Officials: Bin Laden eyed small cities as targets

Although hunted and in hiding, Osama bin Laden remained the driving force behind each recent al-Qaida terror plot, U.S. officials say, citing his private journal and other documents recovered in last week's raid.

Awaiting Navy SEALs killed him a week ago, bin Laden dispensed chilling advice to the leaders of al-Qaida groups from Yemen to London: Hit Los Angeles, not just New York, he wrote. Target trains as well as planes. If possible, strike on major dates, such as the Fourth of July and the impending 10th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Over all, he urged, kill added Americans in a single attack, to drive them from the Arab world.

Bin Laden's written words illustrate that counterterrorist officials worldwide underestimated how key he remained to running the organization, shattering the conservative thinking that he had been summary from side to side separation to being an inspiring figurehead, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

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US team flies to North Korea as Kim visits China

A U.S. government team flew to North Korea to assess food shortages Tuesday, while the country's cloistered leader Kim Jong Il allegedly traveled to an eastern China city on a visit aimed at studying Beijing's financial reform.

The allocation led by Robert King, U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights issue, deceased Beijing for Pyongyang for a five-day visit to verify food supply surveys conduct by the United Nations and U.S.-based charity and see if there are ways to monitor aid allocation.

North Korea asked for food support in January after summer floods and during a bitter winter that hit staple crops. While compassionate organizations say aid is right away needed, the U.S., like other intercontinental donors, distrusts the secretive North Korean government, which has pursued illicit nuclear weapons and missile programs in spite of its dire food shortages.

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Netanyahu: Israel cannot return to 1967 borders

Israel's prime minister assured to present his vision for an Israeli-Palestinian peace in a talking before U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday, but vowed his country would not go back to mid-1967 borders that he termed "hard to defend."

Benjamin Netanyahu made this pledge in an address Monday to thousands of pro-Israel American Jews and U.S. lawmakers. His language drew roaring cheers and standing ovations, a sign of the commanding backing he enjoys in the U.S. as the White House pressure him to do more to refurbish stalled Mideast peacemaking.

The warm reception Netanyahu enjoy at the gala dinner of the American Israel Public Affairs commission contrast piercingly with the contentious quality of some of his new interactions with President Barack Obama accurately over border issues.

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Senate blocks bill repealing $2B in oil tax breaks

The Senate blocked a bill Tuesday that would cancel about $2 billion a year in tax breaks for the five major oil companies, a Democratic retort to $4-a-gallon gasoline that might fare better when Congress and the White House discuss a deal afterward this year to add to the government's ability to have a loan of.

The bill was beaten on a procedural vote. But Democrats hope to erect their case to contain the measure in a deficit-reduction package being negotiated by key lawmakers and the Obama administration. Lawmakers from both parties are challenging deficit reduction as part of deal to boost the government's capacity to borrow and avoid a record default on U.S. Treasury bonds.

"This bill says that yet the most rich and powerful between us must do their fair share to help us reduce the shortfall," said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., the bill's sponsor. "Their high-priced lobbyists cannot stop us from doing what is fair and what is right."

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Bin Laden's demise: US rejoices after a decade

After almost a decade of anger and fear, America rejoice Monday at the termination of Osama bin Laden, the terror brain at the rear the horrific 9/11 attacks. Navy SEALs who killed the world's most-wanted terrorist held a trove of al-Qaida documents to pore over, and President Barack Obama laid plans to visit New York's ground zero.

Bin Laden, killed in a passionate firefight in a daring raid at his prepared hideout in Pakistan, was hunted down based on in sequence first gleaned years ago from prisoner at secret CIA prison sites in Eastern Europe, officials disclose.

His body was speedily taken away for burial at sea, except not before a DNA match was done to prove his identity. A U.S. official said there also was photos presentation bin Laden with the fatal wound above his left eye, a firing that tore away part of his skull. The photos were not without delay released.

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US kills Osama bin Laden decade after 9/11 attacks

Osama bin Laden, the face of global terrorism and draftsman of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, was killed in a firefight with elite American forces Monday, then speedily buried at sea in an eye-catching finale to a secretive decade on the run.

Long alleged to be hiding in caves, bin Laden was tracked down in a pricey, custom-built hideout not far from a Pakistani military greenhouse.

"Fairness has been done," President Barack Obama said in a theatrical statement at the White House while a crowd cheered outside and hundreds more congregated at ground zero in Manhattan to celebrate the news.

The military operation took mere minutes.

U.S. helicopters commuter boat elite counter-terrorism troops into the complex identified by the CIA as bin Laden's hideout — and back out over again in less than 40 minutes. Bin Laden was shot in the head, officials said, after he and his bodyguards resisted the attack.

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NATO Aims to Rattle Qaddafi With Increased Airstrikes, Attacks on Compound

NATO is increasing airstrikes against Muammar Qaddafi’s forces and select targets closer to the Libyan leader in an effort to break a military stalemate between loyalists and rebels, military officials said.

