Both issues will shape Obama’s legacy — not to mention his hopes for re-election in November.  And the back-to-back gatherings of the Group of Eight rich countries at Camp David and the NATO summit in Chicago offer vital opportunities to get the United States and its closest allies in closer harmony.

White House officials have worriedly watched Europe’s debt crisis, concerned that a recession there could infect the already-weak American economy. And the president has made a successful handover of security responsibility from NATO-led forces to their Afghan counterparts by the end of 2014 one of his signature foreign policy goals.

Obama’s diplomatic dash opens Friday with a visit from France’s new president, François Hollande, who is the first Socialist to hold the post in 17 years.  The White House is officially neutral on the specifics of Hollande’s campaign pledge to seek government action to stimulate the economy, a break from predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy’s austerity agenda. But they plainly like the principle.

“The United States has an extraordinarily significant stake in the outcome of the economic discussions in Europe and the steps that are taken in Europe,” Tom Donilon, Obama’s national security adviser, told reporters Thursday.

The president favors “a comprehensive approach to manage the crisis and get on a sustainable path towards recovery in Europe,” he added, saying the strategy “has to be to preserve the foundations of the eurozone, to address the current crisis facing Europe, particularly as a result of the political events in Greece.”
But Hollande’s campaign pledge to pull France’s 3,400 combat troops from Afghanistan by year’s end — an accelerated timetable — poses a headache for the Obama administration.Donilon said the two presidents would “work through” the issue but predicted that “the stances that President Hollande took during the course of his campaign obviously he intends to keep as president.” But he urged France to do so in keeping with NATO’s plan to give Afghan security forces control of their war-torn country next year before withdrawing the alliance’s combat troops by the end of 2014.

“You can make all kinds of contributions. You can make combat troop contributions. You can make train-and-assist kinds of contributions. You can make other kinds of contributions, right? And we’ll have a discussion with the French about where they want to go on this,” Donilon said.

After his tête-à-tête with Hollande — their first — Obama will host him and leaders from Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia at Camp David (aka “Naval Support Facility Thurmont”) for the annual Group of Eight summit of industrialized nations. Newly re-elected Russian President Vladimir Putin opted to skip the gathering, sending Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev instead.

Efforts to force Iran to freeze its nuclear program will be a major topic of discussion, as the leaders discuss the tightening economic sanctions on Tehran, Donilon said.

One key issue before the leaders: With Europe closing in on a July 1 embargo on oil imports from Iran, can other global supply keep up, or will developed nations have to tap strategic reserves?

“We have been engaged in an ongoing way and monitoring the global oil situation, particularly in light of the respective sanctions that we’ve had on Iran and its effect on oil markets.  We’ll continue that monitoring.  I’m sure that the leaders will discuss the range of options that they might have before them,” Donilon said.

“They’ll also be pressing the Iranians to take advantage of the diplomatic efforts that we’re putting forward,” notably May 23 talks in Baghdad between Iran, on the one hand, and the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany (the so-called “P5+!”) on the other.

The leaders will also discuss North Korea, Myanmar and efforts to end Syria’s bloody crackdown on opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.

On Saturday, the summit shifts to the worrisome state of the global economy, amid tensions in Europe over whether to pursue austerity to bring down soaring national debts or couple it with stimulus efforts to boost job growth, and over how to respond to the crisis in Greece.

The spotlight then turns to Chicago for the NATO summit; there, the focus will chiefly be on Afghanistan, America’s longest war. Obama will meet Sunday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. (Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari is expected to attend the summit, but he will not get a separate sit-down with Obama, Donilon said.)

NATO is expected to agree on a path for taking on a supporting role in the war-torn country next year while handing off the bulk of the fighting to Afghan forces. It is also expected to discuss who will cover the costs of the conflict after 2014, expected to run $4 billion per year, though an actual agreement is not expected until a conference in July in Tokyo. And it is expected to take up what sort of presence the alliance will have in Afghanistan after 2014.

“So Chicago is a critical milestone in the next step towards a responsible ending of this war,” Donilon said.

