GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip

Israelis pound Gaza after attack on school bus

Israeli aircraft and tanks pounded Gaza on Friday, killing seven Hamas militants and five civilians in a surge of fighting sparked by a Palestinian rocket attack on an Israeli school bus the day before.

Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers seemed on the brink of another round of intense violence, just a little over two years after a three-week war in which persistent rocket fire from Gaza triggered a devastating Israeli military offensive in the territory.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attack on the school bus “crossed a line” and warned that “whoever tries to harm and murder children will pay with their life.”

In Thursday’s attack, Gaza militants hit an Israeli school bus near the border with a guided anti-tank missile, injuring the driver and badly wounding a 16-year-old boy. Most of the schoolchildren had gotten off the bus shortly before the attack. Hamas, which had largely held its fire since Israel’s last major offensive, claimed responsibility.

Early today, an Israeli airstrike against a vehicle traveling near Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip killed three Hamas militants, the group said.

PHOENIX

Aides prepare Giffords for trip to Cape Canaveral

Aides for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords are preparing for her to travel to Florida to watch her husband’s space shuttle launch at the end of the month, although doctors have yet to clear her to go, her office said Friday.

Planning has been ongoing for Giffords’ “anticipated attendance” of the April 29 launch of the space shuttle Endeavor, which will be commanded by her husband, Capt. Mark Kelly, the congresswoman’s office said in a statement.

Giffords has not been seen publicly since she was shot in the head in a Jan. 8 mass shooting in Tucson that killed six and wounded 12 others. She has been undergoing intense therapy at a Houston rehabilitation center since late January.

The dates of Giffords’ travel haven’t been decided, and she will not meet with the media or issue a statement while she is in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Karamargin said. He and Giffords’ chief of staff, Pia Carusone, plan to hold a news conference after the launch to discuss “her reaction to her husband’s latest mission,” Karamargin said.

ATLANTA

Massive pump to be used to cool Japan reactor

A massive Russian cargo plane roared into Atlanta on Friday to pick up one of the world’s largest concrete pumps, which has been retrofitted to pour water on a Japanese nuclear power plant stricken by an earthquake and tsunami.

The 190,000-pound pump designed by Wisconsin-based Putzmeister America Inc. comes mounted on a 26-wheel truck. Its extendable boom can reach more than 200 feet and can be operated from two miles away by remote control, making it possible to shoot water into hard-to-reach places at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan.

If necessary, the pump could also entomb a damaged nuclear reactor in concrete. After a 1986 disaster, Putzmeister sent 11 pumps to pour concrete over parts of the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine.

Japanese authorities have struggled to cool the plant’s reactors after a March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out its backup cooling systems. The facility has been rocked by explosions, spewed radiation and may have suffered a partial meltdown of its nuclear fuel.

LONDON

British sailor on submarine kills one, wounds one

A British sailor aboard a nuclear-powered submarine apparently shot dead a crew member and seriously wounded another Friday while the vessel was on a goodwill visit to an English port, officials said.

The suspect was overpowered by colleagues and visiting dignitaries aboard HMS Astute and arrested on suspicion of murder.

Police and military officials said the incident was not related to terrorism, but offered few details about what may have prompted a sailor to open fire during a tour of the submarine by local officials, including the mayor of Southampton, in southern England.

Britain’s Press Association news agency reported the dead and injured crewmen were officers, and the suspect a sentry armed with an SA80 service rifle. Submariners do not routinely carry loaded firearms aboard ships, but those on sentry duty are armed.

The Defense Ministry said it would not release the names of the dead and injured until their families had been informed.

EL PASO, Texas

Former CIA operative acquitted of perjury

An elderly Cuban former CIA operative accused of lying during a U.S. immigration hearing was acquitted on all charges Friday, with jurors taking just three hours to reach a verdict after enduring 13 weeks of often-delayed testimony.

The decision ends four years of attempts by the U.S. government to convict 83-year-old Luis Posada Carriles and means he no longer has to face the prospect of spending the final years of his life in prison, at least in the United States.

For decades, Posada worked to destabilize communist governments throughout Latin America and was often supported by Washington. He is Public Enemy No. 1 in his homeland, even considered ex-President Fidel Castro’s nemesis.

Posada has slurred his words since being shot in the face and losing part of his tongue during a 1990 assassination attempt in Guatemala.

He sneaked into the U.S. in 2005 and sought political asylum, and later U.S. citizenship, for which he went through immigration hearings in El Paso.

Prosecutors alleged that he lied while under oath during those proceedings about how he made it into the country and by denying he masterminded a series of hotel bombings in Cuba in 1997 that killed 13 people.

Posada participated in the doomed Bay of Pigs invasion, served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army and was a CIA operative until 1976. He then moved to Venezuela and served as head of that country’s intelligence service.

He was arrested for planning the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people but was acquitted by a Venezuelan military tribunal, then escaped from prison while still facing a civilian trial.

He helped the U.S. funnel support to Nicaraguan Contra rebels in the 1980s, and, in 2000, was arrested in Panama amid a plot to kill Castro during a summit there. He was pardoned by Panama’s president in 2004 and turned up in the U.S. the following March.

PARIS

Ban on face veils in public goes into effect Monday

A French law banning facial veils in public places goes into effect Monday, with women clad in burqas with their faces covered risking a 150-euro ($214) fine and mandatory lessons on being French.

“No one is allowed to wear a garment that hides the face in public places,” the law, passed in October, proclaims. It will soon be splashed on billboards across France. The government has created a website titled the “Unmasked Face,” with details on the law. Brochures in English and Arabic will be available for tourists at French consulates.

The move is an effort by the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy to bar what he told parliament two years ago was a sign of “servitude” that isn’t “welcome on French soil.” Sarkozy’s ruling party also held this week a controversial debate on challenges posed by Islam to a 1905 law on secularism in France, home to Europe’s largest Muslim population.

The enactment of the law and the opening of the secularism debate come a year before French presidential elections, with a survey by BVA showing late last month that Sarkozy doesn’t have enough support to make it through to the second round of the vote.

The ban on face veils will apply in the streets, in post offices, cinemas, restaurants, public transport, beaches, gardens and any other public space. It won’t apply in homes, hotel rooms, at work, in cars and near religious venues.

According to the French Interior Ministry, about 1,900 women wear full facial veils that are referred to in France as burqas even though the ones worn in the country are technically “niqabs,” which cover the face and not the whole body.