Now the museum is slowly coming back to life, helped by millions of dollars in U.S. and other foreign aid. Every day 300 to 400 visitors a day come to see the collections of sculptures, jewelry, coins and other artifacts dating from the Stone Age through the 20th century.

A new exhibit, "The 1,000 cities of Bactria," focuses on a northern region of Afghanistan that accumulated great wealth, thanks to its location along the Silk Road and several other important trade routes from China and India.

But the exhibit won't include any of the legendary "Bactrian gold," a collection of tens of thousands of gold and silver coins, crowns and jewelry more than 2,000 years old because the museum lacks the security measures to keep it safe. Instead the collection travels the world, already displayed at the British Museum in London, the National Gallery of Art in Washington and other institutions. It is now at the Melbourne Museum in Australia.

"There were a lot of problems, but year by year we're trying to solve these," director Omra Khan Masoudi said on a tour of the museum on Friday. "Now it's starting to look like a museum."

The two-floor museum is across the street from Kabul's famous Darul Aman Palace, which still lies in ruins from fierce fighting in the area in the early 1990s during the civil war. The museum was also badly damaged in the fighting, and in the chaos some 70 percent of its collection about 70,000 pieces was lost to looting.

With the help of foreign governments, some 9,000 of those artifacts have been recovered so far from the U.S., Britain, Germany and elsewhere.

Despite the losses, the collection is still impressive.

At the front door, a second century limestone statue of a Kushan Empire prince greets visitors missing its head from devastation wrought under the Taliban in 2001 when they embarked on a campaign to destroy pre-Islamic art.

Five wooden sculptures from Nuristan dating to the 18th century, each about two meters (five to six feet) tall, loom over the end of the museum's great hall, and a special exhibit on Buddhism in Afghanistan contains some of the first examples of sculptures depicting Buddha.

"I believe the National Museum of Afghanistan can be one of the richest museums in the region, or in the world," Masoudi said.

Some $3 million from the Afghan government and another $5 million from the U.S. Embassy, as well as donations from Italy, Japan and the Netherlands, have helped bring the museum to the state it is in today.

Another $3 million project funded by the U.S. State Department involves experts from the University of Chicago helping to catalog and document all of the museum's inventory, after some 90 percent of object records were lost during the years of turmoil.

But restoration can only go so far. Frequent power cuts, issues with heating and lighting and above all else insufficient security mean the museum needs a new building, Masoudi said.

Plans are already drawn up, and the museum is planning on embarking next year on a capital campaign to raise the $30 million needed for the construction.

That's why the Bactrian gold, which had been hidden and thought lost until resurfacing in 2003, is currently more valuable abroad than at home, because it raises interest in the museum.

"This exhibits shows the other face of Afghanistan," Masoudi said. "It is an ancient civilization with its own unique art it opens a window for us to the other nations."

ROME (Reuters) - Pope Francis made it clear on Thursday that he would personally oversee reform of the troubled Vatican bank by attending the first meeting of an investigative commission he set up last month to shed light on its murky financial dealings.

"Francis wanted to be present to encourage the work of the commission," the Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano said, adding that the meeting had taken place a day earlier.

The bank's German chairman, Ernst von Freyberg, also attended along with prelate Monsignor Battista Ricca, who was appointed last month as an intermediary between the bank and the Vatican, the paper said.

The problems of the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), as the bank is formally known, have multiplied even in the short time since the pope created the commission on June 26.

Two days after the investigative body was set up, a senior Catholic cleric with connections to the bank was arrested for plotting to help rich friends smuggle 20 million euros ($26 million) in cash into Italy from Switzerland.

A few days later, two of IOR's top managers resigned amid a money laundering investigation.

Though recently new scandals have emerged, the bank has been known for opaque and secretive dealings for decades, most notably 31 years ago when it was enmeshed in the bankruptcy of Banco Ambrosiano, then Italy's biggest private bank.

Banco Ambrosiano's chairman, Roberto Calvi, was found hanging from London's Blackfriars Bridge in June 1982. Though initially ruled a suicide by British investigators, an Italian court subsequently determined he had been murdered. No one has ever been convicted of the crime.

