(12/06)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Friday, the U.S. military said on Saturday, bringing the number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq since the beginning of the war to at least 2,996.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein was hanged at dawn on Saturday for crimes against humanity after Iraq's prime minister rushed through an execution few believed would help stem the sectarian violence tearing the country apart.

LONDON (Reuters) - A British soldier has been killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol near the city of Basra in southern Iraq, the Ministry of Defense said on Friday.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded outside the airport in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Tuesday, killing one person and wounding two, police said.

PALM DESERT, California (Reuters) - Gerald Ford, whose brief U.S. presidency was defined by his controversial pardon of Richard Nixon, was honored on Wednesday as a man who tried to heal the nation's divisions after the Watergate scandal.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - One worker was killed and two were injured when a building collapsed in upper Manhattan on Tuesday, authorities said.

ATLANTA (Reuters) - James Brown, the "Godfather of Soul," whose voice, showmanship and bold rhythms brought funk into the mainstream and influenced a generation of black music, died on Christmas morning at age 73.

CAIRO (Reuters) - A 26-year-old Egyptian man died of bird flu on Wednesday, the third member of his extended family to die of the virus, a World Health Organization (WHO) official told Reuters.

CAIRO, Dec 24 (Reuter) - An Egyptian woman died of bird flu on Sunday, hours after tests confirmed she and two other members of her extended family had been suffering from the highly pathogenic virus, a World Health Organization official said.

KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. forces said on Saturday they had killed the Taliban's military chief in southern Afghanistan, who had close links to Osama bin Laden and was heir to the rebel leadership.

MAE SOT, Thailand (Reuters) - A veteran leader of the Karen rebel movement in Myanmar, fighting one of the world's longest-running insurgencies, has died aged 79, a rebel official said on Sunday.

ROME (Reuters) - A paralyzed, terminally ill Italian man whose legal battle to be taken off life support divided the predominantly Catholic country has died, lawmaker Marco Pannella said on Thursday.

ASHGABAT (Reuters) - Turkmenistan President-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov died suddenly on Thursday after 21 years of iron rule in which he crushed all dissent, raising fears of instability in the isolated but energy-rich Central Asian state.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Legendary Hollywood animator Joseph Barbera, whose characters Fred and Wilma Flintstone and Scooby-Doo made generations of people laugh, died on Monday at age 95, the Warner Bros. film studio said in a statement.

GAZA (Reuters) - Forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas overran two government ministries on Sunday, sealed off the area around his home and battled gunmen from the ruling Hamas group as chaos threatened Gaza. A 19-year-old woman was shot during an hour-long gunfight between Hamas and Fatah near Abbas's compound and later died of her wounds, hospital officials said. Five other people were wounded, including a French journalist.

GAZA (Reuters) - Masked gunmen killed an officer of an elite force loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday in a dawn raid on a Gaza training camp, a day after Abbas called for new elections amid growing tensions with Hamas.

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen dragged a judge from the governing Hamas Islamist movement out of a taxi and shot him dead in front of his courthouse in Gaza on Wednesday, increasing fears of a Palestinian civil war.

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A student killed himself with a rifle at his suburban Philadelphia high school on Tuesday, school authorities said.

ALGIERS (Reuters) - A bomb exploded beside a bus carrying foreign oil workers in an upscale Algiers suburb on Sunday, killing the Algerian driver and wounding nine people, including four Britons and an American, authorities said.

SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - Former dictator Augusto Pinochet, who polarized Chile during his repressive 1973-1990 military rule and spent his old age fighting human rights, fraud and corruption charges, died on Sunday at 91 years old.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jeane Kirkpatrick, a leading player in former President Ronald Reagan's conservative foreign policy as ambassador to the United Nations, has died at the age of 80.

HADITHA, Iraq (Reuters) - One Marine was killed and three servicemen were missing after a U.S. transport helicopter with 16 people on board made an emergency landing on water in western Iraq on Sunday, the U.S. military said on Monday.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A Shi'ite Muslim Lebanese man was shot dead in a Sunni neighborhood on Sunday as he returned from a third day of protests against the Western-backed government.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian in the West Bank on Friday and Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a rocket into the Jewish state, despite a partial truce declared by armed groups in the territory.

DHAKA (Reuters) - One man was killed and 30 were injured in clashes between rival political activists on Sunday as Bangladesh was hit by a countrywide transport blockade, police said.

(11/06)

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A Syrian gunman was killed on Tuesday when his own grenade exploded during a clash with Syrian police on the crossing point into Lebanon, a Lebanese security source said.

MIAMI (Reuters) - Eight former staff members of a Florida juvenile boot camp have been charged with manslaughter in the death of a 14-year-old boy whose beating by guards was captured on videotape, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

HONOLULU (Reuters) - A Honolulu police officer died on Sunday from injuries suffered when his motorcycle crashed while escorting President George W. Bush during his Hawaii visit last week.

ROME (Reuters) - A British hostage was killed in a military operation in Nigeria on Wednesday which released six other hostages, the Italian foreign ministry said.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A man in a small west German town stormed a school on Monday, killed one person, and may have taken hostages, German television reported.

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - Suspected pro-Taliban militants killed an Afghan cleric in Pakistan's North Waziristan border region after accusing him of being a U.S. spy, the latest such killing in the area, officials said on Sunday.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Suspected Muslim militants shot dead a Buddhist man in Thailand's restive south on Sunday in another apparent response by separatists to Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont's peace visit last week.

LONDON (Reuters) - Police are investigating a suspected plot to kill a former Russian spy by poisoning him in a London sushi restaurant.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Gunmen on Tuesday assassinated Lebanese Christian cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel, an outspoken critic of Syria, plunging Lebanon deeper into a crisis over ties with its dominant neighbor.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "MASH" director Robert Altman, who revolutionized Hollywood filmmaking with a chaotic, irreverent style that critics hailed as "American Art Cinema," has died at age 81, his production company said on Tuesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen in Baghdad killed a prominent Shi'ite Islamist politician on Saturday as Condoleezza Rice appealed to Iraqis not to let the sectarianism fuelling an orgy of violence destroy their country.

SAFWAN, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi police freed two Americans but a third Westerner was found dead, a local Iraqi official said on Friday, a day after five security guards were kidnapped at a bogus security checkpoint.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Legendary former University of Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler died on Friday after collapsing during the taping of a television talk show, officials said.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali Islamist fighters opened fire on Thursday at a Mogadishu crowd protesting against a ban on the popular narcotic leaf khat, killing one person and wounding others, witnesses said.

NARATHIWAT, Thailand (Reuters) - Three bombs went off in Muslim southern Thailand on Friday, killing one person and wounding 27, in an apparent response by separatist militants to Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont's peace visit the previous day.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed himself in an attack on a police van in the northwestern Pakistan city of Peshawar on Friday, but neither of the policemen in the vehicle were hurt, police said.

SDEROT, Israel (Reuters) - Rockets fired from Gaza killed a 58-year-old woman and wounded several other residents of an Israeli border town on Wednesday, prompting Israel to vow it would "find and kill" the Palestinian militants responsible.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike on gunmen launching a rocket from the Gaza Strip killed a Palestinian civilian on Sunday, hospital officials and Palestinian security sources said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Oscar-winning actor Jack Palance, one of Hollywood's best-known screen villains who personified evil as a cold-blooded gunslinger in the classic western "Shane," died on Friday at the age of 87, his spokesman said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pioneering black American journalist Ed Bradley, who won acclaim as a Vietnam War correspondent and later as a reporter for CBS' "60 Minutes," died on Thursday of complications from leukemia. He was 65.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Markus Wolf, the legendary East German spymaster whose Cold War activities earned him the moniker "The Man Without a Face", has died aged 83.

KABUL (Reuters) - A NATO soldier was killed when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in troubled southern Afghanistan on Tuesday.

GAZA (Reuters) - A Palestinian suicide bomber blew herself up near Israeli troops on Monday in a Gaza town where Israeli forces had killed two women acting as human shields for militants, residents said.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli aircraft fired a missile near a school bus in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, killing a 16-year-old Palestinian and wounding four other people, witnesses and hospital officials said.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Suspected pro-Taliban militants shot dead a pro-government tribal leader in Pakistan's South Waziristan region, the latest killing in the lawless belt on the Afghan border, a security official said on Sunday.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber hit a NATO convoy in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, wounding two soldiers, the force said, the latest attack in the bloodiest wave of militant violence since the Taliban's ouster.

Peter Junger, president and religious chairman of the Cleveland Buddhist Temple and professor emeritus at Case Western Reserve University's School of Law, died at his Cleveland home last week.

(10/06)

BOSTON (Reuters) - Boston remembered legendary basketball coach Arnold "Red" Auerbach on Sunday for his competitive fire and for helping black players and coaches break the sport's color barrier. Auerbach, who died at 89 on Saturday near his home in Washington, coached the Boston Celtics basketball team during a period in the 1950s and 1960s when it racked up a record eight-straight National Basketball Association championships.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Former South African President P.W. Botha, the defiant face of white rule at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle, died at his home on Tuesday aged 90.

NARATHIWAT, Thailand (Reuters) - A remote-controlled bomb killed a soldier and wounded 11 people in Thailand's Muslim south on Sunday, police said, the latest attack in a separatist insurgency which has killed more than 1,700 since early 2004.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Former South Korean president Choi Kyu-hah, the country's shortest-serving leader ousted in 1980 in the wake of a military coup, died on Sunday aged 87, a Seoul hospital official said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Masked gunmen killed a senior Fatah militant in a Gaza Strip refugee camp on Sunday in what appeared to be another deadly episode of an increasingly violent power struggle with the governing Hamas movement.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed a Palestinian civilian during a raid in southern Gaza on Saturday, hospital officials and residents said, as the army pressed on with a four-month-old offensive against militants.

OAXACA, Mexico (Reuters) - Unknown gunmen shot a man dead in the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca on Wednesday in the latest attack on protesters demanding the ouster of state Gov. Ulises Ruiz.

KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. warplanes killed a senior Taliban commander in an air strike in the violence-racked southern Afghan province of Uruzgan on Tuesday, NATO said.

ROME (Reuters) - A train on Rome's underground metro system rammed into the back of another on Tuesday, killing at least one person and injuring 236 others, five seriously, authorities said.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's former first lady Wang Guangmei, persecuted during the chaotic 1966-76 Cultural Revolution with her husband, President Liu Shaoqi, has died, news reports said on Monday. She was 85.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A 34-year-old political prisoner in military-ruled Myanmar has died in custody, where he had been tortured and suffered from malaria, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) - An Egyptian border guard was killed on Saturday in a gun accident while on patrol in the Sinai peninsula along the border with Israel, officials said.

OAXACA CITY, Mexico (Reuters) - Gunmen shot two people at a roadblock on Saturday, killing one in the latest unrest in the Mexican tourist city of Oaxaca, where protesters are demanding the ouster of the state governor.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds, a Massachusetts Democrat who was censured in 1983 for having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old congressional intern, died on Saturday at Boston Medical Center, an official said.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Grammy Award-winning singer Freddy Fender, whose country and Hispanic-flavored music reached across ethnic boundaries to find a broad audience, died of cancer on Saturday at his Corpus Christi, Texas home, a family friend said.

HAVANA (Reuters) - Benito Martinez Abrogan, Cuba's oldest person and star of the government's efforts to promote healthy lives for its oldest citizens, died on Wednesday at the age of 126.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A branch manager with Russia's second largest bank has been shot dead in an apparent contract killing, Interfax news agency quoted prosecutors as saying on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - John "Buck" O'Neil, a key figure in Negro Leagues baseball and a ground-breaking coach in the major leagues, has died at the age of 94.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike killed a Palestinian civilian and wounded three others in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, witnesses and medical officials said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen in camouflage uniforms killed the brother of Iraq's Sunni Arab Vice President Tareq al -Hashemi on Monday, drawing swift condemnation from across Iraq's political divide and senior U.S. officials.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed when guerrillas attacked his patrol in eastern Baghdad on Monday, the U.S. military said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, was shot dead on Saturday at her apartment block in central Moscow, police said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a Fatah member in the Gaza Strip on Thursday and a supporter of rival group Hamas was critically wounded in a separate incident amid an escalating power struggle between the two Palestinian groups.

RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide truck bomber blew up outside the Iraqi army headquarters in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Ramadi on Wednesday, wounding many but causing no deaths, police said.

TOKYO (Reuters) - One Indian sailor died and 25 people were missing off Japan's Pacific coast after two ships ran aground in high winds and heavy seas, a Coast Guard official said on Saturday.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - A Belgian unmanned surveillance aircraft being used by an EU force crashed on Tuesday in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, killing one woman and injuring two other people, the spokesman for the European force said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a brother-in-law of the new judge trying Saddam Hussein and badly wounded the man's wife and son, in what the Iraqi government said on Friday was a direct attack on the court by Saddam's followers.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A 20-year-old Indonesian man who health officials thought had been part of a family cluster of bird flu cases died of the disease on Thursday, a hospital official said.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - An American woman convicted of treason and later pardoned for being "Tokyo Rose," one of several radio announcers Japan used during World War Two to spew propaganda to undermine American morale, has died, a Chicago hospital said on Wednesday.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead the head of a women's department in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar on Monday, a security official and a relative said.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - An Indonesian man who had been suffering from bird flu for days died early on Thursday, a hospital official said, taking Indonesia's death toll from the disease to 52.

(9/06)

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A car exploded in a town south of the coastal city of Tel Aviv on Friday, killing one person and wounding six others, Israeli rescue and ambulance services said.

MADISON, Wisconsin (Reuters) - A 15-year-old student shot his school's principal in southwestern Wisconsin on Friday after telling another student "you better run," in the second fatal U.S. school shooting this week, authorities said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a brother-in-law of the new judge trying Saddam Hussein and badly wounded the man's wife and son, in what the Iraqi government said on Friday was a direct attack on the court by Saddam's followers.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A 20-year-old Indonesian man who health officials thought had been part of a family cluster of bird flu cases died of the disease on Thursday, a hospital official said.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - An American woman convicted of treason and later pardoned for being "Tokyo Rose," one of several radio announcers Japan used during World War Two to spew propaganda to undermine American morale, has died, a Chicago hospital said on Wednesday.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead the head of a women's department in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar on Monday, a security official and a relative said.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - An Indonesian man who had been suffering from bird flu for days died early on Thursday, a hospital official said, taking Indonesia's death toll from the disease to 52.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli warplane bombed and destroyed a home in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, killing a teenage girl in a neighboring building and wounding 10 other people, Palestinian medics said.

MADRID (Reuters) - A gas explosion in a building in the Spanish city of Barcelona killed one person and injured a 5-month-old baby, Catalan police said on Monday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - British troops in Iraq said on Monday they had killed a senior al Qaeda figure who escaped from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan in 2005.

AN SALVADOR (Reuters) - The suspected murder of a Catholic priest, whose battered body was found on the side of an El Salvador highway on Monday, has mystified authorities in a country with a troubling history of killing religious figures.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - The leader of a splinter faction of Nepal's Maoist rebels said on Sunday his group had shot and killed a member of the Himalayan nation's parliament.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - A leftist guerrilla who led the group that assassinated Nicaraguan ex-dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1980 died in Argentina of heart failure on Friday at age 65, local media said.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A nine-year-old Indonesian boy has died of bird flu, an official of the health ministry's bird flu information center said on Sunday, taking the country's death toll from the disease to 51.

RAIPUR, India (Reuters) - Police in central India arrested four sons of an elderly woman who died after jumping on to her husband's funeral pyre, following the ancient Hindu custom of sati, outlawed in the 19th century.

LOS CABOS, Mexico (Reuters) - Hurricane Lane rapidly gained strength as it churned along Mexico's Pacific coast on Friday, killing a boy in a rockslide and threatening to become a major Category 3 storm over the weekend.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Gunmen killed an Italian nun at a children's hospital in Mogadishu on Sunday in an attack that drew immediate speculation of links to Muslim anger over the Pope's recent remarks on Islam.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Former Texas Governor Ann Richards, who sparred with former President George H.W. Bush and later lost the state's top job to his son, President George W. Bush, died on Wednesday. She was 73.

MILAN (Reuters) - Oriana Fallaci, one of Italy's best-known writers and war correspondents who goaded the world's great and issued a vitriolic assault on Islam after the September 11 attacks on the United States, died on Friday aged 77.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A top Russian central banker who fought to clean up Russia's murky banking system died early on Thursday from gunshot wounds after being ambushed by assassins in what police said was a contract 'hit'.

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the army said, announcing its first fatality in the territory since renewing ground operations three months ago.

BERLIN (Reuters) - German historian and publisher Joachim Fest, author of a landmark biography of Adolf Hitler, has died aged 79, German media reported on Tuesday.

ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) - An Egyptian dredger sank in the Suez Canal on Wednesday, killing one of the 45 crew and prompting the brief closure of the busy international waterway as rescuers searched for three others, officials said.

KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up among mourners, including some Afghan ministers, at the funeral on Monday of a provincial governor who was killed last week in a suicide attack.

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - A Guatemalan radio reporter and human rights activist was found shot to death in his car on Sunday, police said, the latest in a wave of attacks and death threats against journalists in the country.

LONDON (Reuters) - A British soldier has been killed in Iraq, the Ministry of Defense said on Friday.

AMMAN (Reuters) - A lone gunman opened fire on a group of foreign tourists in the Jordanian capital Amman on Monday, killing a British man and wounding six other people, officials and witnesses said.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A roadside bomb blast killed an escort of a senior Lebanese intelligence officer, who was among five people wounded in the attack near Lebanon's southern city of Sidon on Tuesday, police said.

KABUL (Reuters) - One NATO soldier was killed by friendly fire and several were wounded on Monday during a major offensive to crush a resurgent Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

HAVANA (Reuters) - Ignacio Insua, a Cuban cameraman working for Reuters Television in Havana, died on Monday of a heart attack after suffering spine injuries in a car accident. He was 57.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Steve Irwin, the quirky Australian naturalist who won worldwide acclaim, has died in a marine accident off Australia's northeast coast, local media reported on Monday.

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Former Texas first lady Nellie Connally, who was riding in the limousine with President John F. Kennedy when he was assassinated in 1963, has died at the age of 87, a family friend said on Saturday.

(8/06)

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch pilot died on Thursday when his F-16 fighter plane crashed in southern Afghanistan, apparently in an accident, the defense ministry said.

GENEVA (Reuters) - A Sudanese national working for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), who was abducted in Sudan's Darfur region by an armed group two weeks ago, is dead, the humanitarian agency said on Wednesday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actor Glenn Ford, a handsome and quiet character actor who made his mark in big films like "Gilda" and "The Big Heat," died on Wednesday in his Beverly Hills home, police said. He was 90.

QUITO, Ecuador (Reuters) - The world's oldest person, a 116-year-old Ecuadorean woman, died on Sunday less than a month before her birthday, her relatives told local newspapers on Monday.

KABUL (Reuters) - A British soldier was killed in an insurgent attack in Afghanistan on Sunday, the British Defense Ministry said, the latest NATO soldier to die since the alliance took over in the Afghan south from a U.S.-led force last month.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot and killed one Palestinian and wounded five others in a clash in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, Palestinian medics said.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A prominent rebel leader has been killed in a battle between Pakistani forces and guerrillas in gas-rich Baluchistan province, the government said on Sunday.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man and seized his brother, a senior member of the ruling Hamas movement, during a raid in southern Gaza early on Thursday, witnesses and the Israeli army said.

VIENNA (Reuters) - A girl kept captive for eight years in a tiny dungeon was allowed to listen to the radio by her kidnapper who apparently committed suicide after she broke free to make contact with an astonished neighbor.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed a Palestinian and detained a senior member of the governing Hamas movement in a raid in southern Gaza early on Thursday, witnesses said.

OAXACA, Mexico (Reuters) - Hooded gunmen shot a man dead on Tuesday in a drive-by attack on a roadblock set up by leftists in the Mexican city of Oaxaca, which has been plunged into chaos as protesters try to topple the state governor.

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Indian police shot dead one man and arrested another in the financial hub of Mumbai on Tuesday, after making what they said was a breakthrough in last month's train bombings that killed 186 people.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian and wounded at least two others on Sunday at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, Israel Radio said.

BEIJING (Reuters) - The disgraced chief prosecutor of a district in northwest China has been executed for stabbing his wife to death in her sleep, the Beijing News reported on Sunday.

KAMPALA (Reuters) - Uganda's military has killed a senior northern rebel wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, a spokesman said on Sunday.

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The father-in-law of disgraced Tour de France winner Floyd Landis has committed suicide, police said on Wednesday.

BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Former Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner, a strongly anti-communist general who epitomized an era of authoritarian rule in Latin America, died on Wednesday in exile in the Brazilian capital Brasilia.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Mike Douglas, the affable big band singer who for two decades hosted a parade of America's biggest stars and newsmakers on his top-rated daytime talk show, died on Friday on his 81st birthday, friends said.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Gunmen burst into the home of a Colombian radio and television reporter and shot him dead in the second fatal attack on a journalist in the Andean nation this year, officials said on Thursday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - American physicist James Van Allen, who helped propel the United States into the space race and discovered the bands of radiation that surround the Earth that were later named for him, died on Wednesday, the University of Iowa said.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said on Monday that one person had been killed in an Israeli air strike on the southern border village of Houla, rather than 40 as earlier feared.

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - A teenaged boy carrying a bomb in Pakistan's troubled southwestern Baluchistan province died on Sunday when the explosive went off accidentally, police said.

KABUL (Reuters) - A blast in a car killed at least one man and wounded two more in the Afghan capital on Wednesday, police said.

(7/06)

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli tank shell killed a 16-year-old Palestinian civilian in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza on Monday, Palestinian emergency services said.

SEATTLE (Reuters) - A woman was killed and five other women were wounded on Friday when a gunman opened fire at a Jewish organization in downtown Seattle that last weekend organized a rally in support of Israel.

BAIDOA, Somalia (Reuters) - Gunmen shot dead a Somali minister outside a mosque on Friday, triggering riots by pro-government protesters who threw rocks and burned tyres at the interim administration's provincial base of Baidoa.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli troops on Tuesday killed a senior Hizbollah commander in fighting near the Lebanese border, the army said.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A 17-year-old Thai has died of the H5N1 bird flu virus, the country's 15th death since the virus swept across parts of Asia in late 2003, a senior health official said on Wednesday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - One person was shot to death and 10 others were wounded, three of them seriously, early on Sunday following a party at a Knights of Columbus hall in Kansas City, Missouri, police said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The former mayor of Spokane, Washington, who was booted out of office last year after a sex scandal, died on Saturday of cancer, his family said in a statement released by a Seattle hospital.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A search party has found the body of one of Latin America's leading climbers, who went went missing 10 days ago on Pakistan's Nanga Parbat, the world's ninth-highest peak, a diplomat said on Saturday.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian nurse and completely destroyed a government security compound in the West Bank city of Nablus on Friday, witnesses and medics said.

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Former Khmer Rouge military chief Ta Mok, one of Pol Pot's most ruthless henchmen and a key defendant in upcoming "Killing Fields" trials, died on Friday in an army hospital in the Cambodian capital.

When the information superhighway was in the design stages, librarian and educator Fred Kilgour dreamed about taking reference resources out of their traditional brick and mortar housing and making them more accessible. Kilgour died Monday of a brain hemorrhage at the University of North Carolina Medical Center in Chapel Hill, according to library center spokesman Bob Murphy. He was 92.

MIAMI (Reuters) - Mystery writer Mickey Spillane, who created the tough-guy private eye Mike Hammer, died on Monday at his South Carolina home at age 88, a funeral home official said.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Gunmen seized and executed a former Mexican congressman in Acapulco on Wednesday, the latest incident in a spate of violence to afflict the Pacific resort city.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - An international test has confirmed a 44-year-old Indonesian man who died this month had bird flu, a senior health ministry official said on Thursday.

KABUL (Reuters) - A coalition soldier was killed and 11 others wounded during heavy fighting against Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan on Monday, U.S.-led forces said.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A Southern California wildfire that has blackened more than 70,000 acres (28,000 hectares) was expected to spare a popular mountain resort town, but one man missing for several days was found dead, officials said on Saturday.

KARACHI (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed a leading Pakistani Muslim Shi'ite cleric, Allama Hassan Turabi, on Friday in the volatile city of Karachi, officials said.

BOSTON (Reuters) - A three-tonne chunk of concrete fell from a tunnel ceiling in Boston's $14-billion "Big Dig" project, killing a woman in a car and rekindling questions over the safety of the nation's biggest public works venture.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev, Russia's most wanted man, was killed on Monday, handing a huge boost to President Vladimir Putin as he prepared to host a Group of Eight summit.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike killed one Palestinian militant and wounded three others in the Gaza Strip on Monday after the Jewish state vowed an open-ended offensive to free an abducted soldier and halt rocket attacks.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Former Milwaukee Mayor Frank P. Zeidler, the last Socialist to run a major U.S. city, has died, a spokesman for a Milwaukee hospital said on Saturday.

KABUL (Reuters) - U.S.-led troops were ambushed in southern Afghanistan and one coalition soldier was killed and one wounded, a spokesman for the force said on Friday.

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A train has run down and killed a man at just the spot where his father met the same fate eight months previously, a Malaysian newspaper said on Saturday.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Enron Corp.'s founder Ken Lay died of heart disease on Wednesday while vacationing near Aspen, Colo., six weeks after being convicted of fraud and conspiracy in the financial scandal that brought down the once-mighty energy conglomerate.

KABUL (Reuters) - Gunmen attacked a patrol of U.S.-led soldiers in eastern Afghanistan killing one member of the force, the latest foreign soldier to die in the bloodiest phase of Afghan violence since 2001.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli aircraft fired a missile into the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, killing one person and wounding two, Palestinian security sources said.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Former Japanese prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, an outspoken politician who jousted with U.S. officials over auto trade and brought "Big Bang" financial reforms to Tokyo, died on Saturday at the age of 68.

(6/06)

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian militant group said on Thursday it had killed a Jewish settler who had gone missing earlier this week, Israel's Army Radio said.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The mother of Mexican President Vicente Fox died on Thursday, three days before national elections to choose her son's successor.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombian soldiers killed the rebel leader overseeing a campaign to take over a central part of the country abandoned by right-wing militias who pulled out after peace talks, the army said on Wednesday.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - A diminutive Mexican serial killer who murdered victims in their homes near railroads as he train-hopped across the United States, was executed by lethal injection in a Texas prison on Tuesday for the 1998 slaying of a Houston medical researcher.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a senior police officer in the Mexican resort of Cancun on Monday night, blowing his head open in the latest grisly assassination to hit the country.

BAGRAM (Reuters) - Two Afghan boys were wounded on Monday when a suspected Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up near a convoy of U.S. troops, the latest attack in the worst spell of violence in the country since 2001.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - E. Pierce Marshall, who battled Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith in the courts over his father's vast oil fortune, died unexpectedly this week, his family said on Friday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Patsy Ramsey, the mother of slain child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, died on Saturday from cancer in Atlanta, the family's attorney told CNN.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Prolific television producer Aaron Spelling, whose shows such as "Beverly Hills 90210" and "Dynasty" helped shape U.S. prime-time television, died on Friday, days after suffering a stroke, his publicist said. He was 83.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A panel of armed forces medical experts has found that vaccines required by the military may have killed a 26-year-old Army soldier last year, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A gunman shot dead a Swedish cameraman covering a pro-Islamist rally on Friday in Mogadishu, just weeks after its new rulers said they had pacified one of the world's most lawless cities after 15 years of anarchy.

GAZA (Reuters) - One woman was killed when an Israeli missile struck a house in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, Palestinian medics and witnesses said.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a senior Palestinian militant on Wednesday during a raid to arrest suspects in the West Bank city of Nablus, medics and Israeli military officials said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One of Saddam Hussein's main lawyers was shot dead on Wednesday after men in police uniform took him from his home, relatives said, the third defense attorney to be killed since the trial opened in October.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization has confirmed an Indonesian teenager who died last week was infected with bird flu, a health ministry official said on Tuesday, taking the country's confirmed bird flu deaths to 39.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike in Gaza killed a Palestinian militant on Friday in an attack that came hours after Hamas militants stepped back from a Palestinian government offer to renew a ceasefire with Israel.

ARGUN, Russia (Reuters) - Pro-Moscow officials in Russia's restive Chechnya region said on Saturday their forces had killed a separatist cleric who had held the title of rebel leader for more than a year.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's best-known Zulu weatherman who won the hearts of millions of viewers with his cheery "Good Luck!" sign-off has died of AIDS, the national broadcaster said on Thursday.

KABUL (Reuters) - A U.S. military truck rammed into a motorcycle in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, killing at least one person, police said, about two weeks after a similar accident sparked violent anti-U.S. riots in the city.

LONDON (Reuters) - A British soldier was killed and two more seriously wounded in a gunbattle with Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, the Ministry of Defense said.

JAMMU, India (Reuters) - At least one person was killed and 20 wounded in Indian Kashmir on Monday when suspected Islamist militants threw a grenade at a crowded bus station, police said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. warplanes killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda's Iraq leader who masterminded a campaign of bombings and beheadings, in a strike that President George W. Bush said could help to turn the tide against the insurgency.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Workers clearing piles of garbage from a beach in Acapulco found an unpleasant reminder of the seamier side of Mexico's Pacific resort, which has seen dozens of murders this year -- a decomposing human head.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A would-be suicide car bomber was killed on Thursday close to a base for U.S. troops serving with a NATO-led peacekeeping mission in western Afghanistan after his bomb went off too soon, a provincial governor said.

GAZA (Reuters) - A Palestinian security officer was killed and seven were wounded in clashes between rival Fatah and Hamas factions in Gaza on Thursday, underscoring growing tensions in the impoverished coastal strip.

GAZA (Reuters) - An explosion tore through a house in Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on Monday, killing a Hamas militant, local residents said.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli missile strike on a car in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday killed one Palestinian militant and wounded four others, witnesses said.

KHAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A bomb exploded as Pakistani police were investigating it in a trouble-plagued region on the border with Afghanistan, killing one policeman and wounding three, a government official said on Saturday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An official at Russia's Embassy in Baghdad said on Saturday one diplomat had been killed and four embassy employees kidnapped, Russia's Interfax news agency reported.

BELGRADE (Reuters) - A protected witness in the trial for the March 2003 assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was found murdered on Saturday, police said.

(5/06)

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - A policeman was killed and four people, including two civilians, were wounded in Indian Kashmir on Tuesday after suspected Islamist militants threw a grenade at a police vehicle near a crowded market, police said.

TANK, Pakistan (Reuters) - Masked gunmen shot dead a pro-government tribal elder and wounded two people in Pakistan's trouble-plagued South Waziristan region on the Afghan border, government officials said on Tuesday.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - One African Union soldier was killed and another critically wounded when heavily armed men ambushed a patrol not far from their base in West Darfur, the United Nations said.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - A Palestinian militant was killed on Tuesday and another was wounded during a pre-dawn raid by Israeli troops into the Balata refugee camp in the town of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, local medics said.

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - A French military helicopter crashed in Ivory Coast on Friday, killing one of its crew and seriously injuring a second, the French army in the West African country said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Gunmen in Gaza shot and killed one Hamas member and wounded four others from the Islamic militant group on Wednesday in renewed violence after Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh called for rival factions to show restraint.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Senator and Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, who ran unsuccessfully for vice president in 1988, died on Tuesday at the age of 85, a family spokesman said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Anthony R. Goodman, a veteran correspondent and news editor for Reuters, died on Saturday at the age of 74 after a long battle with cancer and heart disease, his wife, Zmira Goodman, said on Monday.

DILI (Reuters) - A gunbattle between rebel military policemen and government troops killed one person and wounded six others in East Timor on Tuesday, officials said, the latest violence that has prompted concern in neighboring Australia.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Baghdad's sectarian hit squads don't spare the young. The family of 12-year-old Hani Saadoun has been traumatized by that reality since his tortured body, mutilated by electric drills, was found on Tuesday. They had been in a state of fear since he failed to return home for lunch a day earlier.

KARACHI (Reuters) - A 14-year old Pakistani girl has died a month after being shot four times in an attempted "honor killing" in the southern city of Karachi, police said on Monday.

GAZA (Reuters) - A new Hamas-led security force battled gunmen near the Palestinian parliament in Gaza on Monday in a fresh outbreak of internal fighting, and one civilian was killed, Palestinian security sources and medics said.

GENEVA (Reuters) - World Health Organization chief Lee Jong-wook of South Korea died on Monday, two days after suffering a blood clot on the brain, the United Nations agency said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A Sudanese driver for an Arab diplomat in Baghdad has died after being shot as he tried to stop gunmen kidnapping the envoy, police said on Wednesday.

Nablus, West Bank (Reuters) - A Palestinian woman was killed on Sunday in Balata refugee camp in the West Bank in a shooting that witnesses blamed on Israeli soldiers in the area, a charge the army said initial reports deemed mistaken.

ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) - A man wanted for involvement in bombings of tourist resorts in Sinai killed himself by accident on Friday while trying to attack police who were pursuing him, security sources said.

KABUL (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier was killed and six wounded during a battle with insurgents in Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Saturday.

ANKARA (Reuters) - A Turkish gunman, proclaiming his Islamic faith, killed one judge and injured four other judges on Wednesday in a shooting in a top court which Turkey's president condemned as an attack on its secular establishment.

GAZA (Reuters) - Unknown assailants killed a senior Hamas activist in Gaza on Tuesday, medics and a security source said, and gunmen stormed the offices of the only Palestinian cellular provider amid growing chaos in the coastal strip.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Texas teenager who was bitten by a bat while he slept in his home has died of rabies, the Houston hospital that treated him said in a statement.

BALAD, Iraq (Reuters) - An Iraqi soldier was killed on Friday in a clash between two army units which prompted intervention by U.S. forces, the U.S. military said on Saturday.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian militant during a raid in the West Bank town of Nablus on Friday, the army said.

Andrew Martinez, the South Bay man who gained national notoriety as the ``Naked Guy'' when he insisted on walking around nude in Berkeley in the early 1990s, has died, the apparent victim of suicide.

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (Reuters) - A gunman on a motorcycle shot dead a U.S. oil executive in an apparently planned assassination in Nigeria's oil heartland on Wednesday, authorities said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A.M. Rosenthal, a former executive editor of the New York Times and Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent, died on Wednesday, the paper said. He was 84.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian police on Tuesday killed the leader of the group behind suicide bombings which killed 19 people in the Sinai peninsula last month, the Interior Ministry said.

KALMA CAMP, Sudan (Reuters) - Angry demonstrators killed a Sudanese interpreter working with African Union forces in Darfur on Monday in riots that broke out during a senior UN official's visit to a camp for displaced Sudanese.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Indian soldiers shot dead a senior Kashmiri militant on Sunday who the army said was a bomb-making expert responsible for a series of explosions across the strife-torn Himalayan region.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Earl Woods, who started his son, Tiger Woods, on the path toward golf dominance at a young age and mentored him through his early career, has died, the golfer said on Wednesday on his Web site. Earl Woods was 74.

KABUL (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead a senior judge in the western Afghan province of Farah, the province's governor said on Wednesday.

SAN SALVADOR ATENCO, Mexico (Reuters) - A protest by flower vendors erupted into a clash between machete-wielding peasants and riot police on Wednesday, leaving one person dead and several held hostage.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Swiss police on Tuesday continued a huge manhunt for the missing husband of former Swiss World Cup skier Corinne Rey-Bellet, lone suspect in his pregnant wife's murder, but admitted they had lost him in a high-speed chase.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A 16-year-old Somali boy stabbed his father's killer to death on Tuesday in a public execution ordered by an Islamic Court, witnesses said.

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops accidentally killed a Palestinian woman during an attempt to arrest a suspected militant from a hideout in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Israeli army said.

KARACHI, Pakistan - A Pakistani woman beheaded her husband, chopped up his body and dumped the dismembered parts in a sewerage drain after he announced plans to take a fourth wife, police said on Wednesday.

(4/06)

BERLIN (Reuters) - Holocaust survivor Paul Spiegel, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, died on Sunday aged 68 after a long illness, the council said.

BOSTON (Reuters) - John Kenneth Galbraith, an influential liberal economist, best-selling author and former presidential advisor, died on Saturday. He was 97.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A kidnapped Indian telecommunications engineer was found beheaded in southern Afghanistan on Sunday and the Taliban said they had killed him.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian security forces killed one person and captured four early on Sunday in a gun battle in the center of Sinai while investigating bomb attacks in the resort of Dahab and north Sinai, security sources said.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A 30-year-old Indonesian man has died of bird flu, a senior health ministry official said on Friday, citing the results of local tests.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a sister of one of Iraq's vice presidents on Thursday, the latest high level assassination, as Washington's top diplomatic and defense officials visited to underscore support for a new government.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a senior judge in Baghdad on Tuesday, Interior Ministry sources said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Valery Kuzin, first vice-president of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), was found dead in his hotel room in St Petersburg on Thursday. He was 42.

KHAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani security forces on Thursday shot dead a militant named by officials as an al Qaeda member believed to have escaped a U.S. air strike in January.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a police chief in southern Mexico when they sprayed his car with dozens of bullets on Saturday, officials said, the latest bloodshed to be reported in the increasingly violent state of Guerrero.

SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean civilian, believed to be a young schoolboy, was killed on Friday when a U.S. military armored vehicle being transported by train struck a high-voltage power line, officials said.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - A claymore mine blast killed a guard and wounded a police officer in northeast Sri Lanka on Friday, in an attack the army blamed on Tamil Tiger rebels, the latest violence threatening the island's fragile truce.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - U.S. troops shot a suicide car bomber in Afghanistan on Wednesday as he tried to ram his vehicle into their convoy, police said.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A Mexican priest confessed to killing a woman with whom he had fathered a child, chopping up her body and dumping it in plastic bags outside a graveyard, a state attorney general said on Wednesday.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A woman who was hit on the face by a tear gas shell has become the sixth person to die in Nepal's two-week long protest campaign against King Gyanendra, officials said on Wednesday.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Suspected Muslim militants ambushed police guarding a polling station in southern Thailand on Wednesday, killing one officer and wounding another as voting began for the upper house Senate.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen killed the brother of a top Iraqi Sunni politician, officials said on Monday, the second killing in less than a week of a relative of a Sunni leader as deadlock over a unity government showed no sign of ending.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepali troops opened fire on anti-monarchy protesters in an eastern town on Monday and killed one man, witnesses said, as international pressure increased on King Gyanendra to restore multi-party democracy.

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - Residents of a troubled Pakistani border region found the beheaded body of a man with note saying he was an American spy and a warning others would face the same treatment, an official said on Sunday.

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - Troops shot dead a militant who threw a grenade wounding at least two soldiers near Miranshah, the main town in a Pakistani tribal region close to the Afghan border, security officials said on Saturday.

CAIRO (Reuters) - A mentally ill Egyptian man killed a worshipper and wounded five others on Friday in knife attacks at two Coptic Christian churches in the coastal city of Alexandria, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

ROME (Reuters) - Ascerbic Scottish-born novelist Muriel Spark, best known for her book "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie", has died in Italy at the age of 88 and was buried in Tuscany on Saturday.

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - A 49-year-old German woman died after riding a rocket simulator at Walt Disney World's Epcot theme park in Florida, the second person to die in less than a year after riding on Mission: SPACE, state officials said on Thursday.

LONDON (Reuters) - An insurgent with ties to Osama bin Laden and other senior al Qaeda figures was killed in a raid last month by U.S. and Iraqi forces, the U.S. military said on Friday.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Rev. William Sloane Coffin, a former Yale University chaplain and passionate social crusader who rallied protesters against the Vietnam War and challenged segregation laws in the South, died on Wednesday. He was 81.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - An Egyptian al Qaeda member wanted for his role in the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Kenya was killed by Pakistani forces close to the Afghan border, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said on Thursday.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepali troops shot dead an activist on Wednesday as violent pro-democracy protests flared for the seventh day across the troubled Himalayan nation.

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine soldiers killed a leader of Muslim rebel group Abu Sayyaf wanted for a series of fatal bombings, including an attack which killed a U.S. soldier in 2002, the army said on Tuesday.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel shelled two Palestinian security posts in northern Gaza on Sunday, killing one person and wounding 15 as the army kept up its heaviest strikes on the strip since Jewish settlers and troops withdrew last year.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepali police opened fire on Sunday on anti-king protesters demanding the restoration of democracy, killing one person, an official said.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepali troops opened fire on Saturday on activists protesting against King Gyanendra's rule, killing one man, a political party said, as tight security elsewhere prevented big demonstrations in the troubled nation.

LONDON (Reuters) - American singer Gene Pitney, who shot to fame in the 1960s with hits including "24 Hours from Tulsa", has died while on tour in Britain, his agent said on Wednesday.

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - A Senegalese student was shot dead by a gun decorated with a swastika as he was coming out of a night club with friends in Russia's second city St Petersburg early on Friday, police said.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A suicide car-bomber rammed a vehicle leaving a British military base in Afghanistan on Friday in the first suicide attack aimed at British forces stationed in the volatile south, police said.

KABUL (Reuters) - A mortar bomb exploded in a market outside the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Thursday, killing an Afghan civilian and wounding three, officials said.

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba's coast guard shot and killed one of three suspected people smugglers aboard a U.S.-registered speedboat as it approached the island to pick up a group of Cubans, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

DUBLIN (Reuters) - The murder of an Irish nationalist who spied for Britain has complicated Northern Ireland peace efforts ahead of new talks on a power-sharing agreement, British and Irish leaders said on Wednesday.

TORONTO (Reuters) - A man was killed in a "wall of flames" in a downtown Toronto coffee shop on Sunday, after a device exploded inside a washroom, according to police and eyewitnesses.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian militant in the West Bank on Monday during an exchange of fire that ensued after they tried to arrest him, the army and Palestinian witnesses said.

ROME (Reuters) - Pope Benedict and Italy's president condemned on Sunday the murder of an epileptic toddler snatched from his home near Parma a month ago in a case that has shocked the country.

KIZILTEPE, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkish police fired into the air to disperse a protest march in mainly-Kurdish southeast Turkey on Sunday and one person was killed, officials said, in a weekend that saw unrest in several cities.

(3/06)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lyn Nofziger, a former spokesman for President Ronald Reagan and veteran Republican political operative, has died, according to a family friend.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Caspar Weinberger, who oversaw a massive U.S. military buildup as Ronald Reagan's defense secretary, died on Tuesday at age 88.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A blast in a rubbish bin killed one man and injured 11 others near a bus station in an historic area of Istanbul on Friday, the city's governor Muammer Guler said.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A suicide car-bomber was killed in Afghanistan on Thursday when his explosives went off prematurely as he approached a Canadian military convoy, police said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi prisoner has been killed in a clash with another inmate at the U.S. military's Camp Bucca prison, the military said on Wednesday.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A bomb blast killed at least one man and wounded 15 others in Peshawar on Tuesday hours after the United States said it had temporarily closed its consulate in the northwestern Pakistani city after receiving a threat.

GAZA (Reuters) - A Palestinian militant firing grenades into Israel from the northern Gaza Strip was killed by the Israeli army on Monday, an army spokesman and the Islamic Jihad militant group said.

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - A series of blasts killed one person and injured several others in Addis Ababa on Monday, the first fatality in a string of mysterious explosions in the Ethiopian capital.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - An Indian soldier was killed and seven wounded when Muslim guerrillas attacked an army convoy on Sunday on the outskirts of Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital, the army said.

CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian girl who had an operation more than a year ago to remove the head of her underdeveloped twin has died following an infection in her brain, her doctor said on Sunday.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Honky-tonk star Buck Owens, who sold more than 16 million albums and popularized country entertainment on television as host of "Hee Haw," died on Saturday at age 76.

MIAMI (Reuters) - One passenger died and 11 were hurt when fire broke out on the passenger decks of a Princess Cruises ship on Thursday as the vessel carried more than 3,800 passengers and crew from the Cayman Islands to Jamaica.

MULHOUSE, France (Reuters) - One person died and a second was seriously injured in a large explosion that destroyed a chemistry research building at a French university on Friday in the eastern city of Mulhouse, officials said.

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - A 3-year-old Cambodian girl has died of H5N1 bird flu, the virus's first human victim in the impoverished southeast Asian nation in nearly a year, the government and the World Health Organization said on Friday.

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - A student protesting against a French youth job law died of unknown causes during a sit-in at his university in eastern France on Wednesday, a university spokeswoman said.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - A Colombian radio journalist shot by unknown attackers has died after 44 days in the hospital, the first journalist gunned down in the country in more than a year, police said on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. Navy ships returned fire on Saturday on a group of suspected pirates off the coast of Somalia, killing one and wounding five, Navy officials said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oleg Cassini, who created a fashion powerhouse and helped make Jacqueline Kennedy America's most glamorous first lady, died on Friday, his family said. He was 92.

CAIRO (Reuters) - A 30-year-old Egyptian woman has died of bird flu, becoming the country's first human victim of the virus, the Health Ministry said on Saturday.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Two gunmen attacked a compound of the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR in southern Sudan, killing a local guard and wounding an Iraqi logistics officer and another guard, the agency said on Thursday.

KABUL (Reuters) - Canadian forces on patrol in Afghanistan opened fire on a vehicle, apparently in the belief it was a suicide bomb attempt, killing a passenger, a Canadian forces spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

LONDON -- Jack Wild, who earned an Oscar nomination as a teenager for his role as the Artful Dodger in the 1968 film "Oliver!" has died from cancer, his agent said Thursday. He was 53.

Robert Grimm, a vegetable baron who was instrumental in nurturing the phenomenal sales growth of the baby carrot by introducing innovative packaging and expanding sales beyond supermarkets in the 1990s, has died. He was 54.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dana Reeve, the widow of Christopher Reeve who nursed the paralyzed "Superman" for nine years until his death in 2004, has died of lung cancer at the age of 44, the foundation she headed said on Tuesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One of the highest-ranking generals in Iraq's new, U.S.-trained army was shot dead in Baghdad on Monday, the U.S. military and Iraqi police said.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Former Minnesota Twins baseball ace and Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett died on Monday, a day after suffering a stroke at his Arizona home, the Twins said.

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Slobodan Milosevic, branded the "butcher of the Balkans" for the wars that tore Yugoslavia apart in the 1990s, was found dead in his cell on Saturday, just months before his trial was expected to conclude.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The body of a kidnapped U.S. peace activist was found bound and shot in Baghdad, police said on Saturday, while President George W. Bush warned Americans of more fighting and sacrifice before U.S. troops could come home.

LONDON (Reuters) - John Profumo, the government minister at the center of one of Britain's biggest political scandals, featuring an explosive mix of high society sex and Cold War paranoia, has died at the age of 91.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A television presenter with Baghdad TV, Munsuf Abdallah al-Khaldi, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen while driving from the Iraqi capital, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Thursday.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A three-year-old boy from Indonesia's Central Java province has died of bird flu, a senior health official said on Saturday, citing the results of local tests.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A newly elected councillor for South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) was shot dead late on Saturday in what police said could be a politically motivated killing after last week's local government polls.

KABUL (Reuters) - A second Canadian soldier died on Sunday of injuries received when an armored vehicle overturned in southern Afghanistan and another was in serious condition following an ax attack during a meeting with tribal elders.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A man has died from bird flu in southern China, the ninth death from the H5N1 virus in the country, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban insurgents killed a French special forces officer in Afghanistan on Saturday and a Canadian officer was in critical condition after being attacked with an axe during a meeting with tribal elders.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Five Canadian soldiers were wounded, one seriously, in a suspected suicide car bomb attack on their armored vehicle in southern Afghanistan on Friday, the Canadian military said.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A Canadian soldier was killed and seven injured when their vehicle overturned in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, officials said.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - An Israeli sniper killed a Palestinian youth on Friday during a West Bank raid by troops looking for militants, Palestinian medics said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen killed a Jewish settler manning a petrol station in the northern West Bank on Wednesday, the Zaka rescue service said.

(2/06)

KABUL (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed and two wounded on Tuesday in a clash with insurgents in Afghanistan's central province of Uruzgan in which seven suspected Taliban guerrillas were captured, the U.S. military said.

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Tribal militants fired two rockets at the home of a minister in Pakistan's restive Baluchistan province on Sunday, killing one man and wounding seven others, police said.

SANAA (Reuters) - A Yemeni firing squad executed on Monday a man convicted of killing three U.S. Christian missionaries in the country in 2002, the state news agency said.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Bird flu has killed its 20th human victim in Indonesia, a 27-year-old woman, according to tests by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, an Indonesian health ministry official said on Saturday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Don Knotts, who won five Emmys for portraying the bungling deputy Barney Fife on the hit television program "The Andy Griffith Show," has died at age 81, a spokesman said on Saturday.

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Tribal rebels ambushed a Pakistan army convoy on Wednesday, killing one soldier and wounding five in the latest violence to hit the troubled southwestern province of Baluchistan, officials said.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Teco Energy Inc.'s Teco Coal subsidiary on Thursday said a worker was killed in an accident at its Hazard 4 mine in Hazard, Kentucky.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A 27-year-old Indonesian woman who lives in the capital has died of bird flu, a Health Ministry official said on Wednesday, citing local hospital tests.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - One miner was killed and 22 injured in a gas explosion at a coal mine near the central Bosnian town of Travnik, police said on Thursday.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian who approached them, shouting they should leave and carrying a toy gun, during a West Bank raid on Wednesday, local residents said, describing the man as mentally disabled.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Peter Benchley, author of the bestseller "Jaws" that was the basis for the blockbuster movie that terrified beachgoers and kept many out of the water for years, died at his home at age 65, his family said on Sunday.

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Sun Yun-suan, a former Taiwan premier credited with the island's economic expansion in the 1980s, died of heart failure on Wednesday at the age of 92.

ALMATY (Reuters) - A Kazakh former minister and leading member of the Central Asian state's political opposition was found shot dead on Monday, police said.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - At least one person was killed and many more wounded in an explosion at an Istanbul supermarket on Monday, police said, the second blast in Turkey's largest city in four days.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - An Indonesian woman who local tests several days ago showed had the H5N1 bird flu virus, has died at a specialist Jakarta hospital, a senior Health Ministry official said on Saturday.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A bomb blast at an Internet cafe in Istanbul killed a man and injured 16 other people, including seven police officers, on Thursday, and a hardline Kurdish group claimed responsibility.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - An Indonesian woman has died and another was in critical condition at a specialist Jakarta hospital after local tests showed both had the H5N1 bird flu virus, a senior Health Ministry official said on Friday.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A Nepali protester was killed on Wednesday when troops opened fire to break up a demonstration against controversial local polls called by King Gyanendra who seized power a year ago, the army said.

BAKU (Reuters) - Avian flu was blamed for another death in Indonesia on Friday and spread to a new country after Azerbaijan said the lethal H5N1 strain had been found in wild birds on the Caspian Sea.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A racially charged riot pitting hundreds of Latino inmates against blacks at a Los Angeles-area prison on Saturday left one inmate dead and about 50 injured, officials said.

BOSTON (Reuters) - The teenager involved in a bloody attack on three men in a Massachusetts gay bar died early on Sunday morning from wounds sustained in a gun battle with Arkansas police, a police spokesman said.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese newspaper editor has died from injuries months after traffic police beat him up for an expose about exorbitant electric bicycle license fees, a New York-based press watchdog said.

ANKARA (Reuters) - An Italian Roman Catholic priest was shot dead in his church in the Turkish Black Sea city of Trabzon on Sunday, triggering condemnation from Turkey's government and pledges to track down the killer.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Al Lewis, best known for his role as Grandpa in television's "The Munsters," has died after a long illness, a local radio station said on Saturday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Betty Friedan, whose 1963 book "The Feminine Mystique" helped inspire the modern feminist movement and who co-founded the National Organization for Women, died on Saturday on her 85th birthday, a relative said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A riot at a Los Angeles-area prison on Saturday left one inmate dead and some 60 wounded, officials said.

MULTAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - One woman was killed and at least 20 people were injured when a passenger train derailed in central Pakistan on Saturday, the second such incident in less than a week, a railway official said.

ROME (Reuters) - Romano Mussolini, the last surviving child of Italy's Fascist wartime dictator Benito Mussolini, died on Friday, his family said. He was 78.

SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean truck driver killed himself on Saturday by setting himself on fire after distributing leaflets urging disgraced stem-cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk to resume his research, police said.

KFAR SHOUBA, Lebanon (Reuters) - U.N. peacekeepers retrieved the body of a Lebanese shepherd on Thursday, a day after he went missing in south Lebanon during Israeli shooting in the area, security sources said.

GENEVA (Reuters) - An Iraqi teenager who died last month had the H5N1 bird flu virus, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed on Thursday, meaning the disease has now killed people in seven countries as it spreads across the globe.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A 15-year-old Indonesian boy has died of bird flu, a health ministry official said on Friday, citing local hospital tests.

Norton J. Kiritz, who transformed the nonprofit sector by streamlining and demystifying the process of obtaining grant money, died of cancer Jan. 30 at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles. He was 70.

SHE survived brutal Nazi and Communist regimes to ultimately be brought down by a banana. Slovenian migrant Ivanka Perko died in hospital last week in bizarre circumstances - she suffered complications after she dropped a banana on her leg. Comical to the end, the 73-year-old old quipped to friends and family while on her deathbed: "I can't believe after all this time it was a bloody banana that killed me."

(1/06)

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Coretta Scott King, who surged to the front of the fight for racial equality in America after her husband Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, has died at age 78, friends and family said on Tuesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen shot dead a prominent Iraqi academic and political analyst in his car in a Baghdad street on Saturday, police said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - One of the most revered Jewish holy men in Israel died on Saturday aged more than 104-years-old.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Johannes Rau, a prominent figure in post-war German politics and the country's first head of state to address Israel's parliament in German, died on Friday. He was 75.

RAMADI (Reuters) - An Iraqi television cameraman was killed in clashes between Sunni rebels and U.S. forces in the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi on Tuesday, witnesses said on Wednesday.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese woman infected with bird flu has died, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, and Indonesia treated a chicken seller suspected of contracting the virus.

PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova died of lung cancer on Saturday, leaving a leadership vacuum for ethnic Albanians on the eve of talks to secure the independence from Serbia that he championed.

