German far-right protests against refugees turn violent

Riot police broke up far-right protesters in Cologne on Saturday as they marched against Germany's open-door migration policy after asylum seekers were identified as suspects in mass assaults on women on New Year's Eve.

The attacks, ranging from sexual molestation to theft, shocked Germany, which took in 1.1 million migrants and refugees in 2015 under asylum laws championed by Chancellor Angela Merkel, despite fervent opposition.

Shortly before Saturday's protest began, Merkel hardened her stance toward refugees, promising expulsion for criminals and a longer-term reduction in refugee numbers to Germany.

Police said around 1,700 people attended the rally organized by the far-right anti-Islam PEGIDA movement, which has seized on the alleged involvement of refugees in the New Year attacks in Cologne as proof Merkel's policy is flawed.

Demonstrators, some of whom bore tattoos with far-right symbols such as a skull in a German soldier's helmet, had chanted "Merkel must go" and "this is the march of the national resistance". "Rapefugees not welcome," one banner read.

A police spokesman said roughly half of those at the PEGIDA protest were from the 'hooligan scene'. Some in the crowd threw bottles and firecrackers at officers, and riot police used water cannons to disperse the protesters.

Two people were injured in the clash, and police detained a number of demonstrators.

PEGIDA, or Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, almost fizzled out last year when its leader resigned after a photo was published of him posing as Adolf Hitler.

But its ranks have swelled as resentment spread of Merkel's welcoming stance to refugees.

In all, about 1,700 police officers were on the streets of Cologne, dwarfing the number on duty during the chaotic scenes of New Year's Eve when at least 120 women were robbed or sexually molested.

"The events on New Year's Eve led to a lot of emotion," said a police spokesman. "We had feared that emotions would boil over."

About 1,300 people attended a rival left-wing protest in Cologne, according to police.

"No means no. Keep away from our bodies," read one sign held by one of the demonstrators, most of them women.

Chancellor Merkel's remarks on Saturday were in stark contrast to her earlier optimism about the influx to Germany, which has taken in far more refugees than any other European country.

Her 'we can do it' slogan irritated many Germans, uneasy about the mass arrivals.

"The right to asylum can be lost if someone is convicted, on probation or jailed," Merkel said after a meeting of the leadership of her Christian Democrats party that was overshadowed by the attacks in Cologne and other cities.

"Serial offenders who repeatedly rob or repeatedly affront women must feel the full force of the law," Merkel told journalists in Mainz.

Under German law, asylum seekers are now typically only deported if they have been sentenced to at least three years in prison, and providing their lives are not at risk at home.

Merkel's conservative party said it wanted to reduce and control migration to Germany, and send those who had been refused asylum home promptly. Such a move would require a change to German law.

"Cologne changed everything," Volker Bouffier, one of the conservative party's most senior members, told the meeting, according to people present.

Earlier in the week, German federal police said they had identified 32 people who were suspected of playing a role in the attacks on women on Cologne, 22 of whom were in the process of seeking asylum in Germany.

They documented 76 criminal acts, most of them involving some form of theft, and seven linked to sexual molestation.

Of the suspects, nine were Algerian, eight Moroccan, five Iranian and four Syrian. Three German citizens, an Iraqi, a Serb and a U.S. citizen were also identified.

Similar assaults happened in other cities such as Frankfurt.

Winning numbers for near $950M Powerball jackpot announced

Powerball announced the six winning numbers for a record jackpot of nearly $950 million on Saturday, setting off a scramble among hopeful lottery players across the country to check if they held a lucky ticket.

The winning numbers — disclosed live on television and online — were 16-19-32-34-57 and the Powerball number 13. All six numbers must be correct to win, although the first five can be in any order. Texas state lottery spokeswoman Kelly Cripe said it was too early to know if any winning tickets were sold.

Cripe said the estimated size of the jackpot reached $949.8 million, the largest lottery prize in U.S. history. Earlier in the day, the Multi-State Lottery Association had said the jackpot was $900 million.

The record jackpot lured an unprecedented frenzy of purchases. If no one matches all the numbers on Saturday night, the next drawing is expected to soar to $1.3 billion.

