BEIRUT — When popular rebellions began erupting around the Middle East earlier this year, the outpouring of democratic fervor was quickly dubbed the Arab Spring, a phrase that captured the heady optimism of what appeared to be a new era of freedom and hope.

But as spring turns to summer, events across the region are taking an altogether darker and more sinister turn, one in which the prospect of a brighter future no longer seems so readily assured.

The swift toppling of the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt, in rapid succession, has been followed by months of deepening bloodshed and brutality across the Arab world, underscoring the power that autocrats still wield after decades of dictatorship.

Government officials are investigating whether Google profited by displaying ads from illegal online pharmacies, federal regulators said Thursday.

An explosion of online companies claiming to sell prescription drugs has forced the search giant into what it has called a "cat-and-mouse game" to sort out legitimate retailers from frauds.

Yet it appears Google would still be liable for running ads from so-called rogue pharmacies. The company said in an earnings filing this week that it had set aside $500 million — equivalent to about one-fifth of the profits it made during the last quarter of 2010 — toward a settlement relating to a Justice Department investigation into its advertising practices.

CHARSADDA, Pakistan — Twin suicide bombings outside a paramilitary training center in Pakistan's northwest killed least 80 people, in what appeared to be militants' first major retaliatory attack since the death of Osama bin Laden.

The massive explosions targeted new recruits for Pakistan's Frontier Constabulary in Charsadda, about an hour's drive from the capital, Islamabad. The recruits had just finished morning prayers and were boarding buses that would take them on home leave, said Jehanzeb Khan, a senior police officer in Charsadda.

The top Senate Republican sought Thursday to clarify his party's stance on Medicare heading into high-stakes talks with the White House, telling President Obama he wants "significant" changes to the program in exchange for lifting the legal limit on government borrowing.

After the entire Senate Republican caucus met with Obama at the White House, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said he would not insist on a controversial House GOP plan that would partly privatize the popular health program for the elderly. But with Medicare and Medicaid projected to be the major drivers of future borrowing, he said tighter eligibility requirements and reduced benefits must be part of any deal.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — His greatest achievement is also his biggest liability. It is the kind of paradox that would test the most agile of politicians, of whom Mitt Romney is not one.

So on Thursday, the former management consultant who is also a putative front-runner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination turned to an old and reliable ally: the PowerPoint presentation. He was attempting to lay to rest criticism of the landmark health-care law he put into place as governor of Massachusetts, and to make a convincing case for how he would do things differently if he were elected president.

The top Senate Republican sought Thursday to clarify his party's stance on Medicare heading into high-stakes talks with the White House, telling President Obama he wants "significant" changes to the program in exchange for lifting the legal limit on government borrowing.

After the entire Senate Republican caucus met with Obama at the White House, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said he would not insist on a controversial House GOP plan that would partly privatize the popular health program for the elderly. But with Medicare and Medicaid projected to be the major drivers of future borrowing, he said tighter eligibility requirements and reduced benefits must be part of any deal.

The Senate ethics committee on Thursday took the rare step of asking federal agencies to investigate a former colleague, saying it found "substantial and credible evidence" that Nevada Republican John Ensign broke federal laws while trying to cover up an extramarital affair with a political aide.

The panel presented its case against Ensign in blunt language delivered on the Senate floor, suggesting that his alleged violations could lead to formal charges from the Justice Department. It was the first time since 1995 that the committee had referred a case about a current or former senator to federal investigators.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — His greatest achievement is also his biggest liability. It is the kind of paradox that would test the most agile of politicians, of whom Mitt Romney is not one.

So on Thursday, the former management consultant who is also a putative front-runner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination turned to an old and reliable ally: the PowerPoint presentation. He was attempting to lay to rest criticism of the landmark health-care law he put into place as governor of Massachusetts, and to make a convincing case for how he would do things differently if he were elected president.

INDIANAPOLIS — If the members of the Indiana Republican Party had their way, Mitch Daniels would have announced his presidential bid Thursday night. When the state's governor got on stage, most of the audience stood up and waved signs that said "Run Mitch Run."

He spoke of the 2012 speculation, but only to tamp it down — and string it along at the same time. "No great announcements or pronouncements, though some insisted on expecting some," Daniels said. "I'm not saying I won't do it," he added before saying, as he has before, that he really wanted to retire from the public eye.

