WASHINGTON (AP) — The dramatic advance of Libyan rebels over the forces of longtime strongman Moammar Gadhafi offers vindication, at least for now, for President Barack Obama's decision to refrain from using U.S. troops on Libyan soil and to let NATO take the lead in degrading Gadhafi's military power. But there are still hazards for the White House.

London began nearly tripling the number of police on its streets Tuesday to try to end Britain's worst rioting in a generation — three nights of looting and burning by poor, diverse and brazen crowds of young people. Meanwhile, however, the chaos spread to at least one more major city.

Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. is headed to Israel for an eight-day visit.

Hundreds of thousands of Somali children could die in East Africa's famine unless more help arrives, a top U.S. official warned Monday in the starkest death toll prediction yet. To highlight the crisis, the wife of Vice President Joe Biden visited a refugee camp filed with hungry Somalis.

Parts of southern Somalia are suffering from famine, a U.N. official said Wednesday, and tens of thousands of Somalis have already died in the worst hunger emergency in a generation.

Millions of South African schoolchildren sang to celebrate Nelson Mandela's 93rd birthday Monday, leading a worldwide chorus of birthday wishes sent to the anti-apartheid icon.

A U.S. satellite monitoring group released images Thursday that it fears show a mass grave in Sudan, saying witnesses also have described 100 or more bodies being thrown into a pit in the same area.

South Sudan celebrated its first day as an independent nation Saturday, raising its flag before tens of thousands of cheering citizens elated to reach the end of a 50-year struggle.

A new Nelson Mandela book, slim, bound in black and set in eye-straining type, looks a bit like a bible or a prayer book.

Michelle Obama wielded a brush Friday and helped paint a mural at a children's HIV/AIDS clinic here as she opened the second leg of a weeklong visit to southern Africa.