Evening Edition

The attacks mostly targeted pilgrims marking a Shiite holy day, and were the latest in a series of bombings that have shattered a relative calm in Iraq following the formation of a new government last month.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed the Karbala attacks on “takfiris,” an Islamic term for apostates but used by the premier to mean anti-Shiite Al-Qaeda militants.

A day after a gala dinner at the White House, Hu had a frostier reception as he visited Capitol Hill where top US lawmakers pressed him on economic and human rights concerns including the jailing of Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo.

Hu afterward delivered a speech to US business and political leaders in which he urged “mutual respect” and said: “The China-US relationship is not one in which one side’s gain means the other one’s loss.”

Hu was to meet with leaders of the US Congress, a source of frequent ringing attacks on China’s rights record and economic policy as well as sharp criticism of its role in nuclear standoffs with Iran and North Korea.

President Barack Obama’s pressed Hu to embrace “universal rights” and pushing Beijing to set a “level-playing field” for US firms in China and battle intellectual piracy were unlikely to soothe congressional anger.

The data has fuelled expectations for a stronger currency — a change that Washington has pressed for during President Hu Jintao’s high-profile US visit this week — as China pulls on a variety of levers to rein in consumer prices.

Gross domestic product rose 9.8 percent in the fourth quarter, accelerating from the previous quarter and exceeding analysts’ expectations, cementing China’s position as the world’s second-largest economy.

The cabinet is tasked with ushering in presidential and parliamentary elections within six months, following the overthrow of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who fled to Saudi Arabia last Friday after weeks of popular unrest.

In its first session led by interim president Foued Mebazaa, it passed a general amnesty bill that would free political prisoners and legalize banned political parties and also ordered all assets of the ex-ruling party seized.

The cabinet led by interim president Foued Mebazaa is tasked with ushering in presidential and parliamentary elections within six months, following the overthrow of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who fled to Saudi Arabia last Friday following weeks of popular unrest.

But critics have denounced the new line-up for including ministers loyal to the discredited Ben Ali regime and street protests swelled Thursday demanding the cabinet resign.

The arrests were announced on state television, which showed footage of luxury watches, jewellery and credit cards seized in raids on homes of the former first family.

Authorities had opened an investigation against them for plundering the nation’s resources, it said.

The bold call, backed by Britain and France, came as the shock return of notorious former dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier threatened to muddy the political waters in the quake-hit and cholera-riddled Caribbean nation.

Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said Haiti must carry out the recommendations of international monitors who have called for Preval’s protege Jude Celestin to be discarded from the delayed presidential run-off.

His announcement came after his coalition partners threatened to withdraw their support over his plan to replace five ministers who resigned in the space of 24 hours with rising stars from his Fianna Fail party.

The centrist party now faces a drubbing from voters angry that the former “Celtic Tiger” economy has been forced to seek a bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund on Cowen’s watch.

The data has fuelled expectations for a stronger currency — a change that Washington has pressed for during President Hu Jintao’s high-profile US visit this week — as China pulls on a variety of levers to rein in consumer prices.

Gross domestic product rose 9.8 percent in the fourth quarter, accelerating from the previous quarter and exceeding analysts’ expectations, cementing China’s position as the world’s second-largest economy.

Hu, on a high-stakes state visit to the United States, said China needed to make progress on human rights at its own pace, but that he hoped to reduce North Korea tensions and make progress against intellectual piracy, they said.

The Chinese leader did not speak to reporters after his whirlwind visit to the US Capitol, where he met with top members of the House of Representatives and senior US Senators in separate closed-door meetings.

The trend also helped to melt Arctic sea ice cover to a record low for December last month, the WMO said in a statement.

Last year “ranked as the warmest year on record, together with 2005 and 1998,” the WMO added, confirming preliminary findings released at the global climate conference early December that were based on a 10-month period.

Final results, which will set the mainly Christian, African south on the road to recognition as the world’s newest state in July, are not expected until next month.

But figures gathered by AFP from state and county referendum officials around the south showed that 2,224,857 votes for separation from the mainly Muslim, Arab north had already been returned by Wednesday evening.

