JERUSALEM (AP) — An official Israeli committee on Thursday handed the government its proposal for ending a contentious system that grants Jewish ultra-Orthodox seminary students automatic exemptions from military service, setting the stage for what could become the first major conflict in the new Israeli coalition government.

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad fired heavy machine guns and lobbed mortar shells at each other Thursday in some of the worst fighting in the port city of Tripoli in years.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's prime minister says a new report by the U.N. atomic agency shows that international pressure is having no effect on halting Iran's suspect nuclear program.