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• Tourists can't get from Southern California to Las Vegas by rail alone, and Barron's company isn't the first to try and fix that. The much-talked-about XpressWest project proposes a high-speed train connecting Sin City to the region from which it draws 25 percent of its tourists.
• But it's a multi-billion-dollar proposal that would require setting new tracks, and it's often panned as a "train to nowhere" because the first phase would start in relatively obscure Victorville, about 100 miles outside of Los Angeles.
• ___

• JERUSALEM (AP) -- A poll shows about half of Israelis think their government should have continued its military offensive against Palestinian militants in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
• The independent Maagar Mohot poll released on Friday shows 49 percent of respondents feel Israel should have kept going after squads who fire rockets into Israel. Thirty-one percent supported the government's decision to stop. Twenty percent had no opinion.
• Twenty-nine percent thought Israel should have sent ground troops to invade Gaza.
• Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire two days ago.
• The poll of 503 respondents had an error margin of 4.5 percentage points.
• ___

• KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- A suicide attacker detonated a car laden with explosives Friday in eastern Afghanistan, killing two civilians and wounding about 60 others, officials said.
• Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the bombing, saying in a statement that the attack was in response to the recent execution of four Taliban detainees at the Afghan government's main detention center in Kabul.
• The men were convicted and sentenced to death in Afghan courts for a variety of crimes, including murder, rape, kidnapping, robbery and cruelty against children. The Taliban condemned the hangings, saying the detainees were prisoners of war who were unjustly jailed.

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