NEW YORK – Andy Rooney, who delivered his last essay on “60 Minutes” three weeks ago, was in the hospital Tuesday after developing serious complications following minor surgery.

CBS said the 92-year-old writer’s condition was stable and, at the request of his family, offered no other information about his medical problems or where he was hospitalized.

The three-time Emmy-winner was a regular presence on television’s most popular newsmagazine. Since 1978, “A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney” wrapped up the Sunday night program, often with a look at the absurdities of life and language.

Read the whole hot breaking news

LONDON (Reuters) – In June, when a fire ripped through a concrete tower block in Bermondsey, a low-income neighborhood in south-east London, residents initially blamed it on a lightning strike. "It was only later we heard the truth on the television," said Kathy Pullady, who lives across a chipped tile-covered landing from the 17th-floor flat where the blaze took hold.

The London Fire Brigade had in fact been investigating the probable cause of the fire for years. In July it publicly pointed to a faulty fridge-freezer made by Turkish company Arcelik, Europe's third-largest appliance manufacturer. The fire brigade says timers in certain models of Arcelik fridges have caused at least 20 fires in the UK since 2006. One man has been killed and at least 15 people injured.

Since 2005, the European Commission has recorded fire safety warnings for 37 fridge-freezer models. Sixteen of those models were made by Arcelik under the Beko brand, 18 by Swedish-based Dometic (including some fridge-freezer-oven combinations used in mobile homes), and three by South Korea-based Samsung.

Read the whole hot breaking news

LONDON – George Clooney says Hollywood can be a ruthless place — but it’s nothing compared to the world of politics.

The star, who plays a U.S. presidential hopeful in “The Ides of March,” said Wednesday that “there’s a certain cutthroat element to the business” of moviemaking, but added that actors share a spirit of generosity that he doesn’t often see in politics.

Most performers “are pretty kind to one another,” Clooney told reporters ahead of a gala screening of the movie at the London Film Festival.

Read the whole hot breaking news

ROME (Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Thursday called a confidence vote on his government, saying a collapse of his center-right coalition now would be catastrophic for the country and its economy.

Under pressure over corruption and sex scandals and facing criticism for his center-right government's erratic handling of the economic crisis, Berlusconi has accused the left-wing opposition of "obsessively" seeking to drive him from office.

In an impassioned address to parliament, he said there was no viable alternative to his government and that if it fell now, the only alternative would be early elections.

Read the whole hot breaking news

If you’ve never thought much about pavement, take a drive from Juba to Nimule. Parts of South Sudan’s busiest road have been paved, but the unfinished parts are still teeth-rattling stretches of pitted, rust-colored dirt. On a dry day, each passing truck leaves a impenetrable dust cloud in its wake; after a rain, pocks in the earth degenerate into red lagoons. The trucks whose tires don’t sink into the mud veer wildly to dodge the lakes, sending lesser vehicles scattering. When you finally bounce back onto the pavement, it is so mercifully uneventful that you swear you will never take it for granted again, and before you can make any more promises you won’t keep, cathunk! You’re back on the dirt, splayed across the backseat like a starfish, bracing against windows and seats with all available limbs.

When it’s done, the Juba-Nimule road will be the longest paved road — and by far the biggest infrastructure project — in the Republic of South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation. USAID, a major donor to the three-month old country, is paying for and overseeing the work on the 192-kilometer route and the eight bridges along the way. Work began in 2008, and it’s total price-tag of $ 220 million is $ 61 million over original projections. Some have questioned why only a third of the road is finished after three years; others wonder whether those millions of dollars were best spent so near the capital, instead of a more isolated area. See photos on South Sudan’s quest for independence.)

Few, however, would argue that the job shouldn’t get done. In a country the size of France, there are less than 110 km (68 miles) of paved roads. Most of the nation’s limited road network is comprised of dirt routes in various stages of disrepair. Money for infrastructure did not flow generously to the south from Khartoum, a chronic neglect that was one of many factors fueling the nation’s decades of civil war. “Even before the ravages of war could set in, our country never had anything worth rebuilding,” President Salva Kiir said before the United Nations last month. Now that he and his ministers are in charge, they face the enormous task of creating a road system nearly from scratch. In August, local media reported that the government aims to pave over 4,300 miles of roads — a feat they estimate could cost nearly $ 7 billion.

Read the whole hot breaking news