Hawks Probe Building Cartel – Top construction industry leaders illegally fixed state and other contracts – including two World Cup stadium deals – worth billions, evidence in a major fraud and racketeering probe shows. [citypress]

French Women Finally Allowed To Wear Pants In Paris – French women can now freely wear pants in Paris. France’s Minister of women’s rights Najat Vallaud-Belkacem revoked a 200-year-old law that forbid pants in public. [glopo]

US Alabama Hostage Situation Enters Sixth Day – Day 6 of the chilling siege in rural Alabama where a 5-year-old autistic boy is being held in an underground bunker. [abc]

DA Wants Maharaj Suspended – President Jacob Zuma should suspend his spokesperson Mac Maharaj, the DA said on Friday after another report alleging that he and his wife benefited from a driver’s licence card contract. [news24]

Ravens Win Super Bowl 34-31 After Holding Off 49ers’ Comeback – The Baltimore Ravens defeated the San Francisco 49ers 34-31 for their second Super Bowl title, holding off a comeback that started after a 34-minute delay for a power failure. [bloomberg]

French Jets Bomb Northern Mali – French warplanes have carried out air strikes in Mali’s far north as they try to secure the final rebel stronghold of Kidal after a three-week offensive. [bbc]

Minister’s Boyfriend Paid R6m For 4 Days Work – Communications Minister Dina Pule’s boyfriend was paid R6-million in management fees for the ICT Indaba after her department apparently forced the conference organiser to hire him. [timeslive]

Paraguay Candidate Dies In Helicopter Crash – Paraguayan presidential candidate Lino Oviedo, who helped lead the 1989 coup that overthrew dictator Alfredo Stroessner, died in a helicopter crash over the weekend. [aljazeera]

Union Happy With R100 Days Wage For Farm Workers, For Now – Union Fawu has said it expects the new minimum wage for farm workers to be R100 a day, and this should increase to R150 at a later stage. [mail&guardian]

South Korea And US Begin Drills Amid Nuclear Threat from North – South Korean and U.S. troops began naval drills Monday in a show of force partly directed at North Korea amid signs that Pyongyang will soon carry out a threat to conduct its third atomic test. [time]

Twitter #hacked: Company Says Up To 250,000 Passwords Taken In Security Breach – In a blog post, Twitter said it discovered that the attackers may have stolen user names, email addresses and encrypted passwords belonging to 250,000 users. [mirror]

Despite Academy Snub, Ben Affleck Takes Home Top Prize At Director’s Guild Awards – He wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar, but on Saturday night Ben Affleck received the top directing prize at the Director’s Guild of America Awards (DGA) — voted on by his fellow directors. [busins]

Missing Irish Millionaire Found After Eight Months – Tycoon found wandering dazed in road in County Leitrim, claiming to have been thrown out of van by kidnappers. He had the word ‘thief’ etched on his forehead. [guardian]

Beyonce Super Bowl Halftime Show: Singer Stuns With All-Out Display [Video] – For some, Beyonce’s Super Bowl halftime show was to be the Big Game’s finest moment. But for all who tuned in to see the singer perform, it’s clear she brought her A game. [huffpo]

Regretsy Closes, The World Mourns The End Of DIY Meets WTF – 1 February was a sad day for a number of reasons. Not only did it mark the 10th anniversary of the Space shuttle Columbia disaster, but it’s also the day that Regretsy stopped publishing new material and became an archive. [wireduk]

Affordable Injection Molding Transforms Tinkerers Into Tycoons – While everyone is talking about the 3-D printing industrial revolution, Protomold is helping tinkerers become tycoons by making mass-production injection molding technology accessible for easily customized short-run batches. [wired]

George W. Bush’s Dog, Barney, Died – Former first dog Barney Bush, the black Scottish terrier who romped on the White House grounds in George W. Bush’s time there, has died at age 12, the former president said in a statement. [yahoo]

Girls’ Lena Dunham To Pen New HBO Series About Personal Shopper Betty Halbreich – The woman behind the successor to Sex and the City is to write about the woman who created the show’s style. [independent]

Etch A Sketch Inventor Dies – A French electrician, Andre Cassagnes invented the drawing toy in Paris in the late 1950s. When an Ohio firm introduced it in 1960, it became a hit, ranked one of the top 100 toys of the century. [latimes]

Johnny Depp to Star as Gangster Whitey Bulger – Johnny Depp is attached to star in Barry Levinson’s gangster thriller Black Mass, which recounts the real-life story of South Boston criminal mastermind Whitey Bulger. [hollyrep]

Watch Ellen DeGeneres’ Adorable Birthday Tribute to Portia de Rossi – Yesterday was Portia de Rossi’s 40th birthday. So on her daytime talk show today, Ellen DeGeneres paid tribute to her wife of four years. [gawker]

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