A coalition airstrike destroyed a mud-brick home, killing nine people from four generations of an Afghan family during a clash between Western troops and militants, Afghan officials and relatives said Monday. It was the second report in two days of civilian deaths at the hands of Western forces. On Sunday, U.S. Marines fired on cars and pedestrians as they fled a suicide attack. Up to 10 Afghans died in that violence, and President Hamid Karzai condemned the killings.
Substandard living conditions found at the Army’s flagship veterans hospital likely exist throughout the military health care system, the head of a House panel investigating Walter Reed Army Medical Center said Monday. Charges of bureaucratic delays and poor treatment there have produced calls in Congress for quick reform.
A suicide car bomber shattered a relative lull in Baghdad’s violence Monday. It killed at least 28 people in a blast that touched off raging fires and a blizzard of bloodstained paper from a popular book market. It was the largest bombing in the capital in three days, and came on the heels of a major push by nearly 1,200 U.S. and Iraqi troops into Sadr City, a Shiite militia stronghold and base for fighters loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Dozens of families evacuated from a FEMA trailer park that had been plagued by sewage leaks and power outages and were in temporary homes Monday FEMA said it had requested work permits to dismantle the site this week. Many of the residents were moved to other FEMA locations in the Hammond area, agency spokesman Manuel Broussard said.
A fired employee shot and critically wounded three people at a menu printing plant Monday before killing himself as a SWAT team entered the building, authorities said. The shooter appeared to be about 60 years old and the victims, all men, are in their 50s, police said.
Wall Street managed to stabilize itself Monday. But investors clearly were still nervous about mortgage defaults, a strengthening yen and tumbling stock markets abroad. The major indexes fluctuated as investors tried to size up where the market was headed, and as trades swooped in to take advantage of stocks left severely depressed by last week’s big decline.
A man who authorities tracked down in the snow of a wilderness area in northern Michigan confessed to killing and dismembering his wife. He described the “horrific” details surrounding her death to law enforcement, a sheriff said Monday.
The Justice Department said Monday that Republican Sen. Pete Domenici called Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his deputy four times to complain about a U.S. attorney who claims he was fired for not rushing a corruption probe. Domenici acknowledged Sunday that he contacted the prosecutor, U.S. attorney David Iglesias, in October 2006 to ask about his investigation into an alleged Democratic kickback scheme. But Domenici insists he never pressured or threatened Iglesias though he said he had long sought Iglesias’ ouster.
