UNITED NATIONS — The world's population will hit 7 billion early in 2012 and top 9 billion in 2050, with the vast majority of the increase coming in the developing countries of Asia and Africa, according to a U.N. estimate released yesterday.

Hania Zlotnik, director of the U.N. Population Division, said that "there have been no big changes" from the previous estimate in 2006.

OBAMA NAMES LEADER FOR FDA

WASHINGTON — President Obama has decided to select former New York City health commissioner Margaret Hamburg to head the Food and Drug Administration, turning to a one-time Clinton administration official to help right the beleaguered regulatory agency, a source briefed on the choice said yesterday.

Hamburg, 53, a physician who has worked extensively on bio-terrorism issues, is now a senior scientist at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington-based foundation focused on threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

FRANCE DECIDES ON NATO RETURN

PARIS — President Charles de Gaulle infuriated the U.S. when he suddenly pulled France out of NATO's military command in 1966, arguing he had to preserve French independence in world affairs.

Forty-three years later, President Nicolas Sarkozy announced yesterday France has decided to return as a full-fledged member of the 26-nation military pact, the North Atlantic Alliance, which came together under U.S. leadership at the start of the Cold War in 1949 and has served as the basis for U.S.-European security relations ever since.

Casting aside Gaullist dogma long cherished in France, Sarkozy declared that rejoining the U.S.-led integrated command in Brussels will not diminish the independence of France's nuclear-equipped military and, on the contrary, will open the way for more French influence in deciding what NATO's new missions should be in the post-Soviet era.

KANSAS RAPES LINKED TO 1 MAN

KANSAS CITY — Rapes of 13 college-age women in Lawrence and Manhattan, Kan., appear to have been committed by the same man, Kansas authorities acknowledged yesterday.

The warning came days before spring break, significant because the rapes have largely occurred when classes are out and fewer people are about in the college towns. All of the attacks occurred off the campuses of the University of Kansas and Kansas State University.