Aaron's Daily WWW Newspaper

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - The United Nations condemned a "bloodbath" in Sri Lanka's northern war zone Monday after two days of shelling that a government doctor said killed as many as 1,000 ethnic Tamil civilians — including 106 children.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Fueling has started on space shuttle Atlantis for its mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Atlantis is poised to blast off just after 2 p.m. Monday for NASA's last visit to Hubble.

NEW YORK - Comedian Joan Rivers was hired and poker champ Annie Duke was fired on the final faceoff of "Celebrity Apprentice."

LOS ANGELES - Randy Winn hit a tiebreaking two-run single with the bases loaded in the 13th inning and finished with four hits, leading the San Francisco Giants to a 7-5 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday.

KABUL - The U.S. military accused militants in Afghanistan on Monday of using white phosphorus munitions in attacks on American forces and in civilian areas, saying it has documented at least 44 incidents of insurgents using or storing the weapons. A spokeswoman labeled the attacks "reprehensible."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will aim on Monday to build support for a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system by highlighting a drive for greater efficiency he predicts could save trillions of dollars.

COLOMBO (Reuters) -- The United Nations said a weekend attack in Sri Lanka that killed hundreds was the bloodbath it had feared, while the Tamil Tigers and government traded blame ahead of U.N. Security Council talks over the war.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed 10 people at a security post in Pakistan on Monday as the army pressed on with an offensive against the Taliban in which the government said 700 militants had been killed.

BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The new flu strain spread to mainland China, state media reported on Monday, and killed a third person in the United States, as the number of cases of H1N1 influenza worldwide jumped to more than 4,300.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - U.S.-born journalist Roxana Saberi will be freed soon after an Iranian appeals court cut her eight-year jail sentence for espionage to a suspended two-year term, her lawyer said on Monday.

BEIJING (Reuters) - The United States risks a Japan-style lost decade of growth if it does not take aggressive action to stimulate its economy and clean up its banking system, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said on Monday.

LONDON (Reuters) - The United States is promoting a peace plan for the Middle East involving a "57-state solution" in which the entire Muslim world would recognize Israel, Monday's Times of London quoted Jordan's King Abdullah as saying.

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai is "very serious" about a demand for foreign forces in Afghanistan to halt air raids, even though it was rebuffed by a top U.S. security official, his spokesman said on Monday.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI denounced anti-Semitism and appealed for Middle East peace based on a two-state solution on the latest leg of a pilgrimage to press for reconciliation in the conflict-ridden region.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) - Pakistani forces pressed a ground and air offensive against Taliban militants on Monday in fierce fighting that has sent more than 360,000 people fleeing in just over a week.

COLOMBO (AFP) - The United Nations on Monday condemned a civilian "bloodbath" in Sri Lanka at the weekend, saying more than 100 children had been killed in shelling that the government and rebels blamed on each other.

CHENGDU, China (AFP) - China on Monday confirmed its first case of swine flu on the mainland, underlining the outbreak's global spread, as the United States reported hundreds more cases and warned of further deaths.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AFP) - The US space agency said it was on target to launch Monday the space shuttle Atlantis on its high-risk final mission to service the Hubble telescope.

PARIS (AFP) - The downturn in some recession-hit countries is easing despite ongoing signs of a strong slowdown, the OECD grouping of leading economies said in a report on Monday.

PARIS (AFP) - France's state-owned EDF and Britain's Centrica announced on Monday a long-awaited joint venture aimed at relaunching nuclear energy in Britain.