Evening Edition

The attacker struck shortly after a meeting at the office regarding security in Taloqan, the capital of Takhar province, had finished. The Taliban claimed responsibility in what was its latest example of high-profile target selection.

The police chief, General Mohammed Daoud Daoud, was a key figure in Afghanistan’s recent history. A former military commander of Ahmad Shah Massoud’s Northern Alliance, he oversaw the siege of Kunduz, the final major battle of the US-led invasion that followed the September 11 attacks in 2001.

“We will continue to pursue all those who have helped Mladic and other fugitives evade justice,” Serbian war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic told AFP.

“By hiding Mladic they have caused serious damage to this country. Hiding fugitives from the Hague tribunal is a serious crime,” he added.

Among the first to cross were two ambulances ferrying patients from the hitherto-blockaded Gaza Strip for treatment in Egypt, as well as a minibus carrying a dozen visitors.

A total of around 200 Gazans had crossed by early afternoon.

More than 4.23 million people are having difficulty finding adequate drinking supplies, while more than five million are in need of assistance to overcome the drought, the Civil Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

“The special characteristics of this drought disaster is that it has persisted a long time,” the ministry said.

Long demanded by Tokyo, the decision to launch preliminary talks on a trade deal and explore a new binding political accord, was announced at a summit between EU leaders and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

“We still have a long way to go, but the objective is now clear,” said EU president Herman Van Rompuy after talks in a history-packed castle nestling in parkland on the outskirts of Brussels.

He was speaking following talks with visiting Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a day after Greek political leaders failed to agree on further austerity measures.

The European Union has warned that time was running out to solve a problem threatening the euro currency.

A team from the global lender of last resort has been in Athens for three weeks trying to negotiate the next tranche of their 30 billion euro bailout loan to the country, part of a joint 110 billion euro packed with the European Union to save Greek finances.

If it goes ahead, it would be the largest loan the IMF had ever disbursed to one country.

The 23-year-year-old German, in his Red Bull car, clocked a fastest lap of one minute and 13.556 seconds shortly before Perez’s shocking collision with the barriers left his rivals with barely three minutes to respond.

After a prolonged delay, during which Perez was lifted out of the wreckage of his Sauber car by medical crews and the barriers at the chicane following the exit from the tunnel were repaired, the final drama turned into an anti-climax.

Catalan police in anti-riot gear moved in after about 50 protesters sat down on the street to block a convoy of cleaning trucks leaving the Plaza de Cataluna square with remnants of the encampment.

Police, some with plastic shields, were shown on television dragging protesters along the street and swiping with truncheons at activists, who had been chanting: “They shall not pass.”

“There was an explosion late afternoon that targeted a UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) logistics convoy along the main highway near Sidon,” UNIFIL spokesman Neeraj Singh told AFP.

Two civilians and six UNIFIL peacekeepers were injured, he added.

In a long-delayed report to Congress, the US Treasury said it had concluded that China was allowing the yuan, or renminbi, to appreciate against the dollar and had shown willingness to continue promoting exchange-rate flexibility.

The Treasury Department cited “the ongoing appreciation of the renminbi against the dollar since June 2010” as well as “China’s public statements asserting that it will continue to promote RMB exchange rate flexibility.”

The wicketkeeper’s 112 was the cornerstone of Sri Lanka’s first innings 400, a total that appeared some way off when he came in at 159 for four.

Sri Lanka then collected a prize scalp shortly before the close when England captain Andrew Strauss edged Suranga Lakmal, who might not have been playing but for injuries to first-choice seamers Dilhara Fernando and Nuwan Pradeep, to Mahela Jayawardene at second slip for 20.

The alliance launched a first salvo at 1:00 am (2300 GMT Friday) followed by another strike nine hours later in Kadhafi’s Bab Al-Aziziya compound, which NATO aircraft have targeted for four successive days.

The strikes came after US President Barack Obama had said the United States and France were committed to finishing the job in Libya, and as Russia finally joined explicit calls for Kadhafi to go.

“RAF Typhoons, along with other NATO aircraft, last night used precision-guided weapons to bring down guard towers along the walls of Colonel Gaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziyah complex in the center of Tripoli,” Major General John Lorimer, chief British military spokesman, said in a statement.

