US student in Italy murder in TV interview

AMANDA Knox, a US student who spent four years in jail in Italy on charges of murdering her British roommate before she was acquitted, is to give her first television interview.

"Now, after the dramatic Italian trial, conviction, and the court appeal that finally acquitted and freed her she will speak to ABC News," the US network said, announcing the interview will be broadcast on April 30.

The interview comes just as Knox, who was a college junior at the time of the incident, launches a media tour promoting her memoir Waiting to Be Heard, which will be published by HarperCollins on April 30.

HarperCollins, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, did not reveal financial details, but The New York Times has said Knox sold the rights to her story for nearly $US4 million ($A3.9 million).

In October 2011, and appeal court in Perugia, northern Italy, freed the American Knox and her Italian former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, after acquitting them of the 2007 killing of British student Meredith Kercher.

Knox and Sollecito had initially been sentenced to 26 and 25 years.

According to the Times, HarperCollins acquired the rights after a "heated auction among publishing houses that stretched for days".

The Times said several publishers had submitted bids for the book, including Crown, part of Random House; St Martin's Press, a Macmillan unit; Simon & Schuster's Atria; and Penguin Group USA's Dutton.

Knox had hired Washington lawyer Robert Barnett of the law firm Williams and Connolly to negotiate the deal.

She returned to her home town of Seattle, Washington after her acquittal.

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Comedian's sister in Western Wall protest

ISRAELI police have detained 10 women, including the sister of American comedian Sarah Silverman, as they tried to pray at a Jerusalem holy site, the head of a liberal Jewish women's group says.

Anat Hoffman, who was among those detained, said the women were stopped because they were wearing religious garb that Orthodox Judaism reserves for men only. The incident occurred at the Western Wall, one of Judaism's holiest sites.

Silverman's sister Susan, a Jerusalem rabbi from the liberal Reform stream of Judaism, was detained along with her teenage daughter.

Sarah Silverman wrote on her Facebook page that she was "SO proud" of her sister and niece for their "civil disobedience". The original post included more explicit language typical of Silverman's humour.

The women belong to "Women of the Wall", a liberal group that goes to the Western Wall each month to worship. They conduct certain rituals, such as wearing prayer shawls and skullcaps and singing out loud, practices reserved for men under strict Orthodox interpretations of Judaism.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the women were detained because they acted against court-ordered regulations that bar women from wearing prayer shawls at the Western Wall so as not to offend Orthodox Jewish worshippers. Rosenfeld said the women were released after several hours.

The group has been gathering at the Western Wall for a quarter of a century, but in recent years its activists have been increasingly detained by police. Hoffman, who chairs the group, said no woman detained has ever been formally charged with any crime.

"This is just attrition," said Hoffman. "They want the group to become frightened."

The Monday detentions took place after about 300 people gathered at a prayer service at the Western Wall to protest Orthodox control of the site.

Among the worshippers in the group, Hoffman said, were about 100 male supporters, including veterans from the legendary Israeli paratroopers' battalion that captured Jerusalem's ancient walled Old City, including the Western Wall, in the 1967 Middle East War.

In December, after Hoffman was arrested under similar circumstances, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the head of the semi-governmental Jewish Agency to come up with solutions that would allow for non-Orthodox women to pray freely at the site.

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Briton is 10th case of SARS-like virus

A BRITISH resident has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal SARS-like virus, British health authorities say, in the 10th confirmed case worldwide.

The Health Protection Agency said the person, who recently travelled to the Middle East and Pakistan, was being treated at an intensive care unit at a hospital in Manchester after contracting novel coronavirus.

"The HPA is providing advice to healthcare workers to ensure the patient under investigation is being treated appropriately," said John Watson, head of the agency's respiratory diseases department.

"Contacts of the case are also being followed up to check on their health."

He added: "Our assessment is that the risk associated with novel coronavirus to the general UK population remains extremely low and the risk to travellers to the Arabian peninsula and surrounding countries remains very low."

Travellers who develop severe breathing difficulties within 10 days of returning from the region should seek medical advice, said Watson.

This is the second case to hit Britain after a 49-year-old Qatari man was treated at a London hospital in September for the virus.

The HPA said five patients had died worldwide as a result of the disease.

Five cases have been confirmed in Saudi Arabia resulting in three deaths, while two patients treated in Jordan have died, the agency said. A patient from Qatar was treated for the virus in Germany and given the all-clear.

Coronaviruses cause most common colds but can also cause SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome).

The SARS epidemic killed more than 800 people when it swept out of China in 2003, sparking a major international health scare.

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Tornadoes strike southern US states

SEVERAL powerful tornadoes have ripped through the southern US states of Mississippi and Alabama injuring at least 60 people and destroying hundreds of homes at the weekend, emergency officials say.

The city of Hattiesburg in Mississippi's Forrest County bore the brunt of the storms, with heavy rain continuing to lash the region and create a risk of flooding.

"Two people were critically hurt in Lemar County right next to Hattiesburg, but no deaths have been reported at this stage," Greg Flynn, a spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA), told AFP.

"Around 60 people are reported injured, but fortunately most injuries are minor," he said.

The bad weather, however, destroyed hundreds of homes and caused damage to the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi, authorities said.

