On the first day, just moments after the tornado roared through here, Corey Plunkett and his wife looked out across the green field where their trailer had been, now an alien wasteland of twisted, shredded debris under the blackened sky.

On the second day, they sorted through the fragments in the bright sun: ripped photos of strangers, a piece of someone else's mattress, someone else's medicine. When the wind blew, shards of fiberglass from someone else's house stung their faces. Everything was someone else's; their stuff was mostly gone.

President Obama faced sharply divided counsel and, to his mind, barely better-than-even odds of success when he ordered the commando raid last week that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the president said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

Obama acknowledged having only circumstantial evidence placing bin Laden at the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. There was not a single photograph or confirmed sighting of the man, he said, and he worried that the Navy SEALs would find only a "prince from Dubai" instead of the terrorist leader responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

He turns on the TV for news about Osama bin Laden at 7 a.m. and keeps it playing until long after midnight, because this is a relationship that has always bordered on obsession. Michael Hurley sits in his Falls Church condominium and watches images repeat across the flat screen just as they have repeated inside his head for almost a decade.

Here is bin Laden standing inside a tent with an assault rifle at his side. Here is a map of the Middle East, detailing some of the very places Hurley went searching for him. Here are blurry images of the CIA classified files he helped create. Here is a former co-worker being interviewed as an expert on counterterrorism.

The targeted killing of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden boosted President Obama's prospects for reelection over several potential Republican challengers in the battleground state of Virginia, according to a Washington Post poll.

The poll provides a view of the impact of bin Laden's death in a state widely viewed as a bellwether for Obama's chances for reelection nationally. The interviews were already underway when Obama delivered the news late in the evening of May 1; 677 were conducted before the announcement, with 503 afterward.

BEIRUT — In his almost 11 years in office, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has brought about some remarkable changes to a country formerly run by his notoriously ruthless father, fueling perceptions that he is at heart a reformer, albeit one who has been held back by hard-liners intent on preserving the status quo.

Under his rule, Syria has opened its doors to foreign investment and private ownership. Cellphones, Internet service and satellite TV have proliferated. The capital, Damascus, has been transformed from a sleepy socialist backwater into the beginnings of a thriving modern capital, with shiny glass offices, European fashion outlets and trendy cafes serving flavored lattes to a hip new elite.

President Obama faced sharply divided counsel and, to his mind, barely better-than-even odds of success when he ordered the commando raid last week that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the president said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

Obama acknowledged having only circumstantial evidence placing bin Laden at the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. There was not a single photograph or confirmed sighting of the man, he said, and he worried that the Navy SEALs would find only a "prince from Dubai" instead of the terrorist leader responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

He turns on the TV for news about Osama bin Laden at 7 a.m. and keeps it playing until long after midnight, because this is a relationship that has always bordered on obsession. Michael Hurley sits in his Falls Church condominium and watches images repeat across the flat screen just as they have repeated inside his head for almost a decade.

Here is bin Laden standing inside a tent with an assault rifle at his side. Here is a map of the Middle East, detailing some of the very places Hurley went searching for him. Here are blurry images of the CIA classified files he helped create. Here is a former co-worker being interviewed as an expert on counterterrorism.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels continues to keep the political world waiting, saying recently that he will announce "within weeks" whether he will run for president in 2012.

The Republican's decision — which could come as soon as Thursday at the Indiana Republican Party's spring dinner, where his wife, Cheri, will be the keynote speaker — could have an impact well beyond just one man saying yes or no, however.

The GOP presidential race has been defined by relative chaos — and weakness — among the field.

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — Marine Maj. Daniel Bartos was looking for a volunteer. Standing in a windowless classroom with slides running behind him, he was explaining to about 40 Marines what will happen after the ban on gays in the military ends. He presented a hypothetical scenario for someone to tackle.

Cpl. Brooke Cardona, 22, shot her hand in the air, then stood to answer.

What would she do, Bartos asked, if she saw two male Marines in a mall food court "kind of petting each other, putting their arms around each other, kissing each other?"

On the first day, just moments after the tornado roared through here, Corey Plunkett and his wife looked out across the green field where their trailer had been, now an alien wasteland of twisted, shredded debris under the blackened sky.

On the second day, they sorted through the fragments in the bright sun: ripped photos of strangers, a piece of someone else's mattress, someone else's medicine. When the wind blew, shards of fiberglass from someone else's house stung their faces. Everything was someone else's; their stuff was mostly gone.