“Last night’s action sends a powerful message to the regime’s leadership and to those involved in delivering Colonel Gaddafi’s attacks on civilians that that they are no longer hidden away from the Libyan people behind high walls,” he said.

Egypt, which made peace with Israel in 1979 but whose interim military rulers want to improve relations with Palestinians, allowed nearly 300 Gazans to enter its territory at the Rafah crossing in the first hour after it opened.

By the end of the day, 450 travelers had crossed into Egypt. Only 23 were turned back because of Egyptian security concerns, a Palestinian border official said.

The deal included a withdrawal of armed tribesmen from government buildings and moves to normalize life in the Hasaba district of the capital Sanaa, scene of a week-long clashes that killed 115 people, a source close to mediators told Reuters.

A government official told Reuters: “Yes, we have an agreement which takes effect tomorrow (Sunday) morning.”

A provincial police chief, at least two Afghan policemen and two German soldiers also died in the attack on political and military leaders, Afghan and NATO officials said.

They were meeting in the capital of northern Takhar province to discuss an operation against insurgents, and at least another 10 people were injured, including the provincial governor, said the governor’s spokesman Faiz Mohammad Tawhidi.

Northern Sudanese armed forces seized the disputed Abyei region last week, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee and raising fears the north and south could return to full-blown conflict. The move drew sharp international criticism.

Abyei was a major battleground in Sudan’s last civil war and has symbolic importance for both sides. The region is used all year by the south-linked Dinka Ngok people and for part of the year by northern Arab Misseriya nomads.

The country’s finance minister denied a report in Germam weekly magazine Spiegel that international inspectors will report that Greece failed on all its fiscal targets, a condition for getting a key, fifth tranche of a 110 billion euro bailout.

“Negotiations continue and will be completed in the next few days. We have every reason to believe the report will be positive for the country,” George Papaconstantinou told Greek Mega TV.

The court said Mladic, arrested on Thursday in a Serbian village, had until Monday to appeal against extradition to the international criminal tribunal in The Hague to be tried for a massacre in Srebrenica and the siege of Sarajevo during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.

European officials hailed his capture at a farmhouse belonging to his cousin also with the surname Mladic as a milestone on Serbia’s path toward the European Union and said they expected his extradition within 10 days.

Two German soldiers and two other Afghans were also killed in the blast, the latest in an insurgent spring offensive. It came just weeks before a planned drawdown of U.S. troops begins this summer.

The bomber detonated his explosives-laden vest inside the governor’s complex in Takhar province, where high-ranking Afghan officials were meeting with members of the international coalition, said Faiz Mohammad Tawhedi, a spokesman for the governor.

The sense of relief was palpable as buses piled high with luggage crossed the Rafah border terminal and hundreds of people traveled abroad for overdue medical appointments, business dealings and family affairs. In Israel, fears were heightened that militants and weapons will soon pour into the territory.

“I was so happy to hear that the Egyptian border is opening so I can finally travel for treatment,” said Mohammad Zoarob, a 66-year-old suffering from chronic kidney disease.

Obama wound up his six-day trip to Europe with a message aimed squarely at the people of the United States, saying that in a time of tight budgets, “I want the American people to understand we’ve got to leave room for us to continue our tradition of providing leadership when it comes to freedom, democracy, human rights.”

Obama, in a brief news conference with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, assured Americans that he spends the bulk of each day worrying about the U.S. economy and how to strengthen it and create jobs. But he coupled that with the message that it is a U.S. obligation to support democracy around the globe, one that pays dividends in the form of a safer and more prosperous world.

The shaking cacophony of bangs and bullets one recent evening all served to camouflage the thin turnout at a pro-Gadhafi demonstration in his stronghold, the capital of Tripoli. Only several hundred showed up, and many seemed more interested in having fun than in showing solidarity with the regime.

On Friday, nearly two dozen Libyan soldiers, including a colonel and other officers, fled their country in two small boats and took refuge in neighboring Tunisia, where thousands of Libyan refugees have settled.

Ali Tarhouni, the rebel finance minister, complained that many countries that pledged aid have instead sent a string of businessmen looking for contracts from the oil-rich country.

“They are very vocal in terms of (offering financial) help but all that we have seen is that they are … looking for business,” Tarhouni told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Anticipating the brewing battle, traders in Bakara market are closing shop and moving out goods by wheelbarrow and donkey-powered carts. Al-Shabab militants are setting up new defensive positions, including digging trenches and placing snipers atop tall buildings.