NATO invited Zardari after Pakistani officials signaled that country was prepared to reopen supply lines to alliance forces in Afghanistan, which were shut down after a NATO air strike into Pakistani territory in November killed 24 Pakistani troops.  Islamabad had said it wanted a formal apology from the United States and pushed for an end to drone strikes on its soil.

“We have made real progress, I think, towards resolving the issue around opening up the ground supply lines,” Donilon said. “Whether that will be done in the next few days or not, I can’t judge at this point. But there’s been a decision, on both sides, to reach a conclusion of this.”

And Donilon played down the absence of an Obama-Zardari meeting on the schedule. “There are 61 countries going to be present there, and the president is not going to have bilaterals with all them…but he will see him, obviously.”

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Joe Acaba and cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin docked with the space station at 12:36 a.m. EDT (0436 GMT) Thursday as the two spacecraft soared 249 miles above the border between Mongolia and Kazakhstan.

For Acaba, the docking came as a welcome birthday present to mark his 45th birthday.

The three spaceflyers are scheduled to float through the orbiting lab’s hatch just before 4 a.m. EDT (0800 GMT), NASA officials said. When that happens, the three newcomers will bring the station back up to its full crew of six. Their fellow Expedition 31 crewmembers — NASA’s Don Pettit, Dutchman Andre Kuipers and cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko — have had the $100 billion orbiting complex to themselves since April 27.

Acaba, Padalka and Revin launched Monday (May 14) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They were originally scheduled to blast off on March 29, but a botched pressure test cracked their Soyuz capsule, causing a six-week delay while another spacecraft was readied. [See Spectacular Soyuz Launch Photos]

A four-month space stay

The three new arrivals will live and work aboard the space station for four months, returning to Earth in mid-September. All will serve as flight engineers under Kononenko, the commander of the Expedition 31 mission.

Kononenko, Pettit and Kuipers boarded the orbiting lab in late December and are scheduled to depart on July 1.

Acaba has visited the station once before, on the space shuttle Discovery’s STS-119 mission in 2009. But that flight lasted just 13 days, so a long-duration stay in orbit will be a new experience for him. He said he’s really looking forward to helping advance our knowledge of how to live and work for long periods off the planet.

“There’s still a lot we don’t know about living in space, so for me personally and professionally it’s really neat to be part of that and know that you’re kind of contributing in a small way,” Acaba said in a pre-flight interview with NASA officials.

Living aboard the station will be even more novel for Revin, who had never been to space before Monday’s launch. Padalka, on the other hand, is an experienced spaceflyer with two long stints on the station under his belt. He will become commander of the station’s new Expedition 32 mission when Kononenko, Petti and Kuipers leave in July.

Dragon’s flight coming

The six astronauts will get to witness a historic event very soon, if all goes according to plan. The private spaceflight company SpaceX plans to launch its robotic Dragon capsule toward the station this Saturday (May 19).

The flight is a demonstration mission, to see if Dragon and SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket are ready to begin a series of 12 contracted unmanned supply runs for NASA. If the test mission succeeds, it will mark the first time a private vehicle has ever docked with the orbiting lab.

If all goes well, Dragon’s first bona fide cargo mission could launch later this year, SpaceX officials have said.

Reopening the supply route would be a major breakthrough in ties between Washington and Islamabad. Strained relations have fuelled speculation Pakistan might be excluded from NATO talks on Afghanistan’s future.

Pakistan closed down the supply lines for the Afghan war effort following the NATO air strike in November that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. That strike fanned national anger over everything from covert CIA drone strikes to the U.S. incursion into Pakistani territory last year to kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Nadeem Hotiana, an embassy spokesman, confirmed that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari will attend the May 20-21 summit.

“This meeting will underline the strong commitment of the international community to the people of Afghanistan and to its future. Pakistan has an important role to play in that future,” NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said in a statement on Tuesday.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is also expected to attend the meeting, where NATO nations will hone their plans to withdraw most of their troops by the end of 2014. As the Western presence ebbs, Pakistan, whose tribal areas are home to Taliban and other militants, will be key in shaping Afghanistan’s future.

