Evening Edition

All were killed during an anti-Taliban operation late Friday when a rocket fired by the insurgents struck their Chinook aircraft as it began to take off shortly after a firefight in Wardak province, southwest of the capital Kabul.

A statement from Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s office said the US victims were special forces, and that 31 of them had been killed.

The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council called for an “immediate end to violence… and bloodshed.”

Its statement urged “serious and necessary reforms that would protect the rights and dignity of the (Syrian) people, and meet their aspirations.”

“Mogadishu has been fully liberated from the enemy, and the rest of the country will soon be liberated too,” President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed told reporters.

The Al-Qaeda affiliated Shebab insurgents abandoned several strategic positions overnight that were then taken over by government troops.

“On the road here I was so hungry and thirsty,” said Batulo Malim Mohamed, waiting patiently for a meal of fortified maize porridge in the shade of a hut at a new feeding centre erected in the southwestern border town of Doolow.

“When I first arrived I had nothing, so I had to beg people for some food,” she added, cradling her malnourished son Ali in her arms.

Standard & Poor’s cut the US rating for the first time in history Friday, by one notch from its top-flight triple-A to AA+, saying US politicians were increasingly unable to manage the country’s huge fiscal deficit and debt.

The agency added a negative outlook, warning there was a chance the rating could be downgraded further within two years if progress is not made in balancing the country’s lopsided finances.

The group called AntiSec — in reference to “anti-security” — said in an online post that it is backing its claim by releasing information it looted more than 70 local police agencies during cyber attacks.

“We are releasing a massive amount of confidential information that is sure to embarrass, discredit and incriminate police officers across the US,” the group said in a message.

But both sides suffered injuries just weeks before the showpiece tournament in New Zealand.

Wales outscored England three tries to two, coming from 20-7 behind to set up a grandstand finish when wing George North crossed for the second of his two scores with four minutes left.

A brief statement from the presidential palace said the troop-carrying Chinook helicopter had crashed in Syedabad in central Maidan Wardak province, just west of the capital, Kabul.

It identified the Americans as special forces troops.

Activists said the death toll in protests across Syria a day earlier, when tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets on the first Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, had risen to 26.

Assad’s drive to regain control of Hama, which for two months had seen huge demonstrations demanding his overthrow, prompted condemnation from the United Nations and sharp criticism even from Russia and Turkey, close friends of Syria.

Rejecting Ahmed’s claim to have quashed al Shabaab’s four-year insurgency, the militants’ spokesman, Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, said their retreat was tactical only and they were holding their positions elsewhere in the anarchic country.

A 9,000-strong African peacekeeping force and Somali government forces had been steadily wresting control of rubble-strewn Mogadishu from the militants this year. Al Shabaab’s pullout followed a string of fierce gun battles late on Friday.

More than 15.9 billion shares — or more than twice the daily average volume — traded in the busiest day in more than a year as investors plowed into cash-rich mega-cap stocks that had been beaten down in recent days as the market dropped.

The market’s swings on Friday were fast and furious, with the Dow Jones industrial average covering 416.41 points from its session high to its intraday low.

The European Central Bank’s policy-setting council will hold a rare Sunday conference call to talk about the euro zone problems, ECB sources said.

Markets are anxiously looking for the central bank to start buying Italian and Spanish debt on Monday to stabilize prices, a move that has split the ECB governing council.

The sources said the central bank’s Governing Council remains divided over whether to buy Italian bonds and even some of those who favor the move say Italy should do more to front-load austerity measures first.

Three sources said ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet has called a teleconference of the policy-setting council for Sunday afternoon to discuss the continuing turmoil on financial markets and how to respond to Italy’s latest reform pledges.

S&P cut the long-term U.S. credit rating by one notch to AA-plus on concerns about the government’s budget deficit and rising debt burden. The action is likely to eventually raise borrowing costs for the American government, companies and consumers.

“The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics,” S&P said in a statement.

The downing, in which seven Afghan commandos were also killed, was a stinging blow to the lauded, tight-knit SEAL Team 6, months after its crowning achievement. It was also a heavy setback for the U.S.-led coalition as it begins to draw down thousands of combat troops fighting what has become an increasingly costly and unpopular war.

