ran up to the attack. "I do think answers are appropriate," he said.

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$1M Reward for Capture of Fugitive Ex-Cop Dorner

A $1 million reward was offered today for information leading to the arrest of Christopher Dorner, as authorities in Big Bear, Calif., scaled back their search for the disgruntled ex-cop, who is suspected in three revenge killings.

"This is the largest local reward ever offered, to our knowledge," Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said at a news conference today. "This is an act of domestic terrorism. This is a man who has targeted those that we entrust to protect the public. His actions cannot go unanswered."

The money for the reward was pooled by businesses, government, local law enforcement leaders and individual donors, Beck said.

PHOTOS: Former LAPD Officer Suspected in Shootings

The reward comes on the fourth day of a manhunt for Dorner, who has left Southern California on edge after he allegedly went on a killing spree last week to avenge his firing from the police force. Dorner outlined his grievances in a 6,000 word so-called "manifesto" and said he will keep killing until the truth is known about his case.

Dorner's threats have prompted the LAPD to provide more than 50 law enforcement families with security and surveillance detail, Beck said.

Authorities are chasing leads, however they declined to say where in order to not impede the investigation.

Dorner's burned-out truck was found Thursday near Big Bear Lake, a popular skiing destination located 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

Irvine Police Department/AP Photo

Manhunt for Alleged Cop Killer Heads to California Mountains Watch Video

Christopher Dorner Search: Officials Search for Ex-officer in the Mountains Watch Video

Hundreds of Officers on Hunt for Alleged Cop Killer Watch Video

Investigators found two AR-15 assault rifles in the burned-out truck Dorner abandoned, sources told ABC News.

The truck had a broken axle, which may be the reason he decided to set fire to it, the police sources said.

Full Coverage: Christopher Jordan Dorner

Officers have spent the past couple of days going door-to-door and searching vacant cabins. The manhunt was scaled back to 25 officers and one helicopter in the resort town today, according to the San Bernadino Sheriff's Office.

On Saturday, Beck announced he would reopen the investigation into Dorner's firing but said the decision was not made to "appease" the fugitive ex-cop.

"I feel we need to also publicly address Dorner's allegations regarding his termination of employment, and to do so I have directed our Professionals Standards Bureau and my Special Assistant for Constitutional Policing to completely review the Dorner complaint of 2007; To include a re-examination of all evidence and a re-interview of witnesses," Beck said. "We will also investigate any allegations made in his manifesto which were not included in his original complaint."

Dorner is suspected of killing Monica Quan and her fiancé Keith Lawrence last Sunday in their car in the parking lot of their Irvine, Calif., condominium complex. Both were struck with multiple gunshot wounds.

Quan's father, Randall Quan, was a retired captain with the LAPD and attorney who represented Dorner before a police review board that led to Dorner's dismissal from the force in 2008.

On Wednesday, after Dorner was identified as a suspect in the double murder, police believe he ambushed two Riverside police officers, killing one and wounding the other.

The next day, Randall Quan reported he received a taunting call from a man claiming to be Dorner who told him that he "should have done a better job of protecting his daughter," according to court documents documents.

Anyone with information leading to the arrest of Christopher Dorner is asked to call the LAPD task force at 213-486-6860.

ABC News' Dean Schabner, Jack Date, Pierre Thomas, Jason Ryan and Clayton Sandell contributed to this report.

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Gunbattle rocks Gao after rebels surprise French, Malians

GAO, Mali (Reuters) - Islamist insurgents launched a surprise raid in the heart of the Malian town of Gao on Sunday, battling French and local troops in a blow to efforts to secure Mali's recaptured north.

Local residents hid in their homes or crouched behind walls as the crackle of gunfire from running street battles resounded through the sandy streets and mud-brick houses of the ancient Niger River town, retaken from Islamist rebels last month by a French-led offensive.

French helicopters clattered overhead and fired on al Qaeda-allied rebels armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades who had infiltrated the central market area and holed up in a police station, Malian and French officers said.

The fighting inside Gao was certain to raise fears that pockets of determined Islamists who have escaped the lightning four-week-old French intervention in Mali will strike back with guerrilla attacks and suicide bombings.

After driving the bulk of the insurgents from major northern towns such as Timbuktu and Gao, French forces are trying to search out their bases in the remote and rugged Adrar des Ifoghas mountains, far up in the northeast.

But with Mali's weak army unable to secure recaptured zones, and the deployment of a larger African security force slowed by delays and kit shortages, vast areas to the rear of the French forward lines now look vulnerable to guerrilla activity.

"They infiltrated the town via the river. We think there were about 10 of them. They were identified by the population and they went into the police station," said General Bernard Barrera, commander of French ground operations in Mali.

He told reporters in Gao that French helicopters had intervened to help Malian troops pinned down by the rebels, who threw grenades from rooftops.

Malian gendarme Colonel Saliou Maiga told Reuters the insurgents intended to carry out suicide attacks in the town.

SUICIDE BOMBERS

No casualty toll was immediately available. But a Reuters reporter in Gao saw one body crumpled over a motorcycle. Malian soldiers said some of the raiders may have come on motorbikes.

The gunfire in Gao erupted hours after French and Malian forces reinforced a checkpoint on the northern outskirts that had been attacked for the second time in two days by a suicide bomber.

Abdoul Abdoulaye Sidibe, a Malian parliamentarian from Gao, said the rebel infiltrators were from the MUJWA group that had held the town until French forces liberated it late last month.