U.K. Defense Secretary Liam Fox said this week’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization strike that compressed part of Qaddafi’s main complex in Tripoli was meant to “increase the psychological heaviness” on the Libyan dictator. Fox met U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates yesterday in Washington.

The attacks on the multifaceted will make Qaddafi “realize that this is a little that he is involved in -- and I think that’s very significant in terms of the force we can bring on the regime itself,” Fox said on PBS’s “NewsHour.”

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Judge's gay partner raised in Proposition 8 case

Proponents of California same-sex marriage ban filed a movement Monday seeking to check out of the historic ruling that upturned Proposition 8 since the federal judge who wrote it is in a long-term association with an additional man.

Lawyers for the ban's backers said that Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker should have uninvolved himself from the case, or at least disclose his relationship status, to avoid a real or supposed conflict of interest.

"Only if Chief Judge Walker had unambiguously disavowed any attention in marrying his partner could the parties and the public be certain that he did not have a direct personal concentration in the outcome of the case," attorneys for the coalition of sacred and conservative groups that put proposal 8 on the November 2008 ballot wrote.

U.S. sends drones to Libya as battle rages for Misrata

Rebels welcomed the operation of U.S. unmanned aircraft and said they hoped the move would defend civilians. Doctors at the hospital in Misrata, the rebels' last major throttlehold in the West of the country, said nine insurgent were killed in hostility on Thursday.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a Washington news discussion President Barack Obama had sanctioned the use of Predator drones and they were already in operation. General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the first two Predators were sent to Libya on Thursday but had to turn back because of bad withstand.

The United States premeditated to sustain two patrols of armed Predators above Libya at any given time, Cartwright said. The drones have verified a compelling weapon in Pakistan and other areas where U.S. army have no troops on the ground. They can stay aloft almost eternally without being noticed from the ground and hit targets with missiles, with no risk to crew.

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Obama rips GOP plan, yet sees hope for a debt deal

With America's worldwide praise standing suddenly in query, President Barack Obama insist Tuesday that Washington has the following will to slash the massive U.S. money owing in spite of fierce, fundamental difference with Republicans regarding how to do it.

Obama spoke optimistically of conciliation with GOP lawmakers, yet still used a campaign-style town hall event to charge the Republicans of donation a bleak future for the poor, young and aged with their proposal.

The president seemed intention on assuring monetary markets and the watching world that U.S. leaders will get their act jointly to address a suffocating debt — while at the same time trying to encourage voters that only his plan would share the pain quite.

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White House says shutdown will delay pay to troops

The Obama management warns Wednesday that a federal shutdown would chip away at the economic recovery, delay pay to U.S. troops fighting in three wars, slow the dispensation of tax returns and limit small commerce loans and government-backed mortgages throughout peak home buying season.

The dire message, deliver two days before the federal government's expenditure authority expires; come into view aimed at jolting congressional Republicans into a finances compromise. Billions of dollars apart, congressional negotiators were working to strike a deal by Friday to avert a shutdown by setting outflow limits from side to side the end of September. The last such shutdown took place 15 years ago and lasted 21 days.

President Barack Obama telephoned House Speaker John Boehner on Wednesday and Boehner's office said the orator told Obama he was confident a deal could be reached.

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Gates calls for limited role aiding Libyan rebels

The U.S. should keep away from developing a closer association with Libyan antagonism forces, guard leaders said Thursday, telling an often hostile Congress that overseas nations have got to now take over air strike everyday jobs and any effort to train and give the rebels.

By means of the U.S. role in Libya at a rotating point, the next critical decision is how, if at all, the U.S. chooses to hold up the opposition forces, particularly in the face of the ongoing monetary plan crisis at home. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he is opposite to arming the rebels, a step his boss President Barack Obama has not lined out.

Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said it was time to turn the mass of the divergence more than to NATO.

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US economy outpaces rivals even as job growth lags

The United States is out of step with the take it easy of the world's richest developed nations: Its wealth is growing faster than theirs other than create far fewer jobs.

The motivation is U.S. workers have become so fruitful that it's harder for anyone with no a job to get one.

Companies are manufacturing and profiting more than when the depression began, notwithstanding fewer workers. They're hiring again, save for not fast enough to substitute most of the 7.5 million jobs lost since the collapse began.

Exact in growth, the American economy has outperformed those of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan — every Group of 7 developed nation not including Canada, according to The Associated Press' new Global Economy Tracker, a quarterly analysis of 22 countries in lieu of more than 80 percent of worldwide output.

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Gadhafi's forces adapt to airstrikes, pound rebels

Libya – Moammar Gadhafi's land forces recaptured a planned oil town Wednesday and moved within arresting distance of one more main eastern city, nearly reverse the gains rebels made because international airstrikes began. Rebels plead for more help, while a U.S. official said government forces are making themselves harder to goal by using civilian "battle wagons" with makeshift weapons instead of tanks.