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - A Palestinian suicide bomber wounded 30 people in Tel Aviv on Thursday, raising tensions six days before a Palestinian election and confronting interim Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with a major test.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Veteran soul singer Wilson Pickett, known for such hits as "Mustang Sally" and "In the Midnight Hour," died on Thursday of a heart attack in Virginia, his manager said. He was 64.

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Iranian Sunni militant group said it had killed one of a group of Iranian soldiers it is holding hostage, according to a video tape aired by Al Arabiya television on Thursday.

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraq was testing for the human strain of the deadly bird flu virus for the first time on Wednesday after a 14-year-old girl died of a fever in the Kurdish region close to the Turkish and Iranian borders.

DUBAI (Reuters) - The Iranian coastguard has killed one Iraqi soldier and kidnapped nine others in a confrontation with the Iraqi coastguard, the governor of Basra told al Jazeera television on Monday.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A 13-year-old Indonesian girl died of bird flu at the weekend while two others from her family have tested positive for the H5N1 virus, a health ministry official said on Monday, citing the results of local tests.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The Taliban said on Saturday they killed a former comrade who defected to Afghanistan's U.S.-backed government and fought an unsuccessful campaign to win a seat in parliament in September.

KUWAIT (Reuters) - Kuwait's emir, Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, has died at the age of 77, state television reported on Sunday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A coal miner died after being trapped on Tuesday when part of a ceiling collapsed deep inside a coal mine in eastern Kentucky, authorities said.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber hurled himself on a moving police car in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, wounding two policemen, an official said, calling it the latest in a spate of suicide attacks by Taliban guerrillas.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - The commander of the United Nations' peacekeeping force in Haiti was found dead in his hotel room on Saturday after apparently shooting himself in the head, U.N. officials said.

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Up to three sharks may have attacked a woman who has died in hospital in northern Australia after suffering horrific injuries in a mauling off a popular tourist beach, police said on Sunday.

DOGUBAYAZIT, Turkey (Reuters) - A third child from the same family in eastern Turkey died from bird flu on Friday and health experts plan to study the outbreak for signs the virus was passing from person to person.

ERZURUM, Eastern Turkey (Reuters) - A second Turkish teenager died of bird flu on Thursday as a virus that has killed 74 people in east Asia claimed its first lives far to the west, on the fringes of Europe and the Middle East.

DUBAI (Reuters) - The man who transformed Dubai from a dusty Gulf city into a glitzy metropolis took over as ruler of the booming emirate, succeeding his elder brother who died on Wednesday.

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey said on Wednesday two people had been diagnosed with bird flu -- the first human cases outside Southeast Asia and China -- and a doctor said one of them, a 14-year-old boy, had died from the killer H5N1 strain.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A suicide attacker drove a car bomb into a convoy of Canadian troops in southern Afghanistan on Monday, killing himself and wounding a woman and a child, witnesses and a provincial official said.

ANKARA (Reuters) - A child being tested for possible avian influenza died in a Turkish hospital on Sunday, but doctors said there was no evidence he had fallen victim to the deadly disease which has killed more than 70 people in Asia.

(12/05)

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi police on Wednesday shot dead a second wanted militant involved in the killing of five policemen in the kingdom's ultraconservative Muslim heartland this week, officials said.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Kerry Packer, Australia's richest man whose fierce business reputation dominated corporate Australia and whose companies control one of the nation's major media groups, died in his sleep overnight, his family said.

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself up in southern Russia on Thursday, but there were no other casualties, witnesses said.

CAIRO (Reuters) - A young Sudanese girl of about four died when Egyptian police fought on Friday with thousands of Sudanese demanding to be allowed to start new lives abroad.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (Reuters) - Former Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Ernesto Leal, who fought against a freezing of U.S. aid in the early 1990s, died on Monday in a Miami hospital, Nicaragua's government said.

TORONTO (Reuters) - A shooting left a woman dead and six people injured in a busy downtown Toronto shopping district on Monday as hundreds milled around on one of the busiest shopping days of the year, Toronto police said on Monday.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Norman Vaughan, an adventurer whose eight-decade career spanned the early exploration of Antarctica to dog-mushing feats in his later years in Alaska, died at an Anchorage hospital on Friday, four days after his 100th birthday.

BATTICALOA, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - A pro-rebel politician was shot dead at a Christmas service in Sri Lanka's east early on Sunday, police said, the latest in a series of attacks that have raised fears of a return to civil war.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Convicted mobster Vincent "Chin" Gigante, famed for wandering the streets of New York in a tattered bathrobe in a show of insanity, died on Monday in federal prison, officials said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jack Anderson, the crusading journalist who tackled powerful figures like J. Edgar Hoover and won a Pulitzer prize for his reporting on the Nixon administration, died on Saturday at age 83.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Veteran character actor John Spencer, Emmy-winning star of NBC television drama "The West Wing," died on Friday at a Los Angeles hospital after suffering a heart attack, his spokesman said.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Gunmen shot and killed a Canadian police officer with the U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti on Tuesday, a U.N. official said.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - An Iranian of the Bahai faith has died in his jail cell of unknown causes, 10 years after being imprisoned by Tehran for abandoning Islam, the Bahai International Community said on Monday.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - An eight-year-old Indonesian boy has died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu according to local tests, a Health Ministry official said on Monday.

SAN QUENTIN, California (Reuters) - California prison officials executed Stanley Tookie Williams, the ex-leader of the Crips gang who brutally killed four people in 1979, early on Tuesday after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and top courts rejected appeals to spare his life.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia has confirmed its ninth human death from bird flu, senior Health Ministry officials said on Tuesday, taking the global death toll from the disease to 71, all in Asia.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - A Palestinian militant was killed on Sunday when a grenade he tried to throw at Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank exploded prematurely, witnesses and the army said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Sen. Eugene McCarthy, whose 1968 anti-Vietnam War presidential candidacy helped drive President Lyndon Johnson from office, died on Saturday in Washington, his son said.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A Southwest Airlines plane landing in a snowstorm in Chicago slid off a runway on Thursday and crashed through a fence and onto a busy road, colliding with two cars. A boy in one of them was killed.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Islamic insurgent group said on Thursday it had killed a U.S. hostage who, if the claim is confirmed, would be the first foreign captive killed in Iraq for four months and the first American in more than a year.

MIAMI (Reuters) - U.S. air marshals on Wednesday shot and killed an American Airlines passenger who claimed to be carrying a bomb in his backpack and ran off a plane at Miami International Airport after being confronted.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Former Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Hamza al-Zubaidi, who was one of Saddam Hussein's most senior deputies in the early 1990s, died in U.S. detention last week, the U.S. military said on Monday.

BALTIMORE (Reuters) - Convicted murderer Wesley Eugene Baker was executed on Monday in Maryland for fatally shooting a teacher's aide in front of two of her grandchildren.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli naval patrol killed at least one Palestinian man off the shore of Gaza on Saturday, Palestinian medical officials and the Israeli army said.

TOKYO (Reuters) - A 12-year-old girl in western Japan was stabbed to death by a man wielding a kitchen knife on Saturday, local police said, the third killing of a schoolgirl in less than a month.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian stabbed an Israeli to death at a military checkpoint in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, Israel Radio said.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli missile struck a house belonging to a Palestinian militant in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least one person, Palestinian witnesses and medics said.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Bird flu has killed a 5-year-old Thai boy, the country's 14th victim of the deadly virus, top health officials said on Friday.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A vice mayor in charge of evacuating a Chinese city where a chemical plant exploded is believed to have hanged himself, an official said on Wednesday, as a toxic river flow resulting from the accident spread.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel killed a senior Gaza militant in an air strike on Wednesday and wounded 10 other people after vowing to avenge a suicide bombing in central Israel.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A 10-year-old Chinese girl is the latest person to be infected with bird flu, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday, as fears grow about the spread of the deadly disease around the globe.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - A strong earthquake jolted Africa's Great Lakes region on Monday, killing at least one person in Congo's remote east and rattling regional capitals.

BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a local official working for the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI) in the city of Baquba, north of Baghdad, on Monday, the head of the IECI in the province said.

Joseph L. Owades, who developed the first low-calorie beer and later helped launch a number of the leading microbreweries that produce custom beers on a smaller scale, died Friday at his home in Sonoma, Calif. He was 86.

(CNN) -- Just days after his 65th birthday, groundbreaking comedian Richard Pryor died Saturday of a heart attack, his wife told CNN.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia has had its eighth human death due to bird flu confirmed by a Hong Kong laboratory affiliated with the World Health Organization, a senior Health Ministry official said on Saturday.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - An al Qaeda commander ranked the third most senior leader in Osama bin Laden's network was killed in a tribal region of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, President Pervez Musharraf said on Saturday.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore executed an Australian drug trafficker on Friday, despite repeated pleas from Australia's government for clemency and quiet protests by thousands opposed to the death penalty.

LONDON (Reuters) - Opponents of the death penalty around the world criticized the United States on Friday after double murderer Kenneth Lee Boyd became the 1,000th prisoner executed there since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.

DUBAI (Reuters) - A blindfolded Iraqi man was shown being shot dead in a video posted on the Internet on Thursday and an Iraqi insurgent group said it killed him for spying on clerics and taking Iraqis to torture centers.

MANILA (Reuters) - A radio and newspaper commentator was shot dead at a public market in the central Philippines, the 10th journalist to be killed this year, police said on 'Friday.

(11/05)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - A man who killed his mother-in-law and 5-year-old stepdaughter after a cocaine binge 20 years ago was executed by the state of Ohio on Tuesday, the 999th person put to death since United States reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Wednesday that a 35-year-old woman farmer had died of bird flu, its second confirmed fatality from the virus.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Ralph Edwards, the producer and host of the popular 1950s television shows "This is Your Life" and "Truth or Consequences," died on Wednesday at age 92, his publicity company said.

TORONTO (Reuters) - The last Canadian veteran of the First World War's front lines has died. He was 106.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden's king and prime minister expressed sorrow on Saturday after the country's first peacekeeper was killed in Afghanistan, but the government said it still planned to boost its force in the country.

MANILA (Reuters) - One Philippine soldier was killed as renewed fighting with suspected Islamic militants with ties to al Qaeda entered a second day on the remote southwestern island of Jolo, an army general said on Thursday.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban guerrillas have killed an Indian road engineer after his company failed to meet an ultimatum to cease operations in Afghanistan, a spokesman for the militants said on Tuesday.

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) - A gunman opened fire with a Kalashnikov assault rifle at a primary school in Turkey's troubled southeast on Tuesday, killing one male teacher and wounding four other people, officials said.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Local tests have shown a 35-year-old man has died in Indonesia of the H5N1 strain of bird flu but the results have to be confirmed by a laboratory in Hong Kong, the Health Ministry said on Monday.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - One man was killed and 11 people were injured on Friday when a bomb exploded near a closed theme park in Istanbul, Turkish officials said.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's deputy, Izzat Ibrahim, has died, Al Arabiya satellite television quoted a Baath party statement as saying on Friday.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed a Palestinian militant leader who belonged to President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah group in a village near the West Bank town of Jenin, Palestinian medics said on Sunday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - An assistant principal was shot to death and two colleagues wounded on Tuesday in a shooting at a high school in eastern Tennessee, and a student was being held by police, authorities said.

MALANG, Indonesia (Reuters) - One of Southeast Asia's most wanted Islamic militants, Malaysian Azahari bin Husin, is believed to have blown himself up after a fierce gunbattle with Indonesian police on Wednesday, the police chief said.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - An Indonesian girl who died on Tuesday is suspected to have been the country's sixth bird flu victim, but a hospital spokesman said officials are waiting for local test results.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a second defense lawyer acting in Saddam Hussein's trial on Tuesday, renewing questions over whether the former president can get a fair trial amid Iraq's daily violence.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian youth on Tuesday in a confrontation in the West Bank town of Nablus, medics said.

GRIGNY, France (Reuters) - Rioters shot at police and torched more than 1,400 cars in the worst violence since unrest erupted in France's poor suburbs 11 days ago, and a man beaten by a youth became the first fatality on Monday.

HANOI (Reuters) - Bird flu has killed a Vietnamese man, the country's 42nd victim and the first in the latest outbreak of the virus among poultry that the government says is hitting earlier and on a larger scale than last year.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A 66-year-old Israeli woman has died of wounds from a Palestinian suicide bombing last month, raising the toll to six and making it the deadliest such attack during a 9-month-old truce, hospital officials said on Sunday.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - A 13-year-old Palestinian boy shot in the head and chest by Israeli soldiers died of his wounds on Saturday, Palestinian officials said.

Peter F. Drucker, considered by many the "father of modern management" for his innovative approaches to leadership in the workplace, died today. He was 95.

Grimes Poznikov has died at 59. // In the days before schizophrenia stole his wits, Grimes Poznikov played music on "The Mike Douglas Show" and was lauded by journalist Charles Kuralt as one of the most popular entertainment attractions in San Francisco. It was the 1970s and early 1980s -- and Mr. Poznikov, "The Automatic Human Jukebox," sat at Fisherman's Wharf in a refrigerator box playing songs for cash.

(10/05)

Star Trek may have led to the term "red shirts", but the expendable characters in Star Wars were more memorable. Most memorable of them all was Porkins (a.k.a. "Red Six"), played by William Hootkins, who passed away last weekend. Hootkins also played the crooked police lieutentant Echkardt in Tim Burton's Batman and Frobisher in the Blackadder II episode "Beer".

KABUL (Reuters) - A blast aimed at a convoy of U.S. troops killed an Afghan civilian and wounded five others on Monday in the eastern province of Nangarhar, a government spokesman said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi cabinet adviser was killed on Sunday when gunmen attacked his car in northern Baghdad, and a deputy trade minister was wounded in a separate attack, officials said.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Police killed the head of a drug-trafficking gang who controlled Rio de Janeiro's biggest slum in a shootout early on Saturday, officials said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel killed a Palestinian militant in an air strike in Gaza on Friday, after vowing it would not stop its hunt for gunmen despite a U.S. call to renew contacts with the Palestinians.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Former Chinese vice president and "red capitalist" Rong Yiren, who created the country's top financial conglomerate, has died in Beijing, the official Xinhua news agency said on Thursday. He was 89.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A 12-year-old girl has died suffering flu-like symptoms in a village in central China where the mainland's third outbreak of bird flu in a week has been reported, the South China Morning Post said on Thursday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military death toll in Iraq passed 2,000 with the announcement on Tuesday that a soldier had died in a Texas hospital of wounds from a bomb.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia confirmed on Tuesday that a fourth person in the country had died of bird flu, while China said hundreds of farm geese had succumbed to a fresh outbreak of a disease now also spreading quickly to Europe.

DETROIT (Reuters) - Rosa Parks, the black seamstress whose refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus to a white man sparked a revolution in American race relations, died on Monday. The U.S. civil rights pioneer was 92.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A Hong Kong man who died in hospital earlier this month had the pig-borne disease Streptococcus suis, the territory's government said on Monday citing lab tests.

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead an Islamic Jihad commander in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the most senior Palestinian militant killed since the start of an eight-month-old ceasefire.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (Reuters) - Former Honduran President Jose Azcona, who gave safe haven in the 1980s to the U.S.-backed Contra rebels fighting to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government in neighboring Nicaragua, died on Monday.

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea's No. 3 defense official and a close confidant of leader Kim Jong-il has died, the North's official media said on Sunday.

ABUJA (Reuters) - The wife of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo died on Sunday after undergoing surgery in Spain, the presidency said.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian man they believed was trying to plant a bomb in the West Bank on Saturday, the army said, the latest in a series of shootings in recent days.

LONDON (Reuters) - A man was killed and a police officer injured on Saturday night when clashes erupted in the central English city of Birmingham, police said.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A Superior Court judge declared a mistrial on Monday in the case of a woman accused of killing her husband after the defense attorney's own wife was murdered over the weekend.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Bird flu has killed a 48-year-old man in Thailand, the country's first human death from the killer H5N1 virus in a year, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and health officials said on Thursday.

LONDON (Reuters) - A British soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq late on Tuesday night, the Ministry of Defense said.

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia (Reuters) - Malaysia went into mourning on Thursday for Endon Mahmood, the well-liked wife of the prime minister, who died after a lengthy battle with breast cancer.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban guerrillas shot dead a pro-government cleric in southern Afghanistan, a government official said on Monday, the second killing of a religious figure in three days.

JAMMU, India (Reuters) - Indian Kashmir's junior education minister Ghulam Nabi Lone was shot dead by a suspected Muslim militant on Tuesday in the region's main city of Srinagar, police said.

ROME (Reuters) - Masked gunmen believed to be Mafiosi shot dead a senior southern Italian politician as he was leaving a polling station on Sunday in the worst killing of its kind in the region in 16 years.

WACO, Texas (AP) -- A pastor performing a baptism was electrocuted inside his church Sunday morning when he adjusted a nearby microphone while standing in water, a church employee said.

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syrian Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan committed suicide at his office on Wednesday, the official Syrian News Agency SANA said.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian gunman in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, a Palestinian militant group and the army said.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Four Britons were wounded on Sunday after a suicide bomber rammed a car into their vehicle in Afghanistan's restive southern province of Kandahar, a senior Afghan official said.

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded outside a building housing members of a Shi'ite militia associated with the Iraqi government on Sunday, killing a child, police and witnesses said.

DUSHANBE (Reuters) - A woman blew herself up with a grenade at the Emergencies Ministry in the central Asian country of Tajikistan on Sunday, police said, without giving any clues as to why she did it.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian gunman in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, a Palestinian militant group said.

LONDON (Reuters) - A suspected robber died after being run over by police in a high speed chase of ram raiders who had struck at jewelers Tiffany in central London on Thursday, the capital's police force said.

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a former leader in Northern Ireland's largest Protestant paramilitary group on Tuesday, the most high-profile victim of a spate of violence among armed Protestant factions in the province.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A man has died of suspected bird flu in Indonesia local tests have shown, a hospital spokesman said on Wednesday.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Suspected Muslim militants beheaded a villager in southern Thailand on the eve of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, police said on Wednesday.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Gunmen shot dead a U.N. security officer outside his home in southern Somalia in the latest assassination linked to foreign targets in the anarchic Horn of Africa nation, the world body said on Tuesday.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian woman who stabbed a soldier at a West Bank checkpoint on Tuesday and a militant group said she had been on her way to carry out a suicide attack in Israel.

Harold Sherwood Bachman, the man who designed the giant, grinning fiberglass Doggie Diner heads that became a beloved Bay Area icon as they twirled in the sky above a chain of now-defunct fast-food restaurants, has died.

(9/05)

PHALABORWA, South Africa (Reuters) - A white South African farmer was jailed for life on Friday for feeding a black worker to lions, ending a racially charged case which highlighted abuse of rural black laborers.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Colorful South African mining magnate Brett Kebble was gunned down in his car gangland-style in a killing that has shocked the business community in a country with a high murder rate.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. and Iraqi forces have shot dead the second-in-command of al Qaeda in Iraq, dealing what a U.S. commander called on Tuesday a serious blow to the militant group at the heart of Iraq's insurgency.

KABUL (Reuters) - One of the most respected members of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's cabinet resigned on Tuesday, amid widespread reports of disagreements with Karzai over the appointment of factional leaders to provincial posts. Hours after Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali announced his resignation, a candidate in this month's legislative elections was shot dead, underscoring continuing instability nearly four years after U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban.

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen shot and killed a federal drug prosecutor in this industrial city, the latest in a surge of shootings linked to organized crime in northern Mexico, police said on Tuesday.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel killed a top Islamic Jihad commander in an air strike on Sunday and arrested more than 200 suspected militants after warning Palestinians of a crushing response to rocket attacks from Gaza.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A 27-year-old Indonesian woman died in a Jakarta hospital on Monday after suffering from suspected bird flu, a doctor said.

VIENNA (Reuters) - Simon Wiesenthal, who waged an untiring campaign to track down Nazi war criminals and keep alive the memory of six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, died on Tuesday aged 96.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's public security minister, a key figure in the war against drug cartels, was killed on Wednesday when his helicopter went down in mountains near the capital, President Vicente Fox said.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A commuter train carrying 185 people derailed on Chicago's South Side on Saturday, killing one person and injuring at least 76, city officials said.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A woman convicted of killing her family became the first black female on Wednesday to be executed in Texas since before the U.S. Civil War after last-minute legal and political pleas to save her failed.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A baby girl born last month to a brain dead Virginia woman died early on Monday following surgery, according to a statement on a family Web site.

KABUL (Reuters) - Suspected Taliban militants shot dead a candidate in Afghanistan's weekend elections on Friday and the guerrillas warned people to boycott the polls or risk being hurt in attacks on U.S.-led forces.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded in a mainly Christian residential neighborhood of Beirut late on Friday, killing one person and wounding at least 23, Red Cross and security sources said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Bob Denver, who bumbled and stumbled his way to television stardom as goofy castaway Gilligan in the 1960s comedy "Gilligan's Island," has died of complications from cancer, his agent said on Tuesday.

GAZA (Reuters) - Gunmen dragged ex-security chief Moussa Arafat from his Gaza home and shot him dead in the street on Wednesday, fuelling fears of turmoil ahead of Israel's final troop withdrawal from the occupied territory.

COLOMBO, Sept 8 - One woman died and more than a dozen people were hospitalized on Thursday after they fled a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight before take off in a bomb scare Sri Lankan police suspect was triggered by a hoax call.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian man and wounded a boy as the two approached a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, witnesses and medics said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian man on Tuesday and wounded three others as a crowd tried to force its way into a demolished Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, medics said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist died on Saturday at his home in Arlington, Virginia, after battling thyroid cancer since October, a court spokeswoman said.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A candidate in Afghanistan's September 18 elections was killed on Sunday when he stepped on a land mine outside his home, the second candidate to die violently in two days, police said.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi police killed one wanted militant and injured another in a shootout in the eastern oil city of Dammam on Sunday, a security source said.

KABUL (Reuters) - A district level Taliban commander was killed in a clash with U.S. and Afghan government troops on Friday, a provincial official said, the latest incident in a wave of violence in the run-up to September 18 elections.

(8/05)

TAIPEI (Reuters) - A typhoon swept across Taiwan on Thursday after killing at least one person and injuring 24 as it toppled billboards, broke windows and knocked motorcyclists off their bikes.

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (Reuters) - A Missouri man who beat his wife to death and then argued that execution was too cruel a punishment was put to death early Wednesday by lethal injection.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutchwoman, the world's oldest person on record who swore by a daily helping of herring for a healthy life, died on Tuesday aged 115.

KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. forces have killed a senior Taliban commander responsible for a spate of attacks in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Monday.

BEERSHEBA, Israel (Reuters) - A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up and critically wounded two guards at an Israeli bus station on Sunday in the first such attack since the eviction of Jewish settlers from Gaza and part of the West Bank.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A Reuters Television soundman was shot dead in Baghdad on Sunday and a cameraman who was wounded was still being questioned by U.S. troops 12 hours later.

KABUL (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier was killed and four were wounded by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, a U.S. military spokeswoman said on Saturday, the latest casualties in a surge of violence in the run-up to a September 18 election.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Emergency crews were set to resume their search at first light on Thursday for a diver taken by a shark in the sea off Australia's rugged southern coast.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian stabbed and killed an ultra-Orthodox American Jew and wounded another in Jerusalem on Wednesday, ending a long period of relative calm in the walled Old City, police and a hospital spokeswoman said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Brock Peters, the deep-voiced American actor who portrayed a black man wrongly accused of rape in the classic film "To Kill a Mockingbird," has died at 78.

AMMAN (Reuters) - Rockets were fired at two U.S. warships in Jordan's Aqaba port on Friday, but missed their targets and hit a warehouse and a hospital, killing a Jordanian soldier, and the Israeli port of Eilat.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Suspected Afghan Taliban guerrillas killed a senior pro-government cleric as he was walking to a mosque in the southern province of Kandahar on Sunday, a local official said.

KABUL (Reuters) - A former Taliban commander now loyal to the Afghan government of President Hamidf Karzai has been gunned down in the capital, officials said on Saturday.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's former Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam, a colorful politician who played a pivotal role in the province's peace process, died in a hospice south of London on Friday. She was 55.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Former South African security policeman Gideon Nieuwoudt, who commanded the torture of anti-apartheid hero Steve Biko, has died at the age of 54 from cancer, SABC radio reported on Friday.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombian state prosecutors on Friday ordered the arrest of 11 soldiers accused of killing an indigenous leader last year and falsely reporting that he died as part of a clash with leftist rebels.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Security forces killed the leader of al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia in a gun battle in the holy city of Medina just hours before a visit by newly crowned King Abdullah.

LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Bolivian photographer Freddy Alborta, famous for his image of revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara lying dead, has died in La Paz, his family said.

DHAKA (Reuters) - Scores of mysterious bomb blasts, many of them targeting government buildings, rocked cities across Bangladesh on Wednesday, killing one person, wounding at least 100 and triggering panic.

BELFAST (Reuters) - A father of three was shot dead as he arrived for work near Belfast city center on Monday morning, the fourth killing in a bloody feud between Protestant extremists in the British province.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) - A former prison nurse opened fire on guards escorting her shackled husband from a Tennessee courthouse on Tuesday, killing one guard and escaping with her husband in a sport utility vehicle, authorities said.

HAVANA (Reuters) - Ibrahim Ferrer, the mild-mannered singer of the Buena Vista Social Club group that took him from shining shoes to world fame late in life, died on Saturday in Havana, his manager said. He was 78.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Peter Jennings, prime-time anchorman for ABC News for more than two decades, died of lung cancer on Sunday at his home in New York, the network said. He was 67.

KABUL (Reuters) - An American soldier was killed by a road side bomb in Afghanistan, where militants have increased their attacks ahead of next month's parliamentary polls, the U.S. military said on Friday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Free-lance journalist Steven Vincent, who was killed in southern Iraq this week, was an art critic inspired to write about war after watching from the roof of his New York apartment as the World Trade Center towers fell.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka declared a state of emergency on Saturday after Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar was shot and killed in the garden of his home by a suspected sniper, an attack police blamed on Tamil Tiger rebels.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban guerrillas have executed an Afghan woman after accusing her of spying for U.S.-led forces, officials said on Wednesday.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A 42-year-old farmer with terminal lung cancer set off a home-made bomb aboard a bus in southeastern China on Monday in a suicide attack that wounded 31, the official Xinhua news agency said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who quit government over the Iraq war, died on Saturday after collapsing on a Scottish mountainside. He was 59.

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - The woman at the center of Australia's latest euthanasia row died on Friday, 10 days after her life support was cut off in a case similar to the Terri Schiavo controversy in the United States.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian judge who sentenced several reformist dissidents to jail, including hunger-striking reporter Akbar Ganji, was shot dead in his car by a lone gunman riding a motorcycle, a judiciary spokesman said on Tuesday.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's King Fahd was buried in a simple unmarked grave on Tuesday after a brief funeral where Muslim leaders mourned the monarch who ruled a global oil giant for two turbulent decades.

KHARTOUM/KAMPALA (Reuters) - Sudan's First Vice-President and former rebel leader John Garang, who signed a deal this year to end Africa's longest civil war, died in a helicopter crash in southern Sudan, State TV said on Monday.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Political infighting over plans to privatize Japan's postal system turned nasty on Monday when some ruling party rebels said a lawmaker had killed himself due to government pressure to support the legislation.

SEOUL, South Korea - A South Korean man who played computer games for 50 hours almost non-stop died of heart failure minutes after finishing his mammoth session in an Internet cafe, authorities said on Tuesday.

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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A policeman fatally shot a U.S. tourist in increasingly violent northern Mexico in an apparent accident, a state official said on Sunday.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (Reuters) - Honduran police said on Saturday a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent was shot to death as he visited a local religious shrine and that they arrested two young gang members in the killing.

PARIS/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The man who introduced Europe's single currency the euro as the first head of the European Central Bank, Wim Duisenberg, died on Sunday at his villa in the south of France, police said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Sudan's former rebel leader, First Vice-President John Garang, has died, apparently in a helicopter accident while flying back from Uganda to Sudan, a U.N. official said on Monday.

LONDON (Reuters) - A teenager was beaten to death by a gang of men in a racist murder in northern England, British police said on Saturday.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a teenage Palestinian stone-thrower on Wednesday during a West Bank raid in which they detained a wanted Islamic Jihad militant, local residents and medical officials said.

LOS ANGELES - James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original "Star Trek" TV series and movies who responded to the command "Beam me up, Scotty," died Wednesday. He was 85.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - An explosion in the Lebanese capital Beirut killed one person and wounded seven on Friday, security sources said.

MIAMI (Reuters) - Gen. William Westmoreland, who led U.S. troops in Vietnam from 1965 until 1968, has died at age 91.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew up a minivan packed with explosives at a checkpoint near a central Baghdad hotel on Monday.

LONDON (Reuters) - He vaulted over barriers chased by armed police and stumbled onto a train. Then the man in a winter coat with a backpack was shot time and again sending panicked commuters fleeing in all directions, witnesses said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel, threatening a possible major offensive into Gaza, gave a free hand to security forces to stop Palestinian cross-border rocket salvoes on Sunday and killed a Hamas militant commander.

LONDON (Reuters) - Former British Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath, who took Britain into the forerunner of the European Union during his term in office in the early 1970s, died at home on Sunday, his party said. He was 89.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Charles Chibitty, the last surviving Comanche code talker from World War II, has died in Tulsa at age 83.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban guerrillas hanged a pro-government tribal chief in the troubled southern Afghan province of Zabul, accusing him of being an American spy, officials said on Saturday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli guard killed a Palestinian teenager on Friday while shooting to disperse stone-throwing protesters at a barrier being built near the Israeli-West Bank boundary, Israeli police said.

BISSAU (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen attacked Guinea-Bissau's interior ministry on Saturday, killing a policeman and wounding two of his colleagues, a senior security official said.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - The body of a Haitian journalist abducted last weekend was found on Thursday. in the latest of a series of kidnappings for ransom that have shaken the troubled Caribbean nation.

GAZA (Reuters) - A rocket fired from Gaza killed an Israeli woman at her home on Thursday, setting off the fiercest gunfights between Palestinians for years as police battled militants to try to enforce a truce.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian militant during an arrest operation in the West Bank city of Nablus early on Thursday, the Israeli army and Palestinian officials said.

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian policeman on Wednesday during a raid on a West Bank town in what the army called a retaliation for a suicide bombing that dealt a blow to a five-month-old ceasefire.

KABUL (Reuters) - The body of a U.S. Navy SEAL commando who was the last of a group of four that went missing in Afghanistan last month has been found and it appears he was killed in action, the U.S. military said on Monday.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Gunmen assassinated a prominent Somali peace activist at home in front of his wife on Monday in the latest attack on humanitarian advocates struggling to bring peace to the anarchic country.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Crime writer Evan Hunter, better known to many readers as the Ed McBain who authored the 87th Precinct novels, has died of cancer at the age of 78, his agent said on Thursday.

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (Reuters) - Searchers found human remains in a Montana campground while hunting for a missing 9-year-old boy whose sister was found alive on Saturday with a registered sex offender, police said on Monday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, who founded Earth Day 35 years ago to propagate his lifelong devotion to the environment, died at his home early on Sunday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen assassinated a leading Iraqi Shi'ite cleric as he drove to his central Baghdad mosque for prayers on Friday, one of three attacks targeting prominent Shi'ites in the capital within 24 hours.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a prominent Baghdad cleric linked to Iraq's top Shi'ite spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, shooting him and two of his aides as he went to Friday prayers at his mosque in central Baghdad.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Grammy-winning soul singer and songwriter Luther Vandross, who suffered a serious stroke two years ago as he was about to relaunch his career, died on Friday in a New Jersey hospital, officials said. He was 54.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Gunmen have killed the head of Egypt's diplomatic mission in Baghdad, Cairo said on Thursday. The al Qaeda group said it executed him because he represented a "tyrannical" government allied to Jews and Christians.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant during a clash outside the West Bank city of Nablus on Thursday, sources in his faction and medics said.

LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen on Tuesday raided a religious site in northern India claimed by both Hindus and Muslims and one of the attackers was killed in a gunbattle with security forces, officials said.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's security forces killed al Qaeda's latest local leader in a clash in the capital Riyadh early on Sunday, the Interior Ministry said.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A pro-government Islamic scholar died after being shot by suspected Islamic militants in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, the second such attack in just over a month, officials said.

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syrian forces killed an Arab Muslim militant among a group trying to cross the border into Lebanon and arrested at least 34 others, the official Syrian news agency SANA said on Sunday.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Venomous snakes hampered the search for people missing in swirling floodwaters on Friday as parts of eastern Australia were declared a disaster area after drought-easing rains swamped rural towns. New South Wales state premier Bob Carr declared a disaster in Lismore, about 600 km (370 miles) north of Sydney, a day after 3,000 residents of the farming town were advised to evacuate their homes. At least one man died.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a prominent Baghdad cleric linked to Iraq's top Shi'ite spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, shooting him and two of his aides as he went to Friday prayers at his mosque in central Baghdad.

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KFAR SHOUBA, Lebanon (Reuters) - Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas struck army posts in an Israeli-occupied border area on Wednesday, killing an Israeli soldier in an attack that drew air raids from the Jewish state.

HANOI (Reuters) - A 73-year-old Vietnamese has died from bird flu, taking the country's toll to 39, 19 of them since the virus returned in December, state-run media reported on Thursday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire John Walton, the second son of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. founder Sam Walton and a Wal-Mart board member, died on Monday when a small plane he was piloting crashed shortly after take-off near his Wyoming home.

MIAMI (Reuters) - A 14-year-old girl died after being bitten by a large shark on Saturday while she swam with a friend in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida panhandle, police said.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen killed a Jewish settler on Friday in a West Bank drive-by shooting, Israel's ambulance service said, in the latest blow to a fragile Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian gunman shot dead a Palestinian policeman in the West Bank on Thursday, only hours after the Palestinian Authority agreed to give jobs to hundreds of militants in a bid to end growing lawlessness.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Robert Kissel, the Hong Kong-based American banker who was allegedly poisoned and later clubbed to death by his wife, sounded incoherent hours before he died, one of his best friends told a high court on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The pilot of a U.S. Air Force U-2 spy plane was killed on Wednesday when the plane crashed after a reconnaissance mission over Afghanistan, the U.S. military said.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - An anti-Syrian politician was killed in Lebanon on Tuesday when a bomb ripped through his car, two days after parliamentary elections brought victory for an alliance opposed to Damascus' role in the country.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - Guillermo Suarez Mason, a leading army general accused of kidnapping babies born in captivity during Argentina's 1976-83 military dictatorship, died on Tuesday. He was 81.

MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines' Cardinal Jaime Sin, a driving force behind popular revolts that unseated two presidents, died early on Tuesday after a long illness. He was 76.

RIYADH (Reuters) - A Saudi security officer was shot dead on Saturday outside his home in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, officials said.

SIEM REAP, Cambodia (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a Canadian boy and took 29 mostly foreign kindergarten pupils hostage in a Cambodian tourist town near the famed Angkor Wat temples on Thursday before being captured making their getaway.

LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Bolivian troops shot and killed a miner in protests on Thursday as lawmakers suspended a special congressional session after failing to agree on how to replace President Carlos Mesa and defuse the crisis.

kEW YORK (Reuters) - Actress Anne Bancroft, the husky-voiced beauty who rose from an Italian neighborhood in New York to become a Hollywood star immortalized as the seductive Mrs. Robinson in 1967's "The Graduate" has died.

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - A Sunni Muslim cleric in the southern Iraqi city of Basra has been killed, relatives said on Tuesday, the latest in a series of assassinations of religious figures that have stoked sectarian tensions.

DHAKA (Reuters) - A woman was killed and four people injured when a Bangladeshi fighter plane crashed into homes on the outskirts of the capital Dhaka on Tuesday, officials said.

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Gunmen have assassinated a Shi'ite cleric in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, police and relatives said on Friday.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The commander of a pro-government Afghan militia force was killed by a roadside bomb on Friday in an attack blamed on Taliban insurgents.

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) - Gunmen shot dead a Mexican police commander in front of his young daughter on Thursday, the second attack on a senior officer in this violent city on the U.S. border in two days.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A prominent anti-Syria journalist was killed when a bomb exploded in his car in Beirut on Thursday, prompting the opposition to demand the resignation of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, a close ally of Damascus.

(5/05)

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Oscar Brown Jr., a legendary rhythm & blues and jazz singer, died on Sunday at age 78 following a two-month illness, his son said on Monday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. Marine was killed during fighting in the town of Haditha, northwest of Baghdad, where U.S. forces are conducting a security operation, the military said on Saturday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actor Eddie Albert, a two-time Oscar nominee best known for his TV role as a big-city attorney turned farmer on the popular CBS comedy series "Green Acres," has died at age 99, a spokesman said on Friday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One British soldier was killed and several were wounded on Sunday in an apparent explosion when forces came under attack in southeastern Iraq, a British military spokesman said.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a prominent anti-Taliban cleric in Afghanistan's restive south on Sunday.

Thurl Ravenscroft's remarkable life came to an end Sunday, May 22, 2005, at the age of 91. He is survived by two children, Ron and Nancy, and four grandchildren. June, his wife for 53 years, passed away December 5, 1999 at the age of 80.

KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - Gunmen have shot dead a former member of Kirkuk's city council, Iraqi police said on Saturday, the latest killing of a local official in a city where tensions between Kurds and Arabs run high.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian gunman and wounded two others during an attempted attack on a military base near the West Bank city of Jenin late on Saturday, an Israeli army spokeswoman said.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Islamic militant group Army of Ansar al-Sunna said it shot dead a Japanese hostage and posted footage allegedly showing his bloodied body, according to an Internet video.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed when a car bomb exploded near a patrol just north of Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, the U.S. military said on Monday.

KABUL (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed in southern Afghanistan on Saturday when a bomb exploded beside his vehicle in an attack claimed by Taliban insurgents.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - The police chief of the northern Iraqi town of Sharqat was killed by gunmen who ambushed his car on Wednesday, police and hospital officials said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen shot dead a senior official in Iraq's trade ministry as he was being driven to work in Baghdad on Sunday, police said, the latest in a series of assassinations of senior government employees.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - At least one person died and dozens were injured on Sunday night when two bombs ripped through two cinemas in New Delhi showing a film considered offensive by some Sikhs, police and hospital officials said.

CAIRO (Reuters) - The suspected leader of a cell that attacked tourists in Egypt last month died after sustaining self-inflicted injuries while in police custody, the prosecutor general's office said Saturday. The Interior Ministry had identified Ashraf Said Youssef as the man who recruited a bomber who killed two French people, an American man and himself in a Cairo bazaar blast on April 7.

PARIS - Paul Ricoeur, a French philosopher whose broad interests included biblical interpretation and the study of human perception, has died. He was 92.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed at least one Palestinian gunman who opened fire on a Jewish settlement in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday, the Israeli army said.

GAZA (Reuters) - A Hamas gunman was killed along the Gaza-Egypt border on Wednesday, drawing mortar attacks on Jewish settlements in a surge of violence that put severe strain on a three-month old ceasefire.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed a Palestinian gunman who carried out an assault on a Jewish settlement in Gaza on Friday amid the biggest flareup of violence since a truce declared three months ago.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen shot and killed a senior Iraqi Oil Ministry official in Baghdad on Thursday, a police official said.

PARIS (Reuters) - A Norwegian man died parachuting off the Eiffel Tower after his parachute became tangled up in the metal structure, a French police source said on Tuesday.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip shot and killed a Hamas gunman on Wednesday near the border with Egypt, Palestinian medics said.

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian who tried to stab a soldier at an army checkpoint near the West Bank town of Tulkarm on Monday, military officials said.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A powerful roadside bomb exploded in Thailand's restive Muslim south on Sunday, killing one soldier and wounding five others, police said.

PARIS (Reuters) - A cook at a Paris children's hospital was killed in a sword attack on Saturday evening by a man he met on the Internet, police sources said on Sunday.

Frank Gorshin, the impressionist with 100 faces best known for his Emmy-nominated role as the Riddler on the "Batman" TV series, has died. He was 72.

ENFIELD, Conn. (Reuters) - Connecticut prison officials put serial killer Michael Ross to death on Friday as capital punishment opponents mourned liberal New England's first execution in 45 years.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior al Qaeda operative was killed by a missile fired from an unmanned CIA Predator aircraft on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border earlier this week, ABC News reported.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Guards shot dead a man who approached the Israeli embassy in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent on Friday in a suspicious manner and ignored their orders to halt, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - A peacekeeper from Bangladesh was killed and five others wounded when their convoy came under fire on Thursday in the Ituri district of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations said.

RABAT (Reuters) - A Moroccan jailed for involvement in the Casablanca bombings two years ago died on Tuesday during a hunger strike by some 1,000 predominantly Islamist inmates, the main independent human rights group said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen assassinated a senior transport ministry official in Baghdad on Sunday, police said.

KABUL (Reuters) - A foreigner killed in a blast at an Internet cafe in the Afghan capital was from Myanmar, not the Philippines as authorities said earlier, and he worked for the United Nations, an Afghan government official said on Sunday.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Suspected Maoist rebels shot dead one of Nepal's top Hindu priests as he conducted a ceremony in a temple on Friday, the military said.

JOUNIEH, Lebanon (Reuters) - A bomb killed one woman and wounded seven people in a Christian port town north of Beirut on Friday, on the eve of the return of an anti-Syrian opposition leader from 15 years of exile.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Search teams have recovered the body of a second American pilot missing after two F-18 Marine Corps planes disappeared over Iraq earlier this week, a U.S. statement said on Wednesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One soldier from the 1st Corps Support Command was killed and another injured by an improvised explosive device (IED) at the Baghdad International Airport on Monday, the U.S. military said in a statement on Tuesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Search teams have found the body of a U.S. Marine pilot whose F-18 crashed in Iraq, but a second warplane is still missing, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.

LONDON (Reuters) - A British soldier was killed in combat in Iraq on Monday, taking to 83 the number of British military deaths in the country since the invasion of March 2003.

Von Kloberg Dies After Career as Image Maker for the Reviled // As part of Washington's image machinery for more than two decades, Edward von Kloberg III did his best to sanitize some of the late 20th century's most notorious dictators as they sought favors and approval from U.S. officials.

(4/05)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A bomb killed a U.S. soldier in Baghdad Sunday, raising to at least three the number of American military personnel killed in Iraq this weekend, the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen assassinated an Iraqi woman member of parliament Wednesday in a fresh shock to politicians whose failure to form a government three months after elections has allowed violence to thrive unchecked.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian man driving his car near the West Bank city of Hebron on Monday, Palestinian witnesses and the Israeli rescue service said.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - An Israeli was killed after he was run over by a Palestinian driver on Monday at an Israeli army checkpoint in the West Bank, Palestinian witnesses and the Israeli ambulance service said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Ezer Weizman, a World War II fighter pilot who helped found the Israeli air force and later served as the country's seventh president, died on Sunday after a long illness, Israeli officials said. He was 81. Weizman, who built a modern air force that crippled enemy aircraft on the first day of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, later became a dove who helped shape peace with Egypt and the Palestinians.

LONDON (Reuters) - British actor Sir John Mills, who won an Oscar in 1971 for his portrayal of a mute village idiot in "Ryan's Daughter," died on Saturday aged 97, a trustee for his estate said.

TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) - The body of a 13-year-old Florida girl missing for nearly a week was found on Saturday near her home, authorities said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen on Monday assassinated a senior Iraqi Interior Ministry official who had told the media that a hostage crisis that fueled sectarian tensions was exaggerated, police said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant in a raid in a West Bank refugee camp on Thursday, triggering a vow by a leading militant group to retaliate "like an earthquake."

DHAKA, Bangladesh (Reuters) - One woman died and nearly 50 people were missing on Saturday after a passenger boat sank after colliding with a ferry on a Bangladesh river, police said.

MAIWAND, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Villagers clashed with Afghan government forces trying to destroy poppy fields on Tuesday and at least one villager was killed and nine wounded, including a U.S. soldier, officials said.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Haitian police on Sunday killed a prominent gang leader who had waged war against the police, a day after a leading rebel was killed in a shoot-out with security forces, police and officials from the U.N. peacekeeping force said.

HAVANA (Reuters) - An inmate died on Monday from severe burns suffered a week ago during a riot at Cuba's largest prison, veteran Cuban human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez said.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - One of the leaders of an armed revolt that ousted Haiti's ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide last year was killed on Saturday in a shoot-out with Haitian police and U.N. civilian police, a spokesman for U.N. peacekeepers said.

NEW YORK - Andrea Dworkin, a feminist who viewed pornography as a violation of women's civil rights and a direct cause of rape and violence, has died, her agent and family said Monday. She was 58.

Al Lucas died Sunday from a presumed spinal cord injury sustained while trying to make a tackle in the Avengers' 66-35 rout of the Dragons.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Saul Bellow, who rose from writing book reviews for $10 apiece to become one of America's greatest novelists after World War II, passed away on Tuesday at age 89.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi forces killed a wanted militant and wounded another in a raid in southern Riyadh on Wednesday, the Interior Ministry said.

MONACO (Reuters) - Monaco's Prince Rainier, whose marriage to U.S. actress Grace Kelly brought Hollywood glamour to his tiny Mediterranean state, died on Wednesday aged 81.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi forces overpowered gunmen on Tuesday after a fierce three-day battle in which a top militant suspected of masterminding al Qaeda bombings in Casablanca was killed, security sources said.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Three bombs exploded almost simultaneously at an airport, a supermarket and a hotel in Thailand's restive Muslim south Sunday, killing one person and wounding more than 50 others, police and witnesses said.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Suspected Maoist rebels set off a series of bombs in Nepal Saturday, killing one person hours before the start of a strike called by rebels to protest against King Gyanendra's seizure of power two months ago.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope John Paul II, whose 26-year papacy helped defeat Communism in Europe but left a Roman Catholic Church divided over his rigorous orthodoxy, died on Saturday after a prolonged struggle with ill health.

(3/05)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., the charismatic attorney who became famous in the successful defense of football star O.J. Simpson on murder charges, died on Tuesday in Los Angeles of a brain tumor, spokespeople said.

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (Reuters) - Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman at the heart of a wrenching legal dispute that drew in Congress and President Bush, died on Thursday, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed by court order.

KABUL (Reuters) - One person was killed in a car bomb blast on Wednesday in front of Afghan government buildings in the eastern city of Jalalabad, a state agency official said.

PRAGUE, Czech Republic - A Czech tractor driver died under eight tons of manure in a bizarre accident that has baffled his employers, local media reported.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. Marine was killed in action Friday in Iraq's restive Anbar province, the U.S. military said Saturday.

LONDON (Reuters) - Former Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan, who presided over a chaotic winter of strikes that opened the door to Margaret Thatcher's radical free market reforms, died on Saturday on the eve of his 93rd birthday.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's wing in Iraq said it had shot dead a senior Interior Ministry official kidnapped last month, and posted a video of the apparent killing on the Internet on Sunday.

MADRID (Reuters) - A gas explosion in an apartment building near Barcelona killed one person and trapped nine others who were rescued by fire fighters on Friday night, police said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - George Kennan, a prominent U.S. diplomat and historian who was an important architect of the containment policy designed to curb Moscow's influence after World War II, has died at age 101, according to media reports on Thursday.

DOHA (Reuters) - A car bomb blast tore through a theater frequented by Westerners in Qatar, command center for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq which began two years ago, killing one Briton and wounding at least 12 people.

GENKAIJIMA, Japan (Reuters) - A powerful magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit Japan's southernmost main island of Kyushu on Sunday, killing an elderly woman, injuring up to 400 people and forcing hundreds to flee their homes, officials and media reports said.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - A congressman from Colombia's Liberal Party was shot to death by two assailants on Friday as he sat talking with a friend in his district office in the western city of Manizales, police said.

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi security forces shot dead one man and arrested three others in a raid on a suspected militant's flat in Jeddah on Sunday, officials and witnesses said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Insurgents posing as policemen killed a Baghdad police chief on Thursday, stopping his truck at a fake checkpoint, asking his name then shooting him in an attack claimed by al Qaeda's followers in Iraq.

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli forces, striking into the West Bank on Thursday despite a cease-fire, killed a Palestinian militant with alleged links to a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv last month.

KABUL (Reuters) - A British man working in Afghanistan has been shot dead in Kabul, Afghan police and the British foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov was killed Tuesday by Russian security forces, authorities said, giving a boost to President Vladimir Putin's hard-line campaign to crush the separatist rebellion in Chechnya.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces in Iraq, already implicated in the killing of an Italian secret agent, faced further strains with allies on Monday when Bulgaria said they had probably shot dead one of its soldiers.

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan investigators said on Monday a man believed to be the most likely suspect for last year's election-eve shooting on President Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu drowned a few days after the attack.

HONOLULU (AP) Longtime musician Martin Denny, who was known for his unique exotic sound, died yesterday at his Hawaii Kai home. He was 94.

ROME (Reuters) - U.S. forces fired at a car carrying Italian reporter Giuliana Sgrena shortly after her liberation, killing an Italian secret service agent and lightly wounding the journalist, her newspaper said on Friday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Israeli spy who captured Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, approaching him on a Buenos Aires street with the words "one moment, sir" before bundling him into a car to be smuggled to Israel, has died in New York. He was 77.

KIEV (Reuters) - Former Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko, linked to the murder of an investigative journalist, apparently committed suicide on Friday, police said.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombian kidnappers confessed to abducting and killing an Italian tourist who had boasted about his wealth in a brothel, police said on Wednesday.

BAKU (Reuters) - A prominent opposition journalist was shot dead outside his home in the Azeri capital of Baku on Wednesday, police said.

(2/05)

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The burned body of an unidentified person showing signs of torture was found in Cancun, the latest in a series of gruesome murders that have plagued the popular Mexican holiday resort in recent months.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - A Brazilian environmentalist was killed in an Atlantic rain forest on Tuesday night, only 10 days after a U.S. nun and activist against illegal logging was murdered in the Amazon jungle.

LOS ANGELES - Gene Scott, the shaggy-haired, cigar-smoking televangelist whose eccentric religious broadcasts were beamed around the world, has died, a family spokesman said. He was 75.

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban writer Guillermo Cabrera Infante, who wrote about Cuba's steamy cabaret society and became a staunch critic of Cuban communism, died on Monday in London where he lived in exile for 40 years, his wife said.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Maoist rebels attacked a convoy on a key highway west of Nepal's capital and killed a truck driver, an army officer said on Monday.

ASPEN, Colo. - Hunter S. Thompson, the acerbic counterculture writer who popularized a new form of fictional journalism in books like "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," fatally shot himself Sunday night at his home, his son said. He was 67.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Marxist rebels killed a Colombian mayor while he supervised construction work on Wednesday in his small town in the center of the country, police said.

ASUNCION, Paraguay (Reuters) - The daughter of Paraguay's former President Raul Cubas was found dead on Wednesday underneath a house near the capital, nearly five months after she was kidnapped, government officials said.

LOME, Togo (Reuters) - Togo's security forces shot and killed a demonstrator on Monday in the capital's opposition stronghold, where edgy youths manned barricades after deadly weekend protests against the army's naming of a new ruler.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanese troops were on alert across the country on Tuesday as the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in a car bomb blast raised fears of a political crisis and rekindled raw memories of civil war.

LISBON (Reuters) - Lucia de Jesus dos Santos, the last of three children who claimed to see the Virgin at Fatima and who revealed a vision the Catholic Church said foretold the attempt to kill Pope John Paul, died on Sunday, the Church said.

BELEM, Brazil (Reuters) - A 74-year-old American nun was shot to death early on Saturday in Brazil's Amazon jungle, where she worked for decades to defend peasant farmers and the rain forest from illegal loggers and ranchers.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A senior official in Iraq's Ministry of Housing and Construction was assassinated in Baghdad on Wednesday by gunmen who attacked his car, police said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen killed an Iraqi journalist working for a U.S.-funded television network in Basra and seized a senior Interior Ministry official in Baghdad on Wednesday in the latest attacks following the historic Jan. 30 election.

KUWAIT (Reuters) - A militant described by police as one of al Qaeda's top leaders in Kuwait has died in custody after being arrested in connection with a wave of violence in the Gulf state, officials said on Wednesday.

(AP) - Writers, directors, actors and others in the arts community paid tribute Friday to one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century. Arthur Miller, who stoked the American Dream with his unswerving portrayals of human frailties, died Thursday night of congestive heart failure at the age of 89.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Former world heavyweight champion Max Schmeling, who fought two unforgettable bouts with American Joe Louis in the 1930s and fell out of favor with the Nazis after resisting Hitler's embrace, has died at the age of 99.

MIAMI (Reuters) - Actor Ossie Davis, who brought dignity and a passion for racial equality to the stage and screen in a career of more than 50 years, was found dead early on Friday at the age of 87.

LOME (Reuters) - Togo President Gnassingbe Eyadema, Africa's longest serving ruler, died on Saturday after 38 years in power and the army named his son as his successor.

TBILISI, Georgia (Reuters) - The prime minister of ex-Soviet Georgia was found dead on Thursday in a bizarre gas poisoning that robs the inexperienced president, Mikhail Saakashvili, of a steadying hand to help run his turbulent country.

ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) - At least one person was killed on Tuesday in a gunbattle between Egyptian police and Bedouin accused of helping bomb three tourist resorts on Egypt's Red Sea coast in October, official sources said.

(1/05)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. Marine was killed in action in the volatile Anbar province west of Baghdad Sunday, the second Marine to be killed in the area that day, the U.S. military said Monday.

HANOI (Reuters) - Bird flu has killed a 10-year-old girl in southern Vietnam, doctors said Monday, and they hoped the death of a Cambodian women suspected of having the virus would force Phnom Penh to take preventative measures.

GAZA (Reuters) - The Islamic militant group Hamas said it launched five mortar bombs at a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip Monday, after Israeli army gunfire killed a Palestinian girl.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. Marine was killed in action in the volatile Anbar province west of Baghdad Sunday, the U.S. military said in a statement.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Legendary architect Philip Johnson, whose glass skyscrapers helped define America's urban landscape, has died at age 98, his lawyer's office said on Wednesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb blast killed an American soldier in Baghdad on Monday evening, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.

