Trump attacks rival's backer

WASHINGTON • Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump assailed a leading committee chairman in Congress on Sunday for backing Mr Marco Rubio, Mr Trump's rival for the party's nomination.

Mr Trump, the front runner in the Republican race, needled Mr Trey Gowdy over his role as chairman of the House of Representatives select committee investigating the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed.

A Gowdy endorsement could help Mr Rubio, a senator from Florida whose popularity has been rising.

REUTERS

Condom-machine thief dies in botched heist

BERLIN • A man in Germany died on Christmas Day after he was hit in the head by a flying piece of metal from a condom machine that he and two accomplices blew up in an apparent robbery attempt, police said yesterday.

The 29-year-old was taken to hospital in the western town of Schoeppingen by the two other men who fled the scene of the explosion in a car, leaving behind condoms and money scattered around the gutted vending machine.

REUTERS

Mosque blast in Nigeria kills 20, injures 90

MAIDUGURI (Nigeria) • About 20 people were killed and 90 wounded by a bomb explosion in a mosque in the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri yesterday.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the blast bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram, whose insurgency has killed thousands and displaced some 2.1 million people in the region.

REUTERS