Syrian rebels have taken control of the country's biggest hydro-electric dam on the Euphrates River, activists said, dealing a strategic blow to President Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and other Syrian activists said Islamist fighters seized the entrances to the dam, although gunmen had not entered the main operations room and the dam had continued to function.

They had earlier swept through the nearby town of Tabqa, renamed al-Thawra (Revolution) by the country's rulers. A statue of Assad's father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, was set on fire in the town, video footage showed.

Other video posted on the Internet showed what activists said was an abandoned Air Force Security base next to the dam and army installations inside the town.

"The dam was protected by an artillery battery and many intelligence units. The rebels moved on them in a lightning offensive yesterday, overrunning their positions and capturing scores of personnel," said Abu Ziad Teif, an opposition activist in contact with rebels in the area.

He said it was not clear whether the rebels would be able to keep the dam in operation and whether enough employees were left at the site. Extra power cuts were reported in the war ravaged city of Aleppo, which is partly supplied by the dam.

Rami Abdulrahman of British-based Syrian Observatory described the swift collapse of Assad's forces in Tabqa and around the dam as one of the president's biggest strategic setbacks in the 22-month-old Syrian uprising.

 Pope Benedict said on Monday he will resign on Feb 28 because he no longer has the strength to fulfill the duties of his office, becoming the first pontiff since the Middle Ages to take such a step.

The 85-year-old pope said he had noticed that his strength had deteriorated over recent months "to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me".

"For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter," he said according to a statement from the Vatican.

A Vatican spokesman said the pontiff would step down from 1900 GMT on February 28, leaving the office vacant until a successor is chosen.

Taylor Swift was the opening act for the 55th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday night.

The 23-year-old pop superstar sang her nominated song "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" at the Grammys. Swift teased her Grammys performance in the days leading up to the big event. She rocked a bedazzled white top hat and tails. Her over-the-top performance included men on stilts, ballerinas, and dancers dressed as rabbits. She ended the song with the line "So he calls me and goes, 'I still love you...' And I'm like, 'I'm sorry, I'm busy opening the Grammys.'"

"I think you should perform the song that's nominated," she told Ryan Seacrest on his radio show. Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," the lead single off her 2012 album "Red," was nominated in the Record of the Year category. ("Red" itself wasn't eligible for Grammys nominations, so expect to see Swift dominate the 56th annual Grammy Awards in 2014.)

Prior to performing on the Grammy awards, Swift was a little nervous.

"Oh my god, it's Grammy week, it's so hectic," she said to Seacrest. "I have a lot to plan for with the opening performance and I'm just really hoping all the pieces come together this week. Because this is when it really gets really crazy, but it's all very exciting too."

Let me start by saying that I dearly missed the presence of Marnie, Jessa and Soshanna in this week's episode of "Girls." This is partially due to the balance and wit their characters provide in the midst of sad and ridiculous storylines, but also because Hannah has officially hit a big fat zero on the togetherness scale.

Let's begin with the smaller problems that came up during "One Man's Trash."

She has a rebellious streak that has manifested itself in garbage.

In the same way teenagers sneak out of the house to defy their parents, Hannah gets a rush from throwing the Cafe Grumpy trash in a can that does not belong to the coffee shop. After the handsome man on the receiving end of her habit comes charging angrily into the coffee shop, Hannah is quick to tell him she's very sorry for what she's done, but that she thinks her rebellion "makes a lot of sense in a way." Does it?

She has no problem playing ping pong naked or passing out in a shower.

In case you hadn't figured it out from the previews, Hannah ends up hitting it off with the guy whose trash can she's filling with pastries and coffee grounds. Has name is Joshua (Patrick Wilson) -- not Josh -- and he's a 42-year-old, recently-separated doctor.

