• SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A major San Francisco Bay area transit strike was averted for at least a day after two labor unions extended contract talks beyond a midnight deadline and agreed not to walk off the job Monday to allow more contract negotiations.
• The deal announced late Sunday about an hour before Bay Area Rapid Transit workers were set to go on strike gives the two sides a chance to work out a labor contract and hundreds of thousands of commuters at least a temporary reprieve from scrambling to find alternative ways to get around.
• But the unions warned that workers will go on strike at midnight Monday if an agreement isn't reached by then.
• "We are not going to go on strike because the public deserves to have a riding system that works. We will give the (transit agency) one more day to get it together," said Antonette Bryant, leader of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555, one of the two unions in talks with BART.
• The 11th hour announcement came after weekend-long talks to avert a second commute-crippling strike in less than three months.
• ___

• BAGHDAD (AP) -- First came the fireball, then the screams of the victims. The suicide bombing just outside a Baghdad graveyard knocked Nasser Waleed Ali over and peppered his back with shrapnel.
• Ali was one of the lucky ones. At least 51 died in the Oct. 5 attack, many of them Shiite pilgrims walking by on their way to a shrine. No one has claimed responsibility, but there is little doubt al-Qaida's local franchise is to blame. Suicide bombers and car bombs are its calling cards, Shiite civilians among its favorite targets.
• Al-Qaida has come roaring back in Iraq since U.S. troops left in late 2011 and now looks stronger than it has in years. The terror group has shown it is capable of carrying out mass-casualty attacks several times a month, driving the death toll in

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