The U.S. closes its embassy in Syria as intense blasts echo through the city of Homs after a weekend bloodbath ended in hundreds of deaths there, activists say.

A Norwegian court concludes that Anders Behring Breivik -- the man charged with killing 77 people last July, an attack he claimed merited a medal of honor -- can be kept in custody until his trial.

Rival dissident army officers are claiming to lead the increasingly armed rebellion within Syria, exposing rifts within the opposition.

A 6.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Monday off the third-largest island in the Philippines has killed at least 15 people, the government said.

Economic growth in China could drop by half this year in the event of a sharp recession in Europe, the IMF predicted on Monday in a report that underscored the importance of global trade to the world's second largest economy.

U.S. aid to Egypt could suffer if Egypt persists in prosecuting nongovernmental organization workers, U.S. officials warned Monday.

A court in the United Kingdom has granted bail to a radical cleric accused of links to al Qaeda, the British Home Office said Monday.

Romania's Prime Minister Emil Boc resigned Monday, following weeks of public protests against austerity measures, and in the wake of at least 34 deaths due to cold weather.

Forty-three people, including 19 Americans, face prosecution in an Egyptian criminal court on charges of illegal foreign funding as part of an ongoing crackdown on nongovernmental organizations, a prosecution spokesman said Sunday.

Violent clashes near Egypt's Interior Ministry on Monday left at least one person dead and 72 injured, a health ministry official said.

The United States has moved to block assets of Iran's government and financial institutions, saying they had engaged in "deceptive practices," President Barack Obama's administration announced Monday.

Australian authorities plead with hundreds of people, who have chosen to remain in a town in the path of rising flood waters, to vacate their homes.

Sixty years ago Monday, a 25-year-old woman got a message that her father had died -- and that she was now Queen Elizabeth II.

A closed-door hearing to determine whether the captain of the Costa Concordia cruise ship should remain under house arrest is set for Monday.

Rival Palestinian political factions Fatah and Hamas named President Mahmoud Abbas the head of an interim unity government during a televised signing ceremony Monday.

Three-time Tour de France winner Alberto Contador has been stripped of his 2010 title and retroactively banned from cycling for two years following Monday's ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Tuareg tribesman who reportedly fought for Moammar Gadhafi in Libya have returned to Mali with weapons, stoking violence and forcing thousands to flee, Mali's president said.

The Chinese authorities have contested reports that three Tibetans set themselves on fire last week in a remote area of southwestern China.

Ahead of her Super Bowl halftime show, singer Madonna promised there would be no "wardrobe malfunction." What she didn't guarantee was no obscene gestures.

A 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck Monday off the coast of the third-largest island in the Philippines, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.