BAGHDAD — The U.S. military sent search dogs yesterday to help find more than a dozen people still missing and feared dead after the country's worst bombing this year devastated a northern Iraqi town just more than a week before U.S. troops are due to leave Iraq's cities.

The truck bombing Saturday near the ethnically tense city of Kirkuk flattened a Shiite mosque and dozens of mud-brick houses around it, killing at least 75 people.

Iraqi police blamed al-Qaida in Iraq, saying it was part of an insurgent campaign to destabilize the country and undermine confidence in the government.

PRIEST WOUNDED IN IRAQ 5 YEARS AGO DIES

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Rev. Tim Vakoc, a Minnesota priest who was gravely wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq five years ago, has died, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis said yesterday. He was 49.

Vakoc, who was believed to be the first military chaplain wounded in Iraq, died at a nursing home in suburban New Hope on Saturday. The cause of death was not immediately released.

Vakoc was an Army chaplain on May 29, 2004, when the blast cost him an eye and severely damaged his brain as he was returning from celebrating Mass with troops near Mosul.

TERRY O’NEILL ELECTED PRESIDENT OF NOW

INDIANAPOLIS — The National Organization for Women has elected a 56-year-old Maryland woman as its next president in a close win over a rival who had been endorsed by the group's current president.

NOW said Terry O'Neill, who is white, defeated Latifa Lyles, a 33-year-old African-American woman from Washington, D.C., during the organization's three-day national conference in Indianapolis. The group did not release totals from Saturday's vote.

Lyles had been endorsed by current NOW President Kim Gandy, who retires from the organization July 20 after eight years as its president.

POLICE SEARCH FOR MORE SUSPECTS IN KILLING

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Police yesterday were searching for at least two more suspects they believe killed a teenage worker during a robbery at a packed Denny's and committed 10 more armed robberies in Albuquerque this past year.

Two suspects were arrested within minutes of the crime Saturday on suspicion of murder, kidnapping, robbery and child abuse because there were at least five children in the restaurant, Albuquerque Police Officer Nadine Hamby said.

Hamby said the men who were arrested are in their late 20s to early 30s and are from South America, but she did not know where specifically. She said police were working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to verify the men's identities.

BRAZIL IDENTIFIES 11 BODIES FROM JET CRASH

SAO PAULO — Medical examiners have identified the first 11 of 50 bodies recovered from the Air France flight that plunged into the Atlantic three weeks ago, officials said yesterday.

Five bodies were identified as Brazilian men, five as Brazilian women and one as a "foreigner of the male sex," the Public Safety Department of the northeastern state of Pernambuco said in a statement.

Dental records, fingerprints and DNA samples were used to identify the bodies, the statement said.

Air France Flight 447 fell into the ocean off the northeast coast of Brazil on the night of May 31, killing all 228 people aboard.

SCIENTOLOGY LEADER ALLEGEDLY BEAT STAFFERS

CLEARWATER, Fla. — The leader of the Church of Scientology struck his subordinates numerous times and set an example for physical violence among the tightly controlled religion's management team, four former high-ranking executives said in a story published yesterday.

The executives who have since left the organization told The St. Petersburg Times that they saw David Miscavige, chairman of the board that oversees the church, hit staff members dozens of times.

In a response to the paper, the church denied the allegations, saying that the four former executives' statements were "absolute and total lies," and the claims are an effort to tarnish Miscavige, who has led the church for more than two decades. A spokesman said yesterday the church provided documentation that the claims the four made were false.