GAZA (Reuters) - The Israeli army shot and killed a Palestinian man in the Gaza Strip Saturday, medics said.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan police shot dead the country's most wanted criminal, a rogue detective who killed two of his former colleagues and hired out guns to gangs terrorizing the capital, police said on Friday.

BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide car bomb aimed at Iraqi security forces in the town of Baquba killed at least one policeman and wounded six people on Thursday, police and witnesses said.

DUBAI (Reuters) - A militant videotape appeared on an Islamist Web site on Thursday, apparently showing the killing of a man described as the secretary of Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Insurgents released a video on Tuesday showing a U.S. hostage pleading for his life, and militants assassinated a senior judge in Baghdad, intensifying a campaign of violence ahead of Sunday's watershed election.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Comedian Johnny Carson, the king of U.S. late-night television as host of NBC's "The Tonight Show" for nearly 30 years -- and the last face millions of Americans saw before drifting off to sleep -- died on Sunday at age 79.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber launched an attack on Monday near a checkpoint on a Baghdad street leading to the office of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's party, wounding at least seven policemen and three civilians, officials said.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A large earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale shook Indonesia's eastern Sulawesi island early on Monday, killing one person, damaging buildings and spreading panic among residents, officials said.

WARSAW (Reuters) - Jan Nowak-Jezioranski, a Polish Second World War hero who spent his life fighting for an independent democratic Poland, died late on Thursday aged 91.

OSLO (Reuters) - Per Borten, a former Norwegian prime minister whose government applied to join the European Community in the 1960s before voters rejected the idea, died on Thursday. He was aged 91.

OTTAWA (AP) -- An ardent hockey fan who died this week used his obituary to denounce the NHL lockout. Archie Bennitz, 84, instructed his son to criticize NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and union leader Bob Goodenow in his death notice.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber attacked a Baghdad office used by a major Shi'ite party on Tuesday in the latest insurgent attack aimed at stoking sectarian strife ahead of Jan. 30 polls expected to be dominated by Shi'ites.

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - One of the candidates Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi was fielding in the Jan. 30 elections was killed in the southern city of Basra on Tuesday, officials in Baghdad and Basra said.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A bomb exploded outside a noodle shop in Thailand's largely Muslim south on Sunday, killing one person and wounding 58, including six children, police said.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Zhao Ziyang, toppled as China's Communist Party chief in 1989 for opposing an army crackdown on the Tiananmen Square democracy protests, died in hospital on Monday, his family and the government said. He was 85.

UMM AL-HAIMAN, Kuwait (Reuters) - A Saudi gunman was killed and two Kuwaiti policemen wounded when security forces clashed with militants in southern Kuwait on Saturday, security sources said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian man who was driving his pregnant neighbor to hospital on Thursday while the army was carrying out a night-time raid in the Gaza Strip, witnesses and medics said.

PRIZREN, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - A United Nations police officer from Nigeria was killed in an apparent car bomb explosion in western Kosovo on Thursday, a U.N. spokesman said.

BOMBAY (Reuters) - The undisputed king of Bollywood's baddies, Amrish Puri, died on Wednesday at the age of 72 after a long illness, a hospital spokesman said in India's film capital.

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian militants killed a Jewish settler and wounded three soldiers in a Gaza ambush on Wednesday, challenging new Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas's quest for a cease-fire to help him talk peace with Israel.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An American Marine has been killed in action in a restive western area of Iraq, the U.S. military said on Monday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A crewman died on Sunday from injuries sustained when the U.S. nuclear submarine USS San Francisco ran aground Saturday off Guam in the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. Navy said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. Marine was killed in action on Thursday in the restive al-Anbar province west of Baghdad, the American military said.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The only surviving son of former South African President Nelson Mandela died on Thursday in Johannesburg following an undisclosed illness, a hospital official said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An American soldier was killed and two others were wounded when their patrol came under fire in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian man after he tried to infiltrate a Jewish settlement in occupied Gaza Friday, Israeli Radio said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian gunmen who infiltrated a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip Thursday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen have killed a senior official of Iraq's main Sunni Muslim party, which last month withdrew from the Jan. 30 election race it wants postponed, the Iraqi Islamic Party said Wednesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. Marine was killed in action in al-Anbar province west of Baghdad on Tuesday, the U.S. military said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Rep. Robert Matsui of California, a top Democrat in Congress re-elected overwhelmingly in November to a 14th two-year term, has died of a rare blood disorder, his office said on Sunday. He was 63.

(12/04)

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - An Iraqi National Guardsman was found shot dead near Falluja Friday with a note on his body warning others against working with U.S.-led forces, in the latest such attack on Iraqi security forces.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier died in hospital Wednesday from wounds sustained in a car bomb attack on a patrol in the city of Mosul, the American military said on Thursday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Jazz clarinetist Artie Shaw, famed for classic recordings of "Begin the Beguine" and "Oh, Lady Be Good" as well as turbulent marriages to movie stars Lana Turner and Ava Gardner, died on Thursday at age 94, his manager Will Curtis said.

CAIRO (Reuters) - One man died and two others were injured in uncertain circumstances in southern Egypt, a police source said on Thursday, in the latest in a series of clashes between Muslims and Christians in Egypt.

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Masked gunmen killed an ethnic Pashtun politician known as a close friend of Afghan President Hamid Karzai in a Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border on Wednesday, officials said.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi police killed a suspected militant in a shootout in Riyadh and captured two wanted militants after a gun battle in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on Wednesday, state television and security sources said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Author and social critic Susan Sontag, one of the most powerful thinkers of her generation and a leading voice of intellectual opposition to U.S. policy after the Sept. 11 attacks, died on Tuesday at a New York cancer hospital. She was 71.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Reuters) - Dr. Jonathan Drummond-Webb, a pioneer in surgery to implant artificial heart pumps in children, died of an apparent suicide over the weekend at the age of 45, hospital officials said Monday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier and wounded another when their patrol was attacked north of Baghdad overnight, the U.S. military said on Monday.

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukrainian transport minister and one of Ukraine's most prominent businessmen Heorhiy Kyrpa was found dead on Monday at his home outside Kiev, a government source said.

(AP) - Actor Jerry Orbach, who played a sardonic, seen-it-all cop on TV's "Law & Order" and scored on Broadway as a song-and-dance man, has died of prostate cancer at 69, a representative of the show said Wednesday.

LONDON, (Reuters) - Former NFL all-time sacks leader Reggie White has died at the age of 43.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Leftist guerrillas shot and killed a Catholic parish priest in a jungle area of northwest Colombia, church officials said on Friday.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - A bomb blast killed a suspected member of a banned Islamist group and wounded seven other people in a small western Pakistani town close to the troubled tribal area on Saturday, officials said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen shot dead a respected professor of medicine in Iraq on Saturday, the latest victim of postwar violence that has forced thousands of professionals to flee the country.

LONDON (Reuters) - The person killed when a man went on a knife rampage across north London stabbing six people in just over an hour was named on Friday as 58-year-old father of two Ernest Meads.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier and wounded two others in Baghdad Thursday, the military said in a statement.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Former Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, who initiated free-market reforms but ended his political career facing criminal charges, died of heart failure on Thursday, the government said.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A bomb hidden in a motorcycle killed one person and wounded six outside a bank in Thailand's largely Muslim deep south on Friday, police and hospital officials said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant during a raid on a southern Gaza Strip refugee camp on Wednesday in what the army called an operation to stop attacks on Jewish settlements, Palestinian witnesses said.

(AP) - In the end, it wasn't a fingerprint or a blood spatter that led authorities to the woman suspected of strangling a mother-to-be and cutting the baby from her womb. It was an 11-digit computer code.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The orchestra conductor of Southern California's landmark Crystal Cathedral committed suicide early on Friday, shooting himself inside a barricaded storage room.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Insurgents killed a U.S. Marine during fighting in the violent Anbar province west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Friday.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Attackers detonated a bomb near a U.S. military patrol in Mosul on Saturday but missed the patrol and hit a school bus, killing one teenage student and wounding six others, the U.S. military said.

BANJUL (Reuters) - An attacker shot dead a prominent Gambian newspaper editor, an outspoken advocate of press freedom who had condemned new media restrictions, as he drove home from work in the small West African country.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A senior official in Iraq's Communications Ministry was shot dead as he was driving to work in Baghdad on Thursday, a source at the ministry said.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Jazeera television said on Thursday an Iraqi group had killed an Italian hostage who appeared in video footage aired by the Arabic channel.

GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) - Suspected separatists threw a grenade in a crowded market in the main city of India's restive northeast on Thursday, killing one person and wounding five, police said, two days after a string of similar blasts.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Unknown gunmen have shot and killed a Marine west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard, who died in a recording studio last month at the age of 35, had taken cocaine and a prescription pain relief drug before his collapse, the Medical Examiner's office said on Wednesday.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) - Pauline Gore, mother of former Vice President Al Gore and widow of the late U.S. Sen. Albert Gore Sr., died at her home in Tennessee on Wednesday, her family said. She was 92.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A senior aide to Jordanian al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been killed by Iraqi security forces, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said on Tuesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier died from a gunshot wound received on Tuesday during a convoy mission south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement on Wednesday.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A blast in the Afghan city of Kandahar wounded at least four government soldiers on Wednesday, a day after security forces said they caught Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar's security chief. Elsewhere, the body of a kidnapped Turkish construction engineer was found in eastern Afghanistan, an Interior Ministry official said. He had been abducted by a militant gang on Tuesday on the road between the city of Jalalabad and Kunar province.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian man on Wednesday as he tried to cross a Gaza road they had sealed off near a Jewish settlement, Palestinian medics and witnesses said.

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine movie legend Fernando Poe Jr., who came close to unseating Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in May's presidential election, died on Tuesday after suffering a stroke, his family said.

PHOENIX (Reuters) - A top municipal official in Phoenix died in a bizarre incident that saw him crawl out of his fast-moving vehicle, stand atop its roof and extend his arms outward before tumbling off, authorities said on Thursday.

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) - A Kurdish separatist guerrilla was killed in a clash with Turkish security forces on Saturday in the country's southeast, a security official said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Insurgents have killed a U.S. Marine in western Iraq, the U.S. military said on Friday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead a 7-year-old Palestinian girl in a Gaza refugee camp on Friday, medics said, after militants wounded four Israelis in a mortar attack on a nearby Jewish settlement.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier and wounded five others in Baghdad on Saturday, the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas fired a mortar barrage into central Baghdad Thursday, killing at least one Iraqi and wounding 11, police at the scene of the blasts said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Yasser Arafat's brother has died of cancer in Egypt, a relative said on Wednesday, less than three weeks after the Palestinian president died of a mysterious illness.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - America's first female poet laureate Mona Van Duyn, once described as a pioneer of the poetry of the suburbs, has died in St. Louis at the age of 83, her publisher Alfred A. Knopf said on Thursday.

(11/04)

BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) -- An armed bankrobbery in Germany by two men dressed in Santa Claus outfits ended in a bloody gunfight in which one robber was shot dead and a police officer seriously wounded, authorities said on Friday.

JEDDAH (Reuters) - Saudi security forces shot dead a suspected militant on Saturday in a clash in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, police and witnesses said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. civilian official was killed by gunfire near Baghdad's Green Zone government compound on Wednesday, a U.S. official said.

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - A Venezuelan lawyer suspected in last week's bombing murder of a top state prosecutor was killed in a gunfight with police on Tuesday after he tried to ram detectives with his car and opened fire on them, officials said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard, whose criminal lifestyle and strange behavior overshadowed his work as one of the founding members of rap collective Wu-Tang Clan, collapsed and died in New York Saturday, his record label said.

PARIS (Reuters) - Yasser Arafat, the guerrilla icon turned Nobel Peace Prize winner who ended up isolated and locked in renewed conflict with Israel, died on Thursday, his dream of a Palestinian state unfulfilled. He was 75.

KARACHI (Reuters) - Pakistani police on Wednesday shot dead a suspected Islamic militant wanted in connection with the 2002 abduction and killing of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl, police said.

RIYADH (Reuters) - One Saudi policeman died in a clash with militants linked to al Qaeda who have been waging an 18-month campaign of attacks in the oil-rich kingdom, an Interior Ministry official said Wednesday.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - Bombs exploded at three banks in the Argentine capital on Wednesday, including two branches of U.S. giant Citibank, killing one security guard and injuring a bomb squad officer, officials said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - British-Iraqi aid worker Margaret Hassan has probably been killed by kidnappers, her family said on Tuesday after a video apparently showing her being shot in the head was sent to an Arab television station.

LONDON (Reuters) - A television pool report by U.S. network NBC said on Monday that a U.S. Marine had shot dead an unarmed and wounded Iraqi prisoner in a mosque in Falluja.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - More bombs hit Thailand's largely Muslim south on Saturday, killing a shopper in a mainly Buddhist town and wounding 14 as Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra vowed to resolve the crisis.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Gunmen on motorcycles shot and killed a Buddhist martial arts teacher and two bombs wounded at least 10 people in Thailand's restive south on Friday in apparent revenge for the deaths of 85 Muslims, police said.

KARACHI (Reuters) - A gunman opened fire inside a Sunni Muslim mosque in the Pakistani city of Karachi on Wednesday, killing at least one worshipper and wounding two clerics, one critically, police said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a senior Iraqi Oil Ministry official in Baghdad on Wednesday, Interior Ministry spokesman Colonel Adnan Abdul-Rahman said.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Suspected Muslim militants beheaded a Buddhist village leader in southern Thailand in revenge for the deaths of 85 protesters last week and left the head and trunk two miles apart, officials said on Tuesday.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Controversial Dutch filmmaker and newspaper columnist Theo van Gogh, who made a film about violence against women in Islamic societies, was stabbed and shot dead in Amsterdam on Tuesday morning, police said.

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan, President of OPEC member the United Arab Emirates, died on Tuesday and officials expected a smooth transfer of power in the oil-rich Gulf Arab country.

KARACHI (Reuters) - A gunman opened fire with an automatic weapon inside a Sunni Muslim mosque in the Pakistani port city of Karachi on Wednesday, killing at least one person and wounding two, police said.

(10/04)

LONDON (Reuters) - A British soldier has been found dead at a military base in Basra, southern Iraq, but the death did not appear to be combat-related, the Ministry of Defense said on Sunday.

MONROVIA (Reuters) - One person was killed on Sunday when mobs of youths rioted on the streets of the Liberian capital, carrying out apparent revenge attacks for killings during religious sectarian violence on Friday, witnesses said.

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese hostage taken in Iraq has been killed, Kyodo news agency said on Saturday, citing information obtained by the Japanese government.

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) - Kurdish guerrillas ambushed a Turkish military convoy in southeastern Turkey on Wednesday evening, killing one soldier and injuring another three, military sources said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a 10-year-old Palestinian girl on Thursday as she was walking to school in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, witnesses said.

EAST BRIDGEWATER, Mass. - Hundreds of mourners paid their final respects Tuesday to a college student killed when police fired pepper-spray pellets into a raucous crowd after the Boston Red Sox won the American League pennant.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Haitian police and U.N. troops moved into a slum neighborhood on Sunday and cleared street barricades that paralyzed a part of the capital. One Haitian policeman was killed by gunfire and several people were injured in the operation, which began when armored vehicles and dump trucks rolled into the Bel-Air neighborhood at 3:30 a.m., a police official said.

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Iraqi militant group said it had assassinated the chief of police in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil and threatened to kill Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, according to an Internet statement posted on Sunday.

KABUL (Reuters) - A Taliban suicide fighter killed himself and wounded at least seven others, including three members of a NATO-led peacekeeping force, in a grenade attack on a busy shopping street in central Kabul on Saturday.

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Iraqi militant group said it beheaded an Iraqi man it accused of collaborating with U.S. forces and posted pictures of the killing on the Internet.

GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas vowed on Friday to hit back hard for Israel's assassination of the "Father of the Qassam" rocket, a weapon symbolizing Palestinian militants' defiance of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his plan to quit Gaza.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel killed the top bomb maker of the Hamas Islamic militant group in a Gaza Strip air strike on Thursday, days before a key parliamentary vote on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to quit the occupied territory.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Paul Nitze, one of the last leading U.S. statesmen of the Cold War period and architect of nuclear deterrence, has died at the age of 97.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A woman convicted in the largest case of drug trafficking in China's capital in more than 50 years was executed on Tuesday, Chinanews.com news Web site reported.

PARIS (Reuters) - Pierre Salinger, press secretary to the late U.S. presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and a distinguished journalist, died of a heart attack on Saturday, his family said on Sunday. He was 79.

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - Betty Hill, whose tale of being abducted by aliens launched her to fame and became the subject of a best-selling book and television movie, has died. She was 85.

BANGALORE, India (Reuters) - India's most wanted bandit, Koose Muniswamy Veerappan, was killed Monday in a shootout with police who have for years been hunting the smuggler who killed more than 100 people and kidnapped a movie star.

LAFAYETTE, Calif. - A 79-year-old woman who stood in line outside a supermarket for more than five hours waiting for a flu shot collapsed and later died, the woman's daughter said.

CINCINNATI (Reuters) - A man convicted of murder during a $15 robbery a decade ago was executed in Ohio on Wednesday, the seventh in the state this year.

DUBAI (Reuters) - A militant Iraqi group said it had beheaded a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) who it described as a "spy" working as a translator for the U.S. army, according to an Internet statement.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli helicopter gunship fired a missile at a house during fighting in the northern Gaza Strip early on Wednesday, killing a Hamas militant, medics said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Former National League Most Valuable Player Ken Caminiti, who in 2002 admitted he used steroids, died of a heart attack in New York on Sunday, Major League Baseball reported on its Web Site.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - "Superman" actor Christopher Reeve, who became a leading advocate for spinal cord research after a horseback riding accident left him paralyzed nine years ago, has died of heart failure, his publicist said on Monday. He was 52.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. marine was killed in action in Anbar province west of Iraq Saturday, the U.S. military said Sunday.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli aircraft fired a missile at a house in Gaza's Jabalya refugee camp Sunday, killing one Palestinian and wounding four others, witnesses said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Militants beheaded a British hostage near Baghdad despite secret 11th-hour efforts by London to free Kenneth Bigley from kidnappers whose video messages had played on British emotions on the war in Iraq for three weeks.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rodney Dangerfield, the goggle-eyed comic famed for his self-deprecating one-liners and signature phrase "I can't get no respect," died on Tuesday at age 82, his spokesman said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Gordon Cooper, one of the Mercury Seven astronauts who helped pioneer human space exploration, piloting the last of the Mercury missions and the troubled Gemini 5 flight, died on Monday. He was 77.

BISSAU (Reuters) - Mutinous soldiers demanding pay for peacekeeping duty abroad killed the commander of Guinea-Bissau's armed forces on Wednesday and seized key buildings in the capital of the former Portuguese colony.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - One of three injured crewman who was airlifted from a fire-damaged Canadian submarine adrift in the Atlantic on Wednesday has died in an Irish hospital, defense officials said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actress Janet Leigh, whose dozens of starring roles were eclipsed by a single movie moment -- the shower stabbing scene in Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho," has died at the age of 77, a family spokeswoman said on Monday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Militants shot dead a U.S. soldier in Baghdad, the U.S. military said Saturday.

SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) - Police on Friday said they found the remains of a badly decomposed body in a landfill at which they were searching for Lori Hacking, a Utah woman whose husband has been charged with her murder.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Richard Avedon, who turned fashion and portrait photography into art forms and captured unforgettable images of some of the world's most famous figures, died on Friday at 81, a spokeswoman for the New Yorker magazine said.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Asia's bird flu epidemic, which experts fear could spawn a human pandemic, has claimed its 31st victim, a nine-year-old Thai girl who had contact with infected chickens at home.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces launched the sixth day of a massive offensive in the Gaza Strip early on Tuesday with an air strike that killed a Palestinian militant and wounded two others in Jabalya refugee camp.

BEIJING (Reuters) - The head of a Tibetan monastery has been shot dead by a policeman in western China after he and other monks demanded payment for medical treatment after they said they were beaten in custody, a U.S. broadcaster said.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A remote-control Beirut car bomb wounded a prominent Lebanese opposition politician and killed his driver Friday, weeks after the former minister quit the government to protest Syria's grip on Lebanon.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - The only man ever brought to trial for the 1986 murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme died on Wednesday, leaving the case an enduring mystery after almost 20 years.

(9/04)

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Two gunmen shot dead a member of the moderate faction of Kashmir's main separatist alliance on Thursday, police said, days after New Delhi said it will try to resume a stalled dialogue with the rebels.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - The only man ever brought to trial for the 1986 murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme died on Wednesday, leaving the case an enduring mystery after almost 20 years.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian gunman and wounded three early on Wednesday in a raid on militant strongholds in the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinian medics and witnesses said.

JEDDAH (Reuters) - A Frenchman was shot dead in the Saudi city of Jeddah on Sunday in the second such killing this month by suspected al Qaeda militants trying to drive Westerners out and destabilize the global oil superpower.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A senior commander from Afghanistan's Taliban militia previously held at a U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay was killed by Afghan forces in the central province of Uruzgan, a senior official said on Sunday.

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syria accused Israel of terrorism after a bomb -- which Israeli security sources said Israel planted -- killed a Hamas official in Damascus on Sunday. Hamas vowed to retaliate.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's security forces on Sunday shot dead an al Qaeda militant accused of an assassination attempt on President Pervez Musharraf and involvement in the killing of a U.S. journalist.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel fired a missile into a refugee camp in Gaza on Saturday, killing a Palestinian in continuing violence that threatens to complicate an Israeli plan to withdraw from the occupied territory.

GAZA (Reuters) - A Palestinian mortar bomb slammed into a house in a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip Friday, killing a woman and fueling settler anger over Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to pull Israelis out of the occupied region.

PARIS (Reuters) - French author Francoise Sagan, who shot to fame with her first novel "Bonjour Tristesse" at the age of 18 and courted controversy throughout her life, died on Friday, a hospital spokesman said. Sagan, who was 69, was an icon of 1950s intellectuals and lived the Bohemian lifestyle she portrayed in her writing. She was a longstanding friend of late President Francois Mitterrand and was convicted of taking drugs and for tax evasion.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli helicopter fired a missile into a Palestinian refugee camp in Gaza early on Saturday, killing an elderly man and wounding at least three people, Palestinian witnesses and medics said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A car exploded near a convoy of U.S. military vehicles on a highway west of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing a civilian and wounding around a dozen people, including four U.S. soldiers, the U.S. military and doctors said.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas man convicted of murdering a convenience store clerk during a 1993 robbery was executed on Tuesday by lethal injection.

AMMAN (Reuters) - The spiritual mentor of al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Muslim cleric who justified Zarqawi's beheading of hostages in Iraq, has been killed in a U.S. air strike, associates and relatives said on Wednesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Al Qaeda-linked militants said they had killed a second American hostage and threatened to kill a Briton unless women prisoners in Iraq were freed.

GAZA (Reuters) - An explosion tore apart a car in Gaza City Monday, killing at least one person, Palestinian witnesses said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A militant group in Iraq led by al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi beheaded American Eugene Armstrong and posted a video of the killing on the Internet on Monday.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - A far-right Colombian warlord participating in peace talks with the government was shot dead by his own men, police said on Monday, in another bloody incident that could undermine the negotiations.

GAZA (Reuters) - A senior leader of Hamas's military wing was killed in an Israeli missile strike on his car in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, Palestinian witnesses said.

ROME (Reuters) - A 67-year-old woman was killed when a three-meter tall metal crucifix fell on her head in a small southern Italian town on Wednesday, police said.

BALI, Indonesia (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake rocked Indonesia's premier tourist island of Bali Wednesday, killing one person, injuring at least two and triggering some panic, officials said.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan on Tuesday hanged a man convicted of stabbing to death eight elementary school children in a rampage that shocked the nation and severely shook its sense of security, media said.

QALQILYA, West Bank (Reuters) - A Palestinian suicide bomber on a bicycle blew up at a West Bank crossing on Tuesday, wounding two Israeli soldiers, the Israeli army said.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Gunmen shot and killed a Baptist minister who was Haiti's most popular radio personality on Monday, the radio station's owner said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded in an attack on a convoy early on Wednesday near the town of Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. The attack will raise the official Pentagon U.S. death toll to at least 1,002 since the start of the Iraq war last year.

GAZA (Reuters) - The Israeli army kept up pressure in the northern Gaza Strip on Friday, killing a senior Hamas commander, as forces sealed off the Palestinian territories for the Jewish holiday season in Israel.

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. warplanes launched air strikes in Falluja for the fourth straight day on Friday, attacking an area in the southeast of the rebel-held city and killing at least one Iraqi, witnesses and doctors said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas attacked U.S. troops in Baghdad's sprawling Shi'ite Sadr City slum district with rocket-propelled grenades on Tuesday, killing one soldier and wounding two, the U.S. army said.

RIYADH (Reuters) - One Saudi policeman was killed and two wounded in a shootout with suspected militants on Thursday, the latest clash in the oil-rich kingdom which is battling al Qaeda supporters, a security source said.

(8/04)

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian youth during an incursion on Tuesday into Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses said.

ZNAMENSKOYE, Russia (Reuters) - Chechens voted on Sunday for a new president in a tense election, but many doubted the Moscow-backed police officer who was set to win would manage to stamp out rebellion in the turbulent region. Underscoring the sudden violence that is part of daily life in Chechnya, a man subsequently identified as a wanted Chechen rebel blew himself up with his own bomb near a polling station in the capital, Grozny, an election official said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian gunman in the Gaza Strip Sunday as he approached the border fence with Israel, the army said.

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's wife died of a heart attack earlier this month, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said on Monday, quoting sources in Beijing.

NARATHIWAT, Thailand (Reuters) - A bomb hidden in a motorcycle killed one person and wounded at least 25 in Thailand's mainly Muslim south on Thursday, a day ahead of a visit to the region by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

DUBAI (Reuters) - The hostage takers who grabbed Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni on the road between Baghdad and Najaf in Iraq have killed him, the Italian government confirmed Thursday.

TORONTO (Reuters) - Toronto police shot and killed a man who was holding a woman hostage in the city's business core on Wednesday, ending a standoff that brought morning rush-hour traffic to a gridlocked standstill.

ATHENS (Reuters) - A Greek soldier guarding an Olympic facility in Athens was shot dead Monday after apparently playing game of Russian roulette with a policeman, security sources said.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - An explosion rocked Turkey's Mediterranean resort city of Antalya on Monday, killing one person and injuring at least one other, police said.

A 42-year-old citizen of the northern Russian city of Veliky Novgorod was killed by an umbrella.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Suspected insurgents shot dead a policeman in Nepal's capital on Saturday as the military said it could escort food shipments into the city to ease a rebel-inspired blockade.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian as he approached a security fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip, Israeli military sources said on Saturday.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Indian soldiers killed the head of a guerrilla group fighting for Kashmir's merger with Pakistan in a gunbattle on Thursday, hours before President Abdul Kalam began a rare visit to the region, an official said.

POPCORN KILLS TOT - CHOKES AT MOVIE THEATER BEFORE HORRIFIED MOM & DAD -- Deonte Riley "was only 3 years old," sobbed his mother, Elaine McIntosh, who tried to save her son when she realized he was struggling to breathe. "He was a good baby."

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. marine was killed in action in the southern city of Najaf, the center of a two-week uprising led by radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hollywood composer Elmer Bernstein, who wrote the scores for such movies as "The Magnificent Seven" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie" during a wide-ranging 50-year career, died near Los Angeles on Wednesday, according to news reports.

WARSAW (Reuters) - Czeslaw Milosz, Poland's Nobel Prize-winning emigre poet and symbol of opposition to totalitarianism, died Saturday at his home in the southern Polish city of Krakow at the age of 93.

CALCUTTA, India (Reuters) - India executed a criminal for the first time in 13 years Saturday, a 41-year-old man convicted of raping and killing a schoolgirl in the eastern city of Calcutta.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- Four members of a family have been arrested and charged with murder for allegedly killing and eating a relative during a wedding reception -- and serving his flesh to unwitting party guests, police have said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Julia Child, the grande dame of U.S. television cooking shows whose operatic voice and irreverent attitude brought French haute cuisine into America's humble kitchens, died in her sleep at her California home on Friday at the age of 91.

KABUL (Reuters) - A known Taliban guerrilla leader was killed by U.S.-led and Afghan forces after leading an ambush on a military convoy in eastern Afghanistan, a provincial security officer said on Thursday.

BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a local official of one of Iraq's main Shi'ite parties in a drive-by shooting south of Baghdad on Wednesday, an official of the group said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fay Wray, the Canadian-born actress who earned fame as the frightened girl stalked by the King Kong up the Empire State Building, has died at age 96, a spokesman said on Monday.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia, battling a wave of al Qaeda-linked violence, said its security forces shot dead a wanted militant in the holy city of Mecca on Wednesday after he threw a grenade at them.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Simultaneous explosions rocked two hotels in tourist areas of Istanbul early on Tuesday, killing one person and injuring eight, in what the city's police chief said was an apparent terrorist attack.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Legendary oil field firefighter Red Adair, a fearless Texan who put out massive oil well fires around the globe, died on Saturday at the age of 89, his family said on Sunday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Flamboyant funk music pioneer Rick James, a dynamic performer whose sensuous 1981 dance hit "Super Freak" came to embody the ruinous excesses of his colorful life, died in his sleep on Friday of natural causes. He was 56.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas attacked a U.S. convoy with a rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire near the Iraqi holy city of Najaf on Thursday, killing one American soldier and wounding five, the U.S. military said.

PARIS (Reuters) - Frenchman Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of the great photographers of the 20th century and a founding father of modern photojournalism, has died aged 95, family friends said Wednesday.

RIYADH (Reuters) - An Irish civil engineer was killed by at least one gunman who burst into his office in the Saudi capital Riyadh Tuesday, officials said.

MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE (HLN) - A Memphis woman was arrested and charged with first-degree murder after she bludgeoned her boyfriend to death with an iPod.

(7/04)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Francis Crick, who helped discover the double helix shape of DNA, has died at the age of 88, his family said on Thursday.

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) - The Costa Rican security chief at the Chilean Embassy learned he was losing his post before going on a fatal shooting spree that rattled two stable Latin American nations.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Insurgents fired at least one mortar round in central Baghdad early Tuesday, killing an Iraqi civilian and wounding another, police at the scene said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier was killed and another was left in critical condition following a roadside bomb attack on their vehicle north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - A decapitated corpse was found by police in northern Iraq Thursday and Bulgaria said it was investigating whether the body was one of its citizens seized by militants loyal to al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen assassinated a senior Iraqi interior ministry official in Baghdad on Monday, a ministry source said.

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Veteran Irish republican leader Joe Cahill, who escaped execution to become a commander of the outlawed Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrilla group, has died, his party said Saturday. He was 84.

PARIS (Reuters) - French crooner Sacha Distel, whose seductive good looks won him legions of female fans around the world, died Thursday, his record company said. He was 71.

LOS ANGELES - Actress Isabel Sanford, best known as "Weezie," Louise Jefferson on the television sitcom "The Jeffersons," died of natural causes, her publicist said Monday. She was 86.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas killed a U.S. soldier and wounded another in a roadside bomb blast in northern Iraq on Saturday, the U.S. army said.

LONDON (Reuters) - A Royal Air Force helicopter crashed at Basra airport in southern Iraq on Monday and one of the crew members was killed, Britain's Defense Ministry said.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A bomb killed a senior member of Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Monday in an attack the group blamed on Israel.

RAMAT HASHARON, Israel (Reuters) - An Israeli judge was shot to death in his car in the driveway of his home in a wealthy Tel Aviv suburb Monday and a Palestinian militant group swiftly claimed responsibility.

RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - Insurgents shot and killed a Jordanian truck driver in western Iraq on Saturday and then gouged out his eyes and left his body lying by the side of the road, witnesses and police said.

VENICE (Reuters) - A 70-year-old Italian died on Saturday when a World War One bomb, part of his collection of military memorabilia, exploded while he was showing it to a friend in his garden.

TIRANA (Reuters) - Susan, the Australian wife of Leka, the pretender to the Albanian throne, died Saturday from a heart condition, a spokesman for the family said. "Her Majesty Susan I Zog is no longer with us," spokesman Fluturak Germenji announced in a short statement. She was 63.

CINCINNATI (Reuters) - Ohio on Wednesday executed a man convicted of killing his wife and 3-year-old daughter before stuffing the bodies into a refrigerator at their home where he went on living for weeks.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant Thursday after exchanging fire with him in the West Bank, witnesses and the army said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Unknown gunmen shot dead a director-general of Iraq's Industry Ministry as he left his Baghdad home to go shopping, a ministry spokesman said on Wednesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Militants led by suspected al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi killed a Bulgarian hostage in Iraq and vowed to execute a second Bulgarian within 24 hours unless U.S.-led forces freed prisoners.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Laurance Rockefeller, a billionaire grandson of John D. Rockefeller who became a prominent philanthropist and supporter of environmental conservation, died in his sleep Sunday morning at his Manhattan home. He was 94.

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - A Palestinian bomb killed a woman at a bus stop in Israel on Sunday in an attack Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said proved the need to continue building a West Bank barrier declared illegal by the World Court.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Gunmen have shot dead the Russian editor of Forbes magazine, who earned notoriety by writing a book about exiled magnate Boris Berezovsky.

LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal's first female prime minister, Maria de Lurdes Pintasilgo, died early Saturday of heart failure, Lusa news agency reported.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - Guerrillas launched a mortar attack near a central Baghdad hotel used by U.S. contractors Friday, killing a child and wounding three people.

KABUL (Reuters) - An Afghan woman working with the United Nations to register voters for elections was killed and another wounded, along with a driver, when their car hit a land mine in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, an official said.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - A brother of Colombia's education minister has been killed by Marxist rebels who kidnapped him three years ago even though his family paid ransom money, the government said on Wednesday.

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian President Thomas Klestil, who helped restore the presidency's image after a Nazi-era controversy that dogged his predecessor, died late on Tuesday aged 71 on the eve of his departure from office.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi official heading the investigation into alleged corruption in the United Nations oil-for-food program was killed in a bomb attack earlier this week, officials familiar with the probe said on Saturday.

DUBAI (Reuters) - A militant group said on Saturday it had beheaded U.S. Marine Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun, the second reported killing of a kidnapped American soldier in Iraq this week.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead a 14-year-old Palestinian boy in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday shortly after an Israeli was wounded by mortar fire at a nearby Jewish settlement, Palestinian officials and medics said.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - An Israeli helicopter fired a missile at a target in the West Bank town of Nablus on Tuesday, killing one Palestinian, medics said.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian gunman as he tried to enter a Jewish settlement near the West Bank city of Nablus on Sunday to carry out an attack, the army said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. Marine was killed in action on Thursday in western Iraq, scene of clashes between American troops and insurgents on the outskirts of Falluja.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Israeli forces shot dead a 9-year-old Palestinian boy playing soccer in a Gaza refugee camp on Thursday as tanks rolled in to search for tunnels used by militants, witnesses said.

(AP) - Marlon Brando, who revolutionized American acting with his Method performances in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "On the Waterfront" and went on to create the iconic character of Don Vito Corleone in "The Godfather," has died.

(6/04)

KABUL (Reuters) - Two bombs hidden in fruit carts exploded in an eastern Afghan city Wednesday, killing one person and wounding 26, while an Australian journalist was reported missing in a region where Taliban guerrillas are active.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi police killed a top spiritual guide for the Saudi wing of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network during a shootout in Riyadh Wednesday, security sources said.

LONDON (Reuters) - One British soldier was killed and two others injured in a bomb attack against British vehicles around the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the Ministry of Defense said on Monday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Arabic television station broadcast a video tape showing what militants said was the execution of a U.S. soldier, hours after the United States formally handed sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli tanks rolled into the Gaza Strip and troops killed one Palestinian on Tuesday, Palestinian security sources said.

ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded outside a college in the center of the Kurdish Iraqi city of Arbil on Saturday killing a security official and wounding at least 40 people, police and Kurdish sources said.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli forces on Sunday ended their deadliest raid in the West Bank for months after killing the West Bank commander of a militant group within Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A U.S. contractor was killed in an attack on an Australian military transport aircraft in Iraq, Australia's defense force said Monday.

ANTALYA, Turkey (Reuters) - A woman was killed and four other people were injured in an apparent accidental gas explosion at a hotel in the southern Turkish resort of Alanya on Saturday.

ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - A car bomb explosion killed a man and wounded 40 people in the Kurdish city of Arbil on Saturday as insurgents kept up a bloody drive to derail Iraq's transition to an interim government in four days' time.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead an 18-year-old Palestinian in the West Bank town of Nablus Friday on the second day of an army raid to arrest militants.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mattie Stepanek, 13-year-old poet and advocate for muscular dystrophy patients, died in Washington on Tuesday of a rare form of the disease, a hospital statement said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier was killed and six wounded in a mortar attack in northern Baghdad, the U.S. army said Tuesday.

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico (Reuters) - Gunmen in the Mexican border city of Tijuana shot and killed a top editor of a crusading newspaper as he drove his car through the city on Tuesday, police said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Militants beheaded a South Korean hostage in Iraq on Tuesday after Seoul refused their demand to withdraw its troops and scrap plans to send more.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A policeman was killed and an Afghan U.N. worker wounded when gunmen attacked a U.N. electoral vehicle in southern Afghanistan on Monday, hours after a U.N. electoral office was attacked with rockets.

ALGIERS (Reuters) - The Algerian military has killed the leader of an Islamic rebel organization with ties to al Qaeda, the army said on Sunday, dealing a significant blow to north Africa's top militant group.

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani security forces killed a top tribal warrior wanted for sheltering al Qaeda militants in an overnight swoop on his hideout in a remote region bordering Afghanistan, officials said Friday.

KABUL (Reuters) - An Afghan interpreter was killed and two U.S. and two New Zealand soldiers wounded in the latest violence involving Islamic insurgents fighting to disrupt Afghanistan's September elections, officials said Friday.

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - A Hungarian soldier died in Iraq and another was seriously wounded on Thursday when an explosion hit their convoy, the Hungarian Defense Ministry said.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen shot dead one of Mexico's top kidnap investigators, sending an ominous message to a nation panicked by a new wave of brutal kidnappings.

KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a senior official in Iraq's North Oil Company on Wednesday, dealing another blow to the country's oil industry.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian militant in a restaurant and arrested several other suspects in the West Bank town of Jenin on Wednesday, local witnesses and military sources said.

KABUL (Reuters) - A rocket hit a military base near the U.S. embassy and NATO headquarters in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, wounding an Afghan soldier, while gunmen shot dead a government official in a southern province.

LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Bolivian Indians on Tuesday burned to death a mayor they accused of corruption and dragged his body through the streets in an attack heightening tensions in a nation beset by anti-government protests.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier was killed and two others wounded in Iraq on Sunday when insurgents attacked their unit with a car bomb and small arms fire, a U.S. military spokeswoman said.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Al Qaeda said on Sunday it killed one American and kidnapped another in Saudi Arabia to "avenge U.S. mistreatment" of Muslim prisoners in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, according to an Islamist Web Site.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One Iraqi fighter was killed and several more wounded in sporadic clashes between insurgents and U.S. forces in a Shi'ite suburb of Baghdad, an official of rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's group said on Friday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Ray Charles, who overcame poverty, blindness and heroin addiction to lay the foundation for soul music and become one of America's most beloved entertainers, died on Thursday at the age of 73 after a long fight with liver disease, his spokesman said.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A bomb blast in a western Pakistani town near the lawless tribal regions, where government forces are battling militants, has killed one man and wounded four, police and witnesses said Saturday.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Gunmen killed an American working for a U.S. company in the Saudi capital Riyadh Tuesday, the fifth attack on Westerners and other foreigners in the world's top oil exporter in five weeks.

GRACANICA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - A Serb teenager was shot dead in Kosovo on Saturday and police quickly arrested two Albanians suspected of trying to ignite another round of ethnic violence in the United Nations-run province.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Gunmen opened fire on Saturday on vehicles carrying foreign security guards in the northern city of Mosul, killing one foreigner and wounding two others, the U.S. military said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who made an astounding career change by leaping from acting to politics and then forging a conservative revolution that reshaped American politics, died on Saturday after a decade-long battle with Alzheimer's disease.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An American soldier was killed in Baghdad and three wounded on Saturday in attacks that also left two civilian vehicles of a type favored by foreigners blazing on the main airport road.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Mortar rounds landed near the Italian embassy in Baghdad Thursday, killing one Iraqi and wounding several others but hurting no embassy staff, Iraqi hospital officials and diplomatic sources said.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A senior police official was killed in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad on Tuesday when a bomb attached to his office chair exploded, doctors said.

(5/04)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Samuel Dash, chief counsel for the House Judiciary Committee that challenged President Richard Nixon's abuse of executive power in the 1970s, died on Saturday, his family said. He was 79.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Archibald Cox, the special Watergate prosecutor whose firing by the White House ignited a political furor that eroded support for President Richard Nixon, has died at age 92, his family said on Sunday.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Rioting inmates in a Rio de Janeiro prison killed a captured guard and police could storm the penitentiary if talks to end the rebellion fail, Brazilian officials said on Monday.

KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - A senior pro-Taliban cleric in Pakistan was gunned down Sunday outside his mosque in the southern city of Karachi, and his death unleashed violent protests in which at least 17 people were hurt.

BUKAVU, Congo (Reuters) - Armed men killed a United Nations observer outside the eastern Congolese town of Bukavu, where U.N. peacekeepers on Saturday contained renegade soldiers after several days of heavy clashes with the army.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. troops traded fire with guerrillas on Thursday after a roadside bomb was detonated beside an American convoy on a Baghdad highway, and at least one Iraqi was killed and seven were wounded, witnesses said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier was killed and four others were wounded in a rocket attack on a base northwest of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement on Tuesday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Dozens of tornadoes and severe storms hammered the northern U.S. Plains and Midwest this weekend, with the governor of Nebraska declaring a state of emergency, officials said on Sunday. One person was killed as a tornado ripped through Hallam, Nebraska, a small town south of Lincoln, the Omaha World-Herald reported on its Web site Sunday, citing a Nebraska State Patrol spokeswoman.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Samuel Johnson, who helped build his family's wax business into a multibillion-dollar consumer products company, died of cancer at his Wisconsin home, a company official said on Sunday. He was 76.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Gunmen attacked a car carrying two Japanese freelance journalists in Iraq and media reports said on Friday that one of the four people in the vehicle was killed.

KARACHI (Reuters) - A policeman was killed and at least 30 people were wounded on Wednesday when two car bombs exploded outside the Pakistan-American Cultural Center in Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, officials and witnesses said.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - A four-year-old Palestinian girl was shot dead on Saturday in a Gaza refugee camp where Israeli troops are mounting raids against militants and a suicide bomber exploded at a West Bank checkpoint.

RIYADH (Reuters) - A German man was shot dead in the Saudi capital Riyadh Saturday and authorities said they were investigating whether the attack was the work of Muslim militants.

DUBAI, Reuters (Reuters) - Arab channel Al Jazeera said on Friday one of its employees was killed overnight in clashes between U.S. forces and militiamen loyal to radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Texas executed a mentally ill convicted double murderer on Tuesday, an hour after Gov. Rick Perry denied a rare clemency recommendation from the state's pardons and parole board.

BEIRUT, Lebanon (Reuters) - Israeli airman Ron Arad, missing for 17 years, is dead and Lebanon's Hizbollah group has his remains, Beirut-based sources close to prisoner exchange talks between the guerrilla group and Israel said Wednesday.

NARATHIWAT, Thailand (Reuters) - A Thai policeman was killed and another wounded in separate shootings Monday in the country's Muslim south where troops were on high alert for possible militant attacks on the first day of a new school year.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A Mexican cook killed his drinking buddy, cut up his body and boiled him in herbs, according to police who fear he may have been turning him into tamales.

NEW YORK - Tony Randall, the comic actor best-known for playing fastidious photographer Felix Unger on "The Odd Couple," has died. He was 84.

CAIRO (Reuters) - For one Arab living on the West Bank, the beheading of an American hostage in Iraq was a justified response to the treatment meted out to Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops.

KARANGASEM, Indonesia (Reuters) - A former Australian diplomat jailed for 13 years on the holiday island of Bali for lewd conduct with minors has killed himself less than a day after sentencing, a witness who saw the body said on Wednesday.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli helicopter gunship fired a missile near a mosque in Gaza City on Wednesday, killing one Palestinian and injuring several others, witnesses said.

MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines is to review the security of some 3,000 of its nationals working in Iraq after a Filipino civilian was killed in a mortar attack, officials said Wednesday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - One Russian worker was killed and two others kidnapped in Iraq, Russia's foreign ministry said on Tuesday, urging hundreds of remaining Russians to leave the country.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded in a mortar attack on a military base in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul Saturday, a U.S. military statement said Sunday.

KABUL (Reuters) - One U.S. Marine was killed and one wounded in an overnight clash with militants in Afghanistan, and more attacks were anticipated as Americans stepped up operations against the Taliban and al Qaeda, a spokesman said on Saturday.

WARSAW (Reuters) - A 19-year-old student was shot dead and a 23-year-old woman was critically injured when a gang attacked students celebrating the end of the academic year in the central city of Lodz, police said Sunday.

BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a senior police official in the central Iraqi city of Baquba Sunday, witnesses and medical sources said.

WARSAW (Reuters) - A Polish soldier was killed in the central Iraqi town of Kerbala on Saturday, the country's third military casualty since it took control of part of the war-torn country last year.

KFAR SHOUBA, Lebanon (Reuters) - Hizbollah guerrillas killed an Israeli soldier and wounded five on Friday in fierce fighting around the disputed Shebaa Farms border area, Israel said.

SUNGAI KOLOK, Thailand (Reuters) - A policeman was shot dead in Thailand's restive south on Friday where Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra toured Muslim schools under scrutiny as breeding grounds for militants killed in clashes last week.

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - Peru's Interior Minister Fernando Rospigliosi resigned on Thursday after he was censured by Congress over accusations he mishandled a riot last month, which led to the lynching of a mayor.

BIJBEHARA, India (Reuters) - Militants threw grenades at two polling stations in southern Kashmir on Wednesday, killing one person, during voting in national polls in one of the most violence-prone parts of the Himalayan territory.

BUREIJ REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza (Reuters) - Israel released a co-founder of Hamas to the Gaza Strip but shot and killed another leader of the militant group in the West Bank on Wednesday, witnesses and a military source said.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - A foreign security man was killed and three were wounded by a roadside bomb in the northern Iraq town of Mosul Saturday, a U.S. military spokesman said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier was killed and two were wounded Monday when they came under small arms fire south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement.

(4/04)

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A South African civilian was killed on Friday in the volatile Iraqi town of Falluja, the South African foreign ministry said.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombian warlord Carlos Capstan, whose disappearance two weeks ago disrupted peace talks between the government and his far-right paramilitaries, has been strangled to death by former comrades, a friend of Capstan said on Friday.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - At least one person was killed and 29 injured after a steel girder collapsed on Thursday into the basement of a Singapore office building under construction, a local member of parliament said on Thursday.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A woman in China's eastern province of Anhui who was suspected of having the SARS virus died on April 19, the country's Health Ministry said on Friday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. professional football star Pat Tillman, who gave up a $3.6 million sports contract to join the military's elite special forces, has been killed in Afghanistan, U.S. officials said on Friday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Estee Lauder, who took a family recipe for skin cream and a passion for female beauty and turned them into a $10 billion cosmetics empire, died on Saturday at her home in Manhattan, a spokeswoman for the company that bears her name said on Sunday.

SOFIA (Reuters) - A Bulgarian soldier shot in the head in an ambush in the southern Iraqi city of Kerbala on Friday died of his wounds, the defense ministry said.

JABALYA CAMP, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - A craving for cookies led nine-year-old Mona Abu Tabaq to dash outside her Gaza Strip home to a nearby grocery store as gunfire echoed in the streets. On her way back home, the Palestinian girl was fatally wounded by what witnesses said was Israeli fire. Hundreds of mourners, some chanting vows of revenge, attended her funeral on Friday in the Jabalya refugee camp.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A lone gunman in traditional Arab dress killed a Spanish civilian, accusing him of being a Jew, and seriously wounded his Iraqi translator in Baghdad on Thursday, police sources and a witness said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A gunman killed a South African security guard in a Baghdad supermarket Thursday in an attack that underscored the risks facing foreigners in Iraq.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (Reuters) - A Danish businessman kidnapped in Iraq has been found dead, Denmark's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A highway collapsed in a busy district of downtown Singapore on Tuesday, killing one worker and leaving three others missing at a construction site for an underground railway, a government minister said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Norris McWhirter, who founded Guinness World Records with his twin brother and turned the book into a global best seller, has died aged 78, a spokesman said on Tuesday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - McDonald's Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Jim Cantalupo, credited with recently turning around the iconic American company, died on Monday of an apparent heart attack, and the company named a successor within hours.

EREZ, Gaza (Reuters) - A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up on Saturday at the Erez checkpoint on Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, Israel Radio said.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed in a roadside bomb attack in the northern Iraqi city of Samarra in the past 24 hours, a U.S. Army spokesman said Thursday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli police killed an Israeli Arab in an exchange of fire and a Qassam rocket launched from Gaza wounded a Jewish settler, heightening tensions on Monday after Israel's assassination of a top Hamas leader.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain condemned Saturday Israel's killing of top Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi as illegal and counter-productive.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen battled in a Gaza refugee camp Thursday when Israel launched a raid hours after President Bush had pledged support for an Israeli pullout from the territory. A Palestinian was killed and 21 others wounded in the fighting, including 11 people hit when a helicopter fired a missile at a building where gunmen were concealed, Palestinian sources said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A mortar bomb landed in a busy Baghdad street on Tuesday, killing one Iraqi driver and gouging a deep crater in the middle of the road, witnesses said.

SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean supporter of President Roh Moo-hyun killed himself on Tuesday by setting himself on fire and jumping from a high bridge in protest at Roh's impeachment, police said.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Remnants of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban have killed a top intelligence chief and captured three districts near the border with Pakistan, a spokesman for the Islamic militia said on Monday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier died of wounds received in a furious firefight last week with Iraqi insurgents in the town of Baquba, north of Bahgdad, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One airman was killed and two wounded in a mortar attack on a U.S. airbase north of Baghdad on Saturday, the U.S. army said in a statement.

LONDON (Reuters) - A Briton believed to have been working as a security guard for a U.S. firm in Iraq has been killed, The Foreign Office said on Friday.

KARACHI (Reuters) - At least one person was killed and nine others wounded on Saturday when a powerful car bomb exploded in a district of popular clubs on the outskirts of Karachi, police said.

GAZA (Reuters) - A 12-year-old Palestinian girl was shot dead in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, Palestinian medics said. They said Iman Tulba was killed when Israeli soldiers at the Ganei Tal Jewish settlement opened fire at a nearby three-storey building in Khan Younis. The Israeli army said it was checking the report.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An Amtrak train carrying 80 passengers and crew derailed in Mississippi on Tuesday night, killing one person and critically injuring 15 others, authorities said.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - A roadside bomb attack on a U.S. convoy in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul Sunday killed one American soldier and wounded another, a U.S. military spokesman said Monday.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi security forces, battling a wave of al Qaeda violence, killed a suspected Islamic militant and wounded another in a shootout Monday in the capital Riyadh, Saudi state media reported.

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Gunmen killed the chief of police in the southern Iraqi town of Kufa Friday, police sources said.

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - At least one Iraqi was killed in clashes between protesters and Iraqi police in the southern town of Basra on Thursday, witnesses said.

(3/04)

HILLA, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide bomber rammed a car into the house of a local police chief in a town south of Baghdad on Tuesday, trapping the policeman and his children under the rubble, police and witnesses said. Only the suicide bomber was killed in the explosion which destroyed the front of the house in the town of Hilla, 60 miles south of Baghdad, they said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Legendary broadcaster Alistair Cooke, best known for his long-running radio series "Letter from America," has died at the age of 95.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A bomb attack west of Baghdad killed a soldier in the U.S.-led coalition and wounded another Tuesday, a U.S. military spokesman said.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - A Tamil candidate standing in Sri Lanka's parliamentary elections this week was shot and killed on Tuesday, apparently the victim of a split among the country's Tiger rebels.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - U.S. troops in Afghanistan shot dead a suspected suicide bomber Monday after the man drove a taxi loaded with explosives into a U.S. military convoy, witnesses said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pioneering California rock musician Jan Berry, who rode the wave of the surf music trend in the 1960s as one half of the popular duo Jan & Dean, has died, his wife said on Saturday.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - A rare cyclone bringing howling winds and rain to southern Brazil killed at least one person and made more than 3,000 homeless overnight, civil defense officials said on Sunday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas killed a U.S. soldier in a bomb attack west of Baghdad Monday, and British troops used batons and rubber bullets to beat back a crowd of furious protesters in the southern city of Basra.

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani troops killed a spy chief in Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network in a 12-day sweep on its desolate Afghan frontier, an army official said Monday, vowing to step up the hunt for Islamic militants.

HARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) - A Zimbabwe opposition activist was shot dead and 11 others injured Sunday by supporters of President Robert Mugabe's ruling party, a senior opposition official said.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - A six-year-old Palestinian boy was shot dead when a Palestinian gunman opened fire at an Israeli military jeep during a raid in a West Bank refugee camp on Saturday, the Israeli army said.

GENEVA - Sir Peter Ustinov, a brilliant wit and mimic who won two Oscars for an acting career that ranged from the evil Nero in "Quo Vadis" to the quirky Agatha Christie detective Hercule Poirot, has died. He was 82.

