DALLAS (AP) — Peggy Railey, the former wife of a Dallas minister who was acquitted at a sensational trial of trying to strangle her, has died in East Texas nearly 25 years after the attack that left her incapacitated. Ron Gamel of the Tyler Memorial Funeral Home confirmed Railey’s death but declined to release details Tuesday, citing a family request for privacy. Railey, 63, never recovered from the savage choking assault at her Dallas-area home in April 1987 and remained... Read more

BAGHDAD (AP) — In the week since the last American troops left Iraq, Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered an arrest warrant for the country’s highest-ranking Sunni official, threatened to exclude the rival sect’s main political party from his government and warned that “rivers of blood” would flow if Sunnis seek an autonomous region. The moves confirmed what many longtime observers of Iraqi politics have suspected since al-Maliki came to office more than five years ago — that he has... Read more

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Boko Haram’s insurgency started with robed men on motorcycles killing their enemies one at a time across Nigeria’s remote and dusty northeast. Now the radical Muslim sect’s attacks have morphed into a nationwide sectarian fight. They’re taking on strategic targets like the country’s United Nations headquarters and are striking on symbolic days — including Christmas attacks now two years in a row. At least 39 people were killed when Boko Haram militants attacked two churches and... Read more

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Prince Philip returned to the royal family’s country estate Tuesday, after a spell in the hospital undergoing treatment for a blocked coronary artery. Philip, Queen Elizabeth II’s 90-year-old husband, spent four nights in the hospital recovering from a successful coronary stent procedure. He was taken to Papworth, a specialist heart hospital in Cambridge, on Friday after complaining of chest pains. It was the most serious health scare suffered by Philip, who is known to be active... Read more

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel (AP) — Thousands of Israelis have gathered in a city outside Jerusalem to demonstrate against a radical Jewish sect that is trying to impose its strict lifestyle on others. The city of Beit Shemesh has been the center of a national uproar since an 8-year-old schoolgirl told a local TV station last week that she is scared to go to school because members of the ultra-Orthodox sect spit at her and curse her. They claim the girl,... Read more

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel (AP) — A shy 8-year-old schoolgirl has unwittingly found herself on the front line of Israel’s latest religious war. Naama Margolese is a pale, blue-eyed, ponytailed, bespectacled second-grader who is afraid of walking to her religious Jewish girls school for fear of ultra-Orthodox extremists who have spat on her and called her a whore for dressing “immodestly.” Her plight has drawn new attention to the simmering issue of religious coercion in Israel, and the increasing brazenness of... Read more

CAIRO (AP) — Gaza’s Hamas premier was in Egypt Monday on his first trip outside the blockaded territory since the Islamists overran it in 2007, saying his meeting with his Islamic ideological mentors threatens Israel. Ismail Haniyeh discussed Mideast politics with the leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which has emerged as the biggest winner in the first parliamentary elections in post-uprising Egypt, capturing nearly half of the seats so far. Hamas is considered an offshoot of the Brotherhood. Brotherhood leader... Read more

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI has denounced the bombing of a Nigerian Catholic church that killed 35 people on Christmas Day, saying only respect and reconciliation can bring peace — not violence. Speaking at his post-Christmas blessing Monday, Benedict said he had learned with “profound sadness” of the “absurd” attack on the St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, which was claimed by the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram. It was the second year in a row that the... Read more

MADALLA, Nigeria (AP) — At a Nigerian Catholic church where a terror attack killed 35 people on Christmas, women tried to clean the sanctuary ahead of Mass on Monday while one man wept uncontrollably amid the debris. Outside St. Theresa Catholic Church, crowds gathered among the burned-out cars in the dirt parking lot, angry over the attack claimed by a radical Muslim sect and fearful that the group will target more churches. Rev. Father Christopher Jataudarde told The Associated Press... Read more

BAGHDAD (AP) — The political party loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called Monday for the dissolution of Iraq’s parliament and new elections in another move that could escalate the country’s growing sectarian crisis. The anti-American Sadrist bloc is a partner in the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Bahaa al-Aaraji, the head of the Sadrists’ bloc in parliament, said the elections are needed because of instability in the country and problems that threaten Iraq’s sovereignty. “The political... Read more