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• This is, today, the comforting script America often reaches for when it summons the vanished rural nation that so many say they long for. Not coincidentally, it is also the state of mind given to us by Andy Griffith and his long-running TV show.
• More than anyone except perhaps Walt Disney, Griffith was the entertainment-world emblem of the 20th-century values Americans often like to say they prize most. He spread the notion, begun by no less a figure than Thomas Jefferson, that somehow the very best of us was contained in the rural life -- in this case, the fictional tales of Mayberry that "The Andy Griffith Show" delivered for almost a decade.
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• BAGHDAD (AP) -- Police say a car bomb in a southern Iraqi town has killed at least eight people and wounded 28 in the latest deadly attack at local marketplaces.
• The Wednesday morning blast was eerily similar to two other strikes on markets on Tuesday in which at least 40 people were killed.
• Few details were immediately available about Wednesday's bombing in the Shiite town of Zubaidiyah, located about 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of Baghdad.
• Additionally, gunmen killed two police officers and a government worker in drive-by shootings in Baghdad. Police said the gunmen escaped capture in each of the three separate attacks.

• The casualties were confirmed by health officials. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
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• BERLIN (AP) -- The case horrified Germany, a nation where the Hitler era still casts a long shadow: a small band of neo-Nazis suspected of killing ethnic Turks and others in a seven-year terror spree, undetected by security forces until a botched bank robbery brought down the group last year.
• Now, Germany's domestic spy agency faces awkward questions about a possible cover-up after revelations that an official destroyed files related to the neo-Nazi group. The case prompted the government to announce this week that the agency's head for the past 12 years will take early retirement.

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