Lady Gaga cancels concert after 'passing out

Singer Lady Gaga has apologised to fans after being forced to cancel a concert in Indiana due to ill health.

"Can't apologise enough for how sorry I am," she said, via micro-blogging site Twitter, revealing she had collapsed due to exhaustion and dehydration.

"An hour before the show I was feeling dizzy and having trouble breathing," posted the 23-year-old, renowned for her flamboyant stage performances.

The show at Purdue University will now take place on 26 January.

Lady Gaga - real name Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta - is scheduled to return to the stage on Saturday in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

I hope you can forgive me. I love my little monsters more than anything Lady Gaga

Last year she failed to appear as a support act at two Take That concerts in Manchester, citing ill health.

The singer tweeted that she had been "crying for hours" as a result of Thursday's cancellation.

"My stage has complicated mechanical elements," she said. "Everyone was concerned I'd be in danger during the 2hr show, since I had passed out earlier.

"I have performed with the flu, a cold [and] strep throat," she went on. "I would never cancel a show just based on discomfort.

"I hope you can forgive me. I love my little monsters more than anything, you are everything to me."

Lady Gaga - who recently topped the UK singles chart with Bad Romance - had the best-selling UK single of 2009 with Poker Face.

Her tour is due to hit the UK in Manchester on 18 February.

Brazil's 'needle boy' out of danger after operation

Doctors in Brazil say a two-year-old boy who was pierced with at least 31 sewing needles is out of danger following a third successful operation.

Surgeons in Salvador de Bahia have decided to not remove the remaining few needles left in the boy for now.

The boy's stepfather Roberto Carlos Magalhaes, 30, has confessed to inserting the needles into the boy's body as part of a black magic ritual.

He said he did it as a means of taking revenge on his wife.

Doctor Roque Aras said the remaining needles were small and posed no significant threat, the Associated Press news agency reported.

'Happy ending'

However the unnamed boy may still have to undergo more operations in the future.

On Monday, doctors took out four needles from the child's neck.

In an earlier three-hour operation, surgeons took out 14 needles piercing the boy's liver, bladder and intestines.

Four needles which had come perilously close to his heart and lungs were removed during an initial operation last week.

Surgeon Jose Siqueira said he was optimistic following the third surgery, AFP reported.

"We think that this child's story will have a happy ending", he said.

Mr Magalhaes told Brazil's Globo TV that he inserted the needles one at a time, up to three times in a month.

He said he got the boy drunk before driving the needles in.

Mr Magalhaes, 30, and his lover Angelina Ribeiro dos Santos have been formally charged with attempted murder.

Police said Mr Magalhaes, a bricklayer, told them his mistress had urged him to ritually kill the child to take revenge on his wife.

The boy's mother had taken him to hospital in the north-eastern state of Bahia, suffering from stomach pains and vomiting.

She suspected the child had been the victim of a black magic ritual after she found suspicious objects in the home she shared with Mr Magalhaes - her husband of six months - and her six children.

French public debt in new high after stimulus spending

France's public debt has risen to a new high of 76% of economic output after additional state spending during the downturn, figures have shown.

The national statistics office INSEE said government debt stood at 1.46 trillion euros ($2.1tn; £1.3tn) at the end of September.

This was an increase of 29.4bn euros since the end of June.

Debt levels of all major economies have risen sharply as governments have tried to spend their way out of recession.

French government spending helped the country's economy to emerge from recession between April and June.

Lower tax receipts have also contributed to spiralling debt levels.

The 1.46tn euros is the largest debt France has run since INSEE records started in 1995.

According to forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), French public debt as a percentage of economic output will hit 96% by 2014.

Of the G7 economies, this is less than Japan (246%), Italy (129%), the US (108%) and the UK (98%), but more than Germany (89%) and Canada (69%), the IMF has predicted.

England begin solid reply after South Africa tail wags

England built a solid reply to South Africa's 343 before bad light struck Durban on day two of the second Test.

