Nation/world

DEVELOPING
— OBAMA-FUNDRAISING — Obama events in Chicago begin at 8:15 p.m.
— JUSTICE-CHILD PORN — Federal law enforcement officials say 72 people have been charged with participating in an online international network engaged in sexual abuse of children.
TOP STORIES
EGYPT-MUBARAK TRIAL
CAIRO — Hosni Mubarak shows a glimmer of his old defiance as his trial starts, wagging his finger in the air and denying the charges against him even as he lies bedridden inside the defendants’ cage. The unprecedented spectacle soothes the fury of those who suffered under the longtime Egyptian president’s rule while it enrages supporters of the old guard who see it as the ultimate humiliation. By Hamza Hendawi.
AP photos by Khalil Hamra, Amr Nabil, Nasser Nasser, Ahmed Ali and frame grabs from Egyptian State TV. AP video, interactive.
ECONOMY-GRIM OUTLOOK
WASHINGTON — Shoppers won’t shop. Companies won’t hire. The government won’t spend on economic stimulus — it’s cutting instead. With no clear sign of what will invigorate growth, there is mounting fear on Wall Street that the U.S. risks sliding into a long-term economic stupor. And the Dow Jones industrials are down again, on track for their first nine-day losing streak since 1978. By Economics Writer Paul Wiseman.
AP photos.
DEBT SHOWDOWN-HURDLES AHEAD
WASHINGTON — The goal is lofty: Produce a bipartisan deal slashing federal deficits by at least $1.5 trillion. But from the moment House and Senate leaders appoint a special congressional committee’s dozen members until the 2012 elections, intense political pressures are going to make it tough for Congress to produce anything substantial. By Donna Cassata and Alan Fram.
EAST AFRICA-FAMINE
MOGADISHU, Somalia — The people who idle under shade trees near Mogadishu’s airport are young — one is only 9. Yet they are former al-Shabab fighters, enforcers of harsh edicts from Islamist militants who have prevented many Somalis from escaping famine. The Associated Press gets rare access to a government-run rehabilitation camp for those who have left the al-Qaida-linked militia. By Jason Straziuso.
AP photos by Schalk van Zuydam, Farah Abdi Warsameh and Jason Straziuso.
TWO MOONS
WASHINGTON — What would the poets, the dreamers and the lovers have thought? Earth once had two moons that rose together in the sky, until one of them made the fatal mistake of smacking into the other in what is being called the “big splat,” some astronomers theorize. The theory explains why the far side of the moon is much hillier than the one that always faces the Earth. By Science Writer Seth Borenstein.
AP photos.
DB COOPER
OKLAHOMA CITY — Marla Cooper is certain that her uncle was the notorious skyjacker D.B. Cooper. She tells ABC News that she heard him and another uncle plan something “very mischievous” over the holidays in 1971. A day later, news broke of a man hijacking a jetliner and parachuting off with $200,000. Her uncle soon showed up at home, and she heard him say: “Our money problems are over — we hijacked an airplane.” The FBI is only saying that it is following a “credible” lead, possibly bringing the agency as close as ever to solving the 40-year-old mystery. By Sean Murphy.
AP photos.
MORE ON MUBARAK
EGYPT-WATCHING MUBARAK
CAIRO — Ramadan Ahmed, the father of a 16-year-old protester shot and killed by police during Egypt’s uprising, gasped when he saw Hosni Mubarak enter the defendants’ cage for his trial. In a fleeting moment of sympathy, his eyes welled with tears. Then came relief, and he smiled and called his wife, who said she was laughing for the first time in a long while. By Sarah El Deeb.
AP photos by Khalil Hamra and Ben Curtis. AP video.
— EGYPT-MUBARAK-CHARGES — The charges.
— EGYPT-MUBARAK TIMELINE — Key dates in the life of Egypt’s ousted leader Hosni Mubarak.
MORE ON THE DEBT AGREEMENT
MAKING THE DEBT DEAL
WASHINGTON — It played out on two tracks, the struggle to head off a national default. One was for show. The other was for real. The final votes were public, and not even all that close in the end. But the crisis was genuine, and the real crisis management took place in private. A look back at the making of the debt deal. By Calvin Woodward.
