World/Nation

• Video purports to show beheading of British hostage Alan Henning

CAIRO - An Internet video released Friday purports to show an Islamic State group fighter beheading British hostage Alan Henning, the fourth such killing carried out by the extremist group now targeted in U.S.-led airstrikes.

The video mirrored other beheading videos shot by the Islamic State group, which now holds territory along the border of Syria and Iraq, and ended with a militant threatening a man identified as an American named Peter Kassig.

"Obama, you have started your aerial bombardment of Shams (Syria), which keeps on striking our people, so it is only right that we continue to strike the neck of your people," the masked militant in the video said.

National Security Council Spokesperson Caitlin Hayden confirmed that Kassig was being held by Islamic State militants, in a statement issued Friday evening.

"At this point we have no reason to doubt the authenticity of the video released earlier today. We will continue to use every tool at our disposal - military, diplomatic, law enforcement and intelligence - to try to bring Peter home to his family," Hayden said.

• Woman gives birth to baby after receiving womb transplant

LONDON - In a medical first, a woman in Sweden has given birth after receiving a womb transplant, the doctor who performed the pioneering procedure said Friday.

The 36-year-old mother received a uterus from a close family friend last year. Her baby boy was born prematurely but healthy last month, and mother and child are now at home and doing well. The identities of the woman and her husband were not disclosed.

"The baby is fantastic," said Dr. Mats Brannstrom, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Gothenburg and Stockholm IVF who led the research and delivered the baby with the help of his wife, a midwife. "But it is even better to see the joy in the parents and how happy he made them."

Brannstrom said it was "still sinking in that we have actually done it."

The feat opens up a new but still experimental alternative for some of the thousands of women each year who are unable to have children because they lost a uterus to cancer or were born without one. Before this case proved the concept can work, some experts had questioned whether a transplanted womb would be able to nourish a fetus.

• Home where Ebola patient stayed is decontaminated

DALLAS - A hazardous-materials crew on Friday decontaminated the Texas apartment where an Ebola patient was staying when he got sick, while public-health officials cut by half the number of people being monitored for any symptoms of the deadly disease.

Hours later, the family that was living in the apartment was moved to a private residence in a gated community that was offered by a volunteer.

The decontamination team was to collect bed sheets, towels and a mattress used by the infected man before he was hospitalized, as well as a suitcase and other personal items belonging to Thomas Eric Duncan, officials said.

The materials were sealed in industrial barrels that were to be stored until they can be hauled away for permanent disposal, probably by incineration at a landfill.

The first Ebola diagnosis in the U.S. has raised concerns about whether the disease that has killed 3,400 people in West Africa could spread in the U.S. Federal health officials say they are confident they can keep it in check.

• Judge orders public release of Guantanamo videotapes

WASHINGTON - A federal judge on Friday ordered the public release of 28 videotapes of a hunger-striking Guantanamo Bay prisoner strike being forcibly removed from his cell and force-fed.

Lawyers for the prisoner, Abu Wa'el Dhiab, have challenged his treatment as abusive.

Numerous news media outlets, including The Associated Press, had asked the court on June 20 to unseal the videotapes, which are classified "secret."

U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler granted the news media's request, although Kessler said the tapes will remain sealed until some information on them is redacted. The material to be removed includes identifying information of everyone on the tapes except for the prisoner. She said faces other than Dhiab's will be obscured, as will voices and names.

"Protection of the identities of Guantanamo Bay staff is a legitimate goal," Kessler wrote. "Adequate protection can be provided by appropriate audio and visual edits, for example, blurring faces and identifying portions of uniforms, and blacking-out written materials on walls." The government could appeal her ruling.

• 'Gentle giant' Matthew dogged by violent allegations

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Jesse Leroy Matthew Jr. was the kind of guy who would bust your lip, then regretfully drive you to the hospital. A "cool individual" around other guys, but a bit too "touchy-feely" with the ladies, family friend Rod Brown says.

"He doesn't mean to be creepy; he's just a little off, just a little awkward," says Brown, who has known "LJ" for about 15 years. "If he gets around women, I've never seen it NOT be awkward."

Authorities say Matthew's interactions with women went way beyond awkward.

The former college football lineman and sometime cab driver is in jail on a charge of "abduction with intent to defile" in the Sept. 13 disappearance of University of Virginia sophomore Hannah Graham. Police say forensic evidence also connects the 32-year-old Charlottesville man to the 2009 murder of another college student, which in turn is linked by DNA to a 2005 sexual assault in northern Virginia.

Friends expressed shock that this "gentle giant" - he's 6-foot-2 and weighs 270 pounds - could be suspected of such violence. But court records reveal a man capable of explosive rage, and hounded from one college, then another by allegations of sexual assault.

- The Associated Press