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of Khost province, said provincial government spokesman Baryalai Wakman.
• Six civilians and four police officers were killed in the blast, Wakman said. He said the police officers were part of a specialized quick-reaction force.
• Blood could be seen on the market road as Afghan police and soldiers tried to clean up the area after the blast. Slippers and bicycle parts were strewn about.
• ___

• BEIRUT (AP) -- Activists say Syrian troops have bombed a northern town near the Turkish border, killing at least 12 people.
• The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the victims of Monday's bombardment of the town of Salqin included five children. The town is 6 kilometers (4 miles) from the border with Turkey.
• The Observatory says the death toll is expected to rise because many people were critically wounded. The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, put the death toll at 30.
• Footage posted online by activists shows several mutilated bodies in a pickup truck as a man shouts that his son was killed. The video's authenticity could not be independently verified.
• Salqin is in the northwestern province of Idlib that has seen intense clashes between troops and rebels in recent months.
• ___

• JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- James Meredith is a civil-rights icon who hates the term "civil rights."
• It's as if civil rights were somehow set apart from -- well, rights.
• "When it comes to my rights as an American citizen, and yours, I am a triumphalist and an absolutist. Anything less is an insult," said the black man who 50 years ago inflamed the anger of white Mississippi by quietly demanding admission to the state's segregated flagship university.
• Now 79 and living in Jackson, Meredith sees himself as a messenger of God -- a warrior who crippled the beast of white supremacy by integrating the University of Mississippi.

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