Attorney John Belferman of Barnesville, Maryland, stopped in to Continental Wine & Liquor in downtown Washington to pick up a ticket on Saturday afternoon. He'll take a break if he wins.

"If I don't drop dead of a heart attack, I'll finish the work I'm doing now and maybe take a vacation," he said.

Belferman said he doesn't have to win the big jackpot.

"I'm not greedy," he said. "I'll take third place."

Since Nov. 4, the Powerball jackpot has grown from its $40 million starting point as no one has won the jackpot. Such a huge jackpot was just what officials with the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs the Powerball game, hoped for last fall when they changed the odds of matching all the Powerball numbers, from about one in 175 million to one in 292.2 million. By making it harder to win a jackpot, the tougher odds made the ever-larger prizes inevitable.

The U.S. saw sales of $277 million on Friday alone and more than $400 million were expected Saturday, according to Gary Grief, the executive director of the Texas Lottery.

The chance of no one hitting all five initial numbers and the Powerball number was growing slimmer, Grief said, anticipating that about 75 percent of all combinations will have been bought.

Anndrea Smith, 30, said she already had spent more than she usually does on Powerball tickets.

"I bought four yesterday, and I usually never buy any," said Smith, manager of Bucky's gas station and convenience store in Omaha, Nebraska. She's not alone, saying the store sold "about $5,000 worth of tickets yesterday. Usually on a Friday, we might sell $1,200 worth."

If she wins, her first purchase will be "a warm vacation," she said, as the temperature outside hovered in the single digits. "I'd share with family, too."

Sonja Peterson of Minneapolis said she never buys Powerball tickets, but on Saturday, she bought two with random numbers at Bobby & Steve's Auto World gas station — one for her, one for her boyfriend.

"We said, 'Let's have a little fun. Let's buy some tickets today,'" Peterson said.

US deploys B-52 bomber after North Korea's nuclear test

Kim Jong-un called the alleged hydrogen bomb test 'a self-defensive step' meant to protect the region [File: EPA]

The US has deployed a B-52 bomber on a low-level flight over its ally South Korea in a show of force following North Korea's nuclear test last week.

North Korea's fourth nuclear test angered both the United States and China, although the US government and weapons experts doubt the North's claim that the device was a hydrogen bomb.

The B-52, based in Guam and capable of carrying nuclear weapons, was flanked by two fighter planes, a US F-16 and a South Korean F-15, in a low flight over Osan Air Base on Sunday, before returning to Guam, the US military said in a statement.

Osan is south of Seoul and roughly 100 km from the North Korean border. The flight was "in response to recent provocative action by North Korea", the US military said.

"B-52 missions reinforce the US commitment to the security of our allies and partners, and demonstrate one of the many alliance capabilities available for the defence of the Republic of Korea," the US military said.

"The US maintains an ironclad commitment to the defence of our partner nation, and this combined mission demonstrates the strength of the alliance between the United States and the Republic of Korea and the resolve of both nations to maintain stability and security on the Korean Peninsula."

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un maintains that Wednesday's test was of a hydrogen bomb and said it was a self-defensive step against a US threat of nuclear war.

Any hint of the US'' nuclear power enrages Pyongyang, which links its own pursuit of atomic weapons to what it sees as past nuclear-backed moves by the US to topple its government.

Bomb test

The B-52 flight follows a victory tour by North Korean leader Kim to celebrate the country's widely disputed claim of a hydrogen bomb test. Kim is seeking to rally pride in an explosion viewed with outrage by much of the world and to boost his domestic political goals.

There was no immediate reaction from North Korea's state media to the B-52 fly-over, which also happened after North Korea's third nuclear test in 2013.

Since Friday, South Korea has been blasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda from huge speakers along the border, and the North is reportedly using speakers of its own in an attempt to keep its soldiers from hearing the South Korean messages.

Canada’s Trudeau Condemns Pepper Spray Attack on Syrian Refugees

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau harshly condemned a pepper spray attack on Syrian refugees on Saturday, tweeting that the violent act “isn’t who we are.”

The attack, which took place late Friday night during a “Welcome Night” at the Muslim Association of Canada Centre in Vancouver, was perpetrated by an unknown man on a bicycle who pepper sprayed a crowd of recently arrived refugees while they were waiting for a bus, the CBC reports.

