3 Doors Down gets introspective on new album

Multi-platinum rock band 3 Doors Down is moving forward by looking back.

"The title of this album really kind of hits it on the head, 'Time of My Life.' It talks about a lot of things that went on in the past," lead singer Brad Arnold said in a recent interview. "But it talks about a lot of more lighthearted things as well, and (there's) a lot of fun songs on this record, too."

The band had a long history to pull from for this effort. Most of them have known each other for more than 20 years, having grown up together in Mississippi and officially forming in 1995. Their debut album, 2000's "The Better Life", featured the song "Kryptonite" and sold six million copies.

In many ways the group (comprised of Arnold, lead guitarist Matt Roberts, bassist Todd Harrell, guitarist Chris Henderson and drummer Greg Upchurch) wanted to get back to that initial feeling from their early years.

"This being our fifth record, it is really similar to our first record in a lot of ways in that we really approached it with kind of new eyes. ... with a good heart and hungry hearts and ready to do something new," Arnold said of the album, released last month.

"We did things that we normally wouldn't do in the past, and it shows," said Harrell. "You know how every band in their career has that one record, like Rush has 'Moving Pictures,' and Def Leppard has 'Hysteria'? I think this is our record. I think this is it, because it's by far, to me, the best record we've ever done."

The album's leadoff song, "When You're Young," became the band's 10th top 10 single on the mainstream rock chart.

"I think this song strikes a chord with fans, because everybody can relate to how hard it is to be young, whether you're presently young or whether you're just looking back on how hard it really was," said Arnold. "This song in a way is a mockery of how easy people think it is sometimes and how easy people talk about how it is to be young."

At age 32, Arnold said he thinks of his band mates as brothers. Harrell, 39, agreed and said he feels that 3 Doors Down is finally coming into its own.

"I think the band right now as a whole is probably better than it's been ever. I think we're all a lot tighter," Harrell said. "If you do something as long as we've done it, you can't help but get better at it, you know?"

"As far as where we're at in our lives, I think the band's all great. Everybody's in a good spot right now, and we're just having fun. We're ready to go out and have a lot of fun with the fans," he added.

3 Doors Down are currently on a U.S. tour through October. They just released a new single, "Every Time You Go," and the music video features footage from their European tour earlier this summer.

Popular Indian actor Shammi Kapoor dies at 79

Versatile Indian actor Shammi Kapoor has died after a long career in Bollywood. He was 79.

His doctor Bhupendra Gandhi says Kapoor was admitted to Mumbai's Breach Candy Hospital two days ago in critical condition. He was on dialysis and died Sunday of kidney failure.

Kapoor was hailed for his lighthearted roles in movies. He belonged to Bollywood's well-known Kapoor family.

His brothers Raj Kapoor and Shashi Kapoor also were successful actors, and his father, Prithviraj Kapoor, was a well-known theater personality of the 1950s.

Shammi Kapoor made his debut in Bollywood in 1953 and acted in successful movies including "Junglee" and "Professor." He also appeared in "Brahmchari" and "Janwar."

He is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter.

Small opera group offers engaging 'Ariadne'

The downsizing of the city's No. 2 opera company is shining a brighter light on the many smaller troupes that have taken fragile root in New York City's cultural soil.

One such group, the Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble, is presenting a brief summer season, consisting of Richard Strauss's "Ariadne auf Naxos" and Mozart's "The Magic Flute." The "Ariadne," especially, is an impressive display of what can be accomplished on a tiny budget.

For decades, the New York City Opera provided a place for up-and-coming singers who sometimes went on to major careers, often at the Metropolitan Opera. But financial problems have driven the NYCO from its Lincoln Center home, and its future is uncertain.

Meanwhile, scrappy companies like Dell'Arte, which was founded in 2000, offer a valuable opportunity for young performers, many of them just out of school. They don't get paid for their work, but they do get a chance to learn new roles, receive intensive coaching — and, best of all, perform in front of a live audience.

On Friday night, a talented cast working on a nearly bare stage in a rented space in the East Village made "Ariadne" come to life more buoyantly than it sometimes does in major houses with lavish sets.

The first half of the performance, the opera's prologue, was especially engaging. Director Benjamin Spierman created sharp interactions among the characters as they made backstage preparations for an entertainment at the estate of the richest man in Vienna. If the evening's second half was less enthralling, that's partly the fault of Strauss and his librettist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, for stretching out some of the material to the point of tedium.

Almost everyone showed vocal promise. As the Composer, mezzo-soprano Sarah Heltzel sang with fire and allure; soprano Mary Ann Stewart displayed a big, rich voice as Ariadne, and coloratura Jennifer Moore handled Zerbinetta's vocal acrobatics with aplomb — though her simpering portrayal was ill-advised. As Bacchus, tenor Shawn Thuris managed some heroic high notes with only occasional signs of strain.

It helped that Strauss wrote "Ariadne" for a reduced orchestra, allowing the 11 musicians assembled under conductor Christopher Fecteau's baton to provide a reasonable facsimile of the score.

That wasn't quite the case Thursday, when a different ensemble led by Samuel McCoy sounded underpowered in a transcription of Mozart's opera. And despite a program note promising an interpretation that emphasized the work's Masonic symbolism, director Susan Gonzalez offered little more than characters shuttling on and off stage.

Best among the "Flute" singers was soprano Sable Rivera, who brought a pleasant light lyric sound and an infectious charm to the small role of Papagena.

Both operas will play again next weekend with almost entirely different casts. For the audience, it's a chance to support aspiring singers just launching their careers — and maybe to hear some who will go on to make names for themselves.

Switzerland likely to strike tax deal with Britain soon

Switzerland's banking association head is hopeful the country will finalize a tax deal with Britain in the coming weeks, Patrick Odier was quoted as saying on Sunday in an interview with Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung.

Such a deal would come hot on the heels of a tax agreement recently reached between Switzerland and Germany that will net Berlin billions of Swiss francs and force the Swiss banking sector to clean up its act.

Odier, president of the Swiss Bankers Association, said talks with Britain were very advanced, though he added important points still have to be clarified.

"I have no doubt that we will strike a deal with Britain very soon," Odier said. "I hope that the conclusion comes in the coming weeks," he said.

In an interview with Swiss newspaper Sonntag, Claude-Alain Margelisch, chief executive of the Swiss Bankers Association, said that the flat-rate withholding tax rates in the British deal would be in line with Britain's domestic tax burden.

Odier also said the German deal had had a "signaling effect" on France and Italy, and that he hoped new negotiations with these countries would be held.

"I am sure that other countries in Europe will also say that they would like to reach a deal with Switzerland," Odier said, adding the deal with Germany would likely cost Swiss banks about $642.9 million to implement.

Swiss banks have also come into the crosshairs of U.S. authorities.

In 2009, the Swiss government cut a deal with Washington to hand over the details of 4,450 UBS accounts in return for the dropping of a damaging lawsuit against the bank, while U.S. authorities are now also investigating Credit Suisse.

"We would welcome it if Switzerland and the United States were able to start talks quickly for a global solution," Odier said when asked about the problems facing Swiss banks in the United States.

Margelisch said it could not be ruled out that Switzerland would have to hand over details of accounts to the United States again.

"The American want client details. If this is delivered, then it clearly has to be done within the legal framework," Margelisch was quoted as saying in the interview.

German government no longer rules out euro bonds

The German government no longer rules out agreeing to the issuance of euro zone bonds as a measure of last resort to save the single currency, conservative newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported on Sunday.

Even though Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and Economy Minister Philipp Roesler again spoke out against euro zone bonds and debt collectivization, Welt am Sonntag reported the German government is nevertheless considering that and other measures.

"Preserving the euro zone with all its members has absolute top priority for us," according to a government source quoted in the newspaper under the headline: "Government no longer excludes European transfer union and joint euro bonds as last resort."

The newspaper, traditionally close to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), indirectly quoted the source adding: "In case of emergency, one would thus even be prepared to accept the introduction of a 'transfer union' and at the end of the day even joint euro zone bonds.

"Without these euro bonds, it might no longer be possible to save the euro zone," the newspaper continued, further quoting the source indirectly. "The path we've taken so far with multi-billion rescue packages for financially struggling states is beginning to reach its limits."

A government spokesman in Berlin declined to comment on the report in Welt am Sonntag but instead pointed to the Schaeuble interview in Der Spiegel news magazine published on Sunday.

Schaeuble said Germany remains against any collectivization of euro zone governments' debt and creating common euro bonds is impossible while countries run separate economic policy.

