NEW YORK — The sexual assault charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, have cast uncertainty over global efforts to prevent Europe's debt crisis from spinning out of control and raise questions about the future of one of the world's most powerful financial institutions.

At the Washington-based IMF, which makes emergency loans to struggling economies, Strauss-Kahn has been a muscular advocate for aiding Greece, Ireland and Portugal as they have fought to avoid insolvency. A default by a developed European economy would shock the global financial markets and endanger the nascent economic recovery in the United States.

AMHERST, N.Y. — Special congressional elections tend to be sleepy affairs, campaigns so condensed and out of step with the normal political calendar that they're often missed. But they can be mirrors of the national moment, too, and that's what's happening in the suburbs of Buffalo and Rochester, where a race to fill a vacant U.S. House seat has turned into a referendum on the Republican plan to overhaul Medicare.

Sensing an unexpected opportunity for a Democratic rebound from last year's losses, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) flew here Sunday morning and moved from table to table at the Family Tree Restaurant, hovering over eggs, sausage links and pancakes to deliver a simple message.

With the United States poised to slam into its debt limit Monday, conservative economists are eyeballing all that gold in Fort Knox. There's about 147 million ounces of gold parked in the legendary vault. Gold is selling at nearly $1,500 an ounce. That's many billions of dollars in bullion.

"It's just sort of sitting there," said Ron Utt, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. "Given the high price it is now, and the tremendous debt problem we now have, by all means, sell at the peak."

But that's cockamamie, declares the Obama administration. Mary J. Miller, Treasury's assistant secretary for financial markets, said the U.S. should sell assets in an orderly, "well-telegraphed" manner, not in a "fire sale" atmosphere with a debt limit deadline accelerating the process.

JERUSALEM — Thousands of Palestinians marched from Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank toward Israeli border positions on Sunday, hurling rocks and surging across one frontier before the Israeli army opened fire, killing at least 12 people and injuring scores.

The marches, which brought the protest culture of the Arab Spring to Israel's doorstep, marked an unprecedented escalation of the annual demonstrations on the anniversary of the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the demonstrators were challenging "the very existence of Israel" and, in nationally broadcast remarks, pledged that the country was "determined to defend our borders and sovereignty."

To combat Somali pirates, the U.S. Navy has relied on warships, snipers and SEAL teams. Now, it is turning to the heavy artillery: Internet gamers.

This month, the Office of Naval Research will roll out the military's first-ever online war game open to the public, crowd-sourcing the challenges of maritime security to thousands of "players" sitting in front of their computers.

The project — named MMOWGLI (the acronym for Massively Multiplayer Online Wargame Leveraging the Internet) — is a video game for policy wonks. It aims to replicate a traditional military strategy session on an exponentially larger scale, bringing together a diverse mix of government and outside experts that would be impossible even in the largest Pentagon conference room.

It sure looked like a good deal at the time.

A nonprofit developer promised to spend millions renovating three rotting apartment complexes in some of the most blighted neighborhoods of Southeast Washington. It would be one of the largest redevelopment projects in years east of the Anacostia River, helping dozens of low-income renters suffering through roof leaks and winters without heat.

In late 2007, then-Mayor Adrian Fenty sent a letter to the D.C. Council touting the developer's experience, construction team and financing. The council swiftly approved the deal, lending $3.5 million in federal funds to help pay for the renovation of 98 units priced for the poor.

AMHERST, N.Y. — Special congressional elections tend to be sleepy affairs, campaigns so condensed and out of step with the normal political calendar that they're often missed. But they can be mirrors of the national moment, too, and that's what's happening in the suburbs of Buffalo and Rochester, where a race to fill a vacant U.S. House seat has turned into a referendum on the Republican plan to overhaul Medicare.

Sensing an unexpected opportunity for a Democratic rebound from last year's losses, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) flew here Sunday morning and moved from table to table at the Family Tree Restaurant, hovering over eggs, sausage links and pancakes to deliver a simple message.

On Saturday night, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee confirmed what most of the political world had long suspected: He will not be running for president in 2012.

Although he would have been something short of a clear Republican front-runner had he entered the contest, he was still a well-known and well-liked figure whose decision not to enter the race leaves a major void.

Nature and politics abhor a vacuum, so the candidates will quickly move to fill the space left by Huckabee. Before they do, let's take a look at the winners and losers from Huckabee's no-go announcement.

With the United States poised to slam into its debt limit Monday, conservative economists are eyeballing all that gold in Fort Knox. There's about 147 million ounces of gold parked in the legendary vault. Gold is selling at nearly $1,500 an ounce. That's many billions of dollars in bullion.

