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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Parents of some of the children who 10 U.S. missionaries tried to take out of Haiti after its catastrophic earthquake told a judge Tuesday that they freely handed over their kids, the Americans' lawyer said.

KABUL - About 300 families have already fled a southern Afghan town ahead of a major U.S.-Afghan offensive planned on a key Taliban stronghold, provincial officials said Wednesday.

WASHINGTON — At first blush, it seems like a godsend for U.S. foreign policy: a tenacious Iranian opposition, democratic in name at least, is challenging a regime that has caused the U.S. no end of headaches over the last 30 years.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - The tale seems dubious: that a rice vendor survived 27 days trapped under the rubble of a flea market following Haiti's devastating earthquake.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Iran's top police official says authorities have made a series of arrests of suspected opposition activists before expected protest rallies Thursday.

VATICAN CITY - A scandal in Italy's Catholic Church has morphed into a tale of Vatican intrigue complete with forged documents, reports of dueling cardinals and a papal admonishment Tuesday to put the matter to rest.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Haiti's government has raised the death toll for the Jan. 12 earthquake to 230,000 from 212,000 and says more bodies remain uncounted.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - During an Iranian government meeting late last month, a top adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad brought a proposal to expand the political voice of a group more known for its street muscle: the civilian militia corps called the Basij.

BEIJING (AFP) - One of China's most controversial artists on Wednesday spoke out in support of US Internet giant Google in its standoff with Beijing, and said his Gmail accounts had been breached by hackers.

BEIJING - A 20-year-old factory worker who joined a banned political party because he was unhappy with one-party rule in China was sentenced to jail for 18 months Wednesday, his mother said.

BEIJING - It was like getting a cat out of a tree — Sichuan style.

LONDON (AFP) - Toyota said it will begin repairs to more than 180,000 cars in Britain on Wednesday as the Japanese automaker struggled to pull its reputation from the scrapheap amid a growing recall crisis.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Indirect Middle East peace talks should begin soon, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Tuesday in the first public comment by an Israeli official on a US initiative.

MOSCOW - U.S. missile defense plans are a threat to Russian national security and have slowed down progress on a new arms control treaty with Washington, Russia's top military officer said Tuesday.

KABUL, Afghanistan — As U.S.-led coalition troops prepare for a long-awaited offensive against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, few civilians have managed to escape the town at the center of the operation, raising the risk of civilian casualties that could undermine the Obama administration's military strategy for the country.

HAVANA - Relatives in eastern Cuba claim to have held a 125th birthday party for a woman named Juana Bautista de la Candelaria Rodriguez, but it is not clear if she is really that old.

JAFFA, Israel - There's a reason for the gritty feel of reality in "Ajami," an Oscar-nominated Israeli film about the lives of Arabs and Jews in the impoverished, crime-ridden neighborhoods of this Mediterranean city: Its amateur actors' lives eerily mirror their art.

SEOUL, South Korea - A senior U.N. envoy held talks with North Korean officials Wednesday and the North's top nuclear negotiator met his Chinese counterpart amid an international push for the regime to rejoin disarmament negotiations.

YANGON, Myanmar - A Myanmar court ordered a U.S. citizen Wednesday to serve three years in prison for entering the military-ruled country with forged documents and undeclared foreign currency.

KABUL - The death toll from massive avalanches that blocked a mountain pass north of Kabul soared to 157, as hundreds more remained trapped in their snowbound vehicles, Afghan officials said Wednesday.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - An alleged Islamist militant being tried on charges of harboring terrorists behind deadly twin hotel bombings in the Indonesian capital claimed Wednesday that he had helped craft a plot to assassinate the president.

LONDON - The British government is getting behind a plan to replace drafty open-backed hospital gowns with versions that preserve patients' modesty.

BRASILIA, Brazil - A German man who went to Brazil for a woman he met on the Internet has been camping out in an airport for more than a month after thieves took all his money and possessions, authorities said Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - New York Times executive editor Bill Keller has rejected a call by the newspaper's ombudsman for the Jerusalem bureau chief of the Times to be reassigned because his son is serving in the Israeli army.

DUBLIN - Prominent Irish victims of Catholic sexual abuse have written to Pope Benedict XVI asking him to take responsibility for the church's concealment of child molestation by forcing out bishops implicated in the decades of cover-up.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada will ask the Supreme Court to overturn a lower-court decision that allowed North America's only sanctioned drug-injection site to remain open in Vancouver despite the federal government's objections.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A second major snowstorm in less than a week struck the eastern United States Wednesday, paralyzing travel for millions, shutting down the US capital, and forcing school closures from Virginia to New York.

ROME - About 100 Iranians protested Tuesday in front of the Italian embassy in Tehran, shouting "Death to Italy, Death to Berlusconi, " Italy's foreign minister said. Protests were also held outside the French and Dutch embassies.

TIJUANA, Mexico - Just a few weeks ago, the two officers were lauded as part of a new breed of honest cop, elevated to become key players in a drive to overhaul one of Mexico's most notorious police forces.

LONDON - Britain's government on Wednesday disclosed once-secret information on the treatment of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who says he was tortured in U.S. custody, losing a long court battle to keep the material classified.