ALEPPO, Syria (Reuters) – President Bashar al-Assad named a new prime minister on Thursday to replace Syria’s most senior government defector as his forces pushed rebels back from a strategic district in Aleppo.

Assad appointed Wael al-Halki, a Sunni Muslim from the southern province of Deraa where the Syrian uprising erupted 17 months ago, to head the government after Riyad Hijab fled on Monday after spending only two months in the job.

Hijab’s dramatic escape across the border to Jordan dealt another blow to Assad’s authority, already shaken by the assassination last month of four of his top security officials and by rebel gains in Damascus, Aleppo and swathes of rural Syria.

Assad has shrugged off the setbacks and persevered with a desperate contest with his mostly Sunni opponents, who are seeking to end half a century of Baathist rule and topple a system dominated by members of the president’s minority Alawite sect.

He has focused his fierce army counter-offensive on Syria’s two main cities, reasserting control over much of Damascus before taking the fight to the northern commercial hub.

Rebels fighting in the Aleppo district of Salaheddine, a southern gateway to the city, said they had been forced to fall back from frontline positions on Thursday by a fierce bombardment which had reduced buildings to rubble.

“There have been some withdrawals of Free Syrian Army fighters from Salaheddine,” rebel commander Abu Ali said. Others said the main frontlines in the area, which had been held by rebels for more than a week, were now deserted.

The center of the district, near Salaheddine mosque, was abandoned when Reuters journalists visited on Thursday. The only sound was the constant echo of artillery shelling. There were no rebels, no security forces, and only a few residents darting in and out to pick up belongings – while evading army snipers.

Rebels stopped a man trying to go and check on his house. “They are targeting anyone they see. Go back for your safety for God’s sake,” said one rebel to the man, who turned back.

The streets were covered in glass and rubble. Cars had been smashed by falling debris and the stench of uncollected rubbish and dead bodies permeated the area.

One rebel field commander, who did not want to be named, said 250 people had been killed in Salaheddine in the last three days, mostly by shelling and air attacks.

As the battle for Aleppo raged, Iran, Assad’s closest foreign backer, gathered ministers from like-minded states for talks about how to end the conflict.

Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi called for “serious and inclusive” talks between the Syrian government and opposition groups. Assad has repeatedly said he is ready for dialogue, but has vowed to crush the armed rebels he says are terrorists.

Assad’s opponents say he must step aside before they enter into talks, saying negotiations would be meaningless while the bloodshed persists.

AIR ATTACK

Assad cannot afford to lose Aleppo if he is to remain a credible national leader. Already stretched by rebel activity in many parts of the country, the military, despite its advantage in tanks, warplanes and helicopters, has had to cede ground elsewhere as it struggles for control of Syria’s biggest city.

As part of a broader army offensive, Assad’s forces attacked rebels on several fronts including a neighborhood near the airport in southeast Aleppo, several eastern districts, and a town on Aleppo’s northwestern outskirts, state media said.

Despite the violence, the Red Cross delivered food and medical supplies to Aleppo, the first time one of its aid convoys managed to enter the city in several weeks.

Reuters journalists in Tel Rifaat, 35 km (20 miles) north of Aleppo, watched a Syrian air force jet diving and firing rockets, causing villagers to flee in panic.

Explosions rang out and black smoke billowed from an olive grove. A truck was engulfed in flames. Six children and a crying woman fled their tiny home. One woman held the Koran above her head, kissing it, and another banged her head with her hands. Men stared at the sky and threw their arms up in despair.

Though sympathetic to the rebels, Western powers, Turkey and Sunni Arab states have not intervened militarily. Russia and China have blocked United Nations action against Assad, while Iran has tried to bolster the Syrian leader in an Arab world where many view non-Arab, Shi’ite Iran as a menace.

TEHRAN MEETING

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad billed the Tehran meeting of a dozen countries as an opportunity “to replace military clashes with political, indigenous approaches to settle the disputes”. Those attending would have “a correct and realistic position” on the Syrian conflict, a senior Iranian diplomat said this week, indicating a one-sided discussion.

“The Islamic Republic’s support for Assad’s regime is hardly compatible with a genuine attempt at conciliation between the parties,” said one Western diplomat based in Tehran. It showed Iran was “running out of ideas”, he added.

