Bus hits overpass in Boston, injuring more than 30

Updated February 3, 2013, 10:27 AM ET

After a visit to Harvard University, dozens in a group of high school students and their adult chaperones were injured when their charter bus hit a bridge after police say the driver failed to heed low-clearance warning signs.

One person was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries and three with serious injuries, the Boston Emergency Medical Services said. Thirty-four people were injured in all, EMS said.

The Calvary Coach bus was carrying 42 people and was heading back to the Philadelphia area when it struck an overpass on Soldier's Field Road in Boston, a major crosstown road, at around 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Massachusetts State Police said. Some passengers were trapped for more than an hour as rescue crews worked to free them.

In this photo released by the Boston Fire Department via Twitter, firemen work to remove injured passengers from a bus that hit an bridge as it traveled along Soldiers Field Road in the Allston neighborhood of Boston Saturday night, Feb. 2, 2013.

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AP Photo/Boston Fire Department

Authorities said the bus did not belong on the road, where a 10-foot height limit is in place and over-sized vehicles are not authorized. State Police said the driver, whose name was not released, "failed to heed signs" warning of the height limit and will likely be cited for an over-height violation. The investigation will determine if he faces more serious charges, state police said. The driver was not injured.

Ray Talmedge, owner of the Philadelphia-based Calvary Coach Bus company, said Saturday night that his driver was being interviewed by police. Talmedge, who said he didn't know anything about the road restrictions, said the driver also drives a school bus.

CBS Station WBZ Boston reported that the bus company has an adequate record with the Department of Transportation.

The students were part of a Destined for a Dream Foundation group, Talmedge said. Officials with the Bristol, Pa.-based group, a nonprofit that helps underprivileged youth, refused to comment on the crash when reached by phone.

The group's Facebook page said the trip to Harvard was to "visit the campus, sit with the office of cultural advancement, followed by a tour of the campus ... followed by Harvard Square (shopping, eating, site seeing...etc...) This should be a fun time for all!"

None of those injured was identified, and state police said they did not know how many of the injured were adults and how many were juveniles.

The bus suffered significant damage in the crash. The front part of the roof was pushed in while the center section bowed downward. Photos posted on the Fire Department's website showed firefighters standing on the top of the bus using boards to extract people. The last victim was freed from the bus around 9 p.m., according to the department.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority sent buses to pick up other passengers and get them out of the frigid temperatures.

Soldiers Field Road curves along the Charles River and passes by Harvard and Boston University. It is a major roadway to the Massachusetts Turnpike. Soldiers Field remained closed while crews tried to remove the bus.

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Ala. Standoff: Students Say Suspect Threatened to Kill

A brother and sister who escaped the school bus where a 5-year-old autistic boy was taken hostage by a retired Alabama trucker are speaking out about the standoff and the man who threatened the lives of the children on board.

"I look up and he's talking about threatening to kill us all or something," 14-year-old Terrica Singletary told ABC's "Good Morning America." "He's like, 'I'll kill all y'all, I'll kill y'all, I just want two kids.'"

Singletary and her brother, Tristian, 12, said Jimmy Lee Dykes boarded the bus on Tuesday and offered the driver what appeared to be broccoli and a note, before demanding two children.

"The bus driver kept saying, 'Just please get off the bus,' and [Dykes] said, 'Ah alright, I'll get off the bus," said Terrica Singletary, "He just tried to back up and reverse and [Dykes] pulled out the gun and he just shot him, and he just took Ethan."

PHOTOS: Worst Hostage Situations

School bus driver Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, was fatally shot several times by Dykes.

WDHN (inset); Julie Bennett/al.com via AP

Alabama Hostage Standoff: Who Is Jimmy Lee Dykes? Watch Video

Alabama Boy Held Hostage in Underground Bunker Watch Video

Alabama Hostage Standoff: Boy, 5, Held Captive in Bunker Watch Video

The siblings and the rest of the students on board were able to get away unharmed, but were shocked by what had transpired just five days ago.

"I never thought I would have to go through a shootout," Singletary said.

They said they had seen Dykes, 65, working on his fence, and described him as a menacing figure.

"He was very protective of his stuff," Tristian Singletary said. "Whenever he stares at you, he looks kinda crazy."

Dykes has been holed up in his underground bunker with his 5-year-old hostage named Ethan near Midland City, Ala. for five days now. Neighbors told ABCNews.com that Dykes has been known to retreat underground for up to eight days.

