INDIA - 102 pilgrims killed in Kerala stampede

Officials say 102 pilgrims have been killed in a stampede at a religious festival in the southern Indian state of Kerala. At least 44 more have been injured in the crush, which was reportedly triggered by a road accident. The pilgrims were returning from the Hindu shrine of Sabarimala, which is in a remote, mountainous, densely-forested area.

USA - Zsa Zsa Gabor's leg amputated

Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor's right leg, which was infected with gangrene, has been amputated in a life-saving surgery her doctors have deemed a success. She is in "frail health" and will be closely monitored in a Los Angeles hospital. Gabor, 93, was hospitalised on 2 January after attempts to save her leg with antibiotics proved unsuccessful.

CUBA - Obama relaxes Cuba travel embargo

US president Barack Obama plans to loosen Cuban travel policy to allow students and church groups to go to the country, the administration announced. The plan will also let any American send as much as $500 every three months to Cuban citizens who are not part of the Castro administration and are not members of the Communist Party.

USA - Reagan's son in Alzheimer's claim

Ronald Reagan's son suggests in a new book that his father suffered from the early stages of Alzheimer's disease while he was in the White House.

US News & World Report quotes from Ron Reagan's book, My Father at 100: A Memoir, in which Reagan's son said he believes his father would have left office had the disease been diagnosed then. The younger Reagan recalls how his father became lost for words and looked "bewildered" during the 1984 presidential debates.

White House doctors have said they saw no evidence of the disease while he was president. He was diagnosed in 1994.