Former VP Cheney has heart transplant

WASHINGTON - Former Vice President Dick Cheney, a 71-year-old with a long history of cardiovascular problems, had a heart transplant Saturday and is recovering at a Virginia hospital. Not even Cheney knows the donor's identity.

An aide to Cheney disclosed the surgery after it was over, saying that the ex-vice president, who suffered five heart attacks over the years, had been waiting for a transplant for more than 20 months.

More than 3,100 Americans currently are on the national waiting list for a heart transplant.

Obama promotes blockade of nuclear terrorism

SEOUL, South Korea - President Barack Obama is opening his pitch for faster work to lock down nuclear material that could be used by terrorists with an up-close look at the nuclear front lines along the heavily militarized border with volatile North Korea.

Obama arrived in Seoul on Sunday morning, local time, for three days of diplomacy. In the midst of an election year focused on economic concerns at home, Obama has designed a rare Asia visit that features time in just one country. He'll use much of the time to keep pressure on North Korea to back off a planned rocket launch and return to disarmament talks.

The goal of the large gathering of world leaders is to secure nuclear material and prevent it from being smuggled to states or groups intent on mass destruction. Progress has been uneven since the ambitious goal of lockdown by 2014 was first set out by Obama at a similar session in Washington in 2010. No breakthroughs are expected now.

Right across the border but not participating: nuclear North Korea, labeled by the White House as "the odd man out." It is brinksmanship with North Korea and Iran, another nation not invited to the summit, that has dominated much of the nuclear debate and that will cast an unquestionable shadow over talks in Seoul.

Bales may have carried out separate killings

WASHINGTON - U.S. investigators believe the U.S. soldier accused of killing 17 Afghan civilians split the slaughter into two episodes, returning to his base after the first attack and later slipping away to kill again, two American officials said Saturday.

This scenario seems to support the U.S. government's assertion - contested by some Afghans - that the killings were done by one person, since they would have been perpetrated over a longer period of time than assumed when Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was detained March 11 outside his base in southern Afghanistan.

But it also raises new questions about how Bales, who was formally charged Friday with 17 counts of premeditated murder and other crimes, could have carried out the nighttime attacks without drawing attention from any Americans on the Kandahar province base.

The two American officials who disclosed the investigators' finding spoke on condition of anonymity because the politically sensitive probe is ongoing.

Many details about the killings, including a possible motive, have not been made public. The documents released by the U.S. military Friday in connection with the murder charges do not include a timeline or a narrative of what is alleged to have happened.

W.Va. house fire after birthday party kills 8

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Alisha Carter-Camp had a new job, a wedding to plan and a 26th birthday to celebrate with a family cookout and toasts to the birthday girl in a yard full of children. By the end of the night, she was among eight dead, including six children, in one of the city's deadliest house fires in decades.

The blaze tore through the two-story home while the family slept early Saturday, hours after the last guest left Carter-Camp's party, authorities said. The dead children ranged from 18 months to 8. A seventh child, a 7-year-old boy, was hospitalized on life support.

The cause was under investigation, although arson wasn't suspected,

- The Associated Press