The thousands of shoppers who crowd the market on a busy day are staying home, and traders are fearful of violent, high-dollar damage.

For a long time, no one noticed. The three Afghan army officers didn’t divert the salaries of active duty soldiers. Instead they kept deserters on the books and directed their pay into their own accounts. Sometimes they diverted bonuses.

When 14 soldiers at a northern Afghan army base were eventually charged in the theft, about $22,000 had been stolen.

Villagers who admit they know far too much about each other say it just can’t be true that they’d have an outsider in their midst without their knowledge. Neighbors have often been at the home of Mladic’s relative – a simple man who lived alone in a house with a big gate, some overgrown roses and a cherry tree – but never saw cousin Ratko.

“No one, really I swear, has seen him,” said Nedeljko Arsic as he and other locals paused on their bikes to watch the police and the journalists snapping pictures and trying to get a glimpse inside the family compound, complete with tractor and corrugated steel-roofed outbuilding.

New violence among Bosnia’s Serbs, Croats and Bosniak Muslims is unlikely, with the international community keeping a watchful eye out for trouble. But keeping the lid on simmering tensions is about all the European Union, U.S. and other powers have been able to accomplish in the 16 years since the fighting formally ended.

Bosnia today is not at war – but it’s not really at peace either. The country is treading water as it waits for a life line from the EU, the U.S. and other nations.

Leung, 27, cohabits in a Portland, Ore., townhome with her boyfriend but has no plans yet to wed, a reflection of the broader cultural shift in the U.S. away from the traditional definition of what it means to be a household.

Data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau shows married couples have found themselves in a new position: They’re no longer the majority.

Now moms and dads aren’t unusual sights, even on the twin totems to wild behavior and its consequences – “Jersey Shore” and “Teen Mom” – that are key to the network’s latest resurgence. Many young viewers targeted by MTV have no problem with parents being an active part of their lives, even during rebellious years, and expect their presence on television.

Understanding such generational nuances is crucial to MTV, which has the brutal imperative of reinventing itself every five or six years to appeal to a new group of 12- to 24-year-olds. Their viewers eventually grow up. MTV never can.

“My bosses have never heard of a day off,” said the 20-year-old, who would only allow his first name to be used, for fear of losing his job. “Vacations? Forget it. They pay well and they pay for extra hours, but they don’t understand that some things are more important to Brazilians than money.

“I’ve seen many workers walk in, see the Chinese way of doing things, and quit the very same day.”

After months of resisting calls to join the contest, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Friday he would consider it. That could reshape the GOP field, adding a sitting governor who has never lost an election.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin also sent a jolt through the party with the announcement of a campaign-style bus tour along the East Coast, the latest possible contender to stand up since Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels announced last weekend that he would not run.

Rhode Island is pondering a proposal to allow civil unions, a compromise that arose after it became clear there weren’t enough votes to aim for marriage. Minnesota lawmakers voted to put a constitutional marriage ban on the ballot, and the mayor of New York spoke out strongly in favor of same-sex marriage as talks continue in his state.

In Rhode Island, gay marriage advocates say they’re unsatisfied with the proposal to offer civil unions, which provide many of the same legal benefits of marriage without calling it that.

They advanced Friday night with a 1-0 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals behind Tim Thomas’ second shutout of the series and Nathan Horton’s goal with 7:33 left in the third period.

“This is a great moment. (It’s) been a long time for Boston. How long has it been actually?” the 37-year-old Thomas said, “Also a long journey for me to get here. Can’t be too happy too long, though, unless you are the last man standing.”

But the passengers on that doomed Rio de Janeiro-to-Paris flight were probably asleep or nodding off and didn’t realize what was going on as the aircraft fell nose-up toward the sea, the director of the French accident investigating bureau said after releasing preliminary black-box data on the June 1, 2009, disaster.

All 228 people aboard the Airbus A330 died.

The Venezuelan-owned plane carrying the 59-year-old ex-president took off from neighboring Nicaragua and landed in the afternoon at Tegucigalpa’s international airport, where thousands of his supporters had set up a tent camp nearby, dancing and singing to celebrate his arrival.

