Pope: Good Catholics don't have to breed 'like bunnies'

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE - Pope Francis is firmly upholding church teaching banning contraception, but said Monday that Catholics don't have to breed "like rabbits" and should instead practice "responsible parenting."

Speaking to reporters en route home from the Philippines, Francis said there are plenty of church-approved ways to regulate births. But he said most importantly, no outside institution should impose its views on regulating family size, blasting what he called the "ideological colonization" of the developing world.

African bishops, in particular, have long complained about how progressive, Western ideas about birth control and gay rights are increasingly being imposed on the developing world by groups, institutions or individual nations, often as a condition for development aid.

"Every people deserves to conserve its identity without being ideologically colonized," Francis said.

Yemeni troops battle Shiite rebels, seize state media

SANAA, Yemen - Yemen's U.S.-backed leadership came under serious threat Monday as government troops clashed with Shiite rebels near the presidential palace and a key military base in what one official called "a step toward a coup."

The militants seized control of state media in fierce fighting that marked the biggest challenge yet to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi by the rebels, known as Houthis, who swept down from their northern strongholds last year and captured the capital in September.

The violence threatened to undermine efforts by the U.S. and its allies to battle al-Qaida's Yemeni affiliate, which claimed responsibility for the attack on a Paris satirical magazine this month and which Washington has long viewed as the global network's most dangerous branch.

The Houthis and forces loyal to Hadi have been in a tense standoff for months and the two sides traded blame for the outbreak of violence Monday. Witnesses said heavy machine gun fire could be heard as artillery shells struck around the presidential palace. Civilians in the area fled as columns of black smoke rose over the palace and sirens wailed throughout the city.

Officials: Autopsy of prosecutor shows no others were involved

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Argentina's government said Monday that a prosecutor who had accused President Cristina Fernandez of shielding Iranian suspects in the nation's deadliest terror attack died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside his locked apartment, a declaration sure to be closely scrutinized.

Alberto Nisman, who had been investigating the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people, was found in the bathroom of his apartment late Sunday, hours before he was to testify in a Congressional hearing about the case.

Investigating prosecutor Viviana Fein said the preliminary autopsy found "no intervention" of others in Nisman's death. However, Fein said she would not rule out the possibility that Nisman was "induced" to suicide, adding that the gun was not his.

"The firearm belonged to a collaborator of Nisman" who had given it to the prosecutor, Fein told Todo Noticias television channel.

Jindal: Muslims establish 'no-go zones' to enforce Islamic law

WASHINGTON - Some countries have allowed Muslims to establish autonomous neighborhoods in cities where they govern by a harsh version of Islamic law, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said Monday during a speech in London.

The Republican, who is considering a presidential campaign in 2016, later defended - and repeated - the statement after facing reporters' questions about his claims.

In a speech prepared for delivery at a British think tank, Jindal said some immigrants are seeking "to colonize Western countries, because setting up your own enclave and demanding recognition of a no-go zone are exactly that." He also said Muslim leaders must condemn the people who commit terrorism in the name of faith as "murderers who are going to hell."

Use budget to repeal health care? Some in GOP say no

WASHINGTON - Republicans running Congress have promised to use every weapon in their arsenal to take down President Barack Obama's health care law.

But now some are questioning whether to use the congressional budget process to derail the 2010 law or save the special step for more traditional purposes like cutting spending or overhauling the tax code. A potentially divisive debate between tea party forces and GOP pragmatists looms.

At issue is an arcane process known as budget reconciliation. It's the only filibuster-proof option available to Republicans, who control the Senate with 54 seats but must still muster 60 votes to pass other legislation.

Senate precedents limit the number of reconciliation bills - one for taxes, one for spending and one to raise the government's borrowing cap - and so a major debate has begun among Republicans over what to put in it.

Hard-line conservatives want to use the process to force a showdown with Obama over the law.