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Pope Francis, who is also fighting against Benedict XVI'samong many in the Muslim community, tried to handle the potentially awkward moment by declining to mention "Islam" in his . Instead, he emphasized the Christian faith of the martyrs, with a relatively toned-down nod to ending inter-religious violence: "Let us ask God to sustain those many Christians who, in these times and in many parts of the world, right now, still suffer violence, and give them the courage and fidelity to respond to evil with good,” he told the crowd in St. Peter's Square. 

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The pope also canonized two women from Latin America, which seems to be a more fitting way for the first pope from the continent to kick off his tenure. Those two new saints are. Saints, as you might know,  in the eyes of the church to qualify for the Catholic church's highest honor. 

Stampede officials say astronaut Chris Hadfield has agree to head the parade on July 5.

Hadfield is currently the commander on the International Space Station and Stampede officials extended their invitation via Twitter.

Hadfield accepted with the comment: "A great reason to come back to Earth."

He also included a picture of Calgary from space.

Hadfield is scheduled to return to Earth on Monday.

Hadfield is one of the few people who have been parade marshal at the parade twice he fulfilled that duty in 2001 as well.

This year's Calgary Stampede, also known as the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth, runs from July 5 to July 14.

(CHQR, The Canadian Press)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama signaled on Tuesday he is no rush to respond quickly to Syria's apparent use of chemical weapons, taking a cautious approach to the country's civil war, mirroring the views of the American public, most lawmakers and some U.S. allies. Obama, who last year declared that the use or deployment of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would cross a "red line," told a White House news conference there was evidence those weapons were used, but there was still much that U.S. intelligence agencies did not know.

China steps up customs checks, but North Korea trade robust

DANDONG, China (Reuters) - China has stepped up checks on shipments to and from North Korea almost two months after agreeing to new U.N. sanctions that demand greater scrutiny of trade, but the flow of goods in and out of the reclusive state appears largely unaffected. The sanctions were imposed after North Korea's third nuclear test on February 12. China has said it wants the measures enforced, but few analysts believe Beijing will take steps that hurt North Korea as it is committed to a policy of engagement.

ElBaradei says Egypt needs political consensus to heal economy

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's government must seek political compromise to win broad support for a crucial IMF loan and revive the country's ailing economy, senior opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei said on Tuesday. The former U.N. nuclear watchdog chief and Nobel Peace Prize winner accused the ruling Muslim Brotherhood of excluding other political forces from decision making, hindering recovery two years after an uprising ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

Italy's Letta tells Merkel Europe needs more growth

ROME/BERLIN (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta, fresh from winning a confidence vote in parliament, told Germany on Tuesday his government would meet its budget commitments but expected Europe to drop its austerity mantra and do more to lift growth. Speaking in Berlin on his first foreign visit since taking office on Sunday, Letta warned that Italy's February election, which saw a surge of support for parties attacking the European Union, showed that a change of course was needed.

Israel welcomes apparent Arab League softening of peace plan

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel responded favorably on Tuesday to an apparent softening by Arab states of their 2002 peace plan after a top Qatari official raised the possibility of land swaps in setting borders between the Jewish state and an independent Palestine. The original Arab League proposal offered full recognition of Israel but only if it gave up all land seized in the 1967 Middle East war and accepted a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees. Israel, which has long said it would never return to narrow pre-1967 war borders, rejected the plan at the time.

Bomb blast kills 13 in center of Syrian capital

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A bomb blast in the government-held center of Damascus killed 13 people on Tuesday, state television said, while rebels and loyalists to President Bashar al-Assad traded accusations over what they said was a chemical weapons attack the day before. Residents described scenes of carnage in Marjeh Square, in a the commercial district in the heart of the capital, with dozens of cars and buildings damaged by the bomb which went off in front of the former Interior Ministry building.

EU considers trade action after Bangladesh factory collapse

(Reuters) - The European Union voiced strong concern over labor conditions in Bangladesh after a building collapse there killed hundreds of factory workers, and said it was considering action to encourage improvements, including the use of its trade preference system. The European Union is Bangladesh's largest trade partner and clothes made inside the building - an illegally built structure that toppled last week, killing at least 390 people - were produced for retailers in Europe and Canada.

