TALIBAN ATTACK PUTS MORE PRESSURE ON AFGHAN FORCES

brazen and bloody overnight assault Friday by the Taliban on a key provincial capital in central Afghanistan has increased pressure on U.S.-backed Afghan forces that are withering under relentless attacks, prompting President Ashraf Ghani to call an emergency meeting of his security officials.

While government security forces in the city of Ghazni repulsed the multipronged attack with the help of U.S. air support, Taliban insurgents remained hunkered down on its outskirts. Some were still holed up in residential areas, according to Interior Ministry deputy spokesman Nasrat Rahimi.

At least 39 insurgents were killed, while 14 police officers died and 20 were wounded in the fighting, said provincial Police Chief Farid Ahmad Mashal.

Romanian expats stage huge anti-govt. protest in Bucharest.

Tens of thousands of Romanians flocked to an anti-government protest from places near and far as local residents joined a demonstration organized by expatriates Friday, urging the left-wing government to resign and call an early election.

The expatriates supporting the event in Bucharest, some of whom drove across Europe to attend, said they were angry at how Romania is being governed. Critics say the country has lost ground in fighting corruption since the ruling Social Democratic Party assumed power in 2016.

An estimated 3 million Romanians live abroad.

Judge refuses to halt Nebraska’s first execution since 1997.

LINCOLN,

A federal judge on Friday refused to block Nebraska from carrying out the state’s first-ever lethal injection despite a German pharmaceutical company’s lawsuit that claims the state illicitly obtained its drugs.

U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf denied the company’s request to temporarily block state prison officials from executing Carey Dean Moore, one of the nation’s longest-serving death row inmates. Moore is scheduled to die Tuesday in Nebraska’s first execution since 1997 with a never-before-tried combination of drugs.

Moore, who was convicted of killing two cab drivers five days apart in 1979, has stopped fighting the state’s efforts to execute him. Kopf said granting the drug company’s request would “frustrate the will of the people,” referring to the 61 percent of Nebraska voters who chose to reinstate capital punishment in 2016 after lawmakers abolished it.

3 accused of approaching bears at national park in Alaska.

ANCHORAGE,

ALASKA» Charges are pending in Alaska against three people who approached multiple brown bears in a closed area of a popular destination for bearviewing excursions.

National Park Service officials say two Alaska residents and a tourist entered a closed area at Brooks Camp in the Katmai National Park and Preserve on Thursday night while the bears were feeding. Officials say the group violated wildlife viewing rules and put themselves and the bears in danger.