Syrian rebels, who have accused Iran of sending fighters to help Assad’s forces, seized 48 Iranians in Syria on August 4, saying they were members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

An Iranian Foreign Ministry official said on Thursday that all the prisoners were alive, contrary to statements by their captors that three had been killed in an air raid.

Foreign Minister Salehi has acknowledged that some of the men were retired soldiers or Revolutionary Guards, but said they were religious pilgrims, not combatants.

Damascus and Tehran accuse Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Western nations of stoking violence by backing Syrian rebels.

Turkey’s foreign minister accused Syria in turn of arming the Kurdistan Worker Party (PKK) a Kurdish militant group that has fought the Turkish state for decades.

“Assad gave them weapons support. Yes – this is not a fantasy. It is true. We have taken necessary measures against,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told Turkish media.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based opposition watchdog, said more than 70 people had been killed across Syria on Thursday. It put Wednesday’s death toll at 170, including 33 civilians in Aleppo.

The violence in Syria has forced tens of thousands of people to flee into neighboring countries, and about 2,400 refugees, including two generals, arrived in Turkey on Tuesday night.

Near the Syrian border town of al-Dana, a crowd of refugees from Aleppo piled through a frontier fence as Turkish soldiers tried to keep order. “We could not endure anymore,” Ahmad Shaaban, a grocer from Salaheddine, told Reuters.

“We have been deprived of everything. They have burnt our homes and have deprived us of our livelihood.”

Armstrong, who turned 82 on Sunday, underwent surgery on Tuesday to relieve blocked coronary arteries. NBC news quoted his wife Carol Armstrong as saying he is “doing great.”

As commander of the Apollo 11 mission, Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969. After piloting the module Eagle to the moon, he climbed down the stairs onto the dusty surface and said: ““That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden called Armstrong a “true American hero” and wished him a quick recovery.

“Neil’s pioneering spirit will surely serve him well in this challenging time and the entire NASA family is holding the Armstrong family in our thoughts and prayers,” Bolden said in a statement.

Armstrong flew combat missions during the Korean War and was a test pilot for a U.S. aeronautics agency that would become NASA. After leaving the space agency, he taught at the University of Cincinnati in his home state of Ohio.

He and his wife live in the Cincinnati area.

Johannesburg – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton makes a scene in a state banquet in Johannesburg, South Africa on Wednesday (08/08/2012). She was joined by singer without awkward dancing merrily.

Hillary Clinton sure knows how to have a good time. The secretary of state was captured on camera dancing during her trip to South Africa, on the heels of showing off her moves in Malawi.

Earlier this year, Clinton made headlines when she was snapped drinking a beer in Cartagena, Colombia, where she was attending the Summit of the Americas.

In April at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, President Barack Obama joked that “much has changed” during his time in office. He quipped, “Four years ago, I was locked in a brutal primary battle with Hillary Clinton. Four years later she won’t stop drunk-texting me from Cartegana.”

In a video recorded Associated Press, Hillary looks cheerfully follow the rhythm of the song. Hillary was the action performed when a state banquet by his colleagues, the South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane. At dinner that took place, there was a more flowing melodic jazz which then turned into songs for dancing.

Hillary was sitting stunned to hear that. Without command she immediately got up and danced merrily. Simultaneously all the officials who attended joined dancing with Hillary. So, be a dining room turned disco floor.

The boy was holed up in his bedroom for the majority of the weekend playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, a “first-person shooter” game.

According to NBC’s Columbus affiliate, the boy collapsed several times on Tuesday, hours after emerging from his room. He was hospitalized and treated for severe dehydration.

Jessie Rawlins, the boy’s mother, told WCMH-TV that he turned very pale and his lips “became a disturbing blue color.”

“I was very scared,” Rawlins said. “I thought he was going to die. He just fell over three times.”

The boy is expected to recover, but won’t be playing video games anytime soon. “The Xbox is gone,” Rawlins said.

The dangers of hard-core gaming and so-called video game addiction have long been debated.

In 2007, the American Psychiatric Association considered including “video game addiction” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) but decided against it.

In 2009, an Ohio teenager was found guilty of murdering his mother and shooting his father after they would not allow him to play Halo 3. His defense team argued that he was addicted to video games.

