Joni Lownsdale never thought her 2002 breast cancer diagnosis would land her in the middle of the Obama administration's fight with the health insurance industry.
But that's where the Rockford, Ill., woman was Friday as she stood in a White House flower garden and shared her story of being repeatedly denied health insurance because of the cancer in her past.

Bombings rocked Baghdad killing 75 people and wounding 310 others, making Wednesday one of the deadliest days since the U.S. handed over security of the country to Iraqis. In total there were six explosions within an hour, Iraq's Interior Ministry officials said.

In one attack, a truck bomb explosion partly damaged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building. Another occurred outside the building of Ministry of Finance.

Bill strengthened into a powerful Category 4 storm early Wednesday as it churned far from land with maximum sustained winds near 135 mph.
At 5 a.m. ET, Bill was centered about 460 miles east of the Leeward Islands, and more than 1,100 miles southeast of Bermuda, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Some memorable quotes from former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung:

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"Democracy and the market economy are two sides of a coin or two wheels of a cart. Every nation that has embraced both democracy and a market economy has been successful." — Inauguration speech, February 1998.

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"I came here because I wanted to see you." — Statement to the North Korean people upon arriving in Pyongyang in June 2000 for the first inter-Korean summit.

Groups of ethnic Han Chinese have marched through the city of Urumqi carrying clubs and machetes, as tension grows between ethnic groups and police.
Security forces fired tear gas to disperse the Chinese, who said they were protesting against violence carried out by ethnic Muslim Uighurs.
Earlier, Uighur women had rallied against the arrest of more than 1,400 people over deadly clashes on Sunday.