Afghanistan

Turkish engineer kidnapped; police, soldiers clash in south

Fighting between Afghan soldiers and police in southern Afghanistan left 10 soldiers and police dead before U.S. troops intervened. Afghan insurgents also abducted a Turkish highway engineer and demanded the release of six Taliban prisoners, officials said Saturday.

Both sides in the fierce, five-hour battle are loyal, in name at least, to President Hamid Karzai’s U.S.-backed government. But clashes between police and the army have broken out in many parts of Afghanistan where they fall under rival warlords and control by Karzai’s government is limited.

During the battle, dozens of men fired rockets and heavy weapons in a residential area of Geriesh district, 90 miles west of Kandahar.

Boston

Presidential historian Richard Neustadt dies

Richard E. Neustadt, the presidential adviser, scholar and historian whose book “Presidential Power and The Modern Presidents” became a staple of courses in presidential leadership, has died, a spokesman for Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government said. He was 84.

Neustadt died Friday in England, school spokesman Jesus Mena said.

“He was certainly one of our most valuable emeritus professors,” Kennedy School Dean Joseph Nye said. “He provided students with an understanding of American presidency, greater than any other faculty member could have, from his direct experience and from his books.”

New York City

More than 30 ferry accidents blamed on human error

More than 30 accidents on Staten Island ferries since 1978 have been attributed to negligent captains or other ferry workers, according to a review of Coast Guard safety records.

Passengers or crew members were hurt in at least 50 accidents, the review found, but some of those incidents were due not to crashes but to falls and other mishaps.

The statistics were gathered by the New York Times from a survey of 1,500 Coast Guard records from the past 25 years.

Ferry operations have been under intense scrutiny since the crash last month in which 10 passengers died.