CARROLLTON, Ga. (AP) — The young political candidate sought support from labor unions. He castigated corporations for “raping” the environment. He demanded that big oil companies open their financial books for inspection. This was not the platform of a liberal Democrat, but rather the agenda of Republican Newt Gingrich when he ran for Congress in west Georgia in the mid-to-late 1970s. Now as a presidential candidate, Gingrich calls himself a true conservative and derides former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a... Read more

NEW YORK (AP) — At Columbia University and elsewhere, the fear among students that the New York Police Department might secretly be infiltrating their lives has spread beyond the Muslim student population to others who find the reported tactics “disgusting,” as one teenager put it. The NYPD surveillance of Muslims on a dozen college campuses in the Northeast is a surprising and disappointing violation, students said Saturday in reaction to Associated Press reports that revealed the intelligence-gathering at Columbia and... Read more

NEW YORK (AP) — At Columbia University, the fear among students that the New York Police Department might secretly be infiltrating their lives has spread beyond the Muslim student population to others who find the reported tactics “disgusting,” as one teenager put it. The NYPD surveillance of Muslims on a dozen college campuses in the Northeast is a surprising and disappointing violation, Columbia students said Saturday in reaction to Associated Press reports that revealed the intelligence-gathering. “If this is happening... Read more

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s ruling military council pushed ahead Sunday with plans to begin drafting a new constitution before transferring power to civilian rule, announcing that parliament will meet this week to select the panel tasked with writing it. The announcement by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that both houses of parliament will begin choosing the 100-member panel March 3 deals a fresh blow to largely secular and urban activist groups who want an immediate end to military... Read more

CAIRO (AP) — The Muslim Brotherhood won 58 percent of the seats up for grabs in the Egyptian parliament’s upper house, election officials said Saturday, further solidifying their role as the country’s most powerful and organized political group. The election commission said Sunday that the ultraconservative Al-Nour party came in second with a quarter of the seats in the upper house, known as the Shura Council, while liberal parties, including the Egyptian bloc and Wafd, came in third with a... Read more

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — After the White House decreed this month that religious employers would have to pay for workers’ birth control, it was no surprise that Roman Catholic leaders would protest. That evangelical Protestants would rally to their cause was less expected and unthinkable even a generation ago. “It’s just the common good. We’re all brothers. They’re Christians, we’re Christians,” said Thomas Fallon, 43, a general contractor who lives in Auburn, Mass., and converted to Southern Baptism from Catholicism.... Read more

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI has called on infertile couples to shun artificial procreation, saying such methods are a form of arrogance. Benedict spoke Saturday at the end of a three-day Vatican conference on diagnosing and treating infertility. Reiterating Vatican teaching, he called marriage the only permissible place to conceive children. Benedict also pressed a church ban against artificial procreation. He said infertile couples should resist resorting to any method to try to conceive other than sex between... Read more

Rick Santorum’s political good fortune in the Republican presidential primaries has come about in large part because of his appeal to evangelicals. A Roman Catholic, he is a beneficiary of more than two decades of cooperation between conservative Protestants and Catholics who set aside theological differences for the common cause of the culture war. Doctrine — and anti-Catholic bias — once split Protestants and Catholics so bitterly that many evangelical leaders worked to defeat John F. Kennedy because of his... Read more

ISLAMABAD (AP) — With a police officer wounded and the presidential palace breached, the Pakistani capital has launched a fresh offensive against a uniquely feared enemy in the Muslim country — the city’s ever expanding population of wild boar. Each night, packs of the hairy beasts emerge from Islamabad’s river beds, parks and scrubland to rifle through the overflowing rubbish bins of its mostly wealthy residents and growing number of restaurants. City authorities are laying poison and have announced free... Read more

LANSING, Michigan (AP) — The stakes are high for Mitt Romney in Tuesday’s Michigan primary where a loss in his home state would badly tarnish his image as the inevitable Republican presidential candidate and commit him to a long march to the nomination that could work to President Barack Obama’s advantage. A victory Tuesday by rival Rick Santorum would be a public-relations nightmare for Romney, who was born and raised in Michigan. But the former Massachusetts governor’s campaign still would... Read more