The Pro Football Hall of Fame is about to get a lot bigger.
The hall's selection committee on Saturday - meeting in New Orleans, on the eve of Super Bowl XLVII - selected former players Larry Allen, Cris Carter, Curley Culp, Jonathan Ogden, Dave Robinson, Warren Sapp and legendary coach Bill Parcels. They'll be formally inducted in August.
The family of an American woman who went missing in Istanbul nearly two weeks ago are in mourning after learning that Turkish police found her body Saturday.
Steven Sierra wept during a phone call with CNN, as he waited in Istanbul to go with police to identify the body of his wife, Sarai Sierra.
Turkish police found the New York woman's body near ancient stone walls in Istanbul's Sarayburnu district, the semi-official Anatolian Agency reported. Police suspected she had been killed at another location.
FULL STORYA radical leftist terror group has claimed responsibility for Friday's suicide bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, which killed a Turkish guard and wounded a television journalist.
In a statement on its website, the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party, or DHKP-C, said "E. Alisan Sanli has become a martyr after accomplishing the action on the American Embassy in Ankara."
The governor's office on Saturday confirmed his identity through for forensic testing.
FULL STORYA powerful earthquake hit northern Japan on Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
Initial indications show a magnitude 6.9 quake struck off the island of Hokkaido at a depth of 64 miles (103 kilometers) near the town of
Obihiro.
According to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and the Japan Meteorological Agency, the quake did not appear to generate a destructive tsunami.
If you were hoping to be done with winter, Punxsutawney Phil has some good news for you - an early spring is on the way.
After the groundhog was summoned from his burrow at the Gobbler's Knob hill in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, early Sunday, observers proclaimed that "the prognosticator of all prognosticators" had not seen his shadow.
The tradition goes back to medieval times when there was a superstition that all hibernating animals emerged from their caves and dens to check on the weather on Candlemas, which is halfway between the winter solstice in December and the vernal equinox in March. If the animals saw their shadows, winter would go on for another six weeks, and they could go back to sleep, according to the tradition.
Meanwhile, at New York's Staten Island Zoo, fellow groundhog Staten Island Chuck also didn't see his shadow on Sunday, agreeing that an early spring was on its way.
The Staten Island event has happened for 32 years. Punxsutawney's celebration goes back 127 years.
FULL STORYUnder the right conditions, the United States is willing to hold talks with the Iranian government, Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday.
The United States "would be prepared to meet bilaterally with the Iranian leadership," he said during a speech at the Munich Security Conference.
The two nations are at odds, primarily over Iran's nuclear program, but there is a standing offer for talks, and "there has to be an agenda that they are prepared to speak to," Biden said. "We are not just prepared to do it for the exercise."
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in an interview with Ithe semi-official Fars news agency that he hopes new U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will contribute to softening Washington's policies towards Iran and that Kerry "would at least rectify part of the U.S. government's anti-Iranian stance and policies."
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN)Â - Militants attacked an army base in northwest Pakistan in a coordinated assault that resulted in an hours long gun battle that left at least 35 people dead on Saturday, intelligence and security officials said.
At least 13 security personnel, 10 civilians and 12 militants were killed in the early morning attack on the base that included housing for Pakistani military personnel and their families near the town of Serai Naurang in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the officials said.
About 40 militants targeted the base as well at least one house believed to be a home for some of the personnel and their families.
Two of the militants who were killed were wearing suicide jackets, intelligence officials said. Ten civilians, including three women and three children, also died when one of the suicide bombers entered a nearby house and detonated the explosives, they said.
FULL STORY(CNN)Â - French President Francois Hollande arrived in Mali on Saturday, where his nation's troops are battling Islamist militants alongside African forces.
France is leading an offensive against militants it its former colony. The three-week ground and air campaign has sent militants who had seized the northern region fleeing into the vast desert.
Hollande landed in Sevare accompanied by his defense and foreign ministers, CNN affiliate BFMTV reported.
From there, he joined Malian interim President Dioncounda Traore for a visit to the fabled city of Timbuktu. French-led forces liberated the historical city this week after a yearlong grip by Islamist militants.
FULL STORY(CNN)Â - In a country obsessed with its premier sport, Egypt's football season kicks off Saturday to heavy anticipation - but without any fans in the stands.
Instead of the roars of raucous crowds, players take the pitch to the relative silence of secure military stadiums.
Saturday's matches are the first since a gruesome riot at a football match last year that left 74 dead and 1,000 injured.
Dubbed the "massacre at Port Said," the riot in February 2012 broke out after Port Said-based Al-Masry defeated Cairo's Al-Ahly, 3-1.
FULL STORYMidland City, Alabama (CNN)Â - As an armed standoff entered its fifth day Saturday, authorities negotiated through a ventilation pipe with a man accused of barricading himself and a 5-year-old hostage in an underground bunker in southeastern Alabama.
Police have been tight-lipped about a possible motive since the hostage drama began unfolding in Midland City with the shooting of school bus driver and the abduction of the 5-year-old.
In a sign of perhaps how tense negotiations are between authorities and the suspect, officials have refused to detail what, if any, demands have been made by the suspect.
On Friday, the Dale County sheriff did confirm what neighbors have been saying and news outlets around Midland City have been reporting since the standoff began - the suspected gunman's identity.
FULL STORY
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