"The Avengers" continues to muscle out everything else Hollywood throws at it, easily sinking naval rival "Battleship" and other new releases.

DOUMA, Syria (Reuters) - A roadside bomb exploded on Sunday about 150 meters (yards) from a United Nations convoy carrying the head of a Syria ceasefire monitoring mission and a senior U.N. official in the town of Douma, a Reuters witness said. Major General Robert Mood's car was stopped at an army checkpoint when the bomb detonated in an nearby alleyway and the convoy left, the Reuters journalist said, adding that there were no reports of casualties. United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hervé Ladsous, who is visiting Syria, was also part of the convoy. ...

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the 1988 bombing of a PanAm flight over Lockerbie, died of cancer on Sunday at age 60, leaving many questions on the attack and its aftermath unanswered. Megrahi who said he was not responsible for bringing the jumbo jet down on the Scottish town and killing 270 people, was found guilty in 2001 but released in 2009 and returned to Libya because he had terminal cancer and not expected to live long. ...

When Dan Fitzsimmons looks across the Susquehanna River and sees the flares of Pennsylvania gas wells, he thinks bitterly of the riches beneath his own land locked up by the heated debate that has kept hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, out of New York.

President Barack Obama says the NATO alliance agrees on a vision for post-2014 Afghanistan and is pressing world leaders to implement that strategy following a decade of war.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran's economy minister said oil prices will "certainly" rise if the European Union moves ahead with an embargo in July and that sanctions will backfire on those who impose them. The European Union is preparing for a total embargo on the purchase of Iranian crude oil in July. The United States has also imposed sanctions targeting Iran's energy and banking sectors. ...

  ABC News’ George Will this morning slammed The New York Times for its story this week outlining a proposed advertising campaign to link Rev. Jeremiah Wright and President Obama. Will argued on the “This Week” roundtable that the story did not accurately reflect the actions of  Joe Ricketts –...

Several hundred Egyptians including a presidential candidate began a 24-hour hunger strike on Sunday to protest the continued detention of around 300 people rounded up in a mass arrest who face possible military prosecution.

The United States and NATO leaders insist the Afghanistan fighting coalition will remain whole despite France's plans to yank combat troops out early, but leaders wary of plummeting public support for the war are using an alliance summit Sunday to show they want to move quickly away from the front lines.

DUBAI (Reuters) - A leading Bahraini opposition activist accused of insulting authorities remained in jail on Sunday, despite being granted bail, because he faces a second charge of organizing illegal protests, his lawyer said. Nabeel Rajab is the founder of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights who led many protests that were part of an on-going uprising led by the Shi'ite Muslim majority against the Sunni ruling Al Khalifa dynasty that rules the Gulf Arab island. ...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - NATO's chief sought on Sunday to dispel fears of a "rush for the exits" in Afghanistan as Western allies gathered to chart a path out of an unpopular war that has dragged on for more than a decade. President Barack Obama hosts the summit in his home town, Chicago, a day after major industrialized nations tackled a European debt crisis that threatens the global economy. ...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - NATO's chief sought on Sunday to dispel fears of a "rush for the exits" in Afghanistan as Western allies gathered to chart a path out of an unpopular war that has dragged on for more than a decade. President Barack Obama hosts the summit in his home town, Chicago, a day after major industrialized nations tackled a European debt crisis that threatens the global economy. ...

Dominicans formed orderly lines at voting stations across the country Sunday as they chose a new president from a field that includes a brash former president whose last term ended with an economic crisis and a favored technocrat from a ruling party that has spent the past eight years on a public works spending spree.

A look at the main issues for the NATO alliance at the summit meeting for heads of government in Chicago on Sunday and Monday.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the 1988 bombing of a PanAm flight over Lockerbie, died of cancer on Sunday aged 60, leaving many questions on the attack and its aftermath unanswered. Megrahi who said he was not responsible for bringing the jumbo jet down on the Scottish town and killing 270 people, was found guilty in 2001 but released in 2009 and returned to Libya because he had terminal cancer and not expected to live long. ...

(Reuters) - Shares in social media company Facebook Inc could fall below the initial public offering price of $38, Barron's wrote in its May 21 edition. Facebook saw its shares rise a scant 0.6 percent to $38.23 on Friday in the first day of trading. The stock stayed above the $38 IPO price, supported in the market by the deal's underwriters. But Barron's said the "big question" this week will be whether they continue to do so. ...

NATO's secretary-general says he's optimistic that the international community will continue to finance the Afghan security forces.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. banking reforms could not have prevented JPMorgan Chase & Co's trading losses, and those involved in the activities that went awry should be held accountable, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said in an interview aired on Sunday. "I don't believe there's anything in Dodd-Frank (financial reform law) that would've prevented this activity at JPMorgan," said Boehner, the top Republican U.S. officeholder. He made the comments Friday in an interview for ABC's "This Week. ...

Lawyers for Iraq's fugitive Sunni vice president charged with running death squads quit the case on Sunday in protest after judges rejected their request for evidence for his defense.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday urged Israeli leaders to relinquish the idea of a unified Jerusalem if they truly want peace, contending in a pair of interviews that years of government neglect have kept the Jewish and Arab sectors irreparably divided.