Like many students at Anacostia Senior High School in Southeast Washington, Clifford Taylor had college dreams but no college plan. His grades were marginal. By the start of his senior year in August, he hadn't taken the SAT.

Most high schools in the affluent D.C. suburbs function as college-preparatory factories. By contrast, Anacostia Senior High produces only a few dozen graduates each year with grade-point averages of 2.5 or above, a minimum standard at even minimally selective colleges.

But Taylor wound up applying to six colleges, including Delaware State University, which he probably will attend. His plan came together after he connected with an adviser from a nonprofit organization that has transformed the college prospects of many D.C. students.

President Obama faced sharply divided counsel and, to his mind, barely better-than-even odds of success when he ordered the commando raid last week that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the president said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

Obama acknowledged having only circumstantial evidence placing bin Laden at the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. There was not a single photograph or confirmed sighting of the man, he said, and he worried that the Navy SEALs would find only a "prince from Dubai" instead of the terrorist leader responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

BEIRUT — In his almost 11 years in office, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has brought about some remarkable changes to a country formerly run by his notoriously ruthless father, fueling perceptions that he is at heart a reformer, albeit one who has been held back by hard-liners intent on preserving the status quo.

Under his rule, Syria has opened its doors to foreign investment and private ownership. Cellphones, Internet service and satellite TV have proliferated. The capital, Damascus, has been transformed from a sleepy socialist backwater into the beginnings of a thriving modern capital, with shiny glass offices, European fashion outlets and trendy cafes serving flavored lattes to a hip new elite.

CAIRO — Clashes between Muslims and Coptic Christians in a Cairo suburb left 12 people dead, dozens wounded and a church charred in one of the most serious outbreaks of violence Egypt's interim rulers have faced since taking power in February.

The unrest began Saturday night in the Imbaba district northwest of Cairo, as a mob of hard-line Muslims attacked the Virgin Mary church. A separate group of youths also attacked an apartment building several blocks away, residents said.

The assaults were the latest agitation triggered by allegations that Copts have held women against their will because they intended to convert to Islam.

When Princess Martinez saw her husband for the first time after he was deported, two thoughts crossed her mind: that she loved this man, and that she might have to leave him.

The only other option appeared to be moving with their six daughters — who, like Martinez, are all U.S. citizens — across the border to her husband's new home in Mexico, with its mounting violence and troubled schools.

"Everyone is coming to America, to the land of opportunity," Martinez, 31, recalled thinking. "And here I am, thinking about taking my family in the opposite direction."

MEXICO CITY — People are marching over the high mountain into the capital behind a sign that reads "Stop the War!" The war they are talking about is tearing Mexico apart.

At the front of the March for Peace is the chain-smoking, left-leaning, well-to-do, mystical Catholic poet Javier Sicilia, steering a movement of ordinary Mexicans who believe President Felipe Calderon's military-led, U.S.-backed war against organized crime is failing.

The marchers, who walk in silence, left Thursday from the old colonial city of Cuernavaca, where Sicilia's 24-year-old son was among seven people seized by gunmen in March and later found dead, their mouths taped shut and their bodies stuffed into a compact car.

MEXICO CITY — People are marching over the high mountain into the capital behind a sign that reads "Stop the War!" The war they are talking about is tearing Mexico apart.

At the front of the March for Peace is the chain-smoking, left-leaning, well-to-do, mystical Catholic poet Javier Sicilia, steering a movement of ordinary Mexicans who believe President Felipe Calderon's military-led, U.S.-backed war against organized crime is failing.

The marchers, who walk in silence, left Thursday from the old colonial city of Cuernavaca, where Sicilia's 24-year-old son was among seven people seized by gunmen in March and later found dead, their mouths taped shut and their bodies stuffed into a compact car.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Lucas Glover spent the week at a former Clemson football player's house, had Tigers fans dressed in specially designed T-shirts cheering him each day, and ended up in a playoff with a former Clemson teammate, Jonathan Byrd.

The orange-tinted weekend, combined with a breakthrough with his iron play and great putting, helped end a 41-tournament drought on the PGA Tour.

Fear the beard, indeed.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Tom Lehman found a litany of things not to like about the way he played in the Regions Tradition.

"I didn't ever really have a good rhythm with my swing," he said.

And, "I hit a number of bad tee shots."