MUJWA is a splinter faction of al Qaeda's North African wing AQIM which, in loose alliance with the home-grown Malian Islamist group Ansar Dine, held Mali's main northern urban areas for 10 months until the French offensive drove them out.

Late on Saturday, an army checkpoint in Gao's northern outskirts came under attack by a group of Islamist rebels who fired from a road and bridge that lead north through the desert scrub by the Niger River to Bourem, 80 km (50 miles) away.

"Our soldiers came under heavy gunfire from jihadists from the bridge ... At the same time, another one flanked round and jumped over the wall. He was able to set off his suicide belt," Malian Captain Sidiki Diarra told reporters.

The bomber died and one Malian soldier was lightly wounded, he added. In Friday's motorbike suicide bomber attack, a Malian soldier was also injured.

Diarra described Saturday's bomber as a bearded Arab.

Since Gao and the UNESCO World Heritage city of Timbuktu were retaken last month, several Malian soldiers have been killed in landmine explosions on a main road leading north.

French and Malian officers say pockets of rebels are still in the bush and desert between major towns and pose a threat of hit-and-run guerrilla raids and bombings.

"We are in a dangerous zone... we can't be everywhere," a French officer told reporters, asking not to be named.

One local resident reported seeing a group of 10 armed Islamist fighters at Batel, just 10 km (6 miles) from Gao.

OPERATIONS IN NORTHEAST

The French, who have around 4,000 troops in Mali, are now focusing their offensive operations several hundred kilometers (miles) north of Gao in a hunt for the Islamist insurgents.

On Friday, French special forces paratroopers seized the airstrip and town of Tessalit, near the Algerian border.

From here, the French, aided by around 1,000 Chadian troops in the northeast Kidal region, are expected to conduct combat patrols into the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains.

The remaining Islamists are believed to have hideouts and supply depots in a rugged, sun-blasted range of rocky gullies and caves, and are also thought to be holding at least seven French hostages previously seized in the Sahel.

The U.S. and European governments back the French-led operation as a defense against Islamist jihadists threatening wider attacks, but rule out sending their own combat troops.

To accompany the military offensive, France and its allies are urging Mali authorities to open a national reconciliation dialogue that addresses the pro-autonomy grievances of northern communities like the Tuaregs, and to hold democratic elections.

Interim President Dioncounda Traore, appointed after a military coup last year that plunged the West African state into chaos and led to the Islamist occupation of the north, has said he intends to hold elections by July 31.

But he faces splits within the divided Malian army, where rival units are still at loggerheads.

(Additional reporting by Tiemoko Diallo and Adama Diarra in Bamako; Writing by Joe Bavier and Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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Football: Barca boss delighted with six-shooting kings

MADRID: Barcelona assistant manager Jordi Roura was delighted after his side's goals in their 6-1 win over Getafe were scored by six different players.

Alexis Sanchez and Lionel Messi took advantage of two wonderful passes from Andres Iniesta to put the Catalans 2-0 up within 13 minutes.

Barca then passed up a host of chances to add to their lead before half-time but found their range again after the break as David Villa and Cristian Tello made it 4-0.

And there was a deserved goal for Iniesta in stoppage time after Alvaro Vasquez had pulled one back for Getafe before Gerard Pique rounded off the scoring.

Barca's victory also extended their lead at the top of the table to 12 points when Atletico Madrid failed to win on the road for the fifth league game in a row as they lost 2-1 at Rayo Vallecano.

"It's strange but certainly positive to have six goals with six different scorers," he said.

"We are very happy with the performance of the team because so many players had just come from playing with their national team. As a group they played extraordinarily well."

With those internationals in mind Roura had given an outing to some of his fringe players and he was particularly happy with the form shown by Sanchez and Alex Song.

"Song had an incredible game and we have to highlight how solid he was. Sanchez is a much loved and respected member of the squad. Today he scored a good goal and that has given him confidence.

"In the past few games he was a little anxious but he has a great capacity to work hard. His fight and the pressure he applies is contagious and he is very important for us."

Roura also made a special mention of the contribution made by the Barca fans as more than 85,000 turned up for their first midday kick-off at the Camp Nou in nearly 50 years.

"I would like to thank the fans today because it is an unusual kick-off time. There was a great atmosphere, I saw a lot of kids and I think it has been a nice day for everyone."

Sanchez himself was particularly pleased to have found the net for the first time in the league this season after receiving a lot of criticism for his lack of production in recent weeks.

"This goal was special, but I have never stopped believing that I am a good player," he said.

"I know how I am and what I can do. Before I created chances but the ball wouldn't go in."

Getafe boss Luis Garcia explained how his side were powerless to stop Barca despite his intention to pressure them high up the field.

"You can't do much more because you don't have the ball. You can't take the ball off them and when you do it is after a great effort and you are still far from their goal," he said.

"We tried not to just sit back because last year we left here with a bad feeling having done that.

"It is very difficult. If you had seen my talks during the week you would understand that we wanted to be more ambitious but here you can't be."

Rayo Vallecano move into sixth with Real Sociedad just a point behind them in seventh as they beat Real Zaragoza 2-1.

But the result of the day elsewhere was arguably Espanyol's incredible 4-0 demolition of Athletic Bilbao at San Memes which moved them ahead of the Basques and into 13th.

- AFP/jc

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