"It's just sort of sitting there," said Ron Utt, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. "Given the high price it is now, and the tremendous debt problem we now have, by all means, sell at the peak."

But that's cockamamie, declares the Obama administration. Mary J. Miller, Treasury's assistant secretary for financial markets, said the U.S. should sell assets in an orderly, "well-telegraphed" manner, not in a "fire sale" atmosphere with a debt limit deadline accelerating the process.

Discussion on the Sunday talk shows centered on the budget and the looming debt ceiling, with House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) on CNN's State of the Union and House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) on CBS's Face the Nation. Domestic energy production and the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East also were addressed.

Meet the Press (NBC)

Gingrich: Paul Ryan' s plan is "right-wing social engineering," goes too far

JERUSALEM — Thousands of Palestinians marched from Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank toward Israeli border positions on Sunday, hurling rocks and surging across one frontier before the Israeli army opened fire, killing at least 12 people and injuring scores.

The marches, which brought the protest culture of the Arab Spring to Israel's doorstep, marked an unprecedented escalation of the annual demonstrations on the anniversary of the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the demonstrators were challenging "the very existence of Israel" and, in nationally broadcast remarks, pledged that the country was "determined to defend our borders and sovereignty."

BEIJING — After three decades of pushing ever-higher growth rates and exhorting their countrymen that "to get rich is glorious," China's Communist Party rulers have recently rolled out a new economic mantra: be happy.

Premier Wen Jiabao laid down the new measure of progress earlier this year, during the annual meeting of China's rubber-stamp legislature, the National People's Congress. He said the government's goal would be to make prosperity more "balanced."

And thus began a torrent of happiness campaigns, happiness surveys and happiness-promotion measures.

TEHRAN – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came under new pressure Sunday, as an influential cleric charged that he has been "bewitched" by a controversial senior aide and key lawmakers renewed their impeachment threat.

Ahmadinejad is behaving "unnaturally" and needs to be "saved," Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, a former supporter of the president, told the weekly Shoma magazine.

The cleric said Ahmadinejad's top adviser, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, has used has hypnotism, spells or charms to take control of Iran's elected leader. "I am almost certain that he has been bewitched," Yazdi said.

NUUK, Greenland — Here, just south of the Arctic Circle, where the sea ice is vanishing like dew on a July morning, the temperature isn't the only thing that's heating up.

Across the region, a warming Arctic is opening up new competition for resources that until recently were out of reach, protected under a thick layer of ice. As glaciers defrost and ice floes diminish, the North is being viewed as a source of not only great wealth but also conflict, diplomats and policy experts say.

In recent months, oil companies have begun lining up for exploration rights to Baffin Bay, a hydrocarbon-rich region on Greenland's western coast that until recently was too ice-choked for drilling. U.S. and Canadian diplomats have reopened a spat over navigation rights to a sea route through the Canadian Arctic that could cut shipping time and costs for long-haul tankers.

TRIPOLI, Libya — Pressure mounted on Libyan strongman Moammar Gaddafi on Sunday, as the head of Britain's military called for more extensive NATO airstrikes and prosecutors in the International Criminal Court announced that senior Libyan government officials were cooperating in a war crimes investigation.

After a week in which NATO forces significantly increased their bombardment of Tripoli, Gen. David Richards said Sunday that he wanted to widen the range of targets that NATO could hit to tighten pressure on Gad­dafi to abandon his 41-year rule.

BERLIN — Germans in Pope Benedict XVI's home state of Bavaria celebrated Sunday the beatification ceremony of a priest who was honored for practicing his Roman Catholic faith in defiance of the Nazis.

The pope, who grew up in Bavaria, sent Cardinal Angelo Amato from the Vatican to celebrate the beatification Mass for Georg Haefner in Wuerzburg Cathedral, the DAPD news agency reported.

During his traditional Sunday greetings to pilgrims in St. Peter's Square, the pope, who grew up in Bavaria and was forced by the Nazis to serve as a teen in the Hitler Youth, praised Haefner.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — There's no explaining how a man can stand over an 18-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole of a tournament — in one of golf's best amphitheaters, the banks around the 18th green at TPC Sawgrass — and execute the purest of pure strokes to make birdie and force a playoff, and then not 20 minutes later face an uphill putt of three-and-a-half feet to extend that playoff, and flat-out miss. Yet that was David Toms's fate Sunday evening at The Players Championship, exhilaration to devastation — win to loss — in less than half an hour.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — With a mixture of sadness and celebration, K.J. Choi rolled in a 2-foot par putt on the infamous island green on the 17th hole at the TPC Sawgrass to claim the biggest win of his career.