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Lucas Glover spent the week at a former Clemson football player's house, had Tigers fans dressed in specially designed T-shirts cheering him each day, and ended up in a playoff with a former Clemson teammate, Jonathan Byrd.

The orange-tinted weekend, combined with a breakthrough with his iron play and great putting, helped end a 41-tournament drought on the PGA Tour.

Fear the beard, indeed.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Lucas Glover had gone 41 tournaments and nearly two years since winning the U.S. Open for his last victory. His win Sunday in the Wells Fargo Championship was every bit as demanding.

Glover closed with three tough pars on the rugged finishing stretch at Quail Hollow for a 3-under 69. Then he faced a playoff with close friend and former Clemson teammate Jonathan Byrd, who made a 15-foot birdie putt on the final hole to catch him.

Glover kept the tournament in suspense to the very end.

ATHENS, Ga. — University of Georgia senior Russell Henley became the second amateur winner in Nationwide Tour history Sunday, shooting a 3-under 68 for a two-stroke victory in the Stadion Classic on the Bulldogs' home course.

"I can't even feel my arms," Henley said. "I was nervous all day. I don't know how long it will take to sink in. Eight months? Nine months? A couple days? I don't know. I've never done this before."

The three-time All-America selection finished at 12-under 272 on the University of Georgia Golf Course.

Mike Brey won't be Maryland's next basketball coach, a source close to the process of finding Gary Williams's successor said Sunday.

Brey was crossed off the list of potential candidates Sunday before having a conversation with Maryland Athletic Director Kevin Anderson because he's committed to remaining at Notre Dame following the Irish's 27-7 season, which earned him Big East coach of the year honors, the source said.

With Arizona's Sean Miller agreeing to a contract extension that was announced Saturday night, that means Maryland's search will launch into a new phase on Monday, focusing on a short list of names that haven't necessarily been bandied about in the frenzied media reports that followed Williams's stunning announcement last week that he was retiring after 22 years as coach of his alma mater.

Maryland (10-4) faces No. 8 seed North Carolina (10-5) in a first-round game on Sunday at 1 p.m. in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Major League Baseball's attendance figures — swelling over the past generation — finally have stagnated. Why? Maybe, as Yogi Berra once observed about a popular restaurant, "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

In truth, it's not the size of the crowd that's problematic, it's the sensibility of the crowd. But we'll get back to that in a moment.

Who's still going to baseball games? Plenty of Sports Nation. MLB, despite itself — the steroids era, rising ticket prices, the length of games and length of the season — still draws more people than the NFL, NBA and NHL combined, with fewer total dates.

BOSTON — Ever since Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen joined forces with Paul Pierce on the Boston Celtics, TD Garden has become a cauldron for the Miami Heat. It's a place where Heat players have become discombobulated, lost their powers, and inevitably lost 11 consecutive games — including four in a row in the postseason.

And on Saturday, the arena was where the Heat also lost somewhat of an edge, after two dominant performances in Miami. It watched in awe as Garnett broke out of a series-long slump to have Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra comparing him to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Pierce kept his emotions and sore heel in check to outplay LeBron James. Dwyane Wade brought down Rajon Rondo to the parquet floor and Rondo's left elbow snapped back, but he still returned to lead his team to an emotional 97-81 victory with one good arm; even knocking away the ball from Chris Bosh with his bad limb before throwing down a soft dunk.

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — The Washington Nationals have experienced most every slice of ignominy baseball has to offer in their brief history, and for a while Sunday afternoon, the possibility of adding another felt vividly alive. There was Florida Marlins right-hander Anibal Sanchez, striding to the Sun Life Stadium mound in the seventh inning, working on a no-hitter. He possessed the stuff to finish it off. The Nationals, who had not been no-hit since baseball returned to Washington, served as capable foils.

The Nationals assumed there would be days like Sunday for Henry Rodriguez, but that does not make them any less ugly when they happen.

In the eighth inning, Rodriguez walked three batters, nearly beheaded two Marlins and reduced poor Ivan Rodriguez to a hockey goalie. He threw several pitches in the dirt and two wild pitches, one that allowed a run to score. He even threw one pitch to himself: a fastball soared over Gaby Sanchez's head, bounced off the backstop and rolled back to the mound.

But the Nationals believe those difficult moments are part of the process for Rodriguez, 24. He has shown progress with his control, but Sunday served as a blip they believe he will overcome.

