Turkey marked 25 years Saturday since the first Kurdish rebel attacks, with political leaders calling for reconciliation, though the government has yet to offer a new plan for ending the conflict.

Pakistan lifted a ban on political activities in its tribal regions Friday, granting the areas close to the Afghan border parliamentary representation for the first time in the hopes it would reduce the grip of the Taliban there.

The streets of the western city of Pune were half-empty, schools in Mumbai were ordered closed, and people suffering aches flooded hospitals across the country as India confronted dueling outbreaks of swine flu and swine-flu panic.

The shutdown of a nuclear reactor in Canada has caused a shortage of an isotope used to detect cancers and heart disease, forcing doctors into costlier procedures that can be less effective and expose patients to more radioactivity.

President Barack Obama on Friday promised a new era of protections against insurance companies that drop customers when medical crises hit and said people who already have coverage would be among the biggest beneficiaries of his plans to revamp the health care system.

Police say a western Pennsylvania woman and her boyfriend forced the woman’s sons — a 6-year-old and a 9-year-old — to fight each other as the couple watched. The boys told officials their mom’s boyfriend said the fights were training to toughen them up. Joyce Sabotka, 32, and her boyfriend, 32-year-old Steven Meyer, are charged with child endangerment and simple assault.

A nursing home worker let his ailing mother lie on the floor of their home for two days, stepping over her when he had to and not calling 911 until she was malnourished and dehydrated, police said Friday.

Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal upheld Friday a lower-court ruling ordering the Canadian government to seek return of the last Western detainee at Guantanamo Bay.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the presidential sister who founded the Special Olympics, was celebrated Friday at a funeral Mass as a warrior for the voiceless who changed the world for millions and an unconventional woman who smoked Cuban cigars and played tackle football.

President Hamid Karzai holds a strong lead in the Afghan presidential race but is short of the majority he needs for a first-round victory, according to a poll released Friday with less than a week to go before the balloting.