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• Five years later, Sharon, who died Saturday at 85, was again barreling headlong into controversy, bulldozing ahead with his plan to pull Israel out of the Gaza Strip and uproot all 8,500 Jewish settlers living there without regard to threats to his life from Jewish extremists.
• His allies said the move was a revolutionary step in peacemaking; his detractors said it was a tactical sacrifice to strengthen Israel's hold on much of the West Bank.
• Either way, the withdrawal and the barrier he was building between Israel and the West Bank permanently changed the face of the conflict and marked the final legacy of a man who shaped Israel as much as any other leader. He was a farmer-turned-soldier, a soldier-turned-politician, a politician-turned-statesman -- a hard-charging Israeli who built Jewish settlements on war-won land, but didn't shy away from destroying them when he deemed them no longer useful.
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Kerry, 10 other top envoys raise pressure on Syrian opposition, hoping to salvage peace talks
• PARIS (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and top envoys from 10 other countries are raising the pressure on Syria's main opposition group to attend peace talks that would bring it face-to-face with the Syrian government.
• The two-day meeting begins Sunday in Paris, just a week before the scheduled talks in Geneva.
• The Western-backed Syrian National Coalition is nearing collapse, hampered by infighting, international pressure and disagreement over whether to negotiate with Syria's president, Bashar Assad.
• The moderate rebels find themselves battling on two fronts -- against al-Qaida linked militants on one side and Assad's forces on another. But despite low expectations for the Geneva peace conference, diplomats say it is the only chance of ending fighting that has killed more than 130,000 people.
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Abortion opponents wage high court free speech fight over painted line outside Mass. clinics
• BOSTON (AP) -- Eleanor McCullen clutches a baby's hat knit in pink and blue as she patrols a yellow semicircle painted on the sidewalk outside a Planned Parenthood health clinic on a frigid December morning with snow in the forecast.
• The painted line marks 35 feet from the clinic's entrance and that's where the 77- (Continued on page 20)
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