"Unfortunately there have been problems in the past, and even today there is no shortage of headaches," Brazilian Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer said on Thursday in an interview with il Messaggero newspaper.

"Angels do not always work in these institutions. Temptation sometimes leads them to wrongdoing."

The five-member commission, which reports directly to the pontiff, includes four prelates and a female Harvard law professor.

It has powers to obtain all the documentation and data it asks for, bypassing the Vatican's usual rules that oblige officials to respect the secrecy of their office.

(Editing by Michael Roddy)

CHICAGO (AP) -- Federal officials could end up overseeing the new Illinois health insurance marketplace for years to come after lawmakers in Springfield balked again at a full embrace of President Barack Obama's health care law.

The Legislature adjourned Friday without sending Gov. Pat Quinn's a bill on a state-run marketplace a consumer-friendly online shopping site for insurance. Quinn has pushed such a plan for three years without success.

Although the state will partner with Washington the first year, the Democratic governor had hoped Illinois could take the reins in 2014 for coverage starting in 2015. That timetable now seems highly unlikely unless lawmakers pass legislation when they convene for the abbreviated veto session this fall.

Jim Duffett of the Campaign for Better Health Care, an Illinois group that supports the health care law, predicts that if lawmakers don't approve a state-run marketplace then, there won't be one in Illinois for at least five years.

State senators approved the bill along party lines, but the full House never voted on it before last Friday's adjournment. A spokesman for House Speaker Mike Madigan noted the bill "didn't have much bipartisan support" in the Senate and would have had "tough sledding" in the House.

It was one more case of Obama's home state lagging behind some other Democrat-controlled states in implementing the president's signature domestic achievement.

The marketplace, as envisioned in the Affordable Care Act, is intended to be an online site where people can comparison shop for health insurance plans, just as they now shop for airline tickets on the Web. Most people buying insurance through the marketplace will get financial assistance to help them pay for insurance.

In Illinois, that will be true whether the marketplace is run by the federal government, as it will be this year, or by an Illinois governing board as Quinn wants for next year. Supporters of an Illinois-run marketplace say the benefit would be keeping state officials not Washington clearly overseeing the system and the insurance industry.

The marketplace will open for business Oct. 1 in Illinois, as scheduled. Illinois officials are reviewing 165 health policies that six different insurance carriers want to offer on the site. The marketplace will be run substantially by the federal government.

Sonya Schwartz of the National Academy for State Health Policy, which has been tracking states' progress on Obama's health law, said legislative approval in the fall is essential for Quinn to achieve his timetable. There's a Dec. 16, 2013, federal deadline for states to submit their plans to Washington if they hope to run a state-based marketplace for insurance coverage in 2015.

Even so, Schwartz said, the timeline would be demanding, but "you never know."

The bill's main Senate sponsor was Sen. Dave Koehler, a Peoria Democrat. Koehler said he's working with others to convince more House members to pass a state-run marketplace, also known as a health insurance exchange, in the fall.

"If we want to control the destiny for Illinois we need to have a state-based exchange," Koehler said.

Quinn spokesman Mike Claffey said the governor's office will work with Koehler and others "to craft legislation that can pass both houses of the General Assembly later this year. The fall veto session is Oct. 22-24 and Nov. 5-7, so there is an opportunity to pass legislation in the fall."

Consumer advocates, who want a state-run marketplace, are pessimistic.

"The picture looks really bleak for a state-based exchange in 2015," said Brian Imus of Illinois Public Interest Research Group. "There's going to have be leadership from Speaker Madigan to make it happen and a willingness from legislators to stand up to the insurance industry."

Madigan spokesman Steve Brown said it's not a question of the speaker's leadership.

"People, when they fail to accomplish something, tend to blame someone like Mike Madigan," Brown said. "I don't recall the bill's sponsors pushing for a vote" in the House, he added. The bill didn't have bipartisan support in the Senate, Brown said, and "it probably would have been tough sledding if it had been called" in the House.

