Two soldiers assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg were killed in the Oct. 26 crash. They were 32-year-old Sgt. 1st Class David E. Metzger of San Diego, and 28-year-old Staff Sgt. Keith R. Bishop of Medford, N.Y.

The other five soldiers were assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 160th Special Operations Regiment at Hunter Army Airfield, near Savannah, Ga.

They were 36-year-old Chief Warrant Officer Michael P. Montgomery of Savannah; 40-year-old Chief Warrant Officer Niall Lyons of Spokane, Wash.; 24-year-old Staff Sgt. Shawn H. McNabb of Terrell, Texas; 23-year-old Sgt. Josue E. Hernandez Chavez of Reno, Nev.; 26-year-old Sgt. Nickolas A. Mueller of Little Chute, Wis.

The five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee - four of whom spoke to The Associated Press, said awarding Obama the peace prize could be seen as an early vote of confidence intended to build global support for the policies of his young administration.

They lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama's calls for peace and cooperation, and praised his pledges to reduce the world stock of nuclear arms, ease U.S. conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthen its role in combating climate change.

"Some people say - and I understand it - 'Isn't it premature? Too early?' Well, I'd say then that it could be too late to respond three years from now," Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told the AP. "It is now that we have the opportunity to respond - all of us."

Jagland said the committee whittled down a record pool of 205 nominations and had "several candidates until the last minute," but it became more obvious that "we couldn't get around these deep changes that are taking place" under Obama.

Obama said he was surprised and deeply humbled by the honor, and planned to travel to Oslo in December to accept the prize.

"Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations," he said at the White House. "To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize."

Obama will donate the $1.4 million cash award that comes with the prize to charity.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who won the prize in 1984, said the decision showed that great things are expected from Obama and "wonderful recognition" of his effort to reach out to the Arab world after years of hostility.

"It is an award that speaks to the promise of President Obama's message of hope," Tutu said.

Many were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in a presidency that began less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline for the prize and has yet to yield concrete achievements in peacemaking.

"So soon? Too early. He has no contribution so far. He is only beginning to act," said former Polish President Lech Walesa, who won the peace prize in 1983.

Some around the world objected to the choice of Obama, who still oversees wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and has launched deadly counterterrorism strikes in Pakistan and Somalia.

Jagland told AP that while the war in Afghanistan was a concern, the Obama administration "immediately started to reassess the strategy."

"That itself is important, because when something goes wrong, then you need to ask yourself why is it going wrong," he said.

Obama said he was working to end the war in Iraq and "to confront a ruthless adversary that directly threatens the American people and our allies" in Afghanistan, where he is seriously considering increasing the number of U.S. troops on the ground and asking for help from others as the war enters its ninth year.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi in Afghanistan condemned the Nobel committee's decision, saying Obama had only escalated the war and had "the blood of the Afghan people on his hands."

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki called the Nobel decision "hasty."

"The appropriate time for awarding such a prize is when foreign military forces leave Iraq and Afghanistan and when one stands by the rights of the oppressed Palestinian people," he was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency.

Aagot Valle, a lawmaker for the Socialist Left party who joined the Nobel committee this year, said she hoped the selection would be viewed as "support and a commitment for Obama."

"And I hope it will be an inspiration for all those that work with nuclear disarmament and disarmament," she told AP in a rare interview. Members of the committee usually speak only through its chairman.

The peace prize was created partly to encourage ongoing peace efforts, but Obama's efforts are at far earlier stages than those of past winners, and the committee acknowledged they may not bear fruit at all.

"If everything goes wrong, then one cannot say that this was because of Barack Obama," Jagland said. "It could be that it is because of us, all the others, that didn't respond. But I cannot exclude that Barack Obama also can contribute to the eventual failure."

In Europe and much of the world, Obama is praised for bringing the U.S. closer to mainstream global thinking on such issues as climate change and multilateralism. A 25-nation poll of 27,000 people released in July by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found double-digit boosts to the percentage of people viewing the U.S. favorably in countries around the world. That indicator had plunged across the world under President George W. Bush.

The award appeared to be at least partly a slap at Bush from a committee that harshly criticized Obama's predecessor for his largely unilateral military action in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

"Those who were in support of Bush in his belief in war solving problems, on rearmament, and that nuclear weapons play an important role ... probably won't be happy," said Valle.

At home, the picture is more complicated. Obama is often criticized by his political opponents as he attempts to carry out his agenda - from government spending to health care to Afghanistan.

Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele said Obama won because of his "star power" rather than meaningful accomplishments.

"The real question Americans are asking is, 'What has President Obama actually accomplished?'" Steele said.

Drawing criticism from some on the left, Obama has been slow to bring troops home from Iraq and the real end of the U.S. military presence there won't come until at least 2012.

