ISFAHAN, Iran, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Police and plainclothes security forces clashed with mourners Wednesday at a mosque in Isfahan, Iran, during a ceremony honoring a late dissident ayatollah.
PORT LINCOLN, Australia, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- South Australia residents Wednesday were forced to flee a bushfire that destroyed at least nine houses, officials said.
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Lebanese lawmakers formally condemned an attack on a Syrian bus in Deir Ammar in north Lebanon as a blow to bilateral relations.
FORT COLLINS, Colo., Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Richard Heene, the Colorado father who admitted falsely claiming his son was adrift in a balloon, must serve 90 days in jail, a judge ruled Wednesday.
BAGHDAD, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Plans by President Massoud Barzani of Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish enclave to merge the military forces of the two main Kurdish parties, known as "peshmerga," or those who face death, into a unified army is antagonizing the Kurds' Arab rivals.
HAYWARD, Calif., Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Two people were killed when a car fleeing police in the San Francisco Bay Area crashed into a tractor-trailer rig, police say.
PROVIDENCE, R.I., Dec. 23 (UPI) -- An online dating service was dropped by a rock station in Rhode Island after listeners complained it offers to find lovers for married people, a publicist says.
BAGHDAD, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- A security committee in the Iraqi Parliament is expected to submit a report on national defense questions surrounding a spate of deadly bombings in Baghdad.
NEW YORK, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Amtrak says rail service at Penn Station in New York was restored Wednesday after being halted for nearly three hours by a power problem.
BRUSSELS, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- The nomination of a glamorous and controversial minister to lead Romania's regional development efforts has alarmed European officials, observers say.
SEATTLE, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Seattle police said they are searching for a person of interest in the fatal shootings of a 28-year-old woman and her 13-week-old daughter.
PITTSBURGH, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., Wednesday revealed she was diagnosed with breast cancer following a mammogram.
LINCOLN, R.I., Dec. 23 (UPI) -- A 47-year-old woman is in custody on charges she robbed three banks in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, authorities say.
HAMPTON, Va., Dec. 23 (UPI) -- A peregrine falcon nursed back to health after being found injured in Pennsylvania last month has been released to the wild in Virginia, a wildlife expert says.
WILKES-BARRE, Pa., Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Two teenagers from Shenandoah, Pa., will be held in jail until their trial on a hate-crimes charge for the death of an illegal immigrant, a judge ruled.
YANGON, Myanmar, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- The Supreme Court will hear pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's appeal against her latest house detention handed down in August, Myanmar news sources report.
KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Afghan officials launched an investigation Wednesday into the apparent mistakes surrounding the police slaying of a member of Parliament.
SANA'A, Yemen, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Yemeni officials said Wednesday they are stepping up the hunt for al-Qaida terrorists in the wake of a bloody security operation.
PRAGUE, Czech Republic, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- They were expropriated for being Jewish by the Germans. They were expropriated for being German by the Communist Czechs. They were proud to return as pioneers as the Cold War ended. Norbert Auerbach was a lion of democratic Czechoslovakia. He was a proud pioneer of the Czech Republic. The former president of United Artists and later United International Pictures has left us at 87.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Some U.S. federal judges say guidelines calling for long prison sentences for possession of child pornography are too harsh.
ENGLEWOOD, N.J., Dec. 23 (UPI) -- A group of 11 students attacked a 13-year-old boy in Englewood, N.J., leaving the honor student at risk of losing his eyesight, authorities say.
SAN ANTONIO, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- The Texas Civil Rights Project said the state of Texas agreed to destroy millions of blood samples from newborns to settle a lawsuit.
AMPATUAN, Philippines, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Philippines journalists lit candles Wednesday as they visited the site where at least 22 of their colleagues were slain in November, observers said.