But the supply routes have been a major sticking point.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the deal now appeared almost certain, even while stressing that nothing had been finalized and surprises were always possible.

The official added that the U.S. military might see some higher costs to receive goods in Afghanistan than it did before Pakistan cut off the supply lines, but did not elaborate.

The United States and Pakistan, which now says it expects the routes to reopen, have long been expected to strike a deal that would include tariffs on NATO supplies going into Afghanistan.

After weeks of talks between U.S. and Pakistani officials in Islamabad, a Pentagon spokesman on Tuesday said he hoped that would occur in the “very near future.”

In a statement, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s office said ministers had backed a proposal to allow NATO to send only non-lethal equipment into Afghanistan on Pakistani roads.

“It was also decided that the military authorities should negotiate fresh border ground rules with NATO … to ensure that (such border) incidents do not reoccur,” the statement said.

[Photos: Last journey continues for Enterprise]

NASA recently posted a time-lapse video of the shuttle being removed from the back of the jet. As you might expect, it’s a rather painstaking process involving a lot of workers and some impressive machinery. It begins at dusk, lasts all through the night, and finally ends as the sun begins to rise the next morning.

[Related: Bus-size asteroid zips close by Earth]

Now that the shuttle is no longer tied to the 747, it will be (gently) placed on a barge and then pulled via tugboat up the Hudson River to the museum. Visitors will be able to check it out starting this summer.

Chief Executive Scott Thompson stepped down on Sunday, 10 days after Loeb accused him of padding his biography by faking a computer science degree. Loeb’s Third Point LLC is one of Yahoo’s largest shareholders with a 5.8 percent stake.

Yahoo did not give a reason for Thompson’s exit but said the company’s global media head, Ross Levinsohn, will be interim CEO. It also said it had settled a proxy battle with Third Point and will nominate three of the fund’s slate of four candidates to the board, including Loeb.

Thompson’s departure after just four months on the job throws into question the future of Yahoo as it struggles to revive growth amid fierce competition from the likes of Google Inc and Facebook Inc, and produce a long-term strategy to convince investors to reverse its share slide.

Yahoo recently resumed negotiations to sell all or part of its more than 40 percent stake in Chinese Internet and e-commerce company Alibaba back to the Chinese company, after torpedoing a previous plan to do a complex tax-free transaction.

“This is a big victory for Third Point. It strengthens their argument that this board was dysfunctional, and it’s going to increase Third Point’s ability to shape the direction of the company,” BGC analyst Colin Gillis said.

For months, the New York-based hedge fund has been demanding that Yahoo revamp its board, which Loeb has blamed for a lagging share price, loss of market share, and a failed sale to Microsoft Corp in 2008. Loeb has also been credited for sparking the resignation of co-founder Jerry Yang and former Chairman Roy Bostock this year.

Third Point had said Levinsohn or Chief Financial Officer Tim Morse should take the helm in the interim. Loeb could not be reached on Sunday to comment on what he thinks Yahoo’s future strategic direction should take.

Loeb, and his other nominees Michael Wolf and Harry Wilson will replace other board members.

“We are confident this Board will benefit from shareholder representation, and we are committed to working with new leadership to unlock Yahoo’s significant potential and value,” Loeb was quoted as saying in a statement from Yahoo.

Yahoo also named Fred Amoroso, an IBM veteran who joined the board in February, as chairman. He is one of a slate of 11 directors that Yahoo said it would nominate for the 2012 annual shareholders meeting, including Loeb’s three.

MEDIA VETERAN

Yahoo was a dominant player in the early days of the Internet but has struggled for years to maintain its relevance as social media, mobile computing and highly personalized advertising have redefined the industry landscape.

While brands such as Yahoo News, Yahoo Sports and Yahoo Finance remain among the most popular destinations on the Web, a relentless industry-wide decline in display advertising prices has made it difficult to make money on those assets and raised questions about the long-term viability of an ad-based strategy.

