Pakistan

Deadly blast hits mosque

A bomb ripped through a Shiite Muslim mosque in Karachi during evening prayers Monday, killing at least 16 people and wounding 38 others. A top Pakistani official said the blast could be revenge for the assassination of a senior Sunni cleric.

Hundreds of Shiite youths rioted after the explosion at the Imam Bargah Ali Raza mosque that came a day after unidentified gunmen killed the Nazamuddin Shamzai.

The explosion was the latest in a series of terror attacks in Pakistan’s largest city. It was not clear if it was the work of a suicide bomber.

The blast cracked walls, destroyed an inner office and badly damaged a room where people wash up before praying at the mosque, which is near the city center on Karachi’s main highway.

Alabama

Last Civil War widow dies

Alberta Martin, the last widow of a Civil War veteran, died on Memorial Day, ending an unlikely ascent from sharecropper’s daughter to the belle of 21st century Confederate history buffs who paraded her across the South. She was 97.

Martin died at a nursing home in Enterprise of complications from a heart attack she suffered May 7, said her caretaker, Dr. Kenneth Chancey. She died nearly 140 years after the Civil War ended.

Her May-December marriage in the 1920s to Civil War veteran William Jasper Martin and her longevity made her a celebrated final link to the old Confederacy.

Tennessee

Deadly flooding follows weekend of tornadoes

A line of thunderstorms swept across Tennessee, ripping apart homes, destroying a campground and causing widespread flooding. A 7-year-old girl was killed early Monday when winds caused the collapse of a wall at her grandparents’ home.

At least nine others died in a weekend of powerful storms that produced heavy rain, high winds and some tornado activity along an arc from Louisiana to New England.

The Tennessee storms late Sunday and early Monday dumped up to 2 inches of rain in just more than an hour and delivered high winds and hail the size of golf balls.

New York

Report: Martha Stewart to seek community service

Martha Stewart will seek to lighten her jail term by spending up to 20 hours a week teaching poor women how to start their own businesses, according to Newsweek magazine.

Stewart has offered to work up to 1,000 hours for Women’s Venture Fund, a nonprofit organization based in New York, WVF president Maria Otero told the magazine for its June 7 edition.

After meeting privately with Stewart, Otero wrote a three-page letter to U.S. Judge Miriam Cedarbaum about how Stewart’s know-how could benefit underprivileged women, Newsweek said.

Stewart is scheduled for sentencing June 17 and could face 10 months to 16 months in prison.