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their nominating contest.
• ___

• LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Hyla Merin grew up without a father and for a long time never knew why.
• Her mother never spoke about the Army officer who died before Hyla was born. The scraps of information she gathered from other relatives were hazy: 2nd Lt. Hyman Markel was a rabbi's son, brilliant at mathematics, the brave winner of a Purple Heart who died sometime in 1945.
• Aside from wedding photos of Markel in uniform, Merin never glimpsed him.
• But on Sunday, decades after he won it, Merin will receive her father's Purple Heart, along with a Silver Star she never knew he'd won and a half-dozen other medals.
• "It just confirms what a great man he was," Merin said tearfully. "He gave up his life for our country and our freedom. I'll put it up in my house as a memorial to him and to those who served."
• ___

• BAGHDAD (AP) -- A series of car bombs exploded within minutes of each other in and around Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 28 people and wounding dozens in overwhelmingly Shiite areas.
• The attacks come amid rising sectarian discord in Iraq. The explosions, mostly in outdoor markets, struck at the start of the local work week and appeared aimed at causing mass casualties among residents going about their morning shopping.
• Violence in Iraq has fallen since the height of sectarian fighting in 2006 and 2007, but insurgents still launch lethal attacks frequently against security forces and civilians in an attempt to undermine the Shiite-led government.
• There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but similar ones have been orchestrated by Sunni extremists, such as al-Qaida's local arm. The group, known as the Islamic State of Iraq, favors large-scale, coordinated attacks. It frequently targets Shiite Muslims.
• Police and hospital officials provided the death toll, and said more than 80 people were wounded. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't author

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