"It still stands: there will be no collectivization of debt and there will be no unlimited support," he said. "There are certain support mechanisms that we are developing further -- with strict conditions."

"The member states that need our solidarity must reduce their deficits and reform their economies -- with at times very tough measures," he said.

Der Spiegel said Schaeuble also ruled out the issuance of eurobonds unless certain hurdles are removed.

"I rule out Eurobonds for as long as member states conduct their own financial policies and we need differing interest rates so that there are possibilities of incentives and sanctions to force fiscal solidity," he said.

"Without that kind of solidity, there is no foundation for a joint currency," Schaeuble added.

Economy Minister Roesler also spoke out against euro zone bonds in an interview in Handelsblatt newspaper on Monday: "I consider euro bonds to be the wrong approach in a Europe in which every member state should take responsibility for itself."

Pressure is nevertheless growing on euro zone leaders to take a more radical approach to the euro zone's debt crisis ahead of a potentially vital meeting of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy next week.

Italian Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti renewed his call for a collective euro zone bond on Saturday.

Tremonti returned to proposals for jointly issued bonds that would effectively make individual governments' debt a common burden, saying they were the "master solution" to the euro zone debt crisis. "We would not have arrived where we are if we had had the euro bond," he said on Saturday.

The comments underline the sharp divisions hampering efforts to coordinate a response to the euro zone debt crisis, which escalated dramatically last month as markets turned their fire on Italy, one of the bloc's most heavily indebted countries.

What is at stake was highlighted by a new poll for the Bild am Sonntag newspaper on Saturday which showed 31 percent of Germans believe the euro will be gone by 2021.

The idea of euro bonds was also dismissed by Deutsche Bank chief economist Thomas Mayer. He told Deutschlandfunk radio that and raising the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) could lead to the end of the European Monetary Union (EMU).

"I believe such considerations would be poison pills for the EMU," Mayer said. "It would violate a fundamental democratic principle if the EFSF were boosted to several trillion euros or euro zone bonds were introduced."

He added: "If at the end of the day German, Dutch and Finnish taxpayers are going to be held responsible for decisions made in other parliaments as a result of raising the size of the EFSF or introducing euro bonds, that will lead to a political collapse of the EMU. That is not an option."

Italy calls for euro bonds, UK backs fiscal union

Italian Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti stepped up calls for a more coordinated response to the euro zone debt crisis, including the creation of euro bonds, ahead of a crucial Franco-German summit next week.

Tremonti returned to proposals for jointly-issued bonds that would effectively make individual governments' debt a common burden, saying they were the "master solution" to the euro zone debt crisis.

"We would not have arrived where we are if we had had the euro bond," he said on Saturday.

However the idea was immediately rejected by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who said such bonds would undermine the basis for the single currency by weakening fiscal discipline among member states.

"I rule out euro bonds for as long as member states conduct their own financial policies, and we need differing interest rates so that there are possibilities of incentives and sanctions to force fiscal solidity," he told Der Spiegel weekly.

"Without that kind of solidity, there is no foundation for a joint currency," he added, according to extracts of an interview released ahead of publication.

The comments underline the sharp divisions hampering efforts to coordinate a response to the euro zone debt crisis, which escalated dramatically last month as markets turned their fire on Italy, one of the bloc's most heavily indebted countries.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are due to meet in Paris on Tuesday, with what Tremonti called "strong expectations" hanging over the encounter.

Underlining the concerns about the spreading euro zone debt crisis which have grown outside the currency bloc, Britain's Finance Minister George Osborne said some kind of fiscal union may now be needed for the 17-member euro area.

Asked if the only answer for the euro zone was some form of fiscal union, he told BBC radio: "The short answer is yes."

What is at stake was highlighted by a new poll for the Bild am Sonntag newspaper on Saturday which showed 31 percent of Germans believe the euro will be gone by 2021.

EURO ZONE

"A lot depends on the choices which may be made about Europe and for Europe in the coming days," Tremonti told a news conference. He detailed some of the steps contained in a 45.5 billion-euro austerity package unveiled by Italy late on Friday.

The package, a painful mix of spending cuts and tax increases, was passed largely at the insistence of the ECB, which demanded action in return for agreeing to protect Italian bonds by buying them on the market.

Italy has the second highest public debt burden in the euro zone at 120 percent of gross domestic product but had until recently stayed out of the crisis thanks to a relatively modest budget deficit and a generally conservative financial system.

However doubts about its chronically slack growth and its divided center-right government led to a sharp turnaround in market sentiment last month.

Although markets have not had time to react to the latest austerity package, the surge in bond yields which had driven Italy's borrowing costs to unsustainable levels has eased since the ECB began buying Italian bonds on Monday.

As the crisis has spread from smaller countries like Greece and Ireland to big economies like Italy, the prospect of an emergency that would overwhelm all existing bailout tools has brought more radical solutions, including euro bonds, more sharply into focus.

Greece, which last year became the first euro zone country to seek a bailout and which has been a strong supporter of the euro bond idea, reiterated its position on Saturday.

"Risks could have been avoided if there had been political decisions to strengthen the temporary rescue mechanism, and even more if we had moved toward a euro bond," government spokesman Ilias Mosialos told Sunday newspaper To Proto Thema.

Kuwait's Agility Q2 earnings drop 57 per cent, beat views

Kuwait's Agility , the logistics firm facing U.S. fraud charges, posted a 57 percent drop in second-quarter net profit, but still slightly beat forecasts.

Net profit in the three months to June 30 was 7.83 million dinars ($28.7 million), the company said in a statement, down from 18.09 million dinars a year earlier.

Two analysts had forecast in a Reuters survey that Agility's second-quarter earnings would fall to an average of 7.4 million dinars.

Agility blamed the drop in earnings and a 23 percent fall in quarterly revenue to 331 million dinars on "lost defense and government business."

The company said it expected "solid gains" in 2012 as its investments in emerging markets were helping the growth of its core business, and its customer base was expanding while operations were being streamlined.

"Fresh initiatives intended to grow revenue and reduce costs should produce solid gains in 2012," Agility said without giving details.

Last month, a U.S. district judge ordered the arraignment of Agility in the latest step of the prosecution of the logistics company over charges that it defrauded the U.S. Army in multibillion-dollar contracts.

The order came on the heels of a decision by a U.S. appeals court that ended about 18 months of legal wrangling over whether prosecutors correctly served the company in its initial indictment in November 2009.

Agility was the largest supplier to the U.S. Army in the Middle East during the war in Iraq after 2001's September 11 attacks, with contracts worth around $8.5 billion.

Agility's shares ended 2 percent lower on Sunday. The results were released after the market closed.

2 sisters in Ky. fight for Social Security numbers

For more than two decades, a pair of sisters in rural Kentucky have lived without Social Security numbers, doing odd jobs like bartending and making jewelry to earn cash under the table. One of them even posed as their mother to gain employment.

Now Raechel and Stephanie Schultz want steady, legitimate work, yet the federal government has refused to issue numbers to the women, saying they need more proof the pair were born in the U.S. The predicament prompted the women, who have lived for years on society's fringes, to sue.

"I'm proud to be American but they don't want me," 23-year-old Stephanie Schultz told The Associated Press in an interview at their lawyer's office in southeastern Kentucky.

The earliest years for the Schultz sisters were nomadic. The family traveled through 42 states, never staying too long in one place. Their father found occasional work in construction or at restaurants and the children picked up cans to make a few bucks. They stayed in motels or camped and the sisters' grandparents sent money to help.

"They didn't have no life plan," 29-year-old Raechel Schultz said of her parents, now in their 50s. "It was just all like free hippie style, do what you can to get by. Gypsies."

Raechel was born at a home in Madison County, Ky., near where the family lives now; Stephanie was delivered in the back of a Dodge van in southern Alabama. The births were recorded in a family Bible but were otherwise undocumented.

Their mercurial parents settled into a hardscrabble existence about 14 years ago along the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, where the family car broke down. The girls were home schooled by their college-educated parents.

The sisters still live with their parents in a weather-worn mobile home in the tiny enclave of Lily. The trailer is perched close to a strip of blacktop winding through the hilly backcountry.

It wasn't until five years ago that they tried to register with the Social Security system. They waited until Stephanie turned 18 because their parents feared truancy charges, Raechel said.

"The first couple years of our life, Dad didn't get our Social Security numbers, and he said once you don't do that right off the bat, they won't let you do it," Raechel said. "So they just went on with it."

