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peace talks in July. In November, for instance, there were 167 attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank, compared to 136 in October, the agency said.
• The past few days have been particularly dramatic. On Sunday, a pipe bomb believed to be planted by Palestinian militants exploded on a bus in central Israel in the most serious attack inside Israel in more than a year. The bus was evacuated moments before the blast, but the explosion caused heavy damage. The next day, an Israeli policeman was stabbed outside a West Bank settlement and on Tuesday an Israeli civilian was killed by a Palestinian sniper in a cross-border shooting from Gaza, sparking a series of Israeli airstrikes that killed a Palestinian girl.
• Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said the incidents in the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- which are ruled by rival Palestinian governments -- were unrelated, calling them "atmosphere attacks." But he promised that Israel would respond nonetheless.
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• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ready to ring in the new year, Americans look ahead with optimism, according to a new AP-Times Square New Year's Eve poll. Their ratings of the year gone by? Less than glowing.
• What the public thought of 2013:
• GOOD YEAR OR GOOD RIDDANCE?
• On the whole, Americans rate their own experience in 2013 more positively than negatively, but when asked to assess the year for the United States or the world at large, things turn sour.
• --All told, 32 percent say 2013 was a better year for them than 2012, while 20 percent say it was worse and 46 percent say the two years were really about the same. Young people were more apt to see improvement: 40 percent of people under age 30 called 2013 a better year than 2012, compared with 25 percent of people age 65 or older.
• ___

• LITCHFIELD, Maine (AP) -- Some people in the United States and Canada who have been without electricity since Saturday may not get their lights back on for another day.

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