Israeli troops battle protesters in Syria

Israeli troops battle protesters in Syria

MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights

Israeli troops on Sunday battled hundreds of pro- Palestinian protesters who tried to burst across Syria’s frontier with the Golan Heights, killing a reported 20 people and wounding scores more in the second outbreak of deadly violence in the border area in less than a month.

The clashes, marking the anniversary of the Arab defeat in the 1967 Mideast war, drew Israeli accusations that Syria was orchestrating the violence to shift attention away from a bloody crackdown on opposition protests at home. The marchers, who had organized on Facebook, passed by Syrian and U.N. outposts on their way to the front lines.

Levee breach forces evacuations in Iowa

Six hundred residents in southwest Iowa were ordered Sunday to evacuate their homes after the Missouri River breached a levee across the border in Missouri.

The evacuation covers nearly half the town of Hamburg, said Stefanie Bond, spokeswoman for the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. Residents, most of them on the south side of the city of 1,141, are being told to get out within 24 hours.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported a levee was breached Sunday morning south of Hamburg in Missouri’s Atchison County. The corps’ Col. Robert Ruch said crews had been working Saturday on another issue near the breach, and all workers were evacuated.

Studies: Drugs help with skin cancer

CHICAGO

They’re not cures, but two novel drugs produced unprecedented gains in survival in separate studies of people with melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, doctors reported Sunday.

In one study, an experimental drug showed so much benefit so quickly in people with advanced disease that those getting a comparison drug were allowed to switch after just a few months.

The drug, vemurafenib, targets a gene mutation found in about half of all melanomas. The drug is being developed by Genentech, part of Swiss-based Roche, and Plexxikon Inc., part of the Daiichi Sankyo Group of Japan.

Bombings kill 24 people in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD

A suicide bomber attacked a bakery in Pakistan’s northwest Sunday, killing 18 people, and another bomb in the volatile region left six others dead. The attacks were the latest in a wave of bloodshed to hit Pakistan since the U.S. raid that killed al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.

Also Sunday, a Pakistani security official said authorities are nearly certain that a recent U.S. missile strike killed al-Qaida commander Ilyas Kashmiri.

The suicide bomber struck the bakery in a neighborhood where army personnel live in the town of Nowshera, police said. At least two soldiers were among the dead.

The attacker was a young man carrying around 18 pounds of explosives. The blast caused some gas cylinders in the bakery to explode, leading to a fire that left many of the 40 wounded in serious condition, said Fazal Maula, a police official.

Associated Press