MCALESTER, Oklahoma (Reuters) - Oklahoma executed a Vietnamese national on Tuesday who killed a fellow refugee over a business deal gone bad, despite a state parole board recommendation to commute his death sentence.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - A car exploded in the West Bank city of Nablus Friday, killing a Palestinian militant who was apparently rigging it as a bomb, witnesses and local police said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed and another was injured in a gun battle north of Baghdad after their patrol was attacked by insurgents, the American military said on Thursday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed and two others wounded Thursday when a bomb was detonated near their patrol north of Baghdad, a military spokesman said.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - U.S. troops shot dead Wednesday a man attempting to hurl a grenade at a convoy of U.S. special forces in Afghanistan's restive southern province of Kandahar, an Afghan official said.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (Reuters) - Suspected Honduran gang members dumped a decapitated head in the street on Sunday, the fifth such incident in what police believe is a show of defiance against a crackdown on gang violence.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Queen Juliana, dubbed the "people's queen" of the Netherlands after she helped the country recover from World War II and oversaw the independence of its last remaining colonies, died on Saturday at the age of 94.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed a 17-year-old Palestinian during a raid in the West Bank city of Nablus on Saturday, Palestinian medics said. An Israeli army spokeswoman said its forces fired at "an armed Palestinian who approached the soldiers with the intent to attack them" in Nablus' Balata refugee camp.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A second Iraqi journalist working for Dubai-based satellite television channel Al Arabiya died on Friday from his wounds a day after U.S. troops shot at them in central Baghdad, the channel said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Unidentified assailants in a passing car shot dead an Israeli pedestrian in Jerusalem on Friday in what appeared to be a "terrorist attack," police said.

HANOI (Reuters) - A 12-year-old boy has died of bird flu in Vietnam, a medical official said on Saturday, taking Asia's toll from the virus to 24 and dealing a blow to the Hanoi's hopes to eradicate the disease by the end of this month.

LOS ANGELES - John 'J.J.' Jackson, who in the 1980s helped usher in the music video era as one of the first MTV on-air personalities, has died. He was 62.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. Marine was killed and three were wounded in a mortar attack in the Iraqi town of Qusayba on the Syrian border, the U.S. army said Thursday.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - An Iraqi translator for the U.S. military was shot dead and two of her relatives were wounded in the northern city of Mosul Tuesday, in the latest attack on locals working for the occupying forces.

DAKAR (Reuters) - A German citizen detained with other foreign nationals in Equatorial Guinea accused of plotting a coup has died of cerebral malaria, a Western diplomat in the oil-rich country said on Thursday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. troops shot dead an Iraqi working for Dubai-based Arab satellite television channel Al Arabiya Thursday and critically wounded another in central Baghdad, colleagues said.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A bird flu outbreak has claimed its eighth victim in Thailand -- a 39-year-old factory worker who contracted the deadly virus from a neighbor's sick fighting cocks, the health ministry said Tuesday.

MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE (HLN) - A Memphis woman was arrested and charged with first-degree murder after she bludgeoned her boyfriend to death with an iPod.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - U.S. Marines patrolling crisis-torn Haiti opened fire on a car speeding toward a road block and killed a man, the second time since their deployment 10 days ago that U.S. forces have resorted to arms, a spokesman said on Tuesday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Actor and storyteller Spalding Gray, best known for writing and starring in the autobiographical film monologue, "Swimming to Cambodia," was confirmed dead on Monday after going missing for nearly two months.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Abu Abbas, the Palestinian mastermind of the Achille Lauro cruise ship hijacking in 1985, died of apparent natural causes in U.S. military custody on Monday, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

LOS ANGELES - Paul Winfield, an Academy Award-nominated actor who was known for his versatility in stage, film and television roles, including a highly praised 1978 depiction of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., has died. He was 62.

BOSTON (Reuters) - The son of baseball great Ted Williams, who had his father's body frozen two years ago, has died of leukemia at a Los Angeles hospital, according to a statement issued on Sunday by the Boston Red Sox, the star's former team.

KABUL (Reuters) - A Turkish engineer working on a U.S.-funded road project was killed and another was kidnapped in southern Afghanistan Friday in an ambush officials blamed on Islamic militants.

A man jumped to his death from an overpass above Interstate 280 on Thursday, causing an accident that sent four other people to the hospital, authorities said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a 14-year-old Palestinian boy Thursday during a raid on a refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, medics and witnesses said.

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela's envoy to the United Nations quit in protest against President Hugo Chavez's government on Thursday, denting its international image as anti-government demonstrations claimed another life.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said Tuesday it was certain it had killed Ruslan Gelayev, a top Chechen rebel commander and one of Moscow's most wanted men.

KABUL (Reuters) - One Afghan was killed and up to 16 were injured in clashes between minority Shi'ites and army cadets in the capital Kabul, witnesses said Tuesday.

GAZA (Reuters) - Gunmen shot dead a prominent adviser to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in Gaza City on Tuesday, witnesses and medics said.

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - One person was shot dead on Monday when protesters seeking a recall vote against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez clashed with troops for the fourth day, as international efforts to save the referendum process faltered.

(2/04)

TALLINN (Reuters) - An Estonian soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad, the first from his country to die in Iraq, a military spokesman said on Sunday.

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself in a Shi'ite mosque in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi on Saturday, slightly wounding three people, officials and witnesses said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian suicide bomber on a bicycle blew himself up next to an Israeli military jeep in the Gaza Strip on Friday, but caused no casualties among its occupants, the army said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces in Iraq shot and killed an associate of Islamic militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a gun battle at a house west of Baghdad late last week, a U.S. military spokesman said Tuesday.

NEAR STOLAC, Bosnia (Reuters) - Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski, hailed in the West as a peacemaker who averted civil war, was killed on Thursday when his plane crashed into a Bosnian mountainside in thick fog, officials said.

MANILA (Reuters) - One person was killed when fire raged through a Philippine ferry with 861 passengers and crew on board early on Friday, the owners of the stricken ship said.

ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland scaled back air traffic by 40 percent Wednesday after the fatal stabbing of an air traffic controller who was on duty during a lethal mid-air crash in 2002.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Patrick McSorley, a victim of defrocked pedophile priest John Geoghan who spoke openly of the deep scars left by clergy sexual abuse, has been found dead, his lawyer said on Monday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Four U.S. soldiers were wounded and their Iraqi translator was killed on Saturday when gunmen ambushed their convoy south of Baghdad, the U.S. army said.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A pilot was killed and a U.S. passenger critically injured in southern Afghanistan Sunday when their helicopter came under fire in an attack claimed by rebels from the ousted Taliban militia.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Former Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo, famous for swearing to defend the peso "like a dog" shortly before devaluing, died on Tuesday from complications from a pneumonia contracted earlier in the week.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A four-year-old Thai boy has died of bird flu, taking the country's bird flu deaths to seven, a senior Health Ministry official said Wednesday.

GAZA (Reuters) - A Palestinian was killed Monday in a Gaza house explosion that witnesses initially said was caused by an Israeli helicopter attack but which Palestinian security sources later said was not a result of an air raid.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said Tuesday, the third such killing in less than 24 hours.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Aborigines rioted in a black ghetto near the center of the Australian city of Sydney until early on Monday over the death of a young Aboriginal cyclist, hurling Molotov cocktails and bricks at police in a nine-hour battle.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A 13-year-old boy has died of bird flu in Thailand, taking the death toll from the virus rampaging through Asia to at least 20, a health ministry official said on Sunday.

KIGALI, Rwanda (Reuters) - A U.N. peacekeeper was killed in northeastern Congo Thursday when his team came under fire after investigating reports that civilians were being harassed, the United Nations said.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian farmer in the West Bank Friday as he drove to his cornfield, Palestinian witnesses said.

DOHA (Reuters) - Former Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, a separatist guerrilla leader linked by Moscow to al Qaeda, died on Friday after his car was hit by a blast in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, police said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier was killed on Sunday by a bomb planted on a road south of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, a U.S. military spokesman said.

RIYADH (Reuters) - One of Saudi Arabia's most wanted militants, whose name was published in a government list of top 26 suspects last year, has been killed by security forces, a pro-al Qaeda Web site said Tuesday.

WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish-born Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski, one of the United States' top Cold War spies, died in a Washington hospital Wednesday of a stroke, at the age of 74, local news agency PAP reported.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - A Palestinian militant group said Tuesday it had killed a man it accused of collaborating with Israeli security forces during a three-year-old Palestinian uprising.

Eddie Clontz is dead. The longtime editor of Weekly World News is currently in Heaven, which is in Outer Space. We know this because Clontz's supermarket tabloid once revealed exclusively that Heaven had been photographed by a Russian space probe. It even ran pictures.

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (Reuters) - A 7-week-old Dominican girl born with one of the world's rarest birth defects died on Saturday, hours after undergoing a delicate operation to remove an undeveloped second head, her doctors said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded in a mortar attack on U.S. military installations near Baghdad airport on Thursday, a U.S. Army spokesman said.

JAMMU, India (Reuters) - An old woman died of a heart attack in Indian Kashmir on Saturday after separatist guerrillas lobbed a grenade and fired at an army patrol near a crowded bus station, police said.

GAZA (Reuters) - A leader of the Hamas militant group's military wing was killed on Thursday night by an explosion that rocked his home in a Gaza Strip refugee camp, medics and witnesses said.

SEOUL (Reuters) - The mayor of South Korea's second largest city was found dead in a jail cell Wednesday where he was awaiting the outcome of an investigation into charges he took $85,000 in bribes, an official at city hall said.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen killed the director a small town Colombian television station on Wednesday, shooting him as he exited his office in the war-torn country's West, authorities said.

HANOI (Reuters) - A 16-year-old girl in southern Vietnam has died of bird flu, a doctor said on Thursday, taking to 16 the death toll from the disease sweeping large parts of Asia.

(Reuters) - An elderly witness who could have bolstered Scott Peterson's assertion that he was fishing when his pregnant wife was murdered has died of natural causes, officials said on Thursday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad Tuesday, the U.S. military said.

BOSTON (Reuters) - At least one person was killed when a motorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd of revelers after the New England Patriots' 32-29 victory over the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl XXXVIII, Boston police said on Monday.

VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia (Reuters) - A woman was killed and five servicemen were injured when a car blew up on Tuesday in the commercial center of a southern Russian town near rebel Chechnya, officials said.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A deadly strain of bird flu killed a seven-year-old boy in Thailand Tuesday and spread to Indonesia as officials across the region scrambled to limit damage to Asia's huge tourism sector.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Suspected Muslim rebels shot and killed a senior police official in Indian Kashmir's main city Monday as he left a mosque after prayers on one of Islam's holiest days.

JERICHO, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed a wanted Palestinian militant and wounded another on Sunday during a raid into the West Bank town of Jericho on a Muslim holiday.

(1/04)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A blast ripped through a Baghdad neighborhood late on Saturday killing at least one person and wounding several others, witnesses said.

BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) - A series of roadside attacks in Iraq killed a local security officer and wounded at least 13 other people on Thursday as insurgents mounted fresh strikes against Iraqis seen as collaborating with U.S. forces.

KABUL (Reuters) - A British soldier was killed and three were wounded Wednesday when a suicide bomber drove a taxi carrying explosives up to their vehicle in Kabul, the second attack on peacekeepers in the Afghan capital in as many days.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - A Haitian university student was killed on Wednesday after being hit in the torso by a tear gas canister fired by police as pro- and anti-government protests gripped the poor Caribbean country.

BANGKOK, Thailand (Reuters) - The bird flu rampaging through Asia made the dreaded leap into China Tuesday and a second Thai boy died of the disease as countries tightened defenses against a potential SARS-like epidemic.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Another American soldier died in Iraq Sunday after a series of attacks at the weekend, as U.N. security experts assessed whether the country is safe enough for its staff to return to help transfer power to Iraqis.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - One of the two Thai boys suspected of having bird flu has died three days after an outbreak of the deadly virus was confirmed in Thailand, a senior health official said on Monday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Ann Miller, the whirlwind Hollywood hoofer and comic actress who co-starred with such dancing greats as Fred Astaire in "Easter Parade," Gene Kelly in "On the Town" and Bob Fosse in "Kiss Me Kate," died on Thursday at age 81, a spokeswoman said.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A Buddhist policeman was shot dead as he fed his chickens in Thailand's largely Muslim south Sunday, a day after two monks were hacked to death while collecting food in a region convulsed by a wave of violence.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An American soldier died on Sunday following a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Iraq, the latest in a series of weekend ambushes that had already killed five U.S. troops and four Iraqi civilians.

LONDON (Reuters) - A British soldier was killed and another was injured in a road accident in Iraq, Britain's Defense Ministry said Friday.

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - An opposition activist and prominent leader of a garment workers' union was shot dead on Thursday in the latest of a string of high-profile killings that have boosted Cambodia's reputation for political violence.

JABALYA, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a 12-year-old Palestinian boy and wounded two other youths Thursday near a fence dividing the Gaza Strip and Israel, Palestinian officials said.

ELWOOD, Ind. - A man who won $57,000 in an Indiana lottery game taped for television died hours later when he was hit by a pickup truck.

(New York-WABC, January 23, 2004) . Bob Keeshan, the television producer who created and ultimately became beloved children's personality Captain Kangaroo, has died. Keeshan, who was born in Lynbrook, Long Island, was 76.

LOS ANGELES - Acclaimed photographer Helmut Newton was killed in a car crash Friday, police said. He was 83.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Hizbollah guerrillas killed an Israeli soldier on the Lebanon border on Monday in an attack that Israel seized upon as an example of why it is rebuffing peace feelers from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- A husband and wife have been charged with murdering a 6-year-old girl whose back was broken in what police said may have been an exorcism gone wrong.

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - One person was shot dead and five were wounded on Sunday when gunmen took to the streets to break up an anti-government demonstration in Haiti's capital.

LONDON (Reuters) - A British activist who had been in a coma since being shot by Israeli troops while acting as a so-called human shield has died nine months after the shooting, his family said Wednesday.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Randy VanWarmer, who recorded the pop hit "Just When I Needed You Most" and then had a successful career as a songwriter, has died. He was 48.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A bomb exploded beside a U.S. convoy in central Baghdad Monday, killing one soldier and wounding two others, the U.S. Army said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's worst mass murderer Harold Shipman -- a family doctor who killed hundreds of his patients -- hanged himself with a noose of bed sheets in his prison cell Tuesday.

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Former All-Star reliever Tug McGraw, who rocketed to baseball fame with his "You Gotta Believe" slogan while with the New York Mets died of brain cancer Monday.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops guarding a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip fired into a neighboring Palestinian refugee camp Thursday, killing a man in his home, relatives and witnesses said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier was killed and 34 were wounded in a mortar attack on a U.S. military base west of Baghdad, a U.S. military spokesman said Thursday.

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - The worst cyclone in memory has flattened the capital of the tiny South Pacific island state of Niue, killing a woman and seriously injuring several people including her baby, officials said Wednesday.

MIAMI (Reuters) - Prime Minister Pierre Charles, who had led the eastern Caribbean nation of Dominica since 2000, has died, the government said Wednesday.

ACAPULCO, Mexico (Reuters) - A fugitive former police commander under investigation for his suspected role in Mexico's "dirty war" has turned up dead about a month after a historic warrant was issued for his arrest.

(12/03)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas set off a roadside bomb in a crowded Baghdad shopping district on Tuesday as U.S. military vehicles drove past, killing one Iraqi civilian and wounding several others.

BUJUMBURA (Reuters) - The Vatican's ambassador to Burundi was shot dead on Monday in an attack blamed by Burundi's army on Hutu rebel fighters who have stubbornly refused to join a peace process.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded on Friday when a roadside bomb hit a military convoy north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Saturday.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops scouring a West Bank militant stronghold killed a Palestinian teenager and wounded at least 17 other people in clashes with stone throwers on Saturday, witnesses and medics said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - About a dozen rockets and mortar rounds slammed into central Baghdad Thursday in fresh guerrilla attacks, as the U.S. military said an American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - American soldiers arrested Muslim militants with ties to an Iraqi fugitive near the top of their most wanted list, but the assassination of a senior Iraqi judge highlighted continuing instability in postwar Iraq.

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - One person died after being shot in the head in Haiti on Monday when gunmen attacked thousands of marchers demanding the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in a fourth week of protests.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed in an overnight attack in central Baghdad, a U.S. military spokeswoman said Thursday.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African police have arrested two men on charges they gang-raped an AIDS activist and then kicked her to death in fury when she told them she was infected with the disease, officials said Sunday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi guerrillas killed an American soldier in an ambush in Baghdad, the U.S. military said Thursday, as two assassinations underlined fears that internal political divisions could erupt into widespread bloodletting.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - A six-year-old Palestinian boy was shot dead on Sunday when Israeli soldiers opened fire at stone-throwers in a West Bank refugee camp, Palestinian medics said.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a Colombian radio journalist, shooting him four times in the head as he went to work, police said on Friday. It was the seventh killing this year of a journalist in war-torn Colombia.

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - An Iraqi gunman was killed and a U.S. soldier was wounded in an exchange of fire during riots in a restive town west of Baghdad, U.S. military sources said Tuesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed on Sunday when an explosive device he was trying to disarm blew up, the U.S. military said in a statement.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide car bomb attack at a U.S. military base in Iraq on Thursday killed one U.S. soldier and wounded 14 as troops uncovered a weapons cache north of Baghdad with enough ammunition to launch a spate of strikes.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead an armed Palestinian militant while on patrol near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank on Sunday, an army spokesman said.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers opened fire at a Palestinian taxi at a roadblock in the West Bank Saturday, killing a woman passenger.

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Philippine Foreign Secretary Blas Ople died in Taiwan on Sunday after falling ill on a foreign trip and his aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing, Philippine diplomatic sources said.

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - A small bomb exploded Friday near a house owned by Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the Pakistani city of Quetta, killing a boy who was sifting through a pile of garbage, police said.

CHICAGO/BAKU (Reuters) - Former Azeri President Haydar Aliyev died aged 80 on Friday in a U.S. clinic where he had been undergoing treatment for congestive heart failure and kidney problems.

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. troops shot dead a young Iraqi man late on Friday who they said had been shooting at them from a speeding car.

MODENA, Italy (Reuters) - A car exploded in northern Italy early on Thursday, killing the 33-year-old Kuwaiti driver in what police said appeared to be more of a suicide bid rather than an attack on a nearby synagogue.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi security forces shot and killed a man at a Riyadh gasoline station on Monday and detained three people in an apparent raid on Muslim militants, witnesses said.

TORONTO (Reuters) - A disused movie theater in downtown Toronto collapsed into a next-door language school on Monday morning, killing one person and injuring 14, city officials said.

SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean scientist was killed in Antarctica and four were rescued following a freezing swim to shore after their boat capsized in rough waters near the country's polar research station, officials said on Tuesday.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Guerrillas blew apart a U.S. Humvee with a roadside bomb in the northern Iraq city of Mosul Sunday, killing one American soldier and wounding two in the latest deadly strike on occupying forces.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed when a roadside bomb exploded near the tense Iraqi town of Samarra on Tuesday, the U.S. Army said.

KABUL (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met warlords in northern Afghanistan on Thursday to promote a faltering disarmament drive as an Afghan working for a U.N.-backed project was killed by suspected Taliban in the west.

BAGRAM, Afghanistan (Reuters) - An Afghan government militiaman was killed when soldiers from the U.S.-led force in the country traded fire with suspected militants in a central province, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An American soldier was killed west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Monday after his patrol came under attack from insurgents, the U.S. military said.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - One prison guard was killed, two were wounded and about 20 people held hostage at a Rio prison on Tuesday by a group of inmates who rebelled after a thwarted escape attempt, Brazilian authorities said.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A U.N. security guard apparently killed himself on Monday in an empty lounge at U.N. headquarters, U.N. sources said.

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) - A Ukrainian wanted in Poland on accusations of killing dozens of Jews while serving as a Nazi policeman in World War II died on Monday in a hospital near Costa Rica's capital.

KILN, Miss. (AP) -- Brett Favre's father died Sunday of a heart attack or a stroke while he was driving, Mississippi state police said. Irvin Favre was 58.

(11/03)

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A woman was shot dead while riding in a car on a highway near Columbus, Ohio, and police said there had been nine other similar shootings in the same area in recent months.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A Colombian civilian contractor was killed and two colleagues wounded on Saturday in an ambush north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

ALGIERS (Reuters) - A well-known Saudi poet was killed in the Algerian desert when suspected Islamic rebels ambushed his hunting party on Thursday evening, newspapers said on Saturday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A mortar attack on a U.S. base in Iraq killed an American soldier Friday, hours after President Bush made a secret visit to Baghdad to spend Thanksgiving with U.S. troops fighting to end a guerrilla war.

GAZA (Reuters) - The Israeli army shot and killed a Palestinian policeman on Friday near a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian witnesses and medics said.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - An important witness for prosecutors investigating atrocities by Mexican security forces in "a dirty war" against leftists 30 years ago was shot to death this week, officials said on Friday.

NEW YORK - Gertrude Ederle, who battled rip tides, cross currents, driving rain and mountainous seas to become the first woman to swim the English Channel and strike a blow for women's rights, has died.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A vodka-drinking competition in a southern Russian town ended in tragedy with the winner dead and several runners-up in intensive care.

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - One man died and dozens were injured on Thursday in a clash with police in Peru's central Andes during a protest over an electricity privatization, Interior Minister Fernando Rospigliosi said.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Gunmen fired at a car carrying the mayor of the Palestinian city of Nablus on Tuesday in an apparent assassination attempt that left him unhurt but killed his brother, local officials said.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - The Colombian army on Monday said it had found a dead body it believed was that of a Japanese businessman kidnapped by Colombian Marxist rebels in February 2001.

KABUL (Reuters) - At least one Afghan protester was killed and six wounded on Sunday when soldiers fired on a group of demonstrators who broke into the defense ministry in the capital, witnesses said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed north of Baghdad by a booby-trap on Thursday, the American military said on Friday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A bomb that was detonated as a U.S. convoy drove past Thursday killed one American soldier and wounded two near the restive Iraqi town of Ramadi, a military spokeswoman said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed a gunman from Jordan who wounded several people at a border crossing near the Israeli resort city of Eilat on Wednesday, Israeli security sources said.

MANILA (Reuters) - A strong earthquake jolted the central Philippines in the early hours of Wednesday, killing a child and sending panicked residents fleeing from their homes, the civil defense office said.

LOS ANGELES - Jonathan Brandis, who from an early age appeared in a string of roles on television, commercials and film, including the starring role in 1991's "The Neverending Story 2: The Next Chapter" and two seasons on Steven Spielberg's "SeaQuest DSV," has died. He was 27.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier was killed and two were wounded in a bomb attack in Baghdad on Saturday, the U.S. military said.

MANILA (Reuters) - A strong earthquake jolted the central Philippines in the early hours of Wednesday, killing a child and sending panicked residents fleeing from their homes, the civil defense office said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed one Palestinian in a raid on Sunday and captured a suspected weapons runner in charge of a network of arms-smuggling tunnels on the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt, the army said.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - A young woman was killed and three Americans and a German were among 72 injured in a Saturday night grenade attack on two popular pubs in Colombia's capital Bogota, police said on Sunday.

KABUL (Reuters) - A 29-year-old French woman working for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was shot dead Sunday in the Afghan town of Ghazni when two men on a motorcycle opened fire on her vehicle with a pistol.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed and two were wounded in an attack on their convoy near central Baghdad on Friday, the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An American soldier has been killed in a roadside bomb attack in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, a spokesman for the 1st Armored Division said Thursday.

TOKYO (Reuters) - The oldest person in the world, Mitoyo Kawate, died in Japan Thursday at the age of 114, two weeks after receiving the designation.

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed Tuesday evening when his vehicle drove over a bomb planted on a road north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

KABUL (Reuters) - A U.S. special operations force soldier was killed in Afghanistan Friday when the vehicle he was driving was hit by a roadside bomb, the U.S. military said.

GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) - Separatist militants shot and killed the kidnapped eight-year-old daughter of a minister in India's northeastern state of Manipur, police said on Wednesday.

BAGRAM, Afghanistan (Reuters) - U.S. forces killed one militant in northeastern Afghanistan during an operation against Islamic guerrillas they described Tuesday as one of the hardest they have yet undertaken in the country.

HARTFORD, Conn. - Art Carney, who played Jackie Gleason's sewer worker pal Ed Norton in the TV classic "The Honeymooners" and went on to win the 1974 Oscar for best actor in "Harry and Tonto," has died at 85.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. administrator Paul Bremer said on Monday that Iraqi and foreign insurgents would step up attacks to stop reconstruction, and a weekend grenade attack killed another U.S. soldier south of Baghdad.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed and a comrade wounded in a roadside blast in Baghdad, the U.S. military said Sunday, and another bomb wounded a British soldier in the Iraqi southern city of Basra.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Guerrillas with guns and rocket-propelled grenades ambushed a U.S. convoy in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul Friday, killing an American soldier and wounding six others, the U.S. Army said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas firing rocket- propelled grenades and guns killed one U.S. soldier and wounded two more in an ambush south of Baghdad Wednesday, the U.S. military said Thursday.

HARARE (Reuters) - Canaan Banana, Zimbabwe's first post-independence president, who was convicted and jailed for sodomy, died Monday after a long illness, state television reported.

BELFAST (Reuters) - Masked gunmen shot dead a man in Northern Ireland on Saturday in an attack media reports said could have been carried out by the hardline Protestant paramilitary group, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian bystander in a sweep for militants Thursday, witnesses said, a day after Israel announced it would ease West Bank blockades to boost Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas shot and killed a Polish army officer south of Baghdad on Thursday, the first soldier to die from a multi-national division set up to relieve the pressure on U.S. forces trying to stabilize Iraq.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier in Baghdad and one of Washington's chief allies, Spain, said it was recalling some embassy and other staff Tuesday in fresh setbacks to U.S. efforts to bring calm to Iraq.

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - A senior judge in the Iraqi city of Najaf has been kidnapped and killed by what his deputy said Tuesday were gunmen carrying out the orders of ousted president Saddam Hussein.

GAZA (Reuters) - A teen-age Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up near Israeli forces in the West Bank Monday, just hours after militant group Hamas ruled out stopping all attacks on Israelis under any future truce deal.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Faced with a mounting military and civilian death toll and stiffening guerrilla resistance, President Bush vowed on Monday that the United States would not run from its "vital" mission in Iraq. Hours after Bush's pledge in a speech in Alabama, a U.S. soldier was killed and one wounded by a home-made bomb near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, the U.S. military said.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian motorcyclist on Saturday at a roadblock near a West Bank refugee camp, Palestinian security and medical officials said.

BOSTON - Richard E. Neustadt, the noted presidential adviser, scholar and historian who was a founder of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, has died, close friend and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich said Saturday. He was 84.

(10/03)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi insurgents attacked U.S. troops with grenades on the outskirts of Baghdad on Friday, wounding two and sparking clashes that lasted hours, while a bomb blast killed another soldier west of the capital.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A firefighter died in Southern California's raging wildfires on Wednesday as thousands fought to keep wind-driven flames from destroying historic mountain towns in San Diego County, state fire officials said.

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Strong winds toppled trees and downed power lines north of Seattle on Tuesday, leaving one man dead and more than 80,000 homes without electricity, while snarling road traffic and shutting ferry service across Puget Sound, officials said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian and wounded another on Israel's boundary with the Gaza Strip Wednesday and found an explosive device apparently left by the pair nearby, military sources said.

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli commandos killed a militant linked to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement outside a West Bank refugee camp on Tuesday, witnesses and the army said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The deputy mayor of Baghdad was killed in a drive-by shooting Sunday night, officials in the U.S.-led coalition occupying Iraq said Tuesday.

Another American soldier was confirmed killed and six other troops wounded in a Baghdad rocket attack as President Bush blamed the violence in postwar Iraq on members of Saddam Hussein's ousted Baath party and "foreign terrorists."

LOS ANGELES - Rod Roddy, the flamboyantly dressed announcer on "The Price is Right" whose booming, jovial voice invited lucky audience members to "Come on down!" for nearly 20 years, has died. He was 66.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas fired rockets on Sunday into a Baghdad hotel where U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying, killing a U.S. soldier and wounding 17 people in an attack on the heart of American power in Iraq.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - A youth was killed and two police officers were wounded by gunfire on Sunday in the western Haitian town of Gonaives when followers of a murdered gang leader tried to storm police headquarters, local media said.

SEOUL (Reuters) - A senior North Korean official -- who diplomats say was one of leader Kim Jong-il's top foreign policy advisers -- has died four months after being in a traffic accident, the official KCNA news agency reported on Monday.

PRAGUE (Reuters) - A teenager was killed and 45 others injured when fire raced through a Czech discotheque filled with late night partygoers early on Saturday, police said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi civilian was killed and two were wounded in what residents said on Friday was a mortar attack in southern Baghdad.

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Madame Chiang Kai-shek, once the most powerful woman in China, has died in her sleep aged 106 in her home in New York, finally bringing down the curtain on one of the most turbulent chapters of Chinese history.

LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - A Bolivian soldier was killed and seven others were wounded on Thursday by a homemade bomb as they cleared illegal coca crops, marking the first major violence since a popular revolt toppled the president last week.

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - A French journalist working for Paris-based radio station Radio France Internationale (RFI) was shot dead by a policeman in Ivory Coast's main city of Abidjan on Tuesday, the French embassy said.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - One person was killed and more than 50 wounded Monday when suspected Muslim rebels lobbed a grenade near a crowded bus terminal in the heart of Kashmir's main city of Srinagar, a police spokesman said.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - A Colombian rebel leader accused of the kidnapping three Americans and the death of another was killed during fighting with government forces in the country's south, officials said on Monday.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Former Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic, who led the Balkan country through a turbulent decade of war and peace in the 1990s, died in Sarajevo on Sunday after a long period of heart illness. He was 78.

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - A journalist from a pro-royalist Cambodian radio station was shot dead on Saturday in what his party said was an act of political intimidation ahead of next week's talks to broker a new government coalition.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombian far-right paramilitary gunmen shot and killed a human rights activist after kidnapping her from her home, in a new breach of a cease-fire declared by the militias, officials and colleagues said on Friday.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - The body of a woman battered to death and wrapped in a plastic bag was found on Tuesday in a Mexican border city notorious for the unsolved killings of hundreds of females in the last 10 years.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed himself and wounded 10 people when his car exploded outside the Turkish embassy in Baghdad Tuesday, the U.S. military said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Jockey Bill Shoemaker, a four-time Kentucky Derby winner who repeatedly beat the odds in a racing career that spanned four decades, died early on Sunday at his home in San Marino, California, a spokeswoman said.

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - A gunbattle erupted on Thursday in the Iraqi town of Falluja, a center of anti-U.S. sentiment, and police said several people were wounded when American troops returned fire after coming under attack. Iraqi policeman Asaad Abdul-Karim said an Iraqi man was killed and a woman and a six-year-old girl wounded by U.S. gunfire. They were apparently caught in the crossfire during the battle in which two Iraqi police were also wounded, he said.

MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippine military said it killed escaped Indonesian militant Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi on Sunday, eliminating a major security threat just six days before President Bush visits Manila.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man and razed houses on the second day of a raid on a Gaza Strip refugee camp on Saturday, drawing vows of revenge from masked Palestinian militants leading a funeral march. An Islamic militant group urged Palestinians to unite and fight the Israeli troops, who have killed eight Palestinians since launching their open-ended raid on the Rafah camp to search for arms-smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border.

LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - A demonstrator was shot dead on Saturday as farmers and workers striking against Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada blockaded roads to the capital, causing fuel and food shortages.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An American soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on a military convoy northeast of the Iraqi capital early on Thursday, a U.S. military spokeswoman said.

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - A Palestinian suicide bomber struck at an Israeli army checkpoint in the West Bank on Thursday, wounding at least two Israelis, military sources said.

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - A man who had met with a U.N. envoy investigating extrajudicial killings in Brazil was gunned down on Thursday -- the second person in two weeks to be slain after meeting the official, police said.

JHANG, Pakistan (Reuters) - Sunni Muslims went on the rampage on Tuesday after the murder of Pakistani militant leader Azam Tariq, and tens of thousands flocked to his burial vowing revenge and shouting slogans against minority Shi'ites.

BASRA (Reuters) - A coalition soldier shot and killed an Iraqi in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Saturday, a British military spokesman said.

SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A close aid to supreme Taliban leader Mullah Omar has been killed in a clash in south Afghanistan, an Afghan official said on Monday, the second major blow to the hardline Islamic movement in under a month.

HARGEISA, Somalia (Reuters) - An award-winning aid worker has been shot dead in the breakaway northern enclave of Somaliland, officials said on Monday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Israeli army said shots fired from Lebanon killed an Israeli soldier on Israel's side of the border on Monday and that it held Syria responsible.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A rocket-propelled grenade and gun attack killed an American soldier in Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Saturday, as Washington's efforts to get allies to share the burden of stabilizing Iraq hit new setbacks.

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian militant and a boy in the Tulkarm refugee camp in the West Bank on Saturday, Palestinian security sources said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A rocket-propelled grenade attack on a U.S. convoy near the Iraqi town of Samarra, north of Baghdad, killed a soldier overnight, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - A gunbattle erupted on Thursday in the Iraqi town of Falluja, a center of anti-U.S. sentiment, and police said several people were wounded when American troops returned fire after coming under attack. Iraqi policeman Asaad Abdul-Karim said an Iraqi man was killed and a woman and a six-year-old girl wounded by U.S. gunfire. They were apparently caught in the crossfire during the battle in which two Iraqi police were also wounded, he said.

(9/03)

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Suspected Muslim militants hurled grenades at police patrols in two towns in Indian Kashmir on Tuesday, killing a policeman and injuring 30 people, officials said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Trailblazer Althea Gibson, the first black tennis player to win the Wimbledon and U.S. national championships, died on Sunday of respiratory failure. She was 76.

JAZEERA, Iraq (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed in Iraq Monday, the 81st to die in action since the start of May, as American forces backed by helicopters fought guerrillas for hours in a restive area west of Baghdad.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian militant was killed when a bomb he was making blew up on Saturday as Israel maintained a high alert over a New Year holiday weekend coinciding with the third anniversary of a Palestinian uprising.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A rocket-propelled grenade attack killed a U.S. soldier and wounded two others in the northern Iraqi oil hub of Kirkuk, the U.S. military said on Friday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - George Plimpton, who edited the Paris Review literary journal for 50 years, wrote best sellers about sports from a participant's view and even acted in Hollywood movies, died in his sleep at his New York apartment. He was 76.

PARIS (Reuters) - France called for a review of its ban on euthanasia following the death Friday of a paralyzed, mute and blind accident victim whose plea to let his mother end his life captured the heart of a nation.

KABUL (Reuters) - Suspected Taliban guerrillas have killed another Afghan working for a local humanitarian agency and seriously wounded his driver, underscoring the need to widen peacekeeping operations, aid officials said on Thursday.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Reuters) - Franco Modigliani, who fled his native Italy under fascism and later won a Nobel prize in economics, has died, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said on Thursday. He was 85.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A bomb exploded on Thursday at a Baghdad hotel housing journalists from U.S. television network NBC, killing a guard, the latest in a string of deadly attacks targeting foreigners in Iraq.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The death of an Iraqi Governing Council member and another lethal Baghdad bombing on Thursday added to the difficulties of a U.S. administration under fire for its decision to go to war and straining to enlist the world's help in the aftermath.

TOKYO - Yukichi Chuganji, a retired silkworm breeder documented as the world's oldest man, died at his home in Japan at age 114, his family said Monday.

(AP) - Director Elia Kazan, whose triumphs included the original Broadway productions of "Death of a Salesman" and "A Streetcar Named Desire," and the Academy Award-winning film "On the Waterfront," died Sunday.

PARIS - Robert Palmer, the well-tailored British rock singer who created one of the first iconic music videos with the look-alike models of "Addicted to Love," died Friday of a heart attack. He was 54.

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - A Minnesota high school freshman opened fire in the gymnasium on Wednesday, killing one classmate and critically wounding another before a teacher persuaded him to give up his gun, police said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead a 15-year-old Palestinian youth on Wednesday while raiding a Gaza Strip refugee camp, Palestinian medics and witnesses said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed a Palestinian youth in a raid in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, hours after President Bush singled out Yasser Arafat's leadership for condemnation at the United Nations.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb apparently aimed at U.S. troops tore through two commuter buses in Baghdad Wednesday, killing one Iraqi and wounding around 20, police and witnesses said.

Edward Said, a polymath scholar and literary critic at Columbia University who was the most prominent advocate in the United States of the cause of Palestinian independence, died in New York City today. He was 67.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed an Islamic militant who tried to infiltrate a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip Tuesday after Israel rejected a conditional cease-fire proposal by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

LONDON (Reuters) - Lord Williams of Mostyn, the Leader of the House of Lords, parliament's upper chamber, has died aged 62 at his home in Gloucestershire, western England, Downing Street said on Saturday.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - A pilot on a U.S.-backed counter-narcotics mission was killed in Colombia on Sunday while spraying drug crops over a Marxist rebel combat zone, Colombian and U.S. officials said.

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's Vice President Simon Muzenda, a close ally of President Robert Mugabe who has served in government since independence from Britain in 1980, has died after a long illness, Mugabe said Saturday.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed a Hamas militant in a gun battle in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, hours after Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said he would be ready to fight to the death if Israel tried to expel or kill him.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) - A gunman who took a college class hostage on Wednesday with a plan to shoot someone and then himself was shot dead by police after he wounded two of the hostages, authorities said.

The San Francisco Medical Examiner's Office this morning has identified the man who fell to his death during a San Francisco Giants baseball game at Pac Bell Park Wednesday night. The Medical Examiner's Office identified the man as 35-year-old Todd Edward Adams. Adams was reportedly originally from Hawaii, but was more recently living in Santa Cruz.

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - A bomb in a car exploded outside a hospital near the Danish capital, Copenhagen, on Wednesday, killing the driver, police said.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Police in Indian Kashmir said Wednesday they had shot dead a top guerrilla of a Pakistan-based rebel group, the latest militant leader to be killed in a surge of violence in the disputed region.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed a senior activist in Hamas's Izz-el-deen al-Qassam armed wing during a raid into a Hamas stronghold in the central Gaza Strip early on Thursday which sparked a fierce battle with Palestinian gunmen.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - One civilian was killed and 14 people were wounded Tuesday when suspected Muslim rebels threw a grenade in a crowded street in Indian Kashmir's main city, police said.

JORDAN - Rania Arafat, who lived in Amman, might have turned 27 this year if her two aunts had not turned up at her door one morning to say they had arranged a secret meeting with her boyfriend, with whom she had been conducting an illicit affair. When the three arrived at the supposed rendezvous point, the aunts stepped aside and Rania was shot in the head by her brother.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack while on patrol in central Baghdad Monday, the U.S. military said.

SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A senior rebel commander was among 15 Taliban fighters killed in overnight clashes with U.S.-led forces and government troops, Afghan officials said Monday.

KHALDIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Unknown attackers shot dead an Iraqi police chief Monday at a flashpoint town in the heartland of resistance to the U.S.-led occupation, police and witnesses said.

MADRID (Reuters) - A botched ambush by the Basque separatist group ETA turned into a shootout with police that killed one guerrilla and wounded two police, one of them seriously, authorities said Monday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Warren Zevon, the singer known for such hits as "Werewolves of London," died on Sunday at his home in West Hollywood after a battle with cancer, his record company said on Monday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed and three more were wounded Sunday when their convoy ran over a bomb planted on a road in the volatile Iraqi town of Falluja, the U.S.-led military force in Iraq said.

COMPTON, Calif. - Venus and Serena Williams comforted each other and grieved with their family over the shooting death of their oldest sister, calling her "our nucleus and our rock."

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Indiana Gov. Frank O'Bannon, who suffered a massive stroke earlier this week, died on Saturday, a spokeswoman said.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) - Johnny Cash, music's "Man in Black," died on Friday, silencing a deep and brooding voice that for nearly 50 years sang plaintive tales of coal miners and sharecroppers, convicts and cowboys. He was 71.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actor John Ritter, who gained fame playing bumbling and lovable characters in a pair of hit TV comedies decades apart, collapsed while he was on the set of his new series and died suddenly of a heart problem he never knew he had, his representatives said on Friday.

ROME (Reuters) - One Iraqi man was shot dead and two others were injured during a protest outside a police station in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, the Italian central military command said on Saturday.

BOMBAY (Reuters) - Indian police said they shot dead on Friday night the mastermind behind last month's twin bomb blasts in Bombay.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - One person was killed and 14 wounded Thursday when suspected Muslim rebels threw a grenade in a crowded market area in the heart of Srinagar, summer capital of Indian Kashmir, police and witnesses said.

RABAT (Reuters) - Two hooded gunmen shot dead a Jewish Moroccan man in a busy commercial quarter of Casablanca on Thursday, the official MAP news agency said.

JAKARTA, Indonesia, Sept. 12 - Wayan Limbak, a Balinese dancer who helped create the island's famous monkey dance, has died in Gianyar on the island of Bali, The Jakarta Post reported last weekend. He was 106.

Oddball strongman Great Antonio dies at age 77 // He boasted he had the strength of 10 horses. He could eat 25 chickens or 10 steaks at one sitting, wrestle 18 men at the same time, juggle six people on his shoulders and single-handedly pull buses, trains and jet planes full of passengers.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An American soldier was killed in Iraq Wednesday by a homemade bomb which exploded during an attempt to detonate it safely, the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A car bomb killed at least one person and wounded scores, including six American military personnel, in largely peaceful Kurdish northern Iraq, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

JAMMU, India (Reuters) - Suspected Muslim militants lobbed a grenade at a police station in Indian Kashmir on Tuesday, killing a nine-year-old girl and wounding nine people, police said.

PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - A Serb man died of his injuries after blasts in eastern Kosovo which also hurt three other Serbs, a spokesman for the United Nations in charge of the province said on Monday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil, killing one person and wounding scores including several Americans, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.

POECKING, Germany (Reuters) - Adolf Hitler's filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, the last of Germany's famous Nazi-era figures, has died just weeks after turning 101, her assistant said on Tuesday.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh died in hospital Thursday, a day after being stabbed by a mystery attacker, stunning a normally peaceful nation as it prepared for a crucial referendum on the euro.

SAN FRANCISCO - Edward Teller, a member of the Manhattan Project that created the first atomic bomb and who later emerged as the foremost champion of the vastly more destructive hydrogen bomb, has died. He was 95.

CANCUN, Mexico (Reuters) - A South Korean activist stabbed himself and died on Wednesday in violent anti-capitalism protests at a World Trade Organization meeting in Mexico's Caribbean beach resort of Cancun.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Six bomb blasts hit Kathmandu on Monday, killing a 12-year-old boy and wounding about a dozen people in the worst attacks in the Nepali capital since a truce between the government and Maoist rebels collapsed.

(USA TODAY) - The FBI on Monday released sketches of two men wanted for questioning in the strange death of an Erie, Pa., pizza deliveryman who was killed on Aug. 28 when a bomb locked around his neck exploded shortly after he had robbed a bank.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed a suspected militant on Friday in an exchange of fire with gunmen they had come to arrest in a raid in the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian security officials said.

MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippine army said Monday a body taken to a southern military camp at the weekend may be that of Indonesian militant Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, who escaped from a Manila jail in mid-July.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli commandos killed a West Bank commander of the militant group Hamas in a raid on Friday that could deal a blow to reformist Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas's battle for political survival.

ANAHEIM, Calif. - A locomotive broke loose from a train on Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster Friday, killing a man and injuring 10 other riders, officials said.

STARKE, Fla. (Reuters) - Florida put to death anti-abortion militant Paul Hill on Wednesday for the shotgun murder of a doctor and his bodyguard at an abortion clinic, after Hill said his execution would make him a martyr.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - A militant group affiliated with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction claimed responsibility for killing an Israeli near the West Bank town of Jenin on Thursday.

BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - A member of Brazil's radical Landless Workers Movement was killed during a shootout with security guards as a group of activists tried to invade a farm in the southern state of Parana on Tuesday, security officials said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's fourth major vehicle bombing in a month killed an Iraqi policeman at Baghdad police headquarters, as tens of thousands of mourners packed the holy city of Najaf to bury a slain top Shi'ite Muslim cleric.

PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - A Serb man died of his injuries after blasts in eastern Kosovo which also hurt three other Serbs, a spokesman for the United Nations in charge of the province said on Monday.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli helicopters fired missiles at a car carrying Islamic militants Monday, killing a senior Hamas member and wounding 25 other Palestinians in the latest violence threatening a U.S.-backed peace plan.

(8/03)

BANGKOK (Reuters) - One Thai student was shot dead and 152 were injured during violent clashes near a pop concert in the center of the capital, Bangkok, police said on Sunday.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Maoist rebels shot dead a senior army officer at his home in an upmarket residential district of Nepal's capital on Thursday, a day after walking out of peace talks and ending a seven-month truce, an official said.

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair, summoned to a judicial inquiry Thursday, denied aides hyped intelligence reports to justify invading Iraq as the death of another British soldier there underlined the cost of the war.

GAZA, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Israel killed a senior Hamas militant with a helicopter missile strike on a donkey cart he was riding Thursday after his radical Islamic faction fired a rocket into a large Israeli city for the first time.

CHARLES Bronson, a coal miner who drifted into films as a villain and became an action star, has died. He was 81.

BLACK ROCK DESERT -- A woman riding an "art car" at the counterculture Burning Man festival died Saturday when she accidentally fell under the vehicle's wheels, authorities said.

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (Reuters) - A top administration official in Russia's turbulent Caucasus region near rebel Chechnya was killed by a car bomb on Wednesday as he left home for work, police said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli helicopter gunships killed at least one person and injured 20 in a Gaza Strip refugee camp Tuesday, keeping up the pressure on Palestinian militant strongholds after the collapse of a cease-fire.

GAZA (Reuters) - Helicopter gunships fired missiles at a car carrying Hamas gunmen in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, killing an elderly bystander, as Israel pressed on with one of its bloodiest hunts for militants in three years of violence.

ST. LOUIS, Missouri/BAGHDAD (Reuters) - President Bush vowed on Tuesday he would never retreat over Iraq because it was part of the war on terror, as another U.S. soldier was killed and signs emerged of financial pain.

A church minister has been charged with physical abuse after an eight-year-old autistic boy died when church leaders tried to heal him.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Defrocked priest John Geoghan, a central figure in the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal, was killed on Saturday by a fellow inmate in the prison where he was serving a sentence for child rape, officials said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. serviceman on duty with a Marine unit was shot dead south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Friday, as the U.N. prepared to fly out more staff in the wake of this week's truck bombing attack.

Tampa (Reuters) - A U.S. special operations soldier died from wounds received in Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (Reuters) - Gunmen ambushed a police general assigned to the Dominican president's security detail Monday, injuring the officer and killing one of his bodyguards, authorities said.

BAGRAM, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier died from wounds and another was slightly injured by a bomb in separate incidents in the same Afghanistan province, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian militants pronounced their seven-week-old truce dead and Washington tried to breathe life into a floundering peace plan after Israel killed a top Hamas political leader in response to a suicide bombing.

Buddy Ebsen, who started out as a gangly and personable Ziegfeld song-and-dance man and gained lasting fame on television as Davey Crockett's sidekick, a hillbilly in Beverly Hills and an aging private eye, died on Sunday at the Torrance Memorial Medical Center, in Torrance, Calif., the hospital said today. He was 95 and lived in Palos Verdes, Calif.

We are deeply saddened to report that one of our artists, Wesley Willis passed away yesterday, Thursday, August 21st. Wesley will be greatly missed by all that had the privilege to know him, as well as the fans who have been fortunate enough to experience his genius.

A 20-year-old man described as having a fascination with explosives blew himself up after putting a home-made pipe bomb in his mouth, an inquest has heard. Kevin Barnes stuffed a four-inch length of copper piping with gunpowder from a firework and appeared to relish showing it to visitors to his flat in Daventry, Northamptonshire.

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - Guerrillas ambushed U.S. troops in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit in central Iraq on Wednesday, killing a contractor and wounding two soldiers, a U.S. military officer said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An American soldier was killed by an explosive device in Baghdad on Monday, the U.S. military said in a statement.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A judge has barred TV cameras from the preliminary hearing set for next month in the case against Scott Peterson, who is accused of murdering his pregnant wife Laci and their unborn son, according to a decision made public on Monday.

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian teenager during a raid on a West Bank refugee camp on Wednesday, Palestinian witnesses said.

BELGRADE, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - A Serb man who was shot in the mouth while fishing near a Serbian enclave in Kosovo died of his injuries in a Belgrade hospital Monday, officials said.

A man was killed in Langley, Washington Saturday when his long hair got caught in the amusement park ride he owned, pulling him up as high as 40 feet before he fell, back-first, onto a fence. Doug McKay, 40, was the co-owner of Paradise Amusements, based in Post Falls, Idaho. He was spraying lubricant on the tracks of the Super Loop 2, a roller coaster-type ride at the Island County Fair on Whidbey Island.

KAMPALA (Reuters) - Former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, blamed for the murder of tens of thousands of his people in the 1970s, died on Saturday in a Saudi hospital where he had been critically ill for weeks.

A doctor was killed today at Christus St. Joseph Hospital when an elevator malfunctioned, decapitating him, authorities said. Hitoshi Nikaidoh, 35, of Dallas, a surgical resident at the hospital at 1919 La Branch, was stepping onto a second-floor elevator in the main building around 9:30 a.m. when the doors closed, pinning his shoulders, said Harold Jordan, an investigator with the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office. The elevator car then moved upward, severing the doctor's head, Jordan said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A British soldier was killed and two were wounded when a roadside bomb hit a military ambulance in the southern city of Basra on Thursday, a British military spokesman said.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant commander in a gun battle on Thursday, drawing vows of revenge amid mounting signs a six-week-old cease-fire critical to a new peace plan could collapse.

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded Wednesday when their armored personnel carrier drove over an improvised mine, the third deadly bomb attack on U.S. forces in Iraq in 24 hours.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - The NATO-led peacekeeping force in Bosnia said Wednesday its troops had raided the house of Bosnian Serb fugitive Ratko Mladic's mother, who a local agency said died overnight.

WINNIPEG - A 14-year-old girl was trying to beat a westbound freight train on foot when she was fatally struck early Sunday morning at a controlled intersection.

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PHOENIX (Reuters) - A man was shot and killed by sheriff's deputies early on Monday after he evaded a checkpoint set up for President Bush's visit to a fire-ravaged area in southern Arizona, police said.

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - Former U.S. Olympic hockey coach Herb Brooks, at the helm for the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" in Lake Placid, was killed in a car accident in Minnesota Monday, the Pittsburgh Penguins said in a statement.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed and two soldiers were wounded in a bomb attack Tuesday west of Baghdad, as Kurds near the Iranian border said they had captured dozens of militant fighters trying to infiltrate Iraq.

BAGRAM, Afghanistan (Reuters) - U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan killed one suspected Taliban militant and captured three more over the weekend, the U.S. military said on Monday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An American soldier was killed and two others wounded in a bomb attack in the central Iraqi town of Baquba, the U.S. military said Monday, as tensions simmered in the British-run southern city of Basra.

BOMBAY (Reuters) - At least one person was killed and 25 were missing after a helicopter crashed off India's western coast Monday as it was ferrying employees of the state-run oil company from an oil rig.

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi gunmen shot and killed a Nepalese Gurkha security officer in an ambush in central Basra Sunday, a spokesman for southern Iraq's British-run administration said.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Unidentified assailants shot dead a retired federal prosecutor on Saturday in the crime-ridden Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, police said.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers raided a West Bank refugee camp and killed a Hamas militant on Friday during fighting that rocked a month-old cease-fire.

(AP) - Gregory Hines, the greatest tap dancer of his generation who transcended the stage with a successful screen career that included starring roles in "White Nights" and "The Cotton Club," has died at 57.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A truck parked outside a Baghdad shop selling chemicals exploded on Wednesday, killing at least one Iraqi and setting the shop ablaze.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A car bomb that Israeli police blamed on criminals killed one person and injured two in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, officials said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Dr. Peter Safar, credited with inventing the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation technique, has died, the American Heart Association said on Monday. He was 79.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - San Francisco area police on Saturday recovered the car involved in a shooting that left a champion kickboxer dead on a busy downtown street.

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - An American civilian contractor working with the U.S. military was killed in Iraq on Tuesday when his truck detonated an anti-tank mine in the hostile territory around Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit.

PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - Gunmen have killed an Indian officer in the first deadly attack on Kosovo's U.N. police force since the 1999 war, U.N. officials said Monday.

MANILA (Reuters) - The largest Muslim rebel group in the Philippines said on Tuesday its leader died of a heart attack several weeks ago but that it remained committed to resuming peace talks with the government.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli police officers killed a Palestinian driver on Sunday when he failed to stop for an inspection in the third fatal police shooting of Arab motorists in less than a month, a police spokesman said.

SEOUL (Reuters) - The head of South Korea's unlisted Hyundai Asan Co., the operator of a North Korea tour project, died Monday after having jumped from the 12th floor of the building where his company is housed, local television reported.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen killed a rural Colombian mayor early on Sunday, shooting him twice in the head during a local celebration and then escaping into the crowd, authorities said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi woman was killed when U.S. forces opened fire in Baghdad after a bomb was thrown at their convoy, a military spokeswoman said on Saturday.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A powerful car bomb killed a member of Lebanon's Hizbollah on Saturday in an attack the guerrilla group blamed on Israel.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A land mine blast on the road to Baghdad International Airport killed a U.S. soldier and injured three Thursday, the latest attack in a guerrilla campaign that has killed 52 American soldiers since May 1.

FREETOWN (Reuters) - Rebel leader Foday Sankoh was a populist who promised to share Sierra Leone's diamond riches with the masses but his fighters spread terror hacking off hands and feet with machetes, raping and robbing thousands of people.

(Reuters) - Funnyman Bob Hope died this week aged 100, and the New York Times informed its readers of the sad event by running out an obituary written by Vincent Canby -- a veteran Times critic who died himself in 2000.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli police said they suspected a soldier found dead in an olive grove in northern Israel Monday had been killed by Palestinian militants.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed in a bomb attack in broad daylight in Baghdad on Monday, bringing to 50 the number of U.S. troops to die from hostile fire since Washington declared major combat over on May 1.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi guerrillas killed a U.S. soldier in an overnight grenade attack south of Baghdad on Sunday as the killing of Saddam Hussein's sons showed no sign of stanching a hot summer of postwar bloodshed in Iraq.

