Saturday,  March 9, 2013 • Vol. 14--No. 233 • 46 of 53 •  Other Editions

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ghan army Humvee through a checkpoint dividing the base, before jumping out and opening fire on the Americans with automatic weapons. All three attackers were killed.
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Egyptian court confirms death sentences for 21 people for role in deadly 2012 soccer riot

• CAIRO (AP) -- An Egyptian court on Saturday confirmed death sentences against 21 people for their role in a deadly 2012 soccer riot that killed more than 70 people in the city of Port Said.
• The court also sentenced the city's former security chief, Maj. Gen. Essam Samak, to 15 years in prison. Samak was the most senior of nine security officials tried for their part in the riot. Another police official, a colonel, was also sentenced to 15 years in prison. The other seven were acquitted.
• Judge Sobhi Abdel-Maguid, who read out the verdict at a Cairo courthouse, sentenced five more defendants to life in prison and eight others -- besides Samak and the police colonel -- to 15 years in jail. Six defendants received 10-year jail terms, two more got five years and a single defendant received a 12-month sentence. A total of 28 people were acquitted.
• The trial has been the source of some of the worst unrest in recent weeks to hit Egypt, which is already grappling with mass political protests and a crumbling economy. After the 21 people -- most of them fans of Port Said's Al-Masry club -- were first sentenced to death on Jan. 28, violent riots erupted in the city that left some 40 people dead, most of them shot by police.
• Many residents of Port Said, which is located on the Mediterranean at the northern tip of the Suez Canal, have seen the trial as unjust and politicized, and soccer fans in the city have felt that authorities were biased in favor of Al-Ahly, Egypt's most powerful club.
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With an economy on the rise, is government a help or an impediment?

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Increased hiring, lower unemployment, stock market on the rise. Who gets the credit?
• It's a hotly debated point in Washington, where political scorekeeping amounts to who gets blame and who gets praise.

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