Everyone else in the family has a Social Security number, including an older sister now living in New Orleans who got her Social Security card as a teenager on her second try. She had a birth certificate and a baptismal record.

When the sisters first went to get their Social Security number, "we thought it would be easy," Stephanie said.

This isn't the first time the sisters have gone to court over personal documents. In 2009, the women sued to get birth certificates, took a DNA test to prove they were born to their parents and a judge's order won them the records.

"The Court has no reason to not believe the testimony and finds no reason to suggest the plaintiffs are seeking this relief for an illegal or immoral purpose," Circuit Judge John Knox Mills wrote in his 2010 order.

Despite their lack of Social Security numbers, the sisters have found ways to supplement their family's meager income. Stephanie makes jewelry and paints old furniture to sell at a flea market. Raechel held down work at a couple of area restaurants by posing as her mother. She was at one eatery for seven years, rising to associate manager, but eventually quit out of fear her supervisors would discover her secret.

According to their lawsuit, the Social Security Administration indicated it denied the women's request for numbers because they "have not given us documents we need to show U.S. citizenship." The agency has declined to comment on the suit.

The sisters' attorney, Douglas Benge, said he was told by a Social Security official that the agency doesn't accept birth certificates issued so many years after birth.

"Our complaint with the government is, what else do these girls have to show?" he said.

On its website, the Social Security Administration lists documents that may be used to prove identity, age and citizenship. The accepted records include a birth certificate, driver's license, state-issued identification card or U.S. passport, and it's not entirely clear why they have been denied.

Robert Bruce, who retired as a district manager after 31 years with the Social Security Administration, said recently that the age of the women combined with the lack of official documentation raises a suspicion of fraud.

The sisters see their dilemma as a government overreaction since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Their maternal grandfather said they just want a chance to work.

"My view is, we're so caught up in administrative procedure, nobody has any common sense," said Norman Turchan, who lives in Indianapolis. "There's a common sense way out of this situation."

When word of their plight appeared on the Internet and in newspapers, their attorney received emails from some questioning the sisters' motivation, saying the Schultzes just wanted government assistance. But both women said they want to work, and that their family has never taken welfare.

"I don't want to bum off the state," said Raechel, who would like to sell real estate.

Stephanie dreams of running a no-kill animal shelter and dabbling in interior design.

"If you have a Social Security number, you can do anything you want," Raechel said.

Syrian gunboats fire on coastal city; 19 killed

Syrian gunboats pounded the Mediterranean coastal city of Latakia with heavy machine-gun fire Sunday, killing at least 19 people in the latest wave of the regime's crackdown on anti-government protests.

The attacks were part of an aggressive new military offensive that began with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan at the start of August. Several hundred people were killed in the first week alone, according to human rights groups and activists, and the campaign brought new international outrage and more U.S and European sanctions.

As the gunships blasted poor, waterfront districts, ground troops backed by tanks and security agents stormed several neighborhoods. The sharp crackle of machine-gun fire and loud explosions sounded across the city.

"We are being targeted from the ground and the sea," said a resident of the al-Ramel district, which is also home to a Palestinian refugee camp. "The shooting is intense. Many homes have been destroyed and the shabiha (pro-regime thugs) have broken into shops and businesses."

The resident said at least three gunboats were taking part in the offensive, and that many people have been killed and wounded. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

"We cannot go out. They are raiding and breaking into people's homes," he said, citing reports that about a hundred people have been arrested.

Human rights and activist groups said gunboats in the Mediterranean are taking part in the offensive, firing heavy machine guns. A large number of people were wounded as a result of the indiscriminate firing on houses, they said.

"They are trying to take control of the city as they did in other places," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the London-based Syrian Observatory.

The security forces appear to be intent on crushing dissent in the al-Ramel neighborhood, which has seen large protests against President Bashar Assad since the uprising began in mid-March. On Friday, as many as 10,000 people took to the streets there, calling for Assad's ouster. On Saturday, at least 20 tanks and armored personnel carriers rolled into the city's al-Ramel district amid intense gunfire that sent many residents fleeing the area. Two people were killed.

On Sunday and in al-Ramel alone, at least 23 people have been killed, said Abdul-Rahman. Activist network the Local Coordination Committees put the number at 19.

The intense operation in Latakia, a key port city once known as a summer tourist draw, follows brutal government crackdowns on a number of other cities and towns over the past few weeks meant to root out protesters demanding Assad's ouster.

The city has a potentially explosive sectarian mix. Sunnis, who are a majority in Syria, live in Latakia's urban core, while Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, populates villages on the city's outskirts, along with small minorities of Christians, ethnic Turks and other groups.

The crackdown, which has targeted predominantly Sunni areas of the city of more than 600,000, raised concerns of sectarian bloodshed in a country that has already seen an alarming rise in sectarian tensions since the start of the uprising.

After their initial assault on the city Saturday, Syrian security forces pushed back into Latakia again Sunday.

Amateur videos posted on the Internet by activists showed at least one gunship patrolling the coast opposite al-Ramel, and tanks rumbling along the waterfront.

The Associated Press could not verify the activists' accounts or the contents of the videos. Syria has banned most foreign media and restricted local coverage, making it impossible to get independent confirmation of the events on the ground.

The protests calling for the Assad regime's downfall have grown dramatically over the past five months, driven in part by anger over the government's bloody crackdown in which rights groups say at least 1,700 civilians have been killed.

The government has justified its crackdown by saying it's dealing with terrorist gangs and criminals who are fomenting unrest.

State-run news agency SANA said troops were pursuing "gunmen using machine guns, hand grenades and bombs who have been terrorizing residents in al-Ramel district." The agency denied reports the area was being targeted from the sea.

The report quoted a health official in Latakia saying two law enforcement officials were killed and 41 wounded in addition to a number of gunmen whose identities were not known.

The United States stepped up calls for a global trade embargo on oil and gas from Syria, warning even some of America's closest allies that they must "get on the right side of history" and cut links with a government that uses violence to repress protesters.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said international opinion was hardening against Assad, noting a "crescendo of condemnation" from world powers and Syria's Arab neighbors. But she said tougher action was required, too.

The Syrian uprising was inspired by the revolts and calls for reform sweeping the Arab world, and activists and rights groups say most of those killed have been unarmed civilians.

Suicide bombers attack Afghan governor; 22 die

A team of six suicide bombers — some wearing explosive vests — stormed a provincial governor's compound in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing 22 people in the latest high-profile attack to target prominent Afghan government officials, authorities said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in the Parwan provincial capital of Charikar, some 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Kabul. The province is home to Bagram Air Field, a sprawling base for U.S. and NATO troops.

The coordinated assault is the most recent in a string of spectacular Taliban attacks within an hour's drive of Kabul — a worrying sign of the insurgency's strength near the heart of the country and its determination to target Afghanistan's nascent leadership.

Early this month, the Taliban shot down a helicopter in a province on the western border of the capital, killing 38 American and Afghan troops. In late June, gunmen killed at least 21 people in an attack on the Inter-Continental hotel in Kabul itself.

The violence is a sign of NATO's broader struggles in the east, where persistent insurgent attacks forced the alliance to pull forces back from outlying patrol bases and outposts. The coalition, which plans to send 10,000 troops home by the end of the year, is considering whether to move forces from Taliban heartlands in the south to reinforce troops fighting insurgents in the east.

Southern provinces like Kandahar and Helmand are the Taliban's traditional stronghold, while the east is a base of operations for many Pakistani based Taliban and international terrorist affiliates like al-Qaida and the Haqqani network.

Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan is also a common thoroughfare for insurgents attempting to strike Kabul, although Parwan is considered to be relatively secure.

Sunday's assault began with a car bomb outside the front gate, police said. The blast blew open a hole in the wall, allowing five insurgents wearing suicide vests and carrying automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenades to rush into the compound.

Afghan police said they killed three of the attackers as they approached the governor's house.

The attack took place during a high-level provincial security meeting attended by Parwan Gov. Abdul Basir Salangi, his police chief, intelligence director, a local army commander and at least two NATO advisers.

Salangi told The Associated Press that he and his aides fired from their meeting room with AK-47s. He claimed to have killed at least one of the insurgents himself.

"I had an AK-47. I shot him and from the window of my waiting room," said Salangi, who was formerly the police chief of Kabul and a rebel fighter during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. He said it was the second time in the past month he was targeted by an assassination attempt.

Provincial Police Chief Gen. Sher Ahmad Maladani also took part in the gun battle, which he said lasted for approximately one hour.

