The Islamic State (IS) militants on Sunday released 19 Christian Assyrians they had kidnapped last month, a monitoring group reported.
The 19 people are the first batch of 29 Assyrians the sharia court of the IS exonerated on Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, Xinhua reported.
On February 23, the IS abducted 220 Christian Assyrians during an assault it had waged on predominantly Assyrian areas, mainly in the area of Tal Tamr and its countryside in Syria's northeastern province of al-Hasakah.
The fate of the other abductees is still unknown amid reports that the rest of the Assyrians are awaiting trials in the IS courts.
There is no clear reason why would the IS even put the Assyrians on trial.
Also on Sunday, the pan-Arab al-Mayadeen TV said the Syrian troops captured as many as 33 towns in the eastern countryside of Hasaka after clashes with the IS.
An Indian origin professor from New Zealand's University of Canterbury, who returned a student-voted 'lecturer of the year' award to protest what he calls an "underbelly of hate" on campus, has been praised by the country's race relations commissioner, media reported.
Indian-American food justice activist Navina Khanna is one of the five winners of the prestigious James Beard Foundation Leadership awards for 2014, considered North America's highest honour for food and beverage professionals.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has apologised for comments he made at a women's computer science conference where he suggested that "women don't need to ask for a raise - they should just trust the system".
Kailash Satyarthi, India's best known face against child labour, was Friday awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Pakistani teenager Malala Yousufzai "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people".
LAS VEGAS - Gay couples in Las Vegas hoping their luck had finally turned were disappointed as county clerks turned them away amid a flurry of conflicting court decisions over same-sex marriage.
