BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber sneaked through the back door of a crowded hall where guests had gathered yesterday for a reconciliation lunch at the invitation of a tribal leader, killing as many as 32 people and wounding dozens more in the worst attack in Iraq in weeks.

Iraqi officials said the assailant, a relative of the host, was a familiar presence around the house, making it easier for him to pass unsearched through an entrance usually reserved for women.

VANDALS HARASS NOBEL WINNER

TEHRAN, Iran — Scores of young men gathered around the Tehran home office of Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, shouted slogans against her and vandalized her home in the latest episode by hard-line political groups close to the government to intimidate the human rights lawyer.

Ebadi, 61, said yesterday that the two police officers finally dispatched after her frantic phone calls to the authorities "just watched" on Thursday as the vandals ripped the sign bearing her name off the front of her house, screamed that she was a supporter of Israel's Gaza offensive and spray-painted slogans on the front of her building.

SEARCH IS OFF FOR CRUISE WORKER

MIAMI — The Coast Guard yesterday called off a search for a cruise ship employee whose co-workers say fell overboard off Florida.

The workers on the Carnival Sensation had reported the man falling overboard early Thursday. He was identified by the Coast Guard as 26-year-old Antonio Matabang from California.

Carnival has said Matabang was a member of the entertainment staff. Six other crew members saw him fall and said it was clearly an accident.

BRIT COUPLE AGAIN HAS RARE TWINS

LONDON — A mixed-race British couple has defied the odds — twice — by producing two sets of twins in which one sibling appears to be black and the other white.

Dean Durrant's newborn daughter Miya has dark skin like him. Twin sister Leah has fair skin like her blue-eyed, red-haired mother, Alison Spooner.

Their older siblings Lauren and Hayleigh, born in 2001, also have different skin tones and eye colors. Scientists say it's rare for a couple to have two sets of twins, and even rarer for them to have such different appearances.