Nation/world
NEW & DEVELOPING
OBAMA-FUEL ECONOMY — Obama set to announce deal with automakers to double fuel economy by 2025.
SPAIN — Embattled Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero calls early election amid crushing economic woes. AP photos.
TURKEY-MILITARY — Reports: Turkish military’s top brass resign because of tensions with government.
TOP STORIES
DEBT SHOWDOWN
WASHINGTON — House Speaker John Boehner hastily reworks his stalled emergency debt-limit bill as Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid signaled he’s pushing ahead with his own version. President Barack Obama declares “we’re almost out of time” in a wrenching political standoff that has heightened fears of a market-rattling government default. By Charles Babington.
AP photos, videos, interactive.
— DEBT SHOWDOWN-OBAMA — Obama says there are multiple ways out of debt ceiling mess but must be bipartisan.
ECONOMY
WASHINGTON — The economy grew in the first half of the year at the slowest pace since the recession ended, and the second half isn’t looking much better. By Economics Writer Christopher S. Rugaber.
AP photos.
AWOL SOLDIER
KILLEEN, Texas — As Pfc. Naser Abdo beseeched officials to grant him conscientious objector status and release him from the military, he condemned a fellow Muslim soldier accused of shooting 13 people to death at Fort Hood as committing “acts of aggression by a man and not by Islam.” Less than a year later, officials say Abdo admitted planning to launch another attack on Fort Hood with a bomb in a backpack and weapons stashed in a motel room. By Jamie Stengle.
AP photos, videos.
NORWAY-MASSACRE
OSLO, Norway — Norway is holding memorial services to mourn the 76 victims of a bombing and youth camp shooting one week ago as the suspect in both attacks faced his second interrogation. By Ian MacDougall and Bjoern H. Amland.
AP photos.
EAST AFRICA-FAMINE-NURSE
DADAAB, Kenya — Nurse Serat Amin is treating an endless stream of starving children coming out of famine-struck Somalia. He has worked at the world’s largest refugee camp for four years, and although he has painful memories of the children who have died, watching the weak get stronger gives him the courage to carry on. “You can see if a child is getting better just from the face of the parent,” he says. By Katharine Houreld.
AP photos, video.
LIBYA
BENGHAZI, Libya — Fear and confusion grip Benghazi, where heavy gunfire crackled in the early hours, following the killing of the rebels’ military chief. Mourners chant “Martyrs are God’s Beloved” as they carry the coffin bearing Abdel-Fattah Younis, Moammar Gadhafi’s interior secretary before defecting to the rebels. His death raises questions about the direction of the rebel movement. By Rami Al-Shaheibi.
AP photos, video
ROSA PARKS ARCHIVE
NEW YORK — Long before Rosa Parks was hailed as the “mother of the civil rights movement,” she wrote a detailed and harrowing account of nearly being raped by a white neighbor who employed her as a housekeeper in 1931. The essay is among thousands of her personal documents which will be sold as a group by Guernsey’s Auctioneers. By Ula Ilnytzky.
AP photos, video.
EGYPT
CAIRO — Ultraconservative Muslims turn out in force as tens of thousands fill Cairo’s central Tahrir Square in a rally marked by a growing rift in the protest movement. In one of the largest protests square since the popular uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak in February, Salafis chanted for the implementation of strict Islamic law — spurring accusations that they violated an agreement to keep the rally free from divisive issues. By Ben Hubbard.
AP photos, video.
DELAWARE EXECUTION
SMYRNA, Del. — Delaware carries out its first execution since 2005, putting to death a man who was convicted of killing a woman with an ax during a burglary nearly two decades ago. By Jessica Gresko.
AP photos.
GETTING ATTENTION
— VENEZUELA-CHAVEZ — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says he intends to stay in power for two more decades as he celebrates his 57th birthday looking ahead to months of cancer treatment. AP photos, video.
— MISSING GIRL-NH — Investigators go door to door in search for missing New Hampshire girl, alert Canadian mounted police. AP photo.
— WOODS RETURNS — Ending a three-month layoff, Tiger Woods returns in time for final major. AP photos.
— NEW ZEALAND-EMPEROR PENGUIN — Penguin lost in New Zealand passes health test, gains weight, will soon be returned to wild. AP photo.