None of the 22 SEAL personnel killed in the crash were part of the team that killed bin Laden in a May raid in Pakistan, but they belonged to the same unit. Their deployment in the raid in which the helicopter crashed would suggest that the target was a high-ranking insurgent figure.

The Taliban claimed they downed the helicopter with rocket fire while it was taking part in a raid on a house where insurgents were gathered in the province of Wardak late Friday. It said wreckage of the craft was strewn at the scene. A senior U.S. administration official in Washington said the craft was apparently shot down by insurgents. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the crash is still being investigated.

NATO confirmed the overnight crash took place and that there “was enemy activity in the area.” But it said it was still investigating the cause and conducting a recovery operation at the site. It did not release details or casualty figures.

Booms of shelling and rocket fire echoed from the front lines, centered around the town of Bir Ghanam, where the rebel force backed by tanks fought Gadhafi’s troops much of the day. Later, witnesses saw flattened buildings presumably targeted in NATO airstrikes and three smoldering government tanks in the town.

Rebels are hoping for a breakthrough in the far west of Libya, frustrated with the stalemate in the center of the country, where their underequipped forces have been unable to budge the battlelines despite five months of NATO airstrikes on Gadhafi’s military. Rebels control most of the eastern half of country, while Gadhafi’s regime holds most of the west, centered around Tripoli.

Like previous reform promises, the new announcement is unlikely to have much resonance with Syria’s opposition, which says it has lost all confidence in President Bashar Assad’s overtures.

The four-year term of the current parliament expired earlier this year and Assad is expected to set a date for new legislative elections before the end of 2011.

Charles Graner Jr., 42, was released from the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., around 10 a.m. Saturday after serving more than 6½ years of a 10-year sentence, spokeswoman Rebecca Steed said. Graner will be under the supervision of a probation officer until Dec. 25, 2014, she said.

Steed said she could not release any information about Graner’s whereabouts or his destination after release. Neither Graner nor his wife – who was a fellow Abu Ghraib defendant – have responded to interview requests from The Associated Press. Calls and emails to Graner’s father and lawyer were not immediately returned.

It’s a rare success story amid unimaginable misery for parents at the world’s largest refugee camp – a place where a father must bury two of his daughters one day, and their brother the next.

Seven-month-old Minhaj though now weighs more than 8 pounds (3.8 kilograms) – still well below what he should for his age, but a major improvement from 7 pounds (3.2 kilograms) when he first arrived at a field hospital ward here.

A balloon-festooned barge bearing the standards of the service branches and sponsored by the Defense Ministry sailed among about 80 other floats, with music blaring from most of them and dancers dressed in flamboyant costumes – or very little at all.

The parade, watched by hundreds of thousands of spectators lining the Prinsengracht canal, capped a weeklong festival of around 300 parties and events. It included the popular “Drag Queen Olympics” with contests like the stiletto race and the long-distance handbag toss.

While Republicans and Democrats traded blame over Friday’s move by Standard & Poor’s to lower its AAA credit rating, a statement from White House press secretary Jay Carney was muted in tone and did not refer directly to the downgrade.

Administration officials privately called S&P’s analysis flawed. But Obama himself refrained from comment as he spent the weekend at Camp David.

“Father, our heart breaks for America,” Perry told about 30,000 people gathered at Reliant Stadium. “We see discord at home. We see fear in the marketplace. We see anger in the halls of government and, as a nation, we have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us.”

The Republican was hosting what he has called a national day of prayer before an audience filled with people who sang with arms outstretched in prayer – and wept – as Christian groups played music on stage.

The news that credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded the nation’s credit rating a notch for the first time ever only added to the tension.

The darkening clouds come in what should have been a good week for President Barack Obama. After all, he and Republican leaders finally ended a months-long game of brinkmanship with a bipartisan agreement to raise the government’s debt ceiling and to trim spending.

The loose-knit international hacking collective posted a cache of data to the Web early Saturday, including emails stolen from officers, tips which appeared to come from members of the public, credit card numbers and other sensitive information.

Anonymous said it had stolen 10 gigabytes worth of data in all.