The United States and NATO leaders are insisting the Afghanistan fighting coalition will remain whole despite France's plans to yank combat troops out early.

Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer who was the only person ever convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, died at home in Tripoli Sunday, nearly three years after he was released from a Scottish prison to the outrage of the relatives of the attack's 270 victims. He was 60.

A strong earthquake shook northeast Italy early Sunday, killing four people, tearing off chunks of church facades and sending panicked residents into the streets. Aftershocks wreaked more havoc in the region, including knocking down a clock tower and injuring a firefighter.

The first storm of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season has weakened slightly off South Carolina's coast.

There was no sign on Sunday of Pakistan opening its border crossing to NATO trucks carrying essential supplies to Afghanistan, as President Asif Ali Zardari prepared to meet Western leaders.

Relatives of a slain Hamas operative seek to block the release of a movie being made in Israel about his 2010 assassination in a Dubai luxury hotel, a family member said Sunday.