Levinsohn, who made his name running News Corp’s Fox digital business, is often mentioned as a CEO contender but the company went first with Carol Bartz in January 2009, fired her in September last year, and then named Thompson, the former president of eBay Inc division PayPal, in January.

“The disfunctionality of this company is relatively unparalleled. Nothing they do seems to work,” said Lawrence Haverty, a fund manager with GAMCO Investors, which owns Yahoo shares. “Right now I think a sale of the company is the best option. We believe the assets are worth somewhere north of $20 a share on a break up basis.”

Yahoo shares closed at $15.19 on Nasdaq on Friday.

A media veteran, Levinsohn is popular among Yahoo’s rank-and-file and has credentials as a negotiator. He had helped steer News Corp’s acquisition of MySpace, and had started an investment fund to buy interests in various digital and media companies across the globe before joining Yahoo.

“He is well-respected in the Valley, Hollywood and on Madison Avenue,” said Jason Hirschhorn, a former MTV digital executive. “Yahoo has to lean into media and he has the plan.”

Levinsohn, who previously headed up Yahoo’s Americas business, holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from The American University according to Yahoo’s website.

“Importantly, today’s announcements lay to rest the unfortunate and serious distractions surrounding our senior leadership and the composition of our Board going forward,” Levinsohn wrote in a staff memo on Sunday. He added, “I believe in the tremendous strength and value of our brand, and in our relationship with our users and partners.”

A HASTY EXIT

Yahoo acknowledged last week that Thompson does not have a computer science degree despite what was stated in his official company biography and in regulatory filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Emails sent to Thompson’s official Yahoo email address were already bouncing back on Sunday morning. He had only just began to push through a new strategy that included layoffs of 2000 people.

Thompson had indicated his intention to move the company away from its dependence on display advertising and focus more on data and personalization, but it is not clear if Levinsohn, whose background is in advertising, would keep the plan intact.

“This company was struggling to find its path before any of this happened, and the situation will make them lost in the woods for that much longer,” Macquarie Securities analyst Ben Schacter said. “It is not an overstatement to say that Yahoo has profound structural problems.”

“The key question for shareholders remains how will they monetize the Asia assets. The board and shareholders, not an interim CEO, will need to figure it out,” Schacter said.

Thompson’s departure was reported earlier by the technology blog AllThingsD.

“The vice president expressed remorse, regret,” said the individual, who requested anonymity to describe an unusual, private exchange between the buttoned-up Obama and his freewheeling vice president. The president told Biden, the individual said, that he understood Biden’s comments on Sunday had come “from the heart.”

The source described Obama’s response as very similar to his public comments in an interview with ABC News’s Robin Roberts, with whom he shared his history-making announcement that he backed the right of gay couples to marry.

“He probably got out a little over his skis, but out of generosity of spirit,” Obama told ABC. “Would I have preferred to have done this in my own way on my own terms without, I think, there being a lot of notice to everybody? Of course. But all’s well that ends well.”

Biden told “Meet The Press” on Sunday that he was “absolutely comfortable” with married same-sex couples, comments that at first triggered an avalanche of denials from top Obama aides that the vice president had made any change whatsoever to the president’s official position (opposed, but “evolving”), followed days later by claims that the president had always meant to come out on the side of gay marriage.

Asked about the vice president’s apology, Biden spokesperson Kendra Barkoff told Yahoo News: “The president has been the leader on this issue from day one and the vice president never intended to distract from that.”

But the poll also indicated that most Americans favor keeping some U.S. forces in Afghanistan to help train that nation’s troops, and to continue missions targeting al-Qaeda.

Taken together, the findings suggest “Americans essentially want to be done with Afghanistan,” said Ipsos pollster Chris Jackson.

NATO’s roughly 130,000 troops there – of which about 99,000 are from the United States – are scheduled to withdraw by 2014. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said the Obama administration would like to remove most U.S. combat troops by the end of next year.

The poll was conducted in the days after President Barack Obama marked the one-year anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death with a surprise trip to Afghanistan and the signing of an agreement laying out a long-term U.S. role in Afghanistan.

