Attacks kill NATO service member, 2 Afghan police

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? Taliban militants attacked local security checkpoints in a provincial capital in northern Afghanistan, killing two policemen in a fight that also left 18 insurgents dead, Afghan officials said Saturday.

NATO said a coalition service member also died in a militant attack in the south on Saturday, but did not provide further details.

The violence follows NATO's formal handover of security in the entirety of Afghanistan to Kabul's forces ? a transition that comes at a time with violence levels matching their worst in nearly 12 years of war.

In northern Afghanistan, Kunduz provincial police spokesman Sayed Sarwar Hussaini said Saturday that the Taliban attacked multiple checkpoints at about noon Friday in the provincial capital of the same name, killing one member of the Afghan local police, a community-based force, and wounding two.

The Taliban then moved outside the city where a gun battle with Afghan security forces lasted until about midnight, Hussaini said.

Eighteen Taliban fighters and another local policeman were killed in the battle, and another 11 militants were wounded, he said. Hussaini posted on his Facebook page a picture of 11 bodies lined up inside the provincial police compound in Kunduz that he said were those of Taliban militants his troops recovered from the scene of the fight.

The Interior Ministry said the battle outside of the city involved Afghan National Police, and that it was conducted independently "without the involvement of any foreigners."

As Afghan forces have become more involved in security operations they have seen a sharp rise in deaths, while casualties among the U.S.-led military coalition have been reducing as the international forces pull back to let the Afghans take the lead.

According to an Associated Press count, 807 Afghan security force members ? including soldiers and police ? and 365 civilians have been killed so far this year through the end of May. A total of 63 coalition troops were also killed in that span.

Last year through the end of May, Afghan security forces lost 365 soldiers and police and 338 civilians were killed. Coalition forces lost 177 troops during that time.

In a brazen attack last month for which the Taliban claimed responsibility, four militants using a car bomb, grenade launchers and suicide vests assaulted the Kabul compound of the International Organization for Migration, a U.N-affiliated agency assisting returning Afghan migrants.

The Italian government said one of four aid workers injured in the attack, 40-year-old Italian Barbara De Anna, died in a hospital in Germany on Friday where she was being treated for severe burns.

Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino said De Anna "embodied the best of Italy," and that "we pay tribute to those who, like her, work in the most remote and difficult areas of crisis."

_____

Rahim Faiez in Kabul and Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this story.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/attacks-kill-nato-member-2-afghan-police-122229292.html

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Weiner calls rival over voter's gay slur

Christine Quinn said she received a message from Anthony Weiner on Thursday. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)Former Rep. Anthony Weiner called his New York City mayoral rival Christine Quinn on Thursday to clarify a recent discussion he had with a voter who reportedly used a homophobic slur to describe Quinn.

Quinn, who is gay, told reporters on Friday she received a phone message from Weiner on Thursday after he came under fire for not strongly admonishing a voter he met during a campaign event who reportedly referred to Quinn as a ?dyke.?

The interaction, detailed in a Washington Post story, said Weiner did not scold the woman until after he noticed a reporter?s ?incredulous reaction." Weiner then reportedly told the voter, who apologized, ?It?s OK. It?s not your fault.?

On Thursday, Weiner told reporters that he recalled admonishing the woman but insisted he did not recall any further interaction. He reaffirmed his support for gay rights and said he would not tolerate ?any utterance of any type of slur against any community.?

On Friday, Quinn said she was ?grateful? that Weiner clarified the interaction in his phone message to her?but she stopped short of saying whether he explicitly apologized.

?It is incredibly important for all New Yorkers?but particularly those in public life?to make very clear that in this city, the most diverse city in the world, in the city where the LGBT civil rights movement was born, that that type of language cannot be tolerated,? Quinn said, according to Politicker. ?I think all of us need to re-commit to making sure that whenever we hear language of any type that is demeaning, derogatory, racists, sexist, homophobic, anything of that nature, that we speak out against it.?