The Illinois Legislature did pass another key element of the law: an expansion of Medicaid to cover most low-income adults without children at home. A U.S. Supreme Court decision last year made the Medicaid expansion optional for states. In Illinois, the Senate voted along strict partisan lines to expand Medicaid. In the House, some Democrats voted "no" on Medicaid expansion, although the measure passed.

"Medicaid expansion was the first big thing that needed to happen," Duffett said. "I can only speculate that Madigan did not want House members to take a second vote on Obamacare."

The Affordable Care Act calls for almost all Americans to have health insurance beginning in 2014 or pay a penalty. Starting in 2014, insurance companies will no longer be able to turn away people with a history of medical problems, or charge them more.

Nearly 1.8 million Illinois residents are uninsured. An estimated 486,000 Illinois residents will get coverage from commercial insurers through the marketplace in 2014. That figure is expected to reach 1 million customers by 2016.

___

AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/CarlaKJohnson

D.C. police spokesman Araz Alali says Lefeged was a passenger in a car that fled from police after a traffic stop for speeding early Saturday.

Court records show police smelled marijuana in the car and found a container of alcohol and semi-automatic pistol underneath the front passenger seat.

Lefeged and another passenger face charges including carrying a pistol without a license and possession of an unregistered firearm and ammunition. Alali says the driver fled.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.

Lefeged, who grew up outside Washington, is entering his third NFL season.

The team says it's aware of reports of the arrest but won't comment until it has more information.

(Reuters) - The city of Detroit filed a lawsuit against bond insurer Syncora Guarantee Inc claiming the company blocked an agreement the city hopes to conclude with major creditors involving revenue from the city's three casinos.

The suit filed on Friday by Detroit's state-appointed emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, focuses on the city's estimated $15 million a month casino tax revenue. The city maintains Syncora told U.S. Bank, which controls the casino funds that were used as collateral in a deal with creditors, not to give up to $11 million a month to Detroit.

The city said those funds were part of ongoing discussions with creditors UBS AG and Bank of America Merrill Lynch and sought to have the funds released.

"Syncora has asserted rights it does not have over collateral it does not need for the purpose of holding the City hostage for ransom," said the lawsuit, filed at the Circuit Court for Wayne County.

Fred Hnat, a managing director at Syncora, said the bond insurer would have "no comment at this time."

The Wall Street Journal cited sources familiar with the matter as saying the city believed Syncora was standing in the way of a deal in which the creditors would get more than 70 cents on the dollar on nearly $340 million in secured debt. In return, Detroit would receive $11 million a month in tax revenue from its three casinos, funds that were used as collateral to back the debt.

"Syncora was interfering with the city's ability to restructure," emergency manager Orr told Reuters.

In the lawsuit, the city said the $11 million would be sufficient to "fund the wages and salary of City fire fighters for two months, or of City police officers for one month."

Detroit has some $18.5 billion in long-term debt and Orr was appointed by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder to fix the city's financial crisis. Orr has sweeping powers and is trying to conclude deals with creditors to avoid bankruptcy.

In a news release, the city said at a hearing on Friday afternoon that Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Annette Berry "granted the city's request for a temporary restraining order" and asked U.S. Bank to release the funds to the city. Berry set a hearing for July 26 before Judge Jeanne Stempien where Syncora "must show cause why further preliminary injunction should be granted."

The Wayne County clerk could not be reached for comment.

(Writing by Nick Carey. Editing by Andre Grenon)

The year-on-year rate of inflation fell to 7.6 percent from 8.3 percent in May, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said, and has now fallen in the last 16 of 17 months. In the month of December 2012 it was unchanged.

Consumer prices or headline inflation in east Africa's second biggest economy fell 0.5 percent during the month of June compared with a 0.6 percent drop in May.

"The decrease of the annual headline inflation rate for the month of June 2013 explains that the speed of price increase for commodities in June 2013 has decreased compared to the speed recorded in May 2013," said the state-run NBS in a statement.

Food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation rate fell to 7.6 percent in June 2013 from 8.0 percent in May 2013.

