Scott Neuman

The Justice Department said Tuesday it had foiled a plot directed by elements in the Iranian government who sought to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S.

Attorney General Eric Holder said two men, Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri, have been accused in connection with the alleged plot. Authorities said they had planned a bombing to kill the Saudi ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir.

The three women who won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize were lauded for their courage in standing up to the violence and brutality of oppressive regimes in Liberia and Yemen.

The five-member Nobel Committee in Norway announced Friday that it would honor Africa's first democratically elected female president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian campaigner Leymah Gbowee and Yemeni democracy activist Tawakkul Karman, by splitting the coveted award three ways.

When Dave Barnes drove 600 miles from Maryland to Indiana last week for his 50th high school reunion, he was surprised by the price of gas — in a good way.

Barnes, 68, says he filled up his Dodge Challenger in Indianapolis for as little as $3.15 a gallon. It was a far cry from the cross-country motorcycle trip he took this summer.

"When I took the trip in June, I was seeing $3.60 a gallon in most places and as high as $4 a gallon in California," he says.

Anwar al-Awlaki was born in New Mexico, educated in Colorado and spent years as a cleric in San Diego and suburban Washington, D.C. But in the past several years, he became a master al-Qaida propagandist whose sermons inspired jihadists worldwide before his death Friday by a U.S. missile on a desert road in northern Yemen.

Awlaki's journey from a childhood in Las Cruces, N.M., to the Arabian Peninsula placed him in the cross hairs of U.S. intelligence after he was linked to the failed "underwear bomber," the Fort Hood shooter and the foiled plot to bomb New York's Times Square.

Alabama's toughest-in-the-nation law on illegal immigration went into effect Thursday, a day after a federal judge upheld some of its key provisions, but the court battle over the issue appears far from over.

State law enforcement can now question and detain without bond people they suspect may be in the country illegally, and public schools are required to verify students' immigration status.

If you're afraid of heights, this is definitely not your dream job.

Tuesday, five engineers began a series of rappelling operations down the face of the Washington Monument to assess damage caused by the Aug. 23 earthquake that shook the nation's capital. The five belong to a special "difficult access team" from Northbrook, Ill.-based Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates Inc., or WJE.

The two American men who stepped out of an Iranian prison Wednesday after spending more than two years in custody may have a tiny Persian Gulf nation to thank for greasing the wheels of their release.

Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, both 29, had been accused of espionage along with fellow American Sarah Shourd and sentenced to eight years in prison. They were freed in exchange for $1 million dollars and flown to Oman.