Exclusive: Sources say senior Iranian diplomat detained in March

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A senior Iranian diplomat linked to Iran's reformists was detained in Tehran in March, possibly as part of a crackdown on dissidents ahead of the June presidential election, sources familiar with the case told Reuters on Tuesday. Bagher Asadi, who has previously been a senior diplomat at Iran's U.N. mission in New York and was most recently a director at the secretariat of the so-called D8 group of developing nations in Istanbul, was arrested in mid-March in the Iranian capital according to the sources, who requested anonymity.

No talks on key Mexico reforms until spat resolved: opposition

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A multi-party alliance to modernize Mexico's economy will not discuss pending energy and tax reforms until an electoral spat between the opposition and the government is resolved, the head of the main leftist party said on Tuesday. Jesus Zambrano, chairman of the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), said there could be no talks on these reforms until the government had taken clear steps to punish those responsible for a vote-buying scandal in the Gulf state of Veracruz that was exposed this month.

Pope accepts invite to Israel, urges peace talks

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis urged Israelis and Palestinians to resume talks and make "courageous decisions" to bring peace after his first meeting with Israel's President Shimon Peres on Tuesday and accepted an invitation to visit the Holy Land. The two discussed the civil war in Syria, tensions in Iran and the scourge of anti-Semitism during half an hour of private talks in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace.

We know little about President Barack Obamas new Commission on Election Administration except for its structure, as outlined in the , and the names of its two appointed co-chairs: Obama's former counsel Bob Bauer and Republican attorney Ben Ginsberg, who worked for Mitt Romney.

But while it has yet to explain its methodology or get together a full staff (the executive order directs that no more than nine members are to be appointed) the commissionan idea born on election night 2012 when Obama declared we "have to fix" long lines at the pollsis about to get to work.

Steve Croley, deputy White House counsel, told Yahoo News the White House is gearing up to announce the committee's full roster next month and set the group to work. The committee, he said, will be a mix of individuals including "several people who basically run elections for a living" at the state, county or local levels, in addition to those working on the private side. No other details were offered about commissioners.

The commission, not the White House, will set the agenda, Croley added. And part of its work will include significant outreach to state and local election officials and administrators, academics and others experienced in elections. A report will be given to the president six months from its first meeting on how do we improve the experience of voting, Croley said.

Funds and housekeeping for all presidential commissions are handled through the General Services Administration, but no money was requested for the commission in the presidents proposal or in GSAs budget request. Croley said that the commission is expected to be very low budget.

The 2012 elections were clouded with stories of eight-hour voting experiences in Florida, polling places closing early due to the inability to handle voter volume, long lines in Virginia, voting machine issues in Pennsylvania and Colorado, voter roll problems in Ohio and balloting problems in Arizona.

"We can fix this. And we will," Obama said in his State of the Union speech in February when he announced the co-chairs for the commission. "The American people demand it, and so does our democracy."

The commissioners will drive the agenda. The two co-chairs declined to be interviewed for this article, choosing through a spokesman to defer to the White House until the commission is underway. Croley said once the commission is formed, it will take a hands-off approach and allow the co-chairs to lead the process.

Per , the commission is supposed to examine voting problems highlighted in the 2012 election, and specifically examine potential voting obstacles to members of the military, overseas voters, voters with disabilities and voters with limited English proficiency." Several potential areas of study are outlined in the executive orderincluding training of polling workers, the operation of polling places and voting machines, ballot simplicity, and overseas ballotingbut these are listed merely as suggestions.

Voting rights advocates have cheered the formation of the commission and the idea behind it, but with so little known about what the commission will do and how it will function, much skepticism remains about the commissions potential or staying power.

At the very least, voting rights advocates say, the well-known and well-respected partisan co-chairs have the potential to send a strong message.