Until two weeks ago, Kayla Gillan was deputy chief of staff at the Securities and Exchange Commission, an agency whose duties include policing and regulating the accounting firms that audit public companies. Last week, PricewaterhouseCoopers announced that Gillan was taking a leadership role at the big accounting firm to work on regulatory issues.

Gillan, 52, is just the latest high-profile example of officials moving from the SEC to businesses regulated by it, or to law firms that defend clients in SEC investigations.

Finally! After days of adjusting, rebuilding, testing and super-gluing, a human-powered helicopter at the University of Maryland left the ground for about four seconds late Thursday afternoon.

It was the third known time a human-powered craft has left the ground, and the first time a woman has been in the pilot's seat.

"It was beautiful," said Brandon Bush, 29, a U-Md. doctoral student and a project manager. "It jumped up, and it stayed there."

BEIRUT — When popular rebellions began erupting around the Middle East earlier this year, the outpouring of democratic fervor was quickly dubbed the Arab Spring, a phrase that captured the heady optimism of what appeared to be a new era of freedom and hope.

But as spring turns to summer, events across the region are taking an altogether darker and more sinister turn, one in which the prospect of a brighter future no longer seems so readily assured.

The swift toppling of the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt, in rapid succession, has been followed by months of deepening bloodshed and brutality across the Arab world, underscoring the power that autocrats still wield after decades of dictatorship.

AJDABIYA, LIBYA — The United States, European allies and other nations have dispatched representatives to the Libyan opposition's ruling council. But on the ground here, credit for helping to get the rebel army into shape goes to military advisers from the tiny Arabian Peninsula emirate of Qatar.

Qatar was the first Arab country to formally recognize the political legitimacy of the rebel council in Benghazi and the first to provide military assistance, sending six Mirage fighter jets to help NATO enforce the no-fly zone in March. Qatar also helped the rebel leadership sell oil to help finance the fledgling administration. Now, it is alone in providing military training to the rebels, officials say.

CHARSADDA, Pakistan — Twin suicide bombings outside a paramilitary training center in Pakistan's northwest killed least 80 people, in what appeared to be militants' first major retaliatory attack since the death of Osama bin Laden.

The massive explosions targeted new recruits for Pakistan's Frontier Constabulary in Charsadda, about an hour's drive from the capital, Islamabad. The recruits had just finished morning prayers and were boarding buses that would take them on home leave, said Jehanzeb Khan, a senior police officer in Charsadda.

NUUK, Greenland — Few places on Earth have seen starker changes in weather than this icebound island straddling the Arctic Circle. With that in mind, America's top diplomat arrived here this week intent on calling attention to the perils of climate change.

The problem was that Greenlanders aren't exactly complaining.

In fact, as Secretary of State of Hillary Rodham Clinton toured snow-covered fjords on Thursday, there were awkward reminders of Greenland's embrace of the rise in temperatures that began two decades ago. Rather than questioning global warming, many of this island's 60,000 inhabitants seem to be racing to cash in.

BAGHDAD — A heavily U.S.-funded refu­gee relief program has begun quietly preparing for a humanitarian crisis on the Iraqi-Syrian border.

The U.N. Refugee Agency in Iraq has amassed hundreds of tents, blankets, plastic sheeting and other supplies just inside Iraq's western border in case some of the more than 400,000 Iraqis who fled to Syria because of war and sectarian killing need to rush back to escape an escalating conflict in Syria.

Tents and supplies for an additional 30,000 have been stockpiled just across the Iraqi border in Jordan. And the Iraqi government has committed to chartering flights from Damascus to return Iraqi refugees en masse should the Syrian situation deteriorate rapidly.

NUUK, Greenland — Few places on Earth have seen starker changes in weather than this icebound island straddling the Arctic Circle. With that in mind, America's top diplomat arrived here this week intent on calling attention to the perils of climate change.

The problem was that Greenlanders aren't exactly complaining.

In fact, as Secretary of State of Hillary Rodham Clinton toured snow-covered fjords on Thursday, there were awkward reminders of Greenland's embrace of the rise in temperatures that began two decades ago. Rather than questioning global warming, many of this island's 60,000 inhabitants seem to be racing to cash in.

NUUK, Greenland — Few places on Earth have seen starker changes in weather than this icebound island straddling the Arctic Circle. With that in mind, America's top diplomat arrived here this week intent on calling attention to the perils of climate change.

The problem was that Greenlanders aren't exactly complaining.