He invites her in to his very pretty, very adult brownstone, and they have sex almost immediately. Soon, they're playing ping pong naked. I'm not saying playing games naked is an entirely terrible thing, as a lot of people enjoy the occasional skinny dip. But ping pong? Really? It just seems (and looks) like a bad idea on a lot of levels.

Speaking of bad ideas, when Hannah discovers that Joshua has a very high-tech shower that can probably talk, she immediately turns up the heat and ends up fainting because of the amount of steam that accumulates. She is of course saved by Joshua, who is becoming something of a father figure at this point. But what if he hadn't been around?


We all have moments that make us want to ditch the nine-to-five scene to travel the world, spend a year writing a book or just hide under our covers. But unless you have access to a trust fund, which Hannah does not, quitting your job because your boss was a jerk to a handsome guy isn't all that smart.

When you're paying your own rent and kicking out roommates every other month, a stable income is a necessity. Unfortunately for Hannah, being a free-spirited girl who stands up for herself only goes so far.

Mumford & Son's "Babel" took home the trophy for Album of the Year at Sunday's 55th Annual Grammy Awards, besting Frank Ocean's "channel ORANGE," the Black Keys' "El Camino", fun.'s "Some Nights," and Jack White's "Blunderbuss."

In pre-awards buzz, "Babel" was somewhat of a favorite, in part because the album strikes the right balance of commercial success and critical appeal. The album sold 600,000 copies in its first week, the year's best until Taylor Swift's "Red" debuted with a million-unit week.

It's worth noting that none of this year's Album of the Year nominees were female, a seeming omission that has not gone unnoticed. The Recording Academy votes on nominees and winners. Dubbed Music's Biggest Night, the awards broadcast is intended to be the gold standard for the industry. While the Academy has often been chided for its peculiar way of including and excluding certain artists and genres, "Grammy-winner" remains music's biggest plaudit.

According to the Academy, 39.9 million viewers watched last year's show -- the largest TV audience for the event since 1984. An average of 160,341 tweets per minute were posted during the broadcast.

Last year's Grammy winners included Kanye West and Adele, who combined for ten awards.

For more on the Grammys, click here. Find more Grammy award 2013 winners in the liveblog below.

Authorities in Los Angeles have offered a $1 million reward for information leading to the capture of a fired LA police officer sought in connection with a series of killings and threats against his former colleagues and their families.

The reward was announced even as investigators continued to comb the snowy mountains around Big Bear Lake, where Christopher Dorner's burned out truck was found on Feb. 7, and hundreds of officers patrolled the neighborhoods where people live who were threatened by Dorner in an online screed.

Every day that Dorner is loose, said LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, is another day when the likelihood of an attack on police officers or their families increases.


"We are asking the public, 'Please help us to protect you,' " Beck said at a news conference. "Please help us to find Dorner before he is able to kill again."

Dorner is wanted in the slayings of three people and the ambush-style shooting of two others, all part of a revenge-style rampage that began last Sunday, when he allegedly shot the daughter of a police union lawyer and her fiancé in an Irvine parking garage.

The heart of the search continued to be the San Bernardino mountains where Dorner was last seen, Beck said on Sunday. Officers will also look for him near where some 50 LAPD families live who were threatened by the former policeman.

"You fish where the fish are," Beck said. "And Mr. Dorner has made his intentions very clear."

Timeline: Revenge-Plot Slayings | Read: Full Manifesto | Map: Search Locations

Police locked down a home improvement store in the San Fernando Valley, more than a hundred miles away from Big Bear, after receiving a tip that someone resembling Dorner was seen in the store. Authorities searched car-to-car and cordoned off neighborhoods in Northridge, but the move was seen as mostly precautionary.

Also on Sunday, the Riverside Police Department released the name of one of Dorner's victims. Michael Crain, 34, was ambushed by a man police believe was Dorner on April 7, as he sat with his partner at a stoplight in his patrol car.

 A southern Philippine town plans to hold funeral rites for the world's largest saltwater crocodile and then preserve its remains in a museum to keep tourists coming and prevent their community from slipping back into obscurity, the town's mayor said Monday.

