World/Nation

U.S. officials say strike in Libya hit al-Qaida target

CAIRO - Pentagon officials say they believe they hit their target - the one-eyed, al-Qaida-linked commander who led a deadly attack on an Algerian gas facility in 2013. But uncertainty still surrounds the U.S. airstrike in eastern Libya, and whether Mokhtar Belmokhtar was actually among the militants said to have been killed in the bombing.

Libyan officials say Sunday's airstrike hit a gathering of militants on a farm outside Ajdabiya, a coastal city about 530 miles east of the capital, Tripoli, but there were conflicting reports on how many died.

An initial assessment shows the bombing that targeted Belmokhtar was successful, and "post-strike assessments" were still underway Monday to determine whether the Algerian militant was killed, said Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman.

Maj. Mohammed Hegazi, a military spokesman from Libya's internationally recognized government based in the east, also said tests were needed to identify the dead, which numbered at least 17, with their bodies badly burned. Among those killed were three foreigners - a Tunisian and two unidentified militants, he said.

Jeb Bush makes it official: He's a candidate

MIAMI - Vowing to win the Republican presidential nomination on his own merits, Jeb Bush launched a White House bid months in the making Monday with a promise to stay true to his beliefs - easier said than done in a bristling primary contest where his conservative credentials will be sharply challenged.

"Not a one of us deserves the job by right of resume, party, seniority, family, or family narrative. It's nobody's turn," Bush said, confronting critics who suggest he simply seeks to inherit the office already held by his father and brother. "It's everybody's test, and it's wide open - exactly as a contest for president should be."

Bush sought to turn the prime argument against his candidacy on its head, casting himself as the true Washington outsider while lashing out at competitors in both parties as being part of the problem. He opened his campaign at a rally near his south Florida home at Miami Dade College, an institution with a large and diverse student body that symbolizes the nation he seeks to lead.

"The presidency should not be passed on from one liberal to the next," he declared in a jab at Democratic favorite Hillary Rodham Clinton.

And he said: "We are not going to clean up the mess in Washington by electing the people who either helped create it or have proven incapable of fixing it."

Kurdish militias seize large parts of strategic city

BEIRUT - U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters captured large sections of a strategic town on the Syria-Turkish border on Monday, dealing the biggest setback yet to the Islamic State group, which lost a key supply line for their nearby self-proclaimed capital.

The seizure of Tal Abyad threatened to flare tensions between Kurds and ethnic Arabs, who accused the Kurdish militia of deliberately displacing thousands of people from the town, which has a mixed population.

Redur Khalil, a spokesman for the main Kurdish fighting force, known as the YPG, said Kurdish fighters entered from the east and were advancing west toward the town's center amid fierce clashes with pockets of IS resistance.

"We expect to have full control over Tal Abyad within a few hours," he told The Associated Press by telephone. A few hours later, the YPG announced on its Facebook page that it had liberated the town.

Prison break helper makes court appearance

DANNEMORA, N.Y. - A woman charged with helping two murderers escape from a maximum-security prison by providing them hacksaw blades, chisels and other tools made another court appearance Monday as a manhunt in far northern New York marked its 10th day.

The local schools reopened with added police patrols and more than 800 law enforcement officers continued their search for Richard Matt and David Sweat, who escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility near the Canadian border June 6. The main road leading into the community remained closed.

Prosecutors say Joyce Mitchell, 51, a prison tailoring shop instructor who had befriended the inmates, had agreed to be the getaway driver but backed out because she still loved her husband and felt guilty for participating.

Dangerous zoo animals still missing in flood

TBILISI, Georgia - Workers and volunteers labored Monday in a flood-ravaged area of the Georgian capital to help victims while nervously watching for traces of dangerous animals that may have escaped the city zoo when it was inundated by the surging waters. Officials in the ex-Soviet republic said 14 people were confirmed dead.

Ten people were thought to be missing after an intense downpour and high winds on Sunday turned a stream that runs through a section of Tbilisi into a sweeping torrent.

The devastated zoo was still trying to determine what had happened to four lions, three tigers and one jaguar whose enclosures were flooded, zoo spokeswoman Khatia Basilashvili said.

- The Associated Press