Earlier this year, a Taiwanese teenager collapsed and died at an Internet cafe after playing Diablo III, an online video game, for 40 consecutive hours without eating, according to local media reports. A similar death was reported in South Korea in 2005.

Dr. Mike Patrick, an emergency physician at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, told The Associated Press he recommends common sense when gaming: “Get plenty of food and fluids, take breaks for physical activity, and put the controller down now and then to get some decent sleep.”

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The cast of “The Expendables 2″ say they’re giving co-star and writer Sylvester Stallone space after the death of his son last month.

Stallone’s 36-year-old son Sage died on July 13 in his Los Angeles home — a day after Stallone was joined by Arnold Schwarzenegger and other “Expendables” stars at Comic-Con in San Diego.

“Something like that is so severe. You can’t really do anything. I sent him a handwritten note. I contributed to a charity for his kid,” said Dolph Lundgren, one of a number of aging action stars featured in the film, which opens Aug. 17.

“He knows we’re thinking about him,” Lundgren said at a recent media event for the film. “He knows us. He knows our prayers go out to him. But what are you going to do? I have two kids. And all you can do is hug your kids and go thank God it didn’t happen to you.”

Stallone has not made any public appearances since the death. His publicist said in a statement that the star was “devastated and grief-stricken.” No cause of death has been announced.

Sage Moonblood Stallone was the oldest of Sylvester Stallone’s children and co-starred with his father in two films: 1990′s “Rocky V” and 1996′s “Daylight.”

Mixed-martial-arts veteran turned actor Randy Couture said the cast was missing Stallone during promotion of the film, which includes a European trip and next week’s Los Angeles premiere.

“He is the leader of this group, both on-screen and off-screen. And so we miss him here,” Couture said. “But we understand. We’re parents. We have kids. We can’t really imagine what he’s going through now. But what do you say? … So we’re giving him space.”

Co-star Terry Crews, a former NFL player turned actor, said the cast would handle publicity for the film to allow Stallone time to grieve.

“The best thing that we can do right now is hold it down here for him. This is his baby,” Crews said. “This is one thing that he came up with that he’s changed the world yet again. And I’m proud to be here and repping for him. Whatever he needs, we got him.”

By RYAN PEARSON

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Relentless rains submerged half of the sprawling Philippine capital, triggered a landslide that killed nine people and sent emergency crews scrambling Tuesday to rescue tens of thousands of residents who called media outlets pleading for help.

The deluge, the worst since 2009 when hundreds died in rampaging flash floods, was set off by the seasonal monsoon that overflowed major dams and rivers in Manila and surrounding provinces.

The capital and other parts of the country already were saturated from last week’s Typhoon Saola, which battered Manila and the north for several days before blowing away Friday. That storm was responsible for at least 53 deaths.

“It’s like a water world,” said Benito Ramos, head of the government’s disaster response agency. He said the rains flooded 50 percent of metropolitan Manila on Monday evening, and about 30 percent remained under waist- or neck-deep waters Tuesday.

He urged residents in areas prone to landslides and floods to stay in evacuation centers. Because the soil is saturated, even a little rain could be dangerous, he added.

“Now that it’s getting dark, I would like to repeat, if the rains are heavy you should be at the evacuation centers,” he said, warning that rescue operations are more difficult at night and could put responders at risk.

Manila’s weather bureau said a tropical storm off eastern China had intensified monsoon rains in the Philippines, which were forecast to last until Thursday.

In Manila’s suburban Quezon City, a landslide hit a row of shanties perched below a hill, burying nine people, according to Ramos.

Army troops and police dug frantically to save those buried, including four children, as surviving relatives and neighbors wept. All the victims were recovered, some whose bodies were found near an entombed shanty’s door as they apparently tried to flee.

“My wife, children and grandchild are down there,” a drenched Jessie Bailon told The Associated Press while watching rescuers dig into a muddy mound where his shanty once stood.

National police chief Nicanor Bartolome went to the scene and ordered all other slum dwellers to be evacuated from the still-soggy area.

TV footage showed rescuers dangling on ropes to bring children and other residents to safety from flooded houses across the city. Many residents trapped in their homes called radio and TV stations desperately asking for help.

