Haiti

A multimillion-dollar building project involving a Haitian pastor and the Trinity Broadcasting Network has collapsed in recriminations, leaving behind a half-built hospital with a giant cross-shaped hole in one wall. With $2.

At least three people were killed and 25 injured in food riots and clashes with U.N. peacekeepers Friday, a mission spokeswoman and Haitian radio said. A young man was shot in the head and killed during protests in southern Haiti. It was not immediately clear who shot him, though protesters blamed United Nations troops. U.N. soldiers fired because they were fired upon, said U.N. spokeswoman Sophie Boutaud de la Combe. She said the mission had opened an investigation.

Hungry Haitians tried to storm the presidential palace Tuesday to demand the resignation of President Rene Preval over soaring food prices. Protesters charged the palace's gates with a rolling trash bin, but Brazilian soldiers in blue United Nations helmets fired rubber bullets and tear gas to force them back. Outnumbered peacekeepers watched as people looted nearby businesses.

A hillside school where about 500 students usually crowded onto several floors collapsed during classes Friday, killing at least 47 people and injuring many more. Rescuers used bare hands to pull bleeding students from the wreckage. More children were believed buried in the rubble of the concrete building, and the death toll was expected to go higher, said Yphosiane Vil, a civil protection official.

Rescuers pulled four children alive Saturday from the rubble of a three-story school that collapsed on hundreds of students and teachers, killing at least 88 people. Emergency workers cradled the dazed children in their arms and rushed them into ambulances, U.N. police spokesman Andre Leclerc said. The extent of the injuries to the two girls, ages 3 and 5, and two boys, a 7-year-old and a teenager, was unknown, Leclerc said.

At least 26 severely malnourished Haitian children have died in recent days, and aid groups fear many more will perish unless help comes quickly. At least 65 other severely malnourished children have been treated, said Max Cosci of Doctors Without Borders. Hunger contributed to deaths probably caused by diarrhea, fever and other conditions over a two-week period, but medical teams arrived too late to determine how each child died, Cosci said.

Gunmen seized an American missionary as he left a church near Haiti's capital and have demanded a ransom for his release, United Nations police said. Nathan Jean-Bieubonne, a U.S. citizen of Haitian descent, was abducted Sunday afternoon as he and three others drove home from church in Croix-des-Bouquets, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, U.N. police spokesman Fred Blaise said. Blaise said a U.N. task force was working with Haitian police to recover Jean-Bieubonne, whose hometown in the U.S.

Hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers raided Haiti's largest and most violent slum, seizing a portion of it in a six-hour gun battle that killed a suspected gang member. Four others were wounded, along with two soldiers, officials said. More than 700 heavily armed troops from seven countries participated in the raid on Port-au-Prince's Cite Soleil slum, entering in armored vehicles and on foot as helicopters circled above.

A boat carrying Haitian migrants caught fire off the coast of the Dominican Republic, leaving at least eight passengers dead and 44 missing, a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman said. The boat was traveling from the northern Haitian town of Cap-Haitien to the Turks and Caicos islands when it caught fire about 25 miles north of the Dominican Republic, spokesman Petty Officer Barry Bena said. Two migrants were pulled from the water Wednesday and taken to a hospital in Montecristi.