15,000 security personnel shielded the Olympic torch on its truncated tour in New Delhi Thursday. Thousands of pro-Tibet protesters were kept from the route.
Despite the apparent concession of Basra, the cleric Moktada al-Sadr threatened to declare ?war until liberation? if fighting against his Mahdi Army militia continued.
A widening of the conflict has been rebuffed over fears that attacking Pakistani radicals may anger the new government, which is negotiating with militants.
AP - Pope Benedict XVI focused on the future of his American church Saturday as he marked the third anniversary of his election as pontiff, rallying young people, priests and seminarians and assuring them of his support as they dealt with the damage from the clergy sex abuse scandal.
AP - Adult mothers who have been allowed to stay with their young children since they were taken from a polygamous sect will be separated from them after DNA sampling is completed next week, a child welfare official said Saturday.
AP - Barack Obama cast his Democratic presidential rival Saturday as a game-player who uses "slash and burn" tactics and will say whatever people want to hear, a sharp jab at her character in the final chapter of the pivotal Pennsylvania primary campaign.
A man claiming to be Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, mocked the death toll of American troops and urged his fighters to attack U.S. forces. The Web posting came just hours after radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr threatened to "declare a war" unless U.S. and Iraqi forces stop their assaults on his followers.
Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday recalled growing up during the Nazi era in his native Germany and stressed the "fundamental importance of freedom." But he also alerted young people at a rally in New York to "new injustices," including environmental problems.