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For the past two decades, Kurds have traditionally gathered in Halabja, Iraq, in mid-March to mark a grim chapter in their history: the day when Saddam Hussein's government unleashed a poison-gas attack that killed more than 5,000 people. Thursday, that normally peaceful commemoration turned turbulent.

President Bush's choice head the CIA, Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, begins his confirmation hearings before the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) and senators from both parties are expected to grill Hayden on issues of privacy and national security, particularly the role of the NSA in collecting the phone records of ordinary Americans.

World leaders are expressing outrage over an Israeli airstrike Sunday that killed more than 50 civilians -- many children -- in the southern Lebanese village of Qana. The pre-dawn attack flattened a building where several families had taken shelter. Grief and anger were evident and the scene of the bombing.

Army Sgt. Tim Brumley says he had expected things to be pretty quiet in Afghanistan, where he was deployed last year after 10 months in Iraq. But he ended up losing his foot after being wounded in a major firefight with the Taliban.

The Marine Corps announces a second investigation into the deaths of unarmed civilians in Iraq. The first incident -- which left 24 Iraqis dead in the town of Haditha -- happened in November. The second occurred in April, in a town west of Baghdad. Marine Gen. Michael Hagee flew to Iraq on Thursday.

If the budget allows, the Census Bureau will be out with GPS devices in 2009 to pinpoint every American dwelling. The collected data is confidential, but some private companies might challenge that law.

Alaska's Stryker Brigade was scheduled to wrap up the state's biggest deployment since Vietnam, but instead the Department of Defense announced this week that the unit's deployment would be extended. One Stryker soldier is coming home. Sergeant Irving Hernandez was killed by sniper fire just a few weeks before his deployment was scheduled to end. Libby Casey of member station KUAC in Fairbanks has this remembrance.

Marine Gen. Michael Hagee is on his way to Iraq to talk to his troops about using lethal force "only when justified." The trip comes amid allegations that Marines killed unarmed Iraqi civilians in two separate incidents. The military has opened investigations into the deaths.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert demands a retraction from ABC News for reporting that he was involved in an investigation of a corrupt lobbyist -- even after the Justice Department had denied the report. Hastert has said that someone inside the Justice Department might have led ABC astray in an effort to intimidate him.

For the past 20 years, president and director Gary Graffman has nurtured top talent at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music. Now 77, he's stepping down from his adminstrative posts and focusing once again on teaching piano.

Barry Bonds hits a 445-foot home run off Colorado Rockies' pitcher Byung-Hyun Kim, delighting the home fans in San Francisco. His 715 career home runs put him second on the all-time list behind Henry Aaron, who passed Ruth in 1974 and finished with 755 home runs.

Pope Benedict XVI led an outdoor mass in Krakow, Poland, Sunday morning, addressing a crowd estimated at 900,000. Later he moves to the site of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, where he is expected to stress his commitment to improving relations with Jews and fighting anti-Semitism.