Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia are backing Montana in its fight to prevent the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision from being used to strike down state laws restricting corporate campaign spending.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's deputy foreign minister said on Sunday that military action against Iran over its nuclear program was being considered in some Western countries. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was speaking to reporters on a plane on his way back from the G8 summit in Camp David, where the G8 leaders signaled their readiness to tap into emergency oil stockpiles quickly this summer if tougher new sanctions on Iran threatened to strain supplies. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Newly issued shares in Facebook Inc may have a hard time in the coming week if lead underwriter Morgan Stanley stops supporting the stock and managers lower down in the IPO book who were hoping for an early surge decide to get out before going underwater. Facebook on Friday sold 421 million shares of stock in a deal that valued the company at more than $100 billion. But investors, expecting a first-day pop in price, instead saw it close just 0.6 percent above the IPO price at $38.23. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Restore Our Future, an outside "Super PAC" backing Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, raised $3.9 million in April, less than half the haul it collected in March, the group's financial disclosures showed on Sunday. But the "super" political action committee still emerged with $8.2 million in cash on hand at the end of last month - more than it did in March - after spending $2.9 million, according to the filing with the Federal Election Commission. In March, the deep-pocketed Super PAC brought in $8.7 million and had $6.5 million left in cash on hand. ...

Gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns early Monday in intense street battles in the Lebanese capital, wounding six people as fears mounted that the conflict in neighboring Syria was bleeding across the border.

On paper at least, European leaders agree: They need stronger growth measures to help their economies expand out of their 2½-year-old government debt crisis. Figuring out exactly what those new steps might be will be the hard part.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - NATO leaders charting a path out of Afghanistan sought on Sunday to dispel fears of a rush for the exits in the unpopular war even as France's new president vowed to stick by his pledge to withdraw French troops by year's end. President Barack Obama, who once called the Afghan conflict a "war of necessity" but is now looking for an orderly way out, hosted the NATO summit in his home town, Chicago, a day after major industrialized nations tackled a European debt crisis that threatens the global economy. ...

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Opposition leader Tomislav Nikolic, last in power when Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia was bombed by NATO in 1999, was elected president on Sunday and pledged to keep the former Yugoslav republic moving towards the European Union. In a major upset, rightist Nikolic narrowly defeated liberal leader Boris Tadic, ending his eight years as head of state in a tense run-off election in which fewer than half of Serbia's eligible voters turned out. "There is divine justice," Nikolic told jubilant supporters in the capital, Belgrade. ...

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Opposition leader Tomislav Nikolic, last in power when Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia was bombed by NATO in 1999, was elected president on Sunday and pledged to keep the former Yugoslav republic moving towards the European Union. In a major upset, rightist Nikolic narrowly defeated liberal leader Boris Tadic, ending his eight years as head of state in a tense run-off election in which fewer than half of Serbia's eligible voters turned out. "There is divine justice," Nikolic told jubilant supporters in the capital, Belgrade. ...

President Barack Obama and NATO allies declared Sunday that the end of the long and unpopular Afghanistan war is in sight even as they struggled to hold their fighting force together in the face of dwindling patience and shaky unity.

(Reuters) - A transgender Canadian beauty contestant who was initially disqualified from taking part in the Miss Universe Canada pageant because she was not a "naturally born female" failed to win the crown but was awarded the title of Miss Congeniality. Jenna Talackova, a tall blonde who underwent gender-reassignment surgery at age 19 and holds legal documents affirming her identity as a woman, made it into the top 12 in the Miss Universe Canada pageant on Saturday night in Toronto. She shared the title of Miss Congeniality with three other women voted on by their fellow contestants. ...

SANT' AGOSTINO, Italy (Reuters) - A strong earthquake in northern Italy killed at least six people, injured dozens and damaged historic buildings including a famed mediaeval castle early on Sunday, waking terrified citizens and sending thousands running into the streets. The quake, which the U.S. Geological Survey recorded at magnitude 6.0, struck at 4:04 a.m. (0204 GMT) and was followed by a series of jolting aftershocks. At least two of them reached magnitude 5.1, sowing fresh panic, further damaging already weakened buildings and causing more structures to collapse. ...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The chief executives of Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd are used to running the show at their global tech empires, but they will be in for a different experience when they arrive at a San Francisco federal courthouse on Monday. Apple's Tim Cook and Samsung's Choi Gee-sung, whose companies are embroiled in bitter patent litigation, have been instructed by a federal judge to appear for court-supervised mediation. A joint court filing in April said that "as directed by the Court, Apple and Samsung are both willing to participate" in the discussions. ...

Nationalist candidate Tomislav Nikolic won the Serbian presidency on Sunday, a result that adds to the political turmoil in the Balkan country and could slow down its attempts to join the European Union.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters carried their anti-war message to world leaders at a NATO summit on a steamy Sunday, in a mostly peaceful march led by a group of Iraq War veterans who symbolically gave back their military medals. During the march, a group of black-clad demonstrators darted toward police lines along the route, and some threw water bottles at officers who pushed back and yelled at them to move along, but there were no major incidents. ...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters carried their anti-war message to world leaders at a NATO summit on a steamy Sunday, in a mostly peaceful march led by a group of Iraq War veterans who symbolically gave back their military medals. During the march, a group of black-clad demonstrators darted toward police lines along the route, and some threw water bottles at officers who pushed back and yelled at them to move along, but there were no major incidents. ...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters carried their anti-war message to world leaders at a NATO summit on a steamy Sunday, in a mostly peaceful march led by a group of Iraq War veterans who symbolically gave back their military medals. During the march, a group of black-clad demonstrators darted toward police lines along the route, and some threw water bottles at officers who pushed back and yelled at them to move along, but there were no major incidents. ...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - New French president Francois Hollande likes to style himself as "Mr. Normal," but his sudden debut on the global stage this week has been anything but. From the Oval Office to a meeting of G8 leaders at the Camp David presidential retreat to the NATO summit in Chicago, Hollande, a life-long party official who has never held a ministerial post, sometimes looked as though he were trying the role of international summiteer on for size. Despite some awkwardness, Hollande appeared to pass his initial diplomatic tests. ...

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the 1988 bombing of a PanAm flight over Lockerbie, died of cancer on Sunday aged 60, leaving many questions on the attack and its aftermath unanswered. Megrahi, who said he was not responsible for bringing the jumbo jet down on the Scottish town and killing 270 people, was found guilty in 2001 but was freed in 2009 and returned to Libya because he had terminal cancer and was not expected to live long. ...

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the 1988 bombing of a PanAm flight over Lockerbie, died of cancer on Sunday aged 60, leaving many questions on the attack and its aftermath unanswered. Megrahi, who said he was not responsible for bringing the jumbo jet down on the Scottish town and killing 270 people, was found guilty in 2001 but was freed in 2009 and returned to Libya because he had terminal cancer and was not expected to live long. ...

More than 100 Egyptians held since a mass arrest over two weeks ago began an open-ended hunger strike Sunday to protest their continued detention and the possibility they will face military prosecution, activists said.

The NATO alliance that has fought for a decade in Afghanistan is helping that nation shift toward stability and peace, but there will be "hard days ahead," President Barack Obama said Sunday as alliance leaders insisted the fighting coalition will remain effective despite France's plans to yank combat troops out early.

"The Avengers" continues to muscle out everything else Hollywood throws at it, easily sinking naval rival "Battleship" and other new releases.