Cost of San Onofre nuclear plant outage exceeds $400 million

The parent company of Southern California Edison, operator of the troubled San Onofre nuclear plant, reported that the costs of the yearlong outage at the plant had ballooned to more than $400 million by the end of 2012.

The hefty price tag for the darkened plant includes inspections, repairs and purchasing replacement power.

Edison International officials fielded questions Tuesday from analysts about the plant's extended shutdown and the possibility that federal regulators will require the plant to go through a lengthy license amendment process before returning to service.

The utility also indicated Tuesday that the company has looked into what repairs could be done to restore both units to full power, and was told by the steam generator manufacturer, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, that the job of replacing "significant portions" of the system could take more than five years to complete.

The seaside facility, one of only two nuclear power plants in California, has been shut down for just over a year because of unusual wear on steam generator tubes that carry radioactive water. One tube leaked in January 2012, releasing a small amount of radioactive steam.

Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric — which has a 20% stake in the plant — spent more than $780 million replacing the steam generators, which ratepayers are now repaying.

Edison officials also took a shot Tuesday at elected officials who have accused the company of knowingly installing defective equipment.

Edison has proposed restarting the less-damaged of the plant's two units and operating it at 70% power, which the company argued would alleviate the conditions that led to the wear. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing the proposal.

The plant powered about 1.4 million households in Southern California before the outage.

The report also heralded a potentially protracted dispute between Edison and Mitsubishi over the warranty on the equipment that limited payouts to $138 million, of which the company has paid out $45 million to date. Edison contends that the warranty cap should not apply because of unusual circumstances at San Onofre — Mitsubishi disagrees.

Edison Chief Executive Ted Craver said the company "bristles" at allegations made publicly by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) that the company was aware of design flaws in the steam generators before installation and did not make fixes to avoid triggering a time-consuming license amendment.

"This is just not accurate, and it injects politics into a process that should be free from it," Craver said during Tuesday's earnings call.

The lawmakers cited a leaked confidential report written by Mitsubishi when they made their claims. The NRC has said it will make a redacted version of the report public, but has not yet done so.

Environmental group Friends of the Earth contends that Edison should be required to go through a license amendment process, including public hearings, before the plant can restart.

The NRC has yet to decide on that question, but agency staff asked Edison to demonstrate that the unit proposed for restart can operate safely at its full licensed power, raising the possibility that the commission would require a license amendment for it to operate at 70% power.

In a response submitted Monday, Edison argued that 70% power is, in fact "normal steady state full power," drawing indignation from activists who are pushing for a license amendment.

The company said that the "clear purpose" of the technical specification governing tube integrity is "to ensure that the … tubes will retain their integrity over the range of operating conditions to which they will be subjected. In this case, that range is limited to 70% power."

But the response also promised to provide an analysis by March 15 showing that the unit could operate at 100% power without danger of a tube rupture.

Edison officials were scheduled to meet with NRC staff Wednesday.

abby.sewell@latimes.com

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India Ink: Narmada Devi, the Housewife from Uttar Pradesh

Why do millions of people, from entire Indian villages to urbane middle managers to foreign tourists, brave the crowds at the Kumbh Mela? During this year’s 55-day pilgrimage, to Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, an estimated 100 million Hindus and others are expected to take a holy dip in the Ganges River to wash away their sins. India Ink interviewed some of them.

Narmada Devi, 45, a housewife from Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, was one among them. This is what she had to say.

Why did you come to the Kumbh Mela this year? Is it your first time?

This is my fifth time. I came with family. We had a tough year last year. We wonder if it is because of the sins we have committed. We came here to wash them away.

How have you found it so far?

I love the excitement here. I am also fortunate that I am here on Mauni Amavasya, one of the main royal bathing days. They say that if we manage to take a dip today, we would be internally cleansed.

Describe your journey to the Kumbh. Did you travel alone? How long did it take?

We traveled in a horrible bus from Benaras. It took us longer than it should have. I don’t know how much time we spent on that bus, but it was an awful journey. I threw up the whole time.

Do you consider yourself a religious person?

We are Hindus. We follow Hinduism and worship Hindu gods. We have a pandit, or priest, in our town who we believe in, and we do whatever he asks us to – with respect to our profession, our future, etc. Apart from that, I don’t know what you mean by being religious.

