U.S. & WORLD NEWS DIGEST | NATO strike raises pressure on Gadhafi

NATO strike raises pressure on Gadhafi

TRIPOLI, Libya

The latest NATO airstrike on Moammar Gadhafi’s compound that reduced parts of it to a smoldering ruin steps up pressure on the increasingly embattled Libyan leader as he struggles to hold onto the western half of the country.

A Libyan government spokesman denounced Monday’s bombing as a failed assassination attempt, saying the 69-year-old leader was healthy, “in high spirits” and carrying on business as usual.

A separate airstrike elsewhere in Tripoli targeted Libyan TV and temporarily knocked it off the air, a government spokesman said.

Funeral for 3 kids who died in river

SPRING VALLEY, N.Y.

Tensions erupted Monday between families at a funeral service for three New York children who died when their mother drove their minivan into the Hudson River.

Gwendolen Green, a second cousin of the mother who drove the minivan, LaShanda Armstrong, said too few of Armstrong’s relatives were allowed in to the service, which was organized by the children’s father.

Armstrong, 25, loaded her four children into a minivan April 12 after an argument with the father of the three youngest. She drove down a boat ramp in Newburgh into the river.

The oldest child, 10-year-old La’Shaun Armstrong, crawled out a window and survived.

Armstrong’s funeral was Thursday. A joint funeral had been planned, but the father, Jean Pierre, said last week that he would have a separate service for the children. Armstrong’s relatives were angry with the decision.

Barbour bows out of 2012 campaign

JACKSON, Miss.

Republican Gov. Haley Barbour bowed out of presidential contention Monday with a surprise announcement just as the 2012 campaign was getting under way in earnest, 18 months before Election Day.

The Mississippi governor said he lacked the necessary “absolute fire in the belly” to run.

Barbour’s declaration, unexpected because he had been laying the groundwork for a campaign for months, thins a Republican cluster of no less than a dozen potential candidates to take on Democratic President Barack Obama.

Associated Press