2 US Marines killed in attack on air base

2 US Marines killed in attack on air base

WASHINGTON

Heavily armed insurgents attacked a British air base in southern Afghanistan on Friday, killing two U.S. Marines and wounding several other troops, U.S. officials said.

U.S. officials said the attack at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan’s Helmand province involved a range of insurgent weaponry, possibly including mortars, rockets or rocket-propelled grenades, as well as small- arms fire.

Groups try again to block Ariz. law

PHOENIX

A civil-rights coalition asked a federal appeals court Friday to prevent the most-contentious part of Arizona’s immigration law from taking effect while it appeals a ruling that sunk its earlier bid to bar police from enforcing the provision.

The opponents asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco for an order preventing police from enforcing a requirement that officers, while enforcing other laws, question the immigration status of those they suspect are in the country illegally.

Police have been barred from enforcing the questioning requirement, dubbed by critics as the “show me your papers” provision, since July 2010. But a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June upheld the provision and cleared the way for officers to enforce it.

China’s vice president reappears in public

BEIJING

China’s presumed next leader has made a public appearance for the first time in two weeks.

The official Xinhua News Agency says Vice President Xi Jinping arrived at China Agricultural University in Beijing today for activities marking National Science Popularization Day.

The brief Xinhua report does not address why Xi has not been seen publicly since Sept. 1. Since then, Xi canceled meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and foreign leaders.

His absence had fueled rumors of his health and raised questions about the stability of the Communist Party’s succession process.

Woman contracted plague from cat

PORTLAND, Ore.

A woman who tried to help her friend save the life of a choking cat also contracted the plague from the disease-stricken feline over the summer, health officials said Friday.

The central Oregon woman, who asked not to be identified, has recovered since contracting the disease in June. She was treated after showing early symptoms.

The woman was bitten at the same time as Paul Gaylord, who made national headlines when he almost died from a version of the infection that killed millions in the Middle Ages.

‘Bucket List Bandit’ suspect captured

OKLAHOMA CITY

In banks from Utah to Pennsylvania this summer, a middle-aged man with grayish, thinning hair, glasses and a blue polo shirt has been demanding money from frightened tellers and offering the same sad story: He only had months to live.

After his fourth heist, this one in Utah, he earned a nickname, the “Bucket List Bandit,” because the robberies were believed to be the actions of a desperate and dying man.

On Friday, the FBI announced the suspect had been captured during a routine traffic stop Thursday night in the eastern Oklahoma city of Roland. Officers determined Michael Eugene Brewster, 54, of Pensacola, Fla., was driving a stolen SUV that he borrowed from a friend 10 days before the first robbery and that it had improper Utah license plates, said Rick Rains, a spokesman for the FBI’s Oklahoma City office.

Associated Press