Herpes virus confirms ancient human 'out-of-Africa' migration saga

Washington: A new study of the full genetic code of a common human virus has offered proof of the "out-of-Africa" pattern of human migration, which earlier had been documented by anthropologists and studies of the human genome. 

Senior author Curtis Brandt, a professor of medical microbiology and ophthalmology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said that the virus under study, herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1), usually causes nothing more severe than cold sores around the mouth. 

Brandt said that the virus under study, herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1), usually causes nothing more severe than cold sores around the mouth. 

Brandt and co-authors Aaron Kolb and Cecile Ane compared 31 strains of HSV-1 collected in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia, and the result was fairly stunning. 

He said that the viral strains sort exactly as you would predict based on sequencing of human genomes. 

Brandt asserted that they found that all of the African isolates cluster together, all the virus from the Far East, Korea, Japan, China clustered together, all the viruses in Europe and America, with one exception, clustered together. 

He said that what they found follows exactly what the anthropologists have said, and the molecular geneticists who have analyzed the human genome have said, about where humans originated and how they spread across the planet. 

Brandt said that the researchers broke the HSV-1 genome into 26 pieces, made family trees for each piece and then combined each of the trees into one network tree of the whole genome. 

The study has been published online in the journal PLOS ONE. 

China Smog Photos Show How Bad Its Air Pollution Problem Has Become

China has a serious smog problem. So much so that the northern city of Harbin, home to about 11 million people, was forced to cancel classes, close down the airport and suspend certain bus routes Monday.

According to The Associated Press, fine particulate matter readings taken in Harbin indicate that air pollution in the area is 40 times higher than the international safety standard set by the World Health Organization.

While visibility in the capital of the Heilongjiang province was less than 50 meters (164 feet), Harbin was not the only city in the region affected by smog. In the southeastern city of Shenyang, some 300 miles from Harbin, a heavy haze partially obscured a 75-story skyscraper from view. (Head over to The Daily Beast to see a comparison to a normal view of the landmark.)

Air pollution has been an ongoing problem in the country, with thick and heavy smog often forcing local governments to suspend transportation services and shutter businesses. Earlier this month, China announced that it would offer millions in rewards to regions that could successfully reduce air pollution levels.

See photos that illustrate the extent of air pollution in Harbin in the series (courtesy of Getty) below.

Las Vegas nightclub shooting kills 1, injures 2

A man who wanted his money back after paying to enter a Las Vegas nightclub shot three people, killing one, when the club management refused to make a refund, police said on Monday.

The suspect, who was wounded when several patrons and club employees wrestled him to the ground during a resulting melee, was hospitalized early Monday but will be taken into custody as soon as he was released, said Jose Hernandez, an officer with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

"Right now he is facing several charges, including murder," said Hernandez.

Police did not identify the gunman.

The incident began about 5:30 a.m. when the suspect entered an after-hours club at the Bally's resort on the Las Vegas strip. After initially hesitating over whether to pay the cover charge required for entry, the man did pay and entered the club, but he quickly became dissatisfied and asked club employees for a refund, police said.

An argument ensued and the man pulled out a handgun and began shooting. A club manager, a club security officer and a club patron who tried to tackle the gunman to the ground were all shot.

Hernandez said one of the three men shot died after being taken to the hospital.

Plan Aims to Fix Sewers, but Its Cost to Residents Leaves a Bad Taste

LONDON — On a particularly hot summer day in 1858, the smell of raw sewage from the River Thames became so unbearable that legislators had the curtains of the Houses of Parliament soaked in chloride of lime. When that failed to repel the odors, members of Parliament simply abandoned the place.

The leader of the House and chancellor of the Exchequer, Benjamin Disraeli, “was seen fleeing from the chamber, his handkerchief to his nose,” according to Stephen Halliday in his history, “The Great Stink of London.”

At the time, nearly all of London’s sewage ended up in the Thames, which was also one of the city’s main sources for drinking water, and the city endured three cholera epidemics, which killed more than 31,000 people. The Thames stank famously, and many doctors and politicians believed that it was the stench itself that caused cholera.

Pressure grew to follow the recommendation of a prominent civil engineer, Joseph W. Bazalgette, to build a system of tunnels that would catch the sewage and divert it farther downstream, below the capital, and construction soon got under way. The tunnels of the 1,100-mile system — lined with 314 million bricks meticulously laid by Victorian masons — remain in surprisingly good condition today.

Built for a city half London’s current size, however, the system is now overflowing. As often as once a week, raw sewage is forced into the Thames, a sharp change from the 19th century, when the newly built system overflowed less than once a year.

The increasing flow of raw sewage — the result of the loss of green spaces to absorb rainwater as much as population gain — violates European environmental law, the European Commission said in 2009, and the government has promised to act.

But in an era of austerity and strained budgets, it is not the government that is paying the $6.6 billion bill but Thames Water, a private company with shareholders. The government is to underwrite the risk, which means that it will act as the financier of last resort in the case of major problems during the construction, but it will otherwise not pay for the new system.

There is a catch, of course: it is actually the customers of Thames Water who are paying for the project with higher water bills, a prospect almost as horrendous to today’s Londoners as the river’s stench was to their 19th-century forebears. Water bills for Thames Water’s 14 million customers in and around London are to rise to as much as $700 annually from $570 for the foreseeable future, the company said. The money will be used to repay the initial investors, who will also own the new system. And even then, the tunnel will remain the property of the company, a prospect that further rankles.

A variety of local politicians and industry experts say the plan is akin to pouring money down the drain, that construction estimates are far too low, and that there are cheaper and less disruptive alternatives. “The costs might end up at 10 billion pounds,” or about $16.16 billion, said Nicholas Botterill, council leader of Hammersmith and Fulham, districts in southwest London, “and I don’t want the country to waste that much money.”

It would also be unpleasant for people living close to the construction sites, he said. Even the engineer who initially planned the new sewage tunnel, Chris Binnie, is now saying two smaller and far less costly tunnels might suffice.

Mr. Bazalgette’s system cost about $6 million, now the equivalent of about $6 billion, according to Thames Water, but it transformed central London. For example, he narrowed the Thames by building Victoria Embankment, an elegant road and walkway that housed not only the sewerage tunnel but also one of the first subways.

The scope of today’s planned project is no less intimidating. The new tunnel would run mainly beneath the Thames to intercept sewage before it reached the river and to transport it to sewage treatment plants. The tunnel would be more than 15 miles long, more than 200 feet deep and large enough to fit three London double-decker buses next to one another.