Western powers kept up the heaviness to energy Gadhafi out with new airstrikes in other parts of Libya, hints that they may arm the disagreement and intense consultation following the scenes to find a country to give sanctuary to Libya's leader of more than 40 years.

Too on Wednesday, an American official and former U.S. astuteness officer told The Associated Press that CIA functioning were sent to Libya this month following the agency's position in the assets was forced to close.

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CIA sends teams to Libya; US mulls aid for rebels

The CIA has sent small teams of effectives into Libya and helped save a crew member of a U.S. warrior jet that not working and the White House said Wednesday it was charging "all types of support" for rebels battling Moammar Gadhafi's troops.

Combat zone setbacks are hardening the U.S. view that the poorly prepared opposition in all probability is incapable of established without critical Western intervention, a senior U.S. astuteness official told The Associated Press.

Lawmakers, in private briefings with top Obama supervision officials, asked tough questions about the cost of the military operation and uttered apprehension about the makeup of the rebels.

Members of upper house quoted officials as saying the U.S. military role would be limited and heard President Barack Obama's director of national intelligence compares the rebel forces to a "pick-up basketball team."

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Libyan rebels shelled outside Gadhafi hometown

Libyan administration tanks and rockets dull a rebel physical attack on Moammar Gadhafi's place of origin of Sirte on Tuesday and drove back the ragtag army of irregulars, even as world leaders equipped to discuss the country prospect in London.

Rockets and tank fire sent Libya's rebel volunteers in a panicked scramble away from the front lines, suggestive of that the resistance is still no match for the superior firepower and association of Gadhafi's forces, in spite of an international campaign of fatal airstrikes.

A U.N.-mandated no-fly zone and fight of strikes by the U.S. and its allies helped rebel services regain province lost of the past week, when they were on the brink of crush by government forces.

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FACT CHECK: How Obama's Libya claims fit the facts

There may be less than meets the eye to President Barack Obama's declarations Monday night that NATO is taking in excess of from the U.S. in Libya and that U.S. action is limited to self-protective people under attack there by Moammar Gadhafi's armed forces.

In transfer power and control to NATO, the U.S. is rotating the reins over to a group dominated by the U.S., both militarily and politically. In strength, the U.S. runs the show that is taking over running the show.

And the hasty move on of rebels in recent days stalwartly suggest they are not only benefiting from military aid in a defensive crouch, but rather using the conglomerate force in some fashion — coordinated or not — to press on an unpleasant.

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Targets deep within Libya hit; fewer US jets used

French warrior jets hit aircraft and a intersection military base deep within Libya on Thursday as the U.S. abridged its fight role in the international process that is working to thwart Moammar Gadhafi's forces by land, sea and air.

Detonation could be heard in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, earlier than daybreak Friday, they say that from airstrikes.

Libya's air force has been successfully neutralized, and the government has taken part of its fight to the airwaves. State TV aired pictures of bodies it said were victims of airstrikes, excluding a U.S. intellect report bolstered dissenter claims that Gadhafi's forces had simply taken bodies from a morgue.

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NATO takes command of part of Libya operation

NATO decided late Thursday to take in excess of part of the military operations in opposition to Libya — enforcement of the no-fly zone — after days of hard bargain in the middle of its members. Except the toughest and most contentious piece of the operation attacks on the ground will go on to be led by the U.S., which has been nervous to give up the lead role.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who proclaimed the conformity in Brussels, said the association could sooner or later take more accountability, "but that decision has not been reached yet." It come into view that some NATO members balked at any contribution in attacks on ground targets, great the alliance's sole Muslim member, Turkey, has resist.

In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton honor NATO for taking over the no-fly zone, even though the U.S. had hoped the agreement would take full control of the military maneuver sanctioned by the United Nations, together with the protection of Libyan civilians and underneath civilized aid efforts on the ground.

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US soldier gets 24 years for murders of 3 Afghans

A U.S. soldier who pleaded responsible Wednesday to the murders of three Afghan civilians was sentence to 24 years in jail after saying "the plan was to kill people" in a scheme with four fellow soldiers.

Military moderator Lt. Col. Kwasi Hawks said he initially intended to verdict Spc. Jeremy Morlock to life in prison with option of parole but was jump by the plea deal.

Morlock, the first of five soldiers from the 5th Stryker Brigade to be court-martialed in the holder, will receive 352 days off of his decree for time served and could be qualified for parole in about seven years, said his lead lawyer, Frank Spinner. He will be ignobly discharged as part of his decree.

The 22-year-old Morlock is a key form in a war crimes probe that has raised some of the most serious unlawful claims to come from the war in Afghanistan. Army investigators accuse him of taking a lead role in the killings of three unarmed Afghan men in Kandahar prefecture in January, February and May 2010.

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