Thousands of people protested in Rome on Saturday against austerity policies and high unemployment, urging new Prime Minister Enrico Letta to focus on creating jobs to help pull the country out of recession.

French actor and newly minted Russian citizen Gerard Depardieu on Saturday compared President Vladimir Putin to the late Pope John Paul II and said the ex-KGB agent was what Russia needed as a leader.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Pope Francis on Saturday and, apparently responding to his criticism of a heartless “dictatorship of the economy,” called for stronger regulation of financial markets.

A commuter train traveling eastbound from New York City derailed near the Connecticut suburb of Fairfield during the evening rush hour on Friday and collided with a westbound commuter train, injuring up to 60 people, three critically, officials said.

Two bombs near a Sunni mosque and another against a Sunni funeral procession killed 49 people in Iraq on Friday, officials said, after two days of attacks against Shiites that killed dozens.

U.S. President Barack Obama said Thursday military leaders told him they are “ashamed” of their failure to end sexual abuse in the armed services. Obama pledged to “leave no stone unturned” in the effort to halt the abuse, which he said undermines the trust the military needs to be effective.

The U.S. Congress is rethinking the broad authority it gave presidents to wage a war on terror after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in light of how President Barack Obama has used the power to target suspected terrorists with lethal drone strikes.

The Moroccan woman at the center of a sex scandal involving former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi testified Friday in court for the first time, describing how a young woman attending one of Berlusconi's “bunga bunga” parties dressed up like a nun, danced provocatively and stripped down to her underwear for the premier.

A mother whose 4-year-old was being abducted chased the suspect down and crashed her vehicle into his car, triggering a manhunt and the arrest of the suspect, Albuquerque police said Thursday.

A U.S. government witness protection program lost track of two former informants tied to terrorist groups and both are now believed to have now left the country, a report revealed Thursday.