Fidel Castro has had at least three failed operations and complications from an intestinal infection, and the Cuban leader faces "a very grave prognosis," a Spanish newspaper reported Tuesday. A Cuban diplomat in Madrid said the reports were lies and declined to comment. Cuba has released little information on Castro's condition since he temporarily ceded power in July to his brother, Defense Minister Raul Castro, until he could recover from emergency intestinal surgery.\nAn explosion outside a Baghdad university killed at least 65 people on Tuesday in the deadliest of several attacks on predominantly Shiite areas. The attacks -- and the announcement of four U.S. military deaths -- came on a day the United Nations said more than 34,000 Iraqi civilians died last year in sectarian violence.
A storm that plastered the Midwest and Plains with a heavy shell of ice killed at least 46 people in seven states. The weight of the ice snapped tree limbs, shorted out transformers and made power lines sag, knocking out current to about 145,000 customers in New York and New Hampshire on Monday, though service had been restored for about half of them by Tuesday morning. \nOne hundred potential jurors filed into a federal courtroom Tuesday for the start of the conspiracy trial of a former Coca-Cola secretary accused of stealing trade secrets in an effort to sell them to rival Pepsi. Joya Williams, who was fired from her job as an administrative assistant to Coca-Cola's global brand director after the allegations came to light, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of the single federal charge against her.\nSeveral train cars, including at least one carrying liquid propane gas, derailed and exploded south of Louisville, Ky., on Tuesday, shutting down a nearby highway and forcing evacuations of homes, businesses and a school, authorities said. There were no immediate reports of injuries from the wreck that occurred about 8:50 a.m., said Kentucky State Police dispatcher Joey Mattingly. The cause is under investigation.\nA roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers in northwestern Iraq, the military said Tuesday. The blast struck the Task Force Lightning Soldiers assigned to the 4th Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division Monday while they were conducting operations in the northwestern Ninevah province, according to a statement. The identities of the slain soldiers were being withheld pending notification of their relatives. The deaths raised to at least 3,026 members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