The agreement is not particularly specific, but it calls for the United States to provide training for Afghan troops and other aid through 2024.

Almost two-thirds of the 776 Americans surveyed in the online poll said they did not want Washington to be committed to supporting Afghan economic and security development that long.

Seventy-seven percent said they wanted all U.S. combat troops – excluding trainers and special forces – to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2012. Nearly the same amount, 73 percent, said they did not want the United States to establish any permanent military bases in Afghanistan.

“But if you start to talk about some specifics like hunting down al-Qaeda or even providing trainers for the Afghan security forces, you have a small majority of people who support those notions,” Jackson said.

Six out of ten Americans said they favored having the United States keep forces in Afghanistan to conduct missions targeting al-Qaeda and 57 percent were in favor of having troops in the country to help with training.

“Basically since before the 2008 election there’s been an increasing sense of war fatigue with the American population,” Jackson said. “They want things to be done with but they don’t want them to be done in a way that makes it seem like we’ve lost or were defeated. They want to end it with a win.”

During a surprise trip to Afghanistan on Wednesday, Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed the strategic partnership agreement, which was aimed at offering Afghans reassurances that they would not be abandoned when most NATO combat troops leave.

In a televised speech, Obama said there was a “clear path” to fulfilling the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and said the defeat of al-Qaeda was “within reach.”

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted from May 2-4. The precision of the online polls is measured using a credibility interval, similar to a margin of error. This poll had a credibility interval of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

At the high end, this could raise as much as $11.8 billion. If the underwriters sell the extra stock reserved for overallotments, the IPO will value Facebook at $79.3 billion at the high end of the price range.

That’s much higher than any other Internet IPO in the past, even Google Inc. in 2004, which raised $1.9 billion. The range came in a regulatory filing Thursday.

After that, Facebook will go on an “IPO roadshow,” where executives talk to potential investors about why they should invest in the stock. If all goes well, Facebook’s stock is expected to price on May 17 and make its public debut on May 18.

Facebook’s IPO has been highly anticipated, not just because of how much money it will raise but because Facebook itself is so popular. The world’s largest online social network has more than 900 million users worldwide.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who turns 28 this month, has emerged as a wunderkind leader who’s led Facebook through unprecedented growth from its scrappy start as a hangout for Harvard students.

Zuckerberg will keep tight control over the company even after the IPO. He will control about 58 percent of the company’s voting power, through stocks he owns or because other shareholders have promised to vote his way through shares that they own. This means he will have final say over the biggest decisions facing the company even after it goes public.

Zuckerberg will own 31.5 percent of Facebook’s outstanding stock after the IPO. At the high end of the expected price range, this will make his holdings worth $17.6 billion. This would put him at around No. 33 of the Forbes lists of the world’s richest people, above the likes of Michael Dell and Steve Ballmer.

Overall, there were a modest number of arrests and clashes in a handful of cities. Many of the demonstrators reported splinter groups dressed mostly in black who turned demonstrations violent.

Here’s a roundup of flashpoints in the United States:

Seattle

Mayor Mike McGinn authorized a seizure of potential weapons after crowds of vandals dressed in black known as the “Black Bloc”   smashed up banks and other businesses with sticks, batons, and rocks,  reports the Seattle Times.

Niketown and American Apparel downtown were hit.  A  half dozen Starbucks closed early after stores reported broken windows.

At least two were arrested during the vandalism spree. Police said the vandals dressed in black were hard to track because they discarded their clothing to blend in with onlookers. Tear gas was used to stop some of the vandals.

The protesters also took out their anger at the U.S. Court of Appeals building,  shooting paint balls at it, shattering glass doors, and attempting to ignite an incendiary device.

Los Angeles

Not officially part of Occupy, employees at Los Angeles International Airport joined May Day demonstrations to protest the hiring of non-union workers. Ten were arrested for blocking an intersection near LAX, reports CBS LA.

