CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian Cabinet minister has stoked tension with the U.S. over funding nonprofit groups working for democracy in Egypt, accusing Washington of intentionally seeking to create chaos to prevent the country from prospering. The comments published Tuesday in state media were made by International Cooperation Minister Faiza Aboul Naga, a leftover from the old Hosni Mubarak regime. She made them in October during testimony to two judges investigating allegations the groups used foreign funds to foment unrest... Read more

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Mormon church leaders have apologized to the family of Holocaust survivor and Jewish rights advocate Simon Wiesenthal after his parents were posthumously baptized in a Mormon temple ritual last month. Salt Lake City researcher Helen Radkey found documentation of the baptism while conducting regular checks of a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints genealogical database last week. Mormons believe posthumous baptism by proxy rites allow deceased persons to receive the Gospel in the afterlife.... Read more

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Mormon church leaders have apologized to the family of Holocaust survivor and Jewish rights advocate Simon Wiesenthal after his parents were posthumously baptized in a Mormon temple ritual last month. Salt Lake City researcher Helen Radkey found documentation of the baptism while conducting regular checks of a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints genealogical database last week. Mormons believe posthumous baptism by proxy rites allow deceased persons to receive the Gospel in the afterlife.... Read more

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The female branch of the scandal-plagued Legion of Christ religious order is in turmoil following the resignation of its leader and decision of some 30 members to split off from the movement. The Legion confirmed Tuesday that Malen Oriol had asked to resign as the assistant to the Legion’s general director. In that role, Oriol headed the Legion’s branch of consecrated women — some 600 women who live like nuns working in Legion schools, recruiting and... Read more

DHARMSALA, India (AP) — Upcoming Tibetan New Year’s celebrations appear poised to bring more bloodshed to the troubled Himalayan region, the head of Tibet’s exile government said Tuesday, warning that China has sealed off the regions ahead of a crackdown. Already facing nearly two dozen self-immolations, many by Buddhist monks and nuns calling for Tibetan freedom and the return of the Dalai Lama, China is sending thousands of extra security forces to Tibetan areas to prepare for expected protests. “They... Read more

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — A bomb disposal officer was killed trying to defuse a bomb just minutes after another blast in a flashpoint central Nigeria city previously hit by a feared Islamist sect, police said Tuesday. The first blast occurred Tuesday morning near a pedestrian bridge in a residential neighborhood in Kaduna and left no casualties, said Kaduna state police spokesman Aminu Lawan. However, an officer from the police’s anti-bomb squad was checking the contents of a plastic bag on... Read more

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — The Maldives’ national museum is reopening without some of its most valuable exhibits a week after a mob of suspected religious extremists smashed images from the pre-Islamic era of this Indian Ocean archipelago. Museum Director Ali Waheed said Tuesday that about 35 exhibits — mostly images of Buddha and Hindu gods — were destroyed in the attack. Some of the artifacts dated back to the sixth century. Waheed says 99 percent of the Maldives’ pre-Islamic... Read more

ROME (AP) — The top Catholic bishop in the U.S. has vowed legislative and court challenges to President Barack Obama’s compromise on exempting religiously affiliated employers from paying directly for birth control for their workers. Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, who heads the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in an interview Tuesday that while Obama’s about-face Friday initially sparked glimmers of hope in the church, it ended up being a “hill of beans.” Dolan, who is in Rome to be made... Read more

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — Bahraini security forces fanned out in unprecedented numbers on Tuesday as the island nation was marking the one-year anniversary of the Shiite-led uprising against its Sunni rulers. On the eve of the anniversary, violence erupted at a rally in the Gulf nation’s capital of Manama as opposition supporters staged the largest attempt in months to retake Pearl Square, the city’s central roundabout that had served as the epicenter of weeks of anti-government protests last year, inspired... Read more

LONDON (AP) — A British Cabinet minister says Europe is threatened by a wave of “militant secularism” and religion should play a bigger role in public life. Sayeeda Warsi says Europe should “become more confident and more comfortable in its Christianity.” In an article for Tuesday’s Daily Telegraph, she accuses militant secularists of having the same intolerant instincts as authoritarian regimes. Warsi, a Muslim, is leading a delegation of British politicians to the Vatican this week. Most Britons are not... Read more