KERBALA, Iraq (Reuters) - An Iraqi man was killed and three wounded in the Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala on Sunday when protesters clashed with U.S. troops and Iraqi police, witnesses and hospital workers said.

DALLAS (Reuters) - Police said on Saturday they discovered a badly decomposed body in the Waco, Texas, area where they had been searching for missing Baylor University basketball player Patrick Dennehy.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, in Washington for White House talks on Friday, urged President Bush to stop Israel expanding Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Shortly before the meeting, an Israeli soldier killed five-year-old Palestinian boy Mohammed Qabha and wounded his six- and seven-year-old sisters as they sat in their father's car at a northern West Bank checkpoint, witnesses said.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran accused Canadian police on Thursday of the "criminal" killing of an Iranian, ratcheting up a diplomatic dispute that began with the death in Iranian custody of a Canadian journalist this month.

(AP) - Bob Hope, ski jump-nosed master of the one-liner and favorite comedian of servicemen and presidents alike, has died, just two months after turning 100.

An American soldier and an Iraqi interpreter were killed this morning in Baghdad when their vehicle hit an explosive device and then came under fire by insurgents, the American military said.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Oilman Colin McMillan, who was awaiting Senate confirmation as Navy secretary, died from a single gunshot wound, and investigators said Friday it might have been self-inflicted.

(AP) - Celia Cruz, who went from singing in Havana nightclubs to become the "Queen of Salsa," died Wednesday, her publicist said. Cruz, who was 77, died of a brain tumor.

Without playing a down, Tex Schramm -- who died Tuesday at his Dallas home -- did as much to shape today's NFL as anyone in the game.

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Edgar F. Codd, an IBM computer pioneer who created the ``relational database model'' that underlies a $7 billion industry of storing the world's online business data, died of heart failure at home Friday in Williams Island, Fla. He was 79.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.N. weapons inspector died in Iraq on Thursday after his car collided with a truck as he was returning from an inspection mission south of Baghdad, the United Nations and an Iraqi source said.

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was assassinated on Wednesday, gunned down outside the main government building in Belgrade, a source from his political party told Reuters.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen killed one Israeli soldier and wounded five in a shooting attack in the West Bank city of Hebron, sparking a fierce gunbattle with Israeli troops, the army said on Tuesday.

COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Reuters) - Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels briefly seized a bus on a highway in the southern Philippines on Monday but freed all the passengers unharmed after killing a soldier, the army said.

KABUL (Reuters) - An Afghan interpreter was killed and a Dutch soldier of the international force guarding Kabul wounded on Friday in an explosion on the outskirts of the capital.

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (Reuters) - A Florida baby sitter was charged with murdering a 3-year-old girl by forcing her to drink so much water that she died of "acute water intoxication," police said on Monday.

MULTAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - A Pakistani paramilitary soldier was killed Saturday and seven of his colleagues were injured when their vehicle drove over a land mine in a remote area in Punjab province, police said.

AIN EL-HILWEH, Lebanon (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded inside Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp on Saturday, killing an Egyptian Islamist Israel has accused of leading al Qaeda's operations in Lebanon, camp security sources said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli gunfire killed a nine-year-old Palestinian boy in the Gaza Strip on Sunday as the funerals of two men shot dead in a pre-dawn raid took place nearby, Palestinian officials said.

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PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - Fred Rogers, who became a nurturing "television friend" to a generation of children as host of the public television series "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," died of cancer on Thursday at 74, his producer said.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - Florida executed a 48-year-old Tampa man by lethal injection on Wednesday for a 1977 murder he denied committing.

GAZA (Reuters) - A Palestinian teen-ager was killed by shrapnel and 11 people were hurt in clashes with Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip Tuesday, hospital sources said, but a rare snowstorm kept violence in check in the West Bank.

DURHAM, N.C. (Reuters) - Doctors at Duke University Hospital on Saturday declared dead and removed from life support the Mexican teenager who had a second heart-lung transplant this week after she was initially given a set of incompatible organs.

(Reuters) - The pronouncements of France's mighty food guides have always been able to make or break a restaurant in this food-obsessed country. But the critics themselves faced criticism Tuesday after top chef Bernard Loiseau was found shot dead in an apparent suicide following the decision by the renowned GaultMillau guide to cut its rating for his flagship restaurant in Burgundy.

A notorious e-mail scam has resulted in the murder of a Nigerian diplomat in the Czech Republic. Fifty-year-old Michael Lekara Wayid, Nigeria's consul in the Czech Republic, was shot dead by an unidentified 72-year-old Czech at the Nigerian Embassy in Prague on Wednesday.

RIYADH (Reuters) - An unidentified gunman shot dead the deputy governor of Saudi Arabia's northern Jouf province on Monday, a Saudi Interior Ministry official said.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed a wanted Hamas member on Tuesday as he tried to resist capture in an army sweep of the West Bank and Gaza Strip for suspected militants, Palestinian witnesses and Israeli sources said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed a leader of the military wing of Hamas on Monday, drawing threats of revenge at a massive Palestinian funeral in the Gaza Strip.

(AP) - Country singer Johnny PayCheck, the hard-drinking hell-raiser best known for his 1977 working man's anthem "Take This Job and Shove It," has died at 64.

Baltimore pitcher Tim Bechler died Monday, less than 24 hours after a workout at spring training. He was pale and feeling lightheaded Sunday while completing his final conditioning run on a back field at Fort Lauderdale Stadium.

DHAKA (Reuters) - A ferry sank in Bangladesh, killing one man and leaving 10 members of a family missing, police said Friday.

McAlester, Oklahoma (Reuters) - Oklahoma authorities, ignoring a parole board recommendation that the sentence be commuted, executed a man on Thursday for killing an elderly woman while trying to steal her television set.

A police standoff with a suspect who used a sword to threaten his wife and customers at a Sacramento Walgreen's ended when the man was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot.

KARACHI (Reuters) - At least one person was killed and two wounded on Monday in a powerful explosion near the headquarters Pakistan's state oil company in the heart of Karachi, police said.

POTOSI, Mo. (Reuters) - Missouri on Wednesday put to death a man who killed a bar patron nearly two decades ago, its 60th execution since capital punishment resumed in the state in 1989.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A former Mexican police chief and reputed informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration was shot at point-blank range and killed on Wednesday as he left the offices of a prominent defense attorney in Texas, McAllen police confirmed.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Texas put a British citizen convicted of a 1986 rape and murder to death on Tuesday despite high-level British government efforts to stall his execution and a last-minute legal battle for DNA tests that supporters say could have cleared him.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead an armed Palestinian in a Gaza Strip border zone on Saturday and imposed a curfew on the West Bank city of Hebron in a renewed military crackdown following Israeli national elections.

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SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - A journalist in Indian Kashmir died on Friday after unidentified gunmen burst into his office and shot him, police said.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch police stormed a court in the southern town of Arnhem and shot dead an Albanian-born gunman Wednesday after he took a public prosecutor hostage.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's labor minister was killed and several other ministers critically injured when a small plane crashed on takeoff in western Kenya on Friday, police and government officials said.

Two young men killed their mother and tried to cover their tracks by chopping off her head and hands the way they saw it done on "The Sopranos."

A man trying to beat his 30-pound shar-pei dog to death with a gun was fatally wounded when the gun went off accidentally. Raymond Poore Jr., 43, called his wife at work and told her that their dog had bitten him and he intended to kill it.

When a woman found her husband cheating on her, she ran him over with her Mercedes and "turned her $70,000 vehicle into a 4,000-pound murder weapon," prosecutors said in court.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Bush fires raged out of control in the Australian capital Canberra on Saturday, killing at least one person and setting as many as 100 homes aflame.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops on Saturday killed a Palestinian outside Hebron who carried out a deadly Sabbath attack on a Jewish settlement near the divided West Bank city, the army said.

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - One person was killed and dozens more wounded by gunfire on Monday during street clashes in Venezuela as Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter tried to salvage peace talks between leftist President Hugo Chavez and his foes, officials said.

LONDON (Reuters) - A terminally ill British man died by assisted suicide in Switzerland Monday in a landmark case that renews debate on the tough UK stance over euthanasia.

KUWAIT (Reuters) - An American working for the U.S. military was shot dead and another was wounded in an ambush on their car Tuesday near a U.S. base in Kuwait where Washington is preparing for a possible war on Iraq.

A man attacked and killed another man with a machete after their vehicles crashed in a parking lot Saturday afternoon, police said. The 54-year-old suspect was taken to a hospital after police learned he apparently drank weedkiller before officers arrived at the scene of the attack.

(AP) - Al Hirschfeld, whose graceful, fluid caricatures captured the essence of performers from Charlie Chaplin to Jerry Seinfeld, died Monday. He was 99.

Douglas Herrick, who gets both the credit and the blame for perhaps the tackiest totem of the American West, the jackalope -- half bunny, half antelope and 100 percent tourist trap -- died on Jan. 6 in Casper, Wyo. He was 82.

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A man who was apparently distraught over an argument with his girlfriend allegedly set two fires in their high-rise luxury apartment building, and then leaped outside from balcony to balcony, before falling to his death more than 20 floors below, police said on Wednesday.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - Texas Tuesday carried out its first execution of the year, executing by lethal injection a New Mexico man convicted of murdering an elderly couple and their daughter during a 1992 robbery.

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - A British policeman was stabbed to death and four others were injured in an anti-terror raid which police said was linked to last week's discovery of a chemical weapons agent in London.

A Texas man who beat his 79-year-old mother to death, cut her open and ate some of her heart was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Joey Cala, 41, had pleaded guilty to murder in the 2001 death of Lydia Cala, a 76-pound retired teacher and church volunteer.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's longest domestic siege has ended after 15 days with the death of an armed hostage-taker who police said was determined not to be taken alive.

GAZA (Reuters) - The Israeli army raided a major city in the Gaza Strip, blew up 10 factories and killed at least one Palestinian in battles with militants on Sunday, witnesses said, less than three weeks before a pivotal Israeli election.

(AP) - Former military dictator Leopoldo F. Galtieri, who touched off the 1982 Falkland Islands war with Britain and allegedly oversaw the torture and execution of dissidents during Argentina's "dirty war", died Sunday, the Central Military Hospital reported.

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. - Maurice Gibb, who with his brothers built the Bee Gees into a disco sensation that ruled the charts in the late '70s with hits like "Stayin' Alive" and "More Than a Woman," died Sunday at the age of 53.

BELFAST (Reuters) - A man was shot dead outside a bar in a Protestant district of Belfast on Thursday, apparently the second victim in recent days of a feud within the largest "loyalist" guerrilla group in the British-ruled province.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - An Indian soldier was killed by Pakistani shelling and 40 people, including four policemen, were wounded when suspected rebels lobbed a grenade in Kashmir, police and security officials said Sunday.

BURBANK, Calif. - A Metrolink train carrying morning commuters smashed into a truck at a railroad crossing Monday, upending two passenger rail cars, killing one person and injuring 32. The victim was in the truck, which burst into flames.

(12/02)

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers and Palestinians fought gunbattles near a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, which left one Palestinian dead, as violence in the region intensified.

NORSE PEAK, Wash. (Reuters) - An avalanche killed a cross-country skier and buried six others on Sunday near a popular Washington state mountain, officials said.

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - Soldiers shot dead an 11-year-old boy in the West Bank on Sunday, the second Palestinian child killed by Israeli gunfire in two days, witnesses said.

GAZA CITY (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a nine-year-old girl outside her home in the Gaza town of Khan Younis on Saturday, Palestinian security sources said.

SANAA (Reuters) - A top Yemeni opposition official was shot dead by a member of a rival opposition party in the middle of a party conference on Saturday, a government official said.

JAMMU, India (Reuters) - One Indian civilian was killed and one injured on Thursday when an air force fighter crashed into a residential area in the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir, a police official said.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Police across Texas searched on Thursday for a man accused of shooting his 8-month-old daughter to death during a Christmas Day domestic dispute.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Fashion and celebrity photographer Herb Ritts, whose spare, crisp images caught everything from spirituality expressed in the Dalai Lama's hands to the athletic power of Jackie Joyner-Kersee's legs, died on Thursday at age 50, a spokesman said.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed a senior Hamas militant in the northern West Bank city of Nablus early Wednesday, Palestinian and Israeli sources said.

(Reuters) - Joe Strummer, frontman with the Clash whose 1979 track "London Calling" exploded as one of punk's biggest anthems, has died at the age of 50, a spokesman said on Monday.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - An explosion in a car in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar killed one soldier and wounded three on Sunday, with police saying they suspected foul play.

(Entry 1000!) KABUL (Reuters) - An Afghan employee of a French non- governmental organization died of wounds received during a grenade attack on a base of the international peacekeeping force in Kabul, a spokesman for the peacekeepers said on Friday.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Suspected separatist guerrillas shot a newly elected lawmaker in Indian Kashmir as he emerged from Friday morning prayers and he died in hospital, police and medical officials said.

KARACHI (Reuters) - Pakistani police said a leading Islamic militant suspected of involvement in the murder of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl may have blown himself up on Thursday while making bombs in the southern port city of Karachi.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The badly decomposed body of a murdered woman, identified as the mother of popular radio talk-show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger, has been found at a Beverly Hills home, police said on Friday.

BAGRAM, Afghanistan (Reuters) - An American soldier died of gunshot wounds after suspected al Qaeda militants fired on a patrol unit in eastern Afghanistan in the early hours of Saturday morning, the U.S. military said.

MADRID (Reuters) - A Spanish Civil Guard policeman was shot dead and another wounded on Tuesday after stopping two suspected Basque separatist guerrillas whose car was packed with explosives bound for Madrid, officials said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli army gunfire killed an 11-year-old Palestinian girl in the Gaza Strip on Thursday as she opened a window in her house in an area where soldiers and gunmen do battle daily, her relatives said.

KABUL (Reuters) - One man was killed and four people, including two French nationals, were injured Thursday in a grenade attack on international peacekeepers in Kabul, the second attack on foreign troops in the Afghan capital this week.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian man who approached an army post near the Egyptian border and rounded up more than a dozen militants in the West Bank and Gaza, military sources and witnesses said on Tuesday.

(AP) - U.S. soldiers offered prayers Sunday for a French television reporter killed in an accident during the biggest U.S. military exercises since the Gulf War.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The only leading Chechen guerrilla to be captured by Russian forces has died in prison, where he was serving a life sentence, officials said Sunday.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian militant near the West Bank town of Bethlehem Friday and the Islamic group Hamas vowed revenge for the latest killings of gunmen and civilians.

AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordan said on Saturday it had arrested two members of the militant al Qaeda network in the assassination of a U.S. diplomat in October.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed a Palestinian at the Gaza Strip border with Egypt as wider Middle East developments looked likely to delay international efforts to draw up an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - A teenager died while practicing what police say was a stunt he and a friend had seen in the movie "Jackass." Just last week, a 13-year-old Indiana boy died and five other teens were injured after the van they were traveling in hurtled off a railroad track at more than 70 mph, crashed into a parked car and slid 400 feet.

A severely emaciated 15-year-old girl whose guardian kept her housebound was found dead on the floor of her home, police said. Ciara Jobes' room was unfurnished and unheated, and she used a hole in a wall as a toilet.

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A Malaysian snake charmer who apparently lost patience with his lazy cobra was killed after he pulled the snake out of its box and was bitten, a newspaper reported Sunday.

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - A Cambodian woman who murdered her husband by axing him repeatedly in the groin before running off with her son-in-law has been sentenced to 15 years in jail, officials said Friday.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Smugglers carrying hundreds of live cobras to China hurled some of the snakes at Hong Kong police giving chase at sea and one man died after the vessels collided, a police spokeswoman said Friday.

MCALESTER, Oklahoma (Reuters) - Oklahoma on Tuesday executed by lethal injection a man convicted of murdering four people in a Tulsa bar robbery in 1990, prison officials said.

BANGALORE, India (Reuters) - An Indian politician kidnapped by the country's most wanted bandit was found dead in a forest Sunday, a state minister said, but it was not clear if he was killed by the outlaw or in a clash with security men.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - Florida executed a 63-year-old man on Monday for the kidnapping and murder of a 74-year-old postmaster, despite last-minute pleas for a stay by attorneys who argued the man was insane.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed a Palestinian woman on Sunday and wounded three of her children as they walked through a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian hospital officials and witnesses said.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Visitors to a off-beat Berlin arts center thought a dead woman on the ground was a performance art act rather than a suicide, police said on Thursday.

CAIRO (Reuters) - A Yemeni governorate official was shot dead by unidentified attackers on Saturday in the Marib area, east of the Yemeni capital, Egypt's official Middle East News Agency reported.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - At least one man died defending his home as fierce fires raged around Australia's largest city for a second day on Thursday, forcing hundreds to evacuate and engulfing at least 20 houses.

BALTIMORE (Reuters) - Philip Berrigan, the former Roman Catholic priest who with his Jesuit brother Daniel led a generation of religious opposition to the Vietnam War and the nuclear arms race, died of cancer at the age of 79, his family said on Saturday.

LYON, France (Reuters) - An Italian who tried to hijack a Paris-bound airliner last month was found hanged in his French prison cell on Saturday, days after his cellmate mysteriously died, prison and judicial sources said.

RALEIGH, N.C. (Reuters) - A North Carolina man hired by a woman to kill her husband was executed by lethal injection in North Carolina on Friday.

MIAMI (Reuters) - A small, single-engine plane crashed into the Federal Reserve Bank building in Miami on Thursday night, killing the pilot, while dozens of employees attending a party inside escaped unharmed, police said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Roone Arledge, a broadcasting pioneer whose shows like NFL "Monday Night Football" and "Nightline" revolutionized (U.S.) television news and sports, died on Thursday, the ABC television network said.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombian leftist rebels dragged a small town mayor from his home at dawn and shot and killed him on Thursday, the 12th killing of a mayor in Colombia this year, police said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli helicopter gunships fired missiles at a Palestinian Authority compound in Gaza City on Wednesday, killing a master bombmaker responsible for blowing up three Israeli tanks, witnesses and militants said.

RAMALLAH (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers on Tuesday shot dead a 95-year-old Palestinian woman who was taking a taxi home after a medical check-up in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian witnesses and medics said.

(11/02)

DEDHAM, Mass. (Reuters) - A dominatrix pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges she chopped up a client after he died of an apparent heart attack during a bondage session, and then dumped the body parts in a trash bin, court officials in Massachusetts said.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Prince Takamado, a member of the Japanese imperial household known for his love of sports, died Thursday after collapsing while playing squash, authorities said.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A suspected Islamist gunman shot dead an American woman missionary with three bullets to the head at a church clinic in southern Lebanon Thursday, security officials and aid workers said.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead an eight-year-old Palestinian boy Monday during a clash with stone-throwing Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, witnesses said.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - Texas on Wednesday executed a man who in 1988 shot to death three people in retaliation killings related to an earlier child molestation conviction.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Suspected leftist rebels posing as tourists planted two bombs that ripped through hotel rooms late Tuesday in the coastal Colombian city of Santa Marta, killing one person and injuring five others, police said.

(AP) - An American woman who worked as a nurse at a missionary clinic caring for needy Lebanese and Palestinians was shot to death Thursday in this southern port city, police said.

ORIENT POINT, N.Y. (Reuters) - A man was killed on Tuesday when a large truck plunged off the back of a ferry in the Long Island Sound, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Oscar-winning actor James Coburn, famed for his action roles and poignant characterizations in a career spanning more than 40 years, died of a heart attack on Monday, his manager said. He was 74.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli woman settler in the West Bank on Monday as Israeli plans to bolster security in Hebron stirred land-grab fears among Palestinians in the divided ancient city.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Abba Eban, a former Israeli foreign minister and a premier diplomat who pleaded the country's cause for more than 40 years, died on Sunday at the age of 87, the foreign ministry and family members said.

LONDON (Reuters) - "Moors Murderer" Myra Hindley, one of the most notorious serial killers in British history since Jack the Ripper, died at age 60 Friday, still an object of public controversy and hatred four decades after her crimes.

JARRATT, Va. (Reuters) - Mir Aimal Kasi, a Pakistani who killed two CIA employees in 1993 in a rage over American policy in the Middle East, was executed by lethal injection on Thursday, in a case that sparked protests in his homeland and fears of retaliation against U.S. interests.

CAIRO, Egypt (Reuters) - The spiritual leader of Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood, Mustafa Mashhur, died Thursday at the age of 83 after suffering a stroke last month, Brotherhood sources said.

SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) - A U.S. Air Force pilot on a combat training mission died on Wednesday when his F-16 fighter jet crashed on a desert training range in northern Utah, officials said.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed a top military leader of the Islamic Jihad group on Saturday, raising the specter of new violence in a Palestinian uprising ahead of a U.S. envoy's mission to the region to advocate calm.

LIBERTY, Mo. (Reuters) - A young boy was shot and killed and his mother injured outside a Kansas City-area school on Thursday, police said.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Jonathan Harris, the flamboyantly fussy actor who portrayed the dastardly, cowardly antagonist Dr. Zachary Smith on the 1960's sci-fi show "Lost in Space," has died. He was 87.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - An Israeli helicopter gunship fired a missile into a car in the West Bank city of Nablus on Monday, killing at least one person, Palestinian witnesses and hospital sources said.

(10/02)

AMMAN, Jordan (Reuters) - The body of assassinated U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley was flown home Wednesday as Jordan launched a nationwide manhunt focused on Islamists and radical Palestinians, officials and diplomats said.

SOWETO, South Africa (Reuters) - Ten bomb blasts rocked South Africa Wednesday, killing a woman and injuring two other people, in attacks President Thabo Mbeki blamed on white right-wing extremists.

(AP) - Irish actor Richard Harris, who gained fame as the roistering star of such 1960s films as "This Sporting Life" and "Camelot" and reached a new generation of fans years later as the wise old wizard in two Harry Potter movies, died Friday night at a London hospital.

(AP) - The body of a young woman shot by Chechen rebels was dragged from a Moscow theater Thursday while two other captives raced to freedom under fire as insurgents holding hundreds threatened to kill themselves and their hostages if the Russian army does not pull out of Chechnya.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former CIA Director Richard Helms, who led the spy agency during the height of the Vietnam War and resisted attempts by President Richard Nixon to involve the CIA in Watergate, has died. He was 89.

SILVER SPRING, Md. (Reuters) - Police in the Washington area launched a massive manhunt on Tuesday after a driver standing on the steps of his idled commuter bus was fatally shot, raising fears a serial sniper had struck again.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A parcel bomb exploded in a Thai provincial government office near Bangkok on Monday, killing one policeman and injuring at least five other people, police said.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Famed Mexican photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo, best known for his dream-like evocations of longing and solitude in everyday Mexican settings, died on Saturday of natural causes, officials said. He was 100.

Physicist and science fiction author Robert Lull Forward passed away in the early morning hours of September 21, 2002, in Seattle, Washington, following a valiant battle with brain cancer. He was 70 years old.

HOUSTON - A man who sometimes worked as a clown was executed Tuesday evening for fatally stabbing a pair of Houston-area girls after becoming enraged when they refused to turn down some loud music.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A woman shot in the head in Fairfax County, Virginia, died on Monday night as police investigated whether this latest shooting was linked to a series of sniper attacks that has terrorized the Washington area.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An explosion in a public telephone booth near Bethlehem killed a Palestinian militant and President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction blamed Israel for the blast that raised the spectre of revenge attacks.

GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) - One person was killed and at least 10 others wounded on Sunday when suspected Muslim militants threw grenades at people celebrating a Hindu festival in northeastern India, police said.

(AP) - Stephen E. Ambrose, whose best-selling books made America's aging World War II veterans hometown heroes again, died early Sunday at a Bay St. Louis, Miss., hospital.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Police said a man was shot at a gasoline station near Fredericksburg, Virginia, on Friday, and media reports said he later died of his wounds in a local hospital.

Seoul, South Korea - A 24-year-old South Korean man died after playing computer games nonstop for 86 hours, said police on Wednesday.

WOODBRIDGE, Va. (Reuters) - Ballistics evidence revealed that a 53-year-old man shot to death at a Virginia gas station was the seventh victim to die at the hands of a sniper on the loose in the Washington area, police said on Thursday.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - Serial killer Aileen Wuornos was executed in Florida on Wednesday for the murders of six men during a year-long highway killing spree, only the second woman to be executed in Florida since before the Civil War.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A man was shot and killed in the Washington area on Wednesday night in an attack that bore striking similarities to a string of six murders attributed to a mystery sniper in the last week.

(9/02)

LUCASVILLE, Ohio (Reuters) - An Ohio man convicted of raping and strangling an 11-year-old girl two decades ago was executed on Wednesday. Robert Buell, 62, died from a lethal injection at 1030 a.m. EDT at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, according to Joe Case, a spokesman for the state attorney general's office. He was the fifth person put to death in Ohio since the state resumed executions in 1999.

PAMPLONA, Spain (Reuters) - An explosion killed a Spanish policeman and wounded three others on Tuesday as they tried to remove a Basque separatist banner that was booby trapped, officials said.

Mayor Ralph Appezzato of Alameda was found dead in his home this morning, Monday, Sept 16. The cause of death was a self-inflicted wound, according to news reports. He was 67.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - A Palestinian gunman fired at Jewish pilgrims in the West Bank city of Hebron on Monday, killing one man and wounding three youngsters on the Jewish holiday of Sukkoth, medical officials said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Angelo Buono Jr., one of the "Hillside Stranglers" who tortured and murdered nine women in the late 1970s, has died at age 67, the Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A grenade exploded in a car outside a U.S. embassy warehouse in the center of Indonesia's capital Jakarta Monday in a botched attack that killed one of the vehicle's occupants, police said.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Dunkin' Donuts founder William Rosenberg, whose idea for a quick cup of coffee and a doughnut became a global franchise, has died of cancer, a funeral home said on Sunday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian boy was shot dead while stoning an Israeli tank and army bulldozers razed the family homes of two suicide bombers Thursday, a day after the first Palestinian suicide bombing in Israel in six weeks.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - A man who killed a fellow student at Texas A&M University while burglarizing her home in 1994 was executed by lethal injection on Wednesday.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian between two army checkpoints in the Gaza Strip on Monday as Jews marked Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

HYDERABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - One man died and five were injured when a small bomb went off inside a bus in southern Pakistan Sunday, police and witnesses said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli tanks backed by helicopter gunships rolled into two Palestinian refugee camps in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday in a sweep for militants, prompting gun battles in which troops shot dead a Palestinian.

MANAMA (Reuters) - A U.S. Navy SH-60B helicopter crashed in the Gulf Friday after hitting the mast of a Syrian cargo ship off the coast of Iran, killing a civilian television cameraman and injuring four American sailors, the U.S. military said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Yuji Ichioka, a University of California-Los Angeles historian who coined the term "Asian American" in the 1960s, has died at the age of 66, university officials said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jazz icon Lionel Hampton was laid to rest in New York on Saturday with his old friend George Bush, the former U.S. president, saying that "to know Lionel is to know joy."

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Helen Giuliani, the mother of former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, died on Sunday after 18 months of illness, his spokeswoman said. She was 92.

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - A mentally handicapped girl who was shot because she was too slow to leave a school bus being hijacked has died in a Cape Town hospital, police said on Thursday.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - U.S. forces in Afghanistan are holding a Canadian-Pakistani teenager on suspicion of having killed a U.S. soldier in a combat operation in the country, Canadian officials said on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. special operations troops guarding Afghan President Hamid Karzai shot to death at least one attacker who apparently tried to assassinate Karzai in Kandahar on Thursday, defense officials said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A 73-year-old New York man died over the weekend from the West Nile virus, the first death this year in the city where the brain-swelling disease was first detected in the United States in 1999, health officials said.

(8/02)

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian militants accusing a woman of collaborating with Israel wrenched her from her West Bank home, took her to the town square and shot her dead, Palestinians said Sunday.

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine troops shot dead a notorious leader of a gang of kidnappers on Sunday and rescued a four-year-old girl and her nanny from a week-long captivity, police said.

EAST CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Court TV) - Mass killer Michael "Mucko" McDermott took the stand in his insanity defense murder trial Thursday and matter-of-factly told jurors he died 62 years ago on a suicide mission to prevent the Holocaust. "Where are you now?" asked his lawyer, Kevin Reddington. "In purgatory," said McDermott. In an clear, calm voice at odds with his irrational statements and wildman appearance, the 43-year-old software technician said he traveled back in time at the request of St. Michael and killed Hitler and six Nazis Dec. 26, 2000. In reality, McDermott fatally shot seven co-workers at Edgewater Technologies in Wakefield, suburb of Boston, that day.

BANGKOK, Thailand - The founder of Thailand's first monkey-training school, and a pioneer in using monkeys to pick coconuts commercially, has died.

CHAMAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - An explosion in a refugee camp in Afghanistan's southern border town of Spin Boldak killed one man and wounded five children, Afghan officials said on Friday.

APTOS, Calif. (AP) - A man undressing for bed at his Aptos summer home stumbled as he wrestled to remove his pants and fell out of a plate glass window to his death, Santa Cruz County authorities confirmed.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed the brother of the leader of a militant Palestinian group on Tuesday, drawing a threat of retaliation and shaking a new Israeli-Palestinian security deal.

(AP) - Abu Nidal, the Palestinian renegade whose name became a byword for international terrorism, was found dead in his Baghdad apartment with multiple gunshot wounds, Palestinian officials said Monday.

JACKSON, Ga. (Reuters) - A 52-year-old man convicted of the 1991 shooting death of his former wife was executed by lethal injection at a Georgia state prison on Friday night, a spokeswoman said.

Manassas, Virginia --- Drowning Pool singer Dave Williams was found dead on the band's tour bus this afternoon. The quartet from Dallas, Texas has been performing as one of the main stage attractions on Ozzfest. The cause of death has yet to be determined.

Kyle Rote, one of the most popular players in New York Giants history, died Wednesday night. He was 73. Rote died at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, hospital spokeswomen Jill Bloom said Thursday.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - Texas executed a Mexican citizen on Wednesday for the 1988 murder of an undercover Dallas police officer despite pleas for his life from Mexican President Vicente Fox.

POTOSI, Mo. (Reuters) - Missouri put to death a convicted hit-man on Wednesday in its fifth execution so far this year.

GAZA (Reuters) - A five-year-old Palestinian boy was killed by fire from an Israeli tank advancing to the edge of the Khan Younis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Palestinian security sources and hospital officials said.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed a wheelchair-bound Hamas militant leader Wednesday when they shelled a house he was staying in and flattened it with a bulldozer in the West Bank village of Tubas, witnesses said.

An elderly Napa man was killed Saturday after a freak series of events caused his car to explode in flames. Napa police reported that Jack Cain, 89, had been sitting in his 1999 Buick sedan in the carport of his north Napa home at 9:21 a.m. when, for an unknown reason, the car accelerated through the carport, colliding with the carport's support awnings and rolling onto a neighbor's lot.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - One person died and 21 were wounded Tuesday when suspected rebels lobbed a grenade at a paramilitary patrol near a bus stop in the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, police said.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Tensions flared anew between Muslims and Christians in Indonesia's troubled region of Central Sulawesi after one person was found dead and three people were reported missing over the weekend, police said on Monday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian gunman killed an Israeli woman and seriously wounded her husband in the West Bank late on Saturday, while in Washington the head of the CIA and the Palestinian interior minister discussed security reforms.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian militant in a West Bank village Monday in a new spasm of violence that underlined difficulties faced by Washington as it tries to end almost two years of bloodshed.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier has died of gunshot wounds suffered in an attack in Afghanistan two weeks ago, the Pentagon said on Monday.

HARARE (Reuters) - Former Zimbabwean Finance Minister Bernard Chidzero, who died in Harare on Thursday aged 75, will be declared a national hero by the politburo of the ruling ZANU-PF party ahead of his funeral, officials said on Friday.

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - A Saskatchewan man has become Canada's first victim of the human strain of mad cow disease, but the patient probably contracted variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in Britain rather than in North America, Health Canada officials said on Thursday.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - Texas Wednesday executed a man convicted and sentenced to die for the 1996 stranglings and robberies of two women in the Houston area.

Timmy leaves his Princess. Josh Ryan Evans, the actor who played Timmy on my favorite soap opera (Passions) died Monday evening from a heart condition.

Walter Mallow dead at 72. Don't know him? He invented clumping cat litter, perfected liquid paper (invented by Bette Nesmith Graham), the heat-resistant tiles on the Space Shuttle, and many other things. Wow.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Colorful Los Angeles Lakers sportscaster Chick Hearn, creator of such now standard basketball phrases as "slam dunk," "air ball" and "dribble drive," died on Monday at age 85 just days after suffering a head injury in a fall, officials said.

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - The West Nile virus has killed a fifth person in Louisiana and nearly a dozen more have contracted the disease, making the state's outbreak the largest ever in the United States, state health officials said on Tuesday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A suspected car bomb exploded at a road junction just outside the northern Israeli Arab town of Umm el Fahm on Monday, killing one person and wounding several others, police said.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A 26-year-old woman run over by an out-of-control van in an incident that led to last week's Chicago mob-beating deaths of the driver and his friend died on Monday from her injuries, authorities said.

Tamera and Jacquelin were rescued in a farming area of neighboring Kern County about 100 miles from the spot where they were taken near Lancaster after their kidnapper, identified by authorities as 37-year-old felon Roy Ratliff, crashed his stolen vehicle and fled police on foot. He was shot dead during that pursuit under circumstances that were not immediately clear.

(7/02)

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian suicide bomber struck inside a sandwich shop in Jerusalem Tuesday, killing himself and wounding four people ahead of planned U.S. talks with Palestinian officials.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - One pedestrian was killed and 18 wounded in Kashmir on Thursday when suspected separatist guerrillas threw a grenade at a crowded crossing, the fourth such attack in the last 24 hours, police said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Palestinians shot dead a rabbi from a Jewish settlement in the West Bank in the first response by militants to an Israeli strike that killed 15 Palestinians, including a top militant commander.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Los Angeles woman who allegedly left her baby boy strapped in his car seat for several days after his mysterious death was charged on Tuesday with murder, although a coroner had not determined how the infant died.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (Reuters) - William Pierce, the American white supremacist whose novel "The Turner Diaries" is believed to have inspired Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, died on Tuesday at his Appalachian compound, an aide said.

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Chaim Potok, the distinguished author and scholar whose works revealed Orthodox Jewish life to readers around the world, died on Tuesday at his home outside Philadelphia, officials at his synagogue said.

BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iraq said U.S. and British warplanes attacked civilian targets killing one person and wounding 22 others in the south of the country Tuesday.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (Reuters) - Protestant gunmen shot dead a 19-year-old Roman Catholic in Northern Ireland early in Monday as rival groups carried out a series of gun attacks against each other in what police called a "catalog of mayhem."

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - One man was killed and several people wounded Thursday when U.S. planes bombed the house of a former Taliban official in eastern Afghanistan, the private Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported.

PAU, France (Reuters) - Frenchman Patrice Halgand won the 91-mile 10th stage of the Tour de France Wednesday, but the day was tarnished by the death of a seven-year-old boy who was run over by a Tour car.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The body of a 5-year-old girl snatched from outside her southern California home on Monday has been found dumped by a remote forest road, investigators said on Wednesday.

HELSINKI (Reuters) - A car exploded about 200 yards from a synagogue in Helsinki early on Tuesday, killing the driver and injuring another man, police said.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Gene Kan, one of the key programmers behind the popular file-sharing technology known as Gnutella, has died in an apparent suicide, officials said on Tuesday. He was 25.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - An Indian soldier was killed when Pakistani troops fired artillery shells across a military control line that divides the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, police said Tuesday.

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (Reuters) - A U.S-trained Philippine soldier and an undetermined number of Muslim rebels were killed on Tuesday in fierce fighting on southern Jolo island, the military said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Veteran screen actor Rod Steiger, who won an Academy Award for his role as a bigoted small-town sheriff in the film "In the Heat of the Night," died Tuesday, his publicist said. He was 77.

KABUL (Reuters) - Haji Abdul Qadir, one of Afghanistan's three vice presidents, was assassinated outside his office in the center of Kabul on Saturday, police and government officials said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A pilot was killed and his son injured on Saturday when their single-engine plane crash-landed on a residential street in Leesburg, Virginia, outside Washington, an airport official said.

INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - Famed jazz bassist Ray Brown, whose soulful dexterity provided the musical backbone for such "be-bop" greats as Charlie Parker and Ella Fitzgerald, to whom he also was married, has died while on tour, his manager said on Thursday.

MIAMI (Reuters) - Legendary baseball star Ted Williams, one of the greatest American hitters of all time and the last to hit .400 for a season, died on Friday at age 83 after being rushed to hospital with breathing problems, emergency and hospital officials said.

HARARE (Reuters) - An American doctor who owned a game farm business in Zimbabwe has been murdered in a car-jacking in the southern African country, police said Monday.

(6/02)

(AP) - John Entwistle, the bassist for the rock band The Who, was found dead Thursday in his hotel room of an apparent heart attack. He was 57.

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - A U.S. A-10 "Warthog" ground attack aircraft taking part in military exercises crashed on Thursday in eastern France, killing the pilot, the local government office said.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas man accused of raping and killing a woman, then raping her young daughter in a 1994 attack, was put to death on Wednesday by lethal injection.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Ann Landers, who was reputedly the most widely read columnist in the world and famously urged her readers to "wake up and smell the coffee," died Saturday at the age of 83, the Chicago Tribune reported.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Armed Jewish settlers raided a Palestinian town in the West Bank on Friday, killing one man and setting a house and cars ablaze, Palestinian witnesses said.

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (Reuters) - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said one of the country's most wanted Muslim rebels, the key man in last year's kidnapping of a U.S. missionary couple, was killed in a clash with government troops on Friday.

(AP) - A car bomb explosion killed a British bank employee in the Saudi capital on Thursday. Quoting the chief of Riyadh police, the official Saudi Press Agency said the victim's four-wheel-drive vehicle exploded.

Jack Buck, who in nearly five decades as a broadcaster rose from Harry Caray's sidekick to a St. Louis institution, died Tuesday night after a long hospital stay. He was 77.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up on Israel's frontier with the West Bank on Monday, shortly after Israel angered the Palestinians by starting work on a security fence between the two territories.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Suspected rebels shot and killed a politician in Indonesia's troubled Aceh province, the second parliamentarian murdered this week, officials said on Friday.

JARRATT, Va. (Reuters) - Walter Mickens was executed by lethal injection on Wednesday for the 1992 slaying of a 17-year-old after Virginia Governor Mark Warner denied clemency pleas, including from two British legal societies.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Designer Bill Blass died of cancer Wednesday night at his home in New Preston, Connecticut, the New York Times reported on Thursday. He was 79.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Suspected rebels in camouflage uniforms shot and killed a local parliamentarian in the doorway of his house in Indonesia's troubled Aceh province, police said on Wednesday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - John Gotti, the swaggering, sartorially elegant and talkative boss of the Gambino crime family who was jailed for life in 1992 for murder after years of evading the law, died in a prison hospital on Monday. He was 61.

ST. LOUIS (Reuters) - A suspected serial killer linked to the murders of 10 women, some of them still unidentified, was found hanged in his jail cell, police said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - One man died and at least 20 were hurt Sunday after Russian fans went on the rampage near the Kremlin following their team's 1-0 defeat to Japan in the World Cup finals, the Interfax news agency reported.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgium's Princess Liliane, the 85-year-old widow of wartime King Leopold III, who abdicated after accusations that he collaborated with the Nazis, died after a long illness Friday.

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An American missionary held hostage for over a year by Muslim rebels in the Philippines was killed and his wife wounded but rescued on Friday when Philippine troops tried to free them.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Indian security forces have shot dead the chief of a pro-Pakistan rebel group in revolt-racked Indian Kashmir, police said on Thursday.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - A Palestinian intelligence officer was killed when Israeli tanks fired at President Yasser Arafat's headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday, Palestinian security sources said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Dee Dee Ramone, the rock singer, artist and author who co-founded influential 1970s punk rock band the Ramones and went on to become a rap singer and a painter, has died, his agent said on Thursday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A 7-year-old boy who was the subject of a massive search by police after vanishing from a backyard party apparently drowned at the home and his body was lying at the bottom of the pool during the entire two-day manhunt, officials said on Wednesday.

BAKU (Reuters) - One person was killed and dozens were injured when police clashed overnight with demonstrators armed with stones and petrol bombs on the outskirts of Azerbaijan's capital Baku, police said on Tuesday.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) - Lew Wasserman, one of the last old-time movie moguls who helped build an entertainment empire while keeping company with presidents and the most glittering of Hollywood stars, died Monday. He was 89.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A senior executive at El Paso Corp., a natural gas pipeline and energy trading company, died in an apparent suicide, police said on Monday, delivering the latest blow to the scandal-plagued energy industry.

PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - A woman was killed and at least 47 people were injured on Friday when rain and high winds struck an amusement park near Pittsburgh, bringing a pavilion down on top of patrons sheltering from the storm, police said.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - An Israeli sniper killed a Palestinian during an army raid on the West Bank city of Nablus on Saturday as Palestinian President Yasser Arafat discussed Middle East peace with a top European envoy.

(5/02)

JAMMU (Reuters) - An Indian paramilitary soldier was killed Friday as Indian and Pakistani forces traded fire in disputed Kashmir, an Indian defense official said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A police car clearing the way for Russian President Vladimir Putin's motorcade crashed at high speed in Moscow on Friday, killing the civilian driver of a car in its path, eyewitnesses said.

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - Shooting erupted in a Milwaukee courtroom on Wednesday when a defendant just found guilty of murder grabbed a court bailiff's revolver and wounded him before being shot dead by a detective, police said.

(AP) - Napoleon Beazley, whose death sentence for a murder committed at 17 stirred national debate over capital punishment for youths, was executed Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to spare his life. When asked by the warden if he had a final statement, Beazley looked toward Suzanne Luttig, the daughter of the victim, and said "no" before he was given a lethal injection.

A Palestinian man was killed during an Israeli move into the West Bank city of Jenin, where the army said it had captured Rami Awad, a leader of the militant Islamic movement Hamas and six other wanted Palestinians, before leaving at midday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen carried out two shootings in the West Bank on Tuesday, killing one Israeli, after troops swept through more Palestinian cities in a campaign of rolling raids that has failed to stem suicide bombings.

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - A suspected Palestinian militant tried to ram an explosives-laden car into a crowded Tel Aviv nightclub on Friday but was killed when an Israeli security guard opened fire.

(AP) - Sam Snead, the golfing great known as "Slammin' Sam" who used the sweetest swing in the game to win seven major championships and a record 81 PGA Tour events, died Thursday at age 89. Snead died at his Hot Springs, Va., home at 3:38 p.m., his daughter-in-law Anne Snead said.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - A man who killed a convenience store clerk during a 1993 robbery was executed by lethal injection on Wednesday, despite a plea from the victim's mother to spare his life.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli missiles killed a senior Palestinian militant Wednesday as a government crisis in Israel moved toward resolution.

(AP) - Stephen Jay Gould, a famed evolutionary biologist and prolific author who influenced his field for decades, died Monday. He was 60. Gould died of cancer at his home in New York City, according to his assistant, Stephanie Schur.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Enemy fire killed a U.S. special forces soldier on patrol in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, the Pentagon said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian blew himself up near a police patrol in northern Israel Monday in the second suicide bombing in less than 24 hours, but killed only himself, police said.

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - The son of a radical Palestinian guerrilla leader was killed Monday in a car bombing in Beirut, members of the organization said. The victim was head of the group's military operations.

DALLAS (Reuters) - A sniper camped in a field opened fire on two health care workers in a hospital parking lot north of Dallas on Thursday, killing a mother of two and seriously injuring another woman.

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) - The apparent suicide in Maryland of a Bridgeport priest accused of sexual abuse is a clear sign the Roman Catholic Church must face the scandal directly, Bishop William Lori said Friday.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Former New Jersey Devils head coach John Cunniff, who had a distinguished international career as an assistant, died of cancer at age 57.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Joe "Joe Bananas" Bonanno, a founding member of the American Mafia who was never indicted during the decades he headed one of the "five families" of organized crime, died on Saturday. He was 97.

(Reuters) - Diane Pretty, a terminally ill woman who fought an unsuccessful legal battle in the British and European courts to be allowed to end her life with her husband's help, has died, her supporters said Sunday.

ATMORE, Ala. (Reuters) - A woman convicted in the 1993 shooting of a police officer was put to death in Alabama on Friday, likely the last person to die in the state's electric chair.

NOVOSIBIRSK, Russia (Reuters) - Alexander Lebed, a tough-talking general who played a key role in foiling the 1991 coup against Mikhail Gorbachev and ran for president against Boris Yeltsin five years later, died Sunday in a helicopter crash.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A suspected Palestinian suicide bomber was killed in northern Israel on Wednesday when explosives he was carrying blew up prematurely, Israeli security sources said.

WEST PALM BEACH -- A landscaper took his own life with a gas-powered chain saw on the top deck of the Esperante Building garage late Monday night, according to police.

HILVERSUM/THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Maverick Dutch anti-immigration politician Pim Fortuyn, a flamboyant populist bidding to be the Netherlands' first gay prime minister, was shot dead Monday, nine days before a general election.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (Reuters) - A South Carolina man was executed by injection on Friday for the murder of a state trooper, a crime he said he could not remember committing.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) - An Israeli sniper killed a Palestinian security officer sheltering at Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity on Saturday and a new round of talks began on ending the month-old confrontation at the holy site.

MANILA (Reuters) - An aging Philippine Air Force jet returning from a training exercise with U.S. anti-terror forces crashed into a school north of Manila on Thursday, killing the pilot and injuring 19 people on the ground.

Ray Romano achieved national notice as an actor, director and host of his own cable TV show, "Religiously Incorrect." He co-hosted San Francisco's Dial-an-Atheist line and was president of Atheists of the SF Region. Ray's national fame never obscured his warm friendship and personal encouragement of so many Atheists.

KARACHI (Reuters) - A bomb blast in the volatile Pakistani city of Karachi killed a child on Thursday as a strike called in protest against the murder of two former MPs shut down large parts of the southern economic hub.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - A defiant Yasser Arafat emerged from his shattered headquarters on Thursday at the end of a month-long Israeli siege, flashing a V-for-victory sign to cheering supporters. In a sign that tensions remain high, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian, identified by witnesses as a security force member, and wounded two other people in the Church of the Nativity compound in Bethlehem.

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CINCINNATI, Ohio (Reuters) - Ohio on Friday executed a serial killer whose seven-week rampage across the U.S. Midwest 18 years ago left eight people dead and drove some frightened residents of the region into hiding.

(Reuters) - Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, a controversial member of chart-topping American R&B trio TLC, was killed in a car crash in Honduras on Thursday, a spokeswoman for her record label said.

MUZAFFARABAD (Reuters) - One man was killed and 11 people were wounded when Indian troops fired mortars and machine guns across a military control line into the Pakistani side of disputed Kashmir Thursday, police said.

GNJILANE, Yugoslavia (Reuters) - An earthquake toppled a mosque tower on Wednesday, killing at least one person and injuring dozens in Kosovo, witnesses and a U.N. spokesman said.

DALLAS (AP) -- Jerry Heidenreich, who won two gold medals swimming for the United States at the 1972 Olympics, has died. He was 52.

Linda Boreman, who starred as Linda Lovelace in the 1972 pornographic film "Deep Throat" and later became an anti-porn advocate, died Monday from injuries she suffered in a car crash. She was 53.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Masked Palestinian gunmen Monday shot three Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel, killing one of them and wounding the others, witnesses and hospital officials said.

(AP) - Layne Staley, lead singer and guitarist for the grunge band Alice in Chains, was found dead in his apartment, authorities said Saturday.

OSLO, Norway (Reuters) - Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl, who sailed the Pacific on the Kon-Tiki balsa raft to back up a controversial theory that ancient peoples were skilled seafarers, died of cancer Thursday aged 87.

TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) - A Florida man died after he was stung by hundreds of yellow jacket wasps outside his home near Tampa, police said on Tuesday.

(AP) - Robert Urich, an Emmy-winning actor best known for his starring roles in "Soap" and "Spenser: For Hire," has died after battling cancer.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Byron White, a football star and then a conservative U.S. Supreme Court justice who retired in 1993 after 31 years on the bench, died on Monday from complications from pneumonia. He was 84.

TOWNSVILLE, Australia -- An American tourist stung by a jellyfish while snorkeling off Australia's northeast coast has died, his partner said Monday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A man who entered the parish of St. Patrick's Cathedral, asked for a priest and then shot himself in the head last week has died from his injuries, a hospital spokeswoman said on Sunday.

(Reuters) - Former Serbian interior minister Vlajko Stojiljkovic, wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, shot himself in the head outside the Yugoslav parliament on Thursday, a federal minister said.

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - A Roman Catholic priest accused recently of sexually molesting a teen-age female parishioner more than 20 years ago has died in an apparent suicide, a spokesman for the Cleveland Catholic Diocese said on Friday.

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Indian troops fired mortar bombs across a military control line in disputed Kashmir on Wednesday, killing a woman on the Pakistani side of the Himalayan region, local police said.

JARRATT, Va. (Reuters) - Daniel Lee Zirkle, who stabbed his 4-year-old daughter and her 14-year-old half-sister to death on Aug. 2, 1999, was executed on Tuesday at the Greensville Correctional Center in Virginia.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Navy pilot was killed on Tuesday and three other people injured when two aircraft collided while taking off from the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in southern Maryland, the U.S. Navy said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian bomber blew himself up in Jerusalem Monday, critically wounding a policemen who stopped the bomber's car at a roadblock, Israeli police said.

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(Reuters) - The Queen Mother, the 101-year-old mother of Britain's Queen Elizabeth, died on Saturday, Buckingham Palace said. The Queen Mother, the widow of King George VI and a rock of support behind her eldest daughter Queen Elizabeth, died "peacefully in her sleep" after a period of declining health.

PARIS (Reuters) - A loner arrested for killing eight politicians in cold blood leapt to his death from a police interrogation room in the heart of Paris on Thursday, cutting short a probe into France's worst mass murder in years.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Navy SEAL fighter was killed and another wounded Thursday in an apparent land mine blast in southern Afghanistan, spotlighting the danger for Western troops fighting a six-month-old war there.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Legendary filmmaker Billy Wilder, who went from being a crime reporter in Vienna and a refugee from Nazism to becoming the creator of such classics as "Some Like it Hot" and "Sunset Boulevard," died at age 95 at his home in Beverly Hills, friends said on Thursday.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Milton Berle, the acerbic, cigar-smoking vaudevillian who eagerly embraced a new medium and became "Mr. Television" when the technology was in its infancy, died Wednesday. He was 93.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Diminutive British comedian Dudley Moore, who became an unlikely Hollywood sex symbol thanks to his starring role in "10," died on Wednesday of pneumonia after a courageous battle against a disease that made him a prisoner in his own body, friends said.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - The Roman Catholic parish priest for western Alaska was killed when his plane crashed into a mountainside in a remote area of the state at the weekend, officials said on Monday.

JAIPUR, India (Reuters) - One man was killed and several injured Monday in India's northwestern Rajasthan state when police fired at a Hindu mob blocking a road where Muslims were to march to observe the Muharram festival.

MALA RECICA, Macedonia (Reuters) - A heavy gunbattle broke out in an ethnic Albanian village in Macedonia on Monday night, killing one person, diplomatic sources said.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - The father of kidnapped Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt died on Saturday of heart and respiratory failure, one month to the day after his daughter was abducted by leftist FARC rebels, Betancourt's campaign said.

MADRID (Reuters) - A Socialist town councilor was shot dead in a bar in northern Spain on Thursday in an attack politicians blamed on armed Basque separatists ETA, the first killing of the year attributed to the outlawed group.

(AP) - Italy's premier promised to fight domestic terrorism "with all our power" as fears of politically motivated violence rose after the slaying of a top government adviser. A state funeral was being planned for Marco Biagi, a university professor and labor consultant who was gunned down as he bicycled home from work Tuesday night in the northern city of Bologna.

HANOI (Reuters) - General Van Tien Dung, commander of the final communist offensive that captured Saigon to end the Vietnam War, has died aged 84.

BOLOGNA, Italy (Reuters) - A senior adviser to the Italian government was shot dead on Tuesday in what appeared to be a political assassination, police said.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German man was killed with a kick to the head when a dispute over a parking space turned violent, police said Tuesday.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German man who sawed down a tree in his garden accidentally killed his wife when the tree fell on her, a newspaper reported on Monday.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - A 13-year-old girl struck in the head by a puck at an NHL game over the weekend has died, officials said Tuesday.

HARARE (Reuters) - A white farmer was killed in Zimbabwe Monday hours before the leaders of South Africa and Nigeria met President Robert Mugabe to urge him to share power with his defeated challenger in last week's election.

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen shot and killed a regional leader of a new opposition political party outside its headquarters in the Guatemalan capital on Saturday, and the party's chief hinted that the government was to blame.

PHOENIX (Reuters) - An aircraft used by the U.S. Army's Golden Knights parachute team crashed after a mid-air collision with a small civilian plane in the skies over Arizona on Friday, killing one member of the elite squad, officials said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A suspected Palestinian gunman killed a woman and wounded 15 other people in Israel on Sunday in an attack that drove home the urgency of U.S. efforts to broker a truce to more than 17 months of bloodshed.

(AP) - Slain Archbishop Isaias Duarte Cancino, who often criticized leftist rebels, "paid the highest price" for defending human life and opposing violence in this war-torn country, Pope John Paul II said Sunday. The gray-haired, 63-year-old bespectacled archbishop had just completed a Saturday night group wedding and was heading to his car when he was shot by two gunmen outside the Buen Pastor church in a working-class neighborhood of Cali, witnesses said.

(Reuters) - A British man convicted of the 1985 murder of a female hitchhiker was executed on Tuesday in Georgia after U.S. courts rejected last-minute pleas to spare his life.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A lawyer linked to alleged Tijuana drug traffickers Benjamin and Ramon Arellano Felix has been found shot to death in what may be the start of a bloody turf war after Benjamin's arrest last weekend, police said on Tuesday.

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- A nurse's aide hit a homeless man with her car, drove home with him stuck headfirst in her broken windshield and ignored his cries for help as he bled to death in her garage over the next two or three days, police say.