A spokeswoman for the Alabama Emergency Management Agency (AEMA) said that while the area was hit by bad weather on Sunday it had so far received no reports of injuries.

The National Weather Service said flooding and flash flooding will become a concern if rainfall continues to add up across the lower Mississippi valley.

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Shock in St Peter's Square as Pope resigns

CATHOLIC faithful in St Peter's Square have reacted with amazement and emotion at Pope Benedict XVI's announcement that he will resign later this month, though some say they hope his successor will be more progressive.

Hundreds of believers converged on the heart of the Catholic church after hearing the historic news, swelling the usual small huddles of tourists on an overcast and chilly winter day in Rome.

"I love Benedict. We're really shocked he's resigning because he wasn't pope for long enough," said Sebastian Mazur, a seminarian from Poland.

"He hasn't finished his plan," the 21-year-old said.

Father Aaron Melancon, a 43-year-old priest from the United States, said: "The news is quite shocking. We have love and affection for Pope Benedict. I loved his writing as a cardinal and as a pope. I loved the leadership under him.

"He is the second pope in history to break the tradition and I am not in favour of this decision, but it is his own," Melancon said.

Marta, a 38-year-old Spaniard on holiday in Rome with her husband, said: "It's a really bad thing."

"He should have stayed for life, you can't just leave when you want to," she said.

Jennifer, 30, from Colorado in the United States, said: "I was really shocked. In our media-dominated culture, it's a unique challenge for the Pope to be so available constantly so if he has lost some of his faculties, I guess he's done the right thing."

"It's sadder today than when Pope John Paul II died because at least that was natural," she said.

Others were more critical of Benedict's pontificate.

Louisa, a 38-year-old from the Netherlands, said: "It's OK for him to resign, he's very old. And he wasn't as kind as John Paul II. We had the same discussion about our Queen, who is very old and resigned at 75."

Sally Baker, 23, from Britain, said: "I actually respect him more for stepping down. It's a responsible act to be so honest to say you're not capable any more."

"I wasn't his biggest fan even though I'm German," said Eric, a 40-year-old tourist.

"It's an interesting time to resign, what with the child abuse scandal; I wonder if it was all just too much for him?"

Bart Vanhatten, 20, an Erasmus exchange student also from Germany, said: "I didn't like him at all. I expected more from him, especially on homosexuality. I hope the next pope will be more progressive."

Dorina, a 22-year-old Swiss woman on holiday, was equally hopeful for change in the church.

"I hope that the next pope will be black; that would really make mentalities evolve," she said.

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Assad vows to resist as blast hits border

PRESIDENT Bashar al-Assad has vowed not to bow to mounting pressure and "plots", almost two years into a deadly revolt in Syria, as at least 10 people died when a car exploded just inside the Turkish border.

On the war front, rebels seized control of Syria's largest dam, a monitoring group said.

"Syria will remain the beating heart of the Arab world and will not give up its principles despite the intensifying pressure and diversifying plots not only targeting Syria, but all Arabs," Assad said, quoted by state news agency SANA.

Opposition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, meanwhile, said he had received "no clear response" from Damascus over his offer of dialogue.

Khatib said in late January he was prepared to hold direct talks with regime representatives without "blood on their hands", on condition the talks focus on replacing Assad.

The Assad regime has said it was open to talks but without pre-conditions.

"The issue is now in the regime's camp. It has given no clear response yet that it accepts that (Assad) will leave. There has been no official contact until now," Khatib told reporters in Cairo.

Just across the border from northern Syria, at least 10 people were killed and dozens wounded when a car exploded inside Turkey, Turkish officials said, although the cause was not immediately clear.

A Syrian-registered car was believed to have been at the centre of the blast on Turkish soil, local mayor Huseyin Sanverdi told Turkey's NTV news channel.

An official from the Turkish foreign ministry confirmed the deadly explosion, adding that the blast triggered a fire that damaged about 15 humanitarian aid vehicles.

The explosion struck barely 40 metres from the Cilvegozu crossing, NTV said, adding it might have been caused by a mortar bomb fired from the Syrian side.

But another foreign ministry official said a suicide bomber might have been involved in the blast that smashed apart the gates at the crossing, opposite Syria's Bab al-Hawa post.

Turkey, a one-time Syria ally which is now vehemently opposed to Assad's regime, has taken in almost 200,000 refugees from the conflict.

On the ground, rebels seized control of the largest dam in Syria, a vital barrier along the Euphrates River in the northern province of Raqa that generates 880 megawatts of power, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"This is the biggest economic loss for the regime since the start of the revolution," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

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Three dead in US courthouse shooting

A SHOOTING has erupted at a courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware, leaving three people dead, including a gunman, police say.

"I can confirm a shooting at 8am. Two civilians, females, were killed, two capital officers were shot. The gunman is dead inside the lobby," a police spokesman said at a news conference on Monday.

The incident took place in the New Castle county court building, which was evacuated.

The police spokesman said multiple shots were fired and police were searching the building floor by floor.

"The scene is still very dynamic inside," he said.

The area around the courthouse was surrounded by police, ambulances and fire trucks, televised images of the scene showed.

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