AP photos.
INTERNATIONAL
SYRIA
BEIRUT — Syrian tanks storm Hama under heavy shelling, taking over a main square at the heart of the restive city and cutting off electricity, water and phone lines on the fourth day of a deadly offensive. Opposition figures and activists accuse the regime of striking hard at a moment when world and media attention are distracted by Egypt’s trial of Hosni Mubarak. By Zeina Karam.
AP photos, video, interactive.
CHILE-MINE RESCUE
SANTIAGO, Chile — One myth about the 33 miners rescued after 69 days deep inside a copper mine is that they’re all millionaires and no longer need to work. But it’s just that, a myth. Nearly half the men have been unemployed since their mine collapsed a year ago Friday. Just one lives off the fame, four sell fruit and vegetables in the street, and four have gone back underground. By Eva Vergara.
AP photos.
POLITICS
OBAMA-FUNDRAISING
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama plunges into collecting money for his re-election campaign with a coast-to-coast series of parties marking his 50th birthday. Obama’s campaign says it expects to raise tens of millions of dollars less this summer than during the spring because it canceled fundraisers during the debt deadlock. It now faces a sluggish time of year to raise cash. By Julie Pace and Ken Thomas.
AP photos.
HEALTH
TAINTED GROUND TURKEY
WASHIGNTON — Once again parents are wondering whether to feed their kids a normally reliable, healthy food: ground turkey. It’s been implicated in the latest food poisoning outbreak, one that has killed one person and sickened dozens of others, including children. The government doesn’t really know the source of the salmonella that’s causing the illness. All health officials can do is urge people to thoroughly cook their ground turkey — the one way to kill the germ. By Mary Clare Jalonick.
NATIONAL
PRAYING MOTHER-DEATH
AUBURN, Ala. — When Kay Burdette’s 17-year-old son became sick with flu-like symptoms, the faithful mother chose the same prescription she has used for years: prayer. Her son didn’t recover and Burdette was charged with manslaughter. She pleaded guilty to lesser charges and avoided prison time, in part because authorities lost a tissue sample that was crucial to proving that her son died of a treatable form of pneumonia. By Jay Reeves.
AP photos.
POT TOWN
WILLIAMS, Ore. — Medical marijuana has taken root in this idyllic Oregon town like nowhere else in the state, with 20 percent of the population registered by the state to grow the drug. The issue became the talk of the town when Google Earth satellite images showed little green circles in neat rows all over the area. And 6-foot-tall fences that screen marijuana gardens from public view have become so common that a local pastor uses them as landmarks for giving directions. By Jeff Barnard.
AP photos. An interactive map details the number of medical marijuana growers in Oregon counties.
ALSO GETTING ATTENTION
— AVIATION SHUTDOWN — On the surface, the Federal Aviation Administration shutdown is about a mere $16 million in air service subsidies. But underneath are layers upon layers of political gamesmanship.
— TROPICAL WEATHER — Forecasters say Tropical Storm Emily could bring up to 20 inches of rain to the Dominican Republic and 10 inches to Haiti.
— AUSTRALIA-SUSPICIOUS DEVICE — A bomb squad frees an Australian teenager who called police about a suspicious device and was trapped inside her home for 10 hours.
— POLYGAMIST LEADER — Texas prosecutors are expected to wrap up their case against polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, accused of sexually assaulting two girls he took as brides. AP photos.
— CASEY ANTHONY — The judge who ordered Casey Anthony back to Florida for check fraud probation recuses himself.
— LAW GRAD SLAYING — A classmate is charged with murder in the slaying of a recent Georgia law school graduate.
— HOMELESS DEATH — Outrage grows in a Southern California city over the death of a mentally ill homeless man who witnesses say was beaten, hogtied and stunned by police officers.
— MISSING HIKER — A woman ate berries to survive three nights in the Oregon woods after falling from a cliff.
— DEATH-DEFYING TURTLE — Hundreds cheer the release of a turtle that defied the odds and underwent innovative surgeries.
— TV-CBS-FALL SEASON — Ashton Kutcher will play “an Internet billionaire with a broken heart” when he arrives as the new star of “Two and a Half Men” next month.