"The last attacker was killed by police when he was only about 15 meters away from me," said Maladani. The bomber was killed before he could detonate his explosives.

The attack left much of the compound in ruins. Part of the governor's offices were burned. Broken glass and body parts littered the courtyard. Several cars were wrecked by explosions and bullets.

Sixteen of the dead were civilian Afghan government employees and six were policemen, according to the Afghan Interior Ministry.

Meanwhile, the French Defense Ministry said one of its soldiers was killed Sunday by isolated fire during an operation in the northeast province of Kapisa.

The death brings to 382 the number of coalition service members killed in Afghanistan 2011 and 59 in August.

Seventy-four French troops have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001. About 4,000 French troops are taking part in NATO-led operations against the Taliban, and France says 1,000 troops will be brought home next year, with a full withdrawal of combat forces in 2014.

'Doomsday' defense cuts loom large for select 12

For the dozen lawmakers tasked with producing a deficit-cutting plan, the threatened "doomsday" defense cuts hit close to home.

The six Republicans and six Democrats represent states where the biggest military contractors — Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics Corp., Raytheon Co. and Boeing Co. — build missiles, aircraft, jet fighters and tanks while employing tens of thousands of workers.

The potential for $500 billion more in defense cuts could force the Pentagon to cancel or scale back multibillion-dollar weapons programs. That could translate into significant layoffs in a fragile economy, generate millions less in tax revenues for local governments and upend lucrative company contracts with foreign nations.

The cuts could hammer Everett, Wash., where some of the 30,000 Boeing employees are working on giant airborne refueling tankers for the Air Force, or Amarillo, Texas, where 1,100 Bell Helicopter Textron workers assemble the fuselage, wings, engines and transmissions for the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.

Billions in defense cuts would be a blow to the hundreds working on upgrades to the Abrams tank for General Dynamics in Lima, Ohio, or the employees of BAE Systems in Pennsylvania.

For committee members such as Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., the threat of Pentagon cuts is an incentive to come up with $1.5 trillion in savings over a decade. Failure would have brutal implications for hundreds of thousands workers back home and raise the potential of political peril for the committee's 12.

"I think we all have very good reasons to try to prevent" the automatic cuts, Toomey told reporters last week when pressed about the impact on Pennsylvania's defense industry. "That is not the optimal outcome here, the much better outcome would be a successful product from this committee."

The panel has until Thanksgiving to come up with recommendations. If they deadlock or if Congress rejects their proposal, $1.2 trillion in automatic, across-the-board cuts kick in. Up to $500 billion would hit the Pentagon.

Those cuts, starting in 2013, would be in addition to the $350 billion, 10-year reduction already dictated by the debt-limit bill approved by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama this month.

Not surprisingly, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has described the automatic cuts as the "doomsday mechanism." He's warned that the prospect of nearly $1 trillion in reductions over a decade would seriously undermine the military's ability to protect the United States.

For the Pentagon, "we're talking about cuts of such magnitude that everything is reduced to some degree," said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, a think tank. "At that rate, you're eliminating the next generation of weapons."

Committee members will face competing pressures as they try to produce a deficit-reducing plan.

As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a possible successor to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton if Obama wins a second term, Sen. John Kerry is certain to be protective of the budget for the State Department.

Yet the Massachusetts Democrat, who recently said he would seek a sixth term in 2014, represents a state that was fifth in the nation with $8.37 billion in defense contracts this year, behind Virginia, California, Texas and Connecticut, according to data on the federal government's website USAspending.gov.

In Tewksbury and Andover, Mass., deep defense cuts could have serious ramifications for thousands of Raytheon employees working on the Patriot, the air and missile defense system. It was heralded for its effectiveness during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and is now sold to close to a dozen nations, including South Korea, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates.

Whatever decisions Kerry and the committee make will affect Massachusetts-based Raytheon, which was fourth in defense contracts this year at $7.3 billion, behind Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Dynamics. Raytheon also has operations in Arizona, home to another committee member, Republican Sen. Jon Kyl.

"While some will argue there is peril in serving on this committee, we believe there is far greater peril in leaving these issues unaddressed," Kerry said in a joint statement with Murray and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., after they were selected by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

In February, Murray celebrated when the Air Force ended a decade-long saga of delays and missteps and awarded one of the biggest defense contracts ever, a $35 billion deal to build nearly 200 air refueling tankers, to Boeing, a mainstay in her home state.

Boeing was fourth on the list of donors to Murray from 2007-2012, with its political action committee, individual employees and family members contributing $102,610.

Michigan is home to two committee members, Republican Reps. Dave Camp and Fred Upton, and General Dynamics work on the Abrams tank. The state is struggling with a 10.5 percent unemployment rate, which is above the national average.

Already facing the prospect of $350 billion in defense cuts over 10 years, the Pentagon could look to scale back some projects, such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the stealthy aircraft that has been plagued by cost overruns and delays.

Lockheed Martin, in conjunction with Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems, is building 2,400 of the next generation fighter jet for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, as well as working with eight foreign countries. But the cost of the program has jumped from $233 billion to $385 billion; some estimates suggest that it could top out at $1 trillion over 50 years.

Questioned about the defense cuts, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen recently said that "programs that can't meet schedule, that can't meet cost ... requirements are very much in jeopardy and will be very much under scrutiny."

The Joint Strike Fighter is being built in Fort Worth, Texas, and Palmdale and El Segundo, Calif. Those are the states of committee members Reps. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, and Xavier Becerra, D-Calif. Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems also have operations in Pennsylvania.

The Pentagon could decide to scrap the program or scale it back while upgrading the existing F-15 and F-18 aircraft, a troubling prospect for lawmakers from the states that benefit from F-35 production.

In the military world, however, reducing the number could make it more costly.

"The problem when you cut back in numbers is you increase the number for one, you increase the cost for one," said Laicie Olson, a senior policy analyst with Council for a Livable World and the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. "Sometimes it's almost better to buy more."

Boeing, in a statement, said it has been "anticipating flattening defense budgets for some time." Company spokesman Daniel C. Beck said that while Boeing is trying to improve production and efficiency, it's moving into new markets such as cybersecurity and energy management.

Outside Lands fest about more than music

The Outside Lands festival has acts like the Grammy-winning Arcade Fire and Muse as headliners, but co-promoter Rick Farman is just as excited about another attraction at the three-day event — its culinary delights.

"People (are) talking about what they're going to eat and going to drink ... almost as much as what they're going to see or hear music-wise," he said about the event, which starts Friday and wraps up Sunday.

Outside Lands, now in its fifth year, this year features acts including Erykah Badu, John Fogerty, the Arctic Monkeys and dozens more. Since its inception, the festival has played up its San Francisco food-and-wine connections. Its "Taste of the Bay" lineup includes numerous local eateries, and it also has a separate wine component.

"It was very much a part of the original plan of the event, to really incorporate some specific aspects of the Bay area culture into the event, and food and wine were two of those top things that we focused on right off the bat," said Farman, whose Superfly Presents is one of the two promoters of Outside Lands.

"But that said, it certainly has grown each year, and this year, sort of the vision that we had first set out for the festival has really culminated."

Many music festivals incorporate art, food and other elements to enhance the event. Superfly Presents also puts on the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn., which also has film, comedy and other attractions.

Farman said Outside Lands was inspired by the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which incorporates that city's famous food fare into the festival.

"We really looked to that in some ways as a mode — how could we create an event that expressed the culture of the Bay area? So I think it is something certainly festivals in general can offer music fans other than something beyond (the) music experience," he said.

Gas Tax Fight Looms

This week, I took my kids to the beach. My youngest boy, Charlie, is fascinated by the ocean but really, not a fan. He loves the idea of the waves but he hates falling over and he really hates getting salt water in his eyes. I watched him time after time run straight into the waves and get knocked over. He would get up, genuinely shocked and sputtering, and try it again, each time expecting a different result. Finally, he said to me, "Mommy, can you pick me up and let me just kick the waves back into the ocean?"

Charlie and Congress have a lot in common.

After the debt ceiling crisis and the FAA shutdown over funding, you'd think they try something a little different to resolve problems with the budget. But I don't think that's going to happen. Even as we can all see a looming battle over the gas tax, you get the feeling that Congress is going to wait until the last minute to do anything - and then be genuinely surprised if they get knocked down.

The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents per gallon of gasoline (and 24.4 cents per gallon for the handful of you who still rely on diesel). That rate hasn't changed since President Clinton was in office - in 1993 - and is, remarkably, not indexed to inflation.