Ann Rosenberg, a retired BBC journalist, lives a block away from one of the planned construction sites for the sewer in Parsons Green. “The thing that sticks in my throat,” she said, “is that I will be paying for this until I die, and then my children will pay for this tunnel, which none of us will own but which will go into the asset base of Thames Water and its investors.”

Ms. Rosenberg is also concerned about other problems. “It’s going to be intolerable and will affect people’s health,” she said from her three-bedroom house, where she has lived for 30 years. “They talk about large vehicles every 15 minutes. It will impact our air quality.”

Michael Gerrard, the managing director of the sewerage project for Thames Water, said Londoners have to contribute to their city’s future. “If you want London to grow you must invest in the infrastructure,” he said. “If nothing is done you’ll have a public health issue.”

Thames Water does not deny that there will be some disturbance and said it would pay for the double glazing of residents’ windows to protect against the noise or even move residents should the construction become unbearable. But details of when and under what circumstances such help would be offered remained vague.

“There will be disruptions and costs and people want it to go away, but I don’t have the power to do that,” Mr. Gerrard said. “I wish there were alternatives.”

Ms. Rosenberg and others say there are. Mr. Binnie, who recommended the new sewer in 2006, now argues that two smaller sewers would suffice and cut costs by about $2.4 billion. New ways to treat sewage and prediction of total sewage flows have changed over the last six years, and Thames Water should at least revisit its options, he said.

One of those options, according to Clean Thames Now and Always, a nonprofit organization that opposes the supersewer, is to create more green spaces in the city that could naturally absorb rainwater instead of pushing it down the sewer. Another is to improve the water quality by injecting oxygen into the river.

“We want the project to be looked at again,” said Mr. Botterill, the council leader. “We want a better environmental, social and economic solution. Everybody who looks at this seriously comes to the conclusion that it’s not the best solution.”

Thames Water has said that such ideas are both ineffective and short term. It would take new green spaces the size of 40 Hyde Parks to start alleviating the sewage problem, the company said. “And anyway,” said Phil Stride, a Thames Water executive, “you’re not going to make everyone happy all the time.”

Greek police appeal over mystery blonde girl

Greek police are trying to discover the identity of a young blonde girl who was found living on a Roma settlement with a family she did not resemble.

DNA tests revealed the child, called Maria and aged about four, was not related to the couple she lived with.

The little girl is now being looked after by a charity. Her photo has been released to help find her family.

Officials believe she may have been a victim of abduction or child trafficking.

Police are appealing internationally as the girl looks like she might be from northern or eastern Europe.

The charity, Smile of the Child, told the BBC that the girl was frightened and neglected when she arrived in their care but that in overall good health and was now more relaxed.

It said it had received many calls since the appeal was launched.

A spokesman for the British couple Kate and Gerry McCann, whose daughter Madeleine went missing in Portugal in 2007, said the case gave them "great hope" that she would one day be found alive.

Raid

Police raided the Roma camp, near Farsala in central Greece, to search for drugs and weapons.

They noticed the lack of resemblance between the blonde-haired, green-eyed, pale-skinned little girl and her parents, and found further discrepancies when they investigated the family's documents.

The couple had registered different numbers of children with different regional family registries.

The woman claimed to have given birth to six children within a 10-month period.

When questioned about how they came to have Maria, the couple gave "constantly changing claims," Thessalia Province Police Director Vassilis Halatsis said.

"The girl might have been abducted from a hospital, or given up by an unmarried mother," the officer said.

"So far we do not have a declared disappearance of a child of this age in Greece. Through Interpol, we will request assistance from the other European countries."

The 39-year-old man and his 40-year-old wife have been arrested on suspicion of abducting a minor.

The president of Smile of the Child, Kostas Yannopoulos, said the girl was being used to beg on the streets.

Snowden leaks: France summons US envoy over spying claims

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has summoned the US ambassador over newspaper claims that the US spied on millions of phone calls in France.

France has labelled such activity between allies as "unacceptable".

Le Monde says the data, based on leaks from ex-intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, suggest the US NSA agency monitored businesses and officials as well as terrorism suspects.

The intercepts were apparently triggered by certain key words.

The paper says the National Security Agency (NSA) spied on 70.3 million phone calls in France in just 30 days between December 10 last year and January 8, 2013.

The agency also apparently captured millions of text messages.

It was unclear whether the content of the calls and messages was stored, or just the metadata - the details of who is speaking to whom.

And the paper did not say whether the operation, codenamed US-985D, was still in progress.

Mr Fabius announced that he had summoned the US ambassador to discuss the claims "immediately".

Interior Minister Manuel Valls had earlier said the allegations were "shocking", and added: "If an allied country spies on France, this is totally unacceptable."

The BBC's Christian Fraser in Paris says the outrage is largely for public consumption, because the French government has been accused of running its own snooping operation similar to the US.

Le Monde reported in July that the French government stores vast amounts of personal data of its citizens on a supercomputer at the headquarters of the DGSE intelligence service.

Connections inside France and between France and other countries were all monitored, Le Monde reported. Emails, text messages, telephone and internet browsing records are stored for years, it said.

The latest revelations follow claims in the German media that US agents hacked into the email account of former Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

Edward Snowden, a former NSA worker, went public with revelations about US spying operations in June.

The information he leaked led to claims of systematic spying by the NSA and CIA on a global scale.

Targets included rivals like China and Russia, as well as allies like the EU and Brazil.

The NSA was also forced to admit it captured email and phone data from millions of Americans.

Mr Snowden is currently in Russia, where he was granted a year-long visa after making an asylum application.

The US wants him extradited to face trial on criminal charges.

Two Girls Among Four Dead in Attack on Egypt Church Wedding (1)

Egypt boosted security at churches after gunmen killed four people during an attack on a wedding ceremony, the latest attack on the country’s minority Christians following the ousting of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.

The shooting outside St. Mary’s Church in the Warraq district of Giza left eight-year-old and 12-year-old girls dead and drew condemnation from both the military-backed government and the Muslim Brotherhood organization that has been the target of a crackdown since Mursi was removed from power on July 3. Four people were subsequently arrested, the state-run Ahram Gate website reported.

Yesterday’s attack also left 17 others injured, Health Ministry spokesman Mohamed Fathallah said in a phone interview today. Prime Minister Hazem El Beblawi condemned the incident and described it as a “criminal cowardly act,” according to an e-mailed statement.