The 1-ton crocodile was declared dead Sunday a few hours after flipping over with a bloated stomach in a pond in an eco-tourism park in Bunawan town, which had started to draw tourists, revenue and development because of the immense reptile, Mayor Edwin Cox Elorde said.

"The whole town, in fact the whole province, is mourning," Elorde said from Bunawan in Agusan del Sur province. "My phones kept ringing because people wanted to say how affected they are."

Guinness World Records had proclaimed it the largest saltwater crocodile in captivity last year, measuring the giant at 6.17 meters (20.24 feet). The reptile took the top spot from an Australian crocodile that measured more than 5 meters (17 feet) and weighed nearly a ton.

The crocodile was named Lolong, after a government environmental officer who died from a heart attack after traveling to Bunawan to help capture the beast. The crocodile, estimated to be more than 50 years old, was blamed for a few brutal deaths of villagers before Bunawan folk came to love it.

The giant reptile has come to symbolize the rich bio-diversity of Agusan marsh, where it was captured. The vast complex of swamp forests, shallow lakes, lily-covered ponds and wetlands is home to wild ducks, herons, egrets and threatened species like the Philippine Hawk Eagle.

Wildlife experts were to perform an autopsy as early as Monday to determine the cause of its death, Elorde said.

Bunawan villagers planned to perform a tribal ritual, which involves butchering chicken and pigs as funeral offerings to thank forest spirits for the fame and other blessings the crocodile has brought, Elordie said. A group of Christians would separately offer prayers before the autopsy.

The rites would be held at the eco-tourism park, where the reptile had emerged as a star attraction, drawing foreign tourists, scientists and wildlife reporting outfits like the National Geographic to Bunawan, a far-flung town of 37,000 people about 515 miles (830 kilometers) southeast of Manila.

The crocodile's capture in September 2011 sparked celebrations in Bunawan, but it also raised concerns that more giant crocodiles might lurk in a marshland and creek where villagers fish. The crocodile was captured with steel cable traps during a hunt prompted by the death of a child in 2009 and the later disappearance of a fisherman. Water buffalos have also been attacked by crocodiles in the area.

About 100 people led by Elorde pulled the crocodile from a creek using a rope and then hoisted it by crane onto a truck.

The manhunt for Christopher Dorner led LAPD SWAT officers to a Northridge Lowe's home improvement store after people reported seeing someone who resembled the fugitive former police officer there.

LAPD swarmed the store off Nordhoff Street about 5 p.m. Customers were escorted out of the store as police looked for any signs of Dorner.

LAPD stressed that it was an unconfirmed sighting.

There have been several reports similar to this one in recent days that didn't pan out.

The search came several hours after the LAPD issued a tactical alert as it handled the Dorner manhunt as well as security for the Grammys.

The LAPD did not detail its Grammy security arrangements, but the department regularly sends a large contingent of officers to awards shows.

This year, the Grammys occurred on the fifth day of a manhunt for Dorner, who is suspected of killing an Irvine couple and a Riverside police officer.

The tactical alert came the same day that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced a $1-million reward for information leading to Dorner's capture.

“We will not tolerate anyone undermining the security of this community,” Villaraigosa said at a news conference at LAPD headquarters downtown. “We will not tolerate this reign of terror.”

Dorner allegedly carried out the slayings as part of a vengeful campaign sparked by his 2009 dismissal from the Los Angeles Police Department, authorities said.

Sunday's tactical alert was declared shortly after 2 p.m. In a tactical alert, officers can be held over on their shifts and do not respond to low-priority radio calls.

Officials hope the huge reward will give police the break they've been waiting for.

Police Chief Charlie Beck said the reward was "the largest local reward ever offered to our knowledge." The reason for such a significant reward, Beck said, was "not about capturing a fleeing suspect, but about preventing another crime, likely another murder."


