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A two-day trip to Afghanistan was ended by Prince Charles with a briefing Thursday from U. S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who commands NATO forces there.

The Guardian has reported that the Prince of Wales is the most senior member of the British royal family to visit Afghanistan, where his younger son, Prince Harry, was deployed for several months. He is "the only royal in living memory" to have traveled to Kabul, the Afghan capital, his office said in a statement.

Officials have informed that a 6.0-magnitude earthquake rattled Manila and nearby areas in the northern Philippines on Thursday.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer has reported that no reports of damage had been received several hours after the quake. Buildings on Lubang Island in Mindoro, near the epicenter, were still being inspected, said Glenn Rabonza, executive director of the Natural Disaster Coordinating Council.

The quake struck at 1:29 p. m. local time, the U. S. Geological Survey had earlier reported. 80 miles southwest of Manila was the epicenter of earthquake.

Google has said that a "technical issue" was responsible for an outage that took the video-sharing site YouTube down for an hour on Thursday morning.

CNN had reported that users worldwide were unable to access YouTube from 7 a. m. to 8 a. m. EDT. There was no evidence of a denial of service attack or of retaliation for its decision to stop censoring search results for its Chinese service, Google said.

Newly revealed church files have indicated that the future Pope Benedict XVI did not defrock a U. S. priest who acknowledged molesting up to 200 deaf boys in Milwaukee.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and other top Vatican officials let the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy continue to work around boys, even though U. S. bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to take action could embarrass the church, church files brought to light as part of a lawsuit suggest.

Final congressional approval to the last part of President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul was given by the U. S. House on Thursday.

The House adopted a measure by a vote of 220-207 that had won Senate approval earlier in the day. The Senate voted 56-43 in favor of a package of changes to the sweeping social legislation, with Vice President Joseph Biden presiding in his role as Senate president.

The measure was returned to the House because of the changes. It now goes to Obama's desk for his signature.

A Pittsburgh-area district attorney has said that five people charged in
a mentally challenged woman's killing should say why they don't deserve
the death penalty.

Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck told the Pittsburgh
Tribune-Review, "We're seeking input from the defendants themselves, if
they can offer any information about mitigating factors."

Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to seek the death penalty against