KABUL – Thousands of U.S. Marines and hundreds of Afghan troops moved into Taliban-infested villages of southern Afghanistan with armor and helicopters Thursday in the first major operation under President Barack Obama's strategy to stabilize the country.

The offensive in the once-forgotten war was launched shortly after 1 a.m. Thursday local time in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold in the southern part of the country and the world's largest opium poppy producing area.

The goal is to clear insurgents from the hotly contested Helmand River Valley before the nation's Aug. 20 presidential election.

Dubbed Operation Khanjar, or "Strike of the Sword," the military push was described by officials as the largest and fastest-moving of the war's new phase, involving nearly 4,000 of the newly arrived Marines and 650 Afghan forces. British forces last week led similar, but smaller, missions to fight and clear out insurgents in Helmand and neighboring Kandahar provinces.

CARACAS, Venezuela — From the moment the coup in Honduras unfolded over the weekend, President Hugo Chávez had his playbook ready. He said Washington’s hands may have been all over the ouster, claiming that it financed President Manuel Zelaya’s opponents and insinuating that the C.I.A. may have led a campaign to bolster the putschists.

But President Obama firmly condemned the coup, defusing Mr. Chávez’s charges. Instead of engaging in tit-for-tat accusations, Mr. Obama calmly described the coup as “illegal” and called for Mr. Zelaya’s return to office. While Mr. Chávez continued to portray Washington as the coup’s possible orchestrator, others in Latin America failed to see it that way.

“Obama Leads the Reaction to the Coup in Honduras,” read the front-page headline on Tuesday in Estado de São Paulo, one of the most influential newspapers in Brazil, whose ties to Washington are warm.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Minnesota Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered that Democrat Al Franken be certified as the winner of the state's long-running Senate race. The high court rejected a legal challenge from Republican Norm Coleman, whose options for regaining the Senate seat are dwindling.

Justices said Franken is entitled to the election certificate he needs to assume office. With Franken and the usual backing of two independents, Democrats will have a big enough majority to overcome Republican filibusters.

Coleman hasn't ruled out seeking federal court intervention.

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said the earliest Franken would be seated is next week because the Senate is out of session for the July 4 holiday.

Franken, a former Saturday Night Live star making the leap from life as a left-wing author and radio talker to the Senate, planned a news conference later Tuesday and didn't immediately comment.

Coleman's campaign didn't immediately return a call for comment. Nor did Gov. Tim Pawlenty, whose signature is required on the election certificate Franken needs to be seated.

NEW YORK – Convicted Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison Monday for a fraud that the judge called so "extraordinarily evil" that he needed to send a message to potential copycats and to victims who demanded harsh punishment.

Scattered applause and whoops broke out in the crowded Manhattan courtroom after U.S. District Judge Denny Chin issued the maximum sentence to the 71-year-old defendant, who said he lives "in a tormented state now, knowing all the pain and suffering I've created."

Chin rejected a request by Madoff's lawyer for leniency and said he disagreed that victims of the Ponzi scheme were seeking mob vengeance. Unless he later wins a reduced sentence, Madoff will spend the rest of his life behind bars because federal inmates are not eligible for parole.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – U.S. troops pulled out of Baghdad on Monday, triggering jubilation among Iraqis hopeful that foreign military occupation is ending six years after the invasion to depose Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi soldiers paraded through the streets in their American-made vehicles draped with Iraqi flags and flowers, chanting, dancing and calling the pullout a "victory."

One drove a motorcycle with party streamers on it; another, a Humvee with a garland of plastic roses on the grill.

U.S. combat troops must pull out of Iraq's urban centers by midnight on Tuesday under a bilateral security pact that also requires all troops to leave the country by 2012.

All had left the capital by Monday afternoon, Major-General in Staff, Abboud Qanbar, head of Iraqi security forces in Baghdad, told Reuters.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Honduras' newly appointed leader vowed Monday to resist pressure from across the Americas to reinstate the president ousted in a military coup, as protesters burned tires outside the occupied presidential palace.

Leaders from Hugo Chavez to Barack Obama called for the reinstatement of Manuel Zelaya, who was arrested in his pajamas Sunday morning by soldiers who stormed his residence and flew him into exile. Eight leftist countries pulled their ambassadors from Honduras.

Roberto Micheletti, appointed president by Congress, insisted that Zelaya was legally removed by the courts and Congress for violating Honduras' constitution — allegedly to extend his rule.

Zelaya's ouster was Central America's first coup in at least 16 years, a blow from the barracks that reminded many of the military dictatorships the region has tried to bury in its past.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Early election results showed Argentina's first couple in a close fight for their political survival in elections that threatened to erode President Cristina Fernandez's congressional majorities and seal the fate of one of the country's biggest political dynasties.

Even the popular former President Nestor Kirchner — Fernandez's husband and predecessor — was trailing late Sunday in his bid for a seat from Buenos Aires province.

With 21 percent of the vote counted, Kirchner had just 31.9 percent to 35.1 percent for Francisco De Narvaez of the Union Pro alliance, a charismatic millionaire and sitting congressman who forms part of an anti-Fernandez Peronist faction that has been growing in the legislature.

Fernandez- and Kirchner-allied candidates were also behind in key races in the city of Buenos Aires and Cordoba and Santa Fe provinces.

"With these results ... the ruling party would lose control of the Chamber of Deputies, and the Senate is also at risk," analyst Rosendo Fraga told news channel Todo Noticias.

Allies of Fernandez and Kirchner have controlled the Congress for six years, but analysts expected them to lose two dozen seats in both chambers, hurting their ability to push through legislation and damaging their brand as their Peronist party seeks direction ahead of 2011's presidential race.