Andrew Strauss, who fell for 54 after contentiously surviving a referral, and Alastair Cook put on 71 for the first wicket before England closed on 103-1.

They had earlier been frustrated by Dale Steyn's 47 at number 10, in which he struck three sixes off England's best bowler Graeme Swann (4-110).

But Strauss played some scintillating shots in an encouraging response.

When South Africa's ninth wicket fell on 285 soon after lunch, England appeared to have the initiative.

But Steyn's bold last-wicket stand of 58 with Makhaya Ntini - who himself played an intelligent hand, surviving for 47 minutes - was the cue for the home fans finally to drown out a typically well-represented Barmy Army.

In fact, South Africa's innings would have ended on 289 if Ntini had been given out lbw to Swann, but despite the evidence from the replay going in England's favour, Strauss had already had two unsuccessful referrals and could do nothing about it.

Conditions at the start of the day, with the floodlights on and murky cloud cover resolutely in position, appeared for all the world to favour the bowlers.

But South Africa had few genuine problems as they advanced their precarious overnight score of 175-5, with AB de Villiers on eight and Mark Boucher five.

James Anderson got a ball 61 overs old to swing impressively into the two right-handers, but they read most deliveries well, and while Boucher seized on anything straight enough to punch through the on-side, De Villiers favoured the off-side with some cultured strokes.

As the threat of a really dangerous stand loomed, once again it was Swann who showed up the inconsistency shown by Anderson, Graham Onions and Stuart Broad by grabbing a desperately-needed breakthrough to end a partnership of 63.

Boucher, on 39, played down the wrong line to a ball delivered from round the wicket, and England - slightly reluctantly - referred the not-out verdict from on-field official Amiesh Saheba to the TV umpire. Eventually Boucher had to go, lbw.

The new ball was soon available and the tail was now exposed, but a further 36 runs were added before De Villiers fell for exactly 50, Broad sending down a fairly harmless-looking delivery just outside off-stump which the batsman tickled to Matt Prior from an attempted pushed drive.

The long two-and-a-half hour morning session finally came to an end with the score on 284-8 after Paul Harris had become Swann's third victim as he attempted to sweep a ball that was too full and departed lbw, and just one run was added before Swann picked up his third lbw with the wicket of Morne Morkel.

But Steyn, who famously hit 76 in a match South Africa won in Melbourne exactly a year ago, produced some memorable blows and England had stopped seeing the funny side of it by the time he finally nicked a catch to Prior off Anderson.

Strauss blew away the frustration with a series of breathtaking pulls and cover-drives off South Africa's seamers. Ntini was the most profligate and England's skipper played one brilliant cut shot for four off the 101-Test superstar to a delivery angling sharply into him from around the wicket.

The tea interval gave South Africa a 20-minute respite, extended by a further 30 minutes when a rain shower swept across the ground.

Strauss did not look the same batsman in the murky conditions late on and was troubled by Morkel, who needed two attempts to remove him.

The England captain successfully referred an lbw shout, third umpire Steve Davis appearing to take the decision into his own hands after pick up a barely detectable inside edge via the stump microphone.

It took him three and a half minutes to overturn Aleem Dar's decision, however, and if Strauss had gone on to make a big score South Africa would have had every reason to grumble.

In the event, Morkel made no doubt four overs later when flattening two of the left-hander's stumps via an inside edge.

Cook's form looked decidedly ropey before tea, but in contrast to his skipper was an improved player later on. He hit some decisive pull shots against the seamers and produced welcome aggression against the spin of Harris.

At 4.26pm local time (1426 GMT) Saheba and Dar decided the light could be offered to Cook (31) and Jonathan Trott (17), and that was that for the day.

Monday's play will start at 0730 GMT as every effort is made to make up time lost both on Saturday and Sunday.

Obama orders air security review after jet bomb attempt

US President Barack Obama has ordered a review of air security measures after a Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic jet on Christmas Day.

Spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president wanted to know how a man carrying dangerous substance PETN had managed to board a flight in Amsterdam.