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KUWAIT (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was shot dead on Wednesday in Kuwait where he was taking part in a military exercise, the U.S. embassy in the Gulf Arab state said.

SAN DIEGO (AP) - Investigators concluded Monday that a 7-year-old girl who vanished from her bedroom more than three weeks ago is dead, and said they would bring murder charges against her neighbor.

(AP) - The army has killed UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi, who has led the rebel group's fight for power in Angola for more than 30 years, the army and government said in a joint statement Friday. The statement, read on state radio and television, said Savimbi died during an army attack on UNITA forces in southeast Angola without giving an exact location or time.

(Reuters) - Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, kidnapped last month in Pakistan while trying to make contact with Islamic extremists, was slain by his captors, U.S. officials said on Thursday, a killing President Bush called a ''criminal, barbaric'' act. Pearl's family said it was a ``senseless murder'' that had silenced ``a gentle soul.''

(AP) - Howard K. Smith, whose career as a newscaster ranged from World War II as one of "Murrow's Boys" at CBS to roles as co-anchor and analyst for ABC, is dead at age 87. Smith died of pneumonia aggravated by congestive heart failure on Friday evening at his home in Bethesda, Md., his son, Jack, said Monday. Although out of the public eye for nearly a quarter-century, Smith was a broadcasting pioneer.

(Reuters) - Afghanistan's leadership on Friday said the killing of the minister for air transport and tourism, beaten to death at Kabul airport, had been a personal vendetta planned by senior officials in the government among others. Abdul Rahman was pulled off an airliner on Thursday evening and beaten to death by an angry mob.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Waylon Jennings, who defined the outlaw movement in country music, died Wednesday after a long battle with diabetes-related health problems. He was 64.

ALEXANDRIA TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) -- A limousine driver was found shot to death early Thursday during a party at the estate of former professional basketball player Jayson Williams, authorities said.

GALVESTON -- A Texas City man with a long history of mental health problems shot his girlfriend because he thought she was about to say words that inexplicably send him into a rage, prosecutors said Tuesday.

(AP) - Princess Margaret, the high-spirited and unconventional sister of Queen Elizabeth II, died Saturday after a life that echoed with regret and thwarted love. She was 71. The princess died peacefully in her sleep at King Edward VII Hospital at 6:30 a.m., a statement from Buckingham Palace said. Margaret suffered a stroke Friday afternoon and developed cardiac problems during the night.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A missile fired by remote control from a pilotless CIA aircraft has hit what was believed to be a group of senior al Qaeda members in southeastern Afghanistan, killing at least one of them, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

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WASHINGTON -- Michael Hammond, who became chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts just a week ago, has died at 69. Hammond was found Tuesday at a home in Washington where he had been staying, NEA spokesman Mark Weinberg said. He had complained of feeling ill since the weekend, and his death was apparently of natural causes, Weinberg said.

MIAMI -- Police on Wednesday charged an 11-year-old boy with manslaughter in the shooting death of a 10-year-old playmate at an apartment complex in north Miami-Dade County. Police received an emergency call Tuesday evening from a hysterical young male that a young boy was bleeding from the nose at the apartment complex.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A big rig truck drove over a Honda in the city's Mission District on Monday afternoon, killing the car's driver. A beverage truck was turning from onto Folsom Street at about 12:40 p.m. when it swung wide into oncoming lanes, according to police department spokeswoman Isabel Crowell. The truck ended up with its front tire on top of the passenger compartment of a four-door Honda. It was not immediately clear how the crash happened, Crowell said.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Former Enron Corp. vice chairman J. Clifford Baxter committed suicide on Friday, found with a gunshot wound to his head, Texas police said.

SACRAMENTO (AP) -- Former state Sen. Paul Carpenter, who spent 12 years in the Legislature and seven years in a federal prison on fraud charges, died Thursday in San Antonio, Texas, a former colleague said.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- A hit-and-run driver accused of mowing down five children and a mother in an Oakland crosswalk on their way to school was arrested Wednesday, the same day one of the children died.

(AP) - Ted Demme, a film and television director whose credits include the film ``Blow,'' died after playing basketball. He was 38. Demme was participating in a celebrity basketball game at the private Crossroads School when he was stricken Sunday, said Ted Braun, a spokesman for Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center. Paramedics rushed Demme to the hospital's emergency room in full cardiac arrest. He was pronounced dead 20 minutes later.

(Reuters) - A leading militant from Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement who was accused by Israel of carrying out deadly attacks was killed Monday by what Palestinian officials said was an Israeli bomb. The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an unofficial armed group within Fatah, said it considered a cease-fire called by the Palestinian president ``canceled'' and vowed to avenge the death of Raed al-Karmi, 28, one of its West Bank leaders.

A 19-year Hayward Police Department veteran remains in the hospital this morning report after being shot by a man who was later shot and killed. Capt. Manuel Silva said members of the department's Special Duty Unit, a community policing team, went to a home at 22670 Myrtle St. at about 7 p.m. Monday night after receiving a tip that a wanted parolee might be there. Officers conducted a short stakeout of the residence, confirming that the suspect was in the residence, Silva said.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Comedian Avery Schreiber, who with his partner Jack Burns was a fixture on television in the 1960s and '70s, died Monday of a heart attack. He was 66.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Dave Thomas, the portly pitchman whose homespun ads built Wendy's Old-Fashioned Hamburgers into one of the world's most successful fast-food enterprises, died Tuesday of liver cancer. He was 69.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A small plane crashed early on Saturday afternoon into a vacant lot near the airport in Fullerton, California, killing at least one person, a Federal Aviation Administration employee told Reuters.

TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) - A small private plane crashed into an office high-rise in downtown Tampa late on Saturday afternoon after taking off from a nearby airport without clearance and then ignoring Coast Guard signals to land, officials said.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- A rookie police officer was shot to death by his 3-year-old son, who had grabbed the man's service weapon from a kitchen table.

CHICAGO (Ticker) - Al Smith, a two-time All-Star whose home run helped clinch the 1959 American League pennant for the Chicago White Sox, died Thursday after a brief illness. He was 73.

ADDISON, Texas (Reuters) - A gunman shot and killed a 26-year-old woman, whom he apparently knew, in a suburban Dallas office building on Thursday, then was wounded by police gunfire, authorities said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - One person was killed and at least 15 others injured on Thursday in a 78-vehicle pile-up during bad weather in a rural area outside the central Californian city of Bakersfield, police said.

BOSTON (Reuters) - A 43-year-old father, enraged that other boys played roughly against his son in a hockey practice, beat the boy's coach to death, a prosecutor alleged on Thursday at the start of a trial likely to focus attention on parental over-involvement in youth sport.

LONDON (Reuters) - A man has been killed in an explosion in Northern Ireland, police said on Friday, in what appears to be the first sectarian killing of 2002. The man died in the blast outside a house in Coleraine, County Londonderry, late on Thursday night, a police spokesman told Reuters on Friday.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Freddy Heineken, whose grandfather founded the world-famous Dutch brewery, has died at the age of 78. Alfred Henry Heineken died at his home in the coastal resort of Noordwijk Thursday, Heineken NV said. No cause was given, but local media blamed his death on a lung infection.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Frankie Gaye, whose combat experience during the Vietnam War was credited with influencing his older brother Marvin's legendary Motown album ``What's Going On,'' has died at age 60.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Eileen Heckart, the lanky, gravel-voiced actress whose skill with comedy and drama won her an Oscar for ``Butterflies Are Free,'' two Emmys and a special Tony for career excellence, has died. She was 82.

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ROME (Reuters) - Italy's "gentleman bandit," an affable anarchist who courteously robbed banks in the 1960s and 1970s, has died in prison of a heart attack at the age of 62, officials said Wednesday.

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli troops exchanged fire with Palestinian gunmen in a West Bank town Wednesday and arrested 17 suspected militants during a separate incursion into a Palestinian village. Despite the renewed fighting, which killed a Palestinian man and wounded two others, Israeli and Palestinian security commanders met for the first time in a week to try to shore up a tentative truce.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- Police said Wednesday they are searching for a missionary in the northern province of Bac Can believed to have killed a village official and instructed his family to kill themselves.

(Reuters) - Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered troops to be deployed in southwest Nigeria on Monday to prevent a crisis spreading in the region after gunmen shot dead Justice Minister Bola Ige. ``The instruction has been given for troops to be deployed,'' Obasanjo's spokesman Tunji Oseni told Reuters, adding that the Osun state deputy governor had already been notified.

NEW YORK (AP) - Dick Schaap never limited himself to just sports. He was much more versatile than that. Schaap, who died Friday from complications following hip surgery, won three sports Emmy Awards for his work on ESPN and three more Emmys for features on ABC's ``20/20'' and ABC's ``World News Tonight,'' where he worked for 20 years. He was 67.

RENO, Nev. (AP) -- Police shot a man holding a dart gun in one hand and a two-month-old baby in the other in a standoff in the front yard of a central Reno residence across the street from an elementary school.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- A parolee convicted of killing a Dallas police officer during a robbery almost 14 years ago was executed Wednesday night. Vincent Edward Cooks expressed love for his family and friends and apologized to his mother, Annie Daniels, for not being ``a better son.''

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A 74-year-old man who received a self-contained artificial heart has died, eight weeks after the device was implanted, doctors said Thursday. He was the third recipient of the pioneering device to die.

HAMILTON, Bermuda (Reuters) - A U.S. Air Force Reservist died during a rescue mission off Bermuda on Friday night when he and a colleague were swept into the ocean, an Air Force spokesman said on Saturday.

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Philadelphia Flyers coach Bill Barber was behind the bench for the 5-1 victory over the Minnesota Wild on Saturday, just hours after his wife died of cancer.

(AP) - Peter Blake, who headed the New Zealand crew that won the America's Cup in 1995 and 2000, was shot and killed by pirates during a robbery of his boat on the Amazon River. Blake was killed late Wednesday during a holdup aboard his 119-foot yacht, the Seamaster, anchored on the Amazon in the jungle state of Amapa.

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KABUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Taliban's supreme leader urged his forces to stand and fight Wednesday as U.S. Marines poured into a secret base in Afghanistan and the CIA said one of its officers had been killed, the first American to die in the ground campaign to hunt down Osama bin Laden.

JERUSALEM, Nov 26 (Reuters) - A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up on Monday at the Erez crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, Israel radio reported. The blast caused a number of wounded, the radio said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian man as he tried to plant explosives near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank Monday, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.

KAUAI, Hawaii (Reuters) - Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, a Californian-born Hindu leader who became a spiritual leader of Sri Lankan Tamils and publisher of Hinduism Today magazine, died last week at his ashram on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, followers confirmed on Monday.

(AP) - Ken Kesey, who railed against authority in ``One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' and orchestrated an LSD-fueled bus ride that helped immortalize the psychedelic 1960s, died Saturday. He was 66. Kesey died at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene, two weeks after cancer surgery to remove 40 percent of his liver.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The hospital that employed the city's only anthrax fatality reopened Tuesday, the day after the victim was buried. The Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, which is almost exclusively an outpatient facility, closed a week ago after inhalation anthrax was diagnosed in Kathy Nguyen, 61. She died Wednesday, and the circumstances of her exposure to anthrax have not been discovered.

LONDON, Nov 7 (Reuters) - British film director Roy Boulting, celebrated for his many films and notorious for his affair with the young star Hayley Mills, died on Monday aged 87, British newspapers reported on Wednesday.

SANTA FE, N.M. (Reuters) - New Mexico Tuesday executed a confessed child murderer who asked to be put to death after 15 years in prison, the state's first execution since 1960.

TAMARAC, Fla. -- As he lay dying in his brother-in-law's arms, Robert Campbell, victim of what police say was a Halloween prank gone tragically awry, had instructions for his family: Don't grieve for me.

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CINCINNATI (AP) -- Prosecutors told a jury Tuesday that a white police officer was too aggressive while taking an unarmed black man into custody and caused his death with a choke hold.

(AP) - The Islamic Observation Center said in an e-mailed statement to The Associated Press that an Egyptian militant, identified by his nom de guerre Abu Baseer al-Masri, was killed by a bomb on Sunday near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan.

(AP) - Israel's ultranationalist tourism minister was killed Wednesday in a shooting ambush that a militant Palestinian group called revenge for the killing of their leader by Israel. The gunmen ambushed Rehavam Zeevi, 75, on the eighth floor of Jerusalem's Hyatt Hotel, at the entrance to his room, and shot him three times at close range in the head and throat, police said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The mother-in-law of former Vice President Al Gore has died of natural causes in northern Virginia, a Gore family spokeswoman said Tuesday. She was 77. Margaret Aitcheson died Monday at a retirement home in Arlington, Virginia, with Gore at her side, spokeswoman Kiki McLean said. Her only daughter, Tipper Gore, was on a trip in Florida at the time.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- After negligently allowing a mentally ill man to die in its custody, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department hurt its credibility with a ``careless ... self-justifying and rationalizing'' internal investigation, a county report concludes.

(AP) - Firing from long range Sunday, Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian militant accused of orchestrating a suicide bombing that killed 22 people in June. Sunday's shooting raised Mideast tensions, but Israel said it was prepared to scale back some security restrictions imposed on Palestinians.

MacDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AP) -- An Air Force sergeant was killed in a heavy equipment accident in the Arabian Peninsula, becoming the first announced American death in Operation Enduring Freedom, military officials said Thursday.

JERUSALEM -- A Palestinian militant from the Hamas group blew himself up while trying to plant a bomb along a road used frequently by Israelis in the West Bank, Israel said Thursday. Hamas said he died under ``heroic'' circumstances.

BOCA RATON, Fla. -- The FBI is investigating the possibility that anthrax bacteria found in two Florida men is a result of terrorism, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Monday. The bacteria killed one of the men Friday. It has since been detected in the nose of a co-worker and on a computer keyboard in the newspaper office where both men worked, health officials said.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Herbert L. Block, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist who under the name ``Herblock'' skewered every president since Herbert Hoover, died Sunday. He was 91. Block died of pneumonia at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington.

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. (AP) -- Three suspects in what authorities called a case of ``love gone wrong'' were in custody Monday for allegedly kidnapping and killing a press operator for The Signal newspaper.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Police shot and killed a suspect in the attempted armed robbery of a mall jewelry store Sunday and believed at least one other suspect had escaped, authorities said.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) -- Anti-communist leader Nguyen Ton Hoan, head of the Dai Viet that opposed North Vietnamese communist rule and French leadership in South Vietnam, has died. He was 84.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- A 300-pound man causing a disturbance at a fast food restaurant died Tuesday after a brawl with officers trying to arrest him. Investigators said officers went to a McDonald's restaurant in San Jose after the man reportedly annoyed patrons and made racial remarks.

The east-bound lanes of the Bay Bridge were closed today after a panel from the bridge's earthquake retrofitting project fell and killed a man, authorities said. Caltrans spokesman Jeff Weiss said that a steel beam, part of a work containment structure for the bridge retrofit project, fell from the bottom of the upper deck and onto a vehicle that was traveling eastbound, just west of the center anchorage at about 11:30 a.m., he said.

CERES, Calif. (AP) -- The Stanislaus County sheriff's department performed an autopsy Wednesday on the body of a 69-year-old Sikh man who was found dead in an irrigation canal. The family of Surjit Singh Samra believe he was the victim of a hate crime, but there were no obvious signs of foul play, said Kelly Huston of the sheriff's department.

SAN GABRIEL, Calif. (AP) -- The shooting death of an Egyptian grocery store owner in San Gabriel will be investigated as a hate crime, the FBI said Monday. Adel Karas, 48, was shot around 3:15 p.m. Saturday by two unidentified men who walked into the International Market and opened fire.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Fred de Cordova, a longtime producer of NBC's ``Tonight Show'' when it was hosted by Johnny Carson, has died. He was 90. De Cordova died Saturday of natural causes at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Hospital in Woodland Hills, said Carla White, a hospital spokeswoman.

JERUSALEM -- Palestinian gunmen and Israeli troops exchanged fire in the Gaza Strip early Monday and a mentally handicapped Palestinian wandering in the streets was killed by fire from an Israeli watchtower, witnesses said.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Dorothy McGuire, the lovely, soft-voiced actress who lent dignity and inner strength to such films as ``Gentlemen's Agreement'' and ``Friendly Persuasion,'' has died. She was 85.

SACRAMENTO -- The former security guard wanted in a shooting spree that killed five people shot himself to death early Monday after a wild car chase and gun battle with police, authorities said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials believe the guerrilla commander leading the fight against Afghanistan's ruling Taliban died in an explosion Sunday, despite assertions from his aides that Ahmad Shah Masood survived an assassination attempt, a U.S. official said Monday.

BATON ROUGE, La. (Reuters) - Internationally known Cajun cook and humorist Justin E. Wilson has died at age 87, his daughter said Thursday. Probably best known for his Cajun cooking series that has aired on public television for 30 years, Wilson, who prepared typical Cajun dishes of pungent spices and hot peppers, always said he was ``not a chef, just a damn good cook.''

LOS ANGELES -- Theodore Frank, whose first death sentence for torturing and killing a 2-year-old girl was overturned by the state Supreme Court and led to the ouster of three justices, has died on Death Row. He was 65.

JACKPOT, Nev. (AP) -- An argument between two casino workers escalated to a shooting that left one man dead and another behind bars, authorities said. Victor Jara-Castillo, 29, was shot several times late Thursday in the parking lot behind Barton's 93 Club, Elko County Sheriff Neil Harris said.

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Gunmen killed a Colombian lawmaker on Thursday who was the vice president of a congressional peace committee, police said. Jairo Rojas, the slain politician, was shot to death as he got out of his car in front of his home in Bogota. City police said there were two gunmen. There had been no arrests in the early-morning shooting.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Movie critic Pauline Kael, a brash, witty champion of artistic quality who thrashed both facile commercialism and self-indulgent pretense from her lofty perch at The New Yorker, has died. She was 82.

AVON, N.C. (AP) -- A married couple wading in the surf off of North Carolina's Outer Banks was attacked by a shark Monday, leaving the man dead and his wife in critical condition.

POINT REYES STATION, Calif. (AP) -- An 8-year-old girl drowned Monday after she was swept out to sea by a large wave near Point Reyes Station. The girl was walking along South Beach near a lighthouse at 1:50 p.m. when the accident occurred, according to U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Kevin Stann.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Actor Troy Donahue, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed teen movie heartthrob of the 1950s and '60s, died Sunday. He was 65. Donahue died at St. John's Hospital and Medical Center in Santa Monica after suffering a heart attack on Thursday, said family friend Bob Palmer.

DURBAN, South Africa (AP) -- Dr. Christiaan Neethling Barnard, a South African doctor working out of a little-known hospital who became an international hero by performing the first successful human heart transplant, died Sunday. He was 78.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A surfer drowned in the waves at Ocean Beach on Sunday. Fellow surfers discovered the man, still tethered to his surfboard, floating in the waves at about 2 p.m.

TOKYO, Sept 3 (Reuters) - A man wielding a samurai sword killed one man and left two injured in northern Japan on Monday after they apparently turned up at his house to remove him from the property, national broadcaster NHK said.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) -- David Peltier was described as an ``upbeat, happy-go-lucky boy,'' enjoying his last weekend of summer break at the beach when tragedy struck. A shark attacked the soon-to-be fifth-grader, ripping a 17-inch gash in his left leg and releasing him from its grip only after the boy's father hit the shark on the head. The father carried David ashore but he died hours later after losing large amounts of blood from a severed artery.

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SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - One person was killed and three others were wounded on Saturday in India's restive Kashmir when police opened fire on people protesting against power shortages in their village, police said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinians accused Israel of assassinating a senior security official in a car blast in Gaza on Saturday that cast a shadow over efforts to arrange talks aimed at ending more than 11 months of bloodshed.

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- Rose Ann Vuich, a blunt-talking conservative Democrat who became California's first female state senator, has died. She was 74. Vuich died Thursday at her home in Dinuba, a small farming town 30 miles south of Fresno, the Fresno Bee reported. She suffered from Alzheimer's disease and was confined to her bed after she retired from her public post in 1992, Vuich's brother told The Associated Press in a 1995 interview.

BEIJING (AP) -- A chemical bomb thought to have been left by the Japanese during fighting in World War II exploded in northeast China, killing one person and injuring three others, state media said Thursday.

MCALESTER, Oklahoma, (Reuters) - An Oklahoma man convicted of stabbing to death the mother of his child and the woman's uncle in a 1988 quarrel was executed Tuesday, prison officials said.

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. -- A motorist who tried to elude authorities on the San Diego Freeway has died after officers used pepper spray to control him. Raymond Martinez, 35, died Tuesday shortly after midnight at San Clemente Hospital and Medical Center, coroner's officials said. The cause of his death has not yet been determined.

HAVANA (AP) -- Frank Emilio Flynn, a blind pianist and Latin jazz pioneer who performed with many great American jazz artists, has died at age 80 in his native Cuba.

BORDEAUX, France (Reuters) - Francisco Rabal, one of Spain's best known actors who worked with film directors ranging from Luis Bunuel to Pedro Almodovar, died Wednesday aged 75, a French police source said.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - A U.S. civilian died Sunday at a U.S. military base near the northern town of Tuzla from injuries suffered in an unspecified ``altercation,'' a U.S. division of the NATO-led Stabilization Force in Bosnia said.

LONDON (Ticker) - Ken Tyrrell who founded the Tyrrell Racing Formula One Team in 1970m died of an illness Saturday at his home in Surrey, England. He was 77. Tyrrell was the owner who launched the career of Formula One three-time champion Jackie Stewart in the 1960s. Stewart started in Formula 3 in 1964 and raced for Tyrrell until 1973.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Kathleen Freeman, a veteran character actress of stage, television and film who was nominated for a Tony award last year for ``The Full Monty,'' has died at age 78, the musical's publicist said Friday.

PITTSBURGH24 (Reuters) - An 8-year-old girl nearly strangled by her family's 10-foot-long Burmese python was declared brain dead Friday, two days after the attack, hospital officials said. A spokesman for Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh said physicians pronounced Amber Mountain brain dead Friday evening. The hospital released no further details.

LONDON, Aug 22 (Reuters) - Fred Hoyle, the English astronomer credited with coining the phrase ``Big Bang'' to describe academic theory on the creation of the cosmos, has died, British newspapers reported on Wednesday. He was 86.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York marshal was beaten on the head, cut and set on fire in a bizarre killing in Brooklyn Tuesday after trying to serve an eviction notice on tenants, city officials said.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- Actress Kim Stanley, whose roles ranged from a nightclub singer in the Broadway play ``Bus Stop'' to the mother of Frances Farmer in the movie ``Frances,'' has died. She was 76.

MIAMI (AP) -- Former Ohio State and NFL defensive back Neal Colzie is dead at 48. Range Funeral Homes in Coconut Grove confirmed the death of Colzie, but couldn't disclose any details about his death in a local hospital.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) - One passenger was killed and dozens more injured when a Greyhound bus crashed into a highway median barrier in Tennessee on Sunday and overturned, Greyhound official said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead an unarmed Palestinian who had been shopping for school books for his children when he tried to evade a checkpoint in the West Bank Sunday, Palestinian hospital officials said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Donald Woods, the crusading South African anti-apartheid newspaper editor immortalized in the film ``Cry Freedom,'' died on Sunday in England, his family said. Woods, 67, who had been ill with cancer for the past two years, died in a hospital south of London surrounded by his wife Wendy and five children, his daughter Jane told Reuters.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed a Palestinian gunman during an incursion into a Palestinian-ruled area of the Gaza Strip overnight, the latest in a series of raids which have fueled over 10 months of Middle East violence.

POITIERS, France (AP) -- A 9-year-old boy died after being stung by hundreds of bees while riding his bike past a field of sunflowers, hospital officials in western France said Monday.

PARIS (AP) -- American writer Elizabeth Cavanna Harrison, who wrote more than 80 romances, mysteries and children's books in a 45-year career, died Monday in central France. She was 92.

CANTON, Ohio (AP) -- A 2-year-old boy playing with a loaded gun shot and killed his grandfather, authorities said. The child found a .45-caliber gun that belonged to his grandfather and played with it behind the chair where the man was sitting, Stark County Sheriff Tim Swanson said. The bullet went through the chair and struck him in the back.

CARMEL, N.Y. (AP) -- Joanne Minnich, the first woman to successfully have her heart removed and operated on outside of her body, has died after a long battle with cancer. She was 57.

SANTIAGO TIANGUISTENCO, Mexico (AP) -- Former presidents joined some of this country's richest business leaders and poorest peasants at a massive funeral for millionaire and political powerbroker Carlos Hank Gonzalez here Sunday.

JERUSALEM -- A Palestinian suicide bomber walked up to a coffee shop Sunday in a northern Israeli coastal city, asked a waitress, ``Know what I have?'' and blew himself up with explosives strapped to his waist, injuring 20 people.

SAN DIEGO -- A California Highway Patrol officer issuing a ticket on Interstate 5 was killed Sunday morning when an allegedly drunken Marine slammed into his patrol car. Stephen Linen, a 31-year-old San Jose native who has served on the force more than six years, is the second patrolman killed by an allegedly drunken driver on I-5 in northern San Diego County in less than a year.

CLEVELAND (Ticker) - Hall of Famer Lou Boudreau, whose play on the field for the Cleveland Indians was matched by his innovation, died Friday after battling a month-long illness. He was 84.

GREENWICH, Conn. (AP) -- A key prosecution witness in the murder case against Kennedy nephew Michael Skakel has died of an apparent drug overdose, police said Wednesday. Gregory Coleman, 39, died Tuesday in Rochester, N.Y., from a bad batch of drugs that has killed other addicts, police spokeswoman Cheryl Franks said.

WESTMINSTER, Calif. (AP) -- Gen. Duong Van ``Big'' Minh, who led a 1963 coup to overthrow South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and later took control of the country days before it fell, was remembered Tuesday as a good soldier who lacked the political skills to help his country.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Lorenzo Music, the distinctive voice of ``Garfield'' the cartoon cat and Carlton the unseen and drunken doorman on TV's ``Rhoda,'' died. He was 64. Music died Saturday at his home from lung cancer that spread throughout his body. He worked until about a month ago, recording the voice of Garfield for a regional automobile ad from his home after returning from the hospital, said his wife, Henrietta.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Maureen Reagan, the outspoken presidential daughter who became a crusader for Alzheimer's disease awareness after her father fell ill, died Wednesday. She was 60 and had suffered from skin cancer.

(AP) - Master science fiction writer Poul Anderson, author of futuristic tales of human courage, died of complications related to prostate cancer. He was 74. Anderson died Tuesday at his home in Orinda, about 15 miles east of San Francisco. Anderson was a former president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and a winner of three Nebula Awards and seven Hugo Awards.

In what police termed an ``inhumane act,'' a 24-year-old bicyclist was robbed by a homeless man after being run over and killed by a transit bus Tuesday in San Jose.

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BELFAST (Reuters) - A man was shot dead on the outskirts of Belfast overnight as fresh sectarian violence flared in the Northern Ireland capital, police said on Monday. Media reports said the victim was a Protestant aged 18 and had been standing with a friend outside a Roman Catholic sports club.

WARSAW (Reuters) - Former Polish communist leader Edward Gierek, who was toppled in 1980 by a bloodless revolution that produced eastern Europe's first independent labor movement, died on Sunday at the age of 88.

MEDINA, Ohio (Reuters) - An explosion at a fairgrounds in Medina, Ohio, killed at least one person and wounded at least 17 others, officials said. A spokeswoman for the Medina General Hospital said 17 people were being treated there, many with burns, including children. One man had also died from his injuries, she said.

SACRAMENTO COUNTY -- The body of a 10-year-old Vallejo boy was pulled from the waters at Brannan Island State Park on Monday, ending a frantic search for the youngster that began Friday.

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- A 12-year-old boy who was seriously injured after the beach sand tunnel he was digging collapsed and trapped him without air has died. Michael Newell of Cameron Park died Sunday at 2:20 p.m. at Children's Hospital Oakland. Michael's family said his organs were being harvested for donation to help other children.

ROME (AP) -- A 27-year-old woman from San Francisco died Sunday after her parachute failed to open fully during a jump in the Italian Alps, news reports said. Erin Aimee Engle plunged to her death on Mount Brento while base jumping -- an extreme sport in which people jump from cliffs or other fixed objects using parachutes.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- Eudora Welty, the wise, meticulous writer whose loving depictions of small-town Mississippi brought her international acclaim, died Monday. She was 92. Welty, who was also praised for her heart-wrenching photographs of poverty in Depression-era Mississippi, died at Baptist Medical Center. She had been battling pneumonia, said Ginger Coke, a hospital spokeswoman.

GENOA (Reuters) - Italian riot police clashed with protesters against world capitalism again on Saturday as the Group of Eight industrialized states plowed ahead with their high-security summit after an activist's death at its doorstep.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A man who was supposed to begin a jail sentence for negligent homicide in the death of his young son was found dead Wednesday in the same mountains where the boy disappeared.

Mill Valley -- Mimi Farina, founder of Bread & Roses, a nonprofit organization that brings together musicians to perform for institutionalized people, died today from complications of cancer at her Mount Tamalpais home in Marin County.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Hours after his son was buried, a father pleaded innocent Tuesday to setting a fire that killed the 4-year-old boy, who dreamed one day of becoming a fireman.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Katharine Graham, who deftly steered The Washington Post through the tumult of the Pentagon Papers and Watergate and built it into a leading force in American journalism, died Tuesday. She was 84.

LOS ANGELES -- Noted attorney and decorated Vietnam War paratrooper Barry Levin was buried with full military honors Thursday in a funeral attended by prominent lawyers, police, veterans and Levin's most famous client -- actor Robert Blake.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- A woman who told funeral home workers she strangled her 20-month-old daughter with a shoestring was arraigned Thursday on murder charges. Sharon Yvonne Weston had lost custody of her daughter and on the day of the child's death the mother and daughter were visiting in a park under the supervision of a state caseworker.

In the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew up his explosives-laden truck before reaching an Israeli outpost, killing himself but injuring no one else.

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MATAPOZUELOS, Spain (AP) -- Four lions attacked and killed their zookeeper Thursday after he accidentally left their cage door ajar, the national news agency reported. The animals, each weighing about 200 pounds, mauled Roberto Izquierdo Martin, 25, as he was preparing to transfer them from their cage to the exhibition pen at the Walvo Zoological Park, according to the news agency Efe.

CHICAGO (AP) -- Philosopher and education reformer Mortimer J. Adler, who sought to bring intellectualism to the general public with the Great Books program, his own best-selling books and the Encyclopaedia Britannica, has died. He was 98.

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Carroll O'Connor, whose portrayal of the intolerant, word-mangling bigot Archie Bunker on "All in the Family" helped change not only American television but possibly America itself, died Thursday of a heart attack, his publicist's office said. He was 76.

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) -- With an apology for ``the pain and grief that I have caused,'' murderer and drug kingpin Juan Raul Garza was executed Tuesday, eight days after Timothy McVeigh became the first federal inmate put to death since 1963.

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) -- Jay Moriarity, a homegrown surfer with an international reputation, has died in a diving accident. He was 22. Officials in the Maldives, a group of islands off the southern coast of India, confirmed the news late Friday, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reported.

STOCKTON, Calif. (AP) -- A man shot and wounded his wife outside a Stockton post office Saturday morning, then turned the gun on himself, police said. Denise Machado, 44, was shot in the chest, but was expected to live, said Stockton Police Lt. Ted Montes. She was taken to Dameron Hospital, he said.

MALIBU, Calif. (AP) -- A 4-year-old boy drowned Saturday afternoon during a birthday party at the home of rock musician Tommy Lee. The boy was identified as Daniel Karven, said Armando Chavez, Ventura County deputy medical examiner. An autopsy was scheduled for later Sunday, he said.

LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) -- Ponn Yinn, a flutist of traditional Cambodian music and dance whose survival from the Khmer Rouge purge helped preserved a culture, has died. He was 82.

LONDON (AP) -- Leila Pahlavi, daughter of the late Shah of Iran, has been found dead in a London hotel, police said Tuesday. The body of the 31-year-old woman was discovered by staff at the Leonard Hotel in west London on Sunday evening, they added.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Philippine authorities have found a human torso in the area indicated by Muslim rebels who say they have beheaded an American tourist, a U.S. State Department official said Tuesday.

LONDON (AP) -- Pianist Yaltah Menuhin, last of three famous siblings whose musical talents brought them fame at an early age, has died at age 79. Menuhin died Sunday at her London home, her family said. No cause of death was given.

PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) -- A San Leandro student was fatally shot early Sunday while standing outside a Palo Alto dance club. Police say 21-year-old Maria Ann Hsiao was found lying on the sidewalk outside The Q nightclub with a bullet through her head.

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) -- Offering no trace of remorse, Timothy McVeigh went to his death Monday with the same flinty look he showed the world when he was first arrested for killing 168 people in the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- John McKay, who led Southern California to four national football championships before becoming the first coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, died Sunday. He was 77.

(AP) - Two-time Oscar winner Anthony Quinn, a former shoeshine boy and preacher who became an international leading man with a film career spanning six decades, has died of respiratory failure. He was 86.

FALLON, Nev. (AP) -- A 10-year-old boy has become the first to die among 14 youngsters afflicted by a mysterious cluster of leukemia cases in the Fallon area. Adam Jernee, who became ill about 18 months ago, died Sunday at Orange County Children's Hospital in Southern California, where he was taken to be near his mother's family, said his father, Richard Jernee.

VALENCIA, Calif. (AP) -- A woman died Saturday after she was found unconscious following a roller coaster ride at the Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park, authorities said. The 28-year-old woman was found slumped over in her seat when the Goliath coaster ride came to an end at about 10:40 a.m. She was given cardiopulmonary resuscitation but died at a hospital, Los Angeles County sheriff's Lt. Steve Dolan said.

BOSTON (AP) -- Anthony Quinn, the barrel-chested Oscar winner remembered for his roles as the earthy hero of ``Zorba the Greek'' and the fierce Bedouin leader in ``Lawrence of Arabia,'' has died. He was 81.

(AP) - Hank Ketcham, whose lovable scamp "Dennis the Menace" tormented cranky Mr. Wilson and amused readers of comics for decades, has died at age 81. Ketcham had suffered from heart disease and cancer, said his publicist, Linda Dozoretz.

REDLANDS, Calif. (AP) -- A second-grade teacher died suddenly Thursday, reportedly of meningitis. Barbara Schroeder, 54, of Redlands, was pronounced dead by her attending physician at 3 a.m., said Roy Kinney, San Bernardino County supervising deputy coroner.

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HAYWARD, Calif. (AP) -- The Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer shot and killed a man at the Hayward station early Monday after allegedly being attacked. The shooting took place at the bus stop area of the Hayward BART Station at 4:43 a.m.

BEIJING (AP) -- A powerful earthquake struck central China early Thursday as people slept, killing one person and injuring more than 500 others, officials said. The 5.8-magnitude quake struck at 5:10 a.m along the border of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, an area about 1,250 miles southwest of Beijing, local seismologists said.

MCALESTER, Okla (Reuters) - An Oklahoma man convicted of strangling his cellmate and then hanging him to make it look like a suicide was executed Tuesday by lethal injection. The execution came despite a call from defense attorneys for a statewide moratorium on executions because of revelations of foul-ups at a police lab in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma's attorney general said Tuesday the latest execution had no connection to the lab mistakes.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- An Iranian man has been executed on charges of spying for the CIA, state-run Tehran radio reported Wednesday. It said Mohammad Reza Pedram was hanged Sunday at Tehran's Evin Prison, but gave few other details.

ATLANTA (AP) -- Whitman Mayo, who played Grady Wilson on the 1970s television series ``Sanford and Son,'' died Tuesday. He was 70. Mayo, who has taught drama at Clark Atlanta University since 1996, recently was the host of Turner South's original weekly series ``Liars & Legends.''

LUSAKA (Reuters) - A python swallowed a baby minutes after it was born near the central Zambian town of Serenje, state television reported.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tad Szulc, a veteran journalist best known for breaking the story of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion as a correspondent for The New York Times, then going on to write acclaimed biographies of Fidel Castro and Pope John Paul II, died Monday at his home in Washington.

PARAMARIBO, Suriname (Reuters) - Prominent Surinamese union leader Fred Derby, the sole survivor of a 1982 massacre of anti-government activists, died this weekend. Derby, 61, who led the Suriname Labor Party (SPA) in the former Dutch colony on the northeast shoulder of South America, was pronounced dead after collapsing on a soccer field on Saturday afternoon.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Suspected leftist rebels have killed a radio reporter execution-style in a rural town in northern Colombia, the fourth murder of a Colombian journalist in a month, police said Friday.

LODI, Calif. -- The man suspected of killing a grandmother and three children took his own life Saturday atop his late wife's grave. Police found Roger Leroy Johnson, 48, lying face down at the Cherokee Memorial Park & Funeral Home in Lodi. When police arrived, Johnson raised an arm and threw a percussion grenade toward them, but no one was injured in the explosion, said San Joaquin County Sheriff Baxter Dunn.

Tehran airport technicians found the frozen body of an Iranian man who apparently died last week while hiding in the undercarriage of a plane bound for Cyprus and Norway, a local newspaper reported on Tuesday.

(AP) - Perry Como, the crooning baritone barber famous for his relaxed vocals, cardigan sweaters and television Christmas specials, died Saturday after a lengthy illness.

(AP) - Douglas Adams, whose cult science fiction comedy ``The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' drew millions of fans and spawned a mini-industry, has died at age 49.

VARNER, Ark. (AP) -- The state executed a murderer Tuesday who said he wouldn't appeal his sentence because it would bring more torment to the families of his five victims.

LAS VEGAS -- A former Las Vegas socialite was found guilty Wednesday of murdering her millionaire husband in 1994 as he slept. Margaret Rudin, 57, could get life in prison for the slaying of 64-year-old Ron Rudin, a real estate developer shot four times in the head.

LOS ANGELES -- A shooting suspect hijacked a city bus and held a gun to the driver's head Wednesday as police chased the bus through downtown until it crashed into a minivan, police said. The minivan driver was killed and seven people were injured.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The daughter of a missing Antioch grandmother has been arrested on suspicion of murder one day after investigators identified body parts scattered in Solano and Sierra counties as those of the missing woman.

SUN LAKES, Ariz. (AP) -- Jazz pianist-composer Isaac Cole, a brother of the legendary Nat ``King'' Cole and keyboard player on his niece Natalie's 1991 Grammy-winning tribute to her father, has died of cancer. He was 73.

KFAR SABA, Israel (Reuters) - A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up at a bus stop on Sunday, killing a doctor and wounding 41 people in a rush-hour blast that again brought the Palestinian uprising to the heart of Israel.

Villagers in the Papua New Guinea highlands killed a woman accused of sorcery with axes, knives and a shotgun, the AAP news agency reported on Thursday.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Michael Ritchie, who directed the Robert Redford movies ``Downhill Racer'' and ``The Candidate'' early in his career and went on to make several quirky comedies, died from complications of prostate cancer. He was 62.

CINCINNATI (Reuters) - Hundreds of mourners on Saturday streamed peacefully past a coffin bearing the body of a young black man shot to death a week ago by a white policeman in an incident that sparked a week of racial violence.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Israeli troops and Palestinians fought fierce gun battles on Saturday after Israeli tanks entered Palestinian-controlled territory in the Gaza Strip for the second time in a week. // On the Israeli-Lebanese border, Hizbollah guerrillas fired missiles at an Israeli tank, killing a soldier and drawing retaliatory Israeli air raids and artillery barrages in south Lebanon.

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Willie Stargell, the thunderous home run hitter who carried the Pittsburgh Pirates into two World Series with his power and helped win them with his patriarchal leadership, died Monday. He was 61.

BEIJING (AP) -- China hailed a missing fighter pilot as a hero Thursday but seemed to be preparing an anxious public for the likelihood that he is dead after a collision with a U.S. Navy spy plane.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Ed ``Big Daddy'' Roth, the outlaw genius whose fantastic car creations and anti-hero Rat Fink character helped define the California hotrod culture of the 1950s and '60s, has died. He was 69.

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HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- Vietnam's most beloved singer-songwriter, Trinh Cong Son, who opposed the Vietnam War and sought postwar reconciliation, has died after a long battle with diabetes, an official said Monday. He was 62.

A young monk was arrested on a murder charge on Monday in the beating and stabbing death of a nun he worked with at a private religious school in Miami, police said.

SAN QUENTIN, Calif. (AP) -- Rejecting all efforts to prolong his life after more than a quarter-century on death row, two-time killer Robert Lee Massie received a lethal injection Tuesday.

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Palestinian gunmen shot and killed a 2-year-old Jewish girl and seriously wounded her father Monday in what the Israeli army said was an attack on a Jewish playground in the bitterly divided West Bank city of Hebron.

AL-RAM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot a Palestinian man dead during a gunbattle and fired teargas and stun grenades in the West Bank and Gaza at mostly peaceful protests by Palestinians on Saturday.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Animation pioneer William Hanna, who with partner Joseph Barbera created such endeared cartoon characters as Fred Flinstone, Yogi Bear and Tom and Jerry, died Thursday at age 90, a spokeswoman said.

DALLAS (AP) -- A 5-month-old baby died in his car seat while his mother was at work at a nearby restaurant. The distraught woman told authorities she must have forgotten to drop him off at day care.

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Gunmen killed the brother of a Colombian guerrilla leader Tuesday, hours after a government peace envoy said he was expecting talks to resume with the leftist rebel faction.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Hyundai founder Chung Ju-yung, who helped forge South Korea's economic miracle but personified the cronyism that accompanied it, died Wednesday. He was 86. Chung has been in and out of the hospital since August, suffering from fatigue and loss of weight. Hyundai spokesman Oh Dong-soo said Chung died of ``old age.'' Hyundai was preparing a statement, he said.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A rhinoceros killed a teenager at a national park in Nepal, a park official said on Tuesday. The great Asian one-horned rhinoceros first knocked down the 15-year-old with its horn and then trampled on him on Monday at Royal Chitwan National Park, about 150 km (93 miles) south of Kathmandu.

TOKYO, March 19 (Reuters) - Shares in struggling Japanese game maker Sega Corp fell more than three percent in Tokyo on Monday amid anxiety fuelled by news that the company's outspoken president and chairman Isao Okawa had died of heart failure.

CORNING (Reuters) - Amtrak's California Zephyr train derailed in Iowa farm country late on Saturday, killing one person and injuring 90 as passenger cars plunged down a steep embankment, authorities said on Sunday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rock and roll veteran John Phillips, the founder and main songwriter for the 1960's California pop group the Mamas and the Papas, died of heart failure Sunday morning, his spokeswoman said. He was 65.

SKOPJE (Reuters) - A Macedonian army helicopter crashed on Saturday near the scene of fighting between police and ethnic Albanian guerrillas, killing the army pilot and injuring 12 policemen, Macedonian and NATO sources said.

MADRID (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded in the northeastern Spanish region of Catalonia on Saturday, killing a policeman and injuring another person in an attack that bore the hallmark of Basque separatist rebels ETA, state radio reported.

A maintenance worker at Lisbon airport was killed when he was hit by a spinning propeller, officials said.

A Ghanaian man was shot dead by a fellow villager while testing a magic spell designed to make him bulletproof, the official Ghana News Agency reported.

EAST GREENVILLE, Pa. (AP) -- A man who opened fire at a furniture plant where he worked, killing a manager, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound Thursday. Wednesday's fatal workplace shooting was one of two in the nation that day.

FOLSOM, Calif. (AP) -- Another Folsom High student has died from a rare disease, but school officials said there is no public health risk. Sophomore cheerleader Jan Cimacio, 16, died this week of viral encephalitis, marked by inflammation of the brain. She is the fifth student from the high school to die this year.

(AP) - Before Jerry Springer and Jenny Jones, there was Morton Downey Jr., a growling and opinionated TV talk show host who shocked viewers from behind a haze of cigarette smoke. America, he once told The Associated Press, saw him as ``a loudmouth who gets in trouble just like they do, who's had problems just like they had, someone that they can identify with a lot more than someone who's squeaky clean.''

(Reuters) - Thriller writer Robert Ludlum died on Monday in Naples, Fla., where he maintains a home, after suffering a massive heart attack, a family spokesman said. He was 73 years old. Ludlum, whose Cold War spy tales like ''The Scarlatti Inheritance'' and ''The Parsifal Mosaic'' routinely topped the bestseller lists, recently had heart surgery.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas man was sentenced to 99 years in prison for killing a musician who did not know the song he requested, a prosecutor says.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Charles Jackson, who was editor-at-large of The Oakland Tribune and championed diversity in journalism in every newsroom he worked in, died Wednesday at the age of 55.

LONDON (AP) -- British police said Thursday they were ''99 percent'' sure a man found dead in the wheel well of a jet in San Francisco last month was the same person arrested a day earlier at Gatwick Airport near London.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Edward P. Bassett, 72, a respected American journalism educator who nurtured two generations of reporters, editors and photographers, died Thursday at his home here. He had been under treatment for liver disease.

SEATTLE (AP) -- The mayor declared that the city will not allow future Mardi Gras parties in the aftermath of violent celebrations that claimed one life and injured dozens of others.

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SACRAMENTO (AP) -- Edgar Patterson, a former state police officer credited with helping shape former Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren's views on racial segregation, has died of complications from pneumonia. He was 89.

QUITO, Ecuador (Reuters) - An American oil worker, one of the 10 foreign oil workers kidnapped and held for ransom in Ecuador's Amazon jungle region in October, was found dead Wednesday, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said Thursday.

PARIS -- Michel Navratil, one of the last known survivors of the sinking of the Titanic, has died in southern France. He was 92. Navratil, who was 3 years old when the Titantic sank after striking an iceberg in 1912, died Wednesday in Montpellier. He was the last known male survivor of the tragedy, according to the Titanic Historical Society in Springfield, Mass.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- One person was killed in a drive-by shooting Friday afternoon on a busy highway leading out of San Francisco. The shooting happened at about 2 p.m. The victim, in a white Mazda on Highway 280, was shot and killed by two men in a dark green Nissan Maxima with chrome wheels and tinted windows.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Fans gathered in a semicircle and held candles while they prayed as a day of mourning melted into a nighttime vigil outside the racetrack where Dale Earnhardt died.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- His films took on everything from racism to war crimes, nuclear holocaust to social ostracism, yet Stanley Kramer always shunned the title ``message movie.'' ``He never thought he was a message filmmaker; just a man who believed very strongly in social conscience issues,'' said Karen Sharpe Kramer, the producer-director's wife of 35 years.

NEW YORK (AP) -- A man sitting on a bench with his girlfriend in Central Park was killed by a shot in the head during an attempted robbery early Tuesday.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Rosemary DeCamp, a matriarchal character actress who played mother to James Cagney in ``Yankee Doodle Dandy'' and Marlo Thomas on the TV show ``That Girl,'' died Tuesday. She was 90.

In other violence, Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian policeman as Palestinians tried to clear an Israeli-imposed roadblock at the entrance to the West Bank town of Tulkarm, the town's governor said Wednesday.

MONTPELIER, Vt., (Reuters) - Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the widow of aviator Charles Lindbergh and author of 13 books, died at her daughter's home in rural Vermont Wednesday, family members said. She was 94.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Palestinian gunfire killed an Israeli soldier along the Israeli-Egyptian border Monday on the eve of Israel's election that Palestinians promised to turn into a ``day of rage.''

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- One person was killed in a drive-by shooting Friday afternoon on a busy highway leading out of San Francisco. The shooting happened at about 2 p.m. The victim, in a white Mazda on Highway 280, was shot and killed by two men in a dark green Nissan Maxima with chrome wheels and tinted windows.

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SACRAMENTO (AP) -- A truck crashed into the state Capitol and burst on fire late Tuesday, just as the Assembly was clearing out after an evening session. The driver's fate was not immediately known, and it was difficult to tell if the fire had spread to the marble building. Smoke and flames billowed from the truck, which was rammed up the Capitol steps and nestled below the state Senate chambers. The Senate was not in session.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- The director of Palestinian TV was killed in a seaside restaurant on Wednesday when three masked men walked up to his table and shot him repeatedly in the head and chest with a silencer-equipped pistol, police and witnesses said.

KINSHASA, Congo (Reuters) - President Laurent Kabila's son Joseph took power in Democratic Republic of Congo Wednesday as officials gave conflicting reports on whether his father was alive or dead in Zimbabwe after being shot 24 hours earlier.

LAYTON, Utah (AP) -- A pregnant woman was fatally shot at her office Monday, and police later arrested a suspect at his home. The woman died during surgery. The fetus could not be saved.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- A 19-year-old man who fell off a Carnival cruise ship in Tampa Bay died from injuries caused by impact with the water, an autopsy revealed. Michael Hepner suffered blunt trauma to his head and neck after he fell from a deck of the Carnival Sensation, a spokeswoman for the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner's Office said Monday.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Two white supremacists serving time at Pelican Bay State Prison are now part of the investigation into the bloody, fatal mauling of a 33-year-old San Francisco woman by dogs, state prison officials and local authorities confirmed Monday.

CHICO, Calif. (AP) -- The three fraternity officers charged with providing alcohol for a California State University, Chico, pledge who died should spent 30 days in jail if convicted, says Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey.

JERUSALEM (AP) -- An Israeli motorist was shot and killed Thursday in an ambush in east Jerusalem near the border of the West Bank, military officials said. Police said gunfire apparently came from the Atarot industrial park, next to the main road leading from Jerusalem to Ramallah and Nablus in the West Bank. The industrial park is inside Jerusalem's expanded boundaries, including sections Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 war and annexed shortly afterward.

BOSTON (AP) -- Einar Gustafson, the young baseball fan whose battle with cancer more than a half-century ago inspired the organization known as the Jimmy Fund, has died at 65.

JACKSON, Miss. -- The death of Byron De La Beckwith, the convicted assassin of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, is the ``final chapter'' of a troubling story, Evers' brother said early Monday.

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) -- Victims' family members said the execution of convicted killer Wanda Jean Allen brought them closure as they decried protesters who fought the nation's first execution of a black woman since 1954.

PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) -- William Hewlett, the affable engineer who co-founded Silicon Valley electronics pioneer Hewlett-Packard Co. and helped guide it into the computer age, died Friday. He was 87.

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- An undercover police officer was shot and killed by two uniformed officers late Thursday night while arresting a suspected car thief. At a somber news conference, Lt. Paul Berlin of the Oakland Police Department said officer William Wilkins, 29, was on a drug stakeout and was not in uniform when he spotted a stolen car speeding by.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Martin Konigsberg, the father of Woody Allen, has died. He was 100. Konigsberg died Monday, Allen Eichhorn, a spokesman for Allen, confirmed Wednesday. On Sunday, the Daily News quoted the film maker as saying that a family doctor had told him his father ``could pass a draft physical tomorrow.''

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) -- Ray Walston, who played the lovable extraterrestrial Uncle Martin on the 1960s TV sitcom ``My Favorite Martian'' and the devil in ``Damn Yankees,'' has died. He was 86.

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GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed a 26-year-old Palestinian Thursday during a gunfight in the southern Gaza Strip and a second Palestinian near the Karni crossing on the Israel-Gaza border, Palestinian groups and hospital officials said.

CHICAGO (AP) -- Roebuck ``Pops'' Staples, patriarch of the gospel and rhythm-and-blues group the Staple Singers, died Tuesday. He was 85. Staples had suffered a concussion recently in a fall near his home in suburban Dolton.

PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - Rob Buck, lead guitarist for the rock band 10,000 Maniacs, has died of liver failure at the age of 42, three weeks after he collapsed at his home in western New York, the band's publicist said Wednesday.

HOLLYWOOD -- Actor George Montgomery died Tuesday of heart failure at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 84. Montgomery was best known for his roles in 1940s Westerns such as ``Riders of the Purple Sage,'' ``The Last of the Duanes,'' and ``The Cisco Kid and the Lady.'' He appeared in 87 films during a career that spanned six decades.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Naima Melody Johnson removed her traditional Muslim headdress and put on makeup last weekend to serve as maid of honor at a friend's wedding. A day later, she was shot in the face and killed.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) -- Marie Windsor, who appeared in scores of movies, often playing a strong, independent woman opposite such male stars as Marlon Brando, George Raft and James Garner, has died at age 80.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Marvel Cooke, a journalist and political activist who was one of the first black women to work full time for a white-owned newspaper, has died at age 99.

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SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- To many in San Antonio, former Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez will be remembered as a trailblazer. ``He made a name for the Hispanics,'' said Elvira Encina, a 43-year-old housing referral counselor and lifelong resident of San Antonio. ``He came up and said, `We're here. We do exist, and we're smart, like any other culture, any other race.'''

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (AP) -- A major earthquake that struck northern Papua New Guinea last Thursday killed a 12-year-old boy who was crushed when his house collapsed, authorities said Monday.

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE, (Reuters) - Former White House counsel Charles Ruff, who defended President Clinton during his impeachment proceedings and won his acquittal by the Senate in February 1999, died Sunday, the White House said.

ATLANTA (AP) -- Hosea Williams, a top lieutenant to Martin Luther King Jr. who battled for civil rights for more than three decades after King's death, died of cancer Thursday. He was 74.

JERUSALEM, Nov 17 (Reuters) - A Jordanian was killed in a clash between protesters and Israeli troops in the West Bank town of Qalqiliya on Friday, witnesses and hospital officials said.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- An explosion in a possibly booby-trapped vehicle killed a British man and injured his wife in the Saudi capital on Friday afternoon. In a statement, Riyadh Police Chief Abdullah al-Shahrani said the couple were British and that their car, suspected to be booby-trapped, exploded while the husband was driving it at 1:23 p.m.

HOUSTON (AP) -- Federal investigators hope to learn what caused a television news helicopter to crash, killing the pilot, setting a business on fire and toppling power lines. National Transportation Safety Board officials Friday morning were investigating the crash scene on Houston's near-west side.

MARSEILLE, France (Reuters) - Israel told Germany Thursday that it would conduct a full inquiry into the killing of a 68-year-old German in an Israeli missile attack on the Palestinian town of Beit Jala, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel Monday prepared a big funeral for Leah Rabin, widow of assassinated leader Yitzhak Rabin, with U.S. first lady Hillary Clinton due to attend. Leah Rabin, 72, died of heart failure Sunday after a long battle with cancer. She had followed her husband by becoming an outspoken advocate for peace.