As you can imagine, as prices at the pump have gone up, car owners are increasingly agitated. Gas and oil companies are raking in huge profits. Congress has decided not to pursue additional taxes against those companies - or take away their existing tax breaks - for fear of driving up prices at the pump since clearly, those companies would pass along any serious bites into their profits to consumers.

When you add federal and state taxes together, about a quarter of what you pay at the pump (depending on the state) represents some form of gas tax. Federal gas taxes - in most states - represent less than 10% of what you pay at the pump. But many taxpayers think that's 10% too much.

When Congress comes back to work after Labor Day, they have an ugly choice to make: re-up the tax or not. As with the FAA budget and the ticket tax fiasco, the authority of the federal government to collect most of the federal gas taxes is not automatic. It has to be pro-actively renewed. Without a "yes" vote, that authority to collect the lion's share of federal gas taxes will expire on September 30, 2011 (a quirk in the law would allow them to collect about a quarter of those taxes without approval).

Without federal gas taxes, the highway trust fund would dry up. The trust fund has already been running at a deficit for years which is one of the reasons that the "gas tax holiday" previously proposed by members of Congress has never really taken off.

The highway trust fund is the primary source of funding for most of the federal government's highway and road-related programs administered by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). How this tends to work is that states fund projects which are reimbursed by the federal government. Without federal dollars, states - already strapped for cash - would likely have to abandon projects. I sincerely doubt that many of them would dip into their own pockets without guarantees that they can make up those expenditures.

And where does that leave us? A lot of road projects sitting, well, by the wayside.

But at least our gas will be cheaper, right? Probably not. If we learned anything from the greed of the airlines, it's that the difference in prices will likely find itself in the pockets of private companies - only this time, instead of US Airways and American pocketing the difference, it will be ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips.

Voting to re-up the gas tax, however, could be viewed in this increasingly ridiculous recharacterized "no new taxes" world as a vote for taxes. Let's hope that voters are smarter than that.

All taxes, despite the cries of a few, are not bad. They're not anti-American. And they're not anti-Republican. Just last year, Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) suggested that Congress not only continue the gas tax but raise it. Despite the "new" Republican line on taxes, Voinovich channeled former President Reagan, citing the former’s President’s comments that:

Obama begins political counteroffensive this week

President Barack Obama launches a political counteroffensive this week, weighed down by withering support among some of his most ardent backers, a stunted economy and a daily bashing from the slew of Republicans campaigning for his job.

"We've still got a long way to go to get to where we need to be. We didn't get into this mess overnight, and it's going to take time to get out of it," the president told the country over the weekend, all but pleading for people to stick with him.

A deeply unsettled political landscape, with voters in a fiercely anti-incumbent mood, is framing the 2012 presidential race 15 months before Americans decide whether to give Obama a second term or hand power to the Republicans. Trying to ride out what seems to be an unrelenting storm of economic anxiety, people in the United States increasingly are voicing disgust with most all of the men and women, Obama included, they sent to Washington to govern them.

With his approval numbers sliding, the Democratic president will try to ease their worries and sustain his resurrected fighting spirit when he sets off Monday on a bus tour of Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. The trip is timed to dilute the GOP buzz emanating from the Midwest after Republicans gathered in Iowa over the weekend for a first test of the party's White House candidates. The state holds the nation's first nominating test in the long road toward choosing Obama's opponent.

"You have just sent a message that Barack Obama will be a one-term president," Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann told elated supporters minutes after winning Saturday's Iowa straw poll, essentially a fundraising event that also tests a candidate's organizational and financial strength. She spent heavily and traveled throughout the state where she was born, casting herself as the evangelical Christian voice of the deeply conservative small government, low tax tea party wing of the party.

So Bachmann won the test vote and Democrats probably rejoiced that her ultraconservative voice gained strength among Republican contenders. But at the same time, the contest to challenge Obama in November 2012 grew even more jumbled. While the voting was under way in Ames, Iowa, Republicans had to shift their gaze halfway across the country to South Carolina, where Texas Gov. Rick Perry made a cleverly timed entrance into the race.

Like Bachmann and all the other candidates, he ravaged Obama. Perry said the president was presiding over an "economic disaster," in a declaration that stole some of Bachmann's political thunder and undercut the front-runner status of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who didn't compete in the Iowa test vote. Perry clearly cast a broad shadow across the Republican contest.

Obama, expecting the political shelling he would take, fired pre-emptively in his weekly radio and Internet address to the nation on Saturday. He told listeners that it was the Republicans running for president and serving in Congress who were at work crushing voters' hopes and dreams.

The question for Obama and his backers remains: Will he sustain the counterattack? Of late, he's been seen by even his most staunch supporters as too ready to retreat from critical ground when confronted by intransigent Republicans.

Working in Obama's favor, however, is a Republican Party still struggling to find a presidential candidate who lights a fire with voters.

But Obama's re-election could be in peril for lack of a strong message about what he will do to lift the country out of economic malaise and political deadlock.

Polls show voters hold both parties to blame for the stunted economic recovery, an unseemly political fight over raising the limit on U.S. borrowing, an anemic deal to cut the government deficit, the subsequent and unprecedented downgrade of the country's credit rating, wild stock market gyrations and an unemployment rate stuck above 9 percent.

In the face of that reality, Obama is tacking to put some wind in his re-election sails, apparently convinced that he can gather speed by turning up the attack on Congress.

"You've got a right to be frustrated," the president said in his weekly address. "I am. Because you deserve better. I don't think it's too much for you to expect that the people you send to this town start delivering."

He chastised Republicans for brinksmanship, saying "some in Congress would rather see their opponents lose than see America win."

That's an assessment that has some validity, particularly among the new class of Republicans in the House who have used their outsized legislative power to stymie Obama at every turn since their election last November.

In Iowa, Bachmann won narrowly over Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, looking for a strong showing to boost his struggling candidacy, ended a distant third. Still, it's important to remember that the straw poll has not been a reliable predictor of the eventual nominee and that not everyone competed in it this year.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin wasn't on the ballot and isn't a candidate, yet. But she unexpectedly showed up at the Iowa State Fair a day before the vote, drawing huge crowds and saying she hadn't ruled out running.

She, like Bachmann and now Perry, is a tea party favorite, but her coyness about joining the race could hurt her chances should she finally declare. The 2008 vice presidential running mate to Arizona Sen. John McCain in 2008 promptly headed out for President Ronald Reagan's birthplace in neighboring Illinois.

Even as Obama's bus tour has designs on blunting the Iowa Republican festivities, it will have to compete for attention as the country digests Perry's rhetorical assault on Obama's presidency.

Perry, a former Democrat and the nation's longest-serving governor, told his appreciative audience that Obama's government had "an insatiable desire to spend our children's inheritance." He accused Obama of presiding over an "economic disaster" that has been "downgrading our hope for a better future."

"I'll work every day to try to make Washington, D.C., as inconsequential in your lives as I can," Perry said, clearly bowing to his tea party backing. Specifics for turning his promises into realities were absent.

By entering the race half way on the same day as the Iowa voting, Perry angered some Republicans, but he succeeded in diminishing attention to events in the heartland. What's more it saved him campaign cash and energy.

If nothing else, voters won't be able to ignore the fact that Perry's speaking style and swagger are eerily reminiscent of another Texas governor who made the transition to the national stage, President George W. Bush. Both men were Air Force pilots.

With his solid credentials on social as well as economic issues, Perry is an immediate threat to Bachmann in Iowa and to Romney just about everywhere else.

Romney did not participate in the Iowa poll, which he won four years ago before dropping out of the race when he failed to catch fire against McCain. Romney did join all the announced candidates Thursday at an Iowa debate.

But it was his pre-debate visit to the Iowa State Fair that produced a political gift to the Democrats.

Responding to a heckler who challenged him on tax policies that benefit big business, he blurted out that "corporations are people, my friend." The Democratic National Committee quickly used video of that remark in pre-straw poll television ads in Des Moines, the state capital. It was the kind of business friendly, Republican applause line that could haunt him with undecided voters and disaffected Democrats.

Obama and the other GOP hopefuls now face daily scrutiny as well as they try to avoid for the same kind of misstep. That's a nearly impossible task in the long, arduous and expensive path toward the White House.

Sales of gold up on eBay amid stock market turmoil

For gold sellers on eBay, the recent stock market turmoil has been a boon for business.

Gold and silver sales on eBay had already been rising steadily over the past several years — so much so that eBay Inc. created a special area in May to make it easier for buyers to find sellers.

