Cairo

CAIRO - Egypt's protesters stepped up their challenge to the country's ruling military yesterday, as tens of thousands massed to demand that it prosecute ousted President Hosni Mubarak and his family for alleged corruption. Meanwhile, a smaller group tested out the army's tolerance with a march on Israel's embassy. The mass rally in Cairo's central Tahrir Square was the biggest by protesters in weeks, and hundreds remaining there shortly before midnight said they were planning to camp out overnight.

CAIRO - One of Egypt's top presidential contenders demanded police protection Friday after masked men stopped his car on the way back from a campaign event, beat him with the butt of an automatic rifle, and stole his vehicle - an attack that many of his supporters fear may not have been random. A lawmaker from the country's most powerful political party, the Muslim Brotherhood, also was wounded in a hit-and-run Friday. The two events demonstrate the disintegration of security in the country since the uprising a year ago that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak.

CAIRO - Egypt's president intervened to release a newspaper editor jailed over accusations of insulting him on Thursday, issuing a law for the first time since he assumed legislative powers this month. President Mohammed Morsi's ban on detention for journalists accused of publishing-related offenses overrides a court decision earlier in the day ordering newspaper editor Islam Afifi to remain in prison pending trial in September. The court's decision and case against Afifi, accused of slandering the president and undermining public interest, have caused an uproar in Egypt among journalists and intellectuals, with dozens holding a protest Thursday in Cairo demanding free-speech protection.

CAIRO - Thousands of Egyptian protesters clashed with riot police and backers of the president's Muslim Brotherhood on Friday, ransacking several offices nationwide as anger over allegations of beatings and power-grabbing boiled over into the largest and most violent demonstrations yet on the doorstep of the powerful group. As night fell, streets surrounding the Brotherhood headquarters were littered with shattered glass, charred vehicles, stones, and gloves stained with blood. The number of injured reached nearly 100 from the two sides.

A job action by Water Department employees has forced the city to dump more than a billion gallons of half-treated sewage into the Delaware River since July 10, city officials told a Common Pleas Court judge yesterday in seeking relief from the labor dispute. Deputy Water Commissioner Patrick Cairo said the city had resorted to dumping about 200 million gallons of sewage daily into the river from the Northeast Sewage Treatment Plant in Bridesburg because unionized city workers have refused to let private contractors into the plant, in defiance of a court order.

CAIRO - At least 74 people were killed and hundreds injured after soccer fans rushed the field Wednesday in the seaside city of Port Said after an upset victory by the home team over Egypt's top club, setting off clashes and a stampede as riot police largely failed to intervene. It was a bloody reminder of the deteriorating security in the Arab world's most populous country, as instability continues nearly a year after President Hosni Mubarak was swept out of power in a popular uprising.

Sleepless, disoriented, accused of throwing firebombs at Egyptian police, Glenside native Gregory Porter, 19, didn't know whom to trust when he appeared in a Cairo courtroom last month on charges he says were false. In court, a man told him in accented English that he was on the legal team hired by Porter's parents. "Shane Victorino," he said, "is your sister's fiance!" An old family joke because Porter's sister, Hillary, is so in love with the Phillies star. "When he said that," Porter told The Inquirer in his first extended interview, "I knew he was [sent by]

CAIRO CAPITAL BUILDINGS STILL COLLAPSING Aftershocks from a deadly earthquake jolted Cairo yesterday, toppling more apartment houses and sending thousands of residents of another hard-hit city into the streets in panic. The government said the death toll from Monday's quake had reached more than 450, but there were no new casualties due to builldings falling. Before yesterday's collapses, the government said 536 buildings had crumbled or were seriously damaged. Much of the construction in Cairo is so shoddy that the city is known for buildings that fall without earthquakes.

CAIRO - Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi on Wednesday appointed as the country's intelligence chief a veteran official who was involved in the brokering of last year's release of an Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants, the official news agency said. Mohammed Raafat Abdel-Wahed was key in the Cairo-mediated deal between Hamas and Israel that led to the freeing of Gilad Schalit in 2011 in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. His appointment was reported by the Middle East News Agency.

CAIRO - Thousands of Egyptian protesters clashed with riot police and backers of the president's Muslim Brotherhood on Friday, ransacking several offices nationwide as anger over allegations of beatings and power-grabbing boiled over into the largest and most violent demonstrations yet on the doorstep of the powerful group. As night fell, streets surrounding the Brotherhood headquarters were littered with shattered glass, charred vehicles, stones, and gloves stained with blood. The number of injured reached nearly 100 from the two sides.