"I think its structurally set up so that if they do in fact come up with some good recommendations, that it will be very powerfully received," said Wendy Weiser, director of the Brennan Center for Justice's Democracy Program, which promotes voter rights.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, added, If they could come to agreement and come up with some joint recommendations, that would be very meaningful because it'd be hard for anybody on either side to argue strongly against them."

But Sloan questioned exactly how motivated and involved the two busy co-chairs will be in their new positions.

"I do not have my hopes up," Sloan added. "It could be great, again, because Bauer and Ginsberg are highly respected. It could also be one of those things where there's a big announcement and there's very little follow-through."

"Croley conceded that yes, the proof will be in the final result, but at the outset, the co-chairs are "extremely motivated for this not to be viewed or become a commission that produces a paper report that sits on a shelf and collects dust." It will be a "hit-the-ground-running commission which takes its work and mission very seriously he said.

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - After the failure of "Rise of the Guardians," DreamWorks Animation desperately needs a hit, so the studio has a lot riding on "The Croods."

The prehistoric animated film features the voices of Nicolas Cage and Emma Stone and lands in theaters on Friday. Most critics enjoyed the film, although a few reviewers groused that it failed to achieve the emotional highpoints of classic children's movies like "Toy Story" and "Up."

"The Croods" received a respectable 61 percent "fresh" rating on critics aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. It may not be as revolutionary as the discovery of fire, but from the sound of most reviews it makes for a perfectly diverting, family friendly hour and a half at the multiplex.

TheWrap's Alonso Duralde hailed the film for applying a light touch to the Stone Age antics and for playfully sending up teenage angst by setting its central father-daughter conflict against an early man backdrop.

"After the dreary 'Ice Age' movies made Pangaea tedious and stridently unfunny, it's a thrill to get a movie that gives tectonic shift a good name," Duralde wrote. "This new effort from writer-directors Chris Sanders (co-director of 'How to Train Your Dragon' and 'Lilo & Stitch') and Kirk De Micco ('Space Chimps') offers genuine comedy and compelling characters with dazzling visuals that feature both imaginary beasts (carnivorous birds, a candy-colored saber-toothed cat) and moments that approach photo-realism."

Neil Genzlinger complained in the New York Times that the film's plot is burdened with cliches, though he enjoyed the animation and the voice cast's work.

"The movie is at its most interesting and amusing when riffing on how cavemen might have reacted to new experiences and ideas, like fire and shoes," Genzlinger wrote. "Whether the kiddies will appreciate that is unclear, but they'll certainly like the voice work done by Emma Stone as Eep. She puts refreshing spunk into a character who otherwise is, alas, doomed to follow the same old story line."

Kyle Smith in the New York Post hated Cage's vocalization almost as much as Genzlinger adored Stone's performance. Though to be fair, that was hardly his only gripe.

"I'd like to take back all those times I said Nicolas Cage was one of the most annoying actors on film. It turns out he's equally terrible when he's only on the soundtrack," Smith wrote in a one-star review. "And yet Cage is the least of the problems with 'The Croods,' an animated comedy about cavemen whose writers took things a little too literally when they were told to write Cro-Magnon humor."

The Associated Press' Christy Lemire found delight in many of the same elements where Smith found disdain. She praised the film as brisk even if the plot is overly familiar. In particular, Lemire was dazzled by the animated picture's use of 3D imagery.

"Much of the lush landscape and vivid details feel as if they were taken directly from 'Avatar,' and a similar sense of wonder propels these stronger segments," Lemire wrote. "The lighting can indeed be magical, so it's no surprise that we are urged over and over again to step into it."

For Keith Staskiewicz of Entertainment Weekly, "The Croods" falls pretty far down the animated film evolutionary ladder.

"A handful of adrenalizing sequences of animated anarchy can't save this story from feeling overly primitive," he wrote.

Junior Home Minister Shamsul Haque Tuku said Saturday that police had arrested Bazlus Samad, managing director of New Wave Apparels Ltd., and Mahmudur Rahman Tapash, the company chairman.