BEIT SAHOUR, West Bank (AP) -- Israeli helicopters swooped down on a pickup truck Thursday and fired rockets at a Palestinian gunman the army had been tracking for days, an attack Israel said signals a new policy targeting organizers of recent violence.

BERLIN (AP) -- After a 13-day manhunt, German police on Tuesday captured a convicted child rapist who was suspected of murdering a 60-year-old man during his sixth and latest escape from custody.

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Queen Mother Ingrid of Denmark, the grand old lady of Europe's oldest monarchy who helped give the royal family a warmer, more democratic image, died Tuesday at the age of 90.

MOORPARK, Calif. (AP) -- The engineer of an Amtrak train that struck a truck trying to cross rural railroad tracks in Ventura County sounded his horn to warn the driver but couldn't stop in time to avoid the collision, investigators said Sunday.

LONDON (Reuters) - Surgeons at a British hospital worked to separate Siamese twins Monday in a controversial operation that spells certain death for one girl so her stronger sister can live.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- David Brower, the mountain-climbing activist who helped shape the environmental movement for most of the 20th century, died of cancer at his Berkeley home Sunday night. He was 88.

Orlando, Fla. -- A 37-year-old man died Sunday after he climbed out of a boat on the Splash Mountain flume ride at the Magic Kingdom and was struck by another of the eight-passenger boats.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Searchers have found the body of a toddler who disappeared after his father left him in a truck while he checked out a hunting area in the mountains of northern Utah.

NASHUA, N.H. (AP) -- Former major league baseball player Andujar Cedeno, a member of the Atlantic League champion Nashua Pride, has been killed in a car crash in the Dominican Republic.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Steve Allen, the droll comic who pioneered late night television with the original ``Tonight Show,'' composed more than 4,000 songs and wrote 40 books, has died at 78.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- In the wake of the fatal police shooting of a man wielding a toy gun at a Halloween party, the Los Angeles Police Department is once again on the defensive as the victim's friends question why the officer pulled the trigger.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Muriel Evans, a versatile actress wooed by Hopalong Cassidy and other heroes in westerns of the 1930s and '40s, has died at age 90. Evans died Thursday of colon cancer at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Home in Woodland Hills, said a friend, Kathleen Cook.

Israel to deploy guerrilla warfare units; Israeli killed in Jerusalem // JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel will take the offensive against Palestinian gunmen and deploy special army units trained in guerrilla warfare, the deputy defense minister said Monday, as embattled Prime Minister Ehud Barak launched a fight in parliament for his long-term political survival.

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DENVER (Reuters) - An electrician was buried alive in a construction accident that was discovered only after his wife called his boss to find out why he hadn't come home, a published report said Wednesday.

BOSTON (AP) -- A boxer who collapsed into a coma after a fight last week died on Wednesday without regaining consciousness. Robert Benson, 26, a featherweight from Saugus, Mass., who fought under the ring name Bobby Tomasello, died at New England Medical Center.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (AP) -- A young boy died and an older woman was critically injured after a pleasure boat hit a sewage pipeline and sank, authorities said. The cabin cruiser carrying five adults and a child went down Tuesday around 9:15 p.m. off the coast of Dockweiler State Beach, just south of Los Angeles, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Rick Martinez.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Geraldine ``Gerry'' Dreyfuss, a veteran peace and civil rights activist who also had bit parts in two movies starring her Oscar-winning son, Richard Dreyfuss, has died. She was 79.

PETALUMA, Calif. (AP) -- An 11-year old boy died Sunday of severe brain damage after being hit by a falling limb from a redwood tree. Walter W. ``Trey'' Atkin III was at a birthday party Saturday playing with other boys in a field in the Haverfield Lane area west of Petaluma. A limb fell 15 to 20 feet, striking his back and knocking him unconscious. The limb was six inches in diameter and 20 feet long, according to sheriff's deputies.

LaJOLLA, Calif. (AP) -- Jean Peters, who appeared in films with Marlon Brando, Ray Millard, Spencer Tracy and other major stars before marrying billionaire Howard Hughes and leaving Hollywood, has died of leukemia. She was 73.

MILAN, Italy (AP) -- The renowned American pianist and chamber music conductor David Golub has died of lung cancer at the age of 50. Golub died Monday at his Milan home and was buried Thursday, said a spokeswoman for the Padua Chamber Orchestra, Alessandra Canella. His funeral was held at the Basilica of San Simpliciano in Milan.

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Two men lost at sea for 13 days were found alive on a rocky, uninhabited island 20 miles off the Mexican coast. A third man in their group was found dead.

SAN FRANCISCO - The Alameda County Coroner's Office reports today that a fatal accident at the Berkeley curve on Interstate Highway 80 claimed the life of a San Francisco man.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Gwen Verdon, Broadway's premier female dancer who was the seductive Lola in ``Damn Yankees'' and the saucy, love-struck Charity in ``Sweet Charity,'' died Wednesday of natural causes. She was 75.

BURLINGTON, N.C. (AP) -- A Duke University Medical Center helicopter crashed shortly after the pilot initiated a maintenance check while en route to pick up a patient. The pilot, the only person on board, was killed in the late Monday crash.

GOLDMAN, Mo. (AP) -- Gov. Mel Carnahan, the Democratic candidate in one of the most hotly contested U.S. Senate races in the country, was killed when the plane shuttling him to a campaign rally crashed in rainy, foggy weather.

An autopsy is being performed this morning on a 9-year-old Healdsburg boy who died of injuries sustained when thrown from his mother's car Monday afternoon in Windsor. The Sonoma County Coroner's Office said Austin Haworth died at 7 p.m. at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital. The California Highway Patrol said he suffered major head and neck injuries when thrown from the Dodge Durango driven by his mother Kara Haworth, 35, of Healdsburg.

MADRID, Oct 16 (Reuters) - A Spanish stuntman fell to his death in front of film cameras while attempting to enact a suicide leap from a bridge in the centre of Madrid, Spanish newspapers reported on Monday.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Gus Hall, the American Communist Party boss who steadfastly stuck to his beliefs through years in prison and the collapse of communist regimes around the world, has died. He was 90.

MAPLEWOOD, Minn. (AP) -- A 46-year-old woman died and two family members were injured Friday when an early morning propane explosion flattened a house in this St. Paul suburb, authorities said.

KUWAIT (AP) -- An American soldier who was in Kuwait for routine training has died of a gunshot wound, the U.S. Embassy said Wednesday without further explanation. The embassy identified the victim as Staff Sgt. Mark A. Klein, 30, a scout section leader and a member of Task Force 2-70 from Fort Riley, Kan. It did not provide his hometown.

The CHP reports that emergency crews have shut down state Highway 1 near Half Moon Bay due to a fatal accident involving a pedestrian. The Half Moon Bay Fire Department reports that a stretch of highway near Ruisseau Francais Avenue north of Half Moon Bay could be closed for several hours.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- A man shot and seriously injured his 26-year-old granddaughter, leading to a standoff with police that ended when a house caught fire and the gunman was found dead inside.

MADRID (Reuters) - A Spanish prosecutor was shot dead Monday in the southern city of Granada in a attack that bore the hallmarks of violent Basque separatists ETA, state radio reported.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- Polish filmmaker Wojciech Has, who won an international cult following with ``The Saragossa Manuscript'' and headed Poland's renowned Lodz Film School in the 1990s, died Tuesday. He was 75.

RAVENNA, Ohio (AP) -- A pregnant woman was found dead early Tuesday, her abdomen sliced open and her baby taken, and the woman suspected of removing the baby shot herself to death when police arrived to question her, authorities said.

OAKLAND--Oakland police are investigating a series of shootings overnight in which one woman was killed and several other people were injured. Most of the incidents appear to be clustered in nearby neighborhoods in East Oakland, although a police spokesman was not available to comment on the coincidence.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Emmy-winning actor Richard Mulligan, best known for starring in the long-running sitcoms ``Soap'' and ``Empty Nest,'' died in Hollywood at age 67. Mulligan's death Tuesday came after a long battle with cancer. He died at home in the presence of family and friends, his publicist, Julian Myers, said in a statement.

EAST PALO ALTO - The victim of a weekend shooting in East Palo Alto has died from his wounds, according to San Mateo County Sheriff's Office investigators, who are now treating the case as a homicide.

A, Calif. (AP) -- Former actress Carmen Robertson, who had roles as a child in early ``Little Rascals'' movies and performed as a synchronized swimmer in Esther Williams films, has died. She was 77.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- A medical examiner linked the death of a man to the 11 doses of the anthrax vaccine he received while working at the company that makes it.

SAN JOSE - The San Jose Police Department reports today that a 74-year-old San Jose man was killed while trying to cross a street. Polelei Sialesci died from his injuries at San Jose Columbia Medical Center following a car accident at S. White Road and Alum Rock Avenue at 8:53 p.m. yesterday.

MONTREAL (Reuters) - Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau has died at the age of 80, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported Thursday, quoting a statement from Trudeau's family. The flamboyant millionaire from Montreal was prime minister from 1968 until 1979 and from 1980 until 1984.

BEIJING (AP) -- The crew of a Chinese airliner thwarted an attempt to hijack a domestic flight Wednesday, and airport police killed one of the suspected hijackers after the plane landed safely, state-run media reported.

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EAST ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) -- A minivan slammed into a gas tanker outside a gas station, triggering an explosion that shook houses several blocks away and shot flames more than 100 feet in the air. The minivan's driver was killed.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Two separate shootings in South Central Los Angeles on Sunday left one alleged assailant dead and nine people injured, including a woman who was shot in the head.

PORTLAND, Maine (Reuters) - Horror writer Stephen King said Monday he was sorry about the untimely death of the driver who struck and severely injured him last year. Police found Bryan Smith, 43, dead in his home in the hamlet of Fryeburg, Maine. The disabled former construction worker's cause of death was not immediately apparent and a routine autopsy was scheduled. But authorities said they did not suspect foul play.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- A Saudi man convicted of murdering a policeman during a drug bust was beheaded in Saudi Arabia on Thursday, the Interior Ministry said. Hadi Ali Saud al-Qahtani was found guilty of fatally shooting Cpl. Ahmed Yahya al-Shaiban during an anti-drug operation, said the statement.

XENIA, Ohio (AP) -- A tornado swept through town, killing one person and injuring dozens of others as it left overturned cars, damaged buildings and downed power lines. Authorities searched through the night for other possible victims of the storm that hit around 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Cosmonaut German Titov, the second Russian in space after Yuri Gagarin and the first person to spend more than a day in orbit, has died aged 65, police said Thursday.

TOKYO, Sept 20 (Reuters) - The president of Japan's most newly reprivatised bank, Nippon Credit Bank (NCB), was reported to have committed suicide on Wednesday, clouding the fate of the bank led by ambitious Internet investor Softbank Corp.

PARADISE, Calif. (AP) -- A woman who refused to leave her home died Wednesday as a fire burning in Butte County grew to more than 1,500 acres overnight, fire officials say.

COTATI--The Sonoma County Coroner's Office reports this morning that a 48-year-old man probably died from a medical condition before his car crashed into the center median of U.S. Highway 101 last night.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- William Zimmerman, who started the Pic ``N'' Save retail chain with a single store in Southern California, died Sept. 9 in North Palm Beach, Fla. He was 80.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- Beah Richards, whose acting career spanned three decades in films including ``Guess Who's Coming To Dinner'' and ``Beloved,'' has died. She was 74. The actress, who received an Emmy this year for her guest appearance on ABC's ``The Practice,'' died Thursday of emphysema.

RICHMOND - The Richmond Police Department reports that a known drug dealer was shot and killed by officers after he tried to kill them with the car he was driving.

MODESTO, Calif. (AP) -- An 11-year-old boy was fatally shot by a SWAT team officer during a drug raid at his parent's home. Alberto Sepulveda, a seventh-grader, was shot in the back Wednesday when officer David Hawn accidentally fired his shotgun, said Modesto Police Chief Roy Wasden.

MEDELLIN, Colombia (Reuters) - An infant Colombian Siamese twin died early Thursday, less than 24 hours after doctors separated her from her sister in a risky and complicated operation. Doctors at the state-run Leon XIII hospital said the baby, who was less than a week old, died of respiratory failure after a 16-1/2 hour operation that began Tuesday afternoon to separate her from the sister with whom she shared a liver, part of her intestines and pancreas.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Police were investigating Thursday how a woman was killed by a street sweeping truck that swallowed her in its brushes and knocked aside her 4-year-old daughter, who suffered minor injuries.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Stanley Turrentine, a jazz saxophonist whose hit ``Sugar'' established him in the popular mainstream and influenced musicians in many other genres, died Tuesday. He was 66.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (AP) -- An 80-year-old man who died in a shootout with a police officer Saturday was killed by a self-inflicted gunshot, officials said. Autopsy results revealed that Verland Franks of El Segundo shot himself in the upper torso, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Spokesman Edward Ramirez said Sunday.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) -- Joseph H. Lewis, who directed ``Gun Crazy,'' ``The Big Combo'' and dozens of other B movies, has died. Lewis was believed to be 93, although some reference books list his birthday as April 6, 1900, the Los Angeles Times reported.

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (AP) -- Thunderstorms dumped nearly 8 inches of rain during the night and one motorist was killed when his car ran into a sinkhole caused by flooding.

MIAMI (AP) -- The 13-year-old charged in the fatal shooting of his English teacher said he ``wasn't thinking clearly'' when he returned to school with a gun after being suspended for throwing water balloons.

BRAWLEY, Calif. (AP) -- A desert rescue team has found the body of a woman who disappeared last week while camping with her boyfriend. Tracy Susanne Adair, 36, of Winterhaven was found Sunday in a desert wilderness east of Brawley, said David Champagne, an investigator for the Imperial County coroner.

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- A confrontation with security guards at a Las Vegas Strip casino has left a tourist dead and a security officer injured, Metro Police said. A 29-year-old female tourist was killed by a stray bullet in Harrah's casino about 1:30 a.m. Friday by a man who was struggling with security guards, said Homicide Lt. Wayne Petersen.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A 35-year-old woman could face the death penalty after being charged with murder and hate crimes for allegedly running over and killing an elderly Hispanic man.

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- A deputy minister in Mexico's Commerce Ministry was found dead outside Mexico City, the government news agency reported Thursday. Raul Ramos Tercero's body was found along a highway in Mexico state, which borders Mexico City, Notimex said. It was unclear when his body was found.

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) -- Richard W. Abbe, who spent eight years on the state Court of Appeal at the end of a long legal career, has died. He was 74.

APE TOWN (Reuters) - A South African magistrate hearing cases involving urban terror attacks in the country's top tourist destination was shot dead in the driveway of his home Thursday, police said.

WALDOBORO, Maine (AP) -- Clyde Sukeforth, a former major league catcher and Brooklyn Dodgers scout who helped set the stage for Jackie Robinson to break baseball's color barrier, died Sunday at 98.

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MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- A police officer nearing retirement died of a stroke while trying to trim his bulging stomach to meet a waistline limit, officials said Friday. Antonio Miralpes, 55, collapsed Thursday during a jog of just under a mile intended to shape up 70 officers whose stomachs exceeded 34 inches, officials said.

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazilian police said Friday they arrested two self-proclaimed voodoo priests for the murder of a 6-year-old boy who bled to death in a black-magic ceremony. In statements to police, Joaquim Alves, 71, and his girlfriend Priscila Souza Ferreira, 22, blamed each other for the murder of Carlos Andres de Jesus Barros, who disappeared last Thursday in the impoverished Brazilian state of Bahia. Police said the pair was suspected in other child killings.

LOS ANGELES, (Reuters) - Cartoonist Carl Barks, who drew Donald Duck comic books for three decades, turning the quacking, cranky waterfowl into an unlikely, universally loved ''Everyman,'' died Friday at age 99 at his home in southern Oregon, the Walt Disney Co. said.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - An outspoken American priest who was embroiled in controversy in Kenya last year after criticizing two government ministers, was found shot dead Thursday, police said. Roman Catholic Father John Kaiser's body was found close to his car near the town of Naivasha, about 50 miles northwest of the capital Nairobi. The 67-year-old priest from Underwood, Minnesota, had lived in Kenya for more than 40 years.

SACRAMENTO (AP) -- A car salesman on a test drive was shot to death and dumped onto the shoulder of the Capital City Freeway, police said. Thomas Buchholz, 49, may have known the three men he took on the test drive, but police would not say why the men killed Buchholz on Tuesday afternoon and then abandoned the car in a downtown Sacramento parking lot.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Joan Marsh, a silent screen actress of the 1930s who made a successful transition to talkies before retiring from show business in the 1940s, has died. She was 86.

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (AP) -- Three young park concession employees on a late-evening outing jumped into a 178-degree hot spring, thinking it was an ordinary coldwater pond. One died and two were in critical condition Wednesday.

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- An Arizona woman drowned after a suicide leap into the Pacific Ocean from a cruise ship steaming off the San Diego County coast, the coroner's office said Monday.

SACRAMENTO (AP) -- A former world-title boxing contender is accused of beating a man to death outside a bar. Richard Duran, who lost titles in 1993 and 1994, turned himself in after friends told him police were looking for him.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Otto Rutherford, who was born to one of Oregon's first black families and battled throughout his life for racial equality in the state, has died. He was 89.

BLYTHE, Calif. (AP) -- A little boy was smothered with a bed pillow by his 6-year-old sister and 5-year-old cousin, and investigators said the death was intentional. The girls will not be charged in the death of 3-year-old Damien Stiffler, Riverside County District Attorney Grover Trask said Friday.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- John Milford, a character actor who had roles in about 500 television productions and a dozen theatrical films, has died. He was 72. Milford collapsed and died Monday while en route to his nearby home after outpatient treatment for skin cancer in Santa Monica, said publicist Dale C. Olson.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Leslie M. Lipson, a University of California, Berkeley, professor emeritus and expert in political theory and comparative government died of cancer. He was 87. Lipson, who wrote books on West European politics and political theory, died Friday.

DALLAS (AP) -- A man behind bars for almost decapitating his wife with scissors as his three children watched faces new charges for allegedly trying to orchestrate the murder-for-hire of her brother and his family from jail.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A botched armored car robbery in front of a Costco store left one customer dead and three others wounded as two gunmen, one wielding an AK-47 assault rifle, sprayed bullets into a crowd of shoppers.

CLEVELAND (AP) -- A man set his house on fire, climbed on the roof and held police at bay for two hours with his 4-month-old daughter in his arms before they fell to the ground. The man died and the baby was critically injured.

BARSTOW, Calif. (AP) -- A small airplane crashed into three vehicles on Interstate 40 Monday, killing the pilot and injuring at least one other person, authorities said. The crash was reported just before 1 p.m. about 30 miles east of Barstow, California Highway Patrol Officer Mitch Cox said.

HAYWARD, Calif. (AP) -- Hayward police were looking Thursday for whoever fatally stabbed a 49-year-old woman and then set her on fire. Firefighters found the woman around 7:30 p.m. Wednesday after getting a call from a neighbor that the woman's apartment was on fire. Fire officials said the woman's charred body appeared to be the source of the fire.

BANGKOK, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Thai police said on Friday they had questioned several potential suspects after a backpacker from Wales was raped and strangled in a guesthouse in the northern city of Chiang Mai.

LIVERMORE, Calif. --(KRT) Frieda Mae Hardin, who as the nation's oldest female veteran personified a Washington memorial dedicated to women who served their country, died Wednesday in Livermore. She was 103.

DUBAI (Reuters) - One soldier was killed and two others were injured Wednesday when a Saudi man opened fire outside a complex housing foreigners in southwestern Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Defense Ministry said.

MADRID, Aug 8 (Reuters) - A businessman in Spain's Basque region was killed by a bomb on Tuesday amid escalating violence blamed on the Basque separatist group ETA, police said.

WINTER HAVEN, Fla. (AP) -- A pilot who passed out at the controls of a single-engine plane died of a heart attack, an autopsy shows. With Kristopher Pearce unconscious next to him, Henry Anhalt took control of the plane. He safely landed the aircraft with help from a flight instructor who told him how to fly and guided him to an airport.

PETERSFIELD -- (KRT) Sir Alec Guinness, who earned his reputation as one of the world's finest actors in roles such as Hamlet but became most famous by wowing younger generations of moviegoers as Obi-Wan Kenobi in ``Star Wars,'' has died. He was 86.

SALISBURY, N.C. (AP) -- An 83-year-old patient shot and wounded a doctor at a Veterans Affairs hospital before the gunman was killed by police. Johnny Reid of Rowan, a patient at the W.G. Hefner VA Medical Center, was being examined by Dr. Charles Flynn when Reid pulled out a small-caliber handgun Thursday, police said.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Edward Lawrence, who served as a publicity executive for Metro-Goldyn-Mayer for 33 years, has died. He was 95. Lawrence died Tuesday at his home in Cheviot Hills.

RENO, Nev. (AP) -- One crew member was killed and three other people were injured when a fire-fighting helicopter crashed Thursday night while on takeoff near Elko. Fire spokesman Bill Roach said the helicopter was taking off around 7 p.m. when it crashed with three people on board.

DANVILLE, Calif. (AP) -- Leon Grabowsky, a decorated U.S. Navy officer who was the youngest man to command a destroyer during World War II, served in Vietnam and helped develop the Sidewinder missile, has died.

NEWTOWN, Pa. (AP) -- A quarry truck crashed through a parking lot and into the side of a bank Thursday, killing one person and injuring two others. The truck rolled over two occupied vehicles in the First Union Bank branch lot before hitting the building near the drive-through lanes, police in this Philadelphia suburb said. It came to rest almost completely inside the bank.

DANVILLE, Calif.(KRT)- A leading figure in Lawrence Livermore Laboratory's history has died. Director Emeritus Roger Batzel, who ran the lab from 1971 to 1988, passed away Saturday. He was 78. The cause of death was not disclosed.

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LAS VEGAS (AP) -- A 52-year-old West Covina, Calif., man died and eight people were injured Sunday in a single van crash on Interstate 15 near Baker, Calif. California Highway Patrol troopers said six of the people traveling in the group were from West Covina. Authorities did not say where the other three were from.

COLUMBIA, Miss. (AP) -- Officials released a videotape of their seizure of a computer owned by a black teen who was found hanged, saying it showed they did not conduct a ``Waco-style'' raid as critics had charged.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- One member of a television production crew was electrocuted and six others were injured Monday when an electrical line sent a 4,800-volt charge through the scaffold they were working on.

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - A 3-year-old girl died Friday from an E. coli infection traced to a Milwaukee steakhouse which has made a dozen people sick. Children's Hospital of Wisconsin confirmed the death as did Sizzler USA, owner of the steakhouse which has been implicated in the outbreak of the bacterial illness.

BEIJING (AP) -- A follower of the banned Falun Gong spiritual group choked to death while in detention after police forcibly fed her to end her hunger strike, a human rights group said Wednesday.

GRANITE FALLS, Minn. (Reuters) - Residents of this south central Minnesota town began a massive cleanup Wednesday after tornadoes left a swath of devastation, killing one person, injuring 15 and damaging up to 350 homes, some of them flattened.

ATHENS (Reuters) - A hostage drama on board a charter yacht off Greece ended abruptly Wednesday when coastguard agents shot dead a gunman who had been threatening to kill a Swiss family and their three children.

SARASOTA, Fla. (Reuters) - Police Wednesday searched for a Florida couple wanted for questioning in the killing of the man's ex-wife, who died the day the ``Jerry Springer Show'' featured the three in a segment titled ``Secret Mistresses Confronted.''

STANFORD, Calif. (AP) -- Alexander Dallin, a leading scholar of Soviet and East European studies and a professor emeritus at Stanford University died Saturday, one day after suffering a stroke. He was 76.

MONTEREY, Calif. (AP) --Eyvind Earle, who painted the backgrounds for the classic Disney films ``Sleeping Beauty and ``Lady and the Tramp'' and whose works have been displayed in museums and galleries around the world, is dead at 84.

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. (AP) -- Marc Reisner, the author of ``Cadillac Desert,'' an angry indictment of the misuse of water in the West, is dead. He was 51. Reisner died Friday of cancer at his home in Marin County.

PARIS (Reuters) - Film director Claude Sautet, whose portrayal of bourgeois life made him a classic of post-war French cinema, has died at the age of 76 from liver cancer, associates said Monday.

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- A soldier from New Zealand was shot in the head Monday during a clash with armed opponents of independence, becoming the first U.N peacekeeper to be killed in East Timor and imperiling the fragile peace in the territory.

NEW YORK (AP) -- A 14-year-old girl drowned trying to save her 3-year-old stepsister after the wake of a large boat swept the younger girl off a jetty.

LODI, Calif. (AP) -- A worker was found dead in a 20,000 gallons of red wine at the Bear Creek Winery just south of Lodi. Mario Flores, 31, was found in the 25-foot-tall vat Wednesday, after apparently falling through an 18-inch hole while he measured liquid levels in the tank. On Thursday, the winery shut down operations, and expects to resume them Saturday.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Thousands of spectators pleaded Friday to spare the life of a convicted killer but then watched the brother of one of his victims cut his throat in the first public execution in the Afghan capital since November.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- An officer shot a suspected car thief to death at the end of a high-speed chase, apparently firing at the unarmed black man within seconds after getting out of his cruiser, authorities said.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) -- A foster mother accused of killing a 23-month-old child in her care was previously investigated by social workers, authorities said. Social workers had investigated injuries to other children cared for by Cynthia Marie Jackson within the past 18 months, said Riverside police Sgt. John De La Rosa.

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) -- A man who killed five people during a 1989 spree across four states was executed by injection early Thursday for murdering a 31-year-old woman in her parents' floral shop.

LONDON (AP) -- Singer Paul Young, who found fame with the band Mike and the Mechanics, has died. He was 53. Young collapsed Saturday at his home in Altrincham in northwest England from a suspected heart attack, according to Virgin Records.

ATLANTA (AP) -- Sen. Paul Coverdell's death came at the height of his quick rise to Republican leadership, just days before a national convention that was to bear the imprint of his tireless work in Congress.

SACRAMENTO (AP) -- Three Sacramento County Sheriff's deputies were placed on administrative leave after shooting and killing a man who displayed a handgun after a brief car chase. The deputies were responding to a domestic dispute at 10 p.m. Tuesday. The caller told deputies her husband had a gun and that she had locked him out of the house.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A naked, apparently suicidal man who San Francisco police took from a fire escape Sunday, died while in their custody. Police did not identify the man, but said he was threatening to jump to his death from the fire escape on the fifth floor of a hotel.

RENO, Nev. (AP) -- Investigators were sifting through the rubble of a Reno home to determine the cause of an explosion that killed one woman and seriously injured her husband, who emerged from the home on fire.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Army peacekeeping soldier killed a child in Kosovo Monday when the soldier's weapon went off accidentally in the village of Cerkes Sadovina, the Defense Department said.

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) -- The car belonging to the son of basketball great Julius Erving has been pulled out of a pond with a body inside that appears to be that of the troubled teen-ager, authorities said Friday.

STANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- A moderate earthquake hit Istanbul early Friday, killing one woman who suffered a heart attack and injuring 34 people who jumped from balconies or windows in panic, news reports said.

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) -- A Syrian who tried to hijack a Jordanian jetliner and take it to Germany fired randomly inside the aircraft before security guards shot and killed him, an eyewitness said Thursday.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- A 24-year-old Australian died Wednesday from chest injuries suffered at a Pearl Jam concert, raising the number killed in the crush to nine. The man, who had been on a respirator since Friday's concert, died Wednesday morning, police spokesman Bengt Rungstroem said. Danish officials declined to release his name, but an Australian news agency said he was Anthony James Hurley of Melbourne.

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FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) -- Gunmen ambushed a U.N. peacekeeping unit in Sierra Leone Friday, touching off a firefight that left one Jordanian soldier dead and four others wounded, U.N. officials said.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A Long Beach, Calif. man and his girlfriend remained in custody Wednesday after authorities opened the trunk of a car and found the body of a young child in a box filled with concrete.

POTOSI, Mo. (AP) -- A man was executed by injection early Wednesday for suffocating a woman and her son during a 1988 robbery because he feared the pair would identify him.

STRASBOURG, France (AP) -- Pierre Pflimlin, former president of the European Parliament and the European Council and longtime mayor of Strasbourg, died Tuesday in the French city, officials said. He was 93.

TOKYO (AP) -- One man died and 13 other people were hospitalized from a suspected outbreak of Legionnaires' disease at a public bath in Japan, a government official said Tuesday.

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- One climber died and two others were injured while trying to climb Mexico's highest mountain, the 18,400-foot Pico de Orizaba. The death is the fourth to occur on the mountain since January.

MEXICO CITY, (Reuters) - The former head of Mexico's telephone workers union, four family members and a maid were found murdered in their home Sunday, newspaper and television news reports said Monday.

SAN JACINTO, Calif. (AP) -- A woman was electrocuted Sunday morning when she ventured into an underground vault at a film studio owned by her church. The woman, whose name was not released, was an animal lover and may have been exploring the chamber to investigate the recent death there of a squirrel, said Ken Hoden, the manager of Golden Era Studios.

TOKYO, June 19 (Reuters) - The last of Japan's political puppet masters died on Monday, opening the door to power struggles in the Liberal Democratic Party that has dominated politics for 45 years just as it prepares for an election.

LONDON (AP) -- Nathan Saatchi, an exiled Iraqi Jew who re-established himself in Britain and whose sons founded an international advertising agency, has died. He was 92. Saatchi died May 31 in London, his sons' office confirmed Monday. A cause of death was not announced.

HACKENSACK, N.J. (AP) -- A Stanford University physics professor was killed when a sports car driven by a Pennsylvania man crashed into an Englewood coffee shop Sunday afternoon. Jeffrey Willick, 40, a physics professor at Stanford, was sitting alone at a Starbucks coffee shop when the car, a Ford Mustang GT driven by Joseph A. Santiglia, 53, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., veered off Route 4 and crashed into the shop just after 2 p.m., The Record of Hackensack reported in Monday's editions.

HOMOSASSA, Fla. (AP) -- Bert C. Moore, a foreign service officer who was one of the 52 Americans held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Iran from 1979 to 1981, died of cancer Thursday. He was 65.

EVERGREEN, Colo. (AP) -- Wrapped up in a flannel blanket meant to represent the womb, 10-year-old Candace Newmaker cried again and again that she couldn't breathe as therapists pushed against her with pillows, urging her to fight her way out and become ``reborn,'' investigators say.

CHICAGO (AP) -- Chicago Tribune cartoonist Jeff MacNelly, three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and creator of the daily comic strip ``Shoe,'' died early Thursday. He was 52. He died at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore after battling lymphoma since late last year.

ATHENS (Reuters) - Two assassins gunned down Britain's top defense diplomat in Athens Thursday in a drive-by shooting police linked to the elusive November 17 guerrilla group. Two men in helmets riding a motorcycle fired four shots at Brigadier Stephen Saunders as he drove to work in the morning rush hour, hitting his abdomen and hands. Doctors said he suffered severe bleeding and his vital organs failed.

LOS BANOS, Calif. (AP) -- One person remained in serious condition early Tuesday after a fatal, four-vehicle accident on Interstate 5 caused a tanker truck to spill a dangerous agricultural chemical. // Javier Tapia, 32, suffered serious inhalation burns from the anhydrous ammonia spilled when the truck overturned Monday. Tapia was a passenger in a car involved in the wreck. // The driver of the tanker truck, Joseph Zakhary, 63, of Stockton died in the accident. Coroner's officials have not determined whether he died from the chemicals or the crash. Two other people involved in the accident were treated and released from local hospitals Monday.

COCOA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Wildfires sent smoke pouring across drought-stricken central Florida, causing a series of accidents that closed 14 miles of a major north-south interstate this morning. One person was killed in one of five crashes that involved at least 14 vehicles on Interstate 95, which follows the state's eastern coastline, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Bandleader and percussionist Tito Puente, who rode to fame on the heels of the 1950s mambo craze and for the next five decades helped define Latin jazz, has died. He was 77.

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SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- He vaulted to fame as the man who took over Glenn Miller's Orchestra after the bandleader's death during World War II, but Tex Beneke also carved out his own identity, laying down fresh sounds and following his musical instincts.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- The body of a man who tried to hijack a Philippine Airlines jet, then jumped out of it at 6,000 feet wearing a homemade parachute, has been found, authorities said Friday.

PARIS (AP) -- An Air Liberte passenger jet and a cargo plane collided early Thursday at Charles de Gaulle airport north of Paris, killing one member of the cargo crew and injuring another. There were no injuries on the passenger plane.

DONALDSONVILLE, La. (AP) -- One person was killed in an explosion at a fertilizer plant Wednesday night that also injured 11 people -- five of them critically, authorities said. The blast, which could be felt for miles, happened around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday at CF Industries in Donaldsonville, about 55 miles west of New Orleans, said Lt. Mike Edmonson of the State Police office in Baton Rouge.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- A 15-year-old girl who was scheduled to be a key witness against a murder suspect was shot twice in the head the day before the trial was to begin.

GATLINBURG, Tenn. (AP) -- A woman waiting for her ex-husband on a trail at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was killed by a black bear. Glenda Ann Bradley, 50, of Cosby was mauled Sunday, becoming the first person killed by a black bear in a federal park or reserve in the Southeast, park officials said.

LONDON (AP) -- Eva Jagger, the mother of Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, died Thursday, a month after she was hospitalized with a heart condition. She was 87. ``The Jagger family are deeply saddened and would request privacy at a time like this,'' the family said in a statement.

GLEN ELLEN, Calif. (AP) -- Sonoma County winemaking matriarch Helen Williamson Benziger died Tuesday after a year-long bout with lung cancer. She was 73. Benziger married Bruno Benziger in 1950 and in 1981 moved with their children from New York to California to start a winery. Bruno Benziger died in July 1989.

TAIPEI, May 17 (Reuters) - A moderate earthquake rattled Taiwan at midday on Wednesday, killing a construction worker and triggering rockslides on the island's east-west highway, officials and state television said.

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- A couple faces felony charges after a 3-year-old in their care drank a fatal dose of methadone that had been stored in his plastic juice cup.

TOKYO (AP) -- Former Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, an unassuming ruling party stalwart who defied early predictions of failure as premier, died Sunday, more than a month after suffering a debilitating stroke while in office. He was 62.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Harry J. Volk, an innovative leader who successfully led Union Bank through recession, has died. He was 94. Volk died Friday morning at his Los Angeles home, said his son, Robert H. Volk.

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- Susan Taylor, San Francisco State University's dean of undergraduate studies, has died of lung cancer at 52. Taylor, who died Friday at Summit Hospital, was diagnosed with cancer in September 1999. She had served as dean since 1998.

AUBURN, Calif. (AP) -- A shooting at an Auburn church left one woman dead and her daughter in jail, suspected of her murder, officials said. Choir director Shirley Loudon-Miller, 51, was killed Thursday afternoon as she prepared copies of sheet music for the evening choir practice in a portable building at the Auburn Presbyterian Church, officials said.

HERNANDO, Miss. -- A man who jumped into a lake to rescue a 7-year-old girl took the life preserver she was wearing and left her to drown, authorities say. Troy Lee Carlisle, 27, of Southaven, Miss., was charged Wednesday with murder in the death of Dallas Rae-Taylor Reinhardt Peeples, whose body was recovered from Arkabutla lake Tuesday afternoon.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - American leading man Douglas Fairbanks Jr., star of ``Gunga Din'' and ``Sinbad the Sailor'' among other films and a World War Two U.S. Navy commander, died early Sunday, a funeral home spokesman said. He was 90.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The San Francisco medical examiner's office expects to conduct an autopsy today on the body of a man found Sunday near Alcatraz Island. A man onboard the sailboat Tenacious spotted the body and contacted the Coast Guard at about 2 p.m., Petty Officer Christian Allaire said.

CARLSBAD, N.M. (AP) -- A 25-year-old tourist pleaded no contest today to stabbing his best friend to death in a ``mercy killing'' after the two got lost in the desert without water.

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope John Paul II expressed ``a deep sense of personal loss'' at the death of Cardinal John O'Connor, praising him for his dedication and courage and likening him to the Biblical good shepherd who gives his life for his flock.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A 27-year-old college student allegedly told police that he killed his landlady, dismembered her body and discarded the parts throughout the city. Vadim Mieseges was arrested at a San Francisco-area mall after he tried to hit security guards with a wooden dowel, police said. Later, he ``suddenly blurted out'' that he had killed the woman with whom he shared an apartment, police Deputy Chief Richard Holder said.

ALAMEDA, Calif. (AP) -- Police shot and killed an Alameda woman whom they say ignored orders to stop stabbing her sister with a pair of scissors Wednesday. The sisters' mother called Alameda police at 5:50 a.m. saying her daughter, 44-year-old Karen Chin, was pushing her and fighting with her sisters.

MAYWOOD, Ill. (AP) -- A premature baby snatched from a suburban hospital nursery was found dead the next morning in a clothes hamper in a Chicago apartment. A woman allegedly seen on a hospital surveillance video was arrested.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Harold Patton, whose 20,000 books comprised one of the largest private collections of black literature in the nation, has died of cancer. He was 71. Patton died April 19.

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) -- Bill Woods, a band leader who helped Buck Owens, Merle Haggard and other country music stars launch their careers, has died at 76. Woods died Sunday at the San Joaquin Hospital in Bakersfield, said hospital President Doug Lafferty.

ATHERTON, Calif. (AP) -- Richard S. Shevell, a retired Stanford University professor who oversaw the design of the DC-10 aircraft, died last week of lymphoma at the age of 79.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) -- An inmate was shot and killed Thursday night by a gunman who fired into a Mountain View detention center, police said. The 20-year-old inmate, who was not identified, died at Stanford Medical Center.

LAKEWOOD, Colo. -- A man working in his garden was electrocuted after he touched an electric fence he had rigged to keep out dogs. Charles Darun Taylor, 34, was pronounced dead Tuesday after he arrived at St. Anthony Central Hospital. Police say his death was an accident.

LAMESA, Texas (AP) -- A West Texas prison was under lockdown today in the aftermath of a riot by some 300 black and Hispanic inmates wielding garden tools. One inmate was killed and 31 others were injured.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - David Merrick, one of Broadway's most flamboyant and successful theatrical producers who created ''Gypsy,'' ``Hello, Dolly!'' and ``42nd Street,'' has died in London, a representative said Wednesday. He was 88.

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BANGKOK, Thailand, (AP) -- A British tourist was killed and her sister and father injured when a performing elephant went berserk during a show at a Thai resort, the British Embassy said Tuesday.

HOLLISTER, Calif. (AP) -- An explosion at an ordnance factory left one man dead and another injured, authorities said. The two men were working Monday in an area of the McCormick-Selph complex where devices are made that tighten seat belts in an accident. The plant also makes airplane ejection seats, missile separation equipment and air-bag inflation devices.

VICTORIA, British Columbia (AP) -- Al Purdy, who captured the common voice through use of vernacular and other touches to become one of Canada's greatest poets, has died of lung cancer. He was 81.

MONTEREY, Calif. (Reuters) - Douglas Edward Green, executive producer of the ``Hawaii Five-0'' television series, died from kidney failure in a Monterey nursing home on April 11, his family said Thursday.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Money B, a prominent hip-hop musician, was questioned along with two dozen other witnesses after a record producer was shot and killed outside a San Francisco nightclub, police said today.

BOSTON (AP) -- James Vorenberg, a former Harvard Law School dean and associate special prosecutor during Watergate, died Wednesday. He was 72. Vorenberg served as law school dean from 1981 to 1989 and taught criminal law and legal ethics at Harvard at the time of his death. He suffered a heart attack Monday and was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he died Wednesday afternoon.

HAMILTON, New Zealand (AP) -- An audience of hospital patients applauded when a magician collapsed and died during a show, thinking it was part of his act, his family said Friday.

WINDSOR, Calif. (AP) -- Two Windsor police officers shot and killed a woman Monday after responding to a phone call from a woman who claimed to be tied up and held at bay by someone else at the house.

APPLE VALLEY, Calif. (AP) -- A church pastor and his wife were charged with starving to death their infant son, the youngest of their eight children. Mark Boesch, 42, and his wife, Janette, 39, were arrested Wednesday on charges of murder and felony child endangerment, said San Bernardino County Deputy District Attorney Kay Neshat.

OAKLAND -- A bicyclist was shot dead on the Bay Bridge just before noon Thursday during a gun battle with California Highway Patrol officers. The man, described as in his early 40s, had ridden his mountain bike about 1 1/2 miles past the toll booth in the right hand lane, about half way up the incline, when the CHP officers ordered him to stop, said CHP officer Shawn Chase.

GREENSBORO N.C. (AP) -- Lee Petty, a stock car pioneer and the patriarch of a racing dynasty, died today at 86. Petty, winner of the first Daytona 500 and father of Winston Cup great Richard Petty, had surgery for a stomach aneurysm several weeks ago and died at Moses Cones Hospital, according to Petty Enterprises.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States urged Haiti to set a date for parliamentary elections after political tensions in the Caribbean nation hit a peak on Monday with the killing of a prominent journalist and democracy advocate.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Elaine Pedersen, who helped smash the men-only barrier in long-distance running, is dead at the age of 63. Pedersen, who lived in Mill Valley, died Monday at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, where she went for treatment after learning in October that she had bone marrow cancer. A marrow transplant failed and she was scheduled for a second one when she contracted pneumonia.

An elderly man who slipped away from Agnews Developmental Center was struck and killed by a car this week -- an accident that occurred as the troubled facility for the mentally retarded was working with state regulators and taking steps to give its patients more freedom.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- A man killed his 1 1/2-year-old son by slamming him to the pavement Friday, then swung the limp body at officers as they tried to arrest him, police said.

Two daughters (21 and 29 years old), members of a cult called "transmutar" (from the old alchemist term), slaughtered their father in an attempt to "remove" the evil from him. When police arrived at the house, called by neighbours after strange screams and satanic prayers were said to be heard at night, they found the younger had stabbed her father 100 times, removed his eyes with the same knife and then sliced the mouth of the old man wide open and started to pull out organs from the in- side.The older daughter then began eating parts of the man; after that the other daughter thinking that when she ate it the demon was now inside her, tried to stab her too. The scene was so horrible that some cops even puked at the sight. The sisters were found naked praying frenetically, bathed in blood. Really awful. There had been many reports from neighbors of strange noises from the house; some of them really believed that somebody inside was really possessed by Satan, after some poltergeist-like effects showed up on his house.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Lido Starelli, who attended every 49ers home game except one and was officially named the team's top fan, is dead of cancer. He was 79. Starelli, who died Sunday, was tagged the team's No. 1 fan in 1998 by the 49ers, and was rewarded with a trip to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

A 34-year-old Union City man who drowned Sunday afternoon during a fishing trip in Livermore was not wearing a life jacket. The man's rental boat flipped over when he stepped on its side, dumping him and three companions into the water in Lake Del Valle Reservoir. One man swam to shore; another man and his 4-year-old son were rescued minutes later by a nearby boater who found them clinging to the boat, Alameda County fire officials said. They were not wearing life jackets.

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- In the latest of a new wave of brazen, apparently drug-related attacks in Mexico, gunmen opened fire on a former federal agent as he walked into a Mexico City hotel, wounding him and killing his bodyguard.

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) -- A man convicted of raping and fatally stabbing an Oklahoma State University student who delivered him pizza a decade ago was executed by injection early Thursday.

RALEIGH, N.C. (Reuters) - A North Carolina boy was killed and six other students were injured Wednesday when a minivan driven by a schoolmate's 84-year-old grandmother shifted into reverse and plowed into a group of children waiting for classes to start, a police patrolman said.

HOUSTON (AP) -- Prison officials believe an inmate used dental floss or a similar coated string to painstakingly cut his way out of his cell and kill a rival. Antonio Lara was accused of crawling out from under his cell bars and killing Roland Rios, said Alfred M. ``Mac'' Stringfellow, Texas Board of Criminal Justice chairman.

A Hayward man charged in last week's fatal crash that killed a popular Woodside High School student and injured 11 others had a blood-alcohol content three times the legal limit for driving, authorities said Tuesday.

SAN QUENTIN -- Darrell Keith Rich, a convicted serial killer who said he found salvation through his Cherokee heritage on death row, was executed by lethal injection this morning while demonstrators kept a steady, mournful beat on a tribal drum outside of the prison walls.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- A convicted killer who twice escaped from his death row cell fought with guards to the end and stunned authorities during his execution by spitting out a small handcuff key.

DETROIT (AP) -- Three young men were convicted of involuntary manslaughter Tuesday in the date-rape drug death of a 15-year-old girl. A fourth was convicted of a lesser charge.

TORONTO (AP) -- A 14-year-old boy has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of his 4-month-old sister from head injuries. The identities of the accused and the victim cannot be disclosed under Canadian law.

The driver of a sport-utility vehicle was killed and three other passengers injured when they were hit by a commuter train Saturday night in San Bruno, apparently after a misguided attempt to skirt around a railroad crossing gate that already was down.

PATNA, India (Reuters) - Police shot dead one political activist and fought running battles with hundreds of others across India's eastern Bihar state on Sunday as a dawn-to-dusk strike turned violent, police and local news agencies said.

SYDNEY, March 3 (Reuters) - A swarm of bees attacked a mother and her baby in Sydney, killing the woman and stinging the child more than 50 times, police said.

MAPUTO, Mozambique (AP) -- Sometimes, the helicopters come too late. After four days stranded without food in a treetop, watching as floodwaters rose around her and her 4-month-old daughter, Anna Manjati and her baby were plucked from danger by a rescue helicopter. Once inside the aircraft, Manjati untied the traditional wrap binding little Armina to her back -- and saw that her baby was dead.

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) -- Dennis Danell, a guitarist for the punk band Social Distortion, has died. He was 38. Danell died Tuesday in Newport Beach of an apparent brain aneurysm, the Los Angeles Times reported today.

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MOUNT MORRIS TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) -- The 6-year-old boy who killed a fellow first-grader lived in a ``flophouse'' where drugs were found and used a stolen handgun he apparently discovered loaded and lying in a bedroom there, authorities said today.

WILKINSBURG, Pa. (AP) -- A man set his apartment on fire today, then shot lunchtime customers at two fast-food restaurants and holed up in an office building before surrendering. One person was killed and four critically injured.

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) -- Assailants shot and killed Tijuana's police chief Sunday, pumping more than 100 shots into his car as he drove along a busy highway. Alfredo de la Torre, in charge of the police force in this violent border town since 1998, was pronounced dead at the scene, said Enrique Tellaeche, a spokesman for the Baja California state attorney general's office in Tijuana.

DORNSIFE, Pa. (AP) -- The pathologist saw blood in the brain and hemorrhaging in one retina of the dead 4-month-old Amish girl. As a result, a coroner ruled the death homicide due to shaken baby syndrome, stunning this tiny town and Pennsylvania's scattered Amish communities.

STARKE, Fla. (AP) -- A man convicted of abducting and killing a night watchman was put to death by injection today, Florida's second execution using the method in as many days.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Thirsty monkeys in drought-affected eastern Kenya stoned to death a herder watering his livestock, a local newspaper reported Thursday. Ali Adam Hussein and other herdsmen had stopped to water their cattle at a pool in the northeastern Wajir district on Saturday when a group of wild monkeys attacked them with stones, the independent daily East African Standard said.

CRESCENT CITY, Calif. (AP) -- The general population of one of California's most violent prisons is on lockdown again after a riot that forced guards to open fire on inmates, killing one and wounding 15 others.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - Betty Lou Beets, who sought mercy on grounds she was a battered wife, became the second woman executed in Texas since the 1860s when she was put to death by lethal injection Thursday for killing her fifth husband.

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (AP) -- A child who became tangled in a seat belt outside his mother's car when the vehicle was stolen died Tuesday after being dragged for miles at speeds up to 80 mph.

STARKE, Fla. (AP) -- Florida carried out its first execution by injection today, just over a month after changing the law to give condemned prisoners the choice between lethal drugs or the electric chair.

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- Roland G. Schembari, co-founder of the San Francisco Bay Times and a pioneer of gay publishing in the San Francisco Bay area, is dead. He was 56.

A woman was found dead Tuesday in Palo Alto after a fire ripped through her small motor home, which was parked in the driveway at 724 Barron Ave. The Santa Clara County coroner's office did not release the victim's name or age Tuesday pending notification of next of kin.

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) -- Eighty to 120 vehicles collided today in a chain-reaction crash on fog-shrouded Interstate 15 near the Cajon Summit, killing at least one person. Many motorists were injured but there were no details.

Landry died around 6 p.m. Saturday at Baylor University Medical Center surrounded by his immediate family. He was 75 and had been fighting a form of leukemia since May.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Thomas Joseph Sullivan, a retired Navy commander who oversaw all military sea-lifts in Vietnam, died Thursday of a heart attack. He was 69.

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Ed Linn, who worked with baseball owner Bill Veeck on three books and covered the Jack Ruby trial for The Saturday Evening Post, died of cancer on Feb. 7. He was 77.

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) -- Thomas A. Langford, a former provost of Duke University and a scholar of religion, died of heart failure Sunday. He was 70.

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) -- ``Peanuts'' creator Charles Schulz died at home following a battle with cancer, just as the last original cartoon of his half-century career was being published in newspapers worldwide.

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia (Reuters) - An ethnic Albanian sniper was shot dead and four were wounded and captured after battles with NATO peacekeepers in the volatile Kosovo city of Mitrovica on Sunday.

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- Hezbollah guerrillas killed an Israeli soldier and wounded another in a rocket attack in southern Lebanon today, prompting retaliatory airstrikes from Israel and its delegate to withdraw from an international meeting on the conflict.

PARIS (Reuters) - French film director Roger Vadim, who discovered Brigitte Bardot and decorated his films and his boudoir with some of the world's most beautiful women, has died of cancer aged 72.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Less than a month after the slaying of Serbia's most notorious warlord, the Yugoslav defense minister was gunned down in a Belgrade restaurant. Pavle Bulatovic, 52, was shot and wounded Monday in the restaurant of the soccer club Rad in a Belgrade residential area. Police said he later died in a Belgrade military hospital. Two others with him at the restaurant were wounded in the attack, police said in a statement carried by the official Tanjug news agency.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- ``Lonesome'' Dave Peverett, who as lead singer of the British blues-rock quartet Foghat produced rock staples such as ``Slow Ride'' and ``Honey Hush,'' has died of complications from kidney cancer.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Doug Henning, who helped revive the popularity of magic as mass entertainment with a series of Broadway shows, television specials and a traveling act, has died. He was 52.

MIAMI (AP) -- Derrick Thomas, the Kansas City Chiefs star linebacker who held the National Football League record of seven sacks in a single game, died today while being treated for injuries suffered in a car crash last month. He was 33.

Mercury News Staff Writer Lee Hills, legendary journalist, philanthropist, and the first chairman of Knight Ridder, the parent company of the Mercury News, died Feb. 3 of apparent congestive heart failure. He was 93.

CARMEL, Calif. (AP) -- Virginia Best Adams, the wife of master nature photographer Ansel Adams, has died at the age of 96. Mrs. Adams, also the manager of Best's art gallery in Yosemite for some 30 years, died Jan. 29 in this coastal community where she has lived since 1962.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Art Hoppe, whose political and social satire entertained readers of his column in the San Francisco Chronicle for more than 40 years, is dead. He was 74.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Dr. Zuretti ``Zoo'' Goosby, one of the leaders in the fight to racially integrate San Francisco public schools, has died at the age of 77. Goosby, a dentist who served 12 years on the San Francisco school board, succumbed to lung disease Sunday.

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SciFi grandmaster A.E. van Vogt dead at 87. LOS ANGELES (Reuters) Science fiction writer A.E. van Vogt, whose telepathic mutants, superhuman races & dangerous creatures from outer space blazed a trail for the "Alien" films, was buried Monday after dying last week at 87.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The mother's story mixes heartache with anger: Her seemingly healthy 8-month-old baby died suddenly one morning. No warning, just a panicked phone call from the baby sitter that Jim had quit breathing.

A miser, 79, died and left more than $9 million to local charities and gave his children $1 million in a trust fund.

FALLON, Nev. (AP) -- Authorities on Thursday identified remains found in a remote area off Interstate 80 as those of a a pregnant California woman missing for two months. Churchill County Sheriff Bill Lawry said dental records confirmed the victim as 21-year-old Alice Sin. The Pinole, Calif., woman was reported missing on Nov. 21.

SAN LEANDRO, Calif. (AP) -- Ira Brown, a former San Francisco Superior Court judge has died of complications from diabetes. He was 69. Brown, who lived in Calistoga, had been in poor health for many months. He died Wednesday at Vencor Hospital in San Leandro.

EL SOBRANTE -- Burdened with grief and searching for answers, the congregation of an East Bay Sikh temple gathered in mourning Monday, less than 24 hours after one of their leaders was shot to death during prayers.

Bahai leader buried. The last survivor of the holy family of the Bahai faith, Madame Ruhiyyah Rabbani, is buried in Israel - the end of an era.

MADRID, Spain (AP) -- Two car bombs exploded within an hour of each other in a section of Madrid with military housing on Friday morning, killing at least one person, police said.

Renna Patton watched as Chicago police officer Serena Daniels stood behind a gray 1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass last summer. Then a shot rang out. // Patton heard Daniels shout, ``Oh, s - - -!'' and watched LaTanya Haggerty, 26, fall onto the pavement as police opened the passenger door.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- Hedy Lamarr, Austrian-born actress whose exotic glamour and sex appeal sparked a string of hit films of the '30s and '40s, was found dead in her home Wednesday. She was 86.

A man could not be given a ritual funeral because his body had been left on a hospital trolley for 4 days.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- A body found in the Guadalupe River has been identified as Ping Wang, a woman who vanished Dec. 9, police say. The body was found Friday by search dogs trained to locate corpses. Investigators said the body appeared to have been deliberately covered with brush to hide it.