The Nobel committee said it paid special attention to Obama's vision of a nuclear-free world, laid out in a speech in Prague and in April and at the United Nations last month.

Former Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, said Obama has already provided outstanding leadership on nuclear non-proliferation.

"He has shown an unshakable commitment to diplomacy, mutual respect and dialogue as the best means of resolving conflicts," ElBaradei said.

In July talks in Moscow, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed that their negotiators would work out a new limit on delivery vehicles for nuclear warheads of between 500 and 1,100. They also agreed that warhead limits would be reduced from the current range of 1,700-2,200 to as low as 1,500. The U.S. now has about 2,200 such warheads, compared to about 2,800 for the Russians.

There has been no word on whether either side has started to act on the reductions.

Obama also has tried to restart stalled Mideast talks with no progress yet reported.

In the Gaza Strip, leaders of the radical Hamas movement said they had heard Obama's speeches on better relations with the Islamic world but had not been moved.

"We are in need of actions, not sayings," Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said. "If there is no fundamental and true change in American policies toward the acknowledgment of the rights of the Palestinian people, I think this prize won't move us forward or backward."

Obama has said that battling climate change is a priority. Yet the U.S. seems likely to head into crucial international negotiations set for Copenhagen in December with Obama-backed legislation still stalled in Congress.

Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, the peace prize is given out by the five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament. Like the Parliament, the panel has a leftist slant, with three members elected by left-of-center parties and two right-of-center members. Jagland said the decision to honor Obama was unanimous.

The secretive committee declined to say who nominated Obama. In Nobel tradition, nominations are kept secret for 50 years, unless those making the submissions go public about their picks. This year's nominations included Colombian activist Piedad Cordoba, Afghan woman's rights activist Simi Samar and Denis Mukwege, a physician in war-torn Congo who opened a clinic to help rape victims.

Nominators for the prize are broad and include former laureates; current and former members of the committee and their staff; members of national governments and legislatures; university professors of law, theology, social sciences, history and philosophy; leaders of peace research and foreign affairs institutes; and members of international courts of law.

Obama is the third sitting U.S. president to win the award: President Theodore Roosevelt won in 1906 and President Woodrow Wilson was awarded the prize in 1919.

In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."

According to Sony Pictures, hundreds of show times have sold out since tickets went on sale Sunday for "Michael Jackson: This Is It."

The film was built around rehearsal footage for the late singer's planned London concerts. It opens Oct. 28 for a two-week limited run.

Advance shows in some markets the night before also are selling out. All 3,000 tickets for screenings at a Los Angeles cinema were snapped up in two hours, with some fans lining up for nearly three days.

Sony says that 30,000 tickets were sold in the first 24 hours in London, while $1 million worth of tickets were sold in Japan within the same time period.

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Jude Kenan Mohammad is the only one of eight men in the North Carolina case who is still at large. He was caught last year trying to enter a Pakistani militant stronghold off-limits to foreigners. Kenan's family says he was in the country visiting his Pakistani father.

Mohammad was booked on charges of weapons possession for allegedly carrying a dagger and traveling without proper documents, but was released on bail.

Since news emerged of the North Carolina case earlier this summer, U.S. officials have said they did not know his exact whereabouts.

Kamal Khan, senior assistant to Judge Nasirullah Khan in Charsadda district, said Mohammad's trial was supposed to start Saturday but that neither the accused, nor his lawyer nor any other representatives appeared.

Pfc. Richard K. Jones, 21, from Person County was injured when insurgents attacked his patrol Saturday. According to military officials, insurgents in Mushan Village attacked the soldiers' patrol with bombs and rocket-propelled grenades Saturday. The soldiers later died from their injuries.

Two other soldiers were also killed in the attack. Jonathan M. Walls, 27, of West Lawn, and Pvt. Patrick S. Fitzgibbon, 21 of Knoxville, Tenn.

All were based out of Fort Carson, Colorado and were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division.

Not that the dangers have passed. Soldiers knew that as they headed out last week to patrol rural roads south of Baghdad. Seven of their fellow soldiers from Forward Operating Base Falcon have been killed by bombs since May 21.

But this patrol, like many of late, is more about drinking tea with Iraqi policemen, talking with village shopkeepers and chitchatting about cigars.

Instead of going on patrol every day, soldiers in a platoon of Company D, 252 Combined Arms Battalion, go out a couple of times a week with Iraqi policemen to exchange information about the enemy and learn firsthand the needs of local Iraqis so the U.S. can try to provide temporary relief.

"We're in an awkward state where we're having to transition from being the dominant force here to taking a back seat," said Spc. G.A. Garner, 24, of Charlotte, N.C.

Under a U.S.-Iraq security pact, American combat troops completed their pullback from Iraqi cities on June 30, the first stage of a full withdrawal of American forces by the end of 2011. Quitting the cities leaves a test for Iraq's army and police, which failed to stem a wave of Shiite-Sunni slaughter in 2006. That prompted the U.S. troop surge of 2007, which is widely credited with helping to quell the violence.