In another gathering in downtown, a group of protesters appeared to surround LAPD officers, reports the L.A. Times. A  female officer was struck in the head with a skateboard, denting her helmet.  She was taken to the hospital, but the injury was not life-threatening.

The incident marred a “festive” atmosphere during protests earlier in the day.

San Francisco Bay Area

In Oakland, police using tear gas confronted a protest of about 400 downtown. Nine were arrested and at least one demonstrator was reportedly tasered. Protesters blocked streets throughout the day and vandalized two banks in the area. A news van and police vehicle were also vandalized.

Earlier plans to shut down the Golden Gate Bridge were abandoned. Golden Gate Ferry workers, however,  went on strike over health care coverage and morning service was canceled.

A group of a protesters tried to take over a building owned by the Archdiocese of San Francisco — the same one protesters briefly occupied as a commune on April 1, reports CBS SF. A protester dressed in black threw pipes and bricks  from the roof of a building at police. Two arrests were made.

The evening before  hundreds gathered in the Mission District in San Francisco. As the group began to march through the streets, some protesters began breaking car windows, spray-painting anarchist symbols on restaurants and attacking a police station.

One Occupy SF protester disavowed the violence. “I know Occupiers,” Jesse Smith told KTVU. “None of us have any idea who they were.”

One person was arrested.

New York City

Hundreds from Occupy Wall Street marched over the Williamsburg Bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan, but did not shut down any bridges or tunnels as organizers earlier had planned.

About 30 protesters were arrested over the course of the day for mostly minor  charges,  ranging from resisting arrest to blocking street traffic, reports the New York Daily News.  Confrontations were scattered around the city. There was a skirmish on the Lower East Side with masked protesters who  may not be part of the main Occupy group.

Letters containing a white powder that turned out to be cornstarch were sent to various New York banks and media outlets, and one was sent to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, reports the Associated Press.

The letters read “Happy May Day..This is a reminder that you are not in control..” said authorities.

Cleveland

Five people, claiming to be anarchists, have been arrested in Cleveland for trying to blow up a four-lane bridge across the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The local Occupy crowd said they were a part of their operation, but have now distanced themselves.

The suspects had bought fake explosives and placed them near the bridge Monday. The suspects were arrested after 9 p.m. Monday, according to WEWS.

The public was never in danger from the devices, according to Fox News. The explosive devices were inoperable and controlled by an undercover FBI agent. Charges against the suspects were filed Tuesday morning.

The U.S. Coast Guard, the Mexican navy and civilian vessels scoured the waters off the shore of both countries for the missing sailor from the Aegean, which was taking part in a 124-mile race that began Friday from Newport Beach, Calif., to Ensenada, Mexico. The sailboat, carrying a crew of four, was reported missing Saturday.

It was California’s second deadly accident this month involving an ocean race.

Race officials said they had few explanations for what may have happened to the Aegean other than it must have collided with ship like a freighter or tanker that did not see the smaller vessel. The Coast Guard said conditions were fine for sailing, with good visibility and moderate ocean swells of 6-to-8 feet.

If the smaller boat was bobbing around in light wind, the crew might not have been able to get out of the way of a larger ship, perhaps a freighter, said Rich Roberts, a spokesman for the Newport Ocean Sailing Association, the race organizer.

The race goes through shipping lanes and it’s possible for a large ship to hit a sailboat and not even know it, especially at night, Roberts said.

A race tracking system indicated the Aegean disappeared about 1:30 a.m. PDT (4:30 a.m. EDT) Saturday, he added.

Searchers were focusing on an area about 10 miles off the Mexican coast and about 10 miles south of U.S. waters, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Henry Dunphy.

Other yachts near the Coronado Islands in Mexico — four small, mostly uninhabited islands — reported seeing debris Saturday morning.

Two of the dead were William Reed Johnson Jr., 57, of Torrance, Calif., and Joseph Lester Stewart, 64, of Bradenton, Fla. The San Diego County Medical Examiner’s office was withholding the name of the third sailor pending notification of relatives.

Calls to Johnson’s and Stewart’s homes went unanswered Sunday.