Dozens of Christian buildings were attacked in August as Egypt erupted in violence after police broke up sit-ins by Islamist supporters of Mursi. About 10 percent of the country’s approximately 85-million population is Coptic Christian, a community which analysts say is blamed by some Egyptians for supporting Mursi’s ouster.

“Such despicable acts won’t succeed in dividing the nation’s Muslims and Christians” El Beblawi said, pledging police would do everything possible to bring the perpetrators to justice.

‘Sectarian Violence

The shooting is emblematic of the rifts in Egypt society. Christians who had already complained of discrimination under ousted President Hosni Mubarak say that the ouster of Mursi and the targeting of the Brotherhood will further stoke sectarian tensions and leave them more vulnerable.

“The attack is part of the recent escalating sectarian violence against Copts in the country” says Ishak Ibrahim, a researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a group in Cairo that monitors civil liberties. The shooting “is the first of its kind recently in Cairo, and also the fact that it’s doesn’t involve only looting churches or Christians houses, but also” seeks to kill Christians. Ibrahim says the attack was revenge for Christians supporting Mursi’s ouster.

At least 15 cases of kidnapping of Christians for ransom were reported in the last two weeks in the southern province of Minya, according to Ibrahim.

The Muslim Brotherhood, from which Mursi hails, also condemned the violence, blaming the incident on the lack of police protection, according to an e-mailed statement.

The nature of the recent assaults sets them apart from the more common religious tension that occasionally boils over into violence between Muslims and Christians, over such things as land disputes and love affairs.

Hurricane Raymond strengthens, seen missing Mexican coast

The first major hurricane of the Eastern Pacific season strengthened as it came to a halt off Mexico early on Monday but forecasters expected it to head out to sea later in the week and miss the coast.

Communities on Mexico's southern Pacific coast battened down the hatches on Sunday night as Hurricane Raymond rumbled slowly toward Acapulco, where storms wrecking homes, roads and cars and stranded tourists last month.

The Miami-based National Hurricane Center upgraded Raymond in the early hours of Monday to category three from category two, saying winds speeds had picked up to 120 miles per hour.

But it had stopped moving about 100 nautical miles off Mexico, was likely to remain stationary on Monday, then move westwards out to sea by late Tuesday or Wednesday.

"Guidance no longer brings the hurricane inland and if this trend continues the warnings for Mexico could be altered," the NHC said on its website.

Heavy rainfall would continue over south-central Mexico during the next few days, causing life-threatening flash floods and mud slides, it said.

Late on Sunday, authorities closed schools in Acapulco, the port of Lazaro Cardenas and other parts of the southwestern coastline of Mexico threatened by Raymond.

Mexico has no major oil installations in the path of the hurricane.

Hurricane alerts were issued from Acapulco, which lies in Guerrero state, to Lazaro Cardenas to the northwest in Michoacan state.

Angel Aguirre, the governor of Guerrero, urged people to leave areas at high risk of flooding, and Michoacan's government said all maritime activity and road travel should be avoided.

Mexico suffered its worst floods on record in mid-September when tropical storms Manuel and Ingrid converged from the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico, killing more than 150 people and causing damage estimated at around $6 billion.

Acapulco, whose economy relies heavily on tourism, reported its worst hotel occupancy rates on record after those storms and was only just beginning to recover.

Up to 15 cm (6 inches) of rain could hit the coast, Mexico's national meteorological service (SMN) forecast.

Mexico's Gulf Coast is also facing heavy rains due to the advance of a cold front from the north, the government said.

The flooding, mudslides and displacement of thousands of people caused by the recent storms have heightened the risk of waterborne illness in Mexico. The country has recorded its first local transmission of cholera in just over a decade.

Five killed in Pakistan train bombing

At least five passengers were killed and 16 wounded when a train was bombed and derailed in restive southwest Pakistan on Monday, officials said.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the bombing, but arid western Baluchistan province is home to several separatist insurgents besides the Taliban and banned sectarian groups.

The train was travelling from the garrison city of Rawalpindi to the provincial capital, Quetta. Several carriages were destroyed in the explosion, which took place 200 km (124 miles) from Quetta, one of Pakistan's most violent cities.

"The explosives had apparently been planted on the railway tracks as the explosion created a crater several feet deep," said provincial government official Asad Gillani.

Most of the passengers were returning to Quetta after celebrating holidays at home, said another official. There were three brothers among the dead.

Separatist insurgents in Baluchistan accuse the government of exploiting the mineral-rich region while leaving inhabitants in poverty.

Maria mystery deepens with claims her father came to visit

Neighbours of a Roma couple accused of keeping a kidnapped toddler at their encampment in Greece claimed last night that her real father had come to look for her soon after she was taken away by police.

The four-year-old, known only as Maria, is the subject of an international police inquiry after Greek police released her photograph at the weekend, appealing for her parents to come forward.

A Roma couple from the village of Farsala in central Greece are due in court today accused of abducting her from her natural parents, whom police believe are either from northern or eastern Europe – in a case that has invited comparisons with the missing British girl Madeleine McCann.

Last night, though, fellow residents of Farsala's ramshackle gipsy quarter claimed that the couple had a long-standing arrangement with a Bulgarian family to look after the girl, who had lived in Farsala since she was a baby.

Babis Dimitriou, the chairman of the Farsala village Roma association, told The Daily Telegraph: "There was a Bulgarian husband and wife who were working around Greece in temporary jobs, who used to stay here sometimes.

"At one point they left the girl to be raised by the family here in the village.

"The family raised the child as if it was their own, although her father would come back every now and then to see her. The last time he visited was only five days ago, after the arrests had been made.

"All the other Roma here were telling the Bulgarian man to explain to the police that the girl was his, but he has now disappeared." While Mr Dimitriou's account was backed by other residents, Greek police are continuing to investigate the possibility that the blonde, blue-eyed child had been taken without her parents' consent.

Several other theories are emerging as to the origins of the girl.

A couple from Thessaloniki have gone to the police and said that Maria could be their daughter, after their child was reported to have died at birth. The couple claim that they exhumed the coffin and found the body was missing.

"We suspected that our child had fallen victim to traffickers, and was not dead as initially we had been told," the father told Greece's Star newspaper. He had never seen her body, he said.

"And since then we have been looking for our child," he said. Their child was born in 2009 – making her the same age as Maria – and the father, who has near relatives in Scandinavia, said there were many common features and characteristics with his family and Maria. A son, born since they lost their daughter, has the same coloured eyes.