“We need to be rescued,” Josephine Cruz told DZMM radio as water rose around her house in Quezon City, saying she was trapped in her two-story house with 11 other people, including her 83-year-old mother. “We can’t get out because the floodwaters are now higher than people.”

ABC-CBN TV network reported receiving frantic calls from people whose relatives were trapped in the deluge, many without food since Tuesday morning. They included a pregnant woman with a baby who wanted to be rescued from a roof and about 55 people who scrambled to the third floor of a Quezon city house as water rose below them.

Vehicles and even heavy trucks struggled to navigate water-clogged roads, where hundreds of thousands of commuters were stranded. Many cars were stuck in the muddy waters.

The government suspended work and classes Tuesday and Wednesday. Some shopping malls opened with limited grocery supplies that were quickly picked up by shoppers waiting in long lines.

The La Mesa dam, which supplies water to the capital of 12 million people, spilled excess water early Tuesday into the rivers flowing into Quezon City, as well as the neighborhoods of Malabon, Valenzuela and Caloocan, where several villages were submerged.

Along the swollen Marikina River, nearly 20,000 residents have been moved away from the riverbanks but many others asked to be rescued. Mayor Del de Guzman pleaded for patience and said overwhelmed rescue teams would try to reach everyone.

President Benigno Aquino III called an emergency meeting of Cabinet officials and disaster-response agencies. He ordered officials to make sure all residents were accounted for in flooded villages and discussed how flooded hospitals could be helped in case they were hit by power outages.

The Philippine Stock Exchange in the flooded financial district of Makati was closed. Also closed was the U.S. Embassy along Manila Bay in the historic old city, which was flooded last week when a storm surge pushed the water over the seawall.

In 2009, massive flooding spawned by a typhoon devastated Manila and surrounding areas, killing hundreds. The state weather bureau said that the current flooding was not as severe and that the weather may start to improve later this week.

By HRVOJE HRANJSKI

LONDON (AP) — Aly Raisman was ready to claim her Olympic legacy. She just needed a little bit of karmic justice to help her do it.

Some quick thinking from Martha and Bela Karolyi helped, too.

The ever-steady, ever-stoic captain of the U.S. women’s Olympic gymnastics team made history during the event finals on Tuesday, becoming the first American to win gold on floor exercise. She added a bronze on balance beam to cap off an already impressive two-week run.

Not bad for the athlete who’s the often overlooked core of the superstar group of U.S. gymnasts known as the “Fierce Five.”

Five days after a tiebreaker cost her bronze in the all-around, Raisman won a tiebreaker to reach the podium on beam and turned the confidence boost into what she called the best floor routine of her life.

“Wow!” she yelled after finishing four flawless tumbling runs over 90 nearly flawless seconds. Then she raced to hug coach Mihai Brestyan.

He reminded her to enjoy the moment.

“I told her, ‘That’s the maximum you can get, now just wait for the color,’” Brestyan said.

It was gold. A sparkly bookend to the gold she helped the U.S. grab in the team finals last week.

The victory gave Raisman three medals for the meet. One more than all-around champion Gabby Douglas. Two more than good friend and world champion Jordyn Wieber.

This from a gymnast who has spent most of her career being too reliable for her own good. The 18-year-old lacks the bubbly star quality of Douglas or the driven intensity of Wieber.

What she does have, however, is power to spare and a “team-first” mentality that filtered down through the ranks.

“It looked like Aly always did the best for the team then when it came to do stuff for Aly Raisman, I don’t know, she could not deliver her best,” U.S. women’s team coordinator Martha Karolyi said.

Until the last day of perhaps the last major meet of her career. Raisman — who lost a tiebreaker to Russia’s Aliya Mustafina in the all-around finals that prevented her from joining Douglas on the podium — appeared headed for a similar fate Tuesday when her beam score of 14.966 flashed on the screen.

That was lower than what she normally scores, but Brestyan was resigned to it until the Karolyis, sitting a few rows above, screamed at him to appeal. As the national team coordinator, every medal — or almost medal — matters as much to Martha Karolyi as the gymnasts.

“(Brestyan) didn’t want to do it because normally it doesn’t work out in my favor,” Raisman said. “This time, it did.”

