To learn a language, a child must learn a set of all-purpose rules, such as "a sentence can be formed by combining a subject, a verb and an object" that can be used in an infinite number of ways. A new study shows that by the age of seven months, human infants are on the lookout for abstract rules - and that they know the best place to look for such abstractions is in human speech.

A group of hostage-takers promised to release Wednesday night 31 remaining daycare students and four teachers in Manila whom they seized aboard a tourist bus that was supposed to take them to a field trip in Tagaytay.