VINEYARD HAVEN, Massachusetts (AP) – President Barack Obama said the withdrawal of United States combat troops from Iraq means “the war is ending” and Baghdad is in position “to chart its own course.” Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday to highlight Tuesday’s formal end to US combat missions in Iraq and remind people that he’s keeping a promise he made as a candidate in the 2008 election. Remaining troops will assume a backup and training role, a shift Obama will underscore with a visit to Fort Bliss, Texas, on Tuesday and then a prime-time speech to the nation from the Oval Office. The events come on Aug. 31, the date he set last year for the change in focus in the war. US troop strength dropped below 50,000 this past week, a milestone also highlighted by the administration.

DEADLY PLACE FOR MEDIA

TEGUCIGALPA (AFP) – The recent murder of a veteran radio reporter shows that Honduras remains a deadly place for journalists, even half a year after democracy was restored following a brief military coup. The body of Israel Zelaya, 55, was found on a road near a sugar cane field close to San Pedro de Sula, Honduras’ second most populous city, on August 24. He was shot twice in the head and once in the chest, local media reported. Zelaya is the ninth journalist murdered in the Central American nation this year, officials said. None of the murders has been solved. Only Mexico and its raging drug war is as deadly this year for journalists, with 10 killed there since January, according to the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI). Security Ministry spokesman Leonel Sauceda said that Zelaya was found with all his belongings, including his mobile phone and wallet.

HIGH-WIRE ARTIST BIKES OVER WATER

NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) – A seventh-generation high-wire daredevil pedaled a bicycle across a precarious line strung between two hotel towers Saturday in an attempt to break his own world record. Nik Wallenda, of the famous Flying Wallendas circus family, cycled safely more than 100 feet (31 meters) along the wire at the Bahamas’ Paradise Island Atlantis resort some 260 feet (79 meters) above the turquoise ocean – without a safety net. Wallenda holds the current Guinness World Records for longest distance and greatest height traveled by bicycle on a high wire, set in 2008 in Newark, New Jersey, when he traveled 235 feet (72 meters) at a height of 135 feet (41 meters). Hundreds of tourists and resort workers gawked from pools and sidewalks, snapping pictures, and shooting video.

5 U.S. INMATES SHOT DURING RIOT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Prison guards shot into a crowd to stop 200 rioting inmates at California’s Folsom State Prison, wounding five, authorities said Saturday. Another two inmates were injured by other prisoners during Friday’s riot, which began at about 7 p.m. in the main exercise yard and ended after 30 minutes. Prison spokesman Lt. Anthony Gentile said officers fired after other efforts to break up the riot failed. “We tried to control the situation with chemical agents dispersed over the crowd,” Gentile said Saturday. “We fired several rounds of rubber bullets and that didn’t stop them from fighting.” None of the inmates suffered life-threatening injuries, and none of the 45 to 50 officers who responded were hurt. All seven of the injured inmates were listed in stable condition late Saturday.