The father said that they were waiting for the results of the DNA tests, and if Maria was their lost child they would take her back. If not, they would carry on their search.

Another theory is that Maria was put up for adoption, but then rejected owing to "problems" with her eyes.

The police have refused to comment on the claims.

The arrested couple allegedly gave police varying accounts as to how she came to be with them, at one point claiming that she had been abandoned outside a supermarket, and at another saying that she been given to them by her Bulgarian mother. Yesterday, a British expert on missing persons inquiries said that the appeal through Interpol had generated a huge response.

Charlie Hedges, the manager for missing and abducted children at the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, part of the newly-formed National Crime Agency, said: "The responses to this particular inquiry have run into the thousands, with quite a few calls from families wondering if this girl may be theirs.

"The challenge in this case is to find out from a four-year-old girl what her original background is, as she may not have that much knowledge of it herself." Yesterday, the family of Ben Needham, a British toddler who disappeared from his grandparents' home on the Greek island of Kos in 1991, said they hoped the case might offer new leads to his disappearance.

Mr Hedges said that while the UK Missing Persons Bureau was checking its databases for children who might be Maria, there was as yet "no specific lead to the UK".

It has been speculated that forensic anthropologists could be used to help identify roughly where the girl came from by studying her facial features, although last night, an expert in the field said that would be difficult.

Prof Sue Black, of the University of Dundee, said: "There is no way in which facial appearance can pin people to a particular part of the world any more because we are so cosmopolitan." Instead, she said that social, linguistic or cultural anthropologists could try to tease out whether the girl knew any words of a particular language.

The encampment where Maria was found is one of three on the outskirts of Farsala, a town of 18,000 people about 200 miles north-west of Athens.

Police carried out a drug raid there on Wednesday, and discovered her living in a single-storey shack on a street where barefoot children play among chickens, cats and dogs.

Yesterday, locals insisted that the girl had been well looked after, with her adoptive mother taking her to a local clinic occasionally for treatment for an eye problem.

"This gipsy mother was the only mother this girl has ever had," said Christos Lioupis, a Greek farmer with many Roma friends locally. "The biological mother was not her real one because she abandoned the girl." A Greek television station interviewed a man calling himself Kostas, who claimed to be the brother of the arrested man and said the girl was very loved and cared for. "We got this girl in a very nice way," he said. "We raised her. We got her. She was given to us and we raised her." However, the director of the Greek charity that is now caring for Maria said he suspected that she had been used for begging by her adoptive Roma family.

Costas Giannopoulos, the director of the Child's Smile organisation, told the BBC: "They will use this little girl in the streets to beg because she was blonde and cute." Authorities alleged that the Roma mother claimed to have given birth to six children in a total of less than 10 months, while 10 of the 14 children that the couple registered as their own are unaccounted for.

Greek television also broadcast a video, said to have been handed to police by the arrested couple, in which the girl was shown dancing in a backyard.

Her hair appeared to be darker than in the pictures which emerged following her release, suggesting it had possibly been dyed to disguise her.

A spokesman for Kate and Gerry McCann, who have been searching for their daughter since she vanished from their holiday apartment in Portugal in 2007, said the discovery of the girl in Greece gave them renewed hope that they would find Madeleine alive.

Smog causes chaos in Chinese city of 11 million

Choking smog all but shut down one of northeastern China’s largest cities today, forcing schools to suspended classes, snarling traffic and closing the airport, in the country’s first major air pollution crisis of the winter.

An index measuring PM2.5, or particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5), reached a reading of 1,000 in some parts of Harbin, the gritty capital of northeastern Heilongjiang province and home to some 11 million people.

A level above 300 is considered hazardous, while the World Health Organisation recommends a daily level of no more than 20.

The smog not only forced all primary and middle schools to suspend classes, but shut the airport and some public bus routes, the official Xinhua news agency reported, blaming the emergency on the first day of the heating being turned on in the city for winter. Visibility was reportedly reduced to 10 metres.

The smog is expected to continue for the next 24 hours.

Air quality in Chinese cities is of increasing concern to China’s stability-obsessed leadership because it plays into popular resentment over political privilege and rising inequality in the world’s second-largest economy.

Domestic media have run stories describing the expensive air purifiers government officials enjoy in their homes and offices, alongside reports of special organic farms so cadres need not risk suffering from recurring food safety scandals.

The government has announced plans over the years to tackle the pollution problem but has made little apparent progress.

Users of China’s popular Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblogging site reacted with both anger and sarcasm over Harbin’s air pollution.

“After years of effort, the wise and hard-working people of Harbin have finally managed to skip both the middle-class society and the communist society stages, and have now entered a fairyland society!” wrote one user.

Other parts of northeastern China also experienced severe smog, including Tangshan, two hours east of Beijing, and Changchun, the capital of Jilin province which borders Heilongjiang.

Last week, Beijing city released a colour-coded alert system for handling air pollution emergencies, to include the temporary halt of construction, factory production, outdoor barbeques and the setting off of fireworks.

Beijing suffered its own smog emergency last winter when the PM2.5 surpassed 900 on one particularly bad day in January.

Greece mystery girl: Attorney for Roma couple says they adopted 'Maria' from biological mother

The lawyer for a Roma couple accused of abducting the blond girl found living with them says the pair adopted the child from her biological mother.

In a case that has generated huge interest in Greece, authorities have charged the couple with abducting the child they call "Maria." They are due in court Monday.

Authorities released photos of the child, possibly 4 or 5 years old, last week and sought public tips on her birth identity.

Kostas Katsavos, the couple's lawyer, told the Reuters news agency they adopted Maria with the permission of her biological mother.

He conceded that the adoption was "non-legal." But he said he believes the biological mother will be located soon and will verify the couple's claims.

"They love her and they took care as their own child," Katsavos said.

Police suspicions

Police say they are suspicious of the records the couple provided for the child and for other children in their care.

Authorities asked questions about Maria because she has fair skin and blond hair while her parents have darker complexions typical of Roma, also known as gypsies, a race descended from Indian nomads who face widespread discrimination in Europe.

Thousands of calls poured into Greece after authorities released photos of the girl last week.

On Monday, authorities will release photos of the two adults, who are charged with abducting a minor and falsifying identity documents, the state-owned Athens-Macedonian News Agency said.

The pair appeared in court Monday, and authorities hope the publicity will reach someone who can provide more information about the suspects.