The Nationals made a minor league trade today, acquiring light-hitting outfielder Gregor Blanco from the Kansas City Royals for a player to be named later.

The Royals removed Blanco from their 40-man roster at the end of spring training. The Nationals will not add Blanco to their 40-man roster, and he will report to Class AAA Syracuse.

Blanco, 27, is the rare player with significant playing time – 836 plate appearance in 253 games over three major league seasons – with an on-base percentage higher than his slugging percentage. Blanco has reached at .358 clip while slugging .324. He has two homers in his career and 107 walks, with a .258 batting average.

The Nationals have only swept the Marlins in Florida once, and that happened way back in late September 2005. They have already crossed off one rare success, having clinched their first series victory here since September 2009. Before this trip to Florida, they had played 18 series against the Marlins lost 15 of them, so this is only the fourth time since baseball returned to Washington that the Nats have won a series at Sun Life Stadium. Staggering.

A victory today will also get the Nationals back to .500. As of right now, 14 major league teaams are .500 or better, and three of them — the Phillies, Marlins and Braves — play in the NL East.

Jayson Werth is out of today's lineup, but not because there is anything wrong with him from an injury standpoint. Werth said he's perfectly fine physically. Manager Jim Riggleman wanted to give Werth two consecutive days off, counting tomorrow's off day before the Nationals begin a three-game series in Atlanta on Tuesday.

Werth's day off probably has something, if not quite a bit, to do with his history against Marlins starter Anibal Sanchez, against whom he is 2 for 22 with 15 strikeouts. Twenty-two at-bats may be a small sample size, but 15 strikeouts over that span is saying something.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — WBC super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler of Denmark, who pulled out of the Super Six tournament because of an eye injury, is heading back to the ring.

Kessler said Monday will fight Mehdi Bouadla of France in a non-title bout on June 4 in Copenhagen.

Kessler won his super middleweight belt when he last fought on April 24 against Britain's Carl Froch.

LAS VEGAS — Manny Pacquiao returned to his corner before the 12th round to an unfamiliar soundtrack of steady boos rising from the MGM Grand Garden crowd.

The fans weren't jeering their beloved Filipino congressman. They were incensed that Sugar Shane Mosley apparently was scared to fight him.

"I told him in the last round, 'You've got to knock this guy out, because it's embarrassing,'" Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach said. "He told me, 'Coach, I'm trying, I'm trying.'"

LAS VEGAS — Manny Pacquiao returned to his corner before the 12th round to an unfamiliar soundtrack of steady boos rising from the MGM Grand Garden crowd.

The fans weren't jeering their beloved Filipino congressman. They were incensed that Sugar Shane Mosley apparently was scared to fight him.

"I told him in the last round, 'You've got to knock this guy out, because it's embarrassing,'" Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach said. "He told me, 'Coach, I'm trying, I'm trying.'"

LAS VEGAS — Manny Pacquiao caught Shane Mosley early, then chased him the rest of the night. Not much more he could do against an aging fighter who seemed only to want to survive.

Pacquiao won a lopsided 12-round decision Saturday night, retaining his version of the welterweight title in a fight that was roundly booed over the late rounds because Mosley refused to trade punches.

Pacquiao won every round on two ringside scorecards in extending the remarkable run that has made him the most exciting fighter in the sport.

MELBOURNE, Australia — Lionel Rose, the first Australian Aborigine to win a world boxing title, has died. He was 62.

His family said he died Sunday after being ill for several months. He had a stroke in 2007 that left him partially paralyzed.

Rose beat Japan's Fighting Harada in Tokyo in 1968 to win the world bantamweight title during a career that included 42 wins, 12 by knockout, in 53 fights.

John Taylor Arms was a conservative artist, and he knew it. He started making prints in 1914, a year after the epic Armory Show in New York introduced European modernism to the philistine shores of the New World.

When he died in 1953, he was still active as a printmaker, investing hundreds of hours in obsessively detailed images of old churches, villages and landscapes, even as abstract expressionism was surging to its high-water mark in New York.

Yet he never wavered from his agenda, which looked back to the aesthetic philosophy of the 19th century and yielded strictly representational images of buildings and places, mostly well known and well loved, from the standard tourist's map of the world.

Thor's magic hammer has solidly planted the summer movie season's first tentpole.