Weiner issued a stronger apology in a statement issued on Twitter by his spokeswoman Barbara Morgan, insisting again that he did not believe the woman?s comment was ?appropriate.?

?If the impression is that I did, I apologize because behavior like this will absolutely not be tolerated in my administration,? Weiner said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/weiner-called-quinn-clarify-talk-voter-used-gay-175640568.html

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Iowa man selling coffin gets questions about bones

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) ? An Iowa man's online classified ad offering an oak coffin for sale neglected to mention the full skeleton inside, so police interrupted the deal and seized the bones.

The Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil reported (http://bit.ly/14eMNn6 ) that the coffin belonged to the now-defunct Council Bluffs chapter of the International Order of Odd Fellows, which promotes anonymous giving to the poor.

Dave Burgstrum placed the ad on the Craigslist website to sell the coffin for $12,000 because he's trying to raise money to pay the property taxes on the fraternal organization's hall.

Burgstrum said the coffin was made in the 1900s and had been used in the group's rituals to represent death. The bones had been in there for years.

"They were just there as long as anyone could remember," said Burgstrum, who is one of a handful of remaining members of the Council Bluffs chapter of the Odd Fellows.

Burgstrum said lodge records suggest the skeleton was donated by a doctor who retired in the 1880s.

But Council Bluffs Police detective Michael Roberts said human remains can't be sold with proper identification.

"If they had papers of origination, then they would be OK to own," Roberts said.

The skeleton was sent to the Iowa State Medical Examiner. Pottawattamie County forensic investigator Karen Foreman said it's unlikely the skeleton will be identified, but the race and gender can be determined. And if the skeleton is Native American, federal law requires that it be returned to the tribe.

Burgstrum said the laboratory is welcome to keep the skeleton. His interest has always been in selling the coffin.

"I'm ready to wheel and deal on it," he said. "I'd like to get those taxes paid."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/aa9398e6757a46fa93ed5dea7bd3729e/Article_2013-06-22-US-ODD-Coffin-Classified/id-09134cdbdc224bc1b4792cbd2719aa86

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Obama nominating Comey as FBI director

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama has chosen a former George W. Bush administration official best known for a dramatic hospital bedside standoff against a warrantless wiretapping program to head the FBI for the next decade.

White House officials are hoping that James Comey's bipartisan background and two decades of law enforcement experience will help him win Senate approval to replace outgoing FBI Director Robert Mueller. Mueller took over the agency the week before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and will have served longer than any director besides J. Edgar Hoover when he steps down Sept. 4.

Mueller transformed the agency into one the country's chief weapons against terrorism, leading Obama to ask him in 2011 to stay on two years beyond his initial 10-year term. The new director would take over as the agency grapples with a privacy debates surrounding a host of recently exposed investigative tactics, and the White House said Obama would announce Comey as the man for the job Friday afternoon in the Rose Garden.

Comey was a federal prosecutor who served for several years as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York before coming to Washington after 9/11 as deputy attorney general. In recent years he's been an executive at defense company Lockheed Martin, general counsel to hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, board member at HSBC Holdings and lecturer on national security law at Columbia Law School.

He has shown a willingness to take on battles over government surveillance in the age of terrorism ? an issue that remains prominent in current Washington debate. In a confrontation he has called the most difficult night of his career, he rushed to the hospital bedside of his boss, John Ashcroft, in 2004 to stop two senior Bush White House aides from getting the ailing attorney general's approval to reauthorize a post-9/11 program that allowed government wiretaps to be used without warrants.

Comey's defiance won him respect in Washington, and Republicans have said they see no major obstacles to his confirmation. But he is certain to face tough questions about his recent hedge fund work and his ties to Wall Street as well as how he would handle current, high-profile FBI investigations.

The FBI is responsible for both intelligence and law enforcement, with more than 36,000 employees. It has faced questions in recent weeks over media leak probes involving The Associated Press and Fox News; the Boston Marathon bombings; the attack at Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans; and two vast government surveillance programs into phone records and online communications.