Bill Ball, the grandfatherly grocer-turned-politician who was Fremont's mayor during one of its most tumultuous periods, has died of congestive heart failure. He was 76. During his mayoral term from 1989 to 1994, a longtime city manager was ousted, Fremont laid off 27 employees during the early 1990s recession and the city council approved two huge, controversial development projects.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Two days after the slaying of Serbia's most notorious paramilitary leader, Zeljko Raznatovic, details of the killing remain a mystery today, with media giving conflicting accounts and police keeping silent.

CLEVELAND (AP) -- Bob Lemon, a Hall of Fame pitcher who earned a ``lifetime contract'' with the New York Yankees by taking over a team in turmoil and coaching it to the 1978 World Series title, has died.

Yankee Johnson, a pioneer in community arts funding who helped transform the San Jose arts scene from a San Francisco stepchild into a thriving cultural center, died early Tuesday morning from pneumonia. He was 61 and had been suffering from multiple sclerosis for more than three decades.

A 45-year-old Fremont fire captain, whose commitment to the job was emblazoned on his arm in a tattoo commemorating the 1991 Oakland Hills firestorm, died Monday after suffering an apparent heart attack.

MIAMI (AP) -- Don Martin, longtime Mad magazine cartoonist who drew an assortment of wild-haired characters, punctuating the grotesque action with wacky words like SPLOP! and POIT!!, has died. He was 68.

STOCKHOLM (AP) An alleged skinhead was charged with murder and two others remained in custody in connection with the stabbing death of a 19-year-old Swede of Turkish origin. The suspects admitted neo-Nazi ties.

WINTERTHUR, Switzerland (AP) - Swami Omkarananda, a Hindu monk and sect leader imprisoned in Switzerland for attempted murder, had died of the flu at age 70.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A woman caught in the middle of an intersection when the light changed was run over and crushed to death by a street sweeper, police reported.

LONDON (AP) -- Victor Serebriakoff, who helped build Mensa into a worldwide organization with thousands of members, is dead at age 87. Serebriakoff died Saturday at his home in suburban Blackheath, British Mensa said.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- Henry H. Fowler, who presided over the ``guns and butter'' economic policy of the Johnson administration as its treasury secretary, has died at the age of 91.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A man was shot to death today when California Highway Patrol officers opened fire after he refused to drop a gun at the end of a high-speed chase on the shores of San Francisco Bay, officials said.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Hank Snow, whose gaudy rhinestone suits and million-selling hit song ``I'm Movin' On'' made him a country music legend for more than 40 years, died today. He was 85.

NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- Krishan Lal Sharma, the vice-president of India's ruling party who twice went to prison defending its Hindu nationalist ideology, died Friday. He was 74. Sharma died at the Ram Manohar Lohia hospital in New Delhi after a heart attack early Friday, Press Trust of India reported.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Joseph Heller, whose darkly comic first novel ``Catch-22'' defined the paradox of the no-win dilemma and added a phrase to the American lexicon, died of a heart attack at his East Hampton home. He was 76.

Six months after a woman's body was recovered from under tons of refuse in a North San Jose landfill, authorities have charged the man with whom she spent her last night with her murder.

In the annals of venture capitalists, Robert Swanson will not be forgotten. It was Swanson who made a cold call to biochemist Dr. Herbert Boyer asking for a meeting after learning that Boyer and geneticist Stanley Cohen had discovered a way to genetically engineer more effective and potent pharmaceutical drugs.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A day after a Philadelphia Daily News columnist was stabbed to death during a botched mugging, colleagues said his slaying was an act of violence directed at the entire city.

SACRAMENTO (AP) -- A few years ago, a Los Angeles Times reporter found Rose Bird working as a volunteer in a legal aide office in Palo Alto. The people there didn't know their colleague was a former chief justice on California's highest court.

NEW YORK -- Madeline Kahn, the Oscar-nominated comedian best known for her work in the films ``Paper Moon'' and ``Blazing Saddles'' and in the Broadway revival of ``Born Yesterday,'' died Friday in a Manhattan hospital. She was 57 and lived in Manhattan. The cause was ovarian cancer, said Jeff Schneider, a spokesman for the William Morris agency, which represented her.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Gene Rayburn, the jocular host who winked at double entendres during TV's popular ``Match Game,'' has died. He was 81. Rayburn died Monday of congestive heart failure at his daughter's home in Gloucester, Mass.

VALYERMO, Calif. (AP) -- The Rev. Vincent Martin, who brought the Benedictines of St. Andrew's Abbey to the Antelope Valley more than four decades ago, has died. He was 87.

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GARDEN RIVER, Alberta (AP) A 5-year-old girl who stopped to play with a puppy was attacked & killed by a pack of dogs in a remote settlement north of Edmonton. Cecilia Alook died after the dog pack mauled her about 200 yards from her home. Residents of the community of 300 people about 500 miles north of Edmonton later killed the dogs, which probably were starving.

NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- M.N.Srinivas, a leading sociologist who researched the complexities of India's caste hierarchy and rural society, died Tuesday. He was 83. Srinivas, who was survived by his wife and two daughters, died after a brief illness in the southern city of Bangalore, Press Trust of India reported. The news agency did not give details of the ailment.

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - A high school honor student who ran a thriving Internet start-up firm jumped to his death from the 17th floor of Tel Aviv's Diamond Bourse tower, police and his school principal said Tuesday.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- An ethnic Albanian mob pulled a Serb man and two Serb women from their car early today, beating all three before shooting the elderly man to death, NATO peacekeepers said.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- A tent at a camp sheltering survivors of a massive Turkish earthquake caught fire today, killing a 2-month-old girl, news reports said. Residents of the tent city pulled out the baby's 1-year-old brother and extinguished the fire before it spread to other tents, but they were unable to save the girl, the Anatolia news agency reported.

WINTER PARK, Colo. (AP) -- A member of an elite program for disabled skiers died a day after hitting a tree on the slopes. Steven Ricci, who had been paralyzed from the waist down in an automobile accident about 10 years ago, was warming up on a mono-ski Saturday when the accident occurred, resort spokeswoman Joan Christensen said. Mono-skis are skis equipped with a seat on a suspension system for better maneuverability for people with lower-body disabilities.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Daisy Tan, mother and muse of ``The Joy Luck Club'' author Amy Tan, has died of complications of Alzheimer's disease. She was 83. Amy Tan's 1989 book, a best seller and a popular movie, was dedicated to her mother, who died Monday at her San Francisco home.

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) -- Abdelkader Hachani, the third-ranking leader of the banned Islamic Salvation Front, was shot and killed today in Algiers, family members said. An unidentified gunman shot Hachani twice in the head and once in the stomach in the working class district of Bab el-Oued, just before he entered a dentist's office. He was rushed to the emergency ward at a nearby hospital, his 14-year-old daughter said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. She is one of four children.

TANGIERS, Morocco (AP) -- Paul Bowles, the American writer and composer best known for his novels in exotic North African settings, died today in Tangiers, the Italian Hospital said. He was 88.

HUGO, Okla. (AP) -- Doris Richard Miller, known to many in these parts as ``Mr. Circus,'' always believed the show must go on. Even though he died in September, his Carson & Barnes 5-Ring Circus pressed onward with its full schedule of shows.

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. (AP) -- William Burkett, a banker and former state cabinet member whose words are inscribed at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, died at his home of heart failure. He was 86.

ROSEMEAD, Calif. (AP) -- A 36-year-old motorist was shot in the head and killed in an apparent drive-by shooting on Interstate 10 early this morning, police said. The shooting occurred about 2:05 a.m. near the Walnut Grove Avenue freeway exit in Los Angeles County, California Highway Patrol Officer Bob Weaver said.

LONDON (AP) -- Theodore Alvin Hall, who helped develop the atomic bomb at Los Alamos and was later revealed to have passed on some of its secrets to the Soviets, has died at age 74.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- An Anchorage man hunting deer near Kodiak Island was mauled by a brown bear and died, apparently after struggling through thick brush in an attempt to reach his hunting party.

FORT WORTH, Texas (Reuters) - A 16-year-old boy wielding a butcher knife Thursday stabbed his mother to death and wounded his two younger brothers before being tackled by police hours after the attack, authorities said.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A track worker was struck and killed by a city streetcar as he cleaned the rails near the San Francisco Giants' new ballpark, police said. The train was heading for a nearby Caltrain station late Tuesday when it hit the man, who apparently fell beneath the train, said San Francisco police Inspector Laurel Hall.

PACIFICA, Calif. (AP) -- A firefighter whose battle with cancer inspired a new worker's compensation law and prompted his colleagues to shave their heads in solidarity, succumbed to the disease Monday.

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VICTOR, Mont. (AP) -- Hoyt Axton, the folksy singer, songwriter and movie actor who penned Three Dog Night's ``Joy to the World'' and other pop and country hits, many of them showcasing his singular sense of humor, died early today. He was 61.

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. (AP) -- A man fatally shot his estranged wife in front of police headquarters before critically wounding himself, officials said. Witnesses said that at about noon Monday the man walked up to his wife on a downtown street, turned her around and shot her twice in the head ``at very close range,'' prosecutor David Angier said.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- John Chafee, Rhode Island's longtime Republican senator and former governor who earned praise even from Democrats for his moderate stance on issues, has died. He was 77.

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) -- Former Prime Minister Andras Hegedues, a Warsaw Pact founder who later became a leading critic of the pro-Soviet regime, has died, state radio reported Monday. He was 76.

ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) -- Bosnian writer and journalist Mladen Vuksanovic, who chronicled the rise of Bosnian Serb ultranationalism and the beginning of Serb expulsions of Muslims and Croats, died of heart failure in exile in Croatia, his publisher said Monday.

ROSEVILLE, Calif. (AP) -- The death of a five-day-old baby who was killed by a dog while in foster care will be investigated by child welfare officials. Demetrius Marcellus Tucker Jr. died Saturday in Roseville after the foster family's dog picked up the baby by his head, said a Roseville police spokesman.

POINT OF THE MOUNTAIN, Utah (AP) -- A man whom prison officials said called himself ``The Rainbow Warrior'' -- a killer of homosexuals -- was executed by injection today for stabbing another man to death.

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Joseph Burg, an Israeli founding father, longtime Cabinet minister and advocate of coexistence between religious Jews and secular Israelis, died today at a Jerusalem hospital. He was 90.

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) -- A Marine officer was charged with negligent homicide in the death of a corporal during a hike in July, with an investigator saying he marched his group too fast, with not enough time for breaks.

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (AP) -- Former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, the father of Tanzanian independence and a symbol of Africa's hopes as it emerged from the shadow of European colonial rule, died today in London. He was 77.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A man convicted of stabbing his ex-girlfriend to death in front of her relatives at a church-sponsored car wash was executed by injection early Thursday. Arthur M. Boyd Jr., 53, was pronounced dead at 2:18 a.m.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Bobby Sheehan, the bassist for the Grammy-award winning rock band Blues Traveler, accidentally overdosed on a combination of drugs, a coroner has ruled. Sheehan, 31, found dead two months ago in his home, had heroin, cocaine and Valium in his system, toxicology tests showed.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Time ran out for the owner of an ornate, four-face clock just two days after it ticked its last -- the second time the clock foreshadowed the death of its owner.

LONDON (AP) -- Dallas Bower, a pioneer television producer who also worked in early radio and cinema, has died. He was 92. Bower died at his London home on Monday, his family said.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Calvin Griffith, a onetime bat boy who became the owner of the Washington Senators and moved the team to Minnesota, died Wednesday in Melbourne, Fla. He was 87.

JERUSALEM (AP) -- A Jerusalem man, jailed for abusing his 19-year-old daughter, convinced the young woman's mother and four siblings to kill her for bringing dishonor on the family, police alleged Wednesday.

GARDENA, Calif. (AP) -- A man shot to death in an alley was identified as actor Lawrence McCoy Jr., who appeared in the TV show ``My So-Called Life'' and the film ``Ill Gotten Gains.''

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government has ordered Schering-Plough Corp. to temporarily halt two gene therapy studies because they are similar to a Pennsylvania experiment in which a teen-ager died last month.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- A staffer working for the U.N. civilian mission in Kosovo was shot and killed after his first day on the job, apparently when he angered ethnic Albanians by speaking what sounded like Serbian, an international police official said today.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Wilt Chamberlain, one of the most dominant players in the history of basketball and the only player to score 100 points in an NBA game, died Tuesday at 63, a Los Angeles Lakers spokesman said.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Milt Jackson, a jazz vibraphonist who made the instrument sing like the human voice as a longtime member of the Modern Jazz Quartet, died of liver cancer. He was 76.

ARCADIA, Calif. (AP) -- A search team discovered the body of a diabetic hiker whose family reported him missing in the San Gabriel Mountains above Arcadia. The body of Tadeo Yanez of Commerce was found Wednesday, slumped under a tree in a trail camp on the West Fork of the San Gabriel River, about nine miles from the Chantry Flats area where his sport utility vehicle was left Sunday.

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan Wednesday executed a criminal who shook public confidence in law and government with the kidnap-murder of a TV celebrity's daughter and a string of subsequent gun battles, killings, rapes and a hostage drama.

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FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- A man accused of shooting a fellow parishioner to death at a church social last night was arrested hours later in a traffic stop. Lt. Mike Guthrie said witnesses told police that Steven Knee, 29, fled the church after the shooting. Police arrested Knee at about midnight after he ran a stop sign near Fresno State University. He is being held in connection with the shooting.

NEW YORK (AP) -- CNN aired a video Tuesday of a captured Russian soldier being shot in the head, then edited the report in subsequent viewings to stop the action before the trigger was pulled.

MARJAYOUN, Lebanon (AP) -- Israeli warplanes struck southern Lebanon on Monday after a roadside bomb killed a top official of the pro-Israeli militia and seriously wounded his driver, Lebanese security officials said.

LANEXA, Va. (AP) -- Authorities are investigating the death of a month-old baby found in a microwave oven in his parents' home. Neighbors said they heard the father of Joseph Lewis Martinez screaming shortly before sheriff's deputies arrived at the house early Thursday. Lanexa is a rural community in New Kent County, about 35 miles east of Richmond.

MOSCOW -- Raisa Gorbachev, the spirited and outspoken wife of the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, died today in a German hospital after a battle with leukemia. She was 67.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - A prominent journalist died in a gangland-style killing in northern Colombia in the second attack targeting a Colombian reporter in the past month, authorities said Friday. Police said one or two gunmen pumped eight bullets into Guzman Quintero Torres as he sat outside a hotel in the downtown area of Valledupar, capital of Cesar province, late Thursday.

Saying no law was broken, prosecutors said Wednesday they would not file charges against the man who owned the gun his son used to shoot himself to death in a San Jose high school restroom last week.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Herbert Stein, an economist who served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Nixon administration, has died. He was 83. Stein died Wednesday at Washington Hospital Center after several months of illness, said Christopher DeMuth, president of the American Enterprise Institute, where Stein was a senior fellow. No cause of death was given.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- A Serb woman died today from a beating witnesses said was administered by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, officials with the NATO-led peace force reported.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- A Gypsy woman died today after being shot by uniformed men thought to belong to the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army, officials with the NATO-led peacekeeping force said.

To those who knew James Augustus Hunter, his valiant struggle to overcome two serious diseases and a horrible accident came as no surprise. The man listed in the Baseball Encyclopedia, not by his given names, but as Catfish Hunter, had the heart of a whale.

LEAGUE CITY, Texas (AP) -- Katie Webster, the blues singer known as ``The Swamp Boogie Queen'' for her frenetic, two-fisted piano style, has died. She was 63. Ms. Webster died of heart failure Sunday at her home in League City, just southeast of her native Houston.

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- Convicted cop killer Robert ``Mudman'' Simon was killed in prison in a fight with another death row inmate, a spokeswoman said today. Simon, a motorcycle gang member who was one of the state's most notorious prisoners, was pronounced dead after being involved in the fight with Ambrose Harris, corrections spokeswoman Mary Ellen Bolton said.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Henry E. Singleton, an innovative engineer and co-founder of Teledyne Inc., has died. He was 82. Singleton died Tuesday of brain cancer at his West Los Angeles home.

SANTA ROSA, N.M. (AP) -- A correctional officer was stabbed to death and several others were wounded in a fiery inmate revolt that caused extensive damage to a private prison, authorities said.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) -- An MIT junior found dead in his dorm room apparently died while trying to get high by inhaling laughing gas from a plastic bag, officials said today.

DILI, Indonesia -- Rampaging anti-independence militiamen shot and then hacked to death a man outside the U.N. compound in East Timor's capital today in the most brazen outburst of violence since the territory's historic independence referendum this week.

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IZMIT, Turkey (AP) -- A strong tremor and aftershock hit northwest Turkey today, killing one person and injuring dozens, sending quake-damaged buildings crashing down in a shower of bricks and debris and terrifying survivors of the devastating quake two weeks ago.

DILI, East Timor - A U.N. worker was stabbed and killed Monday by a mob in East Timor, marring what had otherwise been a relatively peaceful referendum on the territory's future after 23 years of Indonesian rule.

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. (Reuters) - A gunman opened fire Monday at an auto accessories store in this southern California city, killing one person and injuring as many as five others, police said.

GIRL SACRIFICED TO GODDESS. (Press Trust of India) A 3-year-old girl was sacrificed recently in southern India to appease a Hindu goddess and bring wealth to a group of laborers. Police say that workers in a stone quarry abducted the youngster, offering her as a "blood sacrifice" to the goddess Kali. Her decapitated body was found next to a stone crushing machine; police say that the area was decorated with flowers, coconuts and other ritualistic items. "She was allegedly sacrificed to propitiate the goddess so that the unit (of workers) could have better prospects," said a police department spokesman. No arrests have been made.

SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- A 15-year-old boy killed his father and then shot and wounded his mother when he fired at the bathroom door she was hiding behind, police said.

MARTIN, S.D. (AP) -- A man beaten and left for dead was found with a rope around his neck and his ears missing in what authorities described as a hate crime.

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) -- Police arrested a man sought in a fatal collision in which a bicyclist's body apparently crashed through a car's windshield and was carried 13 miles. Isidro Calderon Hernandez, 26, surrendered Tuesday at the office of a Santa Ana attorney who had already been in touch with police, said police Sgt. Joe Vargas.

DOSWELL, Va. (AP) -- A man died in an apparent accident on a roller coaster in which riders stand through several loops that turn them upside down. The visitor, whose identity has not been released, was killed Monday night on the 50-mph Shockwave ride at the 400-acre Paramount King's Dominion theme park.

ROME (AP) -- An Italian air force fighter jet carrying a two-man crew crashed into the sea off Sicily on Friday, Italian news reports said. The body of one of the men flying the Tornado jet was pulled out of the sea, the Italian news agency ANSA reported, and rescuers were searching for the other man. The two had been on a training mission, the news agency said.

SRINAGAR, India (AP) -- Two Indian air force fighter jets collided seconds after takeoff in northern India on Wednesday, killing one pilot and seriously injuring the other, officials said. The accident took place over the Srinagar airport, 390 miles north of New Delhi, an airport official said on condition of anonymity.

MARKABA, Lebanon (AP) -- Hezbollah guerrillas clashed with Israeli troops in southern Lebanon today, killing an Israeli soldier and wounding three others in retaliation for the death of a Hezbollah commander, security officials said.

JAMMU, India (AP) -- Pakistani troops fired machine guns and rockets at an Indian border post today, killing one soldier and wounding six others in a two-hour battle, police said.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A rare tornado touched down without warning Wednesday in the downtown area, killing at least one person and injuring more than 100. The black, swirling cloud struck about 1 p.m., uprooting trees and temporary buildings set up for a retailers convention. It also damaged the roofs of the 8-year-old, 20,000-seat Delta Center, home of the Utah Jazz, and the Salt Palace Convention Center. Windows were blown out at the nearby Wyndham Hotel.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The wife of ``Star Trek'' star William Shatner was found dead in their swimming pool in an apparent accidental drowning. Shatner tried to resuscitate his wife, Nerine, but failed, authorities said.

RANDSBURG, Calif. (AP) -- A 12-year-old boy who had been missing for six days after he left his uncle's home on a dirt bike was found dead nearby in the Mojave Desert.

NACHSHON JUNCTION, Israel (AP) -- A Palestinian on a suicide mission twice rammed his car into hitchhiking Israeli soldiers today, injuring 11 before being shot to death. The 22-year-old assailant, Akram Alkam from the West Bank town of Bethlehem, called his mother on a mobile phone early today and told her he was going to carry out an attack.

LONDON (AP) -- BBC sports anchor Helen Rollason, who won admiration and respect for staying on the air during her two-year battle with cancer, died Monday at age 43. Rollason died at her home in Essex surrounded by family and friends, according to her agent, Sue Knight.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Police shot and killed a would-be bank robber in the Wall Street area at the height of lunch hour Monday as workers dove for cover amid flying bullets and shattering glass.

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) -- One soldier was killed and two others were injured when an Army helicopter crashed at Fort Campbell. The helicopter, an MH-60K Blackhawk, crashed late Wednesday afternoon during training, according to a statement from Fort Bragg. The cause of the crash was under investigation.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- The top U.N. administrator in Kosovo toured a mass grave today where the remains of dozens of ethnic Albanians were found. In continued retaliation for Serb atrocities, ethnic Albanians reportedly killed one man today and attacked a convoy of fleeing Serbs.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- For author Willie Morris, home was more than just a place: It was a concept that cropped up in his titles and echoed through his life.

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BURBANK, Calif. (AP) -- Actress Sandra Gould, who played nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz on TV's ``Bewitched'' and was the voice of Betty Rubble on ``The Flintstones'' for six years, has died. She was 73.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Martin Agronsky's proudest accomplishment, says his son, was winning the 1952 Peabody Award for distinguished broadcast reporting for his work on the excesses by Sen. Joseph McCarthy as he tried to cleanse U.S. society of communists.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Aaron Stanley Tretick, a news photographer known for the famous picture of John F. Kennedy Jr. as a toddler peeking out from under his father's desk, died Monday at a Maryland nursing home.

MOSCOW (AP) -- Chechen gunmen battled with Russian security forces and helicopter gunships along the border of Chechnya today, killing a Russian officer and wounding four soldiers, a news report said.

HYANNISPORT, Mass. (Reuters) - Searchers have given up hope of finding John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife and her sister alive after their plane crashed off Martha's Vineyard, and resumed efforts Monday to recover the aircraft and determine the cause of the tragedy.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Carolyn Bessette Kennedy was a fashion publicist who catapulted to fame by marrying John F. Kennedy Jr. Her chic and penchant for privacy drew comparisons to his mother.

GREENWICH, Conn. (AP) -- Lauren G. Bessette, a financial executive at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter with a passion for Asia, was presumed dead after the plane in which she was a passenger crashed off Cape Cod.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rep. George E. Brown Jr., the oldest member of the House of Representatives, died overnight after a lengthy hospitalization for treatment of an infection, congressional officials said today. The California Democrat was 79.

DENVER (AP) -- Secretary of State Victoria Buckley, who became the nation's highest-ranking black female Republican in a statewide office, has died of cardiac arrest. She was 51. Ms. Buckley, who had been hospitalized in January for an irregular heartbeat, suffered severe brain damage with no chance of recovery, said her cardiologist Dr. Jeb Burchenal. She died Wednesday.

FLORINA, Greece (Reuters) - An Albanian hijacker died in a burst of sniper fire Thursday as Greek special police forces stormed a bus and released unharmed five remaining hostages. The assault, near the northern Greek town of Florina, ended a standoff of nearly 30 hours between police and the hijacker, who was demanding guns, $780,000 ransom and safe passage to Albania.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- An anti-tank mine explosion in Kosovo killed one person and critically wounded another, the latest in an alarming number of deaths by mines in the province, a NATO spokesman said today.

STARKE, Fla. (AP) -- Florida's first use of its new electric chair turned bloody Thursday with the execution of a 350-pound inmate for the murders of a woman and her two daughters 17 years ago.

FRANKLIN, Ind. (AP) -- A man who allegedly sought revenge against his wife by plotting to father their child and then kill the baby was ordered held without bond today on a murder charge.

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- A Norwegian oilfield worker who gained fame by parachuting from some of the world's tallest buildings has died while jumping into a fjord. Thor Axel Kappfjell, 32, was killed early Tuesday when he jumped off the 3,300-foot high Kjeraag cliff near the city of Stavanger, about 300 miles west of Oslo.

BELLEFONTE, Pa. (AP) -- A man condemned for kidnapping and torturing six women, including a retarded woman whose body parts he fed to his other shackled victims, was executed by injection.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian and Chechen forces clashed Tuesday night with both sides claiming the other triggered the fight in which one Russian soldier was killed and four others wounded, Itar-Tass news agency reported Wednesday.

MODESTO, Calif. (AP) -- Police said today that they're certain someone placed the body of a 4-year-old girl into the backyard pool of a house where she had disappeared from a family party, prompting an intense police search.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- The nude body of a SeaWorld visitor was pulled early Tuesday from a killer whale pool, where he had apparently gone swimming with one of the black-and-white orcas after the park had closed.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- An explosion and fire destroyed a downtown produce district building today, killing one person and injuring five others. The unidentified dead person was found in the burned building.

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MOSCOW (AP) -- A Norwegian sailor was mauled to death by three bears after he wandered into their den at a Russian zoo, a news report said Tuesday. The victim, identified as Ostevik Stig Even, 29, had apparently been drinking with other sailors at the zoo in Russia's Kaliningrad port Monday evening, the ITAR-Tass news agency said.

MINDEN, Nev. (AP) -- One of the nation's top glider pilots was killed when his plane plunged about 100 feet to the ground during practice for a race. Clem Bowman died instantly when his Genesis sail plane crashed Sunday at Minden-Tahoe Airport shortly after takeoff, airport officials said.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- James Eugene ``Rosy'' McHargue, a prolific jazz clarinetist, saxophonist and singer has died. He was 97. McHargue died Monday at his home in Santa Monica, according to jazz writer and longtime friend Floyd Levin. The musician and composer was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in 1996, but was successfully treated with chemotherapy at that time, Levin said in today's Los Angeles Times.

The remains of a body that authorities believe is that of missing San Jose pediatrician Katherine Wong were found Tuesday in a remote, heavily-wooded area outside the Bear Valley ski resort in Alpine County.

COLUMBIA, Md. (AP) -- Paul S. Newman, who was so prolific a comic-book writer that he got listed in the Guinness Book of World Records, has died. He was 75.

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- In a brazen noonday attack on Mexico City's busy beltway, assailants unloaded a machine gun at the moving car of a popular television host Monday, killing him and wounding at least five others.

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) -- A powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 7 destroyed several buildings Friday in Azerbaijan, killing at least one person and injuring 10, officials said. The epicenter of the earthquake was near the town of Agdash, 135 miles west of the capital, Baku. It struck shortly after 2 p.m.

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) -- An Air Force helicopter on a training mission crashed in a wooded area at Fort Bragg, killing one person and injuring five others, military officials said.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) -- On a ``day of rage'' over Jewish settlement expansion, Palestinians clashed with Israeli soldiers today in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A Palestinian driver was shot to death by Israeli soldiers at a roadblock.

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Lawyers for a man who admitted stabbing his wife 44 times and drowning her in their swimming pool will argue this week that he should be acquitted of murder because he was sleepwalking at the time.

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Former Yugoslav Air Force commander General Ljubisa Velickovic has been killed while visiting front-line troops, the Yugoslav army said Tuesday. The army reported his death in a statement carried by the official Tanjug news agency. It did not elaborate on the place, circumstances or time of Velickovic's death.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A taxi driver was booked for investigation of murder Thursday night in the death of a young woman who got into a cab last week after leaving an upscale bar.

DURBAN, South Africa (AP) -- A teacher and principal opened fire on angry high school students in South Africa, killing one pupil and injuring two others, police said today. The shootings happened Thursday at a high school about 30 miles south of Durban after teachers refused to give students refunds for a field trip. The students had paid $1.60 but were told the cost was only $1.30.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- One of three Polish climbers who scaled Mount Everest was killed during the descent, the head of the team said Friday. Tadeusz Kudelski, who was 44, fell Tuesday while descending after reaching the peak of the world's highest mountain earlier in the day, team leader Ryszard Pawlowski told independent Radio Zet by satellite telephone.

McGUIRE AIR FORCE BASE, N.J. (AP) -- An elderly ethnic Albanian woman died today while being airlifted to a refugee center in New Jersey. The woman was aboard a flight from Macedonia with more than 400 other refugees en route to McGuire Air Force Base, said Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Jill Morganthaler.

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) -- An Army helicopter pilot killed while training for NATO action against Yugoslavia was buried today with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. The body of Chief Warrant Officer David A. Gibbs of Massillon, Ohio, was carried by horse-drawn caisson from Memorial Chapel at Fort Myer to the cemetery, said Barbara Owens, public affairs specialist with the Military District of Washington.

DUARTE, Calif. (AP) -- A man shot and killed his 27-year-old niece after the woman used her body to shield her grandmother during a family dispute, police said. Dawn Agler's uncle was arguing with his mother about 8 p.m. Saturday, authorities said. He retrieved a shotgun from a bedroom and aimed it at his mother, said Los Angeles sheriff's Deputy Boris Nikolof. Ms. Agler stepped between them and was shot.

TOKYO (AP) -- An executive of a failed Japanese bank was found hanged Monday in his company dormitory room, police said. The apparent suicide was the second in the last two weeks by officials from the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan Ltd., who reportedly faced questioning about an alleged cover-up of bad loans.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- Saudi Arabia's top cleric, whose rulings ranged from sanctioning Viagra for Muslim men to banning short veils for women, died of cancer Thursday at a military hospital in Riyadh.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- A gunman fatally shot a prominent Argentine journalist outside his home today, police and news reports said. Ricardo Gangeme, 56, was parking his car in Trelew, a Patagonian city 750 miles south of Buenos Aires, when he was shot once in the head, the reports said.

MODESTO, Calif. (AP) -- An autopsy shows that a man whose body was pulled from a river after he told a relative that he saw one of the Yosemite sightseers being attacked died by drowning.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- The Ikea home and accessories company is recalling a stacking-rings toy after a 5-year-old child choked to death on a ball that came with it. The toy, called the Mula ring pyramid, consists of brightly colored rings that are to be stacked on a dowel. The smallest piece is a ball about 1.5 inches in diameter.

T, Fla., (Reuters) - Friends of the late songwriter and author Shel Silverstein paid tribute to him Tuesday as a man of diverse talents who shunned the limelight. Silverstein, whose works included Playboy magazine cartoons, popular music, plays for adults and children's poetry, died of a massive heart attack at home in Key West Monday. He was 66.

MOORE, Okla. (AP) -- Like her young ``Diff'rent Strokes'' co-stars, Dana Plato had seen her share of troubles since the show was canceled. They finally ended not with the happiness she sought, but with the fatal drug overdose she feared.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Leon Hess, an oil tycoon and the owner of the New York Jets, who last year came close to seeing his team return to the Super Bowl one last time, died today. He was 85.

TOKYO (AP) -- A former executive of an insolvent Japanese bank under investigation by the government was found hanged in his Tokyo hotel room today, police said. Takashi Uehara, 59, a former vice president of the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan, apparently killed himself late Wednesday or early today, Tokyo police spokesman Katsuzo Konno said.

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) -- Meredith Morgan, who helped guide the University of California, Berkeley, optometry school through 67 of its 75 years, has died of lung cancer. He was 87.

Shortly after his 50th birthday ended, convicted murderer Manuel Babbitt was executed early today at San Quentin Prison for the fatal beating of a Sacramento woman. Babbitt, an ex-Marine who received a Purple Heart, died by lethal injection shortly after 12:30 a.m. today. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to block the execution.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Steve Chiasson was killed early today when his pickup overturned while he was returning home from the hockey team's playoff loss in Boston.

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BRAIDWOOD, Ill. (AP) -- A bus carrying deaf children to a spelling bee flipped over on Interstate 55 today, killing one man and injuring 23 people, one critically. The bus was carrying deaf schoolchildren from the John Powers Center in Vernon Hills, a Chicago suburb, to the gathering in downstate East Peoria when it crashed at about 7 a.m. near Braidwood, about 50 miles southwest of Chicago, police said.

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan's oldest person died Thursday at his home in northeastern Japan. He was 112. Denzo Ishizaki, born October 20, 1886, died of multiple organ failure, his family said. He lived in the town of Kansago in Ibaraki prefecture, 78 miles northeast of Tokyo.

LOS ANGELES -- Rory Calhoun, a troubled teen-ager who turned into a tall, handsome actor featured in more than 30 Western movies and the television series ``The Texan,'' has died at 76, a family spokesman said Thursday.

TABER, Alberta (AP) -- A 14-year-old boy walked into a high school in Alberta and shot two students with a .22-caliber rifle, killing one. The dead boy's father said the shooting was sparked by last week's school massacre in Colorado.

LONDON (AP) -- Sir William McCrea, an astrophysicist who made a vital contribution to the understanding of the sun's composition and went on to develop important theories about the evolution of galaxies and planets, has died. He was 94.

MANZANITA, Ore. (AP) -- A ranger at Oswald West State Park was shot to death today and another was wounded. The gunman fled in the rangers' vehicle, and a suspect was later arrested.

NEW ORLEANS -- Al Hirt, whose power and technique made him ``The King of the Trumpet'' in the 1960s when he won a Grammy for his hit ``Java,'' died Tuesday. He was 76.

LONDON (Reuters) - Leading BBC television anchor Jill Dando was murdered outside her west London home Monday, police said. At the peak of her media career and due to marry a London doctor later this year, Dando was found by neighbors on her doorstep with serious head injuries.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- In a note, a teen-ager who hanged himself in his back yard wrote that he felt sorry for victims of the Colorado school massacre, but investigators said Friday they did not believe the shootings triggered his suicide.

COVINA, Calif. (AP) -- Horror buff Rene Ochoa loved to tool around town in his faded white 1965 hearse -- he nicknamed it Death Hearse -- with the vanity plate GOULISH giving motorists shivers as well as smiles. // Ochoa's last trip in the funeral car was Thursday. Friend Kri Kendall was behind the wheel with a silver casket in tow, headed to the graveyard. Ochoa, of Upland, died of kidney failure at age 30.

SOMIS, Calif. (AP) -- A ranch hand stuffing branches into a woodchipper was sucked into the whirling blades and killed. Efrain Gonzales, 43, a father of three and longtime employee of Reiman Ranch, was feeding lemon tree branches into the mulching machine Thursday when he was pulled through the blades, Ventura County coroner investigator James Baroni said.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Mary Clark Rockefeller, a prominent figure in the education of nurses and the former first lady of New York state, died at her Manhattan home. She was 91.

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- Su Shueh-lin, an eminent writer and veteran of China's 1919 May Fourth Movement for free expression, has died. She was 104. Su died Wednesday night of complications from a lung infection at National Cheng Kung University in the southern city Tainan, the United Daily News reported Thursday. She had been in worsening health for several months and was hospitalized in intensive care in February.

MONTEBELLO, Calif. (AP) -- A sheriff's marksman fatally shot a suspected bank robber who refused for five hours to leave his stolen taxicab, which had broken down after a police pursuit on a busy freeway.

FT. CAMPBELL, Ky. (Reuters) - A UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter carrying 11 people crashed during a training flight at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, Thursday, killing at least one person and critically injuring two others on board.

PEMBROKE, N.C. (AP) -- Storms that unleashed tornadoes and fierce winds in the Southeast killed at least one person and left hundreds homeless. A North Carolina man died Thursday evening when winds toppled his trailer home in Pembroke in the southeastern part of the state.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- A prominent publisher whose newspaper has repeatedly criticized President Slobodan Milosevic was shot and killed in the hallway of his apartment building. Witnesses who refused to be named said at least two masked gunmen in leather jackets fired several shots into Slavko Curuvija's back and head Sunday as he entered the building in Belgrade, the capital.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Mary Jane Rathbun, the grandmotherly activist whose arrests for distributing pot brownies to AIDS patients built momentum for the medicinal marijuana movement, has died. She was 77.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Actor-stuntman Gil Perkins, a familiar face on such TV shows as ``Perry Mason,'' ``Here's Lucy'' and ``Wagon Train'' and the founder of the Stuntmen's Association of Motion Pictures, has died. He was 91.

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LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Joe Williams, whose smooth baritone and collaborations with Count Basie won him acclaim as one of the great voices of jazz, collapsed and died on a city street after walking away from a hospital. He was 80.

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. (AP) -- Photojournalist Lucien Aigner, known for his images of Einstein in front of a blackboard and Mussolini tweaking his nose, has died. He was 97. The Hungarian-born Aigner, brother of the noted designer Etienne Aigner, died Monday in a Waltham nursing home. The cause of death was not immediately known.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Rapper Freaky Tah, a member of the hip-hop group the Lost Boyz, was killed by a ski-masked gunman who came up behind him and fired a single gunshot into his head.

From his hospital room on the island of Maui, Mark Monazzami asked himself in anguish Monday why the punishing ocean had taken his wife of just one year but spared him.

ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) -- Assassins shot and killed Paraguay's vice president at his office this morning, radio reports and a leading lawmaker said. The radio reports said Luis Maria Argana was entering his office in central Asuncion at 8 a.m. when he was fired on by unidentified assailants.

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) -- The seating unit of an amusement park raft carrying a dozen people separated from its inner-tube base as it overturned and killed an Arkansas woman, park operators said.

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Actor David Strickland, a television and movie actor who had roles in the sitcom ``Suddenly Susan'' and the new movie ``Forces of Nature,'' was found hanged in a motel room, his publicist and witnesses said.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Musician Charles Sawtelle, known as ``The Bluegrass Mystery,'' died of complications related to a bone marrow transplant he underwent as part of his battle with leukemia.

TAMMS, Ill. -- A man convicted of two murders and suspected of being part of a gang of killers who used their many victims' body parts in ghoulish rituals was executed by lethal injection Wednesday, officials said.

BELFAST (Reuters) - One of Northern Ireland's best known Catholic human rights lawyers was killed Monday by a car bomb that cast a pall over faltering peace efforts in the troubled British province.

NEW YORK (AP) -- A graduate student from Kansas who was working with battered women was found dead on a Brooklyn sidewalk with a kitchen knife in her back. Police believe robbery was the motive for the Monday night attack on Amy Watkins, 26, who was studying for her masters in social work while working with victims of domestic violence in the Bronx.

Joe DiMaggio, the elegant Yankee Clipper whose 56-game hitting streak endures as one of the most remarkable records in baseball or any sport, died today at his home in Hollywood, Fla. He was 84.

WASHINGTON -- Retired Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, author of the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide and set off one of the most explosive political debates in American history, died today at age 90.

A suspect in a Redwood City bank heist shot at a San Mateo County Sheriff's deputy Thursday, led police on a chase to a San Jose apartment complex, where he apparently committed suicide after a standoff, police said.

LONDON (AP) -- Dusty Springfield, the husky-voiced white soul singer who put her stamp on the 1960s with such hits as ``Son of a Preacher Man'' and ``Wishin' and Hopin','' has died after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 59.

BEIJING (AP) -- Xie Bingxin, a prominent children's novelist whose stories have been read by generations of Chinese students, has died at age 99, state media reported Monday. Xie, known to readers as Bingxin, died Sunday in Beijing, official newspapers said, without elaborating.

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SYDNEY, Feb 22 (Reuters) - One man was killed and eight wounded when a man opened fire with a shotgun in a crowded street in the Australian steel city of Wollongong on Monday, officials said.

HONG KONG (AP) -- A supergerm that has proven resistant to one of the most potent antibiotics available has killed a Hong Kong woman, officials said today, raising fears that more such germs could develop as doctors continue to misuse or overuse antibiotics.

PEARL RIVER, N.Y. (AP) -- An 86-year-old retired plumber has been charged with shooting his ailing wife to death on her 88th birthday. Walter Papeman called 911 about 5:15 p.m. Sunday and told dispatchers that he had just shot his wife, Louise, in the chest with a rifle, police said.

TOKYO (AP) -- Hideo Itokawa, a prominent aeronautical engineer and a leader in Japan's rocket development program, has died, a family member said Monday. He was 86. Itokawa died Sunday of a stroke at a hospital in Maruko in the Nagano prefecture, or state, said the relative, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

CRAWFORDVILLE, Fla. (Reuters) - Henry Kendall, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and a pioneer of the environmental movement among scientists, died in Florida Monday while exploring the nature he fought to preserve.

NEW YORK (AP) -- In a matter of seconds, four white police officers from the elite Street Crime Unit fired 41 shots at an unarmed man, a black West African immigrant who had no police record and spoke with a stutter.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) -- Marius Schoon, a prominent apartheid opponent who spent 12 years in prison and lost his wife and daughter to a police letter bomb, has died, a hospital spokeswoman said today. He was 61.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- A house painter convicted of raping his 10-year-old stepdaughter was executed today, the first inmate to be put to death in the Philippines in 23 years.

MCALESTER, Okla. (AP) -- A man who killed his mother, his stepfather and a store clerk when he was 16 was put to death early today after telling his family his execution would do nothing to change their feelings.

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MEXICO CITY (AP) -- A leading human rights activist who had been demanding that the government clean up organized crime in drug-ridden Sinaloa state has been shot to death, state authorities said.

ATHENS, Greece (Reuters) -- A Greek sailor was charged today with murdering his American fiancee, cutting off her head and dumping her remains in a lake. A prosecutor in the northern Greek city of Kavala charged Giorgos Skiadopoulos, 23, with murdering Julie Scully, 30, a model from Mansfield, N.J., mutilating her body and deceiving the police by declaring her missing.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Eugene S. Pulliam, publisher of The Indianapolis Star and The Indianapolis News and a staunch defender of press freedom during a 64-year news career, has died. He was 84.

CORCORAN (AP) -- An inmate at Corcoran State Prison was stabbed to death in a bathroom as other prisoners and guards stood nearby, authorities said. Victor Buerman Sr., 44, was stabbed by another inmate on Monday, prison spokeswoman Sylvia Gonzalez said. Buerman was taken to Corcoran District Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

PARIS (AP) -- Raymond Peynet, the cartoon illustrator whose drawings of young lovers embodied romance for generations of French, has died, his family said. Peynet, who died Thursday at the Plein Ciel Clinic in the Riviera town of Mougins, near Cannes, was 90. His daughter, Annie Peynet, said her father died in his sleep of natural causes.

BELFAST (Reuters) - Brian Moore, one of Ireland's best-known writers, has died in California after a short illness, aged 77. His brother Seamus who lives in Belfast, capital of British-ruled Northern Ireland, said he became ill around Christmas and his condition deteriorated early Monday.

MADRID, Spain (AP) -- Spanish painter Jose Vela Zanetti, best known for his mural depicting human rights at the U.N. headquarters in New York, has died. He was 85. Vela Zanetti died late Monday from heart failure in a hospital in the northern city of Burgos after suffering a bad fall last week, national radio reported.

LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) -- A woman whose son is charged in the fatal beating of a gay college student was found dead near the side of a road, after she was seen leaving a bar in town wearing only a light jacket against the cold.

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CASTLE ROCK, Colo. (AP) -- An 82-year-old marathon runner jogging along a railroad track was killed by a train, which he couldn't hear because he was deaf. Charles McFerron, a veteran of a dozen marathons, was struck Monday while he was out on his daily training run.

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) -- State health officials fined a nursing home $25,000 after an 82-year-old retired Navy captain was found dying in bed with a fractured skull. The state Department of Health Services issued the citation against Park Superior, saying it failed to protect Fletcher Hale from accidental injury. Hale died the day after an apparent fall in the bathroom in early February.

Troops shoot, kill Indonesian protester JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Riot squads fired shots and tear gas when thousands of students demanding democratic reform tried to storm Parliament today in the worst violence in Indonesia in weeks.

ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) - A construction worker was being held on murder charges Thursday after a student at a central Florida high school died from a single punch to the head in a school yard confrontation, police said.

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- Cardinal Carlos Oviedo, a former Archbishop of Santiago, died Monday of a heart attack. He was 71. The Catholic University Hospital said Oviedo was admitted last week because of problems stemming from the neurological disorder that forced him to resign as archbishop last February.

ELKO, Nev. (AP) -- A man holding a woman hostage at knifepoint on a Greyhound bus was shot and killed after he lunged at a police officer. The Elko police officer who shot the suspect boarded the bus in this town along Interstate 80 on Tuesday after the suspect ordered all the estimated 25 passengers and the driver off the bus.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A car carrying three Norwegian journalists ran off the road and overturned today, killing one and injuring the other two, an Iraqi official said. A diplomat at the Norwegian embassy in the Jordanian capital, Amman, said the driver, believed to be a Jordanian, also was hurt in the crash.

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LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Clark County health officials were investigating what caused a California journalist to die of septic shock and his colleague to be hospitalized just days after attending the Comdex computer show.

COSTA MESA, Calif. (AP) -- The father of a deaf teen-ager, angry with school board members over the education of his son, was fatally shot in the head by a police sniper after holding school officials hostage for about three hours.

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Movie director Alan Pakula, who made such hits as ``All the President's Men'' and ``Sophie's Choice,'' was killed in an automobile accident in New York on Thursday, police said.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Esther Rolle, the strong-willed matriarch on the hit television sitcom ``Good Times'' who also appeared in the films ``Driving Miss Daisy'' and ``Rosewood,'' died at age 78, her publicist said today.

ROME (AP) -- The World Food Program said Monday that one of its staffers was shot to death in Angola. Elias Sayala, 38, was killed Saturday while working at a warehouse in Kuito, the United Nations agency's executive director, Catherine Bertini, said in a statement.

TORONTO -- The youngest son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was swept into a mountain lake by an avalanche in British Columbia on Friday and is presumed drowned, police officials said Sunday. Heavy snow has forced rescue teams to suspend their search.

PITTSBURG -- Using fingerprint analysis, Pittsburg police Sunday identified a body found in a landscaping supply yard as that of Lisa Diane Norrell, the Pittsburg teen who has been missing for at least a week.

ANKARA, Turkey (Reuters) -- Turkish police have begun an investigation into a suspected Kurd rebel bomber who died when a hand-made bomb he was carrying blew up, state-run Anatolian news agency said on Wednesday.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Rudolph J. Melone, a college administrator who founded the popular Gilroy Garlic Festival, died Sept. 17 from complications of cancer. He was 73. In 1979, Melone began the summertime festival, which now draws more than 125,000 visitors every year.

GAZA (Reuters) -- The Palestinian Authority cracked down on the militant Islamic group Hamas on Thursday after a suicide bomber tried to blow up a busload of Jewish settler children in a blast that killed an escorting Israeli soldier.

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What some neighbors say were long-simmering family tensions may have led to a 79-year-old retired Sunnyvale man shooting his wife and son to death and then turning the gun on himself at the family home in a quiet residential neighborhood.

HEBRON, West Bank (AP) -- An Israeli security guard was shot in the neck and his body thrown from a fast-moving car in Hebron today in an apparent attack by Palestinian militants.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) -- Dutch poet Vasalis, whose lucid style and poignant commentary on everyday life made her one of the Netherlands' most popular poets, has died. She was 89.

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (AP) -- Molly O'Day, a star of the silent screen who began her career in ``Our Gang' films and worked with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, has died. She was 88.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- Earl Biss, a prominent American Indian artist whose oil paintings hang in museums around the world, died of a stroke in Santa Fe. He was 51.

MONTEREY, Tenn. (AP) -- State Sen. Tommy Burks, a crime victims' advocate who was pushing a ballot measure to end a state requirement for ``comfortable'' prisons, was found shot to death on his farm early today.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Best-selling author and animal rights pioneer Cleveland Amory will be buried near the cat that inspired three of his books. Amory, who was 81, died Wednesday at his Manhattan home, according to a statement from The Fund for Animals Inc., which he founded and led. The statement gave no cause of death. He was at the fund's office working just a day before his death.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Gunmen posing as government investigators have shot dead a Colombian journalist, the ninth killed in the country this year, police said on Thursday. Saul Albaraz, 29, was shot to death on Wednesday evening on the doorstep of his home in the northwest Colombian city of Medellin. Police said the killers tried to pass themselves off as members of the chief prosecutor's department.

JERUSALEM -- Suspected Palestinian terrorists shot to death an Israeli and wounded another Tuesday as Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were preparing to leave for a summit near Washington. Hours after the shooting of the two Israelis in a hillside bathing pool on the outskirts of Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed the possibility that he would sign an interim accord turning over more land to the Palestinians.

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. (AP) -- Frank Yankovic, Grammy-winning ``polka king'' whose songs wore out thousands of pairs of dancing shoes over six decades, died today. He was 83.

KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) -- An American mountaineer died on the slopes of Mount Baruntse in the Himalayas, the Nepalese tourism ministry said today. Raoul Willie, a 45-year-old businessman from Aspen, Colo., died Sunday after suffering from acute high-altitude pulmonary and cerebral edema near the base camp at 14,200 feet, officials said.

MIDLAND, Mich. (AP) -- A worker at a Dow Chemical Co. plant died early today after being exposed to a raw material used in the production of herbicides, company officials said.

FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) -- A gay University of Wyoming student died today, five days after he was found pistol-whipped and lashed to a fence post in an attack denounced nationwide as a hate crime.

MANASSAS, Va. (AP) -- Hugh Finn, a brain-damaged man who became the focus of a high-profile court fight over the right to die, died today, eight days after the feeding tube keeping him alive was removed. He was 44.

HEBRON, West Bank (AP) -- Israeli troops fired rubber bullets at Palestinian stonethrowers today, killing a 20-year-old man and seriously injuring a news photographer. The death occurred as the United States is trying to conclude an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on a West Bank troop withdrawal.

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- Alameda County Superior Court Judge Stanley Golde, a noted defender of liberal causes before taking the bench, has died of cancer. He was 70.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Roddy McDowall, the British-born actor who starred as a child in ``Lassie Come Home'' and made a generation of new fans as an adult in ``Planet of the Apes,'' died Saturday at his home of cancer, associates said.

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) -- A man who broke into his ex-girlfriend's house in search of drugs and shot her in the head as she slept was executed this morning after apologizing to the victim's family.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A man apparently committed suicide during Friday evening rush hour when he jumped in front of an oncoming commuter train, BART police said. Witnesses said the unidentified man, believed to be in his 30s, intentionally threw himself in front of a train about 4:20 p.m. at the 24th Street BART station in San Francisco's Mission District, said Lt. Travis Gibson. He died of head trauma, Gibson said.

ULAN BATOR, Oct 3 (Reuters) - The leading figure in Mongolia's 1990 pro-democracy movement has been assassinated, a presidential spokesman said on Saturday, adding a violent twist to the country's political crisis.

CARACAS (Reuters) - A DC-3 plane carrying 22 tourists plunged into swampland in southern Venezuela Friday, killing the co-pilot and injuring three people, authorities said. The aircraft, built in 1950 and operated by local airline Servivensa, crashed as it was returning to Canaima National Park airfield, about 440 miles southeast of Caracas, after a flight over the Angel Falls, Venezuela's top tourist attraction.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Gene Autry, who parlayed a $5 mail order guitar into a career as Hollywood's first singing cowboy, died today. He was 91. Autry, who also built a multimillion-dollar fortune in broadcasting and was the original owner of the California Angels baseball team, died at his Southern California home, a spokeswoman said.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- A minister who was using a .357-caliber Magnum to compare sin to Russian roulette died after shooting himself in the head with a blank round before several hundred parishioners, including his family.

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HUNTSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - A former construction worker who killed a man during a 1985 robbery and kidnapping was executed by lethal injection Wednesday.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A 9-year-old was charged with second-degree murder for the stabbing death of his 11-year-old brother, possibly the youngest person ever accused of murder in Los Angeles County.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- Israelis in a passing car opened fire on Palestinian high school students today, killing one and wounding another, witnesses and doctors said. The witnesses said the Israelis shot without provocation. In the past, Israelis driving in the West Bank have opened fire to repulse Palestinian stone throwers.

MURRAY, Ky. (AP) -- A fire in a dormitory at Murray State University early today killed one student and injured 14 others, one critically. The fire started about 2:30 a.m. in the same area of Hester Hall where another blaze happened last weekend, fire officials said. The causes of both blazes were undetermined.

TROTWOOD, Ohio (AP) -- Tears welled up in the eyes of Richard Eiland as he recalled finding his pastor shot and dying on the floor of his church following a Bible study class.

MISSION VIEJO, Calif. (AP) -- Florence Griffith Joyner, the triple gold medalist at the 1988 Olympics who captivated the world with her meteoric speed and flamboyant style, died today. She was 38.

OROFINO, Idaho (AP) -- James ``Bo'' Gritz, a former Green Beret colonel and right-wing leader of the so-called Patriot Movement, was hospitalized with a gunshot wound. No details were released except that no one but Gritz was believed to be involved in the Sunday afternoon shooting. An investigation was continuing on whether it was an accident. Hunting season is under way.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- Muriel Humphrey Brown, widow of Vice President Hubert Humphrey and his brief successor in the U.S. Senate, has died. She was 86. Mrs. Brown died Sunday of natural causes at Abbott Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Minneapolis after being admitted to the hospital earlier in the day.

DENVER (AP) -- Daisy Anderson, whose husband was a slave who ran away and joined the Union Army, has died at age 97, leaving just two known surviving Civil War widows, one a Union widow, one a Confederate.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Henry J. Moore, a U.S. Geological Survey geologist who helped select the landing site for the Mars Pathfinder, has died at 70. Moore died of an apparent heart attack Monday in Nephi, Utah. He and his wife, Patsy Ann, of Palo Alto, Calif., were en route to visit relatives in Salt Lake City.

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- A man trying to aid a friend fleeing the Border Patrol was shot to death after allegedly threatening an agent with a rock, authorities said.

LOS ANGELES -- Tom Bradley, the Texas sharecropper's son who rose from the police ranks to become Los Angeles' first black mayor, died today. He was 80. Bradley, who was mayor from 1973 to 1993, died at 9 a.m., Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke announced at a supervisors meeting. Mayor Richard Riordan's office confirmed the death but had no immediate details. Bradley had suffered a paralyzing stroke in April 1996 while recuperating from heart surgery.

BEITUNIA, West Bank (AP) -- A car rigged with explosives blew up today in a West Bank industrial area, killing a Hamas activist and wounding two other supporters of the Islamic militant group, Palestinian police said.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Dan Quisenberry, a premier reliever with the Kansas City Royals known for his quick wit and deceptively easy-looking pitches that no one could hit, died of a brain tumor at age 45.