Santorum wins Minnesota GOP caucuses and Missouri ‘beauty contest’ — and leads in Colorado WASHINGTON (AP) — A resurgent Rick Santorum won Minnesota’s Republican presidential caucuses with ease Tuesday night and reached for victory in Colorado, raising fresh questions about front-runner Mitt Romney’s appeal among the ardent conservatives at the core of the party’s political base. Santorum triumphed, as well, in a nonbinding Missouri primary that was worth bragging rights but no delegates. “Conservatism is alive and well in Missouri... Read more

Russian foreign minister pushes reforms in Syria as bloodshed intensifies BEIRUT (AP) — Days after blocking a U.S.-backed peace plan at the U.N., senior Russian officials pushed for reforms Tuesday during an emergency meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad, promoting a settlement to end the uprising without removing him from power. Thousands of flag-waving government supporters cheered the Russians in the Syrian capital of Damascus, while to the north, Assad’s forces pounded the opposition city of Homs — underscoring the... Read more

ATLANTA (AP) — Karen Handel has had two major run-ins involving Planned Parenthood. One helped crush her political career; the other has the potential to remake it. Handel ran for the Republican nomination for governor of Georgia on an anti-abortion platform in 2010 but lost after her chief GOP rival accused her of being soft on the issue, in part because she voted years earlier to give Planned Parenthood federal funding. On Tuesday, she resigned as policy chief at Susan... Read more

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — A political firestorm over abortion and birth control spread suddenly to multiple fronts on Tuesday. A high-ranking official resigned from the Komen breast-cancer charity after its backtracking treaty with Planned Parenthood, and Republican presidential candidates blistered the Obama administration for a recent ruling on Catholic hospitals and contraception. The White House made a point of declaring it wanted to allay the concerns of church-affiliated employers — many would be required to provide birth control coverage to... Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hammered by Republicans and the Catholic Church, the White House hinted at compromise Tuesday as it struggled to calm an election-year uproar caused by its rule requiring religious schools and hospitals to provide employees with access to free birth control. Obama’s chief spokesman and his top campaign strategist both said the administration was searching for ways to allay the concern of Roman Catholics who say the birth control mandate would force them to violate their religious beliefs... Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says it wants to allay the concerns of Catholic church-affiliated employers over a new requirement for them to provide birth control coverage regardless of their religious beliefs. Press secretary Jay Carney didn’t say how those concerns could be addressed, though he said there were a lot of ideas for doing it. He continued to defend the new policy, while making clear Tuesday that the White House is looking for a way to calm the... Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Muslim civil rights group wants the Justice Department to investigate the tactics of FBI agents after two Libyan-Americans from Oregon were barred from returning to the United States. The two men traveled separately to Libya following the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi to visit family and deliver humanitarian supplies. Last month, both were barred from return flights to the U.S. and told the FBI wanted to question them. One was stopped in Tunisia, while the other was... Read more

NEW CITY, New York (AP) — A guilty plea has averted a trial in an attempted murder case that brought unusual attention to a religious dispute in a Jewish enclave in New York. Defense attorney Deborah Lowenberg says Shaul Spitzer pleaded guilty Tuesday to first-degree assault. The 18-year-old is a member of a Hasidic sect in New Square, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Manhattan. The insular village has 7,000 residents, nearly all of them members of the Skver... Read more

ATLANTA (AP) — A federal appeals court has rejected arguments from a former counselor at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who claims her religious rights were violated because she was fired for refusing to counsel a gay woman. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld a judge’s decision to dismiss Marcia Walden’s lawsuit against the CDC. Walden worked as a contractor for the CDC in 2007 when a woman came to her for advice involving... Read more

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — A Hasidic teenager pleaded guilty Tuesday to assault, averting a trial in an attempted murder case that brought unusual attention to a religious dispute in a Jewish enclave. Shaul Spitzer, 18, accepted a plea bargain as jury selection was about to begin at the Rockland County Courthouse in New City, said defense attorney Deborah Lowenberg. Spitzer had been accused of severely burning neighbor Aron Rottenberg with a firebomb outside Rottenberg’s home in New Square, an... Read more