Zelaya was accompanied by his wife, two of his daughters, several former officials in his government, ex-Panamanian President Martin Torrijos and the foreign ministers of Venezuela and Bolivia, countries with leftist governments that have backed Zelaya. A motorcade carrying Zelaya took him to a nearby plaza where he was expected to address supporters.

At the same time, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is heading to New Hampshire next week, further stirring speculation that he will jump into the still-gelling field of GOP candidates to take on President Barack Obama.

Perry, the longest serving governor in Texas history, would bring conservative bona fides, a proven fundraising record and a fresh voice to the field. Even as Perry’s closest advisers say he has no intention of getting in the race, he has methodically raised his profile, fanning interest.

On June 1, nearly two decades after Congress called for full restoration of the river and its fish runs, federal workers will turn off the generators at the 1913 dam powerhouse and set in motion the largest dam removal project in U.S. history.

Contractors will begin dismantling the dams this fall, a $324.7 million project that will take about three years and eventually will allow the 45-mile Elwha River to run free as it courses from the Olympic Mountains through old-growth forests into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

While Americans grieved the 9/11 attacks and U.S. troops went to war in Afghanistan, another army, one made up of ironworkers, heavy equipment operators and mason tenders, toiled day and night to clear away the destruction of the World Trade Center’s twin towers in lower Manhattan and recover the bodies of the dead.

In just 8 1/2 months, an estimated 1.8 million tons of twisted steel and pulverized concrete were painstakingly removed, transforming a mountainous pile into a 16-acre hole that became known as The Pit.

A Mexican who has lived in the U.S. for two years, she only speaks a variant of Mixteco, an indigenous language from the states of Oaxaca, Puebla and Guerrero in southern Mexico.

“It is hard sometimes,” whispers the 28-year-old, who was born in San Miguel Grande.

At 84 years old, he has an ever-so-slight hunch, a crinkled forehead and hearing aids in both ears.

Angel Delgadillo does not look like a rock star. And yet …

“That’s the future right there. That’s the next generation,” says Ninburg, better known in the roller derby world as Demolicious, co-founder of the Los Angeles Derby Dolls skating league.

As if to make her point, 8-year-old Little RegulateHer, one of the stars of the Junior Derby Dolls, bursts out of the pack and, in a scene worthy of the film “Whip It,” goes on to lap every other skater on the track.

For his first 18 months, Reed has juggled the city’s day-to-day business with frequent travel outside of Georgia to promote the country’s ninth-largest metropolitan area. He enjoys high approval ratings, but it’s a precarious balancing act. While his efforts in Washington helped the city win more than $100 million in federal support, his tough stance on issues at home has earned him some detractors.

While Reed’s predecessor made her name as a hands-on manager of local issues, his mentor marked his term as mayor by selling the city to the rest of the world. Reed wants to do both.

Record Sierra snowfall over the winter now means record snow melt as temperatures rise, swelling Yosemite National Park’s iconic waterfalls, streams and rivers to their most turbulent level in years.

Yosemite Falls, the nation’s tallest, is spewing enough water to fill a gasoline tanker truck every two seconds. The force of water at Bridalveil Falls across the valley kicks up a mist that clouds the meadow below.

The church would lease back most of its core buildings under the plan, which must be approved by a bankruptcy judge, so worshippers and visitors won’t notice any changes in services or outreach. The church’s popular, decades-old televangelist program “Hour of Power” broadcasts would also continue, the church said.

The plan would allow the ministry to lease the church buildings back for a guaranteed 15-year period, with the additional option of buying the core campus back at a fixed price within four years, said Marc Winthrop, the church’s bankruptcy attorney.

Use of the pretend horses, made of straight sticks and fabric horse heads, comes as some other horse events scheduled for the Memorial Day weekend in Utah have been cancelled. The outbreak of the equine herpes virus, which is highly contagious among horses, started at an Ogden, Utah, horse show earlier this month.

There are now 75 confirmed cases of the virus in the nine states and horses at 61 facilities are suspected of being infected, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said. A week ago, there were 34 confirmed cases and 9 horses had died, while 46 facilities were impacted.

In a ruling issued late Thursday, U.S. District Judge James Cacheris tossed out part of an indictment against two people charged with illegally reimbursing donors to Hillary Clinton’s 2006 Senate and 2008 presidential campaigns.

Cacheris says that under the Supreme Court’s landmark Citizens United decision last year, corporations have the right to give to federal candidates.