Now, activity on that part of the site, the Bullion Center, is intensifying as consumers unnerved by the economic uncertainty flock to gold in hopes it will be a stable investment.

"When people are coming down to the question, 'Do they want to have cash in the bank or gold in their hands?' the answer is they'd rather have gold or silver," said Jacob Chandler, CEO of Great Southern Coins, the largest seller of precious metals on eBay.

The stock market just ended one of its most volatile weeks in years, prompted in part by a downgrade in the nation's credit rating and fears of another recession. The Dow Jones industrial average fell nearly 6 percent on Monday, its worst one-day drop since December 2008. Then the index rose Tuesday, fell Wednesday and rose Thursday and Friday to end the week 2 percent lower than a week ago.

Through most of last week, the average selling price increased for gold bullion — bars or coins stamped with their weight and level of purity.

According to the most recent data available from eBay, sales of 1-ounce gold American Eagle coins and 1-ounce gold Pamp Suisse bars rose steadily from Aug. 5 to Wednesday, before dipping slightly on Thursday.

On Aug. 5, when Standard & Poor's lowered the nation's credit rating, American Eagle coins were selling for an average of $1,800 among eBay's featured sellers. The average price of the coins, produced by the U.S. Mint, rose more than 8 percent to $1,952 on Wednesday, before dropping to $1,915 on Thursday.

The Pamp Suisse brand of gold bars sold for an average of $1,787 on Aug. 5 and climbed nearly 8 percent to $1,927 by Wednesday. On Thursday, the bars dropped slightly to $1,890.

Even before last week's market turbulence, investors were cautious because economic signals in the U.S. and overseas pointed toward trouble.

The Dow index fell 6 percent in the week ending Aug. 6. That week, the number of gold buyers on eBay rose 11 percent compared with the year's weekly average. The number of gold sellers rose 14 percent. EBay would not provide the total number of buyers and sellers.

"With all the turmoil in the markets, this is seen as a way to diversify," said Anthony Delvecchio, eBay's vice president of business management and strategy for eBay's North America business.

EBay, which is based in San Jose, Calif., does not impose minimum purchase amounts for bullion. Sellers offer gold both through auctions and "Buy It Now" fixed-price sales.

The increased popularity of gold on eBay echoes what's happening in the broader gold market, where prices have spiked during the past two years.

Gold traded at about $900 per ounce in the summer of 2008, before the financial crisis unfolded that year. It passed $1,600 in late May and briefly rose above $1,800 for the first time on Wednesday before pulling back to $1,784. On Friday, gold fell to $1,740.60 per ounce, still nearly twice the summer 2008 prices.

Great Southern Coins has benefited from this uptick. Chandler said the company is selling more gold lately, and its silver sales remain strong, too. Chandler estimated his business has nearly quadrupled in the past 45 days, and he said it appeared to be up about five or six times during the past week, with most of this growth coming from sales on eBay.

Daniel Hirsch, a New York-based statistician who recently purchased more than a dozen gold coins on eBay from Great Southern Coins, said he started buying gold less than a year ago in an effort to expand his investment portfolio.

"It's kind of a safe haven and a hedge against low interest rates," he said.

19 dead in attack on Afghan governor's compound

A team of six suicide bombers launched a coordinated assault on a provincial governor's compound in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing 19 people in the latest high-profile attack to target prominent Afghan government officials, authorities said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in the Parwan provincial capital of Charikar, some 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Kabul. Bagram Air Base, NATO's headquarters for Regional Command East, is located about 7 miles away.

Afghan police said the assault began with a car bomb outside the front gate. The blast blew open a hole in the wall, allowing five insurgents wearing suicide vests and carrying automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenades to rush into the compound.

Afghan police said they killed three of the attackers as they approached the governor's house.

The attack appeared to target a meeting of top provincial security officials that was taking place in the compound. Afghan National Police Gen. Abdul Jalil Rahimi said he was at the meeting, along with Parwan Gov. Abdul Basir Salangi, top provincial Afghan army and police officials, and at least two NATO police advisers.

"Two of the bombers were able to get into the building of the governor's house," Rahimi said.

Parwan Gov. Abdul Basir Salangi, a former rebel commander during the Russian occupation, also fired at the insurgents with his own machine gun. He said it was the second time in the past month he was targeted by an assassination attempt.

Provincial Police Chief Gen. Sher Ahmad Maladani also took part in the gun battle, which he said lasted for approximately one hour.

"The last attacker was killed by police when he was only about 15 meters away from me," said Maladani. The bomber was killed before he could detonate his explosives.

The attack left much of the compound in ruins. Part of the governor's offices were burned. Broken glass and body parts littered the courtyard. Several cars were wrecked by explosions and bullets.

Fourteen of the dead were civilian Afghan government employees and five were policemen, according to the Afghan Interior Ministry.

And the international coalition announced that an insurgent attack killed a NATO service member in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday. The death brings to 382 the number killed in 2011 and 59 in August.

Pakistani police don't know who kidnapped American

Authorities were still searching Sunday for clues about who kidnapped an American in Pakistan but came up with no leads after questioning the guards at his house when he was abducted, police said Sunday.

Gunmen snatched development expert Warren Weinstein before dawn Saturday after tricking his guards and breaking into his house in the eastern city of Lahore, a brazen raid that heightened fears among aid workers, diplomats and other foreigners already worried about Islamic militancy and anti-U.S. sentiment in Pakistan.

Weinstein is the Pakistan country director for J.E. Austin Associates, a development contractor that has received millions of dollars from the aid arm of the U.S. government, according to a profile on LinkedIn, a networking website. He had told his staff that would be wrapping up his latest project and moving out of Pakistan by Monday, just a couple days after he was kidnapped.

Police were hoping the guards could shed some light on who targeted Weinstein but came up empty-handed, said Shoaib Khurram, a senior police official in Lahore.

"We do not yet have any concrete information that there was a specific threat," Khurram told The Associated Press.

Kidnappings for ransom are common in Pakistan, with foreigners being occasional targets. Criminal gangs are suspected in most abductions, but Islamic militants, are believed to also use the tactic to raise money.

J.E. Austin Associates stressed Weinstein's commitment to Pakistan's economic development in a written statement and said he has worked with a wide range of Pakistani government agencies, including the Pakistan Furniture Development Company and the Pakistan Dairy Development Company.

"His efforts to help make Pakistani industries more competitive have resulted in many hundreds of well-paying jobs for Pakistani citizens and contributed to raising the standard of living in the communities where these businesses are located," it said.

Shahab Khawaja, a former official at Pakistan's Ministry of Industries and Production, said Weinstein has been working in Pakistan since 2004 and was scheduled to finish his contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on August 15. The two men, who are close friends, met in the capital, Islamabad, in recent days.

"I was shocked and deeply disturbed by his kidnapping," said Khawaja.

Police said Weinstein, believed to be in his 60s, had returned to his home in Lahore on Friday evening from Islamabad.

According to Pakistani police, two of the kidnappers showed up at Weinstein's house Saturday and told the guards inside the gate of the walled compound that they wanted to give them food, an act of sharing common during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The guards opened the gate, and five other men suddenly appeared. The armed assailants overpowered the guards and stormed into the house. Some gunmen are believed to have entered through the back. They snatched the American from his bedroom but took nothing else.

Hussain Bhatti, who worked with Weinstein in Pakistan, said the American decided to replace the security company guarding his house in recent months because of general threats to U.S. citizens working in Pakistan. But he did not know who would have targeted Weinstein.

Americans in Pakistan are considered especially at risk because militants oppose Islamabad's alliance with Washington and the war in Afghanistan. The unilateral U.S. raid that killed al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden on May 2 in northwest Pakistan only added to tensions between the two countries.

Norway killer back on island for reconstruction

Held tightly on a police leash, the Norwegian man who confessed to killing 69 people at an island youth camp has reconstructed his actions for police back at the crime scene.

Police said Sunday they took Anders Behring Breivik back to the island of Utoya on Saturday for a hearing about the July 22 terror attacks, when Breivik shot the victims dead on the lake island near Oslo after killing another eight people in the capital with a bomb.

The 32-year-old described the killings in close detail during an eight-hour tour on the island together with 10-12 police, prosecutor Paal-Fredrik Hjort Kraby told a press conference in Oslo.

The hearing took place amid a massive security operation that aimed to avoid escape attempts by Breivik and protect him against potential avengers.