The annual inflation rate for energy declined to 14.8 percent in June 2013 compared to 20.1 percent in May 2013.

The Canucks will become the first NHL team to host a game in a retractable-roof facility and just the third Canadian NHL team to stage a regular-season game outdoors, following the Edmonton Oilers in 2003 and Calgary Flames in 2011.

The site, BC Place, was also the venue used for the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, marking the first time the opening of a Winter Games had been staged indoors.

"With one of the world's great facilities as the setting, and one of the world's most scenic cities as the backdrop, the 2014 NHL Heritage Classic at BC Place in Vancouver will honor hockey's Canadian heritage," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in a statement. "With the excitement, the entertainment, the competitiveness and the fun of this game, the Canucks and Senators will create special memories for hockey fans everywhere."

Following a bitter lockout that cut the NHL to just 48 games last season the league is betting on the outdoor series to help bring back fans and attract new ones.

The Vancouver game is the latest addition to the NHL's outdoor extravaganza, which will kick off on New Year's Day with the Winter Classic between the Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs.

The game, played at Michigan Stadium known as the 'Big House', is expected to attract a record NHL crowd of close to 110,000.

The Winter Classic, which was scrapped last year due to of the lockout, will be followed by what is being promoted as a four-game Stadium Series that kicks off on January 25 in sunny Los Angeles with the Kings hosting the Anaheim Ducks at Dodger Stadium, home of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The series will also include two games at Yankee Stadium with the New York Rangers facing off against the New Jersey Devils on January 26 and the New York Islanders on January 29 in the first hockey games to be played at the iconic Major League Baseball stadium.

The series concludes March 1 when the Chicago Blackhawks host the Pittsburgh Penguins at Soldier Field, home of the National Football League's Chicago Bears, followed by the Canucks and Senators on March 2.

The NHL has marketed the outdoor games with great success trading on the romanticism of the sport's outdoor roots.

The 2014 matchup between Vancouver and Ottawa recalls and celebrates some of the earliest history of the Stanley Cup.

In 1915, the Vancouver Millionaires, the first professional hockey team on the West Coast, were crowned champions of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association.

At the same time, in the rival league from the East, the National Hockey Association, which two years later became the National Hockey League, the Ottawa Senators were skating to a league title.

The two leagues had agreed to play a series between the champions of each league with the Stanley Cup, which was established in 1893, awarded to the victor.

The Millionaires swept a best-of-five series to claim the 1915 Stanley Cup championship.

(Reporting by Steve Keating in Toronto)

A pre-owned 'On Field' NFL jersey bearing Hernandez's old number 81 was on offer on Tuesday for $2,000 on eBay, while an autographed Hernandez number 81 jersey sold for $1,525 earlier this week, according to eBay's auction history.

A similar autographed shirt went for $159 in April.

Hernandez, 23, was arrested at his house in North Attleborough, Massachusetts on June 26 and charged in the shooting death of semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd, who prosecutors say had angered Hernandez in a bar a few days before the alleged murder.

Prosecutors said Hernandez shot Lloyd five times, including twice while he was lying on the ground.

Hernandez has pleaded not guilty.

The Patriots cut Hernandez from the team within hours of his arrest and the team later offered to allow fans seeking to distance themselves from him to exchange their official Hernandez jerseys for new Patriots jerseys of similar value.

Those who took that offer may now be regretting it. One new unautographed Hernandez jersey was on sale for $1,200 on eBay.

Other Hernandez paraphernalia is running hot at auction too. An autographed football, signed photograph, or player card will run a buyer about $500 on eBay.

"This card is worth some serious money now," one seller said of his 2012 Topps Inception Hernandez player card. (Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by David Gregorio)

BOSTON (Reuters) - The murder and racketeering trial of mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger took a macabre turn on Wednesday, as jurors heard from a witness who described gruesome details of the exhumed bodies of three of the gang's victims from a Boston field.

Referring to photos of remains shown in court, forensic anthropologist Ann Marie Mires explained how investigators used earth-moving machines, hand trowels and brushes to dig out leg and foot bones buried 7 to 8 feet deep in the ground.

