BAGHDAD (AP)

PLANO (AP) — Conservative Episcopalians are gathering Monday to establish an unprecedented nationwide organization to unite opponents of last year’s consecration of their denomination’s first openly gay bishop. Activists say the new Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes will not be a schism but will be a “church within a church.” Nonetheless, it’s a potentially serious challenge to the Episcopal Church.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Bickering to the last, Democrats traded insults Sunday as they reached for the finish line in a close and caustic Iowa caucus race, the first step toward picking President Bush’s rival. “We are going to win,” said Rep. Dick Gephardt, the same five-word refrain used by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards in a contest utterly impossible to call.

WINDSOR, Ontario (AP)

TOPSEY — It’s hard not to like a place named for a mule. Topsey, eight miles northwest of Copperas Cove in southwestern Coryell County on Farm Road 580, is just such a place. Mules were important to a turn-of-the-century farmer and probably don’t get the respect they deserve in history.