Who do you think is going to win the 2014 election?

We don’t care if it is the Bahujan Samaj Party or the Samajwadi Party. We just want good governance. I can’t tell you how much we have suffered because of bad administration. Higher crime rates, not enough good education for my sons and my husband’s shop was also looted. No authorities came to our rescue.

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The Bachelor's Sean Lowe Reveals Final Two

TV Watch

The Bachelor

02/25/2013 at 10:30 PM EST

From left: AshLee, Lindsay and Catherine

Kevin Foley/ABC(3)

And then there were two.

After three incredible dates in Thailand with the remaining women, The Bachelor's Sean Lowe faced a difficult decision at the end of Monday's episode: Would he send home AshLee, Catherine or Lindsay?

Keep reading to find out who got a rose – and who was left heartbroken ...

Sean said goodbye to early favorite AshLee in a surprising elimination that left her virtually speechless.

Visibly upset, AshLee left Sean's side without saying goodbye. She even asked him to not walk her to the waiting car that would take her away.

But Sean did get to explain. "I thought it was you from the very beginning," he said. "This was honestly the hardest decision I've ever had to make ... I think the world of you. I did not want to hurt you."

"This wasn't a silly game for me," AshLee said as the car drove away. "This wasn't about a joy ride. It wasn't about laughing and joking and having fun."

She added: "It's hard to say goodbye to Sean because I let him in ... It's the ultimate [rejection]."

Check back Tuesday morning for Sean Lowe's blog post to read all about his Thailand dates and why he chose to send AshLee home

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Koop, who transformed surgeon general post, dies

With his striking beard and starched uniform, former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop became one of the most recognizable figures of the Reagan era — and one of the most unexpectedly enduring.

His nomination in 1981 met a wall of opposition from women's groups and liberal politicians, who complained President Ronald Reagan selected Koop, a pediatric surgeon and evangelical Christian from Philadelphia, only because of his conservative views, especially his staunch opposition to abortion.

Soon, though, he was a hero to AIDS activists, who chanted "Koop, Koop" at his appearances but booed other officials. And when he left his post in 1989, he left behind a landscape where AIDS was a top research and educational priority, smoking was considered a public health hazard, and access to abortion remained largely intact.

Koop, who turned his once-obscure post into a bully pulpit for seven years during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and who surprised both ends of the political spectrum by setting aside his conservative personal views on issues such as homosexuality and abortion to keep his focus sharply medical, died Monday at his home in Hanover, N.H. He was 96.

An assistant at Koop's Dartmouth College institute, Susan Wills, confirmed his death but didn't disclose its cause.

Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as surgeon general a decade ago under President George W. Bush, said Koop was a mentor to him and preached the importance of staying true to the science even if it made politicians uncomfortable.

"He set the bar high for all who followed in his footsteps," Carmona said.

Although the surgeon general has no real authority to set government policy, Koop described himself as "the health conscience of the country" and said modestly just before leaving his post that "my only influence was through moral suasion."

A former pipe smoker, Koop carried out a crusade to end smoking in the United States; his goal had been to do so by 2000. He said cigarettes were as addictive as heroin and cocaine. And he shocked his conservative supporters when he endorsed condoms and sex education to stop the spread of AIDS.

Chris Collins, a vice president of amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, said many people don't realize what an important role Koop played in the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.

"At the time, he really changed the national conversation, and he showed real courage in pursuing the duties of his job," Collins said.

Even after leaving office, Koop continued to promote public health causes, from preventing childhood accidents to better training for doctors.

"I will use the written word, the spoken word and whatever I can in the electronic media to deliver health messages to this country as long as people will listen," he promised.

In 1996, he rapped Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole for suggesting that tobacco was not invariably addictive, saying Dole's comments "either exposed his abysmal lack of knowledge of nicotine addiction or his blind support of the tobacco industry."

Although Koop eventually won wide respect with his blend of old-fashioned values, pragmatism and empathy, his nomination met staunch opposition.

Foes noted that Koop traveled the country in 1979 and 1980 giving speeches that predicted a progression "from liberalized abortion to infanticide to passive euthanasia to active euthanasia, indeed to the very beginnings of the political climate that led to Auschwitz, Dachau and Belsen."