Child 'doing much better'

A spokesman for the charity taking care of Maria said Sunday she is in a group home where "she is doing much better."

Smile of the Child spokesman Panagiotis Pardalis said the girl was found in "bad living conditions, poor hygiene."

The child was found Thursday in a community of Roma, also known as gypsies, near Larissa in central Greece.

Authorities said the blond child looked nothing like the man and woman with her, and DNA testing confirmed they were not her biological parents.

A police statement said the couple "changed repeatedly their story about how they got the child."

The government news agency said police found suspicious birth and baptism records as well as family registrations that claimed the woman was mother to 10 children and the man was the father of four more.

Prejudice against the Roma

Prejudice and discrimination against the Roma are widespread in Greece and elsewhere in Europe, Amnesty International says.

Maria's case plays into old prejudices about gypsies stealing children for forced labor.

Pardalis, the charity spokesman, mentioned such a possibility, saying, "We don't have any other information if this girl was forced to work or to beg on streets."

And the government news agency raised "the possibility of the existence of a ring bringing pregnant women to Greece from Bulgaria and then taking their children for sale." The agency also cited past "reports" that empty coffins were found for infants who supposedly were stillborn to foreign mothers in Athens.

Malala inspires school curriculum

WASHINGTON (AP) — The 16-year-old Pakistani teen targeted for a Taliban assassination because she championed education for girls has inspired the development of a school curriculum encouraging advocacy.

George Washington University announced Monday that faculty members are creating multimedia curriculum tools to accompany a book recently released by the teen, Malala Yousafzai. Several faculty members will pilot the curriculum early next year for both college and high school instruction. Free of charge, it will focus on themes such as the importance of a woman's voice and political extremism, the university said.

The tools won't just look at the teen's story, but also how the same issues get reflected elsewhere, such as when girls face child marriage and pressures to leave school, said Mary Ellsberg, the director of the university's Global Women's Institute.

"It's going to be really interactive and really encourage students to do ... activities outside of school, it will encourage them to get engaged in the communities and as well to help the Malala Fund directly," Ellsberg said.

The university's Global Women's Institute is partnered with the Malala Fund, a nonprofit that seeks to ensure girls around the world have access to education.

In 2012 when a Taliban gunman walked up to a bus taking Malala and other children home from school in Pakistan's volatile northern Swat Valley and shot Malala in the head and neck. Another girl on the bus was also wounded. Malala now resides in Britain, where she was flown for medical care. Her memoir is "I am Malala."

Car bomb, clashes kill over 30 near Syrian capital

Syrian rebels blew up an army checkpoint outside Damascus on Saturday and more than 30 combatants from both sides died in the blast and ensuing clashes, a monitoring group said.

The pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 15 rebels and at least 16 soldiers were killed.

Elsewhere near the capital, Syrian forces tried to storm the suburb of Mouadamiya, which the army has blockaded for months, leading to a rising death toll from hunger and malnutrition.

The British-based Observatory said the checkpoint explosion, near the suburbs of Mleiha and Jaramana, was detonated by a suicide bomber from the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.

Nusra supporters on Twitter, however, said the bomber had intended to blow himself up in the car, but instead got out before setting off the explosives inside. They said rebel forces had captured the checkpoint hit by the car bomb and were battling to take a second one nearby.

Syrian state television reported the blast but gave no death toll, saying only that several people had been killed or wounded in a "terrorist bombing".

The Observatory, which has a network of activists across Syria, said Syrian fighter jets retaliated by striking nearby opposition-held areas such as Mleiha.

Video uploaded by activists showed a huge column of smoke billowing up from the scene and the sound of fighter jets streaking overhead could be heard.

Rebels also fired rockets into Jaramana, a suburb held by the government, according to the Observatory. It said the air force carried out four strikes on adjacent rebel-held districts.

More than 100,000 people have been killed in Syria's 2-1/2-year-old conflict, which began with popular protests against President Bashar al-Assad before degenerating into civil war.

CIVILIANS SEEK ESCAPE ROUTE

In Mouadamiya, activists said they were facing heavy bombardment during an assault by Assad's forces. The army had advanced, but had yet to enter the suburb, said Qusair Zakariya, an activist there.

"Our rebels are fighting hard to repel the regime ... We've been doing our best to try to evacuate civilians from the western front of the town because they're now exposed to shelling and tank fire," he said, speaking by Skype over audible bursts of rocket fire.

Like most rebel enclaves in the suburbs that ring Damascus, Mouadamiya has been under an army-imposed siege for months, causing a particularly acute shortage of food and supplies.

Doctors in the town have reported an increasing number of deaths from malnutrition, especially among children.

The United States condemned the siege on Friday, saying the Assad government had only allowed a limited number of civilians to escape from Mouadamiya and that it must allow food, water and medicine to reach those still inside.

"We also warn the regime ... not to use limited evacuations of civilians as an excuse to attack those residents who remain behind," it said. "The regime's deliberate prevention of the delivery of life-saving humanitarian supplies to thousands of civilians is unconscionable."

Western powers have mostly backed opposition forces trying to end four decades of Assad family rule, but have hesitated to supply military aid to the rebels, fearing the rising influence of al Qaeda. Russia and Iran have supported Assad unstintingly.

International efforts to stop the bloodshed in Syria have stuttered for months, but Russia and the United States are now planning to hold peace talks in Geneva next month.

The deeply divided opposition remains reluctant to attend, however, and Assad's government has already said it will not consider any deal that requires the president to step down.

Milan Court Sets 2-Year Berlusconi Political Ban

A Milan appeals court on Saturday set Silvio Berlusconi's political ban in his tax fraud conviction at two years, setting the stage for more wrangling over the future of the embattled politician who continues to wield political influence.

The appellate court was ordered by Italy's highest court to determine the length of the political ban accompanying his tax fraud conviction and four-year jail term after prosecutors conceded sentencing errors in the original five-year ban.

It is one of two political ban processes set in motion when Berlusconi lost his final appeal in August over his tax fraud conviction and a four-year jail sentence. Since both political bans need to be approved by Parliament, the process of enforcing them promises to be lengthy.

Berlusconi already is facing the loss of his Senate seat due to the conviction under a 2012 law stipulating that anyone convicted to more than two years in prison cannot hold or run for office for six years. A Senate committee has approved yanking his seat, but a vote by the whole chamber is pending and could come before the end of the year.

Berlusconi's defense lawyer, Nicolo Ghedini, immediately pledged to appeal the two-year ban to the nation's highest criminal court. The moves could be rendered futile if the six-year ban is already in place.

