ISTANBUL, Turkey - Iran has charged three Americans with espionage, after they strayed during a hiking trip in northern Iraq this past July, in a move likely to complicate U.S. overtures toward Iran.

"The three are charged with espionage. Investigations continue into the three detained Americans in Iran," Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said on Monday. Family members have made appeals for their release, shown snapshots of the three visiting tourist sites in the Middle East, and say they wandered into Iran by accident.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton renewed her call for the release of the three hikers from Berlin on Monday. » read more

ARLINGTON, Texas — Rick Kupke was busy encrypting classified messages inside the U.S. Embassy in Tehran when the Marine Corps guard yelled over the radio, "They're coming over the wall!"

Hundreds of Iranian student protesters were scaling the 7-foot wall around the embassy and making their way into the building through the tear gas being sprayed.

It was Nov. 4, 1979, and the administrative officer told Kupke to send a telegram to the State Department saying, "Demonstrators . . . are taking the embassy over." » read more

WASHINGTON -- Iran hedged Friday on accepting a deal that would transfer most of its low-enriched uranium out of the country to be converted for peaceful uses, saying it wants more time to study the deal and suggesting that it prefers a different approach.

The draft proposal, which Western powers hope will set back the clock on Iran's suspected nuclear-weapons program, was agreed to formally Friday by the United States, Russia and France, whose envoys discussed it with Iran this week in Vienna, Austria,.

Iran, however, as it often has in past nuclear negotiations, sent mixed signals about whether it would agree. » read more

Even as Washington emphasizes walking softly to pry Iran away from its nuclear ambitions, the Pentagon is speeding the manufacture of its own big stick.

This month, the Defense Department awarded $51.9 million to McDonnell Douglas to more quickly adapt a 30,000-pound bunker buster to the B-2 stealth bomber.

The GBU-57 bomb and the fleet of B-2s — stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base with occasional deployments to Guam and an outpost in the Indian Ocean — are widely seen as the likeliest U.S. military option for setting back Tehran's hopes for building nuclear weapons. » read more

WASHINGTON -- In 2003, Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian lawyer and former jurist, won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work on human rights. Despite the dangers to herself and her family, Ebadi still lives and works inside the Islamic Republic of Iran and calls herself a "bone in the throat" of the regime.

In an exclusive interview with McClatchy Wednesday, Ebadi welcomed President Barack Obama into the "family" of Nobel laureates, but warned him not to ignore deteriorating human rights issues in Iran and other nations.

Ebadi urged Obama to use the Nobel Peace Prize to continue to work for peace and human rights. » read more