In fact, as Secretary of State of Hillary Rodham Clinton toured snow-covered fjords on Thursday, there were awkward reminders of Greenland's embrace of the rise in temperatures that began two decades ago. Rather than questioning global warming, many of this island's 60,000 inhabitants seem to be racing to cash in.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLA. – Tiger Woods's return to golf after a month-long layoff fell apart, effectively, after just one swing Thursday. The sport's brightest star began his first round at The Players Championship with a 3-wood at 8:08 a.m., and he immediately felt pain in his balky left knee.

Some 2 hours 20 minutes later, after he carded an unsightly 6-over-par 42 on the front nine, he shook hands with his playing partners, withdrew from the tournament, left TPC Sawgrass in a white Mercedes, and opened a seemingly bottomless box of questions about his fitness not just for next month's U.S. Open, but for the rest of his career.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Mark O'Meara never would have seen this coming at The Players Championship.

The 54-year-old O'Meara, who had not competed on the TPC Sawgrass in eight years, rolled in a 30-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole for a 6-under 66, his lowest score on this crazy course since Tiger Woods was in high school. That left him two shots behind Nick Watney after the opening round Thursday.

But that wasn't the least bit shocking. O'Meara was in town a few weeks ago and shot 68 from the back tees, so he knew he could do it against the best players in the world, even those half his age.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Coming off his worst performance in nearly a year, Nick Watney looked better than ever Thursday in The Players Championship with an 8-under 64 that put him atop the leaderboard.

Coming off what he described as a "minor injury," Tiger Woods looked to be in big trouble.

Nine holes into his first tournament since the Masters, Woods said he couldn't go on. He withdrew after his highest nine-hole score at this event — a 42 — and had no idea when he might return.

SON SERVERA, Spain — Gregory Bourdy shot a course-record 7-under 63 on Thursday to take a one-stroke lead after the first round of the Iberdrola Open.

The 29-year-old Frenchman had nine birdies and two bogeys on the Pula Golf Club course. He won the 2007 Mallorca Open on the course for the his first of his three European Tour titles.

England's Danny Willett was second, and Northern Ireland's Darren Clarke and England's Matthew Nixon opened with 65s.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Tiger Woods limped off the golf course and into an uncertain future.

His return at The Players Championship from what he had described as a "minor injury" lasted only nine holes Thursday. Woods withdrew because of pain in his left knee and Achilles, but not before taking 42 shots for his worst nine-hole score on the TPC Sawgrass course.

"I'm having a hard time walking," he said.

Since he was named the men's basketball coach at Maryland Monday night, Mark Turgeon has spent nearly every waking moment in between meetings and media obligations on the phone.

At least two of those calls were made to Curtis Malone of D.C. Assault and Keith Stevens of Team Takeover, two of the area's most prominent summer-league coaches whose programs consistently produce talented prospects. That Turgeon reached out to both men in the frenzied hours after his hiring underscores the importance of relationships with summer-league coaches, particularly in one of the nation's most fertile recruiting areas.

ATLANTA — Turns out, the Chicago Bulls are more than just a one-man team.

Derrick Rose sure had plenty of help in this one.

Next up: the Eastern Conference final, against Miami and the Big Three.

Jordan Crawford is back in red, white and blue -- the same color scheme that he wore with the Atlanta Hawks before getting traded to Washington in late February -- and said this week that he was impressed with the Wizards' new retro look the moment he and the rest of the team got a sneak peak near the end of the regular season.

But Crawford kept the festivities on Tuesday in perspective, realizing that a new look will only rally fans around the team but for so long. "I don't think anything really matter until we show them what we do during the season," he said. "I think then [the fans] will get very excited, more excited about us competing and trying to win games than these new uniforms."

On the day Bryce Harper walked into the eye doctor's office, he was, he would say later, "blind as a bat." Keith Smithson, the Washington Nationals' team optometrist, asked Harper to read an eye chart, then looked at him with astonishment and said, according to Harper: "I don't know how you ever hit before. You have some of the worst eyes I've ever seen."

That was on April 19. The next night, fitted with a new pair of contact lenses, Harper, batting just .231 at the time for the low-Class A Hagerstown Suns of the South Atlantic League, had a double and a single against the visiting Hickory Crawdads. The next night, he homered. And the night after that, he singled, doubled, homered and drove in six runs.

The Nationals, remarkably, have not finished a multi-series road trip with a winning record since May 18, 2008, almost precisely three years ago. With a victory tonight, they'll break that streak in an improbable way, by winning five of six games following an ugly sweep in Philadelphia.