He told reporters that police had also detained the wife of Mohammed Sohel Rana, the owner of the collapsed building, for questioning. Authorities are still searching for Rana, who hasn't been seen publicly since the building collapsed. Police in Bangladesh often detain relatives of missing suspects as a way to pressure them to surrender.

Authorities said the death toll had climbed to 324, but that rescuers had pulled seven more survivors from the rubble early Saturday after they found more than 40 survivors inside the collapsed building late Friday.

The arrests came hours after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordered police to arrest Sohel Rana and the owners of the garment factories based operating in the building.

Hasina made the order as protests spread over the latest accident to hit Bangladesh's massive, but poorly regulated, garment industry.

Wailing, angry relatives fought with police who held them back from the wrecked, eight-story Rana Plaza building, as search-and-rescue operations went on. Three of the floors had been illegally added.

Fire service inspector Shafiqul Islam, who searched the building, said more than 40 survivors were found late Friday. Through holes in the structure, he gave them water and juice packs to combat dehydration in the stifling heat and humidity.

"They are alive, they are trapped, but most of them are safe. We need to cut through debris and walls to bring them out," Islam said.

More dead were also discovered. Shamim Islam, a volunteer who entered the collapsed building along with rescue workers, said he saw "many bodies inside."

Search crews were cautiously using hammers, shovels and their bare hands. Many of the trapped workers were so badly hurt and weakened that they needed to be removed within a few hours, rescuers said.

There were fears that even if unhurt, the survivors could be badly dehydrated, with daytime temperatures soaring to 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) and about 24 degrees Celsius (75 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight.

Nearly 90 people have been rescued in the last day, as hundreds of rescuer workers crawl through the rubble amid the cries of the trapped and the wails of workers' relatives gathered outside the building.

A garment manufacturers' group said the factories in the building employed 3,122 workers, but it was not clear how many were inside it when it collapsed Wednesday in Savar, a suburb of Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. Rescue officials say more than 2,400 have been rescued or escaped.

Police cordoned off the site, pushing back thousands of bystanders and relatives after rescue workers complained the crowds were hampering their work.

Clashes broke out between the relatives and police, who used batons to disperse them. Police said 50 people were injured in the skirmishes.

"We want to go inside the building and find our people now. They will die if we don't find them soon," said Shahinur Rahman, whose mother was missing.

Thousands of workers from the hundreds of garment factories across the Savar industrial zone and other nearby areas marched to protest the poor safety standards in Bangladesh. Local news reports said demonstrators smashed dozens of cars Friday, although most of the protests were largely peaceful.

Police say they ordered an evacuation of the building on Tuesday after cracks in Rana Plaza were found, but the factories ignored the order and were operating when it collapsed the next day. Video before the collapse shows cracks in walls, with apparent attempts at repair. It also shows columns missing chunks of concrete and police talking to building operators.

Officials said soon after the collapse that numerous construction regulations had been violated.

Rana, the building's owner, had been given a permit to erect a five-story building but had added another three stories illegally, said Abdul Halim, an official with Savar's engineering department. Police chief Mohammed Asaduzzaman said police and the government's Capital Development Authority have filed negligence cases against Rana.

Habibur Rahman, police superintendent of Dhaka district, said Rana was a local leader of ruling Awami League's youth front.

Atiqul Islam, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, called on Rana and the factory owners to surrender during a meeting with the prime minister late Friday.

The disaster is the worst ever for the country's booming and powerful garment industry, surpassing a fire five months ago that killed 112 people and brought widespread pledges to improve worker-safety standards. Since then, very little has changed in Bangladesh, where low wages have made it a magnet for numerous global brands.

Bangladesh's garment industry was the third-largest in the world in 2011, after China and Italy, having grown rapidly in the past decade. The country's minimum wage is now the equivalent of about $38 a month.

Among the garment makers in the building were Phantom Apparels, Phantom Tac, Ether Tex, New Wave Style and New Wave Bottoms. Altogether, they produced several million shirts, pants and other garments a year.

The New Wave companies, according to their website, make clothing for several major North American and European retailers.