The sadness came from watching David Toms, who only moments earlier had hit two of his best shots of the week to make birdie on the 18th hole and force a playoff, miss a 3½-foot par putt to effectively lose on the first extra hole.

There was so much to celebrate, however.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — K.J. Choi did everything demanded of the winner at The Players Championship.

Not only did he hit the island green on the 17th hole at the TPC Sawgrass, he did it three times in one day. With the tournament on the line, he got up-and-down for par from 80 feet on the final hole Sunday.

Despite everything Choi did to win, this Players Championship might be remembered as much for how it was lost.

Northern B Team Match

Piedmont 62.5, Stoneleigh 45.5

Argyle

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Graeme McDowell couldn't muster any momentum.

The flat feeling that overwhelmed him following an unlucky roll on No. 18 in the rain-delayed third round Sunday morning carried over to the final round.

And he never recovered.

Teams that finish a season tied for the best record in their conference typically don't decide to undergo a considerable overhaul before the start of their next campaign. But when the Washington Mystics convened Sunday for the start of training camp, a squad that went 22-12 in 2010 featured a new coach and a host of new players.

The goal for the 2011 Mystics is to build off last season's success with a redefined approach and an infusion of fresh talent. Whether and how all the pieces will fit together remains to be seen. Washington begins its season June 4 at Connecticut. 

CHARLOTTESVILLE — The cover of the Virginia men's lacrosse team's scouting report for Bucknell in an NCAA tournament first-round game on Sunday had the words, "One Game Season."

And the Cavaliers did pack almost a season's worth of drama into a 13-12 overtime victory before 1,705 at Klockner Stadium. Sophomore Matt White scored the winning goal, off an assist from junior Steele Stanwick, with 1 minute 27 seconds elapsed in sudden-death overtime.

The No. 7 seeded Cavaliers (10-5) advanced to face No. 2 Cornell (14-2) in a quarterfinal on Saturday at Hofstra.

CHICAGO — When the great free agent bonanza of 2010 began last summer, the Chicago Bulls envisioned hosting Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals with Derrick Rose sharing the floor with either LeBron James, Dwyane Wade or both. Those three stars were indeed on the floor on Sunday as the Bulls reached the conference finals for the first time since Michael Jordan won the last of six NBA titles in 1998, but James and Wade represented the enemy, the Miami Heat, and were coming off five-game demolitions of Philadelphia and Boston this postseason.

The Washington Nationals scored more runs in the first inning on Sunday against the Florida Marlins than in any of their previous three games overall. That early production, often absent during the first quarter of this season, roused an 8-4 victory that included another tenacious outing from starter Jason Marquis and some nifty defense in the late innings to help avert a sweep against a division rival.

In ending a three-game slide, the Nationals scored their most runs in nearly a month, collected 11 hits and had all but one player reach base on a picturesque afternoon before 18,356 at Nationals Park. Catcher Ivan Rodriguez led the barrage with three RBI, and Marquis had a pair of RBI and two hits to increase his batting average to .333.

It rarely takes long, relatively speaking, for Nationals pitcher Todd Coffey to get from the bullpen to the mound. His entrance is one of the most entertaining in baseball, with the burly reliever sprinting that distance each time he's handed the ball.

It took exactly 13.3 seconds this afternoon for Coffey to make it to the pitching rubber to face the Marlins' Emilio Bonifacio with two outs in the seventh inning. The new Coffey Time clock on the scoreboard confirmed that, but only a few minutes later, the right-hander was out of the game after the second baseman's sizzling liner made contact just above Coffey's throwing elbow.

Jason Marquis gets the start for the Nationals, who are trying to avoid losing a fourth straight game and a sweep against their National League East rival. Washington will be without shortstop Ian Desmond for a second straight game because of a sore left quadriceps muscle.

Washington's offense struggled mightily in yesterday's 1-0 loss during which Marlins ace Anibal Sanchez scattered three hits over eight innings and Leo Nunez collected his MLB best 14th save in as many opportunities.

This afternoon Florida sends Javier Vazquez to the mound on a party sunny afternoon that hopefully won't include much if any precipitation. Talk about the game right here.

Shortstop Ian Desmond is out for a second straight game with a strained left quadriceps muscle. Nationals Manager Jim Riggleman said yesterday morning the injury didn't appear to be one that would linger, so we'll see if Desmond is back in the lineup tomorrow night when Washington begins a two-game series against Pittsburgh.

Nationals

Roger Bernadina, CF

CARSON, Calif. — Andre Ward felt like the road team in his home state when he walked to the open-air ring amid a chorus of boos while hundreds of Armenians waved red-blue-and-orange flags.

Ward took the abuse and smiled. Arthur Abraham would have needed a white flag to stop Ward from steamrolling him on the way to the Super Six tournament final.