READ: Alabama Hostage Suspect Jimmy Dykes 'Has No Regard for Human Life'

While Dykes, who was described as having "no regard for human life," has allowed negotiators to send Ethan's medicine, as well as coloring books, into the bunker for the boy through a ventilation pipe that leads into the 6 by 8 foot subterranean hideout 4 feet underground, authorities are staying quiet about their conversations with Dykes.

While negotiations continue and it was reported that Ethan is physically unharmed, an official told the Associated Press that the boy has been crying for his parents.

Meanwhile, his peers are steadfast that he will return home soon.

"Ethan will make it out there, Ethan will make it out there," said Tristian Singletary.

ABC News' Kevin Dolak and Gio Benitez contributed to this report.

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Turkish leftist group claims U.S. embassy bombing: website

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A Turkish leftist group claimed responsibility on Saturday for a suicide bomb attack on the U.S. embassy and accused Washington of using Turkey as its "slave", according to a statement posted on the internet.

The Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C) said it carried out Friday's attack, in which a suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body at the embassy in Ankara, killing himself and a Turkish security guard.

In a statement on "The People's Cry" website, the DHKP-C, which is listed as terrorist organization by the United States and Turkey, warned Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan he too was a target.

"Murderer America! You will not run away from people's rage," the statement said, next to a picture of the bomber, named as Alisan Sanli, wearing a black beret and military-style clothes and with an explosives belt around his waist.

Erdogan, who said hours after the attack that the DHKP-C were responsible, met with his interior and foreign ministers as well as the head of the army and state security service in Istanbul on Saturday to discuss the bombing.

Interior Minister Muammer Guler said the attacker had served time in jail on domestic terrorism charges in Turkey in the past, re-entered the country using false documents and was wanted by the authorities.

"(The bomber) was demanding to pass through the guest and staff gate of the U.S. embassy using a fake ID when he detonated the explosives," the provincial governor's office in Ankara said in a statement.

It said he had also detonated a hand grenade.

The White House condemned the bombing as an "act of terror", while the U.N. Security Council described it as a heinous act.

U.S. officials said the DHKP-C were the main suspects in Friday's bombing but did not exclude other possibilities.

Islamist radicals, extreme left-wing groups, ultra-nationalists and Kurdish militants have all carried out attacks in Turkey in the past.

U.S. PATRIOT MISSILES

The DHKP-C, formed in 1978, is virulently anti-American.

It called on Washington to remove Patriot missiles, due to go operational on Monday as part of a NATO defense system, from Turkish soil. The missiles are being deployed alongside systems from Germany and the Netherlands to guard NATO-member Turkey against a spillover of the war in neighboring Syria.

"Our action is for the independence of our country, which has become a new slave of America," the statement said.

Turkey is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East with common interests ranging from energy security to counter-terrorism and has been one of the leading advocates of foreign intervention to end the civil war in Syria.

It was the second attack on a U.S. mission in four months. On September 11, 2012, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three American personnel were killed in an Islamist militant attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

The DHKP-C was responsible for the assassination of two U.S. military contractors in the early 1990s in protest against the first Gulf War and launched rockets at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul in 1992, according to the U.S. State Department.

It has been blamed for previous suicide attacks, including one in 2001 that killed two police officers and a tourist in Istanbul's central Taksim Square, and has carried out a series of deadly attacks on police stations in the last six months.

Friday's attack may have come in retaliation for an operation against the DHKP-C last month in which Turkish police detained 85 people. A court subsequently remanded 38 of them in custody over links to the group.

(Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Andrew Roche)

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Colonial flags fly in Hong Kong as anger grows

HONG KONG: Sixteen years after Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule, public discontent with Beijing is swelling and protesters have been rallying around an unexpected symbol - the British colonial flag.

Tens of thousands have taken to the streets in recent months in marches against Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, who took over from Donald Tsang last July after being elected by a 1,200-strong pro-Beijing committee.

On several occasions the old blue flag, which incorporates the Union Flag, has been flown by protesters on the streets of what is becoming an increasingly divided Hong Kong, both embarrassing and infuriating Beijing.

While Leung's supporters say he is tackling pressing social issues such as affordable housing and the strain on public services, his critics see him as a stooge for Beijing and are angry over a widening poverty gap.

In September, he backed down from a plan to introduce Chinese patriotism classes in schools, which had incited mass protests and was viewed as an attempt to brainwash children into accepting doctrines taught on the mainland.

The founder of a group mobilising Hong Kongers to fly colonial flags said it did so because the city was worse off after 16 years of "encroachment" by Beijing, stressing it was not because of any desire to see Britain rule again.