Britain's Primark acknowledged it was using a factory in Rana Plaza, but many other retailers distanced themselves from the disaster, saying they were not involved with the factories at the time of the collapse or had not recently ordered garments from them.

Wal-Mart said none of its clothing had been authorized to be made in the facility, but it is investigating whether there was any unauthorized production.

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AP writers Muneeza Naqvi and Tim Sullivan in New Delhi, Stephen Wright in Bangkok, Kay Johnson in Mumbai, Matthew Pennington in Washington and AP Retail Writer Anne D'Innocenzio in New York contributed to this report.

At her sons preschool near Seattle, Robin Haight is a foot soldier in the vaccine wars. She arranged for a pediatrician to speak about vaccines at the home of a school parent. She put up posters she calls them gentle propaganda that touted the importance of immunization in stopping the spread of disease. Her husband helped create a spreadsheet to track which children at the school are missing which vaccinations.

Some parents have said that Haights provaccination message has no place at preschool, that its disrespectful and patronizing, that the decision to vaccinate a child is nobody elses business. One mother got so emotional that she broke out in hives. But Haight thinks a conversation is critical, and the latest research published in the journal Pediatrics backs her up.

Im just trying to let people know that if you dont vaccinate your children, it might affect other childrens health, says Haight. It directly affects a community of young children. How do we not talk about this?

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The researchers surveyed 196 parents of children 18 months or younger in King County Haights stomping ground which has a vaccination rate thats typically below the national average and has been gripped by a , along with areas in Vermont, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Among the parents in the study, 126 followed the nationally recommended childhood-vaccinationfrom the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The 70 other parents forged their own paths: 28 delayed vaccines, 37 partially vaccinated and five didnt vaccinate at all.

At least 95% of parents in both groups indicated that they had consulted their people network for insight into making vaccination decisions. Parents reported they paid the most attention to their spouse or partners opinion. Pediatricians were next in line, followed by friends and relatives. (Interestingly, 10% of parents who followed CDC guidelines the conformers and 12% of parents who didnt the nonconformers failed to list doctors among the top five people in their network.) Heres why thats important: 72% of nonconformers friends and relatives advised them to disregard CDC recommendations compared with just 13% of conformers friends and family members. In other words, says study author Emily Brunson, changing parents attitudes about vaccines may be a matter of influencing the people who are influencing parents in the first place.

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The significance of naysayers parents networks blew any other variable out of the water, says Brunson, who conducted the research as an anthropology graduate student at the University of Washington. It was more important in terms of predicting what parents decide to do than any other factor, including parents own opinions.

The effect was overwhelming, particularly for parents whose network mostly recommended not following immunization guidelines; they were more than 1,500 times more likely to not adhere to the CDCs vaccination schedules for their children than other parents. Even parents whose networks were more compliant about following immunization schedules (comprising 26% to 50% of people who advised against the guidelines) were 31 times more likely to not vaccinate as recommended. Parents people networks matter a ton, says Brunson, now an assistant professor of anthropology at Texas State University. Having those conversations with your sister, with your parent, with your friends matter a lot more than we thought.

Parents who didnt follow vaccination advice were also more likely to have extensive source networks troves of books, websites and magazine articles they turned to for vaccine-related information. On average, 59% of nonconformers sources many of which persist in promoting a widely recommend ignoring CDC guidelines compared with 20% of conformers sources.

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Although the proportion of zero dosers otherwise known as antivaxers has stayed stable at less than 2%, the number of moms and dads who dont trust that vaccines will do what experts say they will is growing. In the U.S., where parents havent seen firsthand the deadly consequences of vaccine-preventable diseases, pediatricians are frustrated about spending more and more time defending the importance of immunization. What used to be a staple of childhood health is now viewed with at least some skepticism by most parents, including the highly educated. Theyre cherry-picking which vaccines they find acceptable or joining the ranks of the delayers, the 12% of parents who , spacing out shots for years, which experts argue only extends the time their kids are susceptible to disease or capable of passing it on to others. A recentshowed that multiple vaccinations on a single day, which worried some parents, dont pose a hazard to young children; in fact, older vaccines exposed toddlers to more antigens than newly formulated ones do. There isnt a lot of trust, says pediatrician Wendy Sue Swanson, who was inspired by the growing number of hesitant parents to start blogging about vaccines as . Theyve all heard the story that Jenny McCarthy told: the day her kid got the MMR shot, the light went out of his eyes.