But Koop, a devout Presbyterian, was confirmed after he told a Senate panel he would not use the surgeon general's post to promote his religious ideology. He kept his word.

In 1986, he issued a frank report on AIDS, urging the use of condoms for "safe sex" and advocating sex education as early as third grade.

He also maneuvered around uncooperative Reagan administration officials in 1988 to send an educational AIDS pamphlet to more than 100 million U.S. households, the largest public health mailing ever.

Koop personally opposed homosexuality and believed sex should be saved for marriage. But he insisted that Americans, especially young people, must not die because they were deprived of explicit information about how HIV was transmitted.

Koop further angered conservatives by refusing to issue a report requested by the Reagan White House, saying he could not find enough scientific evidence to determine whether abortion has harmful psychological effects on women.

Koop maintained his personal opposition to abortion, however. After he left office, he told medical students it violated their Hippocratic oath. In 2009, he wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, urging that health care legislation include a provision to ensure doctors and medical students would not be forced to perform abortions. The letter briefly set off a security scare because it was hand delivered.

Koop served as chairman of the National Safe Kids Campaign and as an adviser to President Bill Clinton's health care reform plan.

At a congressional hearing in 2007, Koop spoke about political pressure on the surgeon general post. He said Reagan was pressed to fire him every day, but Reagan would not interfere.

Koop, worried that medicine had lost old-fashioned caring and personal relationships between doctors and patients, opened his institute at Dartmouth to teach medical students basic values and ethics. He also was a part-owner of a short-lived venture, drkoop.com, to provide consumer health care information via the Internet.

Koop was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, the only son of a Manhattan banker and the nephew of a doctor. He said by age 5 he knew he wanted to be a surgeon and at age 13 he practiced his skills on neighborhood cats.

He attended Dartmouth, where he received the nickname Chick, short for "chicken Koop." It stuck for life.

Koop received his medical degree at Cornell Medical College, choosing pediatric surgery because so few surgeons practiced it.

In 1938, he married Elizabeth Flanagan, the daughter of a Connecticut doctor. They had four children, one of whom died in a mountain climbing accident when he was 20.

Koop was appointed surgeon-in-chief at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia and served as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

He pioneered surgery on newborns and successfully separated three sets of conjoined twins. He won national acclaim by reconstructing the chest of a baby born with the heart outside the body.

Although raised as a Baptist, he was drawn to a Presbyterian church near the hospital, where he developed an abiding faith. He began praying at the bedside of his young patients — ignoring the snickers of some of his colleagues.

Koop's wife died in 2007, and he married Cora Hogue in 2010.

He was by far the best-known surgeon general and for decades afterward was still a recognized personality.

"I was walking down the street with him one time" about five years ago, recalled Dr. George Wohlreich, director of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, a medical society with which Koop had longstanding ties. "People were yelling out, 'There goes Dr. Koop!' You'd have thought he was a rock star."

___

Ring reported from Montpelier, Vt. Cass reported from Washington. AP Medical Writers Lauran Neergaard in Washington and Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.

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Former Cudahy councilman gets 3 years in extortion case

A former Cudahy councilman was sentenced Monday to three years in federal prison for his role in an extortion and bribery case that authorities say exposed widespread corruption in the southeast Los Angeles County city.

Osvaldo Conde is the last of three officials to be sentenced in the federal case. U.S. Atty. Joseph Akrotirianakis recommended that Conde receive seven years in prison.

"We sought a higher sentence for him because he was the leader of the criminal activity in which all defendants were involved," Akrotirianakis said.

But as in the cases of two other Cudahy officials, U.S. District Judge Manuel Real ignored the federal prosecutor's sentencing recommendations.

Last month, former Mayor David Silva, 62, was sentenced to one year in prison, far less than the 41-month term federal prosecutors recommended. Angel Perales, Cudahy's former head of code enforcement and acting city manager, was sentenced to five years' probation. Akrotirianakis had recommended that Perales serve two years in prison.

"I would have liked Mr. Conde to get less time, but I'm relieved that the court didn't follow the government's sentencing," said Conde's attorney, George Bird. "It's neither a celebration nor the end of the world."