"Our freedom and everything else has gone downhill since (the handover)" said 26-year-old Danny Chan from the "We're Hong Kongese, not Chinese" Facebook group, which has been "liked" by nearly 30,000 people.

Hong Kong's semi-autonomous status enshrines civil liberties not seen on the mainland, including the right to protest, until 2047 under the "One country, two systems" handover agreement.

Chan cited housing prices that stubbornly remained among the world's highest and the widening income gap between the rich and the poor as factors driving the increasingly frequent protests in the city.

Many Hong Kongers blame increased immigration from the mainland for high house prices and overcrowding in local hospitals.

Chan said that the flags symbolised anger and the perceived erosion of the rule of law in Hong Kong since 1997.

"Hong Kong's core values and the rule of law have been gradually destroyed until there is almost nothing left," argued the computer engineer, who waved the flag at a mass rally on January 1 to demand Leung step down.

Dixon Sing, political analyst at Hong Kong's University of Science and Technology, said the protesters "believe the Chinese Communist Party has been undermining those core values and reneging on the promise of giving Hong Kong 'two systems'".

The increased visibility of the old emblem has sparked tensions, at a time when China is ushering in a new batch of leaders who yearn for order and stability in the Asian financial hub.

The British Council, which promotes cultural and educational ties overseas, unwittingly became embroiled in the controversy recently when advertisements for an education fair bearing the Union Jack became the centre of attention.

Comments such as "Great Britain built Great Hong Kong!" were posted on the British consulate's Facebook page and linked to the posters.

The advertisements were hastily removed due to the possibility of "misinterpretation", a British Council spokeswoman said.

The waving of the old flag has drawn criticism from Chen Zuoer, the former No.2 mainland Chinese official in Hong Kong, who reportedly said last year that it "should be sent to history museums".

Other critics, including those from the city's pro-democracy political camp, said any "good old days" notion is largely misguided, as corruption and malpractice were once widespread before a major clean-up in the 1970s.

"During colonial times, there was no freedom and our rights were denied but in the late 1980s, the government won people's trust and it was seen as clean," said Avery Ng from maverick lawmaker "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung's League of Social Democrats party.

The party has called for full democracy in Hong Kong to replace the current system.

"I understand the current sentiment but this is very sad for Hong Kong that people would rather look back at colonial times."

- AFP/de

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Forty years ago, the Ohm F speaker was a game-changer; it still is

The Ohm F speakers

(Credit:
Ohm)

Lincoln Walsh died a year before his radically innovative speaker technology made its commercial debut in the Ohm Acoustics F in 1972. The speaker featured an omnidirectional Walsh driver that projected a massive stereo soundstage. At the time of its introduction the $900 per pair Ohm F was hailed as one of the greatest speakers of all time by the international press. It sounded like nothing else, and the single 12-inch, truncated cone driver produced bass, midrange and treble frequencies (37Hz to 17kHz). The driver had a titanium top section, aluminum midband and paper bottom, with a single voice-coil at the top of the driver. Even today, bona-fide full-frequency drivers like that are rare. The Ohm drivers and cabinets were made in Brooklyn.

According to Ohm's President John Strohbeen, the early production Fs had "functionality issues." "They needed 300 watts to get going, and 301 to blow them up," Strohbeen said with a chuckle. Ohm couldn't repair them, so they replaced broken drivers under warranty. The engineers kept redesigning the driver to improve reliability, but it was the introduction of ferrofluid-cooled voice coils that cured the F's reliability woes.

Unlike box speakers that project sound forward, the F radiated bass, midrange and treble frequencies in a full 360-degree pattern. The sound quality was so far ahead of what was available from conventional box speakers the F remained in production for 12 years, until 1984, but by that time the price had more than quadrupled to $3,995 per pair!

The Ohm Acoustics factory is still in Brooklyn, and still offers factory upgrades on the F speakers. That's remarkable -- how many companies do you know that still service 40-year-old products -- but that's what separates high-end audio from mainstream gear. Ohm currently offers a complete line of Walsh omni-directional speakers, with prices starting at $1,400 per pair. Ohm sells factory direct, with a very generous 120-day home trial period.

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Clinton's legacy: Smart power, celebrity status

(CBS News) After four years as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton was officially replaced by Sen. John Kerry Friday. An improbable pick after a tough primary battle with Barack Obama back in 2008, Clinton has used her celebrity status around the world to make changes both at home and abroad.