He said the system of watch-lists would also be examined after it emerged the man was listed and known to officials.

A US record for 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was created last month.

Mr Gibbs told ABC News that the review would examine, firstly, the system of watch-lists used by government agencies, which includes three lists which become progressively shorter as risk increases.

'Dangerous substance'

The lists include a watch-list, with some 550,000 names on it, a "selectee" list with 18,000 people within the higher-risk category, and a "no-fly" list with 4,000 names of people who are not permitted to board planes.

Mr Abdulmutallab was placed on the lowest-risk list by US authorities in November 2009, after his father alerted authorities about the behaviour of his son.

Mr Gibbs said the number of people on the watch-list was "a huge number".

"The president has asked that a review be undertaken to ensure that any information gets to where it needs to go, to the people making the decisions. The president wants to review some of these procedures and see if they need to be updated," he said.

On 24 December Mr Abdulmutallab travelled from Nigeria to Amsterdam and then on to Detroit with an explosive device attached to his body, US officials say.

Shortly before the flight was due to land in the US, he allegedly attempted to detonate the device beneath a blanket but he was overpowered by passengers and crew.

Mr Abdulmutallab, the son of a prominent Nigerian banker, has been charged by US authorities with trying to blow up the Northwest Airlines flight as it was coming in to land.

US airlines especially have tightened security after the attempt, increasing screenings and body searches and, in some cases, confining passengers to their seats without pillows or blankets for the last hour of their flight.

Mitigation measures

Mr Gibbs said "air detection capabilities" would also be examined as part of the review.

"The president has asked the Department of Homeland Security to answer the - quite frankly - the very real question about how somebody with something as dangerous as PETN could have gotten onto a plane in Amsterdam."

PETN, or pentaerythritol, is the same material used by convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid who tried to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001.

Mr Abdulmutallab's route originally began in Yemen, from where he travelled to Ethiopia, then to Ghana and finally Nigeria.

According to Nigeria's information minister, Mr Abdulmutallab had arrived and flown out of Nigeria in the space of a single day.

"The man in question has been living outside the country for a while," said Dora Akunyili.

"He sneaked into Nigeria on the 24th of December and left the same day."

Nigerian authorities, who on Sunday pledged to co-operate fully with the US investigation, said screening would be enforced for all passengers passing through the country's 22 airports.

Wealthy or influential people and their families are often allowed to skip checks, media reports say.

Speaking to ABC News, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said there was no immediate indication that Mr Abdulmutallab was part of a broader terror plot.

"Right now we have no indication that it is part of anything larger. But obviously the investigation continues. And we have instituted more screening and what we call mitigation measures at airports," she said.

Charlie Sheen arrested after domestic violence claims

Actor Charlie Sheen spent much of Christmas Day in a cell after being accused of domestic violence.

Police arrested the 44-year-old Platoon and Wall Street star on Friday morning after an emergency call from a house in the ski resort of Aspen, Colorado.

An ambulance went to the house, but no-one was taken to hospital.

Police said the Two and a Half Men TV sitcom star was suspected of assault, menacing and criminal mischief. He was released on $8,500 (£5,300) bail.

Mr Sheen is the son of actor Martin Sheen and brother of actor-director Emilio Estevez.

He was married in May 2008 to Brooke Mueller Sheen, a property investor who gave birth to the couple's first children, twin boys, in March.

Two and a Half Men has proven one of US TV's most popular sitcoms and made Charlie Sheen America's highest paid TV star in 2008, raking in $825,000 (£422,000) per episode.

It is not the actor's first brush with the law. He was arrested in 1996 for assaulting a woman, who claimed she had been knocked unconscious at his home.

He was also the only star named as a client of "Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss, testifying at her trial that he had paid her $50,000 for escorts.

Mr Sheen ended up in hospital in 1998 following a drug overdose and checked into rehab on his release. Subsequently arrested for drinking and drug driving, he went back to rehab on doctor's orders.