"We were doing one mission a day. ... Now it's two missions a week," Sgt. 1st Class Henry Rhodes, 40, of Sanford, N.C., said, sitting in a Humvee baking in 115-degree heat. "At the beginning of the agreement, it started getting - I don't know, I wouldn't say boring - we just started running out of things to do."

The driver, Spc. Mike Tidd, 22, of Boone, N.C., said there was a transition period where military leaders up the chain of command were trying to redefine the new U.S. role. "With any new change, there's going to be growing pains. We're starting to get into a new routine, starting a new mission load. It's definitely lighter."

Platoon leader, 2nd Lt. Travis Steiner, 27, of Durham, N.C., said Company D had shifted its focus to training in the two months since the pullout, with three platoons patrolling in an area south of Baghdad that one platoon handled before.

"Before, there wasn't time for training," Steiner said. "Now it's something to take up the time when we're not patrolling."

Their commander, Col. Gregory Lusk, said there's no question that his troops' experience since they arrived in May is much different from the training they endured before they came. But he dismissed any notion that his troops were idling away the hours on the base.

"The training was geared towards us having the confidence and capability to do a worst-case scenario - a repeat of two years ago," said Lusk, who heads the 4,000-member 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team, the first National Guard brigade mobilized and twice deployed to Iraq to conduct a full-scale operation.

Like any regular army brigade, the 30th has its own battle space. "I'll tell you what: I don't have much time to get bored. I'm thinking most people are putting in some pretty healthy days."

It depends on whom you ask. At a maintenance shop on the base the night before, Chief Warrant Officer II William Ireland, 46, from Benson, N.C., pointed toward an office where eight or 10 soldiers were being told that because of a backlog, they'd be working 14 to 16 hours every day for the next few weeks.

The soldiers at Falcon are just a 911 call away for the Iraqi security forces. So far, the Iraqis haven't called. On a previous patrol, Steiner's platoon arrived at an Iraqi market about 10 minutes after a bomb exploded. The U.S. troops stopped, but the Iraqis told them their help wasn't needed.

"I think they're under orders to handle things themselves," said Staff Sgt. David Roberson, 40, of Kinston, N.C. He said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's attitude is that "We've got it under control and we must show the world that we have it under control."

Roberson and the rest of the platoon headed out on their morning patrol in four vehicles. They passed flocks of sheep, roadside markets, the Baghdad Soft Drink Co., a little boy waving. Farther out, the convoy stopped. A partial bale of hay, which could have concealed a bomb, was lying in the road. But before they could get out to check it, a woman began collecting the hay. No threat. They moved on.

The second stop was an Iraqi police station. there the U.S. soldiers, fully clad in camouflaged flak jackets, boots, guns and equipment, sat on couches sipping tiny glass cups of sweet black tea.

"Everything is good and quiet," Iraqi police Lt. Col. Salman Ahmad said through an interpreter.

Ahmad thanked the troops for bringing him unfilled sandbags needed to improve checkpoints and talked about earlier joint operations with dogs sniffing for weapons caches.

"As far as intelligence and everything, they actually share a good bit with us," said Sgt. Chris Maske, 26, of Raleigh, N.C. "Al-Qaida in Iraq is still here - there's no doubt. What we're all doing is keeping them pretty inactive and at bay."

Outside the station, Maske put two fingers to his mouth and asked the Iraqi lieutenant colonel: "Did you smoke the big one?"

He had given Ahmad a cigar during an earlier visit.

"It's the same kind as Saddam Hussein used to smoke," the colonel said.

After a few more hours of visiting Iraqi shopkeepers and handing out applications for U.S. business micro-grants, the platoon headed back to base. The noontime sun had left them sweaty, Gunners were at the ready, but the radio talk was relaxed. They talked about doing their laundry, the fact that it was Mexican food day at the dining hall and Iraqi junk food.

"I had some Iraqi cheese puffs last week," Maske said. "I ate a few. They tasted like lard with a bit of cheese."

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Air force spokesman Col. Jorge Amaral said searchers also recovered a leather briefcase with an Air France ticket for the flight inside of it.

"It was confirmed with Air France that the ticket number corresponds to a passenger on the flight," he said.

Flight 447 disappeared Sunday with 228 people on board and officials believe there were no survivors.

The two male bodies were recovered Saturday morning about 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of where Air Flight 447 emitted its last signals - roughly 400 miles (640 kilometers) northeast of the
Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil's northern coast.

"At 9:10 a.m., a ship spotted the first body," Amaral said. "The body was recovered and it was confirmed to be male."

The second body was spotted and recovered around 11:30 a.m. (1430 GMT).