World/Nation
• Fighting erupts in Central African Republic capital
BANGUI, Central African Republic - Wielding rifles and machetes, armed Christian fighters who support the Central African Republic's exiled president assaulted the capital at dawn on Thursday, leaving nearly 100 people dead. Shrouded bodies were lined up in a mosque as dozens of wounded lay on blood-stained hospital floors.
The ambush on Muslim neighborhoods of Bangui came as the United Nations voted to send a contingent of French troops to try to stabilize the country, and French President Francois Hollande announced plans to double the force. The daylong gun battle touched even the most protected parts of the capital, including the residence of the prime minister, underscoring the volatile mix of arms and ideology facing the arriving French force.
Scores died in Thursday's attack, including 48 people whose bodies were laid out at a mosque in a northern suburb of Bangui. Separately, a Doctors Without Borders spokeswoman, Amelie Ketoff, said another 50 deaths had been confirmed, bringing the toll to 98.
Some died of bullet wounds, others from what appeared to be machete blows using a weapon known in the local language as a "balaka." The Christian militia, whose members are believed to have led the attack Thursday, call themselves the "anti-balaka," reminiscent of the horrific violence once seen in Rwanda.
• Troops guard recovered cobalt
MEXICO CITY - Officials were engaged Thursday in the delicate task of recovering a stolen shipment of highly radioactive cobalt-60 abandoned in a rural field in central Mexico state.
The material, which the International Atomic Energy Agency called "extremely dangerous," was found removed from its protective container. The pellets did not appear to have been damaged or broken up and there was no sign of contamination to the area, the agency said Thursday, quoting Mexican nuclear safety officials.
Juan Eibenschutz, director general of the National Commission of Nuclear Safety and Safeguards, said it could take at least two days to safely get the material into a secure container and transport it to a waste site.
"It's a very delicate operation," Eibenschutz said. "What's important is that the material has been located and the place is being watched to guarantee no one gets close."
Eibenschutz said the pellets are inside an unbroken copper cylinder about 4 inches long and 1.2 inches in diameter.
• Springsteen manuscript sells for $197,000
NEW YORK - Someone was willing to pay big bucks for an early glimpse of what would become the Boss' "runaway American dream."
A handwritten, working lyric sheet for Bruce Springsteen's 1975 hit "Born to Run" sold at Sotheby's Thursday for $197,000, well exceeding pre-sale estimates of between $70,000 and $100,000.
The auction house didn't reveal the identity of either the seller or the telephone bidder who bought the document, which used to be in the collection of Springsteen's former manager, Mike Appel.
The title track of Springsteen's 1975 multiplatinum album has revved up generations of fans, from its opening view of "the streets of a runaway American dream" to its high-octane chorus: "tramps like us/baby we were born to run." Some Springsteen aficionados still refer to themselves as "tramps."
Most of the lines in this rough 1974 version, written in Long Branch, N.J., are apparently unpublished and unrecorded, but the manuscript does include "a nearly perfected chorus," the auction house said. It's one of only two identified manuscripts that include the rock anthem's most famous lines, according to Sotheby's.
- The Associated Press