Calm has returned to the streets of Lebanon’s capital after troops launched a major security operation to quell fighting touched off by the assassination of a top anti-Syrian intelligence chief.

Gunmen in Iraq sprayed a car with bullets, killing a bride and wounding the groom as they drove home on their first day as husband and wife.

Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem are to restrict Christmas observances to religious ritual this year – the first time since 1994 that Jesus’ traditional birthplace is under Israeli occupation during the holiday.