New Sports Minister Ajay Maken told a news conference he has set a 10-day deadline for government officials in the organising committee of the October 3-14 event to settle all “legitimate” dues.

“I have directed the government nominees in organising committee to thoroughly verify the unpaid dues and make all the legitimate payments within 10 days,” said Maken.

Cowen’s unexpected bid to promote new faces to a government in its final days was the last straw for his junior coalition partners the Greens who said it was “the final insult” and threatened to withdraw support unless he ditched the plan and named a date for a parliamentary poll.

“The government will continue to do its job … and then we will have an election on the 11th of March,” Cowen told the lower chamber.

The pledge came in the ruling coalition’s first cabinet meeting. Protesters have complained that despite a promised amnesty, only a few hundred of those imprisoned for political reasons during the 23-year rule of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali had been released.

“We are in agreement for a general amnesty,” said Higher Education Minister Ahmed Ibrahim, an opposition party leader who joined the coalition after Ben Ali’s ouster.

The country’s interim leaders said they had freed the last of its political prisoners and promised a “complete break with the past” on Wednesday to appease the protesters who forced the strongman of 23 years, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, to flee to Saudi Arabia last week with some of his wealthy entourage.

State television said 33 of Ben Ali’s clan had been arrested for crimes against the nation. It showed what it said was seized gold and jewelry. Switzerland froze Ben Ali’s family assets.

Hu was urged by President Barack Obama on Wednesday to let the value of China’s currency rise but members of Congress zeroed in on human rights and trade to underscore the huge gaps between Beijing and Washington.

“Chinese leaders have a responsibility to do better and the United States has a responsibility to hold them to account,” John Boehner, the new Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, said after meeting Hu with other lawmakers.

Evidence of robust growth may give officials confidence to take more aggressive steps to quell price pressures, from stricter lending curbs to interest rate rises, as rising food costs in recent weeks suggest inflation will rebound in coming months.

China’s annual gross domestic product growth sped up in the fourth quarter to 9.8 percent from 9.6 percent in the third quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Thursday, defying expectations for a slowdown to 9.2 percent.

The Chinese president, who was eager to avoid a repeat of the U.S. protocol gaffes he faced during his visit in 2006, got what he wished for: a show of respectful pageantry at a sunny arrival ceremony

But his press conference with U.S. President Barack Obama was marred by translation woes.

Obama, in blunt language for a formal state visit, made clear Washington remained unhappy with the pace at which Beijing has allowed the yuan to rise against the dollar, a bone of contention between Washington and Beijing for years.

“I told President Hu that we welcome China’s increasing the flexibility of its currency. But I also had to say that the renminbi (yuan) remains undervalued, that there needs to be further adjustment in the exchange rate,” he said at a news conference with Hu.

Every few minutes, the heavy clouds parted to give a glimpse of blue skies over Everett, Washington, just north of Seattle. Then new clouds rolled in.

The parked planes are 787-8 Dreamliners, the world’s first commercial aircraft with a body and wings made largely of lightweight carbon-composite materials instead of aluminum. Someday these sleek, fuel-efficient machines — already painted in the liveries of their airline customers — may change the face of air travel and plane-making.

A German paper said euro zone nations were mulling a plan to enable Greece and Ireland to write off some of their debt burden using the European Financial Stability Facility, set up after the Greek bailout as a safety net for others who hit trouble.

The Financial Times Deutschland said euro zone finance ministers, who met on Monday, discussed a plan for the bloc’s rescue fund to buy bonds from these states or give them favorable loans for repurchasing debt.

At the heart of China’s latest inflation headache is an economy overflowing with money from booming exports, foreign investment and speculative funds looking for returns, all of which are fuelling a lending binge the government is struggling to contain.

But analysts say China’s central bank is hard-pressed for choices as it looks for ways to drain the economy of all the excess cash.

The House voted 245-189 to approve the Republican bill that would scrap the law, which was passed by Congress last year after a bitter debate and signed by Obama when his fellow Democrats still controlled both the House and Senate.