Like Silva and Perales, Conde is also required to pay restitution for his part in taking $17,000 in bribes from a man who wanted to open a medical marijuana dispensary in the city.

According to federal documents, all three were caught agreeing to take the money from an FBI informant claiming to want to open a medical marijuana dispensary. The FBI recorded telephone calls and face-to-face conversations with the former city officials.

In their plea agreements, the three portrayed Cudahy as a town where corruption was rampant among those wanting to do business with the city, where elections were rigged and where drugs were used at City Hall.

Court documents lay out a long list of people, usually identified only by their initials, involved in questionable acts. Akrotirianakis said the investigation is ongoing.

ruben.vives@latimes.com

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India Ink: A Conversation With: Author and Mathematician Manil Suri

The Indian-American author Manil Suri made a splashy entry into the world of writing in 2001 with “The Death of Vishnu,” which became a best seller and was a finalist for the prestigious PEN/Faulkner award. “The Age of Shiva” followed seven years later. This month, the 53-year-old mathematics professor, who teaches at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, released “The City of Devi,” the final part of a trilogy linked to Hindu gods.

The story is set in a fictional present-day Mumbai, which is in complete disarray because of the threat of a nuclear attack from Pakistan. Residents are leaving the city in droves and police officers are beating people suspected of being Muslims. In the middle of this chaos is Sarita, a recent statistics graduate on a hunt to find her husband, Karun, who disappeared from their apartment.

During her journey, she meets an enigmatic man named Jaz who, unbeknownst to her, is her husband’s former lover. The fast-paced novel cuts between Karun and Sarita’s past lives and the present.

Mr. Suri, who was raised in Mumbai, was in New York City recently to promote the book. He spoke with India Ink about his Kemps Corner upbringing, his slow writing process and his latest work.

What was the inspiration for “The City of Devi”?

It came from the idea of thinking about people who are desperate and willing to take risks to recover a love of theirs as the world might come to an end.

The novel has rich descriptions of the city. How much time did you spend there researching it?

Since I left Bombay, I go back once or twice a year for a few weeks. This book has been in the making for 12 years so I have researched a little bit on each trip.

Tell us about your Mumbai upbringing.

I grew up Kemps Corner and lived in an old crumbling building. I am an only child, and since we were a middle-class family, my parents and I rented one room in a four-bedroom flat which wasn’t so nice. The other three bedrooms were rented by Muslims, and we all shared a toilet and kitchen. I went to Campion school and was around a lot of rich kids so I used to spend a lot of time on my own studying, painting and writing.

You have significant gaps between your books – seven years from the first to the second, and five years for this one. Why did you wait so long between books?

Well, for starters, I am a slow writer. The first book took me five years to write, and the second book took seven years. It was difficult the second time because there was this expectation of following up from the first book, and the pressure was intense. This third book was most difficult in terms of getting the plot strands to behave. I literally drew diagrams plotting the characters and their paths, and I nearly gave up on it twice.

Being a math professor and writer seem like opposite fields. Did both always interest you?

I was always interested in both, but when I was growing up, I was pushed more toward sciences and math. I ended up going into math but used to write as a hobby.

Have you ever contemplated giving up your math career to be a full-time novelist?

I tussled with the idea after the first book and even took time off from teaching just to write but found it wasn’t a good choice for me. I didn’t like being alone all the time, and I missed the math — there was a muscle in the brain that wasn’t exercised enough just by writing.

Like the character Jaz in the book, you’re openly gay. Has that always been the case?

My coming out was around the early 1980s. I came to this country and wasn’t sure if I was or wasn’t but started exploring that side of me.

How did your family take it when you told them?

I came out to my mother first, and she took it fairly well. She has a master’s in psychology so she might have had inklings of it. She has since come and stayed with me and my partner and treats him like a son. She even calls him beta.

What’s your feeling on how the acceptance of homosexuality has evolved in India?

I can’t speak for the villages, but I think the environment has changed when it comes to English-speaking middle-class and upper middle-class people living in cities. I don’t think Mumbai was homophobic when I was growing up. I just think that homosexuality wasn’t talked about, which isn’t the case today.

I was just in India promoting this book, and when I went to Kolkata, I was told not to read out loud the homosexual scenes because it is such a conservative city, and, of course, that’s exactly what I did. No one fainted or walked out, so it turned out okay. I read the same scenes in every city I visited, and the audience was fine with it.