"Thor," Marvel's latest big-budget superhero film, won the weekend by grossing $66-million in its domestic debut, according to studio estimates Sunday. (Final numbers are scheduled to be released Monday.)

The film's box office was in line with industry projections; appearing on nearly 4,000 North American screens, it was expected to open in the range of $60-million to $70-million.

Ever since an elite unit of Navy SEALs stormed a fortresslike compound near Islamabad, Pakistan, and killed Osama bin Laden, people can't get enough of the SEALs. There are some who want to know what it's like to be one, and others who want to know what it takes to become one.

Then, there are those who want to know what it might be like to, well, "be" with one.

The serious-minded can sift through countless articles and hours of documentaries. The more prurient can mine an entire universe of Navy SEAL romance novels. There's the "Tall, Dark and Dangerous" series by Suzanne Brockmann or the "Tempting Seals" books by Lora Leigh.

I am going to try to avoid all the cliches about burly Russian bears at the piano, mindless Soviet-style technical training, and brawn without brains in this precis of Denis Matsuev's extraordinary recital Friday evening at the Music Center at Strathmore.

When, after intermission, Matsuev detonated the Liszt ''Mephisto Waltz" and tore through the Rachmaninoff Sonata in B-flat minor, it became clear that the Schubert and Beethoven sonatas on the first half were simply place-holders, appetizers for what was to come.

Talk about the wrong place at the wrong time: Berlin in the spring of 1945 ranks high on any list of historical hellholes. During the waning days of the war in Europe, So­viet troops flattened the city even as Hitler's propaganda machine cranked out inanely optimistic rumors of an imminent victory. Hitlerjugend — adolescent boys devoted to the Fuehrer — were ordered to flesh out the depleted ranks of the infantry. Women, children and the elderly scrambled for shelter in basements and railroad tunnels, bleakly anticipating retribution from the Russians, who had lost roughly one-eighth of their country's population in the war. "For months," David Downing writes, "the favorite joke among Berliners had been 'enjoy the war — peace will be dreadful.' " And yet, despite the horrors of wartime Berlin, Anglo-American journalist John Russell is frantic to find a way to get there.

Star power is a remarkable thing. Gluck's "Iphigenie en Tauride" is hardly one of opera's greatest hits. And in the Washington National Opera's production of it, which opened Friday night, there are a lot of other singers on stage besides Placido Domingo. Yet when Domingo, in the role of Oreste, shackled, imprisoned and demoralized, sang his very first line, it was clear not only whom the crowds at the Kennedy Center Opera House had come to see, but why they had come to see him.

No one would claim Domingo, 70, is in the vocal condition he was as a 35-year-old. But the quality of the voice remains: the golden tone, the ping to the sound, even, perhaps, the long habit of being the center of onstage attention. Amid all the other singers, he made you want to listen to him. When the aging Pavarotti came on stage, it was as a mere husk of his former self; Domingo in his late years, by contrast, keeps finding new vessels in which to present the essence of who he has always been. Certainly, this entails vocal and musical adjustments (in "Iphigenie," Domingo combines the baritone and tenor versions of the role). But he's still genuinely got something to offer — more than many others today.

John Taylor Arms was a conservative artist, and he knew it. He started making prints in 1914, a year after the epic Armory Show in New York introduced European modernism to the philistine shores of the New World.

When he died in 1953, he was still active as a printmaker, investing hundreds of hours in obsessively detailed images of old churches, villages and landscapes, even as abstract expressionism was surging to its high-water mark in New York.

Yet he never wavered from his agenda, which looked back to the aesthetic philosophy of the 19th century and yielded strictly representational images of buildings and places, mostly well known and well loved, from the standard tourist's map of the world.

Talk about the wrong place at the wrong time: Berlin in the spring of 1945 ranks high on any list of historical hellholes. During the waning days of the war in Europe, So­viet troops flattened the city even as Hitler's propaganda machine cranked out inanely optimistic rumors of an imminent victory. Hitlerjugend — adolescent boys devoted to the Fuehrer — were ordered to flesh out the depleted ranks of the infantry. Women, children and the elderly scrambled for shelter in basements and railroad tunnels, bleakly anticipating retribution from the Russians, who had lost roughly one-eighth of their country's population in the war. "For months," David Downing writes, "the favorite joke among Berliners had been 'enjoy the war — peace will be dreadful.' " And yet, despite the horrors of wartime Berlin, Anglo-American journalist John Russell is frantic to find a way to get there.