John Kerry sworn in as secretary of state

In a heartfelt goodbye to thousands of State Department employees Friday, Clinton said, "I am proud to have been secretary of state. I leave this department confident, confident about the direction we have set."

Friends and colleagues say there's a side to Clinton many people don't know. CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan talked to those people about Clinton and the legacy she's leaving behind.

She's not a typical Secretary of State saying goodbye. Anne Marie Slaughter, a former Clinton adviser said, "The first trip I took with her was like traveling with Madonna."

At times, Clinton's celebrity has overshadowed her diplomacy. But Slaughter said it shouldn't. "She elevated the roll of development. She's elevated social media, all sorts of new ways to reach people, ways of engaging youth, women, entrepreneurs."

Those tools are what Clinton calls "smart power" - finding ways to connect with people so that they then are able to influence their governments. She's said her extensive travel to 112 countries helped to build goodwill.

Others dismiss it as a vanity project. Critics also complain that she did not craft a clear policy to stop the war in Syria and point to security failures at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

However, longtime aide Philippe Reines disagrees. "For the last four years she has been, you know, working, literally killing herself for her country," he said.

He said her outreach made it possible to levy sanctions on Iran, North Korea, and to broker the November cease fire in Gaza. Reines has been aboard Clinton's plane for nearly every one of the almost one million miles she flew as secretary of state.

He told CBS News that most people don't know that how normal Clinton is. "I mean, she likes and dislikes a lot of the same things that you and I don't like or do like," he said.

He also said that she's not caught up on her future. "She does not sit around and do that as much as people think she does. It's more sitting around thinking, I saw 'Argo' and that's a great movie, did you see 'Argo?'"

Clinton is reluctant to make any decision yet about running for president in 2016. At a global town hall for students at the Newseum in Washington, Clinton talked about a bid for the presidency.

"I am not thinking about anything like that right now. I am looking forward to finishing up my tenure as secretary of state and then catching up on about 20 years of sleep deprivation," she said.

But few believe she'll stop working, and if you want to know what she'll do, aides say, look at what she's done.

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Ala. Hostage Suspect Had Court Date Scheduled

The retired Alabama trucker who shot a school bus driver and is now holding a kindergarten student in an underground bunker was scheduled to be in court Wednesday to answer for allegedly shooting at his neighbors in a dispute over a damaged speed bump.

Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, has been holed up in a 6 by 8 foot bunker 4 feet underground with a 5-year-old autistic boy named Ethan since Tuesday, when he boarded a school bus and asked for two 6 to 8 year old boys. School bus driver Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, was shot several times by Dykes, and died trying to protect the children.

Police said that they do not think that Dykes had any connection to Ethan, and that SWAT teams and police are negotiating with Dykes.

"I could tell you that negotiators continue to communicate with the suspect and that there's no reason to believe the child has been harmed," Sheriff Wally Olson said late Thursday.

Dykes' neighbor Claudia Davis told The Associated Press that he had yelled at her and fired his gun at her, her son James Davis, Jr. and her baby grandson after he claimed their truck caused damage to a speed bump in the dirt road near his property. No one was hurt, but Davis, Jr. told the AP that he believes the shooting and kidnapping are connected to the scheduled court hearing.

"I believe he thought I was going to be in court and he was going to get more charges than the menacing, which he deserved, and he had a bunch of stuff to hide and that's why he did it," he said.

Alabama Hostage Standoff: Boy, 5, Held Captive in Bunker Watch Video

Alabama 5-year-old Hostage: Negotiations Continue Watch Video

Alabama Child Hostage Situation: School Bus Driver Killed Watch Video

This was not Dykes' only run-in with people in the neighborhood, where he had come to be known as a menacing figure. Neighbor Ronda Wilbur told the AP that Dykes beat her 120-pound dog with a lead pipe when it entered the side of the dirt rode his trailer sits on. Wilbur said her dog died a week later.

Early last year, two pit bulls belonging to neighbors Mike and Patricia Smith escaped and got into his yard. Patricia Smith said that Dykes threatened to shoot her children when they went to retrieve them.

Neighbor Ronda Wilbur said that Dykes would be seen on his property at all hours of the day.

"It could be 2 o'clock in the morning, it could be midnight. He was out there either digging or moving dirt," she said.

As the underground standoff moved into its fourth day, tensions grow in this small community near Midland City, Ala., which is now enveloped by SWAT teams and police.

"That's an innocent kid. Let him go back to his parents, he's crying for his parents and his grandparents and he does not know what's going on," Midland City Mayor Virgil Skipper told ABC News. "Let this kid go."

