Dozens killed, hurt in suicide attack

Dozens killed, hurt in suicide attack

KABUL

Dozens of civilians, NATO coalition troops and Afghan security forces were killed and wounded Wednesday when a suicide attacker blew himself up in a bazaar, according to the top commander of international troops in Afghanistan, who alleged that the Taliban’s leader had “lost all control” of his foot soldiers.

U.S. Gen. John Allen condemned the attack in Kajaki district of Helmand province and said it was evidence that the insurgents had “declared outright war” on the Afghan people.

Boy, 10, charged in stabbing death

EL CAJON, Calif.

A child was charged with murder and felony assault in the fatal stabbing of a 12-year-old boy, authorities said Wednesday.

San Diego County district attorney’s office spokesman Steve Walker declined to say if the defendant was the victim’s 10-year-old neighbor who was taken into custody shortly after the stabbing. The neighbor is the only person who has been identified by homicide investigators as a suspect.

A detention hearing was scheduled for today in juvenile court.

The 12-year-old died Monday, a little more than an hour after he was stabbed in the 10-year-old’s driveway in a quiet neighborhood in El Cajon, east of San Diego.

Agencies: Delays cost lives in famine

NAIROBI, Kenya

Thousands of people died needlessly and millions of dollars were wasted because the international community did not respond fast enough to early signs of famine in East Africa, aid agencies said Wednesday, while warning of a new hunger crisis in West Africa.

Most rich donor nations waited until the crisis in the Horn of Africa was in full swing before donating a substantial amount of money, according to the report by aid groups Oxfam and Save the Children. A food shortage had been predicted as early as August 2010, but most donors did not respond until famine was declared in parts of Somalia in July 2011.

The British government estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 people died from the famine, mostly Somalis. Ethiopia and Kenya also were affected, but aid agencies were able to work more easily there than in war-ravaged Somalia.

Storm wallops Pacific Northwest

OLYMPIA, Wash.

A winter storm that packed winds of 100 mph and dumped more than a foot of snow in the Pacific Northwest could soon give way to another threat: warmer weather and the potential for flooding.

From Olympia to the Oregon coast, the storm closed schools, caused dozens of flight cancellations and clogged roads with snow and hundreds of accidents.

Olympia had nearly a foot of new snow on the ground by late morning. Nearly 11 inches was measured at the airport Wednesday. The record is 14.2 inches on Jan. 24, 1972.

Report: 116M suffer chronic pain in US

MELVILLE, N.Y.

Persistent pain that lasts weeks to years is an overlooked medical problem that affects more than 116 million people nationwide and needs to be the focus of a public- health campaign, doctors said Wednesday.

Physicians reporting in the New England Journal of Medicine cited a long list of concerns, including lack of access to pain-management specialists and inadequate consumer education about pain treatment, that they believe is causing people to suffer needlessly.

Authors of the report are calling on the medical community to educate more doctors capable of effectively treating people experiencing long-term, intractable pain.

Combined dispatches