Approximately 30 victims, including women and children, were treated by paramedics for exposure to pepper spray.

Native Canadian Nawal Addo, 17, was with the refugees when they were attacked. “We were just standing outside and we all just started coughing and our eyes were burning,” she told the network. “We were really confused about what was going on.”

The National Council of Canadian Muslims said authorities should investigate the attack as a possible hate crime.

Sean Penn Met With Drug Kingpin ‘El Chapo’ Before Capture

Sean Penn secretly met with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera while he was evading authorities following an escape from a Mexican prison last year to conduct an interview for Rolling Stone.

In an article posted on the magazine’s website on Saturday night, Penn, 55, details how he spent months organizing an interview with one of the most wanted men in the world.

In July 2015, Guzmán, the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, escapedthe Altiplano I federal penitentiary using a secret tunnel. His escape prompted an international manhunt, which ended this week when he was recaptured on Friday.

Despite Guzmán’s fearsome reputation as a notorious cartel head, he told Penn that he does not consider himself a violent person. “Look, all I do is defend myself, nothing more. But do I start trouble? Never.”

In the series of interviews, which took place in October at secret locations in the Mexican wilderness, Guzmán also revealed that he hasn’t done drugs in 20 years (although he did try them) and said his goal was “to live with my family the days God gives me.” He also said that he’s “a person who’s not looking for problems in any way.”

The raid of Guzmán’s residence in Mexico resulted in serious gunfire and left five suspects dead. Six suspects from the compound were also arrested. According to Mexican authorities, the raid was the work of six months of investigation and they initially were planning on storming Guzmán’s hideout in October – the same month Penn visited the cartel head – but decided to abort the mission because Guzmán was with women and children.

Authorities also said that Guzmán had been working to make a biopic of his own life.

Penn, meanwhile, has a busy weekend ahead of him. On Saturday night, he hosted the star-studded Help Haiti Home gala in Los Angeles.

Can a new constitution heal Sri Lanka's wounds?

President Maithripala Sirisena has pledged to introduce sweeping constitutional reforms aimed at preventing his country from returning to ethnic war.

He told parliament he wants a new statute to guarantee the country will not see a repeat of the civil war that ended in 2009.

That conflict came to an end after 25 years of fighting between the government and the Tamil minority.

According to a United Nations report, at least 40,000 Tamil civilians may have been killed in just the final months of the civil war.

The Sri Lankan government has promised the UN Human Rights Council that it will investigate the alleged war crimes.

So, is a new constitution a good start for reconciliation and stability?

Motorhead Fans Watch Lemmy's Funeral Online

The musician's son, Paul Inder, led tributes to the 70-year-old, who died on 28 December just two days after learning he was terminally ill with an extremely aggressive cancer.

He said: "Travel well, my dear father. You are back on the road for a longest tour to the great gig in the sky - we will never, never forget you. I love you."

According to Mr Inder, who is now a successful record producer, his father had "felt something was wrong" last August and had appeared frail - but never complained that he was in pain.

The private ceremony, which was being held at the Forest Lawn Memorial Cemetery, had a distinctive rock and roll feel - and next to a lectern at the front of the chapel was a table decorated with a top hat, cowboy boots and bottles of Jack Daniel's.

Slash, the Guns N' Roses guitarist, said Lemmy - whose real name was Ian Kilmister - had "more integrity in one finger than a whole roomful of rock 'n' rollers", adding he was "honoured" to have been friends with the Staffordshire-born musician.

At times, the chapel was filled with laughter as stars shared their stories.

Triple H, a famous WWE wrestler who used Lemmy's music with Motorhead for his entrances, said: "I remember going to him one time after getting beaten again and walking up to him to shake his hand.

''I gave him a hug and he looked right at me and he goes… 'man, you suck - you can't win a match to save your life!'

"I probably looked at him stunned and he grabbed me by the back of my neck and he said 'that's why you're perfect for Motorhead'."

Back in the UK, his loyal fans "raised a glass or six" as the ceremony took place, and vowed to give him a proper Motorhead send-off: "loud, messy and full of random chaos".