Neighbor Jimmy Davis said that he has seen the bunker where Dykes has been known to hunker down for up to eight days.

"He's got steps made out of cinder blocks going down to it, Davis said. "It's lined with those red bricks all in it."

Police say he may have enough supplies to last him weeks.

Former FBI profiler and ABC News consultant Brad Garrett said there's a distinct reason why authorities are keeping details about Dykes under wraps.

"One of reasons they are keeping negations closed and not releasing his picture, is to try to insulate the situation, so they don't have a situation where they don't have to deal with his anger and rage," he said.

Meanwhile, children are trying to understand why this happened to their friend

"He always comes up to my house to play," 10-year-old Trisha Beaty told ABC News. "I miss him. I miss him a lot."

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Suicide bomber kills guard at U.S. embassy in Turkey

ANKARA (Reuters) - A suicide bomber from a far-left group killed a Turkish security guard at the U.S. embassy in Ankara on Friday, blowing the door off a side entrance and sending smoke and debris flying into the street.

The attacker blew himself up inside U.S. property, Ankara Governor Alaaddin Yuksel said. The blast sent masonry spewing out of the wall and could be heard a mile away.

Interior Minister Muammer Guler said the bomber was a member of a far-left group. The U.S. State Department said it was working with Turkish police to investigate what it described as "a terrorist blast".

Islamist radicals, far-left groups, far-right groups and Kurdish separatist militants have all carried out attacks in Turkey in the past. There was no claim of responsibility.

"The suicide bomber was ripped apart and one or two citizens from the special security team passed away," said Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who was attending a ceremony in Istanbul when the blast happened.

"This event shows that we need to fight together everywhere in the world against these terrorist elements," he said.

Far-left groups in Turkey oppose what they see as U.S. influence over Turkish foreign policy.

Turkey is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East with common interests ranging from energy security to counter-terrorism, and has been one of the leading advocates of foreign intervention to end the conflict in neighboring Syria.

Around 400 U.S. soldiers have arrived in Turkey over the past few weeks to operate Patriot anti-missile batteries meant to defend against any spillover of Syria's civil war, part of a NATO deployment due to be fully operational in the coming days.

U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone emerged through the main gate of the embassy, which is surrounded by high walls, shortly after the explosion to address reporters, flanked by a security detail as a Turkish police helicopter hovered overhead.

"We are very sad of course that we lost one of our Turkish guards at the gate," Ricciardone said, thanking the Turkish authorities for a prompt response.

A Reuters witness saw one wounded person being lifted into an ambulance as police armed with assault rifles cordoned off the area.

"It was a huge explosion. I was sitting in my shop when it happened. I saw what looked like a body part on the ground," said travel agent Kamiyar Barnos, whose shop window was shattered around 100 meters away from the blast.

OPPOSED TO U.S. INFLUENCE

State broadcaster TRT said the attacker was thought to be from The Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), which wants a socialist state and is vehemently anti-American, according to the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).

The group, deemed a terrorist organization by both the United States and Turkey, was blamed for a suicide attack in 2001 that killed two police officers and a tourist in Istanbul's central Taksim Square.

Guler said the bomber could have been from the DHKP-C or a similar group.

The DHKP/C has in the past attacked Turkish official targets with bombs, but arrests of some of its members in recent years have weakened its capabilities, according to the NCTC.

The date of the DHKP-C's most recent attack, on an Istanbul police station, was September 11, 2012, seen as a symbolic strike to coincide with the 11th anniversary of the al Qaeda attacks on the United States.

Despite some strains, Washington and Ankara have long had a strong strategic alliance. U.S. President Barack Obama chose Turkey as his first Muslim nation to visit after he took office five years ago.

Turkish support and bases have helped U.S. forces in Afghanistan, while Turkey hosts a NATO radar system, operated by U.S. forces, in its eastern province of Malatya to help defend against any regional threat from Iran.

More recently, it has led calls for international intervention in neighboring Syria and is hosting hundreds of NATO soldiers who are manning the Patriot missile defense system near the Syrian border, hundreds of kilometers from the capital.

The U.S. consulate in Istanbul warned its citizens to be vigilant and to avoid large gatherings, while the British mission in Istanbul called on British businesses to tighten security after what it called a "suspected terrorist attack".

The most serious bombings of this kind in Turkey occurred in November 2003, when car bombs shattered two synagogues, killing 30 people and wounding 146. Authorities said the attack bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda.