The leaker of those National Security Agency programs, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, also is the subject of a criminal investigation. And just this week, Mueller revealed the FBI uses drones for surveillance of stationary subjects and said the privacy implications of such operations are worthy of debate.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which doesn't take positions on nominees, is raising questions about Comey's record on national security. ACLU senior policy counsel Mike German said while Comey stood up to some surveillance, he eventually approved the NSA program, along with interrogation techniques that included waterboarding, as well as defended the indefinite detention of Jose Padilla, an American terrorism suspect.

"We want to make sure whoever sits in that chair has a determined interest in protecting the rule of law, particularly since they will be there 10 years, outlasting this president and potentially the next president," German said.

But the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee that will oversee Comey's confirmation hearing expressed support for his nomination. Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., called for senators to give Comey "the swift and respectful confirmation he deserves."

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Comey's experience on national security would benefit the FBI. Grassley also said he wanted to question Comey on his work in the hedge fund industry and on the Obama administration's efforts to prosecute Wall Street for its role in the economic downturn.

In dramatic testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2007, Comey said he thought the no-warrant wiretapping program was so questionable that he refused to reauthorize it while serving as acting attorney general during Ashcroft's hospitalization. Comey said when he learned that the White House chief of staff and counsel were heading to Ashcroft's room despite his wife's instructions that there be no visitors, Comey beat them there and watched as Ashcroft turned them away.

"That night was probably the most difficult night of my professional life," Comey testified. He said he and Ashcroft had reservations about the program's legality, but he would not discuss details since the program was classified.

Comey was deputy attorney general in 2005 when he unsuccessfully tried to limit tough interrogation tactics against suspected terrorists. He told then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that some of the practices were wrong and would damage the department's reputation.

As U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Comey headed one of the nation's most prominent prosecutorial offices and one at the front lines in the fight against terrorism, corporate malfeasance, organized crime and the war on drugs.

As an assistant U.S. attorney in Virginia, Comey handled the investigation of the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers housing complex near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 U.S. military personnel.

___

Follow Nedra Pickler on Twitter at https://twitter.com/nedrapickler

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-nominating-comey-fbi-director-081049082.html

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FDA allows OTC morning-after pill, lifts age limit

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The morning-after pill is finally going over-the-counter.

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved unrestricted sales of Plan B One-Step, lifting all age limits on the emergency contraceptive.

The move came a week after the Obama administration ended months of back-and-forth legal battles by promising a federal judge it would take that step. Women's health advocates had pushed for easier access to next-day birth control for more than a decade.

"Over-the-counter access to emergency contraceptive products has the potential to further decrease the rate of unintended pregnancies in the United States," FDA drug chief Dr. Janet Woodcock said in a statement announcing the approval.

It wasn't clear how quickly Plan B One-Step would move from behind pharmacy counters to sit on drugstore shelves. Until now, customers could buy that morning-after pill and competing generic versions without a prescription only if they proved to a pharmacist that they were 17 or older. FDA said the product will have to be repackaged to reflect the change; maker Teva Women's Health didn't immediately respond. FDA has not lifted age limits on competing generics.

The morning-after pill contains a higher dose of the hormone in regular birth control pills. Taking it within 72 hours of rape, condom failure or just forgetting regular contraception can cut the chances of pregnancy by up to 89 percent, but it works best within the first 24 hours. If a girl or woman already is pregnant, the pill, which prevents ovulation or fertilization of an egg, has no effect.

Back in 2011, the FDA was preparing to allow over-the-counter sales of emergency contraceptives with no limits when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled her own scientists in an unprecedented move. She said she worried that girls as young as 11 could use the pill with no supervision, a concern that President Barack Obama echoed.

In April, U.S. District Judge Edward Korman blasted that decision as putting politics ahead of science and ordered the FDA to allow unrestricted sales of emergency contraceptives. He said hardly any 11-year-olds would use the pill, which costs about $50. The Obama administration lost a round in the appeals court, too, before telling the judge it would approve the one-pill brand.

