Militants’ rocket kills worker in Israel

hMilitants’ rocket kills worker in Israel

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip

A rocket fired by Gaza militants smashed into a greenhouse in an Israeli border village Thursday, killing a Thai worker in the first such death since Israel’s massive offensive against Hamas-ruled Gaza more than a year ago.

The launch defied a long-standing ban by the Hamas on such attacks and highlighted the growing challenge to the Islamic militant group from more radical rivals, including al-Qaida-inspired firebrands.

Woman releases Woods’ messages

LOS ANGELES

A former porn actress released sexually graphic text messages Thursday that she says prove her affair with Tiger Woods, and she said she may reveal more potentially embarrassing information about the golfer as he prepares to return to competition next month.

Joslyn James, whose real name is Veronica Siwik-Daniels, posted more than 100 messages on her Web site that she says came from Woods and indicate he arranged to have her stay at the same hotel.

Some of the messages show a desire for rough sex. In a message from Aug. 29, the person she says is Woods says he wants to slap her and that she should beg the next time he sees her.

Child’s body found

SEATTLE

A child’s body washed up on an island in Puget Sound on Thursday, and law enforcement officials said it could be an 8-year-old boy who went missing with his mother last weekend.

Lt. Chris Mealy of the Thurston County sheriff’s office said he got a call from Pierce County officials Thursday afternoon saying they were responding to a report that a child’s body washed up on Fox Island, southwest of Tacoma.

The island is about 12 miles north of the remote Olympia beach where Azriel Carver and his mother, Shantina “Kat” Smiley, 29, apparently abandoned a minivan Saturday.

Putin: Iran’s nuclear plant to start up

VOLGODONSK, Russia

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Iran’s new Russian-built nuclear power plant will begin operating this summer, even as the United States called for Russia to delay the startup.

In an apparent response, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton — in Moscow on an official trip — urged Russia not to start up the plant until Tehran proves that it’s not developing atomic weapons.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, at a joint news conference with Clinton, immediately stepped in to say that Russia would put the reactor online.

Associated Press