For now, the three-time former premier and his center-right forces have pledged to continue their support for Premier Enrico Letta's cross-party government of long-time political foes on the left and the right. After triggering a government crisis by threatening to pull his party's backing, Berlusconi did a last-minute about-face to support the government in a confidence vote.

The political bans would bar Berlusconi from participating in new elections for their length, but he could remain the titular head of his party without holding political office.

Berlusconi won't do jail for the tax fraud case. The four-year term has been reduced to one year under an amnesty for crimes committed before 2006, and Berlusconi reportedly has requested to perform community service instead of house arrest.

Berlusconi also faces a 7-year sentence and lifetime political ban after being convicted this summer of having paid a minor for sex and forcing officials to cover it up. He has two appeals. A Naples court also is investigating him for allegedly bribing a lawmaker to bolt a previous center-left government under Romano Prodi.

BART strike causes commuters congestion, consternation

BART's second strike in three months collided head-on with the Bay Area's morning commute Friday, resulting in heavy traffic, crowded buses and ferries and frayed nerves.

The work stoppage, called by BART's unionized employees after labor talks collapsed Thursday afternoon, forced many commuters to start their day earlier than usual as they sought logistical workarounds to get to the office.

Rebecca Biles of Pittsburg, who works at a law firm in downtown San Francisco, was on the first ferry to arrive at San Francisco's Ferry Building on Friday morning. It carried a full-capacity load of 149 passengers. Biles said she woke up at 3:30 a.m., significantly earlier than usual, to get to work on time.

"I hate BART," Biles said. "I may never ride it again. The ferry was actually pretty awesome, and I may just take it in the future. And the best part is they serve cocktails on the way home."

The ferry, one of 13 that traversed bay waters Friday -- 11 from San Francisco Ferry and two on loan from Golden Gate Ferry -- was one commuting option in the absence of BART, which carries 200,000 passengers each weekday on the nation's fifth-largest commuter rail system. The system shuttles passengers from the farthest reaches of the densely populated eastern suburbs to San Francisco International Airport across the bay.

Buses, some of them chartered by BART to service nine East Bay stations, were another option. Fourteen buses, each with a capacity of 50 passengers, departed the Walnut Creek station for San Francisco between 6:45 and 8:45. Walnut Creek resident Edward Benney, who has been commuting to San Francisco for about 19 years, waited in line for 30 minutes before boarding his bus.

"The real mayhem is going to come Monday," he said. "A lot of people can take today off. They probably aren't going to work. Monday is going to be much, much worse."

A lot of people hit the road, causing congestion, especially on freeways that parallel BART lines. Juan Brooks, a compliance officer at the courts in Oakland, left for work an hour earlier than usual. He was filling his car at the Shell gas station on Hillcrest Avenue in Antioch at 5:15 a.m.

"You have to roll with the punches in the Bay Area and just prepare yourself," he said.

While traffic was heavier across the board Friday morning, CHP officials said commuters headed into the city on Interstate 880 took the brunt of the region's traffic woes. Cars stood still for 15 miles of the northbound stretch, backed up from the toll plaza to Highway 238 by about 9 a.m. Heavy traffic also was reported on Highway 24 between Walnut Creek and the Bay Bridge and on southbound Interstate 80 between Highway 4 and the bridge.

"There are more vehicles out there on the road, but incident-wise it's been about normal," Officer James Evans said. "All in all, I wouldn't say it's a lot worse, except on the 880."

Some people improvised.

Alex Haler, 27, who lives in San Francisco's Mission District, usually takes BART from the 24th Street station to the 19th Street station in Oakland to reach his workplace. Friday morning, clad in running shoes, shorts and a long-sleeve shirt, he ran from his home to the Ferry Building to catch an eastbound ferry. He planned to run from the Oakland ferry stop to his office. He estimated his runs would total seven miles.

"I'm not too happy about this," Haler said.

Whether traveling on wheels on waves, commuters had plenty to say about the failed bargaining that resulted in the strike.

Vallejo resident Laura Noel, who usually commutes from the El Cerrito BART station to her job as an office coordinator in San Francisco, spent Thursday night at a friend's house in Oakland so she could get to work on time.

"It's frustrating," she said. "From Vallejo, the options are not very good. The ferry takes forever, the bus is even worse."

Still, Noel is sympathetic to striking BART employees.

"I think the workers made some concessions back in 2009 that they haven't gotten back," she said, "so I kind of favor them."

Friday morning, six pickets circled Oakland's Lake Merritt BART station at the corner of Eighth and Oak streets, chanting, "No Contract, No Peace."

BART employee Brendan McIntyre, one of the strikers, put the blame on management.

"They won't give us a contract," he said. "They just want to take away our benefits and money -- everything we've got."

"I'm trying to stay calm and just accept it, but I am just outraged -- two strikes in four months," said Oakland resident John Munnerlyn as he waited to board a bus at 20th and Broadway. Munnerlyn expected it would take him an hour to get to work in San Francisco, three times as long as it takes him on BART.

"I'm not happy with the unions and their leaders," he said. "I think they have really bad leaders -- four months and no contract."

And it wasn't only commuters left high and dry. A group of men recently released from Santa Rita Jail had been waiting for more than four hours for rides home. They'd been handed useless BART cards upon their release, and had walked to a station expecting to take the trains home, with no money for food or cab fare.

"They told us when we got out that BART wasn't running, so you're on your own," said Joey Alvarez of San Leandro. "Those BART employees are selfish, they're only thinking about themselves."

There were no talks Friday between BART management and the two unions representing BART employees. None are scheduled for Saturday.

Maldives Police Block Attempt at Presidential Vote

Maldives sank further into political disarray Saturday when police blocked officials from conducting a presidential revote, saying that holding the election would violate a Supreme Court order.

It's the latest blow to this young Indian Ocean democracy, which has only about three weeks before the end of the current president's term. If his replacement is not elected by then it will spark a constitutional crisis.

The top court annulled the results of the Sept. 7 presidential election, agreeing with a losing candidate that the voters' registry included fictitious names and dead people, but it set conditions for a revote that police said elections officials did not meet.

Elections Commissioner Fuwad Thowfeek attempted to hold the election as scheduled, but on Saturday morning he said the ground floor of his building was full of policemen stopping his staff from carrying election material outside. He then called the election off.

Officer Abdulla Nawaz, speaking for the police, said the election was stopped because the commissioner did not comply with a court order to have the voters' list endorsed by all the candidates.