Doctors' groups and contraceptive advocates have long argued that easier access to emergency contraceptives would cut unintended pregnancies and said the drugs are safe even when used at young ages.

Social conservatives, in contrast, complain that lifting prescription requirements undermines the rights of parents and could endanger girls.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fda-allows-otc-morning-pill-lifts-age-limit-222019016.html

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Boston poised to begin condom giveaway in high schools

By Stephanie Simon

(Reuters) - Students at all Boston public high schools will soon be able to obtain free condoms at school - as long as they sit through a few minutes of counseling about safe sex - under a policy approved Wednesday by the school board.

Condoms are already available in 19 high schools with on-site health centers. The policy, endorsed on a 5-0 vote by the Boston School Committee, expands distribution to all 32 high schools and their 17,000 students.

Parents will have the right to exempt their children.

Several U.S. urban districts, including New York and Los Angeles, make condoms widely available in high schools. So do many suburban school districts around Boston.

The expansion in Boston will not cost the district anything since the contraception is donated by public health agencies, district spokesman Lee McGuire said. Schools will distribute the condoms on request, after a brief counseling session with the nurse or another staff member.

The Archdiocese of Boston issued a statement calling condom distribution misguided, but did not organize formal protests.

Bill Albert, chief program officer of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, said parents often fear easy access to contraception will encourage teens to have sex earlier or more frequently. Studies have shown that isn't the case, he said.

"That is one they can cross off their worry list," Albert said. "The science is absolutely clear."

It's less clear, Albert said, whether students consistently practice safer sex when they have access to free condoms.

The condom policy is part of a broader wellness initiative in Boston schools, including expanded sex education, better nutrition and more physical activity for students.

(Reporting by Stephanie Simon; Editing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Gary Hill)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/boston-poised-begin-condom-giveaway-high-schools-005447696.html

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All-women jury chosen for George Zimmerman's trial

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) ? A jury of six women, five of them white and the other a minority, was picked Thursday to decide the second-degree murder trial of George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer who says he shot an unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin, in self-defense.

Prosecutors have said Zimmerman, 29, racially profiled the 17-year-old Martin as he walked back from a convenience store on Feb. 26, 2012, in the rain, wearing a dark hooded shirt. Zimmerman identifies himself as Hispanic.

The race and ethnicity of the minority chosen for the jury was not immediately available.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys chose the panel of six jurors after almost two weeks of jury selection. In Florida, 12 jurors are required only for criminal trials involving capital cases, when the death penalty is being considered.

Martin's shooting death and the initial decision not to charge Zimmerman led to public outrage and demonstrations around the nation, with some accusing Sanford police of failing to thoroughly investigate the shooting.

The six jurors were culled from a pool of 40 jury candidates who made it into a second round of jury questioning.

Before selecting the jurors Thursday, defense attorney Mark O'Mara explored potential jurors' views on whether they thought sympathy should play a role in deciding a case. Juror B-72, a young Hispanic man, said he wasn't affected by sympathetic people because he's never had many close relationships.

"So when a person might seem sympathetic, to me it's indifferent," he said.

O'Mara also asked the jurors about when they thought self-defense could be used. Juror H-6, a white man in his 30s, said he thought deadly force could be warranted if a person feels danger.

"I feel that if you're somewhere you're supposed to be and allowed to be, you should have the right to defend yourself," he said.

O'Mara met resistance from the judge when he tried to characterize the definition for justifiable use of deadly force.

Prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda objected multiple times during O'Mara's line of questioning, eventually leading to Judge Debra Nelson to twice read what will be the jury instruction once the final jury is selection.

"I don't want either side to give an interpretation on the law," Nelson said.

O'Mara said screening the prospective jurors for any biases or prejudices "is probably as critical if not more critical than the evidence."

"If you bring that into the courtroom, then what we can't get is a fair verdict," he said.

___

Follow Kyle Hightower on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/KHightower

Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/women-jury-chosen-george-zimmermans-trial-185138496.html

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