The unified House Republicans were joined by three Democrats in backing the bill, which also needs Senate passage but is unlikely to get it. The Senate remains under Democratic control and is not expected to take up the repeal legislation.

The filings came a day after Duvalier was briefly detained and charged by a Haitian state prosecutor with corruption, embezzlement and other alleged crimes during his 1971-1986 rule in the impoverished Caribbean nation. He returned unexpectedly to Haiti on Sunday from 25 years of exile in France.

Michele Montas, the former spokeswoman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, said she and three other Haitians who were jailed during Duvalier’s rule filed the complaints with a Port-au-Prince prosecutor.

“We will remain committed to the path of peaceful development,” Hu told a U.S.-China Business Council luncheon. “We do not engage in an arms race, we are not a military threat to any country. China will never seek to dominate or pursue an expansionist policy.”

Hu said China intended to “develop a socialist democracy and build a socialist country under the rule of law.”

Prince is involved in a multimillion-dollar program financed by several Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates, to mobilize some 2,000 Somali recruits to fight pirates who are terrorizing the African coast, according to a person familiar with the project and an intelligence report seen by The Associated Press.

Prince’s name has surfaced in the Somalia conflict amid the debate over how private security forces should be used in some of the world’s most dangerous spots. Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, became a symbol in Washington of contractors run amok after a series of incidents, including one in 2007 in which its guards were charged with killing 14 civilians in the Iraqi capital.

As a sheer physical act, it was almost Olympian in the strength, dexterity and concentration required.

It was also completely ridiculous.

High unemployment and a record number of foreclosures are deterring potential buyers who fear home prices haven’t reached the bottom. Job growth is expected to pick up this year, but not enough to raise home sales to healthier levels.

“We built too many houses during the boom, and now after the crash, it will take us a long time to get back to normal,” said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s in New York.

The highly charged issue nearly scuttled passage of the health care law last year. The move to reopen that debate is part of an emerging GOP strategy to attack in the health care law piece-by-piece and promote ideas of their own.

It could also drive a wedge between the majority of Democratic lawmakers who support abortion rights, and a smaller group of abortion opponents within their ranks who signed on to the compromise, thereby providing the critical margin to pass the overhaul last year.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 69, a family practice physician with no certification in gynecology or obstetrics, was arraigned Thursday on eight counts of murder in the deaths of seven babies and one patient. Nine employees also have been charged, including four with murder.

Gosnell asked in court that seven of the murder charges be explained and raised his eyebrows as Magistrate Jane Rice detailed the allegations of the baby deaths.

Almost in unison, abortion-rights and anti-abortion activists decried the alleged offenses of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who was arraigned Thursday on eight counts of murder in the deaths of seven babies and one patient. He allegedly provided illegal late-term abortions for up to $3,000 while avoiding a crackdown despite numerous complaints and lawsuits.

“This provider clearly operates outside acceptable quality care standards and is a total outlier,” said National Abortion Federation president Vicki Saporta. “The majority of providers offer very high quality care.”

The army fired warning shots to calm a noisy but peaceful protest in front of the long-ruling RCD party’s headquarters, where demonstrators took down a huge sign and demanded that the government – dominated by members of the old guard – be dismantled, too.

Ministers in the multiparty Cabinet met for four hours Thursday afternoon and came out showing a united front.

The results of the Pearl Project, an investigation carried out by a team of American journalists and students and spanning more than three years, raise troubling questions about Pakistan’s dysfunctional criminal justice system and underscore the limits U.S. officials face in relying on Pakistani authorities.

The four men convicted in the killing did help kidnap the American journalist, according to the investigation. But it says forensic evidence known as “vein-matching” bolsters the confession of al-Qaida No. 3 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the professed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, to having killed Pearl.

Former dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier was holding court with allies at an upscale hotel Thursday before slipping away to an undisclosed destination.

Meanwhile, ousted former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide sent out a letter saying he is ready to come back from six years of South African exile “today, tomorrow, at any time.”

