GIGLIO ISLAND, Italy

Plan to pull up capsized cruise ship gets final OK

Authorities have given the final go-ahead for a daring attempt Monday to pull upright the crippled Costa Concordia cruise liner from its side in the waters off Tuscany, a make-or-break engineering feat that has never before been tried in such conditions.

The ship capsized there 20 months ago, and Italy’s national Civil Protection agency waited until sea and weather conditions were forecast for dawn Monday before giving the OK to try to right it. In a statement Sunday, the agency said the sea and wind conditions “fall within the range of operating feasibility.”

The Concordia struck a reef near Giglio Island the night of Jan. 13, 2012, took on water through a 230-foot gash in its hull and capsized just outside the harbor. Thirty-two of the 4,200 passengers and crew members died. The bodies of two of the dead have never been recovered, and may lie beneath the wreckage.

BAGHDAD

Bombings in Shiite cities leave at least 58 dead

A wave of car bombings and other attacks in Iraq killed at least 58 people in mostly Shiite-majority cities Sunday, another bloody reminder of the government’s failure to stem the surge of violence that is feeding sectarian tensions.

Iraq is experiencing its deadliest bout of violence since 2008, raising fears the country is returning to a period of widespread killing such as that which pushed it to the brink of civil war after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

More than 4,000 people have been killed in attacks since the start of April, including 804 just in August, according to United Nations figures.

• Sunday’s deadliest attack was in the city of Hillah, south of Baghdad, where a car bomb near an outdoor market killed nine civilians and wounded 15 others, police said. A few minutes later, another car bomb went off nearby, killing six civilians and wounding 14.

• In the nearby town of Iskandariyah, another car bomb hit a parking lot, killing four civilians and wounding nine, police said.

• Another car bomb went off in an industrial area of the Shiite city of Karbala, killing five and wounding 25, police said. In the aftermath, security officials inspected burnt-out cars in front of what appeared to be a smashed row of workshops.

TIFFIN, Ohio

Five children under age 7 killed in mobile home fire

A fast-moving fire claimed the lives of a man and five children under the age of 7 on Sunday when it swept through a mobile home in northwest Ohio.

The fire was reported shortly before 8 a.m. in a mobile home park in Tiffin, about 50 miles southeast of Toledo. Firefighters got all six people out in about 12 minutes, but all were pronounced dead at a hospital, Tiffin Fire Chief William said.

Owanna Ortiz said her first cousin, Anna Angel, was the children’s mother and lived in the home with them and the man who died. Ortiz said the family didn’t have a car and had to get around on bicycles.

“If she had to get somewhere, they had two strollers they had to take, but they made it work,” Ortiz said.

A stroller, a little pink bicycle and an adult bicycle with a bike trailer attached to the back could be seen outside the home with its charred and broken windows.

— From news service reports

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