Guinea dictator Lansana Conte dead, official says

The president of Guinea's National Assembly has announced the death of the country's long-time dictator Lansana Conte.

Aboubacar Sompare appeared on television around 2 a.m. Tuesday to announce Conte's death. He said Conte died …

Cubs' loss a fickled affair

Which is more fickle: the Cubs' middle relief staff or the fanswho cheer it one day and boo it the next?

Tim Raines and yesterday's Wrigley Field crowd of 33,553 arelikely to vote for the middle relief staff.

Friday, Cubs middle reliever George Frazier held the MontrealExpos scoreless for two innings.

Yesterday, Frazier allowed two runs in two innings to earn theloss and the boos in a 4-2 Expos victory.

Frazier (0-1) started the decisive Montreal rally by walkingRaines in the eighth. Raines stole second and scored on Mitch Webster'ssingle to center.

Yet Frazier votes for the fans.

"Friday they were roaring their butts off," …

3-Goal Surge Lifts Leafs Over Rangers

NEW YORK - Pavel Kubina's first of the season woke up the Maple Leafs in the second period and started a three-goal binge against the stingy Rangers that carried Toronto to a 4-1 victory over New York on Saturday night.

The defenseman lifted the Leafs into a 1-1 tie at 8:35, just 2:51 after Jaromir Jagr gave the Rangers the lead. Until then, New York held the advantage on the scoreboard and shot clock with a 20-7 edge.

The Rangers entered as the lowest-scoring NHL team (15 goals), but on the strength of goalie Henrik Lundqvist, had allowed a league-low 17.

Kubina's shot from the right point struck something and changed direction on Lundqvist 29 seconds after the …

German deficit above 3 percent until 2013

Germany will take until 2013 to comply with a European Union-mandated budget deficit limit as it runs up public debt totaling euro509 billion in the aftermath of the economic crisis, a projection showed Wednesday.

The figures, drawn up by experts from federal, regional and municipal governments, were broadly in line with officials' previous predictions on the deficit.

Germany, which for years sought to keep down borrowing, is running up high debt to finance spending aimed at steering its economy through the crisis.

Wednesday's figures, released by the Finance Ministry, showed that public debt will total euro112.5 billion …

Man facing trial over stolen goods charges

A 27-year-old man has been ordered to stand trial after beingaccused of receiving stolen goods at Walton.

Craig Andrew Lemaitre, of Sylvan Road, Bristol, was broughtbefore South Somerset Magistrates in custody this week charged withthe offence which is alleged to have taken place on December 3.

He pleaded not guilty to dishonestly receiving a satellitenavigation device, two chargers and a case containing CDs.

He also denied a charge of being in possession of criminalproperty at …

Carrol Dunham

NEW YORK

Carroll Dunham

NEW MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART

Carroll Dunham's canvases of the past several years make a neat mess of the still-fruitful territory between abstraction and figuration. Blobs of paint morphed into puffy creatures, and more recently into phallic-nosed alpha males impotently shooting at one another. This fall we'll get caught in the cross fire at a two-decade survey of Dunham's work, …

Monitors urged for all with high blood pressure

Everyone with high blood pressure _ some 72 million Americans _ should own a home monitor and do regular pressure checks, the American Heart Association and other groups urged Thursday in an unprecedented endorsement of a medical device for consumers.

High blood pressure is a leading cause of heart attacks, strokes and death. Having it checked a few times a year in a doctor's office or at the drugstore is not enough to keep tabs on it, and regular home monitoring is more accurate, the new advice says.

Closer checks would let doctors fine-tune the many medicines used to control high blood pressure, just as diabetics adjust their insulin levels by regularly …