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Topeka Capital-Journal, The, May 21, 2007

GARDEZ, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber apparently targeting a U.S. convoy killed 14 people and wounded 31 in a crowded Afghan market Sunday, witnesses and officials said.

The powerful explosion in the city of Gardez damaged around 30 shops, shattering windows and destroying the closest stores.

Witnesses said a U.S. convoy appeared to be the target. Maj. William Mitchell, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said there were reports of injuries to ISAF soldiers, though he didn't have further details.

Shah Mohammad, 19, said all those killed or wounded by the blast were Afghan civilians.

"The convoy had already passed when the attack happened," he said.

The blast came a day after a suicide bomber in northern Afghanistan killed three German soldiers and seven civilians.

nation

2 dead, 32 hurt in bus crash on Interstate 80 in Pennsylvania: A bus veered off a highway and crashed early Sunday near Clearfield, Pa., killing two people and injuring 32 others, authorities said.

The bus was eastbound on Interstate 80 with 36 people on board when it crashed at about 3:30 a.m., police said.

The bus ran off the right side of the two-lane highway before veering left across the roadway, running up an embankment and flipping onto its side in a grassy area, Trooper Jamie Levier said at an afternoon news conference.

Thirty-two people ranging in age from a toddler to a 50-year-old were treated for wounds including lung and abdominal injuries, hospital officials said.

Specter says no-confidence vote could push Gonzales to quit: The top Republican on the Senate committee investigating Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in Washington said Sunday he believes Gonzales could step down before a no-confidence vote sought this week by Senate Democrats.

Gonzales failed to draw a public statement of support from Senate GOP leader Mitch McCon-nell. Asked whether Gonzales effectively can lead the Justice Department, McConnell said "that's for the president to decide." The senator suggested there may be several resolutions introduced to dilute a no-confidence vote.

Wildfires in California, Arizona nearly contained: Firefighters made progress Sunday on a 2,500-acre wildfire that chased thousands of people from campsites near Los Padres and Angeles national forests.

The 4-square-mile blaze was 85 percent surrounded, Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Mike Brown said.

The 200 firefighters on the lines were helped by lower nighttime temperatures.

More than 3,000 people were evacuated from four campsites in the area between the national forests, Brown said. Authorities said no homes were immediately threatened.

The fire was reported at about 2 p.m. Saturday near the Golden State Freeway about 70 miles north of Los Angeles. The cause of the blaze was under investigation.

Elsewhere, a wildfire that had threatened homes and other structures in two northern Arizona forests was 80 percent contained.

Study: veterans more likely to have sex crime convictions: Military veterans in prison are more than twice as likely to have been convicted for sex offenses than nonveteran inmates, the government reports from Washington. Federal researchers can't say why.

A study released Sunday by the Bureau of Justice Statistics compared the populations of inmates who served in the military and those who didn't.

Veterans are half as likely to be incarcerated than the overall male population in the first place, researchers found, but 23 percent of the veterans in prison was a sex offender, compared with 9 percent of nonveteran inmates.

world

U.S. military reports 7 more soldiers killed in Iraq: Bombings killed seven U.S. soldiers in Baghdad and a southern city, the U.S. military said Sunday, and the country's Sunni vice president spoke out against a proposed oil law, clouding the future of a key benchmark for assuring continued U.S. support for the government.

Six of the soldiers were killed Saturday in a bombing in western Baghdad, the military said in a statement. Their interpreter was also killed.

The other soldier died in a blast Saturday in Diwaniyah, a mostly Shiite city 80 miles south of the capital where radical Shiite militias operate. Two soldiers were wounded in that attack, the military said.

39 killed in Lebanon, Islamic militants battle army: Lebanese army tanks pounded a shadowy group suspected of ties to al-Qaida on Sunday, targeting its hideouts inside a Palestinian refugee camp after hours of clashes killed at least 22 soldiers and 17 militants.

The violence between the army and the Fatah Islam group erupted both in the northern port city of Tripoli and the adjacent Nahr el- Bared refugee camp. It added further instability to a country already mired in its worst political crisis between the Western- backed government and Hezbollah-led opposition since the end of the 1975-90 Lebanese civil war.

It was the most serious fight the army had engaged in Lebanon in more than a decade and the worst violence to hit Tripoli in two decades.

Gunmen kill 3 police officers in northern Mexico: Assailants gunned down three police officers within 24 hours around the northern industrial city of Monterrey, the latest in a wave of killings of law enforcement officials across Mexico.