"This is an act of domestic terrorism," Beck said of those killed and allegedly targeted by Dorner. "He has targeted those we entrust to protect the public."

A massive manhunt for Dorner began last week after the 33-year-old former officer and Navy veteran allegedly began a deadly campaign that has left an Irvine couple and a Riverside police officer dead.

The city of Los Angeles, law enforcement organizations, private groups and anonymous donors have all contributed to the reward fund, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation.


Los Angeles County Supervisors Michael D. Antonovich and Mark Ridley-Thomas are expected to ask the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to contribute $100,000 to the fund, according to Tony Bell, an Antonovich spokesman.

In addition to Los Angeles officials, representatives from the Riverside and Irvine police departments and the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service attended the news conference.

The frustrating search for Dorner has gone from Riverside to Corona to Big Bear to Point Loma in San Diego. There have been numerous false starts, but officials say the heightened publicity has not brought them closer to making an arrest.

The smell of bacon was in the air Saturday as thousands converged on Iowa's capital city for an increasingly popular festival celebrating all things connected with the meat.

Some people wore Viking hats and others walked around with makeshift snouts for the Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival. The annual event featured more than 10,000 pounds of bacon served in unusual ways, such as chocolate-dipped bacon and bacon-flavored cupcakes and gelato.

"I love bacon more than I love my job," said Katie Nordquist, who was dressed in a tuxedo T-shirt that looked like bacon Saturday for her first time at the festival.

And there was a lot of bacon to choose from. The smell of unique concoctions like bacon gumbo and chocolate bacon bourbon tarts wafted through one of two buildings at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. The other building had an Iceland theme, with a Viking boat and Icelandic dishes with bacon, to honor a group of delegates visiting from the country.

Urbandale resident Mike Vogel showed up for a fourth year wearing a head-to-toe bacon costume. He said a widespread love for bacon is the reason about 8,000 tickets to the event sold out in just over three minutes.

"I think it's the right time of year when everybody's been cooped up," said the 39-year-old videographer. "It's a good time to get out, have some fun, try some new stuff, have a few beers and enjoy yourselves with everybody else."

Other events scheduled included lectures about bacon and an eating competition. The festival was preceded earlier in the week with a bacon queen pageant and a pig pardon by Gov. Terry Branstad.

Jessica Dunker, president and CEO of the Iowa Restaurant Association, said bacon used to be just a breakfast food. Now chefs from across the state and country use it in everything from vegetable dishes to desserts.

"It's come a long way and you can find it in almost any kind of food or beverage offering," she said.

Festival co-founder Brooks Reynolds, who officially started the event just a few years ago, said it's become the largest bacon showcase in the world. He called the event a "bacon fellowship."

Los Angeles police said Saturday that they would reopen an investigation into the firing of Christopher Jordan Dorner, a former cop accused of killing three people as part of a revenge plot targeting law enforcement officers.

Dorner wrote a manifesto declaring war on police in retaliation for being fired from his job as an LAPD officer and losing an appeal to be reinstated. He promised to bring "unconventional and asymmetrical warfare" to officers and their families, calling it the "last resort" to clear his name and strike back at a department that he says mistreated him.

"I do this not to appease a murderer. I do it to reassure the public that their police department is transparent and fair in all the things we do," Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said in a statement.

He said police would also look into any allegations made in the manifesto.

Beck addressed what he described as the "ghosts of the LAPD's past," and said that one of his biggest worries was that those ghosts would be "resurrected by Dorner's allegations of racism."

"As hard as it has been to change the culture of the Los Angeles Police Department, it has been even more difficult to win and maintain the support of the public. As much as I value our successes in reducing crime, I value even more our gains in public confidence," he said.

The development came as police continued their search for Dorner, 33, in snowbound mountains. Bundled up in winter gear, teams returned to the pine forests and trails surrounding Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains.