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ISTANBUL (AP) — Riot police with water cannons and tear gas are hitting protesters who remain defiant after authorities evicted activists from an Istanbul park.

Sunday's clampdown indicated authorities were taking a hardline against attempts to rekindle the protests.

In Istanbul, police battled protesters in side streets off Gezi Park and beyond.

Meanwhile, what was left of the two-week sit-in was bulldozed and police sealed off the area. Hundreds of white-helmeted riot police swept through the park and adjacent Taksim Square yesterday to clear out the protesters.

In Ankara, the capital, police dispersed hundreds who tried to hold a memorial service for an activist who died of injuries sustained in a nearby police crackdown nearby on June 1.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Officials say nearly a dozen apparently coordinated car bombs and a shooting across Iraq have killed at least 32 and wounded scores.

Officials say the car bombs targeting Shiite-majority areas were the cause of most of the casualties. The shooting happened near the northern city of Mosul when gunmen attacked police guarding a remote stretch of an oil pipeline.

Violence has spiked sharply in Iraq in recent months, with the death toll rising to levels not seen since 2008. Nearly 2,000 have been killed since the start of April.

The extended wave of attacks is raising fears of a return to widespread sectarian killing a decade after the U.S.-led invasion.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Police say two people have died in a collision involving a tractor-trailer and an SUV just outside the St. Louis city limits.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that after the collision early Saturday, the tractor-trailer continued southbound driving through two power poles, hitting a fence and a pontoon boat. The trailer wound up on its side, spilling its contents of beer bottles and cans across the road.

The drivers of both vehicles were killed. The names of the victims haven't been released.

Police also said a section of the roadway would be closed while authorities investigated the cause of the accident and debris was removed from the scene.