Less than a week after a string of tornadoes killed six people in north Texas, a massive storm system tore through the center of the country on Sunday, spawned at least a dozen tornadoes, killing at least one person, injuring a dozen others and causing extensive damage from Georgia to Minnesota. A tornado at least [...]

NEW YORK (AP) — The college student was being held in a headlock by a masked intruder with a loaded gun to her head, police said. Then the gunman took aim at an officer.

By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were set to dip at the open on Monday as investors search for catalysts after major U.S. equity indexes closed a fourth consecutive week of gains Friday. Deals including Yahoo's $1.1 billion bid for Tumblr indicate that companies continue to search for growth through acquisitions despite record highs, a bullish sign for stocks. The S&P 500 and Dow industrials finished Friday at fresh record highs and the Nasdaq Composite is at its highest since late 2000. ...

SHAWNEE, Okla. (AP) — When Lindsay Carter heard on the radio that a violent storm was approaching her rural Oklahoma neighborhood, she gathered her belongings and fled. When she returned, there was little left of the community Carter had called home.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Yahoo is buying online blogging forum Tumblr for $1.1 billion as CEO Marissa Mayer tries to rejuvenate an Internet icon that had fallen behind the times.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Yahoo is buying online blogging forum Tumblr for $1.1 billion as CEO Marissa Mayer tries to rejuvenate an Internet icon that had fallen behind the times.

By Syed Raza Hussan ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Supporters of an influential Pakistani political party took to the streets of Karachi on Monday to protest against cricket-hero-turned-politician Imran Khan, who has accused it of killing one of his senior staff a week after a general election. Furious members of the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) have denied responsibility for the killing of Zara Shahid Hussain on Saturday outside her home in the upscale Defence area of Karachi, capping a bloody election in which about 150 people were killed nationwide. ...

(Reuters) - Yahoo Inc said it is acquiring blogging service Tumblr for $1.1 billion cash, a bold bet by Chief Executive Marissa Mayer to revitalize the struggling Internet pioneer by co-opting a Web property with strong visitor traffic but little revenue. The deal, which will use about a fifth of Yahoo's $5.4 billion in cash and marketable securities, is the largest by far since Mayer took the reins in July seeking to reverse a multi-year decline in Yahoo's business and Web traffic. ...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A proposed state ballot measure in California would require doctors to be randomly subjected to drug and alcohol testing.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Chesapeake Energy has named Anadarko Petroleum executive Robert Douglas Lawler as its new CEO.

By Yousri Mohamed EL-ARISH, Egypt (Reuters) - The Egyptian army sent reinforcements into the Sinai Peninsula on Monday after President Mohamed Mursi said there would be no talks with militant Islamists who abducted seven members of the security forces last week. Radical Islamists have expanded into a security vacuum in Sinai that the state has struggled to fill since an uprising swept autocrat Hosni Mubarak from power in 2011. The groups have launched attacks on Israel and targets in North Sinai. ...

JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — Twenty-four people died in a battle between South Sudan's military and rebel fighters the government believes to be supported by neighboring Sudan, while a tribe-on-tribe cattle-raiding attack elsewhere in the country killed 27 people, officials said Monday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association named former Republican Senator Judd Gregg as its chief executive officer, the lobbying group said Monday. The appointment of the veteran politician, who also was governor of New Hampshire and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, continues a growing trend of legislators, financial regulators, bank executives and lobbyists moving back and forth among the channels. ...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A suicide bomber dressed in a police uniform killed 14 people including a prominent provincial council chief Monday in northern Afghanistan in an attack outside the council headquarters, authorities said. The Taliban insurgency quickly claimed responsibility.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi officials say a car bomb in another Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad has killed 13 people.

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian government forces pushed deeper into a strategic opposition-held town near the Lebanese border Monday, battling rebels in fierce street fighting, state-media reported. An activist group said at least 23 elite fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group fighting alongside regime troops have been killed in the clashes.

(Reuters) - Chesapeake Energy Corp has hired Robert Douglas Lawler of rival Anadarko Petroleum Corp as its chief executive, filling the post vacated by co-founder Aubrey McClendon in April. Shares of Chesapeake, the second-largest U.S. natural gas producer, rose 2 percent in trading before the bell. Lawler, 46, who is senior vice-president of international and deep-water operations at Anadarko Petroleum, would join Chesapeake on June 17, the company said in a statement. ...

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:

JERUSALEM (AP) —

ZEPHYRHILLS, Fla. (AP) — It could be an anxious wait of up to two months for people in a small Florida city to find out who won the highest Powerball jackpot in history: an estimated $590.5 million.

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Ugandan police forcibly entered the premises of an independent newspaper to look for evidence against an army general who recently questioned the president's alleged plan to have his son succeed him, witnesses said Monday.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's only independent polling agency said Monday it may have to close after prosecutors targeted it for "political activity" under a law spearheading President Vladimir Putin's crackdown on civil society.