It's a coincidental anniversary of sorts for two Nationals players. On this date in 2004, Alex Cora hit a home run for the Dodgers after an 18-pitch at-bat. "It was unbelievable," said Manager Jim Riggleman, the Dodgers' bench coach at the time. Also on this date, Jayson Werth stole second, third and home against the Dodgers during one trip around the bases.

Over the past two weeks, shortstop Ian Desmond has played some of the best defense of his young career. He has made almost all the plays he should make, having been charged with one error in his last 13 games, and made many others beyond the range of an average shortstop.

Desmond, at first, was hesitant to assign a reason for his recent stellar defense. "Luck," he said. Those watching him closest don't believe him.

"He's really been on a mission to make himself better," Nationals bench coach John McLaren said. "He's really feeling good about himself. He was trying to find himself. I think he's there."

Laynce Nix starts for the eighth straight game, and tonight he's hitting cleanup. Against Derek Lowe, the Nationals stacked their lineup with left-handed bats – five of eight position players, counting switch-hitting Danny Espinosa, with bat lefty against Lowe.

Against Lowe this season, there's not a huge difference between lefties and righties. Left-hander batters against him have hit .250/.313/.330, while right-handers are .247/.299/.309.

Nationals

In less than one month, the 2011 baseball draft will begin and the Nationals will do something they have not done since 2008: watch and wait.

After choosing first the past two years, and taking slam-dunk, no-brainer first overall picks, the Nationals will pick sixth this season. They also have the 23rd and 34th overall picks, compensation for losing Adam Dunn to the White Sox in free agency. By this point the past two years, the Nationals knew, and had long had a strong inclination, that they would pick Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper. This year, the Nationals need various contingencies based on the players taken before they pick.

PHILADELPHIA — Donovan McNabb wants to call for the bell and end this one-sided fight with Bernard Hopkins.

The agent for the Washington Redskins quarterback and former Philadelphia Eagles star released a statement Thursday that said Hopkins' racially tinged insults about McNabb, "are dangerous and irresponsible."

"It perpetuates a maliciously inaccurate stereotype that insinuates those African-Americans who have access to a wider variety of resources are somehow culturally different than their brethren," Fletcher Smith said.

TORONTO — Former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar has diverticulitis again and has withdrawn from next month's title elimination fight.

Lesnar had diverticulitis two years ago. He says the digestive disorder is not as serious this time, and he's not retiring. He calls this episode a "bump in the road."

He says he has been feeling symptoms the last three months and felt weak in training. He is deciding whether to have surgery or face the prospect of dealing with the condition for the rest of his life.

Michael Crummey's novel "Galore" is set in coastal Labrador, a captivating place, unfamiliar to most readers, that allows for thrilling and chilling descriptions of the cold. "The sap of backcountry spruce froze solid and exposed stands shattered like glass in the winter winds, the noise of the chandelier disasters carried for miles on the frost."Crummey, a resident of Newfoundland, will delight readers who like to plumb the depths of northern bleakness: families surviving, or not, on potatoes and salt; mothers who have planted gardens of children; and a beautiful young woman who insists on having all her healthy teeth pulled out so that they won't cause her trouble later. Like the two-faced ocean they pull their living from, Crummey's characters in this multi-generational unwinding are icy and surprising.

Kristen Wiig plants a bawdy, brave and brashly feminist flag in the male-dominated raunch-com genre with "Bridesmaids," a comedy from the Judd Apatow atelier that his fans have long been waiting for.

Wiig plays Annie, a would-be cupcake entrepreneur whose business has taken it in the ganache with the economic downturn and whose love life consists of impromptu booty calls from her loathsomely narcissistic sex-buddy, Ted (Jon Hamm).

In fact, "Bridesmaids" begins with one of Annie and Ted's athletic sessions in bed, an unambiguous announcement that this is a movie that — its title's whiff of prim petits fours, party-hearty hen nights and ladies named Pippa notwithstanding — holds no brief with modest restraint. When Annie learns that her lifelong best friend, Lillian (Maya Rudolph), is engaged — and that Annie herself is to be the maid of honor — the new reality sends her into a tailspin of envy, grief and self-loathing. But when it turns out that Lillian's bridal party will also include the rich, thin, impossibly appropriate Helen Harris III (Rose Byrne), Annie's insecurities metastasize into a florid case of overpowering Id. Nouveau-riche biche or not, Helen is clearly a competitor for Annie's BFF status, a call to arms Annie meets with an escalating series of misguided attempts at one-upswomanship, each salvo more explosively funny than the last.