After a quick review, the judges bumped Raisman’s difficulty score to a 6.3, pushing her into a tie with Romania’s Catalina Ponor at 15.066. Raisman earned the medal for executing just a little bit better.

Wieber and Douglas struggled following a draining 10 days, though for very different reasons. Wieber came in looking to win a handful of medals but ended up with just one — the team gold — after failing to qualify for the all-around finals and finishing seventh on floor.

She flew out of bounds early during her first competitive event in a week and didn’t come close to reaching the medal stand. Afterward coach John Geddert revealed she was dealing with a painful right leg injury that limited her training.

When Wieber flies home to Michigan after the games, she’ll do it wearing a walking boot to protect and ready for X-rays that Geddert expects to reveal a stress fracture.

While Wieber insists her leg is “fine,” Geddert is positive the pain and watered-down practices took its toll.

“I know you’re at the Olympic games, you’ve got to deal with what you’ve got to deal with,” Geddert said. “The fact that we couldn’t train normally, obviously there were very few performances that were polished and we’ve got to be polished here.”

It’s a polish Douglas had in abundance in becoming the first African-American to win the Olympic all-around title. The subsequent hoopla left her drained for event finals. She was last on uneven bars on Monday and 24 hours later was a non-factor in the beam final after an uncharacteristic fall.

“If it wasn’t my time to shine, it wasn’t my time to shine,” Douglas said. “Overall I think the competition went really well. I wanted to finish off on a good note. Event finals is something a little extra.”

The U.S. finished with six medals in all, a solid number but four less than the 2008 team captured. Not that it matters, not after the group of teenagers stormed to victory in the team competition to give the Americans their first Olympic title in 16 years.

“I feel it was extremely successful,” Karolyi said. “It showed the power of this young generation and showed the mental toughness of this whole team. I can’t wish for anything more.”

The men certainly could. The group that made its motto “One Team, One Dream” ended up walking away with just one medal, the bronze earned by Danell Leyva in the all-around.

Leyva and teammate Jon Horton put together solid sets in the high bar final on Tuesday, but finished well behind gold medalist Epke Zonderland of The Netherlands, whose jaw-dropping score of 16.533 after a breathtaking display left Horton — who had to go next — laughing.

“He makes my routine not so cool anymore,” Horton said.

Expect Horton to work on that. The 26-year-old team captain plans to work toward the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro. He expects teammates Leyva, Sam Mikulak, John Orozco and Jake Dalton — all 21 or younger — to stick around too.

There’s more uncertainty surrounding one of the most decorated U.S. women’s teams of all time. While 15-year-old Kyla Ross and 16-year-olds Douglas and McKayla Maroney could compete for awhile, the future is a bit cloudier for Raisman and Wieber.

Wieber begins her senior year of high school in the fall, and Raisman has already graduated. They both plan to stay in training, but projecting four months down the road — much less four years — is difficult.

Karolyi believes all five team members can continue to compete if they stay healthy but will understand if they don’t. They’ve already reached the top for their sport. Anything else is just gravy.

By WILL GRAVES

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Texas man convicted of killing a police informant was executed Tuesday evening after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected arguments that he was too mentally impaired to qualify for the death penalty.

Marvin Wilson, 54, was pronounced dead at 6:27 p.m., 14 minutes after his lethal injection began at the state prison in Huntsville. Wilson’s attorneys had argued that he should have been ineligible for capital punishment because of his low IQ.

In their appeal to the high court, his attorneys pointed to a psychological test conducted in 2004 that pegged Wilson’s IQ at 61, below the generally accepted minimum competency standard of 70.

But lower courts agreed with state attorneys, who argued that Wilson’s claim was based on a single test that may have been faulty and that his mental impairment claim isn’t supported by other tests and assessments of him over the years.

The Supreme Court denied his request for a stay of execution less than two hours before his lethal injection began. Lead defense attorney Lee Kovarsky said he was “gravely disappointed and saddened” by the ruling, calling it “outrageous that the state of Texas continues to utilize unscientific guidelines … to determine which citizens with intellectual disability are exempt from execution.”

