CAIRO (AP) — The number two diplomat in the U.S. State Department met Wednesday with leaders of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the highest-level contact between Washington and the once-banned group poised to dominate the country’s first parliament chosen after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns met with the head of the Brotherhood’s political party, which has won more than 40 percent of the seats in elections that ended Wednesday. The parliament is scheduled to convene... Read more

CAIRO (AP) — U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns has met with leaders of Egypt’s largest Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, poised to dominate the country’s new parliament. The meeting marks an effort by the U.S. government to reach out to the Brotherhood after decades of shunning the movement. The Brotherhood’s party has won more than 40 percent of the seats in the incoming parliament, scheduled to convene on Jan. 23. Its main task is to appoint a 100-member... Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Religious workers can’t sue for job discrimination, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, saying for the first time that churches — not courts — are the best judges of whether clergy and other religious employees should be fired or hired. But the high court tempered its decision bolstering the constitutional separation of church and state by refusing to give a detailed description of what constitutes a religious employee, which left an untold number of workers at churches, synagogues... Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says a church school cannot be sued in court over an employee’s discrimination complaint. The high court’s unanimous decision Wednesday overturned an earlier ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Courts normally have ruled the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion shields churches and their operations from the reach of anti-discrimination laws when dealing with employees of religious institutions. But the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran... Read more

RUTHERFORD, New Jersey (AP) — Law enforcement officials urged residents and religious institutions to be vigilant after a synagogue and its rabbi’s sleeping quarters were firebombed early Wednesday, the fourth such incident within a month that has been classified as a bias crime against a Jewish center or religious institution. Prosecutor John Molinelli said there was no evidence yet linking the four incidents, but they hadn’t ruled out that they might be connected. Besides being classified as a bias crime,... Read more

RUTHERFORD, New Jersey (AP) — New Jersey law enforcement officials suspect that more than one person may be involved in what’s being classified as a hate crime after a synagogue where nine people were living was firebombed. Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli says several Molotov cocktails and other incendiary devices were thrown early Wednesday at a Rutherford home housing a synagogue on the first floor and the rabbi’s residence on the second. The rabbi, his wife, five children and the... Read more

RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey law enforcement officials suspect that more than one person may be involved in what’s being classified as a hate crime after a synagogue where nine people were living was firebombed. Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli says several Molotov cocktails and other incendiary devices were thrown early Wednesday at a Rutherford home housing a synagogue on the first floor and the rabbi’s residence on the second. The rabbi, his wife, five children and the rabbi’s... Read more

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Over the past decade, Turks grew accustomed to the forceful tones of their prime minister on television, and things seemed oddly quiet when he vanished from public life for nearly a month after surgery. Now he’s back. On Tuesday, workaholic Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a full program, addressing party loyalists in parliament, meeting with the Tunisian foreign minister as well as the head of a European parliamentary assembly, holding a telephone conversation with Iraq’s prime minister... Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney braced for a brutal 10-day onslaught in South Carolina as he looks to turn the first-in-the-South primary into the last stand for his Republican rivals. Coming off twin victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, the former Massachusetts governor was already trying Wednesday to lower expectations that he’ll win in a state defined by notoriously nasty politics, conservative Christians and an active tea party — elements his rivals hope they can use... Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Wednesday he has “an uphill climb” to win South Carolina’s presidential primary but is ready to defend himself from the “underbelly” of politics in a state known for bare-knuckled tactics. Boarding a plane for the flight to Columbia, S.C., to campaign for the Jan. 21 primary, Romney said he’s prepared for the direct and indirect attacks that are sure to come from Newt Gingrich and other rivals for the GOP nomination.... Read more