Part of the HSBC Bank headquarters was destroyed and the British consulate was damaged in two more explosions that killed a further 32 people a week later.

(Additional reporting by Daren Butler and Ayla Jean Yackley in Istanbul; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Motor Racing: Ferrari's Alonso predicts tighter 2013 F1 race

MILAN, Italy: Fernando Alonso said on Friday the battle for Formula One supremacy could be a lot tighter this year ahead of his bid to improve on two runner-up places behind Sebastian Vettel with a maiden title for Ferrari.

Last season's world championship was remarkable for the fact there were seven race-winners in the first seven races before Alonso went toe-to-toe with Red Bull ace Vettel in a decisive, thrilling finale at Interlagos.

Vettel, the sport's youngest-ever three-time world champion (2010, 2011, 2012), finished sixth at the legendary Brazilian circuit, where Alonso was second, to beat his Spanish rival to the title by only three points.

Alonso, speaking at the launch of Ferrari's new F138 car for the upcoming season, indicated that their anticipated duel in 2013 could leave rivals trailing in their wake from the season-opening Australian GP in March.

"I think the likelihood of seeing seven different race winners in the first seven races, like last year, will be impossible," he said.

"There will be a maximum of two or three teams" battling for the title, he added, "and one of those will definitely be Ferrari."

Alonso, a two-time world champion with Renault in 2005 and 2006, joined Ferrari for the 2010 season and finished runner-up to Vettel.

He finished a disappointing fourth in 2011 but in 2012 won three times and secured a total of 13 podium places before being pipped by Vettel at the finish.

Afterwards, he said: "Next year, we will try and improve the car, trying to start further up the grid, thus avoiding accidents. Let's hope we also have a bit more luck."

The F138 - whose name represents the current year and the car's V8 engine, which will be used for the last time this season - was unveiled at Ferrari's Maranello headquarters in northern Italy on Friday.

Ferrari described it as "an evolution of last year's race-winning car, although every single part has been revised in order to maximise performance while maintaining the characteristics which were the basis of the F2012's superb reliability".

"The rear of the car is much narrower and more tapered than before," said Ferrari, although "significant modifications will be made to the car's aero package" before the Australian Grand Prix on March 17.

One major change Ferrari has made, one year ahead of schedule, is in the electronics domain with the early introduction of the single control unit that will be used in 2014.

Alonso is set to get his first taste of the F138 at a pre-season testing session in Barcelona from February 19. It means Brazilian Felipe Massa will be at the wheel for the first pre-season test at Jerez in Spain next week.

Massa, who finished seventh overall last season, believes the car is equipped sufficiently to allow Ferrari to aim for both the drivers' and constructors' titles.

"I hope it will bring the two titles to Ferrari. It's the only thing we want," he said.

Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo said last year he wants to see three-times champion Vettel race for the Italian team in the future.

But on Friday Di Montezemolo ruled out the possibility of seeing Alonso and Vettel in the same team. "Absolutely not," replied Di Montezemolo.

- AFP/de

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Temple Run 2 scores record as fastest-growing mobile game

Temple Run 2 for Android

(Credit:
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET)

Temple Run addicts have propelled its sequel into new territory.

In 13 days, Temple Run 2 has been downloaded more than 50 million times by iOS,
Android, and
Kindle users, developer Imangi Studios said yesterday, making it the fastest-growing mobile game ever.

In reaching this milestone, the action game topped the previous record holder, Angry Birds Space, which rocketed to 50 million downloads in 35 days.

Temple Run 2 places you in a jungle where you have to outrun a giant ape, leap over chasms, and swing on ropes to get past hazards. Along the way, you pick up gold coins to score points. But one wrong step, and your character meets an untimely demise.

Temple Run 2 debuted in Apple's App store on January 17 and quickly became the top free app with more than 6 million downloads in less than 24 hours. The game then swung into Google Play and Amazon Marketplace, picking up even more adventurers.

"Temple Run has evolved into something so much bigger than us," Imangi co-founder Keith Shepherd said in a statement. "The game has performed beyond our wildest dreams, and we are thrilled that gamers and fans have embraced Temple Run 2 in such a short period of time."

Following in the footsteps of Angry Birds maker Rovio, Imangi has also parlayed the success of Temple Run into something more lucrative.

The game studio has cut deals for Temple Run clothes, digital comics, and card and board games. Last June, Imangi teamped up with Pixar to create Temple Run: Brave, which combines the action in Temple Run with characters from the Pixar film "Brave."

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