This book is part of a trilogy named after Hindu gods. Now that it’s done, what’s next for you?

My next challenge is to combine math and writing by writing a novel about math. I also have some guilt that I cheated Brahma out of his book by naming this one after the mother goddess so I might write a book named after him.

(The interview has been lightly edited and condensed.)

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This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 25, 2013

An earlier version of the post misstated that Malin Suri is a professor at the University of Maryland. He teaches at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

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Relive the Best One-Liners and Tweets from the Oscars!

02/25/2013 at 12:00 AM EST

Jennifer Lawrence tumbled – to a standing ovation. Ben Affleck tearfully won Best Picure for Argo. And you all loved – or loved to hate – Oscar host Seth MacFarlane.

Yep, the Oscars are over, but it doesn't mean we're done talking about it! You can relive the best of the night! Check out what celebs, readers (and you!) had to say about the musical numbers, speeches – and a certain reigning Sexiest Man Alive! – on Twitter last night.

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FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.

The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent dose of anti-tumor poison.

Cancer researchers say the drug is an important step forward because it delivers more medication while reducing the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy.

"This antibody goes seeking out the tumor cells, gets internalized and then explodes them from within. So it's very kind and gentle on the patients — there's no hair loss, no nausea, no vomiting," said Dr. Melody Cobleigh of Rush University Medical Center. "It's a revolutionary way of treating cancer."

Cobleigh helped conduct the key studies of the drug at the Chicago facility.

The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients with a form of the disease that is typically more aggressive and less responsive to hormone therapy. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2. Breast cancer is the second most deadly form of cancer in U.S. women, and is expected to kill more than 39,000 Americans this year, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The approval will help Roche's Genentech unit build on the blockbuster success of Herceptin, which has long dominated the breast cancer marketplace. The drug had sales of roughly $6 billion last year.

Genentech said Friday that Kadcyla will cost $9,800 per month, compared to $4,500 per month for regular Herceptin. The company estimates a full course of Kadcyla, about nine months of medicine, will cost $94,000.

FDA scientists said they approved the drug based on company studies showing Kadcyla delayed the progression of breast cancer by several months. Researchers reported last year that patients treated with the drug lived 9.6 months before death or the spread of their disease, compared with a little more than six months for patients treated with two other standard drugs, Tykerb and Xeloda.

Overall, patients taking Kadcyla lived about 2.6 years, compared with 2 years for patients taking the other drugs.

FDA specifically approved the drug for patients with advanced breast cancer who have already been treated with Herceptin and taxane, a widely used chemotherapy drug. Doctors are not required to follow FDA prescribing guidelines, and cancer researchers say the drug could have great potential in patients with earlier forms of breast cancer

Kadcyla will carry a boxed warning, the most severe type, alerting doctors and patients that the drug can cause liver toxicity, heart problems and potentially death. The drug can also cause severe birth defects and should not be used by pregnant women.

Kadcyla was developed by South San Francisco-based Genentech using drug-binding technology licensed from Waltham, Mass.-based ImmunoGen. The company developed the chemical that keeps the drug cocktail together and is scheduled to receive a $10.5 million payment from Genentech on the FDA decision. The company will also receive additional royalties on the drug's sales.

Shares of ImmunoGen Inc. rose 2 cents to $14.32 in afternoon trading. The stock has ttraded in a 52-wek range of $10.85 to $18.10.

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Mahony answers questions under oath about clergy sex abuse cases

A "relatively unflappable" Cardinal Roger Mahony answered questions under oath for more than 3 1/2 hours Saturday about his handling of clergy sex abuse cases, according to the lawyer who questioned the former archbishop.

"He remained calm and seemingly collected at all times," said attorney Anthony De Marco, who represents a man suing the Los Angeles Archdiocese over abuse he alleges he suffered at the hands of a priest who visited his parish in 1987.

Mahony has been deposed many times in the past, but Saturday's session was the first time he had been asked about recently released internal church records that show he shielded abusers from law enforcement.

De Marco declined to detail the questions he asked or the answers the cardinal provided, citing a judge's protective order.