Thowfeek accused the police of overstepping their legitimate role.

"We are very much concerned about what is going on in this country. The Supreme Court decision does not ask police officers to look into the voters' list and check what is there ..." he told reporters.

"They kind of think they can be our bosses and we are an institution below them, and that they can dictate to us and control us," Thowfeek said.

Nawaz said police acted after consulting with President Mohamed Waheed Hassan, the security council, the attorney general and the Home Ministry.

"We are not as an independent institution stopping someone from doing something. We can't just support the Elections Commission against the ruling of the Supreme Court," Nawaz said.

The Maldives' capital, Male, appeared calm early Saturday, with people still waking up to the news.

Two of the three presidential candidates did not sign the voters' list Friday, saying it needed to be verified for any irregularities, but Thowfeek had said their demands for double-checking the list were impossible to meet in time for the election.

The Supreme Court said in its ruling annulling the September election that a revote must take place before Sunday. It likely will need to issue a new ruling in order for an election to be held before Hassan's term ends Nov. 11.

Thowfeek had announced earlier Saturday that he would hold the election on the court's advice, despite the fact that not all candidates had endorsed the list of voters. However, he said later that the court did not specifically advise that he conduct the election, but instead asked him to follow the original guidelines, which is open to interpretation.

The Maldives became a democracy five years ago after 30 years of autocratic rule and has had a difficult transition.

Its first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, was forced to resign last year midway through his term after he ordered the arrest of a senior judge he perceived as corrupt and partial. Nasheed says he was forced out of power by a coup, though an inquiry commission has dismissed his claim.

The country's institutions such as the judiciary, police and public service are often perceived as partial and dominated by those loyal to the country's former autocratic leader Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who lost to Nasheed in 2008.

Nasheed, who finished first in the September balloting but did not win the majority of votes needed to avoid a runoff, had endorsed the voter list. The other candidates — Yaamin Abdul Gayoom, a brother of Maumoon, and businessman Qasim Ibrahim, who challenged the first-round result in court — did not.

After Saturday's revote was called off, Hamid Abdul Ghafoor, a spokesman for Nasheed, accused the judiciary and police of being the pawns of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and called for international engagement to have an election soon. Others also decried the canceled vote.

"This clearly undermines the democracy and violates the people's right to vote," said Mohamed Visham, editor of local daily Haveeru.

But he added that the election setbacks won't discourage Maldivians from believing in democracy.

"All hope is not lost. There is still time to have an election before Nov. 11," he said.

Maldives Police Block Attempt at Presidential Vote

Maldives sank further into political disarray Saturday when police blocked officials from conducting a presidential revote, saying that holding the election would violate a Supreme Court order.

It's the latest blow to this young Indian Ocean democracy, which has only about three weeks before the end of the current president's term. If his replacement is not elected by then it will spark a constitutional crisis.

The top court annulled the results of the Sept. 7 presidential election, agreeing with a losing candidate that the voters' registry included fictitious names and dead people, but it set conditions for a revote that police said elections officials did not meet.

Elections Commissioner Fuwad Thowfeek attempted to hold the election as scheduled, but on Saturday morning he said the ground floor of his building was full of policemen stopping his staff from carrying election material outside. He then called the election off.

Officer Abdulla Nawaz, speaking for the police, said the election was stopped because the commissioner did not comply with a court order to have the voters' list endorsed by all the candidates.

Thowfeek accused the police of overstepping their legitimate role.

"We are very much concerned about what is going on in this country. The Supreme Court decision does not ask police officers to look into the voters' list and check what is there ..." he told reporters.

"They kind of think they can be our bosses and we are an institution below them, and that they can dictate to us and control us," Thowfeek said.

Nawaz said police acted after consulting with President Mohamed Waheed Hassan, the security council, the attorney general and the Home Ministry.

"We are not as an independent institution stopping someone from doing something. We can't just support the Elections Commission against the ruling of the Supreme Court," Nawaz said.

The Maldives' capital, Male, appeared calm early Saturday, with people still waking up to the news.

Two of the three presidential candidates did not sign the voters' list Friday, saying it needed to be verified for any irregularities, but Thowfeek had said their demands for double-checking the list were impossible to meet in time for the election.

The Supreme Court said in its ruling annulling the September election that a revote must take place before Sunday. It likely will need to issue a new ruling in order for an election to be held before Hassan's term ends Nov. 11.

Thowfeek had announced earlier Saturday that he would hold the election on the court's advice, despite the fact that not all candidates had endorsed the list of voters. However, he said later that the court did not specifically advise that he conduct the election, but instead asked him to follow the original guidelines, which is open to interpretation.

The Maldives became a democracy five years ago after 30 years of autocratic rule and has had a difficult transition.

Its first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, was forced to resign last year midway through his term after he ordered the arrest of a senior judge he perceived as corrupt and partial. Nasheed says he was forced out of power by a coup, though an inquiry commission has dismissed his claim.

The country's institutions such as the judiciary, police and public service are often perceived as partial and dominated by those loyal to the country's former autocratic leader Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who lost to Nasheed in 2008.

Nasheed, who finished first in the September balloting but did not win the majority of votes needed to avoid a runoff, had endorsed the voter list. The other candidates — Yaamin Abdul Gayoom, a brother of Maumoon, and businessman Qasim Ibrahim, who challenged the first-round result in court — did not.

After Saturday's revote was called off, Hamid Abdul Ghafoor, a spokesman for Nasheed, accused the judiciary and police of being the pawns of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and called for international engagement to have an election soon. Others also decried the canceled vote.

"This clearly undermines the democracy and violates the people's right to vote," said Mohamed Visham, editor of local daily Haveeru.

But he added that the election setbacks won't discourage Maldivians from believing in democracy.

"All hope is not lost. There is still time to have an election before Nov. 11," he said.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood facing wave of trials

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood faces a wave of trials unlike any it has seen in its history, threatening to put a large number of its senior leadership behind bars for years, even life, as military-backed authorities determined to cripple the group prepare prosecutions on charges including inciting violence and terrorism.

The prosecutions are the next phase in the wide-scale crackdown on the Brotherhood following the military's July ouster of President Mohammed Morsi, who goes on trial next month.

Morsi's trial, the most high-profile case, is setting the pattern for the others, aiming to show the Brotherhood leadership as directing a campaign of violence. Morsi is charged with inciting murder in connection to a protest during his year in office in which his supporters attacked protesters outside his palace.

