BEIJING (AP) — A crowd of Muslims fought with police who demolished a mosque in China’s northwest, a police employee and a human rights group said Monday. The violence erupted Friday in Hexi, a town in the Ningxia region, after the mosque was declared an “illegal religious place” and about 1,000 officers arrived to demolish it, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said. It said 50 people were injured and more than 100 detained after several... Read more

HAVANA (AP) — The Roman Catholic Church in Cuba has announced the dates and a partial itinerary for Pope Benedict XVI’s much-anticipated visit to the island, the first by a pontiff since John Paul II’s groundbreaking 1998 tour. The church said in a statement Sunday that the pontiff will be in Cuba from March 26 to 28, following a visit to Mexico. The itinerary outlined by the church is far less ambitious than that undertaken by John Paul 14 years... Read more

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI will head to the Catholic-rich state of Guanajuato in his first visit to Mexico in March, and skip the country’s heavily populated capital. The Mexican Episcopal Conference says Benedict will arrive on March 23 in the city of Leon where President Felipe Calderon will welcome him. The organization said in a Sunday statement that Benedict also plans to greet worshippers in the city of Guanajuato. He will officiate a Mass in the city... Read more

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A confident Mitt Romney looked to seize the momentum in the Republican presidential race with a victory in Tuesday’s leadoff Iowa caucuses, but his rivals worked to undermine the perception that he was the candidate best positioned to defeat President Barack Obama. The final Des Moines Register poll showed the former Massachusetts governor and Texas Rep. Ron Paul locked in a close race in Iowa, with former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum rising swiftly to challenge... Read more

BAGHDAD (AP) — The question was disturbing: Why do you live here? Ahmed al-Azami, a Sunni Muslim, has owned a house in Baghdad’s Shiite neighborhood of Shaab since 1999. But when Shiite residents recently began questioning why he, a Sunni, was living among them, he decided it was time to leave. His story and similar tales by other Sunnis suggest Iraqis are again segregating themselves along sectarian lines, prompted by a political crisis pulling at the explosive Sunni-Shiite divide just... Read more

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI named a married former Episcopal bishop Sunday to head the first U.S. organizational structure for disaffected Anglicans and Episcopalians who want to join the Roman Catholic Church. The Rev. Jeffrey Neil Steenson, a father of three and Catholic convert, will lead the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, the equivalent of a diocese, that will be based in Houston, Texas, but will operate nationally. The Vatican created the first such ordinariate... Read more

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI has named a married priest who converted from Anglicanism to head the first organizational structure in the U.S. for converts wanting to retain some of their Anglican heritage. The Vatican said Sunday that the Rev. Jeffrey Neil Steenson, a former rector at an Episcopal church in Texas, will lead the Personal Ordinariate, the equivalent of a diocese. Benedict in 2009 issued an unprecedented invitation for Anglicans to join the Catholic Church in groups... Read more

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday named a married priest and former sportswriter who converted from Anglicanism to head the first organizational structure for U.S. converts to Roman Catholicism wanting to retain some of their Anglican heritage. A Vatican announcement said that the Rev. Jeffrey Neil Steenson, a former rector at an Episcopal church in Texas, will lead the Personal Ordinariate, the equivalent of a diocese. The Vatican created the first such ordinariate in Britain last year.... Read more

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — With time running short, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and other Republican presidential contenders insisted they could beat President Barack Obama as they worked to persuade undecided Iowa Republicans aching to win the White House to choose them over chief rival Mitt Romney. “I’m the candidate that actually was able to win in states, as a conservative, in getting Democrats and independents to vote for us,” Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who is surging in the... Read more

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI in his New Year’s homily Sunday praised young people as key to securing a future of hope despite what he called “shadows on the horizon of today’s world.” In the splendor of St. Peter’s Basilica, with ambassadors to the Holy See from dozens of countries seated in the front rows, the pontiff, wearing white vestments with gold-colored trimmings, celebrated Mass on a day the Vatican dedicates to world peace. “I would like to... Read more