Wilson was convicted of murdering 21-year-old Jerry Williams in November 1992, several days after police seized 24 grams of cocaine from Wilson’s apartment and arrested him. Witnesses testified that Wilson and another man, Andrew Lewis, beat Williams outside of a convenience store in Beaumont, about 80 miles east of Houston. Wilson, who was free on bond, accused Williams of snitching on him about the drugs, they said.

Witnesses said Wilson and Lewis then abducted Williams, and neighborhood residents said they heard a gunshot a short time later. Williams was found dead on the side of a road the next day, wearing only socks, severely beaten and shot in the head and neck at close range.

Wilson was arrested the next day when he reported to his parole officer on a robbery conviction for which he served less than four years of a 20-year prison sentence. It was the second time he had been sent to prison for robbery.

At Wilson’s capital murder trial, Lewis’ wife testified that Wilson confessed to the killing in front of her, her husband and his own wife.

“Don’t be mad at Andrew because Andrew did not do it,” Lewis’ wife said Wilson told them. “I did it.”

Lewis received a life prison term for his involvement.

In Wilson’s Supreme Court appeal, Kovarsky said Wilson’s language and math skills “never progressed beyond an elementary school level,” that he reads and writes below a second-grade level and that he was unable to manage his finances, pay bills or hold down a job.

The Supreme Court issued a ruling in 2002 outlawing the execution of the mentally impaired, but left it to states to determine what constitutes mental impairment. Kovarsky argued that Texas is trying to skirt the ban by altering the generally accepted definitions of mental impairment to the point where gaining relief for an inmate is “virtually unobtainable.”

“That neither the courts nor state officials have stopped this execution is not only a shocking failure of a once-promising constitutional commitment, it is also a reminder that, as a society, we haven’t come quite that far in understanding how so many of those around us live with intellectual disabilities,” Kovarsky said shortly after the court refused to stop Wilson’s execution.

State attorneys say the court left it to states to develop appropriate standards for enforcing the ban and that Texas chose to incorporate a number of factors besides an inmate’s IQ, including the inmate’s adaptive behavior and functioning.

Edward Marshall, a Texas assistant attorney general, said records show Wilson habitually gave less than full effort and “was manipulative and deceitful when it suited his interest,” and that the state considered his ability to show personal independence and social responsibility in making its determinations.

“Considering Wilson’s drug-dealing, street-gambler, criminal lifestyle since an early age, he was obviously competent at managing money, and not having a 9-to-5 job is no critical failure,” Marshall said. “Wilson created schemes using a decoy to screen his thefts, hustled for jobs in the community, and orchestrated the execution of the snitch, demonstrating inventiveness, drive and leadership.”

Wilson’s lawyers also had argued that additional DNA tests should be conducted on a gray hair from someone white that was found on Williams’ body, suggesting someone else killed him. Wilson, Williams and Lewis are black.

Ed Shettle, the Jefferson County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Wilson, dismissed the theory of another killer as a “red herring.”

“There was some testimony Marvin said: ‘We’re going to show you what happens to snitches around here,’” Shettle said.

Wilson was the seventh person executed by lethal injection in Texas this year. At least nine other prisoners in the nation’s most active death penalty state have execution dates in the coming months, including one later this month.

"This is a test from Allah in the month of Ramadan. We're running fast, so do not jump to anger, do not say anything bad," said Imam Mosque Lahmuddin.

JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) — A mosque in southwest Missouri burned to the ground early Monday in the second fire to hit the Islamic center in little more than a month, and investigators spent the day combing through the wreckage searching for evidence of arson.

No injuries were reported, but the Islamic Society of Joplin’s building was a total loss after the blaze, first reported at about 3:30 a.m., the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office said. As of late Monday, nobody had been arrested in connection with the fire.

Investigators from the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and the Jasper County Sheriff’s department were at the scene all day Monday, moving the rubble with a bulldozer and other equipment. A specially trained dog assisted.

Only remnants indicated a building had been there, including some stone pillars that were still standing and a few pieces of charred plywood loosely held up by a frame.

While investigators did their work, a small group of Muslims gathered for an evening prayer on the lawn of the destroyed building.
“This is what we stand for,” said Dr. Ahmed Asadullah, a member of the Islamic Society of Joplin. “Freedom of religion. Freedom of speech.”

