A gunman opened fire in two Michigan homes Thursday, killing his daughter, ex-girlfriend and five other people before leading police on a high-speed chase and taking hostages inside a stranger's home.

The five-hour standoff ended when he killed himself as authorities were telling him how to surrender.

The United States and Iraq are negotiating the possibility of keeping some U.S. forces in the country beyond a December 31 deadline for withdrawal, the U.S. military's top officer said Thursday.

"The negotiations are ongoing and it's hard," Admiral Mike Mullen told reporters at a Pentagon Press Association event.

The U.S. ambassador to Damascus is visiting the flashpoint Syrian city of Hama and plans to observe mass demonstrations Friday against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, the State Department said.

Last Friday, an anti-regime rally brought out half a million people in Hama, according to pro-democracy activists. The security services did not intervene and Assad fired the city's governor the next day.

An escaped convict allegedly murdered an elderly woman as part of a bizarre plot aimed at assassinating U.S. President Barack Obama after a cross-country killing spree, court records showed.

Maybelle Schein, 75, was discovered with her throat cut in the bedroom of her South Dakota home on Saturday afternoon.

The United States on Tuesday called on Syria to withdraw its forces from the flashpoint city of Hama at the hub of an anti-regime revolt, where residents have mobilized to keep out troops.

"We urge the government of Syria to immediately halt its intimidation and arrest campaign, to pull its security forces back from Hama and other cities, and to allow Syrians to express their opinions freely so that a genuine transition to democracy can take place," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

Australia's military conspired with U.S. guards to deny the Red Cross access to prisoners held at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib jail, including a high-value detainee, said documents published Tuesday.

Its officials also misled the public on the legality of interrogations, before prisoner abuse was exposed in photographs that shocked the world in May 2004, a year after the U.S.-led invasion, a Sydney-based legal lobby group said.

Iranian Defense Minister Ahmed Vahidi dismissed as "ridiculous lies" U.S. claims that Tehran smuggled weapons to Iraq and Afghanistan, the semi-official Fars news agency reported Saturday.

"The ridiculous and repeated lies of the Americans are aimed at justifying their own errors," General Vahidi was quoted as saying.

A U.S. vessel aiming to break Israel's naval blockade on Gaza sailed from Greece Friday but was promptly stopped by coastguards for defying a ban, an activist on board said.

The Audacity of Hope set sail for Gaza without warning, leaving behind nine other ships in a pro-Palestinian international flotilla.

The U.S. Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly confirmed General David Petraeus, who won wide acclaim as commander of war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, to head the Central Intelligence Agency.

Lawmakers voted 94-0 to approve the nomination of Petraeus to succeed outgoing CIA director Leon Panetta, whose own confirmation to take over for retiring US Defense Secretary Robert Gates sailed through 100-0 last week.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood told Agence France Presse on Thursday it was open to contacts with the United States as long as its "values are respected" but said there had been "no direct contacts" in the past.

"We are willing to meet in a context of respect. If the U.S. is truly willing to respect our values and support freedom as it says it does, then we have no problem," spokesman Mahmud Ghozlan said after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said there had been "limited contacts" with the group.