World/Nation

Obama caught between Clinton, Biden's ambitions

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama is the man in the middle, caught between the White House aspirations of two of his closest advisers: Vice President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

For months, White House officials expected Clinton to be the Democratic nominee in the 2016 election. Some of Obama's top political advisers moved to New York to run her campaign and Obama appeared to give his tacit approval, saying she would be an "excellent president."

But that bet on Clinton suddenly looks less certain. With Biden weighing his own presidential run more seriously amid signs of weakness in Clinton's campaign, the White House faces the prospect of a family feud over who will become heir to Obama's legacy.

"Certainly he's got something at stake here," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday of Obama's interest in the 2016 election.

Biden's recent overtures to donors and Democratic officials have led to palpable awkwardness in the West Wing as aides - many with close ties to Clinton, the vice president or both - try to maintain impartiality.

Rival Koreas reach deal over mine blast

SEOUL, South Korea - After 40-plus-hours of talks, North and South Korea on Tuesday pulled back from the brink with an accord that allows both sides to save face and, for the moment, avert the bloodshed they've been threatening each other with for weeks.

In a carefully crafted, though vague, piece of diplomacy, Pyongyang expressed "regret" that two South Korean soldiers were maimed in a recent land mine blast Seoul blamed on the North. While not an acknowledgement of responsibility, let alone the "definite apology" South Korea's president had demanded, it allows Seoul to claim some measure of victory in holding the North to account.

South Korea, for its part, agreed to halt anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts on the border, which will let the authoritarian North trumpet to its people a propaganda win over its bitter rival - and put an end to hated loudspeaker messages that outside analysts say could demoralize front-line troops and inspire them to defect.

Train heroes highlight asecurity concern

PARIS - The gunman had an arsenal that he claims to have stumbled upon in a park near the train station. Like three other men accused of drawing up failed plans for attacks in France recently, the suspect denied any links to terrorism, telling his lawyer he was homeless and only wanted to rob a train "to eat."

Instead, the assault rifle jammed, and he was tackled and bound with a necktie by three Americans and a Briton who were celebrated Monday with France's highest honor. Now, with many lives potentially saved on the high-speed train by quick-thinking and courageous passengers, the limits of a continent's worth of security were thrown into relief by a lone attacker during a less-sophisticated act of violence.

"I don't think we can rely entirely on the police, the law enforcement services. They will do their best. We can put in place the best intelligence networks, but somebody is probably going to get through at some stage. And my vision of this is that as citizens, we need to be prepared to think about how to act," Chris Norman, the British businessman who helped bind the suspect, told The Associated Press.

"We need to have it in our minds, because if I had never thought it before, then I probably would've just been sitting in a corner cowering," Norman said.

With thousands of Europeans believed to be radicalized by propaganda from the Islamic State group, and legions of security forces guarding the most visible targets, governments are increasingly worried about the possibility of carnage by individuals, with little planning, in a setting where there is minimal or no security.

Ancient Syrian temple destroyed by IS militants

BEIRUT - The destruction of the nearly 2,000-year-old temple of Baalshamin by Islamic State militants erased a symbol of the once rich religious life of Syria's ancient caravan city of Palmyra and left residents, archaeologists and historians fearful that the extremists will destroy more of the rich site, including an even larger more ancient temple nearby.

The U.N. cultural agency UNESCO on Monday called the destruction of the temple a war crime. For archaeologists, it deepened their despair and frustration over the systematic destruction of Syria's heritage in the country's civil war, not only by the extremists but by government forces, who have bombed and looted historic sites since the conflict began in 2011.

No pictures have yet emerged of the extent of the destruction of the temple. One resident told The Associated Press he saw it after it was blown up Sunday and said it was reduced to "rocks on the ground, nothing more."

The witness, who goes by the name Nasser al-Thaer, said the bombing took place Sunday shortly after 4 p.m. The militants had lined the inner and outer walls of the temple with bottles of explosives more than a month ago, he said.

"I went to see it, not from very close because IS (militants) were there and because I was worried for myself and afraid they will ask me what are you doing here. So I saw it from a distance," al-Thaer told the AP.

- The Associated Press