As Iran’s universities prepare to start classes this month, there is growing concern within the academic community that the government will purge political and social science departments of professors and curriculums deemed “un-Islamic,” according to academics and political analysts inside and outside Iran.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday praised American Muslims for enriching the nation’s culture at a dinner to celebrate the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

American religious organizations have rarely been leaders in national movements for gay rights.

The Virginia governor’s race ignited Monday over Republican Robert F. McDonnell’s 20-year-old graduate thesis: Democrats assailed him in e-mail blasts and interviews for what he wrote about working women, homosexuals and “fornicators,” and McDonnell tried to explain his views to crucial moderate and female voters.

In international politics, religion has been the elephant in the room for most of the modern age. And in recent years, it has only grown larger and louder.

Some big-firm lawyers are busier than others nowadays, but it’s not just the bankruptcy groups getting work. Options exchanges have been a boon to benefits and executive compensation lawyers, filling a void in their workload left by the M&A lull. Baker & McKenzie’s Valerie Diamond, for instance, says options exchanges — in which companies turn underwater options into better-priced options, restricted stock or cash for the benefit of shareholders or employees — are now taking up 70 percent of her time.

After losing several key partners recently, Cooley is picking up IP litigators Heidi Keefe, Mark Weinstein and Mark Lambert from White & Case. The three, who represent clients like Facebook, Cisco Systems and HTC in patent cases, said Cooley was appealing because of its local connections with tech companies. “There are practices that benefit from the global platform; for others, it is more important to have a strong local practice, and IP litigation is more in that category,” said Weinstein.

Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman has been doing its part to keep defense lawyers employed. The firm filed a $3 billion suit against a slew of banks, claiming they reneged on loan agreements to fund a revolving credit facility for multibillion-dollar Las Vegas casino Fontainebleau. But a Miami federal judge last week denied Fontainebleau’s motion for partial summary judgment, as well as its motion for an order requiring the banks to immediately provide $656 million in funding to finish the project.

Business service and supply giant Pitney Bowes has agreed to settle a “blast fax” class action by giving $26 coupons to plaintiffs for each week they received an unwanted fax — and $950,000 to the lawyers for the class. Under the terms of the $2.9 million settlement, Pitney Bowes admitted to no wrongdoing. The plaintiffs alleged violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, under which a fax advertisement may be sent only with the recipient’s permission or if there’s an existing business relationship.

IP firm Fish & Richardson will jettison almost 40 additional lawyers by the end of this year by shutting its Austin, Texas, office and cutting corporate transactional lawyers firmwide even as it collects more lucrative patent litigation work than its peers. Fish & Richardson started slashing it head count last November, only a month after opening its 11th office in Houston.