World

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee wide receiver Alton “Pig” Howard said he never doubted he would return to the team after taking a leave of absence to deal with unspecified “personal circumstances.” Howard spoke to reporters Monday for the first time since rejoining the Volunteers. Howard, who led the team in …

Boston, MA (SportsNetwork.com) – Dustin Pedroia’s 100th career home run — a sixth-inning grand slam — helped the Boston Red Sox snap their two-game losing skid with a 7-1 win over the Oakland Athletics in the opener of a three-game set from Fenway Park. Dan Otero took the mound for …

KATHMANDU, Nepal – A court official in Nepal says a Canadian tourist with several previous child sex convictions has been sentenced to seven years in prison for sexually abusing a minor boy. The Lalitpur district court said that Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh, 71, from the province of Nova Scotia, was also …

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican has always been a heavily male bureaucracy, and statistics released on the eve of International Women’s Day now back that up. As of last year, only 18 percent of Holy See employees were women, up from 17 percent four years ago. In the separately administered …

TEHRAN, Iran – Iranian state television is reporting the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader has appointed a former general in the country’s Revolutionary Guard as the nation’s new police chief. The report Monday said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei replaced Gen. Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam with Gen. Hossein Ashtari for a three-year term. Moghaddam …

BERLIN – Germany’s highest court has struck down a state’s ban on teachers wearing headscarves as unconstitutional, saying that it violates guaranteed religious freedoms. The Federal Constitutional Court ruled Friday in favor of two female Muslim teachers from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in a decision that will also apply …

ATHENS, Greece – Greece has slipped back into deficit so far this year, according to figures from the Bank of Greece. But the country’s left-wing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras ruled out any difficulties in making payments for public sector workers’ salaries or state-backed pensions. The central bank said the central …

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – The United Arab Emirates has recalled its ambassador to Sweden to protest comments made by Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom criticizing neighboring Saudi Arabia. The official UAE news agency, WAM, says Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash also summoned Sweden’s Ambassador to the …

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis says nothing can justify the use of the death penalty and there is no “right” way to humanely kill another person. Francis outlined the Catholic church’s opposition to capital punishment in a letter to the International Commission against the Death Penalty, an independent group of …

UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations Security Council on Thursday is expected to adopt a resolution that would authorize more than 1,000 additional military and police personnel for the peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic. The draft resolution obtained by The Associated Press follows up on a request by …