A day earlier, former Bulger associate Kevin Weeks recalled first burying three bodies in the dirt-floored basement of a house in South Boston in the early 1980s, and later digging them up to move them to the Dorchester field when the house was put up for sale.

Among the victims was 26-year-old Deborah Hussey, the stepdaughter of Bulger associate Steven "The Rifleman" Flemmi. Investigators, led to the grave in January 2000 by Weeks, found leg bones, ribs and pelvises - suggesting at least two people were buried - as well as black plastic bags that may have been used to move the bodies, Mires said.

In her testimony on the exhumations, Mires said teeth had been pulled from the skulls exhumed from the grave. A day earlier, Weeks had testified that Flemmi removed the gang's victims' teeth, a move intended to make the bodies harder to identify.

"There's extensive damage on the mandible," Mires said, in reference to a photo of a skull tagged with Hussey's name.

Holding a plastic skull for demonstration purposes, Mires described a "zone of destruction" she found at the base of the skull of another victim, Arthur "Bucky" Barrett.

"As (the bullet) went through, it blew this bone apart," she said, referring to the lower jaw. The damage was consistent with a gunshot to the back of the head, she added, a method of death consistent with the testimony of prior witnesses who have given details during the five-week trial of the crimes Bulger is accused of committing.

Bulger, who spent 16 years evading arrest before authorities caught up with him in a seaside apartment in California, is on trial for charges including 19 murders he is accused of committing or ordering in the 1970s and 1980s, while he ran Boston's feared "Winter Hill" gang.

Bulger, who was on the FBI's "Most Wanted" list for much of his time on the run, has entered a not guilty plea to all charges, though his attorney has described the 83-year-old defendant as an "organized criminal" involved in extortion, loan sharking and drug dealing.

Bulger's story inspired Martin Scorsese's 2006 Academy Award-winning film, "The Departed", in which Jack Nicholson played a character loosely based on Bulger.

Bulger's defense has focused much of its effort on denying the government's claim that he was an FBI informant. Through his attorneys, Bulger contends that he paid corrupt FBI agent John Connolly for information, but provided none of his own. Connolly is now serving a 40-year sentence on murder and racketeering charges. Bulger fled Boston after a 1994 tip from Connolly.

(Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Paul Thomasch, Bernadette Baum and Bernard Orr)

The Mortgage Bankers Association said interest rates on fixed 30-year mortgage rates surged 12 basis points to average 3.90 percent in the week ended May 24. It was the highest level since May of last year and the biggest jump in 14 months.

The rise sent the seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity down 8.8 percent as refinancing applications tumbled 12.3 percent. It was the biggest drop in refinance applications this year as demand fell to the lowest level since December.

The refinance share of total mortgage activity decreased to 71 percent of applications from 74 percent the week before.

Still, the gauge of loan requests for home purchases, a leading indicator of home sales, rose 2.6 percent, suggesting potential homeowners may have sought to lock in a still-low rate.

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said last week the Fed could scale back the pace of its bond purchases at one of the "next few meetings" if the economic recovery looked set to maintain forward momentum. The comments sowed concerns among investors that the Fed's ultra-loose policy could end sooner than expected.

Encouraging economic data last week also contributed to that view as home sales rose and durable goods orders improved.

"Rates rose in response to stronger economic data and an increasing chance that the Fed may soon begin to taper their asset purchases," Mike Fratantoni, MBA's vice president of research and economics, said in a statement.

The Fed is currently buying $85 billion a month in bonds and mortgage-backed securities as it seeks to keep borrowing rates low.

The low rates have helped the housing market, luring in buyers off the sidelines. The recovery in housing has been gaining traction since last year and data on Tuesday showed home prices saw their biggest annual increase in nearly seven years in March.

Rates had already been on the rise before Bernanke's comments and have gained 31 basis points since the start of the month.

The survey covers over 75 percent of U.S. retail residential mortgage applications, according to MBA.

(Reporting by Leah Schnurr; Editing by Diane Craft)