Farm Belt and Southern voters who prefer a Republican president but have often backed moderate Democrats for Congress seem increasingly inclined to vote GOP in all federal races.

Republicans rejoiced at Conrad’s announcement Tuesday. They’re convinced that they can win the open seat in 2012 and hold it for years to come. They see it as a replay of last fall’s election in the state, when Republican John Hoeven easily won the seat held by 18 years by Democrat Byron Dorgan.

His comments Monday shocked and offended some believers of other faiths, but the backlash didn’t seem to be a serious political wound for the retired dermatologist and Southern Baptist deacon.

In a conservative state with some of the highest levels of church attendance in the country, some Christian leaders defended the remarks and the Republican will likely get a fair chance to pursue his agenda in the coming legislative session.

While Lieberman’s supporters lamented his decision not to run in 2012, many constituents, especially Democrats, said they were pleased because the “Joe” they knew as a state lawmaker and activist state attorney general is already long-gone.

“I think Joe at one point was a really good legislator. … He was on the right side of the issues,” said Leslie Simoes of West Hartford, an advocate for people with disabilities and a registered Democrat. “And then, something shifted in him and he has just come out repeatedly, over and over and over again, absolutely on the wrong side of things.”

As pronghorn antelope and mule deer scattered to avoid the procession, park employees and state livestock agents on horseback pushed the 25 bison about ten miles down the Yellowstone River valley. It took about three hours to reach an open meadow in the Gallatin National Forest, where the animals will be allowed to remain until spring.

The move could provide at least some relief from government-sponsored mass slaughters of the iconic Western animals, often called buffalo. Past winter journeys by bison seeking to graze at lower elevations have been blocked over fears that a disease carried by some could infect cattle.

In the last few days, the new Republican governor has been ramming through the state Legislature an agenda that changes the state’s tax structure, provides new legal protections for businesses and reorganizes a major state agency. In rapid-fire fashion, complicated issues that normally occupy months of debate are going from bill to hearing to law.

“Everything’s coming out in a breakneck pace,” said Robert Kraig, a lobbyist since 1999. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The suit against the Lebanon School District, filed Thursday in Harrisburg by the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia on behalf of four parents and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, targets the court-imposed fines it says were above the state’s limit of $300 per violation.

The suit seeks a class-action declaration and the return of any illegal money that the south-central Pennsylvania district collected. It also asks the court to stop the district from trying to collect any fines that violate state law and remain unpaid.

Were it uttered by a modern politician, Kennedy’s famous “ask not” call to service might well be derided as a socialist pitch for more government. His idyllic clamoring for a united world to “explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths” could easily be dismissed by cynics as dreamy and lacking specifics.

Today’s United States is a polarized land. But looking in on the country this week, exactly a half-century since Kennedy delivered perhaps the most famous inaugural address in American history, it’s hard to keep from wondering: In the much-changed politics of 2011, which of his carefully crafted words still resonate?

Bush and key members of his foreign policy team were expected to gather at Texas A&M University before an audience of several thousand people, including Gulf War veterans, to discuss the conflict that started Jan. 17, 1991, and its impact.

New documents detailing conversations former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had with members of his inner circle as the ground assault began on Feb. 24, 1991, were released Thursday by the National Defense University in Washington. The transcripts released for the 20th anniversary show Hussein tried to broker a last minute peace deal with the help of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev but at the same time remaining defiant, calling the coalition forces “treacherous and cowardly” and describing Bush as “the enemy of God and humanity.”

Prosecutors played tapes of Posada testifying at an immigration hearing in 2006 that he paid a smuggler $6,000 to drive him from Honduras to Houston, where he took a bus to Miami.

The 82-year-old Posada faces 11 counts of perjury, obstruction and immigration fraud for lying during citizenship hearings in El Paso. Prosecutors dispute Posada’s story, accusing him of travelling on a shrimp boat converted into a yacht from Isla Mujeres, near the Mexican resort of Cancun, to Miami – and of lying about it while seeking U.S. naturalization.

