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• WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is heading up a National Day of Service at the start of a whirlwind weekend of inaugural events that mark the end of his historic first term and the start of his second.
• Obama, joined by first lady Michelle Obama, will seek to set the tone for the weekend with a service event on Saturday. Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, will also volunteer in the Washington area.
• Obama added a day of service projects to the inaugural schedule in 2009, and he's hoping the event becomes a tradition for future presidents.
• On Monday, there will be formal balls, an inaugural parade and, of course, the president's address from the steps of the Capitol.
• Even as Washington delves into the once-every-four-year celebration of the presidency, there is decidedly less energy surrounding Obama's second inauguration than there was in 2009. That history-making event drew 1.8 million people to the National Mall to watch Obama be sworn in as the nation's first black president.
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• AIN AMENAS, Algeria (AP) -- Algerian security forces are facing day four of a standoff with an international band of Islamist extremists still holding foreign hostages at a remote gas plant.
• At least 12 people, perhaps many more, died in a government attack on a convoy of militants Thursday whose outcome remained unclear by Saturday morning.
• Hundreds of Algerian and foreign workers have been freed. But Algerian authorities have not said how many hostages remain in the main refinery of the Ain Amenas plant in southeast Algeria.
• Freed hostages have described being used as human shields and strapped with explosive belts.
• A Mauritanian website close to the militants says they are led by a militant from Niger and numbered about 40. Algeria's APS news agency says they are from several countries and number about 30.
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