The findings highlight a potentially new strategy that public-health officials should consider when getting out the message that childhood immunizations are important for childrens health. It may be time, they say, to extend their reach beyond doctors and start paying attention to other people who influence parents vaccination decisions, namely friends and family whom moms and dads list as part of their social network. If we want to improve vaccination rates, communication needs to be directed to the public at large, says Brunson.

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Thats the objective of , the grassroots campaign that recruited Haight as a provaccine crusader. The program is testing the theory behind Brunsons research, that parents can be instrumental in molding how other parents think about vaccines. At seven pilot sites in western Washington two child-care centers, three preschools and two elementary schools 13 parent advocates are being trained and supported to start a conversation about vaccination that has historically been dominated by vocal naysayers. When youre following the status quo in this case, adhering to the CDCs recommended guidelines you tend not to get fired up and speak out.

Later this month, some of the parents will host a health fair at a bowling alley featuring yoga, talks about fire safety and a spin-the-wheel trivia game about vaccine-preventable diseases. This is about shifting a social norm and elevating the voice of the majority of parents who do immunize, says Ginny Heller, the immunization program manager at WithinReach, the Washington state nonprofit behind Immunity Community.

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Its a work in progress, with lots of cues and miscues. Emotions run high when parents believe others are examining their choices. One mother at Haights preschool threatened to withdraw her child; another said that hot topics such as vaccination and circumcision shouldnt be discussed at school. They feel theyre being judged, says Haight.

But preliminary data on Immunity Communitys effectiveness look promising: last year, one Montessori-preschool pilot site raised its immunization rate from 60% to 80%. The CDC is keeping tabs on the results and could bring it to other states as a potential national model, albeit one rooted at the local level. For people to be passionate and credible and persuasive about this, they have to be local community members, says Kris Sheedy of the CDCs immunization-services division. We know that birds of a feather flock together, so its a good thing to make vaccinating parents more visible.

The season started about a month earlier than usual, sparking concerns it might turn into the worst in a decade. It ended up being very hard on the elderly, but was moderately severe overall, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Six of the pediatric deaths were reported in the last week, and it's possible there will be more, said the CDC's Dr. Michael Jhung said Friday.

Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season. One exception was the swine flu pandemic of 2009-2010, when 348 children died.

The CDC recommends that all children ages 6 months and older be vaccinated against flu each season, though only about half get a flu shot or nasal spray.

All but four of the children who died were old enough to be vaccinated, but 90 percent of them did not get vaccinated, CDC officials said.

This year's vaccine was considered effective in children, though it didn't work very well in older people.And the dominant flu strain early in the season was one that tends to cause more severe illness.

The government only does a national flu death count for children. But it does track hospitalization rates for people 65 and older, and those statistics have been grim.

In that group, 177 out of every 100,000 were hospitalized with flu-related illness in the past several months. That's more than 2 1/2 times higher than any other recent season.

This flu season started in early December, a month earlier than usual, and peaked by the end of year. Since then, flu reports have been dropping off throughout the country.

"We appear to be getting close to the end of flu season," Jhung said.

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Online:

CDC flu: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm

From within the wreckage, "We are still getting response from survivors though they are becoming weaker slowly," said Brig. Gen. Ali Ahmed Khan, the head of the fire services.

"The building is very vulnerable. Any time the floors could collapse. We are performing an impossible task, but we are glad that we are able to rescue so many survivors," he said.

The disaster is the worst ever for the country's booming and powerful garment industry, surpassing a fire five months ago that killed 112 and brought widespread pledges to improve worker-safety standards.

Here are some images from the recovery scene.