"The suspect showed he wasn't emotionally unaffected by being back at Utoya ... but didn't show any remorse," Hjort Kraby said.

"He has been questioned for around 50 hours about this, and he has always been calm, detailed and collaborative, and that was also the case on Utoya," he said.

Breivik walked roughly the same route as the one he took during the shooting spree and explained what happened with as little interference as possible from police, Hjort Kraby said.

The entire hearing was filmed by police and will later be used in court, he added.

Images of the reconstruction published in the Norwegian daily VG show Breivik simulating shots into the water, where panicked teenagers tried to escape from him.

It had been arranged to avoid the need for a reconstruction in the midst of the trial and to make the suspect remember more details, Hjort Kraby said.

The prosecutor also confirmed Norwegian media reports that police received several phone calls from Breivik himself during the terror attack, but wouldn't say how police had reacted to the calls.

According to Norwegian daily Aftenposten, Breivik offered to surrender several times and asked police to call him back, but they didn't.

Breivik's lawyer has said he has admitted to the terror attacks, but denies criminal guilt because he believes the massacre was necessary to save Norway and Europe from Muslims and punish politicians who have embraced multiculturalism.

Initial speculation suggested others were involved in the terror attacks, but prosecutors and police have said they are fairly certain that Breivik planned and committed them on his own.

Breivik faces up to 21 years in prison if he is convicted on terrorism charges, but an alternative custody arrangement — if he is still considered a danger to the public — could keep him behind bars indefinitely.

Israeli social justice protests continue

Tens of thousands of Israelis demanding social justice have staged protests across the country for the fourth consecutive week.

An estimated 70,000 people attended demonstrations Saturday night after a decision was made to hold protests outside of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The protests are part of the social justice movement that has erected tent cities in towns and cities demanding equality and an end to rising costs, Ynetnews.com and Haaretz reported.

The largest protest was in Haifa, which drew more 25,000 Israelis and Arabs, Ynetnews.com said. Protests were also in Beersheba, Rosh Pina, Beit She'an Nazareth, Nahariya, Netanya, Rishon Lezion, Ashkelon, Dimona and Eilat.

Protesters want a halt to rising food costs, affordable housing for all, free education in elementary schools and control of university tuition fees.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has formed a team to investigate the protesters' demands and is expected to receive its recommendations within a month.

Professor Manuel Trachtenberg, the chairman of the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education, was appointed to head the team.

Norway massacre suspect revisits scene

The suspect accused of killing 77 people in a bombing and shooting spree in Norway walked through a re-enactment with police near Oslo, his attorney said.

Scores of officers escorted Anders Breivik on a walking tour of the island of Utoya Saturday and recorded his descriptions of what happened July 22 when 69 people were gunned down, Norway News reported.

Before the shooting rampage, a bomb exploded in Oslo, killing eight people.

Breivik's lawyer, Geir Lippestad, told the VG daily newspaper his client agreed to walking investigators through the crime scene.

A large contingent of police followed Breivik around for eight hours as a police helicopter hovered above and six police boats ringed the island, the report said.

Breivik was handcuffed, bound with rope and in ankle shackles as he led investigators around the scene where members of a Labor Party youth camp were gunned down.

He has confessed to the bombing and shootings, although a trial date hasn't been set.

Ahmadinejad warns Israel, United States

Iran will respond " decisively" if the United States or Israel attempt to attack the Islamic Republic, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Russia Today.

"They wish to do it, they want to do it, but they know about our power. They know we are going to give them a decisive response. We have a saying in our language if someone throws a smaller stone, you should respond with a bigger stone. We will defend ourselves within our capabilities," Ahmadinejad said in an exclusive interview with the Russian network published Sunday.

The Iranian president also said his country's objective is to develop peaceful nuclear energy.

"Nuclear weapons have no capabilities today. If any country builds a nuclear bomb, in fact, they waste their money on resources and secondly, they create a big danger to themselves.

"The Americans have nuclear bombs and nuclear weapons. Could they win in Iraq or Afghanistan? Could nuclear weapons help the Zionist regime win in Lebanon and Gaza?" he said.

4 die, 40 hurt in fair stage collapse

Storm winds slammed the Indiana State Fair grandstand Saturday night, killing at least four people and injuring 40 when the stage collapsed, authorities said.

The death toll from the collapse at the fairgrounds in Indianapolis, which occurred as a crowd of about 12,000 waited for a performance by the country band Sugarland, could go higher, police said.

"I want to be very frank that there could be other deaths," state police Sgt. Dave Bursten at a 1:45 a.m. briefing.

The Indianapolis Star reported the fair would be closed Sunday and then is expected to resume Monday with a memorial service honoring the victims.

"It was like it was in slow motion, you couldn't believe it was actually happening," concert-goer Amy Weathers of Centerville told the Star.

WANE-TV employee Kirby Ehler, who was at the fair to see Sugarland perform, said the wind grabbed the stage and its roof "like a sail and then it crashed forward into the people standing in the front."

"There were people trapped underneath and everyone was running and screaming," Ehler said. "They were asking any medics or nurses not to leave."

An emergency center was set up at the fairgrounds to treat victims, firefighters said.

The opening act, Sara Bareilles, had finished her set and the crowd was being directed to evacuate when the storm struck.

Sugarland later posted a message via Twitter: "We are all right. We are praying for our fans, and the people of Indianapolis. We hope you'll join us. They need your strength."

Cracking the housing bust conspiracy

Conspiracy theorists ran into a brick wall earlier this month in efforts to connect the collapse of the mortgage industry to politicians -- a controversial quest because most agree the housing bust was one of the first indicators, and one of the first causes, of the lagging U.S. economy.

Judicial Watch, the capital's conservative and sometimes quixotic legal watchdog organization, started the whole thing in May 2009 by asking the newly created Federal Housing Finance Agency to disclose "[a]ny and all Freddie Mac ... or Fannie Mae records concerning political campaign contributions."

No can do, the agency responded.

Judicial Watch went to court, filing a Freedom of Information Act suit to acquire the relevant documents. Understanding why the suit failed, at least short of the U.S. Supreme Court, requires an understanding of the background.

The Federal National Mortgage Association -- Fannie Mae -- and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp -- Freddie Mac -- buy residential mortgages from banks, then repackage them for sale as mortgage-backed securities. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guarantee the securities, pledging to reimburse investors if borrowers default.

The federal appeals court in Washington nicely captures what went wrong with the two lenders.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "are structured as private corporations, but they are federally chartered and play an important role in the national housing market by making it easier for home buyers to obtain loans. ... In 2009, the two companies guaranteed three-quarters of new residential mortgages in the United States."

But things had begun to go south.

"National housing prices began a sustained decline in 2006 that by mid-2008 had substantially eroded the value of Fannie- and Freddie-held mortgages," the court said. "Worried that either or both Fannie and Freddie might become insolvent, Congress passed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 ... which created the (Federal Housing Finance Agency, or FHFA) and authorized this new agency to place the two companies into conservatorship under specified circumstances," such as when Fannie's or Freddie's assets are insufficient to meet its obligations and where the management in the relevant agency consents to a conservatorship.

"On Sept. 7, 2008, with the consent of management at Fannie and Freddie, the FHFA placed both into conservatorship," the appeals court said. "As conservator, the FHFA has power to exercise 'all rights, titles, powers and privileges of the regulated entity, and of any stockholder, officer or director of such regulated entity with respect to the regulated entity and the assets of the regulated identity.'"

Given this structure, it was natural for Judicial Watch to approach the FHFA for the documents it wanted, and then file a FOIA suit against it when the request was rejected. But that structure turned out to be part of the problem.

The Freedom of Information Act "gives federal courts jurisdiction 'to order the production of any agency records improperly withheld from the complainant,'" the appeals court said. "But under FOIA, a federal court may only order an agency to release 'agency records.' ... Judicial Watch acknowledges that Fannie and Freddie," not being federal agencies, "are not themselves subject to FOIA, but argues that the requested documents became 'agency records' when the FHFA took over as conservator."

In asking for summary judgment in the FOIA suit from a federal judge, "the FHFA acknowledged that it had access to responsive documents, but, in an accompanying affidavit, swore that no one at the agency had ever read them." The affidavit was a declaration from FHFA Deputy General Counsel David A. Felt. "The FHFA argued that until someone at the agency uses the requested documents, they cannot be 'agency records' for purposes of FOIA. The (U.S. District) court agreed and granted summary judgment for the agency."

It was like being lost in some remote area, asking for directions, and being told, "You can't get there from here."

