KABUL, Afghanistan — Five U.S. soldiers were killed when their Chinook helicopter was apparently shot down in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, a U.S. military official said. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

Initial reports suggested the helicopter was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade, the U.S. military official, who was not authorized to release the information, said on condition of anonymity. It was not clear if there were any survivors, the official said.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force confirmed that one of its helicopters crashed in southern Afghanistan, but it released no other details.

A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, claimed in a phone call to The Associated Press that militants had shot the helicopter down in Helmand province. That claim could not be immediately verified.

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Bush seeks $30B to help fight AIDS in Africa

WASHINGTON — President Bush urged Congress on Wednesday to authorize an additional $30 billion to fight AIDS in Africa over five years, doubling the current U.S. commitment.

The money would provide treatment for 2.5 million people under the President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, Bush said.

Through March 31, the program has supported treatment for 1.1 million people in 15 countries, including more than 1 million in Africa, he said. The program's original five-year mandate, which called for spending $15 billion, expires in September 2008 and Bush asked Congress to renew it.

"When I took office, an HIV diagnosis in Africa's poorest communities was usually a death sentence. Parents watched their babies die needlessly because local clinics lacked effective treatments," the president said. "Once again, the generosity of the American people is one of the great untold stories of our time."

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the specific goals for the next five years — after Bush leaves office — call for treatment of 2.5 million people, prevention of more than 12 million new infections and the care of more than 12 million people, including 5 million orphans and children.

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Actor-politician moves ahead with likely presidential candidacy

WASHINGTON — Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee senator and "Law & Order" actor, is taking significant steps toward an expected summer entry into the crowded but extraordinarily unsettled Republican presidential race.

His likely candidacy could give restless conservatives somewhere to turn.

A crucial bloc of the GOP, those voters have not fully embraced the leading contenders, giving Thompson what his backers argue is an opening for a "true conservative" who can triumph in November 2008.

The 64-year-old Southerner would bring a right-leaning Senate voting record with a few digressions from GOP orthodoxy and a dash of Hollywood star power given his many movie roles and TV stint as the gruff district attorney on NBC's popular crime drama.

A Thompson bid also could make the contest to succeed President Bush even more topsy turvy; all three top-tier candidates — Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney — could lose some measure of support and the seven underdogs could become even more irrelevant.

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Iraqi, U.S. forces search for 5 abducted British citizens

BAGHDAD — Dozens of U.S. Humvees and Bradley fighting vehicles took up positions around Sadr City at nightfall Wednesday, as American forces pressed the search for five Britons kidnapped in a mock police raid that Iraqi officials said was carried out by the Mahdi Army Shiite militia.

A secret incident report about the abductions — written by Najwa Fatih-Allah, director general of the Finance Ministry's data processing center, where the Britons were seized — quotes Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, as saying the Mahdi Army "will be profoundly sorry" if it carried out the assault.

Much of the Mahdi Army militia is said to be loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who resurfaced last week after nearly four months in hiding, apparently in Iran, and demanded U.S. troops leave Iraq.

Al-Sadr's return appeared to be partly an effort to regain control over his militia, which had begun fragmenting. It was unclear whether the 33-year-old cleric would have been aware of or condoned the kidnapping of the five British citizens — four bodyguards and an employee of a management consulting firm.

When al-Sadr went underground at the start of the U.S.-led security crackdown on Baghdad 15 weeks ago, he ordered his militia off the streets to prevent conflict with American forces. Nevertheless, his return likely complicates U.S. efforts to crack down on violence and broker political compromise in the country.

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Clinton defends war vote, predicts troop withdrawal

LAS VEGAS — White House hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday defended her vote against an Iraq war funding bill, saying she believes President Bush will begin withdrawing troops from Iraq soon.

The New York senator said she came to the conclusion while watching the president's news conference last week in which he referred to the bipartisan Iraq Study Group report and its recommendations for the administration.

"He talked about it favorably for the first time I've ever heard him talk about it," Clinton told The Associated Press in an interview during a campaign stop in Las Vegas. "That was to me a big signal that starting in the fall and toward the end of the year we're going to start seeing troops withdrawn from Iraq.

"My argument is, why wait?"

Among other things, the Iraq Study Group warned against sending more troops for long stints in the war zone and initially called for withdrawal by early 2008.

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Scientists say whales may have slipped back into Pacific Ocean

SAN FRANCISCO — Two lost whales last spotted near the Golden Gate Bridge may have slipped back into the Pacific Ocean after a two-week sojourn that took them 90 miles inland up the Sacramento River, scientists said Wednesday.

Rescuers launched several boats Wednesday morning in an effort to find the mother humpback and her calf but hadn't found them, said Bernadette Fees, deputy director of the California Department of Fish and Game.

The pair were last seen Tuesday night in San Francisco Bay, where few obstacles were left on their route past Alcatraz to the ocean.

"The assumption is if we have not sighted the mother and calf by late afternoon that they have made their way out to the Pacific," Fees said.

Rescuers planned to rely on commercial vessels and Coast Guard patrols on regular duty to watch for any sign of the pair in the bay. Biologists originally planned to attach a satellite tracking tag to the mother humpback, but gusty wind and malfunctioning equipment stymied the effort.

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Paula Abdul says she found purpose in life as 'Idol' judge

NEW YORK — Paula Abdul says she didn't figure out her purpose in life until she became a judge on Fox network's "American Idol."

"I knew since I was a little girl that I had this profound way of touching people. My purpose is bringing out everybody's best and being that cheerleader to other people's success," the 44-year-old singer-dancer tells OK! magazine in its latest issue.

"Being a judge on 'American Idol' overshadows being a Grammy Award winner and selling millions of records," she says.

Abdul has been diagnosed with reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD), a chronic neurological disorder that causes severe pain.

"I have four titanium plates in my neck. I've had 14 surgeries over the years. I had an operation the same evening as the first season finale of 'American Idol,"' she says. "It can come and go at any time, but I no longer have the intense nerve pain that is associated with RSD, thank God."

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Wall Street advances as Fed minutes fail to surprise

NEW YORK — Wall Street shot higher Wednesday, sending the Standard & Poor's 500 index to its first record close in more than seven years, as investors grew more confident the Federal Reserve might cut interest rates in the second half of 2007. The Dow Jones industrials also reached a new high close.

The S&P 500, considered by traders as the best barometer of U.S. stocks, surpassed the record of 1,527.46, set March 24, 2000, at the peak of the dot-com boom, closing at 1,530.23, up 12.12, or 0.80 percent.

The index of 500 of the nation's biggest companies was powered by investors' relief over the minutes from the Fed's May 9 meeting of its Open Market Committee. The central bankers called inflation "uncomfortably high," a stance that made it less likely that the Fed would act to cut interest rates.