Ward overwhelmed Abraham with power and speed in nearly every round of an unanimous decision victory Saturday night, defending his WBA super middleweight title in the Super Six semifinals.

The Hammer of Hemsworth has fended off a strong challenge from Kristen Wiig's comic bouquet — guaranteeing that many of last weekend's testosterone-laced metaphoric headlines about "Thor" will be usurped this week by winking descriptions of "Bridesmaids" as "feisty," "peppy" and perhaps that most demeaning of euphemisms, "spunky."

(We hate "spunk.")

Marvel's "Thor" grossed $34.5-million to win a second straight domestic weekend, according to studio estimates reported by Box Office Mojo. (Final numbers are expected Monday.) Ten days after its release, the Kenneth Branagh-directed film has now grossed $119,252,000 domestically and $317,667,148 Earth-wide.

NEW YORK

Just three months after its new programming chief officially took over, mired-in-fourth-place NBC unveiled a new prime-time slate on Sunday that's been festooned with female-led series.

Among the network's six new comedies and six new dramas are shows that feature Whitney Cummings as half of a committed couple; Debra Messing as the writer of a Broadway musical about Marilyn Monroe; Christina Applegate as an acerbic new mom; Maria Bello as the new Helen Mirren in a "Prime Suspect" remake; and a comedy based on late-night star Chelsea Handler's book, "Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea."

A waterfront breeze whips at John Prendergast and Michael Mattocks as they walk down to the Potomac River on a sunny spring afternoon. The wind plays decidedly more havoc with Prendergast — a tall white man with flowing, Fabio-class hair — than it does with Mattocks, a stocky African American with a shaved head and a tight inch of beard along the ridge of his jaw.

Prendergast, 48 and a former member of President Bill Clinton's national security team, unconsciously rakes the tresses from his face every few seconds as he looks over the riverside where he and Mattocks used to fish.

The two best things about Trey McIntyre Project: the dancers' easy facility with all kinds of rebounding, whip-snapping moves — the bigger the better — and the music. Not to be discounted are the satisfactions of an evening spent with early jazz from New Orleans's Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the gentle rhythms and unsparing revelations of Roy Orbison.

For most of the audience that filled Sidney Harman Hall on Friday night for McIntyre's program, that combination was more than enough. There were rapturous ovations for every piece, and no wonder. McIntyre, the 6-foot-6 former ballet dancer and crackerjack choreographer of the popular song, seems to attract an ardent following wherever he goes — even when it's far off the beaten path for an artist in the niche world of dance. In 2008, he moved his contemporary dance company to Boise, Idaho, which has proved to be a fertile home base for bustling seasons of national and international tours.

At the Metropolitan Opera this month, the bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, a singer acclaimed particularly for his comic flair, is singing the role of Wotan, a ne plus ultra for his voice type. On Friday night, James Morris, a world-renowned Wotan, made his Washington National Opera debut in his first-ever outing in the comic title role of Donizetti's "Don Pasquale." You might say it's an unusual switch, effectively casting both men against type. Having seen both performances now, I heartily wish they would switch back.

A waterfront breeze whips at John Prendergast and Michael Mattocks as they walk down to the Potomac River on a sunny spring afternoon. The wind plays decidedly more havoc with Prendergast — a tall white man with flowing, Fabio-class hair — than it does with Mattocks, a stocky African American with a shaved head and a tight inch of beard along the ridge of his jaw.

Prendergast, 48 and a former member of President Bill Clinton's national security team, unconsciously rakes the tresses from his face every few seconds as he looks over the riverside where he and Mattocks used to fish.

NEW YORK

Just three months after its new programming chief officially took over, mired-in-fourth-place NBC unveiled a new prime-time slate on Sunday that's been festooned with female-led series.

Among the network's six new comedies and six new dramas are shows that feature Whitney Cummings as half of a committed couple; Debra Messing as the writer of a Broadway musical about Marilyn Monroe; Christina Applegate as an acerbic new mom; Maria Bello as the new Helen Mirren in a "Prime Suspect" remake; and a comedy based on late-night star Chelsea Handler's book, "Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea."

What to make of this strange, ambitious, near-brilliant piece of ventriloquism from controversial memoirist James Frey? "The Final Testament of the Holy Bible" presents the reader with a knotty exercise in genre disorientation.

The book is, among other things, a vivid re-imagining of the life of Jesus Christ, a pricey quasi-objet d'art from super-gallerist Gagosian, a calculated act of provocation, a gesture of almost stupefying egotism, and a sincere and moving examination of the nature of spirituality. The multiple ironies at hand are potentially disabling.