But leaders may also be charged with fomenting violence in post-coup protests by Morsi's Islamist supporters demanding his reinstatement. Security forces have cracked down heavily on the protests, claiming some participants were armed, and have killed hundreds of Morsi backers. With each new round of protests and violence, prosecutors consider new charges that include incitement and arming supporters, Brotherhood lawyers say.

From nine to more than a dozen cases so far are being put together, each with multiple defendants, according to a prosecution official and Brotherhood lawyers. So far four cases, including Morsi's, have been referred to trial with a total of at least 34 defendants, though a few are being tried in absentia. Ahmed Seif, a human rights lawyer following the investigations, predicted around 200 Brotherhood leaders and senior officials could eventually end up in court.

Brotherhood lawyer Mohammed Gharib denounced the cases as simply "a fig leaf by authorities to cover over their scandal" — to justify the coup and the crackdown, pointing out that no police have been investigated for killing protesters. "They are going after their main political opponent," he told The Associated Press earlier this week.

On Friday, the Brotherhood legal team said Gharib, who was tried under previous Egyptian administrations, left the country for security reasons and has been replaced by another lawyer. Dozens of Brotherhood lawyers have already been detained. Gharib represented the Brotherhood's jailed top leader Mohammed Badie and other senior members.

Some 2,000 high- and middle-ranking Brotherhood figures have been detained, and Gharib estimated another 6,000 rank-and-file members and supporters are also in custody, questioned for material to use against the leadership. Among the biggest figures in custody are Morsi, Badie and his deputy Khairat el-Shater, and almost half the group's main leadership council and many of its former parliament members. Rights lawyers say they are struggling to keep track, amid the high numbers jailed and prosecutors who are keeping a tight lid on information.

Even rights lawyers who see a strong basis for prosecuting Brotherhood figures over violence and abuses of power expressed concern over the scope of the projected trials. Rights advocates have called for a thorough program of transitional justice to address abuses from the time of autocrat Hosni Mubarak and through the past 2 ½ years of Egypt's turmoil since his ouster — which would also mean trying police and military officials for killing protesters and other rights violations.

Instead, they fear unfair trials with shoddy evidence will be used for the political aim of undermining the Brotherhood.

"They want revenge," Amr Imam, a rights lawyer with the Hesham Mubarak Legal Center, said of the current authorities. "The rights of not only the Brotherhood, but many other Egyptians, will be lost because of arbitrary procedures."

The Brotherhood, which grew underground to become Egypt's best organized political group, leaped to power in elections after Mubarak's 2011 ouster. The presidency of Morsi, a Brotherhood member who became Egypt's first freely elected leader, prompted a massive backlash from many in the public who saw the group as trying to monopolize power and impose its vision on the country.

The military removed Morsi on July 3 after protests by millions against him. The group says the military has crushed the country's fledgling democracy and will bring back Mubarak-style rule.

During its 85-year history, the Muslim Brotherhood has seen frequent waves of arrests. But this time is different.

Under Mubarak, Brotherhood leaders at times were jailed under emergency laws on accusations of belonging to a banned group, but were only occasionally brought to trial. Instead, their detentions and releases were part of a political game, used by the regime to wrest concessions from the group, particularly ahead of elections.

"We used to play chess with the previous regime," said Gharib. "Now it is straight out crushing."

Gharib also noted another difference — in the past 30 years under Mubarak, there was no attempt to associate the group with violence.

The major exception was one of the few major trials against the Brotherhood under Mubarak, in 2008, when 25 members, including senior leaders and financiers, were sentenced to up to 10 years for money laundering and terrorism. The case was initiated after masked Brotherhood students held a militia-style demonstration in Cairo, raising an investigation into whether the Brotherhood had resurrected its military wing.

A prosecution official said nine or 10 cases are so far being prepared on incitement charges. Investigators are citing recordings of conversations among leaders plotting violence, testimonies by victims of violence and weapons seized at two pro-Morsi protest camps, according to the official, who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the press.

Morsi's trial begins on Nov. 4, with 14 other Brotherhood figures as co-defendants. Their case is rooted in an attack by Brotherhood supporters on an anti-Morsi protest camp outside his palace in December, during his presidency, which sparked clashes that left 10 dead. Morsi is accused of inciting his followers to attack the protesters, a charge that could carry the death penalty.

Morsi has been held in a secret military detention with no access to his lawyers and has refused to cooperate with investigators. In leaked reports of his interrogations, Morsi insisted he is the legitimate leader of the country. His family called the trial and accusations "laughable."

The trial of Brotherhood leader Badie began in August. He, his predecessor Mahdi Akef and senior deputies are charged with incitement in connection to an incident days before Morsi's ouster, when Brotherhood members opened fire on anti-Morsi protesters outside the Brotherhood's Cairo headquarters, allegedly intent on storming it. At least eight people were killed.

In interrogation transcripts leaked to the press, the 85-year-old Akef is questioned about testimony by a journalist at the clashes who claimed to have overheard a Brotherhood member talking to Akef on the phone, asking for more weapons.

"These are lies," Akef replied, saying the investigators should be tried for putting together "baseless" accusations, according to the Al-Fagr newspaper.

Badie is also being investigated in a separate case. A few days after Morsi's ouster, his supporters rallied outside a Republican Guard facility where they believed he was detained. Authorities say they tried to break in after Badie and a prominent pro-Brotherhood preacher Safwat Hegazy urged protesters in public speeches to free the ousted president. In the ensuing violence, security forces killed 51 protesters, and a military officer and two policemen were allegedly killed by armed protesters. Hegazy is also jailed now under investigation in the case — and on trial in a separate one.

Another Brotherhood lawyer, Osamal el-Helw, said with each new instance of violence around ongoing protests, Brotherhood leaders are added to new investigations, presumably on incitement charges. He said Badie, who has been interrogated in over a dozen cases, will likely face more trials.

The question of how intensely authorities will carry out prosecution and trials is tied up in political considerations, rights lawyers say.

Seif, who represented Brotherhood members in past cases, said he believes the aim is to win criminal sentences that would prevent Brotherhood figures from running in any parliament or presidential elections next year.

Imam believes the flurry of investigations is a pressure tactic to force the Brotherhood to rein in more extremist allies, who have carried out attacks on churches, state facilities and troops in Sinai.

"It is not the Brotherhood that are carrying the weapons," he said. "They are part of an alliance of radical groups who are, and the Brotherhood speaks for them now."