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals agreed with the judge and the FHFA.

"The Supreme Court has held that FOIA reaches only records the agency controls at the time of the request," the unanimous opinion by U.S. Circuit Judge Thomas Griffith said. "Control means 'the materials have come into the agency's possession in the legitimate conduct of its official duties.'"

The opinion said it had to weigh the case based on the four factors identified in the Supreme Court's 1996 ruling in Burka vs. HHS: "(1) the intent of the document's creator to retain or relinquish control over the records; (2) the ability of the agency to use and dispose of the record as it sees fit; (3) the extent to which agency personnel have read or relied upon the document; and (4) the degree to which the document was integrated into the agency's record system or files."

At the trial stage, the judge "considered these factors and determined that the FHFA does not 'control' the documents Judicial Watch requested because the agency had neither used the documents nor integrated them into its files," the appeals panel opinion said.

"Judicial Watch argues that the FHFA controls the documents because it holds title to them and that we therefore need not consider the Burka factors in this case," the opinion said, later adding, "But our cases have never suggested that ownership means control."

The opinion concluded: "Although there is no doubt that the FHFA could consult the requested records as it conducts its business, the problem for Judicial Watch is that no one from the FHFA has done so. The Supreme Court held in (1980's) Forsham vs. Harris that documents an agency had the right to acquire would not become agency records subject to FOIA 'unless and until the right is exercised.' ... In the same way, the FHFA's unexercised right to use and dispose of the records requested in this case is not enough to subject those records to FOIA."

No word yet on whether Judicial Watch will ask the full D.C. Circuit to rehear the case en banc or ask the U.S. Supreme Court for review.

After the appeals court ruling, Jill S. Farrell, director of public affairs for Judicial Watch, sent out an e-mail describing her frustration in classical terms: "An outrage? Youbetcha. Just another day for Sisyphus; keep pushing that rock uphill."

But the rigidly non-partisan Open Secrets, dedicated to revealing the finances of lobbyists and political sugar daddies, said in 2008 it learned -- presumably from recipients -- that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gave $4.7 million to members of Congress, Politico reported. Among the top 10 recipients -- then Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

Accepting properly packaged contributions from corporations is no crime. But being linked to an increasingly unpopular segment of the economy would carry a political price.

The meltdown itself occurred under President George W. Bush, and at least partially under a Congress controlled by a Democratic majority.

Meanwhile, recent news is still bad for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Following S&P's downgrading of the U.S. credit rating, the rating agency downgraded the two lenders to the same degree, from AAA to a slightly less than sterling AA+.

Bankrate's Greg McBride told The Baltimore Sun, "The downgrade of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt is what could lead to greater spreads between Treasury yields and those on mortgage-backed securities, and the rates borrowers pay."

McBride told the Sun investors who "buy mortgage bonds often buy them because they're guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The yield they're getting is only as good as the guarantee. If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been downgraded, then those investors may command a higher premium for holding that debt, and that would translate into higher mortgage rates."

Right now, he said, a weak economy is keeping mortgage rates low. But if and when the economy picks up, rates will rise.

The Boston Globe said local financiers told it the downgrade of U.S. credit and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is "fraying nerves and making a double-dip recession closer to reality." But higher lending rates are more of a long-term problem.

"Long-term, the downgrade is going to mean inflation," Rob Lutts, president of Cabot Money Management of Salem, Mass., told the Globe.

All this likely will lead to more consumer anger. Whether the courts will cooperate with efforts to direct that anger at select politicians remains up in the air.

School reform: Teachers, public at odds on what to do to improve schools

With states scrambling to get out of No Child Left Behind benchmarks, anemic tax collections decimating education budgets and test scores indicating U.S. students are losing ground to students in other countries, how are Americans reacting to these developments and are they pushing for effective reforms or out to punish teachers?

Education Secretary Arne Duncan last week said the No Child law -- a cornerstone of the Bush administration education policy -- actually is impeding efforts to raise standards and has led to a "dumbing-down" of curriculum to meet the law's proficiency standards. As the law currently stands, school districts that raise standards, increasing the percentage of students not reaching the higher bar, are being punished for trying to improve education.

"We need more highly trained, highly skilled workers; we need to keep raising standards, raising the bar," Duncan told reporters at the White House.

"I've always said from day one, the best ideas in education, frankly, aren't going to come from me and they're not going to come from anyone else in Washington; they're going to come at the local level."

But a study by Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance and Education Next indicates teachers and the general public are not on the same page when it comes to improving education.

Professor William G. Howell of the University of Chicago, the director of the survey, acknowledged teachers and the public have different reasons for supporting or opposing reform efforts.

"There are two classes of explanations for the differences we observes between teachers and the general public -- or so it seems to me," Howell said in response to an e-mail inquiry.

"The first focuses on interests and underscores the role that teachers play as stakeholders in public education. By this account, teachers resist some policy reforms not because they are bad for kids, but because they make their jobs more difficult, less rewarding -- financial and otherwise -- or both.

"The second class of explanations emphasizes the expertise that teachers have. By this account, teachers simply know more about what is required to educate children generally, and the specific children in their communities in particular. Hence, the differences that are observed between teachers and the public are emblematic of the kinds of differences of opinion one regularly observes between laypersons and experts."

Teacher opposition to reforms is increasing along with public support for accountability, the study found.

"The public's appetite for standardized tests appears undiminished," said study authors Howell, and Martin West and Paul Peterson, both of Harvard.

The study found strong support for annual proficiency testing for grades 3-8 and once in high school, mirroring the No Child mandates.

The study, appearing in the fall issue of Education Next, found teachers opposing such reforms as merit pay (favored by 47 percent of the public but only 27 percent of teachers) and alterations to tenure practices -- with 55 percent of the public favoring tenure decisions be based on student achievement and only 30 percent of teachers in favor of academic progress as a basis.

"The idea (of merit pay) remains anathema to teachers," the study found.

"Sixty percent of teachers support the idea of tying grade promotion to test performance, while 66 percent support high school graduation exams, even as these same teachers overwhelming oppose the idea of linking their own remuneration to student test scores."

When asked if teachers' salaries should be cut, only 7 percent of the public said they supported such action, with 55 percent saying teachers deserve a raise; however, support for raises dropped to 43 percent once respondents were told what the average teacher makes in their states. Two-thirds of the public also wants teachers to pick up 20 percent of their pension and healthcare costs -- a budget-balancing measure overwhelmingly rejected by teachers, the study said.

Such issues came to the fore in February amid protests in Madison, Wis., as the governor moved to limit the collective bargaining rights of public employees.

"All in all, the Wisconsin controversy seems to have contributed to a divergence of opinion between teachers and the general public," The authors said. "The biggest changes in opinion took place within the teaching profession, which moved further away from the views of the public at large. The public, and especially the affluent, nonetheless want to pay teachers more."

Support for vouchers has grown by 8 percentage points since last year, with 47 percent of the 2,600 people surveyed April 15-May 4 saying they support giving families the chance to enroll their children in private schools with tuition paid by the government. On charter schools, support was little changed with 43 percent saying they supported such schools and only 18 percent opposed.

Thirty-three percent said they think teachers unions affect schools negatively, up two points from the 2009-10 survey while 58 percent of teachers said unions have a positive impact, up from 51 percent.

The study found more affluent, college graduates were more critical of unions, 56 percent saying unions have a negative impact, and a nearly like proportion (54 percent) rated their schools, where per pupil expenditures averaged $12,300, A or B while only 15 percent would give the nation's schools overall a similar grade. Thirty-seven percent of teachers would grade schools nationally at A or B.

Nationally, per pupil expenditures averaged $10,792, the National Center for Education Statistics showed, ranging from a low of $5,964 per student in Utah to more than $17,000 in New York City.

"Teachers are much more likely to give schools high marks; on many issues, a majority of teachers takes the side opposite to that of the larger public, revealing tensions between what Americans overall think is best and what employees within the education industry prefer," the study found.

Though the Obama administration is encouraging the development of national standards, public education in the United States is locally controlled.

"Through votes, school board meetings, petition drives, and direct advo­cacy, all citizens, at least in principle, can influence public education," the authors said. "Principle and practice, however, often part ways. That all citizens can influence public education is not to say that all citizens do so. Generations of political science research confirm that higher-income and, especially, better-educated citizens are orders of magnitude more likely to participate in politics. And recent evidence demonstrates that teachers are far more likely to vote in school board elections than is the general public."

The authors concluded, "Plainly, the battles over school reform are far from over."