Women and children are killed during a U.S. raid. Eleven people – mostly women and children – were killed Sunday during a U.S. raid on a house in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul, The Associated Press reports. The deaths, which U.S. military officials blamed on al-Qaeda forces who used innocents as human shields, included five “terrorists,” three women and three children, AP reported. “This is just another tragic example of how al-Qaeda in Iraq hides behind innocent Iraqis,” U.S. military spokesman Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll said. U.S. troops were blasted as they went into a house searching for a suspected insurgent, U.S. officials said in a statement. Once inside the home, the officials said, a man exploded his suicide vest, killing the 11 people, including a 7-year-old boy. No American lives were lost in the incident. But locals blamed the tragedy on U.S. troops disregard for Iraqi lives. “Most of the Mosul residents live in fear because of such raids conducted by U.S. forces, and even sometimes the Iraqi forces,” Thaier Ahmed, a 32-year-old teacher, told AP. “It is a horrible incident that has led to the killing of innocent people, including children.” Another Iraqi, 35-year-old Abu Tiba, told AP that “the blood of Iraqis is worth nothing to the U.S. Army.” The deaths could not have come at a worse time for the Bush administration, which has been pointing out that violence in Iraq is 80 percent lower than it was a year ago.

Palin is smearing his name, Obama argues. Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah is merely trying to distract voters from the real issues confronting Americans by stating that he “pals around with terrorists,” Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said Sunday. He called her comments “smears” and said that the economy and its effect on struggling workers are the issues that are paramount during this election season. But Palin wasn’t backing down. Throughout the weekend she repeated her charges, saying that Obama is buddies with Bill Ayers, a former member of the radical Weather Underground who acknowledged a role in several bombings, including one that killed a San Francisco policeman more than three decades ago. He and Obama have served on the same charity and live near each other in Chicago. Obama was 8 years old when Ayers was rabblerousing. “The comments are about an association that has been known but hasn’t been talked about,” Palin said in Long Beach, Calif. “I think it’s fair to talk about where Barack Obama kicked off his political career, in the guy’s living room.” Hours later, while speaking to an exuberant crowd in Omaha, Neb., Palin took it a step further. “In fact, Obama held one of his first meetings hoping to kick off his political career in Bill Ayers’ living room,” she said. Obama adviser David Axelrod described Palin’s claims about the Obama-Ayers association as exaggerated. And Obama, speaking at a rally in North Carolina said that McCain and his campaign “are gambling that he can distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance.”

Noted Black chemist and educator dies. Dr. Joseph Gayles Jr., a noted chemist and mathematician who helped create the Morehouse School of Medicine, died of heart failure last week at his home in Atlanta. He was 71. “Dr. Gayles played a key role,” Dr. Louis Sullivan, the former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Sullivan, a founding dean and president of Morehouse School of Medicine, said that Gayles was a “great team player and very intense and committed” to the plan to start the new medical school for minorities, according to the newspaper. Raised in Birmingham, Ala., Gayles earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry and mathematics from Dillard University in New Orleans. He then earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from Brown University, the Journal-Constitution reports. Before going to Morehouse to teach, he worked at the IBM research lab for three years. Between 1977 and 1983, he served as president of Talladega College in Alabama. He returned to Morehouse School of Medicine, where he was the vice president of institutional development until 1996. He is survived by a daughter, Monica Dorsey of Fairburn; a son, Jonathan Gayles of Atlanta; and two grandchildren. Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Cascade United Methodist Church in Atlanta. Murray Brothers Funeral Home is handling arrangements.