The deposition occurred just before Mahony was to board a plane for Italy to vote in the conclave that will elect the next pope. In a Twitter post Friday, Mahony wrote that it was "just a few short hours before my departure for Rome."

Church officials did not return requests for comment.

The case, set for trial in April, concerns a Mexican priest, Nicholas Aguilar Rivera. Authorities believe he molested at least 26 children during a nine-month stay in Los Angeles.

Recently released church files show Aguilar Rivera fled to Mexico after a top Mahony aide, Thomas Curry, warned him that parents were likely to go the police and that he was in "a good deal of danger." Aguilar Rivera remains a fugitive in Mexico.

The archdiocese had agreed that Mahony could be questioned for four hours about the Aguilar Rivera case and 25 other priests accused in the same period. De Marco said he did not get to ask everything he wanted and would seek additional time after the cardinal returned from the Vatican.

Past depositions of Mahony have eventually become public, and De Marco said he would follow court procedures to seek the release of a transcript of Saturday's deposition.

Meanwhile, a Catholic organization Saturday delivered a petition with thousands of signatures asking that Mahony recuse himself from the conclave in Rome.

The group, Catholics United, collected nearly 10,000 signatures making "a simple request" that the former archbishop of Los Angeles not participate in the process because of the priest abuse scandals that happened under his watch, said Chris Pumpelly, communications director for Catholics United.

The petition was delivered Saturday to St. Charles Borromeo in North Hollywood, where the cardinal resides. It was accepted by a church staff member.

After delivering the petition, organizers attended Mass at the parish to pray for healing and for the future of the church.

harriet.ryan@latimes.com

Times staff writer Rick Rojas contributed to this report.

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Insurgents Launch 4 Attacks in Afghanistan

KABUL — Afghan intelligence agents on Sunday shot and killed a man in a sport utility vehicle that officials said had been packed with explosives, foiling what they described as an attempt to set off a massive explosion in a neighborhood of narrow streets lined with foreign embassies.

At about the same time, Taliban suicide attackers set off three separate car bombs in two provinces near the capital. But the bombs did minimal damage,  officials said, and the toll from the Sunday violence was low. In addition to the two attackers and the suspect, two security guards and a police officer were also killed and five other people wounded, including one attacker who managed to flee.

A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, said the insurgents were behind the three successful bombings. But he disavowed knowledge of the attempt in Kabul, saying Taliban commanders in the city had no plans for an attack on Sunday.

While it is not unusual for the Taliban to deny having a hand in a failed attack, much about the attempted bombing Sunday remained murky, with officials hailing Afghan security forces for acting quickly but offering only the barest details about how the man identified as a bomber was spotted.

The police chief of Kabul, Gen. Mohammed Ayoub Salangi, said the suspect was in a Toyota sport utility vehicle and was trying to pass through a checkpoint when he was recognized by agents from the country’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security.

The man “was gunned down,” General Salangi said. The agents had to act quickly, he added, saying that there was no time to inspect the vehicle or question the suspect because that would have given him the chance to detonate the explosives.

General Salangi, who in an earlier statement said there were two men in the car, did not say how or why the agents recognized the man. But he added that the car bomb was quickly defused and carted away.

The bombing attempt, in the Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood, led some embassies to did briefly lock down the streets on which they are located and on which they control security. The spot where the man was shot were was less than a mile from the United States Embassy and the headquarters of the American-led coalition, neither of which offered any comment.

Earlier in the day, in Jalalabad, a city in eastern Afghanistan, a single bomber in a Toyota Corolla directly targeted the Security Directorate, officials said, detonating his explosive-laden vehicle outside a building used by the intelligence agency. Two guards were killed and a third was wounded, said Hazrat Mohammad Mashraqiwal, a police spokesman in Jalalabad.

Later on Sunday, two people in another car laden with explosives tried to enter the district governor’s compound in Baraki Barak district of Logar Province, south of Kabul. But they were stopped by police officers guarding the compound, prompting one man to jump and make a run for it and the other to set off the car bomb, said Abdul Rahim Amin, the governor.

One police officer was wounded in the attack, along with the man who fled.

Earlier in Logar, around dawn, a minivan packed with explosives was set off at a police post near the provincial capital, Pul-e-Alam. One officer was killed and two others wounded, an official said.

Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting.

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