It was the second time this summer investigators had been called to the Islamic center, located in a former church on the outskirts of Joplin. A fire reported around the same time on July 4 has been determined to be arson, but no charges have been filed. The FBI has released a video of a suspect caught on surveillance video and offered a $15,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in that fire.

Michael Kaste, special agent in charge of the Kansas City office of the FBI, said the investigation into Monday’s fire was in the preliminary stages, and that about 30 people had been assigned to the investigation.
“Any act of violence to a house of worship is taken very seriously by law enforcement, and threatens the very core of the safety and security of our communities,” Kaste said.

Kaste said it was too early to say if there was surveillance video available from the Monday fire. The Jasper County Sheriff’s office said earlier Monday the video equipment had been destroyed. The FBI was encouraging anyone with information about either fire to call authorities.

“We just want to get the word out there to generate people to really come forward,” he said.
Jasper County Sheriff Archie Dunn said patrols at the mosque had been stepped up since the July 4 fire at the mosque was determined to be arson.
Imam Lahmuddin, who leads the mosque and was in the building until late Sunday, said he was “sad and shocked” about the fire. He had been at the mosque since before dawn Monday, and remained there late in the evening.

“Maybe there is something we are supposed to learn from this,” he said.

A Washington-based Muslim civil rights organization meanwhile called for more police protection at mosques and other houses of worship following the Joplin fire and a deadly attack at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. The Council on American-Islamic Relations also offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever started the mosque fire.

About 50 families belong to the Islamic Society of Joplin, which opened in 2007 as a mosque and community center. The FBI led an investigation in 2008 when the mosque’s sign was torched. That crime also remained unsolved.

Lahmuddin, who has lived in Joplin for about four years, said several people were at the center late Sunday. He said despite the attacks, the center’s members have good relationships with residents and other churches. He said many are doctors at area hospitals. The center also served as a shelter and staging area for volunteers who came to help Joplin after the May 22 ripped through the city, killing 161 people.

On Sunday, a gunman killed six people at a Sikh temple in suburban Milwaukee. The imam said it was a cause of great concern that both faiths had seemingly come under attack.

Jill Michel, pastor of the South Joplin Christian Church, said several area churches have offered their churches to members of the Islamic Society if they need a place to gather. She said she and other faith leaders from the community had been at a dinner Saturday at the center, and that the community would rally around the center’s members.

But, she said, the shooting at the Sikh temple in the Milwaukee area was also on her mind.
“I can’t imagine driving up to my church and having it burned to the ground,” Michel said. “I worry about what any of this sort of thing says about humanity.”

The companies said bapineuzumab intravenous did not work better than placebo in two late-stage trials in patients who had mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease.

The drug is designed to prevent the buildup of plaque in the brain. J&J said it is not discontinuing development of the compound and noted it has ongoing studies including a mid-stage neuroimaging study with bapineuzumab delivered subcutaneously.

Johnson & Johnson made a big bet on bapineuzumab in 2009, agreeing to invest up to $1.5 billion initially. The two companies said July 23 that the drug had failed in a different trial.

Johnson & Johnson, based in New Brunswick, N.J., said it will take a charge of $300 million to $400 million in the third quarter.

Dublin-based Elan Corp. PLC, which licensed the drug to Johnson & Johnson in 2009, said it will take a $117.3 million charge of its own.

U.S.-traded shares of Elan lost 10 percent, or $1.34, to $11.91 in after-hours trading. Shares of New York-based Pfizer lost 2.7 percent, or 66 cents, to $23.60. Johnson & Johnson stock edged down by 84 cents, or 1.2 percent, to $68.

Current treatments for Alzheimer’s can only temporarily ease symptoms of the disease, which include increasing memory loss, confusion, wandering and aggression.

In the latest trial, bapineuzumab was tested on about 1,300 patients who lacked a gene that is associated with a greater risk of Alzheimer’s. Last month the companies said the drug also didn’t work on patients who do have that gene. Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson were running two other late-stage trials as part of a very large testing program for the drug.

Worldwide, about 35 million people already have dementia, of which Alzheimer’s is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer’s. Finding a drug that could at least slow the disease has become a sort of Holy Grail in the pharmaceutical industry. A successful medicine would be guaranteed to generate billions in annual sales, given the world’s aging population.