By Kareem Raheem BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least 43 people were killed in car bomb explosions targeting Shi'ite Muslims in the Iraqi capital and the southern oil hub of Basra on Monday, police and medics said. The attacks brought the number of people killed in sectarian violence in the past week to almost 200. Tensions between Shi'ites, who now lead Iraq, and minority Sunni Muslims have reached their highest level since U.S. troops pulled out in December 2011. No group claimed responsibility for the bombings. ...

LONDON (AP) — More than a decade ago, British parents refused to give measles shots to at least a million children because of a vaccine scare that raised the specter of autism. Now, health officials are scrambling to catch up and stop a growing epidemic of the contagious disease.

(Reuters) - While the Federal Reserve's accommodative policies have boosted stocks and helped the rich, it is unclear whether they are doing enough for the broader U.S. economy, a top central bank official said on Monday. "We've made rich people richer...," Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher said on CNBC television. "Question is what have we done for working men and women in America?" Fisher, who has long opposed the Fed's bond-buying program and wants to reduce it, added he expects real gross domestic product growth of more than 2.5 percent by year end. ...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — United Arab Emirates-based construction company Arabtec says it's working to resolve a rare strike by laborers seeking higher wages.

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea continued firing short-range weapons over its own eastern waters Monday after a weekend of what it called "rocket launching tests" intended to bolster deterrence against enemy attack. South Korean officials were investigating exactly what it was that Pyongyang was testing.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A judge granted bail to Pakistan's former military ruler on Monday in a case related to the assassination of ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, his lawyer said.

By Hereward Holland JUBA (Reuters) - South Sudan's army has retaken an eastern town captured by rebels two weeks ago, a military spokesman said on Monday, in a conflict that has uprooted thousands of people and hampered government plans to explore for oil. Army spokesman Philip Aguer said four soldiers and a dozen rebels were killed during a brief battle on Sunday to recapture Boma town in Jonglei state, where the government wants to search for oil with the help of France's Total. "The SPLA (army) restored order and control of Boma yesterday. I was there myself," Aguer told Reuters. ...

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) — Connecticut commuters planned for long, slow trips to and from work Monday following last week's train collision that that injured 72 people and disrupted rail service into New York City.

(Reuters) - Generic drugmaker Actavis Inc, which has been the subject of takeover speculation, plans to buy specialty pharmaceutical company Warner Chilcott Plc for $5 billion in stock. The companies said the deal had an enterprise value, including debt, of $8.5 billion. The move comes as Actavis has spurned approaches from Canadian pharmaceutical company Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc and Mylan Inc. Analysts have said that if Actavis were to buy Warner Chilcott, it would kill the chances of its being taken over. Warner Chilcott shareholders will receive 0. ...

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania (AP) — The man who acted as the spokesman for one of the three al-Qaida-linked groups occupying northern Mali turned himself in over the weekend to Mauritanian authorities on the border, an intelligence official briefed on the matter confirmed on Monday.

(Reuters) - GE Capital Corp's board has approved a plan to pay $6.5 billion in dividends, including a special dividend of $4.5 billion, to parent General Electric Co in 2013. "This announcement is consistent with our goal to reduce the overall size of GE Capital and for it to return significant cash to GE," GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt said in a statement. (Corrects headline and first paragraph to say GE Capital plans to pay $6.5 billion to GE, not $11 billion) (Reporting by Mridhula Raghavan in Bangalore)

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A bank robbery in Israel on Monday ended with the deaths of five people, including one of the holdup men who apparently shot and killed himself when police launched a raid to free hostages. Police special forces surrounded the branch of Bank Hapoalim in the southern city of Beersheba after two robbers carried out the botched lunchtime heist in a residential street. Witnesses reported volleys of gunfire, and a nearby school went into lockdown. ...

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (Reuters) - Two car bombs exploded in Dagestan on Monday, killing at least eight people and wounding about 20 others, investigators said, one of the deadliest attacks this year in a region plagued with violence linked to an Islamist insurgency. The blasts occurred in swift succession outside the headquarters of the court bailiffs' service in the provincial capital, Makhachkala. Car bombs, suicide bombings and firefights are routine in Dagestan, center of an Islamist insurgency rooted in two post-Soviet wars against separatist rebels in neighboring Chechnya. ...

By Yeganeh Torbati DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's electoral watchdog said on Monday it would bar physically feeble candidates from running for president, in an apparent hint that it could disqualify 78-year-old former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani from the race. Rafsanjani, if he is allowed to run, would be a significant challenge to conservative hardliners who are ultra-loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and who otherwise dominate the field for the June 14 presidential election. ...

BAGHDAD (AP) — A string of car bombs and shootings killed at least 57 people in Shiite and Sunni areas of Iraq on Monday, officials said, escalating fears of a return to widespread sectarian bloodletting in the country.

BOUCA, Central African Republic (AP) — Residents say armed men invaded a remote village in Central African Republic and killed six people.

GOMA, Congo (AP) — Clashes erupted Monday in eastern Congo between government troops and a rebel group believed to be backed by neighboring Rwanda, the first fighting between the groups since the M23 rebels overtook and later retreated from the provincial capital Goma last year.