The Aegean is registered to Theo Mavromatis, 49, of Redondo Beach, Calif. The race association didn’t know if he was aboard, but Gary Gilpin at Marina Sailing, which rents out the Aegean when Mavromatis isn’t using it, said the 49-year-old skipper took the yacht out earlier in the week for the competition.

Gilpin said Mavromatis, an engineer, was an experienced sailor who had won the Newport to Ensenada race in the past. A woman answering a call at a number listed for Mavromatis declined to answer questions.

Eric Lamb was the first to find debris of the boat — most no larger than six inches — scattered over about two square miles Saturday as he worked safety patrol on the race. He saw a small refrigerator, a white seat cushion and empty containers of yogurt and soy milk.

“We pulled a lot of boats off the rocks over the years and boats that hit the rocks, they don’t look like that. This was almost like it had gone through a blender,” said Lamb, 62.

A Coast Guard helicopter circling overhead directed him and a partner to two floating bodies. Both had severe cuts and bruises, and one of them had major head trauma.

Two race participants who were in the area at the time the Aegean disappeared said they saw or heard a freighter.

Cindy Arosteguy of Oxnard, Calif., remembers hearing on her radio someone say, “Do you see us?” as she saw a tanker about a half-mile away.

“I got back on the radio and said, ‘Yes, I see you,’” she said. “It was definitely a freighter.”

In Ensenada, several hundred people held a minute of silence for the victims at an awards ceremony that spilled out in a courtyard from a large white canopy at a hotel that served as race headquarters.

Chuck Iverson, commodore of the sailing association, said in an interview that the collision was a “fluke,” noting how common night races are along Mexico’s Baja California coast.

“We’re all shocked by this whole event,” he said.

The deaths are the first fatalities in the race’s 65 years, the sponsor said.

Racing boats are required to use lights at night, Iverson said, although the boats are not inspected unless a competitor suspects a problem and tells race officials.

The race attracts sailors of all skills, including some who are new to long distances.

“You get world-class sailors and you get first-timers. That’s the good thing about it. … It’s kind of a safety-in-numbers thing,” said Lamb, who has worked safety patrol for eight years.

The Newport Beach Patch website posted a photo of the Aegean’s crew at the start of the race Friday. Four men in royal blue T-shirts are on the deck as the boat cuts through calm waters.

A total of 213 boats were registered, and the winner, Robert Lane of Long Beach Yacht Club, finished Saturday in 23 hours, 26 minutes, 40 seconds. Some boats still were arriving Sunday morning in Ensenada, and about 50 people gathered in the morning fog at a marina to watch. A notice tacked to a bulletin board alongside the racing times informed spectators of the tragedy.

The deaths come two weeks after five sailors died in the waters off Northern California when their 38-foot yacht was hit by powerful waves, smashed into rocks and capsized during a race. Three sailors survived the wreck and the body of another was quickly recovered. Four remained missing until one body was recovered Thursday.

The deadly accident near the Farallon Islands, about 27 miles west of San Francisco, prompted the Coast Guard to temporarily stop races in ocean waters outside San Francisco Bay. The Coast Guard said the suspension will allow it and the offshore racing community to study the accident and race procedures to determine whether changes are needed to improve safety. U.S. Sailing, the governing body of yacht racing, is leading the safety review, which is expected to be completed within the next month.

In 1979, a freak storm in the Irish Sea led to the deaths of 15 sailors in the Fastnet Race. In the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race off Australia, a freak storm with hurricane-force winds struck the fleet in the Bass Strait, sinking several boats and killing six sailors.

Gary Jobson, president of the U.S. Sailing Association, said there have been too many accidents during races in the past year, and that the association is working to make the sport safer.

“I’m horrified. I’ve done a lot of sailboat racing and I’ve hit logs in the water, and I’ve seen a man go overboard, but this takes the whole thing to a new level,” Jobson said. “We need to take a step back and take a deep breath with what we’re doing. Something is going wrong here.”

Jobson said U.S. Sailing will appoint an independent panel to investigate the Ensenada incident, as it has done in the Farallon Islands accident.