VIENNA (AP) — The U.N. nuclear agency acknowledged renewed failure Wednesday after a trip to probe suspicions of covert Iranian nuclear weapons work, in a statement issued just hours after an Iranian general warned of a pre-emptive strike against any foe threatening the country. The double signs of defiance reflected Tehran’s continued resistance to demands that it defuse suspicions about its nuclear activities despite a growing list of international sanctions. The International Atomic Energy Agency made little progress in talks... Read more

STOCKHOLM (AP) — A Swedish artist who angered Muslims by depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a dog was pelted with eggs during a university lecture when he presented another drawing of Islam’s revered prophet, police and the artist said Wednesday. Lars Vilks told The Associated Press that he was not harmed in Tuesday’s attack at Karlstad University in central Sweden and that he continued his lecture on the limits of free speech after police evicted the protesters from the building.... Read more

STOCKHOLM (AP) — The Swedish artist who faced numerous death threats after depicting Prophet Muhammad as a dog has been pelted with eggs by an a group of people during a university lecture on the limits of the freedom of expression. According to a police statement, Lars Vilks was unharmed in the attack that occurred at Karlstad University in southwestern Sweden late Tuesday evening. No one has yet been arrested for the assault, but police say they are investigating the... Read more

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — The mayor and police director of New Jersey’s largest city said Wednesday the New York Police Department misled their city and never told them it was conducting a widespread spying operation on Newark’s Muslim neighborhoods. Had they known, they said, they never would have allowed it. “If anyone in my police department had known this was a blanket investigation of individuals based on nothing but their religion, that strikes at the core of our beliefs and... Read more

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — The mayor and police director of New Jersey’s largest city said Wednesday the New York Police Department misled their city and never told them it was conducting a widespread spying operation on Newark’s Muslim neighborhoods. Had they known, they said, they never would have allowed it. “If anyone in my police department had known this was a blanket investigation of individuals based on nothing but their religion, that strikes at the core of our beliefs and... Read more

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Americans living and working in New Jersey’s largest city were subjected to surveillance as part of the New York Police Department’s effort to build databases of where Muslims work, shop and pray. The operation in Newark was so secretive even the city’s mayor says he was kept in the dark. For months in mid-2007, plainclothes officers from the NYPD’s Demographics Units fanned out across Newark, taking pictures and eavesdropping on conversations inside businesses owned or frequented... Read more

MESA, Ariz. (AP) — Rick Santorum is looking for another upset or two, while Mitt Romney is hoping to keep his leading rival at bay in the run-up to the 20th debate of the race for the Republican presidential nomination. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think I could do well,” the former Pennsylvania senator told supporters Tuesday after arriving ahead of any of his rivals for pre-debate campaigning in Arizona, a state that has long been assumed safe... Read more

JIUHUANG FIRST VILLAGE, China (AP) — Police don’t travel far to monitor the goings-on at the Gami Temple at the edge of the Tibetan plateau. The police station sits inside the monastery, just outside the gates to the main prayer hall. Smothering security has become a fact of life in China’s Tibetan areas, from police stationed around monasteries to document checks at roadblocks. The heavy policing is driving some to radical acts to protest Chinese rule. Most dramatically, at least... Read more

NEWARK, New Jersey (AP) — Americans living and working in New Jersey’s largest city were subjected to surveillance as part of the New York Police Department’s effort to build databases of where Muslims work, shop and pray. The operation in Newark was so secretive even the city’s mayor says he was kept in the dark. For months in mid-2007, plainclothes officers from the NYPD’s Demographics Units fanned out across Newark, taking pictures and eavesdropping on conversations inside businesses owned or... Read more

JERUSALEM (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced the unwelcome possibility of a coalition crisis on Wednesday after Israel’s Supreme Court, in a landmark decision, overturned a law that has helped ultra-Orthodox Jewish men avoid military service. The ruling addresses an issue that is at the center of a simmering cultural war between religious and secular Jews, and adds to Netanyahu’s headaches as he prepares to travel to the White House for critical talks about Iran’s nuclear program. Antagonism toward... Read more