LE MARS, Iowa (AP) — Mitt Romney is the clear Republican front-runner in Iowa in the final days before the first voting in the 2012 presidential election, but polls also suggest large numbers of Republicans could change their minds before Tuesday’s caucuses. Five other candidates are fighting, as they have all year, to emerge as the conservative alternative to Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, in the state-by-state nominating contests to pick a challenger to Democratic President Barack Obama in November’s... Read more

OCTOBER Oct. 1 — The campaign for the first elections born of the revolts that swept the Middle East begins in Tunisia, featuring 81 political parties in a country where more than 90 percent of the vote used to be awarded to just one. Oct. 2 — Syrian dissidents formally establish a broad-based national council designed to overthrow President Bashar Assad’s regime, which they accuse of pushing the country to the brink of civil war. Oct. 3 — Amanda Knox... Read more

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Holocaust survivors and political leaders expressed outrage Sunday over a Jerusalem demonstration in which ultra-Orthodox Jews donned Star of David patches and uniforms similar to those the Nazis forced Jews to wear during World War II. Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered Saturday night to protest what they say is a nationwide campaign directed against their lifestyle. The practices, which call for strict separation of the sexes, are rejected by mainstream Israelis as religious coercion. Ultra-Orthodox extremists... Read more

JERUSALEM (AP) — Holocaust survivors are outraged over a Jerusalem demonstration in which ultra-Orthodox Jews wore Star of David patches and uniforms similar to those the Nazis forced Jews to wear during World War II. Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered Saturday night to protest what they say is a nationwide campaign directed against their lifestyle. The practices, which call for strict separation of the sexes, are rejected by mainstream Israelis as religious coercion. At the protest, one child’s hands were... Read more

JERUSALEM (AP) — Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews are protesting in Jerusalem to defend their contentious effort to ban the mixing of the sexes on buses, sidewalks and other public spaces. These practices are rejected by mainstream Judaism and efforts by a minority group to impose its lifestyle on others has provoked anger among secular Israelis and among the wider ultra-Orthodox community. In one city near Jerusalem, radical ultra-Orthodox recently accosted school girls and spit at women and children they believe... Read more

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI marked the end of 2011 with prayers of thanks and said humanity awaits the new year with apprehension but also with hope for a better future. “Another year approaches its end, while we await a new one, with the trepidation, desires and expectations of always,” Benedict said at the traditional New Year’s Eve vespers service, as he delivered his homily from the central altar of St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday evening. “With the... Read more

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI is presiding over a traditional vespers service at the Vatican to mark the end of 2011. Benedict arrived at the solemn New Year’s Eve ceremony Saturday evening wearing gold-colored robes and standing aboard a raised, wheeled platform, which ushers guided up the long center aisle of St. Peter’s Basilica. The 84-year-old pontiff started using the device earlier in the year to reduce fatigue. Benedict nimbly navigated the platform’s two steps and knelt apparently... Read more

OKARA, Pakistan (AP) — Sultan Mehmood Gujar was a solid supporter of Islamist militants fighting in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India and even donated money to them, until he attended an innovative 40-day lecture series by a moderate cleric aimed at countering violent extremism. The course, given to the public at an Islamic school in a hotbed of militancy in Pakistan, had a profound effect on the 46-year-old property dealer, convincing him the militants were wrong to claim they were waging... Read more

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Mitt Romney is the clear Republican front-runner in Iowa in the final days before the first voting in the 2012 presidential election. But that’s where the glimmer of clarity ends in this unpredictable nomination race. Five others are fighting, as they have all year, to emerge as the alternative to the former Massachusetts governor. The ascendant Rick Santorum and Rick Perry are battling to be the preferred candidate of social conservatives. Libertarian-leaning Ron Paul is... Read more

July 2 —Itamar Franco, 81, a former Brazilian president known as the leader who in the 1980s tamed inflation in Latin America’s largest country, in Sao Paulo. He had leukemia and pneumonia. July 4 — Otto von Hapsburg, 98, the oldest son of Austria’s last emperor and longtime head of one of Europe’s most influential families, in Poecking, Germany. No cause of death was given. — Serban Cantacuzino, 70, a Romanian prince and actor who starred in films, musicals and... Read more