Iraq

AP - Authorities say gunmen have killed an Interior Ministry official in a drive-by shooting in central Baghdad.

Reuters - Organizers of a parade for Iraq war veterans that drew thousands of flag waving spectators in St. Louis last weekend have been asked by people around the country for help in planning similar events, officials said Friday.

AP - A St. Louis parade welcoming home Iraq War and other post-Sept. 11 veterans was such a hit that at least 10 other cities around the country are considering similar celebrations.

AP - Iraq's most prominent Shiite cleric has urged politicians to make concessions to solve the country's ongoing political crisis, an aide to the leader said on Friday.

Reuters - Iraq's highest court ratified death sentences on Thursday for three men convicted of a 2010 attack on a Syrian Catholic cathedral in Baghdad, the bloodiest attack on Iraqi Christians after the 2003 invasion.

Reuters - Upheaval in the Middle East and mutual economic interests are drawing together two unlikely partners; rising powerhouse Turkey and an entity whose name Turkish leaders hardly dare mention - Kurdistan, the semi-autonomous region of northern Iraq.

AP - An al-Qaida front group in Iraq claimed responsibility for a bloody attack on a government compound in the Islamist militants' former stronghold west of Baghdad last month and vowed more attacks on the Shiite-led government as it tries to make up with its Sunni-backed members.