"Everything Must Go" is a movie about a yard sale, the way Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" is a play about a real estate auction. Both statements are true, but they tell only half the story.

Based on the short story "Why Don't You Dance?" by Raymond Carver — that late, great master of literary alienation and loneliness — "Everything Must Go" has been described, somewhat tentatively, as a "dramedy." And it does star Will Ferrell. But despite a trailer that makes it look like a yuk-fest, the laughs are few and far between.

Let other designers take credit for the garb on Parisian catwalks and the frocks recently sported in London by some chicks named Kate and Pippa: Those fashion hotshots haven't helped forge a brand-new world, as Kendra Rai has with her costumes for Constellation Theatre Company's entrancing production of Carlo Gozzi's "The Green Bird."

Extravagant and brilliantly colored, whimsical yet referencing the commedia dell'arte tradition that influenced this 18th-century Italian play, Rai's inventions conjure up a realm of carnivalesque splendor and lunacy that seems a natural home for Gozzi's sprawling fairy tale. Not that the designer is the only contributor to this compelling vision, which also benefits from A.J. Guban's incantatory lighting, composer Tom Teasley's evocative score and director Allison Arkell Stockman's eye for pace, movement and synthesis.

• Mary Tyler Moore was scheduled to undergo brain surgery Thursday. Her rep told reporters the actress, 74, has a benign tumor known as a meningioma. (Read earlier: WTOP anchor Hillary Howard has surgery for meningioma)

• Donald Trump has offered one more explanation for his grim face during the White House Correspondents' dinner. In a speech to the Nashua (N.H.) Chamber of Commerce captured on C-SPAN Wednesday, he explained that he wasn't sure how to react when President Obama and Seth Meyers started making jokes about him. "I looked at my wife and said, 'Is a good thing or a bad thing? Am I supposed to be honored or am I supposed to hide under the table? So I just sort of sat there and listened and took it in."

Ashton Kutcher — the King of Twitter — has suddenly gone all coy over reports that his entourage is putting the final touches on a deal to have him replace Charlie Sheen on CBS's "Two and a Half Men."

"I'm starting to become convinced that people put my name in articles just to improve their SEO [search engine optimization] or hoping I'll tweet it," Kutcher tweeted peevishly Thursday night. Poor baby!

His reference is to published reports that he is in talks to take a role on the country's most popular sitcom, which suddenly found itself one man short when Warner Bros., which produces the show, sacked Sheen back in March. The studio cited his erratic behavior and screeds against show creator Chuck Lorre.

CANNES, FRANCE — The cinematic planets aligned perfectly for the Cannes Film Festival, which opened Wednesday with the premiere of Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris," a frothy air kiss to the culture that has long venerated the 75-year-old director.

What better way to kick off the 64th edition of Cannes than with a film that — in addition to celebrating Paris in the '20s, as well as la belle epoque — finds Allen in his most playful, meltingly romantic mood in years?

From its first moments, "Midnight in Paris" announces that rapturous return to form, with a montage of picturesque Paris sites set to a blast of beguiling jazz music. Any resemblance to "Manhattan" and its similarly ecstatic preamble is definitely intended. "I learned about Paris the same way all Americans do, from the movies," Allen explained at a news conference immediately after a warmly received press screening.

Jim Lehrer, a lifelong newsman — don't call him a "journalist"; too pretentious, he says — knew this day was coming. He's been preparing for it, and preparing the program that has borne his name for more than a generation, too, for several years.

Still, the news about one of America's most respected newsmen on Thursday was something of a surprise: After 36 years as the calm, steady, understated anchor of PBS's nightly "NewsHour," Lehrer says he's pulling back, if not entirely slowing down. He'll anchor his last "NewsHour" on June 6, after roughly 8,000 broadcasts and a few zillion newsmaker interviews.

Michael Crummey's novel "Galore" is set in coastal Labrador, a captivating place, unfamiliar to most readers, that allows for thrilling and chilling descriptions of the cold. "The sap of backcountry spruce froze solid and exposed stands shattered like glass in the winter winds, the noise of the chandelier disasters carried for miles on the frost."Crummey, a resident of Newfoundland, will delight readers who like to plumb the depths of northern bleakness: families surviving, or not, on potatoes and salt; mothers who have planted gardens of children; and a beautiful young woman who insists on having all her healthy teeth pulled out so that they won't cause her trouble later. Like the two-faced ocean they pull their living from, Crummey's characters in this multi-generational unwinding are icy and surprising.