Texas billionaire and philanthropist Charles Wyly, whose family donated millions of dollars to Republican causes and Dallas arts projects, has died after a car accident in western Colorado, authorities said. He was 77.

Wyly, who maintained a home near Aspen, Colo., was turning onto a highway near the local airport when his Porsche was hit by a sport utility vehicle Sunday, the Colorado State Patrol said in a statement. Wyly died at Aspen Valley Hospital.

"He is among the finest people I have ever known," William Brewer III, Wyly's attorney and long-time friend, said in a statement to The Associated Press. "His contributions in business, philanthropy and civic leadership will forever be remembered."

The other driver suffered moderate injuries.

In Texas, Wyly and his younger brother, Sam, along with their wives, gave $20 million to help build Dallas' performing arts center.

Battles between the vicious Zetas gang and other drug cartels killed more than 40 people in a 24-hour span, a government official said Saturday.

At least 20 people were killed when gunmen opened fire in a bar late Friday in the northern city of Monterrey, where the gang is fighting its former ally, the Gulf Cartel, said federal security spokesman Alejandro Poire.

Eleven bodies shot with high-powered rifles were found earlier Friday, piled near a water well on the outskirts of Mexico City, where the gang is fighting the Knights Templar, Poire said. That is an offshoot of the La Familia gang that has terrorized its home state of Michoacan.
He said another 10 people were found dead early Saturday in various parts of the northern city of Torreon, where the gang is fighting the Sinaloa cartel headed by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

A grizzly bear killed a man who was hiking with his wife in Yellowstone National Park's backcountry after the couple apparently surprised the female bear and its cubs on Wednesday, park officials said.

It was the park's first fatal grizzly mauling since 1986, but the third in the Yellowstone region in just over a year amid ever-growing numbers of grizzlies and tourists roaming the same wild landscape of scalding-hot geysers and sweeping mountain vistas.

The Wednesday morning attack happened just two days after the peak weekend for tourism in the park all year, on a trail close to Canyon Village near the middle of Yellowstone.

Details were sketchy but park officials said the bear attacked to defend against a perceived threat. They said the wife of the 57-year-old victim called 911 on her cell phone and other hikers in the area responded to her cries for help.

NATO said Sunday it was investigating Libyan claims that nine civilians, two of them of toddlers, were killed in an alliance air raid and would be "very sorry" if that were the case.
             
"NATO is looking into this matter," said spokesman Wing Commander Mike Bracken. "NATO was operating in Tripoli last night, conducting air strikes against a legitimate military target."
             
Libyan government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim told AFP that a NATO air strike on a residential district of Tripoli early on Sunday killed nine people, five of them from the same family, and wounded 18.

The top leader of the Zeta criminal organization was killed Friday in a Matamoros firefight with rivaling Gulf Cartel, sources close to the newspaper have reported.

Heriberto "El Lazca" Lazcano Lazcano was reportedly killed in a gun battle on the streets of Matamoros Friday afternoon.

Gunfire erupted shortly after 2 p.m., throughout the city as the two forces clashed. Sources claim Lazcano was killed at an area near Avenida Del Niño and Lauro Villar.

U.S. officials confirmed the firefight and said the international bridges in Brownsville remained opened Friday. They were on alert to any gunmen or Mexican residents attempting to flee the gunfire in Matamoros after a street battle broke out about a mile south of the Rio Grande, officials said.

Nine NATO service members were killed Thursday in Afghanistan, including seven U.S. troops among eight who died when a powerful bomb exploded in a field where they were patrolling on foot, officials said.

Two Afghan policemen also died and two others were wounded in the explosion in the mountainous Shorabak district of Kandahar province, 12 miles from the Pakistan border, said Gen. Abdul Raziq, chief of the Afghan border police in the province.

"Two months ago, we cleared this area of terrorists, but still they are active there," Raziq said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast.

"A bomb was planted for them in a field," Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi told The Associated Press in a telephone call.

The bodies of two dozen people washed ashore Friday in southern Mexico after emergency officials received reports that a boat carrying Central American migrants capsized in the Pacific Ocean, a state official said.

A House-passed plan to threaten local police agencies with losing federal money if they don't assist in cracking down on illegal immigration was defeated Tuesday in the Senate with a 52-42 vote.