President Barack Obama and key lawmakers from both political parties say it’s time for a serious national discussion about making the tax code simpler and fairer. It’s going to be a long talk, one that could last years. Why? Because every deduction, exemption and credit, every layer of complexity, is important to somebody, in some cases millions of somebodies.

“That’s what the tax code is now, it’s a whole set of winners and losers,” said Howard Gleckman, a fellow at the Urban Institute and editor of TaxVox, a blog on tax issues. “If you reform it, you’re going to create new winners and new losers, and the losers always scream much louder than the winners cheer.”

U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said he’ll rule Friday or Monday on the request. Ahmed Ghailani’s lawyers asked that he reject Ghailani’s conviction on a single conspiracy count on the grounds that it was inconsistent with the jury’s decision to acquit him on more than 280 other counts.

The attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.

She should know. No living woman has argued before the nation’s highest court more times than Blatt, who made her 30th appearance Wednesday in a case about drug prices.

“Each argument is a big deal,” said Blatt, a Texas native who learned to argue as a high school debater.

The five-seat, five-door Sportback Ralliart looks the part, with a gaping, dark front grille, sinister-looking headlamps, low-profile sport tires and a prominent rear spoiler.

Just a push on the accelerator pedal brings this hot performance hatchback to life as the race-car-derived engine noisily delivers 237 horsepower and 253 foot-pounds of torque. Thank goodness it comes standard with all-wheel drive.

At a command, another trainer gets Kibby to say ‘hello’ by flapping his fins on the water, splashing noisily in the enclosed lagoon at the Dolphin Research Center here, which houses 22 dolphins and is one of the leaders in dolphin cognitive studies.

“Can you imitate what Kibby is doing?” Guarino asks Tanner. Within seconds, Tanner is splashing “hello” – a seemingly extraordinary feat given the blindfolded dolphin appears to only be using sound to perceive and imitate the actions of his fellow dolphin.

The bomb had a remote detonator and the ability to cause mass casualties, according to an official familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information about the investigation.

The bomb was defused without incident Monday but unnerved residents of Spokane, especially those who took part in a parade whose theme was steeped in peace and nonviolence.

The list includes previously undisclosed names of 19 Catholic priests, brothers and one deacon who attorney Mitchell Garabedian said were among those accused in the scores of cases his firm settled with the church for “tens of millions” of dollars.

None of the newly disclosed people on the list have been tried or convicted of a crime, and at least 16 of the 19 are dead, including all who were priests of the Boston Archdiocese.

Gun rights supporters applauded Tuesday’s ruling in Fresno County Superior Court, saying the law would have created uncertainty by forcing local sheriffs and firearms shops to decide for themselves what caliber of bullets were covered under the regulations.

The statute also would have compelled customers to buy their handgun ammunition in face-to-face transactions, which they said would not have prevented a tragedy like the Jan. 8 shooting rampage in Arizona that killed six people and wounded 13 others, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

In his speech on Staten Island, Bloomberg said reforms of the city’s pension system will be his administration’s number one priority in Albany in the weeks ahead. The mayor said he had enlisted the help of former mayor Ed Koch in the effort to wrest control of city-worker pensions back from the state.

The mayor said he wants to raise the retirement age to 65 for non-uniformed workers. The change, which would only apply to new hires, would save billions of dollars over the long term, Bloomberg said.

While the United States struggles with near-chronic unemployment and a continuing housing crisis, China was the first major economy to power out of the global downturn and recently passed Japan as the world’s second-largest economy.

As China gets closer to overtaking the U.S. economically in a decade or two, trade and currency disputes seem likely to intensify.

The 245-189 vote was largely along party lines, and cleared the way for the second phase of the “repeal and replace” promise that victorious Republicans made to the voters last fall. GOP officials said that in the coming months, congressional committees will propose changes to the existing legislation, calling for elimination of a requirement for individuals to purchase coverage, for example, and recommending curbs on medical malpractice lawsuits.

Republicans also intend to try to reverse many of the changes Democrats made to Medicare Advantage, the private alternative to the traditional government-run health care program for seniors.