Immunization

Yemeni security forces and antigovernment protesters clashed violently again Thursday, as Persian Gulf and U.S. officials pressed for a deal that would allow longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh to leave office with immunity. Government supporters fired gunshots at protesters, resulting in at least two deaths in the tribal town of Bayda and at least one in the commercial city of Taizz. Scores more protesters were wounded as they attempted to blockade government buildings and enforce a general strike.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has agreed to an internationally negotiated plan to step down within 30 days in exchange for criminal immunity for his deadly crackdown on protests that have tipped the nation perilously close to civil war, Yemeni officials and opposition leaders said Saturday. But the canny Saleh has broken many promises, and the latest concession could be another maneuver by a leader who has remained defiant amid massive street demonstrations and the defections of top military and government officials.

Pakistani authorities Monday balked at ruling on whether CIA contractor Raymond Davis is immune from prosecution in a double murder case and instead put the matter in the hands of a Lahore trial court, a decision that will probably prolong the diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and Pakistan. The Lahore High Court had earlier ordered the federal government to clearly state on Monday its position on whether Davis, a 36-year-old American, has diplomatic immunity that would shield him from being tried for the Jan. 27 shooting deaths of two Pakistani motorcyclists who he says were trying to rob him in Lahore.

President Obama 'fessed up Thursday morning that, as a young student, he was involved in bullying. As a victim, that is. "I have to say, with big ears and the name that I have, I wasn't immune.  I didn't emerge unscathed," he told teachers, parents and government officials assembled for the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention. The president showed off several anti-bullying efforts under way in Washington, including the new website stopbullying.gov and initiatives by the Department of Education to get anti-bullying programs up and running in schools.

Bell's director of administrative services testified Monday that she did not realize until the city's salary scandal erupted last summer that city officials could be breaking the law by lending $1.9 million in public funds to colleagues, municipal workers and a local car dealer. Lourdes Garcia, who was given limited immunity in exchange for her testimony, said former City Administrator Robert Rizzo directed her to draft loan agreements for city employees using only their vacation and sick days as collateral.

The U.S. citizen who shot to death two motorcyclists in the eastern city of Lahore last month works with the CIA, Pakistani and U.S. officials said Monday ? a revelation that could further aggravate anti-American sentiment in the nuclear-armed nation and complicate Washington's efforts to secure his release. Pakistani authorities said they learned of Raymond Davis' links to the CIA after his arrest on charges that he murdered two Pakistani men he said were trying to rob him at gunpoint, according to a senior Pakistani intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to publicly discuss the case.

The fatal shooting of two Pakistani men by a U.S. Embassy official last month was "cold-blooded murder" and not self-defense, police investigators in Pakistan's second largest city said Friday, escalating a diplomatic crisis that threatens to rupture relations between the U.S. and a vital ally in the war on terror. With Pakistani law enforcement authorities set on a course to try Raymond Davis on murder charges, the 36-year-old American's best hope now lies with his claim of diplomatic immunity -- an assertion that so far the federal government has avoided affirming.

Bell's city clerk Wednesday became the first person to be granted immunity in a corruption case that accuses city leaders of looting the city's treasury Rebecca Valdez, who took the stand Wednesday in the preliminary hearing for six current and former council members, testified that she didn't know the purpose of many city commissions and boards from which council members drew most of their extravagant salaries. Prosecutors allege that the board and commissions rarely met, and when they did, the sessions lasted only minutes.

A Pakistani judge Tuesday barred authorities from releasing an American Consulate official accused of double murder despite the U.S. government's insistence that diplomatic immunity shields him from prosecution. Five days after Raymond Davis shot to death two Pakistani men in the eastern city of Lahore in what he said was self-defense, authorities here showed no signs of bowing to demands from the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad that the 36-year-old be freed because he is a diplomat and therefore cannot be tried on criminal charges.