U.S. & WORLD NEWS DIGEST | Ford to raise US production 13%

Ford to raise US production 13%

SAN FRANCISCO

Ford Motor Co. will increase factory production 13 percent in the first quarter because of higher demand for Ford and Lincoln brand cars and trucks, and further increases are likely through the year, company executives said Sunday.

The Dearborn, Mich., automaker said its sales to individual buyers rose 27 percent in January, a strong increase that shows demand for Ford products like the Explorer sport-utility vehicle is on the rise. Ford’s overall sales, including those to big fleet buyers such as rental car companies, rose 9 percent last month.

FCC to update phone subsidy program

WASHINGTON

The federal government spends more than $4 billion a year, collected from phone bills, to subsidize phone service in rural and poor areas. Now, it’s considering ways to give those places more for the money: high-speed Internet connections instead of old-fashioned phone lines.

The Federal Communications Commission is set to vote Tuesday to begin work on a blueprint for transforming a subsidy program called the Universal Service Fund to pay for broadband.

The details the agency works out could have profound consequences not just for residents of rural areas who are still stuck with dial-up connections or painfully slow broadband speeds.

Flooding displaces more than a million

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka

More than a million people have been displaced by flooding in north-central and northeastern Sri Lanka, officials said Sunday, as monsoon rains fell for the sixth-consecutive day.

The floods were widespread and were affecting roads, agricultural land and town centers, the Disaster Management Center said.

The center said Sunday that it had confirmed eight deaths and two missing people.

Police evacuate 6,000 to defuse old bomb

PARIS

Some 6,000 residents of a Paris suburb were evacuated from their homes while specialists defused a World War II bomb discovered on a building site.

Paris police headquarters says experts successfully rendered the 880-pound bomb harmless in a few hours.

The operation Saturday forced the closure of two neighborhoods in Boulogne-Billancourt, southwest of Paris. The bomb was discovered Jan. 27 on an old factory site of Renault automobiles under renovation.

Parasailing donkey dies of heart trouble

MOSCOW

The Russian donkey whose brays of terror while parasailing won her worldwide sympathy has died.

The newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda says the 18-year-old female donkey, Anapka, died of heart trouble after falling ill in December.

Anapka had been sent up into the sky over a Russian beach in a promotional stunt, and the YouTube video of her trip made worldwide headlines. She was brought to Moscow in August.

Anapka spent her final months on a farm outside the city. The newspaper did not say when she died.

Thai, Cambodian clashes resume

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia

Machine-gun and artillery fire echoed across the frontier between Thailand and Cambodia today as fighting between their troops erupted for a fourth day near an 11th-century temple that has been caught in the crossfire.

Cambodian government spokesman Phay Siphan said clashes began again early today after halting around midnight.

Combined dispatches